• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

NSA Whistle-blower Ed Snowden

:boring:

Did he really reveal anything that most people already knew was going ?

My problem is how a contractor can get that level of access for that kind of stuff.
 
All electronic communications are monitored all the time. It's gotten really cold war Soviet over here though. Pretty ironic as when I was a kid we always touted how you were always surveilled in those evil dictatorial countries who tortured and spied on their own citizens. We were the good guys in the free country! The slide was so slow and the media so on board almost no one noticed.
 
Big question in the news today is why he has chosen to hide out in Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the US. :facepalm:
 
Snowden longed for that great bastion of democracy Chine and I think he got his wish.
 
cupper said:
Big question in the news today is why he has chosen to hide out in Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the US. :facepalm:

and is owned by China
 
Nemo888 said:
All electronic communications are monitored all the time. It's gotten really cold war Soviet over here though.

With the way that information travels over the internet, information tends to travel down the fastest pipe rather than shortest distance geographically.  With the US having so many highspeed servers, backbones and transatlantic/pasific fiber trunk lines, a good deal of information gets passed through the US while not actually having anything to do with the US. 

Next time you're bored at your computer. (Only works with windows) go to start, Command Prompt (cmd.exe) and type in "tracert www.*favoritewebitehere*.com"  Then google some of the resulting IPs.  You might be surprised where your information goes to and who owns those servers.
 
More detailed background on Snowden from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/edward-snowden-says-motive-behind-leaks-was-to-expose-surveillance-state/2013/06/09/aa3f0804-d13b-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

His background leaves a lot to question as to how he got where he was. Dropped out of high school (eventually got a GED) discharged from the US Army after 5 months due to training accident that broke both legs. Started out in the three letter agencies as a security guard, but his computer skills allowed him to move up as a tech in various classified overseas facilities for the CIA and NSA.

But he does sound like a very personable kind of guy you'd want for a neighbor.

Snowden and his girlfriend were strikingly standoffish while living in a home in the residential Royal Kunia neighborhood of Waipahu, and seemed to go out of their way to avoid conversations with passers-by, neighbor Carolyn Tijing said in a telephone interview. Tijing said that her husband went to introduce himself to Snowden and his girlfriend shortly after they moved across the street from the Tijings but that Snowden declined to exchange any pleasantries.

“It was a no-go, no conversation at all,” she said. “He just said ‘Fine’ and walked straight into his house. We thought they were just really anti-social.”

Carolyn Tijing said that the couple had erected a wall of boxes floor to ceiling inside their garage that blocked anyone’s view from the street into the two-car garage and that they always kept their cars parked in the driveway.Tijing said that she never saw anyone visit the home but that her college-aged son had seen several people stop by at late hours, between midnight and 2 a.m. Those visitors would arrive by car, stand in the driveway for a few minutes and exchange a few words with Snowden, then depart, Tijing said her son told her.

About four weeks ago, Snowden and his girlfriend apparently departed, Tijing said. The wall of boxes in the garage was gone, and a handyman arrived to clean the house. “One day they were here, the next they were gone,” Tijing said. “We never saw them leave.”
 
 
Great piece of character assassination from the NYT.  "He betrayed the privacy of us all." Awesome, some real Cold War Pravda style shite here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/opinion/brooks-the-solitary-leaker.html?_r=3&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1370928863-7CjsK6WA3P24nw625tvv3w&
 
Nemo888 said:
Great piece of character assassination from the NYT.  "He betrayed the privacy of us all." Awesome, some real Cold War Pravda style shite here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/opinion/brooks-the-solitary-leaker.html?_r=3&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1370928863-7CjsK6WA3P24nw625tvv3w&

You aren't getting a little paranoid are you?  Will we see a rush on aluminum products soon?
 
That the article does not even speak to the issues he gave up his life for is very telling. It is pure ad hominem.

Some of the comments to the article are good.

This column reads like a genteel rewrite of Nixon's Enemies List. It spans the spectrum of the thin-skinned paranoia which the powerful exhibit whenever their predatory little worlds are exposed. To wit:

--Blame the messenger instead of the malefactors (Snowden magically destroys privacy by reporting on the destruction of privacy!) -- check.

-- Speculate about the messenger's psychological state ( Watergate Rule #26, inspired by the Nixon Plumbers break-in of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist ) -- check.

-- Denigrate the messenger's lowly educational background and social status. Point out the faux pas of servants who betray their masters, who of course are not corporate welfare capitalist spies, but rather philanthropic humanitarian aid organizations.-- check.

-- Question the messenger's patriotism and loyalty to friends and family. -- check. (These whistleblowers are always terrible sons, boyfriends and dressers - see Assange, Julian ; Bill Keller edition)

Edward Snowden deserves a medal not only for upsetting the security state apple cart, but for getting David Brooks so tied up in knots that his bromides and his platitudes are congealing into a bigger mess than usual.

Snowden is guilty of the high crime of giving aid and comfort to the citizenry. He is a traitor to Brook's class.
 
George Wallace said:
You aren't getting a little paranoid are you?  Will we see a rush on aluminum products soon?

Brought to you by tinfoil. Why not wear it as a hat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tilfgWzhsns
 
He isn't saying anything anyone else hasn't already thought about.  His problem is he is saying it from a position of authority, which gives the accusations more credibility, if not certainty.  He should not be grouped with other persons that willfully leak information, i.e. Wikileaks.  Those organizations are leaking potential sensitive information, regardless of whether or not there will be follow on effects.

He has simply stated what the government should already have been transparent about.

Where I disagree with him is the supposed likelyhood that your past information will be used against you, even if you're a good person.  While this is certainly possible, your everyday person committing petty crimes will still remain at the bottom of the priority list.  In fact, I believe that list will only become longer and more detailed, pushing petty crimes even further down the list.
 
Let's talk about the real issue and get away from character assassination.

Things changed. I will go out on a limb here and say this intelligence was always collected by every single NATO nation since before most of us were even born. It was used to catch bad guys, terrorist douche bags almost exclusively. I never had a problem with that. Currently Vic Toews has been trying to get that info available to conventional law enforcement which I am totally against.

The system had many checks and balances. I'll use one of the first Delta team shooters who became a head of the GWOT Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as a public source. in the 80's and 90's he complained bitterly about only getting approval for roughly 10% of possible targets. To get higher there would have been many false positives, civvie casualties and diplomatic fallout.  After 9/11 that went to almost 100% and both congressional and CIA oversight was removed as power shifted to the Pentagon. By 2003 at least 3000 persons in 100 countries were disappeared or captured. Technically these were acts of war on foreign soil and not even the ambassadors knew what was going on. They would cable Washington asking why 6"5' white guys with 19 inch biceps were wandering the city. Even if it was necessary then most should be dead so it's time to bring back the rule of law. If things have gotten worse then obviously these scummy totalitarian tactics have only created more enemies and destroyed our credibility. Then time to rethink strategy and reign in these extraordinary powers. 
 
Nemo888 said:
Things changed. I will go out on a limb here and say this intelligence was always collected by every single NATO nation since before most of us were even born. It was used to catch bad guys, terrorist douche bags almost exclusively. I never had a problem with that. Currently Vic Toews has been trying to get that info available to conventional law enforcement which I am totally against.

When the terrorists were operating mostly outside our borders then I agree that conventional law enforcement didn't need to know.

With the likelyhood certainty that terrorists operate within our borders, who do you expect him to get the info too?  Who is the proper authority? And when is it too late for the appropriate authority to get the information?

For the record, I consider RCMP and FBI conventional law enforcement and if large municipalities have specialty units, I consider them conventional too.
 
GnyHwy said:
When the terrorists were operating mostly outside our borders then I agree that conventional law enforcement didn't need to know.

With the likelyhood certainty that terrorists operate within our borders, who do you expect him to get the info too?  Who is the proper authority? And when is it too late for the appropriate authority to get the information?

For the record, I consider RCMP and FBI conventional law enforcement and if large municipalities have specialty units, I consider them conventional too.
It was always used successfully to catch terrorists within our borders. The changes proposed are for what it can be used for and who can get full access. If CSIS/CSE says check this guy out wink wink that's cool. If conventional police are simply trolling for data that is a big problem. The information will probably always be collected. I don't want civvie law enforcement to have free access or the courts to be able to use this illegally obtained information as evidence. This can turn all Stasi very quickly. It's everything wrong with the Gun Registry on steroids.
 
Nemo888 said:
It was always used successfully to catch terrorists within our borders. The changes proposed are for what it can be used for and who can get full access. If CSIS/CSE says check this guy out wink wink that's cool. If conventional police are simply trolling for data that is a big problem. The information will probably always be collected. I don't want civvie law enforcement to have free access or the courts to be able to use this illegally obtained information as evidence. This can turn all Stasi very quickly. It's everything wrong with the Gun Registry on steroids.

I don't quite see it the same way you are looking at, such as low level authorities dragnetting for tips.  I am with you 100% if that is the case and inexperienced persons are sifting through data rather than intelligence that has been derived from data by true experts.  Which leads to this.

milnews.ca said:

These methods break the most important principle of intelligence.  Centralized control.  I can definitely agree with reigning in the amount of persons/groups that have access to data.  But, once it's deemed intelligence, it needs to be disseminated asap, to the persons that need it i.e. local law enforcement. 
 
Telecommunications surveillance is a tool and how it is used matters. In countries where insulting the leader is a crime it has a different outcome than in countries with free speech.

I see it as a waste of resources myself as like "defense everywhere is defense nowhere" I see "all data is no data" as there will be too many false and meaningless patterns or leads. Recording some information so you can track interactions once a lead is established by more traditional means I think would produce better results with much less effort.
 
Back
Top