Snowden's Big Truth: We Are All Less Free 583
chicksdaddy writes "In the days since stories based on classified information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden hit the headlines, a string of reports and editorials claim that he had his facts wrong, accuse him of treason – or both. Others have accused journalists like Glen Greenwald of The Guardian of rushing to print before they had all the facts. All of these criticisms could be valid. Technology firms may not have given intelligence agencies unfettered and unchecked access to their users' data. Edward Snowden may be, as the New York Times's David Brooks suggests, one of those 20-something-men leading a 'life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society.' All those critiques may be true without undermining the larger truth of Snowden's revelation: in an age of global, networked communications and interactions, we are all a lot less free than we thought we were. I say this because nobody has seriously challenged the basic truth of Snowden's leak: that many of the world's leading telecommunications and technology firms are regularly divulging information about their users' activities and communications to law enforcement and intelligence agencies based on warrantless requests and court reviews that are hidden from public scrutiny. It hasn't always been so."
Bruce Schneier has published an opinion piece saying that while Snowden did break the law, we need to investigate the government before any prosecution occurs. (Schneier's piece is one in a series on the subject.) Snowden himself said in an interview today that the U.S. government has been pursuing hacking operations against China for years.
Simply ready for the Supreme Court to rule. (Score:5, Interesting)
None of the warrents said something like
"All emails stored on VZ servers (listed below) that mention pressurecookers as bombs from the 723 people (listed below) who visited terrorist training camps (listed below) in 2010-2013."
Sasha Cohen summed it up 2012 in The Dictator (Score:4, Interesting)
From the Dictator (2012) [youtube.com] - start at 0:28 for the meat.
And as somewhere here on /. said (to paraphrase) "NSA's wiretapping stopped the bombing in Boston. Right?"
We should scream that in every moron's ear who says they "feel safer" with this monitoring.
I'm more shocked about the discussions around this (Score:5, Interesting)
A few things scare me about this topic so far (and it's mostly about discussion rather than the revelations):
- People aren't doing anything / can't do anything about this issue even if they wanted to :/
- People are actually siding with the government and defending them instead of fighting for privacy & freedom
- Big corporations could help us out but what good would storing every piece of user data in encrypted format do for them (no ad money based on our data = no free site anymore, they would just turn into free service providers for their service)
- American's politicians & lawyers are completely paid off by major corporations and if the root of all evil is not separated from the law of the land, you should not expect any freedom or privacy, and it's scary that the American population is more concered about TV shows like The Voice rather than their freedom...
-- No one's really willing to risk their lives or time because right now it's "just good enough", maybe you guys need to hit rock bottom first completely before any change happens or takes place
I'm not really sure what to say or do either, but I'm Canadian and the NSA is probably seeing this as well. Hi NSA, I love you!
- stoops
Re:Snowden is fucked (Score:2, Interesting)
Given the damage he's done to the US and the West, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that.
While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason. By doing what he did, he's ended himself as surely as if he'd put a gun to his own head. Except he'll probably have the US government do it for him (or if he's lucky, life in supermax).
You can't do what he did, and not expect consequences.
So you support the government assassinating people for the sake of national pride?
Re:And water is wet (Score:2, Interesting)
Not necessarily [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not quite. (Score:4, Interesting)
Which government do you think will "disappear" him? He has a laptop full of stolen US national security data and is in the Communist Chinese city of Hong Kong, and has been invited to Russia. Don't you think that the Chinese government might have some people watching him? You know, in case he forgets his laptop after buying some noodles, so he doesn't lose it?
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who watches the watchers?
Congress is supposed to watch the watchers. The voters are supposed to watch Congress.
Ways to help (Score:5, Interesting)
From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change things.
Have more ideas? Please post below.
Links worthy of attention:
http://anticorruptionact.org/ [anticorruptionact.org]
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html [ted.com]
http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections [fairelectionsnow.org]
http://represent.us/ [represent.us]
http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/ [protectourdemocracy.com]
http://www.wolf-pac.com/ [wolf-pac.com]
https://www.unpac.org/ [unpac.org]
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ [thirty-thousand.org]
Suggestion #1:
(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.
Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.
Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.
If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.
I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson, especially if it is on corporate letterhead.
Suggestion #2:
Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.
Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.
Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.
Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!
Suggestion #3:
A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.
In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.
Suggestion #4:
What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.
Suggestion #5:
Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead [wikipedia.org] to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I've made in
Re:And water is wet (Score:5, Interesting)
That is all.
Problem is, you have to *keep* fighting against any and all loss of rights. People are corrupt, greedy, and stupid... this naturally leads to an erosion of individual rights.
Freedom is a high-maintenance thing, but the cost of not doing the maintenance is slavery; if history is any indication, the outcome is all too damned common.
What was the saying again? "A republic, if you can keep it." People keep forgetting that last bit.
Re:Obligatory Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
"Why do people quote this like it were gospel."
Not Gospel. History. People quote it because it has time and again proven to be historically accurate. People who trade freedom for security well end up getting neither. That's just the way it works.
While not directly related to the quote, here is an excellent description [fff.org] of the basic problem we are discussing in this topic.
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Re:And water is wet (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, you don't get any points for thinking some bit of bad news was obvious before it was news. Well, you get mod points, so maybe you do, but I'd rather have negative karma and a slightly higher chance of the NSA being put back in its place.
Xbox One extends NSA spy powers massively (Score:5, Interesting)
The NSA has one last hole in its program to spy on every citizen- the home in which the citizen lives. Traditionally, throughout Human history, the residencies of civilians have provided refuge from organised efforts of intelligence gathering. This fact, for instance, has allowed the emergence of new political and religious movements, movements that the regimes at the time were determined to crush at birth.
Now Microsoft has partnered with the NSA to solve this problem. The Xbox One (now more commonly known as the XBone or XB1) has been designed from the ground up to spy on people in their own homes.
The XBone comes with a so-called Kinect sensor block. This block contains ordinary and infra-red high definition cameras. It also includes a 'depth processing' system that can easily extract Humans from the background, and apply a skeletal recognition algorithm to track body movement and shape (say when people are having sex). The final sensor is a microphone array that can clearly pick-up the conservations of multiple people in the room (and frequently, adjoining rooms as well).
While the XBone is receiving mains power, the Kinect is fully functioning and processing input. It CANNOT be switched off. If it suffers ANY hardware fault, the console immediately stops working. If the cameras are set facing the wall, or taped over, the console pesters the user to re-calibrate the Kinect.
All software developers (games and apps) must, at the very least, include code to request user calibration of Kinect, even if the app/game doesn't use Kinect features to any significant degree. All game/app interfaces MUST be Kinect aware (allow Kinect gestures to replace input from the controllers). At no time is the user allowed to think non-Kinect use of the console is normal.
Microsoft dedicates at least 1/4 of XBone's hardware resources to processing the data produced by the Kinect sensor system. These resources CANNOT be re-assigned to, say, a AAA high-graphic intensive game. The hardware available to Kinect includes real-time video-compression and encryption.
By default (and this CANNOT be disabled by the user) the Kinect is set to constantly monitor each new person who enters the room (and the times). A full face photograph is taken of each new person. This data is uploaded to remote servers on the Internet at least once each 24 hour period. While the Internet connection is off, this data is stored in a dedicated area of the HDD as an encrypted group of files, for later uploading.
All Internet connected XBones can be remotely programmed with a list of 'trigger' events that trigger against various data conditions recognised by the Kinect sensors. The triggers can include things like gunshots, a male shouting at a female, a given person entering the room, or people in the room moving in a particular way. When any trigger condition occurs, the console can begin streaming video data from the Kinect to either the HDD (for later uploading) or to a remote Internet server if the Internet is currently connected.
Of course, remote intelligence personnel can connect to ANY XBone currently on the Internet, and receive live output from the Kinect sensors regardless of what the console owner is currently doing. The console owner will have ZERO idea this is happening, unless they monitor their outbound Internet traffic. Even then, Microsoft has a program of constantly bursting data to and from each connected console to 'groom' the owner to expect unexplained Internet traffic via the console.
In many ways, Snowden's announcements (which others have correctly pointed out simply confirm data that leaked years ago) show that the NSA is 'bored' with their current level of data collection, now it is old hat to suck and save all regular Internet/phone traffic. Team Obama is desperate to go into places the NSA has never gone before. Much of the intent is the power powerful scumbags think they gain when they can become the supreme 'peeping-tom' and peer into the homes of millions of citizens at will.
Re:Snowden is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
Constitutional law is another branch of the law, one, AIUI, which requires dedicated years of study to fully master.
No, it takes dedicated years of study to become fully indoctrinated to the point where this kind of bullshit appears legal. The point of law school is not to teach you the law, it's to teach you how to distort the law to get your way.
Remember, just government relies on the consent of the governed. Uninformed consent is invalid. If The People cannot understand the Constitution, they can't consent to be governed.
Re:Not quite. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet they have separate passports and can't apply for or receive a passport at a Chinese embassy. I was told this about 4 months ago by a Hong Kong resident with a US greencard.
You don't have your own passports if you aren't autonomous at an international level. Now if you are arguing they don't provide their own defense or execute trade agreements independent of China you might be right.
Re:Snowden is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point. I like this bit:
By that logic, you could say that the NSA is internally engaging in seditious action towards the American people with this program. Of course, Snowden isn't being seditious either as he's simply provided evidence of their highly questionable activities.
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who watches the watchers?
Congress is supposed to watch the watchers. The voters are supposed to watch Congress.
Actually, Congress, the President, and the Courts are supposed to watch each other (aka "separation of powers), and the voters watch Congress and the President.
The Separation of Powers part of this has broken down over the last century or so. Thanks to Teddy "Bully Pulpit" Roosevelt and the necessity of presidential leadership during the World Wars and the Cold War, Congress has gotten into the habit of deferring to the President a lot more than it used to. The Progressive Era and the New Deal (in particular, Wickard vs. Filburn [wikipedia.org]) set Supreme Court precedents of deferring to Congress, essentially reversing the assumption from "Congress may only make laws about things the Constitution explicitly allows" to "Congress may make laws about anything the Constitution doesn't explicitly forbid." And with this increase in number and especially scope of laws, Congress can't write them without leaving a huge amount of the details and oversight to the discretion of the bureaucracies implementing them -- a power it is not supposed to delegate, because it means that the executive branch (the bureaucracies) is effectively crafting legislation.
This is an example of what happens when people grant power to government to achieve something they want, without considering how that power will be used. Both the political right and left are guilty of this. Whenever the questions of "should we give government this power?" or "should we set this precedent?", people tend to think in the short term about how people who think like they do can use that power or precedent to do things that they want done. The question they usually fail to ask, and should, is "how will someone whose ideas I detest use this?" Think of someone whose ideology you loathe -- it doesn't matter who it is. Assume that someone like them will have political power someday, because they will. Now look at any question of "should the government have this power?" in terms of what that person would do with it.
To use a tech-related analogy: when the developers of an online game are working on a feature (a new item, new rule, new quest, whatever) or even major bug fix, they not only have to ask "will this be fun for the players?" They also have to ask "will this empower griefers? How about gold-farmers? Bot-users? Does it leave anything open to exploit?" And that's the type of question too many Americans have been neglecting to ask for a long time.
Re:Constitutional Convention (Score:5, Interesting)
Your rights in this regard are completely intact. You seem to think that emails, phone logs, and all manner of web data are "papers and effects", whereas no US court has ever held such a thing. And rightly so, this information is held on other people's computers, with no bailment or contract. As far as AT&T or Google is concerned, this sort of information is explicitly their property, not yours. Making this sort of information private would create a vast legal-bureaucratic framework -- the sort of regulation a hospital has to apply to HIPPA, with compliance officers, civil and criminal liability, all administered and verified by the federal government, except applying to every medium of every ISP, phone company, and website on the US Internet.
The last century of jurisprudence has generally held that, if electromagnetism is involved, the fourth amendment does not attach, because the consequences of such a ruling would utterly trample the rights of the comm network operators -- phone records, routing information, cookies, database rows, all of these things are their stuff, it is their privacy courts are most worried about, not yours; if you want privacy, keep your business off the Internet, where dozens of private corporations happily track your every move before the NSA even gets involved. You might as well demand privacy on the teacups at Disneyland.
The explicit exception to this is phone calls, and these are only protected on account of the quasi-state status of telephone networks as "Common Carriers."
Re:Example of Transitive logic (Score:4, Interesting)
Therefore we can conclude that Snowden is from North Korea or a comparable nation.
Q.E.D.
Snowden is from the US, so, yes.
Re:Obligatory Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
"Then two other things must also be remembered: First, Benjamin Franklin opened other people's mail for intelligence purposes during the Revolutionary War. Second, there are two qualifiers present: essential and little temporary."
More straw-man arguments. They were at war with their own government. We are not... yet. The situation is hardly comparable.
As I spotted philosoraptor saying on G+ this morning, Snowden is being accused of Treason (aiding The Enemy) for sharing information with the American People. Does that mean the American People are The Enemy?
Forbidden by the framers? (Score:5, Interesting)
The flaw in your logic is the postal service. They are now maintaining images of the exterior of every piece of mail that they process. The exteriors of written correspondence are also part of my effects. This intrusion, useful as it has been, violates the 4th.
Perhaps a convention could clarify our privacy rights - if Google, Verizon, Microsoft, et al. cannot guarantee privacy from all intrusions, then they cannot prevent any intrusions. From this moment forward, all information on 3rd party carriers must be opened to public inspection. Everything. I get to hear all of your phone calls, read all of your email, and see all of your searches, and you get the same access to mine.
The court rulings have established unequal privilege and power for a shadow government, and I do not believe that they are correct. The majority of U.S. citizens appear to agree with me.
We've been having serious national problems in the political realm since Nixon because the powerful think they own the populace and do not have to abide by the rules for the rest of us. What do you suggest we do?
Re:Xbox One extends NSA spy powers massively (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with this is that it sounds like raving paranoia. And if it is paranoia and untrue, technically it's just a software update away from being true. And as a theory, it's not really falsifiable.
I certainly won't be buying one of these things.
Re:Snowden is fucked (Score:4, Interesting)