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Schneier: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet
Nerdfest writes "Bruce Schneier writes in The Atlantic: 'Bluntly: The government has commandeered the Internet. Most of the largest Internet companies provide information to the NSA, betraying their users. Some, as we've learned, fight and lose. Others cooperate, either out of patriotism or because they believe it's easier that way. I have one message to the executives of those companies: fight.'"
Helped fund it
Introduced a number of bills that provided funding to the development of the Internet. And as said by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn:
as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship [...] the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication.
The very pioneers of the Internet have acknowledged his contributions despite all the maligment he gets from the neckbeard crowd.
Why would terrorists waste the energy trying to change western culture when we'll happily do it for them?
Because they don't actually give a flying flip about our laws or our freedoms. All they want is us out of the Middle East, all of the secular rulers of Islamic countries that we favor out of power, and for Israel left to their tender mercies.
As long as we stay on our side of the planet, they're relatively okay with mere contempt at us having our vaunted freedoms.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
where are mod points when I need them.
you forgot to mention
Schneier is the guy who wrote blowfish, twofish, and previously worked with the NSA as an observer with AES, and is probably one of the foremost experts in cryptography in the world.
He is certainly the foremost expert and creator of good publicly available cryptography
He wrote one of the seminal (mathematical) books on the subject, (co)designed several high-quality algorithms which have stood the test of time and then had a somewhat damascene conversion on how security is much more dependent on people than on the technology, and has written several books on the subject. He is not the only expert (arguably, there is no field of research where there is just one expert), but he is a leading light.
And yet, the UK has one of the world's highest densities of CCTV cameras, a capital police force that is one of the most aggressive in Western countries when it comes to hounding photographers, government-mandated Internet filtering, and is no slouch when it comes to excessive surveillance and implementing the worst the Americans could come up with.
Sanctimony from the British is pretty misplaced.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage