Prism and Verizon surveillance discussion thread

[Junkenstein]

That list is less than appealing.

Russia/China mitigate black bag risk in exchange for a couple of friendly chats about everything you know. Or might know.

Eritrea, Lebanon and Sudan I would guess could have US troops crawling all over them at short notice because terrorism.

"Fucked" is the term I believe.

[Doktor Howl]

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/11/18887491-fbi-sharply-increases-use-of-patriot-act-provision-to-collect-us-citizens-records?lite

[Left]

The failures on the parts of the NSA to properly manage this project and keep it's security and secrecy intact have led our administration to restructure development.

With that in mind, going forward we are pleased to announce that the PRISM project has been reassigned to the remit of the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Bureau who are now entrusted with its use in the role of national security.

The project will be rebranded to PRIAPRISM later this month to better reflect the new direction in brand.

The petition on whitehouse.gov to pardon Snowden has already hit 54k signatures in roughly 2 days...
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD

[Junkenstein]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/fisa-court-nsa-spying-opinion-reject-request

After last week's revelations extensive National Security Agency surveillance of phone and internet communications, President Barack Obama made it a point to assure Americans that, not to worry, there is plenty of oversight of his administration's snooping programs. "We've got congressional oversight and judicial oversight," he said Friday, referring in part to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was created in 1979 to oversee Department of Justice requests for surveillance warrants against foreign agents suspected of espionage or terrorism in the United States. But the FISC has declined just 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance requests made by the government in 33 years, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. That's a rate of .03 percent, which raises questions about just how much judicial oversight is actually being provided. 

That's pretty much the exact level of oversight I expected. Pretty sure these requests are nigh on impossible to ignore because of reasons I can't tell you about.

[Cain]

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, the FISA guidelines are, essentially "we think this guy is involved with Al-Qaeda, or Iran, or China or something.  I dunno.  Just sign the damn warrant."

[P3nT4gR4m]

Terrorism is the new Communism. It's essentially a meaningless "magic word" that circumvents legitimate reason for action completely. It's a skeleton key that unlocks any door, regardless of why that door was locked in the first place.

America: Burning witches since 1692

[Junkenstein]

I've got a feeling that they're even sketchier than that. More:

"we think this guy is involved with something. Sign the damn warrant."

Various tech companies now starting up their PR machines in earnest. Several less than convincing statements already.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Terrorism is the new Communism. It's essentially a meaningless "magic word" that circumvents legitimate reason for action completely. It's a skeleton key that unlocks any door, regardless of why that door was locked in the first place.

America: Burning witches since 1692

Hey! We're civilized! We just hang witches here. Or crush them with stones.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Terrorism is the new Communism. It's essentially a meaningless "magic word" that circumvents legitimate reason for action completely. It's a skeleton key that unlocks any door, regardless of why that door was locked in the first place.

America: Burning witches since 1692

Yep.

[McGrupp]

An interesting side effect.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/11/190615813/book-news-sales-of-orwell-s-1984-leap-after-nsa-revelations

Although there is the irony that amazon has the sales statistics and addresses of the folks who bought the book.

[Telarus]

Terrorism is the new Communism. It's essentially a meaningless "magic word" that circumvents legitimate reason for action completely. It's a skeleton key that unlocks any door, regardless of why that door was locked in the first place.

America: Burning witches since 1692

Yep.

Even better, they've found a term free from being tied to any one ideology.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

An interesting side effect.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/11/190615813/book-news-sales-of-orwell-s-1984-leap-after-nsa-revelations

Although there is the irony that amazon has the sales statistics and addresses of the folks who bought the book.

Oh the irony hurts!!!

[Sita]

What's sad is that you used to be able to read 1984 online for free, but since it's gotten so popular again they took it down

[Faust]

So Snowden is banned from the Uk.

At first I was was thinking that the UK and the NSA probably have very close ties and the significance of him doing this goes against the subservience culture of the UK.

But everyone knows the UK is a surveillance state, in fact if they really wanted to brown nose the NSA they wouldn't have said anything and kept the lookout to catch Snowden.

I guess they are afraid they would either have an other Julian Assange on their hands and explicitly went out of their way to avoid it.

[Pergamos]

What's sad is that you used to be able to read 1984 online for free, but since it's gotten so popular again they took it down

You can still read it online for free.  All his stuff is online for free

http://www.george-orwell.org/