Slashdot Mirror


Edward Snowden Promotes Global Treaty To Curtail Surveillance

An anonymous reader writes: In a video appearance, Edward Snowden said domestic digital spying on ordinary citizens is an international threat that will only be slowed with measures like a proposed international treaty declaring privacy a basic human right. "This is not a problem exclusive to the United States.... This is a global problem that affects all of us. What's happening here happens in France, it happens in the U.K., it happens in every country, every place, to every person," he said.

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Good idea by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For example, declare tracking an individual or an individual's property by any automated system, whether government or privately owned, generally illegal. Likewise, storing such records should be generally illegal. Make a few exceptions such as when there is a warrant, or if the individual requests it (where such request must be at the very least "check this checkbox to confirm you want to be tracked, data will be stored for n days", not "click here to agree to wall of text").

    Otherwise: all cameras will use image recognition to log where you've been, all cars will be tracked via license plate readers and onboard GPS, all cell phone owners will be tracked and their location logged for years, all purchases (cash or credit card) will be tracked and logged. And all this data will be sold, and God help you if the government doesn't like you.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  2. Re:Who's going to police it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "If our grandfathers and great-grandfathers could see just how many of the rights and freedoms they fought to protect have now been lost in the name of "safety" and "security", they'd turn in their graves."

    Capitalism produces such things, the whole reason is because the rich fear the masses in a capitalist society. Masters vs slaves. Rich vs the rest. You and most people are going to find out too late what the NSA spying is really about.

    Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening (aka global revolt). i.e. they fear you stopping voting for politicians and causing social and political change because the democratic system is a sham.

    This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.

    Brezinski worried people are waking up to how world works

    Brezinski at a press conference

    Brezinski at a press conference

    The real news

    Democracy inc

    Shadow government

    http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/

    Amazon

    Look at the following graphs:

    Graphs regarding distribution of wealth

    Wealth @ UCSC.EDU

    And then...

    WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

    Link

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM

    Free markets?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

    Free trade?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64

    Empire of illusion

    "We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.

    In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."

    Important history:

    Link

    Link

  3. Re:NSAs fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was reading the Trump 60 Minutes interview. Some time after, I realized that despite his problems as a candidate (almost everything) he would be incredibly better than GW Bush (misdirected wars, trillions in deficit, etc) and same or better than Obama (good: obamacare, bombing al qaida, bad: trillions deficit, many disappointments including expanding the massive surveillance, weak international leadership, handing over entire countries to terrorists, etc. overall not great) in different ways.

    Compared to the other turds of the two main parties, he floats to the top!

    But I wonder about his policies on surveillance, if that ever crossed his mind...

  4. Re:Still the US' fault by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, the US is a military superpower these days, however the five eyes have been sharing intelligence since they won WW2. The code cracking techniques developed by Turing and others were a very closely held secret. It wasn't until the late 60's that the rest of the world woke up to the fact their encryption methods were transparent to the five eyes. The event that did more to bring this military and commercial spying to light than anything else was the invention of modern encryption methods. But make no mistake, this arrangement is nothing new, it was born in the UK during the darkest days of WW2 when Churchill awarded Turing his code cracking buddies an "unlimited budget".

    None of those men and women could possibly foresee what it would become after the war, what they saw were immediate results such as the rapid destruction of the Nazi U-boat fleet, the successful Naval ambush at Midway island, and a thousands of smaller missions that co-opted the enemy's command and control systems to the allies advantage. The U-boat campaign is when Churchill shared his secret weapon with Eisenhower, who immediately set up a similar operation in the US that was more focused on the war with Japan. People who worked in the centers during the war were told they would face a firing squad if they discussed their work with their friends or family.

    This is the real reason "terrorist" websites are not expunged as soon as they appear is that co-opting those communications systems, mapping the enemy's org chart, predicting their next move, etc, is much more productive than disrupting or destroying the comms systems and wondering who they are and what they are up to.

    So to get back on topic, it's obvious a treaty won't work because only those who cheat can win, and if the cheat is the world's only superpower, who do we think is going to punish them, God? anyone who can remember 9/11 can also remember GWB spitting the dummy at the UN and announcing to the entire world the US can not be restained by anyone. It's also obvious that the currently agreed upon human rights are not fully respected by any nation, and are totally irrelevant to (say) Saudi Arabia.

    Human nature is unlikely to change in my lifetime, it is still trying to evolve onto something that fits our invention of civilization. That is both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. Ten thousand years is not enough time to declare civilization an evolutionary success story. The fact that SETI and similar efforts have not found any alien comms after listening for 4-5 decades is not a very encouraging sign. It may turn out that human civilization makes the planet uninhabitable for humans, much like the oxygen produced by primitive cyanobacteria eventually made much of the planet uninhabitable for cyanobacteria (but much more efficient in terms of time)

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.