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The fact that Clapper is still in office months after it was revealed that he had in point of fact lied to congress during sworn testimony should tell you every

by olefoo 13y ago

The fact that Clapper is still in office months after it was revealed that he had in point of fact lied to congress during sworn testimony should tell you everything you need to know. The surveillance machinery formerly known as Total Information Awareness is being built and fielded with or without the consent of the governed and most definitely without the consent of those of us who don't happen to be "US Persons". The only solution is for you to demand your correspondents use strong encryption and for all of us to help the less technically adept to reach the point where that is not an obstacle.

rrich 13y ago
For me, this is probably the most worrisome evidence of the current state of the government. I know FDR said there is nothing to fear but fear itself, but I fear nothing more than the wizard of oz, and I fear the wizard and NSA are one and the same. Back to programming this stuff scares the crap out of me.
- e12e 13y ago
  To further fan the embers of your fear, please enjoy: [edit: title of link "Logo of New NRO Spy Satellite: An Octopus Engulfing the World with the Words “Nothing is Beyond Our Reach” Underneath"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-logo-octopus-engulfing-world-words-nothing-beyond-reach-underneath/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-... and: ["Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinister-psyops-mission-patches/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinist... I find it interesting (and sad) how the last few months have shifted my perspective on Bruce Sterling's "Zenith Angle" from leaning more towards satire, to leaning more towards hard sci-fi/telling the "truth" with fiction.
  - pekk 13y ago
    The thread about that patch discussed how typical it is to have crazy over-the-top patches, it's not new at all
    - e12e 13y ago
      I wasn't aware there was a tread on the satellite patch on hn, but seeing how it was featured on Ars Technica, I'm not surprised: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6880117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6880117 The second link is based on a book from 2007 that used FOIA requests to be able to study the patches, so part of the point is that it's nothing new... Anyway, I don't fall into the camp that takes the patches very seriously -- in general, anything a covert organization/project projects about itself is bound to be either propaganda or misinformation.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > this stuff scares the crap out of me. I used to live in the ex Soviet Union. Yeah, it was a time when things were thawing out, and people had stopped disappearing. One thing that was still there, that I remember, was a persistent fear of the state. Not acute, but kind of like a dull pain -- in the background, you feel it, and are aware of it. Jokes in private were made about the party and government, inefficiency and corruption. One had to be careful not too say too much in public, or they might find themselves without a job, or maybe worse. With the recent NSA revelation, I am feeling the same kind of fear. I don't think they'll knock on my door later tonight. But instead I think about "should I post this comment?". Does it mean I will be put an a no-fly list? What if they mis-interpret my joke and then I can't get a job on a project because they'll read this joke 15 years later to me taken out of context? I would got to a protest to DC, but hmm, facial recognition will probably shove my image another another black list. Does that mean constant IRS audits from then on? Stuff like that. It is not a fake fear, it is there. People engage in self-censorship already. I do it.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    > I would got to a protest to DC, but hmm, facial recognition The GPS radio/cellular radio are used to find and pinpoint protester identities, at least momentarily. It is an eventuality that local police departments get such devices for $30K, but right now they cost an order of magnitude higher and it's not quite plug-and-play.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      That is a pretty interesting point. Though, this is DC we're talking about, so local PD probably has attachés from all sorts of 3 letter agencies and access to gear for limited times (with oversight, most likely). Protests that are organized, so far, seem to give ample notice (as far as broadcasting to people) as to when they will occur so coordination probably isn't that hard (and because events take place all the time in DC that probably require such efforts that aren't protests). Though thinking about this makes me wonder: what types of things we'll see evolve to counteract this type of surveillance, and I'll extend, that are available now to some degree? I keep thinking back to ideas of generating noise, and I wonder what that could potentially look like, what the catalyst for demand for that type of hardware/software would be, and the incentives for the makers of it.
aagha 13y ago
Fully agreed. What's sadder is that Congress doesn't seem to have demanded anything be done to punish him.
- olefoo 13y ago
  Not entirely true: Sensenbrenner (R, author of PATRIOT act) http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/12/09/sensenbrenner-clapper-should-be-prosecuted-lying-congress http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/12/09/sensenbrenner-clapper-s... did come out on the side of prosecution. So far he is the only one.
zw123456 13y ago
Just my intuition, but I just saw the 60 minutes piece on the NSA and the General Alexander scares the putties out of me. Something is very very wrong here.
res0nat0r 13y ago
Him lying to Congress actually isn't that black and white. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intel-dir-james-clapper-lie-congress-complicated/story?id=19390786 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intel-dir-james-clapper-lie-c...
- reginaldjcooper 13y ago
  If you specifically choose definitions of words that don't agree with the typical usage and act like those were the definitions that were used when you were asked a question, you are, in fact, a big fat liar.
- jgg 13y ago
  Clapper said, "No" and "not wittingly." That mind-rotting article you linked to is one guy speculating that he was put on the spot and had to say something in order to not confirm that they were openly spying on people...WHAT? Everything we have seen makes it clear that they are spying on Americans and they obviously know they are doing it. Clapper's answer was thus a LIE. He was asked a question and gave an answer he knew was wrong. HE LIED. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF LYING. I wish someone around here would ante up and starting banning the shills.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Stop saying shills, this isn't Reddit. Critical thinking about issues here is appreciated. Everything unfortunately related to the NSA isn't cut and dry, black or white. You really must not have understood the article, as it mentions testifying about top secret programs is not a simple task.
    - jgg 13y ago
      Reddit didn't invent the word "shill." I understood the article just fine! Did you? I don't care what his job is - he still lied! The internal logic of that piece is, "if he didn't deny it, people would think it was true!" The NSA was doing it anyway, so that makes fuck-all difference, now doesn't it?
grugq 13y ago
It is incredibly simple politics. He is in place to continue to soak up the bad publicity from the Snowden event. Once the bad publicity stops, he will step down. There is no point, politically, of taking him out right now. His replacement will end up tarnished with the bad PR as he starts his gig. http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm The NSA is unable to do a thorough damage assessment -- they don't know how which documents Snowden took. Greenwald is drip feeding the world press "stories" which can go on for an indeterminate amount of time (see "no damage assessment"). Only viable option is to keep Clapper in place until Greenwald et al. have exhausted their supply of new scandals. If, for example, Snowden had gone all Wikileaks and dumped the whole lot of files at once, Clapper would have been gone months ago.
- leokun 13y ago
  That actually makes a lot of sense. At some point he just may get tired of it. How much abuse can one person take.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  It is incredibly simple politics. He is in place to continue to soak up the bad publicity from the Snowden event. Once the bad publicity stops, he will step down. There is no point, politically, of taking him out right now. His replacement will end up tarnished with the bad PR as he starts his gig. That is the usual way this goes. But we don't yet have the data to determine whether this is what's happening. The situation may just be an indication that the NSA has joined the old Ma Bell and Italy's Berlusconi in being able to say "we don't care, we don't have to"
- olefoo 13y ago
  You are most likely correct. It seems as though the Intelligence Community is being forced back to 'siloing' since the pooled resource approach seems to be so vulnerable to singleton conscience-ridden whistleblowers. In a way this plays right into Assange's analysis of the cognitive structure of rule by conspiracy in that an organization can know things, but cannot both discuss them internally and keep them secret at the same time. In effect an attack that requires internal barriers to communication to prevent; is also an attack on the organizations overall cognitive ability.

by olefoo 13y ago

rrich 13y ago

For me, this is probably the most worrisome evidence of the current state of the government. I know FDR said there is nothing to fear but fear itself, but I fear nothing more than the wizard of oz, and I fear the wizard and NSA are one and the same. Back to programming this stuff scares the crap out of me.

e12e 13y ago
To further fan the embers of your fear, please enjoy: [edit: title of link "Logo of New NRO Spy Satellite: An Octopus Engulfing the World with the Words “Nothing is Beyond Our Reach” Underneath"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-logo-octopus-engulfing-world-words-nothing-beyond-reach-underneath/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/new-u-s-spy-satellite-... and: ["Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches"] http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinister-psyops-mission-patches/ http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinist... I find it interesting (and sad) how the last few months have shifted my perspective on Bruce Sterling's "Zenith Angle" from leaning more towards satire, to leaning more towards hard sci-fi/telling the "truth" with fiction.
- pekk 13y ago
  The thread about that patch discussed how typical it is to have crazy over-the-top patches, it's not new at all
  - e12e 13y ago
    I wasn't aware there was a tread on the satellite patch on hn, but seeing how it was featured on Ars Technica, I'm not surprised: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6880117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6880117 The second link is based on a book from 2007 that used FOIA requests to be able to study the patches, so part of the point is that it's nothing new... Anyway, I don't fall into the camp that takes the patches very seriously -- in general, anything a covert organization/project projects about itself is bound to be either propaganda or misinformation.
rdtsc 13y ago
> this stuff scares the crap out of me. I used to live in the ex Soviet Union. Yeah, it was a time when things were thawing out, and people had stopped disappearing. One thing that was still there, that I remember, was a persistent fear of the state. Not acute, but kind of like a dull pain -- in the background, you feel it, and are aware of it. Jokes in private were made about the party and government, inefficiency and corruption. One had to be careful not too say too much in public, or they might find themselves without a job, or maybe worse. With the recent NSA revelation, I am feeling the same kind of fear. I don't think they'll knock on my door later tonight. But instead I think about "should I post this comment?". Does it mean I will be put an a no-fly list? What if they mis-interpret my joke and then I can't get a job on a project because they'll read this joke 15 years later to me taken out of context? I would got to a protest to DC, but hmm, facial recognition will probably shove my image another another black list. Does that mean constant IRS audits from then on? Stuff like that. It is not a fake fear, it is there. People engage in self-censorship already. I do it.
- ihsw 13y ago
  > I would got to a protest to DC, but hmm, facial recognition The GPS radio/cellular radio are used to find and pinpoint protester identities, at least momentarily. It is an eventuality that local police departments get such devices for $30K, but right now they cost an order of magnitude higher and it's not quite plug-and-play.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    That is a pretty interesting point. Though, this is DC we're talking about, so local PD probably has attachés from all sorts of 3 letter agencies and access to gear for limited times (with oversight, most likely). Protests that are organized, so far, seem to give ample notice (as far as broadcasting to people) as to when they will occur so coordination probably isn't that hard (and because events take place all the time in DC that probably require such efforts that aren't protests). Though thinking about this makes me wonder: what types of things we'll see evolve to counteract this type of surveillance, and I'll extend, that are available now to some degree? I keep thinking back to ideas of generating noise, and I wonder what that could potentially look like, what the catalyst for demand for that type of hardware/software would be, and the incentives for the makers of it.

aagha 13y ago

Fully agreed. What's sadder is that Congress doesn't seem to have demanded anything be done to punish him.

olefoo 13y ago
Not entirely true: Sensenbrenner (R, author of PATRIOT act) http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/12/09/sensenbrenner-clapper-should-be-prosecuted-lying-congress http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/12/09/sensenbrenner-clapper-s... did come out on the side of prosecution. So far he is the only one.

zw123456 13y ago

Just my intuition, but I just saw the 60 minutes piece on the NSA and the General Alexander scares the putties out of me. Something is very very wrong here.

res0nat0r 13y ago

Him lying to Congress actually isn't that black and white. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intel-dir-james-clapper-lie-congress-complicated/story?id=19390786 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intel-dir-james-clapper-lie-c...

reginaldjcooper 13y ago
If you specifically choose definitions of words that don't agree with the typical usage and act like those were the definitions that were used when you were asked a question, you are, in fact, a big fat liar.
jgg 13y ago
Clapper said, "No" and "not wittingly." That mind-rotting article you linked to is one guy speculating that he was put on the spot and had to say something in order to not confirm that they were openly spying on people...WHAT? Everything we have seen makes it clear that they are spying on Americans and they obviously know they are doing it. Clapper's answer was thus a LIE. He was asked a question and gave an answer he knew was wrong. HE LIED. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF LYING. I wish someone around here would ante up and starting banning the shills.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Stop saying shills, this isn't Reddit. Critical thinking about issues here is appreciated. Everything unfortunately related to the NSA isn't cut and dry, black or white. You really must not have understood the article, as it mentions testifying about top secret programs is not a simple task.
  - jgg 13y ago
    Reddit didn't invent the word "shill." I understood the article just fine! Did you? I don't care what his job is - he still lied! The internal logic of that piece is, "if he didn't deny it, people would think it was true!" The NSA was doing it anyway, so that makes fuck-all difference, now doesn't it?

grugq 13y ago

It is incredibly simple politics. He is in place to continue to soak up the bad publicity from the Snowden event. Once the bad publicity stops, he will step down. There is no point, politically, of taking him out right now. His replacement will end up tarnished with the bad PR as he starts his gig. http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm The NSA is unable to do a thorough damage assessment -- they don't know how which documents Snowden took. Greenwald is drip feeding the world press "stories" which can go on for an indeterminate amount of time (see "no damage assessment"). Only viable option is to keep Clapper in place until Greenwald et al. have exhausted their supply of new scandals. If, for example, Snowden had gone all Wikileaks and dumped the whole lot of files at once, Clapper would have been gone months ago.

leokun 13y ago
That actually makes a lot of sense. At some point he just may get tired of it. How much abuse can one person take.
joe_the_user 13y ago
It is incredibly simple politics. He is in place to continue to soak up the bad publicity from the Snowden event. Once the bad publicity stops, he will step down. There is no point, politically, of taking him out right now. His replacement will end up tarnished with the bad PR as he starts his gig. That is the usual way this goes. But we don't yet have the data to determine whether this is what's happening. The situation may just be an indication that the NSA has joined the old Ma Bell and Italy's Berlusconi in being able to say "we don't care, we don't have to"
olefoo 13y ago
You are most likely correct. It seems as though the Intelligence Community is being forced back to 'siloing' since the pooled resource approach seems to be so vulnerable to singleton conscience-ridden whistleblowers. In a way this plays right into Assange's analysis of the cognitive structure of rule by conspiracy in that an organization can know things, but cannot both discuss them internally and keep them secret at the same time. In effect an attack that requires internal barriers to communication to prevent; is also an attack on the organizations overall cognitive ability.