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CIA Tried To Crack Security of Apple Devices
According to a story at The Guardian passed on by an anonymous reader, The CIA led sophisticated intelligence agency efforts to undermine the encryption used in Apple phones, as well as insert secret surveillance back doors into apps, top-secret documents published by the Intercept online news site have revealed. he newly disclosed documents from the National Security Agency's internal systems show surveillance methods were presented at its secret annual conference, known as the "jamboree."
Less a yawn, more a "duh, we already knew the NSA is the enemy".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The sad part is that you can take whatever atrocity you would have attributed to the Commies in the 1980 and transplant it to today's "world of the free" without losing any credibility. Take whatever story from back then, replace "Russia" with "USA" and "KGB" with "NSA" and you're good for another headline.
Ok, you could have done that any time. But now it doesn't take a conspiracy nut to consider it credible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The difference is maybe that the fire department can't yell "witch"... sorry, I mean "terrorist" and have someone arrested that isn't to their liking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The very act of having an nationalized health care system would put as much personal information in the hands of the US Government any random NSA snoop of Wikipedia or break in on someone's mobile would.
What utter fucking bullshit.
Can my health records determine who I am friends with? Where I go? Where I browse online? Who I communicate with? What investments I have? And 100 other things the gov't could (and have) use as leverage to get information out of me if they wanted.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I don't think this is a "tried to" at all, just look at the permissions a lot of stuff asks for.
Facebook, a bunch of EA games, Angry Birds, etc all ask for insane permissions ranging from your full contact list, to seeing who you are on a call with to accessing the microphone. It's a spook's wet-dream.
And neither can the NSA. Technically. Unlike the CIA, the NSA is a signals intelligence organization with no enforcement power and no operational branch to speak of. It's threat is simply that it can provide information very efficiently.
In reality, any government organization has the capability to get you arrested, even the fire department, based on either an interesting interpretation of their powers, or their ability to turn over information to someone who can arrest or otherwise harm you.
I'd also point out that in a certain book, the "firemen" were those who entered areas to burn that which threatened the existing order. The parallel is intentional. The government is what its powers are and how they use them. Labeling something as "fire department" or "police" or "signals intelligence" or "health care" is only valid in the sense that the government maintains that separation or can somehow be forced to do so.
The problem with the NSA is *not* that they collect intelligence on US citizens. Your internet provider accidentally does that every day for troubleshooting purposes. It is that we fear that the NSA can turn into an organization bereft of limitations on what they can *use* the information for and who they can share that information with. The ability to get away with that can affect any agency of the Federal government, from DHS to HHS.
I will correct you on one thing. We don't fear the NSA will turn into something evil, we know it will. Power leads to corruption and abuse of authority. 70,000 incidents of NSA operatives spying on their significant others in contravention of the law with NO repercussions to those individuals is proof enough that the NSA will eventually abuse it's authority in a significant and likely very bad way to our democracy.
One can switch insurance companies, companies who compete for business. Government's don't compete for customers. Big difference. I never voted for a single bureaucrat at the HHS, and neither did you. Our congresscritters never read the bill before voting on it. We truly live in a post-constitutional era.
Actually, no. With Google, I can still opt in or out. With gov backed NSA back-dooring every ISP effectively in the world.... I can't opt out without cutting all internet connectivity. See the admittedly minor difference?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.