Obama Admin. admits to surveillance methods: Beating a Dead Horse Pt. 74

[SR4]

 

 

and what's wrong with such view exactly ? i don't deny that he might have had pure intentions but his standing now is way waay higher than it was before he leaked.

 

and this makes it feasible to assume that he did it for this? rather than honestly being fed up with his job and how his superiors operated?

 

i mean, at least admit that you disapprove of what the guy has done and that you don't like him for it. you are covering it up with a lot of false rhetoric about non-issues and moving the goalposts over to show Snowden as some sort of whistleblowing opportunist which, quite frankly, doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

what's the point of quoting my post if you're not even going to read it ? people present him as a martyr but in fact he's an international celebrity, that's all i was saying.

 

 

i did read it. i am calmly going to explain to you, in other words, why I said what I did.

 

It is very unlikely that a whistleblower forgoes his job, flees the country, and sits in refuge in Hong Kong while the US Senate deliberates on his arrest because he wants money and a book deal. That doesn't seem like a very reasonable thing to do to achieve those ends. If by celebrity you mean he is in the news, yes, he would fit that. Is he a martyr? Well, he's not dead yet. But he certainly has given up his job and quite possibly future citizenship in the United States.

 

A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, "witness"; stem μάρτυρ-, mártyr-) is somebody who suffers persecution and death for advocating, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a belief or cause, usually a religious one. (Wikipedia)

 

 

In this case refusing to back down from assertions that illegal surveillance activities were occurring within the NSA and third-party contracted organizations, even though the US gov't is deliberating on a number of possible options for punishment. I think that falls within "martyr" status. Now whether he's your martyr is another story.

 

You intentionally referred to him as a celebrity to illustrate him as a fame hungry troglodyte and to deter any meaningful discussion on what he actually leaked. I'll bite on this one, you were successful in derailing it, but only temporarily. This will be the last time I will discuss this with you.

[eugene]

i think you should apply that calmness and rationality into reading my post again because clearly if you did you wouldn't have come to a conclusion that i consider him an opportunist/troglodyte.

 

i intentionally refer to him as a celebrity because he is one, his social status increased by an insane amount given what he did, if he ever exploits it or not is another matter.

[awepittance]

it just seems totally irrelevant, and is a common tactic used when someone can't actually take down someone's arguments or claims they have to start attacking their character. Why do you resort to such poorly executed and obvious text book techniques?

edit: we can all see that you desperately would like this story to go away, so in the 9th inning when you try to claim the guy is just a lonely nerd who wants to get famous it looks even more pathetic and desperate. IS there a single person in this thread (not Godel) who doesn't see through these transparent techniques?

[eugene]

deflating a myth of his heroism is somehow attacking him ? he's just a fucking guy who probably believes he's doing a right thing that became a celebrity. how the hell such inference can be considered as an attack ?

 

i honestly don't know how to communicate with you people, it's quite maddening actually.

[Alcofribas]

so what does pointing out that snowden is "just a fucking guy" contribute to the topic exactly? he's not in the news for being a guy. he's not in the news for being a computer dork.

 

also, fuck you and every one else in this thread for passing my photoshop by in complete silence. y'all should be extradited for this!

[awepittance]

I loled, but sorry the noise of eugene's death rattle as he falls down the chasm was so loud I couldn't properly give the requisite lol.

[Alcofribas]

thanks lol

 

i know it's not amazing but, you know, i'm just a guy.

[eugene]

first of all - eat my jorts. secondly, i merely sarcastically replied to another post (by delet) that inflated his heroism and sacrifice and tried to hint that objectively he's just fine. i don't understand how it got winded up either.

[SR4]

I loled, but sorry the noise of eugene's death rattle as he falls down the chasm was so loud I couldn't properly give the requisite lol.

 

LOL

 

 

there are some great posts in these past two pages.

[goDel]

*grabs another go-gurt*

[awepittance]

*grabs glenn's cock, strokes it, swallows giant load of semen*

[goDel]

*pukes out all the go-gurt and runs crying to mother Rachel Maddow*

[goDel]

There's an interesting article in the NY-times about a secret court ruling forcing Yahoo to cooperate.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put-tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=3&

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO — In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo’s top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional.

 

The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo two choices: Hand over the data or break the law.

....

....

 

Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents ever to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo’s involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment.

For many of the requests to tech companies, the government relies on a 2008 amendment to FISA. Even though the FISA court requires so-called minimization procedures to limit incidental eavesdropping on people not in the original order, including Americans, the scale of electronic communication is so vast that such information — say, on an e-mail string — is often picked up, lawyers say....

Last year, the FISA court said the minimization rules were unconstitutional, and on Wednesday, ruled that it had no objection to sharing that opinion publicly. It is now up to a federal court.

WTF!?

 

How about making secret courts unconstitutional, by definition!

[IOS]

i intentionally refer to him as a celebrity because he is one, his social status increased by an insane amount given what he did, if he ever exploits it or not is another matter.

 

Good. We need more celebrities like him.

[Guest theSun]

remember when obama campaigned and was for increased transparency??? lololol

[Alcofribas]

almost positive he just meant he hopes to incorporate more sheer blouses to his wardrobe imo

[MisterE]

i like how the gov and lots of the articles about this keep saying it's only used for foreigners, yet they are collecting all data. it just makes no sense. if they collect all data, then separate that from foreigners from the 'americans', or whatever, why couldn't they just do that before collecting the data? if they have the ability to differentiate, why do it AFTER collecting everything? and it's not like they are just going to discard all the stuff they collected on the rest of us. at some point they are going to use it too. are we really supposed to believe that this is just for terrorism? at some point this will be used in criminal trials, even if secretly to help detectives know where to find relevant evidence that they can actually use in court. assuming it hasn't already been done. why collect and store such large amounts of data if you aren't going to use it?

 

it used to be that if you were up to no good and they caught wind of that, they could apply for a warrant and wiretap you, and begin to gather info on you from that point on via your communications. NOW, if you do something bad, they can retroactively see things that you said leading up to that. and again i'm talking about a typical criminal activity, not terrorism. so this opens a whole other area of 'evidence' that never before existed, that's based on stuff you said in private before they ever had any suspicion about you. just that aspect alone is radically transformational to the whole criminal justice process. it's like they could one day request warrants to retroactively spy on you. and that seems to already include actual content of emails you sent, and one day, if not today, likely will include content of your phone calls, even if a bot transcribed them to text for better storage. it could become common practice one day to obtain a warrant to spy on you, backwards in time. and before that becomes an open process, chances are it may be a secret one for a while, maybe reserved for high-profile cases.

 

[goDel]

Why assume it's straightforward to separate data from foreigners from the Americans? Perhaps it is for telephone calls. But not so much for email. Gmail.com and hotmail.com are used pretty much everywhere. So when it comes to email it's a bit more difficult than telephone, I guess.

[MisterE]

ok then, how do they do it?! how would it be any easier to separate them afterwards than it would be to do it before deciding what to collect? are they using content of the actual messages to determine whether or not you are a foreigner? and if so, doesn't that then therefore mean that they already are sifting through the content of non-foreigner's emails to determine whether or not they are a foreigner, before then looking at the remaining group of 'foreign only' emails and sifting through them for anything suspicious? at that point, what is the damned difference?

 

i mean, hypothetically, if that is how they are doing it (possibly cross referencing some type of key words that foreigners are more likely to say with contacts that are known to be foreign already), then you have a two step process where first ALL emails are sifted through using a technique to declare foreign or not foreign, then a 2nd step on the foreign only group to declare suspicious or not suspicious. so i ask you what the real difference between those two steps would be, which would make it not pure bullshit of them to declare that they are only using this system to check on foreigners. semantically i guess you could say 'yeah they are only looking for suspicious activity amongst the foreigners' but i could reply 'yeah but first they are checking my stuff to see if i AM a foreigner'. there's no difference, because the two steps would likely use similar processes if not the same programs, but it allows them to use semantics to tone down the fact that they are running everything through the same exact system, which many would perceive as 'they are spying on all of us'. it would be semantics, which you've accused me of several times. only i'm not spying on everyone.

 

so either explain how that's not a shitty word game that's ultimately deceptive, or come up with a different possible way they are separating the two groups without using the data content of the messages or even the same system they use on the foreign data to find suspicious patterns, that would justify the gov saying that they only check foreign stuff. and that other method also would have to be something that can only be done after collecting everyone's data, instead of a thing they could use before collection which would allow them to ONLY collect foreign data, because it seems like they are not doing that and my question is why.

[awepittance]

i think it's been pretty clear to anyone that's been paying attention, and if you read the actual wording of the Patriot act itself that the 'new laws' have been used for at least a decade to spy on people who aren't foriegners. By saying it's to prevent a 'foriegn attack' it essentially gives them a loop hole to spy on anyone for any reason as long as they say officially 'it to prevent terrorism'. It's basically a blank check. The 'foriegners' angle has only existed for the most ignorant and faithful among us. It's never held water under closer scrutiny and does not stand up to facts.

 

Russ Fiengold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot act (2 congressmen voted against too, Kucinich and Ron Paul) had some very prophetic words about this kind of surveillance in October of 2001. He said all the way back then that by framing these new surveillance legislations off the false idea (but one that he believed at the time, even still)  that this was to stop a attack foreign it allows a huge expansion in legal authority to infringe on the rights of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It doesn't make sense at all from a constitutional point of view, it only makes sense if you remember how hysterical and afraid everybody back then of Anthrax and more terrorism.

 

A Whitehouse official told the press yesterday that 'terrorists are already changing their communication patterns' after this NSA link, to illustrate how it's 'damaged' national security. Well if that's the case asshole, then can you stop spying on all of us now? Since it's not going to stop these terrorists who are smart enough to change their patterns, it makes no sense unless it was never your goal to stop terrorism to continue spying on us.  But I guess when you give thousands of people the power to spy without a warrant, they're not going to want to give up that power. It often happens when you give someone way more authority than they deserve

Ironically the right wing has now seized on NSA whistleblowers, after they together with the left demonized Bradley Manning.  ITs unfortunate that it took someone in the mainstream to latch onto this, and regardless if they are using it it as a political weapon or not it's actually a good thing when Sean Hannity starts talking about people like Thomas Drake and Snowden in a way without calling them traitors or calling for their execution.

[luke viia]

There's an interesting article in the NY-times about a secret court ruling forcing Yahoo to cooperate.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/technology/secret-court-ruling-put-tech-companies-in-data-bind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=3&

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO — In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo’s top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional.

 

The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo two choices: Hand over the data or break the law.

....

....

 

Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents ever to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo’s involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment.

For many of the requests to tech companies, the government relies on a 2008 amendment to FISA. Even though the FISA court requires so-called minimization procedures to limit incidental eavesdropping on people not in the original order, including Americans, the scale of electronic communication is so vast that such information — say, on an e-mail string — is often picked up, lawyers say....

Last year, the FISA court said the minimization rules were unconstitutional, and on Wednesday, ruled that it had no objection to sharing that opinion publicly. It is now up to a federal court.

WTF!?

 

How about making secret courts unconstitutional, by definition!

 

that is seriously maddening.

[MisterE]

excuse me while i look out the window to see if i can catch glimpse of any one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, because i actually agree with awe/john on most points of something political.

[awepittance]

[Hugh Mughnus]

I haven't read the whole thread but I am a little confused.

 

What interest would the government have in this massive amount of intelligence unless it was to protect the homeland?

 

Are they really that interested in when I send my girlfriend sexy e-mails? Is anyone suggesting that the government is using this to spy on the personal, inconsequential dealings of day to day folk?

 

If not, then they're probably using it for some purposeful means. I personally don't mind if my e-mail to Anna K asking her to pick up a bottle of shiraz on her way home gets caught in the crossfire... =/

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the newb post btw.

[kcinsu]

Seriously, does no one have any imagination at all?

 

Are you all complete optimists when it comes to human nature?

 

Do people have any knowledge of history, both human history and US history?

 

How anyone can have a positive or indifferent attitude about this just blows my mind.