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Post by angra on Jun 8, 2013 12:42:54 GMT 10
US authorities have admitted to the three big Guardian scoops these last few days. - Domestic Telephone metadata being sucked up (and not just Verizon) - Major Internet companies have their user data accessed via PRISM (emails, social media, skype, photos, web searches and who knows what else) - Targeted cyber-attacks given executive authorisation. On PRISM, the tech companies named have all denied involvement. www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-08/tech-giants-condemn-online-spying/4741846SO is this a question of one side lying? Probably not. Deep packet inspection of traffic going through major ISP routers would probably give the NSA what they want, without the companies involved knowing anything about it. They've done it with major US Banks for some time. lauren.vortex.com/archive/001040.htmlI doubt if they're copying everything. Probably caching it, running a keyword search algorithm, then picking up just the stuff that looks interesting, like if you send Mum a picture of your cat which is called Bomb. Would be some interesting tech behind it all considering the speeds and traffic volumes involved. |
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Post by angra on Jun 8, 2013 13:27:07 GMT 10
Where's Frohike when you need him to stop these damn liberal whingers from crying?
"Langly: [unsuccessful at stopping a baby crying] We tried everything. We fed him. We changed him. I even read him bedtime stories about the F.B.I.'s illegal collection of internet surveillance data.
Melvin Frohike: This kid refuses to negotiate.
Yves Adele Harlow: Even you're not that stupid, Frohike. He won't quit crying until you give him what he wants.
Melvin Frohike: [shares a look with Langly, then they glance at Yves' chest] Free the prisoners."
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Post by angra on Jun 9, 2013 10:59:40 GMT 10
The Guardian is ramping up it's revelations about the NSA. It's just posted an article about Boundless Informant - the NSA's top level data mining interface. They've even posted screen shots. They must have a pretty high-level whistleblower to be giving them this level of detail. If I worked for the Guardian I'd be worried about a drone strike round about now. This must be really pissing-off the cousins. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining# |
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Post by angra on Jun 9, 2013 11:34:21 GMT 10
There's a new slide posted from the PRISM presentation which shows they (NSA) have multiple means of access, including tapping fibre and direct access to servers, so either some company bosses don't know what's going on under their noses, or they're telling porkies. Plus of course they can't admit to anything or they'd be breaking the law as the NSA has them by the balls.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 9, 2013 12:56:48 GMT 10
"The Guardian is ramping up it's revelations about the NSA"
I just want to say that my lack of posts on that subject has nothing to do with any implied approval. The IRS thing was a beat-up, to a large extent. The benghazi thing is pure theatre. The AP wiretaps were extremely troubling. But this ... this does appear to be just like the stuff that bush did.
So .... obama is no better, at least on domestic surveillance. He's worse on unaccountable drone strikes (which are unaccountable largely because they ARE drone strikes, and the world still seems to be struggling to figure out how to deal with those ... I bet they'll get very interested the moment that a russian or chinese drone kills an enemy of the country of origin).
Obama screwed up. I understand the guantamo failure - it's kind of hard to close something if your congress goes and passes laws making it impossible, if not outright illegal, to close guantanamo. But nobody's forcing him to tell his executive to do the sorts of things that gave perle, wolfowitz and cheney wet dreams.
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Post by angra on Jun 10, 2013 5:42:06 GMT 10
The Guardian names the source of the NSA leaks - Edward Snowden - who explains at length his background and why he leaked the documents. He's holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong, just down the road from the US embassy.
Funny this story is all across the US media ("it's bigger than Watergate!"), senior officials and even the President have been forced to issue explanations and justifications, there is debate in Congress, calls for investigations etc., yet virtually no coverage of any of this by the Murdoch press, and what little there is hidden away well below stories about Rudd and Gillard, Prince Harry, the Wiggles and climate change skepticism.
The UK have admitted that GCHQ have helped with the interceptions and are sharing data with the NSA. You can bet Pine Gap and ASIO are in this as well, but any investigation of this? Basically anything you say or do on the internet is accessible by the spooks - plus any phone call you make. I'd have thought this is worth at least a 'freedom of speech' angle, but we mustn't upset the US.
Shows where the right's mouthpieces priorities lie.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 10, 2013 12:20:49 GMT 10
"it's bigger than Watergate!"
Jeeze - what isn't, these days. Open a google page and type "bigger than watergate" and see the suggestions.
Everything is bigger than watergate now. I'm thinking it needs to be added to some sort of political-discussion godwin list. If somebody reckons that something is bigger than watergate, then chances are that they don't quite realise what watergate was actually about.
As always, the daily show rips that meme to bits quite beautifully
And it even has some video of Col Ralph Peters (ret), one of my very favorite fox news wind-up dolls. That guy is so full of sh1t that I'd be very surprised if he doesn't see everything in sepia. I don't know what he was "Col" of, but I hope it wasn't any military that I might ever need to rely on - 'coz that guy is evidently clueless. But he's got the requisite "look" of a steely-eyed missile man and a rank that he can trade on to het-up people who don't know any better, so he's perfect for fox.
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Post by angra on Jun 11, 2013 4:52:23 GMT 10
Congressman Peter King (Rep, NY) has called for the extradition of Snowden to the US to face the full force of the law. "The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum. This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence." Ironic, since King has a history of supporting terrorists - he was a long-time supporter of the IRA. But then so have successive US Governments. (Who first supported the Taliban?) www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030406635.html"The British government is a murder machine," King said. He described the IRA, which mastered the car bomb as an instrument of urban terror, as a "legitimate force." And he compared Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, to George Washington. |
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Post by angra on Jun 11, 2013 8:49:59 GMT 10
I sense the right is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they see a traitor who has compromised national security so must be pursued and punished. On the other hand it's another handy stick to beat Obama with - look at what the wicked lefty is doing - foisting a police state on us all!
There seems to be an unlikely alliance growing between the civil liberties crowd and the libertarians.
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Post by angra on Jun 11, 2013 11:03:04 GMT 10
One reason to be concerned about US security harassment of dissenting voices. "One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why." Read on... www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/singleton/She's currently in Hong Kong interviewing Snowden for a forthcoming documentary on US treatment of whistleblowers. |
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Jun 11, 2013 11:15:26 GMT 10
"No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why"This guy reckons that's not actually true ... knifetricks.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/i-am-detained-by-feds-for-not-answering.htmlI was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.
The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released – because U.S. citizens who have produced proof of citizenship and a written customs declaration are not obligated to answer questions. Whatever the legal foundation for what he's saying there, I'm not sure I'd ever be that brave.
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