NSA Planned To Discredit Radicals Based On Web-Browsing Habits 415
wired_parrot writes "New leaked documents show that the NSA was not only monitoring suspected radical sympathizers, but planned to discredit them based on their web-surfing habits. This includes not only evidence of porn browsing and online sexual activity, but also extortion and blackmail based on inappropriate use of funds. At the same time, the leaked document notes that very few of the targeted contacts were associated with terrorism."
FP (Score:5, Insightful)
Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?
If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Abuse of Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately we get to come along for the ride.
spirals (Score:5, Insightful)
Information imbalance creates a vast power imbalance. And we'd be fools to think that this power imbalance would not be exploited. Generally, in military terms you talk about capabilities, rather than intentions when making assessments. So when universal surveillance becomes a capability, we have to assume it's not just used, but used universally. And one doesn't have to go far in history to search for consequences of having such a system. While not nearly as sophisticated, East Germany during the Soviet era provides plenty of evidence for what WILL be done with the information obtained as a result of a vast surveillance network. In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc. It's happened before. We have to be fools to think it won't happen again.
Re:FP (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone posting your quote should be required to post their real name.
Opportunities for fabricating evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the shroud of secrecy the NSA has created, it would be impossible to tell what evidence was real and what was fabricated. So if the NSA wanted to frame one of these "radicals" -- or a sitting member of Congress -- who would be able to refute those charges?
When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, I'd mistrust the people who make a big deal about never looking at internet porn. Just look at the frequent revelations involving vocal evangelists.
Trying to lean on people based on their internet browsing habits? It seems that someone's trying to quell any public dissent on NSA snooping on Americans. "Listen buddy... icksnay on the oopingsnay or we'll let everyone in your church know about those web sites you visited last Wednesday evening between the hours of 9:00PM and 10:30PM."
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything that even looks like deviant sexual behavior can cost someone their job, their wife and kids, etc. It's a powerful blackmail tool, no matter how common we all know it is.
Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?
Never, given they just discovered that the NSA has a list of all the pr0n sites they've visited. Do you think there's any politician in DC who has no skeletons in the cupboard for the NSA to exploit?
This is why you don't create a secret police agency. Once they have a file on everyone, no-one can stop them.
Re:FP (Score:5, Insightful)
Radical sympathiser (Governmentish)
Noun
A person that disagrees with our right to absolute power over everything.
Re:Freedom of speech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Were they doing anything illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the beauty of the structured releases.
GG: The NSA is spying on the Internet. Here is the proof.
NSA: No, we're only spying on terrorist's use of the Internet.
GG: The NSA is spying on everyone on the Internet. Here is the proof.
NSA: Well OK, but we can't help that. Anyway, we don't look at it if you aren't a terrorist.
GG: The NSA hands over unfiltered data on non-terrorists to Israel and the FBI. Here is the proof.
NSA: Well OK, but if you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to hide.
GG: The NSA blackmails political radicals. Here is the proof.
I do hope this goes on for years.
Re:spirals (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to add that once the state is known to spy on everything, it can fabricate any "evidence" it wishes against specific individuals (as a state policy, or because the database operator has a grudge/political motivation), and people will believe it.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Score:5, Insightful)
What did the NSA know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev? That's what I want to know. If the mass surveillance is justified, how did they not know about his plot? How did they fail to prevent it?
Re: Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, I've come to the conclusion the louder someone screeches about the morality of other people, the higher the likelihood they'll get caught in a scandal.
Which has more or less confirmed for me that people are lying douchebags, who mostly want to point the finger at everyone else.
The more rigid and extreme the position, the more they're full of shit.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's one of the (many) problems with this whole system. Here it wouldn't be a question of agents having to sneak into a guy's house and plant the material. They'll just claim that he browsed such sites and the rest of us will be expected to take their word for it. "Where's the evidence to support this claim?" "We can't tell you. National security."
Re:FP (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually this is one case where I might accept that argument.
I look at porn and we can basically say every other human with internet access has as well.
I also have intoxicating liquors in my home!
The only way this impacts anyone is if they are in the closet or something. Just having looked at porn is not something anyone in 2013 should be concerned about, at least not anyone I hang out with.
Re:spirals (Score:4, Insightful)
"No, really, I don't look at furry midget porn on the internet! It's a plot by the NSA to discredit me!" Riiiiiiiight...
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:3, Insightful)
My greater fear is that the NSA might already possess, or be working toward, the ability to inject false records into a target's credit history. Create a situation where credit cards are revoked, assets are impounded, the target loses his house, his car, and any ability to ever use credit again. What better way to shut a dissident up than to so mess with his personal finances that he has to spend every waking moment trying to get it all straightened out.
When will snooping on private data end, and manipulation of that data begin?
Re:spirals (Score:4, Insightful)
In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc.
It's even worse than that. Because they have these systems they don't need any actual evidence. If they don't like you (or you're divorcing someone they care about) they can just accuse you of wrongdoing that they "discovered" through surveilling you. How are you going to prove that you didn't do what they accuse you of? Audit their systems? Mmm hmm, I'm sure they'll let a known pedophilistic-terrorist or his designee in to check everything out. Even when you can audit systems it's hard enough to prove a negative.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that factors into it in anyway you married the wrong person.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lol you think they would even need to prove it
If the NSA said that an influential person that you follow watches some porn fetish site and that guy denies it and claims that the NSA is trying to discredit him, who are you going to believe? The guy that you already follow and believe, or the government agency that has a real incentive to try to discredit this person? This policy could backfire and make people more devoted to a person that they now believe is targeted by the government.
It doesn't matter whether the information is true or not, it's a question of who you trust more.
Re:Were they doing anything illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well Mr. Congressman, we understand your concerns. But before you vote to restructure the agency, we've some material you might like to see. Now, don't ask how we got our hands on your browsing records, records which will offend the religious sensibilities of your conservative voters and the racial sensitivities of your liberal voters, but we just wanted you to know that our agency is doing everything in its power to make sure such things don't become public record.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Porn is just prostitution on film.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it's not just the religious zealots who have issue with prostitution. The leftwing feminist groups have issue with it too. Basically the latter doesn't want men having easy access to sex without having to deal with privileged princesses. They label this as 'abuse' even though it's consensual all around (she wants his money, he wants her body for an hour). In many ways, prostitution is the most honest exchange that exists between the two genders, especially since the point of marriage and the nuclear family has been thoroughly destroyed.
Re:It just keeps getting worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies?
The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.
And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals".
Two problems with this:
1) The government has a history of pulling this against its own citizens when they threaten the status quo. See COINTELPRO and MLK.
2) Hypocrisy is offensive, but doesn't invalidate a person's argument of how people should act, even if they can't live up to it. MLK would be a great example of this. He was a religious man who had a message of tolerance and justice. He also may or may not have had extramarital affairs. (He at the very least had straying eyes.) Would revealing this to the public negate the truth of his message? Maybe not, but it would be an excuse to shout that truth down and stifle it from spreading.
Encouraging people to accept ad hominem attacks as legitimate, even when it's for people advocating beliefs you find abhorrent, is a dangerous game. It's short-sighted, amoral, and displays the "all that matters is the ends" mentality that has gotten our country into so many risky and stupid entanglements before. Pretty much all of modern politics can be traced back to "pragmatic" things done during the Cold War and the fallout from putting advantage over principle.
Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.
These two people are heroes, not traitors. They saw a great rot at the core of our nation, and rather than sit silently and watch as it ate deeper and deeper, they put their lives and freedom on the line to let people know so that we could act. If their actions have been ineffective, it has been more because of the nihilists like yourself than because of flaws in their motives.
Associated with Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um what?
If the idea is that this activity is being legitimized by fighting Terrorism, I don't quite buy it...
NSA: "Stop being a terrorist, or we will blackmail you by showing all your terrorist buddies all the lewd websites you visit!"
Terrorist: "I am going to stop being a lunatic and be rational for a second. A) Do you really think that is something that might dissuade a terrorist, or make a terrorist feel even more warm and fuzzy about the USA? B) Do you really think my terrorist buddies will believe the NSA (I mean come on we can get them to believe anything, but coming from you... lol)? C) Who exactly are you going to tell? Do you have lists of terrorist buddies? Because I think if you did, you might do something a bit more constructive with it. OK back to the crazy...
This seems like something that is far more likely to be politically motivated than anything to do with terrorism.
Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand we are all glad that he persevered, on the other hand, he was the "Reverend" Martin Luther King Jr. and he was cheating on his wife with multiple women. Hypocritical scumbag, even though also a great man.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
--Cardinal Richelieu
Here's an article on the danger of wiretapping to the political process. [latimes.com]
Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng (Score:3, Insightful)
very few were terrorists when it started (Score:2, Insightful)
"very few of the targeted contacts were associated with terrorism""
After being blackmailed and harassed by the US government their views towards state target terrorism might change.
Porn habits, really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ensuring that I'm not posting as AC to help drive this in...
Just because sex and nudity is considered taboo and only for deviants by all of the repressed Mericans, doesn't mean that everyone will be embarrassed by making it visible. Some of the other stuff may help discredit, but not the porn.
keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that "radical" simply means "has different political opinions than those with the most political power". This was a direct suppression of everything democracy stands for and every value this country was founded to protect. The NSA has not only committed illegal acts, they have committed high treason.