Slashdot Mirror
How the NSA Is Spying On Everyone: More Revelations
The Intercept has published today a story detailing documents that "reveal how the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems so that they can be tapped into—a controversial tactic that security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers." The documents also describe a years-long effort, aimed at hostile and friendly regimes, from the point of view of the U.S. government, to break the security of various countries' communications networks.
"Codenamed AURORAGOLD, the covert operation has monitored the content of messages sent and received by more than 1,200 email accounts associated with major cellphone network operators, intercepting confidential company planning papers that help the NSA hack into phone networks."
... security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers.
I don't get it. The NSA is an organization of criminal hackers, and it's not a question of "could be", the NSA is already doing it. What am I missing?
Don't muddy the waters by implying that only a specific, "bad-apple" division of government is doing the stalking. It is government that is doing the stalking. The specific division of government (NSA) is utterly irrelevant to the victims. That only matters to the aggressor.
If it was a private company doing the stalking, you wouldn't say that "Human Resources" is the aggressor and ignore the fact that Human Resources is owned by, funded by, and works for Google. You would state the obvious and say that Google is the aggressor.
In other words, this is a failure of government, not "the NSA". Government is attacking your basic human right to free association, not "the NSA".
Surprised? No... Concerned that US Citizens are being illegally monitored in their communications by the NSA? Yes... This is illegal monitoring of people who pose no threat to the US or their citizens. Monitoring them without a valid warrant with a description of what the threat they pose is is illegal.
Yea, but at this point I think we should just give up on this. It's just not possible to protect yourself from a group with the size, clout and finances of the NSA. I think you and I both know, the easiest way for them to solve most of their problems is just have high level people in just about all of these companies on their payroll. If I were a DBA at a company like Google I'd be sitting in the lunchroom wondering which of my colleagues were the NSA guys and which were not.
The only fix for all of this is to shut down the agency completely. Such a thing cannot exist in a free world. Yes, we'll be less safe from it. But I'll take a 1 in 250,000,000 chance of dieing in a terrorist attack over a 1 in 1 chance of having my mail read any day.
And the scale on which the technology allows this to happen.
See, before the interwebs and computers, there was no mechanism to tap into an entire country's phone systems.
So it's pretty much bullshit to say nothing has changed. Technology has allowed the scope of this to be done on an absolutely mind-boggling scale.
And this sense of self entitlement which says the rest of the world should be giving up our rights in service to the security of Americans ... well, we don't see it that way.
If your security comes at my expense, I'm afraid I couldn't care less about your damned security.
Because in doing this crap, America has become the enemy of the liberty of everyone else on the planet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Technically the people of the United States have the authority. It's such a shame that the government has been able to sucker the less intelligent masses into giving up liberty under the "threat" of terrorism.
My solution was simply to move out of the USA. I've been an ex-pat going on a decade now and couldn't be happier. I plan to renounce my US citizenship this coming year.
But I'll take a 1 in 250,000,000 chance of dieing in a terrorist attack over a 1 in 1 chance of having my mail read any day.
I wonder where that number came from: As an American civillian, my odds of dying specifically in the 9/11 attacks were something like 1/60,000
And your odds of dying in a car crash are even higher.
So did you quit driving yet, asshole ?
There are plenty of people who can take authority. They can defund the NSA. They can disband the NSA. They can add new layers of oversight to the NSA> Just because they haven't doesn't mean there is no one who can./ Remember they did defund the TIA in early 2000's... Then they allowed it to side step and rename itself and begin operating anew. I think legally at this point, if defunded to resume operation under a new name would be seen as the complete refusal to operate within the charters it was held to.
not that i disagree per se, but thats pretty much a no true scotsman fallacy no? No party in american politics is 100% to its core. Democrats claim to be for the poor people, yet they keep pushing bills that directly hurt the poor. republicans say they are for limited government, except for military/police, or if you are a woman.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.