Slashdot Mirror
NSA Hacked Email Account of Mexican President
rtoz writes "The National Security Agency (NSA ) of United States hacked into the Mexican president's public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico. This operation, dubbed 'Flatliquid,' is described in a document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Meanwhile U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is urging the Supreme Court not to take up the first case it has received on controversial National Security Agency cybersnooping."
For one thing I'm very surprised that a slashdot post criticizing anti-NSA activists got down-modded for being redundant. Flamebait, or troll I would have understood. I would have disagreed with it, but I could have seen the logic. But it's not like there're a lot of other slashdotters criticizing the EFF.
For another, you don't seem to understand how flexible the NRA is ideologically. When people who scare society are using guns in ways that normal gun-owners don't they will be at the forefront of the lynchmob. For example, when the Black Panthers threatened cops by following them around with guns the NRA and Ronald Reagen demanded that be made illegal. What the NRA objects to very consistently are any restrictions on firearms that would inconvenience their membership.
In other words if the EFF was as tactically flexible as the NRA they would not be trying to get Basaaly Moalin off on privacy grounds. They aren't arguing that sending money to sex-slaving terrorists is legitimate (and therefore he shouldn't be in jail), they aren't arguing that he didn't try to send the money (and therefore someone else should be in jail), they are arguing the government doesn't have the right to know he gave money to sex-slaving terrorists. That's the problem privacy activists have had historically. They have all this soaring rhetoric about how important privacy is to freedom, then some guy commits a terrible crime (almost getting away with it), and they respond by proving he actually did get away with it.
I'm convinced there should be more oversight of the NSA, and that they probably shouldn't be the long-term stewards of the data they gather. That should probably be some agency that's major job is to protect privacy. It should only be accessible with a warrant. But I am not convinced that freedom died the minute the government got copies of everyone's cell-phone metadata and their email.