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Tech Leaders Push Back Against Obama's Efforts To Divert Discussion From NSA
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Guardian reports that while President Obama tried to portray a meeting with tech leaders as a wide-ranging discussion of broader priorities including ways of improving the functionality of the troubled health insurance website Healthcare.gov, senior executives from Apple, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Netflix said they were determined to keep the discussion focused on the NSA. 'We are there to talk about the NSA,' said one executive who was briefed on the company's agenda before the event. After meeting Obama and vice president Joe Biden for two-and-a-half hours, the companies issued a one-line statement. 'We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the president our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform.' Many of the senior tech leaders had already made public their demand for sweeping surveillance reforms in an open letter that specifically called for a ban on the kind of bulk data collection that a federal judge ruled on Monday was probably unlawful. Obama seemed sympathetic to the idea of allowing more disclosure of government surveillance requests by technology companies, according to a tech industry official who was briefed on the meeting. Marissa Mayer brought up concerns about the potentially negative impact that could be caused if countries, such as Brazil, move forward with legislation that would require service providers to ensure that data belonging to a citizen of a certain country remain in the country it originates, the official said. That would require technology companies to build data centers in each country — a costly problem for American Internet companies. The decision by the tech giants to press their case in such a public and unified way poses a problem for the White House. The industry is an increasingly influential voice in Washington, a vital part of the US economy and many of its most successful leaders are prominent Democratic political donors."
yeah, not his fault -- they gave him the wrong teleprompter.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
countries, such as Brazil, move forward with legislation that would require service providers to ensure that data belonging to a citizen of a certain country remain in the country it originates
In other words, a cash grab. Brazil isn't the most enlightened country when it comes to spying, so this is a little "pot kettle black" situation, but really its just an excuse to try to force more companies to spend more money in Brazil. It has absolutely nothing to do with the feigned "outrage" the politicians are espousing.
Monstar L
Say what you will about America, but there's hope here yet. If Snowden is stock, most investors have not only stopped selling, he's fast becoming a savvy "Buy".
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Obama: "We are already aware of your concerns regarding surveillance. You don't think we didn't hear you muttering amongst yourselves beforehand, do you?"
Have gnu, will travel.
Obama forgot who his bosses are.
And the Corporations represented here reminded him.
He did not hijack your meeting.
They are not accusing him of hijacking the meeting. They are accusing him of spinning (or lying about) what happened in the meeting. I accept that Obama doesn't care much about the rights of the citizens, but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business. When these companies move their data centers abroad, the jobs go with them. More and more people just don't want to do business with American tech companies. This is just as stupid as the encryption embargo that destroyed thousands of American jobs back in the 1990s.
Not like those corporation give a rat's ass about the constitution or citizen liberties. They're only there because, like Marissa said, all those foreign countries getting suspicious of NSA might require them (the corporations) to build datacenter in every country they operate, and that's gonna be very costly to them.
Thank you Apple, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Netflix. You are our greatest ally!
The companies are concerned about US government surveillance ONLY because
they know it will cost them money.
Otherwise the companies don't care, because if they DID care they would have
raised hell long before now. But the companies did not do that, did they ? No,
in fact they were willing servants for the swine in the government until the revelations
Snowden caused caused their positions to become unpopular. SO now these
companies are setting new records for backpedaling performance. There is not
much if any moral difference between these companies and the Nazis who tried to
claim they were "just following orders" when they were on trial at Nuremberg.
As Vonnegut would have said if he were still around :
"So it goes".
.
Obama forgot who his bosses are.
Obama thought he has become the KING of the Americans.
Obama is but one of the civil servants whose salaries are being paid by the American taxpayers.
Although I am no great fan of President Obama, generally, and wish it was someone else, you nonetheless have that quite wrong. He isn't a "civil servant." Civil servants are hired help of the Executive branch of government.
President Obama is the President of the United States of America, leader of the country, a position long known as leader of the Free World, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, the man empowered to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons, the head of the executive branch of the United States, the man who appoints the heads of the executive departments with the advice and consent of the Senate, the man who appoints Ambassadors, and the highest elected official in the country - one of only two national offices. His signature or acquiescence is generally required for bills passed by Congress to become law, otherwise he can block them unless the Congress musters 2/3 majority vote to override him, which rarely happens.
He isn't king, but as President he wields the highest authority of the executive branch. When backed by Congress he has enormous power.
You aren't his boss, he isn't a shoeshine boy that you can bark at. If you voted, you helped elect him, but that is past now. He has the office, and there is no recall. He can only be removed before his term expires for high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the House and tried in the Senate. Although the Constitution and the courts are a key check on his power, the Congress is key. So far the country seems content on maintaining a Democratic Senate, which ensures he will have plenty of leverage to enact the unwise policies of his party.
It would be great if you started getting this sort of stuff right, you sound like you are howling at the moon.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
or what a democrat would do: lower their taxes in exchange for silence..oh wait.
...you sound like you are howling at the moon.
This is the Internet. That is what they do here.
That being said, your civics lesson left out the large role lobbying and campaign contributions play in the decisions and actions of both Congress and the Executive. While the President can safely ignore the ranting of Internet dogs, he and the other players can't just blow off the leaders of some of the largest, most profitable corporations in the world. Mr. Obama may not be seeking re-election, but anyone looking for $$ from that crowd would do well to notice that they don't give a damn about the ACA and are up in arms about the NSA.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Not like those corporation give a rat's ass about the constitution or citizen liberties.
Hell, their "stalker economy" business model is partially responsible for enabling the NSA. We can expect them to do everything they can to minimize their exposure on this problem, even if it makes things worse for us regular citizens. It is just serendipity that our interests and their interests are kind of sort of aligned for the moment like they were aligned on SOPA but you don't hear a peep from them about the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) treaty negotiations.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business.
No, getting caught is bad for business. Some of the ways that cooperation and collaboration is rewarded (e.g. trade secrets) are quite good for business, which is why nobody made a stink about this before these revelations became public.
but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business.German coalition favors German-owned or open source software, aims to lock NSA out
There's no shortage of people willing to point that out. Having said that though, there could be some great benefits to us ordinary people if it encourages government adoption of open source and local products.
Germany’s new coalition government listed open source software among its IT policy priorities, and said it will take steps to protect its citizens against espionage threats from the NSA and other foreign intelligence agencies.
Coalition parties CDU, CSU and SPD signed up to the plans Monday in Berlin.
The new government’s goal is to keep core technologies, including IT security, process and enterprise software, cryptography and machine-to-machine communication on proprietary technology platforms and production lines in Germany or in Europe, according to the coalition agreement.
But the government will also promote the use and development of open platforms and open source software as an alternative to closed proprietary systems, and will support the use of those in Europe, the parties said in the agreement. The public sector will need to consider open source solutions as a possibility when purchasing new IT, they said.
They also want to compete on a global level with “software made in Germany” and strengthen the quality of security, data protection, design and usability by doing so
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2081140/german-coalition-favors-germanowned-or-open-source-software-aims-to-lock-nsa-out.html
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Please try to contribute more. GPs comment was admirably strident but lacked substance and subtlety; your post is as useful as saying 'I agree'.
For my part, I still find it hard to take the likes of Google seriously as a defender of privacy. Their recent CEO said terrible things:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/04/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-privacy_n_776924.html
"With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches [...] We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"
"In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you,. ... We need a [verified] name service for people, ...Governments will demand it."
Though he has been wise, too. From the same article:
"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,"
The point being: Google and the rest of the ad-funded online companies profit from our personal data, and have an interest in the erosion of our privacy.
Whether they like it or not, they have a motive to stop government surveillance of the internet simply because it threatens to make people less willing to share personal information on the internet.
Invasion of privacy is bad, whether it's the government that's doing it, or the people.
leader of the country,
Nope. Leader of one of three co-equal branches of the federal government. He's not my boss, and he's not yours, either.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re So what would happen?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130927/14413024680/one-telco-exec-who-resisted-nsa-has-been-released-4-years-jail.shtml
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
i work for epa, so he kinda is
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
"If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?" -- Jeff Spicoli
If anyone needs to get over himself it is the President. He is not a dictator. If he wants the support of the people he needs to listen to the people. If he wants the support of industry he needs to listen to industry. The people and industry are not here to do his bidding. He works for us.
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
Wrong, the President is to serve the people. It's not about what he wants, it's about what the people want.
The President might be in charge, but it's only because he was voted in. His responsibility is to the citizens of the USA, not to himself.
Be seeing you...
He allowed his "signature legislation" to be gutted ...
How did he allow **his** signature legislation to be gutted? **He** never offered any legislation. He mentioned some broad guidelines during the campaign and immediately upon election turned it over to the Democratic Party leadership who immediately grabbed Democratic party supporters and lobbyists and went into the back rooms to draft the legislation in private. He immediately abandoned his leadership on the issue.
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
It's not his government. It never was his. It belongs to the citizens. The man that you're defending has gone against the constitution and the will of the people. Get over yourself. Bush and Obama have made a mockery of the constitution. Both parties are trampling our rights and everyone seems to overlook their own party's evils while they're ready to attack the other with pitchforks and torches.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Fuck that. In my book respect has to be earned, even for the President.
And the man currently in the job never earned my respect. The man previously in the job earned my respect, but then he lost it. The one before him didn't have my respect initially, but ironically looking at his whole record and past his indiscretions he's earned some respect for what he did with the job.
But these latest two Presidents; in the end, neither is worthy of my respect.
When these companies move their data centers abroad, the jobs go with them.
[Citation Needed]
Modern data centers don't actually generate very many jobs.
After the initial flurry of construction jobs, Apple's $1 billion+ data center in Nevada is going to result in...
200 contractor positions and 35 full time jobs.
35 full time jobs
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Voting in the United States is, indeed, heavily broken. You should still vote. Just don't vote for a Democrat or Republican.
Nope.
Not voting reveals the system for what it is: violence concealed by the division of labor.
Voting in an election is as moral as bidding in a slave auction. In both cases participation gives both processes the illusion of legitimacy they do not deserve.
And by not voting you're electing not to be a slave just to the system, but also a slave to everyone around you. You think you've made some point. You have not. You've only surrendered the little power you have to take none at all.
And you've done so voluntarily, which is the real kicker. You think you're standing up to anyone? People who don't vote is exactly what corruption wants. You've voluntarily given up your rights to those you claim to stand up against. And you don't even realize you're playing right into their game.