Big Brother is Watching You

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Google engineers issue 'fuck you' to NSA over surveillance scandal

Two Google engineers recently took to Google+ to give blistering public critiques of the ongoing NSA surveillance scandal.

Both posts come in the wake of last week’s Washington Post story that outlined the NSA’s clandestine interception of Google and Yahoo user information...
[...]
Brandon Downey, a security engineer with Google, was livid, saying:

Fuck these guys.

I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to keep Google's users safe and secure from the many diverse threats Google faces… But after spending all that time helping in my tiny way to protect Google -- one of the greatest things to arise from the internet -- seeing this, well, it's just a little like coming home from War with Sauron, destroying the One Ring, only to discover the NSA is on the front porch of the Shire chopping down the Party Tree and outsourcing all the hobbit farmers with half-orcs and whips.

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Politifact: Congress "is bewildered at the scope and reach of our spying apparatus" but in 2008 and 2012 "explicitly rejected an amendment calling for more disclosure."
Comedy Central's Jon Stewart: Congress' shock at spying on allies rings hollow

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Reason.com: Don't Appear to Be Clenching Your Buttocks When Pulled Over For Not Coming to a Complete Stop or Be Tortured by Doctors: America, This is Your War on Drugs

According to the complaint the guy was held for 15 hours. And the officer who stopped the plaintiff hadn't actually seen the traffic violation.

It turns out that this wasn't some isolated incident: KOB News now says it has found another person with a very similar story: traffic stop, same medical center, same x-rays, rectal finger exams, enemas, and finally a colonoscopy. Also without consent, also in a county not covered by the search warrant. Same result (nothing).

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Even without the latest information - that the police dog wasn't certified, that another motorist went through the same ordeal - a lawyer and former federal prosecutor is calling it rape and torture.

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Today's Drug War Outrage: Man Dies In Jail Cell After Misdemeanor Pot Offense

Then the coverup began. County officials stonewalled Saffioti's mother's attempts to obtain video of the events leading to her son's death, first by denying its existence. After Saffioti's family discovered the police had lied about that, they turned over only non-incriminating portions of the video. The family was eventually able to force them to hand over the entire thing. So far, attorneys for the family have also been barred from interviewing jail staff or responding medical personnel.

[O Really]

What's to stop the NSA from being used to rig U.S. elections?

One answer, according to the article...

So, what's to keep the NSA from spying on politicians for their own political gain or that of the president? Well, for starters, the law.
Even with the newly disclosed surveillance powers granted to or seized by the NSA, the agency isn't allowed to legally snoop on Americans residing in the U.S. That doesn't mean there aren't abuses, but the worst domestic violation uncovered so far is the NSA staffers snooping on their girlfriends — a practice cleverly dubbed LOVEINT.

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So, what's to keep the NSA from spying on politicians for their own political gain or that of the president? Well, for starters, the law.
Even with the newly disclosed surveillance powers granted to or seized by the NSA, the agency isn't allowed to legally snoop on Americans residing in the U.S.

Oh, good. Political interference is stopped by the same thing that stopped the NSA from doing illegal warrantless dragnet surveillance in the 2000s.

The same thing that stopped the NSA from monitoring phone communications of Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, major civil rights leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, and prominent U.S. journalists and athletes who criticized the U.S. war in Vietnam.

The same thing that stopped President Truman from ordering the NSA to wiretap the telephones of Thomas Gardiner Corcoran, a close advisor of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The same thing that's stopped Internal Revenue Service political profiling controversies in the 1930s, 1940s-60s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

Glad we cleared that up.

[O Really]

Well, if you want to argue that all politics and politicians are crooks or would be crooks if they thought they could get by with it, and will try anything honest or dishonest in order to stay in office or improve their office, I might agree with you.

[O Really]

No need to accuse me of justifying anything NSA does with what somebody else is doing. Justifying NSA isn't the point here. But here's an article where Instagram and Twitter have been used to out and intimidate witnesses. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt ... s-20826848

Not only is the "old" concept of privacy going away, but there is real personal and individual danger running around even for those who aren't involved or associated with some crime. I'm just saying anybody who voluntarily joins in the personal information free-for-all (including me) shouldn't object if they find their information in some massive database the government (along with all the service providers, corporations, whoever) can see.

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And now there is a third case of New Mexico officers repeatedly raping a suspect. As with the other two cases this week, they did everything from penetration - repeatedly in case anything materialized showed up in the mean time - on up to X-Rays and CT scans. Nothing found. No consent. No search warrant.

NM woman comes forward with illegal probing claims

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And in Puyallup, they're creating their own naked lady vids...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/puyallup-wash- ... d=20827963

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NSA leaks on Canadian surveillance coming, Greenwald says
Not about NSA surveillance of Canadians, but about Canadian surveillance and partnership with the NSA.

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Uh oh. The Republicans are the "blame government" party, but they have to deflect that blame when they ARE that government.

It's likely that Canadian Ted Cruz will run for President in 2016. And half a million people living in Canada are eligible to vote in American elections (either Canadians with dual citizenships or Americans living in Canada). This exceeds the number of eligible voters in several American states.

Thank goodness the coming NSA leaks about the intelligence gathering alliance between America and Canada will show that we're allies. As long as the leaks don't show that Canadian agencies can legally spy on Americans and make that information available to the US government - in another end run around domestic spying laws - I'm sure we'll be just fine.

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Too late! We just signed a "massive economic integration" agreement - free trade and a lot more - with the EU.

[O Really]

It's likely that Canadian Ted Cruz will run for President in 2016. And half a million people living in Canada are eligible to vote in American elections (either Canadians with dual citizenships or Americans living in Canada). This exceeds the number of eligible voters in several American states.

Ted Cruz is a loon, but he's not stupid. It is interesting, however, that of the various personas he could have taken, he chose the role of teabagger lunatic. Unless you're talking about the Toronto suburban people who elected Ford, I doubt many Canadian-based voters would go for Cruz.

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Yeppers, he's a real knight in shining armor. Oh baby. Oh baby.

[Wneglia]

Is nothing sacred anymore?

[O Really]

http://money.msn.com/business-news/arti ... d=17151839

Consumer behavior aggressively tracked this season

Where is the outrage, the "Snowdens", the angst, the paranoia?

[O Really]

:?: We don't like it, but we've been through this a bunch of times before. Mostly, they'll just try to sell us stuff, not use it for repression.

Possibly, but that view compares the most benign use of the marketing data with the most evil use of the NSA data, rather than the relative good and evil of each.

[O Really]

True, the marketers mainly just want us to buy stuff. That's not the big problem. It's the vast amount of personal information that can be used by nefarious evil-doers for purposes dangerous to people. Information that has a lawful and legitimate use, but is subject to abuse. And it doesn't even have to be electronic. Most employers keep their I-9 forms in hardcopy, and they keep them all together instead of in individual personnel files (as advised to do by people such as myself because when ICE or the DOL wants to see them they want to see the whole stack, and you don't want to hand over the entire personnel file). However, we also refer to the I-9 files as "Identity Theft Kits" because everything you need is on the form, frequently along with copies of a drivers license, social security card, or birth certificate.

True story: my wife and I went out with some friends and, shortly after telling us how dangerous it is to shop online, my friend handed over his Amex card to the server to hold while he ran a tab. Sure, probably the server was honest - most are. But if you're going to give your card to somebody you don't know to hold in the back for a while, you don't have any business being the expert on card security.

Identity theft is a growing crime, with over 12 million victims in 2012, and $21 billion liberated from its former owners. https://www.javelinstrategy.com/news/1387/92/1 And that doesn't count simple credit/debit card theft.

Now, back to the NSA. You're really going to consider wneglia's cite as "repression"? The NSA has warts, as does every law enforcement agency in the country, and as does most other organizations. But they have a mission that I (as maybe the only remaining person in the US) believe to be important and they harm far fewer people than the identify thieves.