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etalian
Mar 20, 2006

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?

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?).

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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etalian
Mar 20, 2006

CowOnCrack posted:

Not only spying on the German Chancellor but also evidence that Obama knew in 2010 and did nothing. I can't bear to watch the news anymore.

It's not even so much about whether this or that is right or wrong or justified. You can argue up and down all day about how this situation came about and whether it's justified within this or that bullshit worldview but in the end anyone can see this situation we have RIGHT HERE is hosed and must end.

Please, now let's see this exposed NSA beast slain, burned, and buried.

And God bless Edward Snowden.

I love how the shear volume of leaked documents is making it impossible for the US to just sweep it under the rug and even Alexander is getting meltdowns over journalists "selling" information for profi.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Kobayashi posted:

This is puzzling to me too. Reasonable people can disagree about whether such programs are necessary to "prevent terrorism," but what does Merkel have to do with that? And, more than that, the people who claim that this is just what spies do seem to imply that it's the US vs. everyone -- that "good will" as you say and inter-ally cooperation aren't important. I just don't understand that worldview.

It's more because the terrorism provides a good cover for spying on rivals such as Eurozone countries but also convincing the rivals to let the US setup a brick/mortar presence in their countries.

The reality is even allies spy on each other since they compete in many other areas such supplying military equipment or in economic deals.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

At least having a massive intel complex can help Obama play the ignorance game:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24698142

So basically one source says Obama knew about the phone tapping program but the NSA is trying to play damage control by claiming it continuing
running the operation without telling Obama.

quote:

"[General] Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel," NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said.

Regardless about the whole mindset of even allies going after each other for intel, the audacity and scale of the NSA operations meant sooner or later they would break the don't get caught rule.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Jazerus posted:

Plausible deniability is a thing. It is possible he had no idea and that the information gleaned from this particular source was amalgamated with other, less controversial sources in his briefings.

Do I think it's likely? Not really.

Even if it's true, it's still embarrassing since it shows Obama has zero control over a organization that is causing piles of potential blowback problems for the USA.

Sounds more like the NSA throwing themselves under the bus to protect Obama.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Paul MaudDib posted:

Once again, no, I really don't think the Germans have been tapping Obama's phone for the last decade.

Yeah, everyone has some low level tabs on everyone else just to be sure. That's worlds apart from wiretapping the leader one of our closest allies. Siphoning high-level state secrets from an "ally" for a decade is a huge deal.

I liked the GCHQ story too how they setup lots of honeypot traps during the G20 conference to harvest intel from allied countries such as Turkey and France.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

more friedman units posted:

Could you explain what would constitute economic or ideological threats?

Not blindly following US economic and political hegemony is a obvious threat.

Also sneaky Euros steal US business through bribes and other tricks in order to sell their inferior products:
http://cryptome.org/echelon-cia.htm

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Tezzor posted:

Greenwald linked this, it's Dana Perino, the prototype of the snide Aryan Republican Fox News lady, defending Obama and the NSA. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/shep-smith-nsa-dana-perino_n_4171384.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Greenwald uses this to demonstrate that insider status is more important than ideology as to the opinions of the media class, but that isn't even the interesting part, to me. The more interesting part is the top comment, from David Kronmiller, one of HuffPo's paid pundits:


So here we have a rapid-fire Gish Gallop of the most hackneyed and idiotic pro-NSA cliches imaginable, and it's the top comment on the most liberal precinct of the liberal media. I think that really makes the point better than some hack like Perino defending the MIC. Kronmiller is hardly an insider.

Oh boy it was a great goodman's law meltdown especially breaking the whole "Don't mention the war" rule, because of Hitler it's ok to spy on the germans.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Aurubin posted:

I recommend this Guardian op-ed by the former US ambassador to Croatia during the Clinton years, it sums up my position on this succinctly. I was never outraged by the fact that US Intelligence services were monitoring, it was Keith Alexander's "Collect it All" paradigm that I thought was a profoundly bad investigative strategy.

I like this part with the typical Snowden character assassination

quote:

In the field of intelligence, more is not necessarily better. In order to collect, analyze and use the vast quantities of data, the US government provides security clearances to hundreds of thousands of government employees and contractors.

The Obama administration is in its current mess because Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor doing billions of dollars of secret work for the government, gave a troubled 29-year-old high school graduate access to a vast array of secrets.

I think the administration is in a mess for another reason, maybe letting the intelligence complex grow without proper oversight or even worrying what would happen if all the secrets were brought to light?

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Aurubin posted:

Ha, my ideological blinders must be great because I don't remember reading that part. There was an extended Washington Post stor over the summer that investigated the metastasis of the intelligence community after 9/11 that was really telling. They interviewed an analyst who said how he was overwhelmed and everything was held together with string and hope while former NSA Director Dennis Blair was swimming through the piles of SIGINT Scrooge McDuck style.

Yeah it's somewhat amusing to see the NSA buy the whole quantity vacuum up the whole haystack argument, even though the insane amounts of data ended up overwhelming analysts as shown by being caught flatfooted by things such as the Syrian sarin attacks.

On a side note the NSA denies it was bulk collecting Eurozone phone calls:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...2dbc_story.html

Also USA is best in the world at providing intel apparatus oversight:

quote:

In reply to questions from Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the committee chairman, Clapper said flatly that U.S. allies, including members of the European Union, have engaged in espionage targeted at the United States. He said European policymakers and legislators often are not aware of everything their own intelligence agencies are up to and “may not have familiarity with exactly how their intelligence operations work.”

Clapper added that “there is no other country on this planet” that exercises oversight over intelligence activities to the extent that the United States does.

etalian fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 29, 2013

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Aurubin posted:

Alexander denied that it was the NSA directly spying on European countries, saying they got the info from their European counterparts. Quite frankly, I believe Alexander, at least partially. I don't know where to parse out where he's obfuscating, but I believe the foundations of his side.

I'm sure the old ECHELON system is just gathering dust after the Cold War and the NSA would never abuse its brick&mortar presence in the Eurozone to get some intel.

The sneaky jounralists can't read powerpoint slides

quote:

Apparently referring to a slide outlining the information, Alexander said the leaker and reporters “did not understand what they were looking at.”

Poor Alexander he puts so much effort into selling a certain talking point, only for it to get demolished by the next batch of leak articles.

etalian fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Oct 30, 2013

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Kid Gloves posted:

Oh man, some of the articles from the past few months are hilarious in light of this. Too bad so many of these government officials were anonymous, huh?

Lying Snowden exaggerated things claiming the NSA had direct access to any sort of data without judicial oversight!



It's so glorious seeing the NSA's web of lies and talking points fall apart with each new article. They basically targeted big US tech companies since the tech companies serve as a centralized handy fishing spot for data mining.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Tanith posted:

"Not to my knowledge"? Have we succeeded in compartmentalizing the NSA like a resistance cell?

NSA is beginning to basically resemble the nefarious organizations from the Splinter Cell series?

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

It doesn't have to be an SSL vulnerability. It could be fiber splicing, and/or someone within Google could be working for the NSA.

Yeah SSL isn't a end to end encryption system assuming you could do a man in middle type attack at the internal data center lines behind the demarc.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Tanith posted:

Or any other technothriller antagonist, for that matter. I meant having Alexander insulated from enough details so that he can truthfully dodge things while under oath, but then again, apparently lying to congress is no big deal anyway. :nsa:

Plus having the balls to claim the leaked information isn't accurate despite being covered in all the top secret stamps.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Tezzor posted:

I think the posters who were vigorously defending the NSA for months should at this point if not apologize for then at least gracefully retract their incredulous denunciations of Snowden and Greenwald as insane and lying for claiming things we now know to be true.

Yeah was great to see right wing authoritarian types so quickly denounce Snowden and Greenwald as exaggerating chicken littles. Also harping all the US government and media talking points about Snowden being a delusional narcissists who just leaked the information since he wanted to get rich.

Even though all their accusations turned true especially the direct access claim since the NSA is doing direct man in the middle attack on big US tech companies while at the time using the PRISM system to claim they are only raiding places like Google using proper judicial oversight.

etalian fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Oct 31, 2013

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Tezzor posted:

It wasn't right-wing types, though. As far as I could tell, every one of them was an Obama-voting liberal Democrat. Really the Snowden revelations have been as demonstrative in pointing out the systemic failings of political tribalism and the western media as they have been in pointing out the excesses of the NSA.

Yeah I guess it's somewhat amusing to see even democrats doing lots of mental gymnastics to justify their support of monster that started to grow exponentially under the Bush administration and also kept growing since Obama thought all the vacuum programs were a good idea.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

ClancyEverafter posted:

Just a fun aside, but Gellman apparently had to look pretty hard to find somebody with an NSA badge willing to go on record defending the latest revelation about data centers being compromised. John Schindler, the former NSA spook and current Navy War College teacher is a full on Snowden McCarthyite, or maybe an Angletonian. You can read all about it in this delightful post on his blog:

http://20committee.com/2013/09/04/snowden-nsa-and-counterintelligence/

Edit: oh and Wikileaks is a Moscow front organization :commissar:

Snowden was a secret Russian sleeper agent:

quote:

From nearly the outset I’ve stated that Snowden is very likely an agent of Russian intelligence; this was met with howls of indignation which have died down in recent weeks as it’s become apparent that Ed’s staying in Russia for some time, along with whatever classified materials he had on his person.

quote:

While there can be little doubt that the damage Snowden has wrought to the US and Allied SIGINT system is nothing less than immense, it will be some time before NSA and the US Government make any public pronouncements on such a touchy matter – not to mention that it will likely be several months yet before the Intelligence Community completes what will surely rank as the Mother of All Damage Assessments.

Maybe the damage can be blamed on something else such as creating more aggressive programs without worrying about blowback or assuming such programs would never be discovered?

etalian fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 31, 2013

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Heisenberg1276 posted:

Is this a joke or just complete ignorance? The royal charter comes from the Leveson enquiry which was started because the news of the world hacked Milly Dowler's phone and then it turned out they were hacking a whole load of other people too.

The separate thread has more good stories such as law enforcement bribery for good story leads but it's pretty much a response to the Murdoch monster getting out of control

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Elotana posted:

You missed the money quote:

So basically according to the UK doing investigative journalism as a way to influence policy changes is terrorism?

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Italy was the only big name country in the Eurozone to not join the data mining band wagon:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1102/Europe-spies-too-Leaked-documents-point-to-cooperative-surveillance-program

quote:

Citing a 2008 GCHQ country-by-country report, the Guardian said the British spies were particularly impressed with Germany's BND agency, which they said had "huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the Internet".

"We have been assisting the BND ... in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany," the GCHQ document said.

The British agency also praised France's DGSE agency and in particular its close ties with an unnamed telecommunications company, a relationship from which GCHQ hoped to benefit.

"We have made contact with the DGSE's main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some Internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena," the report said.

There was similar analysis of the intelligence agencies in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, with Spain's CNI praised for its ties with an unnamed British telecommunications firm and Sweden's FRA congratulated over a law passed in 2008 that widened surveillance powers.

Only Italy dissatisfied the British spies, who noted friction between competing agencies and legal limits on their activities, the Guardian said.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

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

I imagine the German BND will be in hot water soon given all the privacy protection laws.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Love Rat posted:

In Germany, someone might even do jail time. Imagine that, a country where rich and/or powerful people might actually serve time, unlike the US where laws are basically bent nearly to their breaking point.

While I'd never go as far as to say I'm happy, it's nice to confirm that, yes, mass surveillance is an issue affecting most of the developed world. Surprise! When spy agencies are granted or grant themselves power, they (gasp!) spy.

I like how Alexander is also selling the narrative about the Eurozone spying only being done in places such as "warzones" and in cases with full compliance with local laws.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006


If you ruffling the feathers of authoritarian israel worshipping neocons then you're doing something right.

I liked this flameware letter from the article too:
http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/02/email-exchange-with-alan-dershowitz.html

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

FORUMS USER 1135 posted:

The most amazing thing to me is how consistently all the news outlets seem to be working together to troll the poo poo out of the NSA, and there doesn't seem to be anything they can do about it. We consistently get about 1-2 articles per week, with one article detailing a vague release (last week - NSA has a tap at the SSE port for Google and Yahoo's internal clouds), the NSA apologists try to be vague and make statements along the lines of "We aren't breaking any laws! We aren't breaking into Google's servers! Only court-ordered taps!" Then, BAM! Today's WaPo report seems to me that it shows collected internal Google protocols and how they have active decryption of data inside Google's network, data that didn't leave the internal network.

You saw the same thing with the phone tapping. Week 1, its that we are tapping phones in Europe (NSA: Just terrorists!). Week 2, Oh we also tapped Merkels phone.

And every single release this entire summer has played out this way. Its really putting much needed egg on the face of the government, and Glenn Greenwald deserves a goddamn Pulitzer for getting this story.

Even better I love how the leaks prove the NSA is actively trying to subvert judical and legislative oversight, they pretty much say outright they see foreign telecom fiber lines as a handy loophole to exploit:

quote:

Intercepting communications overseas has clear advantages for the NSA, with looser restrictions and less oversight. NSA documents about the effort refer directly to “full take,” “bulk access” and “high volume” operations on Yahoo and Google networks. Such large-scale collection of Internet content would be illegal in the United States, but the operations take place overseas, where the NSA is allowed to presume that anyone using a foreign data link is a foreigner.

Outside U.S. territory, statutory restrictions on surveillance seldom apply and the FISC has no jurisdiction. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has acknowledged that Congress conducts little oversight of intelligence-gathering under the presidential authority of Executive Order 12333, which defines the basic powers and responsibilities of the intelligence agencies.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Aurubin posted:

He mentions 9/11 a bunch in his ruling. Sad that all you have to do is invoke that and people still jump.

EDIT:

Hell go back to 1920 and scream anarchists you get the same response. Then fascist, then commie, then terrorist. Worrying that the labels are getting even more generic, even when communist was distorted beyond recognition during the Cold War.

Even better his ruling cites the threat by Al Qaeda even though the whole concept was mainly a US invention.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

shrike82 posted:

I guess I feel sorry for him. It's a bit less than a year and the NSA disclosures haven't really led to any meaningful change in the intelligence apparatus/security policy in the US.
The general public and media has shrugged and move on.

He's given up his entire life and is likely to become a permanent political hostage for Putin.

His video question to Putin was so horribly scripted along with the predictable Putin "we're not like the USA" response.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

On a side note I loved John Oliver's hardball interview with Keith Alexander:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lJ85pfb_E

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

MacheteZombie posted:

Is his show any good? Been meaning to watch it.

The only government agency that really listens

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Elotana posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQqv0v14KKY

We know baseband processors are insecure as poo poo, use ancient, proprietary code, and there's a very good probability that the NSA has backdoors; Qualcomm makes drat near all of them and they are one of the NSA's "strategic partners." We also know this was definitely the case in 2004.

From the G8 conference leak the NSA was able to upload malware to the smartphones of delegates from other countries and it's pretty much a given that they have found lot of backdoors into the phones over the years.

It's not technology that was built from the get-go to be secure like a military product.

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etalian
Mar 20, 2006

The only thing harmed by the leaks was Obama's attempt to sell his administration as something different than the previous one.

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