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Ask Slashdot: What Will It Take To End Mass Surveillance?
Nicola Hahn writes: Both the White House and the U.S. Intelligence Community have recently announced reforms to surveillance programs sanctioned under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But do these reforms represent significant restructuring or are they just bureaucratic gestures intended to create the perception that officials are responding to public pressure?
The Executive's own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has written up an assessment (PDF) of reform measures implemented by the government. For those who want a quick summary the Board published a fact sheet (PDF) which includes a table listing recommendations made by the board almost a year ago and corresponding reforms. The fact sheet reveals that the Board's mandate to "end the NSA's bulk telephone records program" has not been implemented.
In other words, the physical infrastructure of the NSA's global panopticon is still in place. In fact, it's growing larger (PDF). So despite all of the press statements and associated media buzz very little has changed. There are people who view this as an unsettling indication of where society is headed. Ed Snowden claimed that he wanted to "trigger" a debate, but is that really enough? What will it take to tear down Big Brother?
The Executive's own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has written up an assessment (PDF) of reform measures implemented by the government. For those who want a quick summary the Board published a fact sheet (PDF) which includes a table listing recommendations made by the board almost a year ago and corresponding reforms. The fact sheet reveals that the Board's mandate to "end the NSA's bulk telephone records program" has not been implemented.
In other words, the physical infrastructure of the NSA's global panopticon is still in place. In fact, it's growing larger (PDF). So despite all of the press statements and associated media buzz very little has changed. There are people who view this as an unsettling indication of where society is headed. Ed Snowden claimed that he wanted to "trigger" a debate, but is that really enough? What will it take to tear down Big Brother?
n/t
You do realize that the "War on Terrorism" is just creating more targets every day it persists, right?
I hear guys and gals working military hardware production have caught on. Hard to say who else knows about this little secret.
That if we actually grew a pair and cut Israel off from all the aid
We can't do that... with signage around town reading "Support Israel" ... cutting them off isn't supporting them.
in spite of the horrific things they've done to the Palestinians
So they routinely kill more Palestinians in a single hour of shelling than a decade of "rocket attacks from Gaza" ... this isn't a bad thing...they are only defending themselves... only anti-Semites would think Israel is bad for killing people intentionally kept poor and miserable by Israel.
and stopped invading countries for our own benefit and not theirs
Invasion creates jobs. Shouldn't everyone have a job? Who is against jobs?
we'd have a lot less international terrorism
Drug trafficking and terrorism .. sounds like a job for the CIA.
could focus on the domestic terrorism (gangs, whacko militias and such) that really needs to get cleaned up in our own house.
Keeping drugs and hookers illegal will teach these low life scum a lesson.
The only people to blame for all this mess is ourselves because we're the ones that elected these idiots that created the Patriot Act and all these spy programs to begin with. Stop voting for these a-holes that want this to continue.
Is the candidate with the most signs against spy programs? I vote for the candidate who can afford the most signs.