NZ police affidavits show use of PRISM for surveillance | Hacker News Reader

NZ police affidavits show use of PRISM for surveillance

itnews.com.au

35 pointsfrank_boyd11 comments

It's currently being discussed over at slashdot.org too:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/08/23/0153227/nz-police-go...

I've been talking about the Dotcom issues with a number of people for a while now, and I (or we) have come to the conclusion that there was one surprisingly simple reason that action was taken to bring him down: the promo video. It featured like 20 superstars who're all really big. From the perspective of big media it was something dangerously close to legitimizing piracy on an unprecedented scale in the eyes of the public as means to get music, movies, etc. If the video was never released no big raid would have taken place (it was more symbolic than anything, anyway -- Dotcom made the big flashy promo video, something equally dramatic needed to be done to dethrone its legitimacy -- something that your aunt tells your mother ("oh, your son uses Megaupload?! You know that Kim Dotcom -- the guy who made it, he was on the news -- he was arrested you know that right?"). I think gov't was convinced to take action by big media probably with an appeal like "hey, they don't buy our stuff, that means no tax dollar for you".

We have Keith Alexander visiting NL on a damage control tour as a speaker on the closed 'Masters in Security' symposium in September this year.

They should organize that thing in Brazil instead of here.

This guy and his minions have breached the privacy laws of the EU in ways that defy the imagination and yet he's coming here to speak. I guess if he were detained there would always be the invade the Hague option.

This is not just limited to the Anglosphere.

It's the tipping point - worldwide, comprehensive surveillance used not to defeat the "enemies of civilisation " but enforce copyright law.

The folks who set it up may sit back now and think, it's ok, we are still in charge, we won't let it get out of hand.

But as Bane says "Do you feel in charge?"

It seems reasonable to expect the same conditions for the other 4 "Five Eyes" countries [0], too:

- Australia

- Canada

- United Kingdom

- United States of America

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

So if PRISM was used to gather evidence is Kim Dotcom a threat to US National Security? The copyright lobby in DC must have some serious sway. Dotcom is hardly Osama Bin Laden. Maybe all foreign nationals are fair game, makes US one way extradition treaties all the worse.

Off their website, "The NSA/CSS core missions are to protect U.S. national security systems and to produce foreign signals intelligence information."

So yes. Foreign nationals are all fair game. One of their two explicit goals is to be able to listen to everyone and everything that does not fall under US privacy law.

Seems kinda hostile to treat all foreigners as "rights-free persons". The United States was built on immigration. I can't believe that the people in charge don't see how destructive this attitude is for the global neighborhood's relationship to the US.

It's surreal how quickly "we don't have an obligation to protect the rights of non-citizens" gets twisted into "we're allowed to abuse the rights of non-citizens".

You haven't really paid attention to the US's attitude towards the global neighborhood in the past century, have you? "Neighborly" isn't really the word I'd use to describe things like isolationism, walking softly and carrying a big stick, AMERICA WORLD POLICE, and the like. Even offshoring goes into this bucket, because cheap labor is cheap.

This is entirely besides the fact that we have roving unsanctioned militia units shooting people trying to illegally cross the US southern border, and we tried to build a goddamn fence to keep them out. An actual goddamn fence. And the immigrant-hostile legislation in Arizona and Alabama and Mississippi.

...yeah, in the 19th century, we were pretty psyched about immigration. We were still pretty happy about it in the 20th century, but we were building up muscle to throw down outside our borders. In the 21st century, WE ARE NUMBER ONE LA LA LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY AWESOME.

You don't need to listen. Our governments listen to us then forward it to you. But its not as bad as you would think. John Key has heard that bad people are planning bad things at his briefings. It's very serious. This is for our protection. New Zealand.

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