Americans attempt to throw off oppressive, unresponsive rulers on 4th of July Online activists will leave their offices, bedrooms and basements today and fan out across America to protest against the US government's surveillance of digital communications. The 4th of July protests will see demonstrators descend on more than 100 cities, while some 30,000 websites are expected to show messages demanding …
You are being too nice to them. Remember that GCHQ does not only target terrorist activity but also activity related to security, general crime and "economic well-being". i.e. anything they feel like.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/21/gchq_nsa_spooks/
" but monitoring transmissions across the public internet"
Internet *websites* are public, internet *browsing* is private - it's between you and the website. That's a wordplay you did there.
A TV channel is public, me at home watching the channel is private.
"NSA, CESG, and all the rest might well collect data, but they do not read it all, by any means"
So you accept they *do* read your email, and email is a private conversation usually between me and my kids and is none of your business.
"If you don't want you eMail or data read, then don't use the internet."
The rules say, you have suspicion, you get a warrant, a judge says "yep", and you get to spy on someone. That's constitutionally protected.
What you've changed that into is this: you get a warrant to spy on *everyone* for *everything* on suspicion of *nothing*. You collect all of that data into a giant database under the control of a military leader (the man in charge of Abu Graib prison no less). He then data-mines with new filters depending on what his agenda of the day is. Without a warrant, at his whim.
He also lies to Congress about it, because its so out of legal bounds as to be illegal.
There's are also 97 billion/month unexplained records not covered by FISA or FISC courts so he's even outside the current disclosed data. Phone meta comes under FISA, so that's an extra 97 billion not covered.
3 billion of those are US, so any claim they don't *wittingly* spy on USA is contradicted by their map coverage showing extensive data known to be USA.
If you don't want to stick within the law, then go live in Egypt and join the military dictatorship that just took over there. You have no place in a democracy.
"What you've changed that into is this: you get a warrant to spy on *everyone* for *everything* on suspicion of *nothing*. "
That is the core of this problem.
The complete lack of any limits on this process. I don't mean the BS "court" that most people are not even aware exists and whose defendants and plaintiffs cannot even admit they are plaintiffs or defendants, let alone talk about its proceedings.
If it hadn't been for a stroppy corset maker from Norfolk by the name of Thomas Paine, you Yankees would have had a harder time convincing your countrymen to rise up and tell King George where he could stick his taxes.
Thomas Paine, moved to France to aid the revolution and in true Brit style refused to learn a word of French!
Yes, it seems the aims of this protest are:
1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA
PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court.
2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform
to end unconstitutional surveillance.
3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.
Well I guess it is the 4th July, maybe the protesters will protest the US spying on other people on their National Days .......
"Why deny us human rights?"
Because you're a terrorist? William Hague said only terrorists and criminals would be have something to fear from this.
So you and that Angela Merkel woman must be terrorists, because if you could see how upstanding and professional our fine men and woman of the intelligence services are you would be assured.
And if they've got their suspicions about you enough to put you under surveillance, then obviously you're iffy.
You and Merkel.
"Because you're a terrorist? William Hague said only terrorists and criminals would be have something to fear from this."
And adultorors
And whistleblowers
And journalists
And anyone else who who is not committing or planning a crime but just wants their stuff kept private
it's totally up to you to start a similar movement ,
Nothing prevents you from heading and organising a similar protest.
What are you waiting for ? Cant get off your seat and do it ? .. They won .
So .. go , this is a free society and you can make your wish come true.
Ric
I could start a similar movement here in Canada to influence Canadian politicians. But Canada has a pretty good record of respecting the human rights of foreigners. I'm sure if we're doing spying, it is mostly focused on Canadians, since no other country's internet backbone runs through here.
The problem is the US government.
But not being a US citizen I don't get a vote in their elections and so I'm unlikely to carry any sway with the US government. What am I going to do? Threaten to switch my vote? Make a campaign contribution to his opponent? Those aren't options.
The USA being a democracy, it is up the responsibility of US citizens to ensure that their government respects the human rights of foreigners.
Sadly, most US citizens just don't get that.
Thomas Jefferson did:
"“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ...”
Thomas Jefferson said "all men", not "all US persons".
And all those international laws on human rights the USA voluntarily chose to sign, none of define humans as "US persons".
I don't think the protestors are denying anyone any rights. The protestors are American citizens, and are protesting against the American Government, demanding that they respect a clause in the American Constitution that specifically protects certain civil rights of American citizens. Fair enough. There's nothing in the Constitution regarding not being allowed to spy on foreigners (I think the Framers would have been rather surprised at the suggestion, to be honest). If you don't want YOUR government to collude with US intelligence agencies in trampling YOUR rights, organise your own bloody protest, don't just sit around whining that the American protestors aren't performing your democratic duty for you.
Nice smear attempt, lickspittle running dog lackey of the Hanoverian fearmongers: the success of the Revolution also meant that in several of the States, slavery was abolished constitutionally (that is, by state constitution) before it was abolished in Britain. And it also meant we former colonies had a written constitution which could be clearly amended to rectify the wrong. Choose your poison, I say, and have a glorious Fourth.
The US War of Independence occurred after the UK had kicked France out of North America, when the Thirteen Colonies no longer needed British protection against the French.
A few years later the French and Americans would join forces in the War of 1812, which was fought on both sides of the Atlantic to prevent the British moving troops from one front to re-enforce the other front.
Not sure why that Ed guy threw that last bit in there about slavery...Seems unrelated to IT and unrelated to the article in general. He must really miss having the colonies...
Anyway there was more than one reason America declared independence from British rule.
Among the main ponits were the Stamp Act of 1765, the Tea Act in 1773, and the Coercive Acts in 1774. I will let you read on them for yourself and decide if it was worthy of the split.
But again - none of that really relates to IT or this article.
Or, putting it another way, a load of expatriate, wealthy, upper middle class emigrants demanded expensive military help for defence against neighbours and to help break treaties and grab land from Native tribes; but they wanted it for nothing and objected to being subject to law and paying for support.
Nothing changes. Still asking Britain and other European countries for support in their aggrandising wars (and getting very upset if refused, remember the babyish insults against France?).
Technically, the Declaration of Independence was accepted on July 2nd, 1776. July 4th was the day of public announcements and printings began arriving. In fact, it was expected that July 2nd would be the day of celebration.
But more to your snide point, the abolition movements in England and the Colonies ran pretty much parallel. The original colonies rejected slavery. The Malcom X statement that "Plymouth Rock landed on us" is patently absurd, as the Quakers of Plymouth had no slaves and not a single black human being was listed as a passenger. The first black man to pass through the colony was nearly 30 years later and was described as a servant, which is drastically different than being a slave. It wasn't until the Dutch VOC established itself in the colonies that slaves started to become commonplace, though even at that point slavery was not absolute and the Dutch provided blacks with liberties after a time of servitude. (This is meant to be a comparison to the conditions of slavery under the Dutch versus England, and not by any means excusing the practice.) Even at the point slavery was introduced to the Colonies, the practice was not a given but rather had to be codified into law. These very laws and those which would follow made it virtually impossible to simply employ black workers, and as a result many of the Founders, particularly those from the northern colonies who opposed slavery, seemingly paradoxically, were considered to be slave owners.
There was a strong abolitionist sentiment during the Founding and Revolution, but several states threatened against ratification of the Constitution if it would do anything toward abolishing slavery. Notably, Georgia, which you limeys may recognize as having been a penal colony of yours, and the rest heavily involved in the tobacco and other farming trades which were originally managed by the East India Company. Which, incidentally, was excluded from the 1833 act which formally abolished slavery in the Kingdom, though that exclusion was removed a decade afterward.
During the debates on the Constitution of the United States, slavery was a hot topic and was intended to be eliminated in the fledgling country. Abraham Lincoln noted that the idea of slavery is completely antithetical to the Founding of the country and the creed expressed in the Declaration. Knowing the colonies which supported slavery, coincidentally consisting of high populations of Loyalists, could easily overwhelm the voting population of the abolitionist colonies by artificially inflating their ranks via the import of new slaves, the delegations agreed that each slave would only account for three-fifths for the purposes of population and therefore representation. The Founders knew that over time the slave-owning States would be overcome by the might of abolitionism.
Countless families were torn asunder, and nearly 750,000 Americans spilled their blood unto the very lands on which England established and impressed the brutal and immoral practice, and through this baptism of these desecrated soils ended slavery, once and for all answering the question of whether a man is a man or property.
I was going to upvote that comment until the final sentence, which is pompous grandiose bollocks. You're telling us that there was no slavery in North America until the English established it there? Seriously? And, fascinating though your historical explanation is (really, no sarcasm here), it doesn't do anything at all to contradict the original point, which was that one of the results of American Independence was that slavery stayed legal in the US for a lot longer than it would have had the States remained British colonies.
Pious thoughts. I've met, in the last couple of years, black, educated and highly civilised Americans who love living in Europe because they have escaped dreadful racism in the Northern USA. I know a mixed couple (hate that term) who, in some areas, on holiday with a simar couple in USA, retreated to their hotel because of the threatening attitudes. Recent survey (sorry, no reference to hand) showed that "mixed" marriages in UK are common but relative rare in USA. Apartheid was practised officially in certain American states well into the 1970s and is not totally gone now. In USA some very elderly people were born to parents who had been slaves.
In the 1850s in Britain slavery was already denigrated and virtually finished, so passing the law did not cause great disruption. The interesting bit is that it was applied all over the empire, with Royal Navy anti slavery patrols. In fact, a clever tactic in the so-called Independence war ( almost a civil war within the USA) was that British troops freed slaves, recruited some into the army and paid them with land, resettling others in various places.
Of course, Britain was no angel and surely Realpolitik played a strong role. But it was effective, done and accepted long before the American states as a federal whole did it. For the slaves, it was the reality that mattered.
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When they drew up the constitution who did they envisage enforcing it? Themselves, the government, because that was obviously not going to work.
So realistically you have a group of people that want to take power and get the people on side so they draw up this constitution that will they don't have to follow, bit like Egypt, let's draw up a constitution pretending to give power to the peoplw...
Maybe I'm too cynical...
I checked Mozilla and Reddit from here in Canada.
Maybe we get a different version of the front page, but I don't see any banner.
Mozilla has a discrete headline half way down its news section, a section that begins well down its home page.
I don't see anything on Reddit.
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Holiday, when many people are going to be away on vacation or at least doing something other than reading a newspaper or writing letters to their congressmen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=1&
“In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, who started a computer crimes unit in the fraud section of the criminal division of the Justice Department and worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be, ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.”
Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and an author, said whether it was a postal worker taking down information or a computer taking images, the program was still an invasion of privacy.
“Basically they are doing the same thing as the other programs, collecting the information on the outside of your mail, the metadata, if you will, of names, addresses, return addresses and postmark locations, which gives the government a pretty good map of your contacts, even if they aren’t reading the contents,” he said.
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I was impressed with the cases given as examples of where this massive invasion of privacy had shortened investigation times. But there is nothing to say that these cases would not have been solved without this tool, only that the tool allowed the cases to be solved faster.
If the United States becomes anything at all like NAZI Germany, or Stalinsit Russia, you people will very quickly wish that you had spent more on armaments. What may well happen is that the United States will become a Muslim country. We are in as bad a demographic shape as you Brits and Europeans are. The Muslims are winning by several hundred births per week on that front. My advice is that you take a long hard look at Islam and Sharia and decide right now whether or not you want live under them.
Not sure where 'here' is for you, but here in the U.S. all the major papers ran an in depth story about how the French were doing their own data collection/mass surveillance and how these actions were obviously necessary in a world where our enemies hate the Western world for our Freedom.
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