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Russia to monitor 'all communications' at Winter Olympics in Sochi

89 points by Libertatea 13y ago

devx 13y ago
When you've already built the infrastructure for mass spying, it's very easy to find excuses and opportunities for using it. It's too irresistible for the government not to use it.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
Pity if it will be blown to pieces by bearded men with dumb phones and no Internet connection.
- 0003 13y ago
  Raskolniks?
teddyh 13y ago
№ 2: It doesn’t matter which side runs the village. № 6: It’s run by one side or the other? № 2: Oh, certainly. But both sides are becoming identical. What, in fact, has been created, is an international community – a perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides, facing each other, suddenly realize that they are looking into a mirror, they will see that this is the pattern for the future. № 6: The whole Earth, as the village? № 2: That is my hope. What’s yours? № 6: I’d like to be the first man on the moon. — № 2 & № 6, The Prisoner, The Chimes of Big Ben, 1967
frank_boyd 13y ago
If our "democracies" were sane, we'd cancel or at least boycott these games. And there lies the problem now: Since the US together with the EU have become too corrupt, there is no one left to guard the moral high ground. The conclusion would be that this misery is now the new standard - unless we begin to act.
- generj 13y ago
  I don't know - our escalating tensions with Russia - not to mention our recent diplomatic defeat with Syria (causing Russia to come out smelling like roses) - might cause the US to abortively try some limited action. Of course, Putin will rightfully call us out on our hypocrisy, and that will be that. Ultimately the IOCC should do a better job of picking host countries in the first place, but they are more hopelessly corrupt than almost any other organization in the world.
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    Actually I don't see how Russia won that one. As far as I am concerned, the weapons would still have been there if the US hadn't threatened war.
    - generj 13y ago
      It's a matter of international and domestic perception, not actual reality. Internationally Putin is seen as having struck a blow against American imperialism. It's clear Obama wasn't anticipating Russia to helpfully offer a way out of his "red line".
      - afterburner 13y ago
        But they did, and it's what Obama and the American people wanted (stay out of Syria, nullify their chemical weapons), so how is that a diplomatic defeat when the US President and people get exactly what they wanted? And simultaneously with Iran warming relations with the US even. Perhaps you were hoping for the US to totally and completely control the entire process, and be able to take all credit? Seems a little greedy in the context of a diplomatic negotiation.
- znowi 13y ago
  I may be missing something, but why would one boycott the Sochi Olympics?
  - 13y ago
qwerta 13y ago
So what? London Olympics were tapped as well. At G20 summit in 2009 GCHQ even spied on foreign diplomats by hacking their devices and setting up fake internet cafes.
- devx 13y ago
  Just because your neighbor murders someone, doesn't mean you should, too.
  - pekk 13y ago
    Folks, monitoring communications is literally murder!
    - summerdown2 13y ago
      Surely you can see it's only an analogy? No-one is saying it's literally murder. In this case, the comment is really saying: a) The parent comment suggests it's ok because other people do it. b) The argument that things are ok because the other side does it is not a valid one however. c) Take murder, for instance. If one side commited murder, no-one would consider it's ok for everyone to. d) Hence, by analogy, the argument is incorrect. I'm sorry for having to write this out, but this line of misreading does frustrate me. Surely it's possible to read subtext in people's writing, and not jump only to the literal meaning?
- danenania 13y ago
  I think that as with the latest NSA stuff, it's the ubiquitous and wholesale nature of it that really changes the game. Before, everyone knew that spying was happening here and there, but as an ordinary, politically uninteresting person, you could (perhaps naively) pretty much assume it wouldn't affect you. But we are rapidly reaching a stage where intense surveillance is close to guaranteed on everyone, and the potential for abuse is much greater. "Ordinary" people going to Russia to watch to the Olympics won't just have to worry about being targeted for political reasons, they'll have to worry about their business communications, financial information, having details of their sexual life leaked and then being confronted by a brutal mob, reaching a position of power and being blackmailed in the future, etc. In the past, Western countries could have protested in some way about behavior such as this and perhaps used their leverage to make changes, but now it appears that this tyrannical approach to human rights is becoming standardized.
znowi 13y ago
The article is of the usual "evil Ruskies" overtone. I won't get into the hypocrisy and exaggeration of it, but will say that the threat of a terrorist attack during the Olympics is very real. For one, look at the map [1]. It's in the immediate proximity of two known battle grounds - Chechnya and Georgia. The terrain is mountainous with a lot of hideouts. It's been routinely used as a pass for insurgents. And there have been numerous claims from various terrorist groups to shed blood in Sochi during the games. Given the background of the area, I'm not surprised of the heightened security measures. Which are still, in contrast with the US surveillance capabilities are fairly mild. http://goo.gl/VUmQx9 http://goo.gl/VUmQx9
BonoboBoner 13y ago
And here we are no longer able to point the finger at the practices of the 'evil communists'.
- tptacek 13y ago
  How does one even respond to a comment like this? Do we say, "of course we can still point a finger" and accept the premise that the Russians are "evil communists"? Or do shrug and accept the premise that the US and the Russian government, which runs a sideline business in murdering inconveniently critical journalists, are somehow morally equivalent?
  - willvarfar 13y ago
    You'll be surprised how many educated Europeans think, what with Gitmo and the war in Iraq and so on, that the US and Russia are morally equivalent. I expect the same is true in much of the rest of the world too. But as a European, I can say the sentiment is widespread here.
    - stevo111 13y ago
      Journalist Michael Hastings dead after telling his friends that he has a big story on CIA director and he needs to lay low for a while as FBI is "onto him". How about that western word? None of those "putin journo killings" has never been proven to have any links to Putin. All these anti-Russian accusations are moral equivalents of people claiming that US government killed Michael Hastings. So please - STFU.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        Thankfully, the notion that Hastings was somehow killed by having his car remote-controlled by the CIA has largely become the province of Infowars.com. When the Russian government has someone killed, they don't die in a mysterious accident. They're gunned down, when they're lucky. When they're not, they die an agonizing death after being subtly and fatally poisoned by radioactive isotopes.
plg 13y ago
that's what you think
return0 13y ago
They won't be the only ones...
hugh4life 13y ago
I pushed Ctrl + F "Boston" on both the article page and here... found no results... looked for "Chechen"... aaahhh... http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27688647 http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27688647
kutakbash 13y ago
Why on Earth do they need to tap athletes? Mr. Putin heard about NSA and thought Russia needs some surveillance as well to look cool?
stratosvoukel 13y ago
Uhm... you people know that Russia has already been violating a whole bunch of human rights, quite publicly, right? (eg. LGBT rights, freedom of expression in general etc). This seems like the tip of a really evil iceberg. Sochi games deserve to be boycotted because Putin's politics are an antithesis to the olympic ideals (and this is quite tiny in comparison to what is happening there ...).
- tptacek 13y ago
  You're sort of missing the point of the Olympic Games if you think countries should be using boycotts of them as a vehicle for public policy. Part of the premise of the games is that the participating countries disagree, sometimes violently, and yet we have the games peacefully anyways.
  - yequalsx 13y ago
    Perhaps that is the point of the games from the original organizers' perspective but it certainly isn't the true goal of the present organizers. I do not share your view and consider it fine for someone to advocate for a boycott. If the games were to be held in North Korea then this would be morally reprehensible in my view. Such an evil regime should not be rewarded with hosting them. Russia does not rise to the level of barbarity of North Korea, clearly. But I think a compelling argument can be made that it is morally wrong to hold them in Russia (and the U.S. too).
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Weren't there games held in Nazi Germany?
      - yequalsx 13y ago
        I don't understand the point of your question. Can you elaborate? It is certainly true that the games were held in Nazi Germany. I don't know what pointing this out has to do with whether or not it can be morally wrong to hold the games in a country with a sufficient level of human rights abuses. Clearly my position is that holding them in Nazi Germany was morally wrong. That organizers made bad choices in the past does not negate my position or diminish my point.
bsullivan01 13y ago
+1 for honesty. It's not it wasn't an open secret anyway
lttlrck 13y ago
It's SORM, not Sorm. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM

89 points by Libertatea 13y ago

devx 13y ago

When you've already built the infrastructure for mass spying, it's very easy to find excuses and opportunities for using it. It's too irresistible for the government not to use it.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Pity if it will be blown to pieces by bearded men with dumb phones and no Internet connection.

0003 13y ago
Raskolniks?

teddyh 13y ago

№ 2: It doesn’t matter which side runs the village. № 6: It’s run by one side or the other? № 2: Oh, certainly. But both sides are becoming identical. What, in fact, has been created, is an international community – a perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides, facing each other, suddenly realize that they are looking into a mirror, they will see that this is the pattern for the future. № 6: The whole Earth, as the village? № 2: That is my hope. What’s yours? № 6: I’d like to be the first man on the moon. — № 2 & № 6, The Prisoner, The Chimes of Big Ben, 1967

frank_boyd 13y ago

If our "democracies" were sane, we'd cancel or at least boycott these games. And there lies the problem now: Since the US together with the EU have become too corrupt, there is no one left to guard the moral high ground. The conclusion would be that this misery is now the new standard - unless we begin to act.

generj 13y ago
I don't know - our escalating tensions with Russia - not to mention our recent diplomatic defeat with Syria (causing Russia to come out smelling like roses) - might cause the US to abortively try some limited action. Of course, Putin will rightfully call us out on our hypocrisy, and that will be that. Ultimately the IOCC should do a better job of picking host countries in the first place, but they are more hopelessly corrupt than almost any other organization in the world.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Actually I don't see how Russia won that one. As far as I am concerned, the weapons would still have been there if the US hadn't threatened war.
  - generj 13y ago
    It's a matter of international and domestic perception, not actual reality. Internationally Putin is seen as having struck a blow against American imperialism. It's clear Obama wasn't anticipating Russia to helpfully offer a way out of his "red line".
    - afterburner 13y ago
      But they did, and it's what Obama and the American people wanted (stay out of Syria, nullify their chemical weapons), so how is that a diplomatic defeat when the US President and people get exactly what they wanted? And simultaneously with Iran warming relations with the US even. Perhaps you were hoping for the US to totally and completely control the entire process, and be able to take all credit? Seems a little greedy in the context of a diplomatic negotiation.
znowi 13y ago
I may be missing something, but why would one boycott the Sochi Olympics?
- 13y ago

qwerta 13y ago

So what? London Olympics were tapped as well. At G20 summit in 2009 GCHQ even spied on foreign diplomats by hacking their devices and setting up fake internet cafes.

devx 13y ago
Just because your neighbor murders someone, doesn't mean you should, too.
- pekk 13y ago
  Folks, monitoring communications is literally murder!
  - summerdown2 13y ago
    Surely you can see it's only an analogy? No-one is saying it's literally murder. In this case, the comment is really saying: a) The parent comment suggests it's ok because other people do it. b) The argument that things are ok because the other side does it is not a valid one however. c) Take murder, for instance. If one side commited murder, no-one would consider it's ok for everyone to. d) Hence, by analogy, the argument is incorrect. I'm sorry for having to write this out, but this line of misreading does frustrate me. Surely it's possible to read subtext in people's writing, and not jump only to the literal meaning?
danenania 13y ago
I think that as with the latest NSA stuff, it's the ubiquitous and wholesale nature of it that really changes the game. Before, everyone knew that spying was happening here and there, but as an ordinary, politically uninteresting person, you could (perhaps naively) pretty much assume it wouldn't affect you. But we are rapidly reaching a stage where intense surveillance is close to guaranteed on everyone, and the potential for abuse is much greater. "Ordinary" people going to Russia to watch to the Olympics won't just have to worry about being targeted for political reasons, they'll have to worry about their business communications, financial information, having details of their sexual life leaked and then being confronted by a brutal mob, reaching a position of power and being blackmailed in the future, etc. In the past, Western countries could have protested in some way about behavior such as this and perhaps used their leverage to make changes, but now it appears that this tyrannical approach to human rights is becoming standardized.

znowi 13y ago

The article is of the usual "evil Ruskies" overtone. I won't get into the hypocrisy and exaggeration of it, but will say that the threat of a terrorist attack during the Olympics is very real. For one, look at the map [1]. It's in the immediate proximity of two known battle grounds - Chechnya and Georgia. The terrain is mountainous with a lot of hideouts. It's been routinely used as a pass for insurgents. And there have been numerous claims from various terrorist groups to shed blood in Sochi during the games. Given the background of the area, I'm not surprised of the heightened security measures. Which are still, in contrast with the US surveillance capabilities are fairly mild. http://goo.gl/VUmQx9 http://goo.gl/VUmQx9

BonoboBoner 13y ago

And here we are no longer able to point the finger at the practices of the 'evil communists'.

tptacek 13y ago
How does one even respond to a comment like this? Do we say, "of course we can still point a finger" and accept the premise that the Russians are "evil communists"? Or do shrug and accept the premise that the US and the Russian government, which runs a sideline business in murdering inconveniently critical journalists, are somehow morally equivalent?
- willvarfar 13y ago
  You'll be surprised how many educated Europeans think, what with Gitmo and the war in Iraq and so on, that the US and Russia are morally equivalent. I expect the same is true in much of the rest of the world too. But as a European, I can say the sentiment is widespread here.
  - stevo111 13y ago
    Journalist Michael Hastings dead after telling his friends that he has a big story on CIA director and he needs to lay low for a while as FBI is "onto him". How about that western word? None of those "putin journo killings" has never been proven to have any links to Putin. All these anti-Russian accusations are moral equivalents of people claiming that US government killed Michael Hastings. So please - STFU.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Thankfully, the notion that Hastings was somehow killed by having his car remote-controlled by the CIA has largely become the province of Infowars.com. When the Russian government has someone killed, they don't die in a mysterious accident. They're gunned down, when they're lucky. When they're not, they die an agonizing death after being subtly and fatally poisoned by radioactive isotopes.

plg 13y ago

that's what you think

return0 13y ago

They won't be the only ones...

hugh4life 13y ago

I pushed Ctrl + F "Boston" on both the article page and here... found no results... looked for "Chechen"... aaahhh... http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27688647 http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/27688647

kutakbash 13y ago

Why on Earth do they need to tap athletes? Mr. Putin heard about NSA and thought Russia needs some surveillance as well to look cool?

stratosvoukel 13y ago

Uhm... you people know that Russia has already been violating a whole bunch of human rights, quite publicly, right? (eg. LGBT rights, freedom of expression in general etc). This seems like the tip of a really evil iceberg. Sochi games deserve to be boycotted because Putin's politics are an antithesis to the olympic ideals (and this is quite tiny in comparison to what is happening there ...).

tptacek 13y ago
You're sort of missing the point of the Olympic Games if you think countries should be using boycotts of them as a vehicle for public policy. Part of the premise of the games is that the participating countries disagree, sometimes violently, and yet we have the games peacefully anyways.
- yequalsx 13y ago
  Perhaps that is the point of the games from the original organizers' perspective but it certainly isn't the true goal of the present organizers. I do not share your view and consider it fine for someone to advocate for a boycott. If the games were to be held in North Korea then this would be morally reprehensible in my view. Such an evil regime should not be rewarded with hosting them. Russia does not rise to the level of barbarity of North Korea, clearly. But I think a compelling argument can be made that it is morally wrong to hold them in Russia (and the U.S. too).
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Weren't there games held in Nazi Germany?
    - yequalsx 13y ago
      I don't understand the point of your question. Can you elaborate? It is certainly true that the games were held in Nazi Germany. I don't know what pointing this out has to do with whether or not it can be morally wrong to hold the games in a country with a sufficient level of human rights abuses. Clearly my position is that holding them in Nazi Germany was morally wrong. That organizers made bad choices in the past does not negate my position or diminish my point.

bsullivan01 13y ago

+1 for honesty. It's not it wasn't an open secret anyway

lttlrck 13y ago

It's SORM, not Sorm. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM