10 ms·

I hope those who treated me with scorn for suggesting the politicians and business people are effectively blackmailed by the mere existence of NSA type spying c

by alan_cx 13y ago

I hope those who treated me with scorn for suggesting the politicians and business people are effectively blackmailed by the mere existence of NSA type spying can now see it for real. No direct threat, not conversation, no deals. Just the fear of the knowledge that one is being comprehensively watched, and what "they" might have. This fear is enough to alter behavior, to conform. Again, at what stage can we describe the US and UK, and their co-conspirators as fascist, police state, oppressive, and so on? Or, do we have micro targeted oppression? Is that the modern way?

talmand 13y ago
This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.
- monsterix 13y ago
  Is there a way for people to initiate impeachment of Obama / get rid of scumbags from the Government given the number of lies and mess that's already out there? Like it or not but a lot of non-American users see these actions like a bid to take over the Internet. It is a sort of waging a war against the rest of the world. Treating ordinary citizens from outside America default as terrorists and subjecting 'em to round-the-clock surveillance is a gross violation of human rights. Why is the world silent on this? Why do I read 'only American citizens deserve privacy' in every piece of debate and discussion out there? IMO, a historic equivalent of this type of naked surveillance was when the Jews were stripped of their clothes under Nazi Germany (I know this sounds a bit over the top, but well it's not). The world needs to stop thinking that privacy is grant only to those who belong to certain nations. [Edit: Thank you for the negative votes. The statements hold true despite your lack of respect for opinions.]
  - hga 13y ago
    The remedies are the power of the purse, which won't necessarily be followed but which we are attempting and got very close in the first vote in the House, and/or impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, which is an inherently political act. In practice, as the political lay of the land is today, I'm not even sure Obama would be impeached and convicted if he were "caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy" (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards). Touching on the Jews in Europe before and during WWII, first they were stripped of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (e.g. see this in two months: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1598131621/ http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1...). As you may have heard, the US is going in the opposite direction outside of what we're taking to calling "slave states" like New York and Maryland, and probably California soon. We have options, please see here for previous discussion before you dismiss this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921
    - monsterix 13y ago
      Agreed. But since this is about catching everyone else in bed on the planet it gets far more serious than a ... say a Monica Lewinsky episode. I believe breach of privacy globally is a very serious offence and it should be measured as such. You and I bearing licensable firearms from the pop and mom stores is absolutely no parallel to the capability that the agencies possess. Strength of gun laws seems suspect in the era of drones, robotics and the goldmine of everyone's data and emotions.
      - hga 13y ago
        The Monica Lewinsky based impeachment that wasn't followed by a real trial in the Senate was about perjury, not catching someone in bed (if the latter it was the worst kept secret in US history, do a search on bimbo eruptions). We (used to) expect better from our Presidents. "licensable" firearms? I don't know what benighted jurisdiction you live in, but in mine we don't need no stinking licenses to buy or own them. We do need one to carry concealed (only a handful of states don't), but that's in part a different thing, but it still makes certain acts of terror more difficult and expensive. Please read the discussion I linked to which touches on that, and don't doubt for a second that the more forward thinking/paranoid or whatever members of the RKBA community aren't working through how to operate in an era of pervasive surveillance. As SF authors and readers have for decades and decades, I'm checking now and the first story I read on this theme was "The Hunting Lodge" by Randall Garret, first published in 1954 in Astounding, I read it in the early '70s in a superb 1968 Robert Silverberg collection Men and Machines. And pay attention to the maxim "Professionals discuss logistics".
        monsterix 13y ago
        > "licensable" firearms By that I meant arms that are available for sale on the market. Sorry, it didn't come off as accurately as I intended. Will definitely read up Men and Machines, next.
  - walid 13y ago
    True, the NSA doesn't respect the privacy of any non-American on the planet in bulk. This is more than just a privacy violation. Also the NSA might respect an Americans privacy if they are farther than three hops from a foreigner, kinda like saying they don't.
  - hyperventilator 13y ago
    If you think this is just an American problem you are deceiving yourself.
- a3n 13y ago
  The NSA "hoovers" information, but it doesn't refer to the vacuum cleaner anymore.
- hga 13y ago
  Ummm, no. I'm sure he didn't have files on my parents (well, perhaps aside from a pro-forma one on my father, who as an USNavy officer for 4 years in the '50s would I believe have gotten a Secret clearance as all officers do today), he had files on everyone "important". And e.g. the fruits of bugging Goldwater's campaign airplane, as ordered by LBJ. About the latter he said something to the effect of "If the President orders it...." There's a qualitative difference between "The government has its eye on 'important' people" and "The government is spying on every phone call everyone makes" etc. (the metatdata collection we're pretty sure is happening from the Snowden leaks which included a blanket writ for all of Verizon Businesses' metadata).
  - cbhl 13y ago
    I think the thing we need to consider is that they don't need to have explicit files per se on anybody anymore. It seems more likely that if a file was needed on you, they could generate one by simply typing some PII (say, a name and address) into a computer form, which then causes form letters to be sent mail merge style to credit agencies, retailers, telecoms, and major social networks requesting your information. Then, as the relevant data comes in, it gets added to an electronic folder to be accessed by whomever thinks they need access to it.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      For the most part it's true they could quickly generate a file, but they could have done that in 1998 as well (modulo the lack of things like Facebook at the time). Being able to instantly pull up email contents would certainly be different in scale and scope though!
      - cbhl 13y ago
        I doubt it; POP3 and SMTP are plaintext. Put a few wiretap in at major colos; build a few data centers, maintain a couple of essentially very large hashtables and it seems plausible that they could instantly pull up email contents. It'd be a bit bigger scale than GMail search or whatever corporations use for e-Discovery in Outlook, but it'd be plausible. Whether the government allocated budget to such a contraption is another matter; I think that would be a bigger concern than the technical plausibility of "store everyone's email for all time in perpetuity". I mean, if GMail was supposed to fulfill that vision (ha!) then it can't possibly be unreasonable for a determined government to build it.
- reitzensteinm 13y ago
  Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it private? Do you honestly expect them to fall on their sword for the good of the nation? Giving a shadowy group with essentially no oversight access to damn near every skeleton in the closet society has under the guise of "security" is analogous stuffing your house with munitions and trusting your kids not to play with matches.
  - MaysonL 13y ago
    Do you want the NSA or GCHQ knowing that your teenage daughter is pregnant before you do?
    - ynniv 13y ago
      I would certainly expect it if Target already does, but then this just highlights how pervasive the problem is. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...]
    - Torgo 13y ago
      The nude pictures she texted to her boyfriend are now part of her permanent file as well.
  - maaaats 13y ago
    Wow, good point. Never considered it that way, only my own personal reasons.
    - npsimons 13y ago
      It is interesting to reflect upon the phrase "I have nothing to hide". The first thing to note is that it is very selfish and self-centered: "I have nothing to hide". People who say the phrase don't seem to realize that other people may be doing perfectly harmless things in private that are illegal, or at least would get them ostracized. The second point about the phrase is it has an implicit timeframe: "I have nothing to hide right now". Those who say it regularly seem to lack any foresight (or memory of history) or imagination and can't seem to visualize a future in which they might (even unintetionally) do something which will put them on the bad side of the law. They also don't seem to consider the possibility that the prohibition against ex post facto laws could be suspended.
MartinMcGirk 13y ago
As a UK resident, I feel like I can speak to the question of whether we can describe the UK (I pass no judgement on the US) as oppressive or a police state, so here's my take on it. I don't necessarily agree that GCHQ or the NSA spying on UK subjects is a great idea, I don't like the idea that all of my communications are collected and available to analyse should I ever blow anything up or should someone in GCHQ take a disliking to me, but if I consider issue at hand, ie, do I feel oppressed or do I live under a police state, I'd say the answer is categorically no, I do not. I do not live in fear of the police kicking down my door because I voiced an anti-government view online. I do not believe that if I openly start supporting the wrong party I'll "disappear" as happens in other countries. I believe that elections in the UK are free and fair (for the most part) and I also believe that if a party came along that tried to turn the UK into the kind of country where those things were a reality then they would be sharply booted out of office. I also, incidentally, believe that if a party came along whose main policy was that they'd fiercely protect everyone's privacy they'd get precisely nowhere in the polls. Not because of any big conspiracy, but because people care more about their taxes and wheely bin collection rota's than about whether GCHQ knows who they email and why. Everyone I've spoken to on the subject already assumed they knew that anyway due to the fact that they are a spy agency. The tech-crowd's collective anger over the Snowden revelations isn't mirrored amongst the general population - at least in my experience. If it were, then no doubt things would change. That's how democracy works.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > I do not live in fear of the police kicking down my door because I voiced an anti-government view online. I do not believe that if I openly start supporting the wrong party I'll "disappear" as happens in other countries. I believe that elections in the UK are free and fair (for the most part) and I also believe that if a party came along that tried to turn the UK into the kind of country where those things were a reality then they would be sharply booted out of office. I was discussing this with some tech-minded friends on IRC the other day, and they pointed out the "chilling effect" you could get with massive surveillance. And I have to say I see their point. But after thinking about it some more I've realized that I've not once ever been scared to say something bad about the government (and yes, that's happened a lot). But I have been scared to discuss these topics with my friends, here on HN, etc. It's only a matter of time before I piss off the wrong hacker, so there is a "chilling effect" going on... it's just not the one all my friends are warning me about. :-/
anologwintermut 13y ago
While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. 1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or not accept tips except via public comments but still operate. 2)Most of the people Groklaw corresponds with don't need anonymity either. Those that do presumably know it and hence, will not correspond with them absent secure means (once made aware of the need for them) 3) Groklaw isn't an email service provider, it's a legal blog/online magazine. As such, likely none of the NSA's mechanisms for getting information from email providers apply. Compelling individuals to hand over their own correspondence is, as far as we know, hard. It can get worse with freedom of the press issues. So post a PGP key and say, if you really want anonymity, use this.(Edit) and use a mixnet or Pond, or something to send the message. PGP encrypted email from a new account just deals with the NSA's email intercept capability. If you are worried about their other abilities, you need something stronger then Tor since it fails for global passive adversary. Of course, that wouldn't get them publicity
- damarquis 13y ago
  "So post a PGP key and say, if you really want anonymity, use this." PGP only provides confidentiality, not anonymity. To get anonymity as well would require TOR.
  - anologwintermut 13y ago
    Yeah, I realized my mistake, but Tor is not very useful against the NSA since it doesn't protect against a global passive adversary.
- Joeri 13y ago
  Maybe you should not so easily judge an operation you know nothing about. I will assume until proven otherwise by sufficient insight into the groklaw project that pj is an honest agent who sincerely feels that what groklaw does cannot be done with the nsa snooping in place.
Joeri 13y ago
A different perspective is that we have never been as free as we are today, proven by the fact that we now know exactly to what degree we are not free, a luxury which is historically unique. Not saying that's the case, just that i think we have never had a truly free society ever anywhere.
samstave 13y ago
Oppression 2.0 - it is unevenly distributed.
- gosub 13y ago
  Misquoting William Gibson: "The fascism is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."
  - mpyne 13y ago
    In essence, that was David Simon's argument in favor of things like PRISM, (paraphrasing) 'Finally an equal-opportunity way for the Iron Boot of Law to be applied!'.
wonderyak 13y ago
It worked for Hoover and Nixon. We're on a continuum here. Its not like all of the sudden the government decided to start spying on its citizens.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Jones has shut down Groklaw before, in 2011. IT's her choice to make but I don't buy her reasoning, and I certainly don't think it supports your claim of blackmail. Again, at what stage can we describe the US and UK, and their co-conspirators as fascist, police state, oppressive, and so on? Well, don't let me stop you since you're obviously aching to do so to bring some excitement into your life. I stand by my opposing view that people today generally enjoy far more freedom than in the past, even as recently as in the cold war.
dylangs1030 13y ago
Look in a textbook at the definitions of "fascist" and "police state" - then read about Hitler's Germany (fascism) and the Cold War KGB (police state). You could even read about Stalin too. Then you'll know at what point we can call the United States and the United Kingdom fascist and police states.
mabhatter 13y ago
I would put money that PJ was hacked illegally by large corporations long before the NSA took an interest in her. And that the government knew all about it. She mentions her apartment being broken into... That was almost certainly the work of powers she irked. In fact PJ is probably the ONE person they have investigated and CHOSE not to bother. She probably had several illegal taps on her stuff way back when she started...this has been gearing up almost as long as Groklaw has been in business and we all "knew" about it, just didn't believe it. The only thing worse than speaking out against the government is speaking out against companies... And she's been doing that for years.

by alan_cx 13y ago

talmand 13y ago

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

monsterix 13y ago
Is there a way for people to initiate impeachment of Obama / get rid of scumbags from the Government given the number of lies and mess that's already out there? Like it or not but a lot of non-American users see these actions like a bid to take over the Internet. It is a sort of waging a war against the rest of the world. Treating ordinary citizens from outside America default as terrorists and subjecting 'em to round-the-clock surveillance is a gross violation of human rights. Why is the world silent on this? Why do I read 'only American citizens deserve privacy' in every piece of debate and discussion out there? IMO, a historic equivalent of this type of naked surveillance was when the Jews were stripped of their clothes under Nazi Germany (I know this sounds a bit over the top, but well it's not). The world needs to stop thinking that privacy is grant only to those who belong to certain nations. [Edit: Thank you for the negative votes. The statements hold true despite your lack of respect for opinions.]
- hga 13y ago
  The remedies are the power of the purse, which won't necessarily be followed but which we are attempting and got very close in the first vote in the House, and/or impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, which is an inherently political act. In practice, as the political lay of the land is today, I'm not even sure Obama would be impeached and convicted if he were "caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy" (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards). Touching on the Jews in Europe before and during WWII, first they were stripped of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (e.g. see this in two months: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1598131621/ http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1...). As you may have heard, the US is going in the opposite direction outside of what we're taking to calling "slave states" like New York and Maryland, and probably California soon. We have options, please see here for previous discussion before you dismiss this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921
  - monsterix 13y ago
    Agreed. But since this is about catching everyone else in bed on the planet it gets far more serious than a ... say a Monica Lewinsky episode. I believe breach of privacy globally is a very serious offence and it should be measured as such. You and I bearing licensable firearms from the pop and mom stores is absolutely no parallel to the capability that the agencies possess. Strength of gun laws seems suspect in the era of drones, robotics and the goldmine of everyone's data and emotions.
    - hga 13y ago
      The Monica Lewinsky based impeachment that wasn't followed by a real trial in the Senate was about perjury, not catching someone in bed (if the latter it was the worst kept secret in US history, do a search on bimbo eruptions). We (used to) expect better from our Presidents. "licensable" firearms? I don't know what benighted jurisdiction you live in, but in mine we don't need no stinking licenses to buy or own them. We do need one to carry concealed (only a handful of states don't), but that's in part a different thing, but it still makes certain acts of terror more difficult and expensive. Please read the discussion I linked to which touches on that, and don't doubt for a second that the more forward thinking/paranoid or whatever members of the RKBA community aren't working through how to operate in an era of pervasive surveillance. As SF authors and readers have for decades and decades, I'm checking now and the first story I read on this theme was "The Hunting Lodge" by Randall Garret, first published in 1954 in Astounding, I read it in the early '70s in a superb 1968 Robert Silverberg collection Men and Machines. And pay attention to the maxim "Professionals discuss logistics".
      - monsterix 13y ago
        > "licensable" firearms By that I meant arms that are available for sale on the market. Sorry, it didn't come off as accurately as I intended. Will definitely read up Men and Machines, next.
- walid 13y ago
  True, the NSA doesn't respect the privacy of any non-American on the planet in bulk. This is more than just a privacy violation. Also the NSA might respect an Americans privacy if they are farther than three hops from a foreigner, kinda like saying they don't.
- hyperventilator 13y ago
  If you think this is just an American problem you are deceiving yourself.
a3n 13y ago
The NSA "hoovers" information, but it doesn't refer to the vacuum cleaner anymore.
hga 13y ago
Ummm, no. I'm sure he didn't have files on my parents (well, perhaps aside from a pro-forma one on my father, who as an USNavy officer for 4 years in the '50s would I believe have gotten a Secret clearance as all officers do today), he had files on everyone "important". And e.g. the fruits of bugging Goldwater's campaign airplane, as ordered by LBJ. About the latter he said something to the effect of "If the President orders it...." There's a qualitative difference between "The government has its eye on 'important' people" and "The government is spying on every phone call everyone makes" etc. (the metatdata collection we're pretty sure is happening from the Snowden leaks which included a blanket writ for all of Verizon Businesses' metadata).
- cbhl 13y ago
  I think the thing we need to consider is that they don't need to have explicit files per se on anybody anymore. It seems more likely that if a file was needed on you, they could generate one by simply typing some PII (say, a name and address) into a computer form, which then causes form letters to be sent mail merge style to credit agencies, retailers, telecoms, and major social networks requesting your information. Then, as the relevant data comes in, it gets added to an electronic folder to be accessed by whomever thinks they need access to it.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    For the most part it's true they could quickly generate a file, but they could have done that in 1998 as well (modulo the lack of things like Facebook at the time). Being able to instantly pull up email contents would certainly be different in scale and scope though!
    - cbhl 13y ago
      I doubt it; POP3 and SMTP are plaintext. Put a few wiretap in at major colos; build a few data centers, maintain a couple of essentially very large hashtables and it seems plausible that they could instantly pull up email contents. It'd be a bit bigger scale than GMail search or whatever corporations use for e-Discovery in Outlook, but it'd be plausible. Whether the government allocated budget to such a contraption is another matter; I think that would be a bigger concern than the technical plausibility of "store everyone's email for all time in perpetuity". I mean, if GMail was supposed to fulfill that vision (ha!) then it can't possibly be unreasonable for a determined government to build it.
reitzensteinm 13y ago
Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it private? Do you honestly expect them to fall on their sword for the good of the nation? Giving a shadowy group with essentially no oversight access to damn near every skeleton in the closet society has under the guise of "security" is analogous stuffing your house with munitions and trusting your kids not to play with matches.
- MaysonL 13y ago
  Do you want the NSA or GCHQ knowing that your teenage daughter is pregnant before you do?
  - ynniv 13y ago
    I would certainly expect it if Target already does, but then this just highlights how pervasive the problem is. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...]
  - Torgo 13y ago
    The nude pictures she texted to her boyfriend are now part of her permanent file as well.
- maaaats 13y ago
  Wow, good point. Never considered it that way, only my own personal reasons.
  - npsimons 13y ago
    It is interesting to reflect upon the phrase "I have nothing to hide". The first thing to note is that it is very selfish and self-centered: "I have nothing to hide". People who say the phrase don't seem to realize that other people may be doing perfectly harmless things in private that are illegal, or at least would get them ostracized. The second point about the phrase is it has an implicit timeframe: "I have nothing to hide right now". Those who say it regularly seem to lack any foresight (or memory of history) or imagination and can't seem to visualize a future in which they might (even unintetionally) do something which will put them on the bad side of the law. They also don't seem to consider the possibility that the prohibition against ex post facto laws could be suspended.

MartinMcGirk 13y ago

As a UK resident, I feel like I can speak to the question of whether we can describe the UK (I pass no judgement on the US) as oppressive or a police state, so here's my take on it. I don't necessarily agree that GCHQ or the NSA spying on UK subjects is a great idea, I don't like the idea that all of my communications are collected and available to analyse should I ever blow anything up or should someone in GCHQ take a disliking to me, but if I consider issue at hand, ie, do I feel oppressed or do I live under a police state, I'd say the answer is categorically no, I do not. I do not live in fear of the police kicking down my door because I voiced an anti-government view online. I do not believe that if I openly start supporting the wrong party I'll "disappear" as happens in other countries. I believe that elections in the UK are free and fair (for the most part) and I also believe that if a party came along that tried to turn the UK into the kind of country where those things were a reality then they would be sharply booted out of office. I also, incidentally, believe that if a party came along whose main policy was that they'd fiercely protect everyone's privacy they'd get precisely nowhere in the polls. Not because of any big conspiracy, but because people care more about their taxes and wheely bin collection rota's than about whether GCHQ knows who they email and why. Everyone I've spoken to on the subject already assumed they knew that anyway due to the fact that they are a spy agency. The tech-crowd's collective anger over the Snowden revelations isn't mirrored amongst the general population - at least in my experience. If it were, then no doubt things would change. That's how democracy works.

mpyne 13y ago
> I do not live in fear of the police kicking down my door because I voiced an anti-government view online. I do not believe that if I openly start supporting the wrong party I'll "disappear" as happens in other countries. I believe that elections in the UK are free and fair (for the most part) and I also believe that if a party came along that tried to turn the UK into the kind of country where those things were a reality then they would be sharply booted out of office. I was discussing this with some tech-minded friends on IRC the other day, and they pointed out the "chilling effect" you could get with massive surveillance. And I have to say I see their point. But after thinking about it some more I've realized that I've not once ever been scared to say something bad about the government (and yes, that's happened a lot). But I have been scared to discuss these topics with my friends, here on HN, etc. It's only a matter of time before I piss off the wrong hacker, so there is a "chilling effect" going on... it's just not the one all my friends are warning me about. :-/

anologwintermut 13y ago

While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. 1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or not accept tips except via public comments but still operate. 2)Most of the people Groklaw corresponds with don't need anonymity either. Those that do presumably know it and hence, will not correspond with them absent secure means (once made aware of the need for them) 3) Groklaw isn't an email service provider, it's a legal blog/online magazine. As such, likely none of the NSA's mechanisms for getting information from email providers apply. Compelling individuals to hand over their own correspondence is, as far as we know, hard. It can get worse with freedom of the press issues. So post a PGP key and say, if you really want anonymity, use this.(Edit) and use a mixnet or Pond, or something to send the message. PGP encrypted email from a new account just deals with the NSA's email intercept capability. If you are worried about their other abilities, you need something stronger then Tor since it fails for global passive adversary. Of course, that wouldn't get them publicity

damarquis 13y ago
"So post a PGP key and say, if you really want anonymity, use this." PGP only provides confidentiality, not anonymity. To get anonymity as well would require TOR.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  Yeah, I realized my mistake, but Tor is not very useful against the NSA since it doesn't protect against a global passive adversary.
Joeri 13y ago
Maybe you should not so easily judge an operation you know nothing about. I will assume until proven otherwise by sufficient insight into the groklaw project that pj is an honest agent who sincerely feels that what groklaw does cannot be done with the nsa snooping in place.

Joeri 13y ago

A different perspective is that we have never been as free as we are today, proven by the fact that we now know exactly to what degree we are not free, a luxury which is historically unique. Not saying that's the case, just that i think we have never had a truly free society ever anywhere.

samstave 13y ago

Oppression 2.0 - it is unevenly distributed.

gosub 13y ago
Misquoting William Gibson: "The fascism is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."
- mpyne 13y ago
  In essence, that was David Simon's argument in favor of things like PRISM, (paraphrasing) 'Finally an equal-opportunity way for the Iron Boot of Law to be applied!'.

wonderyak 13y ago

It worked for Hoover and Nixon. We're on a continuum here. Its not like all of the sudden the government decided to start spying on its citizens.

anigbrowl 13y ago

Jones has shut down Groklaw before, in 2011. IT's her choice to make but I don't buy her reasoning, and I certainly don't think it supports your claim of blackmail. Again, at what stage can we describe the US and UK, and their co-conspirators as fascist, police state, oppressive, and so on? Well, don't let me stop you since you're obviously aching to do so to bring some excitement into your life. I stand by my opposing view that people today generally enjoy far more freedom than in the past, even as recently as in the cold war.

dylangs1030 13y ago

Look in a textbook at the definitions of "fascist" and "police state" - then read about Hitler's Germany (fascism) and the Cold War KGB (police state). You could even read about Stalin too. Then you'll know at what point we can call the United States and the United Kingdom fascist and police states.

mabhatter 13y ago

I would put money that PJ was hacked illegally by large corporations long before the NSA took an interest in her. And that the government knew all about it. She mentions her apartment being broken into... That was almost certainly the work of powers she irked. In fact PJ is probably the ONE person they have investigated and CHOSE not to bother. She probably had several illegal taps on her stuff way back when she started...this has been gearing up almost as long as Groklaw has been in business and we all "knew" about it, just didn't believe it. The only thing worse than speaking out against the government is speaking out against companies... And she's been doing that for years.