Big Brother is Watching You

[O Really]

I think the proponents of "security" over liberty and privacy should organize a Day We Roll Over for Mass Surveillance and see how many folks turn out.

Probably not, with that particular wording. But more than 100,000 signed a petition to deport Justin Bieber, so getting people to click on one isn't necessarily a measure of the accuracy or importance of the issue. Not everyone sees "security," "liberty," and "privacy" to be mutually exclusive.

[Boatrocker]

I think the proponents of "security" over liberty and privacy should organize a Day We Roll Over for Mass Surveillance and see how many folks turn out.

Probably not, with that particular wording. But more than 100,000 signed a petition to deport Justin Bieber, so getting people to click on one isn't necessarily a measure of the accuracy or importance of the issue. Not everyone sees "security," "liberty," and "privacy" to be mutually exclusive.

Oh, bullshit; you just don't want Bieber back . . . .

[O Really]

Well, if the NSA managed to get Bieber deported, I bet they'd be more popular.

[Boatrocker]

Couldn't hurt, I guess.

[bannination]

Over 260,000 contacts with Congress just during yesterday. Since each contact went to 2 Senators and a Representative, that's really over 780,000 contacts - more than 1461 to each member. Thanks again, banni.

I think the proponents of "security" over liberty and privacy should organize a Day We Roll Over for Mass Surveillance and see how many folks turn out.

I'm glad you pointed it out. I'm sure it put me on some list somewhere..... if I wasn't on one already.

[O Really]

They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin couldn't have even imagined the extent to which the NSA would impinge on Liberty.

Interesting commentary on Franklin's comment here... http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/07/what ... ally-said/

[O Really]

Paranoia food here... http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelindex=6 ... c320ded75a

[O Really]

Data from 35,000 AT&T customers sought by secret court

39,000+ is a lot of "terrorists". I wonder what they are all doing.

I looked, but couldn't find where it said there were 39,000 "terrorists," nor that all the data related to terrorists. But wasn't it you who linked a table showing how the "friends of friends of friends" search can turn up a lot of numbers quickly? If you started with a hundred suspects, checked everyone they had phone contact with, and everyone those had contact with, you'd get a lot of numbers.

On the other hand, in a country of more than 300 million people, heartily disliked by much of the world, the possibility of 39,000 terrorists doesn't sound like that many to be looking out for.

[Wneglia]

Secret Agent Man

[Boatrocker]

Secret Agent Man

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction...

I don't care what anyone says, O Really is not one of them.

I'm not so sure about Ombudsman, though.

Over at Newsvine I was accused several time of being "cointel," usually by some conspiracy whackadoodle. The concept is not new, though many of the RWNJ ODS Rangers like to credit the Kenyan Mooslum dictator with it.

[neoplacebo]

I never got a cent from either of them; usually, they want me to give them money. Sometimes the cops come to the place I work to get video from our cameras of the place across the street ( it's a hotbed of drunken action and random mayhem, especially after dark ) because the eight cameras at the actual scene are so inferior. This is intended to note that not all surveillance is of any actual use. But I doubt the NSA uses any of that inferior stuff. I bet things are starting to heat up over at that place pretty soon...it is Friday night.

[neoplacebo]

It's convenient that neoplacebo lives across the street from where he works.

just noticed this. That would be convenient, but no, I don't. On second thought, it's the zenith of convenience. Oh, well. I've noticed, though, that I get work related emails lately from vendors that have these four rotor drones equipped with one of those sports type all purpose cameras that you could use to uh, spy on your neighbor or uh, fly over the local pool and check out the babes or buffs. They're actually not that expensive; one of the better ones was about $2,500 so everybody might need to pay attention; these things don't make much noise and the camera is capable of infrared transmission. Stay inside.

[Wneglia]

NSA spreads Malware through fake Facebook

[GoCubsGo]

NSA spreads Malware through fake Facebook

I think the NSA planted that story so we'll click on that link....

[Wneglia]

Domestic Spying-Not Just For NSA Anymore

[rstrong]

Microsoft stepped in it this week. They revealed that they searched through a tech blogger's Microsoft Hotmail email account back in 2012, in an attempt to catch the Microsoft employee who had leaked information to him about Windows 8.

Techdirt: To Catch A Meaningless Leaker, Microsoft Made It Clear It Has No Concern For Your Privacy

Today Hotmail is Outlook.com, and the current ad campaign about it states: "Outlook.com prioritizes your privacy!" and "Your email is nobody else's business."

New York Times: Microsoft Software Leak Inquiry Raises Privacy Issues

Technology companies have spent months denying they know anything about broad government spying on people who use their Internet services.

But a legal case filed this week against a former Microsoft employee shows the power these companies themselves have to snoop on their customers whenever they want to.
[...]
“What blogger will use that service now?” said Jennifer Granick, an attorney and director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

This is one reason why I run my own mail server.

[O Really]

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/hide-deb ... d=23011597

Lots worse out there than NSA. Lots worse NSA could get to without looking at your emails.

[O Really]

Better than a debt collector ain't saying much.

No, it's not. But the point isn't that debt collectors can get the data, it's that most anyone can. I continue to notice that there are far worse personal threats out there for most people far worse than anything the NSA is accused of, yet it's all accepted peaceably while we scream about the NSA. Just sayin'...

[rstrong]

Better than a debt collector ain't saying much.

No, it's not. But the point isn't that debt collectors can get the data, it's that most anyone can. I continue to notice that there are far worse personal threats out there for most people far worse than anything the NSA is accused of, yet it's all accepted peaceably while we scream about the NSA. Just sayin'...

First, there is a large backlash against debt collectors using illegal practices. But beyond debt collectors, the difference between marketing and government databases is what happens AFTER that information is collected. What happens after the inevitable "confirmation bias" leads to the wrong conclusions.

Confirmation bias is the tendency of human beings to give undue weight to evidence that confirms their existing belief and to discount evidence that rebuts it. Confirmation bias is one of the underappreciated problems of mass surveillance: gather enough facts about anyone's life and you can find facts that confirm whatever theory you have about them.

Or as Cardinal De Richelieu said: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

With corporations that leads to you getting unwanted advertising in you mail box. With governments, well, ask Brandon Mayfield:

Based on a single poor match to a fingerprint of him they had on file, he was not merely jailed for weeks but they "disappeared him" for weeks. (Jailed under a false name, transferred to an unidentified location.)

At every turn, the FBI treated evidence that contradicted their theory as evidence that confirmed it. Mayfield's passport had expired and he couldn't possibly have been in Madrid? Proof that he was a terrorist: he must be using his connections with Al Qaeda to get false papers so that his own passport isn't recorded as crossing any borders. Mayfield starts to freak out once he realizes he's under surveillance? Aha! Only the guilty worry about having their homes burgled by the FBI! The FBI was so sure of their theory that they lied to a judge during their campaign against him.

Or ask a number of those kidnapped by the US, tortured, and released with an "er, never mind."

When a US government database connects dots showing that you know someone who knows someone who might be a terrorist - or simply confuses you with someone with a similar name - you can find yourself being tortured with waterboarding, electrical cables, rape and having your balls sliced open with razor blades. (Yes, really. Even that last one is confirmed in court by British intelligence officers.)

Even corporations don't do this to confirm sales leads or apply pressure to pay invoices.

OK, IBM used to. But only them.

[O Really]

Your straw man argument fails.

It's not a straw man - it's not an argument at all. It's an observation, not unlike the observation that a lot of people get loudly concerned with whether Dale Jr.'s car is fast and don't notice the oil light is on in their own clunker.