Panel Urges Major NSA Spying Overhaul 242
wiredmikey writes "A board set up to review the NSA's vast surveillance programs has called for a wide-ranging overhaul of National Security Agency practices while preserving 'robust' intelligence capabilities. The panel, set up by President Obama, issued 46 recommendations, including reforms at a secret national security court and an end to retention of telephone 'metadata' by the spy agency. The 308-page report (PDF) submitted last week to the White House and released publicly Wednesday says the US government needs to balance the interests of national security and intelligence gathering with privacy and 'protecting democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.' Panel members said the recommendations would not necessarily mean a rolling back of intelligence gathering, including on foreign leaders, but that surveillance must be guided by standards and by high-level policymakers."
Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus 1.
With an honest president, this guy would get a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
This president will give him 3 hots and a cot.
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With an honest president, this crap would have been stopped long before a Snowden would have appeared.
What we have is an untold amount of information being collected and disiminated to foreign organizations with a reporter and internet salesman in possession of it to start their newest money making venture and the guy eho initially took the information it is offering to help other countries defeat the US inteligence gathering that is likely constitutional. What a mess we have
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
You forget to mention just how inept NSA turned out to be, both in its internal security procedures, and in their dealing with personnel.
I would be extremely surprised if, with that attitude, they didn't have swarms of bona fide foreign spies, Russian and Chinese and who knows what else. What better place to infiltrate than the one that does data mining on the entire country, yet cannot properly secure its own data banks? You don't even need to tap anything, just join and get the collected data out on USB sticks, like Snowden apparently did for years before he dropped the bomb.
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You forget to mention just how inept NSA turned out to be
Inept? I would assume it takes quite a bit of expertise to justify a friggin Holodeck [wordpress.com] on a purchase req.
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Only crooks can become the POTUS.
Not entirely true. There was Jimmy Carter.
Unfortunately, it appears that crooks make better presidents, though.
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With an honest president, this guy would get a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I thoroughly believe this, but it's too bad none of us will live to see that happen. On hearing the election results, most of us would have dropped dead from heart attacks.
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With an honest president, this guy would get a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
With an honest president the programs would have been shut down upon his taking office like he promised. Snowden even cited the president's lack of follow-through (to put it delicately) as a major motivation for his decision to take action.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
He hasn't released all of it. That's the only thing keeping him alive.
He's still alive to hold this dishonest administration's feet to the fire.
As much as useful idiots like you think it is more important to stand up and be muzzled in court and shipped off to solitary confinement in some forgotten corner of the prison system, the rest of us would like to hear the rest of the story about what this corrupt government is doing in our name.
Shame on you for suggesting stupid surrender instead of living to fight another day. George Washington is turning in his grave at your stupidity.
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To put a twist on that: if releasing of the documents depends on him being alive, then there is also a number of folks/agencies/governments/countries that would be very keen on killing him in order to trigger releasing of the documents. I'm not sure that this "insurance" has no flaws.
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It appears the biggest thing stopping releases right now it the reporter Greenwald trying to monitize the process. Snowden says greenwald has all the dicuments.
There are people right now trying to organize mercenary teams to find snowden and turn hum in to the US. There is even one of the right wing radio host claiming they want to start a kickstarter campain to crowd source this.
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Doubtful (Score:3)
He hasn't released all of it. That's the only thing keeping him alive.
Doubtful. The NSA knows what information he had access to and what he has released. They will have to take the same security measures either way because they have to assume the information will be released if it hasn't already. They also have to assume the information either is or will become public.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and if that was what was going to happen, maybe Snowden would have stayed. Preferring to avoid torture followed by more torture followed by American prisonrape followed by some more torture does not cast a shadow on Snowdens heroic actions. He's certainly given up enough to prove his sincerity.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Over time all his efforts would have been lost and nothing would have been public but for some note in the US press over some security case.
Snowden has helped expose junk encryption products been sold around the world and induced US law reform to slowly look into Constitutional rights
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
"Rosa Parks didn't flee from the bus when the police came for her; She sat right there and waited."
Holy crap. Rosa Parks? Really? I count that as a weird modification of Godwin's Law.
Rosa Parks wasn't facing life in solitary in Federal prison. At most she faced a night in jail... she had not even actually broken a law. There's a pretty fucking big difference.
Snowden, on the other hand, could not have revealed this information he did to the American public without breaking some serious laws. The fact that he was tattling on far vaster breach of the law nothwithstanding.
"Snowden stole a lot of classified materials from his employer, and then fled the country. And then he released all of it."
NO, he did not. He release SOME of it, to journalists who were entrusted to sift through it and determine what was proper to release. He has not released "all of it", even to those journalists, much less to everybody else.
"If I'm going to denounce my government's actions, I want the police to come. I want to be arrested, charged, and put on trial."
And given the current state of government in the U.S., you'd be tried as a "foreign combatant", tortured in Guantanamo, and NEVER SEE A PUBLIC TRIAL. Good luck with that. You're living in the dreamworld that the U.S. used to be.
Snowden got vital information out to the American public in the only way he reasonably could. Berating him for that is not just unrealistic, it's asinine.
Godwin's Law (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, but can I just make a point about Godwin's Law? If the moment somebody mentions Nazis, the STASI, Pol Pot or any other extremist regime and is immediately "Godwinned", how are we to learn anything from these terrible historical precedents? If the actions of a supposedly democratic government really can be compared to Nazism, etc, then "Godwin's" is just a way to shut down debate about that. Just how badly does somebody need to act before the comparisons are apt? How will we know?
Personally, I think with the recent revelations about the NSA et. al., I think it's high time that Godwin's Law was at least reconsidered, if not outright repealed.
Re:Godwin's Law (Score:5, Insightful)
When I say something like "I don't think it is wrong for a country to have a leader with considerable powers" if the next response is "That's the sort of thing the NAZIS said, who are you hitler?" any reasonable discussion has ended.
Some events are significant enough that they rightly can be compared reasonably and maybe Godwin shouldn't be claimed in those cases, but until we get some relatively in internet discussions (lololololol) most comparisons to Nazism will be completely inappropriate and unhelpful.
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What you're talking about is an actual part of Godwin's Law. Literal Nazism, historical discussions related to Nazi Germany or similar regimes, and legitimate political comparisons such as dehumanization, war crimes, and a police state are all exempt from Godwin's Law because they aren't a spurious comparison.
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Godwin is more or less a way to be intelectually lazy any more. Back when it first came about, it wasn't the entrance of Nazis, hitler, or any evil historical figure into debates that was the problem, it was when a point or participant was compared to or likened to them. The observation was that once that happened, nothing constructive would come after and it would de-evolve into personal attacks and so on so debate was essentially over there.
Now it is a trick of the dishonest and intelectually lazy who thi
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I thought that Godwin's Law was simply an observation that in a given debate, the Nazis would eventually be brought up. I didn't think there was anything about it being the end of the discussion, just an observation that such a thing was bound to occur.
In theory. In fact, it's used as a blunt instrument or ad hominem
There really ought to be a Meta-Godwin law that says that invoking Godwin's Law does not excuse Nazi-like behavior.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst Snowden runs around free he is providing a solid message to other whistle blowers, it is possible to expose corrupt US government actions and survive. This if of course the main reason they target Snowden, not so much the criminal activity he exposed but emboldening others to similar actions. All those many others in similar positions need to spend some time looking into the mirror and decide what their heritage will be and what they will future they will be providing for future generations. When the government lies, cheats, steals and kills as is a threat to the democracy they are meant to represent, don't be a gutless coward or a servile minion, expose the crap out of them and bloody get away with it and that last part is just as important as the first part because it will encourage others to do the same. When enough follow suit, then it's the government criminals who end up behind bars and the whistle blowers who are free and celebrated as the heroes they are.
Bradley Manning (Score:3)
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she had not even actually broken a law
Rosa Parks went much further than that, she deliberately and shamelessly broke a strict social taboo of the day. She was lucky not to have been raped and beaten for her insolence. Passive civil disobedience in the face of systematic and violent oppression, such as displayed by Indians under Gahndi and American's under MLK, takes a lot more guts than what Snowden did. Having said that, I agree - "Berating him for [running] is not just unrealistic, it's asinine.".
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
It is entirely unimportant whether he's a coward or not. He released information that needed to be released, and that had an effect.
"anyone with half a brain realizes that the very definition of a spy agency is that it spies on people" -- of course, but there are some important bits here:
1. For a long time, people thought it only spied on foreigners. Americans supposedly had a right to privacy and needed a court order
2. Then people figured out that Americans were spied on too, and tried to go to the courts to stop it. But the courts refused because you need to have evidence of it happening. And how do you get evidence of that a secret government program is spying on you?
It's ridiculous to pretend that Snowden didn't release anything new. If he didn't, why are we talking about this? Why is there a panel, and why is the industry trying to convince the US President to have it stopped?
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
A) You're assuming that you'd be given a trial by jury, rather than branded a traitor (aiding the enemy) and either kept in guantanamo or tried in a secret court. They would hold you up as an example - head on pike, as it were - to all others who might dare to expose their illegal actions. If you look at the history of civil rights leaders, you'll find that Rosa Parks wasn't just some random hero who stood up for herself one day; she volunteered and was chosen by community leaders to be a test case. They picked their timing, circumstances, and people very carefully - both from a legal and a public-relations standpoint. Whistleblowers have no such luxury; they find incriminating information and are immediately presented with an ethical quandary and the necessity to act.
B) Why are you lambasting someone for not wanting to go to prison and face "enhanced interrogation methods"? He discharged his ethical duty by telling us what he found. He doesn't owe us a damned thing more.
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If I'm going to denounce my government's actions, I want the police to come. I want to be arrested, charged, and put on trial. And then I want a jury of twelve Americans to look me in the eye and say "You did wrong by us." And if I'm really sure this is a matter of human rights... I'm also really sure at least one of those twelve people is going to say: "You're right. The government was wrong."
You're going to get a lot of vitriol for this, so I'll just say this -- this organization broke a lot of laws and operated outside explicitly established court procedures in many cases. Why would they then choose to follow due process in prosecuting someone who in particular so thoroughly embarrassed them by bringing those same behaviors to light?
3 hot meals and a cot in a concrete cell is exactly where he needs to be if he really believes what he's shovelling.
It seems like he's living something like a modern-day equivalent of banishment.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
This president will give him 3 hots and a cot.
Rosa Parks didn't flee from the bus when the police came for her; She sat right there and waited.
She didn't have to worry about extraordinary rendition to an extraterritorial prison like Gitmo, where case law has indicated that constitutional guarantees don't apply. He would potentially have to also worry about being killed by the U.S. government outright, as other U.S. citizens have been, for example, in Afghanistan without due process of law: http://rt.com/usa/us-government-drone-killing-660/ [rt.com]
When Alabama told Martin Luther King they would arrest him if he marched, he marched anyway, and then got arrested.
And then was assassinated as soon as it was convenient, afterwards.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
What Rosa Parks did was an act of courage, but she also wasn't committing a capital offence either. The founding fathers were. Snowden may not be executed for his crime, but he would spend the rest of his life in prison for it.
Yea, I'd rather not do that either.
Neither Rosa Parks nor Martin Luther King were facing a life prison term. If they were, they might have behaved differently.
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What Rosa Parks did was an act of courage, but she also wasn't committing a capital offence either. ...
Neither Rosa Parks nor Martin Luther King were facing a life prison term. If they were, they might have behaved differently.
Mob lynchings were common enough to serve as a deterrent. While it might not have been a life prison term, there was a non-zero probability that some pissed-off racists might have strung up Rosa Parks with complete impunity. Let's not forget that MLK actually was assassinated for his beliefs.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Informative)
Snowden's justification for his actions fall short of what a person truly concerned about civil liberties would have done. If I'm going to denounce my government's actions, I want the police to come. I want to be arrested, charged, and put on trial.
Two people prior to Snowden trusted the system, went through the official channels, and faced the music; William Binney [wikipedia.org] and Thomas Drake [wikipedia.org]. They were harrassed and prosecuted by the executive, marginalized and ignored by the major media. Their most significant achievement was making it clear to Snowden that he could not trust our legal system to seek truth and justice nor the old guard of the fourth estate to do its investigative duty.
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Here's the thing people don't get about Snowden: He's not a revolutionary, or a hero. He's a coward.
Just like how if I don't jump off a building, I'm a coward. Not everyone wants or needs to be a martyr, and it just isn't necessary in this situation. We have a lot of information, and we will either choose to act on it or we won't; Snowden does not need to become a martyr.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's their job to watch for threats both foreign and domestic."
Nope. Only NSA domestic tasking is to develop secure comms and crypto for use by military and State. Like CIA, they are forbidden to do deomestic intel gathering. By law, anyway.
Everything I've read in the past six months indicates that less than half of what he took has even been released to Greenwald et al, and they've released but a portion of what they're working with. But maybe you have better sources (no, that's not snide; you're a sharp cookie when you're on your game, so maybe you read something that I didn't.)
My understanding is that the purpose was not particularly to 'expose the NSA' as to expose such things that they are doing that are counter to, or an un-authorized expansion of, tasking, and done in violation of the several laws that apply, and perhaps, even likely, of the constitution under which those laws operate.
I mean, c'mon, while I know that Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace" was news to some when it came out back when, but the essentials of the basics of what the various intel agencies were doing was kinda obvious, not to mention stated outright in public documents. So long as there was no drama, things just went along quietly, is all. Thing is, going back to Church et al, historically those same agencies have a recurrent problem with both mission creep and off-the-books activity.
I'm enough of a realist to figure that there are some gray areas; that things can get nasty in the dark corners. But that's a long sight different than the wholesale vacuuming of every domestic electronic comm up to garage door openers. So far as has been reported, despite repeated questions from Congress, so far no information on terrorist activity leading to its disruption that could not just as easily and readily and legally be obtained by heretofore existing means and methods has been given. Further, claims to the contrary, no one has been shown to have been harmed by the disclosures, although certainly some reputations and business deals have been affected.
Look, I have no particular axe to grind here. I mostly tend to favor law and order; the right to privacy, the right to speak, the right to peaceably assemble, all without chilling consequences stemming from total surveillance.* I also tend to look with disfavor on over-reach and skullduggery. Quaint tho it may be, especially given the hypocrisy and, some would say, the corruption of Congress, I really don't like it when public officials lie to the only body that ostensibly is looking out for me, either.
*(Btw, I recall few if any contemplating the heavy psychic load and attendant mental health problems that arise in such a state. (You ever talk to someone came out of East Germany? Not pretty.) We're already training our schoolchildren to accept such things as being arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail from out of a fifth-grade class for doodling with a dry marker, along with invasive searches and withholding of needed medication; the list goes on. Then we have college free-speech zones requiring a two-week reservation and approval. Say what? That would have been popular in '70. Bad enough children have no childhood now; far worse is molding them to compliance with a totalitarian state by high school. Heck, looking back, I and most of my classmates would have been imprisoned or dead by fourth grade, way things work today. The times are not that different, but our collective heads are sure twisted up pretty bad to let this shit come to pass and think it somehow good and "justified". Only IMO, of course.)
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The stupidity of your position is so enormous, so complete I just have to ask you: who ties your shoe laces in the morning? Or do you just go with velcro?
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This wasn't about "exposing" the NSA -- anyone with half a brain realizes that the very definition of a spy agency is that it spies on people. "They were spying on americans!" Yeah, ok, and?
And it's fucking ILLEGAL, damn it. Have a look at this [cnn.com] article written by J. Kirk Wiebe, a retired NSA executive:
Bah, humbug (Score:3)
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You do realize this is whitewash
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden has offered to help Brazil investigate US intelligence. Is that the patriotism you were referring to?
Why, yes, Yes it is.
Any spying on Brazil was for economic reasons, probably at the behest of corporations, not due to any threat to the US.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
You had it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
Well, if the US government is spying on behalf of US companies, those companies cannot be trusted.
It's violation of the free market forces and clearly illegal. Their bids are obviously invalid.
The rest of the world owns Snowden a big thanks for exposing organized crime at this level.
And people in the US shouldn't worry about the money (from state-sponsored organized crime), but be ashamed of their country for the crimes you are committing against other (smaller) countries that considered the US to be their ally.
Be glad that Snowden exposed this, you have a chance to fix it now... otherwise what's next state-sponsored bribery, theft, sabotage of competitors, why not just invade a foreign country take all their gold? Laws must also apply when dealing with foreign citizens, countries and cooperations...
There is something wrong with your brain. (Score:5, Interesting)
What shocks me more than spying is the fact that so many people on slashdot seem to have only become aware of it when Snowden leaked. I'm guessing you were either asleep during the Cold War or not yet born. Either that or wilfully ignorant, or just plain stupid. I suspect the latter, because frankly the naivete you and others show here is simply breathtaking.
Re:You had it coming (Score:4, Informative)
That is basically a strawman argument. Snowden hasn't provided any proof that the US engages in industrial espionage to directly benefit it's industry.
They've already been caught with their fingers in the pie a few times now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial_espionage [wikipedia.org]
Re:You had it coming (Score:4, Informative)
That is basically a strawman argument. Snowden hasn't provided any proof that the US engages in industrial espionage to directly benefit it's industry.
Maybe Snowden hasn't, but others have.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/nsa-busted-conducting-industrial-espionage-in-france-mexico-brazil-and-other-countries.html
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130909/04383424450/latest-leak-shows-nsa-engaging-economic-espionage-not-fighting-terrorism.shtml
So, yeah.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then next time try to compete on the grounds of merit, not by spying of your customers and competitors. Spend more money in research and less in espionage. Isn't that what "capitalism" is all about?
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of capital. Ownership means control, and capital means anything that can be used for production.
When government spends money, it takes public control of capital. Spending money on research, welfare, spying, bailouts, printing money and stimulus are anti-capitalist when done by governments. At this point in time, even China is more capitalist than the US (thus why they are growing and we are sinking)
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You mistake "state" for "government" (that's a very usual fallacy, though).
I did not even mention the word "state"
You suggest that spying would be better if performed by privates (?!?)
No. I don't even disagree with the parent, spying is wrong either by government or private entities. However Capitalism is not about government spending money in research instead of spying as the GP implies. Capitalism is about the government not spending money at all. That was the point of my post.
China is more capitalist than the US? The Chinese State has total or partial ownership of every business in China. You just completely contradict your own initial point!
I would not say china is full fledge capitalist. And I agree the government still owns a lot of enterprises. However, in the past 20 years, China has been privitizing
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Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
That damned NSA, always costing Western Europe, costing the French business! Was it spying? Or just a business decision to go with the LOW BIDDER?
UPDATE 3-Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid [reuters.com]
Dassault, for its part, said it regrets Brazil's decision and called Saab's fighter an aircraft that was inferior to its Rafale jet.
"The Gripen is a lighter, single engine aircraft that does not match the Rafale in terms of performance and therefore does not carry the same price tag," it said.
Saab says the Gripen NG has the lowest logistical and operational costs of all fighters currently in service.
France soothes nerves over Dassault jets after Brazil setback [reuters.com]
Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet [reuters.com]
The simple fact is that Saab has a very competitive fighter that has won contracts in a number of countries, both in and out of Europe in the last few years, long befor
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That sort of reminds me of something my kids do. They'll misbehave and then complain when I punish them that it isn't "fair." Of course, what they really mean is that they don't like to be punished and would rather be able to misbehave without consequence. My boys are well behaved for the most part but, like any kids, have times when they test the limits of what is allowed. Sadly, too many people don't grow up in this respect, feel slighted when their bad behavior is punished, and complain about how "un
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Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.
Well, that's what the articles say anyway. But if the reality is that they just chose the cheapest, best jet then this still makes for good headlines and pushes harder against the NSA to reform so either way it's good.
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
The Brazilian nuclear work and advanced aerospace efforts are well known and very well understood by the USA - no nuclear weapons system but the US "let" Brazil keep working on nuclear subs and aerospace
As for links with China, Russia most countries will buy up any mil systems for sale gov to gov at any good price and with ongoing tech support, upgrades.
So no reason at all to be interested there, Brazil like any nation can buy into what ever it feels like unless bound by some international treaty e.g. nuclear.
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Yep, no reason to worry about anything at all. It is not like no other country has been invaded or any world wars have been started by countries allying together and sharing military tech or anything.
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LOL Brazil can buy whatever it feels it can afford on the international market. The upfront price and ongoing software, hardware maintenance costs are about all Brazil has to worry about.
Arms sales are rarely about "whatever it feels it can afford" and almost always about fostering political relationships.
Money is never a problem with arms sales, as the USA (or France) is happy to loan money (provide financing) for coutnries that want to spend billions on military technology.
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Paranoid much? You buy stuff from China, Brazil buys stuff from China, everybody buys stuff from China. They're cheap, what do you expect? Ditto Russia.
In addition the US has proven they're less trustworthy than was thought in the past. That changes the value equation and people are looking for alternatives.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Informative)
Fox news? You mean the same people who complain about too much government involvement until it's their kind of government involvement?
Also, we also have to thank Glenn Greenwald and we have to not-thank the US press for failing to be trustworthy enough to be government watchdogs.
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The GP never said anything about ratings or popularity, he made a observation about changing their stance, on the border of hypocricy.
As for popularity, billions of flies eat shit. Does that mean that you start thinking eating shit is good for you too?
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Maybe that's because those other 2 suck so much. As an European that has been in the US on business several times, I find Fox News pretty amusing. I used to watch it for the laughs.
It's amazing (and scary) that so many people in the US take that sludge seriously. If you don't start doing anything about it, you're heading straight back into the Middle Ages.
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At least it will have Europe to break the fall.
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US cable news is to news, as professional wrestling is to wrestling. A lot of sound and fury and no substance. Good fun though. More entertainment products than information products.
> Well, apparently the majority of the public very much disagrees with you
No. Only the majority of cable news watching segment (for whom long form journalism is too much work). The total cable news viewership counts aren't anywhere near total public numbers.
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
So the stupid outnumber the smart?
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The fact that a board was even set up to review the NSA's surveillance programs is change that would not have occurred without Snowden making a stand.
The patriotism I'm talking about is something obviously over your head. It involves sacrifice to uphold what is right, no matter who you might piss off in the process.
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Snowden has offered to help Brazil investigate US intelligence. Is that the patriotism you were referring to?
He offered to help "wherever lawful and appropriate" [pastebin.com] -- Do you have have a problem with lawful and appropriate actions? Are you advocating that Snowden do something to violate the law?
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What he is offering to do with Brazil would NOT add to the list because they are lawful actions. Your post was 1/2 factual at best.
Those are not even recommendations (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no change, those are only recommendations
The panel is a dog and pony show.
It's a circus-like entity to fool us into believing that "CHANGE IS COMING" while actually there will be NO CHANGE.
They understand that the people are VERY UNHAPPY about what NSA has done to us.
They understand that they can't go on doing the same old things the same old ways - but they also know that they have to CONTINUE TO DO THE SAME OLD THING, that is why they put up this fucking dog-and-pony panel publicly stating their so-called "82 recommendations" and hope that by doing so people will be "satisfied" and will not pay so much attention to what they do anymore.
I can bet every last penny that I have that at the end of it the SAME OLD THING WILL STILL BE DON and the only difference is that THEY WILL DO THE SAME OLD THING IN A NEW METHOD.
Or to put it another way --- even after Obama approved all the 82-recommendations (even if it's 820,000 recommendations) the end result will be SAME WINE IN DIFFERENT BOTTLES.
The only effective thing that we need right now is to CHANGE THE SYSTEM.
Anything short of that --- ie., keeping the same old system --- will not work, because it's be manned (and womenned) by the same batch of fuckers, and they will be continuing what they do.
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Who says anything will change *at all*, why would they need to do even a practically cosmetic reorganization? We don't know what goes on inside the NSA. Nothing they say can be trusted. Leaks are the most trustworthy source of info on what the NSA is doing.
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James Woolsey, a prominent member of the "Project for the New American Century". If anyone should be hanged by the neck, it's them - setting the country on its way to ruin since 2001.
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Cool thing about panels. (Score:5, Insightful)
They only make recommendations, nobody has to implement them.
Police chiefs do this all the time for police corruption. Look I'm putting a panel together to look into these problems and make recommendations. See! I'm doing something about it! Oh, the Union/Mayor/DA/etc wont agree, sad panda, I tried, vote for me again....
Playing the public like fools.
SSDD
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1. Muscular: to collect data from US
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/nsa-hacked-yahoo-google-cables/ [wired.com]
2. Collecting from between your browser to the US
3. Prism: Asking for the data from the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) [wikipedia.org]
Expect to see the usual sock puppets trying to avoid the "making clear that it will
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4th amendment? (Score:4, Informative)
I notice it says the goal is to "protect democracy*", but doesn't seem to mention the Bill of Rights or, specifically, the 4th amendment.
Telling, although not surprising.
* - It's possibly worth noting here that the United States is a republic, not a democracy.
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"I notice it says the goal is to "protect democracy*", but doesn't seem to mention the Bill of Rights or, specifically, the 4th amendment."
The following really isn't a troll. It is a sincere and serious comment.
After some discussion with others about this issue, it appears to me that Mr. Obama genuinely thinks anything HE does is "democracy".
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It's possibly worth noting here that the United States is a republic, not a democracy.
It's both, get over it. Specifically it's a representative democracy, as opposed to a direct democracy.
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Why do so many people seem to have difficulty with the words "republic" and "democracy"? They're not mutually exclusive. The US is both - it is a republic with democracy. The fact you're banging on about the Bill of Rights and don't seem to even understand what sort of government you have speaks volumes about your education and arrogance.
Because to some True Believers, "democracy" reminds them too much of the word "Democrat", and to them Democraps (sic) are the Spawn of Satan.
Plus, the idea of the smelly rabble running things is offensive. Much better that we simply submit to our aristocratic masters. The select few (I started to say "elite", but that too is a political duckword). Who know how to run things properly if we'd just let them double down on their ideology.
Won't make a difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Let them revamp NSA. It won't make a difference. What they will do is spill off some new top secret division that only top brass knows about. This won't change a thing.
Re:Won't make a difference (Score:5, Informative)
"However, several IAO projects continued to be funded and merely run under different names, as revealed by Edward Snowden during the course of the 2013
"Recommendations" (Score:2)
Yup.
Viva la Revolución!
Without looking (Score:5, Insightful)
The report is slashdotted, at the moment, but I would be willing to bet this is pretty much a white-wash, with no meaningful
changes, by insiders giving up stuff they don't need, or which no one could prove they have anyway, while protecting
everything they really want to keep, and largely ending up with the status quo.
I have no faith in an internal review in general and certainly not from this administration (the self proclaimed most transparent administration in history).
Regardless of what they say, you know this won't change till someone goes to jail. We need Judges impeached for violating their oath of office, we need career NSA brass fired 5 levels deep, we need bulldozers and wrecking balls to converge on Bluffdale Utah. We need every single request for corporations to turn over records to have a warrant issued by a non-secret court and the company empowered to notify each affected individual no later than 6 months after the request. If you can't build a case for arrest in 6 months its probably becaus they haven't done anything wrong.
This report deserves an immediate trip to the waste basket, and a "Warren Committee" empowered in its place.
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Amen!
The people should build a statue of Snowden next to Lincoln's with those words on a plaque underneath.
And then...
General Alexander: 'Guantanamo? That seems like a demotion!'
Prosecutor: 'You won't be on that side of the fence, asshole!'
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....an end to bulk retention of telephone "metadata" by the spy agency, by keeping those records in private hands subject to specific queries from the NSA or law enforcement.
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Snowden saved The Constitution that Obama defiled (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL. As if they give a damn about any of those things!
Obama has set the dogs on Snowden (forcing down Evo Morales's plane like a Bond villain to try and catch him), but Obama has also violated the US Constitution itself. How much more serious can you get?
On the campaign trail Obama referred to himself as "a constitutional law professor" so he can't claim ignorance. Yet there is no penalty for him violating it; After years of accumulated abuse it'll eventually weave it's way to the US Supreme Court who will say "So don't do that then." What sort of a deterrent is that?
So what does happens when you give a left-leaning spokesmodel unfettered power and no accountability? SCOTUS J Brandeis on Absolute Power: "The objections to despotism and monopoly are fundamental in human nature. They rest upon the innate and ineradicable selfishness of man. They rest upon the fact that absolute power inevitably leads to abuse."
When the US founding fathers wrote the Constitution they wisely recognised the dangers of a despotic government, having just fought a war with one. The problem the US faces today is that despots ignore the law, and face no penalty for doing so.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
"Within the Rule of Law" (Score:3)
"surveillance must be guided by standards and by high-level policymakers"
So, if I'm reading this summary correctly, the only real problem is that our chickenshit congress never tripped over its own feet in a rush to hand the executive branch these exact powers in some most-assuredly extra-patriotic piece of legislation? All the issues with this law will go away if it gets a stamp of approval?
On a second note, why is it that nobody seems to mind (or make laws against) treating the inhabitants of other countries to police-state surveillance, including the heads of sovereign states?
No Statement on Dual EC DRBG? (Score:2)
I vote we SKIP DIRECTLY to CHAPTER 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I vote we skip directly to Chapter 7 of the United States Moral Bankruptcy Code [wikipedia.org].
The backbone tapping mechanisms that make large scale surveillance on Americans must be completely disclosed and dismantled. An egregious capital crime has been committed by NSA for which no clemency or 're-structuring' is possible.
If a new spy agency is built, it must be from pieces of the smoking wreckage of NSA.
If we can execute the Rosenbergs [wikipedia.org] we can try and execute the NSA, which has done more to put us in harm's way than the Soviet's possession (and ultimate non-use) of nuclear weapons.
Building turn-key mechanisms for a Police State is a capital crime. It provides aid and comfort to our enemies. All of them at once.
Full dissolution, full dismantling of taps, dark fiber and facilities.
That is how the Balance is kept.
Our move.
It';s a joke of a "reform" (Score:2)
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Lol.. not only that, they are suggesting the watchers watch the watchers to make the report.
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Recommendations 37 thru 46 all seem to be designed to prevent another Snowden
Recommendation 37
We recommend that the US Government should move toward a
system in which background investigations relating to the vetting of
personnel for security clearance are performed solely by US Government
employees or by a non-profit, private sector corporation.
Recommendation 38
We recommend that the vetting of personnel for access to classified
information should be ongoing, rather than periodic. A standard of
Personnel Continuous Monitoring should be adopted, incorporating data
from Insider Threat programs and from commercially available sources,
to note such things as changes in credit ratings or any arrests or court
proceedings.
Recommendation 39
We recommend that security clearances should be more highly
differentiated, including the creation of “administrative access”
clearances that allow for support and information technology personnel
to have the access they need without granting them unnecessary access to
substantive policy or intelligence material.
Recommendation 40
We recommend that the US Government should institute a
demonstration project in which personnel with security clearances
would be given an Access Score, based upon the sensitivity of the
information to which they have access and the number and sensitivity of
Special Access Programs and Compartmented Material clearances they
have. Such an Access Score should be periodically updated.
Recommendation 41
We recommend that the “need-to-share” or “need-to-know” models
should be replaced with a Work-Related Access model, which would
ensure that all personnel whose role requires access to specific
information have such access, without making the data more generally
available to cleared personnel who are merely interested.
Recommendation 42
We recommend that the Government networks carrying Secret and
higher classification information should use the best available cyber
security hardware, software, and procedural protections against both
external and internal threats. The National Security Advisor and the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget should annually
report to the President on the implementation of this standard. All
networks carrying classified data, including those in contractor
corporations, should be subject to a Network Continuous Monitoring
Program, similar to the EINSTEIN 3 and TUTELAGE programs, to record
network traffic for real time and subsequent review to detect anomalous
activity, malicious actions, and data breaches.
Recommendation 43
We recommend that the President’s prior directions to improve the
security of classified networks, Executive Order 13587, should be fully
implemented as soon as possible.
Recommendation 44
We recommend that the National Security Council Principals
Committee should annually meet to review the state of security of US
Government networks carrying classified information, programs to
improve such security, and evolving threats to such networks. An
interagency “Red Team” should report annually to the Principals with an
independent, “second opinion” on the state of security of the classified
information networks.
Recommendation 45
We recommend that all US agencies and departments with
classified information should expand their use of software, hardware,
and procedures that limit access to documents and data to those
specifically authorized to have access to them. The US Government
should fund the development of, procure, and widely use on classified
networks improved Information Rights Management software to control
the dissemination of classified data in a way that provides greater
restrictions on access and use, as well as an audit trail of such use.
Recommendation 46
We recommend the use of cost-benefit analysis and riskmanagement
approaches, both prospective and retrospective, to orient
judgments about personnel security and network security measures.
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Ugh, those 'recommendations' sound pretty lucrative... err expensive, don't you think?
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You must read it like a lawyer: "should not be permitted to collect and store all mass, undigested, non-public personal information about individuals to enable future queries and data-mining for foreign intelligence purposes. Any program involving government collection or storage of such data must be narrowly tailored to serve an important government interest."
That means "non-mass" "digested" or "public personal information about individuals" can be stored. Information on social networks is public. So are b
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How will that privately held system be described?
Does it matter? I see the mere collection of this metadata as an abuse.