It's depressing that this article is so high on HN right now. It's another example of a poor report trivializing an important debate. Meanwhile, many of the comments here are snarky and sardonic which further degrades the dialog. This is a serious subject and should be treated as such.
It's easy to shout hurray for your side. It's easy to demonize your enemy. According to the government, Snowden is a traitor. According to many frequent HN readers, the government is completely out of the control. Neither of these claims is true, but they are difficult to get past.
Although Snowden is certainly not a traitor, the accusation is serious. His life and freedom hang in the balance. Politicians and political pundits are looking for an easy solution when they demonize Snowden. Making him out to be the enemy makes it easier to keep the country calm about the issues he unveiled.
While Snowden isn't a monster, the surveillance programs are not evil either. They are shocking. They evoke emotional response. They can be frightening -- especially since we don't know how much deeper the programs go. Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism. Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives. Accept that, take a breath, then reevaluate your grievances.
I'm not suggesting that there's nothing to be angry or worried about. I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent. I'm saying that this is important and meaningful and needs to be treated as such rather than another opportunity to win points in some silly political game.
I don't agree with your statement that the surveillance programs are not evil because their goal is to save lives. Essentially nobody is intentionally evil. There's a reason we say "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions", and it's not because we're all civil engineering aficionados.
Evil can and does arise from people trying to do their best to make the world a better place. To say that the program isn't evil because it's trying to save lives is incredibly dangerous.
At the risk of triggering a Godwin, let's all recall that Hitler rose to power "trying to defend the country from terrorism". We probably don't have any nascent Hitlers, but we certainly have people who will abuse power if they get it, and ignoring people with good intentions will make them impossible to detect.
Just how many lives has terrorism claimed in the past decade?
Smoking has probably claimed more lives just today than terrorist attacks on US soil in the past decade. So I don't think it warrants any action at all.
Let's face it the aim of terrorism is to scare people and if we are so scared that we're giving away basic human rights (and correspondence secrecy is a basic human right) then the terrorist won.
especially since we don't know how much deeper the programs go. Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism
So you don't know how deep it goes, but already decided what you would find at the other end of it if you did. Okay?
Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives.
Regardless of the optimism you bring to the topic, a lot of the same people who are for these programs, are also for wars that get a whole lot of people killed for nothing but dominance. So, hmmm.
Oh, and did it ever occur to you that for some people learning about the world comes first, then cynicism about certain issues second, not the other way around as is often so conveniently implied?
I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent.
That is exactly what you just did -- "the primary goal of these programs is to save lives".
>While Snowden isn't a monster, the surveillance programs are not evil either.
"Evil" is a BS religious term.
It obscures political issues.
Those programs are: far-reaching, constitution breaking, targeted as dissidents, useless for real terrorists, and, in a word unacceptable in a proper democracy.
Nobody cares if they those doing it are "evil" or not.
I also take offence with "Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives.".
Surveillance programs have been with us long before terrorism -- they have been traditionally been deployed, along with secret services, state police, etc, against dissident citizens -- and they have a long history in the US and in all Western countries (and, it goes without saying, in all third world dictatorships).
So that their "primary goal is to save lives" needs a ton of citations. Why? Because some politicians say so? They might even believe it -- though politicians are seldom as naive, except while they are not in office. That doesn't make it true.
Any huge bureaucracy such as a government, that supports trillions of dollars in private interests, finds a way to perpetuate itself and squash those that want change to the status quo and "make waves". People don't have to be "evil" -- they just have to do their work and show some zeal. Real "evil" is banal and ordinary, not like in the movies.
According to many frequent HN readers, the government is completely out of the control. Neither of these claims is true, but they are difficult to get past.
This is simply an opinion. Over these past few weeks I have had cycles of getting angry, then pensive, and then taking a break from thinking about these issues for a while. I have just woken up, and I am feeling calm and peaceful right now. Yet, I still feel extremely strongly that these programs are immensely out of control and offensive to the ideals this country supposedly stands for, regardless of any "noble" intentions behind them.
I agree. In fact, I wish that HN users wouldn't post links to Vice at all. The quality of research and reporting is generally poor, and the tone is sensational.
Plus, the reporters' motives are questionable because Vice is a strange hybrid between a news outlet and an ad agency. Its executives have publicly acknowledge this. [1]
Whenever I point this out, someone always says, "Well, yeah, but all news is messed up." As a former investigative journalist, I find this to be a stupid argument. Americans have an incredible number of news sources to choose from. There are plenty of independent outlets with greater journalistic integrity; those who feel that all news is on par with Vice need to realize their options.
"Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism.".
Hahaha. You made a funny.
On a serious note, do you have anything to back that statement up besides your own opinion?
The primary goal of these programs and of the government is to control a population. If they die its not so much too control, but rest assured these agencies have no qualm of taking or ruining a life or 100 000 lives to further their own interests.
I think you're mostly on the point, but unless you have serious inside knowledge, I don't know if you can really assume PRISM is about national security and not about other nefarious purposes.
"According to the government, Snowden is a traitor. According to many frequent HN readers, the government is completely out of the control. Neither of these claims is true..."
Ummm, I'm not sure if you are an American, or not, but those of us who believe in the US Constitution, as well as its Bill of Rights, know that the words contained therein are the only thing stopping our government from becoming another East Germany/North Korea style police state.
The 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America plainly lays out the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, and effects (the communications media of the era,) and it also spells out the requirements which the government must meet in order to breach that right to privacy. The current domestic surveillance program fails to meet these requirements on many levels.
Perhaps you don't find the abrogation of our Bill of Rights to be evidence of a government gone "completely out of the control." but a vast number of "We the People" are outraged at a great many of the acts being done in our name, without our consent.
The terrorism excuse is flimsy at best, especially in light of the fact that exponentially fewer Americans are harmed by terrorist acts than are killed by drunk driving on an annual basis.
Prescription drugs kill more Americans each year than all of the terrorist acts in the last 10 years combined.
It seems that those who would choose to marginalize the fact that our government has overstepped its mandate would rather shun the intent of the very Bill of Rights which made America the beacon of freedom and liberty for all.
History has a way of repeating itself, and those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
This "silly little game" is neither silly, nor little, this issue deals with an attack upon our Bill of Rights, which so many have fought and died for.
How in the world is the government not "completely out of control"? At this point basic decisions that violate the constitution are made almost daily. Hell, today we decided that the right to vote wasn't important the week after the government confirmed it is unconstitutionally spying on its citizens. What would you need for out of control? Them to be randomly shooting citizens? The idea that we should accept unconstitutional surveillance because the government's stated reason is that this "saves lives" (it doesn't) is just absolutely shocking and quite frankly, seems quite stupid.
> While Snowden isn't a monster, the surveillance programs are not evil either.
I am tired of exceptionalism being thrown around. Had this been Pol Pot or Stalin few would be saying "oh they just tried to build a better society there were not evil, they purged the enemies of the people that would have prevented the utopia to take hold".
Even the most depraved dictators and butches had justifications for their crimes and reasons why they were not evil. And most importantly they had supporters that were brainwashed enough to keep defending it.
So here we also argue, of course our countrymen, elected officials, and heads of department and CEOs of large military industrial conglomerates are not "evil" they just want to save us from the terrorism. Because we are _special_. We are inherently good (unlike those other inherently _evil_ countries). We are a "city on a hill" a "shining example" etc etc. This is not a systemic problem just a small faux pas...
Just because there may not be one single person to blame for everything doesn't mean evil isn't happening. Just because it is spread and washed over in a big sea of bureaucracy were every cog does one small task (and compartmentalization in the intelligence apparatus amplifies this), doesn't mean that things are just a little out of hand. They are way out of hand.
> Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism.
I can't think of too many instances of what we know consider evil regimes that didn't justify their actions in exactly the same way "we are just trying to defend our country from terror of <insert bogeyman here>".
> Accept that, take a breath, then reevaluate your grievances. ... I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent.
So what are you saying? I don't understand. What I am saying is that these programs are evil. This has been going on for too long. There is too much invasion of privacy. There is too much corruption. Too much lobbying and spending on wars and military. Now is the time to get angry. Now is the time to protest.
A few whistle blowers came before Snowden. Everyone had time to take breaths while they were ignored. Ok, ignore this one. Slide further downhill.
Yes, it is easy to defend you side because, that is politics. The majority defend their interest. and if there's enough segmentation, there may even be a close to fair compromise.
Only problem now is that it's not about majority, but accumulated power. Those policies were never to defend the country (and by believing that you make me question my judgment to even start to argue with you). They are there for specific interests.
A semi-smart terrorist could get in a Battlefield 3 server and talk about blowing stuff up with his terror buddies and no one would think anything of it. Context is Key, do you think the NSA monitors all game servers worldwide? No? hmm.. Well then who are they really trying to spy on?
Even with the panic that has happened regarding the revelations of mass-surveillance I don't think the public at large truly realizes how screwed up this situation is.
The common defense of sweeping surveillance is that it serves an important purpose, finding terrorists, and it has succeeded in that purpose.
Ignoring the very serious problems with framing the debate in such a way it's also fundamentally misleading. There have been many cases of "terrorist plots" within the US having been foiled over the last few years, but many if not most of these are not as serious as most would believe. A stereotypical "foiled terrorist plot" begins with a radicalized individual who somehow comes to the attention of the authorities. Then the FBI spins up an elaborate sting to essentially entrap the radicalized individual into committing to some sort of attack, often providing fake bombs in the process. And just before they go through with their planned "attack" the FBI arrests them.
Meanwhile, the FBI, NSA, TSA, et al have failed to foil many much more serious attacks, such as the Boston bombings, the Fort Hood shooting, the "underwear bomber", the failed 2010 Times Square bombing attempt, etc.
This sort of "entrapment" is legal in the US? But maybe they wouldn't care. Anyway, wouldn't it be more useful to invest the time, money and energy in facilitating social integration of these individuals. Just asking.
Actually, they used to. Then they wised up and started using couriers. Both worked to the disadvantage of Al Quaida. When they stopped using electronic communications their organization suffered. Then, it was the movements of a courier that gave away Bin Laden.
So, regardless of whether you think it's OK for the NSA to spy on everyone, this push did break down Al Quaida's organization.
Whether it affects cell oriented terrorism (or 'lone wolf' terrorism) is another matter. For example, for the Boston bombers one of them did mention something about terrorism and came on the radar, but the FBI misjudged the threat.
When you have a government throwing billions of dollars into locating you, how exactly are you supposed to hide? Especially since Osama's courrier was only discovered because he was sold out (or tortured out) by his associates. In security you can only be as strong as your weakest link, and when dealing with a global organization you will surely have weak links.
Article seems to kind of miss the point. While the NSA's STATED reasons for these programs is to "fight terror" that doesn't necessarily mean it is their actual reason. If they want to spy on activists and everyday citizens this seems like a pretty solid strategy.
According to another whistleblower, it also means people who control budgets and power
"...including senior Congressional leaders, the former White House Press Secretary, high-ranking military generals, the entire Supreme Court, and even then-Senator from Illinois and future President, Barack Obama."
There seems to be two NSAs in the media right now: the extremely competent one that can access your email from a desktop without any oversight or trouble and the bumbling idiots who don't know more about terrorists than reporters.
Here in Germany there's a lot of talk that PRISM is ultimately a tool for industry espionage. The Boundless Informant world map shows Germany in bright orange. People are wondering: Is Germany breeding terrorists or is NSA simply interested in trade secrets?
Going by that logic, terrorism is a red herring. By making details about PRISM and NSA's hacking activities public, Snowden is undermining the US's ability to covertly vacuum up trade secrets, thus weakening the US industry. That's why the US government is freaking out. You can bet that German companies are now reconsidering using cloud services hosted in the US, or cloud services at all, or American (closed source / potentially backdoored) software at all.
Don't be offended by this, please, but what could Germany in particular possibly be doing that's so awesome and advanced that the United States would have to resort to theft to replicate it?
If it were the case, I would expect companies to be involved in corporate espionage, not the government.
When an argument starts failing you move the goalposts and make another argument. Concede the original but claim it is something else that you can better defend.
The NSA isn't focused exclusively on terrorism. It has ~40k employees who work on a wide range of areas, drug cartels, human trafficking, money laundering, counter intelligence, espionage, and hundreds of others. It's mighty presumptuous for people not "in the know" to speak on what is and isn't valuable to the NSA's missions.
As for terrorists, if someone were a skilled terrorist their entire life, they probably wouldn't live digital traces within the US. But this isn't the case; people become terrorists, and some of those become skilled terrorists. There is immense value in having intelligence on people before they become a terrorist and needless to say, before they hone their tradecraft and drop from the grid.
Well, I'll have to disagree in full with the points the author is trying to make.
"A recent Bloomberg piece points to a 2012 report on terrorism which found that most serious terrorists steer clear of the most obvious platforms—major cell networks, Google, Skype, Facebook, etc."
The 2012 report cited wasn't some senate oversight committee, a DIRNSA (director NSA) report, or a truly credible intelligence source. It was from the Dutch Intelligence agency, an agency focused on leftist activity vs. right-wing Islamic terrorism.
"In 2010, Google estimated that it had indexed just 0.004% of the internet—meaning the vast majority of the web is open for surreptitious message-sending business. Terrorists simply aren't dumb enough to discuss their secret plans over Skype or to email each other confidential information on Gmail."
Do you think that it's feasible for terrorists to use couriers/tradecraft to transmit all messages to their group members around the world? If I told you right now to get a message to your cousin in Connecticut within an hour without using Skype/email/phone or anything of the other means listed, could you do it? Let's say you answer that you'll just use steganography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) to hide the message. How are you going to communicate to your cousin where to look for the message and how to break it down?
Armchair intelligence analysis is the same as armchair anything -- you have no basis for what you're talking about except a bunch of redacted reports, news articles, and spy movies. Intelligence analysis is a very straightforward thing, though, which a lot of folks working in tech would be really good at, but articles like this are the equivalent of commenting on the merits of using PHP having never written a line of code in your life.
I understand peoples' frustration with what (if true) would be an egregious slight on the public trust. But, is it more likely that the 4+ million security clearance holders are in on some large conspiracy to take away our freedoms, or that a disgruntled worker wanted to watch the world burn a little. Having worked in every facet of the NSA as a linguist/intelligence analyst/programmer/many other things, and CIA contractor for a year, I tend to think the latter, and I'm very vocal about my thoughts on the intelligence community.
Read my previous comments if you want to see my thoughts on how the media has been getting it wrong, and what the deal is from the perspective of someone who worked in this community.
I can think of three possible reasons (I claim no expertise here) to doubt that FISA orders and phone metadata are completely useless against terrorists even if (as seems likely) serious terrorists know to steer clear of Skype, Facebook and friends.
1) By monitoring Internet services like these, the NSA denies their use to the terrorists. It's not as if exclusively using couriers, dead drops and the like has no costs to an organisation (say, have you moved off GMail yet?) Apparently some fairly serious terrorists are using the Internet in more secure ways, but the spooks have some ability to go after those too.
2) Any big network or organisations is going to have slipups, no matter how good it is. It would be hard to imagine that no serious terrorist ever gets lazy, or decides to take a risk under time pressure.
3) There have to be a lot of guys who start out as Facebook jihadis, and only later get serious and realise (or have it explained to them) that they need to stop making it easy for the authorities to track them. But by that time they'll already have left a useful trail of contacts and activity through FB. (By the way, that's one reason why I think it's wrong to assume that PRISM has been useless even if it hasn't stopped any specific attacks. Realistically, that kind of intelligence is going to be less about discovering big plots just in time and more about gathering enough information to locate and move on terrorists - espcially if you can then turn them into informers. Running "touts" is central to effective counterterrorism, if history is any guide.)
Criminals (I hate to use the word "terrorist" because it has a distracting political bias - we're talking about people doing bad things to other people) are not some sort of hyper-disciplined super spies. They do some pretty dumb things. A while back I met a guy looking to put together a Twitter system designed to combat drug cartels, who, yes, communicated via Twitter. This was several years ago, but still.
The whole reason I'm so upset about what the NSA is doing is because it works, and over time it will work much better than it does today.
The author is focusing on the wrong issue. He is mostly concerned with whether or not the surveillance is effective.
If effectiveness were the only consideration, he would have a weak argument. Even if most terrorists are smart enough to avoid Gmail, Skype and cellular networks, it might still make sense to eavesdrop in these places.
After all, smart criminals sometimes get caught because they make dumb mistakes. For example, my understanding is that Sabu (a member of Anonymous) was caught because he forgot to use Tor in one instance when he logged into a social network.
But we can argue all day about whether or not PRISM is effective. I think the author would have a stronger argument if he focused on the fact that the program is unconstitutional, regardless of how well it works.
Why limit your argument to one or the other? Some people will think PRISM is effective, others may not. Some people may think the privacy issues are important, others may not. But surely they balance each other out - if the NSA cannot catch any terrorists, then it doesn't matter if the privacy issues are not important, PRISM is clearly a waste of money, case over. And presumably somewhere along the line it could go the other way - if 50% of letters contain anthrax, would you not be happy sacrificing some privacy to let the NSA to screen them for you? Or a wider example, what if there was evidence that without PRISM, terrorists would be killing 1000s of Americans on a weekly basis - would we all be so against it still?
Also, if terrorists really do avoid Gmail, Skype and cell phones because of surveillance than the surveillance has a definitive effect of making the terrorists less effective because they are using inferior communication.
I think the next leak will show they've redefined 'terrorist' and that a terrorist these days is anyone who does anything the US doesn't like and is vaguely related ultimately back to national security. So, I think already we've established that any drug crimes (even low-level ones) are national security threats. Bitcoin miners will soon be terrorists I think. People encrypting email are highly suspect and probably a national security threat. People running free web hosting will soon be terrorists. It directly serves the interests of the government for everyone to be considered a terrorist. It's probably one of the biggest loopholes our country's seen.
I don't buy the concept that terrorists don't use common online services. Does anybody actually believe things are safer if you use HushMail et al as your provider? While it's unlikely that the NSA has asked HushMail to FTP up all of its account data as it apparently did with PRISM participants, one would be highly naive to assume that intelligence services have just decided to leave certain providers' data untouched just because they're unwilling to lay out the welcome mat. One would therefore logically conclude that with very basic steganographic measures, it's easier to hide among the hundreds of millions of mails that Google processes each day than the thousands processed by HushMail or other minor email providers (or even a fully-hosted custom mail server at "terrorists-r-us.com").
Furthermore, if you use any cryptography at all besides SSL you're probably already on an NSA list somewhere, but GnuPG alleviates all of these concerns and I'm sure that some terrorist organizations have discovered it. In this case, there should be no issue using Gmail or other services for your communication.
I've really nothing more to say about the NSA at this point. I'd just like to give a shout out to Vice for being one of the most vital and relevant news organizations of the modern era. Whenever people say journalism is dead, I just point them to a Vice article. They make me proud to have a journo background.
Vice has done some really good work, but this isn't an example of it. This article doesn't cover anything more than the Bloomberg one it uses as a source.
Well apparently both Al-Qaeda and some CIA employees uses public email accounts like Gmail to communicate in secret.[0]
The method is a little bit different than normally email. They used Gmail as a electronic dropbox by saving messages in the draft folder, but now that NSA have direct access that are probably picking up that also. So be careful not to make a draft with text like "the drunk monkey sings at midnight", or the NSA may come knocking :)
Don't the people that the terrorists need to recruit use Skype, and GMail, and Facebook? Find the recruiters & PR types that have to be where the people are, and that's one more in you have with a nascent terror cell.
Some clearly terrorist elements have used all three of the services in the headline. It still doesn't make NSA's domestic surveillance, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, right.
I would just like to crosspost a comment from reddit user MarcusHalberstram88 which I found to be insightful :
Ok, I feel I have to speak up. This is why I take issue with subs like /r/politics, and I would hope for more from /r/technology.
Most people who see this post will only read the title and not follow the link to the article (even though the title sensationalizes the article). If someone does actually click, this post links to a Motherboard article, which basically just cites, summarizes, and links to a Bloomberg article. The Bloomberg article[1] cites, extrapolates, and links to AIVD UK (a Dutch website). Said Dutch website[2] (finally) links to the actual report that all these different sources are supposedly reporting on. That report was by the General Intelligence and Security Service for the Dutch Ministry of Interiors and Kingdom Relations.
The actual report itself is just shy of 30 pages long and dedicates one of its four chapters of findings to "How does online Jihadism work?" (roughly 4 pages).
I think 4 pages discussing where and how (it is thought) 25,000 Jihadists gather online is one thing. Making a blanket statement saying that terrorists do not use Verizon, Skype, or Gmail is another. But anyone who just reads the title of this post, or just reads the article that the post links to, or even the article that THAT article links to, may believe otherwise.
[+] [-] Arnor|12 years ago|reply
It's easy to shout hurray for your side. It's easy to demonize your enemy. According to the government, Snowden is a traitor. According to many frequent HN readers, the government is completely out of the control. Neither of these claims is true, but they are difficult to get past.
Although Snowden is certainly not a traitor, the accusation is serious. His life and freedom hang in the balance. Politicians and political pundits are looking for an easy solution when they demonize Snowden. Making him out to be the enemy makes it easier to keep the country calm about the issues he unveiled.
While Snowden isn't a monster, the surveillance programs are not evil either. They are shocking. They evoke emotional response. They can be frightening -- especially since we don't know how much deeper the programs go. Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism. Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives. Accept that, take a breath, then reevaluate your grievances.
I'm not suggesting that there's nothing to be angry or worried about. I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent. I'm saying that this is important and meaningful and needs to be treated as such rather than another opportunity to win points in some silly political game.
[+] [-] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
Evil can and does arise from people trying to do their best to make the world a better place. To say that the program isn't evil because it's trying to save lives is incredibly dangerous.
At the risk of triggering a Godwin, let's all recall that Hitler rose to power "trying to defend the country from terrorism". We probably don't have any nascent Hitlers, but we certainly have people who will abuse power if they get it, and ignoring people with good intentions will make them impossible to detect.
[+] [-] carlob|12 years ago|reply
Smoking has probably claimed more lives just today than terrorist attacks on US soil in the past decade. So I don't think it warrants any action at all.
Let's face it the aim of terrorism is to scare people and if we are so scared that we're giving away basic human rights (and correspondence secrecy is a basic human right) then the terrorist won.
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|12 years ago|reply
So you don't know how deep it goes, but already decided what you would find at the other end of it if you did. Okay?
Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives.
Regardless of the optimism you bring to the topic, a lot of the same people who are for these programs, are also for wars that get a whole lot of people killed for nothing but dominance. So, hmmm.
Oh, and did it ever occur to you that for some people learning about the world comes first, then cynicism about certain issues second, not the other way around as is often so conveniently implied?
I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent.
That is exactly what you just did -- "the primary goal of these programs is to save lives".
[+] [-] coldtea|12 years ago|reply
"Evil" is a BS religious term.
It obscures political issues.
Those programs are: far-reaching, constitution breaking, targeted as dissidents, useless for real terrorists, and, in a word unacceptable in a proper democracy.
Nobody cares if they those doing it are "evil" or not.
I also take offence with "Regardless of the cynicism you bring to the topic, the primary goal of these programs is to save lives.".
Surveillance programs have been with us long before terrorism -- they have been traditionally been deployed, along with secret services, state police, etc, against dissident citizens -- and they have a long history in the US and in all Western countries (and, it goes without saying, in all third world dictatorships).
So that their "primary goal is to save lives" needs a ton of citations. Why? Because some politicians say so? They might even believe it -- though politicians are seldom as naive, except while they are not in office. That doesn't make it true.
Any huge bureaucracy such as a government, that supports trillions of dollars in private interests, finds a way to perpetuate itself and squash those that want change to the status quo and "make waves". People don't have to be "evil" -- they just have to do their work and show some zeal. Real "evil" is banal and ordinary, not like in the movies.
[+] [-] dwaltrip|12 years ago|reply
This is simply an opinion. Over these past few weeks I have had cycles of getting angry, then pensive, and then taking a break from thinking about these issues for a while. I have just woken up, and I am feeling calm and peaceful right now. Yet, I still feel extremely strongly that these programs are immensely out of control and offensive to the ideals this country supposedly stands for, regardless of any "noble" intentions behind them.
[+] [-] hawkharris|12 years ago|reply
Plus, the reporters' motives are questionable because Vice is a strange hybrid between a news outlet and an ad agency. Its executives have publicly acknowledge this. [1]
Whenever I point this out, someone always says, "Well, yeah, but all news is messed up." As a former investigative journalist, I find this to be a stupid argument. Americans have an incredible number of news sources to choose from. There are plenty of independent outlets with greater journalistic integrity; those who feel that all news is on par with Vice need to realize their options.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/04/08/130408fa_fact_...
[+] [-] antocv|12 years ago|reply
Hahaha. You made a funny.
On a serious note, do you have anything to back that statement up besides your own opinion?
The primary goal of these programs and of the government is to control a population. If they die its not so much too control, but rest assured these agencies have no qualm of taking or ruining a life or 100 000 lives to further their own interests.
[+] [-] jwingy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] D9u|12 years ago|reply
The 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America plainly lays out the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, and effects (the communications media of the era,) and it also spells out the requirements which the government must meet in order to breach that right to privacy. The current domestic surveillance program fails to meet these requirements on many levels.
Perhaps you don't find the abrogation of our Bill of Rights to be evidence of a government gone "completely out of the control." but a vast number of "We the People" are outraged at a great many of the acts being done in our name, without our consent.
Secret courts, secret judges, secret police, secret wars, secret torture...
Does any of that sound familiar?
The terrorism excuse is flimsy at best, especially in light of the fact that exponentially fewer Americans are harmed by terrorist acts than are killed by drunk driving on an annual basis. Prescription drugs kill more Americans each year than all of the terrorist acts in the last 10 years combined.
It seems that those who would choose to marginalize the fact that our government has overstepped its mandate would rather shun the intent of the very Bill of Rights which made America the beacon of freedom and liberty for all.
History has a way of repeating itself, and those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
This "silly little game" is neither silly, nor little, this issue deals with an attack upon our Bill of Rights, which so many have fought and died for.
[+] [-] ryguytilidie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueprint|12 years ago|reply
What are your criteria by which you recognize evil?
[+] [-] rdtsc|12 years ago|reply
I am tired of exceptionalism being thrown around. Had this been Pol Pot or Stalin few would be saying "oh they just tried to build a better society there were not evil, they purged the enemies of the people that would have prevented the utopia to take hold".
Even the most depraved dictators and butches had justifications for their crimes and reasons why they were not evil. And most importantly they had supporters that were brainwashed enough to keep defending it.
So here we also argue, of course our countrymen, elected officials, and heads of department and CEOs of large military industrial conglomerates are not "evil" they just want to save us from the terrorism. Because we are _special_. We are inherently good (unlike those other inherently _evil_ countries). We are a "city on a hill" a "shining example" etc etc. This is not a systemic problem just a small faux pas...
Just because there may not be one single person to blame for everything doesn't mean evil isn't happening. Just because it is spread and washed over in a big sea of bureaucracy were every cog does one small task (and compartmentalization in the intelligence apparatus amplifies this), doesn't mean that things are just a little out of hand. They are way out of hand.
> Still, they are the largely the result of people trying to defend the country from terrorism.
I can't think of too many instances of what we know consider evil regimes that didn't justify their actions in exactly the same way "we are just trying to defend our country from terror of <insert bogeyman here>".
> Accept that, take a breath, then reevaluate your grievances. ... I'm certainly not saying that the programs are right or benevolent.
So what are you saying? I don't understand. What I am saying is that these programs are evil. This has been going on for too long. There is too much invasion of privacy. There is too much corruption. Too much lobbying and spending on wars and military. Now is the time to get angry. Now is the time to protest.
A few whistle blowers came before Snowden. Everyone had time to take breaths while they were ignored. Ok, ignore this one. Slide further downhill.
[+] [-] gcb0|12 years ago|reply
Only problem now is that it's not about majority, but accumulated power. Those policies were never to defend the country (and by believing that you make me question my judgment to even start to argue with you). They are there for specific interests.
[+] [-] kenrikm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|12 years ago|reply
The common defense of sweeping surveillance is that it serves an important purpose, finding terrorists, and it has succeeded in that purpose.
Ignoring the very serious problems with framing the debate in such a way it's also fundamentally misleading. There have been many cases of "terrorist plots" within the US having been foiled over the last few years, but many if not most of these are not as serious as most would believe. A stereotypical "foiled terrorist plot" begins with a radicalized individual who somehow comes to the attention of the authorities. Then the FBI spins up an elaborate sting to essentially entrap the radicalized individual into committing to some sort of attack, often providing fake bombs in the process. And just before they go through with their planned "attack" the FBI arrests them.
Examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amine_El_Khalifi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Osman_Mohamud and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farooque_Ahmed and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Osmakac
Meanwhile, the FBI, NSA, TSA, et al have failed to foil many much more serious attacks, such as the Boston bombings, the Fort Hood shooting, the "underwear bomber", the failed 2010 Times Square bombing attempt, etc.
[+] [-] Wingman4l7|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stewbrew|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LatvjuAvs|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kghose|12 years ago|reply
So, regardless of whether you think it's OK for the NSA to spy on everyone, this push did break down Al Quaida's organization.
Whether it affects cell oriented terrorism (or 'lone wolf' terrorism) is another matter. For example, for the Boston bombers one of them did mention something about terrorism and came on the radar, but the FBI misjudged the threat.
[+] [-] betterunix|12 years ago|reply
OK, so why are we continuing it? We broke Al Qaeda, we killed their leaders. We got revenge for the September 11th attacks.
To put it another way, who is our enemy now?
[+] [-] CaveTech|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryguytilidie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] da02|12 years ago|reply
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/06/24/bfp-report-whistl...
[+] [-] pjnewton|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Kylekramer|12 years ago|reply
It doesn't mesh.
[+] [-] blumentopf|12 years ago|reply
Here in Germany there's a lot of talk that PRISM is ultimately a tool for industry espionage. The Boundless Informant world map shows Germany in bright orange. People are wondering: Is Germany breeding terrorists or is NSA simply interested in trade secrets?
Going by that logic, terrorism is a red herring. By making details about PRISM and NSA's hacking activities public, Snowden is undermining the US's ability to covertly vacuum up trade secrets, thus weakening the US industry. That's why the US government is freaking out. You can bet that German companies are now reconsidering using cloud services hosted in the US, or cloud services at all, or American (closed source / potentially backdoored) software at all.
[+] [-] krapp|12 years ago|reply
If it were the case, I would expect companies to be involved in corporate espionage, not the government.
[+] [-] monorail|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nslocum|12 years ago|reply
As for terrorists, if someone were a skilled terrorist their entire life, they probably wouldn't live digital traces within the US. But this isn't the case; people become terrorists, and some of those become skilled terrorists. There is immense value in having intelligence on people before they become a terrorist and needless to say, before they hone their tradecraft and drop from the grid.
[+] [-] bazillion|12 years ago|reply
"A recent Bloomberg piece points to a 2012 report on terrorism which found that most serious terrorists steer clear of the most obvious platforms—major cell networks, Google, Skype, Facebook, etc."
The 2012 report cited wasn't some senate oversight committee, a DIRNSA (director NSA) report, or a truly credible intelligence source. It was from the Dutch Intelligence agency, an agency focused on leftist activity vs. right-wing Islamic terrorism.
"In 2010, Google estimated that it had indexed just 0.004% of the internet—meaning the vast majority of the web is open for surreptitious message-sending business. Terrorists simply aren't dumb enough to discuss their secret plans over Skype or to email each other confidential information on Gmail."
Do you think that it's feasible for terrorists to use couriers/tradecraft to transmit all messages to their group members around the world? If I told you right now to get a message to your cousin in Connecticut within an hour without using Skype/email/phone or anything of the other means listed, could you do it? Let's say you answer that you'll just use steganography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) to hide the message. How are you going to communicate to your cousin where to look for the message and how to break it down?
Armchair intelligence analysis is the same as armchair anything -- you have no basis for what you're talking about except a bunch of redacted reports, news articles, and spy movies. Intelligence analysis is a very straightforward thing, though, which a lot of folks working in tech would be really good at, but articles like this are the equivalent of commenting on the merits of using PHP having never written a line of code in your life.
I understand peoples' frustration with what (if true) would be an egregious slight on the public trust. But, is it more likely that the 4+ million security clearance holders are in on some large conspiracy to take away our freedoms, or that a disgruntled worker wanted to watch the world burn a little. Having worked in every facet of the NSA as a linguist/intelligence analyst/programmer/many other things, and CIA contractor for a year, I tend to think the latter, and I'm very vocal about my thoughts on the intelligence community.
Read my previous comments if you want to see my thoughts on how the media has been getting it wrong, and what the deal is from the perspective of someone who worked in this community.
[+] [-] seferphier|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leopoldo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leoc|12 years ago|reply
1) By monitoring Internet services like these, the NSA denies their use to the terrorists. It's not as if exclusively using couriers, dead drops and the like has no costs to an organisation (say, have you moved off GMail yet?) Apparently some fairly serious terrorists are using the Internet in more secure ways, but the spooks have some ability to go after those too.
2) Any big network or organisations is going to have slipups, no matter how good it is. It would be hard to imagine that no serious terrorist ever gets lazy, or decides to take a risk under time pressure.
3) There have to be a lot of guys who start out as Facebook jihadis, and only later get serious and realise (or have it explained to them) that they need to stop making it easy for the authorities to track them. But by that time they'll already have left a useful trail of contacts and activity through FB. (By the way, that's one reason why I think it's wrong to assume that PRISM has been useless even if it hasn't stopped any specific attacks. Realistically, that kind of intelligence is going to be less about discovering big plots just in time and more about gathering enough information to locate and move on terrorists - espcially if you can then turn them into informers. Running "touts" is central to effective counterterrorism, if history is any guide.)
[+] [-] damoncali|12 years ago|reply
The whole reason I'm so upset about what the NSA is doing is because it works, and over time it will work much better than it does today.
[+] [-] hawkharris|12 years ago|reply
If effectiveness were the only consideration, he would have a weak argument. Even if most terrorists are smart enough to avoid Gmail, Skype and cellular networks, it might still make sense to eavesdrop in these places.
After all, smart criminals sometimes get caught because they make dumb mistakes. For example, my understanding is that Sabu (a member of Anonymous) was caught because he forgot to use Tor in one instance when he logged into a social network.
But we can argue all day about whether or not PRISM is effective. I think the author would have a stronger argument if he focused on the fact that the program is unconstitutional, regardless of how well it works.
[+] [-] corin_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codex|12 years ago|reply
I don't believe this. Does anyone else?
[+] [-] cookiecaper|12 years ago|reply
Furthermore, if you use any cryptography at all besides SSL you're probably already on an NSA list somewhere, but GnuPG alleviates all of these concerns and I'm sure that some terrorist organizations have discovered it. In this case, there should be no issue using Gmail or other services for your communication.
[+] [-] dclowd9901|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrunchyJams|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinreeves|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theklub|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runarb|12 years ago|reply
The method is a little bit different than normally email. They used Gmail as a electronic dropbox by saving messages in the draft folder, but now that NSA have direct access that are probably picking up that also. So be careful not to make a draft with text like "the drunk monkey sings at midnight", or the NSA may come knocking :)
0: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12...
[+] [-] mpyne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertzlcoatl|12 years ago|reply
Ok, I feel I have to speak up. This is why I take issue with subs like /r/politics, and I would hope for more from /r/technology.
Most people who see this post will only read the title and not follow the link to the article (even though the title sensationalizes the article). If someone does actually click, this post links to a Motherboard article, which basically just cites, summarizes, and links to a Bloomberg article. The Bloomberg article[1] cites, extrapolates, and links to AIVD UK (a Dutch website). Said Dutch website[2] (finally) links to the actual report that all these different sources are supposedly reporting on. That report was by the General Intelligence and Security Service for the Dutch Ministry of Interiors and Kingdom Relations.
The actual report itself is just shy of 30 pages long and dedicates one of its four chapters of findings to "How does online Jihadism work?" (roughly 4 pages).
I think 4 pages discussing where and how (it is thought) 25,000 Jihadists gather online is one thing. Making a blanket statement saying that terrorists do not use Verizon, Skype, or Gmail is another. But anyone who just reads the title of this post, or just reads the article that the post links to, or even the article that THAT article links to, may believe otherwise.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/u-s-surveillance-is...
[2] https://www.aivd.nl/english/publications-press/@2873/jihadis...