Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Powercrazy posted:

Suspect or not, Being put on a no-fly list with secret justification and no way to challenge is a problem.

Remember you become a suspect and are pre-judged guilty based on the metadata, nothing else.

Oh I'm sure that once they've seen some metadata connecting you to Bin Laden through a couple of steps they'll have no compunction about starting to collect all your content data as well, and use that to even further justify their putting you on whatever lists they like. Also, the no fly list is quite literal (and I use the word advisedly) McCarthyism but that might not be entirely on-topic in a discussion about surveillance overreach.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2013 19:56

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:01

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Seriously though, real live is not a freaking Tom Clancy novel as I'm now starting to fear some people appear to believe :psyduck:

EDIT:

Tubgirl Cosplay posted:

Look guy you just don't get it, it's spying. Spies gonna spy, thieves gonna steal, birds gonna fly. Right there in the name, you can't very well expect them to not spy unless you hate them for being American or something. There is no point in having a problem with anything because stuff simply is, ethics is an illusion of the mind. Have you considered that you should just let go and appreciate the world around you for its own beauty?

Pretty much what I was trying to say. "Of course everyone is spying on everyone else unrestrained by any ethical considerations whatsoever, it's just what's going to happen anyway and anybody who doesn't is just too weak to do it/lacking the capability. Didn't you read Hunt for Red October? It's a dog-eat-dog world out there!" Seriously, I honestly can't think of any way to explain this mindset except by "too many Tom Clancy novels." :stare:

PrBacterio fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Oct 27, 2013

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 21:33

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

etalian posted:

quote:
Only Italy dissatisfied the British spies, who noted (...) legal limits on their activities, the Guardian said.

What were they thinking, not legal limits on the spying activities of intelligence agencies, who'd even think of such an travesty :argh:

# ¿ Nov 2, 2013 20:12

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Powercrazy posted:

You can always leave those. You can't leave the US Sphere of influence.

That's kind of a naive view ignoring economic realities though. While this is still true to an extent right now, a lot of a person's chances of success in this society are based on entirely circumstancial poo poo about their personal lives and their willingness to go along with expectations. Read the "economic coercion" thread, which is more about how poorer people are subject to systemic forces limiting their options, and then realize that even the relatively more well-off are not immune to economic pressures.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 15:58

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Brannock posted:

the "heh, you didn't already know about this? plebs."

Oh come on, we were being decried as conspiracy theorists and nutters for years on end, so now that this whole thing has blown up out in the open through leaks at least give that one little thing to us

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 19:11

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Well, it does seem to me that it's fairly obvious that with the proliferation of remote-controllable cameras and microphones into everybody's pockets that would lead to widespread government surveillance of them, and that even the capability to do so (which was previously, before the leaks, only demonstrated in the context of criminal prosecutions, but the ability itself is what's problematic) would, by necessity, lead to widespread abuse.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 19:32

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:01

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Aurubin posted:

Entire agency whose SIGINT priorities have switched from analog to digital. Man who barely uses analog communication devices. It's the other reason mass surveillance of digital communications is a wrong-headed approach.

Eh I'm fairly sure that if there was any chance for something like the Arab spring uprisings to happen any time soon in a western country, i.e. Europe or America, or maybe another civil rights movement, or anything of the sort, they'd be able to nip that poo poo right in the bud with the surveillance apparatus now in place by institutions like the NSA, so I'd say it's serving its purpose perfectly well. Your mistake is assuming the purpose of these things has anything at all to do with any actual or imagined "security threats."

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 18:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)