Obama proposes four-point plan to investigate US data spooks In a Friday press conference, President Obama laid out a plan to review the USA PATRIOT Act, secret intelligence courts, and activities of the NSA. The revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had nothing to do with the review, Obama insisted, saying that as a senator he had supported more transparency and had spoken of …
What Obama said is a lot of smoke and mirrors. The real problem is not that the government is spying on just about everyone, but does the government have the right to keep the American people from knowing what it is doing? These top secret classifications were designed to keep our enemies from discovering troop movements, battle plans, and weapons designs, etc. These classifications of things like keeping the people in America from knowing what our government is doing to them is nothing but wrong! I wonder who our government considers to be the enemy, the Talaban, or the citizens of the United States
That seems like a pretty real problem to me.
That said, you are right on one point : the real problem is indeed not that the US gov is spying on everyone, it is that it is spying on everyone behind secret courts and gagging orders instead of doing so within the blinding light of democracy and justice, with oversight and due process every step of the way.
Which means that the US has just placed the final nail in the coffin that was built the day a previous US President openly stated that the Geneva Convention did not concern the US government when it came to retribution against people suspected of terrorism.
Today the US of A has removed itself from its lofty position as beacon of Freedom and Justice, and has placed itself at the same as a certain Cuban dictator, or any tinpot South American leader for that manner.
The only difference is that I still believe that Americans can reestablish actual Justice and Liberty for all within their own country. It will, however, involve quite a lot of pulling fingers out of arses.
Yeah. Right.
Re-watch that press conference - I just saw excerpts from it 1/2 hour ago.
Note that the president does not say that anything will change, just that more oversight to prevent leaks and confirm proper operations, will happen. NOTHING ever stated about the fundamental policies themselves being changed or better ended - we know that is a LIE because Congress just re-funded the NSA programs last week.
The hypocrisy of the new broadcast I was just watching was so disgustingly appalling that I was laughing out loud, in the public space where I was watching it. The news channel (CNN) even had congresspeople to interview stating 'Yes, we will do something!'. ALL THE WHILE these back-stabbers just passed the legislation all over again last week! And behind the American public's back, too: the 3 people with whom I was watching the broadcast had NO idea that Congress re-funded the NSA until I informed them (with information from European news sources, because the American news didn't cover one squat drop of it)!!
Nothing is changing, they are simply putting on a nice show. Both sides. Well done, the public has learned to accept the doublespeak without issue or a single scrap of independent thought.
Well, first off
"The revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had nothing to do with the review, Obama insisted"
Yeah, right. BWAHAHAHAHAHA - funny. But total BS.
However, I must admit I am wondering what exact process Snowden really should have followed. I always hear statements about "proper channels" and I worked in enough places to know that such channels exist, but I personally have never really felt I could trust those (never had the need/desire to use them - I clearly have never worked in exciting places).
"Dear boss, you're doing something bad"
"Dear employee, those people in black suits will take you to a nice quiet place where you can explain it all. Nice to have known you".
So, my challenge is that the credibility of such an alternative route must be proven beyond reasonable doubt before you can expect a whistleblower not to use the traditional mechanism of press disclosure..
I worked in the US Government for quite a few years, and there always were whistleblower contacts, although I never had occasion to consult them. My approach, however, would have involved contact through a private attorney of my choosing, and initially without identification. That would have insured that my complaint was examined at least superficially and viewed as reasonable by a disinterested party, and that the proper procedures were followed to protect everyone concerned. And I would have been unsurprised at job consequences if the matter were pursued; in any functioning organization, there are many subtle ways to convey disapproval of disruptive acts despite the existence of whistleblower protections.
That was in a DoD agency, but not associated with the National Security establishment, and I was employed directly rather than through a contractor. There may be less legal (and job) protection for employees like Mr. Snowden, although his goals appear not to have included either. An approach to selected Senators and Representatives through a reasonably respected attorney with experience in civil liberties and privacy law, and perhaps a bit of National Security establishment or congressional staff service, could have been a good start and could have been done without taking any criminal action. I expect the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Electronic Privacy Information Center could have provided suitable references.
And if that didn't work out, the public release option would be available as a backup.
Seeing how far he has gone in the last 6 years, I hope he doesn't go "further" on anything. The next step might well be FEMA trailers which will then be "investigated".
Also
> Accuses Russia of falling into "cold war thinking"
> Nixes a meeting with Russia because of some "factor"
"The revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had nothing to do with the review, Obama insisted, saying that as a senator he had supported more transparency and had spoken of the need for greater oversight before."
So he talked about but since taking office has done nothing about it? When the story broke, what was his response? Yep, he agreed with what was taking place. So now as the backlash has continued to grow, he had decided to change course but with the advert of that he was for making changes all along. Typical politician; you can't believe a word they say as their actions are the only true guide.
"When the story broke, what was his response? Yep, he agreed with what was taking place."
Actually, what happened was accusation and speculation that was roundly denied. Then came the first batch of revelations, forcing those involved to backtrack, saying that while they did X, they never did Y. Next round of revelations and again, we have "we did Y but never Z". Next round . . .
We have assurances that the US didn't monitor its own citizens but then that is proved not only false in the spirit of it but also the literal interpretation. Where the US indeed wasn't directly spying on Americans, it was co-opting other governments such as the all-too-eager UK and Australia to spy for them.
Quite simply, the government and those government agencies involved will hide and deny everything they can until being found out.
As stated, the Whistleblower provisions and protections do not apply to contractors, they aren't even made aware of them as Federal employees are. It's patently untrue that there is a formal process Snowden could have followed.
Even if the Snowden had been eligible for the protections, he would still have been guilty of mishandling and sharing sensitive documents in order to have presented the evidence he had. Sharing confidential/secret information with those not-authorized is specifically forbidden in the Whistleblower statutes.
Fuck you Kiss my ass Mr. President, Snowden is a Patriot and without him you'd still be up there smiling away, doing jack shit, while our Liberties were squeezed out of us, one law at a time.
"And he and his successors will be doing jack shit going forward, all they'll do is make it harder for the truth of their actions to come out."
Not true at all. If the American people wised up, they would make huge changes at election time. If the voters stayed away from the typical political parties, things could change.
It isn't as simple as staying away from the main parties; where I live there were exactly zero candidates from any party that wasn't Republican or Democrat. State and local laws actively work to prevent other parties from getting on the ballots, non-standard parties don't get the Federal or State financial support dollars and networks don't invite them to debates.
The entire system is terribly rigged and with spending/donation limits removed and the equal time provisions being so tweaked as to be meaningless it isn't going to get better anytime soon.
"If the American people wised up, they would make huge changes at election time. If the voters stayed away from the typical political parties, things could change."
This will not happen for several reasons, not least the deck stacking in favor of the established parties. Lax political spending limits probably are fairly unimportant, as there are enough people with gobs of money and strange political thoughts to fund any plausible third party if it could get a bit of traction. The last single-issue party that made it, however, was the Republican in the 1850s, driven by an issue more important than the NSA data vacuum.
The real problem is that first, most people are satisfied enough that they don't vote no matter how easy the authorities make it. Presidential election turnout has not exceeded 65% for more than a century - even during the lowest point of the Great Depression- and typically is far lower in other Congressional election years. In addition, most people know whether they are D or R by their fifth birthday and are unlikely to change later, though a clear supermajority of them have no real clue even as adults what that means in terms of policy choices. And as has been noted many times, the real behavioral differences between the parties are nearly noexistent on many matters, including national defense. If the administration can make a plausible case that the NSA supports national defense it is likely to carry the day.
"Kiss my ass Mr. President, Snowden is a Patriot and without him you'd still be up there smiling away, doing jack shit, while our Liberties were squeezed out of us, one law at a time."
I'm sure he's still up there smiling away doing jack shit, because the majority of people (unlike El Reg readers) don't give a shit, sadly. (Or are stupid enough to trust in spin-doctored speeches and statements)
Good heavens......Quelle surprise! "Of course, I planned this all along" is what he might have said. Looking at this debacle from across the pond, it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. Just who does Obama think he's kidding? He's been found out and now it's obvious there's going to be some sort of attempt at damage limitation, otherwise he and his cronies who support all this snooping may well find themselves out of office at the next election. It's a joke.
"No we don't do these things"
"There's no such program"
"We wouldn't be able to do such things even if we wanted to"
"OK we do some of that, but not as much as Snowden says"
"Snowden's making it up, he's a liar"
"OK we do that, but not to Americans so its OK"
"OK, we do it to Americans too, but with proper oversight"
"OK, the people supposedly overseeing the programs don't know the whole story"
"I want to make clear that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people."
"I'm satisfied that the intelligence agencies were obeying the law at all times"
Now, why don't I believe you. Especially as a non-American I'm apparently not an "ordinary person"
I would go so far as to say that the collective responses to this (both from the government side and, to some extent, the critics' side) implies that you (and I etc) are not any sort of person. And that scares me more than the actual spying.
That is not collective response - that is the sum of all precedent and interpretation by the US legal system of the 14th amendment of the USA consitutition. It is enshrined in US law and it is something you should always give a thought when dealing with USA legal system.
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Two options here:
1. He is lying.
2. He was being lied to and he is replying based on the briefings which are being given to him.
Option 2 implies an outright criminal behaviour on behalf of the 3 letter agencies.
If we step back and put things into perspective, the director of NSA has lied to congress in every single brief he has delivered (even under oath) in the last few years, including briefs given after the Snowden scandal broke out. For example "obeying the law at all times" has already come out as false with the DEA and fabricated evidence trails.
IMHO the truth is somewhere in between and closer to 2. I have had people in my family work for "The Firm" and they would have made fine Jesuits from the days when that order was handing Indians measles blankets while smiling all the way. The literally follow the idea that anything is allowed "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam", same as the Jesuits used to. Anything is fair game, anything is allowed and if you question them they just brush you off with a patronising remark. So lying to POTUS, SCOTUS, Congress, etc under oath is all fair game - it is "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam".
In any case, he knows very well what happens if he step on them too hard. Even without someone parking Kennedy's limo on the Oval Office lawn. So do not expect too much from him.
Is there anyone left on the planet that really believes anything the federal government says?
Snowden: thank you. A number of us have known for years what the government was capable of. Thank you for making sure the rest of the people are final getting clued in. Not that I really have "hope" that things will "change", but it sure feels nice when people who thought I was full of crap are finally taking notice.
He has the right, as an American citizen, to come back to the land of his birth and make a case with a lawyer at his side, Obama said
Ummmmm do you think they should have told President Obama that they'd revoked Mr Snowden's passport, and with it his rights as an American citizen to travel anywhere... even to America?
So no he doesn't have the right to return to America and stand with a lawyer at his side... not that having such a right would be worth fuck all.
Snowden does have the right to come back to the U.S. and show up at customs at the airport and be let in, even without a U.S. passport.
Ummm in case you haven't noticed, we potential terrorists who make up the rest of the worlds population have our own laws which apply in our countries. Most countries have laws about only being able to travel across borders with valid paperwork.
Transport companies which operate out of our countries enforce those laws because if they don't, they pay for it. So how do you propose he is going to be allowed to board a US bound aircraft?
Your government removed his right and ability to travel, so claiming he can return to the US and arm himself with a lawyer is.... ill-informed at best.
I suppose President Obama could have beeen talking about him returning to the US on his Russian passport... as a Russian citizen? What do you reckon?
All he has to do is walk into the embassy or a consulate. I have no doubt that the paperwork - and a valid ticket - would be issued quickly. He also would be arrested, however, so should be accompanied by a lawyer, and would be wise to make arrangements through a third party he trusts and insist on his attorney travelling with him. My money says there would be no problem with that and that the officials would take under a minute to agree, and only a little longer to agree to fund travel and per diem for the attorney.
Snowden has a one way travel pass to the U.S. from any other country. It was covered a few weeks ago. It was also covered that as soon as he arrives he'll be taken in to custody.
So yes he can travel back here. But I don't think he's dumb enough to throw himself on the gentle mercies of our legal system when those at the top have already publicly convicted him.
It's amazing how much less of the world you can travel when you're handcuffed to a federal agent in the back of an American air force plane.
With our VIP membership you don't have the check your luggage in, queue at the depart gate, or worry about customs! You step out of your runway side limo and straight into your own personal flight! Down sides are you don't get much opportunity to peruse the duty-free, and you always end up with the middle seat. And flights are one way only; direct to US home base airports only.
To get these special privileges you just have to join our US Government VIP Flyer Scheme, and leave your rights behind. Join now!
"But Snowden's leaks had caused a perception the US was "out there willy-nilly sucking in information on everybody"
Let me fix that... But Snowden's leaks told everyone the US was "out there sucking in information on everybody".
No one thinks it was "willy-nilly", and it was not "a perception" and the attempts to minimize what your doing with weasel words is not fooling anyone (maybe the tea baggers). And it's not just Obama, or Bush.
I need coffee. I initially skimmed the article, and missed a few words, so "the US was 'out there willy-nilly sucking in information on everybody,'" was read as "the US was 'out there willy-sucking on everybody,'" Not sure re-reading improved it.
Also, how can BO expect people to believe the rubbish he is speaking. President you say? Of America. Oh. Carry on.
@Tom 35
WTF does that mean? 'maybe the tea baggers'... surface dwellers & democrats elected Obama twice, even with all the contradictions and weasel words intact. Benghazi, IRS targeting, drones, Gitmo, etc and he's still there-> courtesy of folks like you with your 'tea bagger' comments.
Obama may be in because of blind Democrats but if so it's do different to Bush getting in through blind Republicans.
Both groups are EQUALLY responsible for the state of the US because they ensure that neither party has any incentive to change legislation like this.
A significant number of people would vote for a republican candidate that said "I will increase the monitoring of US citizens and push to overturn Roe-v-Wade" - as there are people who would vote for a Democrat candidate who said: "I will authorize drone strikes against US civilian targets and push to legalise gay marriage".
Ah, let's stop and think for a moment. The NSA has been hoovering up the web. What's on the web? The secrets of intergalactic flight? Plans for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space machinery? The location of the Ark of the Covenant, and how to build a working copy? Telepathy?
No. It's cats and pictures of what you ate. It's terrabytes of garbage. And no, none of it keeps the good ol' US of A safe because all of the terrorists are using drops and passing info around on pieces of paper and buying stuff with cash. And the real truth of the matter is that the NSA can waste just as much money with only 10% of its staff.
The world isn't kept safe by entrapping mouthy idiots and massively indexing garbage.
I'd be fine with them spending American taxpayers' money if they weren't using that money to spy on me and everybody else. Yes, including whatever cat pictures I care to send to whomever.
Of course the world isn't kept safe by massively indexing garbage. But budgets are and you never know if you find somebody with an outstanding parking ticket... or somebody Googling for pressure cookers and backpacks.
Sure there's lots of garbage. The point is that there's also a LOT of information about people. In little bits, such information is not necessarily relevant but that's the whole idea of 'big data' - you grab SO much information that when added together, it creates a useful picture.
Take all your search history, e-mail, social media posts, uploaded, tagged photos, every video you've watched on youtube and then add to that all your phone records, your footage from cameras, etc... Oh, then cross-reference all of that with information from your friends and co-workers - their facebook photos with you tagged, their e-mails sent to you or forwarded on from you, etc...
It's no longer foil hat territory - it's reality. And, from what we've seen recently of XKeyscore, this is data that's being captured as a matter of course and queried without any prior approval, with all questions being after the fact.
So, they are slurping up a LOAD of garbage but they are doing so to ensure they also get everything of value too.
"The world isn't kept safe by entrapping mouthy idiots and massively indexing garbage."
This is perhaps exactly why everyone is so annoyed at this - they realise that these systems are a massive intrusion into their lives and an erosion of civil liberties for very little real gain.
1) So this review of intelligence gathering would have been on the same schedule if Snowden hadn't spilled the beans?
2) Snowden can come back to the U.S. and fight for his freedom with a lawyer by his side....while locked up....and the Feds may spy on all communications between Snowden and his lawyer as they have been shown to do against other terrorists/leakers since 9/11.....and the lawyer and Snowden will not be able to say anything about classified programs that might be relevant. OR, maybe Snowden can just stay in Russia and be at least somewhat free and able to go out for a drink and a pirogi occasionally.
3) So we're going to get a civil liberties counsel to speak in front of the FISC in relevant cases? Who decides the relevancy? And as for the civil liberties officer at the NSA, this officer is going to be and NSA employee reporting up (eventually) to noted liers Keith Alexander and James Clapper and getting oversight through Congressional intelligence committees who think that anyone who leaks even out-of-control programs is a "traitor"? You'll have to do better than that.....
4) Ah yes, the mistaken belief that the NSA is participating in "willy nilly" electronic surveillance. Except that General Alexander has been quoted as saying "Why can't we get everything?" and that we should set the NSA facility in Yorkshire on that. And that the NSA is joined at the hip with GCHQ, that has even less oversight than the NSA and has a program boldly/creepily called "Mastering the Internet". That makes it pretty easy to see how the concept that "willy-nilly" surveillance might actually be taking place could take root in the public's mind.
5) And how about ENDING some of this surveillance on Americans? I didn't hear about that being mentioned in the presser. It's bad enough that not much can be done about surveillance on the rest of humanity who has no legal standing while they live outside the U.S., but as a good will gesture how about dialing back the snooping on the people who pay for your Presidential perks and for that intelligence complex?
..... in the Dominion of Blithe Blighty Big Brother Boffinry*
"I want to make clear that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused on finding the information necessary to protect our people, and in many cases protect our allies," he declared."
Quite so, El Presidente, …. in silent and stealthy IT circles, is it renaissance and the extraordinary which be persons and matters of renegade interest for private pirate intellectual property portfolio expansion of Public Man management and Prime Ministerial lead ….. but that does require that one hoovers up all information to discover the hidden gems one needs to succeed and feed …. seed. And that leads and lends itself to wanton ignorant and arrogant abuse by minions without the necessary intelligence to succeed without others providing the sensitive information. And that is a massive black hole of a zeroday exploit vulnerability to ruthless and relentlessly deliver for irregular catastrophic and/or unconventionally creative quantum effect, which can be both either good and/or bad and something completely different and novel and noble and Nobel Prize winning.
And one must surely accept and realise that any nation state and/or executive systems administration would have an abiding interest in securing first party rights to leveraging the future with that sort/those sorts of SAP Apps ….. and thus is America just one of many phished and phormed with information which leads intelligence services in the direction of their masters' choosing.
And that has one surely having to rightly conclude that intelligent mastery of that genre is not within the ken of those presently responsible and non-accountable for current global supply of media news and shared crazy bigger picture views. And Man is just not really very bright in the virtual world, is he ….. and nowhere near smart enough to be able to defend himself with/from attacks from/in ITs Myriad Realms and Spooky Spaces which be Virtual Machine Territory and AI Team Terrain?
* It would be entirely wrong though to imagine that it and ITs Command and Control of Creative CyberSpace, Communications and Computers are UKGBNI led from the likes of a MI5/MI6/CESG/GCHQ Office for CyberIntelAIgent Security and Virtual Protection of Global Operating Devices, which all would appear to be bogged down and more fixated on monotonous monitoring rather than magnificent mentoring of intelligence product ........ http://www.cesg.gov.uk/News/Pages/Standards-for-Monitoring-Networks.aspx
And that be an abject object lesson failure right at the top of the chain of command and control in those sub-prime concentrated services and the oxymoronic political leaderships which support and provide them with funds for spending/network investing?!.
Chris Lively (9 Aug 2343 GMT) asks: "Is there anyone left on the planet that really believes anything the federal government says?"
Is there anyone on the planet who (not that) really believes that China, Russia and numerous others do not snarf everything that passes their border gateways? Are there really people anywhere who do not believe that a number of them actually use the data they collect to identify which of their citizens needs retraining or isolation from those who are well behaved and properly submissive?
Documents published by The Guardian as descriptive of XKeystore indicate the presence of collection points in dozens of countries and indicate that the program likely was known to the governments of Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand at the least; three of them appear to have XKeystore collection points. Is there anyone who really believes that these governments do not participate some way in the enterprise?
Almost every comment on this site and many others carries the implicit assumption that only US intelligence agencies have and use sniffers. Complete rubbish. It's time to step back and recognize that since there have been national governments they have had spy agencies that do what they always have done, sometimes well, sometimes not, and sometimes with horrible results. For the most part they do what they do with the knowledge of senior members of the government. In democratic regimes means a select group of elected officials whom we choose more or less freely and agree to trust with the public business until and unless they prove unworthy of the trust.
That trust needs to extend to matters and actions that are sometimes unpleasant, that we might prefer not to know too much about, or that need partly or entirely to be kept secret in order to succeed in their purpose. That includes much of the activity of intelligence agencies such as the CIA and NSA, and also to much of the work of the FISC. Much of this secrecy protects field agents and the processes and methods used.
It is almost surely true that more (maybe much more) is classified than is necessary - to err on the side of caution, to hide failures and embarrassments, or simply to exercise authority - and that is worth discussing and possibly changing. It is quite possibly true that NSA collects and saves more (maybe much more) than it needs, and keeps it beyond need or utility - either for caution or sloth - and that also is worthy of discussion and possible improvement. And while the evidence does not support claims that the data has been widely misused, there is no question that the potential for misuse is enormous, and we need the best controls we can devise to prevent it; and that certainly is worthy of discussion and action.
It is not worth talking about shutting the NSA down; that will not happen, any more than GCHQ will be shut down. There also is little good to come from talk of impeachments, prosecution of public officials or NSA management or staff. The tenor of the documents released so far is consistent with the proposition that all of them, from the President down, took care to design the activities and implant controls so as to keep within what they understood to be the law, and the fact that in some cases they requested certain legal interpretations will not really change that.
Secret intelligence services will be with us while there are nation-states, at the very least. We need to get used to the idea of attaining an acceptable balance between personal liberty and government power generally, and the activities of the intelligence services in particular. Far too much of the discussion so far has been depressingly childlike, as perhaps suits a people who, on average, are both innocent and ignorant of their government, nearly half of whom don't bother to vote even in Presidential elections.
<long rant>
Everybody else does it.
The US does it a less to ordinary citizens.
The first does not make it right.
The second is simply because they do not have the manpower to do it. Not because they would not if they did.
Bottom line instead of the govt trusting the citizens the citizens have to trust the govt not to come round and arrest/imprison/shoot them.
"Everybody else does it."
- Fact.
"The US does it a less to ordinary citizens."
- I have no idea what this means.
"The first does not make it right."
- I don't disagree, but also don't see how that is relevant.
"The second is simply because they do not have the manpower to do it. Not because they would not if they did."
?
"Bottom line instead of the govt trusting the citizens the citizens have to trust the govt not to come round and arrest/imprison/shoot them."
- Why should we not do so*? The risk that the current administration or any that we can reasonably envision going forward would attack normal civil liberties is inconsequential. That said, information the NSA is collecting could be used against the citizens and needs to be controlled to ensure against that possibility. And now it needs to be seen by the public at large to be suitably controlled. I was not an Obama supporter, but agreed as part of the basic democratic bargain to accept the election result and what followed from it. In this case, I think he is on the right path and wish him success in a very difficult undertaking.
* There are warning signs, though, in some Federal criminal investigations and prosecutions.
"nearly half of whom don't bother to vote even in Presidential elections"
Ehhh, 95% of the people don't even get to vote in US presidential elections. Please remember that statistacally speaking the Americans are the foreigners. And the data gatering affects us, natives of our lands, who have no rights under the US constitution and who are spied upon by a foreign power and yet we are not even mentioned by Obama in his quasi-we'll-look-into-it statements.
As long as we have nation-states, we have sovereignty, and we can tell you to fuck off. Top German telco's are currently moving their email away from US businesses, at my company we see Amazon as less and less of a competative threat due to all this, there's rumors that US spying policies cost the US economy billions of dollars in lost sales. Rightfully or wrongfully, keep these practices up and it'll only get worse.
About the 95% who can't vote: As stated, national sovereignty considerations would allow other governments to tell us to take a hike. Those interested may (in some cases) make representations to their government to do so. There is a possibility that will be effective. However, the US is not the only country with sniffers and there is no guarantee that it is the largest (although I suspect it is).
Potential US business losses doubtless will be a matter discussed between them and both Congress and the administration, but is basically an internal issue. Those who abandon US providers are within their rights and presumably will have verified that their new provider is secure against all known or suspected data gatherers.
The question is not whether we should allow a democratically elected (sort of) government to freely slurp up all available data on it's citizens.
The government will slurp up that data, as long as it can afford to and citizens allow it. If it is done legitimately, for valid reasons and intelligent, democratically legislated safeguards are in place (as opposed to secret courts and gag orders) then why not?
Why can't we do it that way?
Because there are quite a few things missing from the equation.
Such as:
What will government agencies do with this data?
How much will it cost the economy to collect and store this data?
How long will it be stored?
Who will pay for it?
Who will have access to this data?
Who can see what data has been collected?
Who can change the data when it is incorrect?
What safeguards will exist to ensure the data will not be used illegally or abusively?
What recourse exists when the collected data has been used abusively or illegally?
Quid pro bono?
Google slurps up our data to send us targeted advertising,
Most of us can accept that.
But, if you need:
a driver's license,
a plane ticket,
a passport,
a credit card,
a bank account ,
a job,
medical care,
insurance,
access to the court system,
a liquor or business license,
food stamps,
to build or buy a house,
child support,
to buy a car.
to drive or park your car
vote, .......
you will eventually interface with some government entity.
Many of us can accept that as well.
But there are MANY good reasons why public officials should only govern with the consent of the governed.
Governments can fine you, prevent you from travelling, conscript you, start wars, print money, deprive you of your liberty....take you to court...etc.
They also gather revenue, pass laws, spy on other countries, hunt and catch criminals, isolate deviants, identify subversives and dissidents, influence public opinion based on current trend analysis, profile individuals and groups etc.
And this is just the obvious stuff they can do with our data.
I think I'd rather take my chances with the targeted advertising.
Of course, you could stop using google anytime you want or even go off the grid completely, but your life would soon become very complicated.
Hardly an option for most people living in a modern society.
Reasoned debate (and laws) that ensure a civilized amount of data and privacy protection, data isolation, anonymization, limited retention and limits to data access, will provide us with much better protection than ranting on forums (valuable as that is!).
In fact, less. more-restricted, government data gathering should be the goal as it will translate into more individual privacy and freedom. less burning of public money, and more international respect for the US.
Getting people and public officials to debate all of this rationally is the first big challenge. Finding and electing the officials who can even understand these issues is already a challenge.
I am happy that some individuals and organizations are at least defining and confronting the issues.
Strange that major laws had to be broken before such issues could even make it to the public radar.
Personally, I do not like seeing publically elected officials trying to minimize these issues. They should confront them head on and help frame the debate, not ignore it.
Spending more money on security theater is not making us safer, it is making us poorer.
And with 20 % of the US already living under the poverty line, it won't be too long before there are real security problems to worry about.
Living in a relatively free society, we need to debate and define the limits of control we are willing to live with and then vote. Less is more.
Make sensible rules and abide by them. Less is more.
Elect people who can be trusted to apply any such rules fairly and objectively.
And kick them out when they don't.
Less is more.
"Elect people who can be trusted to apply any such rules fairly and objectively.
And kick them out when they don't."
If voting could change anything, it wouldn't be allowed.
Sorting this mess out is going to take more than voting.
There has been a silent unpublicised coup.
Perhaps there needs to be a matching response from the people?
The only proper matching response is to kick the bums out and make sure it doesn't happen again. Firing sysadmins is a sad, sad way to approach the problem. How about more hard hitting interviews, more in-depth reporting and less blind adulation of post 9/11 hysteria? Maybe some news stories on who benefits and has benefited from security theater pork, who has the most to lose and why ? Quid pro bono indeed. Perhaps we could start cleaning up the rot instead of concentrating on the damage control.
A few more horror stories about the war on terror might also wake people up
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/opinion/sunday/after-guantanamo-another-injustice.html?hp
> Is there anyone on the planet who (not that) really believes that China, Russia and numerous others do not snarf everything that passes their border gateways?
U.S. citizen here. The difference is that China or Russia can't use their information against me. The NSA can pass the snooped info (possible gained from their BFFs in the UK or Canada) to any other U.S. agency as evidence that can be used to prosecute me.
At any time in the future the database of my communications can be sifted to determine if I am a "person of interest" by whatever the criteria du jour happen to be.
I wonder what Greenwald's and the Grauniad's release schedule is? Is "Foot-in-mouth Friday" going to be a regular thing with yet another expose in the morning UK time, followed by an embarrassing press conference late afternoon, Washington time.
Because I think I'm going to have to subscribe to a popcorn delivery service to keep up.
Right.
Had Snowden gone through "proper channels", we never would've heard anything. In fact, he likely would've been "permanently silenced" and would've "vanished" without anyone ever even knowing that he ever existed, just to keep the whole NSA thing under raps. That's how they role. They can't "silence" Snowden now without a severe amount of public backlash. And this press conference and the need for more "oversight" has nothing to do with Snowden? Sure. Right. LIE!!! We wouldn't even be having this discussion if Snowden hadn't leaked the info that the NSA is spying on "ordinary Americans" and everyone else, everywhere. And as others have pointed out, Obama didn't say that anything would change. Just that he'd appoint this one and that one to review this and that in order to make it appear as though there is more oversight, so as to give us all the warm fuzzies. I don't think so. The cat is out of the bag and won't ever be jumping back in...
"It's true, we have significant capabilities. What's also true is that we show a restraint that many other governments around the world refuse to show, and that includes some of America's most vocal critics."
Don't push me too much or I'll stop restraining those three letter agencies?
For a man who swore to uphold the US constitution Obummer is doing a great job as a traitor. Just about everything he approves of or talks about is in breach in some way.
These range from the preamble (all men are created equal, except USians are more equal than any other men) to following due process of law and every man is permitted his day in court and a fair trial (unless the US president decides to murder someone in a foreign country because someone in that country might think that USians might be criminals).
However he is only following in the footsteps of all the other terrorists that the US has produced and perpetrating terrorist acts of his own.
I'm sure the NSA is following the law, because the administration, like Bush's, obtains secret interpretations of what the law is that allow them to do what they want to do.
I'm also sure that "civilian oversight is working as it should", because they want no oversight, and there is none.
People are saying Obama lied, but what is really bad about this is that he told the truth. He may even have been truthful about the review not being conducted in response to Snowden. They probably did this review sometime in the past to have in their back pocket if/when details were leaked, sort of like how the New York Times has obits for a number of famous people ready to run in case they die.
Good ol' politicians. "We were going to fix things anyway...honest guys! this mean man just prompted us to hurry a little is all!"
"We just wouldn't be having this debate without Snowden; it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise," well sure, Snowden has already suggested that Obama and his administration are less than honest. Obama said he wouldn't expend any effort to get a twenty-nine year old hacker, but then the vice president interfered with his search for asylum. They want him back to shut him up, but he's far too much in the world's eye at the moment.
"Snowden was not a patriot, Obama claimed, and saying that he should have gone through lawful channels if he had concerns about the intelligence community. Obama said he had signed an Executive Order to specifically protect whistleblowers in the intelligence community, and whistleblowers who act within the law are patriots."
How was the US founded? Was it not law breakers who fought against those in power because the law makers abused their power? I wonder if anyone if tallying up the lies from Obama concerning this one man? When it came to the elections I hoped Obama would lose. Not because McCain was any good but because Obama was so bad. The reputation of the US is stained by this one man. I consider him worse than Bush. At least Bush didnt know what he was doing when he did something bad.
"Our intelligence is focused on finding the information necessary to protect our people, and in many cases protect our allies," he declared."
Translation: Were doing this for your own protection. Trust us.
This man expects us to believe anything that comes out of his mouth. What a poor joke this man is IMO. What does the US think it is the worlds protector and that we need it's protection?
..."Gives the listener the sense of the law being written as its spoken"...Clooney Syriana (2005)...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/503224.stm
"Journalist Duncan Campbell has spent much of his life investigating Echelon. In a report commissioned by the European Parliament he produced evidence that the NSA snooped on phone calls from a French firm bidding for a contract in Brazil. They passed the information on to an American competitor, which won the contract. There's no safeguards, no remedies, " he said, "There's nowhere you can go to say that they've been snooping on your international communications. Its a totally lawless world."
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