U.S. Government Surveillance: Bad for Silicon Valley, Bad for World Democracy | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Government Surveillance: Bad for Silicon Valley, Bad for World Democracy

theatlantic.com

228 pointshype776 comments

I posted the following comment in another thread[0], but it is even more relevant here:

    The other thing that is so worrying about the US having 
    the communications of people around the world 
    indiscriminately is that it basically means that the NSA 
    is in a position to blackmail any citizen of any country 
    that enters into a position of power in that country.

    Forget installing a shah of Iran or propping some dictator 
    in a South American country. They can now do the same at 
    an arms length. Just collect dirt on all foreigners, wait 
    until they get into power, then use whatever dirt you 
    collected over many years to blackmail that person to do 
    things that are in the self interest of the people at the 
    NSA instead of the self interest of the people that duly 
    elected that representative.

    This whole situation is a legitimate threat to democracy 
    in this country, but Congress may try to put checks and 
    balances in place to slow the rate at which it erodes 
    democracy at home. However, of more immediate importance 
    is how this is a legitimate threat to democracy everywhere 
    outside the US.

    Many Americans may hear the NSA say things like "We don't 
    do anything illegal and coercive with this information at 
    home" and may believe them. But do most Americans think it 
    is reasonable to coerce elected officials or other 
    countries using any information gathered by the NSA? 
    Should we not be asking the NSA if they actually do that?

    This is one of the questions I most want to see asked:

    "General Keith B. Alexander, has the NSA ever wittingly 
    used collected information on any foreigner elected to 
    office by his or her citizens to coerce or blackmail that 
    duly elected official to pursue policies that may not be 
    in the interest of the citizens that elected them?"

IMHO any type of coercion or blackmail of any leader of any country is tantamout to an act of war against the citizens of that country. However these acts would often never be known by the citizens of those countries. Instead, if they are unhappy with coerced actions, they can only blame the politician being coerced instead of being able to blame the people pulling the strings.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5959271

While I happen to agree with you, I suspect that many Americans don't see anything wrong with using information like that.

Any time the foreigner angle comes up in some form, there are always several prolific HNers who point out that the US govt is not obligated to treat fairly or generously with other countries. Its sole goal is to ensure that whatever is in the best interest of America comes about.

(It is of course arguable whether the approach is in US's interest in the long run; but I dont think the above is an uncommon view)

I think the agreement or disagreement for many (not all) Americans would depend on how the question is phrased.

If you asked Americans a pretty balanced and transparent question such as:

    "Do you support the USG and its intelligence agencies, 
    such as the NSA and CIA, using intimate personal 
    information gathered via surveillance programs to 
    coerce/blackmail democratically leaders of other countries 
    if it helps strengthen the US economically and 
    politically?"

... it would probably result in much less support for such programs.

If you ask a much more vague question such as:

    "Do you support the USG and its intelligence agencies, 
    such as the NSA and CIA, using information gathered via 
    surveillance programs to help strengthen the US 
    economically and politically?"

... I'm certain that the degree of support would be much higher.

Most Americans support strengthening the position of the US, but I'm sure that if you get into the nitty gritty details of how that is accomplished, especially when it involves violating human rights, then I'm certain Americans will agree that there should be limits on how the USG and its intelligence agencies achieve their goals. You can see this clearly by just considering recent US transgressions on human rights such as Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition and waterboarding.

I support it. I don't see what is so abhorrent since intelligence agencies were universally established for manipulation like that. I also have a hard time believing this sort of activities are specific to US agencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestine_HUMINT_asset_recrui...

HUMINT assets in the government of countries we are actively hostile with makes sense, but you agree with this sort of behavior even when it involves allies?

Wikileaks Stratfor release confirmed that Stratfor - one hop from, and associated directly by some with the CIA - was simply paying elected politicians within Australia. They of course claim this was for information gathering and had no effect, but since when - with 24 hours in a day - does a second income stream and work commitment not corrupt your capacity to represent your constituents in the most active and honest way possible? It's clear it was a breach of trust on the part of the official in question.

Then you have US manipulation of EU structure and policy...

That's an interesting question. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with it, but I'd hope it would be regulated either by mutual agreements between allied countries, or avoided due to potential adverse effects on the alliance.

How can there be "mutual agreements" on blackmail and coercion? That's just throwing feel good words out there.

> "I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with it"

This is in context about the Iraq war, but the point remains:

[..] But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're gonna gain by it. And incidently, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication. -- Noam Chomsky (Talk titled "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002)

Which kinda goes hand in hand with this, in response to the comments saying "oh well, everybody does it":

Of course it's extremely easy to say, the heck with it. I'm just going to adapt myself to the structures of power and authority and do the best I can within them. Sure, you can do that. But that's not acting like a decent person. You can walk down the street and be hungry. You see a kid eating an ice cream cone and you notice there's no cop around and you can take the ice cream cone from him because you're bigger and walk away. You can do that. Probably there are people who do. We call them "pathological." On the other hand, if they do it within existing social structures we call them "normal." But it's just as pathological. It's just the pathology of the general society. -- Noam Chomsky

In the US we have a narrative that we are "the good guys." Foremost that means things like living up to our ideals regarding democracy and human rights.

I think polling questions which remind people of those ideals will get results that indicate the ideals are more important than the country's economic interests. I also tend to think that such wording is a more honest phrasing of such questions because they acknowledge the tension between the ideals and the "dirty" realities.

Normally I'm on the other side of these debates... but has the lack of Internet surveillance ever before prevented the U.S. (or other nations) from blackmailing, coercing, influencing elections or otherwise committing acts of war against a country?

The solution is to ensure good people are elected and that good oversight and accountability controls are in place... but that would also help with law enforcement and national security programs, if implemented.

No, governments have and will do whatever is possible to commit act of wars against any country to serve its own interest. But the issue is that in this digital era, the power that governments exercise is exponentially larger than in the past and the room for potential abuse has also grown substantially with it. History has show that even with little power (as compared to now), many great awful things have been done.

Things get progressively worse and people get used to them. Today it has been revealed that all our communication channels are tapped. People will make arguments that they have nothing to hide and even if not, they will soon forget and learn to live with it. Tomorrow, governments around will ask for your fingerprints and retina scans (this is already happening in India). People will meh and get over it. Then they will install cameras everywhere and try to track all your movements. Given the amount of electronics surrounding us, cameras would be just another in heap and people won't budge. We are technologists and we know that though hard, these things are possible to implement at a national level.

You said that the solution is to ensure that good people are elected. It is very much important to do that asap. The system is turning more opaque every second. As governments accrue more power over the lives of citizens, it will harder to take govt down if things go wrong. Snowden did what is defined as "illegal" but the law is wrong in the first place. People are moaning over the internet that what NSA is doing is unconstitutional but has it achieved much yet? Petitioning the White House isn't probably going to get any proper answer. NSA didn't ask people whether they were OK with such surveillance, it was all decided behind closed doors. Even in a system where you can openly ask representatives and govt about its actions and they are not answering, so just think of the future when questioning the government's motives will land you a red ticket.

I am genuinely worried.

>The solution is to ensure good people are elected and that good oversight and accountability controls are in place...

The issue is that you can't simultaneously have accountability and secrecy. If nobody knows bad things are happening then nobody can hold anyone accountable.

This is the theory behind the FISA court etc., to provide a body which is responsible for restraining bad actors. But then the court itself is secret and you fall into the same trap: The court hears from the government but not the target or the public or the EFF or anyone with an incentive to argue the contrary position, which encourages it to have a strong bias in favor of the government, and the outcomes are secret so the court itself has no accountability to anyone and becomes a rubber stamp.

> The issue is that you can't simultaneously have accountability and secrecy. If nobody knows bad things are happening then nobody can hold anyone accountable.

That's true. That's what needs to go into the design of accountable systems. In the end you have to trust people in a system that must have secret parts, but that doesn't mean there are not ways to design oversight systems to reduce the risk of regulatory capture and lone wolves, and still expand transparency to much higher levels than currently exist. I would even argue it's possible to do without appreciably compromising operational security.

Organizations like EFF or ACLU are actually a great idea in that regard, IMO.

>Organizations like EFF or ACLU are actually a great idea in that regard, IMO.

I might agree if it weren't for the fact that they're catastrophically under-funded. It would fall apart unless their funding somehow scaled sustainably with the number of cases they had to argue. That is very unlikely to come from public donations if they're doing something the public can't observe. And if the funding is to come from the government then I wonder what you would propose to prevent it from experiencing the same failures that have plagued existing public defenders (i.e. police+prosecutors get more resources and congressional sympathy).

>IMHO any type of coercion or blackmail of any leader of any country is tantamout to an act of war against the citizens of that country.

That is quite a bold statement and I think greatly reduces what nearly every government would consider an act of war to the lowest bar possible - namely embarrassment. An act of war is broadly something that would have a direct, immediate and lasting impact on a large segment of civilian, non-affiliated, non-combatant, non-hostile persons. Your ideas don't meet that threshold and persons within their own governments would likely be held to those same "war" declarations.

If I and the other constituents of my district elect a representative to a government office and then it is later discovered that a foreign government previously collected coercive personal information on that representative and used it to benefit the country it represents at the detriment of the citizens that elected that representative, then that most certainly constitutes a unilateral action that has "a direct, immediate and lasting impact on a large segment of civilian, non-affiliated, non-combatant, non-hostile persons."

The only reason blackmail works is that the target wants to keep that information private. Anyone who discovered the information could release it, including press. I think we can agree that releasing the information is thus not an act of war, so the target acquiescing to blackmail means they themselves are choosing to elevate the situation, not the foreign blackmailer. Hence, blackmail is not an act of war.

Excellent reasoning, didn't think about the person protecting their data as the one escalating the situation.

It certainly can be argued, but I don't think it does by definition.

My problem is that your distinction is false between foreign power and native power. If the same coercive actions (soft blackmail like with Rep. Wiener or Chappaquiddick etc...) are taken by other politicians or croneys seeking power in the same nation, people don't raise nearly the fuss - that's just "politics." See: Every negative election everywhere.

I make no distinction - the end goal is that one group has more "power" or access over the others. Literally impossible to get rid of this quirk of politics with our biology. Making those things "Acts of war" is just untenable.

> it basically means that the NSA is in a position to blackmail any citizen of any country that enters into a position of power in that country.

Tactical creeping barrages and strategic `ground-zero megaton' leaked bombshells: upon corporate competitive peers, to foreign and domestic press, other rivals, without attribution who leaked it, where false flag ops becomes trivial with no attribution. This is very dangerous allowing invisibly owning anyone of sufficient value or manipulative interest.

Imagine the chaos if rival states all had NSA's panopticon power and were determined to use it.

It applies to Americans too, as Russ Tice says they can't use the info they get on a court, but they can get the info anyway without restrictions.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/06/19/podcast-show-112-...

Russ also says that all candidates to presidency, all judges, all people in power are followed close by the NSA, Obama included.

E.g There is something very strange about Obama birth certificate, or Obama studies, thesis that nobody remembers.

Imagine for a moment that Obama is not American, or have sex with other women, or whatever.... the people that have access to the evidence become very powerful.

Now add to it all the secrets of judges, congressmen, and soon you have absolute power in the shadow.

As a non US resident I'm mostly worried about the attitude that non US citizens are completely worthless. Basically the attitude of US is that we can be tortured and all our communications can be read. All in all we have no rights whatsoever. Do our property rights even hold?

Because of that I've recently started to think about moving away from US based services. I've maybe grown overly dependent on gmail and dropbox. Does anyone have any ideas on how to move away from such services? It seems that the email address is the most difficult one, it's a rare service that allows me to change the email.

Should I just purchase my own domain and handle all my mails via that? What about dropbox replacements?

(I can't wait to visit US eventually for SIGGRAPH or similar, it's not far fetched anymore to think that this very comment might prevent my entry to that country)

US citizens are almost as worthless. Our comments might at least get us on the no-fly list. People find out at the airport that they aren't allowed on the plane. They're not criminals, yet are still forbidden from flying for the rest of their lives, with no reason given and no appeal possible.

If you are on the "no fly" list, is it reasonable to live near a US border near an international city like Vancouver or Toronto and simply drive across the border and catch a plane from those cities, or does the no fly list also apply to people flying out of Canada?

It's a US-only list, so I believe that alternative would work.

Except for the fact that being on the no-fly list means you can't even enter US airspace regardless of your origin and destination and many (most?) flights from Canada still pass through US airspace. Same thing with most Mexican flights to Europe.

Here are some eye-opening stories:

http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/02/16/british-man-marooned-i...

http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/05/25/us-intervenes-to-block...

http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/07/25/mexico-barcelona-fligh...

http://papersplease.org/wp/2009/05/16/air-france-passenger-d...

http://papersplease.org/wp/2010/06/07/another-paris-mexico-f...

Great empires die from the inside.

That's what happened to the Mughal Empire, the Roman Empire, and countless other seemingly untouchable empires of the past.

No amount of firepower, surveillance, or money can save a people from the irrational motivators of power, paranoia, and greed of those who rule.

Sorry, but as much as I want to fight this crap, history and statistics dictate it's a losing battle.

Statistics doesn't say much of anything, based on the information you've given. You're looking at the odds it was X that destroyed the empire, given that the empire was destroyed. We want the odds the empire will survive a given event like X.

I'm saying when X occurs, the empire tends to be destroyed. That's different.

That's what you're saying, but you've got a selection bias.

The Roman Empire collapsed because it became too big, right? Well, "The Global Village" may be kind of a buzz word, but it has a grain of truth to it. Earth may very well shrink enough shrink to fit into a single fist.

So personally, I'm thinking heat death of the universe as the last line of defense ^^ I still would find it sad if human civilization could not find a moment to live in truth and peace, even if just because it would be nice, and because anything else is doomed to "shrieking nothingness" and ever worsening delusion anyway.

I think I "fight this crap" just to be less of a part of it. Even if I can't stop it, I am still responsible for myself. I'd rather struggle and then rest easy than the other way around, I'd rather be exhausted than have regrets.

Also, who knows. If history teaches us anything it's that no day was ever exactly like the one before.

Universal peace as a result of cumulative effort through centuries past might come into existence quickly - not unlike a crystal that suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. --- Nikola Tesla

Yes, the same could be said about total tyranny, and "a boot trampling on a human face, forever". But still, never say never? Just consider how people in power tend to scramble, how much effort is spent on distracting or deceiving the population. The emperors are naked and on very thin ice... and they know it.

The funny thing is that since my early puberty I told my friends that US would spy on them in certain circunstances, and people kept telling me I was a nutjob that should be using tin foil hat.

When I asked them why, they happily told me that US was a bastion of democracy and would never do anything like that...

After several of my predictions (like Iraq War, Iraq Civil War, Libya, and some of other stuff) came true, plus this, I am having a deluge of messages (ironically, on Facebook) of people wanting to learn geopolitics with me...

And I remember bitterly when in 2011 I explained people (parents included) stuff about Greece protests, and I was chased away with "why care about this geopolitics shit? It would never happen in Brazil!" yeah sure... Now why you are asking ME about brazil protests?

I think, people believe governments never change, that good can be absolute, that evil in other places never come to their doorstep, and that slippery slopes arguments are always a fallacy.

So, uh, what are your next predictions for important world events?

Right now I am more concerned with Brazil stuff...

But it would not surprise me in shorter term (less than 10 years): Syria civil war dragging other countries on it or spreading to other countries. Israel engaging some Shia country in actual war. Eurozone disbanding or changing radically. Bitcoin getting much stronger OR attracting governments worldwide to squash it with heavyhanded tactics.

Also medium term (about 5 to 20 years from now) is clear we will remain having issues related to debt, this will be particularly bad in the US, that will desperately try to maintain USD as world currency (because otherwise it cannot pay the huge army). Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Muslim Brotherhood want to pull-off something, but I don't figured yet what it is, also it depends on they winning Syria Civil war. There is a chance (I am not much sure) that wars (civil and foreign) might happen in countries with a recent rise in far right nationalism (Greece, Japan, Brazil at least).

Long term: UN breakup or centralisation of power... It right now is already quite unstable. Reversal in pro-liberal viewpoints, might lead to extreme violence (ie: lots people actively killing gays, other races, immigrants, instead of isolated cases). - Regarding this, Brazil had some news today, government found out that since passing pro-LGBT laws, violence against LGBT is up 300%, with half of it coming from family members. Instabilities as result of low birth rate and increasing life expectancy.

If you want the "why" of each stuff, feel free to ask. Also I might add that currently (instead of 10 years ago) predicting stuff is harder, because there are more forces at play, specially Anonymous and Cipherpunks, they have been consistently making me recalculate stuff, and I never expected their rise in first place (interestingly, Ghost in the Shell series did... kudos to them), and because of general instability on the world (more riots and protests are happening, and communication tech spreads news about them much faster, sometimes spurring more of them).

EDIT: if anyone know how to make line breaks in HN please tell me... it just took all my stuff and snagged into a single line :(

EDIT: if anyone know how to make line breaks in HN please tell me... it just took all my stuff and snagged into a single line :(

Put a blank line between points that you want to separate, like this:

- Point 1

- Point 2

- Point 3

Then how I put TWO blank lines? To separate a set of lists?

You could just put in a few hyphens surrounded by blank lines:

----

Like so.

There's no need for prophecy. Predicting events which are already scripted agendas playing out isn't very difficult, because you can usually assume the script will play out, unless some significant (unlikely) event stops them from doing so.

I'd complain about your use of the term "Syria civil war." We should really be straight on the issue, that is has never been a civil war since day one - outside powers have, and continue to influence the state of the country, where a bunch of "terrorists" would've otherwise been taken care of long ago by the Syrian army.

The "Syria war" (correct term), is not going to be won by some low level rebels, but by the US and it's allies by imposing a no-fly-zone, conducting air strikes, and continuing to arm Syrian (and non-Syrian) Rebels to topple Assad. This is how wars are conducted now - the main instigators can absolve themselves of accountability and responsibility by using a group of rebels as their proxy.

And you don't exactly need to be a professor of history to know what happens to countries after the US conducts it's invasions. As Einstein pointed out: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. If we ask what the US and allies are doing differently this time, we see that it's business as usual, so they must be insane, right?

Or, we can assume that they know damn well what will happen after Assad is toppled, but they'll go ahead with the plan anyway. The result will depend on Russia's involvement though: will they just let the US invade Syria, or will the US still go ahead with invasion despite Russia's opposition - in this case, we're likely heading into WW3. And we should rightly ask: Is that the plan all along? (As you say, a UN breakup or centralization of power will be the inevitable result: I'm betting on the latter, since that's the agenda of those paying for the wars.)

Being called a tin-hat wearer becomes a compliment after a while - you're no longer gullible to the fairy tail painted by the media. Those calling it are usually ignorant of history, uninformed, or have selfish agendas.

Bravo sir, you know your stuff! You understood me perfectly.

WW3 over Syria will never happen.

You missed the point. If WW3 in planned by those who profit from war, Syria is just the proxy state through which it may begin. It's nothing to do with the domestic affairs of Syria.

There are more interests involved in world politics than just military industrial complexes. WW3 didn't happen at the height of Cold War, when every social, political and economic problem you can reasonably conceive existed and typically at a higher magnitude. And with the baseline adversity back in the day there wasn't any need for a contrived pretext even.

Do you happen to have any failed predictions, by any chance?

Depends.

Things I said 100% it would happen, happened, but my predictions in that case are things that I think are obvious (although when I struggled to convince other people it would happen, I concluded it is not THAT obvious).

For example, 100% sure it would happen: US invasion on Iraq would trigger a civil war and sectarian violence. US meddling in Libya would result in unstable country. Egypt election of islamist leader would result into more persecution for minorities.

Something I am right now 100% sure: rebels winning Syrian civil war will result into lots of sectarian violence in Syria and countries around it, and will result into millions of displaced Christians (no wonder most Christians still in Syria are fighting for Assad...)

Things where I "failed" was mostly underestimating time to something happen (I 5 years ago, I believed Brazil would take 10 years to have birth rates below replacement... That happened recently, thus 100% faster than I belived).

And I never predicted the rise of Anonymous, or the NSA whistleblowers in the US, I expected it would take some more 20 years to people figure stuff like Prism was not crazy people delusions.

Also I underestimated the scope and length of Brazillian protests, I expected them, because other bus fare increases sparked protests, and when the crackdown happened, and protests got bigger, this was not news either, what was news is that the protests remained for more than 10 days, people in other countries protested, and people in Brazil north protested strongly too (usually those are very detached of anything that happen in Brazil south).

Of course, this leads to a fourth type of possible failure: stuff that happens and force me to throw away previous predictions, and this is strongly the case with Brazil, the protests are quickly changing the political landscape, opening several options while closing others... For example before the protests the chance for a military coup was almost 0%, now it is not so, because there is popular support, and members of the military (including a general) voiced they DO wish to get rid of the current government (or "un-government" as the general wrote on his public letter) Also before the protests I was almost 100% sure Dilma Rouseff would be reelected, now people are even talking about banning reelections completely.

I think it is reasonable to assume that if the US can do it, at least one other country is actively doing it and that many governments of reasonable wealth are actively trying to gain that capability.

I'd be shocked if there are not 10+ countries actively trying to gain technology advantages for spying.

If you are going to ask this question, ask "Should any country be involved in spying". Then, if your answer is no, you have the obvious problem of trying to stop them, which is basically impossible. If the answer is yes, where do you draw the line?

I would guess that most people (especially US citizens) would be comfortable with the US recording a dictator's phone calls about genocides he is trying to commit but become very uncomfortable when they find out the US government is listening to their phone calls.

A lot of people both in the US and globally will draw that line in different places.

> "I'd be shocked if there are not 10+ countries actively trying to gain technology advantages for spying."

Yes, and US has spying "partnerships" to spy on each other's citizens, with all of them. If US really wanted to do something about stopping it, they could do it, at least for 80% of the "Internet".

Of course, in the end it's up to all of us to demand that. The US government will never do it on its own. Just like it sees an advantage in having the strongest military power over others, it sees in advantage in being able to spy on every citizen on this planet, and having a large arsenal of viruses and hacked systems in other countries.

It's up to us to tell it that's wrong, at least if we still care about quaint things such as democracy, freedoms and human rights..

If your goal is to unilaterally disarm the West in the info wars while China, Russia etc. go unchecked, which of course they would because there is absolutely no chance of accountable governance, then count me out. I want the West to win the info wars, we just need to make sure there is proper oversight.

I would much rather the west create an infrastructure that minimizes any destruction from an infowar entirely. As much of all infrastructure in every country and all endpoints sold (phones, tablets, computers) should have end-to-end encryption.

If the USG wants to protect us from any country they consider an aggressor in the info wars, then they need to equip every one of us (its citizens) with the tools to protect ourselves.

The US does not know which of the kids today will grow up to be a Senator, Congressman, President, NSA agent, CIA agent, etc. If one of the infowar aggressors had the kind of information on every US citizen that we suspect the NSA to have, then that means that they could have enough information to blackmail many of this nation's future leaders, with many of us being none the wiser.

Take David Patraeus for example. What if a foreign intelligence agency knew about his extramarital affair, but no one else did. That's a perfect circumstance for that agency to coerce him.

Add to that fact that the NSA and CIA recruits heavily from the Mormon community. Imagine if one of those people was a gay and still had not come out about that fact. Such a person may be extremely worried about being outed to their friends and family in their religious community. Imagine if a foreign intelligence agency knew everyone who was was still in the closet. They would all be blackmailable. [0]

[0] One of my very close friends is bisexual and was raised as a very devout Mormon (but left the Church years ago) and she completely agrees that this could be a reality for a Mormon who has not yet come out of the closet, because of how much that community chastises people who are gay. Most of the people she knew growing up completely disowned her since coming out of the closet and leaving the Church.

> If the USG wants to protect us from any country they consider an aggressor in the info wars, then they need to equip every one of us (its citizens) with the tools to protect ourselves.

Well the USG has given us SHA-1, NSA Suite B collection of Cryptographic standards, NIST-organized crypto standards, and have funded the development and most of the ongoing maintainence of Tor.

So they're trying to be helpful in that regards, which is why you can't just talk about USG as if it was a single-headed monster.

I'm saying that they should further promote the usage of everyone of those technologies everywhere, all the time, by all the people of these United States.

Protecting us from enemies that could coerce future leaders has the great benefit of also protecting us from the NSA.

>Well the USG has given us SHA-1, NSA Suite B collection of Cryptographic standards, NIST-organized crypto standards, and have funded the development and most of the ongoing maintainence of Tor.

Certainly. But they've also given us CALEA-mandated backdoors into telecommunications equipment and a regulatory environment that encourages wanton third party custody over sensitive information.

Obviously some of this is subtle and unintended. For example, allowing government-issued spectrum monopolies to be leveraged into walled garden mobile devices is seriously bad for security because it excludes anyone from improving the security of the device's OS or system components other than the manufacturers/carriers who coincidentally have the incentive to deny anything that would reduce user dependence on cloud-based data storage.

The point being, even if we're not doing nothing, we could be doing more.

> The point being, even if we're not doing nothing, we could be doing more.

Fully agreed on that!

The info wars will not have a winner, any more than warfare with black powder, warfare with motorized artillery, or warfare with airplanes produced clear winners. The best possible outcome is to survive until the next kind of war makes the current one obsolete.

Shouldn't the leaders of the free world set the best example for free countries to aspire to?

No one begrudges the US, UK, or any other country having spies and what not. They are essential to peace. Remember the point of spying is to understand your opponents real intentions. Imagine how vital it was to know that the USSR was NOT going to start WW3. Its all about how you use them.

I think part of problem here is the West using cold war apparatus to fight what is essentially civilian crime, which is what both drugs and terrorism are, after they lost "work" because of the fall of the USSR.

> No one begrudges the US, UK, or any other country having spies and what not. They are essential to peace.

Perhaps, but it has certainly not helped that the diplomatic traffic that formerly would have been carried on essentially separate channels is now carried on the Internet with the traffic of normal citizens. Even if we said it was OK for the NSA to peep on dictators and diplomats they'd still be tapping the same channels, but instead would be 'minimizing' a lot more.

> I think part of problem here is the West using cold war apparatus to fight what is essentially civilian crime, which is what both drugs and terrorism are, after they lost "work" because of the fall of the USSR.

Well, you're right, but the reason is because only the Cold War apparatus (and especially expertise) could realistically handle the demands the U.S. government is trying to put on itself to handle the work of counter-terrorism. The NSA isn't doing the work because they are the NSA and they felt like it, they're doing it because the FBI couldn't hack it even if they tried. Note that even now FBI is the agency that handles the NSLs and warrants and other legal niceties to/from the companies associated with PRISM.

The FBI is certainly not completely innocent in this type of stuff. They have COINTELPRO and Carnivore to their credit already, and also CALEA-associated types of technological wiretaps they can employ domestically any time they want (with appropriate documentation, of course)...

> Then, if your answer is no, you have the obvious problem of trying to stop them, which is basically impossible.

Are you sure about that?

My takeaway from all of this is that we, as a population, need to invest heavily in counter-surveillance technology and employ it everywhere. Even if we were to succeed in legislatively prohibiting the NSA from conducting widespread surveillance, what about other countries? It would be at least as dangerous for China to have the information the NSA is gathering as it is for the NSA to have it. This is a wake up call that something needs to be done in the way of making mass surveillance as difficult as technologically possible. The vulnerability in our infrastructure that the NSA is currently exploiting is one that needs to be patched.

Obama, "you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy." OK, I agree. So how about you and your "security" agencies are a lot less private about what you're doing. Be completely open about your intentions and let your voters decide if they want to spend billions on it and citizens of other countries decide if they want to use US-based services.

> you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy.

This is a strange quote to me. We DON'T have 100% security. We'll NEVER have 100% security. But they're more than willing to take all 100% of your privacy.

The fact that they'll try to sell us an illusion of 100% security in exchange for 100% of our privacy is a terrible tradeoff to anyone who actually understands risks/security.

0% privacy is also an impossible concept. Until the day they read your mind and prosecute you for thought crimes

Hollywood likes to have movies where you can clearly distinguish between the "good guys" and the "bad guys"; well, everyone is realising that America is clearly not the former.

The realization is that there were no good guys.

Corruption came for being so big; too much power in few hands; if Google and the other companies were located in different countries -instead of just in the USA- the NSA would never have amazed so much power. Fear created a breach to give too much power to the government but power corrupts, and big powers corrupts big time.

This: "... recently, an unknown company brought a case before the FISA court which resulted in a secret 2011 holding that the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment."

As well as the US government insistence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, used as an excuse to invade Iraq, yet no WMD were found. (Yellow cake uranium, etc)

With this kind of a track record how are we supposed to have confidence in the US intelligence apparatus?

This is a clear case of "it's not fascism when we do it."

>As well as the US government insistence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, used as an excuse to invade Iraq, yet no WMD were found.

according to current definition of WMD, Saddam had(and a billion other people have):

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/wmd/wmd_fa...

"“(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title (i.e. explosive device);"

and section 921 has :

"(4) The term “destructive device” means— (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas— (i) bomb, (ii) grenade, (iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (v) mine, or (vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses; (B) any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and "

You're conflating the military definition of WMD (which has essentially always been related to CBRN) with the U.S. civilian legal definition of WMD, which pre-dates the invasion of Iraq.

One perspective on the current debate over whether governments should spy on other countries seems very similar to arms race issues.

However, instead of debating whether nuclear weapons should be decommissioned in the canonical example of an arms race, the debate is trending toward whether more subtle, and arguably more powerful infoweapons and "cyberwarfare" should be allowed on an international scale. Especially when it can be used to enforce oppressive, Orwellian, Kafkaesque regimes maybe not now, but sometime in the future. Unfortunately, I am not sure that the general populations of the world are as cognizant of the implications of powerful information apparatuses as they should be.

A legitimate question seems to be, would you rather have a stockpile of nuclear weapons that you cannot use due to the their blatant destructive power and the threat of mutually assured destruction, or would you rather have secret global panopticon surveillance backed by increasing powerful analytics technologies to sift through the firehose of information?

Why rely on nukes when you can do so much more with greater degrees of omniscience? Quash domestic and foreign threats alike before they even emerge with targeted action founded on near full informational awareness.

I think this one's officially a dead horse for us. But I did want to point out that even if a legislator did not envision a given interpretation of the law when they drafted it, doesn't mean that interpretation is actually illegal.

That type of concern (having to fix laws with unanticipated loopholes) as probably as old as the Code of Hammurabi. That's where the legislator can say, "I didn't mean for that to be legal", but it doesn't automatically follow that means the thing is illegal. That's for the courts to decide.

On that note, hopefully we'll have an answer soon about what that secret FISC ruling was in the first place.

There is a difference between legal and lawful.

Not really, at least in the U.S. common law meaning. Do you mean there's a difference between "legal" and "moral"/"right"?

No, I meant exactly what I wrote.

> Even worse, a shift away from U.S.-based Internet services is a blow to free expression around the world.

I thought it would be clear by now, that this is not the case.

As a foreigner, the US does not ensure my free expression at all. For example the US already scans social networks and uses it to keep 'unwanted' people out of the country. My data privacy is not respected by the US. The US has signed some privacy agreements with the EU, but in practice this is a bad joke. Putting data onto US servers just makes it easier for the US to spy on me (for whatever reasons they decide to do that).

Currently NOT using US IT services is a better way to protect my pricacy AND my freedom of expression.

I find it so odd when people say "bad for democracy" when they just mean "bad".

It's not just odd, it's meaningless.

The article is just awash in good points. Some of the points will really hit hard: "This is still America. Cash!" (from the movie 'Seabiscuit').

Long ago Google was getting more revenue from outside the US than inside; so, the article outlines in effect how Google is in line to take a torpedo in 1/2 + of their revenue.

If my start up works, then I, too, will have international users. Chuck Schumer, listen up: We're talking $ for NY.

Here's what I think will happen:

(1) Nearly all politicians will run for cover and keep their heads down, issue cliches and platitudes, and do nothing important.

(2) Legal cases are and will be brought. E.g., apparently Google is bringing a case. By now there have to be a lot of people with 'standing' to bring cases -- how about 130 million or so Verizon customers? A standard claim of those cases will be violation of at least the Fourth Amendment.

(3) The cases will make it to the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) which will accept some of the more important cases.

(4) Whatever opinions the SCOTUS hands down, bet your last penny that the SCOTUS will, as a no-brainer, have the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment come out 100% iron-clad whole. For the NSA behavior, the FISA 'court', the 'Patriot Act', expendable!

Then all the politicians can come out of hiding and blame the SCOTUS and otherwise philosophize, posture, pontificate, genuflect, etc.

But it does help that a lot of ordinary citizens, at HN, The Atlantic, EFF, ACLU, etc. agree with the OP.

It also helps that little Ecuador just told the big, bad, mean US to take their NSA and stuff it up their wherever and, besides, stuff the 'trade agreement', and, besides, here's $24 million apparently the US needs to educate its citizens on the Constitution.

I'm a fully loyal US citizen, but I do remember

"Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So, I've got "freedom of speech".

And I don't have to agree with some of the worst of W, Cheney, Obama, Hillary, or, now, the guy, what's his name, you know, the one supported by H. J. Heinz and its 57 varieties, our current Secretary of State, the little hyperflexible invertebrate John Kerry, and to think I voted for that twit for president.

Thank you, thank you, thank you SCOTUS, the Constitution, and the founding fathers. Now we learn again how much we need you!

Jihaders, expect no comfort, and you will have none. The NSA people were never the brightest bulbs on the tree, and we don't need their new work since 9/11 to defend the US.

Government secrecy is a complex issue and I don't feel that I'm not informed enough on it to have strong opinions. There are many things I don't like, but I recognize that there are details I don't know.

I'll focus on what I know, which is the technology industry. I'm very glad to see the moral legitimacy of the main players, and the current software-industry culture of authoritarian mediocrity in which technologists get minimal autonomy and respect, fall to pieces. In Silicon Valley, it's time for a regime change.

FWD.us and Sean Parker's wedding and closed allocation and that jungle party with the 600-pound tiger (WTF?) prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this elite is not materially different from any of the others and that it is utterly unfit to rule over (or even steward) modern society's most important activities: science and technology.

It's very good for democracy: mob rule by whatever faction is most popular at the moment.

It is very, very bad for republics.

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