The government spying thread

For stuff that is general.

Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor

Hero
6
75%
Traitor
2
25%
 
Total votes: 8

TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

GORDON wrote:So, I shop amazon.uk.
Traitor.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

TheCatt wrote:
GORDON wrote:So, I shop amazon.uk.
Traitor.
They occasionally have insane deals on bluray movie collections, region free, with free shipping.

Plus it feels classier when instead of a shopping cart you have a basket, and instead of stuff getting shipped, it gets dispatched.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

Go ride the lift or drive a lorry.
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TPRJones
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Post by TPRJones »

Code: Select all

Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in “selectors,” or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness.”
So, the computers listen in and sometimes they decide that what they are hearing means that one of the parties involved is a foreigner and thus record it. And 49% of the time they are wrong but still keep it around anyway until it is reviewed by someone and found to not have any foreigners. Or something like that?[/color]
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

51%? Damn.
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TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

TPRJones wrote:

Code: Select all

Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in “selectors,” or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness.”
So, the computers listen in and sometimes they decide that what they are hearing means that one of the parties involved is a foreigner and thus record it. And 49% of the time they are wrong but still keep it around anyway until it is reviewed by someone and found to not have any foreigners. Or something like that?
No... they have to be more confident than not that a given individual is foreign. In theory, they could cross-reference data that they have against known US residents (Soc Sec data, advertising data, etc) to cross out domestic people.

So that doesn't mean they are wrong 49% of the time. They have to have a minimum threshold of 51% degree of confidence. How they validate the 51%, or what their degree of correctness is, well, we don't know.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

AG whines.
“The government is prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through telephony metadata that is acquired under the program,” Holder said. “The court only allows that data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion based on specific facts that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization.”

I do not trust you or your courts. Blow off.
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Post by TheCatt »

Actual data on requests from the NSA
Facebook and Microsoft today became the first Internet companies to disclose the total number of legal orders they receive for user data, including ones from the National Security Agency and from state, local, and federal police performing criminal investigations.
The total for Facebook: About 18,000 accounts over a six month period, or one-thousandth of one percent of user accounts.
Microsoft's total was about 31,000 accounts over the same six month period ending December 31, 2012. A Google spokesman told CNET this evening that the search company is working on disclosing the same type of statistics, and plans to be more detailed than Microsoft and Facebook.
Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, disclosed the figures today in an effort to lay to rest privacy concerns after a pair of articles last week incorrectly reported that a program called "PRISM" provided the NSA with "direct access" to Internet companies' servers.

Article
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

It doesn't matter what fraction of whose user base they're going after. I do not trust them with that power.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

This is why.
The NSA isn't allowed to spy on Americans, but the nature of modern communication doesn't always make it obvious whether a phone call or email is foreign or domestic. This means that in the course of its normal business of spying on foreigners, NSA will inevitably collect information it shouldn't have. Certain rules, called "minimization procedures," define what NSA is required to do when it discovers that it has inadvertently captured a U.S. person in its surveillance dragnet.
...
So what happens to the communications that the government isn't supposed to have? When they're accurately identified as such -- often that's an NSA analyst's judgment call -- the relevant data is supposed to be destroyed forever. But there are exceptions, when the NSA can keep and store the purely domestic communications of American citizens, and even forward them onto the FBI.

Naturally, these procedures are classified.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

From here. Flees to Russia by way of Hong Kong. Does not board his flight to Cuba from Russia.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

And Russia says, "Fuck you," to extradition.
"They know that he's weak. They know that he's so fearful about getting involved in balance-of-power foreign affairs and they're playing on it, and they're enjoying it very, very much," said Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Thanks for being a dick, Orrin, instead of putting aside partisan differences and resolving shit. Go fuck yourself.

"It is accurate there is not an extradition treaty between Russia and the United States, but there are standards of behavior between sovereign nations," Kerry said, in Jeddah.

Where's your etiquette now, Flanders?
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

Headline totally not misleading.
“He has betrayed his government, but I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States,” Lonnie Snowden said.
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Post by Leisher »

That's unfair Malcolm, they published the whole quote...in the 6th paragraph...
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Post by Malcolm »

The more I roll it around in my brain, the more this part sticks out...
“I am concerned about those who surround him,” the father said in the interview. “I think WikiLeaks, if you’ve looked at past history, you know, their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It’s simply to release as much information as possible.”

Good to know that releasing facts, truths, and information is dangerous to the U.S. Constitution. Constitution != government != people.
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Post by TPRJones »

When your government has betrayed it's people in so many important ways, then it is no longer treason to betray the government. It is patriotism of the most difficult sort, specifically because it will be branded as treason by so many.
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Post by TPRJones »

"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

Asylum in Bolivia or Venezuela, maybe. The longer this goes on, I'm becoming inclined to support Eddie over the government. The latter is acting more and more like like an asshole.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

U.S. still throwing hissy fit.
U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that an offer of asylum from a country would carry serious costs.

Fuck you.
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Post by TPRJones »

Bolivia said the incident ... was an act of aggression and a violation of international law.

Technically he's correct, that was an act of war.
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