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

x-post to DJP-
I was referring to specific comments by Diane Feinstein and a Republican senator. They both played games when it came to success specifics, and I read a Digby blogpost noting that Feinstein had referred to things that actually were not successful. The "Stellar Wind" program I think was largely kept secret and has been criticized for all the data it has gathered. As for its alleged success in Libya, hopefully someone will make that more public. The New Republic had this re the lack of success with enormous data collection:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113416/nsa-spying-scandal-data-mining-isnt-good-keeping-us-safe

x-post
David Brooks and Jeffrey Toobin are also arguing that Snowden has made it harder for others to open things up; when the facts have made clear that Obama and the NSA and Congress and the majority on the courts,etc. are all perfectly fine with how things are, and they think this way works. That's why they wanted and still want it all to be secret.

Another take on "Stellar Wind"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/17/1075217/-Wired-s-Mind-Blowing-Scoop-On-Stellar-Wind-And-The-Enormity-of-U-S-Domestic-Spying

Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. “They violated the Constitution setting it up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.” Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email.

all the pro-snowden takes that include something like 'unlike that reckless traitor manning, who just dumped everything he found and endangered american lives, etc etc' are pretty maddening.

There are also anti-Snowden people saying that Snowden was nearly as reckless as Manning because Snowden wanted to post even more NSA powerpoint slides than the Guardian decided to post. Plus Snowden went to the Washington Post first, and they would not agree to post everything the way he wanted.

the big problem with that eichenwald article is exactly what the "truth out" article i linked above confronts directly. you shouldn't worry b/c they're only looking for metadata patterns that point to terrorist activity... but what if "terrorist activity" were expanded to nearly any form of dissent.... i mean, this is hardly a fantasy as we know that some occupy and other activists have been tracked by police depts and the FBI. in fact rather than a fantasy it seems an inevitability.

why is this so hard for people pundits to understand????

I agree that is a serious problem/concern.

ya i wouldn't wanna be Z S or a hoos rn

well, i would but yanno

coursera helpfully reminds me today that the crypto class i signed up for starts in a few days

I agree that is a serious problem/concern.

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:32 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd say it's the central concern, at least for american citizens.

for foreigners it's being hit by a drone strike

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

"Top Secret America" is a project nearly two years in the making that describes the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

When it comes to national security, all too often no expense is spared and few questions are asked - with the result an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is, as Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have found, ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it.

The articles in this series and an online database at topsecretamerica.com depict the scope and complexity of the government's national security program through interactive maps and other graphics. Every data point on the Web site is substantiated by at least two public records.

xp: The flipside is that the resources necessary to hunt down every protester in the United States makes doing so an untenable project unless you have a large target like the original scale of the Occupy movements, which to my understanding were monitored and dicked around by municipal governments but not by state/federal? (This is a very limited understanding; I freely admit that I am giving impressions and not facts here.) I don't think you can reasonably participate in civil disobedience and not expect some form of institutional attention; the real issue is if this institutional attention manifests itself as punitive retribution for assembling to criticize the government. I know people have been arrested and hurt; I think anyone participating in a protest is aware that could be a possibility. My question is more along the lines of, "Are the people participating in these protests suddenly finding that they can't get work anywhere or that police/government agents are confronting them in contexts unrelated to their actual protests?" That is the type of action this type of analysis would pop up (actually IIRC there are people who have found themselves running into issues flying places, contradicting my first statement here? I could also see this info being used to corral and deport people who are not in the country legally).

I don't really know where I stand on this issue; there is a certain level where I feel like I've already been under this scrutiny my entire life due to being a minority in America, so from a personal standpoint (and particularly coming from a professional background that works on applications designed to manipulate large amounts of data using similar algorithms for a completely different context) I don't feel like my privacy is any more compromised than it has been. There are no concrete facts to back up that personal impression, however, and I also don't believe it is in the federal government's interest or intent to use this information to confront 99.9999999% of the population living here right now. There's no guarantee that won't change in the future, possibly even in my lifetime, but it seems much more likely to me that the country's attitude towards guns are going to have more of a direct impact on the average American's life, particularly when you look at all of the information reported into government agencies jut by virtue of paying taxes, responding to the census, voting and traveling into/out of the country.

Does anyone know if credit card information is also being pulled into this net? Because that means the government basically knows whenever you rent a car or check into a hotel.

would imagine that the credit card companies don't take much persuading

The flipside is that the resources necessary to hunt down every protester in the United States makes doing so an untenable project unless you have a large target like the original scale of the Occupy movements, which to my understanding were monitored and dicked around by municipal governments but not by state/federal?

this wasn't even a large target really

Sure, but a concentrated number of people protesting in a public/semi-public space is more of a target than two people bitching about banks in an AOL chat.

DJP it's well known that police dept's in numerous cities w/ occupy movements were helped/coordinated by dep't of homeland security--both in terms of military-style tactics+equipment but also "profiling" of dissenters, etc. there were a bunch of articles about this in mainstream newspapers that i'm too lazy to look for right now.

just to posit a recent example of the federal security apparatus being used to help local govt's keep tabs on/detain/etc. protestors as opposed to "terrorists"

"The 41 percent of Americans who disapprove of secret NSA phone-record collection included 34 percent of Democrats -- about half the proportion who disapproved of surveillance tactics in the Bush Administration."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-obama-surveillance-revelations-are-pushing-liberals-over-the-edge/276755/

it's not that they were principled then but are hypocrites now. they were partisans then and remain so. maybe some of the democrats who disapproved then but approve now are finally following the mandate of their heart which thirsts for authoritarian repression but they disliked bush too much to express it earlier.

eh that's all true but that pew poll is all like "court orders" "everyone's gonna die waddaya think" & then is reported like everyone's fine with what's been going on

court orders for "millions of americans" still doesn't mean "me"

they asked two different questions. the 2006 question says "without court approval." i thought it was very bad then, and think it is bad now, but the fact that there was no fisa authorization under bush was significant then, and is significant now.

it's not that they were principled then but are hypocrites now. they were partisans then and remain so. maybe some of the democrats who disapproved then but approve now are finally following the mandate of their heart which thirsts for authoritarian repression but they disliked bush too much to express it earlier.

― Mordy , Tuesday, June 11, 2013 5:44 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, this is why i posted it.

right the survey questions still assume a "trade off" b/t civil liberties and safety, replicating obama's own discourse

but i've yet to see any real evidence that this sort of wholesale disregard for constitutionally-protected liberties is actually preventing terrorism

ACLU sues

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/aclu-sues-four-top-obama-administration-officials-over-verizon-metadata-sharing/

glad I still write checks to them

my membership lapsed a while back - i should get back on that

yeah big up aclu

https://www.aclu.org/secure/setup-monthly-pledge?s_src=UNV130001C00&ms=web_menu_monthly

not "loyalty oath but a contract, & a less important one than the social contract a democracy has with its citizenry"
http://t.co/A7k13Egg11

yes

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/surveillance-a-threat-to-democracy.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/surveillance-snowden-doesnt-rise-to-traitor.html

Dirty Bomb Blows Liberty (from WSJ)

Last week, the Guardian newspaper reported that the National Security Agency collected phone records on millions of Verizon customers, and the Obama administration defended the move. The Guardian and Washington Post also reported that the NSA has a top-secret operation, dubbed Prism, which taps directly into the servers of nine leading Internet companies. Does President Obama know something that Senator Obama did not? Or did the corrosion of our civil liberties take on a life of its own, independent of any elected leader?

It's as if a terrorist set off a dirty bomb that is slowly spreading tyranny instead of radiation.

Access to phone data allows government officials to track individuals. It reveals who is calling whom, from where and with what frequency. Thanks to data-crunching technology, it can discover networking patterns in seconds—ferreting out suspected terrorist cells, criminal organizations or maybe just some people the government doesn't like.

This is an administration with a taxing authority that has harassed politically opposed groups. It is an administration that wiretaps Associated Press and Fox News. Even the New York Times editorial board says President Obama "has lost all credibility."

Maybe you still trust the current president, but will you trust the next one? Maybe you believe phone data will catch a terrorist today, but do you know how it will be used tomorrow?

"No one set of data ever stays by itself," Ian Glazer, a security and privacy expert for global technology adviser Gartner, said in a telephone interview. "This Verizon data will be combined with other data. And when you start combing…it becomes more tantalizing, and potentially more privacy invasive."

Some people aren't alarmed, noting they've got nothing to hide. But they're wrong to think it's normal for the government to monitor law-abiding citizens. "There's a reason why our toilets are not in our living rooms," Mr. Glazer said. "You're not doing anything wrong when you go to the bathroom, but it's still something you want to keep private.

that's a crappy analogy (see what I did there?) but otherwise otm

reminded me of public shitting in 1984

Has this been discussed? http://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/obama-verizon-cell-phone

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Tuesday, June 11, 2013 4:24 PM (Yesterday)

so...i think maybe all this talk of "privacy" is a red herring. i don't care that the government knows i called waterface's mom for ten minutes, or that they know i have a certain medical condition. i guess i'd rather they didn't, but ultimately it doesn't matter - i care that the government can use this information, where i was when i made the call, etc, against me in court without having to prove to a judge that there was probable cause for obtaining that information. that's what the 4th amendment is about; it's not about "privacy" in like, the personal everyday sense

nytimes editorial completely otm

This morning I caught a TV tuned to FOX news, and the chyron on the screen, over a shot of Google HQ, read: CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS/GOOGLE CEO MADE MORE THAN $70K IN DONATIONS. Turn to page 23 in the Outrage Handbook, FOX viewers -- corporations are no longer people and corporate money in politics is bad. Pages 14-18 are no longer operative.

the hypocrisy is really thick on "both sides."

all the obama-stan "liberals" are really showing their true colors over this. my partner briefly tuned into air america and she said it was all mocking and attacking snowden.

disgusted by the lack of independent thought on display.

out of curiosity how are they spinning this at MSNBC? (i don't have cable, and right now I am _very_ grateful for that)

curious to see what all of the ex-bush/obama officials have to say on the subject?

all the obama-stan "liberals" are really showing their true colors over this. my partner briefly tuned into air america and she said it was all mocking and attacking snowden.

For real. Pleased to some degree to see rookie I would have expected to line up in support are instead raising hell, but the number of liberals defending this shit is nauseating.

out of curiosity how are they spinning this at MSNBC?

Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow support him, dunno about Mr. Thrill Going Up His Leg.

Check this out: http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/11/the-nsa-and-insurrectionists-vs-institutionalists/

I thought air America was defunct.

@DennisThePerrin
Obama liberals and Tea Party reactionaries are kissing cousins. The next generation is secured. #progress #USA

weird timing for that comment being that this is probably the best example yet of the far left and tea party being on the same side

Otm

tea partiers are the largest block in congress angry about this. i'm decidedly more, uh, hamiltonian about this than almost all of you but am still a little disgusted (and maybe shocked but i just got cable again so grain of salt) at how quickly this turned into 'what's yr take on edward snowden', so much for an honest debate on the security state. weigel had a thing today about the history of (generally failed) efforts at reducing overclassification: www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/06/edward_snowden_nsa_leaks_can_congress_get_the_executive_branch_to_declassify.html .

Monday was closer to "Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?" day on cable news, yesterday a lot better, can't wait for matters to deteriorate today.

I thought air America was defunct.

― Let's Talk Tech with Curr3n$y (Hunt3r), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 7:28 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh well whatever it's the local "progressive" talk radio station w/ a lot of syndicated shows

my partner listens to it sometimes, i can't take more than 30 seconds

Finally, Alex and Chris Hayes discussed the public’s confusion over the surveillance issue as evidenced by a new Pew Research poll that shows Democrats and Republicans have essentially switched positions on the issue since Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush in the White House. In essence, members of the public appear more inclined to believe government surveillance was okay if it took place under the party to which they felt most closely aligned.

this point kind of contradicts the articles larger argument about insurrectionists (!!) vs. institutionalists