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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs In China and Germany
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this snippet from The Intercept: The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use "physical subversion" to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used under cover operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency's "core secrets" when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA.
... so he'll not feel inspired to keep leaking.
I'm all for the leaks when it concerns stuff the NSA does against civilians. But against foreign governments? The point of the NSA is to do that sort of thing. And anyone that thinks these other governments aren't doing the same thing back are kidding themselves. The US is just walking around with their fly down until they get Snowden home. And he can be brought back at any time for the low low price of just pardoning him. Do that, admit fault, have a national/international discussion about it, and then as part of that he stops.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Snowden is a whistleblower. He deserves our thanks, and an apology from everyone who's demanded that he be prosecuted.
Using classification to cover up billions of felonies is something the American people should never tolerate again.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Does look like they need adult supervision - sentry hawk, owl, raven etc it's so fucking comic book that you wonder if they spend all their time dreaming up James Bond plot lines instead of actually getting some work down. Get rid of these toy soldiers and replace them with real ones.
The traitors are all the apparatchiki who routinely violate their oath to the constitution by violating the fourth amendment on a routine basis. Snowden was the only man at the NSA who did his duty.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Isn't this EXACTLY what the NSA's job is?
Snowden doesn't leak these reports anymore. He doesn't even have access to the files. It's all reporters doing it now.
My first instinct was to reply to you with a dismissive expletive - thus having shown in my reply as much critical thought as you did in your post.
But I realized that I too once came from the Stephan Decatur school, and should be gentle with a previous self. You see, as one grows older and the rose colored glasses begin to loose their tint, one realizes that one may be patriotic AND critical simultaneously. Couple that with the growing realization that the country which we love has almost certainly committed crimes against her own people, and it becomes a moral imperative for her citizens to wake from their stupor and attempt to regain the power over government and basic human freedoms so eloquently elucidated in our Constitution.
Did Snowden break the law? Certainly. Was the law Constitutional? Not if the Executive Orders were being used to shield malfeasance (and despite Tricky Dick's assert actions, simply because a President does it does not MAKE it legal). Should you, as a responsible citizen you loves his country stop to think on his own for once instead of making a knee jerk assessment? For the sake of the Republic, I hope so,
What is the point of US citizenship if there is no difference in treatment? If US citizenship is nearly unique in that there is a tax liability for income earned anywhere in the universe based on that nexus of citizenship, it BETTER be worth something like immunity from NSA spying.
Physical subversion of foreign intelligence assets is CIA territory, not NSA. While that certainly IS a way to perform Signal Interception, I'm cautiously optimistic that is outside the scope of their charter.
There's a reason these powers were supposed to have been segregated between multiple branches of the government/military and not just consolidated all under one roof. One of those reasons was accountability to their constituents, the other being so they couldn't use this to subvert the rule of law.
Now that neither is true, we need to look long and hard at what steps to take to suitable resolve this dilemma while not letting outside forces dominate our internal and international landscapes.
This is a classic way technical intelligence specialists operate. Lets analyze practical example: the target is a database. The potential attack vectors are following (but obviously not limited to): a)compromised hardware which allows to download data from the server b) compromised software which allows to download data from the server c) compromised specialist (s) which download the data d) intercepted communications,
Rule #1: any gathered data is verified by comparing it to independent source. Rule #2: the sources cannot know about each other. Only if these two rules are met the data can be considered as data which has passed basic verification. "Physical subversion", "blackmail", "infiltration" are day to day activities, the bread and butter, for all those agencies.
You're saying the US does not treat its friends any better than it treats its (sometimes imaginary) enemies.
Interestingly, the US's friends have also noticed this.
Am I the only one that is still wondering why these "snowden leaks" are still coming out in the way that they are? I mean, are we all going to be sitting around 30 years from now, still hearing about these leaks?
The year is 2045: Snowden leaks - The NSA has been watching all of you guys' teleport activity since the early 1980's! They used physical hardware hacks that you could have never known about... and they're doing it to foreign countries too!
Seriously, it all seems like the information that we're getting is being spooled in a prefabricated way, as to serve the fear propaganda more so than it should. I'm just waiting for the "NSA actually created the universe" leak.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Most of you have it wrong. Its not is he a whistleblower or is he a traitor? Is the situation white or black? The simple truth is that he is now beyond debate **both** a whistleblower and a traitor. The two are not mutually exclusive. The whistleblower actions do not negate the traitorous actions.
Revealing mass surveillance of US citizens is obviously whistleblowing.
However revealing clandestine cyber operations against China, a country that routinely conduct cyber espionage against US commercial, governmental and military computers, is traitorous.
Plus it makes it more difficult to blow off as a coincidence the fact that he revealed the mass surveillance just as President Obama was about to publicly criticize China for cyber espionage actions against the US; and he fled to China for sanctuary and protection - something that would come with a price tag given the diplomatic heat China would take. These facts are a bit less tin-foil-hat than there were previously.
We are now seeing how Snowden paid the rent in China and Russia.
I'm from Germany. Ever since it was leaked that the NSA was spying so extensively on our government that by international standards it could reasonably be considered an act of war, I wonder what it'll take for our USA-lapdog chancellor to grow a spine and do more than giving Obama a stern talk.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You say that from which country's perspective? It helps me understand where you are coming from.
As to the American control complex... it is because we are responsible for global peace. Your country isn't.
We are a super power. We have responsibilities. If we drop the ball, billions might die. We have more responsibility every day then your culture has probably had in the last thousand years combined.
Dare to contest me. You might not like how irrelevant you are or how important the US is... and it is a problem because we're human just like everyone else and we make mistakes.
But that doesn't mean we're not the people that keep things calm enough for people to live. We keep international trade flowing. We back the international treaties that maintain world peace. We control nuclear arms. We control biological weapons. We control chemical weapons. We deny expansionist powers the ability to claim territory simply with force of arms. We forge peace and we build nations.
Are we perfect? Hardly... we're people just like everyone else. But we are far more powerful then you and with that power comes responsibility. And with that responsibility comes the right to use it.
I don't like it either. I really don't. I'd just assume retreat all US forces back to our country and let the world take care of its own problems. But we tried that after WW1 and what happened? The europeans were killing each other almost immediately. And it has only been through US military force that europe has remained peaceful. The europeans basically don't even have militaries now and they is because we protect them. And in protecting them we have restrained their old imperialist ambitions. And through that we have prevented them from killing each other again.
Think about it.
Did the US start or cause WW1?
Nope.
Did we start WW2?
Nope.
Did we start the cold war? Nope.
What wars did we start? Second Iraq war possibly though that is debatable. Short of that... none of them.
And you presume to judge us. Which country do you represent?
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