Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA 609
Rick Zeman writes "According to Wired, an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court '...requires Verizon to give the NSA metadata on all calls within the U.S. and between the U.S. and foreign countries on an "ongoing, daily basis" for three months.' Unlike orders in years past, there's not even the pretense that one of the parties needed to be in a foreign country. It is unknown (but likely) that other carriers are under the same order."
Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry (Score:5, Funny)
I am sure it will only be for 3 months and certainly they would not ask again. It is only a one time thing, of that you can rest easy, citizen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You got nothing to hide citizen, right?
Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order [guardian.co.uk]
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently DHS can search laptops and phones based on "hunches" as well. [cbslocal.com]
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently DHS can search laptops and phones based on "hunches" as well. [cbslocal.com]
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
Aided and abetted by resources made available by the Bush Administration.
This is why rabid partisans - among others - should be careful what they wish for. They may get it, only to discover that it ends up in the hands of the other side.
But no matter which side holds them, we all lose.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:4, Insightful)
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Remember that in most of the western world Obama would be considered Right of Centre, and Bush Very Right of Centre ...
Like most political systems with only a few parties the parties likely to get elected are very similar (and continually go on about where they differ)
But the alternative is many parties that differ a lot, but you need a coalition to get anything done and they tend to average out ....
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
(see my point?)
cutting taxes was treasonous, given how bad we were (and are), money-wise. but since his base is the powerful guys, he never had any fear of being punished.
great system we have here, huh?
No, I don't see your point. The economy was heading to a recession when Bush was elected. He lowered taxes to bring it back up. The next year, the economy wasn't falling, but was still flat, so he cut more taxes, and the economy improved. There are financial sites where you can make charts that plot the economy/GDP/taxes to see the effect.
If the real estate bubble hadn't popped in 2006, if it hadn't burst until 2008, Bush would have finished with a great economy and probably a budget surplus. That means that on the budget/taxes chart, the lines were converging quickly, and would have crossed. Unfortunately, that didn't happen that way, and Bush gets the blame for the collapse that he actually warned about, that his detractors said wouldn't happen.
Now, if you put Bush's method to grow the economy (which worked) against Obama's method (which have not worked (jobless recovery? what a fucking joke)), there is no question which one put more money into more American's (as in, the little guy's) pockets.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:4, Insightful)
"The economy was heading to a recession when Bush was elected. He lowered taxes to bring it back up."
I remember when Bush (the second) was trying to push the tax cuts. The initial take was that there was going to be a big surplus. Bush's response was that we should cut taxes to return that money to the people. Then the economy turned down and the surplus evaporated. Bush's response was that we should cut taxes to stimulate the economy. What I took from this is that Bush's support for tax cuts had nothing to do with the state of the economy.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
I kept saying just this when Bush supporters called him expanding the powers of the Executive Office "needed" and "the right thing to do." I would always ask two questions:
1) Would you be ok with someone from the opposing party to be President with those powers? I'd usually use Hillary Clinton in this question because, at the time, she seemed to be the Democratic front runner and the name Clinton is a trigger word for many Republicans.
2) How could a future President abuse these powers? Even assuming Bush or his successor didn't abuse them, it would only be a matter of time before someone did. That's why we need plenty of checks and balances. To keep one person/branch of government from getting too powerful.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Interesting)
Aided and abetted by resources made available by the Bush Administration.
This is why rabid partisans - among others - should be careful what they wish for. They may get it, only to discover that it ends up in the hands of the other side.
But no matter which side holds them, we all lose.
Actually, no. Frankly, if this were to catch terrorists, as they claim, I don't think I'd have a problem with it. The Bush administration had these powers, and as far as we know, they used them to monitor terrorists. If the Bush administration had been caught abusing federal power to oppress political opponents, he would have never been granted these powers. If he had abused other powers after granting them, they would have been stripped away. There were checks and balances.
Bush was watched and when he screwed up or even appeared to overstep his bounds, he was hammered. There were those screaming for his impeachment over the Valerie Plame affair, which was merely leaking the name of an operative who had been sitting at a desk in Washington for over five years. The administration didn't even have anything to do with leaking the name! Scooter Libbey went to jail over the matter because he said he couldn't remember a conversation he had that was unrelated to the case. The actual leaker, Richard Armitage faced no jail time. He wasn't even charged. The Bush presidency didn't need to push boundaries to see where the limits were. They were punished for petty crimes they had nothing to do with.
Compare that with the current administration. The Obama administration has been pushing boundaries since it came into office. Fast and Furious, lies and demonization of opponents of Obamacare, lying over Benghazi, using the IRS to oppress opposing political groups, phone tapping the AP, fake charges to get a warrant of the Fox News reporter AND HIS PARENTS, lying about knowledge of the fake charges over the warrant, and many many other abuses of power. The administration has not been held to account for any of them. The Republicans try, but when the press goes against them, Republicans lose votes and are labeled as racists.
This administration has been pushing the boundaries from the beginning and has not found the edge yet. They will keep pushing until people go to jail, and even then, as long as it's low level people, they won't care. This is extremely dangerous, and all Obama's supporters can do is continue to blame Bush.
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Here's the thing, you CANNOT excuse bad behavior by pointing to bad behavior. Too many (D) party people can't see the fact that BHO is GWB on steroids. And excusing it because he "isn't Bush" is silly.
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Generally speaking, lefties seem to have very little issue with massive surveillance.
Of course they don't; how could they expect to meddle in every aspect of our lives, if they weren't able to watch us 24/7?
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
And are the Republicans in Congress busy applying checks and balances to stop this? No. But they are outraged about the IRS thing in Ohio. Outraged, I tell you.
Did the Democrats set a precedent for reigning in a President when Bush started pushing the surveillance beyond what was legal and Constitutional? Did they challenge the "Unitary Executive" concept? No.
Are the pure-as-driven-snow Paul boys out there putting their asses on the line to expose and stop this overreach? No.
I guess Ron Wyden occasionally makes a little peep, but you know, because of "national security" he's not at liberty to divulge what he knows. Bullshit. Oath to uphold the Constitution overrules that. Or not.
Will voting someone else in as President fix this? No, not if Congress isn't willing to keep them honest. We can't rely on some pinkie-swear by candidate-whoever to safeguard our Constitutional principles and not exceed their authority once they realize there's no penalty if they do. The division of government was supposed to prevent this kind of thing, because each branch would jealously guard their powers from the other two. This got broken.
The President -- and by that I mean whoever's in the office -- doesn't have "Enemies" in Congress to go after. They're all in on it. It's got more bi-partisan support than baseball and apple pie.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course! If Bush hadn't done this and that, then our glorious leader wouldn't have been led into temptation.
Remember kids, it's always Bush's fault. If you just remember that, you'll be OK.
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Of course! If Bush hadn't done this and that, then our glorious leader wouldn't have been led into temptation.
Remember kids, it's always Bush's fault. If you just remember that, you'll be OK.
Nice strawman. Nowhere did I excuse Obama's abuse of executive power (and that's what all if his actions are). But the fact remains there wiuld have been no Patriot Act to abuse without Bush signing the law.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush, at least, did have the understandable problem that everyone was overreacting at the time, and that after 9/11, he needed to do what it took to prevent more attacks. Bear in mind, his problem was that everyone thought the government was asleep at the wheel and not cooperating, etc. The actions may have been wrong or overkill, but they were designed to solve a specific problem.
The thing with the Obama Administration is that they pledged to basically stop "being like Bush", specifically in terms of Gitmo, and other things. If they wanted to, they could have pushed to get the Patriot Act repealed. They didn't. And even if they couldn't have gotten it repealed legislatively... they didn't have to actually *use* those provisions.
So now, you have a group that campaigns against the Bush era Patriot Act on principle, but when they get into power, they not only don't get it repealed, they *use all of that power as much as they want*. So, the Obama Administration are either hypocrites, or they learned that their whole viewpoint on surveillance were incorrect and the Bush Administration was *right*.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shocking! (Score:4)
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Verizon already collects all this data. Is that unconstitutional? Verizon is probably only upset about this because they normally SELL this data and the gov't is forcing them to hand it over for free. That's the real outrage here. The NSA should pay for it just like everyone else.
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Verizon already collects all this data. Is that unconstitutional? Verizon is probably only upset about this because they normally SELL this data and the gov't is forcing them to hand it over for free. That's the real outrage here. The NSA should pay for it just like everyone else.
You don't think that there weren't some lucrative, no-bid contracts offered up as compensation for playing ball? Come on. "Our" government does what it's told to do by those holding the reigns of power. The whole "hunting teh terrorists" thing is just part of the bread and circuses for the masses.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. This battle was lost more than 30 years ago in Smith v. Maryland. Metadata (number called, time, etc.) on calls, collected and stored by phone companies in the normal course of business, has no 4th amendment protection and the acquisition of it does not require a warrant.
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This doesn't mean that I accept the decision. I consider it a corrupt and abusive decision that ignores the constitution.
I refuse to accept any government that acts in such a way as a just government. There are many judicial decisions that corrupt and inspire disregard for the law. This is one of them. It those charged with upholding the law won't obey it, why should they expect anyone else to, except out of fear? And that's the society we've ended up with. Nobody respects the law, though many fear it
143,364 similar FISA warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
http://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html
Since 2004, when they started spying on Americans, there have been 143,364 FISA warrants, similar to this one, applying to Americans.
This is one warrant among 143364 similar warrants. 0.0006975% of the warrants.
Re:143,364 similar FISA warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was the one receiving such a letter, I can see three options for how to deal with it.
Complying with the letter without questioning is not an option, because I do not have the necessary knowledge to know if that would be legal, or to even tell if the letter was legitimate.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real surprise is that the NSA needs Verison to give it to them.
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I'm also surprised that we found out about it. It came with the NSL-standard 'Don't tell anyone we asked, not even your lawyer, or we'll throw you in jail' clause. Someone must have had either the ideological conviction or reckless stupidity to defy the gag order and leak it.
Someone will be losing their job for that, and probably never working in the communications industry again. Hopefully McDonald's is hiring.
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Insightful)
Lose their job? If Obama's attitude to leaks - uncontrolled leaks, that is - is anything to go by, they're probably going to round up and execute every 10th Verizon employee or something. And loudly proclaim that it's constitutional and necessary for national security reasons which you can't be trusted to hear.
"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable." -- Barack Obama, May 23, 2013
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally Verizon sells this data, so the only thing the gov't is doing here is forcing them to hand it over for free. The NSA can't pay for it like everyone else because of the sequester.
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Unpleasant, but only transient situation, I assure you.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of after 9/11 when there were so many feds abusing wiretaps they couldn't afford to pay the bills and were getting them shut off [cbsnews.com].
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Informative)
It appears to have been started in 2006, and has been renewed every three months ever since. This is the meta-data they are collecting, not voice or data call messages. Apparently, they use it to develop network maps that is supposed to help them track terrorist networks into, out of, and within the U.S.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems unlikely to be a focused surveillance effort
Yeah, I think collecting logs of all calls made by 70+ million people for 3 months pretty much rules out "focused surveillance" ;)
It could easily be focused (Score:5, Insightful)
Like everyone else, I have no idea what they're doing, but no, it doesn't rule out focused surveillance. It could easily be a way to obscure who they're surveilling, so that Verizon, for example, has no way of knowing which customer they're interested in.
Say I'm a burglar, and I want to know when you're not home. When you're not home, is the best time to break into your house and take all your stuff.
One strategy is to stand outside your house, staring at it. You come out, we stare at each other for a few nervous seconds, and then you drive off. Aha, you're not home now. So I begin picking the lock on your door. The last thing I think, before you smash in the back of my head with a shovel, is how clever I was to make sure you had left. I was too fuckwitted to think you might be curious by our earlier staring encounter, and that you drove around the block, parked, and came to see WTF I was up to.
Another strategy is that I hang out at a major intersection, seemingly taking notice of every car that passes by. Little do you (or anyone else) know, yours was the one I was interested in. You don't it's it's suspicious at all, to drive by someone standing by the side of the road a mile from your house. That guy was just looking at all the cars going by. Not focused at all, huh? Then how come your house is the one I emptied that day?
If wired leaks a story about how Verizon was forwarding records about Dahamma to NSA, then you know they're watching you. If wired has a story about how Verizon is forwarding records about Dahamma plus a hundred million other people to the NSA, well shit, that wasn't about you. Nothing to be nervous about. They're not out to get you; they're out to get everyone.
Or maybe they're really out to get just you.
Re:It could easily be focused (Score:5, Interesting)
Like everyone else, I have no idea what they're doing, but no, it doesn't rule out focused surveillance.
What's being acquired as evidence is very wide, and the NSA is famous for both large data storage and building a database of interpersonal connections. Regardless if the particular reason this information is being gathered, I'm working under the assumption that they're going to be using the information in whatever way they can, rather than for the original reason they're taking the data.
I find it really concerning that a secret court can order such wide data transfer to the NSA, and also order that the order be kept secret.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody reported that one of their friends heard that a Muslim had just signed up with Verizon.
The NSA is just trying to track him down.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody reported that one of their friends heard that a Muslim had just signed up with Verizon.
The NSA is just trying to track him down.
Don't be ridiculous, that's what the drones are for.
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As far as a "court" is concerned, realize that we are talking about the FISA court -- can you say rubber stamp?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20 [guardian.co.uk]
What would happen if they required names? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a puzzle. What magic line would they cross by demanding names as well, when the amount of information they already require is enough to determine the individuals involved in a call and then some. This smells of a careful exclusion crafted by the AG or some such to skirt a law.
Re:What would happen if they required names? (Score:5, Insightful)
What did you expect when laws are made by lawyers, a profession whose sole job description is to find technicalities and loopholes that either excuse behavior that citizens would find abhorrent, or criminalize behavior that citizens find acceptable. What we used to call "torture" and "eavesdropping" are now legal because they're not technically torture or eavesdropping. Videotaping a cop beating a citizen is technically eavesdropping in many states, however, and after you've dealt with the criminal charge, if the cop was singing "Stop Resisting" to the tune of "Happy Birthday", you're still civilly liable for copyright infringement.
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible."
- Meringuoid, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454 [slashdot.org]
It's almost like these technicalities were intended to be abused from the day they were introduced to the House floor.
Second amandment (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ever argued that the second amandment is here to ensure you can protect yourself from opressive goverment, it is about time to stack up on ammo. I'd say its going to go down soon, but in case you haven't noticed, it all already went down.
Re:Second amandment (Score:5, Insightful)
The military has bigger guns, but the members of the military are citizens too. Asking the military to kill their friends and family and neighbors is not so simple a task as you might think.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmm, that analogy doesn't seem very relevant. A Communist dictator who kept himself in power by brutal means and exported all of his country's resources for his own personal gain vs. a democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes?
The fact is > 50% of the voters elected the current leader of the US within the last 4 years, which makes it pretty hard to have passionate majority popular uprising. Pretty sure the military, t
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democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes
Hmmm...those checks and balances include it being unconstitutional to spy on US citizens in the US without a narrowly focused warrant or at least they use to. The Obama administration is trying real hard to make reporting on political secrets treason. Seems the system you speak of is rather failing apart.
Re:Second amandment (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus the US president doesn't rule by fiat.
I'd say this is pretty strong evidence he does. This should be both unconstitutional and illegal by all publicly known laws. If it's legal by secret laws that's pretty much the definition of ruling by fiat.
As history has shown.
The British empire kept very few English soldiers anywhere except the British isles.
In what period of modern history did the British keep the main part of their Army in the home Islands? The British relied on their navy to protect the home Islands. The Army kept order in the Empire...and fought Napoleon occasionally when they ran out of reliable countries to bribe to fight him.
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Almost all of it.
The British empire kept a very, very small army. the 18th and 19th century was before the day of the professional army. Armies were raised as needed, as was the case in the Napoleonic war where soldiers were recruited for a shilling.
The professional fighting force the British kept was almost entirely in their navy, most of their land fighting force was in the Marines which served on
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Czars? really You understand there are no czars, it is just a term to refer to high-level presidential appointments. The same appointments that every president has made. It is not an actual title.
And regarding Executive orders, Obama has far fewer then any other president in recent history.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/executiveorders.asp [snopes.com]
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And that's why they're now arming the police with the same advanced military gear the army uses. Unlike the army, America's cops have a long and disgustingly proud history of killing their own civilians without remorse.
Re:Second amandment (Score:5, Interesting)
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Indeed. It's getting to the point where even the powerful will soon have field armies just to purchase a cup of milk without being interrogated.
I mean, look at the current state of the Union: we have a NY Supreme Court Justice who can be struck by an police officer, for doing nothing more than offering some assistance, and the DA / Internal Affairs is unwilling to pursue the case to any end. I ask you, why are we letting this happen to this country? Are too many people still living in that daydream of 'it c
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[W]e have a NY Supreme Court Justice who can be struck by an police officer, for doing nothing more than offering some assistance, and the DA / Internal Affairs is unwilling to pursue the case to any end.
Here's a link to an article describing the incident lightknight referred to: Judge Says He Was Struck by a Police Officer in Queens [nytimes.com]
The full story and the court order at The Guardian (Score:5, Informative)
The full story, with link to the court order, is at The Guardian -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
Tip of the iceberg (Score:5, Insightful)
The Verizon data is the tip of the iceberg, this is a tiny leak, it only covers an FBI request, it doesn't cover the full data grab. Congressmen, Ron Wyden, Mark Udall etc., ex CIA, everyone keeps hinting at the extent of the data grab and people go into denial about it.
Other data being grabbed:
1. URLs visited, times and ip addresses (sniffed from the network intercepts put in in post 2001)
2. Email headers (right there in the pipe)
3. Linkage data, you sent the email from that iPad/Android tablet? Theres the link between IP address and email address (right there in the pipe).
4. Search data, https is no obstacle to a FISA warrant.
5. Billing records of the phone, the identity of the user of the phone, data linking to their email address etc.
6. Visa/Mastercard/Credit Card/Paypal/WesternUnion, ATM data,.....
7. Bank transactions, (and not just the SWIFT data the EU handed them), handed over under excuse of 'laundering'
8. Facebook, all visible data and all deleted data
9. What you said on slashdot, even as AC, including drafts
10. What you said on every public website on every blog, on everything linked to your ip address and in turn linked to your real id.
11. Every public'ly buyable database
12. Your voting preference (already well analysed for political parties)
13. Your IRS data
14. The contents of all email older than 6 months.
15. Add that to the Verizon data (where you are, who you called, when)
It's a zoo, you're in a cage and those creepy guys outside staring at you, they're your zoo keepers.
Be careful what you say, to whom, who you're with when you say it, re-read you emails with a jaundice eye, can it be misconstrued by a malicious actor?
Are you outside the USA? Do you think you're immune?! Have they got any lever on your elected politicians? Is he a puppet now?
Could you, or have you ever upset anyone with access to that surveillance data?
Have you ever expressed views that might cause you to be targetted by anyone with access to that surveillance data?
Have you expressed pro-gun views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is pro-gun?
Have you expressed anti-gun views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is anti-gun?
Have you expressed strong Republican views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is Republican?
Have you expressed strong Democrat views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is a Democrat?
The only safe views to hold in a surveillance state are bland views. Be grey, keep your head down, express no strong views. Do nothing of note have friends who do nothing of note.
Don't think, that just because you're doing nothing illegal, that you're safe.
Having an affair is not illegal, yet General Patraeus was outed by on FBI agent Fred Humphries as a favor to a friend!
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/holly-petraeus-scott-broadwell-silent-petraeus-scandal/story?id=17718793
And in retaliation his supporters outed General Allen for having an affair with the FBI agents friend, and leaked photos (taken from surveillance of his friend) of a picture of him shirtless he sent her.
Do you really think you've done nothing wrong? That you have nothing to hide?
I'm pretty sure your data contains enough to lose you your job, end your marriage, lose custody of your children.
Re: (Score:3)
What you said on slashdot, even as AC, including drafts
I'm fucked aren't I?
Re:Tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm fucked aren't I?
You think you're in trouble? I've been running my yap online since I was fifteen years old. At this point there's no sense in even closing it, that would probably look more suspicious than continuing to rant. "Wait, what is he planning?" Probably a fucking nap, but don't tell these spooks that. They'll think I'm dreaming something up.
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I think this is great! Imagine the cool graph theory information they'll be able to compute! Network sizes, social graph small-worldness, hubs, power-laws of node degree, entropy, percolation, mutual information, the list goes on and on. I am happily awaiting the science articles that will come out of all the analysis. As the technology improves they'll be able to handle even more nodes in the graph.
(Imagine when they get to 80 billion nodes with degree 1e4 or so; they'll be able to track all the connection
Re:Tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Insightful)
"No big deal. There are no storm troopers in the streets."
Only because they aren't needed. Fear is cheaper and it can be everywhere at once.
But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Insightful)
After many years of travel and living in other countries, my political views shifted from right to left and I felt myself to a "liberal" democrat.
Like so many others, I was caught up in the whole "hope" for change with Mr. Obama.
One could say that regarding the police state, he is worse than nearly all who came before him, but I think that is missing the point. Democrat, Republican, I have come to the realization that it makes not difference at all. The system is simply designed to abuse.
The alphabet soup agencies do not care who is the present. After all, they will still be there after the President is long gone and the next fellow seeking ever greater powers replaces him.
So, does it really matter who you vote for?
I really doubt it. The folks who have enough cash to even register with voters are all part of the same socioeconomic class. Classes look out for their own, not for other classes.
I suspect things will get much, much worse before they ever get better. At least if history is any indication of the future.
Good luck citizens.
Re: (Score:3)
The United States doesn't really have a left-wing party. There's the Green Party and the Socialist Party, but neither of them is relevant in any meaningful way. I suggest that you vote with the Greens or Socialists, if you're truly interested in left-wing politics, even if they are irrelevant. It may not accomplish much, but you'll be able to sleep better at night. If you're more of a centrist or right winger, then I suggest the Libertarian Party, which are at least supportive of freedom, even if they a
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. I vote Green whenever there is a Green candidate. It's not so much that I adore their politics as it is I abhor the Republicans and Democrats. It may be a lost cause but I refuse to support what is going on.
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Informative)
There will be no real party other than the money party until we get money of out of the system.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html [ted.com]
There are some very real and good ways we can get the money out of our system. And of course money will always be a part of any system but it will not be the same as since:
Buckley v. Valeo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo [wikipedia.org]
And then we let the floodgates open with:
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission [wikipedia.org]
We are not in any way shape or form a democracy if a small percentage of people are allowed to vote with their dollars as well as their individual vote.
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Money has nothing to do with it. Money is the symptom. Power is the problem, specifically consolidation of power at the national level. Money follows power. We've allowed way too much power to be consolidated at the national level. Every single problem we're talking about here can be traced to that.
In theory we could ameliorate the problem by returning to the original intent of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers. In practice, I see no way for that to happen since ALL of the political actors involved want further consolidation not less. For special interests, it's way more efficient to lobby the federal government rather than 50 state governments. For federal politicians, consolidating power increases their ability to sell their power off to the special interests. Rank-and-file members of team red and team blue both want more power consolidated at the federal level to better push their respective ideological agendas (both of which are rooted in the idea that the hoi polloi can't be trusted to know what's good for them).
You can continue to rail against money in politics but until you address the disease instead of the symptom you're wasting our time and your breath.
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your argument boils down to:
> The government is completely corrupt and owned by wealthy special interests.
> Therefore, we need to give the government additional powers so that they will be less corrupt.
That makes no sense. You can't eliminate corruption by expanding the power of the corrupt entity. You need to take power AWAY from that entity so that regardless of their corruption, the harm that they can inflict on the people is limited. The Founders understood this. If you have a small, decentralized government with a set of strictly limited powers, then even the WORST people you put in office can't do much damage.
For example, suppose the federal government was strictly limited to spending 10% of GDP. Could Bush have started 2 wars? Could the government have spent $1T bailing out Wall St. banks? Too much government power in too few hands is what enables the worst abuses.
You are missing the point (Score:3)
I so often see this argument, not just on /. but all over. "Why do you not vote for someone else then".
Just think about it for a little while. When is the last time that a person running for president was not already extremely rich and a member of the ruling class?
These folks do not care about us no matter what they say. They know what side their bread is buttered on.
I, like I suspect all people would love to vote for a person who is running because he really wants to change the system. To rein in the power
Re: (Score:3)
It seems you have no right to say I am stupid especially since after reading your post it is clear you have a limited reading comprehension. I should not say though. I have no doubt you read only the first line and then replied.
I say this because I see that you are trying to turn this into a let vs right issue. A, "my political team can kick your political team's ass".
Do you not understand that this is used to manipulate you? To get you into a frenzy and direct you anger and your fellow peasants rather that
Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how there's such a huge passionate uproar about supposed loss of second amendement rights, but comparitively little concern about actual loss of fourth amendment rights...
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
While were on the topic, the people that said they didn't want universal background checks because they feared a national registry could be constructed seem less like silly now, don't they?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
I suspect that that's what the Founders had in mind when they wrote that amendment (though apparently nothing in the Federalist papers supports that notion).
Be that as it may, thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Presumably if you got enough people to participate, some "friendly" countries would offer to help you out with SAMs and RPGs, but that's just going to result in the unending-violence-for-naught that has becom
The true delusion (Score:4, Insightful)
thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Thinking that the professional military will be the ones trying to stop you when things become bad enough that the average U.S. citizen even considerings the attempt - that is the truest delusion.
We have a professional military made up of independent thinkers from all over the U.S. They are not robots, they are not trained to obey without question. If you ask them to start firing on home towns they are going to want to have a pretty clear reason why.
Citizens being armed just keeps everyone honest and is basically just like using a seat belt. You'll probably never need it, but if you need it you REALLY need it.
Re: (Score:3)
We have a professional military made up of independent thinkers from all over the U.S. They are not robots, they are not trained to obey without question. If you ask them to start firing on home towns they are going to want to have a pretty clear reason why.
You've got a pretty short memory.
Remember a couple months ago, when Boston was under martial law and the police forces were performing warrantless door-to-door searches, at threat of force? Now imagine that scenario with active resistance: it's the scenario you describe.
You're assuming a lack of indoctrination and the presence of a moral conscience in the majority. "Free thinking" is largely an illusion and most people, despite claiming to be able to hold an opinion, often just toe the line and follow order
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Be that as it may, thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
You're assuming that some of the military will not take the side of those fighting for their freedom. Also look how well insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have done before you write off a gorilla force with just small arms and IEDs.
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
"USA military is by far the strongest military in the world"
And look how bogged down it got against peasants and farmers in Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.
Your argument is amusing.
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm so tired of the stupid fucking argument that it's impossible for a lightly armed militia to fight the U.S. military because the military has drones, jet fighters, SAT intel, Abrams tanks, etc. History, even recent history, proves otherwise.
Look no further than AFGHANISTAN where a bunch of guys with rifles and improvised explosives have been fighting the world's most advanced military for 12 years! Now consider this:
Afghanistan 647,500 sq km 30 M people
USA(lower 48) 8,080,464 sq km 306M people
What makes you think an advanced military is going to be more successful fighting against guys with rifles and IEDs in a country with 12X the land area and 10X the number of people? How many government buildings in that area? How would they even begin to deploy their forces to guard every single one of them.
Your ignorance is that you assume the resistance fighters would gather together in a group, identify themselves and try to fight military forces in a head to head clash of arms. That's idiotic. In a real scenario, they would operate in small groups, attack soft targets and then blend back in with the population. If the government forces tried to use their advanced weapons, they'd end up killing a bunch of innocent civilians, which only foments hatred against the government and fuels the insurgency.
If you need more food for thought, look at the time, resources and manpower the government expended on this Dorner guy in California. ONE GUY with a few firearms. Now imagine 100,000 Dorners spread all around the country. Where is government going to find the manpower to fight that? How are they going to finance this war on the American people when they are already bankrupt? The people fighting them sure as hell won't be paying taxes.
Then there's the question of how many soldiers and law enforcement officers will actually obey orders to shoot their fellow citizens.
We have the Second Amendment, not so that a group of yahoos can take over the government, but so a POPULAR uprising can resist and depose a tyrannical government.
For further reference:
"The War of the Flea" by Tabor
"Understanding 4th Generation War" by William Lind
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so tired of the stupid fucking argument that it's impossible for a lightly armed militia to fight the U.S. military because the military has drones, jet fighters, SAT intel, Abrams tanks, etc. History, even recent history, proves otherwise.
Look no further than AFGHANISTAN where a bunch of guys with rifles and improvised explosives have been fighting the world's most advanced military for 12 years!
No, not really. Claiming they've been fighting implies a level of equality in the battles. There was no such thing. They lost control of every city in less than a month - they got completely steamrolled by the US military. Utterly dominated. Now they have managed to *HIDE* for 12 years, yes. They've taken random potshots here and there with IEDs and the like, sure, but they haven't had any chance at regaining power or driving the US out.
Similarly the war in Pakistan, despite still "ongoing", was really fini
Re: (Score:3)
That's because the "uproar" is, in reality a tool of (and funded by) people like the Koch brothers. Its intent is to distract large number of voters (tea party, etc.) from the real issues (who controls the government) into distractions like the 2nd amendment.
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this guy liberal enough for you?
Re: (Score:3)
Wake me up when the liberals are protesting in front of the white house or anywhere else while Obama is in charge.
Who the hell do you think Occupy are? A bunch of right-wingers?
They told me this would happen.. (Score:5, Funny)
When I watched V for Vendetta years ago... (Score:5, Interesting)
...I remember thinking that no sane citizens of any democratic country would ever allow the the state to amass such abusive and intrusive powers.
And then, I read today's Slashdot article.
So, given that it was bad under Bush, and is now worse under Obama, it is readily apparent that regardless of whichever political party you choose to vote for, all roads lead to the same end. The system will prevail. Is anarchy the only solution then?
Solution is smaller government / reduced spending (Score:5, Insightful)
it is readily apparent that regardless of whichever political party you choose to vote for, all roads lead to the same end. The system will prevail.
Not if you consistently vote in people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government.
As you say, all roads lead to the same place. But a smaller government with a smaller budget can simply only do so much. The smaller the amount of money the government gets the less money there is to track everyone, store data on everyone, or funnel money back out of government to private citizens who helped elect people.
It truly is the ONLY way to limit the reduction of potential harm from the system.
Re: (Score:3)
Not if you consistently vote in people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government.
As you say, all roads lead to the same place. But a smaller government with a smaller budget can simply only do so much
Oh, that may be true, but wherever can I find people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government?
Surely, you don't mean Republicans, do you? Because they remember about the noble goal of smaller budget/smaller government only while Democrats are in power. And who's idea was it to keep wars in Afganistan and Iraq off the budget (as "emergency supplemental appropriations bills")? Brilliant strategy to keep a low "budget"
Re:Solution is smaller government / reduced spendi (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not if you consistently vote in people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government."
I've seen a lot of mouthy political bullshit along these lines, but no actual politicians who are interested in implementing it (lots and lots of politicians who want to reduce spending in areas they don't like, while increasing it for areas they do, however).
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, but while that argument is appealing, it's bullshit because you're not specifying WHAT functions you eliminate with the meaningless statement, "reduced spending and smaller government." Where are you reducing the spending? What functions does this "smaller government" fulfill, and which functions does it not fulfill? Unless you specify exactly what to cut, this is just empty rhetoric with very little meaning - like saying, "We need to get rid of regulations" - which ones? Why? What is the cost-benefi
Xbox One = NSA spy platform (Score:5, Interesting)
NSA spying on all electronic communication is (very) old news. Microsoft's Xbox One (increasingly known as the XBone) has been designed from the ground up to massively increase the surveillance abilities of the NSA.
The new console has 8 CPU cores and 8GB of memory. It actually runs as two distinct computers, with two CPU cores and up to 3GB of RAM forming a special 'Kinect' computer system that has its own OS, and is continuously processing the input from the Kinect sensor systems, regardless of what the user is currently using the console for (including AAA games that appear to NOT use the Kinect sensors in any way).
The Kinect computer is constantly generating snapshots of data from the camera and microphone array, and stores these snapshots as encrypted files in a dedicated area of the enclosed HDD. These snapshots include full face photographs of each new person who enters the room. The Kinect computer is designed to compare sound and video/image data with a signature list (that can be changed and updated remotely), so that full video and sound recording can be triggered if the signature patterns are matched. This data can be either stored on the HDD (again, as encrypted streams) or immediately streamed to a remote server over the Internet if the console is currently online.
Signature triggers can include things like gunshots or sounds of explosions, people talking in a given language (say Arabic), or a man shouting at a woman.
Signatures can also (thanks to the body movement recognition ability of Kinect) represent given physical actions by people (for instance, two people engaging in love-making). Yes, you read that correctly- the Xbox One can be set to start streaming video to any remote server on the Internet if it detects people having sex in front of the camera.
Most 'signatures' are quite small pieces of data, and the console can have many thousands of signatures active at any time. Usually triggering a signature will allow an actual Human to remotely inspect some of the snapshot data being constantly generated to determine whether to activate full streaming. This practice is similar to that used by the NSA for decades when spying on ALL phonecalls- phonecalls are also routed through signature systems, and those that trigger on any signature are flagged for immediate inspection (although ALL phonecalls are actually recorded and later subject to much deeper mining).
The NSA (and other security services around the globe) have long dreamed of placing their spying equipment into the homes of every citizen. Mobile phones have gone some way to achieving this (the NSA collects, where practical, all the image data captured on mobile phones, but this is obviously severely limited by the bandwidth issues). The Xbox One puts a dream spy system into the living rooms of millions of people, together with massive amounts of mains powered computing resources to pre-process the data captured.
Microsoft demands that ALL applications and games have some Kinect functionality to encourage owners to keep the Kinect bar fully 'calibrated'. The Kinect system CANNOT ever be deactivated. If the Kinect sensors report any failure, the console refuses to run games/applications. If the sensors detect any problem with visibility (like tape over the cameras, or Kinect turned to face a wall), the console pesters the user to recalibrate the system. One can start a game, and then block the cameras in some sense, but research by Microsoft and the NSA has determined that people willing to buy the Xbox One, even if they are aware of the worst stories about invasion of privacy, will cease taking any measures to protect their privacy after only a couple of weeks of ownership.
Conversely, those who are prepared to ALWAYS block the cameras when not using a 'Kinect' game, or those who forego Kinect functionality altogether and permanently 'blind' the sensors will prove to be the tiniest minority, and can be safely considered to be no different from those who refuse to buy the console in the first plac
Re:All customers!!! (Score:5, Informative)
What have you seen that restricts it to a small subset? The actual order is secret, and I didn't find any links to the actual order, though a number of organizations claimed to have a copy.
Re:All customers!!! (Score:4)
There's a link to the actual order in TFA. [guardian.co.uk]
Re: (Score:3)
The Guardian has a copy here. [guardian.co.uk] I believe they actually broke the story, not Wired.
And you're right, it's not limited to a subset; it is ALL calls not wholly originating outside the US:
All data all the time (Score:3, Interesting)
William Biddy, who was involved in the early part of this data grab, explaining why he became a whistleblower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuET0kpHoyM
This is from 2012, before Boston. He says they've intercepted at least 15 TRILLION communications with the system.
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston. The claimed purpose doesn't work.
Re:All data all the time (Score:5, Interesting)
William Biddy, who was involved in the early part of this data grab, explaining why he became a whistleblower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuET0kpHoyM [youtube.com]
This is from 2012, before Boston. He says they've intercepted at least 15 TRILLION communications with the system.
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston. The claimed purpose doesn't work.
I'm very skeptical about the utility of "grab everything" evidence collection. After 9/11 - back when we weren't collecting anywhere near as much information as we are now - there was a feeling of "we should have caught that", based on after-the-fact understanding of clues. But IMO it simply wasn't a realistic expectation: intelligence agencies are pyramidal, so lots of details get filtered out when the 10,000 people at the bottom pass their reports up to the handful at the top. If two closely related clues are separated enough that they don't get put together at the bottom, odds are that they'll both seem irrelevant and not get passed up.
With 15 trillion intercepts, I'm sure the emphasis has shifted to computational analysis, but I'm not convinced that that makes any difference. Even the NSA can't do combinatoric crosschecks on 15 trill intercepts, so stuff is going to have to get digested and pushed upward just like with people.
And so I'm utterly unsurprised to read:
Worth noting, is that despite a decade of data grabs, they didn't stop Boston
Shoes on the ground catch a phenomenal amount of stuff.[*] Is Big Data catching anything?
[*] I remember ~10 years ago a redneck couple in Texas was going to blow up some chemical plant when the wind was blowing the right direction to kill everyone in the adjacent company town (for obscure reasons). Somehow an undercover cop was on to them, got recruited into their plot, and hid a microphone/camera in their dashboard. The news televised the footage of the three of them sitting in their truck on a hillside overlooking the plant, discussing the plot, when the men with handcuffs came to take two of them away.
Re:All data all the time (Score:4, Interesting)
The key isn't to actually catch anything, the key is to convince people you can, then snow over gullible juries in court with tales of how you have super secret evidence that proves you're a pedophile terrorist drug pusher but if they told them they'd have to kill them, so they find you guilty.
Re:What was Verizon's response? (Score:5, Funny)
What was Verizon's response?
No need to worry, you can trust corporations.
Re: (Score:3)
Obama definitely has had words of condemnation for those who voted for Romney.