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Guardian Ignores MI5 Warnings, Vows To 'Publish More Snowden Leaks'
dryriver writes in with news that a new round of Snowden leaks may be on the way. "Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger says he plans to publish more revelations from Edward Snowden despite MI5 warning that such disclosures cause enormous damage. Mr Rusbridger insisted the paper was right to publish files leaked by the US intelligence analyst and had helped to prompt a necessary and overdue debate. Mr Rusbridger said more stories would be published in the future as the leaked documents were 'slowly and responsibly' worked through. His comments come after criticism from the new head of MI5, Andrew Parker. Making public the 'reach and limits' of intelligence-gathering techniques gave terrorists the advantage, he said. He warned that terrorists now had tens of thousands of means of communication 'through e-mail, IP telephony, in-game communication, social networking, chat rooms, anonymising services and a myriad of mobile apps'. Mr Parker said it was vital for MI5 to retain the capability to access such information if it was to protect the country. "
I'm guessing that what he is doing doesn't violate law there. That said, I think it is unethical to continue releasing the data.
Wasn't part of the Putin/Snowden agreement that he wouldn't release any more data? Guess that was just more useless fluff.
I'm so tired of using "terrorist" argument and then, when we give them what they want, they turn around and use new powers on own citizens or to oppress members of minor political parties.
C:\TAD\Text\PLATO.TXT
u tell me?
I will, if I can. Let me however note that in the same question
you join two things which are not the same.
How so? he asked.
Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful
physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined
with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease;
they had better not be robust in health, and should have had
all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body,
as I conceive, is not the instrument
good!
So Mr Parker lists all those methods then says he wishes to retain access to them... doesn't that kind of tell the terrorists everything he's worried the leaks are??
Sadly they're both right.
Won't somebody think of the children and stop publishing these facts about us abusing our powers, it hurts our children to find out about it, and I'm pretty sure there is a terroist watching.
All of the spy types could meet at Rick's Cafe. Of course Sam won't be there to play that tune, but you can't have everything now, can you? The best alternative might be to have forms of communication directed to a spy central where censors review it for "National Secrets" then pass it on or arrest you!
On teh upstart none will byable to hunderstand nethig publishd in their neway
"It's expensive, stupid, last only seconds - but makes your mouth hurt for days - it's BEE IN A BALLOON" - Kibo 3/1/95
Security through secrecy = no security.
Also, the Snowden leaks mostly show that it's more honest citizens than terrorists who should be concerned about ubiquitous surveillance. Cue 1984 references...
In a sense, Bin Laden got what he wanted: he didn't want to hurt western societies directly, he wanted to get western societies to collapse into dictatorships by giving the initial push (9/11) that would allow mostly-democratic governments to slowly turn nasty with a good reason.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
T1: RU rdy for the big boob
T2: Wat? lol
T1: Bomb stupid spell chk
T2: Tot Bro got packback rdy
T1: YOLO for Allah!
T1: Rmbr, post pic or it didn't happen!
Is it like that? Do terrorists txtmsg each other like teenagers?
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
despite MI5 warning that such disclosures cause enormous damage to their image
FTFY!
Causes damage ? Sorry for having a different point of view but uncovering the disgusting acts of espionage on the population is a public service showing us how our free world is being transformed by the crooks and criminals we elected. The ones that should be jailed are the officials that led us down this path. They do not want to protect us , they want to protect their asses from being landed in a cold cell.
They are NOT working in our interrest, they are working against the People trying to get a better grip on our lives making us better slaves for our masters.
Fuck em . Publish all you got , get those bastards in jail or execute them. If some of them happen to get killed , so be it , they have waged a war on the People and they knew that the path they led us on was a dangerous one.
let em deal with their mess , i got no pity whatsoever.
I can't imagine the number of careers being destroyed with each leak. I suspect that in the healthier democracies the very organizations doing this spying will be largely dismantled. The real question, that should not be answered by anyone in the spying business, is whether these revelations are resulting in a greater good?
Quite simply the people behind the curtain have long had an attitude of the end justifies the means, so now in exposing them they are getting a taste of their own medicine. The other core pillar of the spying business is that information is power; well by exposing the spies themselves we give power back to the people of the various democracies in question.
But what really boils my butt is that any foreign spy or "actor" who was using any electronic system without assuming that they were being monitored is a fool. And anyone that foolish probably didn't pose much of a threat. From what I gather Osama was found as they tracked the couriers who physically carried messages, which means that he was off the grid as far as his trail was concerned. But the people who do still use electronic communications were people like you and me, combined with organizations and governments who trusted the rest of the world.
So how many trade negotiations were done while the US listened in on the other side figuring out their negotiating positions, how many companies like Siemens might have had business deals or trade secrets handed over to us contractors?
But then it gets potentially worse: How many times did say a Canadian go to negotiate a trade agreement only to find that they had a recording of him and his mistress? How many times did a politician who was causing problems have a tipped off reporter show up for a rendezvous with his mistress? Or even to have the troublesome politician's election strategy handed over to his opponent? Or to have his secret PAC supporters suddenly withdraw their support?
If they are willing to lean on a company that "buys its ink by the barrel" how little reluctance would they have to twist democracy to their needs?
So my guess is that it is not the real baddies who have gone silent but the diplomats, politicians(both domestic and foreign, and large international businesses that are going silent. Personally if I ran a company like Siemens I would be locking up the communications and computer system tighter than a drum.
The spies whine and spin it their way. If what they were doing was so innocuous, uncontroversial and even beneficial then they would be happy to be praised in the press. The fact is what they ware doing is deeply offensive to a large segment of society and they wish to hide it.
As to whether the terrs benefit or not, only the stupid ones might and they probably aren't reading. The non-stupid terrs have known about surveillence since before Echelon and adjust accordingly. They won't even infer any limits because they know the release is vetted to be incomplete.
The real effect of Snowdens releases is to confirm the tinfoil-behatted. Many fringe people have been saying much the same thing for 10+ years and been dismissed as lunatic paranoids. Now it appears they were right. Many people have egg on the face (congentially oblivious).
So Mr Parker lists all those methods then says he wishes to retain access to them... doesn't that kind of tell the terrorists everything he's worried the leaks are??
that's not the point. the point is that currently many of these god hating terrorists don't even know they're terrorists! if they're told that they're terrorists and under surveillance they might move their communications off gmail! can't let that happen!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I too have been sick of the fear mongering propaganda complex that has overtaken our society in the past several years.
However, there is an enormous gulf between McCarthyism and the terrorist threat. No commies blew up airplanes and buildings. No commies went on shooting sprees in malls. No commies set off car bombs in crowded markets. The pink menace wasn't really very menacing at all. It was a false accusation.
Terrorists are real. Terrorist individuals and organizations commit atrocities on a near daily basis and regularly and publicly vow to kill large segments of the population or entire nations. Terrorism, unlike communism in the U.S., is a real threat that must not be ignored. But, that doesn't excuse these governments from using it as the go-to excuse for justifying every infringement of rights and nefarious activity, from banning nail clippers to the brave new world.
I would assume that MI5 is staffed by reasonably competent folks. If they are curious enough about viewing their philosophy at work, they only need look at the western part of Pakistan, or what I affectionately refer to as the, "Paki Bad Lands." There, Ignorance is their god.
You do realise that the poster boy terrorist are extremist religious types... they love God, but their concept of God, if you are calling them terrorists for hating your god then you are as much a terrorist as they are.
Is there anything real terrorists didn't know before that they know now? It is in the public domain the laws like The Patriot Act means the American government can go to Google and ask for the emails from whatever account they want. Of course they are going be using services out with America and her allies control. All these leaks have shown is the general public is the real enemy of the state.
So, the Brazilian President is also a terrorist... I knew it
Its worth mentioning that heart disease, obesity, cancer, famine, smoking, natural disasters, car accidents, and domestic violence each individually kill more people yearly than "Terrorism." Bruce Schneier said it best when he noted we only deploy countermeasures against what terrorists have done, not what they will do. To imply global surveillance of every man woman and child somehow reduces what is already a very rare event is to call attention to the reason we combat terrorism at all. Namely, because Terrorism undermines very controversial foreign policies of certain governments and flies against the interests of their controlling parties. Terrorism may not stop these policies, or even slow them down. However the more terrorist activity occurs, the more the target nation begins to question everything from their elected leadership to the motivation behind the policies that trigger the events. And the events cannot be simply explained away. The best george bush could muster in defining terrorist activity was to say terrorists 'hate our freedom.' If freedom were the real concern, then 180 other nations with varying degrees of equal freedom around the world would certainly be able to confirm this.
What presidents dont say is, "terrorists hate our intrusive foreign policy that installs dictatorships, topples governments, crushes dissent, exploits and degrades the region, and prevents autonomous governance."
the snowden leaks are terrorism in that they empower citizens to actively question and criticize government. Without Snowdens facts, the government absolves itself of a slew of very important questions it would rather not have to answer as it pursues goals strategic to a small minority of its citizens at the expense of the greater good.
Good people go to bed earlier.
More theater for the masses. More stuff the is either a) already out there, just our "media" hasn't covered it yet or b) stuff that is more infighting between the US agencies to try and steal funding. Between those two and the timing of this it sure seems like it more distractions to throw off people from the more important issues. I would like to call it "Wizard of OZ Politics"
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!" sure seems like the same as saying "most transparent administration ever!!!" now-a-days.
Enormous damage to their ability to snoop without public oversight, public consultation, or public approval of what is and isn't acceptable.
Look, we all know these intelligence agencies are doing things for the good of their respective countries, but A) it's costing an Imperial !#%!%ton of money, and B) hiding the whole operation from public scrutiny in the name of "national security" isn't acceptable. It's our money and our democracy.
Some of the things that we now know were being done are highly questionable. Pervasive surveillance of communication without warrant or with ridiculously broad blanket, perpetual warrants that make a joke out of the word "warrant"? Please. Never were we asked "Is this okay?" So, don't be surprised if we're now up in arms about it. We're having the conversation now that we should have had 10 or 20 years ago when this stuff was first being implemented without public approval, or when laws were being passed and we were (falsely) assured that the permission we were giving wouldn't be abused for other purposes or extended to other things as technology improved.
When phones were first invented, strict rules were soon passed that made it clear what was and wasn't acceptable for law enforcement to do with the information. The laws regarding other forms of communication have not been constrained to a comparable degree mainly because people have not realized until recently how much personal information could be gleaned from so little (e.g., metadata). The law needs change. We don't fricking care if it does "enormous damage" to what was becoming routine practice for security/intelligence operations. Deal with it. We, the public, are the judge of what's okay. Not you. Work within the limits we demand. If you want to make the case that you genuinely *need* this kind of access, then do so. We'll listen. But excuse us if we're a little pissed about what we weren't told about before you went ahead and did it.
He threatened the Guardian, it was a clear threat.
The Home Office now controls the police (which was buried in the change from SOCA to British FBI), Guardian should realize that Andrew Parker's not going to give up his illegally seized power easily and with the police under political control, he should not underestimate the man.
Look, "Internet Moderization Program" was never passed into law, neither did its latest version the snoopers charter. He is already outside the laws of Britain and he knows it. His astroturfers are all over the press, he's making threatening noises to the Guardian and Beeb and he's doing chest beating, which is not the sign of a civil servant doing his job within the law.
Be careful.
"Wasn't part of the Putin/Snowden agreement that he wouldn't release any more data?"
Wasn't this released information before then?
Wouldn't you be able to say rather than ask if you had proof of what the agreement made actually was?
PS Wasn't part of the agreement to uphold the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic?
I fear my Government more than I fear terrorists.
Mr. Parker's argument is bogus. SOP for those guys is to test the limits. They try things, see who gains attention, and who doesn't. When someone communicates in such a way that looks like a credible threat and no one investigates it they've found a communications channel. They do this all the time and already know. Same thing with airport security. While you're taking off your shoes and passing through the intimate full body scanner, Habib in the McDonalds has already slipped Achmed a box cutter (small explosive device, gun, whatever) with his bag of fries on the inside of the security checkpoint. The thing this damages the most is the intelligence community. If they were more intelligent this wouldn't be a problem.
A police-, surveillance- or totalitarian state is the most despicable and repulsive form of human organization in modern times. It does more damage than anything else, except maybe total war. What the NSA and their friends in the UK are aiming and preparing for is exactly this however, thinly veiled with a ridiculous claim of "fighting terrorism". We had these tendencies in Europe last century. Nothing was done to stop them, and it finally took two world wars and a cold war to get over them. The latter brought the human race to the brink of extinction several times.
Anything is better than something like that happening again. I really hope they publish everything and make it count.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You're just confused and taking the fools bait to think they are implying security through secrecy. They're already on an entire different level and sure as hell aren't going to say outright their real reasoning.
You do realize they were joking and being sarcastic...
Oh wait, this is Slashdot so you're likely a social retard with no sense of humor.
Equally possibly, here on Slashdot, you're not as funny as you think you are.
Hope the Guardian has good offsite backups outside the UK, and preferably a backup newsroom in, say, Reykjavik or somewhere they can use.
I can see this ending with the Met Police and special forces (under MI5 command) raiding the offices, making sure nobody takes anything out and then torching the whole place with very carefully placed thermite charges.
Where did I ever claim I was being funny?
Slashdot is an intolerant echo chamber of hard-right American libertarian thought, which tolerates no dissent.
It's impossible to point out to you lot that a powerful state in the West holds a very thin line between civilization and chaos.
Anybody who dares to disagree is crucified.
FWIW, I think the Guardian and Snowden are terrible traitors who will end up with the blood of thousands innocents on their hands. And it WILL take the blood of innocents to show you that we abandon our strength in the face of the barbarian hordes, at our own peril.
But go right ahead. Prove me right and moderate me down into a smoking crater.
The definition of "terrorism" and "terrorist" shall soon be bent to include anti-govt speech, thus loss of our 1st amendment.
Egotistical Giraffe!
There!
Seriously, Wikileaks, release the key to the insurance file already. There's no reason not to at this point.
Bruce Schrier hlinked to a very good article on MI5 and their history. Basically they are so paranoid that its self feeding. If they find a spy its a win, if they don't find a spy its because they were very good at hiding and they need to search deeper.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER
So....If the goal is to spark a debate....that has clearly happened. Leaking more information no longer meets that criteria.
UK State Security is there to preserve the UK State and the US State, not the people.
The biggest threat to the US plutocracy and the rulers of the UK is internal. That means the people of those nations. That is why WE are being spied upon.
You couldn't make this shit up...
http://blog.ltmuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/secure.jpg
Yes, analogies are not identical. Well done. Have a bikkit.
However, the term "sexual offender" gives images that do NOT include "pissed on a tree where a police officer could see them".
Much like those that are called terrorist are not actually what is considered by the people who agreed to the laws to be used against terrorists to be terrorists.
Such as people whose dogs poop in the streed and don't clean up the poop.
Yeah, totally hear you, brother!
People making analogies and they're not identical things!
of censorship
If you work there, you'd better not have a secret cocaine habit or stripper girlfriend on the side. If there's the slightest bit of dirt on you, they're going to out you. I've got a lot of respect for that paper going on under what has to be some frightening pressure.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"Making public the 'reach and limits' of intelligence-gathering techniques gave terrorists the advantage, he said."
This must mean Snowden knows everything if he knew the liimits of surveillance also? Nice job, MI5, for disclosing that.
But, that aside, yes the public has every right to know what your reach and limits are, secret government agencies. Or else things like this happen. Something we in the US should have learned after the Church Committee, but apparently didn't.
Where we really drank the Kool-Aid was in letting the government think it was its job to do Precrime for anything short of actual nuclear/biological/chemical weapons. 9/11 was scary, bad, and I feel sorry for any who lost loved ones on that day. But did we really need to destroy our privacy because it happened?
The point is... sure the leaks impair your mission. That is because what you perceive as your mission is fundamentally flawed.
But never *ever* ask why measures up to and including the destruction of one's own society to 'protect the country' is necessary. That 'protection' being the continued unfettered profits of British Petroleum, BAE Systems, et al where ever and when ever no matter the collateral corruption and death (i.e., constructing the next generation of terrorists).
After the smear campaign the UK government and their willing accomplices at the Daily Fail are running I'm glad they're actually beginning to ramp it up instead of backing away:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2450291/The-Guardian-produced-handbook-help-fanatics-strike-will.html
I wouldn't be in trouble if it weren't for those meddling kids! What I do, I am entitled to do. I don't tell anyone because someone might get angry, but apparently someone discovered my secrets and they are getting out. So now the secrets are coming out and people are getting angry. I accept no responsibility for anything I have done or knew about and did nothing to prevent. But those meddling kids have got to go! They make me look bad!
--The Elite Ruling Class
What is MI5/GCHQ doing giving access to UK secrets for a private citizen employed by a corporation subcontracted to an agency of a foreign government (the US?). If Snowdon had access to UK secrets it is the fault of the UK's agencies for failing at security.
Korma: Good
the next article they plan to publish must be about the uk.
I am glad MI5 and NSA are doing all they can to protect me. If spying on its own people is all it takes to protect them then go for it. But why cant they do it in open? (like good old stasi, NKVD and gestapo) Why do so in secrecy? That blurs the line between them and the people they purportedly protecting us from.
I find this secrecy counter intuitive and defeats the purpose. If these spy organisations come out and say we are monitoring your every move be it social media, telephone, email, etc, etc, it will deter most people from involving not only in terrorist activities but also any other kind of illegal activities. They do not even have to go to all the trouble of sifting through trillion bytes of data.
Surely if MI5 have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide? I was so totally convinced by that argument when I first heard it I assumed it to be true for everyone.
If anyone's sarcasm sensor is NOT going off, I recommend you get it replaced.
Government:
- Incredible resources funded by me and others, without choice
- Local enforcement bases all around me
- Armed enforcers all around me
Terrorists:
- cave on the other side of the world
I know who bothers me more.
Except it doesn't. In fact the whole discussion right now happening around the world is how we the general public can protect ourselves from overbearing divisions of the government that have little to no oversight.
Instead of mass surveillance of *all* means of communication (terrorists could use any form of communication, wow -- we have to monitor everything!) maybe it would be a much better *and cheaper* idea to ask why there is terrorism and how to combat the source of it. Really, those people have some reason why they do it, even if those reasons are hard to understand from out perspective. I guess for them everything makes perfect sense ...
You do realise that the poster boy terrorist are extremist religious types... they love God, but their concept of God, if you are calling them terrorists for hating your god then you are as much a terrorist as they are.
they're not the people I was talking about. I was talking about the Joe Average who talks smack about Biden to his friend on the phone. they're the one's who don't know they're terrorists....
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Snowden lifted files from US security, not GCHQ. Every UK operational detail that he and the Guardian might divulge was already in the hands of a foreign organisation, outside the control of the UK secret services.
Snowden was merely the first NSA data leak that went public. There is little reason to believe he was the first NSA staff to walk out with a memory stick.
If the Chinese realised what he had in Hong Kong, what riches would thay have offered him? Unless they already had most of it from routine espionage (see above).
--
How long does it take Airstrip One to unperson someone these days? Stand by.