Sorm: Russia Intends To Monitor "All Communications" At Sochi Olympics 193
dryriver writes with this excerpt from The Guardian: "Athletes and spectators attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February will face some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Games, documents shared with the Guardian show. Russia's powerful FSB security service plans to ensure that no communication by competitors or spectators goes unmonitored during the event, according to a dossier compiled by a team of Russian investigative journalists looking into preparations for the 2014 Games. The journalists ... found that major amendments have been made to telephone and Wi-Fi networks in the Black Sea resort to ensure extensive and all-permeating monitoring and filtering of all traffic, using Sorm, Russia's system for intercepting phone and internet communications. Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of Citizen Lab, which co-operated with the Sochi research, describes the Sorm amendments as "Prism on steroids", referring to the programme used by the NSA in the US and revealed to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden."
Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just what oppressive governments do. They have to monitor everything to stay in power.
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That's just what oppressive governments do. They have to monitor everything to stay in power.
Just like the US of A. Old foe, meet new tyrant. Old foe copies new tyrant. Old foe and new tyrant are now buddies.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Interesting)
> Just like the US of A.
So if the USA is able to 'monitor everything to stay in power,' why is the government stalemated at the moment? Why does the President have no power? Why, unlike in Russia, are people currently able to publicly oppose their leader with zero consquences?
Curious Canadian wants to know...
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just the theater. The real power never appears on television.
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Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
President of US has no absolute power over everything, the same is true for Putin. If you think Putin is some absolutist czar and can do whatever he wants, you are watching western propaganda too much. The difference is that right now the two faction that hold power in US are in fight, while in Russia they are mostly playing along. Putin and Obama are figureheads.
Tell that joke about zero consequences to Snowden or to people from Occupy, to name just two examples. I would grant you that Russia government is more thinly-skinned, but even in Russia you can voice opposition to various degrees, and even in US if you try to mount too effective opposition, you will be whacked hard.
Sure, we are imagining things. (Score:2)
President-Prime Minister-President
Opposition: in jail or in exile, some of them murdered in suspicious circumstances.
But whatever you say buddy.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
why is the government stalemated at the moment?
What stalemate? The the one side of the party is bickering with the other one? C'mon, that's the sideshow for when there's nothing important to do. Or rather, when there is a lot of important stuff to be done, but nothing that they actually want to do because doing anything would be against their interest. Don't think of it as a stalemate, think of it as the half time show to keep the spectators entertained while there's nothing really going on that they want to do.
Why does the President have no power?
Erh... why should he have any power? You nuts? That muppet is elected by the plebs, why the fuck should he get any real power?
Why, unlike in Russia, are people currently able to publicly oppose their leader with zero consquences?
Because we learned that governments are stable as long as people talk, protest, march, complain, make jokes or smear crap on internet boards. It gives them a place to vent their anger at government while not really having any impact on it. Think of it as some way to vent some steam. It's actually the sensible thing to do, not only does it give the people the illusion that they can voice their concerns (well, that's not really an illusion, they can actually do that, the illusion is that anyone gives a shit), it's a way to vent. If you keep the lid on the pot too long and too tightly, the pot won't whistle, it will explode.
So they let 'em whistle instead. It's maybe annoying, but it doesn't really cause any harm.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible. ~ Sinclair Lewis 1935
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -- James Madison
patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. - Samuel Johnson
let me know if any of those seem to describe the current US political climate...
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Two things:
1) People are not able to effectively oppose the leaders with zero consequences. There is a big difference between publicly and effectively.
2) Obama is not the leader. Neither is Boehner or Reid, etc.
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Do you seriously believe there is a tangible difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in matters of any consequence? No matter which party is in power, in any country really, capitalists are the ones really in charge by simple virtue of their power to control so much of the economy and their unparalleled resources to drive legislation and influence the media which they own.
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Poor sod. (Score:2)
The people fumbling for power are different factions of the same powerful class.
USians still believe those people represent them...
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I wonder what Snowden has to say about this? Since The Moscow Times says that Spying Is a Sovereign Right [themoscowtimes.com], and a key spokesman for Snowden in Russia [businessinsider.com] is the head of public council for the Federal Security Service (FSB), I would guess not much. Just as well: NSA Is No Match for the FSB [themoscowtimes.com]
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I can tell you exactly what Snowden will have to say about this. The NSA/CIA intends to do exactly the same thing if they can get away with it. Russia's number one priority catching the NSA/CIA at it and exposing them. Yes, NSA is no match for FSB but that is for doing it within the law (far more extensive message interception laws) on the flip side the FSB is no match for NSA which is comes to breaking their own laws. Which is worse, hmmm, that's fucking easy, breaking you own laws because their is absolu
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LOL. You are either trolling, or practically never read what I write.
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Actually, no one reads what you write. We can't figure out how your last name is supposed to be pronounced, and move on to post from people with easier pseudonyms. ;^)
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This might help [youtube.com]. ;)
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Pretty much every government needs to do it, which is the harsh reality that people don't want to accept. We have large swaths of people over here (U.S.) that are so fucked-up-crazy with the religious and ideological bullshit, that they are essentially domestic terrorists. We have a portion of the government holding the country hostage because they don't like a bill that was passed years ago, and are still throwing a hissy fit over it. And worse yet, we have a (very) vocal minority of people that support
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We have large swaths of people over here (U.S.) that are so fucked-up-crazy with the religious and ideological bullshit, that they are essentially domestic terrorists.
and just how are we supposed to defend ourselves when these people that you speak of ARE in the US government!
I wish I was kidding. but our whackjobs are mostly the ones in power. the occasional foreign terrorist does not post much threat to the western way of life. but our own people in power are systematically destroying the freedom that
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
At least Russia tells you they're monitoring you in advance. In US, you're monitored 24/7 all year round and you only find out about it through evil "traitors" like Snowden.
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Well, if history taught us anything, then that Rome didn't outlast that phase of its existence for more than a few hundred years before the barbarians steamrolled all over them.
And given the speed of development these days, I'd be surprised if this goes on another decade or two before the steamroller comes down on us.
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The Roman empire lasted close to a thousand years not a few hundred. And after Rome fell the world rapidly descended into that period lovingly referred to as the "Dark Ages".
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The dark ages are due to the Catholic church. There was nothing "dark" in the East of Europe after the fall of Rome. We did great in fact...
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Religion was only a part of the reason for decline. Not every single province or country experienced the same amount or type of decline but the majority did. The Roman empire administered a huge amount of territory that provided a measure of stability across the board. At it's high point one quarter of the world population fell under Roman control. A lot of people relied on that administrative and trading framework to prosper. During it's conquests the Romans helped spread a common language along with prov
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In total, yes. What I talked about was the end of the Empire, the time past 100BC, when "panem et circenses" became the corner stone of the domestic policy.
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"Bread and Circuses" can often bring stability.
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It's only a stopgag, not a solution. Sadly, it's often mistaken for one.
Bread and games is sedating the population, it makes them happy and distracts them from the underlying problem, but the problem itself remains. Unless you're willing to solve that, don't expect "bread and games" to solve it for you.
There are two ways this can bite you in the rear. First, the obvious one, that the population will remember, with a vengeance, their problems when you should for some reason be unable to provide more bread an
But the USA will still get the Gold Medal . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing can beat the NSA in the surveillance event competition!
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Nothing can beat the NSA in the surveillance event competition!
They're merely afraid that someone will put up pictures of Putin in a tutu, or barebacking it with a horse, or any of the hundreds of other highly suggestive photos of the man who has decided gays are full of evil. There have been lots of protests and arrests in Russia over this lately, and demands both domestically and abroad that the Olympics be boycotted over this gross human rights violation.
Nonetheless, the international community seems to be taking the view that entertainment exceeds human rights, and
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Nothing can beat the NSA in the surveillance event competition!
I don't know man, the Jamaicans are always tough [youtube.com] and the Russians are not to be dismissed [themoscowtimes.com]. Not sure how China's team is this year.... but I hear they are big [bbc.co.uk].
In soviet Russia (Score:2)
Records break you!
Why are you surprized? (Score:3, Insightful)
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They're concerned that people might try that "free speech" thing, which has been a problem ever since Putin decided to wage a private war on gay people... and many are calling for a boycott of the olympics or protesting at the scene to raise awareness of the problem.
Unfortunately your post demonstrated more about your propensity to believe everything you read in the Western press than the reality of modern Russia.
Putting personal opinion to one side on the subject of gay rights, there is no "war" on gay people in Russia, and certainly not a "private war". The recent legislation is actually extremely popular in Russia, and is almost identical to a UK law which was only recently abolished by Tony Blair. Both leaders were simply reflecting the will of their electorate as
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To make sure everything looks just peachy for the press cameras, while the 10,000 other cameras hunt for anything that could spoil that rosey worldview... like protesters.
out of context, I could not tell WHICH country you are referring to. the US fully meets your example. we have had 'free speech zones' the last 10 or so yrs and even college campuses are starting to do this crap.
the occupy movement was either ignored by the press or put in the worst possible light, to make fun of them. they were proteste
In America you watch the Olympics (Score:5, Funny)
Pot, Kettle... (Score:4, Insightful)
Photos (Score:2)
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This is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, the IOC is perfectly OK with corruption, oppression, censorship, and spying, as long as committee members get their payoffs, a pleasant facade is maintained while cameras are rolling, and nobody but Jews get killed. Russia wishes they could have the all encompassing monitoring that Beijing had, but they just don't currently have the resources. Keeping the athletes in segregated housing simply makes it easier to ensure that every single area is bugged, and each and every person there that the participants can possibly come in contact with is engaged in intelligence collecting.
Re:This is related? (Score:2)
In what way is this related in any way to corruption? The IOC did not go forward in time, read this news, and then go back and approve Russia. I have no doubt that payoffs happen, and as demonstrated by the China games' focus on minimizing pollution to be just under the obviousness threshold, the facade has to be maintained even when the problem is well known. But how is this one of those "face it" times that demonstrates whatever point you failed to make?
On the international stage, if we limit the selec
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Well to be fair -- the IoC did let the Nazis host an Olympics and by all accounts, it was a grand ol' time.
How could letting Russia host an Olympics possibly be any worse?
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Well to be fair -- the IoC did let the Nazis host an Olympics and by all accounts, it was a grand ol' time.
Jesse Owens had a good time, in any case.
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Part of the reasoning for letting Nazi Germany host the olympics was that every medal won by a black athlete would be a slap in the face to Hitler. I'm sure the IOC only cared about their bribes, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the political reasoning used to sell it to the public.
If any gay athletes go to Moscow, I hope they will wear some obvious gay pride symbols on the medal box to give Putin a slap in the face too.
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He could also be referring to the summer and winter games of 1936. That was probably also before you were born, but I'd hope I don't need to send you to a wiki page about Nazi Germany.
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Yeah, I hate it when people just assume I'm educated.
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Hey chuckle head - I'm not an anti-Semite. I was strongly implying that members of the *IOC*, not me, were OK with killing Jews. Picking on Israel is pretty much a competitive activity for most of the member countries. Athletes in international competition can refuse to face Israelis and aren't crushed for it the way a Russian athlete would be if he refused a match with a gay athlete. And the IOC for 40 years has steadfastly refused to allow any commemoration of the murders in Munich whatsoever.
And Russia,
And how do they plan to deal with.. (Score:2)
...gnupg? ...tor? ...ssl+pfs? ...ssh? ...ipsec? ...openvpn? ...voip? .....<insert your favorite encryption/privacy tool here>?
Block everything? That would probably kick up more dust than the anti-gay legislation.
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Simple. When your device downloads any data over the network it will be infected with malware and all the encryption in the world is useless if your machine is compromised. Later, when you return home, your machine makes you into a Russian Spy.
I mean, that's how the NSA gets around Tor...
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. When your device downloads any data over the network it will be infected with malware and all the encryption in the world is useless
The NSA attack depended on people being dumb enough to run the javascript in the attack payload. If you're dumb enough to do that, you deserve what you get. Furthermore, it used an exploit targeting the Windows version of Firefox.
You seem somewhat confused. "Downloading data over the network" doesn't automatically infect your machine with malware unless your download app is buggy, or you go running scripts or executables that you downloaded. You have to be pretty damned ignorant to do that in a situatio
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No, the browser in the Tor Bundle used to have NoScript enabled by default. They sometime since then changed it to be disabled by default. Last I checked it's still disabled by default.
NBC will use this to say why can't have it live (Score:3)
NBC will use this to say why can't have it shown live even if it's not delaying the broadcast
in soviet russia (Score:2)
we monitor you!
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You misspelled USA.
A second reason (Score:2)
The notion of human rights seems quite foreign to Russia's leaders today. This follows the incredible state-sponsored persecution of LGBT people, which taps into (and caters to) the already fairly widespread homophobia in large parts of the population.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/opinion/russias-anti-gay-crackdown.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
And where is Edward Snowden? (Score:2)
In Russia, showing them how to get it done.
Big Comrade (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, State watches you!
Err... what changed?
Two words (Score:2)
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16 words: they don't have tightly directional antennae anymore, why would you think they'd be impervious to eavesdropping?
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So assuming you are using a good encryption over the line (assuming the sat phone itself uses crappy encryption) then your connection should be good.
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Really? (Score:2)
Somethingawful event: See who can send the internet monitors screaming from the room the fastest.
Cryptographers event: See who can code the best covert channel that the monitors won't notice.
Piracy event: See who can distribute footage of the events without the Olympics Committee noticing.
Sports? We don't need no steenkin sports! (Except maybe for the piracy event.)
Recall 2002 (Score:2)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130821/00421524264/nsa-fbi-spied-all-emails-salt-lake-city-before-after-olympics.shtml [techdirt.com]
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/08/nsa-olympics-spying-salt-lake-city/ [usatoday.com]
"nobody agreed that we would trade off our fundamental civil rights for the government to come in and spy on us"
Difference between USA and Russia surveillance (Score:2)
The really interesting question is... (Score:2)
... when some foreign visitor sends a strongly encrypted message they the Russian authorities find difficult or impossible to decrypt. If this were a typical Russian citizen, this would probably merit a visit from some representative of the authorities who will persuade you that the encryption is a bad idea based on bad consequences if you don't. In the case of the international attendees, one assumes the Russians will not able to do this quite so casually. But they will probably be pretty obsessed with th
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
"surveillance being subject to judicial and legislative oversight" I guess you missed all the leaks which revealed that oversight is utterly useless?
The NSA does surveillance the correct way. (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess you missed all the leaks which revealed that oversight worked?
I'm amazed at how little snooping of American citizens were going on. There was a number in the press that about 50,000 emails of US citizens were mistakenly collected.
I have 50,000 unread emails in my inbox alone.
So, the NSA's surveillance program is robust enough that, out of 300 million people, they had an oversight margin-of-error of 1 person.
That's it.
This is how a proper government surveillance programs are SUPPOSED to work - fille
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:4, Insightful)
I suggest that some people need to grow up, and realise that the West is the absolute paragon of virtue compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing.
I suggest that some people need to wake up, and realise that while the West is currently the absolute paragon of virtue (compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing) we must not take that condition for granted.
FTFY.
I shudder to think what will happen to the world when the baton of world domination is handed to these despots.
Yep, me too. That's exactly the reason I don't want "the West" to become them.
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IOU one "insightful" mod.
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
..but just couple of articles back there's an article of going for foreign soil and shooting guns. with russia you're pretty much free to do anything(few isolated incidents not counting) as long as you stay out of russia(or their oil drilling operations). I'm not aware of any cases of russians even asking extradition of hackers, dissidents or what have you. however usa does that regularly and not only asks other countries to do it - they and their ally have regularly gone abroad to outright kidnap (locally)illegally persons they for some reason or another want out of the picture. that's scary. I can stay out of russia easy and not sweat even if I fly over it.
I could even plan a hypothetical russian revolution plan without worrying about getting whacked! now if I did the same thing using some cloud service but only for USA instead of russia I would be risking a black ops visit or extradition to usa for threatening security in usa.
there's plenty of reasons to boycott sochi. but all that was lost already to olympic movement when china had their games. they only care about money and for most athletes making it to olympics is about money too - to keep a "pro" status they have to get there and pro status means having enough sponsorship(private or state) to keep competing on pro level. of course the right thing to do is to not watch the games.
a big thing about the leaks is that judical and legislative oversight.. is that it isn't. it's closed doors. there's TWO parallel processes - the old one that went through courts and ended up as evidence on regular cases and then there's the mystery NSA-secret court and secret oversight one - but why would there be a need for that ? and I don't know how really much more far reaching you can get than re-routing connections and inserting tagging via js holes to people who you don't know even where they're from. you really shouldn't use russia or china as the benchmarks for freedom! as soon as you do that you're thoroughly fucked!
And you forgot the biggest difference to russian spying vs. american spying if one is from neither of the countries! american spying is targeting among other people me, whilst russian spying is targeting (mainly) russians and foreigners _on_russian_soil_ - in their country, according to their laws. they don't publicly pretend that they don't need to follow our laws while doing operations in our country but the leaders of the american intelligence apparatus have made time and time again comments that they don't need to give jack shit about our laws.
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You risk extradition but at least you will be alive, unlike Litvinenko or Markov -- the Russians just don't bother with formal prosecution.
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You risk extradition but at least you will be alive
Unless you end up on the list of the Dronemaster General.
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You have to work to get there, it isn't bestowed freely.
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I think your answer is here:
Anwar al Awlaki's son hoped 'to attain martyrdom as my father attained it' [longwarjournal.org]
Anwar al Awlaki's son said he hoped "to attain martyrdom as my father attained it" just hours before he was killed in a US Predator airstrike in Yemen in mid-October, according to a journalist who sympathizes with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Abdul Rahman al Awlaki, Anwar's 16-year-old son and an American citizen, made the statement to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's emir of the city of Azzam in Shabwa province. Azzan is one of several Yemeni cities currently under AQAP control.
Abdul Rahman was killed in a Predator strike in Shabwa province on Oct. 14. The strike targeted Ibrahim al Bana, AQAP's media emir.
So, you are quite wrong in multiple aspects. If you think that a 16 year old with a bomb vest or AK is less dangerous than an 18 year old, you would be mistaken again.
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Wow. You miss a lot of things that are happening in the world. Russia is very active both overtly and covertly in many parts of the world. Just exactly who do you think is propping up Assad? Who has been messing around in Georgia, Chechnya, the international portion of the Arctic?
Maybe they don't have quite the reach that the US does. That's not be design - they basically can't afford all the stuff we can. If they could, they would.
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You just disappear.
We have become despots (Score:5, Informative)
1) surveillance being subject to judicial and legislative oversight
You mean the secret surveillance conducted by a secret agency under secret orders with secret legal justification, "overseen" by a secret rubber stamp court with secret findings? Exactly how do you propose oversight works when there is no accountability to the electorate whatsoever?
2) not being anywhere near as far-reaching as SORM or the Chinese systems,
Got proof to back that up? I didn't think so.
3) anybody being hauled away in the dead of night for offending the sensibilities of anybody in power.
So you are claiming the US government has never engaged in extraordinary rendition [wikipedia.org] and does not operate a prison camp without any due process [wikipedia.org]?
I suggest that some people need to grow up, and realise that the West is the absolute paragon of virtue compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing.
Not it the last 10 years, particularly in the US. The US has engaged in kidnapping, torture, secret and illegal surveillance, political assassinations, gag orders without any warrant or due process, and started two unjustified wars which are still going on over a decade later, and you want to claim that we are a "paragon of virtue"? Maybe we are better but it certainly isn't by much these days. Hell we had a president who was awarded the Nobel peace prize and used the opportunity to argue why war is sometimes necessary. Talk about hypocritical.
US is not despotic - Russia and PRC are. (Score:2)
So you are claiming the US government has never engaged in extraordinary rendition and does not operate a prison camp without any due process
Both of which require a much higher threshold than what is considered worthy of action in Russia or China. In China, it merely requires the uttering of an unharmonious joke against a public official. In Russia, it only requires that you publish something unsavory enough to offend the government.
In the US, you actually have to be a threat to human life - instead of a journalist, a politician, or an ordinary citizen that said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Re:US is not despotic - Russia and PRC are. (Score:4, Informative)
In the US, you actually have to be a threat to human life - instead of a journalist, a politician, or an ordinary citizen that said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
BULLSHIT!
you could not be more wrong. little subtle things like getting on the no-fly list (and not being able to confirm it or get off of it) is one example. there are others which neither you nor I am aware of but I fully believe exist, given the current climate of the US gov.
you don't have to be kidnapped at 3am. there are other ways to ruin your life if you piss off someone high enough up in the food chain.
you can find it hard to get a job. you can be on a 'no hire list'. you can find your taxes are 'extra well reviewed' and are on the audit list more than you think would be reasonable. you can be wiretapped and monitored more closely. many things can happen that is way short of being 'taken in the night'.
wake up! we are slowly cooking the frog, here. you need to get out of the storyland fable that you were taught as a kid and realize what our country has slowly become.
A pathetically low level of ethics (Score:2)
Both of which require a much higher threshold than what is considered worthy of action in Russia or China.
Way to set the bar low. So because they are engaged in completely reprehensible conduct that means it is somehow ok for the US to engage is conduct that is just mostly reprehensible? Sorry but I expect MUCH more from our leaders than to be just a little bit better than a repressive dictatorship.
In the US, you actually have to be a threat to human life - instead of a journalist, a politician, or an ordinary citizen that said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
No you do not have to be an actual threat to anyone. You just have to be perceived as a threat by one of the various homeland security agencies regardless of the validity of that perception. There are countless e
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What "oversight" prevented snowden from reaching far beyond his granted permissions?
"LOVEINT" ...
Are you fucking serious? Protip: being dropped on your head shouldn't be habit forming. Get help.
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Regarding perspective, I think it would help if more people would read Bruce Schneier's "Beyond Fear". There he gives a very straight forward, for they layman, introduction to analysing risks and appropriate security measure response. In that light, it becomes clear tha
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What the US has done should be judged against rights and laws, not the practices of other countries who may or may not be worse violators in similar respects.
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
The courts have thrown up their hands and stated PUBLICLY that they can no longer reign this in. So much for judicial oversight. The NSA blatantly lied to Congress and has faced no consequences for it. So much for legislative oversight.
As for 2 or three, you maintain that it's fine to beat someone into a coma and as long as someone somewhere was killed outright the coma victim and family have no right to complain?
Sorry, I would prefer not to set the bar as low as Russia or China. Not the worst is not much of an aspiration.
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China and Russia both have a huge history of insane lack of regard for human rights. The Muslim states, with one or two exceptions, have been driven back into the dark ages by lack of education and fanatical, twisted versions of their religion. Russia remains so broken that crime seems to be the major industry with getting drunk as the national activity. The Muslim states are pretty much lost to civilization or even hope of civilization. China has put away much of their negative behavior and is advan
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Your post reminds me of a comic strip of Bush and Cheney at Gitmo, with the punchline of "Certified not as bad as an actual Soviet GULAG".
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Just because the "western" lethal injection is less painful than the "muslim" stoning doesn't mean that I'd really like to get either.
Yes, there are places that are worse than what we have here. But when did "being better" become "being less awful"?
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> I suggest that some people need to grow up, and realise that the West is the absolute paragon of virtue compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing.
> I shudder to think what will happen to the world when the baton of world domination is handed to these despots. I know the techno-libertarian crowd will be celebrating.
That Russia is, as you put it, "the Devil Incarnate" and America opposes Russia in certain areas does not make America "the absolute paragon of virtue compared" (and yo
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The Right Honorable Judge Rubberstamp and Diane Fiendstein don't really count as "oversight".
Not nearly as VISIBLE as SORM or the Chinese systems -- but that's just a political thing. The Russians an
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True enough and good points.
However I contend that politics is not, or perhaps should not be, about comparison shopping. One might propose politics as being a bit more than just being the pursuit of the possible but rather the betterment of the commonweal.
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A few years back I had recourse to read both what the U.S. and the UN had to say of torture. They were pretty close, btw. Both had exceptions granted to law-enforcement being allowed to applying measures necessary to obtain compliance. This is the loophole. The main criterion, if memory serves, is that no lasting damage be done.
You're certainly welcome to look up the stuff, and I suggest anyone do so. It's informative.
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Virtually everybody is too lazy to encrypt their communications.
Look at the USA/NSA debacle. The next day after the leaks, how many people started to encrypt their emails and texts? 99%? No. 50%? No. 1%? No. A tenth of a percent? Probably not even that many.
People don't care about guarding their privacy, so they won't do what you suggest. You can argue that this means they get what they deserve, and maybe that's true, but it's going to be true for virtually every single person there.
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Actually... I see it as a fair warning and in the current situation (with the USA getting hammered for listening in on pretty much everything) reads pretty much as a "who's the good guy now" directed at America.
They are basically saying this: "Hi. We're organizing a big event, a natural target for terrorist attacks. So, while this should be obvious, we'll warn you: we're prepared and we will listen in on anything we possibly can to avert any destructive plans. So, if you come here - do not expect any privac
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However I am expecting to see snowden standing next to Putin waving at the crowds during the opening ceremony.
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AL-CIAda: the freedom fighters that just keep on helping, generation after generation.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,”
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Completely agree with the parent. Most people here haven't been keeping track of the bigger picture.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10266957/Saudis-offer-Russia-secret-oil-deal-if-it-drops-Syria.html [telegraph.co.uk]
The Saudis tried to blackmail Putin into dropping their support of Syria, first offering them a secret oil deal, and then threatening to cause a terrorist attack during the Olympic games in Russia. Putin refused.