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Snowden Documents: CSE Tracks Millions of Downloads Daily

Advocatus Diaboli writes Canada's electronic spy agency sifts through millions of videos and documents downloaded online every day by people around the world, as part of a sweeping bid to find extremist plots and suspects, CBC News has learned. Details of the Communications Security Establishment project dubbed 'Levitation' are revealed in a document obtained by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and recently released to CBC News. Under Levitation, analysts with the electronic eavesdropping service can access information on about 10 to 15 million uploads and downloads of files from free websites each day, the document says.

18 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. They said they weren't doing it.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... and they lied.

    Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Not in Harper's Canada.

    1. Re:They said they weren't doing it.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Quit trying to play the partisan card bullshit. Cons have a majority, therefore they take responsibility for it happening now.

    2. Re:They said they weren't doing it.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The name of that charter is misleading. The purpose of that document is not to protect citizens, it's to give to the federal government the opportunity to override any court decision made in one of the provinces under the pretense of protecting the citizens. It is a huge loophole that gives to federal politicians the power to overrule judges.

      FUD FUD FUD.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

      And as you can see, it's almost never used. You may want to stop with your muslim fud too.

      That charter is what allowed things like islamic courts to appear in Ontario, and was used to override a Quebec courts decision to forbid Sikh schoolboys from bringing a knife at school.

      Wasn't that supreme court decision, if anything??

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

      In the 2006 Supreme Court of Canada decision of Multani v. Commission scolaire Margueriteâ'Bourgeoys the court held that .... A student is allowed to have a kirpan on his person if it is sealed and secured

      Meaning it is locked and can't be removed by the child.

      As to Ontario, FUD? Yes.

      http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

      The Islamic "court" was nothing but an arbitrator. The final decision was then presented to the "normal" court where it was either approved or not.

      So, WTF? Why are you trying to stir FUD that you know shit about?

      I'm not even religious, but the FUD and crap thrown at Muslims reminds me of shit Nazis threw around at Jews or KKK at non-whites. Fucking disgusting.

  2. Tsk tsk tsk by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How USA of them

    1. Re:Tsk tsk tsk by memnock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "CSE finds some 350 “interesting” downloads each month, the presentation notes, a number that amounts to less than 0.0001 per cent of the total collected data."

      Given that result, it seems that CSE (and all other TLAs) demonstrate first-hand the overbroad and unjustified power they've given themselves.

  3. Obviously didn't work so well... by mikeroySoft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... given the attack at Parliament in Ottawa.

    1. Re:Obviously didn't work so well... by jrhooker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One mentally ill man with a gun and delusions of grandeur does not a terrorist make.

    2. Re:Obviously didn't work so well... by bmo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's the problem isn't it?

      Collect everything means that all your intelligence is hidden by piles and piles of cat memes.

      Because the Internet isn't a series of tubes, it's a single cat with infinite meowing heads and infinite tails to pull.

      "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." -- Attributed to Albert Einstein.

      --
      BMO

    3. Re:Obviously didn't work so well... by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Funny

      The internet is a series of cats.
      You pull a cat tail in New York, he know if it's for one of his neighbours and will pull the correct tail. If it's not he pulls the tail of a cat in another neighbourhood until a the right cat in LA meows.

    4. Re:Obviously didn't work so well... by BForrester · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Collect everything means that all your intelligence is hidden by piles and piles of cat memes.

      If you RTFA, Canada's intelligence agency says in their document that they need to find the needle "terrorist files" in a haystack of downloaded episodes of Glee. They literally make that reference.

  4. RIAA/MPAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How long until our favorite corporations the RIAA/MPAA try and subpoena the download records from the government on the grounds the government knows which IP addresses downloaded copywrong material and therefore should stop hiding the criminals?

  5. Actually, it's part and parcel of absolute fascism by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You said:

    ... as terrorists. I have accepted that. Just change the laws to reflect reality now so we don't have this silly mismatch ...

    Actually their target is further than that
     
    To illustrate what I mean, let's look at what TFA says ...

    ... Canada's electronic spy agency sifts through millions of videos and documents downloaded online every day by people around the world, as part of a sweeping bid to find extremist plots and suspects ...

    Are they truly looking for "extremist plots and suspects"?

    No

    Then what they are looking for?

    They are looking for potential targets that they deem "dangerous". No, not terrorists but those amongst the people who are NOT sheeples!

    You see, those fascists (to put them in a milder term will be an injustice, they are fascists afterall) are not afraid of sheeples. In fact, they WANT all the people to become sheeples so that they can get absolute control over them

    What the fascists are afraid, very afraid of, is those amongst us who steadfastly REFUSE to become a sheeple, who instead will use our own brain to think, rather than delegate the thinking to "somebody else", ie, the authority

    That is what makes those fucking fascists antsy --- they can't have that, but current laws still do not allow them to pull out all the non-sheeples to the street and shoot them

    So they do the next best ... to identify the non-sheeples so that, when it comes the day they can pull people out to the street and carry out summary execution, they would know who to shoot

    That is ultimately WHAT they are doing today ... identifying us, closely monitoring us, categorizing us, ... and ultimately, know who they need to eliminate, and where to get those 'trouble makers'

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  6. Re:Too late Snowden by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dipshit. He turned over everything to journalists long ago. They're going through FSM only knows how many terrabytes of information and releasing stories as they put it together. Snowden isn't releasing anything anymore.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  7. Re:Actually, it's part and parcel of absolute fasc by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think you're overthinking it. Look at what the FBI does. They find some dumb disillusioned guy down on his luck, maybe an ex-con or something but nothing serious, and try to ram bomb making components down his throat until he acquiesces and follows the plan they give him to fill a truck full of fertilizer to blow up city hall. The guy makes the purchase and parks the fake bomb, and when he gets out of the truck he's arrested and sent to prison... not because he would have blown up a building, but because he was so stupid that he didn't know not to trust the guys trying to set him up by badgering the hell out of him until he gives in. Counter-terrorism task force adds a notch to their belt, the President has a talking point about another averted attack, and the poor schmuck who was effectively harmless already because of his stupidity gets to die in prison

  8. Do they need this? No. by whistlingtony · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do they actually FIND anyone this way? No. How do you find terrorists? The old fashioned way... You monitor a known terrorist and see who he talks to. You tap his phone, read his mail, etc. You do it the old fashioned way. You also get a warrant...

  9. I rather be a paranoid than be totally un-prepared by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear Sir,

    I may have been thinking too much. In fact, you may even say that I am paranoid - but at the stage that we are in today, that the blanket snooping activities into almost everything that we do online and off, we do need to question why the authority's need to do it, rather than accept what they are telling us by default

    Yes, they tell us they are 'looking for terrorists' but is that true?

    I mean, if they are 'looking for terrorists' the obvious target for those 'terrorists' are those from a particular religion (that peaceful one, to boot)

    But is the authority looking into that group only?

    Far from that. They are snooping in on ALL OF US, on our email, on our surfing pattern, on the site we go to, on what we download, on our phone conversation, on everything everybody is doing

    Then why are they doing it?

    Surely the 'looking for terrorists' excuse ain't gonna cut it no more, there gotta be more than what they are telling us

    Yes, I am paranoid, I admit it. But you can't blame me from being paranoid

    I am from China, a country which is being ruled by some really despicable regime. At the point when I left China the entire society was in turmoil. People were being pulled out on to the street and beaten, sometimes killed, just because they were labeled as 'anti-revolutionary'

    I have had that kind of experiences. Most of you do not. I know what the authority is capable of doing, and what they will do to maintain their control over us, the peons

    The more I look at what's happening in the so-called "Western countries" the more it resembles that despicable regime that is controlling China

    Yes, I am have been 'overthinking', as you put it, but I rather be paranoid and right and be well prepared (as well as knowing what preventive actions to take before the shit hits the fan), than be totally unprepared and suffered the consequences

    But it's all up to you guys. What I am telling you is what I, and many millions of older generation of Chinese had gone through --- we do not trust the authority, we do not trust anyone but ourselves

    If you guys insist that the authority is to be trusted, that they are doing what they are doing for 'the good of the people', then that's your right to do what ever you want to do

    But when the shit hits the fan (which I fervently hope it will never come true) don't blame me for not forewarning you guys

    It happened in China, it could happen, and I repeat, it could happen elsewhere, including the Western countries

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  10. Re:I rather be a paranoid than be totally un-prepa by ultranova · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But it's all up to you guys. What I am telling you is what I, and many millions of older generation of Chinese had gone through --- we do not trust the authority, we do not trust anyone but ourselves

    And neither did the people who did the killing in China. The idea, inherited from Lenin, was to have a small vanguard of professional revolutionaries guarding the masses - in your terminology, "sheeples" - under absolute authority of the Party. Mao and Stalin then took this idea to its logical conclusion.

    What I'm saying is that calling people "sheeples" is inherently anti-democratic. You can't trust sheeples, after all. Also, no society can survive unless the majority of its members stay put most of the time, which seems to be the going definition of "sheeple". And so you can at most let them play at ruling themselves when nothing's at stake - but as soon as there's trouble on the horizon, it's time for the shepherds to take control. Which they did in China, and are trying to do in the US. The results speak for themselves.

    It's a fine example of how cultural memes perpetuate themselves, even when it'd be better they didn't. Much as you might hate the Chinese government, you still carry its - for a lack of better word - spirit with you. And there's no easy way to get rid of it.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  11. Yes, we do need hope, but still ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sir,

    I do agree with you that we do need hope, but we must *NOT* forget the fact that 'hoping' ain't gonna do us, or anybody else, any good, especially when what is happening now, from top down (well, the governments are *ON THE TOP* of the people, no matter which government, no matter which nation)

    Nowadays governments treat their citizens with contemp

    They suspect their citizens so much that they actually take steps to ensure that every single thing their own citizen does must be checked, categorized, and actions must be taken on whoever they suspect (for whatever reason)

    Hope in itself is no longer sufficient to fight those fascist, my friend

    We no longer live in the 1960's, Sir

    We no longer live in a world where the government listens to the people

    No man. We are living in the world where the governments DEMAND to be respected, or else

    That's the reality all of us are living in, no matter if you live in Canada or China or Saudi Arabia or America or Great Britain, it's all the same --- you, a citizen, better be a sheeple, or we will mark you, we will follow you, we will watch your every single move

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !