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Will Trump's Presidency Bring More Surveillance To The US? (scmagazine.com)
An anonymous reader reports that Donald Trump's upcoming presidency raises a few concerns for the security industry:
"Some of his statements that industry professionals find troubling are his calls for 'closing parts of the Internet', his support for mass surveillance, and demands that Apple should have helped the FBI break the encrypted communications of the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone," writes SC Magazine. One digital rights activist even used Trump's surprise victory as an opportunity to suggest President Obama begin "declassifying and dismantling as much of the federal government's unaccountable, secretive, mass surveillance state as he can -- before Trump is the one running it... he has made it very clear exactly how he would use such powers: to target Muslims, immigrant families, marginalized communities, political dissidents, and journalists."
Edward Snowden's lawyer says "I think many Americans are waking up to the fact we have created a presidency that is too powerful," and the Verge adds that Pinboard CEO Maciej Ceglowski is now urging tech sites to stop collecting so much data. "According to Ceglowski, the only sane response to a Trump presidency was to get rid of as much stored user data as possible. 'If you work at Google or Facebook,' he wrote on Pinboard's Twitter account, 'please start a meaningful internal conversation about giving people tools to scrub their behavioral data.'"
Could a Trump presidency ultimately lead to a massive public backlash against government surveillance?
Edward Snowden's lawyer says "I think many Americans are waking up to the fact we have created a presidency that is too powerful," and the Verge adds that Pinboard CEO Maciej Ceglowski is now urging tech sites to stop collecting so much data. "According to Ceglowski, the only sane response to a Trump presidency was to get rid of as much stored user data as possible. 'If you work at Google or Facebook,' he wrote on Pinboard's Twitter account, 'please start a meaningful internal conversation about giving people tools to scrub their behavioral data.'"
Could a Trump presidency ultimately lead to a massive public backlash against government surveillance?
Yes he will
But so would have Clinton.
>>...suggest President Obama begin "declassifying and dismantling as much of the federal government's unaccountable, secretive, mass surveillance state as he can -- before Trump is the one running it..
When Obama got into power, I assumed he'd be the typical liberal. Little did I know he'd get very friendly with the expansion of the police state. He's enjoyed using the presidential powers at whim. Now that he's leaving, someone else gets to pick up the parts he so willingly put into place and use them.
Should have thought of that before you put it into law eh there mr. president?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
There already should be public backlash against government surveillance, Trump or no Trump.
Because people (including government people) aren't good at keeping secrets and make too many assumptions.
There's no question in my mind that the US government spends too much money and other resources on this stuff. If Trump is the straw that breaks the camel's back and causes enough resentment to actually change something post-Trump then so be it.
Unlikely. All they care about is cat videos.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Will a Trump Presidency cause Slashdot editors to lose their minds and post story after story on how a Trump Presidency will affect (insert pet cause here)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It might be possible that a group at the NSA with lots of funding, a few smart people and little to no oversight leaked the Podesta emails. They have access to computers in botnets in Russia and Eastern Europe. They certainly have the hacking skills. They have the language skills. People in the intelligence community might not be big Hillary supporters.
We must support
Plus, they are one state away from having enough power to add or delete amendments to the Constitution. There is no way to stop them as they now control how votes and whose votes are counted.
I'm sure there are a ton of good people in this country, but like in this election, they will continue to do nothing.This grand experiment in democracy is over and no one is coming to the rescue.
I'm taking the Climate Change denier position on the surveillance state.
1. There's no real proof that there is ubiquitous surveillance.
2. If if there was real proof of ubiquitous surveillance, there's no real proof that it's a bad thing.
3. Anyway, it's too late to stop ubiquitous surveillance, so there's no point in trying.
4, Ubiquitous surveillance might actually be good for us.
5. All the privacy advocates are just in it for the money.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They didn't contradict themselves; they *certainly* did. :)
Seriously though I took it as not contradictory meaning:
--
We can only speculate.
I'm willing to speculate that she almost certainly would have.
--
She's actually been in politics, observable by the public, since 1977. In those 39 years, she has manifested a belief that the elites like her are better than common plebes. No more reason they shouldn't watch us than a parent shouldn't watch a six year old; based on what her view seems to be.
Trump's public life has been all about drumming up publicity for his buildings and his brand, not about policy. I doubt he's thought much about public policy at all. He DOES have a huge ego. Such a big ego that he thinks a) he should be president and b) most of America will agree he should be president. Unfortunately all presidents have that megalomania.
First thing to do today: take that sticky note with your password on it and move it from the corner of your monitor so it covers the camera.
Clinton voted to invade Afghanistan and we wrecked that country - even more so than it was before, which is quite a feat.
She voted to invade Iraq and we wrecked that country - killing hundreds of thousands of civilians directly and indirectly.
She recommended invading Libya and we ruined that country.
Her next step would be military intervention in Syria. Because we have had such a good track record over there.
What's your definition of psychopathy?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
It looks like you and GP disagree, but you both bring up good points.
> The typical liberal is perfectly happy with concentrating power in the state - as long as they are running the state
Indeed. I posted here many times years ago reminding them that allowing President Clinton and then President Obama more amd more power meant that President Palin or President Trump would have more power soon. The nanny state doesn't seem so attractive when the nanny isn't someone you like.
> When Obama got into power, I assumed he'd be the typical liberal. Little did I know
Little did any of us know what any president would do. Conservatives and moderates were terribly disappointed in Bush Jr. As governor of Texas, Texas Democrats praised him for being so bipartisan, bringing people together. Informed people were surprised that damn movie actor elected in 1980 ended up being such an effective president. For those too young to remember, Reagan was a bit like electing Robert Pattison or Justin Bieber president, 36 years later every Republican claims to be the next Reagan. The friggin movie star ended up being THE great Republican president of a century.
The point is, trying to predict what a President's term will be like ahead of time is a fool's errand. We're always wrong, frequently very, very wrong. Trump even more so - he's never even thought about, much less articulated, public policy through his life. Just in the last few months he's made some comments, but as explained in his books those comments are calculated to get free press, they don't mean anything. He's been trolling CNN is all. What we've heard from him over the years is him drumming up publicity for his business, while believing that "any publicity is good publicity". What will he do on issue X? He has no idea, so certainly we don't know.
Poor AC is so misunderstood. Personally I found it hilarious. (source: Poe's Law)
Hanlon's Razor -- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
That's not how the internet works holy crap what are you doing here?
Clinton is of the same party, and has made a number of statements that align her closely with President Obama.
President Obama (re)imposed the (un)PATRIOT(ic) act on the US; if that doesn't give you a guiding sense of where the party is, and very likely where Mrs. Clinton is in terms of invasive surveillance, imposition on personal liberty, and constitutional malfeasance, I don't know what would.
Not to say President-elect Trump is likely to be any better, but inasmuch as his campaign was riddled with trivially disproved falsehoods, and in just the few days since the election, we've seen (at least) these radical pivots from him and/or his team...
o Not getting rid of pre-existing conditions or the ACA as a whole;
o Not dumping the banksters (met with them already to kill Dodd–Frank consumer protections)
o Not cleaning house (already hiring the most in- of the in-movers and shakers and lobbyists, for his team)
o Not actually building a wall, that was just figurative;
o No special prosecutor for Clinton ("what a great campaign she ran!");
o Making nice with President Obama after explicitly claiming he was the worst president ever;
o The whole "no-ties with Russia" thing, oops, lots of ties, plus wikileaks admitted by the Russians now;
o Going from "ultra-vet all Muslims at the border" to "we will not allow people in from terrorist regions"
What a weird set of circumstances.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because he doesn't consider himself bound by his prior statements, and his supporters don't hold him to them.
There are some things we know he won't do: build a border wall and make the Mexicans pay for it. There are other things we can be pretty sure he will do: lower taxes on the wealthiest people. But everything else will depend on how he feels that day.
There's a reason both liberal AND conservatives don't like him, because he's basically unprincipled. But similar conversations are going on on both sides to the effect: maybe we can exploit some of this situation to our advantage.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> People in the intelligence community might not be big Hillary supporters.
Plenty of people aren't "big Hillary supporters". To be a BIG supporter of hers you pretty much need to either be on her payroll on just not be paying attention. However, if your mission is national security, the completely unpredictable Trump is more worrisome for sure. He's not a politician, not a public policy guy. His public life has been all about being off-the-wall to drum up publicity for his businesses and his brand. Nobody, including Trump, knows what his positions will be on the important issues of the day. We only know that whatever he does, he does it BIG. Not big actually, HUGE! The biggest ever.
The folks at the NSA etc certainly have been allowed to do things they shouldn't, that's beyond question. Also, they are people, not monsters. They are people trying to figure out who is trying to buy nuclear material and what China's next step will be as they threaten our ships with jet fighters. 99% of them are people who try to use the excessive access they've been given to protect their country, which includes their families. Trying to do that, "who knows what President Trump will do, but it'll be HUGE" has to scare the hell out of them.
You voted for him.
Everything that he does for the next four years is your responsibility.
If that seems unfair, welcome to why I hate modern politics and think it's all bollocks. Were the opposing candidates any different in this regard? No, they never are.
How much crap did any other president / prime minister promise and then never do? How's Guantanamo's promised removal coming along? 15 years later..
You can't hand people power without also taking the responsibility for doing so, same way I can't just hire a guy, give him all my jobs and - when he doesn't do them - go "Not my fault".
If you didn't vote for him, maybe there's some kind of reprieve there for you. But, well.. apparently it's tough.
If 51% of the population voted for men to be the ones who needed to give birth, and 49% didn't, is it democracy to then use that vote to force men to give birth instead of women, to initiate Brexit, vote in a president, or anything else? I'd argue not.
But, hey, either voted for him (suck it up) or you didn't (not your fault, and nothing you can fix now for four years). Enjoy your democracy. It sucks.
There was me thinking that actually "best person for the job" should be the criteria rather than "person that most people think is funny".
We do not have direct democracy because that has been shown time and again to be a form of mob rule that we cannot afford.
Also interesting how you frame your comment as "they are" rather than "we are" because that is the actual problem with this country. So many divisions have been sown along the lines of identity politics, political parties and other artifically defined divided groups such that these groups feel compelled to amplify their rhetoric to attempt to wrest power from the others. These distortions have been promoted by three primary forces: political parties (Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and others), the media (MSM and social), and non-state actors (e.g. Koch Brothers, George Soros).
There are three branches of the federal government as well as fifty states and a number of territories. The founding fathers laid out the structure of government brilliantly as well as the means and justification to change it. If you want to solve the problems that you are asserting, then do what the founding fathers did when this country was under British rule. Employ the four boxes of liberty - soap, ballot, jury, (and as a true last resort) ammo. Start saying "we" rather than "they" and you might actually get the other "sides" to listen to you as you should listen to them. Work to change the prevailing culture while respecting the rule of law and you change the country without passing a single new law.
For the record, all four of the major presidential candidates are fatally flawed. Clinton and Trump are populist statists through and through, while Johnson and Stein are unrealistic idealists. None of these traits is suitable for the executive, legislative or judicial branches of government. The rest have fringe ideas that will never catch on. There were no winners this year no matter who prevailed in this election, least of all the American people.
Kiss goodbye to your bill of rights. All amendments will be striped away, except the second of course.
It seems like the part of the bill of rights americans care less about is the first amendment, even though it's the most important of all. On the other hand, they're ready to die to protect the second.
This is where the true nature of human beings comes out. Under the guise of "civilization", deep down inside, people are still just a bunch of prehistoric barbarian savages.
Would've happened with Clinton or Trump. It is the one thing the two big parties agree on. You wanted bipartisanship? There it is!
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
The cameras are gone, the show is over. He's now surrounded by people with urgent messages of dire need. They are concerned about trade, about national security, about oil, and about a popular revolt due to economic disparity.
He will do what he's told to do.
...omphaloskepsis often...
He's just listening in on the private conversations of people who are saying it.
Bark less. Wag more.
It is bothersome to me that he seems to have unconditional support at the moment from many.
Better hop over to 4chan and grab some copies of Melania's pics before they are gone.
Have gnu, will travel.
Trump lacks public policy experience. That's a big problem.
He built a $2 billion dollar business empire, with one of his first projects being razing rail yards and building a whole new neighborhood around his new luxury hotel. He can and does plan a project, quite well.
"When Obama got into power, I assumed he'd be the typical liberal. Little did I know he'd get very friendly with the expansion of the police state."
That's like saying:
"When Tom got into banking, I assumed he'd be the typical banker. Little did I know he'd like to work with money."
or
"When Paul got into boxing, I assumed he'd be the typical boxer. Little did I know he'd really enjoy hitting people."
When have liberals (the modern, government expanding kind) ever been shy about expanding the power of the police state?
Remember all those liberals decrying using force to make Christian bakers bake gay wedding cakes?
Me neither.
You haven't been paying attention.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I think its going to need a critical mass of super heros! (possibly with support from aliens from several galaxies far away - and we are not talking Ford galaxies, either).
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
>"The majority of Americans did not vote from Trump, he does not have legitimacy. "
The clear majority didn't vote for Clinton either. It is essentially a tie. But it doesn't matter. Our system uses the electoral college, and Trump is the OVERWHELMING winner.
>"The magic swing states were the ones who refused help securing electronic voting, and Trump is well connected to hackers."
Sorry, but it is FAR more likely the DNC would be involved in voter fraud. And electronic voting does NOT reduce fraud, it probably greatly hurts it.
And Slurm.
As most of the anti-trump vote came from women
Did it? In the bluest city of a blue state, my (very feminist) wife and every woman I know voted against Clinton (saying things like, "I'd love to see a woman as president, but not her."). Some of them even voted for Trump.
Trump may have an "R" after his name now, but he seems to be politically to the left of Hillary Clinton, and was a card-carrying Democrat until very recently. He's a NYC boy through-and-through and is certainly not a bible thumper.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Of course it is.
That is because those reading his post know that there are people who are so naive and stupid that they would sincerely post something like that. In addition, sarcasm only works in person or at the very least with voice. Text does not convey body language or inflection, which is why you have to add a winking emoticon or some such indicator.
That would be the one he bought, sold, bought back for $100 million, then sold ten years later for $1.8 billion.
Mr. Trump most certainly has his weaknesses. Unlike most presidential candidates, he has flaunted his arrogance. He also has his strengths.
He's unique amongst all the presidents of our lifetime in that he's not beholden to the people who financed his campaign. Mrs. Clinton, for example, was financed primarily by Wall Street banks. They pay her, she essentially works for them. A Trump presidency will be very interesting. Maybe bad, maybe good, probably some good and some bad - but definitely different.
There already should be public backlash against government surveillance, Trump or no Trump.
What makes you think there isn't a public backlash?
That you don't see it on the mainstream news? After this last election, where the mainstream newsies were acting COMPLETELY as an arm of the Democratic Party, and publicly exposed by Wikileaks, do you think that you'd ANYTHING about people being opposed to surveillance if the Democrats happened to be for it?
The main way The Press gets power is to create illusions about popular opinion and use them to fool those with power they directly wield. The most powerful tool in their box is to distort the appearance of some issue by NOT reporting things that support one side (if things are already going their way), sometimes mountain-from-molehill focusing on the occasional event that supports the other (when they need to get movement).
Think about it: YOU're opposed to it (aren't you)? Most here on Slashdot are opposed to it. Both tech *illionaires and rank-and-file are opposed to it. We have a major organization (the EFF) opposed to it - seeded by some deep-pocket techie winners and sustained by voluntary donations. People on social media have flamed about it. Do you hear a single word about these things (which you KNOW have happened) in the mainstream media - except to flame Apple for resisting being forced to build a back door?
Conservatives have known about this for years.
Second Amendment supporters - conservative or not - have been aware of it for decades.
Now that you've got an issue where you're at odds with the left-wing authoritarians (and the newsies' omissions and their deliberate nature have both been exposed on the Internet), you get to be aware of it, too. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wow. I didn't think there was ANYONE downright fucking stupid enough to fall for Crooked Liar Hillary!'s (may she rest in peace - NOT!) "Look! RUSSIAN squirrel!!!" attempt at distracting voters.
Without weighing in on Hillary, I point out that the evidence that the hacking was from Russia was actually reasonably good.
(The evidence that it was Russian state actors, and not just individual Russian hackers (of which there are many) is less solid.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect the others. The 1st protects the others!
We are not in the 1700s. The simple arms that citizens can amass are toys compared to what governments have available to them. Within 20 years combat drones will probably out number troops. The 2nd was really about well armed local militias instead of a centralized permanently standing army which was preferred because localized militias (armies) separate powers which is a common theme in all the founders work. Even that becomes out dated when anybody with the resources can manufacture an army.
It you look at how badly we have been doing in the middle east, the military grade guns are a problem but the bigger problems have been IEDs and insurgency tactics. The enemy is blended into the local population.... often it is locals we pissed off instead of "winning their hearts and minds" because a good insurgency leverages mistakes and arrogance of the bigger enemy (it is like a violent version of Ghandi's tactics.) Here in the USA even these tactics are more difficult because of the superior propaganda system and surveillance. Citizens freely give up privacy and would likely not fight if they had to give up their cell phones. Kids today are stupid enough to post videos of their crimes and/or their friends post it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I recommend it, too. Bad enough that the uneducated white men ruined the country once. They need to be watched. These people are just weird. Would they have voted for someone else they might have gotten federally funded universities without tuition that currently causes crippling debt. That would give them and their children the opportunity to take part in the modern labor market. No matter how many tax cuts and isolationist BS Trump & Co pull off, those manufacturing jobs don't come back. Where would they go? In factories that were left crumbling since 80's Reagonomics killed off US labor? And even if, how are goods and materials moved when the infrastructure is crumbling? Gee...seems as if not only Flint has too much lead in the drinking water....
I know it can be hard to define what 'left' and 'right' mean, but how can Trump be considered to the left? His environmental policy is to scrap the EPA and pull out of all international agreements on climate change, he has already said he plans to eliminate all federal funding for education, and on healthcare he wants to deregulate and transfer all management to the private sector. Doesn't look very left to me.
> Trump has also demonstrated a strange immunity. Time after time he says things that should ruin any American politician
Strange indeed. I don't know why that is. Of course you said "should ruin any American POLITICIAN." Trump isn't a politician, he's a promoter, a hype man. (And a deal maker.)
Your description of how national security people might think and feel about a candidate who represents real change is insightful. Mrs. Clinton, however, has been in politics since 1977. She's already spent TWELVE YEARS in the White House, and eight more in the Senate. 20 years in Washington and not a hint of doing anything about mass surveillance. It's outsider Trump who might change things.
This sounds like another reason to be glad Trump won. How else were we going to spur digital companies to behave a little better with our data?
Signing it this time around is Obama's fault. Period.
He didn't create it; but he perpetrated it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There was evidence that it was a group effort so that "individuals" bit doesn't fit, but that still doesn't mean they worked for Putin even if that's the most likely case. It could have been a bunch of civilian criminals instead of military ones.
> Trump's ego will never allow him to bow to other world leaders. Obama has spent two terms allowing himself and the country to be publically insulted and degraded by friend and foe.
For good and for bad, that's very likely true. Consider for example the Gold Star mom, Khizr and Ghazala Khan. He darn sure should have apologized, right away, then allowed Clinton's scandals to be back in the press. Instead he continued attacking her for a week. Like you said, "Trump's ego will never allow him", he can't control himself. That's worrisome.
Do you think your ISP can't see what you're posting? Do you think that the government doesn't work with ISPs to get access to what you're posting?
And before you mention that you use SSL and it's secure - no it's not It's not 100% secure. And even if it was, Trump has indicated that he'd want to "work with computer experts" to let the government get into encrypted communications the keep everyone safe. (Well, that's the reason they always give so that, if you oppose it, they can question why you don't want to keep people safe and thus so they can make YOU look like the bad guy.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You forget "con man". You'll realize that for yourself pretty shortly.
Anyway, the reason why such statements normally doom politicians is because normally voters have the sense not to destabilize politics on a national and global level by making the public antsy. Just merely by nominating him in the first place, these voters have done much damage... and winning the election... well, I personally think that Obama Nobel Peace prize should have been awarded to the voters, not Obama... but this year, Trump voters would be up in the running with perennial nominee N. Korea and Putin for the opposite, if it existed.
Someone had to do it.
This strategy of projecting strength will only serve to isolate the U.S. It is a dead end, a relic from last century, and anyone who knows anything about geopolitics knows no such strategy can only cause harm to everyone in today's world.
Someone had to do it.
You might be right. Can you think of any objective measurement we can look at in 4 years (or 1) to get some gauge regarding whether Trump's foreign policy is working?
While it is fair to blame uneducated white men (who apparently voted heavily for Trump) there is enough blame to go around.
How about the educated white (and nonwhite) folks who stayed home because they'd "feel awful voting for Clinton after Bernie"? Or who threw away their vote on a third party candidate? Or who couldn't be bothered to vote because the polls showed that Clinton would win without their vote?
Clinton won the popular vote and she lost the electoral majority by razor thin margins. Everybody who just "couldn't vote for her" despite despising Trump: Congratulations! You got what you deserve. Unfortunately, the majority of the voters did not get what they deserve.
Obviously next four (or eight) years would bring more surveillance to US. But it is not a Trump's fault. If i Clinton would win elections, it would be the same.
It' s just technical progress gives more opportunities to powers to make surveillance more widespread, and they would use these opportunities. In the US, in the EU, in the Russia etc, etc.
To change it to say person is to paint with as broad a brush as possible.
There really are some persons who oppose concentrating power in the state; i.e., they oppose statism.
They're not that hard to find.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Trump will bring Nixon's kind of surveillance back, therefore "Making America great again"!
Anyway, you know you are screwed when you hope the most an US President does is in line with the Nixon's administration.
At least then you can hope for a resignation eventually, right? *sobs*
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
Technically you're right, we "never set foot" in Libya, which didn't mean we didn't kill a bunch of people over there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Meanwhile, our intentions over there may have been... less than noble:
http://www.foreignpolicyjourna...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
If it lasts 4 years, the health of trade relations (like, how many countries have sanctions against us), how much war has broken out where we used to use our diplomacy to tamp such things down, how many countries consider themselves our allies, how many enemies, and how much territory has been seized from small countries by aggressor states like Russia, how much stateless terrorism has evolved using the U.S. as a bogeyman, the strength of the U.S. dollar and competitive measures against other reserve currencies, how many countries kick our embassies out... there are lots of such measures.
Someone had to do it.
You listed a lot of good things to look at. If you had to pick one or two objective measures to have an overall barometer, which would you choose?
By way of analogy, I wanted to compare presidential administrations based on the economy. There are many things you CAN consider about the health of the economy, but economic growth rate and unemployment rate were two simple, objective measures I could plot across time to get a general idea of how the economy was doing each year.
Would you say any of the items you listed could be used as a proxy to get a general measure of the overall health of foreign relations, in an objective way?
Originally it was just your long distance phone calls - any long distance phone calls, not just the ones overseas.
Now we track you inside the US and Canada and the EU and Aus/NZ and we "share" the data with the origin country so that it's a "foreign source", but we also record all of your data.
Even when you play World of Warcraft.
We love Snap by the way. We get those too. They lie to you that we don't.
How do I know this?
More to the point, how do you NOT know this.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --