Edward Snowden Q&A
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
It takes courage to make such an assertion. The NSA spying route is fundamentally based on cowardice.
"Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't
I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living
in a palace petting a phoenix by now."
"Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it."
However, American's really don't like the idea of an overly powerful government watching over your shoulder. The idea that the government is supposedly using gathering this information and that it doesn't even have a legitimate use case is unappealing to most.
Many parents would rather that their children not visit the home of a friend that had guns in it. Would as many parents be apprehensive about sending their children to a home with a pool? I suspect not.
There may be legitimate reasons that they are treated differently in a way that does not immediately make sense when you examine the risks they pose, but I don't think that choice or lack of it is that reason. I think that you are looking for something more subtle.
I wouldn't leave my kids at any place that I felt was going to be a tangible danger to them - be that a house with a pool and a back door that doesn't have a child lock or pool gate, or a house of an irresponsible gun owner, or a house with exposed electrical wiring, or anything else that I feel poses a material threat to my child's life.
Most Americans haven't thought about it hard enough to make a meaningful personal decision and have allowed themselves to adopt the first external opinion they were offered, so it's about 50-50 pro-con on the question.
What you're doing, is giving yourself permission to not engage other people about the issue. "Oh, I don't need to talk to grandma, I'm sure she's already on my side."
Actual outcomes need to be weighed against counterfactuals, and I think the claim that the alternative would have been worse in Cheney's case - while I dispute it - is better than in the other.
Having said that Cheney had a lot of power and a lot of impact. In relative terms the alternative to Cheney in power does not need to be much better to result in an absolute impact greater than the 4 lives affected by that rapist.
My statement was meant to point out that the absolute rather than the relative "evilness" of him is a viable reason for some to hate him.
"If they had taught a class on how to be the kind
of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have
finished high school."We can do this all day...
If the person is trying to deceive you they will attempt to deceive you. Well, duh.
"No thanks!"
Based on his answer, he probably did give sensitive information to the Chinese.
The things you can learn if you click the link, huh?
Who have the journalists passed it along to, voluntarily or through coercion? We have no idea. Once it's out of his hands, Snowden himself can't know for sure.
Are we supposed to believe that Chinese intelligence has been wringing its hands for the past decade, just wishing a US whistleblower would reveal a bunch of stuff to the media so they can figure out what's going on? They do have real spies, you know.
This is a smokescreen.
I'm saying, he very possibly gave sensitive information to the Chinese government, perhaps inadvertently or through indiscretion. You don't have to be a Chinese spy to do that (he was actually the one who presented the false equivalence).
The issue here is an attempt to paint him as influenced or controlled by the Chinese in his decision to take documents, which would instantly make him reviled by a lot of people who will hail him as a hero as long as believe he did it of his own accord.
"This country is worth dying for." - Snowden
> What evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?
And it was the only question Snowden ignored.
""" Q. Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?
A. NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans’ communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp. """
What I took from this is that the process is so 'optimised' that even a court order doesn't mean what most people would think it does (i.e proper oversight and consideration).
MP_Stroebele_GER 17 June 2013 3:53pm
Mr Snowden, as a deputy at the Bundestag (German Parliament) who is responsible for the supervision of the intelligence apparatus, I am eager to know if you have any knowledge about information which was given to the German Government or the Bundesnachrichtendienst by the NSA within the PRISM programme. If so, do you know how much and what kind of information was given to them and if the BND knew that it was gathered by PRISM? Best regards, Hans-Christian Ströbele
"So far are things going the way you thought they would regarding a public debate?"
"Initially I was very encouraged. Unfortunately, the mainstream media now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicionless surveillance in human history."
:(
"Washington (CNN) -- The man who admitted leaking classified documents about U.S. surveillance programs purportedly went online live on Monday to declare the truth would come out even if he is jailed or killed, and said President Barack Obama did not fulfill his promises and expanded several 'abusive' national security initiatives."
This is textbook propaganda. The news media like CNN may partially be about entertainment, but it is also about propagating the government position, specifically the intelligence agencies positions.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/17/politics/nsa-leaks/index.html?...
To start with, take a look at that first clause: "The man who admitted leaking classified documents..." The framing of this is right off the bat aggressive, casting him in the light of a criminal. Were CNN to want to cast him in a positive light they could have chosen to write it something like this: "The man who exposed widespread secret surveillance of American's electronic communications..." Instead CNN chose to emphasize the criminal aspect, rather than the civil liberties/anti-democratic aspect.
Next: "... purportedly went online..." The use of the word "purportedly" here is interesting. Why is that questioned? To associate doubt with him. It's subtle, but nevertheless there it is.
Next: "declare the truth would come out even if he is jailed or killed". Out of all the questions which were answered CNN focused on this one because it most easily supports the "egotistical" narrative they are attempting to paint him with. Implication: "He is setting himself up as some kind of martyr! How arrogant!"
Next: "Obama did not fulfill his promises and expanded several 'abusive' national security initiatives." This one is, to me, the most blatant. The scare quotes around "abusive" are of course the most obvious. But look how the frame it: "national security initiatives". Not "domestic spying programs", or "electronic surveillance mechanisms", or something else. After all, no one who calls themselves reasonable can be opposed to national security!
It's subtle, and of course debatable. But it's certainly present. CNN has their own slant, and it is obviously pro-NSA.
Also note that nowhere to they actually link to the Q&A page.
Let's rewrite it, communicate the same information, but make it skeptical towards the NSA:
"Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who exposed widespread secret surveillance of American's electronic communications and online activities, did an online question-and-answer session today, making himself available to provide follow-up answers to questions raised by concerned citizens over the reach and power of the notoriously secretive intelligence agency."
Also, the "..'abusive'.." quotes serve to show a disdain for Snowden's position; "Snowden claims this was 'abusive' - and we know him to be a criminal traitor, if you think the acts of the NSA were abusive, then you clearly are a traitor sympathizer.
I recall the reports of CIA handlers years ago in CNN, clearly they are still there... (I am looking for a link, but so far came up blank)
It IS only 'purportedly' him; why do you expect CNN to report what it cannot confirm?
The quotes around 'abusive' are suggestive, but it is also how you indicate that the word came from someone other than the author of the article. If you expect neutrality, expect the writer to segregate their words from their subject's.
Your summary is far more emotionally charged and subjective.
Of course it is. CNN competes with 250+ other channels to grab your attention, draw you deeper in, and serve you commercial breaks.
You could claim it's a carefully orchestrated propaganda machine designed to scare people into ceding their rights to the government (of course, such arguments might also designed to scare you). Or you could claim that they need to do this to excite their broad audience and thereby preserve their jobs and paychecks.
You could say the media dug up pictures of his girlfriend in provocative outfits to discredit him among conservative Americans. Or you could acknowledge that they didn't have to do much digging at all, that sex sells, and that the public love personality news (see all the Hollywood "news" shows).
There's a conspiracy lurking around every corner, if you go looking for it.
* He violated the law (negative) * He exposed secret domestic surveillance by the government (positive)
They chose to highlight the negative, rather than the positive.
Purportedly went online on Monday? No. That wasn't the right word to use there.
Of course the abusive quotes can be interpreted that way, but there are other words that could be put in quotes because they too came from other sources. They chose to put 'abusive' in quotes but not 'national security initiatives', for example.
His summary is not emotionally charged at all - he shows how the same information can be worded in ways that highlight the positive or negative aspects. And it is clear what CNN did, to an extreme.
The former National Security Agency contractor who revealed the U.S. government's top-secret monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet data fought back against his critics on Monday, saying the government's "litany of lies" about the programs compelled him to act.
"The following articles presents discussion of the man behind the leaks. We are providing this information to satiate the curiosity of our readers. However, despite the fact that we are providing these stories, we strongly encourage readers to view these articles for what they are, rubbernecking. We strongly urge readers to keep their judgement confined to the facts we know about the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and to exercise control so that their opinion of Snowden does not prevent them from forming an objective opinion on government spying programs. etc. etc. etc."
He will be online today from 11am EST/4pm BST today. An
important caveat: the live chat is subject to Snowden's
security concerns and also his access to a secure
internet connection. It is possible that he will appear
and disappear intermittently, so if it takes him a while
to get through the questions, please be patient.
How frustrating a taunt to those in the NSA who would rather make him disappear permanently.
Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it
This part especially his belief that privacy is a universal right:
More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."
"As a thought experiment, imagine that Osama bin Laden was still alive and that he used the Tor network to do a Reddit AMA once a month. How long do you imagine it would take for the US to find and neutralize him? I posted this question on Twitter and, while responses varied, ex-NSA Global Network Exploitation Analyst Charlie Miller guessed one to two months. I would be very surprised if it took more than three."
So what I think is going on is that the NSA archives packets it can see in transit, but doesn't necessarily know who all the endpoints are. (It probably has a VERY good idea most of the time.) When someone becomes of particular interest they can execute a warrant on Google et al and get more detailed information on a specific target which lets them make better use of data they've already got.
The key thing they're doing is, fundamentally, logging packets that they can see going past any number of bottlenecks in the internet, which should have been perfectly obvious that they would try to do from day one. This alone is enormously powerful and all the extra info from service providers is probably only icing on the cake. If you can be identified from some cleartext comms somewhere then all you other dealings have been archived, and can be correlated, and then decrypted and traced back to you posthoc.
Despite already blowing the whistle and turning unconstitutional domestic surveillance into a public discussion for the first time in, well, ever, to truly be useful to society he must accept your amorphous terms of disclosure for information that is likely forthcoming anyway.
Thank you for explaining yourself.
Well, he did clarify that Google, Facebook et al don't provide "direct access."
1. Encryption works, but "endpoint security" is easily defeated.
2. "US Persons do enjoy ... one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time."
An "ingest point" appears to be the term for a preprocessor that parses raw data before sticking a normalized copy in a database. I believe this is talked about more in Boundless Informant papers.
3. American data is regularly collected "incidentally", and when between an American and a foreigner. "Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant."
4. Intelligence agencies (including GCHQ) have raw access to query NSA databases, and GHCQ is cited to have 5% of queries audited.
I made an effort earlier to try to write up a fully cited description of what we know about NSA activities. If you would find that useful, you can find it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5892755
The question I most wanted to see asked was a request to expand on the notion that he had the ability to wiretap anyone up to the president. When this came up he simply went on a philosophical rant about the nature of bureaucratic creep and how our constitutional rights should extend past our borders.
>Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time.
So, he stands by what he said and expanded on the scope of his capabilities by addressing the claims that there are "systems" in place to prevent someone (such as himself) from grabbing domestic data. He details that there are "policy" protections --that he asserts are effectively no protection at all-- and "one very weak technical protection" that acts as a filter of some sort on incoming data. He goes on to describe the filter as "constantly out of date" and specifically configured to be as ineffective at its stated purpose as possible by letting us know that the configuration is "euphemistically referred to as the 'widest allowable aperture.'"
Really, I'm just retyping what Snowden has already said. It looks to me like he most certainly did expand on his claim.
>"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email."
He doesn't say he has the capability, he says he has the authority. That is an important distinction.
>"Yes, I stand by it."
He doesn't waiver in his initial statement.
>"US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections"
While it might not be clear in the initial interview, I think most people would assume that this type of power isn't given to everyone so some type of policy protection was obvious. Snowden doesn't add anything new here because he doesn't give any details and his statement just raises more questions. The question that relates directly to his first statement is whether he really did have the authority to wiretap the president like he initially claimed? But I would also like to here more explanation of these policies. Was this an honor system? Was there any oversight? Did these things require a warrant or any approval?
>"(and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens)"
Part of the philosophical musings that I mentioned in my initial post.
>"and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time."
This is another vague and almost worthless statement. At this point and with this level of detail, we can only speculate on these "technical protections". It would seem to imply that there is a technical filter in place that prevents information about US citizens from ever entering the system. But the way Snowden dismisses it as soon as he brings it up makes it seem like it is useless. Some followups would have been helpful here. What does he mean that the filter is constantly out of date? What does "widest allowable aperture" mean? Who has the authority to "strip it out at any time"?
I don't think he provided anything new here outside of simply confirming that there were policy and technical limitations in place, something that would likely be assumed by most people.
Snowden definitely needs to expand more on these things and talk about the technical aspects more specifically. It seems that Greenwald (who admitted he is very nontechnical) is guiding Snowden into dumbing down his technical descriptions (for whatever reason, maybe its to avoid declassifying stuff that would actually impact national security) and that is doing him a disservice.
Snowden seems to be exaggerating in the sense that he, a knowledgeable IT contractor employed to overlook the NSA infrastructure would be able to get the data he needs, bypassing the policy protections. I don't think he means that any "associate" level NSA agent without technical knowledge of the infrastructure can easily get any data he wants, even with the policy protections. This is just my interpretation, based on how I've seen other technical people exaggerate.
Binney on the existence of this list: "what they do is take their target list, which is somewhere on the order of 500,000 to a million people. They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that’s what they record." [1]
This appears to be separate from the Main Core list of 8 million Americans "which contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security." [3]
Another Binney interview: "he [Snowden] had access to go in and put anything... If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide." [2]
[1] http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/10/what-do-they-know-about-yo...
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
He's answering questions as to why, not what, which is great, since it gives people a more balanced view of who the man is behind these things, and serves as a counterbalance to the "omg high school dropout with a stripper girlfriend" smear stories that have been plastered all over the news lately.
Given the creativity of conspiracy theories, I'm a little surprised nobody's yet suggested he's actually part of a US false flag operation.
The substance of his claims is extremely plausible and consistent with facts that have been long known.
I do think that things he's said and things he's done actually undermine his stated cause. He started out by portraying himself as a conscience-driven individual who wants to expose what he believes are gross violations of civil liberties without becoming a focal point of the story.
He's now made himself the center of the story, has expanded his motivation to moral outrage at all forms of spying, etc. Add to this the various inaccuracies, melodramatic over-statements, tangents into matters entirely unrelated to civil liberties, and really, just the act of flight to begin with.
It seems to me that much of the time he does or says something he's moving perception away from somewhere on the the 'mildly ambivalent moral actor' end of the spectrum where he started and towards 'clueless opportunist'.
That's a terrible thing because, and I agree with you, a number of the things he says are not just extremely plausible but important matters of civic discourse.
I'm not sure how you would expect him to conduct this disclosure without the "act of flight" or "becoming a focal point of the story".
Or, say, here's a take by Slate's resident libertarian: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/06/17/snowden_veers_i...
When your natural support constituency starts saying things like that you have a serious (and, inexplicably, self-created) image problem. I believe this is an actual thing rather than, you know, you and me just shooting the shit on a nerd message board.
I guess the simplest way I can put it is - I wish he'd stop taking his cues from journalists, however high-minded and well-intentioned and start working with a local lawyer specializing in human rights and civil liberties issues, yesterday.
Personally I think he's too over the top - a perfect caricature. I have met people who work the security services, and they are not the kind of people who put stickers on their laptops, EFF or otherwise. I additionally posit that if you worked for the NSA and really wanted to disclose secrets, and had the kind of access he is supposed to have had, you could have leaked much more specific, damaging things than this. His reluctance to reveal more detailed information about the NSA, even without proof, is fairly damning.
If I were him, and the cat were properly out of the bag now and there were talks of extra-judicial killings, and I was talking a big talk about dying for my country, I wouldn't be running my mouth about democracy. I'd be running my mouth about the damn NSA.
</conspiracy>
As far as I am concerned, this is the 100% solid concrete evidence that Eschelon exists - where for the last 30 years it was a "conspiracy theory" -- yet here it is, verified, in your face and glaring.
Now, what is the next step? What needs to happen is ACTION taken.
There is only one peaceful tool the citizenry has against the government at this point: civil disobedience via a tax holiday.
Nothing will happen unless people do the only thing they can do: refuse to provide funding to the government.
If the government can't even go after the criminal banks -- its laughable to think that anything is going to happen to the intelligence agencies: especially when the government is staffed by both THE BANKS and THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES!
I don't think that is really anything to hang a hat on.
Given that the source is "ONE" person is irrelevant.
Looking at your comment history, I find your judgment to be suspect.
Smear campaigns exist for a lot of people, in a variety of fields, for a variety of reasons. Individuals running for government office seem to always have smear campaigns run against them. I don't really read much into that, I'm curious why that is "strong meta evidence" to you.
As many people focus to lend credence to his story as try to discredit him. Again, run-of-the-mill behavior for something like this. As you can see on sites like this, he has a lot of support.
Someone lied under oath about things that are at best tangential to this story, if they relate at all.
We don't have any real, actual evidence at all, other than the artifacts generated by one guy.
This comment proves you're either completely delusional, uninformed, shilling or all of the above.
First; "Someone" == https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper
He is the CURRENT HEAD of National Intelligence, directing a PUBLISHED budget of ~$50 BILLION dollars.
The things he lied about are the CORE of this story, not "tangential" -- He specifically stated that the NSA collects "nothing" on US citizens, NOTHING.
Given this statement by you, it is clear you're completely deluded.
So why is your beef with the NSA/The intelligence gathering effort?
Why do you claim that the evidence is all provided by "ONE person"?
That doesn't imply that they can't break encryption, it just means that usually they have faster/easier options.
Or, at least, that they are monitoring enough data that if they had to decrypt all of it in realtime, it would overtax their computing resources, so that they minimize the burden by going after the cleartext at the source when they have the capacity to get at it that way.
If I didn't like this guy before...I certainly do now.
> Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.
"More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed."
Also, by the way, 5% auditing is an very high rate. With a 5% audit rate, you'll catch evil-doers in no time at all.
For example, checking out your neighbor, girlfriend or a public person's records for curiosity is probably a big red flag.
It is my experience that systems auditors rely heavily on sysadmins to do their jobs. At a minimum the auditors are "just" another set of users and the sysadmins' responsibilities include supporting the auditors even more closely than they support regular users of classified systems. Frequently the auditors themselves do not have systems-level knowledge of the computers they are auditing.
Security on every classified system that I've seen was generally limited to a series of a checklists that some talented specialists once put down in a manual and are left to low-skilled employees to check off each day/week/month - if it isn't specifically on the checklist they have little to no knowledge of it. That includes glaring procedural holes. Essentially security is all CYA, so that everybody involved can say they followed the rules and not lose their job if something goes wrong.
I don't remember him using that particular phrase at all at least in his initial video - I remember him talking about the ease with which they could access data using a 'selector' like an email address, not making claims about specific connections to servers or anything similar. He's not responsible for what journalists say, and we can't expect them to clearly restate it all the time, but what we do know about the extent of surveillance is disturbing. It's still unclear exactly what is recorded, when and how and I'm sure we'd all love to know more, but in the meantime it's not very useful to try to discredit his claims based on the interpretations of others.
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-int...
My beef with the phrase though is that Greenwald keeps repeating it and sticks by the story that the NSA slides said it so it must mean something, without bothering to ask his supposedly very knowledgable source to expand further on the topic.
I think it is completely feasible that the NSA would or does collect all or a great deal of voice traffic, because that's a tiny piece of network traffic these days.
edit: I found this on the issue: http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-th...
Going from "NSA has direct access to servers of major internet companies" to "Some NSA analysts' database accesses inadequately audited, according to random sysadmin" is a textbook walk-back. Of course you will never see the latter headline on Greenwald's blog.
"...Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. ..."
Well, if they have no access to the actual company servers, how could you then reconcile the above statement?
He didn't answer the question that the person asking probably wanted an answer to, which was about direct access in regard to Prism. But that's the fault of the person asking not being precise...
You have to remember there are tons of programs going on. To the people who have been paying attention to the Prism "direct access" debate, it's probably pretty clear what the person asking the question was getting at. But it makes total sense that someone as familiar with the programs as a whole would answer about "direct access" in general.
"Anthony De Rosa 17 June 2013 2:18pm 1) Define in as much detail as you can what "direct access" means.
2) Can analysts listen to content of domestic calls without a warrant?"
Answer (Snowden)
"1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed."
> Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."
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.
I think that a slow controlled leak that keeps the story in the media is more likely to cause positive change, as I expect he does. Does this make me arrogant as well?
Patrick Henry is known for that quote, not Paine.
"Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school"
Mitch McConnell James Baker Dick Cheney Bush POTUS' Feinstein Peter King
Got it. thank you.
Hats off to him.
I find that a very perplexing notion (I'm not American)
How bad would things have to get before it wasn't worth dying for?
Do you find it scary that the citizens of any country your country is at war with think the same way?
Personally, I have no interest in dying for any country. If my country were doing something that required me dying, then I'm leaving for a country that doesn't require my death.
The thing to understand is that "country" in this context, means the embodiment of an ideal, and not just a particular piece of territory, or a group of people inhabiting it.
If you don't feel that there are any ideals worth dying for, then all of this will be much harder to understand.
In YOUR opinion.
> "How bad it gets" is totally irrelevant in this context, since the "it" refers to specific conditions
But those specific conditions have not existed for many, many years, and your death won't bring them back.
> If you don't feel that there are any ideals worth dying for...
Why die for them when I can just go somewhere else that already has them?
It's amazing more American's don't realize they are the fundamentalists they are told to be afraid of.
In Snowden's opinion as well, obviously.
> Why die for them when I can just go somewhere else that already has them?
Because this totally ignores the reality that this other place didn't appear out of thin air. It has people there that care about these ideals, and most likely some that would be willing to die for them.
In some respect, not attempting to change your country to be what you consider a better place and just migrating to a different location is leeching off the world, and those that work hard to make it what they consider a better place. We all do it to a lesser or greater degree, but to just throw your hands up and give up on your current circumstances entirely in favor of a move is beneficial to no one but yourself and those you disagree with.
This is as true for neighborhoods as it is for countries.
I agree that we need to work hard to make a place (country/neighborhood/whatever) better. I personally protest, picket, vote, write to and call my representative, etc. etc.
If it gets to the point I need to die to make something better, it's not worth it.
You know what? That's fine. In reality, most people feel the exact same way. But here's the other reality: without people who felt otherwise, there wouldn't be better places for you to go in the first place.
So when you encounter the kinds of people who realize that someone needs to make the ultimate sacrifice, and look to themselves, instead of looking around for others, the least you can do is to treat them with gratitude and respect instead of disparaging the very ideals that prompted the extrordinary sacrifice from which you (and millions of others) so clearly benefit.
This times one million. Thank you.
Go where? You can't magically arrive somewhere and become a citizen of that place under their protection and rules of law. Also, what if the place that you go to has fewer liberties than the US?
I can't tell if you're being purposefully difficult or are unable to grasp the concept of dying to protect freedoms.
Nationalism is like, so five minutes ago. Patriotism has a place in international sporting events only.
[1] Ref. the way the US treats foreigners and other (even allied) countries.
My point was more towards the fact that my ability to make a choice on location to live to match my ideals is directly related to others who make those places a reality, and I'm acutely aware of that. I recognize other that work hard and may make the ultimate sacrifice to make the world a better place so I don't have to. That's the least I can do.
Correct. So I have to work hard, and spend years on paperwork to be legally allowed to immigrate into some other country. I was born in country A, which I love. I moved to country B because I wanted to, and have spent 5 years on paperwork becoming a legal resident, and in about 2 more years I will be a citizen of country B and retain A. Also, because of my father's citizenship, I am now a citizen of country C, which happens to be an EU Member country, so I can live and work anywhere there too. At this point in my life, I think I'll eventually float back to country A, because I love it there.
I'm confident that if I worked hard, I could become a citizen of any country in the world I would want to live in (my personal list)
>What if the place that you go to has fewer liberties than the US?
Obviously, I'm not going to choose such a place.
Sorry, but no. Fundamentalism is the belief that only the literal interpretation of a religious text is the correct and acceptable one, that only ordained religious authorities are capable of understanding these texts (others must simply obey), and that those who don't share this view are enemies who must be subjugated or killed.
This position is diametrically opposed to the notion of inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit happiness in legal equality with one's fellow citizens - regardless of their religious beliefs. Indeed, there has been no greater check on fundamentalism that the legal, cultural, and intellectual tradition that America's founding ideals encapsulate.
1. The religious text is the constitution itself, the ordained religious authorities are "Real Americans" (whatever that means). Lots of people throw out accusations of unconstitutional acts without any basis but their interpretation of the text - that's fundamentalism.
2. Case in point: the constitution made no distinction of US citizens being created equal. All persons are created equal.
3. If there is no greater check on fundamentalism than the constitution, why is the US home to the largest population of Christan fundamentalists?
George S. Patton
oh the nerd bravado.
You never win a fight by dying.
If he were alive.
or why do you think has the army (as in infantry) lowered their IQ standards (measuring IQ was developed for the prussian army)? why are poor people massively overrepresented in the armed forces? rich people join too, sure, they call it air force and officer corps. peasants for the meat grinder, best keep them far from home lest they turn on their masters.
In that sense, dying works - if the target is so fragile it will self-destruct. The USA in total isn't fragile - but the aspects of the USA people loved (liberty, freedom from unfair search & seizure, freedom from torture, large but power-limited government) seems to have been very fragile.
Him intimately knowing about how NSA does stuff, what would be his suggestion of ensuring anonymity. What steps should one take, what tools should one use, etc. His answers on this would be very telling. Someone please ask him that!
If not Tor or I2P, what steps would you have taken? What other measures can you publicly reveal you are using/have used in the process of securing yourself?
How do you recommend those technologically able protect themselves, along with the general public?
upvoted your link.
So are more documents going to drop?
If yes the the former, why can't The Guardian do an all-out dump instead of piecemealing it?
The real question is why Snowden needs a secure internet connection, seeing as how everyone knows (1) who he is (2) where he is and (3) it's a public Q&A so the idea is for everyone to hear what he says.
Were he really concerned about tampering, the more important issue would be distributing an authenticated public key to prove his responses weren't being quickly edited in flight. Which popping on and offline...doesn't really assure anyone about.
We, the public, have no way of knowing if indeed its Snowden answering. It could be any number of persons, we just know that The Guardian says it's Snowden (probably). I'm all for calling the USG out on this matter, but I'd like if we could get some public verification of who is answering.
Requiring not only a named source, but a way of verifying that statements / correspondence were provably from that source, seems an impossibly high standard to meet (eg., he could sign each comment with a PGP key. But then, "How do we know it's his PGP key?". Etcetera etcetera, ad infinitum)
Except this isn't the WSJ reporting on a new iPhone "rumor", this is a very public release of important information. He's already outed himself, so this isn't about protection of anonymity.
It really isn't hard for the Guardian and Snowden to setup a CoT including PGP. They can verify it using a key pair they have ultimate trust in and then include that verification in their posts. It isn't asking a whole lot for them to say why or how they have trust in the responses they're getting. I trust the Guardian, what I don't trust is whether or not we're actually getting answers from Snowden that aren't being manipulated en route or otherwise not "live" and intact.
I mean, pretty much every photo and video I've seen of the guy comes from the guardian - they could easily just be of a Guardian intern. So a photo of him holding a sign is out. A GPG key which is reputedly his is of extremely questionable provenance so a signature from that would be meaningless. He could leak some new top secret data to establish that he has access to it - but we know guardian journalists have had access to such data already and surely they have some stuff on file for future reports.
I'm curious as to what sort of proof you'd like?
Kinda has 'allies' such as myself in Australia wondering about the extent and the utility of the dragnet.
But, by all means, continue to ignore what I'm talking about and interject your own sputum.
If they dumped everything at once, a lot of it would get drowned out by a small number of the most interesting revelations.
Maybe they have one really big scoop that must be released at the right time and the rest of their hand is just bad PRISM powerpoints and warrants. Yay speculation
By controlling the flow, they can make sure that each important revelation is allowed some time in the spotlight. The issues gets a lot more attention that way.
And the dumbest of all ironies, which I'm sure is lost on all of you, is that you are employing utilitarian ethics to defend it. That is exactly how a spy program is considered ethical.
God. The humanities really are dead if this kind of clueless doublethinking represents the future thought leadership of our world.
You seem to disagree, but don't make any convincing arguments that dumping all the information immediately is better for the public good. Probably because it's a very hard task.
The story doesn't even pass the simplest of tests for self-consistency. An NSA contractor claims that the government is listening to all digital communications, but is somehow able to transfer classified files, taken from the NSA, to a journalist in the UK. If we believe the first part, how could the second part happen? If the agency had such a capability, I would assume that a call between low-level NSA employees and journalists (foreign ones especially) would trigger all sorts of alarms.
Do you think he used his work phone to call Glenn Greenwald's personal phone or something? I think it can be rationally assumed that he used the best anonymizing techniques and encryption he's aware of to transmit the information.
I disagree, there have been significant leaks - confirmation of the NSA collecting every phone record in the US on a daily basis, confirmation that the DNI lies to his oversight committee, confirmation that the NSA has collected almost 3 billion records on the US in march 2013, allegations that the NSA is attempting to collect all internet traffic, both outside and inside its borders, in the broadest possible sweeps. If it was such a non-story, I don't think Obama would have done a press conference about it, would he? That's a lot of 'there' for a non-story if you ask me, and sounds like the NSA has significantly expanded its mandate without proper authorisation or oversight.
An NSA contractor claims that the government is listening to all digital communications, but is somehow able to transfer classified files, taken from the NSA, to a journalist in the UK. If we believe the first part, how could the second part happen?
Just because lots of data is collected, that doesn't mean they can find what they want from it, except in retrospect, so I'm not sure where the contradiction lies there for you - I think his communications with Greenwald were encrypted (according to the film-maker he contacted first) after first contact.
Also, I don't remember him saying specifically that they are listening to all digital communications, just that they can if they want to listen in to any communications, did he allege that somewhere?
We were complaining for ages that nobody covers and addresses privacy related issues. Thanks to Greenwald's and Sowden's media strategy it finally becomes frontpage news. Plus, with a little bit of luck we see the US government getting a few more times caught lying to the public in very clear terms.
In my opinion this is going to be a case study on how to masterfully orchestrate a press campaign. Just look at this week, Sunday: Release of the G20 spying story, Monday: Live Q&A, Tuesday: Most likely discussion of something he revealed in the Q&A, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if they had scheduled out a few weeks ahead. I'm sure there is at least a prime-time TV interview with Snowden still to come.
I suspect they're laying a trap for the gov't; hoping to catch them in a big irrefutable lie.
The same way you attribute credibility to any story you read (on the Internet or anywhere else), the reliability of its source.
The Guardian says it's Snowden, confidently enough to make it public. It boils down to how much you trust them as a reliable news source.
If they weren't sure, I believe they'd evaluate the possible backlash to their credibility and not run the story at all.
Because if it was found out that it wasn't, the Guardian would be finished. Faking this would be a scandal on a level with journalists "phone tapping". Literally, the news paper would be shut down. Not by some judge or government evil, it would become a laughing stock and its readers would abandon it.
"If yes the the former, why can't The Guardian do an all-out dump instead of piecemealing it?"
You publish a small amount. Let the accused say what they want to say. As they have done, they seek to minimize everything and covering their backs. Then you hit them with more, hopefully the next set of information will contradict what they have already said. Potentially they get caught lying "directly" in public.
So, simply: (Leak 1)I saw you at the pub. You deny it. (Leak 2)I offer the evidence of a witness. You claim the witness is wrong. (Leak 3)I produce CCTV footage. I prove my case (assuming in this example we accept the CCTV as "fact"), and you lied twice instead of telling the truth at the first opportunity. You are then well and truly fecked.
"Hi Reddit! 17th June, 2013"
So how was he allowed on the plane? Surely part of the passport/no-fly-list check would have caught that. Or did he drive to Mexico and fly from there?
Still, why aren't airports checking if people specifically banned from flying are trying to fly?
I wonder if one official response will be to change that rule, so that the 30 days advance notice becomes "hand your passprot to your employer, and don't expect to get it back without making a request at least 30 days in advance."
My understanding is that it's nearly impossible to get a name removed from a no-fly list. It seems like a very imprecise tool for this sort of problem.
However, having realized that this inflexibility means it can't be used to effectively govern the travel of people with security clearances, there's a very good chance that the system that was perviously impervious to change will suddenly become very flexible - at least so far as development benefits the security agencies.
The whole point of banning him from leaving the country is to try to prevent him "defecting". Waiting for him to come back is pointless. He's already not allowed "to defect" - so not allowing him to leave the country is stupid if no one is going to enforce it.
Finally, when your employer is the NSA, I figure they'd have different/special rules. Do any non-governmental jobs forbid flying due to "policy"?
defect may not be quite the right word - flee?
Right, but it's dishonest to pretend that's the only motivation.
> The whole point of banning him from leaving the country is to try to prevent him "defecting". Waiting for him to come back is pointless. He's already not allowed "to defect" - so not allowing him to leave the country is stupid if no one is going to enforce it.
Preventing defection takes a lot of different tacks (social pressure, education, threat of prosecution, etc.).
From the NSA's ever so slightly less sinister sister, the USDA: http://www.dm.usda.gov/ocpm/Security%20Guide/S4self/Intro.ht...
1) More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.
If one data feed uses a fiber tap and another uses a daily sftp transfer, does it really matter if some/most/all of Americans' communications is ending up in a database to be queried by analysts today and god-knows-who 30 years from now?
"No. I have had no contact with the Chinese government. Just like with the Guardian and the Washington Post, I only work with journalists."
Perhaps he should rephrase that as "no direct contact." Apparently, by handing over classified information to journalists, he believes he's absolved of any responsibility where it eventually winds up, whether on the desk of Chinese officials, or in the morning paper.
Maybe he should have said, "Not wittingly."
He wittingly gave Greenwald classified documents to make public, so "not wittingly" is not true. Via Greenwald, he gave classified information to the Chinese government (and everybody else).
I'm just saying, he should be transparent and honest about the implications of his actions. When he hands classified information over to journalists, he loses all control of that information. It could be made public, it could be handed over to government officials, it's impossible to say.
He says he's sitting on a lot more information that he plans to release, and everybody here seems very comfortable with that idea. We're being extremely trusting to hand this man the sole authority to decide what information is leaked to journalists and what remains classified.
At the least, we should get the sense that he's being fully transparent and intellectually honest about his actions and their ramifications.
Question: Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption? Answer: Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.
Pfft. What size RSA keys are unbroken (2 048, 4 096, 8 192)? Is there a backdoor in the ECC NIST P256 (or similar) curve? How many TOR exit nodes does the US government manage and how good are they at in/out correlation?
Answer - 2) "All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
That last sentence must have Obama quaking. I wonder just how much more can/will come? And if/when it does - I wonder just how bad it will be?
Reminds me of War Games... "The only winning move is not to play"