Big Brother is Watching You

[O Really]

More red meat for the Big Brother crowd... http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... picks=true

Discussion of Hastert and the "crime" of taking out too little money from his accounts.

[O Really]

Now can we hang him?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

[Mr.B]

"Now can we hang him?"
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

Put a world-wide bounty on him like they did Osama bin Laden .... he's not as dangerous to capture as Laden was; that is, I wouldn't think so anyway; depends on how valuable Putin thinks he is and what steps he's taken to protect him.

[Vrede too]

Now can we hang him?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

I guess it depends on your faith in the accuracy and veracity of MI6.

[O Really]

Now can we hang him?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

I guess it depends on your faith in the accuracy and veracity of MI6.

All being relative, but I'd ride with them before Snowden.
How is stealing and then losing (or disclosing) information outing agents (US or foreign) harmless "whistle-blowing" about "government over-reach" or civil disobedience protesting surveillance of US citizens?

[Mr.B]

It's amazing how the U.S. can do much business with China; owe them so much money, drive their economy to the top of the world markets, and yet all we do is piss and moan about their Chinese version of our CIA hacking our security.

Snowden's exposing our NSA's domestic spying is one thing; but handing over secrets that can irreparably harm our entire country is inexcusable. As I said earlier, an international bounty should be placed on his capture; (or demise) make him a permanent resident of Super Max.

I fear that a lot of ship will hit the sand long before this thing reaches a head; and it ain't gonna be pretty.

[rstrong]

Now can we hang him?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

You don't hang people based claims from anonymous sources, especially when they contradict verifiable facts.

Techdirt: The Pulitzer Prize In Bullshit FUD Reporting Goes To... The Sunday Times For Its 'Snowden Expose'

[O Really]

Now can we hang him?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/rus ... ar-BBl7oh6

You don't hang people based claims from anonymous sources, especially when they contradict verifiable facts.

Techdirt: The Pulitzer Prize In Bullshit FUD Reporting Goes To... The Sunday Times For Its 'Snowden Expose'

OKfine...I'll settle for floggings instead.

[rstrong]

OKfine...I'll settle for floggings instead.

And the people he blew the whistle against? Who we now know WERE/ARE breaking the law by through mass-surveillance against the American people, and lying to Congress about it? Plus deliberately weakening the security of American commercial computer networks and systems? Would you have THEM flogged, executed or otherwise prosecuted?

BTW, new broke last week of a pair of security leaks at the Office of Personnel Management that will do far more damage to America's security than anything Snowden ever did.

In the first leak, Chinese hackers downloaded the personal information for every single current or past federal government employee. Including unencrypted SIN numbers. Everything needed for identity theft, and for handy use for espionage purposes.

In the second leak:

The forms authorities believed may have been stolen en masse, known as Standard Form 86, require applicants to fill out deeply personal information about mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, past arrests and bankruptcies. They also require the listing of contacts and relatives, potentially exposing any foreign relatives of U.S. intelligence employees to coercion. Both the applicant's Social Security number and that of his or her cohabitant is required.

In a statement, the White House said that on June 8, investigators concluded there was "a high degree of confidence that ... systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated."

"This tells the Chinese the identities of almost everybody who has got a United States security clearance," said Joel Brenner, a former top U.S. counterintelligence official. "That makes it very hard for any of those people to function as an intelligence officer. The database also tells the Chinese an enormous amount of information about almost everyone with a security clearance. That's a gold mine. It helps you approach and recruit spies."

One can imagine the first five queries done:

1) List all Americans currently or recently in China who have government security clearances, and yet are here as corporate staff, teachers, tour guides etc..

2) List all Americans with a security clearance who have a history of drug abuse or bankruptcy. Include their addresses and contact information. Cross-reference it with private bankruptcy and foreclosure information to see who is the most desperate.

3) List all retirees who had security clearances. Cross-reference them with private bankruptcy and foreclosure information.

4) For the rest, list the addresses, SIN numbers etc. of their families.

5) Calculate how much the Russians and Iranians will pay for this information. Or the Germans and French for that matter.

[Mr.B]

"....Including unencrypted SIN numbers."

Boy Howdy! 'Ol Scratch just had a load taken off his back ...!

[O Really]

BTW, new broke last week of a pair of security leaks at the Office of Personnel Management that will do far more damage to America's security than anything Snowden ever did.

No doubt. But I don't forgive the guy who stole my car because somebody else drained my bank account.

[Vrede too]

... I don't forgive the guy who stole my car because somebody else drained my bank account.

Insurance is better than a repo.

[rstrong]

BTW, new broke last week of a pair of security leaks at the Office of Personnel Management that will do far more damage to America's security than anything Snowden ever did.

No doubt. But I don't forgive the guy who stole my car because somebody else drained my bank account.

When someone warns me that my car is being stolen, I don't try to have him locked up as a snitch while ignoring the car thief.

[Vrede too]

From CREDO:

Do you value your privacy? So do we

The Electronic Frontier Foundation just released its 2015 report, “Who Has Your Back? Protecting Your Data from Government Requests.”

And for the second year in a row, CREDO is the only mobile phone company to earn a perfect score. AT&T and Verizon received just 1 star and 2 stars respectively, a decline from their 2014 ratings.

CREDO is leading the fight against abusive government surveillance and actively works to defend our members’ data from government spying.

And that’s why you should think about switching to CREDO Mobile.

We’re one of only nine tech firms to receive a perfect score in EFF’s 2015 privacy report. We’re the only mobile phone company to earn 5 stars.

“CREDO has adopted every best practice we’ve identified as part of this report,” the EFF report reads. “We commend CREDO for its strong stance regarding user rights, transparency and privacy.” Companies like CREDO “show that it is practical for major technology companies to adopt best practices around transparency and stand by their users when the government comes knocking.”

CREDO is proud to be leading the way in adopting policies to protect customer privacy. But our work to fight back against abusive government surveillance doesn’t stop there. Thanks to CREDO members, who empower all of our activism, we’ve also been a leader in the fight to sunset the Patriot Act and we’ve gone to bat to oppose the NSA’s dragnet and the surveillance state.

If you think your privacy is important, then think about switching to CREDO Mobile, the only phone company perfectly committed to your privacy....

[O Really]

Holder thinks there is some opportunity for Snowden to return to the US and not serve jail time.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... ar-AAcDr2X

I've got an idea - let's swear we'll let him skate and then be as true to that promise as Snowden was to his promise of confidentiality when he got his security clearance. Oh, gee, Ed... I know we said we'd keep you out of jail, but because we disagree with your opinion and feel obligated to disregard our promise in the interest of national security, we're going to toss you in with Big Bertha.

[Vrede too]

1. Whisper to NYT 2. Demand Anonymity 3. Truth!

Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept, 7/21/15) traces the transmission of a demonstrably false claim–that ISIS’s “top leaders now use couriers or encrypted channels that Western analysts cannot crack to communicate” as a result of “revelations from Edward J. Snowden”–from nameless “intelligence and military officials” to a front-page piece by the New York Times‘ Eric Schmitt and Ben Hubbard (7/20/15) to other journalists gleefully retweeting and reprinting the false claim as fact.



As Greenwald summarized:

Look at what the New York Times, yet again, has done. Isn’t it amazing? All anyone in government has to do is whisper something in its journalists’ ears, demand anonymity for it, and instruct them to print it. Then they obey. Then other journalists treat it as Truth. Then it becomes fact, all over the world. This is the same process that enabled the New York Times, more than any other media outlet, to sell the Iraq War to the American public, and they’re using exactly the same methods to this day.

This is a concise description of how the US government uses prestigious–and pliable–media outlets to manufacture facts.

In the case of Snowden, of course, corporate journalists have a special interest in believing the government’s smear: They’re largely in the business of retailing government “secrets,” doling out information that the government wants to get out in a controlled fashion that maintains its value through artificial scarcity. Whereas Snowden is really trying to expose actual government secrets–one of the biggest of which is that the main reason they’re secret is to keep them from the government’s own citizens, not from official enemies.

[Vrede too]

NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’
The National Security Agency’s ability to capture Internet traffic on United States soil has been based on an extraordinary, decadeslong partnership with a single company: AT&T.

[O Really]

The thread started with "Big Brother is Watching You."
I think the question remains, "who is 'Big Brother'?"

Reminds me of back in the day when AT&T had a telephone monopoly and they ran the ad "We may be the only phone company in town but we try not to act like it." Spawned a parody, "We are the only phone company in town and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

[Vrede too]

... "who is 'Big Brother'?" ...

Ike: MIC.

[O Really]

... "who is 'Big Brother'?" ...

Ike: MIC.

Well now bringing up the "military industrial complex" provides me with an opening to relate my prehistoric experience to current times. Let's say, hypothetically, that I had some knowledge of what analysts looking at electronic data for NSA did in, say, early 70's. It would be pretty easy to say that people and technology are different now, and my hypothetical knowledge was not relevant. But if we're going back to Ike, then maybe it is. In my hypothetical experience, analysts certainly picked off data that wasn't part of the mission. Sometimes it was of a personal nature; sometimes it might have been sent by somebody not on the target list. But would I include a hypothetical instance in which anybody - officially or unofficially - considered doing anything with that data that would be harmful to US citizens or US allies - not in a hypothetical lifetime. Personally, if somebody is reviewing and storing my emails, I can think of a lot of entities I'd favor the NSA over. Because the NSA doesn't give a ratzass about my emails even if they're on their server.