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I personally used information in the Snowden documents to highlight a vulnerability in IKE installs that was being actively exploited. It is now dying, and any
by wbl 10y ago
I personally used information in the Snowden documents to highlight a vulnerability in IKE installs that was being actively exploited. It is now dying, and any exploitwd targets provably dried up. The EU found and removed several bugs from its printers because of information found in the Snowden docs.
PRISM was a codename for collection done in accordance with FISA revisions debated at the time. Ultimately the only program changed was the phone records program which was placed on a sounder footing by elected reprentatives.
Lots of programs that were clearly what the NSA should be doing were exposed, and as a result ended. We'll never know the damage done, but it was substantial.
- linkregister 10y agoI assert that the phone records program is not clearly on sounder footing. With the transfer of its maintenance to the telecommunications companies, the option for other government agencies (e.g. FBI, DEA) to query the database was included. The bill essentially increased the breadth of the opportunity for abuse. Should we expect telecoms to pose meaningful resistance to massive records requests?
- wbl 10y agoIt's now explicitly authorized by law instead of hiding in the FISA authorization. Our elected representatives wanted it.
- linkregister 10y agoFISA didn't have anything to do with the phone records program. I agree that the majority of Congress wanted it.
- bediger4000 10y ago> Our elected representatives wanted it. Indisputable. But did a majority of the citizens want it? Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, whereas "elected representatives" right now represent some minority due to Republican state-level gerrymandering in a lot of states, and Electoral College overrepresenting sparsely-populated western states.
- DennisP 10y ago> The EU found and removed several bugs from its printers because of information found in the Snowden docs. That seems like an excellent outcome, if you don't assume that only the NSA knew about the vulnerability. EU countries are our allies, after all. In any case, our foreign intelligence would still be intact, if the NSA had restricted itself to that. Once it crossed the line into secret domestic mass surveillance, it made itself fair game for idealistic dissenters.