Tech Leaders Push Back Against Obama's Efforts To Divert Discussion From NSA 312
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Guardian reports that while President Obama tried to portray a meeting with tech leaders as a wide-ranging discussion of broader priorities including ways of improving the functionality of the troubled health insurance website Healthcare.gov, senior executives from Apple, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Netflix said they were determined to keep the discussion focused on the NSA. 'We are there to talk about the NSA,' said one executive who was briefed on the company's agenda before the event. After meeting Obama and vice president Joe Biden for two-and-a-half hours, the companies issued a one-line statement. 'We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the president our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform.' Many of the senior tech leaders had already made public their demand for sweeping surveillance reforms in an open letter that specifically called for a ban on the kind of bulk data collection that a federal judge ruled on Monday was probably unlawful. Obama seemed sympathetic to the idea of allowing more disclosure of government surveillance requests by technology companies, according to a tech industry official who was briefed on the meeting. Marissa Mayer brought up concerns about the potentially negative impact that could be caused if countries, such as Brazil, move forward with legislation that would require service providers to ensure that data belonging to a citizen of a certain country remain in the country it originates, the official said. That would require technology companies to build data centers in each country — a costly problem for American Internet companies. The decision by the tech giants to press their case in such a public and unified way poses a problem for the White House. The industry is an increasingly influential voice in Washington, a vital part of the US economy and many of its most successful leaders are prominent Democratic political donors."
Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama forgot who his bosses are.
Obama thought he has become the KING of the Americans.
Obama is but one of the civil servants whose salaries are being paid by the American taxpayers.
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Funny)
Obama forgot who his bosses are.
And the Corporations represented here reminded him.
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not like those corporation give a rat's ass about the constitution or citizen liberties. They're only there because, like Marissa said, all those foreign countries getting suspicious of NSA might require them (the corporations) to build datacenter in every country they operate, and that's gonna be very costly to them.
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not like those corporation give a rat's ass about the constitution or citizen liberties.
Hell, their "stalker economy" business model is partially responsible for enabling the NSA. [washingtonpost.com] We can expect them to do everything they can to minimize their exposure on this problem, even if it makes things worse for us regular citizens. It is just serendipity that our interests and their interests are kind of sort of aligned for the moment like they were aligned on SOPA but you don't hear a peep from them about the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) treaty negotiations.
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The reason this is happening is because he knows very well who his bosses are.
It's just that ignorant people think they know better and like to quote various papers. They are wrong, as papers don't decide who rules. Power does. And power is firmly in the hands of those that Obama and his likes serves.
So he'll rule just fine, people will feel they have been wronged, and do nothing about it. Because those in power will tell them through the mass media that life is unfair, that this is normal, and that they sh
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Obama forgot who his bosses are.
Obama thought he has become the KING of the Americans.
Obama is but one of the civil servants whose salaries are being paid by the American taxpayers.
Although I am no great fan of President Obama, generally, and wish it was someone else, you nonetheless have that quite wrong. He isn't a "civil servant." Civil servants are hired help of the Executive branch of government.
President Obama is the President of the United States of America, leader of the country, a position long known as leader of the Free World, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, the man empowered to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons, the head of the executive branch of the United States, the man who appoints the heads of the executive departments with the advice and consent of the Senate, the man who appoints Ambassadors, and the highest elected official in the country - one of only two national offices. His signature or acquiescence is generally required for bills passed by Congress to become law, otherwise he can block them unless the Congress musters 2/3 majority vote to override him, which rarely happens.
He isn't king, but as President he wields the highest authority of the executive branch. When backed by Congress he has enormous power.
You aren't his boss, he isn't a shoeshine boy that you can bark at. If you voted, you helped elect him, but that is past now. He has the office, and there is no recall. He can only be removed before his term expires for high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the House and tried in the Senate. Although the Constitution and the courts are a key check on his power, the Congress is key. So far the country seems content on maintaining a Democratic Senate, which ensures he will have plenty of leverage to enact the unwise policies of his party.
It would be great if you started getting this sort of stuff right, you sound like you are howling at the moon.
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Interesting)
...you sound like you are howling at the moon.
This is the Internet. That is what they do here.
That being said, your civics lesson left out the large role lobbying and campaign contributions play in the decisions and actions of both Congress and the Executive. While the President can safely ignore the ranting of Internet dogs, he and the other players can't just blow off the leaders of some of the largest, most profitable corporations in the world. Mr. Obama may not be seeking re-election, but anyone looking for $$ from that crowd would do well to notice that they don't give a damn about the ACA and are up in arms about the NSA.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Funny)
i work for epa, so he kinda is
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That's kind of scary when you think about it.
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As President he deserves respect ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the tech industry's #1 concern is NSA overreach then they are correct to stay on that topic until satisfied with the President's response. The tech industry is not obligated to fix his healthcare IT and personal PR problems.
Re: As President he deserves respect ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck that. In my book respect has to be earned, even for the President.
And the man currently in the job never earned my respect. The man previously in the job earned my respect, but then he lost it. The one before him didn't have my respect initially, but ironically looking at his whole record and past his indiscretions he's earned some respect for what he did with the job.
But these latest two Presidents; in the end, neither is worthy of my respect.
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Obama forgot who his bosses are.
Obama thought he has become the KING of the Americans.
Obama is but one of the civil servants whose salaries are being paid by the American taxpayers.
Although I am no great fan of President Obama, generally, and wish it was someone else, you nonetheless have that quite wrong. He isn't a "civil servant." Civil servants are hired help of the Executive branch of government.
President Obama is the President of the United States of America, leader of the country, a position long known as leader of the Free World, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, the man empowered to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons, the head of the executive branch of the United States, the man who appoints the heads of the executive departments with the advice and consent of the Senate, the man who appoints Ambassadors, and the highest elected official in the country - one of only two national offices. His signature or acquiescence is generally required for bills passed by Congress to become law, otherwise he can block them unless the Congress musters 2/3 majority vote to override him, which rarely happens.
He isn't king, but as President he wields the highest authority of the executive branch. When backed by Congress he has enormous power.
You aren't his boss, he isn't a shoeshine boy that you can bark at. If you voted, you helped elect him, but that is past now. He has the office, and there is no recall. He can only be removed before his term expires for high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the House and tried in the Senate. Although the Constitution and the courts are a key check on his power, the Congress is key. So far the country seems content on maintaining a Democratic Senate, which ensures he will have plenty of leverage to enact the unwise policies of his party.
It would be great if you started getting this sort of stuff right, you sound like you are howling at the moon.
No actually. Voting him in doesn't make him God, it makes him even more responsible to the American People. And currently our whole government is failing the American People badly. For example, how long did our government take to "balance" the budget? It's taken over 1600 days, since like the first year of Obama's presidency. Obama is in charge, according to you, but he's letting the people he's really in charge of, Congress be the laziest bunch of fucking slackers this country has ever scene.
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I vote that both are the case.
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You know, it's really quite sad how not only you enjoy licking the boots of authority, but you apparently derive special pleasure from humiliating yourself in such a manner in public, with as many reproachful eyes on you as possible. I honestly can't think of any other reason why you keep posting things like these here on Slashdot of all places.
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Huh????? Nixon was never impeached. The house never voted to impeach him. There was talk that he would be impeached but Nixon resigned before that happened.
As for failing to act, either the house or senate can propose a law to stop the NSA. The problem is not many members see problems with it so attempts go nowhere fast.
And yes, the republicans are afraid to impeach Obama because of what happened last time. But that is the reality we have to live with when most of the nation can be tricked into believing li
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Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:4, Informative)
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Try again. Frame your narrative in terms of viable choices.
Indicate whether you think that previous health care reform efforts failed because the previous reform-oriented administrations A) didn't try hard enough; B) had the wrong approach and were justifiable opposed; C) accepted failure entirely against their best judgment lacking sufficient political power to ram the bill through (whether good/bad for America); or D) accepted failure when entrenched ideological opposition effectively made
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Given the nature of the ideological quagmire, one might reasonably argue that the best is the enemy of the good.
It's not entirely clear he even managed to reach the good. It is quite possible that ACA will end up making things worse in the country.
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some people don't want health care
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The plans i saw where outrageously stupid. Their annual cost is more than i spent on healthcare the last five years combined (about $245 per month). And to top it off, they have a $6000 deductable and $6000 out of pocket expenses. That means over one third of my income last year before i see any real advantage if i had to use it. I had catastrophic with a $2000 deductable and only paid $135 a month and it covered broken bones, stitches, heart attacks, strokes and the rest of the crap that would have to happ
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the top line is high, but I think there are a bunch of incentives that bring down the bottom line. e.g. tax breaks. expanded medicare etc. i think the bottom line can come out to be much lower.
**His** signature legislation ? (Score:5, Informative)
He allowed his "signature legislation" to be gutted ...
How did he allow **his** signature legislation to be gutted? **He** never offered any legislation. He mentioned some broad guidelines during the campaign and immediately upon election turned it over to the Democratic Party leadership who immediately grabbed Democratic party supporters and lobbyists and went into the back rooms to draft the legislation in private. He immediately abandoned his leadership on the issue.
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Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:4, Informative)
How is that statement racist? I think liberals have forgotten the meaning and just hurl ad homs as shaming language.
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not liberals. Obamabots. Who, by the process of keeping their heads up Obama's ass through all his leaps to the right (cutting SS and drone bombing weddings), are now right-wingers themselves.
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Calling people another evil thing in an effort to shut them up has worked quite well for a certain middle eastern country.
racist!
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It's a little trick they learned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0kWAqZxJVE [youtube.com]
Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
This comment is complete and utter bullshit, which harms people suffering from real racist issues. I do understand that you learned this from people paid to distribute propaganda, and perhaps you are just "one of those people".
Obama is no different than Bush, who was no different than Clinton, who was no different from Bush, etc... Each of these people had no care for US Citizens in general, just their buddies followed by themselves. Those are verifiable facts based on actions these people took, not because of what they said. Nothing is racist by pointing out that they are failing in their duties as representatives of "The People".
Thanks for playing "I'm an idiot!", you win the game!
Re:Obama forgot he works for the Americans ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Please try to contribute more. GPs comment was admirably strident but lacked substance and subtlety; your post is as useful as saying 'I agree'.
For my part, I still find it hard to take the likes of Google seriously as a defender of privacy. Their recent CEO said terrible things:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/04/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-privacy_n_776924.html [huffingtonpost.com]
"With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches [...] We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"
"In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you,. ... We need a [verified] name service for people, ...Governments will demand it."
Though he has been wise, too. From the same article:
"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,"
The point being: Google and the rest of the ad-funded online companies profit from our personal data, and have an interest in the erosion of our privacy.
Whether they like it or not, they have a motive to stop government surveillance of the internet simply because it threatens to make people less willing to share personal information on the internet.
Invasion of privacy is bad, whether it's the government that's doing it, or the people.
Easy "fix" (Score:2, Funny)
He should do what a Republican would do: lower their taxes in exchange for silence.
Re:Easy "fix" (Score:5, Insightful)
or what a democrat would do: lower their taxes in exchange for silence..oh wait.
Lets call this what it is (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, a cash grab. Brazil isn't the most enlightened country when it comes to spying, so this is a little "pot kettle black" situation, but really its just an excuse to try to force more companies to spend more money in Brazil. It has absolutely nothing to do with the feigned "outrage" the politicians are espousing.
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If Brazilians want to keep using an American service, then I guess that is their problem.
Nobody is forcing them to use gmail and yahoo.... and what makes them think Google would comply? What makes them think that NSA wouldn't just hack the servers on their soil?
Re:Lets call this what it is (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that both of these companies have CEOs that would like to keep their jobs would suffice. Any CEO that would try to exit a country of size and importance of Brazil in the name of "not following local laws" where local laws are about protecting locals from spying will be gone next day.
That goes even for Google. This isn't "we're protecting users (actually protecting our source code from being stolen)".
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GCHQ and the NSA would do this for tempest site use for NATO/embassy encryption machines. Plain text out near the machine, quality 'tested' encryption along the network.
For that you need ongoing contractors or staff with a reason for access in/near the machines over time.
Its fine if the machine manufacture is a UK/US front or tame to the needs of the US/UK gov.
After Snowden physical site access will not be like the 1950-6
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
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"More and more countries are beefing up their" cryptographic "capabilities as a result of his revelations" that what the US and UK sold them was junk.
"Diplomatic relations among many nations are now strained" as the NSA, GCHQ and a few random "other" trusted nations, their staff, ex staff and contractors and ex contractors have the crypto keys to international and domestic telco networks.
That access is all for sale t
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Why bothern with the meeting? (Score:5, Funny)
Obama: "We are already aware of your concerns regarding surveillance. You don't think we didn't hear you muttering amongst yourselves beforehand, do you?"
Re:Why bothern with the meeting? (Score:5, Interesting)
Soon expect to see Obama decree changes that sound impressive but in effect amount to nothing (ie, some new oversight commission).
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Good use of US/UK compartmentalization from the 1950-80's really saved the NSA/GCHQ from court/press issues.
Trials would just not be on the crypto topic and press could be brushed aside as Soviet friendly local press adding their own wild stories. i.e. simple signals intelligence that watches the Soviet Union and lots of domestic safe guards.
Any publisher, legal advice to an author would be just as comical, you can
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I hated Bush, but I now hate Obama much more, because Bush at least had the decency to never once pretend he was my friend before he did things I disliked.
I don't hate either one, I just wish they both had been more competent.
Oh well, maybe our next president will be competent.
Only big busniess is allowed to steal my info (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you Apple, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Netflix. You are our greatest ally!
Re:Only big busniess is allowed to steal my info (Score:5, Insightful)
Big business doesn't feel they have the legal authority to send a hellfire missile into your living due to that data. I'm a little less worried about Netflix tricking me into renting more movies than I had intended. The two just aren't comparable.
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I know this is a joke- but at least in those cases you can choose whether to use the companies products or make informed decisions that will protect your privacy. Facebook is optional- making phone calls is not.
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The full list of attendees
The CEOs attending the White House meeting in the Roosevelt room were Tim Cook of Apple; Dick Costolo of Twitter; Chad Dickerson of Etsy; Reed Hastings of Netflix; Drew Houston of Dropbox; Marissa Mayer of Yahoo!; Burke Norton of Salesforce; Mark Pincus of Zynga; Shervin Pishevar of Sherpa Global; Brian Roberts of Comcast. Eric Schmidt of Google; and Randall Stephenson of AT&T.
Other executives attending were Erika Rottenberg, vice president of LinkedIn; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; and Brad Smith, executive vice president of Microsoft.
I have no clue why anyone from Zynga (online games) and Sherpa Global (business to business & startups) are there.
Sherpa Global especially. The company is barely 6 months old. How can anyone call it a "tech leader"?
/Etsy also deserves some level of "wtf?"
These companies don't care, it is all pretense. (Score:5, Interesting)
The companies are concerned about US government surveillance ONLY because
they know it will cost them money.
Otherwise the companies don't care, because if they DID care they would have
raised hell long before now. But the companies did not do that, did they ? No,
in fact they were willing servants for the swine in the government until the revelations
Snowden caused caused their positions to become unpopular. SO now these
companies are setting new records for backpedaling performance. There is not
much if any moral difference between these companies and the Nazis who tried to
claim they were "just following orders" when they were on trial at Nuremberg.
As Vonnegut would have said if he were still around :
"So it goes".
.
Re:These companies don't care, it is all pretense. (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing corporations care about (insofar as organisations are capable of caring about anything), most especially publicly traded corporations, is money. It would open a corporation to shareholder lawsuits if it were not trying to maximise their profits using whatever means available at its disposal. That is the nature of these monsters that have been created by legal instruments. If you want them to care about anything, you have to show them how much it will cost them not to care about it. In the absence of laws against pollution, it saves money for corporations to pollute, so to get them to stop polluting, laws are written that make them liable for fines when they do. A properly-written anti-pollution law will make it cheaper for a company to buy equipment to clean up or minimise pollution than to pay the fines the government exacts for violating the law. In the same way, it saved money for corporations to be compliant with the NSA, so now other countries are making it impossible for them to operate in their countries (which costs them a market and hence money) using systems that make it easy for the NSA to do its spying. It remains to be seen whether this potential loss of business or increased operating expenses will be enough to make them rebel against the NSA. To corporations, money talks and bullshit walks every time.
Cisco and Canada isn't a co-incidence (Score:2)
You normally put just factories in countries other than your own. Cisco's proposing to put development in Canada, which is unheard of. Sun and IBM used to have some limited development here when developers in California couldn't be had for love or money, but that's mostly gone by now.
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Also, none of the tech companies probably knew the full extent
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Thanks to Snowden we have an understanding for the ~"3" ways into some tame US
1. Muscular: to collect data from US
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/nsa-hacked-yahoo-google-cables/ [wired.com]
3. Collecting from your between your browser to the US
2. Prism: Asking for the data from the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [wikipedia.org]
We are to believe option 1 and 3 are totally out of the skill set o
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The NSA is destroying the US economy (Score:2)
Period.
Look, it's getting out of control.
Tech CEOs know that.
Only idiots in DC don't know that.
RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION!
P.S.: either that or let's hope an asteroid wipes out SCOTUS and Capitol Hill at the same time.
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Few have faith in US or UK gov testing of US or UK cryptography and the list covers a few sections of US and UK exports:
US or UK academic teaching of US or UK cryptography?
US or UK press reporting on US or UK cryptography?
US or UK brands testing of US or UK export quality cryptography?
US or UK brands selling of US or UK export quality cryptography?
The NSA and GCHQ wanted into cheap junk global telco a
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The 'good hardware and software now" links back to a few different countries, their staff, contractors, ex staff and anyone who can pay.
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How is this a problem for the whitehouse? (Score:2)
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It's a clear and unanimous sentiment. ... So where is the problem?
The problem is you think the people's opinion has ever mattered in these issues. Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five Eyes, etc. existed before PRISM. You wrongly think the people's opinion is the one that matters, I have reason to suspect you may not know what Gerrymandering is; If I'm wrong, then I apologize in advance. The problem is that you did not heed Eisenhower's warning on the last day of his office. Now, everything he cautioned us about has come to pass. [youtube.com] The problem is that the war machine doe
spy vs spy (Score:2)
It's disheartening that the ( insert epithet ) that are busy commoditizing our lives are perturbed by the ( other epithet ) that are spying on us. A pox on all their houses.
Hypocrites (Score:2)
It is true and has always been that the best way to get the attention of large megacorporations, technological or otherwise, is to hit them in the pocketbook. Until Mr. Snowden came along, most of these tech companies willingly, some of them enthusiastically, cooperated with the government spies who were going to pay them considerable amounts of money. Phone companies even set aside special rooms and equipment to facilitate the spy agencies desires to scarf up terabytes of data. Now that all this has come t
Pragmatism intersects with idealism (Score:2)
Sometimes it seems rare that personal rights and business interests intersect- but that is happening here.
The NSA activities are really harming the credibility of the federal government and that will hurt everybody where it matters- the pocketbook.
Interesting Thought Experiment: (Score:3)
Imagine if you were able to post a link to this discussion here on slashdot from that dim and distant time of 2008 during the election with unforgeable timestamps showing that it indeed was a slashdot discussion from late 2013..
What a shift in a lot of people's viewpoint has happened.
Just after the election in 2008, I said that the level of expectation surrounding Obama was so great Superman couldn't have lived up to it. I'll revise that now, and say God couldn't have lived up to it.
I wasn't a supporter of Obama, but it probably would have mattered less than most think who won that election. My guess is that the world situation wouldn't be radically different (might be a little better, might be a little worse), and definitely the case of NSA surveillance wouldn't be all that different. It's the result of policy decisions over the last, at least, 50 years.
We've been shown once again a truth that we seem to forget every 4-8 years in the "irrational exuberance" of campaigns.
National political leaders (presidents, prime ministers, whatever) are amazingly limited in what they really can do. The existing policies, public perceptions, politics and geopolitical realities massively constrain their options for what decisions to make.
Those offices are bully pulpits, as Teddy Roosevelt said, and sometimes can move nations with the preaching.
But, in the end, it's still limited. (And you don't want to live in places where they do have largely unlimited power.)
And, when those leaders fail to live up to what is expected (often unreasonably) by those who elected them, the backlash can be ferocious.
Witness this discussion (or some of the ones while W. was in office here on slashdot).
"Tech industry concern" is B.S., anyway (Score:3)
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And this was a "modern" president? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I find fascinating is how the media had us believe that the man was elected because his campaign was the "modern" one, the one that had whole of the Internet dialed in, total control over and support of social media, and everything tech and hip on its side. And yet that same organization can't get a website running properly, particularly one that people don't get to use but have to use. And that same organization wants to deflect criticism and blame for the NSA's current methods.
Moving data centers into patriarchal countries (Score:3)
However, moving data centers to patriarchal countries could be even worse. The data centers would be periodically stopped by government officials to check sanitary conditions (as a pretext).
All the servers could be taken out by trucks to check for an illegal content. The employees of the data centers would be hired via nepotism system, so up-time would be not great.
The US officials are not perfect, but at least they could be called reasonable. In patriarchal societies the cloud computing model, the data centers, would not work at all. We would be obliged to switch to the silos model of desktop documents once again.
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Insightful)
He did not hijack your meeting.
They are not accusing him of hijacking the meeting. They are accusing him of spinning (or lying about) what happened in the meeting. I accept that Obama doesn't care much about the rights of the citizens, but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business. When these companies move their data centers abroad, the jobs go with them. More and more people just don't want to do business with American tech companies. This is just as stupid as the encryption embargo that destroyed thousands of American jobs back in the 1990s.
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Insightful)
but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business.
No, getting caught is bad for business. Some of the ways that cooperation and collaboration is rewarded (e.g. trade secrets) are quite good for business, which is why nobody made a stink about this before these revelations became public.
Re:He's the President. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh yes, good old US B$ A, it not was it actually is, it is all about what it looks like. Lie, cheat, steal and kill, all cool as long as a solid layer of bullshit covers it all. Get exposed for what is actually going on, what everyone is actually up too and all hell breaks lose, until more bullshit can be generated to cover it all up again.
I can assure you lying, cheating, stealing and killing is bad for everyone (except of course for the psychopaths doing it, they are having a great old time), whether or not the truth is exposed and they finally get caught and if there is any real semblance of justice, actually publicly prosecuted and penalised.
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Interesting)
but he needs to understand that pervasive surveillance is also bad for business.German coalition favors German-owned or open source software, aims to lock NSA out
There's no shortage of people willing to point that out. Having said that though, there could be some great benefits to us ordinary people if it encourages government adoption of open source and local products.
Germany’s new coalition government listed open source software among its IT policy priorities, and said it will take steps to protect its citizens against espionage threats from the NSA and other foreign intelligence agencies.
Coalition parties CDU, CSU and SPD signed up to the plans Monday in Berlin.
The new government’s goal is to keep core technologies, including IT security, process and enterprise software, cryptography and machine-to-machine communication on proprietary technology platforms and production lines in Germany or in Europe, according to the coalition agreement.
But the government will also promote the use and development of open platforms and open source software as an alternative to closed proprietary systems, and will support the use of those in Europe, the parties said in the agreement. The public sector will need to consider open source solutions as a possibility when purchasing new IT, they said.
They also want to compete on a global level with “software made in Germany” and strengthen the quality of security, data protection, design and usability by doing so
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2081140/german-coalition-favors-germanowned-or-open-source-software-aims-to-lock-nsa-out.html [pcworld.com]
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Informative)
When these companies move their data centers abroad, the jobs go with them.
[Citation Needed]
Modern data centers don't actually generate very many jobs. [gigaom.com]
After the initial flurry of construction jobs, Apple's $1 billion+ data center in Nevada is going to result in...
200 contractor positions and 35 full time jobs.
35 full time jobs
If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
"If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?" -- Jeff Spicoli
If anyone needs to get over himself it is the President. He is not a dictator. If he wants the support of the people he needs to listen to the people. If he wants the support of industry he needs to listen to industry. The people and industry are not here to do his bidding. He works for us.
Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Insightful)
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
Wrong, the President is to serve the people. It's not about what he wants, it's about what the people want.
The President might be in charge, but it's only because he was voted in. His responsibility is to the citizens of the USA, not to himself.
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Re:He's the President. (Score:5, Insightful)
He did not hijack your meeting. It was always his. Get over yourself.
It's not his government. It never was his. It belongs to the citizens. The man that you're defending has gone against the constitution and the will of the people. Get over yourself. Bush and Obama have made a mockery of the constitution. Both parties are trampling our rights and everyone seems to overlook their own party's evils while they're ready to attack the other with pitchforks and torches.
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Are you going to claim you had no hand in putting him there?
Actually, no. Why would we need to make claims when it's a well known fact that we did not. [snagfilms.com]
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I've never voted in a presidential election, for exactly that reason.
Then you're even worse than the ones who vote for bad reasons, because you're giving their vote more weight.
Get off your ass and at least try to make a difference.
Re:He's a *LOUSY* president. (Score:4, Insightful)
Voting election is like bidding in a slave auction.
Any form of participation in the event gives it legitimacy it doesn't deserve.
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Re:He's a *LOUSY* president. (Score:4, Informative)
What if the 100,000,000 voted for neither DEM nor REP? There are other parties in the US, if you don't like the status quo, stop voting for the status quo.
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"
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill
" - Rush, Freewill
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Nope.
Not voting reveals the system for what it is: violence concealed by the division of labor.
Voting in an election is as moral as bidding in a slave auction. In both cases participation gives both processes the illusion of legitimacy they do not deserve.
Re: He's a *LOUSY* president. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope.
Not voting reveals the system for what it is: violence concealed by the division of labor.
Voting in an election is as moral as bidding in a slave auction. In both cases participation gives both processes the illusion of legitimacy they do not deserve.
And by not voting you're electing not to be a slave just to the system, but also a slave to everyone around you. You think you've made some point. You have not. You've only surrendered the little power you have to take none at all.
And you've done so voluntarily, which is the real kicker. You think you're standing up to anyone? People who don't vote is exactly what corruption wants. You've voluntarily given up your rights to those you claim to stand up against. And you don't even realize you're playing right into their game.
Re: He's a *LOUSY* president. (Score:2)
Re: He's a *LOUSY* president. (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting in the United States is, indeed, heavily broken. You should still vote. Just don't vote for a Democrat or Republican.
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Voting means you accept the outcome as legitimate. So don't complain later when they execute you, even if you voted against them, because that is how your nation wanted it.
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Sure sign that Slashdot isn't running enough space stories. The space nutter troll is posting in other stories now due to loss of his natural habitat.
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Well, she could be storing illegal nuclear weapons in her basement ...
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You'd never get invited back, and future legislation would likely be unfavorable to your bottom line.
Re:What would happen if... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130927/14413024680/one-telco-exec-who-resisted-nsa-has-been-released-4-years-jail.shtml [techdirt.com]
Re:What would happen if... (Score:4, Interesting)
"NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims"
Links to the trial http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/files/512.pdf [wired.com]
"...made inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request. When he learned that no such authority had been granted and that there was a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process, including the Special Court which had been established to handle such matters, Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."