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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.
That's incorrect. There is always, going back many thousands of years, a struggle between the "smarter mouse and better mouse trap". That's how it is.
Do you honestly think that some laws on paper will stop TLA agencies from doing things they shouldn't? They already violate laws and "get around" them.. H*ll, that's called out right in the summary.
The law has a counterpoint however: make it a felony to use non government-approved encryption, have failure to decrypt upon request carry an automatic 20 years prison sentence, make possession of non-approved encryption software an automatic 50 years prison sentence, punish developers with a life sentence. You cannot fight City Hall and you think you can take on Big Government, which has the power of life and death over you?
If the pad is destroyed there is no way you can reproduce it - especially not from memory. As for "brute force" torture is not perfect. If it was, authority would keep using it despite all the "moral" issues. Torture is useless when you create a person who fabricates anything to get you to stop. They will confess to everything, and admit everything, which is absolutely useless because you're left with the doubts of your suspicions being confirmed because they're true, or because the person made it up. Back in the old days when you were going to hang the person anyway it didn't really matter. Nowadays there is still at least a sliver of law and due process left and you have the embarrassing task of having to account for the dead body.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.