A Dubious Deal with the NSA
zeit.de
zeit.de
Just like the recent use of SWAT teams by even benign regulatory agencies (ie, raiding unlicensed clothing factories with assault rifles) - they will make use of new advanced enforcement techniques as the tech starts to trickle down from the top agencies.
We (the tech community) all complained for years about the poor state of technology in government. But now they are catching up - and that technology is being combined with the great powers they hold. Creating something most people didn't expect. New levels of power it seems... which can be utilized extremely efficiently.
You can drop "it seems". We all know where this is headed. And as with the other huge problems such as climate change, we'll try to change something once it really, really hurts. But that, I suppose, has already been said a thousand times, as well. There really isn't much more left to say...
X, here, being the Republican base which is, it seems, so much more radical than it has ever been before in my life. Y has all sorts of faults of their own, but there shouldn't be compulsion to hold it up as defense of X.
And this isn't just happening to politics, this is the same human behavior that killed Greenpeace (all of it's founders were pushed aside by radicals) and why you can't tackle any serious issues whether it's wall street or global conflicts. Just try having a movement for a 2 state solutions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts you'll start with few ideals that want to open a good dialog, you'll end up absorbing BDS loons, people with signs that praise Hamas, your gatherings end up having "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free" chants that leave not room well for a 2 state solution. Animal rights? pfft you'll end having naked people running and spraying fake blood, social equality? that will turn into a Guy Fawkes look a like contest, the ease of inclusiveness which comes with the modern times pretty much exclude you from dealing with any major issue in a serious manner.
To support another countries foreign intelligence service (which is targeted with espionage on Germany) is nothing short of treason on an organized scale.
Maybe, but the logical slippery slope if you do allow this happen is that in the end every country cooperates and their budget for counter-espionage looks like... the budget, say, California has to defend itself from Texas and Massachusetts, or for securing its borders from Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon by planting spies in those countries I mean states, or the FBI budget for counter-intel versus the CIA. All of which is exactly, precisely $0.
In what conceivable world is it better for California to be spending that money on such hypothetical programs, or for taxpayers to fund the CIA in its attacks against the FBI, and to fund the FBI in its countermeasures against the CIA -- an idea that is total, complete madness - instead of putting it into education, roads, water, or whatever else you want that actually has any benefit to society whatsoever?
The world is incredibly well-connected, and states don't need to be hacking other states. Whether you agree with surveillance or not, it is not difficult to argue that cooperation is a net benefit for all.
Then of course, foreign intelligence services derive their power and existence outside of the normal law framework from the simple fact that they are generally not allowed to spy on their own (e.g. US) citizens. That is pretty much the very fine line that separates them from a state-funded terrorist conspiracy. In that light, any cooperation with another intelligence agency (which naturally isn't bound to not spying on US citizens) is prima facie suspect.
However the 5 Eyes share data freely with each other, and while there is no verification I would be shocked if the US did not file warrants against US citizens based on the testimony of analysts from the other 4. And once there is a warrant, of course, then the US can cheerfully look at its own data and see what they were told could be seen.
My expectation is that this happens, and happens frequently. And not just for terrorism.
[even though my guess would be that a similar deal with the BND is in place as well]
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Not to say I don't take this very seriously. And as much as humor is all but verboten on HN, I'm glad to see the occasional little kernel of comic exchange on here. It's a sign that we still possess our fundamental human nature.
From the disclosures we got from Snowden, as well as previous revelations about the NSA, the evidence points to a situation pretty damn close to that. They are grabbing data from all sorts of social networks, we know they scarf up email, we know at least they grab most - if not all - phone metadata, and we know they're tapping underseas fiber-optic cables that represent backbone Internet links between countries. We know carriers like AT&T graciously make data off their networks available to the NSA, and we know they do these smokey back-room deals with the other Five Eyes countries, and now Germany as well. I see no reason to think they aren't doing similar deals with most other "friendly" countries.
And let's not get into the backdooring routers and commercial software, and attempts to weaken encryption standards.
To say that we aren't already "in a world remotely like 1984" strikes me either disingenuous (Hello, NSA employee?) or uninformed. Would you care to say what else the NSA would have to do (or what we'd have to find out they're doing) before you say we are "remotely close to 1984"?
> What else the NSA would have to do (or what we'd have to find out they're doing) before you say we are "remotely close to 1984"?
They would have to know our private thoughts. They would have to read our paper diaries. They would have to disallow me closing my curtains at night. They would have to hear me telling my girlfriend I love her.
All the clusters of GPUs and corridors of big data will not know my private thoughts. I see your handle is mindcrime, but as I said; there would be blood on the streets if they started infiltrating the substrate of our craniums.
And you think that's what it would take to be "remotely close"? I don't get it. From what I remember of Nineteen Eighty Four that scenario would put us absolutely on par with the description in the book. I believe that we are far more than "remotely close" already. But that's just me. shrug
Basically any AFK stuff is pushing it, and apt to be very invasive of privacy and truly Orwellian. The distinction I make is the NSA resides on the network and doesn't go much further than that. Is what they're doing Orwellian on the network? Possibly, but only insofar as I let them on my network. Who is to say I don't use secure meshnets? Who is to say I don't watch the watchmen?
I respect your thoughts on the matter, and the current narrative does suggest we are tending towards a 1984 panopticon, but this is also framed in the context of pervasive CCTV, and presumes that every citizen is glued to their smartphone. Measures like CCTV and smartphone tracking observe the citizenry and this means everyone is kept in line and the system works, so fair dues, this could be seen as 1984'ish. But again, only insofar as the citizen opts in. It is said we would prefer to be watched than go about our private business alone.
(And yes CCTV can be opt in, but that is a lot harder to achieve and ironically requires Google Maps hacking to pinpoint where key CCTV hotspots are)
TL;DR: I don't negate 1984'ish elements, I'm simply saying they are opt-in only, and not as bad as the current narrative suggests.