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> For those keeping score, not only does Amazon own the The Washington Post and oversees the CIA’s Commercial Cloud Enterprise, it now has on its powerful board

• netsharc 6y ago
  I think he got hired because AWS likes government and military contracts, and he has personal phone numbers of people who make that sort of decisions. And he doesn't have them through NSA data gathering, but because he can call these people and ask if they'd like to have a steak dinner and talk about why they should choose AWS...
  • harry8 6y ago
    Maybe. And even if he doesn't have the dirt on various people with power, including a bit lower down the food-chain. The idea that he might gives him an edge in those steak dinners. It stinks no matter how you look at it. Actual criminal getting rich post crimes while Snowden who let us all know what a crook he is, is stuck in exile. The rule of law and equality before it needs to be established. "Bezos Taps Criminal To Strengthen Bid For Government Work" Is about the kindest possible spin you can put on a headline for this story, right?
    • deleted 6y ago
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  • ganoushoreilly 6y ago
    While I agree in principle, it hasn't really worked out well for IronNet. Maybe they stabilized now, but all those relationships didn't really produce the amount of business they thought they would.
    • hiram112 6y ago
      Did IronNet not do well in government or public sector?
    • doktrin 6y ago
      Without addressing the specifics of IronNet, the fact that one entity adopting this strategy experienced sub par results is pretty meaningless - mostly since hiring former senior military and government figures is basically standard practice in any organization that handles (or aspires to handle) federal or military contracts. Swap out 'federal or military' for basically any other organization or entity and the practice still holds true.
• m0zg 6y ago
  If he had that "intel" we'd know it by now.
  • harry8 6y ago
    That is an assertion with no evidence. Either is possible.
    • m0zg 6y ago
      Evidence is plain as a day to see: no "reams" of any kind have surfaced in 4+ years in spite of the entirety of the deep state working overtime to unearth them. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the latest switch from mere misinterpretations and quoting out of context to brazen whole cloth made up hit jobs that dozens of people deny _on the record_ suggests that the DNC is out of ammo.
      • alexilliamson 6y ago
        He just hired the DOJ to defend him in a lawsuit in which he is accused of rape. That seems like something.
        • m0zg 6y ago
          Joe Biden is also "accused" of rape. Doesn't mean shit.
          • alasdair_ 6y ago
            Did Joe Biden demand that the Department of Justice defend him?
          • harry8 6y ago
            Actually it does mean something. The USA badly, badly needs a way to get better candidates for both parties. Is there anyone who thinks this is the best the Republicans have to do the job for the american people? Is ther anyone who thinks this is the best the Democrats have to do the job for the american people?
• person3 6y ago
  Except that The Washington Post operates independently, and has strong editorial standards, something that a lot of "news" sites on the Internet today don't even pretend to have. The Post continues to publish articles about surveillance, as well as articles critical of Amazon. For example, here's reporting on an interview with Martin Baron, the paper’s executive editor: Mr. Bezos holds conference calls with The Post’s leadership every other week to discuss the paper’s business strategy but has no involvement in its news coverage, Mr. Baron said. During his occasional appearances at The Post’s building, Mr. Bezos sometimes stops by a news meeting “just to thank everybody,” Mr. Baron said. “I can’t say more emphatically he’s never suggested a story to anybody here, he’s never critiqued a story, he’s never suppressed a story,” the editor said. “Frankly, in a newsroom of 800 journalists, if that had occurred, I guarantee you, you would have heard about it,” he added. “Newsrooms tend not to like those kinds of interventions, particularly a newsroom that’s as proud as The Washington Post. “If he had been involved in our news coverage, you can be sure that you would have heard about it by now,” Mr. Baron added. “It hasn’t happened. Period.” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/to-trump-its-the-amazon-washington-post-to-its-editor-thats-baloney.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/to-trump-i... (edited for formatting)
  • DenisM 6y ago
    That's not how editorial pressure works. Chomsky detailed it quite well, but in a few words: The advertisers react to "wrong" coverage by withdrawing support, the chief editor is very attuned so he assigns the right people to the right jobs before trouble starts, and the journalists so assigned naturally work quite sincerely. No actual orders to publish or withdraw articles need to happen.
    • ethbr0 6y ago
      Unfalsifiable conspiracies are my favorite kind! There's got to be a natural law that, for any given situation, one can compose a scheme whereby no proof of anything would actually exist, but evil would still be done.
      • 6y ago
• TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  > reams of compromising intel on the current president Worth nothing that those reams of compromising intel on the current president only exist because the current president... has, himself, generated reams of compromising intel.
  • pestaa 6y ago
    Yea, it seemed a weird speculation that going after Trump using WaPo would be a serious reason behind the onboarding. They already publish a ton of heavyweight criticism... and I think there is no new information that could persuade those that still support Trump.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      Donald Trump's very own Twitter account is a steam of hard-hitting criticism ;)
  • LycheeKing 6y ago
    >Worth nothing that those reams of compromising intel on the current president only exist because the current president... No innocent man or woman becomes president of the United States. Some are just better at keeping their shady dealings hidden, especially with a mainstream media walking on eggshells in order to appear progressive.
• AndrewKemendo 6y ago
  The implication here requires a few things to be true. 1. The CIA illegally collected intelligence on Donald Trump prior to his election to the Presidency 2. This intelligence was specifically of a compromising nature to President Trump 3. This intelligence was retained and can be retrieved at a moments notice 4. The retired DCI, who is no longer a government employee, somehow retains his read ins, Need to Know or accesses or... 5. Has personnel working within the IC who do have access to this information that would give it to him. 6. That the DCI has provided the existence of this information to Jeff Bezos 7. Bezos then provides a PUBLIC position for this person on the Amazon board as a way to pay for access to this information that Jeff will then ostensibly have as a "secret weapon" to blackmail a sitting President This type of conjecture is on par with other conspiracy theories which are so far from realistic that they defy logic to believe. I'd love to see the combined probability estimate for something like this. Others have said it better - Hayden knows the DoD and IC process for IT basically better than anyone, and can help Amazon win more business. The end. Pretty simple.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    > 2. This intelligence was specifically of a compromising nature to President Trump Yeah, that made me laugh.
  • imgabe 6y ago
    Plus we've already had an impeachment trial. If there were damning, conclusive evidence that the CIA possessed on Trump, that would have been the time to present it.
    • zip1234 6y ago
      Collecting on a US person without a warrant likely would have been illegal and not viable evidence.
      • arrrg 6y ago
        The impeachment trial is not a trial.
• missedthecue 6y ago
  Does Amazon own the WaPo? I thought Bezos did.
  • tw04 6y ago
    Does Amazon own Amazon? I thought Bezos did. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-amazon-shareholders-amzn.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052816/top-4-...
    • ciarannolan 6y ago
      You did? With 11% of the company? > Amazon's chief executive officer (CEO) and founder, Jeff Bezos, is the company's biggest shareholder, with 55.5 million shares representing 11.1% of outstanding shares.
      • perfmode 6y ago
        what % of the votes?
        • tedunangst 6y ago
          11.1%.
        • granzymes 6y ago
          All of Amazon's shares have the same number of votes.
          • moonchild 6y ago
            Amazon has non-voting shares. Source: know someone who worked there. Bonuses were paid in the form of non-voting shares.
            • dubbel 6y ago
              Maybe they were talking about options? You don't get voting rights by having options, you need to execute the options in order to get shares (and voting rights, in Amazons case).
• switch11 6y ago
  This: This sounds tinfoil hat crazy, but here we are. Not so crazy now At some point we need to just say it some of the largest tech companies are basically NSA+CIA partners and we're well on our way to having Big Tech completely integrated into NSA and CIA and DoD
  • zip1234 6y ago
    The government has used Big Tech forever. Oracle, Microsoft, Apple products have been used by NSA+CIA for about as long as those companies have had products. Yes, those companies sell to the government. They want to make money and the government has money.
    • ethbr0 6y ago
      Obligatory link to Steve Blank's recounting of SV's early days (1950-1980). https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-part-v-happy-100th-birthday-silicon-valley/ https://steveblank.com/2009/04/20/the-secret-history-of-sili... https://steveblank.com/2009/04/06/story-behind-%E2%80%9Cthe-secret-history%E2%80%9D-part-iii-the-most-important-company-you-never-heard-of/ https://steveblank.com/2009/04/06/story-behind-%E2%80%9Cthe-... https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
    • trenchgun 6y ago
      Yep, and IBM helped nazis to run their concentration camps. Technology is power.
    • unionpivo 6y ago
      There is a difference between selling your product to government and working with government. I am pretty sure USA government buy's plenty of stuff from Chinese companies like everbody else does. Doesn't mean Chinese companies are working with it.
  • typon 6y ago
    "The sinister Huawei has close ties with the Chinese government. Our companies can't compete on a level playing field!"
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• fennecfoxen 6y ago
  Hey, want to hear something else a little tinfoil hat crazy and also 100% true? - Checking out on Amazon was always encrypted. - Browsing on Amazon was not encrypted until quite recently. Add To Cart wasn't encrypted. - High end network equipment includes support for monitoring your browsing on the guest wifi to send URLs from you browsing Amazon to price-compare or buy. See, for instance, Cisco Analytics for Retail.
  • sjs382 6y ago
    > Browsing on Amazon was not encrypted until quite recently. Add To Cart wasn't encrypted. What do you mean by this? HTTPS has always been supported for browsing and adding to cart.
    • schoen 6y ago
      I think this varied by country. I was working on some HTTPS advocacy targeted at web sites before it was so ubiquitous, and I remember Amazon in the U.S. not allowing you to browse items with HTTPS probably sometime around 2010 (I think they would send a redirect back to the HTTP site).
    • hollander 6y ago
      Definitely not in the EU. It changed 5 or 8 years ago, but before that is was not encrypted.
    • pc86 6y ago
      Even taking into account the comments below, you can still see the URLs and thus determine the products folks are browsing even with SSL.
      • zorked 6y ago
        No you can't. You can only see the domain during initial protocol setup.
        • spurgu 6y ago
• all_blue_chucks 6y ago
  That quote is not in the article and is not even true (Amazon does not own the Post, and FISA warrants are legal). Where did you get that nonsense?
• gfody 6y ago
  > This sounds tinfoil hat crazy https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/we-all-wear-tinfoil-hats-now https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/we-all-wear-tinf...
• deleted 6y ago
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• wavefunction 6y ago
  >illegally spied on Americans for the better part of a decade. A decade? Just a decade?
• deleted 6y ago
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• kaonwarb 6y ago
  Amazon does not own the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos does.
• Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  >figure from the NSA who illegally spied on Americans I like the way you included just 'Americans', may be because it's just the domestic spying which is against U.S. law, may be because you thought 'spied on Americans' hits harder for an American reader than just 'spied on everyone'. But, for someone outside USA or China; there's absolutely no difference between U.S. tech or Chinese Tech w.r.t Privacy, what U.S. does privately, China does openly and that's not limited to just spying.
  • deathgrips 6y ago
    America won't arrest you on your vacation here just because you criticized the country on social media. I'd take American hegemony over Chinese hegemony any day of the week.
    • Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
      >America won't arrest you on your vacation here just because you criticized the country on social media Can you say for sure, that the phone will not be seized, imaged and/or bugged at the airport/border? Anyways you are talking about differences in what they do with the data or the person to whom that data belongs and not contending the fact that tech companies from both the countries spy internationally.
      • deathgrips 6y ago
        In America you can buy privacy if you really want it. Buy a laptop here, install linux on it, and use a VPN. The NSA can't stop you if you really want privacy. This is illegal in China, where every VPN must be state sponsored and monitored.
        • Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
          >In America See, that's what I'm trying to tell, What about 'Not in America'? Before I proceed further, I want to categorically state that I don't intend to come off as supporting privacy violations by one country vs another; My argument over this entire thread has been that it sucks for someone not in any of these countries as they all spy on us and it's taken for granted in this kind of discussions. That said, >use a VPN. The NSA can't stop you if you really want privacy. Because they have 'No logs' policy? Come on, don't be naive. Even the trillion dollar fruit company has been part of the program according to documents which hasn't been disputed. >This is illegal in China, where every VPN must be state sponsored and monitored. So you do agree that the Amercian VPN companies or any American company have double standards when it comes to China? Btw, almost every outsider in China installs a VPN to access content outside Great Firewall once they arrive, several U.S. services work without a VPN e.g. iMessage, Skype etc. I have heard of targeted deportation/arrests at airport, but never heard of random phone seizures at Airports.
• smsm42 6y ago
  > who illegally spied on Americans And this guy lied to Congress about it. And unlike plain folks who would have been prosecuted and jailed for this, he wasn't even indicted.
  • lern_too_spel 6y ago
    > And this guy lied to Congress about it. When? James Clapper is not one of Keith Alexander's aliases.
    • smsm42 6y ago
      There are multiple liars, unfortunately: https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/07/video-did-the-nsa-director-lie-to-congress/ https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2013/06/07/video-di... Also http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/nsa-director-alexander-admits-he-lied-about-phone-surveillance-stopping-54-terror-plots-131007 http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/nsa-director-alexan...
      • lern_too_spel 6y ago
        Your second link doesn't work. The first link shows some answers from Keith Alexander, but none of them were lies. It seems the author of the first article thought that PRISM is something different from what it was revealed to be.
        • smsm42 6y ago
          From the article: In an exchange from March 2012, Johnson had an opportunity to question NSA Director Keith Alexander about precisely the kind of concerns that the exposé of PRISM confirms — that the signals intel agency can spy on content coming through American Internet servers. I think it's pretty accurate description of what PRISM and other NSA programs allow NSA to do. Also: Alexander categorically denied more than once in this clip that NSA even had the capability to conduct surveillance in the manner Wired reported We now know not only they have the capability, they are actively using it. If claiming such capability does not exist is not a lie, then what it is?
• plandis 6y ago
  Amazon doesn’t own the Washington Post.
• swiley 6y ago
  It’s getting to the point where most people’s mental health would probably benefit from ignoring all this. It’s all very bad and will probably push you into coming up with crazy conspiracy theories.
• doktrin 6y ago
  > This sounds tinfoil hat crazy, but here we are. Not so crazy now. Nothing about Amazon hiring a former NSA director to its board is "tinfoil hat crazy". It's in fact perfectly rational, since Amazon is literally in the business of selling services to the federal government.
• coolgeek 6y ago
  > Man in a position to have reams of compromising intel on the current president hired by a man in an ongoing battle with the president. I want the NSA to know everything a US President does while in office. I want the NSA to know everything a candidate for US President does while they are running for office. The President of the US is not a regular citizen. The cost of being handed almost unlimited power is that you forfeit the assumption that you will use that power always and only to the benefit of the country. If Alexander has compromising intel on the current president there is only one man to blame for that - the man who put himself in compromising situations.
  • codethief 6y ago
    > I want the NSA to know everything a US President does while in office. I want the NSA to know everything a candidate for US President does while they are running for office. Neglecting the fact that, according to Snowden, they already have that power, are you aware what power this gives the intelligence community and, by implication, the sitting president over elections and up-and-coming presidential candidates? Yes, Donald Trump is dangerous. But this doesn't mean we should employ even more dangerous tactics to control him.
    • lern_too_spel 6y ago
      > according to Snowden, they already have that power That's an explosive claim. If Snowden knows that they have that power, why didn't he leak documents that show they do?