[amoshi]

>Intelligence professionals talk about how disorienting it is living on the inside. You read so much classified information about the world’s geopolitical events that you start seeing the world differently. You become convinced that only the insiders know what’s really going on, because the news media is so often wrong. Your family is ignorant. Your friends are ignorant. The world is ignorant. The only thing keeping you from ignorance is that constant stream of classified knowledge. It’s hard not to feel superior, not to say things like “If you only knew what we know” all the time. I can understand how General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, comes across as so supercilious; I only saw a minute fraction of that secret world, and I started feeling it.

This really well describes the feelings I was getting around the time of the revelations, as I scrolled through the secret documents, it's like a different world out there.

Hackers can hack. But these agencies can do so much more.

Intelligence agencies have the law behind them, can force you/the hardware suppliers (so called "interdiction")/software providers (PRISM etc) to play ball and force you to sign an NDA (non disclosure agreement) at the end of the day.

Don't want to agree? You end up like Qwest (CEO got jailed) or Yahoo ($250k daily fine until they comply). The power gained is immense though, just read about XKeyScore.

Again, it's just a different world out there. Would love to know what their capabilities look like nowadays.

[anonymousiam]

To take what you've said a little further, intelligence agencies have the "law" behind them, but once you become aware of everything they (all of them, worldwide) are doing, you get a completely different perspective on the "law" itself.

Being involved in these activities can also diminish your ethical base, which I guess explains some of the crazy law-ignoring/law-breaking activities within all governments.

[markus_zhang]

Law is a weapon of the ruling class.

That's why I laugh at whoever suggests about unions. Downvote me as you wish, but it won't fix the problem for ya.

[toyg]

Yes, agencies have all these capabilities, but at the same time they rarely sway the practical course of history. When the "euromaidan" demos in Ukraine forced regime change, and the Russians hacked and leaked all US/EU diplomatic chatter around it, the contents were utterly banal and predictable. There was no grand conspiracy or execution, just a bunch of interests scrambling to react.

Intercepting communications gives them a leg up, but that's about it.

[opportune]

People love to assume that the CIA/NSA/etc are all powerful all knowing cabals running the entire world, while also believing that government is inherently incompetent.

Anybody who’s been in a large organization, even one that’s highly selective or difficult to join, knows that they’re as a rule chaotic, dysfunctional, and reactive with no coherent or coordinated planning. They’re also composed of individuals who usually run the gamut of moral and honest to deceitful and self serving - but the “sociopathic puppet master genius” is more of a fictional archetype than something that exists in reality.

[scraptor]

I didn't follow that at the time and I'm finding it hard to find information about it, would love a link to those leaked documents.

[jruohonen]

This would be my take too. From all the past leaks of cables, the perhaps most hilarious revelation is the overall humdrum, including the speculative, often incorrect, and sometimes rude chatter between diplomats and intel people.

[theaussiestew]

Regarding Qwest, wasn’t the CEO jailed for insider trading? Or is there another side to this story?

[ls612]

He claimed that he was actually jailed in retaliation for not playing ball with the NSA before 9/11. Idk if what he did specifically is something you’d usually be charged with insider trading or fraud for, which would seem to me the best indirect evidence of who’s story is right.

[avgcorrection]

> > It’s hard not to feel superior,

Schneier would know.

[hosteur]

Care to elaborate?

[m4jor]

>Don't want to agree? You end up like Qwest (CEO got jailed) or Yahoo ($250k daily fine until they comply). The power gained is immense though, just read about XKeyScore.

also the Lavabit owner, Ladar Levison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

[amoshi]

>Afterwards, Levison wrote that after being contacted by the FBI, he was subpoenaed to appear in federal court, and was forced to appear without legal representation because it was served on such short notice; in addition, as a third party, he had no right to representation, and was not allowed to ask anyone who was not an attorney to help find him one. He also wrote that in addition to being denied a hearing about the warrant to obtain Lavabit's user information, he was held in contempt of court. The appellate court denied his appeal due to no objection, however, he wrote that because there had been no hearing, no objection could have been raised. His contempt of court charge was also upheld on the ground that it was not disputed; similarly, he was unable to dispute the charge because there had been no hearing to do it in. He also wrote that "the government argued that, since the 'inspection' of the data was to be carried out by a machine, it was exempt from the normal search-and-seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment."

This is just absurd.

[slim]

this says that decision makers literally live in a different reality than us, thus making them unsuitable to make decisions on our behalf

[kossTKR]

So true. And don’t forget that these agencies answer to an elite group of people that benefit from specific world orders that promote various industrial complexes transnationally.

And people that get too specific get daphnied, lombardied, assanged or jfk’ed.

Or maybe not, but you won't find out because all media above a certain threshold is in a spotlight, and has been since before CIA bragged about its all encompassing media operations 50+ years ago.

I remember this info being somewhat widespread when the internet was still new, but wikis, forums and blogs are slowly being disappeared from search or drowned in noise while clownish conspiracies have conveniently smoke-screened all attempts to create an alternative to the status quo.

[dathos]

I often wondered what could be the reason that triggers the “dead internet” theory. And muddying the information we can share freely means we cannot share freely anymore.