Edward Snowden, NSA Whistleblower

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Wonder if we can get a thoughtful discussion going on here. I’ll try. The major reason that he got up in arms is that the Fed made one of the most momentous legal decisions in history all on their own: They declared that while the Constitution prevents them from eavesdropping directly on the data, they own your metadata.

Metadata is all the information about information. When you send a text message from your phone, for instance, all the routing information, time, date, length, location (GPS anyone?) is part of the metadata, plus anything else about the message anyone can think of (if you send an attached picture, is that metadata??) The push from everywhere is to get as much of this as possible. You want it – it’s how Amazon customizes your wishlist or why Google maps seems to be so helpful. From the perspective of people like me who work with modelling expert systems, content is completely secondary to metadata. When I saw what the Fed had done, I did a double-take because of the gravity of the situation. Statements only have meaning in context, so they really did repeal the Constitution when nobody was looking, though I don’t think they understand the depth that this decision has. They will figure it out and our lives will be potentially much worse off for it.*

What’s more, the Fed effectively announced it owns all metadata, including that in foreign countries. At least a couple of European countries have already filed lawsuits to stop this but apparently they got caught by surprise.

I can see why Snowden did this and because he has run afoul of Federal Law (which requires no criminal intent of any sort for conviction, even on treason which is punishable by death), he did just risk his life to do this and he knew it. I can see why he was terrified of the consequences in what was a bureaucratic decision which actually should have been a very hotly contested public debate.

As always, just being full of shit…

– jj

  • For instance, Federal laws kick into play when things cross state boundaries. There are already laws on the books where texting is a Federal crime if the message goes to an out of state server, even if you are texting your next door neighbor. (The intent was to try and grab drug dealers on Federal charges, so that setting up a deal was punishable even if it fell through.) How would you like to type a wrong number and have the FBI haul you off as a suspected terrorist? If it is a Federal offense – and since the content is irrelevant – you are now guilty. No criminal or other intent is necessary for conviction. See where this is going? The Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure does not apply to your metadata.

PS. The way the Fed got companies to comply was to grant them immunity from prosecution if they did so voluntarily. Notice that the laws to prosecute this as offenses weren’t actually in place yet. This is another strike against them because of the obvious threatening and strong arm tactics they are using already before there is even a legal framework.

22

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’m not even in the thread yet and you’re already ranting and raving about me. I guess getting your ass handed to you over and over again about electric cars really hit a nerve with you.[/quote]

Neither was anyone else I mentioned. I hate cheerleaders. You have never been correct on any objective matter when arguing with me.

It’s all about your anecdotal vaginal discharge. And yes, I concede that your vagina produces far more discharge than mine. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, right?

23

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
This whistle blower is every bit the patriot, if not more so, than 98.997% of the military. No offense to the fine folks in uniform, but this guy is risking almost certain death just for standing up and saying, " Hey this shit just ain’t right".
[/quote]

I’m glad this guy came out, but give me a break. Fine folks in uniform are actually risking their life, you know, by being shot at. This guy is/will be a house hold name in a matter of weeks. What exactly do you think is going to happen to him?

He’ll probably write a book and get rich as fuck off this whole mess, yeah certain death…[/quote]

I meant no insult to our soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. It was a woodford-induced rant that came out sounding much different than it did in my head.

My point was that this guy did something that took tons of balls - and if you listen to him, he seems very sincere about his motives for doing what he did.

I think his actions, while most likely illegal, are extremely patriotic in that he did what he did out of love of country - not love of government.

24

this guy pretty much just confirmed what everyone in America aldready knew…we’re being watched by the gonvernment.

did anyone really think different?

25

[quote]pat wrote:
This is a good op-ed on the topic. The slippery-slope is the one thing I fear the most. The government functions routinely on the basis of slippery slopes. From cigarettes are bad for you to large sodas are bad for you, so we will ban all things that are bad for you.

Sorry to disagree with you pat, but the article struck me as very ‘out in left field’. Any op-ed piece on slippery slopes that doesn’t point out that Jimmy ‘Peace Prize’ Carter created the FISC that’s ‘overseeing’ phone data collection has a hole big enough to drive a truck through. IMO, the lesson to learn is that you (or your parents or your parents’ representatives) should’ve been paying attention 35 yrs. ago.

26


Yuck

27

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.

28

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Anyone gullible enough to believe the candidates of either party needs to have their head examined. Obama is owned by the Wall Street wing of the democratic party. He is a corporate puppet, like all Presidents. So people that believe in the planks of either party are delusional.

29

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Anyone gullible enough to believe the candidates of either party needs to have their head examined. Obama is owned by the Wall Street wing of the democratic party. He is a corporate puppet, like all Presidents. So people that believe in the planks of either party are delusional.
[/quote]

I’ll have to assume that by “either party” you where including the party Edward Snowden referred to.

30

If history has taught me anything…

It’s to be DAMN careful about labeling people as Hero’s, Patriots, Savior’s and Saints…(and yes…that includes the President and this guy).

Mufasa

31

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
If history has taught me anything…

It’s to be DAMN careful about labeling people as Hero’s, Patriots, Savior’s and Saints…(and yes…that includes the President and this guy).

Mufasa[/quote]

Your warning aside - I think I have lived long enough to know when I can use a label and when it is not appropriate.

But I appreciate your concern, as misplaced as it may be.

32

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.

33

Let me put it to you this way. I am an average Joe. But the nature of my profession gives me access to a lot of things. I never have, or would snoop, but all I need is a first and last name and a general location, I could find a lot of info about you. Very private info you would not want anybody to know.

I am not going to tell you how, or what it is that I do that allows me to do this, just that I can do it if I wanted to. Now, I am forbidden by law and company policy to do any of that. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t have the slightest bit of interest in doing so. Part of my job is trust. Trust that I would not do these things and I won’t. So let me be perfectly clear, I won’t, do not have any interest to, or in anyway care to spy on anything or anybody. I just want to do my job, do it well and live. I am just saying, I could if I wanted to…It would be extremely easy for me. I don’t want to. I wouldn’t even for a million dollars.

So my point is this, if I the average nobody could get information on a good deal people in this country randomly, imagine how much more they can do with a specified purpose and open access to everything?

34

The thing that’s really fucked is that the NSA is doing all this spying into our everyday activities and they still failed to invade the one guy’s privacy they should have been invading, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Where the fuck was the NSA when he was visiting “Inspire” magazine’s website, aka the terrorist’s “Vanity Fair”, looking for bomb-making recipes?

35

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The thing that’s really fucked is that the NSA is doing all this spying into our everyday activities and they still failed to invade the one guy’s privacy they should have been invading, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Where the fuck was the NSA when he was visiting “Inspire” magazine’s website, aka the terrorist’s “Vanity Fair”, looking for bomb-making recipes?[/quote]

^This^ and the fact that, I obviously don’t have the numbers to do the calculations appropriately but, it would be reasonable to assume I’m probably paying the between $.01-10 per person for the government to spy on me, my neighbors, my local police department, local clergy members, my grandparents and pretty much anyone else I make phone calls to or receive phone calls from. Even if it’s only fractions of pennies per person, that’s still taking lots of peoples’ money to ‘violate their rights’ and spy on them to not catch terrorists or guard against actual violent and/or life threatening acts. Especially since circumventing this particular brand of surveillance has been the MO of terrorists for the last 3-4 decades.

36

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The thing that’s really fucked is that the NSA is doing all this spying into our everyday activities and they still failed to invade the one guy’s privacy they should have been invading, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Where the fuck was the NSA when he was visiting “Inspire” magazine’s website, aka the terrorist’s “Vanity Fair”, looking for bomb-making recipes?[/quote]

^This^ and the fact that, I obviously don’t have the numbers to do the calculations appropriately but, it would be reasonable to assume I’m probably paying the between $.01-10 per person for the government to spy on me, my neighbors, my local police department, local clergy members, my grandparents and pretty much anyone else I make phone calls to or receive phone calls from. Even if it’s only fractions of pennies per person, that’s still taking lots of peoples’ money to ‘violate their rights’ and spy on them to not catch terrorists or guard against actual violent and/or life threatening acts. Especially since circumventing this particular brand of surveillance has been the MO of terrorists for the last 3-4 decades.
[/quote]

Exactly. Not only are they violating our privacy and our rights, which is more than enough for me to want to shred every ballot box in the country and vote 100% of everybody out, but they’re also doing it incompetently. Not only are they doing it incompetently, but we are PAYING for them to do it incompetently.

FAN-TASTIC.

37

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period.

38

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period. [/quote]

It wasn’t just the FBIs COINTELPRO. James Jesus Angleton started Operation MHCHAOS in 1967 at LBJs behest, and then expanded it tremendously at Nixon’s urging. Spying on Americans, infiltrating and disrupting “subversive” groups such as SDS, The Black Panthers and Ramparts Magazine, and other basic counterintelligence measures were used.

And then you have HTLINGUAL, which was the mail-opening program that opened most of the mail that came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. It ended up being used against all sorts of other Americans were “threats”, both real and perceived, including a lot of politicians, depending on who was in office at the time. It was run, also by Angleton, from about 1952 until 1973.

I don’t know about any assassinations related to the FBI and COINTELPRO, though. I think that some conspiracy theorists out there assign blame for the deaths of people like RFK or MLK, Jr. on COINTELPRO, but I think the only murder that can realistically be tied to something along those lines was the murder of former Black Panther, Fred Hampton. BUt he was killed by Chicago police and not FBI agents, if memory serves me.

So, this sort of thing really isn’t new at al. It’s been going on in some way, shape or form since the earliest days of the Cold War. I think programs like CHAOS and LINGUAL were worse, given that they were specifically targeted at American citizens who were considered dangerous simply because they were vocally against the bullshit policies of each Presidency between Eisenhower’s first term and Nixon’s second term. Not to say that what is going on right now is excusable. But I think that what happened back then was much more insidious than what we see today.

39

I think the real take-away point from all of this is that we as a society need to learn to accept a small bit of carnage around here. The fact is that the gov’t is simply too inept to stop everything all the time. Even if we were all completely OK with the gov’t trampling all over all our civil liberties and so forth, they can’t stop everything. They have their heads too far up their asses to do so.

The random act of violence is always going to happen. The fact is that no matter what, there is going to be some sort of successful terrorist act in this country every few years or whatever, whether it be from Muslims or other Americans. If that is an inevitability, then I’ll take my civil liberties along with it. Because right now, the civil liberties-for-protection from terrorism investment isn’t paying off very well right now.

40

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think the real take-away point from all of this is that we as a society need to learn to accept a small bit of carnage around here. The fact is that the gov’t is simply too inept to stop everything all the time. Even if we were all completely OK with the gov’t trampling all over all our civil liberties and so forth, they can’t stop everything. They have their heads too far up their asses to do so.

The random act of violence is always going to happen. The fact is that no matter what, there is going to be some sort of successful terrorist act in this country every few years or whatever, whether it be from Muslims or other Americans. If that is an inevitability, then I’ll take my civil liberties along with it. Because right now, the civil liberties-for-protection from terrorism investment isn’t paying off very well right now.[/quote]

Agree. As long as people believe the lie that we can make the world perfect, they’ll buy the bullshit line spewed by gov’t officials who want more power.

But I will never want to trade my civil liberties for protection, even if it were actually effective and guaranteed. They are too important and they are natural rights.