the issue is not legal. it is technical and philosophical
in your house, you have privacy. there are walls, and doors, and any access to that area is controlled by you. you can expect privacy there and intrusions on that privacy are real and outrageous. expectation of privacy in your home is philosophically real and valid, since it is a space you control and usurping that natural control is obviously morally wrong. it is from this obvious and natural arrangement being imposed upon by government authorities do we find the moral and legal means for disallowing the government their attempts to usurp your privacy
ok, now what is the internet?
on the internet, you are sending out packets of information on a wide open network. with the express purpose of COMMUNICATING with other people. do i need to say anymore? with those two observations right there, don't you begin to feel some cognitive dissonance when you expect "privacy" from that arrangement?
would you expect privacy if you went into a train station and started shouting out your thoughts as hundreds walked past? that's pretty much the internet. where does the notion of privacy even fit in? not legally, but philosphically, where is the notion of privacy in this arrangement? there is none. privacy is simply philosophically and technically impossible, simply due to the nature of what you are talking about
the internet is pretty much the inverse of privacy. the very idea of privacy on the internet, a wide open COMMUNICATION network, is like asking for dry water, or dark sunlight: an absurdity. not a legal absurdity, it is deeper than that, it is a technical and philosophical absurdity. such that talking about the government invading your privacy on the internet is byeond the point: there's no privacy that existed in the first place to invade
to expect privacy on the internet is to not even understand what the internet is
stubbornness and ignorant outrage are not valid replacements for intelligence
to argue anymore with you would be an exercise in intellectual charity i am not willing to engage in
i didn't even read your whole post, i got as far as "Do you believe they give an encrypted phone to everyone Obama would ever call, even in Africa?" and stopped reading
i would like to explain the stupidity of this remark to you, but, as i said, lack of intelligence is lack of intelligence
you represent the idea of giving encrypted phones to people as something i need to defend in order to make my point, which only means you don't even understand my point. so what more needs to be said to you really?
But if you're trying to determine whether a user has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" for their identity online, the whole point is that it's not like a street address in the phone book -- users do expect that their identity cannot be discovered by someone who knows their IP address, at least not without subpoenaing their ISP.
i don't know about you, but i have no expectation of privacy for my identity online, and frankly, i don't know why anyone, especially the technically astute on slashdot, would have such an expectation. if i wanted to hide my identity, i would use Tor... just like the commentary says. if i don't use Tor, i have no expectation that what i am doing online is private. why do you?
and i'm not talking about policies and procedures of the government, i'm talking about any random yahoo of questionable motivation and privy to ip logs. this can be the government, it can also be a miscreant like a hacker who breaks into a webserver, it can be a webmaster of questionable ethics, it can also be a website i do business with interested in selling my private information. i know for a fact that if i make a purchase online, that my ip address is being explicitly logged for fraud purposes. i don't believe, in any way, that i have any privacy on the internet
in fact, one of the worst offenders here is google. think about what you've typed into google in the past 3 months. random musings, personal concerns, professional interests... as a running list, its a pretty good profile of some of the deepest secrets of your identity. anyone reading that list can even triangulate psychological truths about yourself perhaps in ways better than even you yourself understand yourself. and google is explicitly keeping this information. and maybe you use gmail, which represents even a larger treasure trove of such insights. put it all together: you have no privacy on the internet
the internet, in fact, pretty much represents the great assault on the very notion of privacy ever to exist in human history. honestly, if you want privacy, stop using the internet, or surf in complete incognito (which can be a pain in the ass at times)
i think the commentator is fighting a war which has long been lost, regardless of how the government operates. what the government thinks and how it operates CAN and SHOULD be attacked, by all means. but the idea of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" about anything you do on the internet is absurd. i know what i search for and what i visit is recorded and can be stitched back together, by all sorts of entities, not just the government
"even if they are in Africa, just to say hi, the spooks deliver a special encrypted phone to that person prior to the call. Oh wait, no they don't. That's your imagination"
you honestly don't believe russia or china engage in espionage?
and i'm the one with an overactice imagination and a thick skull
please, continue to lecture me on the lack of interest of foreign governments in obama's personal communications
gateway was once dell's main competitor in the 1990s
one of the things that did them in was their foray into retail business. colossal failure
now they don't even sell direct anymore, no internet or phone sales. all of their retail stores are closed. and i believe they were bought by another company recently
so if you cheer microsoft's downfall, cheer their foray into retail sales: its a boondoggle
in countries with freedom of the press and democratic voting, bad apples are reported, and fought
meanwhile, in places like china, the govt controls the press, and is not held accountable to the people, because there is no democratic feedback. in such places, the will of the people is constantly being oppressed. because the government doesn't represent the will of the people, it only represents the will of the ruling elite
that cameras in a public place are a good thing. you just alluded to camera tapes popping up and proving misconduct. you just proved what i said, that one random bad apple in the system can't get away with hiding proof. so thank you for proving my point!;-P
no camera: hearsay case. word of cop versus word of citizen. end of story
camera: as PROVEN IN THE CASE OF THE BRAZILIAN IN THE UK, now there is a TAPE somewhere which objectively proves official misconduct. that tape is hidden, destroyed? but this is a compounding crime, this is another crime that can be pursued on top of the original shooting! the camera HELPS FIGHT OFFICIAL MOSCONDUCT
ie, you are GLAD the camera is there because it HELPS fight the official misconduct
are you ready to concede? you are in your OWN WORDS pointing to the camera providing evidence agains tofficisal misconduct. so you are HAPPY the camera is there. right?
dude. go to wikipedia. type in "espionage". follow the pretty links. educate your ignorant self. here endeth the intellectual charity for you about spywork and communications
Multiple congressional investigations have uncovered evidence that White House appointees regularly communicate using email accounts provided by the Republican Party. As CREW has argued, such activity violates the Presidential Records Act, which requires that the White House preserve such records.
Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued letters to the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign directing them to preserve all emails by and for White House officials, and to meet with the committee about the legal issues involved in conducting official government business using partisan email accounts. From Waxman's letter:
The e-mails of White House officials maintained on RNC e-mail accounts may be relevant to multiple congressional investigations. For this reason, the Committee directs you to preserve all e-mails sent or received by White House officials using e-mail accounts under your control.
In addition, the Committee requests that you or your designee meet with Committee staff during the week of April 2,2007, to discuss the following five matters:
- Who has access to the e-mail accounts maintained by the RNC; [...]
- What steps have been taken to preserve the e-mail accounts maintained by the RNC that have been used by White House officials;
- What assurance can the RNC provide the Committee that no e-mails involving official White House business have been destroyed or altered.
As Waxman points out in his letter, communications between criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and White House officials were conducted via nongovernmental e-mail accounts. "In at least one case, the e-mails indicate that these nonofficial accounts were being used because 'to put this stuff in writing in their e-mail system...might actually limit what they can do to help us.'"
it was never kosher, bush using these channels
when discovered that the bush white house was using these communication channels, it was shock and revulsion time
please, ramble on about jack bauer and demonstrable wrongness
no data would touch canada. it would have the https and the tripe DES and all the usual blackberry bells and whistles that your typical ceo knows and loves
and yet still, there you have it: the highest communications in the usa hopping around on a protocol canadians designed and the whole world understands
no, sorry, god bless canadians, i have nothing against canada. but if there is going to be info going out on the open airwaves from the highest levels of the american government, that network and that protocol will be nsa designed and nsa implemented and airtight and tightlipped
why?
because its the most secure communications of the usa. i would expect moscow and the kgb to have the same attitude. i would expect beijing and the peoples liberation army to have the same attitude too
on communications at that security level, no expense would be spared by a major world power
this isn't ceos babbling about sensitive r&d. this isn't ctos babbling about trading platforms. this is the goddamn government dealing with the most sensitive goddamn stuff you can imagine. it is deadly serious. you don't seem to get that
stop all streaming video of "ratatouille" and blog posts of rat porn, and start serving up content that rats don't like. introduce random packets of lolcat jppegs, maybe streaming video of "mrs frisby and the rats of nimh". you'll soon find the rats aren't as interested anymore at chewing into your cables to get to the content on your network, as they will find it unappealing
meaning, wrongdoing is wrongdoing, and will be found, and punished
not: wrongdoing is the permanent unstoppable force that defines how you and i should think about our captalist financial institutions and democratically elected governments
its as simple as this: corruption works in sofar as the people accept it. the more people accept it as a fact of life, the more corruption there is. the less who accept it, the less there is. to figth corruption, you must not accept it. and which of us is arguing for its acceptance here?
the only one in this conversation accepting, and therefore remaing compliant and unprotesting to corruption, is you. i am the one saying it will be fought constantly, and will never be accepted or define our reality. you are saying it will always be there, and defines our limits. therefore, by your acceptance of this evil, you are helping it exist
freedom is not something that once fought for, remains untouchable. freedom is something which is constantly being eroded, and must constantly be fought for to exist, for all time. therefore, i am still fighting it. meanwhile, you have given up, and accepted the loss of your freedom
which means you're a cynical useless asshole. very common and typical. cynicism is never a replacement for intelligence
stop giving into cynicism. speak of hope and beating back corruption, be a fucking man. don't be pathetic and weak and arguing for the acceptance of limits on your freedom. that is all you are doing right now
because he and his cohorts knew what they were talking about was a political liability. there's not protection from a president who is keeping secrets from his own people. that's an entirely different scenario than a president engaging in personal but politically harmless communications
"Your fantasies about foreign spies gaining "fascinating psychological data" from his email that isn't available from his books or non-scripted speaking events is fun, but simply that, fantasy."
so there's no dedicated teams in the cia right now gleaning every little snippet of information they can get their hands on any way possible about hu jintao? ahmadinejad? bin laden? putin?
and russia, or china: they'll just stick to watching c-span to find out about obama?
i wished i were that clueless and naive. the world would be such a cotton candy place
there is a concept called "discovery". in which the evidence the prosecution or the defense has must be shared with the other party
but why do i think that protects me? they control that to. "they" control everything. its an airtight conspiracy of criminal masterminds. all out to get me!
because the 20-30 odd government employees with access to those cameras are part of a monolithic airtight conspiracy of evil masterminds with the immovable goal of completely destroying your privacy, just for the hell of it
your DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government, believe it or not, is composed of mostly well-meaning dimwitted folk who are, believe it or not, actually trying to do good by you. there are bad apples. but they are not alone, and they are discovered. well-meaning folks make colossal mistakes. but they are also discovered, and the mistakes are cleaned up
no wait, i'm sorry. they are emperor palpatine and agent smith. yeah, that's it. i apologize for shining a little sunlight of reality into your b-grade hollywood paranoid fantasy life about the government out to take away all of your liberties while they laugh maniacally
carry on, ignore me. i'm some sort of nutcase, obviously, for not believing my government is out to get me
what i mean by that is, any communication of yours meant to be private that can be intercepted and used against you is a national security concern. there is a reason his daughters have secret service agents: someone could hurt his children, or threaten to hurt them, and by extension, influence national policy. his communication with them by extension is vulnerable to interception, manipulation, etc. all sorts of fascinating psychological data about the president can be gleaned form his "private" communications on a common network, no matter how "secure". if he really is still using a well-known network for private vulnerable communications, you bet your ass foreign espionage services are stumbling over themselves getting their hands on those messages to mine for intelligence and psychological angles to work on the president
i would be incredibly surprised if obama was allowed to use any common carrier or protocol, even the relatively secure blackberry, the keys to which are owned by a canadian, ie, foreign, company. you really think they would let him do that? you really think obama himself isn't mindful of this threat?
no. i really would be hard pressed to believe obama is using a plain old blackberry. and if not a sectera, then a modded and retooled blackberry on a completely different network using a completely different protocol. doesn't have to be james bond Q type gadgetry, just something unique to the federal government and guarded by nsa spooks. because ALL of his communications, including his "private" ones, are that vital to national security
in which case, we need gorillas to take care of the snakes. and that's the beautiful part. when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death
i think he has a sectera edge, which is a sort of military grade blackberry. as such, you can bet he is immune from the kind of attack mentioned in the summary
1. the sectera has civilian and military network abilities, so it would be doubly redundant to have both a blackberry and sectera, since a sectera is pretty much already a blackberry+
2. since we are talking about top level extremely sensitive communications, rumors about the reality of his communication device is all any of us will hear about, as a rule. and probably with purposeful misdirection about what obama is actually using thrown in to boot: let the yokels believe what they want to believe about his communication device and the "stories" aka myths about him keeping his blackberry. uh huh. anyone, anywhere, writing about what obama is using is either guessing or lying. the more the certainty and conviction they have about what his communication device is, the sillier they are. the only people who know for sure what obama is communicating with on the go are probably a few tight-lipped spooks at the nsa. and if they talk, they are about to lose their job and are going to be heavily prosecuted about disclosing obviously extremely senstive national security details of obama's mobile communication situation. all obama cares about is the convenience of qwerty keyboard email on the go in a cellphone. switch a real blackberry with a sectera edge, he is happy. he's married to the convenience, not an actual brand of device
3. but i think most convincingly, when someone talks about obama keeping his "blackberry", i think they are using the word "blackberry" the way some people use "xerox": that is, like the word xerox has become a rough synonym for copying a piece of paper, i think blackberry is so ubiquitous now, any shiny brick with a full qwerty keyboard can be called a "blackberry" in common parlance, or soon will be. that's all the sectera edge is: a blackberry rip off with ultrahigh security. and that's most probably what obam is using
the sort of abuse you allude to exists before or after cameras?
obviously, this sort of abuse existed before cameras, and does not need cameras to exist
now the question is: do the cameras enable this sort of behavior?
i say: it does
so... i am agreeing with you?
no, because now we also have PROOF OF THE ABUSIVE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOR
where before the cameras, it was just unproveable unaccountable government spooks in the shadows, it was just he said versus she said in the court of law, and the government always has more credibility than some random yahoo being abused
now, we have governments doing abusive things to their citizens (which they did before the cameras) and now we also have DEFINITIVE PROOF OF THE ABUSE
your fallacy is you see these cameras enabling abusive government behavior... that somehow never existed before?
no: this abusive behavior always existed, and would exist with or without the cameras. all that changes with the cameras is a solid objective track record of the abusive behavior
as if removing the cameras protects you from this pettiness?
the way i see it, the more you record, the more you observe and keep as objective records, the more the truth has a chance to come out in the end
without anyone recording anything, all one has to go on is he said versus she said
and in fact, in this specific case you cite, rather than just some government spook following them around, now we have electronic records of the local government's involvement
in other words, the existence of this snooping can now be used to prosecute the local government, just as surely as ti was used against the citizens
see that? double edged sword
before such recordings, it was just people's words against each other, and the government always gets more credibility versus some random citizen's words
without the electronic records, the government could get aweay with this despicable behavior free and clear
but now, in the end, the local government's pettiness is observed just as much as their creepy surveilance observes
so thank you for your anecdote. it supports my assertions
it can be used as proof to exonerate you from frames and punitive blind prosecution in more ways than it can be manipulated to make you seem culpable
if it is the word of the government versus a citizen, the citizen needs witnesses on his side since the government is seen as more credible. i'll take street cameras supporting my version of the story over a scenario of just my word versus the government's word, any day
i must be some sort of alien, as i can't fathom this sort of paranoia. to me, what you just said strikes of insanity. i really hate to break this to you, but no one really cares about you that much. you're not worth the effort. and neither am i
anyone who IS worth the effort: "they", the government, were they that wrathful, can just fabricate anything they want. such that the existence or lack of the cameras provides no protection either way
the salient feature of your rationale, to me, that is insane, is that the government is some sort of domineering force hellbent on subjugating you for... no real reason at all. just because that's what governments do? funny, i though governments governed
to me, the government is made up of bumbling well-meaning but clueless bureaucrats, not archvile evil mastermind stock hollywood villains, which is the only basis by which what you just wrote has any validity
i seriously question your sanity and those of everyone who rated you up. and yet, there it is: you are rated up, and i am rated down. i am the oddball, not you
i'm utterly awe struck at this
what the hell is wrong with the world that so many people live in such irrational fear of their own government, as you obviously do?
irrational fear, that's all i see in your words. alternatingly hilarious and scary. i fear that so many so-called men are such cowering pantywaists when it comes to the meanign and purpose of their own fucking democratically elected government
Slashdot Mirror
the issue is not legal. it is technical and philosophical
in your house, you have privacy. there are walls, and doors, and any access to that area is controlled by you. you can expect privacy there and intrusions on that privacy are real and outrageous. expectation of privacy in your home is philosophically real and valid, since it is a space you control and usurping that natural control is obviously morally wrong. it is from this obvious and natural arrangement being imposed upon by government authorities do we find the moral and legal means for disallowing the government their attempts to usurp your privacy
ok, now what is the internet?
on the internet, you are sending out packets of information on a wide open network. with the express purpose of COMMUNICATING with other people. do i need to say anymore? with those two observations right there, don't you begin to feel some cognitive dissonance when you expect "privacy" from that arrangement?
would you expect privacy if you went into a train station and started shouting out your thoughts as hundreds walked past? that's pretty much the internet. where does the notion of privacy even fit in? not legally, but philosphically, where is the notion of privacy in this arrangement? there is none. privacy is simply philosophically and technically impossible, simply due to the nature of what you are talking about
the internet is pretty much the inverse of privacy. the very idea of privacy on the internet, a wide open COMMUNICATION network, is like asking for dry water, or dark sunlight: an absurdity. not a legal absurdity, it is deeper than that, it is a technical and philosophical absurdity. such that talking about the government invading your privacy on the internet is byeond the point: there's no privacy that existed in the first place to invade
to expect privacy on the internet is to not even understand what the internet is
stubbornness and ignorant outrage are not valid replacements for intelligence
to argue anymore with you would be an exercise in intellectual charity i am not willing to engage in
i didn't even read your whole post, i got as far as "Do you believe they give an encrypted phone to everyone Obama would ever call, even in Africa?" and stopped reading
i would like to explain the stupidity of this remark to you, but, as i said, lack of intelligence is lack of intelligence
you represent the idea of giving encrypted phones to people as something i need to defend in order to make my point, which only means you don't even understand my point. so what more needs to be said to you really?
But if you're trying to determine whether a user has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" for their identity online, the whole point is that it's not like a street address in the phone book -- users do expect that their identity cannot be discovered by someone who knows their IP address, at least not without subpoenaing their ISP.
i don't know about you, but i have no expectation of privacy for my identity online, and frankly, i don't know why anyone, especially the technically astute on slashdot, would have such an expectation. if i wanted to hide my identity, i would use Tor... just like the commentary says. if i don't use Tor, i have no expectation that what i am doing online is private. why do you?
and i'm not talking about policies and procedures of the government, i'm talking about any random yahoo of questionable motivation and privy to ip logs. this can be the government, it can also be a miscreant like a hacker who breaks into a webserver, it can be a webmaster of questionable ethics, it can also be a website i do business with interested in selling my private information. i know for a fact that if i make a purchase online, that my ip address is being explicitly logged for fraud purposes. i don't believe, in any way, that i have any privacy on the internet
in fact, one of the worst offenders here is google. think about what you've typed into google in the past 3 months. random musings, personal concerns, professional interests... as a running list, its a pretty good profile of some of the deepest secrets of your identity. anyone reading that list can even triangulate psychological truths about yourself perhaps in ways better than even you yourself understand yourself. and google is explicitly keeping this information. and maybe you use gmail, which represents even a larger treasure trove of such insights. put it all together: you have no privacy on the internet
the internet, in fact, pretty much represents the great assault on the very notion of privacy ever to exist in human history. honestly, if you want privacy, stop using the internet, or surf in complete incognito (which can be a pain in the ass at times)
i think the commentator is fighting a war which has long been lost, regardless of how the government operates. what the government thinks and how it operates CAN and SHOULD be attacked, by all means. but the idea of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" about anything you do on the internet is absurd. i know what i search for and what i visit is recorded and can be stitched back together, by all sorts of entities, not just the government
"even if they are in Africa, just to say hi, the spooks deliver a special encrypted phone to that person prior to the call. Oh wait, no they don't. That's your imagination"
you honestly don't believe russia or china engage in espionage?
and i'm the one with an overactice imagination and a thick skull
please, continue to lecture me on the lack of interest of foreign governments in obama's personal communications
oh, how i have been utterly defeated
lol
by the matrix you-are-nothing-but-a-duracell-battery argument
how can i possibly win against such earthshattering stoner insight into reality?
are you broadcasting from zion?
zzz
with the cow pattern boxes?
gateway was once dell's main competitor in the 1990s
one of the things that did them in was their foray into retail business. colossal failure
now they don't even sell direct anymore, no internet or phone sales. all of their retail stores are closed. and i believe they were bought by another company recently
so if you cheer microsoft's downfall, cheer their foray into retail sales: its a boondoggle
in countries with freedom of the press and democratic voting, bad apples are reported, and fought
meanwhile, in places like china, the govt controls the press, and is not held accountable to the people, because there is no democratic feedback. in such places, the will of the people is constantly being oppressed. because the government doesn't represent the will of the people, it only represents the will of the ruling elite
that cameras in a public place are a good thing. you just alluded to camera tapes popping up and proving misconduct. you just proved what i said, that one random bad apple in the system can't get away with hiding proof. so thank you for proving my point! ;-P
no camera: hearsay case. word of cop versus word of citizen. end of story
camera: as PROVEN IN THE CASE OF THE BRAZILIAN IN THE UK, now there is a TAPE somewhere which objectively proves official misconduct. that tape is hidden, destroyed? but this is a compounding crime, this is another crime that can be pursued on top of the original shooting! the camera HELPS FIGHT OFFICIAL MOSCONDUCT
ie, you are GLAD the camera is there because it HELPS fight the official misconduct
are you ready to concede? you are in your OWN WORDS pointing to the camera providing evidence agains tofficisal misconduct. so you are HAPPY the camera is there. right?
"as you wisshh"
dude. go to wikipedia. type in "espionage". follow the pretty links. educate your ignorant self. here endeth the intellectual charity for you about spywork and communications
as for bush:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/26/rnc-emails-waxman/
it was never kosher, bush using these channels
when discovered that the bush white house was using these communication channels, it was shock and revulsion time
please, ramble on about jack bauer and demonstrable wrongness
zzz
no data would touch canada. it would have the https and the tripe DES and all the usual blackberry bells and whistles that your typical ceo knows and loves
and yet still, there you have it: the highest communications in the usa hopping around on a protocol canadians designed and the whole world understands
no, sorry, god bless canadians, i have nothing against canada. but if there is going to be info going out on the open airwaves from the highest levels of the american government, that network and that protocol will be nsa designed and nsa implemented and airtight and tightlipped
why?
because its the most secure communications of the usa. i would expect moscow and the kgb to have the same attitude. i would expect beijing and the peoples liberation army to have the same attitude too
on communications at that security level, no expense would be spared by a major world power
this isn't ceos babbling about sensitive r&d. this isn't ctos babbling about trading platforms. this is the goddamn government dealing with the most sensitive goddamn stuff you can imagine. it is deadly serious. you don't seem to get that
stop all streaming video of "ratatouille" and blog posts of rat porn, and start serving up content that rats don't like. introduce random packets of lolcat jppegs, maybe streaming video of "mrs frisby and the rats of nimh". you'll soon find the rats aren't as interested anymore at chewing into your cables to get to the content on your network, as they will find it unappealing
today, madoff is being punished
meaning, wrongdoing is wrongdoing, and will be found, and punished
not: wrongdoing is the permanent unstoppable force that defines how you and i should think about our captalist financial institutions and democratically elected governments
its as simple as this: corruption works in sofar as the people accept it. the more people accept it as a fact of life, the more corruption there is. the less who accept it, the less there is. to figth corruption, you must not accept it. and which of us is arguing for its acceptance here?
the only one in this conversation accepting, and therefore remaing compliant and unprotesting to corruption, is you. i am the one saying it will be fought constantly, and will never be accepted or define our reality. you are saying it will always be there, and defines our limits. therefore, by your acceptance of this evil, you are helping it exist
freedom is not something that once fought for, remains untouchable. freedom is something which is constantly being eroded, and must constantly be fought for to exist, for all time. therefore, i am still fighting it. meanwhile, you have given up, and accepted the loss of your freedom
which means you're a cynical useless asshole. very common and typical. cynicism is never a replacement for intelligence
stop giving into cynicism. speak of hope and beating back corruption, be a fucking man. don't be pathetic and weak and arguing for the acceptance of limits on your freedom. that is all you are doing right now
because he and his cohorts knew what they were talking about was a political liability. there's not protection from a president who is keeping secrets from his own people. that's an entirely different scenario than a president engaging in personal but politically harmless communications
"Your fantasies about foreign spies gaining "fascinating psychological data" from his email that isn't available from his books or non-scripted speaking events is fun, but simply that, fantasy."
so there's no dedicated teams in the cia right now gleaning every little snippet of information they can get their hands on any way possible about hu jintao? ahmadinejad? bin laden? putin?
and russia, or china: they'll just stick to watching c-span to find out about obama?
i wished i were that clueless and naive. the world would be such a cotton candy place
there is a concept called "discovery". in which the evidence the prosecution or the defense has must be shared with the other party
but why do i think that protects me? they control that to. "they" control everything. its an airtight conspiracy of criminal masterminds. all out to get me!
zzz
more edification for you:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1125851&cid=26834453
mindless paranoia and cynicism is not a valid substitute for real intelligence
because the 20-30 odd government employees with access to those cameras are part of a monolithic airtight conspiracy of evil masterminds with the immovable goal of completely destroying your privacy, just for the hell of it
your DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government, believe it or not, is composed of mostly well-meaning dimwitted folk who are, believe it or not, actually trying to do good by you. there are bad apples. but they are not alone, and they are discovered. well-meaning folks make colossal mistakes. but they are also discovered, and the mistakes are cleaned up
no wait, i'm sorry. they are emperor palpatine and agent smith. yeah, that's it. i apologize for shining a little sunlight of reality into your b-grade hollywood paranoid fantasy life about the government out to take away all of your liberties while they laugh maniacally
carry on, ignore me. i'm some sort of nutcase, obviously, for not believing my government is out to get me
there is no such thing as personal use
what i mean by that is, any communication of yours meant to be private that can be intercepted and used against you is a national security concern. there is a reason his daughters have secret service agents: someone could hurt his children, or threaten to hurt them, and by extension, influence national policy. his communication with them by extension is vulnerable to interception, manipulation, etc. all sorts of fascinating psychological data about the president can be gleaned form his "private" communications on a common network, no matter how "secure". if he really is still using a well-known network for private vulnerable communications, you bet your ass foreign espionage services are stumbling over themselves getting their hands on those messages to mine for intelligence and psychological angles to work on the president
i would be incredibly surprised if obama was allowed to use any common carrier or protocol, even the relatively secure blackberry, the keys to which are owned by a canadian, ie, foreign, company. you really think they would let him do that? you really think obama himself isn't mindful of this threat?
no. i really would be hard pressed to believe obama is using a plain old blackberry. and if not a sectera, then a modded and retooled blackberry on a completely different network using a completely different protocol. doesn't have to be james bond Q type gadgetry, just something unique to the federal government and guarded by nsa spooks. because ALL of his communications, including his "private" ones, are that vital to national security
in which case, we need gorillas to take care of the snakes. and that's the beautiful part. when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death
no cameras:
governments capriciously abuse their citizens. no proof
cameras:
governments capriciously abuse their citizens. objective proof of such abuse exists
see the difference?
i think he has a sectera edge, which is a sort of military grade blackberry. as such, you can bet he is immune from the kind of attack mentioned in the summary
slashdot noted this already, with the rumor that he has a blackberry and a sectera. this is absurd because:
1. the sectera has civilian and military network abilities, so it would be doubly redundant to have both a blackberry and sectera, since a sectera is pretty much already a blackberry+
2. since we are talking about top level extremely sensitive communications, rumors about the reality of his communication device is all any of us will hear about, as a rule. and probably with purposeful misdirection about what obama is actually using thrown in to boot: let the yokels believe what they want to believe about his communication device and the "stories" aka myths about him keeping his blackberry. uh huh. anyone, anywhere, writing about what obama is using is either guessing or lying. the more the certainty and conviction they have about what his communication device is, the sillier they are. the only people who know for sure what obama is communicating with on the go are probably a few tight-lipped spooks at the nsa. and if they talk, they are about to lose their job and are going to be heavily prosecuted about disclosing obviously extremely senstive national security details of obama's mobile communication situation. all obama cares about is the convenience of qwerty keyboard email on the go in a cellphone. switch a real blackberry with a sectera edge, he is happy. he's married to the convenience, not an actual brand of device
3. but i think most convincingly, when someone talks about obama keeping his "blackberry", i think they are using the word "blackberry" the way some people use "xerox": that is, like the word xerox has become a rough synonym for copying a piece of paper, i think blackberry is so ubiquitous now, any shiny brick with a full qwerty keyboard can be called a "blackberry" in common parlance, or soon will be. that's all the sectera edge is: a blackberry rip off with ultrahigh security. and that's most probably what obam is using
the sort of abuse you allude to exists before or after cameras?
obviously, this sort of abuse existed before cameras, and does not need cameras to exist
now the question is: do the cameras enable this sort of behavior?
i say: it does
so... i am agreeing with you?
no, because now we also have PROOF OF THE ABUSIVE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOR
where before the cameras, it was just unproveable unaccountable government spooks in the shadows, it was just he said versus she said in the court of law, and the government always has more credibility than some random yahoo being abused
now, we have governments doing abusive things to their citizens (which they did before the cameras) and now we also have DEFINITIVE PROOF OF THE ABUSE
your fallacy is you see these cameras enabling abusive government behavior... that somehow never existed before?
no: this abusive behavior always existed, and would exist with or without the cameras. all that changes with the cameras is a solid objective track record of the abusive behavior
its a double edged sword
before cameras?
as if removing the cameras protects you from this pettiness?
the way i see it, the more you record, the more you observe and keep as objective records, the more the truth has a chance to come out in the end
without anyone recording anything, all one has to go on is he said versus she said
and in fact, in this specific case you cite, rather than just some government spook following them around, now we have electronic records of the local government's involvement
in other words, the existence of this snooping can now be used to prosecute the local government, just as surely as ti was used against the citizens
see that? double edged sword
before such recordings, it was just people's words against each other, and the government always gets more credibility versus some random citizen's words
without the electronic records, the government could get aweay with this despicable behavior free and clear
but now, in the end, the local government's pettiness is observed just as much as their creepy surveilance observes
so thank you for your anecdote. it supports my assertions
is a double edged sword
it can be used as proof to exonerate you from frames and punitive blind prosecution in more ways than it can be manipulated to make you seem culpable
if it is the word of the government versus a citizen, the citizen needs witnesses on his side since the government is seen as more credible. i'll take street cameras supporting my version of the story over a scenario of just my word versus the government's word, any day
and you are modded 5 insightful?
i must be some sort of alien, as i can't fathom this sort of paranoia. to me, what you just said strikes of insanity. i really hate to break this to you, but no one really cares about you that much. you're not worth the effort. and neither am i
anyone who IS worth the effort: "they", the government, were they that wrathful, can just fabricate anything they want. such that the existence or lack of the cameras provides no protection either way
the salient feature of your rationale, to me, that is insane, is that the government is some sort of domineering force hellbent on subjugating you for... no real reason at all. just because that's what governments do? funny, i though governments governed
to me, the government is made up of bumbling well-meaning but clueless bureaucrats, not archvile evil mastermind stock hollywood villains, which is the only basis by which what you just wrote has any validity
i seriously question your sanity and those of everyone who rated you up. and yet, there it is: you are rated up, and i am rated down. i am the oddball, not you
i'm utterly awe struck at this
what the hell is wrong with the world that so many people live in such irrational fear of their own government, as you obviously do?
irrational fear, that's all i see in your words. alternatingly hilarious and scary. i fear that so many so-called men are such cowering pantywaists when it comes to the meanign and purpose of their own fucking democratically elected government