Edward Snowden: the World Says No To Surveillance

An anonymous reader writes: Two years after his whistle-blowing, Edward Snowden finds that his action had profound effects on political decision making and on citizen's understanding of privacy issues. He writes in the NY Times, "In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated. This is the power of an informed public. ... We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in favor of resilience and reason."

Comments

Re:I can agree to that...

[Totenglocke]

He didn't violate his oath, he violated an NDA. I'm pretty sure that courts have consistently ruled in favor of immunity for breaking an NDA when exposing criminal behavior.

Re:I can agree to that...

[jc42]

Now, the next step - what in the hell do we actually do about it aside from individual protection? Sure, recent congressional actions (Thank you, Sen. Paul!) have put an end to at least one program... problem is, another grew to take its place (basically, the FBI is picking up where the NSA is allegedly leaving off).

I don't think we will ever trust them on this subject again. Individual protection is the only way, and that is exactly why we have so many government officials saying encryption needs to go.

There's really just one major reason they haven't succeeded yet: The world's financial system, including your bank and/or credit union, now uses the internet for most of their communications. If encryption is outlawed, all your account information will be going over the wires unencrypted, for anyone along the route to intercept and store for later usage.

This is probably the main reason that encryption is still legal nearly everywhere (and used without prosecution in many places where it isn't legal). True, it doesn't matter to our rulers whether our account info is flying around unencrypted. But they understand quite well that encryption is what keeps their own large bank accounts safe from raiding by all the world's con men and identity thieves, not to mention their political opponents. Outlawing encryption for The Masses' account info while keeping it legal for anyone with economic or political power is pretty much an unsolved (and probably unsolvable) problem, so in most countries encryption remains legal.

Of course, they can put pressure on the suppliers of the software, and persuade them to supply encryption that's decodable by their own spy organizations. But this is subject to all the usual gotchas, since decryption keys and code are easily accessible via the usual bribes to the right low-paid admin flunkies in the appropriate organizations. This is something that all our politicians inherently understand, and to protect their own information, they easily decide that their own communications (and their funders') have to remain encrypted.

We can be fairly sure that our banks and other financial institutions will continue to educate our government leaders about all this, as they have done in the past.

(Actually, I keep reading that in much of the world, cell phones are now a major tool for handling financial transactions. I'd guess that this requires effective encryption to prevent interception by the crooks, including those inside the phone companies and government agencies. I haven't read good technical articles about how this actually works, especially dealing with local encryption laws. I wonder where the best docs on the topic might be. Perhaps someone here on /. might know .... ;-)

Re:You do not seem to care

[Major Blud]

"In France ENCRYPTION IS ILLEGAL"

I don't think that this is the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
"As of 2011 and since 2004, the law for trust in the digital economy (LCEN) mostly liberalized the use of cryptography.
As long as cryptography is only used for authentication and integrity purposes, it can be freely used. The cryptographic key or the nationality of the entities involved in the transaction do not matter. Typical e-business websites fall under this liberalized regime.
Exportation and importation of cryptographic tools to or from foreign countries must be either declared (when the other country is a member of the European Union) or requires an explicit authorization (for countries outside the EU)."

"The UK is part of Europe and internet is CENSORED"
This one is complex, but it looks like any type of net filtering is done voluntarily by ISPs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

As for the parent:
"If something like that had happened in Europe, we would not have tolerated it even for a microsecond. We would have rallied on the streets and attacked the agency's headquarters."

I assume he's talking about recently? I mean, Europe was home to the Stasi, Fascism, Nazism, etc etc. Besides, what are they going to attack the agency's headquarters with? Cricket bats?