omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

"According to The Washington Post, he has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years."

hang him!

Good on Wonkette for being the only place I've seen to make the "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" connection because I was gonna make that joke here but decided to Google first.

From what we know so far, Edward Snowden appears to be the ultimate unmediated man. Though obviously terrifically bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school. Then he failed to navigate his way through community college.

According to The Washington Post, he has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years. When a neighbor in Hawaii tried to introduce himself, Snowden cut him off and made it clear he wanted no neighborly relationships. He went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton and the C.I.A., but he has separated himself from them, too.

Though thoughtful, morally engaged and deeply committed to his beliefs, he appears to be a product of one of the more unfortunate trends of the age: the atomization of society, the loosening of social bonds, the apparently growing share of young men in their 20s who are living technological existences in the fuzzy land between their childhood institutions and adult family commitments.

How exciting! Snowden happens to be one of David's bobos in paradise.

all this and roxy music has a new album out too

xp that is beyond stupid. is suffering some kind-of brain damage a requirement to be a columnist?

I can think of TONS of people with GED/aborted college who then become extremely capable programmers/sysadmins/etc - one of the few sectors where the ability to do the job outweighs the need for academic qualifications.

you mean they weren't atomized citizens?

that one's a real chin stratcher, huh.

Meanwhile Florida's senior senator has some things to say

Pareene:

he debate became whether or not Snowden is a hero because that is easier to talk about. Pick a side! Argue! The same thing happened before Snowden was revealed as the leaker, as hundreds of people felt it necessary to announce that they had Important Opinions about the work of Glenn Greenwald. (Once the Post got in on the fun, the ad hominem Greenwald attacks suddenly seemed even less relevant.) Some people hated Greenwald, for various reasons, and that was easier to talk about than the substance of the stories he was reporting.

If you’re a straight-up dolt like Richard Cohen, you probably don’t understand the complicated tech stuff involved in the NSA’s data-mining, so you just call Snowden “a cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood” and endorse your check. (Meanwhile your actually informed colleagues file informative reports like this one co-authored by Dana Priest.)

If you’re Politico, where the meta-story is always more relevant than the story-story, you write a few hundred words about how the White House is grateful that everyone is arguing about Snowden instead of about surveillance. You quote Paul Begala asking if James Franco will play him in the movie. That’s fun! Plus you don’t need to think seriously about difficult questions to get and print that quote. Politico, as an institution, is incapable of criticizing or seriously analyzing the national security state (some of their best advertisers are defense contractors!), so it is quite fortuitous for them that they can treat this story as another issue of personalities and ineffable “scandal.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/is_edward_snowden_a_hero_or_a_traitor_who_cares/

Some people hated Greenwald, for various reasons, and that was easier to talk about than the substance of the stories he was reporting.

This seems awfully familiar...

http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/nsa-post-office-checks-in-danziger.gif

this whole thing has been a conspiracy by the post office to destroy email once and for all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_6Y4oT7UQ

that danzinger ed cartoon is very onionesque

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/06/11/john_boehner_says_edward_snowden_is_a_traitor.html

david brooks is the most hateful bootlicker ever to see print in the nytimes

the usps cartoon is mostly wrong, anyway

http://gawker.com/the-fbi-is-spying-on-you-too-snail-mailers-so-maybe-do-512201927

david brooks is the most hateful bootlicker ever to see print in the nytimes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Bill_Kristol_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg/220px-Bill_Kristol_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg

richard cohen should come post to ilx, good column, a few ilxors were making some similar points minus the trans-slurring

i liked when he said "nothing has been searched or seized. it has merely been noted."

or, you know. liked ironically.

I think Americans who feel "entitled" to a certain amount of free speech and/or privacy are starting to feel like Warren Beatty in the last 20 minutes of McCabe & Mrs Miller.

(or The Parallax View)

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/conversation/harrys%20privacy.jpg

I fear most Americans who care will end up like Gene Hackman playing the sad sax in the last 3 mins of The Conversation

nah like woody allen in the last minute of manhattan

mariel hemingway is the fourth amendment here

http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u46173/snowden.jpg

"You have to have more faith in people"

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/06/the_big_money.php?ref=fpblg

The consulting scandal doesn’t scratch the surface. Snowden was reputedly taking home $200K which is considerably more than a system admin would normally make $100K is a good salary for a UNIX admin.
Like many people he is described as a consultant but he really wasn’t. He was an NSA employee who was being paid through a contract with Booze Allen. He was what we used to call a ‘Temp’. But in many government offices they can’t pay a commercial salary for a position so they pay twice to three times as much to hire them as a ‘consultant’.

So the government won’t pay a commercial rate for employing technical staff and they pay double to hire them through an agency.

i don't even know where to begin w/this

i do think it's important that we keep in mind what a dangerous millennial he is though

lol at a company called "Booze Allen"

what's next: "Crank James"?

i saw somewhere that BA is denying that he made 200k

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/news/companies/snowden-booz-allen/?hpt=hp_t2

"Booz Allen, in a statement Monday, also confirmed reports that Snowden was an employee of the firm for less than three months, working in Hawaii. The firm said he was paid an annual salary of $122,000, a figure substantially less than the $200,000 that has been previously reported. "

Good on Wonkette for being the only place I've seen to make the "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" connection because I was gonna make that joke here but decided to Google first.

oh fucking duh, "spilled his guts." i spent probably a whole two minutes of concentration on this when he first revealed himself and i still couldn't think of a joke that worked; i'm so dumb.

good work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li6ssFbej64

DNC Chair: Snowden ‘Violated America’s Trust’

lol, lou ferrigno is a sherrif's deputy?

i work in a s/w house that releases data analysis products so i guess i'm in the minority here when i say that these revelations did not come as a shock.

in fact, given the sheer volume of data that is available with supposed consent, i would be more shocked if the various govt agencies weren't doing this.

^^^ my opinion as well

I am ten times as worried that Amazon pretty much knows before I do what I want to buy next week, because I am powerless in the face of the Amazon Prime juggernaut.

Amazon just notified me of a sale on cargo shorts.

no one is necessarily shocked but cool story

this is not about "shock," it's about confirmation of a suspicion

you can operate based on the assumption that the gov't is tracking data but that puts you about a half-step away from people who operate based on the assumption that the gov't is using satellites to control the weather

people are tracking their own movements via their phones. they are doing all the work for the govt. never before have people left such huge easily trackable/traceable data trails.

i don't understand the second part of that post but i think i agree with the first part? (xp n/a)

no one is really shocked that the government would want free access to all sorts of data about people's lives, it's clearly in their self-interest to have it. the question is whether it should be legal

xp scott, thanks

somebody remind me who the DNC chair is, I don't follow furniture.

Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald
Go read 2001/2002 debate over the Patriot Act - NOBODY thought it enabled mass, indiscriminate, bulk collection of all Americans' records.

i mean it must be kind of an exciting time to be a security/govt/cia type. so much info! they love info.

well tbf nobody cared about their fb accounts being monitored in 2001 because fb didn't exist in 2001

so it's the platform that counts, not the principle