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Until the advent of the computer era and the Internet, surveillance was, by the standards of government, a relatively costly endeavor. Tapping phone lines required the redirection of individual lines, paper documents had to be intercepted physically, and storage was always at a premium. States that had the capability to monitor all electronic communication, like Gaddafi era Libya, were seen as the aberration. Not anymore. Today virtually all technologically capable nations, not simply those seen as “oppressive”, operate sweeping monitoring programs. The ease of digital storage, as well as the centralization of electronic communication via fiber optic sea cables, has drastically reduced the barriers to pervasive surveillance. The justifications for programs like these are usually to prevent criminal or terroristic events, but can just as easily be turned against the populace as a means of control. At the same time, the advent of the Internet and the speed at which information can be disseminated has lead to an era where forced transparency and the want for secrecy readily clash. Back room discussions leak with increasing frequency and completeness, often tainting the official narrative, for better or worse. Compromise, if it occurs at all, must be done in the open. That is infinitely harder. To quote United States Secretary of State John Kerry, “The Internet makes it hard to govern.” The fact that relatively low level analysts like Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning and Edward Snowden can walk off with entire archives of classified data is rightly terrifying for the state, not merely for reasons of maintaining control, but because the fruits of diplomacy are predicated on the construction of an artificial narrative, something that blunt intelligence reports always lack. That dissonance is at the heart of society, and radical transparency is simply something new. At the same time, the capability for mass surveillance is as well. The dueling of these two ideas is one of the key issues at this point in human history. This is a thread for the discussion of the events and ideas surrounding the spectre of mass surveillance in today’s era. We live in a time where the Internet has peeled back the curtain on everyone, pleb and patrician alike. This has caused a radical restructuring of how we deal with events, from things like the Arab Spring, the Chinese Great Firewall, and PRISM. How we deal with things like this deserves debate. 2013 Mass Surveillance Disclosures On June 6th of this year, the Guardian newspaper along with The Washington Post presented evidence that the United States was collecting the phone metadata from all Verizon customers. Along with this was evidence of an internet monitoring program, PRISM, in which the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) were hooked into the systems of major email and software providers such as Google and Microsoft. The sheer scale of the intake, as well as the lack of filtration, was what raised alarm. The man who leaked these programs, Edward Snowden, came forward on the 14th of June. Since then disclosures about the nature of the espionage by the US and it’s allies has been in the media almost weekly. His reasoning for disclosing these programs was to spark a debate about the changing nature of surveillance, especially when they are divorced from the democratic process. Resources Wikipedia article about mass surveillance by country-> The included legal and moral rationals are worth discussing Wikipedia summary of the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures-> Very detailed, excellently collated Timeline of NSA surveillance disclosures and surrounding legal matters by the Electronic Frontier Foundation-> All the way back to 1791! Summary of disclosures and articles related to the topic by The Guardian All New York Times articles collated by their relation to the NSA World Reactions, using Photography! Brazil     Germany    THIS IS MY PROTEST GRIMACE United States       United Kingdom  
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Oct 11, 2013 00:28
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WHAT THIS THREAD IS
WHAT THIS THREAD IS NOT
(this space reserved for stories as the occur) 10/10/2013-Sensenbrenner introduces his own bill to curb NSA spying, calls for indictment of Clapper 10/10/2013-Report about the tightening of press freedoms in the US under Obama 10/10/2013-Nick Clegg apparently trying to get review of spying powers 10/10/2013-The CIA felt Snowden was a security risk in 2009 10/11/2013-NSA veterans feel that the White House is not defending them vigorously enough Aurubin fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 00:29
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Welcome to the new normal.
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Oct 11, 2013 07:32
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I'd like to request that we stop using "metadata" as if it's somehow different from "data" in any meaningful way. It lets the pro-surveilence side off by diminishing the severity of intrusion (like, who cares about "metadata" what even is that anyway?). It's also a functionally meaningless difference. If the NSA has a list of all the people that I've emailed, they call it "metadata", but if I write down the names of everyone that I've called this month on a Post-It and the NSA gets a hold of it, it suddenly becomes "data". There's no legal or technical basis for what is "metadata" vs "data", except for author-asserted circumstances (i.e., circumstances that don't apply in this case).
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Oct 11, 2013 14:55
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I look forward to being a part of this discussion and contributing greatly. Im putting this post as a bit of a placeholder for a short history of cryptography in relation to surveillance and about the cypherpunk movement. E: Things came up and Im glad to see this thread revived, feel a bit remiss there is nothing here atm, but starting to write it. Jacobin fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 16:19
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Aurubin posted:10/10/2013-Sensenbrenner introduces his own bill to curb NSA spying, calls for indictment of Clapper quote:Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act – or USA Freedom Act I wonder how long it took them to think of that name.
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Oct 12, 2013 04:11
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Wow I had no idea this thread had been restarted, why the hell is the last post on the 11th? The last thread had more than a hundred posts a day about this, not including Fishmech replies. Let's get this poo poo train rolling again, shall we? First up: Dianne Feinstein's Bragging About NSA Surveillance Program May Finally Result In It Being Declared Unconstitutional Majority Decision posted:...if the Government intends to use or disclose information obtained or derived from a §1881a acquisition in judicial or administrative proceedings, it must provide advance notice of its intent, and the affected person may challenge the lawfulness of the acquisition.... Thus, if the Government were to prosecute one of respondent-attorney’s foreign clients using §1881a-authorized surveillance, the Government would be required to make a disclosure.... In such a situation, unlike in the present case, it would at least be clear that the Government had acquired the foreign client’s communications using §1881a-authorized surveillance. So if we use these amazing new surveillance powers, we'll tell defendants. Everyone agrees this is reasonable, and in the previous thread it was argued vehemently by some that this decision made it all a-ok above the board totally normal surveillance. Dianne Feinstein posted:I've asked the staff to compile arrests that have been made in the last four years in America on terrorist plots that have been stopped. And there are 100 arrests that have been made since 2009 and 2012. There have been 16 individuals arrest just this year alone. Let me quickly just review what these plots were. And some of them come right from this program. The counterterrorism come and the information came right from this program. And again, if Members want to see that they can go and look in a classified manner. Well what have we here? A Senator on the intelligence committee who has direct knowledge of these things makes a really big claim about the programs efficacy. See you guys? The system works, we totally stopped some terrorists by reading everyones phone logs. That must mean that in the court records the government had to have revealed the collection of this data to the defense and that the collection was ruled lawful, right? Well, lets just go through the records and take a quick look. We even have names so the cases are even easier to find! Hey, wasn't the reason that the Supreme Court said Amnesty International couldn't bring their case was because they couldn't prove that anyone had actually been a victim? Oh wait.... quote:In a prosecution in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., against two brothers accused of plotting to bomb targets in New York, the government has said it plans to use information gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, which authorized individual warrants. But prosecutors have refused to say whether the government obtained those individual warrants based on information derived from the 2008 law, which allows programmatic surveillance. quote:Mr. Verrilli sought an explanation from national security lawyers about why they had not flagged the issue when vetting his Supreme Court briefs and helping him practice for the arguments, according to officials. quote:Notwithstanding that she was speaking in support of reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Senator Feinstein did not state, and she did not mean to state, that FAA surveillance was used in any or all of the nine cases she enumerated, including Mr. Daoud's case, in which terrorist plots had been stopped. Rather, the nine cases the Chairman sumamrized were drawn from a list of 100 arrests arising out of foiled terrorism plots in the United States between 2009 and 2012 compiled by the staff from FBI press releases and other public sources. 
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Oct 23, 2013 04:57
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Yet another reason Feinstein is the worst senator. I hope she gets Alzheimer's assuming she doesn't have it already.
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Oct 23, 2013 16:25
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This Jacket Is Me posted:I'd like to request that we stop using "metadata" as if it's somehow different from "data" in any meaningful way. It lets the pro-surveilence side off by diminishing the severity of intrusion (like, who cares about "metadata" what even is that anyway?). It's also a functionally meaningless difference. If the NSA has a list of all the people that I've emailed, they call it "metadata", but if I write down the names of everyone that I've called this month on a Post-It and the NSA gets a hold of it, it suddenly becomes "data". There's no legal or technical basis for what is "metadata" vs "data", except for author-asserted circumstances (i.e., circumstances that don't apply in this case). There is an enormous functional difference between collecting the metadata of "this guy called this guy at this time" and recording the call itself. You can make qualitative arguments as to why you think placing a pen register on everyone in the US is not rational or moral. But at the end of the day it's pretty much impossible to argue that a pen register is not a less severe intrusion than actual eavesdropping, and straight up false to assert that there isn't a bright line between data and metadata.
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Oct 23, 2013 17:09
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He is correct that it is functionally a meaningless difference. People get put on lists for metadata even if the ACTUAL data was harmless. If I had called Osama Bin Laden the day before the SEAL raid, and said "oops sorry wrong number" then hung up, I'd probably be on a no-fly list at very the least. Either way the data is immaterial as far as investigation and trial evidence is concerned, if they have already pegged you as a person of interest, which again is based on metadata.
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Oct 23, 2013 17:24
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What I'm wondering is, for the average middle-class person in America, is it even possible to live a normal life and not be surveyed constantly? Using e-mail, cellphones, and social networks are practically an indispensable way of life for most people in America, but it seems like the only way to avoid having all of your data grabbed is to live in a bunker and communicate through TOR (which didn't I read was broken recently or something?).
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Oct 23, 2013 17:29
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the posted:What I'm wondering is, for the average middle-class person in America, is it even possible to live a normal life and not be surveyed constantly? Not really from all the leaks the NSA has developed a wide range of tools for easy surveillance of things such as internet traffic or data mining facebook.
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Oct 23, 2013 17:32
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the posted:What I'm wondering is, for the average middle-class person in America, is it even possible to live a normal life and not be surveyed constantly? No. It has been fairly difficult to escape observation even in the late 90's these days it is actually impossible, but complacency etc means that as long as you are keep your head down, you (probably) won't end up disappeared, and if you do, well I guess you were just unlucky. Nothing we can do right? Lets just keep voting for people like Feinstein because we are loving idiot sheep and think that she is somehow better than an 'other'.
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Oct 23, 2013 17:45
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Powercrazy posted:He is correct that it is functionally a meaningless difference. People get put on lists for metadata even if the ACTUAL data was harmless. If I had called Osama Bin Laden the day before the SEAL raid, and said "oops sorry wrong number" then hung up, I'd probably be on a no-fly list at very the least. Either way the data is immaterial as far as investigation and trial evidence is concerned, if they have already pegged you as a person of interest, which again is based on metadata.
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Oct 23, 2013 18:58
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:So, you're arguing we shouldn't investigate people who call Osama bin Laden because some of those calls might be accidental? Transparency is all I'm asking for, but ideally no, we shouldn't be criminalizing someone for who they associate with.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:03
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Isn't there a name for that?
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Oct 23, 2013 19:06
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:What? Are you seriously suggesting that there is no legal or technical distinction between metadata and data? Do you understand what a pen register is and why it is legal? There really isn't that big a functional difference. It's an outdated legal distinction that made sense in the 1950's but doesn't now, for a host of fairly obvious reasons, starting with "in 1950 phones weren't personal tracking devices." You can still draw lines if you want but it isn't at all clear that extensive metadata tracking is somehow less invasive than the words of a given call; in many cases for many calls the metadata might be far more informative than the call itself.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:08
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.htmlquote:Germany says U.S. may have tapped Merkel's phone. http://t.co/hNaBnT26jX White House is categorically denying this, but I doubt Germany would publicly accuse the US of something of this magnitude if they didn't have at least a pretty solid amount of evidence
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Oct 23, 2013 19:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There really isn't that big a functional difference. It's an outdated legal distinction that made sense in the 1950's but doesn't now, for a host of fairly obvious reasons, starting with "in 1950 phones weren't personal tracking devices." You can still draw lines if you want but it isn't at all clear that extensive metadata tracking is somehow less invasive than the words of a given call; in many cases for many calls the metadata might be far more informative than the call itself. For this matter the third-party doctrine as a whole is clearly broken. Let me quote Justice Sotomayor's concurring opinion in Jones: quote:More fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. E.g., Smith, 442 U. S., at 742; United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443 (1976) . (bolding and reflowing mine)
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Oct 23, 2013 19:26
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Powercrazy posted:Transparency is all I'm asking for, but ideally no, we shouldn't be criminalizing someone for who they associate with.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:29
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Calling Osama bin Laden shouldn't automatically make you a criminal, no, but you're insane if you think it shouldn't make you a criminal suspect. It really shouldn't, given that the NSA tracks these things out to three hops (Bin Laden calls Person C, Person C calls Person B, Person B calls Person A, therefore Person A is a criminal suspect for communication with a terrorist). Almost every single person in the world is connected by less than six hops, so you're talking about treating a significant percentage of the world population as criminal suspects. That's inherently counter to the idea of fourth amendment protections, you shouldn't be able to declare half the world as criminal suspects in one go. quote:The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 19:33
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the posted:What I'm wondering is, for the average middle-class person in America, is it even possible to live a normal life and not be surveyed constantly? Even if something NSA-impenetrable existed, it wouldn't matter if it's difficult to incorporate into your average life. You just have to make something inconvenient, and that thing will fall on the wrong side of the security-usability spectrum. I fully expect the US government to come up with a law to 'opt out' of something (through an inconvenient process) so the NSA can both keep its goodies and push the moral burden of privacy onto the people they're spying on.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:34
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Paul MaudDib posted:It really shouldn't, given that the NSA tracks these things out to three hops (Bin Laden calls Person C, Person C calls Person B, Person B calls Person A, therefore Person A is a criminal suspect for communication with a terrorist). Almost every single person in the world is connected by less than six hops, so you're talking about treating a significant percentage of the world population as criminal suspects. That's inherently counter to the idea of fourth amendment protections, you shouldn't be able to declare half the world as criminal suspects in one go.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:44
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Calling Osama bin Laden shouldn't automatically make you a criminal, no, but you're insane if you think it shouldn't make you a criminal suspect. Remember you become a suspect and are pre-judged guilty based on the metadata, nothing else.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:49
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Powercrazy posted:Suspect or not, Being put on a no-fly list with secret justification and no way to challenge is a problem.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:56
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With the amount of spying we now knows goes on for imperial purposes, talking about this program as counter terrorism is misleading and something those running the programs would prefer. Sure, it may be used for counter-terrorism incidentally, but it's appearing increasingly clear that this is a program of imperial economic espionage that has been sold as counter-terrorism.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:04
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Let's catch up with the people working overtime to make government surveillance more transparent. Clapper Memo Reveals Rationale Behind NSA Review Group Secrecy. Clapper sends out a memo regarding the group Obama set up to explore NSA transparency, the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Looking for any information about what the group discussed at their last meeting? Oops: Clapper posted:Disclosure of minutes, notes, or other records may reveal information that reasonably could be expected to cause damage to national security. Which is funny because "classified information was not discussed at any of the review group’s meetings held over the past month, according to statements attendees gave to the AP and The Guardian."
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Oct 23, 2013 20:08
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quote:The fact that relatively low level analysts like Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning and Edward Snowden can walk off with entire archives of classified data is rightly terrifying for the state
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Oct 23, 2013 20:11
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Aurubin posted:At the same time, the advent of the Internet and the speed at which information can be disseminated has lead to an era where forced transparency and the want for secrecy readily clash. Back room discussions leak with increasing frequency and completeness, often tainting the official narrative, for better or worse. Compromise, if it occurs at all, must be done in the open. That is infinitely harder. To quote United States Secretary of State John Kerry, “The Internet makes it hard to govern.” The fact that relatively low level analysts like Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning and Edward Snowden can walk off with entire archives of classified data is rightly terrifying for the state, not merely for reasons of maintaining control, but because the fruits of diplomacy are predicated on the construction of an artificial narrative, something that blunt intelligence reports always lack. That dissonance is at the heart of society, and radical transparency is simply something new. Why bother having a democracy if I, a citizen who votes in representatives to help represent my interests, cannot have access to all the information the members of the US government have?
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Oct 23, 2013 21:45
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Because certain poo poo needs to be kept secret in order to prevent Americans from getting murdered? I'm all for reforming the clearance process. Far fewer low-level clearances should be getting handed out, and related background investigations ought to be far more thorough. But lets keep the "NO GOVT SECRETS!!!!" bullshit out of this thread.
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Oct 23, 2013 23:28
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^ This is what passes for reform in the American consciousness. Leaked documents show government wrongdoing? Clearly the problem here is insufficient protection of those documents.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:03
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Tezzor posted:^ This is what passes for reform in the American consciousness. Leaked documents show government wrongdoing? Clearly the problem here is insufficient protection of those documents. Also the statement "Preventing Americans from getting murdered" sure is a great excuse in defense of an organization that is often criticized for murdering Americans.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:13
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Fiend posted:Also the statement "Preventing Americans from getting murdered" sure is a great excuse in defense of an organization that is often criticized for murdering Americans. Are you implying the Government of the United States is following dudes into alleyways and stabbing them? Murder is a crime between individuals.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:16
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Tezzor posted:^ This is what passes for reform in the American consciousness. Leaked documents show government wrongdoing? Clearly the problem here is insufficient protection of those documents.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:18
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Discussions about "you called Bin Laden 10 minutes before he was captured" or "let's give 100% of all information to everybody" completely miss the point. Of course there are some things the government should be able to keep secret, and of course there's a level of association at which it would make sense for the FBI to begin investigating you. The problem is that in 2013 both of these things are calibrated in completely ridiculous ways that give the government far too much power with far too little accountability. Check my previous post, the group established with the theoretical goal of making the NSA more transparent can't release its minutes or what it's discussing because of nebulous danger to National Security.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:24
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this_is_hard posted:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html So I'm not particularly impressed with Snowden and Greenwald because they seem to be going beyond their self-appointed mandate of protecting civil liberties if they're also leaking US Intelligence operations including spying on other countries, also known as "that thing that security and intelligence agencies are supposed to do." Regardless of the veracity of the claims it strikes me as being done not because of the ideology that they and their supporters repeatedly espouse but rather out of petty spite and a desire to hurt US interests even if they're irrelevant to civil liberties.
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Oct 24, 2013 01:41
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quote:The German government said it responded after receiving "information that the chancellor's cellphone may be monitored" by U.S. intelligence. It wouldn't elaborate, but German news magazine Der Spiegel, which has published material from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, said its research triggered the response. This was originally reported by Der Spiegel based on their own research. I'm not finding anything that links this to Greenwald or Snowden's leaks. This is about as problematic as the NYT doing research to find out that Germany is tapping Obama's phone. Can you point out the part where Snowden or Greenwald engandered U.S. interests here or did you mean to make that post with regard to some other leak that isn't represented on this page?
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Oct 24, 2013 02:06
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Sancho posted:I wonder how long it took them to think of that name. Sensenbrenner sure loves his Uniting and Strengthening America bills. A USA Freedom Act to counter the USA Patriot Act would be nice for the history books though I guess.
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Oct 24, 2013 02:34
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Fojar38 posted:So I'm not particularly impressed with Snowden and Greenwald because they seem to be going beyond their self-appointed mandate of protecting civil liberties if they're also leaking US Intelligence operations including spying on other countries, also known as "that thing that security and intelligence agencies are supposed to do." Regardless of the veracity of the claims it strikes me as being done not because of the ideology that they and their supporters repeatedly espouse but rather out of petty spite and a desire to hurt US interests even if they're irrelevant to civil liberties. Other people have civil liberties too. I see no moral reason to write off the civil and fair economic rights of people if they exist outside our borders and are of no conceivable threat to us. Security agencies are supposed to work for security, not operate as the petty functionaries of economic imperialism, and as a US citizen I fully support hurting these "interests." I mean, look at this. You're not even claiming that this is going to put anybody in physical danger, just whining that somebody has the gall to meaningfully oppose underhanded US hegemony. Tezzor fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 03:13
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Fojar38 posted:So I'm not particularly impressed with Snowden and Greenwald because they seem to be going beyond their self-appointed mandate of protecting civil liberties if they're also leaking US Intelligence operations including spying on other countries, also known as "that thing that security and intelligence agencies are supposed to do." Regardless of the veracity of the claims it strikes me as being done not because of the ideology that they and their supporters repeatedly espouse but rather out of petty spite and a desire to hurt US interests even if they're irrelevant to civil liberties. But what security is gained from spying on Merkel? I mean, sure, they are supposed to find out what other countries are doing, but "national security" can't exactly be used as a justification here.
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Oct 24, 2013 03:22
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