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Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public
New submitter autonomous_reader writes: Ars Technica has a story on this week's Intelligence & National Security Summit, where CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey had a lot to say about the resistance of the American public to government cyber spying and anti-encryption efforts. Blaming resistance on "people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission of the NSA, CIA, and FBI, John Brennan explained it was all a "misunderstanding." Comey explained that "venom and deep cynicism" prevented rational debate of his campaign for cryptographic backdoors.
Mr Fox feels misunderstood and would like to continue guarding the hen house.
Requiem for the American Dream
"You see, we thought that the Constitution doesn't apply to us. Why can't anyone understand that we're the good guys?!?"
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Is personal, is not yours. Not allowed. Like you're not allowed to rape my girlfriend even if you say its for national security.
Not yours, never was, hands off.
...that these men are just acting. They cant be that naive that they dont understand the resistance to their designs.
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
... is concerned that we don't trust them, and don't really want them keeping tabs on us? I mean that would never happen! Next thing you'll tell me people are throwing tea in the ocean to protest their unelected government! Insanity!
"I don't think we've really tried to find answers yet because no one in the private sector has been properly incentivized."
They haven't been properly motivated. We'll help them come around to our way of thinking.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
"Comey explained that "venom and deep cynicism" prevented rational debate of his campaign for cryptographic backdoors."
That's called poisoning the well. - Albert Einstein
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
He sees it perfectly clearly when he states, "because of people who are trying to undermine" the mission of the NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies. This is because their mission is to protect the Government, not the people.
I'll tell you who is undermining it. It's the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and Homeland Security. They have already demonstrated, unequivocally, that they will happily fuck over every last man, woman and child, not just in the US, but around the entire planet, if they could get away with it. The list of abuses is already long, and at no point have they shown any interest in stopping.
The fact that they are accusing unknown people "trying to undermine" them, and that these people are "fueled by their adversaries" just tells you how completely and utterly out to lunch these dimwits are.
They don't seem to understand that, the tighter they squeeze their fist, the more that squeezes out from between their fingers.
We have as President a lying demagogue who ran against "warrantless wiretaps" and "unconstitutional acts" whilst a candidate, but once in office went far beyond what his predecessor did.
Even Bush II didn't have "extrajudicial killings" of US citizens.
Why would us peons be cynical?
The FBI engaged in a massive amount of illegal wiretapping. It was MASSIVE. It was also quite illegal--and completely unpunished. This was organized violation of civil rights--a plain crime.
The FBI engaged in massive surveillance of student demonstrators, including infiltrating student protest movements. This wasn't for suspicion of crime--this was for intelligence. That was plain wrong.
The FBI burgled--there is no other word for it--the office of Daniel Ellsberg and others. That is wrong.
Then there was FBI Director L. Patrick Gray and the Nixon coverup.
AND THEY ASK US WHY WE DON'T TRUST THEM NOT TO VIOLATE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PRIVACY?
Oh, come on now...
I'm married. When I say the same things over and over in the same conversation - it is because I'm not being heard. When my wife does the same it is because she is not being heard.
If leaders of spy agencies are stunningly disconnected from the will of the American people - they cannot serve their best interests.
If the American people are stunningly disconnected from the best/brightest in counter-intelligence, they cannot maintain fundamentals of security.
Any politician who can COMMUNICATE across that divide, will make good hay. Carly, this is your thing. Donald, it isn't your thing. Hillary - don't pay someone else to do this.
The fact that the divide as big as this exists - shows the kind of severe damage that modern partisan politics leads to. So if we do nothing, there is a cyber-9/11 on the menu, right?
You made that bed, now you have to sleep in it.
If you have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid of the authorities?
- the authorities
Holy fuck, seriously?
So the spies and fascists who have been ignoring the Constitution and demanding technology can be less secure so they can fumble around like idiots claiming to make us more secure .. spying on Congress and lying about it ... coming up with the form of perjury known as "parallel construction" (which is perjury because it's intended to lie about if they had legally obtained information or probable cause, and to deny the opportunity to see the evidence) ...
Suddenly these fucking clowns are feeling all misunderstood and don't understand why there is hostility?
I'm sorry, this is Chairman Fucking Mao talking about counter-revolutionary elements who must be purged ... "Blaming resistance on "people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission" is code for "all those pinko commies who expect us to respect fucking civil liberties".
Every asshole fascist claims to be a patriot. They're still asshole fascists.
Yeah, right ... tell us another fucking lie.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
'Get up,' said O'Brien. 'Come here.'
Winston stood opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's shoulders between his
strong hands and looked at him closely.
'You have had thoughts of deceiving me,' he said. 'That was stupid.
Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.'
He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:
'You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you.
It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me,
Winston--and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect
a lie--tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?'
'I hate him.'
'You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step.
You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love
him.'
He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.
'Room 101,' he said.
I think what we are seeing here is progress, albeit slow and with a long road ahead. Their stated purpose of having a dialogue is, in itself, an important and positive step forward. Comey's remark on skepticism being fair, but cynicism being problematic, is reasoned and nuanced. I think this is a good sign that the intelligence community is starting to grapple with the need for open discussion, and is making a case towards that end.
The United States was founded and structured around a deep cynicism towards government. I'm surprised members of the intelligence community haven't picked up a history book before.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If this is what he considers deep cynicism I don't want to know what he considers a lack of cynicism. How many people spout the "Think of the children" or "If you have nothing to hide" lines. I think he would prefer that we had cameras and microphones in everyone's house just to be sure. Of course he may be in the camp that believes the terrorists hate us because of our freedoms so he is just doing what he can to eliminate those freedoms.
Time to offend someone
..sideways, with a rusty chainsaw, vigorously, and with great prejudice . Their so-called 'mission' is to control everyone and everything, and to hell with 'civil rights' and any 'rights' in general. The 'terrorists' they claim to protect us from must be splitting their sides from laughing so hard at us, and celebrating their great victory over the West.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If he defines the mission of the CIA and NSA to include violating my Constitutionally confirmed, naturally inalienable rights, then yes, it should be all of our missions to undermine them. And have the perpetrators tried my impartial juries, and imprisoned if appropriate.
Um yes, of course their read their instruction manuals..... do you really think they came up with these ideas on their own. These people love BB.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Taken at face value, it's a very simple statement of how paternalistic and condescending their perspective is. Yes, we do want people to protect us from bad guys - we have police, and we have security agencies - and we give them some slack on how much control they can have, but we don't want them to BECOME bad guys. Why should that be hard to understand? (Assuming, of course, that they're not lying about that too.)
Today's example, fortunately non-fatal: A former tennis star (and former US Olympian) was arrested in a case of mistaken identity. Should be a non-story, except the arresting plainclothes officer chose to make a flying tackle and knock the guy to a concrete sidewalk, when there was no hint of resistance or even awareness on his part (and this happened in front of a big hotel with very clear security video). These "intelligence" people have exactly the same mindset - there's no such thing as overkill.
There are fundamental technical issue with government backdoors. You're either baking them in making whatever keys are used the biggest target in the world. Or your writing law that says you have to provide keys to the government making that keystore the biggest target in the world and providing an easy way to forget a key to make anybody a criminal.
In any event bad guys will still use strong crypto. Stenography and one time pads make it very hard to trace and impossible to mathematically break. Cold war era spycraft is still very effective the classic phrases on message boards, personals, classifieds, etc etc.
No sir I dont like it.
How can people who say their job is to vacuum up all information they can get their hands on so they can figure out what is going on not know what is going on. People hate you because you are evil lying fucktards! It's pretty simple! If you spent one afternoon reading through sites like this one on a topic relating to the latest scandal you guys are up to you would see what the hatred is all about!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Seems to me that many of the problems organizations like the FBI think they face stem more from the change from law enforcement to crime prevention. Crime prevention requires massive amounts of data to be collected and ultimately freedoms curtailed for specific individuals who evince a pattern of behavior demonstrated to lead to crime. With organizations like the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc. all tasked with preventing another 9/11/2001, they understandably want the data to be able to proactively root out those individuals who might be likely to pull something like that off.
I'm not saying I agree with what guys like Brennan are asking for, but I am saying that they realize their responsibilities have changed and they are demanding the tools to do so. From their perspective, they probably don't understand how the people can say over and over "you'd better not ever let anything like that happen again but you can't infringe on any of my rights in order to make that happen". To a professional law enforcement officer, even a bureaucrat, that is a contradictory statement. Worsening matters is the ham handed way in which they've chosen to implement everything and how the American people have come to know how these things are being done.
You can't have the kind of safety people seem to expect today without a significant infringement of your rights.
There really isn't any room for debate on the issue. To share that access with law enforcement, means eventually someone outside of law enforcement will get their hands on it. Then it's an unstoppable mess.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
On the other hand, the article is a bit more than the headline. A pretty decent article for Ars, actually, if you read it remembering that these guys have been given a specific job to do.
Cynicism is just a fancy word for pattern recognition.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
You are correct, the implementation suggested won't work.
ISIS has billions of dollars and wants to kill us.
Russia is getting more and more aggressive.
China's recent actions are becoming a bit more worrisome, and they hack us daily.
Those organizations are supposed to protect us from these threats, enemies who are willing to spend billions of dollars to harm us. Suggestions on ways to accomplish that mission, reliably?
Spy Industry - seems about right, because I believe it involves massive amounts of money.
Those TLA guys should probably take some lessons from NASA. I mean, when was the last time you saw a movie with a spy that was actually a nice guy and not a complete MFing AH to anyone vaguely on his wrong side AND anyone getting caught in between? I mean, it's nice and all to watch Liam Neeson beating up another bunch of guys, but that's not exactly the type of person I want to have watching over my shoulder while I post new Facebook updates.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
If by saying
"people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission
actually means "Secure their freedom", then yes he's correct.
I thought GM already provided that in many vehicles.
John Brennan,
Let me put this as nicely as possible. There is no misunderstanding. Germany during WII did not just wake up one morning feeling Fascist. It was a progressional change in the society, a change in the synaptic layout of the brain. They went mad. They were both a danger to themselves and to others. Because the same brain structures that define your worldview, are also used to provide you with insight into your own behavior, once corrupted, unless other portions of the brain assume the role there is no way to objectively analyze your own behavior.
The CIA has spent the best part of 60 years pumping the US and other nations full of propaganda. This has tangible effects that emerge as long term changes in behavior. The CIA holds that it is acceptable to steal, murder, lie, experiment on humans, mass murder, undermine democracy, manipulate policy, domestic spying, direct terrorism, rendition, torture, rape, etc, etc. Even where such acts directly oppose the founding values of the nation. If the CIA were a human being, it would match the profile of a serial killer.
Take a good long hard look in the mirror Mr Brennan. Understand that you are no longer the good guys, in truth you never were. Events such as these do not roll back on their own, they grow and unfold with time. If the CIA has degraded to this point now, it will only get worse with time. The idea that you have this in check, is well, to say the least...madness.
Are you that far gone that you cannot see the CIA, as it currently exists, is the antithesis of what it means to be an American?
None of this is about venom Mr Brennan, quite the opposite in fact.
You know what needs to be done. You know why it needs to be done.
John Brennan was a career CIA analyst, focussing on the Middle East. James Comey was trained as a lawyer, and has been a law clerk, lawyer, and prosecuting attorney.
Neither one is qualified to participate in this discussion - they don't know enough about how encryption works. They need to step aside and let their technical "underlings" speak for them, if they really want to engage in a meaningful dialogue on this topic.
#DeleteChrome
I think rational debate would be solely sufficient to shut down his campaign for cryptographic backdoors.
Unless, by "rational debate," he means everyone who disagrees shuts the hell up...
If the law defines just about every citizen as a lawbreaker of some sort, just about every citizen will be motivated to distrust and obstruct the law. Accept that you and yours are not safe. Trading away freedoms and protections will not alter this. Changing the faces representing government from time to time will not change the recollection of past injustices and criminal activity by that government.
there are more, and more concrete reasons to deny you these things than there are to allow them. I want better reasons than a vague "we can catch bad guys". It's way past time to start releasing specific and detailed accounts of how the post 9/11 power surge in the intelligence community has actually stopped something. Again, fluctuations in the "threat meter" and assurances that "we stopped a threat" are just not instilling any confidence. With the time between terrorist attacks in the U.S. measured in years, I want to see proof that we're not just in a lull. Maybe, just maybe, if you could tie things you want to actual results, people might be more sympathetic... then again, this is government...
I didn't vote for him.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I woke up yesterday at 5 am for a call with a colleague in China. Fifteen minutes from quitting time, a critical system died, and I was here until 1 am fixing it. A mile from home, achingly tired and needing a bed, a police car pulled me over for having one brake light out. After 10 minutes of staring at incredibly bright, flashing blue lights in the mirror, they let me go with a warning. Got home, and because of said flashy bright lights, I couldn't go to sleep. So here I am back at work, hour 34 of wakefulness.
From her perspective, the police officer was trying to protect and serve (I know her vaguely through friends and she sounds like a decent person) From my perspective, I'm probably more dangerous to my fellow drivers due to my lack of sleep during rush hour commute than I would be for having 1 (out of 4) rear lights out at 2 am a mile from home. From my perspective (and almost certainly from society's perspective), her actions *did not* protect or serve either myself or society very well.
I don't think the leaders of the NSA, CIA, etc are a bunch of Dr Evil wanna-be's. I suspect they are in fact decent, well-intentioned people. But what from their perspective seems rational, can be contrary to the greater good.
In that, their job is somewhat like mine as a sysadmin. I have never once had someone email me and say "Hey, everything was working great this morning, just wanted to say good job!". But when something breaks, there are a hundred people complaning loudly. There's a fundamental asymmetry there, and it can lead to personal incentives that are in conflict with the greater good.
The NSA/CIA/etc are graded on "how successful they can defeat/thwart the bad guy", and not "doing what is in the best interest of society". Perfect is the enemy of the good, and it's better for society to preserve our hard-won freedoms, even at the cost of the bad guys winning occasionally. But they get yelled at (Congressional hearings, public firing etc.) when they do the right thing, so they do the "right" thing instead.
John Brennan calls it cynicism, I call it pattern recognition.
The "Spy Industry" had their golden chance to do it right after 9/11, and they demonstrated their inability to behave in a manner that honors the cause of freedom and liberty for our citizens. They earned the venom and cynicism by their misbehavior, and until they own up to that, I can't see cause for the American Public giving them a free pass again. Brennan and the rest are seriously in deepest denial if they are truly thinking that the backlash against government spying comes from a desire to undermine the mission of the Three Letter Agencies fueled by our adversaries.
If they want to have keys to our backdoors, they'd better come up with lube.
I agree that they need to get out more. A little humility would go a long way. Admit mistakes, be about 5000% more transparent so people understand what is being done and why and then encourage debate and actually listen to the public. And in turn when given the information on what they are doing and why maybe we would also as the public highlight the things we're thankful for that they are doing (most likely in secret). The long term need for secrecy is minimal in a democracy from what I can tell. Otherwise you end up feeling like we have Eloi and Morlocks
These people "may be fueled by our adversaries"
When you claim that your political enemies are being 'fueled' by enemies of the state, YOU are the one that is exhibiting "venom and deep cynicism", not your enemies.
The basic problem is that our intelligence enemies have paranoia as a primary job requirement. If you want to protect a country, you must assume the worst and think of the worst so that you can take steps to prevent it. But that does not mean your worst scenarios are true, or even likely. You have to recognize that because it is your job to assume the worst, it is totally reasonable for you to go way too far, and that government MUST reign in the intelligence group from doing so.
Because if your Espionage agency does not intentionally go too far, then they have failed to do their job. Similarly, if your government bows down to the Espionage people, that means the government has failed to do THEIR job.
In the ideal situation, working in Espionage should constantly complain about how the government won't let them take all the necessary steps to protect the people - while realizing that this is a GOOD thing.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I asked how NSA, CIA, etc should do their job. They are supposed to know what Russian spies are up, and what ISIS sympathizers are planning.
Your response is that networks should be airgapped. Okay, so the CIA should come redesign your company's network for you, you say. Is that everyone or just important networks like defense contractors, banks, etc? I'm not sure I want the NSA to design my bank's network, but okay. How exactly does airgapping the banks network help track Russian spies?
More like "The people in power are scared shitless that they will lose control of the country, and perhaps even be held accountable for their crimes against the people."
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
...look at the source. The caption of the article's main photo tells it all:
"The directors of the FBI, CIA, NSA, NGO, DIA, and NRO stand for a group picture with Fox News' Catherine Herridge (second from left) and executives of INRA and AFCEA at the conclusion of their panel discussion at the Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington on September 10."
The supersilly quotes were directed at Fox News viewers. They were never intended to be taken seriously.
to make Americans OK with all the horror in the world it's pretty impressive how cynical we are. Remember, the /. crowd isn't what's worrying this guy, it's the every day non technical joe. When I was a kid I was taught how wonderful the world was. For anyone that's middle class in America it still is. That number's getting smaller and smaller, but it's still there. What's got this guy worried is that even the folks who are doing well are cynical and don't trust him.
.unlimited campaign funds, low oversight defense contracts, etc)
It's not surprising though. In an effort to gut the reforms made Post WWII (New Deal, GI Bill etc) that created our large middle class we've been shitting on the gov't non stop talking about how scary scary scary they are. The 1% haven't quite figured out how to get us to differentiate between the bad kind of gov't (Social Programs, Public Schools, Protection for Union Membership, etc) and the good kind (Round the Clock Surveillance,
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Sorry for the typo. There is, of course, no way to correct it once posted. Still, the affected phrase should have read:
Sparta was a monarchy with two simultaneous kings
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It ain't cynism. It's practicality. There is no such thing as a government-only backdoor. Any backdoor, no matter how you want to secure it, will be in the hands of nefarious groups faster than you might consider possible. We are not talking about some script kiddy hackers, this is the playground of hackers employed and funded by nation states. Nation states that have a vested interest in harming also the United States.
In a nutshell, so even you get it: You can't have a backdoor for the US government only. China and Iran will be able to use it, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The best thing is human intelligence. They need people to gather intelligence directly and indirectly from the groups they are interested in. Not electronically, though it does have it's place. People have to be out in the field making connections.
Slurping in everyone's communications is not going to get them anything except maybe from the stupid people.
So say the citizens of the world all have the NSA approved encryption with back doors that are super secret and the NSA is the only ones in through them.
Then along comes Dr. Evil and his group. They decide to use some non-NSA approved encryption, maybe something they made up. No back doors, and super long keys.
The NSA gets to look at our communications until the cows com home, but the bad guys still have encrypted stuff that no one can break for a hundred years.
How does having NSA approved encryption help?
TFS title:
Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public
Seem to me it could simply have read:
Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
ISIS wants to kill us because we killed them first. Maybe the trick is to not travel around the globe, meeting new and interesting people, and killing them.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, we don't trust them, and we didn't trust them when they came into office and started lying to us, because that's what their predecessors had also been doing. And they're trying to restart the Crypto Wars they lost 20 years ago and want us to believe them THIS TIME FOR SURE! and somehow that trick's still not working?
I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I am not saying this only to CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey, but all government employees in control of my personal data: SHOW ME GOOD REASON WHY I SHOULD TRUST YOU !. Do this and I will relinquish all my fears and let you put back doors in cryptography and let you spy on me to your heart's content. But don't come to me with made up stories about how may terrorist attacks you prevented or will prevent, but tell me what you did to protect my privacy. Explain me why Chinese hackers or whoever else got hold of personnel office's data, so that I can forgive your ignorance and agree to what you want to do with cryptography. CAN YOU ? I think not... Then "F" you...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
In 1928 there was a court case called "Olmstead v. United States" in which the government tapped a telephone wire (relatively new technology at the time) and caught a Roy Olmstead and several others who were allegedly distributing Alcohol, which violated the National Prohibition Act.
One of the justices, Louis Brandeis, argued that the government's actions were not lawful because it violated the principle which the Fourth Amendment stood for; here is a quote of his dissent:
You can read more of it here (law.cornell.edu)
FTA: Rogers said, "I don't think we have fundamentally destroyed the public's trust. Some feel that way, but we are accountable to the citizens of the nation, and the nation is counting on us. The nation needs the insights we generate and our computer expertise."
No, you're not accountable to the citizens of the nation, Mr. Rogers. If you were, many of you would be in jail right now. Was James Clapper "held accountable" for the felony crime of lying to Congress?
Once you understand that you're not above the law, and once you truly become accountable to those you ostensibly "serve", then the cynicism will die down. Until then, you're continuing to reinforce that cynicism on your own by your actions, your attempts to hide them, and your willingness to lie about them. You have no one else to blame for it other than yourself.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
No where does it say they are confused or befuddled. They're pissed, and would like things to change. But they understand that there is cynicism and why it is present.
doesn't mean they aren't breaking the law even more than you realize.
It's not that Americans are not paranoid about out of control spy agencies crushing our liberties, with the help of local, county, state and other police forces.
It's that we're not paranoid enough.
(there is no truth to the rumor that I held a fairly high clearance or was involved in some of the early coding and creation of some of these programs, just like we all know China is not going to the Moon)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...understand.
It all stems from the idea that principles only mean something when you stick to them when its difficult. After 9/11 the intelligence agencies were only to happy to abandon some of our most fundamental principles all in the name of "security."
The irony is that more people died in car accidents over the next 45 days - and yet we dumped some of the most sacred aspects of our country virtually without hesitation - and they were only too eager to justify it. FUCK them.
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Anything the government does in secret, must be looked on in the worst possible way in which we can imagine the worst possible government can use it, because we are never more than one election away from that happening.
It's necessary to tie the hands of government, not because we don't trust our current government (we shouldn't anyway), but because we don't trust our future governments. Complete transparency, restraint, and robust mechanisms to insure accountability are what give the people a fighting chance against the electoral accidents that could threaten democracy itself.
Our system of government is imperfect, but it has been designed with extensive safeguards meant to prevent this from happening, to defend against the passion of the moment, and insure that we do not install an authoritarian government into power. Safeguards which we've willingly allowed to be ignored or redefined into meaningless words on paper. An impartial judiciary, which balances the needs of personal privacy and public security, and strikes down laws which infringe upon the most basic of rights is critical to that, and we've allowed that to be undermined, and in many cases, circumvented entirely.
Judge the power given to government by how it would be used in the hands of a madman, and the robustness of safeguards, not by how they try to sell it to us, or by empty promises. Remember, we're always one election away from appointing a would-be dictator. How do we keep them from realizing their aspirations for power?
"Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public"
Do you suppose years of government lies, wars, relentless spying on your own people, and all the other crimes you get up to would lead to cynicism?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Those cynical don't all have hard reasons like the /. crowd. This is not about naivete, this is likely a psy ops to soften the just-coalescing opinions of those who are still fence sitters.
My bet is this is going to shift some of the media coverage on the topic towards painting them in positive light, which will have a cascading effect on the ones a little further from the fence.
My distrust of this agency is absolute, manipulation of the people they're supposedly protecting is not beyond their agenda when it comes to preserving them or those they favor.
So they broadcast a common abusive partner's reaction to growing a spine - feign indignant treatment and ignorance. Those closer to the fence are more likely to turn around, change their tune, start back into the dance of the damned, as it were. The agencies are the abuser in their relationship with the public they supposedly serve.
The idea that we can "make nice" with monsters who kill everyone who doesn't believe in their particular brand of Islam is known as the Obama Doctrine. If we're nicer to them, they will stop raping eight-year- olds, the thinking goes. Same thing with Iran, North Korea, etc - just keep being nicer and nicer to those who want to take you down. This is in direct contrast with the Reagan doctrine of peace through strength. ..." Under the Obama doctrine, Russia is once again invading its neighbors and ISIS has taken over large swaths of the middle east, while we agreed to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. We deal with Iran them as "equals", Obama says.
Under the Reagan doctrine, our opponent, the only other superpower in the world, crumbled. A couple of years ago I personally heard Gorbachev refer to that time period as "after Reagan defeated us
Both approaches have been tried. One was very successful, the other a horrible failure. The time for debate is done. Obama's approach, of being soft, might have sounded good BEFORE he tried it. Now he has already done it, and we see the results.
Iran is in fact NOT an equal to the United States. The US is far, far more powerful and does not have to allow them to have nuclear weapons. Obama's decision to allow that, because we "deal as equals" is based on a fundamental failure to understand the basic facts of the world.
It reads like a headline from The Onion.
I pretty much agree with you. Trying to see things from the CIA's perspective ...
> Not electronically, though it does have it's place.
So a couple of CIA agents have a warrant and they intercepted the iPhone of the terrorist ringleader while it's in the shop. It mysteriously stopped working correctly yesterday. :) They are holding the iPhone in their hands. Because it uses super-strong encryption by default, it's useless - they can't read any of the text messages or anything.
I understand how that could be INCREDIBLY frustrating. If I were in their shoes, I might well talk to the computer nerds about either using encryption that takes several hours and expertise to break, or a special national security key or something. They are ASKING the tech industry to consider this type of situation and come up with suggestions. I don't have an great answer. Privacy is very important. Sometimes, the ability to carry out a lawful search warrant is also pretty important. How do you have both? There may well be a clever answer that manages to do both.
Korea - clearly a draw. South Korea is a highly successful state in its own right
You left out Greece and Italy in the 1940s / 1950s, which were successfully kept in the US column till the end of the cold war.
Iran in the 1950s was subverted for the US cause - and kept under control until Khomeni came along
You've left out Grenada in the 1980s - Reagan's successful reversal of a Soviet backed coup.
Yugoslavia is mostly a success - and the Kosovo exercise of beating Serbia by air power is a textbook success. Of the 8 republics or bits, Slovenia and Croatia are stable and in the European Union. The rest are largely stable.
Libya's the fault of the Europeans; they forced the intervention - with less than stellar enthusiasm from the US. On the whole the Europeans were right - the alternative would have been a massacre. Instead we've got a divided country and a low level civil war.
So probably the fairest score since the founding of the CIA is of the order of 4-4. Not as good a record - but against far more problematic opponents. Up till WWII simple force was sufficient to win the day - now the joys of asymmetric warfare make it FAR harder. but that's leaving out the overall defeat of the USSR in the cold war; its final defeat released 10 countries from tyranny. So let's go for 14-4 shall we?
I don't normally hold with quoting from fiction, but Firaxis had some damn sharp writers and this resonates *much* more today than it did in 1999.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Unlike, it seems, pretty much everyone else here I'm not cynical about their motives. They have a job to do, which is to stop various hostile groups from harming American citizens. While it's true the backdoor thing is stupid for technical reasons, I'm not sure we want to be in a situation where security services are so blind it's impossible for them to detect the next big Islamist attack. It's not hard to posit scenarios where we're going to be wishing there had been a bit less data security.
Firstly, the CIA wouldn't need a warrant because they shouldn't be working on US soil. So I'll assume it's the FBI and that they have the warrant. Sometimes you just have to live with the fact that you can't get that information. Why should everyone give up their privacy so that the government can go after a relatively few people who, if there was a way to break the encryption, would just use another method? Do we all have to print legibly in English because the terrorists could make up their own language with code words written on paper? That's what we're being asked to do.
As for having encryption that just strong enough for $0.5M in resources it wouldn't take long for that to be affordable considering that computers double in speed every 12 to 18 months.
I'm befuddled why I should be paranoid that a backdoor firmware is being installed on a hard drive that I recently ordered, having received a "delayed shipment" notification from the carrier.
Because I'm outspoken about privacy rights, I'm anti-Microsoft, anti-Facebook, pro-Free software, and host my own diaspora* server.
And because we have learned, in recent years, that the government feels it is entitled to have aaaaalllllll the data. Even if it promises not to look at it until it believes it has a reason.
I'm befuddled why I should - and why I shouldn't - be paranoid, and cynical.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
That is a very, very difficult issue. Because of the ability of the government to keep so many things secret we have no clue as to what the government does and there is a good chance that much of it is criminal in nature. Nixon's ordering the burglary of Daniel Ellsburg's psychiatrist office is a prime example. The entire Watergate mess was criminal. And Ronnie Reagan's Arms for Contras was criminal in nature as well. And then we have the secret war in Cambodia and the secret war in Laos as further examples of our government running off the rails. There are also problems with monies never delivered to first nations tribes that they have been due for decades. And then to top that off the borders of Indian reservations keep getting altered even though their treaties are defined as permanent. Then we must consider the crimes we commit against other nations such as promising Vietnam that they would never be occupied by a foreign power again and then allowing the French to waltz back in after WW2. And how about our ongoing violations of the Geneva Conventions in handling various groups including terror suspects? The evidence at hand is that the US is in no way trustworthy and generally any treaties with us are not worth the paper they are written on. Then the other shoe drops. If all the information the government collects was also shared with all law enforcement as well as the public without anything being held back we would live in a safer and nicer world. As it satnds the government does not share and therefore we should take the powers away that allow them to spy or collect data.
In case anyone wants a link re the above example: http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
According to those in power, those of us who don't want them to get even more power never seem to understand them.
Just ask Richard Nixon.
And by the strategies you people are using, you will destroy everything the US used to stand for a lot sooner. How that is an improvement is beyond me. Of course, you said "scared shitless". That may be the core problem: Scared people are not rational and very often act in ways that accelerate their own destruction and amplify collateral damage. I mean, you very rhetoric is utterly irrational: You cannot "lose the country". People will still live there. The country will still be there. And there is absolutely nobody on this planet that could take over the US from the outside.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Sounds very much like it indeed. The authoritarian scum being scared that somebody more sane takes power away from them and that people may actually want that. You know, like in that little thing where the government serves the people and is elected by them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Indeed. This can already be seen by the little fact that "the terrorists" do not have the capability to hurt the people to any significant degree. I mean, even killing a few thousands does not matter very much to 250 millions. The terrorists may be able to attack some of those in power though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
They make this fundamental mistake that they (a small minority) are the ones that need to protect their own tribe against everybody else (that vast majority). They have completely lost context and forgotten on whose sufferance they exist and have some power. It is time to remind them, and that is what is happening at the moment. They seem to think of themselves as benevolent kindergarten teachers and the population as utterly dumb little kids that need to be told what to think. Not so. Countless millions of people have died to end hereditary authoritarianism and fascism in many forms in the west, and now these cretins want to bring it back. It seems at least some people remember or have learned from history how utterly evil that is and that it needs to be stopped at all cost, because not stopping it will lead to insanely higher cost to society.
Freedom is non-optional end essential. Surveillance kills freedom, first by chilling effects and then by "them" being able to get rid of anybody and everybody that threatens their perverted vision of how society should be.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Do you even have to ask?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
He was acting according to his conscience.
While in your or my view it was outright theft in his view it was the right thing to do.
I think the above poster was referring to viewpoints like that skewed "doing God's work" when he wrote:
Such should be obvious and I'm a bit curious as to why you are writing as if it is not.
A typo is bound to follow when you use a phrase such as "within your abusive illiteracy" to be critical of a few typos in another post.
Noticed all those "terrorist stings" where some mentally ill guy is groomed as a terrorist and is helpfully provided an idiots guide to terrorism kit by the guy that then carries out the arrest? It gets people promoted and it attracts extra funding but is neither about law enforcement or crime prevention. A lack of oversight by people who do not benefit from such theatre has made such a thing rife instead of instant dismissal of those who manufacture such fake criminal activity. Having such a thing as acceptable changes the entire focus of an org that gets up to such antics - real results no longer matter, you can just have a quota and Soviet style show trials if needed.
They are not professional law enforcement. That ship sailed long ago. Magic mind reading machines, having the guy too useless to even turn up with handcuffs to make the arrest in front of the cameras instead of a real policeman, it's more about appearance than performing a useful role in society, which sometimes happens as a side-effect but it's not the focus.
How can you have a rational discussion when the very premise is irrational? Any back door, front door, side door, or window can be exploited by The Bad Guys just as easily as it can be by The Good Guys. It's ludicrous to think that the secret entrance will stay secret. Someone on the outside will discover the secret keys, or someone on the inside will leak them either intentionally or unintentionally. And once the secret's out, it's game over. NOTHING is secure from ANYONE at that point.
No one's open to a rational discussion because there's nothing at all rational about this proposition.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
There are a number of interrelated issues involved in this.
First of all, for the last 30 years or so, new surveillance abilities have been developed, and new laws passed relating to these new abilities. In EVERY case, the rationale for the law has been to justify tracking terrorists and drug smugglers, but in the main these abilities have been used to target petty crime, not terrorists.
The Bush administration expanded these efforts somewhat, and were resisted by leftists; but when Obama was elected, he VASTLY expanded these efforts and then politicized everything, to the point where both the left AND the right distrust ANY of these governmental surveillance efforts.
And finally, the entire state security apparatus is astonishingly incompetent; in fact, given the levels of government corruption that currently exist, it may be that the level of incompetence is the only thing that prevents the formation of a "1984"-style police state. Between the politics, the corruption and the incompetence, I think that many people are feeling that even if nothing can be fixed, at least it can be left broken for far less money than we're spending.
Even where there are laws and procedures in place to prevent this, it STILL happens. Examples: Any Hollyweird "celebrity" who goes into the hospital has an excellent chance that his/her patient records and photographs may be leaked to the press, by the hospital staff themselves. And even though the person sometimes goes to jail for it, it's still happening!
run the USA.
Let's pretend for a moment you hadn't just stretched the truth beyond recognition. (Even liberal comedian Bill Maher won't let people get away with those claims - on a comedy show.)
Even the 9/11 conspiracy theorists don't claim that the Reagan administration supported anti-Soviet forces BECAUSE HE WANTED THEM TO LIKE US. No, he supported people who fighting because he was determined to DEFEAT the Soviets, not make friends with them.
So even if your "facts" were correct (and they're not close) , your conclusion would still be opposite of his actual approach.
Someone who had the wisdom to combine Reagan's philosophy of strength with the friendly tactics that Obama is misusing was Secretary of State Colin Powell. At the time, there was little communication or understanding between Beijing and Washington. Phone calls at cabinet level were planned months in advance. Powell starting calling his Chinese counterpart every week, and chit-chatting about family and such. He developed personal goodwill and understanding, so the two men could talk more openly and understand one another's positions. He continued to maintain a position of strength issues as well. He made friends by being friendly, not by giving up everything that was important to the country. Too bad he didn't run for president; he would have been better than Romney, Perry, or Obama.
The public is cinical?! Hundreds of thousands of American's have died protecting the freedoms we hold dear; we defend the rights of disgusting jate groups and obviously violent criminals protecting freedom; we forgo the benefits of a smoother running government protecting freedom..... And WE'RE cynical because we demand that you accoplish your mission without sticking a microphone and camera up our asses?!
And your interpreting of us protecting our freedom is that we have contempt for you mission to protect us?! Please resign. You don't understand your job.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
They seem to forget how history shows that they dont know how to handle all that power
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
> As for having encryption that just strong enough for $0.5M in resources it wouldn't take long for that to be affordable considering that computers double in speed every 12 to 18 months
That does make it a bit difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. I'm not fully sure how I'd feel if we COULD do that. Somewhere between a half million and two million dollars per decryption WOULD mean that it's hard enough that it wouldn't be done in bulk. In fact, if you're going to spend a million dollars, the getting a proper warrant or other proper authorization wouldn't be a significant extra "hassle". So on the one hand it seems like it would greatly limit the potential for a abuse, while still allowing them to read Osama bin Laden's files. I do want them to be able to read Osama's files. On the other hand, strong privacy is certainly atttactive.
What do you think? I mean ignoring for the moment the technical difficulty. If we COULD limit access to only the most important files by making it very expensive to decrypt, should we?
One first idea of how we COULD would be to use an algorithm that can take different size keys. Maybe this year a 512 bit symmetric key is strong enough to take a million bucks to decrypt. Two years from now, your phone would automatically encrypt with a few more bits. By re-encrypting every year or five with longer keys, the encryption strength could keep up with the speed of processors. In that way, it would ALWAYS cost about a million dollars to decrypt someone's phone. That's just a first idea, a rough draft. People more clever than I can probably come up with better ways.
He claims that they encourage people to speak up. Even if true (which I don't believe) we all know that all such discussions will be happening behind closed doors and in secret courts. That's the problem. Someone might speak up, it will be discussed in secret forums and the people won't have a chance to have their democratic say on these issues.
"Paranoid Conspiracy Nuts" got a promotion to "Venomous cynics!" This is a great day indeed. You see - a few short years ago, concerned citizens who claimed the government was engaged in a massive effort to spy on United States citizens, read their emails, and listen to their phone conversations without warrants were called Paranoid Conspiracy Nuts, tinfoil-hatters, and much worse by the bootlicking media, and oh yes, the 98% of people who believe what the bootlicking media tells them to believe. Agencies like the CIA/FBI could have their lying orifices, like Mr. Comey and Mr. Brennan, simply respond "that's silly" or "we follow the law" AND HAVE THE MEDIA/SHEEP DO THE REST (see eg: Nuts, Paranoid Conspiracy).
Even the term "Venomous Cynics" says a lot about the attitudes of said lying orifices. Cynics implies people who have extreme skepticism, which most readers would view as a compliment, however since the term is used perjoratively by said orifice one must conclude that our Intelligence agencies hate people who view their actions skeptically! Amazing!
"Venomous" suggests these cynics also carry a poisonous bite. The lying orifices must think that citizens willing to poison/destroy government agencies that violate the law and their rights are a Bad Thing. The orifices must not be aware that our Founding Fathers viewed government as a necessary evil, a source of the very real threat of tyranny, and an institution that must FEAR the people - who hold the power to destroy it. Either that or the orifices (who presumably went to Elite schools and are quite intelligent) must realize that THEY are evil tyrants who should rightly fear destruction at the hands of the people.
If you think keeping the lid on human rights sounds good, then more power to you.
You are damned right its a one sided example when the sides are powerful men abusing their ability to shape the lives of those around them for profit, I take an extremely one sided view, the side that thinks those men belong at the end of a rope in a public square.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
However the use of it has burgeoned since WWII, and it's become more clearly used as a means for one state to put pressure on another whilst retaining plausible deniability. The pattern of the past didn't make that so attractive because if the neighbouring state was sponsoring a covert war against you, you'd just attack them. These days that option is no longer open in most circumstances; the aftermath of 9/11 being a relatively unique counterexample.
Seriously kid, it's what happened. Go ask your dad.
"Saint Ronnie" was a real man back in the day, not some stupid legend, and he really did buy off Iran as his very first act as President. Indisputable recorded history.
The disputable bit? Selling weapons to Iran and Hezbolla gets blamed on North but part of the first shipment contained a Bible signed by Ronnie himself, still on display in Tehran (so several journalists have reported). Hoax? Maybe, but since North was never convicted of treason it looks a lot like a real part of the puzzle.