NSA etc.
 

There was a time when the Coat Room attracted lots of lively discussion that seems to have died away. I'm particularly surprised that there hasn't been any chat about the Snowden revelations. I don't really consider this to be a partisan issue either -- more a bipartisan national issue.

I am personally appalled. Although I am a Canadian living in Canada, my primary, high school and doctoral education was in the USA in the 40's, 50's and 60's. I have spent a nearly half of my life in the USA although I served in the Canadian military. I remember the emphasis in school on the importance and sacrosanctity of the Constitution. What happened?

In Poor Richard's Almanac, Benjamin Franklin made a key point more than once:


and also

Isn't that how most readers of this forum see it?

If I can paraphrase: Those who would CHOOSE to give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety ...
And, in my view, the citizens of the US did not get an opportunity to choose.

And, also my opinion, the Snowden pawn is not on the public's side, nor in the public's best interest. I expect we will find out at some point in the future that he also had no choice in what he did, when all the information was fed to him. Does it make any sense to anyone that a low-level "hack" would suddenly have a revelation about what happens around him, including a far-fetched perspective about his job (and access) level.
So, my opinion, no one should care a wit about this Snowden character, who is merely playing a role.

But unless you're suggesting that the reports appearing in the media and many blogs are somehow false, it doesn't matter who Snowden is or might be. However, having been in charge of a University computing operation, I would say that there's little doubt that the SysOps had access to nearly anything they chose to access, and knowing how inept governments everywhere are with their own security, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case here.

Bradley Manning is only a Pfc and look what he had access to.

I find it very worrying. Everything I've read about how Germany became Nazi Germany, I see happening here and it's really quite disturbing.

They used to at least make a terrific hue and cry about America being a free country, when it's never been. Now, I don't know anyone who would still say that with a straight face.

I've been wondering about the seeming passivity in this country towards this march towards dictatorship and/or junta. I can't really explain it. And not everyone is passive. The Tea Party exists for a reason. People are defending gun rights for a reason. There is still a part of the population who cares and are actively fighting. The thing is, it seems to be a small part of the population.

I'm still puzzled by the fact that though Manning, Snowden, Assange et al are in the Law's sights, the newspapers who published the stolen papers are free to do so.
Yes, I saw what happened to the Guardian's stuff, but still not the same as being dragged away to prison.

The Whole Thing definitely begs the question

• do we really need secret three letter agencies in democratic countries
• if so, how to avoid that they go completely bonkers lacking public oversight

I don't actually think these people are evil although you can be sure that they include their general share of thugs. The number one goal of any bureaucracy is to expand its importance, scope and funding within the dictum "protect thine ass" and the three-letter agencies are bureaucracies first and spies after that. Since both Bush and Obama seemed to and seem to be in the thrall of fear, they have directed their spies to pursue this and pursue this the agencies have, growing like weeds and just as unpopular. It's that the first and fourth amendment have been so seriously impinged and no one seems to mind that worries me. That, and that we're all getting our phones tapped and emails intercepted just for mentioning it here.

This whole discussion begs for a red neck opinion, so here it is.

Going public with classified information does in fact damage the security of the United States of America. That is the very definition of classified: damage="Confidential," grave damage="Secret" and exceptionally grave damage = "Top Secret."

Sure, the DOD and military tend to over classify. It is a judgement call; better to err on the side of caution.

How would you guys feel if the divulged information was top secret plans for a military operation, the enemy gets the plan, thousands die as a result and the outcome of the war is changed? Intentionally releasing classified information is, in my view, totally unacceptable behavior. Severe punishment is mandatory, even a firing squad during time of war.

Those who thought their phone calls and emails were perfectly secure are naive. Agree it is worse when the govt does the snooping but at least there is court oversight to try and control the abuses (and no doubt those abuses occur).

Surely, there is no one out there who believes there is no need for the govt and military to have secrets and to protect those secrets.

Actually I think it would probably be better if the government (including military) did not have any secrets.

<Rumsfeld Mode>
Do secrets give us an advantage (e.g. in a war)?
Yes.

Does that advantage overcome all the disadvantages (e.g. lack of transparency to those that the government is supposed to be working for)?
Probably not.
</Rumsfeld Mode>

But all of the above is irrelevant to the current discussion.
The current discussion is about (now that we know about it) whether the government spying on its citizens is a good idea.

As Hayne points out, the discussion is about whether any government is justified by a threat they perceive to spy secretly on all of its citizens without due cause.

Many years ago, I worked here in Canada for the Defense Research Establishment Atlantic and lots of what we did was classified. I had the required clearances to follow what they were doing on a need to know basis. No one disputes the need for security measures when they truly involve matters of national security. What they object to is classification to cover up programs that are clearly violating the laws of the land..

My apologies for going off topic. Manning was mentioned in two previous posts.

I was listening to a discussion or interview, and one of the parties pointed out that despite their massive data gathering, they missed the Boston bombers (who used cell phones?). They'll probably miss a few more, too.

Interesting to read the red neck opinion. In theory, it seems sound. In actual practice, I disagree. I keep picturing that classified film of a soldiers in a helicopter uses automatic weapons on reporters. And the release of classified information that the United States is violating the Constitution. And these aren't the only incidents of abuse.

Now I'm going off topic. Maybe I should begin another thread.

For a soldier in the military, it is essential to trust the chain of command. For a citizen in a free country, things are different.

The structure of the government was set up with checks and balances so that citizens did not have to give absolute trust to one person or institution. It was set up so that no one institution could gain absolute power and control over the citizens. That structure is not working.

Snowdon is doing the citizens a much needed favor by pointing that out. It has been pointed out many times before. The term "military-industrial complex" was first used by the General who commanded the D-Day invasion in WWII. He used the term in his last speech as President of the US.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

Too many parallels to pre-WWII Germany. Question is, how do you stop/divert the train? Especially with so many passengers seemingly content with the ride?

Nobody wants to acknowledge the truth because it would plunge us into doubt and uncertainty. If we accept that our government is illegally spying on us where does that leave us? Do we rid ourselves of a government we don't trust and clearly doesn't trust us or, at least, know which of us it can trust?
But it's not the government, is it? It's whoever is running the country in fact rather than in title. Government employees who have taken it upon themselves to act like the heroes of a TV series. A secret group of men sworn etc, etc. Or, more likely, men who have been corrupted by power and lack of accountability.
Being able to do something is not always the best reason for doing it.

And, as has been shown a number of times now, these "corrupted men" are not shy about lying to those who do have some vague oversight powers. They have done so repeatedly. Further, that so much is collected is for me proof that they don't know what to do with it once they've got it. Didn't the Boston bombers have cell phones? This sums it up: People Who Are Not in Federal Prison Today.

We're creating and collating huge quantities of data every day. (By we, I mean everyone: you, me, the Gub'munt, companies, other organizations.)
Debit card transactions; CCTV footage; public transport RFID cards; Medical records, not to mention emails, (business and personal), FaceBook posts and photos, online petitions, strongly worded posts to SmashTheState.org, and fierce opinions on MacOSXHints.

I don't think we can necessarily expect privacy anymore. This is as major a cultural change as the printing press was -- which brought more information to the hands of more people. The internet may be democratizing, but you can expect a fraction, at least, of all that data to be floating around and analysed by people with some goal or other.

The goal may be to identify people who like cheese, and send them all adverts about cheese. It may be to find out who disagreed with the government and lock them up.
I don't believe that people get a government job and suddenly think "Hey! I could be using my powers for evil, instead of good!" Most government employees are cogs in a wheel and I doubt anyone has complete oversight. And those who do probably do believe that they are doing the right thing. And therein lies human nature.

I'm just not sure what can be done to stop it. May be you can get your government to pass a law guaranteeing some "rights" (but they can always go and ask the neighbours, right?).

You know, the thing is that the NSA spying thing isn't just one thing really off that's happening. There are a bunch of things which all indicate that we're well on our way to a something other than a democracy (not that we were much of one to begin with).

I don't think that those who run the country occupy positions in the US Government. They pay lobbyists to get what they want from the government.

It is kind of funny and ironic that everyone loves James Bond, but nobody likes what he stands for in the real world: an out of control secret police taking the law into their own hands.

This country was started to protect small farmers from the government. For the first 100 years or so most citizens were small farmers, and I think the government worked relatively well back then, although only for those who were enfranchised.

With the rise of big corporations and people moving to cities early in the last century everything changed. The government did not catch up with those changes. So it is in no shape today to deal with the changes that this century is bringing in.

I think that's a popular version of history promoted by the press releases and that a lot of people have swallowed that lie. Looking back through history, it's fairly obvious that small farmers weren't the government's primary concern at all.

I would agree that the government worked really well back then, and now, for those who were, and are enfranchised. That is the purpose of government.

On another note, a lot of people are asleep. Ask them about the dismantling of the Constitution, and they're fine with it. Not a big deal at all. Which is not really that surprising.

A good place to insert Benjamin Franklin's take:

Yeah. You know, I wonder if a lot of the problem is that a lot of people are simply feeling fearful. I'm hearing that a lot of people are having trouble finding jobs and are losing housing. With a lot of people on many kinds of government assistance for basic needs (food, housing, medical assistance), it may be very challenging to demand accountability from that government. Especially when it's becoming increasingly obvious how corrupt the government is acting. Imagine: Al Capone provides your family with its basic needs, and you know what he does and who he is. Are you really going to go to him and say, hey, I need you to obey the law?

One thing that no one seems to be asking with the latest allegations about bugging world leaders -- Obama says he didn't know about it.

So, why are they bugging the leaders, and who gets the data? Someone must have made an executive decision to do this, and someone must have received briefs about clearly private conversations. Those people should be sacked, or otherwise punished.

The alternative is that they are just recording everything, in the hope that a computer can pull some meaningful data out of it all. Which is perhaps less worrying, as the signal-to-noise ratio would be huge. (Or should that be tiny?)

.. the other question I have is: does all US legislation have to contrive its title to fit an acronym?
"... the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act (or USA FREEDOM Act)"

I am counting people like Thomas Jefferson as small farmers, using the word more by today's standards than by the standards of that time.

Not necessarily. It might just be part of the culture of the NSA - If you can get the data, get it. Whoever gets the reports may not have known how the data was obtained. They may have been told what other leaders were thinking about certain things, rather than given quotes from their email.

It's interesting to me how members of congress are seeing this bugging of politicians in other countries as a terrible thing, while bugging of the people who elected them to congress is nothing to get upset over.

Now they've added to the list -- NSA is tapping into tier 1 (via Level (3) Communications) so it can intercept data traveling from one Google or Yahoo data center to another.

Looks like Google Apps will lose a few punters.

Still, someone must make a decision to tap Merckel. And someone must receive data identifiably from that source. Whoever they are, they should go.

I imagine that in the future, all our dealings will be public. Your friends and family can find out where you are on the map. Possibly even tap into live camera feeds.
Your words will be a matter of record "But last year, you said the exact opposite of your position now!"

True privacy will be an expensive commodity. Guaranteed "quiet rooms", where private conversations can occur. Paid-for services that ensure your communications are not intercepted.

Ah. I consider Jefferson a lawyer who purchased land and slaves. I'd never describe him as a small farmer. To me, small farmer is a term I would use for a person with a small farm, whose primary income was from farming.

Well, the majority of voters don't seem to be that upset about being bugged, while the majority of other countries' leaders do seem to be upset.

I'm uncertain that other countries are really surprised at the revelations. This sort of thing has gone on for centuries. I suspect that the other countries are pretending to be upset in order to gain concessions.

I smell a business opportunity. How the heck would you even be able to make that kind of guarantee?