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First Confirmed Prism Surveillance Target Was Democracy Activist (fortune.com)
A new report by Television New Zealand in collaboration with The Intercept, based on leaks of former U.S. National Security Agency worker Edward Snowden has for the first time named a target of the NSA's controversial Prism program. The target was a middle-aged civil servant and pro-democracy activist named Tony Fullman. Fullman, who is originally from Fiji but has lived in New Zealand for decades, is an advocate for democracy in Fiji and a critic of Fijian prime minister Frank Bainimarama, who took power in a 2006 coup. From a Fortune report: According to The Intercept, the NSA in 2012 monitored Fullman's communications through the Prism program and passed on information to the New Zealand intelligence services. Around the same time, the New Zealand authorities raided Fullman's home and revoked his passport. The New Zealand intelligence services were not themselves allowed to spy on Fullman, who was a New Zealand citizen. However, as Snowden has repeatedly described, the agencies of many Anglophone countries spy on each other's behalf, in order to bypass their national legal restrictions. Fullman suggested in the article that people in the group may well have said violent things about Bainimarama, but this was just venting, not a plot. According to the report, they never suspected someone was listening into their communications. The NSA was said to be helping by analyzing Fullman's Facebook and Gmail activities. The 190 pages of intercepted documentation seen by The Intercept apparently didn't reveal evidence of a plot.
And this is exactly why the general public needs encryption and why various TLA outfits and buddies like to use the "think of the children" garbage to denounce it.
Around the same time, the New Zealand authorities raided Fullman's home and revoked his passport.
Clearly the NZ authorities suspected the poor chap of a serious crime. What the middle-aged civil servant could have possibly done or said to warrant such attention?
You might wonder why a pro-democracy country is spying on a pro-democracy campaigner. It's not because of any 'terrorist' BS, that's just the excuse. They monitored him, so that when they negotiate with Fiji in future, they can offer him up as a bargaining chip.
From the article: "Fullman reckons the timing of the raids was connected with the New Zealand foreign minister’s visit to Fiji for trade talks, just days later."
And this is why NSA and GCHQ spying on their own countrymen's communications is a bad thing (it is NOT harmless). Because the data they capture is used in political deals against the rights of the target and against the interests of the country as a whole.
New Zealand would have pulled his passport to secure a trade deal if necessary, so that they could tout a trade deal as a political win. All hidden from legal and democratic observation by the veil of 'security'.
Here we go with the Slashdot FBI shit again. Thanks for submitting this crap.
I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for how helping protect Fiji's military government from possible plots connects with the goal of protecting the US from terrorism, right?
Was the NSA trying to protect the TSA from dehydration by ensuring that American air travelers would continue to have that Fiji bottled water to confiscate?
It's illegal for most countries to spy on their own citizens, but it's not illegal to share spy data with allies and have them give you the information on your own citizens that your own laws preclude?
This is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the law. Acquiring such information from allies should be just as illegal as spying on your country's own citizens, full stop.
I used to be opposed to all this mass surveillance. But no more. THANK GOD for all of the surveillance programs!! In fact we need even more.
Thanks to surveillance, the lone superpower with enough fire power to wipe out all life on earth a dozen times over has been spared from invasion by the Fiji hoards.
Snowden leaks... so old, so boring, so increasingly irrelevant. Hey Intercept, stop trying to squeeze as much clicks as you can from this stuff and just dump the entire doc cache already.
Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours:
You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
Fig. You do a favor for me and I'll do a favor for you.; If you do something for me that I cannot do for myself, I will do something for you that you cannot do for yourself. I'll grab the box on the top shelf if you will creep under the table and pick up my pen. You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.
http://idioms.thefreedictionar...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Oh, yeah, you can trust us, we'll never abuse this surveillance power.
If they have the capability, they're gonna use it. Most likely to stalk their ex-girlfriends and harass those that buck they system. It's just human nature.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
He didn't do nothing wrong, so he hads nothing to hide.
...in our own government.
However, as Snowden has repeatedly described, the agencies of many Anglophone countries spy on each other's behalf, in order to bypass their national legal restrictions
I am not surprised, but I am very, very disappointed. We have let the terrorists win because we have let them cow us into abandoning any sense of justice and liberty for some bullshit illusion of security. I now fear my own government far more than I fear "teh terrorists". That, or in a more cynical view, the oligarch's who control much of the "free world" are using this opportunity to consolidate their power and neutralize threats. Either way, Snowden should receive the Medal of Freedom.
When I read "the agencies of many Anglophone countries spy on each other's behalf, in order to bypass their national legal restrictions", I'm often left wodering how this doesn't step all over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) -- specifically the provisions about bribery of foreign officials (because the act specifically covers exchange of anything of value such as information-in-kind), and evasion of national laws using parties or actions outside of the United States. Other than "we don't care" how does the NSA get around this? I'm genuinely curious.
Well, of course, with a RethugliKKKan in the White House the Big Brother has free reign...
If only a Progressive Democrat — preferably a Person of Color himself — has won the Presidency in 2008, the healing could've begun and the world would've had a chance to become such a better place by now...
Why is my real account disabled?
Is anyone really surprised that coercive authority puts the interests of coercive authority first? You don't need to be a philosopher to predict that outcome. In fact, one could make the argument that it couldn't be any other way: the very essence of coercion is self-interest.
if government agencies can get around laws restricting them from spying on you without consequence then what makes you think the average person can rely on easily available encryption to protect them?
Getting around math is not like getting around a law. That's the short answer to that point.
Unless people are mathematicians themselves, they are unable to personally verify the effectiveness of an encryption algorithm. When you use an encryption algorithm, you have to trust it works without a secret decryption algorithm.
....but did anyone else read the Fiji Prime Minister's name as Frank "Bananarama"? I swear I had to go over it a few times to make sure.
the United States has a Democratic Republic design, vs a straight Democracy
That sure helped to slow the explosive growth of the US government over the past century, measured in either revenue per capita or power over the people, not only here but throughout the entire world. We are talking about the largest, most expensive, most powerful government in world history. Yup, that clever democratic republic design sure saved us from the trap of a straight democracy, the never-ending spiral of government expansion.
Just to be clear. In fact, in light of recent "reveals" it would seem that Democrats are very anti-democratic with their processes and offerings.
Eww. Next they'll want to introduce freedom and justice for all. Note the slippery slope, people!
Glad they nipped it in the bud.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sure it was, FBI @ Slashdot.
This story is a comment fishing expedition, just like "Ask Slashdot: Where do you get YOUR torrents from?"
What other prism, give-us-your-phone-password, Google finance, REUTERS, information-security.com, Microsoft Windows ANNIVERSARY 10 news do you faggots have next?
Gaggablaghblagh... Aga blah blah... AGA BLAHG BLAH!
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
This. 'Democracy' in Fiji has historically been tinged with racial supremacy. Bainimarama is a boon to the nation - an ethnic Fijian who looked past the interests of his race, to the interest of his country and all its people.
"Fullman suggested in the article that people in the group may well have said violent things about Bainimarama,"
Yes, much the same way Islamic fundamentalists may well say violent things about infidels. How is monitoring these guys wrong? Because they're culturally 'Christian', and they - er - didn't mean it? Remember Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik?
Snowden may be right (or wrong) about the *manner* of monitoring. Maybe a warrant was warranted. But monitoring people threatening violence is exactly what any responsible government does - even 'pro-democracy' activists.
So he's a dictator, but it's supposed to be all right because he's a Fijian and the ends justify the means. Right.
The US gubmint - keeping the world safe for democracy! Or not...
Yeah, with the contorted logic of the RC Church you can construct anything you like.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
"The New Zealand intelligence services were not themselves allowed to spy on Fullman, who was a New Zealand citizen"
When this stuff started coming out, the prime minister of New Zealand rammed through legislation making it retroactively legal for the intelligence services to spy on citizens - mainly because they were caught redhanded directly doing so without even bothering to go through the PRISM facade.
(Disclosure: I'm from NZ but haven't lived there for nearly 20 years as I was becoming more and more unhappy about the deepseated corruption and cronyism I kept uncovering)
New Zealand has an interesting facade of "clean, green and honest" - none of these 3 claims are true, but those in charge have been selling the Kool Aid for so long that the population believes it and tends to react violently towards those who try to show the truth. The government is aided and abbetted by a very pliable media (New Zealand does not have a free press. Negative stories about companies or influential individuals are usually killed by threats of defamation litigation using laws heavily biased in favour of the claimant - effectively NZ defamation law turns the presumption of innocence on its head)
The Internet makes it harder and harder for things to be covered up and more people are becoming uncomfortable about the situation but there is a very strong culture of compliance with authority and "don't rock the boat". This is what allows corruption to spread from the top down until the entire edifice is rotten. The situation is not helped by the factor that the only legal definition of corrupt behaviour in New Zealand is "Bribery". Cronyism, influence peddling and all the other OECD definitions are rife, but "if it's not illegal then it's OK"
Non-kiwis might do well to look at e2nz.org and locals might want to look at laudafinem.com