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

I'm sorry he wasn't put in that position

After spending weeks ardently defending the surveillance efforts, the intelligence committee leaders promised reforms when they begin drafting the intelligence authorization act.

oh thank goodness

my congressman voted for it

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml

so Democrats were 111-83 for Amash, i.e. Warren could run against Rodham for president if she wanted to.

Greenwald on how Bachmann, Pelosi, Obama are natural allies on this issue:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishment-nsa

U.S. Tells Russia It Won’t Torture or Kill Snowden

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/world/europe/edward-snowden.html?_r=0

I hope I don't have to read about the loophole the US gov't will use around this.

http://rt.com/news/snowden-russia-extradite-us-634/

“Russia has never extradited anyone, and will not extradite,” said Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Syria. This. Now we just need another article reminding us of Russia continuing their petroleum exploration in the Arctic.

Let the Games begin.

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2013/07/29/chomsky-praises-snowden-and-condemns-us-hypocrisy/

If you're interested

There's no cryptography thread and I don't think that link merits an entire thread on it...yet.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130727/02332323967/keith-alexanders-lobbying-calls-to-congress-kicked-off-with-joke-about-how-he-already-had-their-number.shtml

Last week we had a story about how Nancy Pelosi helped kill the Amash Amendment to defund the controversial practice of having the NSA collect tons of info on every phone call made, in part by dragging along a bunch of Democratic representatives. Now, the National Review has some of the story from the other side of the aisle, about how the GOP leadership tried very very hard to keep the amendment from even coming to the floor, trying all sorts of procedural tricks. Eventually, it appears that John Boehner allowed the amendment to be voted on after a brief chat with Amash -- though no one seems exactly sure why. Boehner supports the surveillance program and voted against the amendment (which they note is rare, since he normally abstains from such votes).

However, there is one tidbit in the article that struck me as interesting. We'd already mentioned how Keith Alexander of the NSA went on an emergency lobbying campaign with Congressional reps after learning that the amendment would actually come to a vote, but there's this little tidbit to add some color:

Alexander, the NSA chief, was forced to personally lobby members, calling their cell phones and opening with a joke that, yes, he already had their number.

wow, the NSA headquarters sure is a scary-looking monolith. They couldn't have made it look more like an Orwellian Ministry of Freedom if they tried.
http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/j/reuters/2013-07-24t192830z_1_cbre96n1i4v00_rtroptp_3_usa.grid-6x2.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

So, it's official. The NSA have every single data from chat conversations, what sites you visit, what you look at, etc., which it said it did not have access to nor did it track. Whoops!

Big Brother has a name. And it's called XKeyscore. Hehe!

hey no ackerman byline, aw

man oh man

wow

yeah, that xkeyscore ppt graphic is atrocious.

the crappy powerpoint is what gives it credibility

welp.

the banality of ppt

that ppt is positively David Reesian

proud of greenwald/snowden/whoever for timing the release so well, so that the nsa had time to lie between each phase. idk maybe that's leaking 101 but i never took that.

in the comments of the story somebody's like 'hey why the hell are you giving them a chance to do damage control over and over you should have released this weeks ago' and greenwald said something very journalisty about 'it takes time to confirm and vet each of these documents yada yada,' but i do think its at least in part driven by what you're talking abt dlh

also, in theory, the public would be having a "conversation" about each stage of this as it unfolds.

this is seriously nuts. i'd assumed all the big revelations were out of the way. i wonder wtf's next.

let's just say the xbox one's pr problems aren't over

proud of greenwald/snowden/whoever for timing the release so well, so that the nsa had time to lie between each phase. idk maybe that's leaking 101 but i never took that.

― one yankee sympathizer masquerading as a historian (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, July 31, 2013 11:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this is kind of beautiful. it just means the credibility of the "intelligence community" is damaged over and over again.

what's even "funnier" is the senators and congressmen who, without any real knowledge of this stuff, back up whatever the intelligence leaders are saying at the moment. i would not hitch my wagon to these folks if i were a politician right now.

it does seem like with each round another politician gets off the bus, but maybe that's just me projecting.

E-Snow granted asylum by PuttyPut

what's even "funnier" is the senators and congressmen who, without any real knowledge of this stuff, back up whatever the intelligence leaders are saying at the moment. i would not hitch my wagon to these folks if i were a politician right now.

are Dianne Fienstein's aides resigning in protest?

Some media can handle only 1 item at a time. Washington Post covers NSA head Alexander at Black Hat cyber conference but I don't see a mention of the Xkeyscore item that the Guardian ran.

So if an American family was vacationing overseas and called their friends back home, spying in on them wouldn't be spying on Americans? Great logic NSA, that'll go down well.

NSA survived that vote in the House, they're not too worried.

survived by the skin of their teeth

writer for maura magazine googles pressure cookers, gets a visit from the jttf

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing.

You'd think that if one team found 52 potential terror bomber plots per year, you'd hear about it.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden

NSA is giving lots of money to GCHQ, the UK spy agency

(A workaround for NSA to spy on Americans via a third-party, of course)

And here is a nice little gem:

Another pitch to keep the US happy involves reminding Washington that the UK is less regulated than the US. The British agency described this as one of its key "selling points". This was made explicit two years ago when GCHQ set out its priorities for the coming years.

"We both accept and accommodate NSA's different way of working," the document said. "We are less constrained by NSA's concerns about compliance".

this is enjoyable reading when contrasted against william hague's statements

im looking at earthtools and its 6500 miles direct from petropavlovsk to managua, (the nearest international airport in a country that has given him permanent asylum) and it wouldn't involve crossing any us-friendly airspace

that is well within the limits of long-haul airliners even allowing for a slightly indirect flightpath so he just needs to crowdsource the cash to charter a plane

In case it's not obvious to some what Nilmar is talking about: http://rt.com/news/snowden-entry-papers-russia-902/

And I'll add to that a quote from the article:

A statement by the WikiLeaks has revealed the words Snowden said after he was handed the Russian asylum certificate.

"Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law, but in the end the law is winning,” the NSA leaker stressed. “I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations."

saw sullivan making a lot of noise about how accepting russian assistance damages snowden's position in public opinion, because he looks like he's "defecting" to russia...do people younger than 35 perceive it that way at all? it seems like a holdover of cold war framing by old people to me. i don't mean that younger people don't understand the current situation with civil rights in russia, obviously.

it's a lol irony because of civil rights in russia and is obviously putin tweaking obama's nose but no i can't imagine, like, being mad at snowden or thinking it says something dark about snowden that he's going to someone's apartment for some borscht after sitting in a goddam airport for a month.

i think it delegitimizes some of the moral force of his case, however a) i can't imagine much more than the hong kong trip did, b) i think even if you aren't a snowden fan it's easy to see that he doesn't have a lot of good options at the moment, and c) probably his case should matter more than the person delivering it

eh I dunno can you get good borscht in Russia these days?

you couldn't for a while, but then putin came

it's spelled "poutine"

the google / visit from the jttf story is astonishing. this needs to be front page news. maybe it will help people get it.

saw sullivan making a lot of noise about how accepting russian assistance damages snowden's position in public opinion, because he looks like he's "defecting" to russia

does sully realize that russia is not at war with the u.s.?

google/jttf story is really, really fishy