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I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. Despite a fair amount of indignation from the publi

by znowi 13y ago

I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. Despite a fair amount of indignation from the public, it seems to me that the majority has accepted the new surveillance reality.

samstave 13y ago
The weird invasive thought I keep having is if Snowden could, if at all, be a limited hang-out-OP/MISO (PsyOp) to gauge just how much the public would accept. There have been enough revelations to see that the NSA got to keep what it is in entirety; mission accomplished.
- cstavish 13y ago
  That's one of the most thought-provoking comments I've seen in some time. Some of the revelations involving spying on allies seem pretty harmful...Either a lot of nations were in on the operation or a big risk was taken in conducting it the first place. Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance?
  - samstave 13y ago
    >Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance? A global psyop; it was a show of complete dominance?
- john_b 13y ago
  This is definitely tinfoil hat territory. Some very high level people in the intelligence community may lose their jobs or (if things go very well) face charges in the next year or two. If the whole Snowden affair is an inside job then those high level people must have been ignorant of it since they would never accept the personal risk of the shitstorm that has resulted.
  - samstave 13y ago
    Yeah, I mean just look how afraid Clapper was of lying, completely knowingly, to the Senate under oath. He must really be afraid of putting himself out there as the threat to his personal freedom is far too great.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - natrius 13y ago
    Tinfoil hat territory was granted statehood a while back, in case you weren't paying attention. I don't understand your willingness to underestimate our government's abilities to mislead the public.
  - walid 13y ago
    Well there have been reports already about changes: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transition-idUSBRE99F12W20131016 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transit...
- Theodores 13y ago
  The government could have used Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to keep the Snowden documents out of the papers in the USA, sending the Secret Service round to collect any 'inappropriate' documents. With a 'D-Notice' to effect the same in the UK and coupled with the usual soft measures - threaten to take away press passes from journalists (and their papers) - the whole lot could have been kept out of the papers. The fact that these measures have not been used means that this was a limited hang out - or - that the Obama administration just does not know how to use the law as well as the Bush administration.
  - jrockway 13y ago
    The only reference I see to "Special Administrative Measures" involves communication with prisoners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_measure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_measure Even articles in publications like "Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press" refer to this phrase as a thing for prisoners: http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-law/news-media-and-law-winter-2012/silencing-stories http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-la... So it's unclear what you're talking about.
    - olefoo 13y ago
      From context it seemed as though he were using the phrase as a euphemism for extrajudicial procedures. (read: black bag jobs, rubber hose decryption, and even piscine sleep therapy) The fact is that the Obama administration seems to have been kept out of the compartment on a number of programs; which is not surprising, but very naughty.
    - Theodores 13y ago
      Much in the way that the NSA can bend the law to collect everything, the government can bend the law to use SAMs for whatever they want. You could say that any of the NSA revelations could affect some on-going case that has yet to be brought to court in Guantanamo, e.g. knowledge that a given prisoner's communications being intercepted could prejudice the case. The details of exactly how that might work out could be kept secret under terms of the SAM.
- sroerick 13y ago
  Or, more cynically, that Snowden is a plot to eradicate expectation of privacy everywhere. From Smith V. Maryland. "If the Government were suddenly to announce on nationwide television that all homes henceforth would be subject to warrantless entry, individuals thereafter might not in fact entertain any actual expectation of privacy regarding their homes, papers, and effects." FYI: Smith V. Maryland is the justification the FISA courts have used to argue surveillance is legal. It argues, in a nutshell, that when you route phone calls through a telecom you are forfeiting your expectation of privacy, and therefore your fourth amendment rights. I am concerned that the surveillance industry may be trying to establish the legal precedent that because everyone knows about the surveillance, it is legal. This is a paradoxical argument: the logic would effectively be that if they told everyone they were doing it ahead of time, it would be illegal, but since they told everyone after the fact it is legal. Now, I'm not a lawyer. This is my laymans understanding of the issue and I don't really have the body of knowledge regarding expectation of privacy to adequately discuss this. These are just the things that, as a layman, I am currently afraid of.
jiffyjeff 13y ago
Perhaps folks are terrified of speaking out about the matter? One specific concern I have: I wonder if members of congress feel threatened by the power of intelligence insiders to end a politician's career?
andrewfong 13y ago
If the majority have accepted surveillance, it's probably because very few people, if any, have articulated the harms of surveillance in a personal, visceral way. Privacy as an abstract concept is meaningless to most Americans -- thanks in part to pervasive data mining and targeted advertising by Google, Facebook, credit card companies, and so forth. That's not to say privacy doesn't matter to them. Children often want to keep things private from their parents. LGBT persons often want to keep their sexual orientation private from less tolerant members of society. But that's because the consequences of such a violation of privacy are immediate and visceral. In contrast, the automatic mass collection of data by the NSA doesn't have any more of a tangible impact on most people's lives than does Google's or Facebook's. To put this another way, very few Americans have altered their behavior because of Snowden's revelations. And it's largely because the government hasn't given them any reason to. The NSA can read my e-mail, but I can safely say "Fuck the NSA" without consequence. In contrast, when I was in China, attempting to visit a prohibited website would result in my Internet connection being blocked for up to an hour. Or to pick an example in the U.S., making an illegal turn in front of a traffic camera would result in my getting a ticket. Absent that sort of "feedback" from the NSA's surveillance, the harms of mass surveillance simply don't click with a lot of people. That's not to say such very real harms don't exist. The NSA's data collection is tied in various ways to the no-fly list, the war on drugs, and targeted assassinations, each of which result in visceral, immediate harm to real people. But from my perspective, the surveillance aspect of these stories have not been told particularly well.
RexRollman 13y ago
Correct. Cowardice and apathy are allowing this to continue.

by znowi 13y ago

samstave 13y ago

The weird invasive thought I keep having is if Snowden could, if at all, be a limited hang-out-OP/MISO (PsyOp) to gauge just how much the public would accept. There have been enough revelations to see that the NSA got to keep what it is in entirety; mission accomplished.

cstavish 13y ago
That's one of the most thought-provoking comments I've seen in some time. Some of the revelations involving spying on allies seem pretty harmful...Either a lot of nations were in on the operation or a big risk was taken in conducting it the first place. Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance?
- samstave 13y ago
  >Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance? A global psyop; it was a show of complete dominance?
john_b 13y ago
This is definitely tinfoil hat territory. Some very high level people in the intelligence community may lose their jobs or (if things go very well) face charges in the next year or two. If the whole Snowden affair is an inside job then those high level people must have been ignorant of it since they would never accept the personal risk of the shitstorm that has resulted.
- samstave 13y ago
  Yeah, I mean just look how afraid Clapper was of lying, completely knowingly, to the Senate under oath. He must really be afraid of putting himself out there as the threat to his personal freedom is far too great.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- natrius 13y ago
  Tinfoil hat territory was granted statehood a while back, in case you weren't paying attention. I don't understand your willingness to underestimate our government's abilities to mislead the public.
- walid 13y ago
  Well there have been reports already about changes: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transition-idUSBRE99F12W20131016 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transit...
Theodores 13y ago
The government could have used Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to keep the Snowden documents out of the papers in the USA, sending the Secret Service round to collect any 'inappropriate' documents. With a 'D-Notice' to effect the same in the UK and coupled with the usual soft measures - threaten to take away press passes from journalists (and their papers) - the whole lot could have been kept out of the papers. The fact that these measures have not been used means that this was a limited hang out - or - that the Obama administration just does not know how to use the law as well as the Bush administration.
- jrockway 13y ago
  The only reference I see to "Special Administrative Measures" involves communication with prisoners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_measure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_measure Even articles in publications like "Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press" refer to this phrase as a thing for prisoners: http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-law/news-media-and-law-winter-2012/silencing-stories http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-la... So it's unclear what you're talking about.
  - olefoo 13y ago
    From context it seemed as though he were using the phrase as a euphemism for extrajudicial procedures. (read: black bag jobs, rubber hose decryption, and even piscine sleep therapy) The fact is that the Obama administration seems to have been kept out of the compartment on a number of programs; which is not surprising, but very naughty.
  - Theodores 13y ago
    Much in the way that the NSA can bend the law to collect everything, the government can bend the law to use SAMs for whatever they want. You could say that any of the NSA revelations could affect some on-going case that has yet to be brought to court in Guantanamo, e.g. knowledge that a given prisoner's communications being intercepted could prejudice the case. The details of exactly how that might work out could be kept secret under terms of the SAM.
sroerick 13y ago
Or, more cynically, that Snowden is a plot to eradicate expectation of privacy everywhere. From Smith V. Maryland. "If the Government were suddenly to announce on nationwide television that all homes henceforth would be subject to warrantless entry, individuals thereafter might not in fact entertain any actual expectation of privacy regarding their homes, papers, and effects." FYI: Smith V. Maryland is the justification the FISA courts have used to argue surveillance is legal. It argues, in a nutshell, that when you route phone calls through a telecom you are forfeiting your expectation of privacy, and therefore your fourth amendment rights. I am concerned that the surveillance industry may be trying to establish the legal precedent that because everyone knows about the surveillance, it is legal. This is a paradoxical argument: the logic would effectively be that if they told everyone they were doing it ahead of time, it would be illegal, but since they told everyone after the fact it is legal. Now, I'm not a lawyer. This is my laymans understanding of the issue and I don't really have the body of knowledge regarding expectation of privacy to adequately discuss this. These are just the things that, as a layman, I am currently afraid of.

jiffyjeff 13y ago

Perhaps folks are terrified of speaking out about the matter? One specific concern I have: I wonder if members of congress feel threatened by the power of intelligence insiders to end a politician's career?

andrewfong 13y ago

If the majority have accepted surveillance, it's probably because very few people, if any, have articulated the harms of surveillance in a personal, visceral way. Privacy as an abstract concept is meaningless to most Americans -- thanks in part to pervasive data mining and targeted advertising by Google, Facebook, credit card companies, and so forth. That's not to say privacy doesn't matter to them. Children often want to keep things private from their parents. LGBT persons often want to keep their sexual orientation private from less tolerant members of society. But that's because the consequences of such a violation of privacy are immediate and visceral. In contrast, the automatic mass collection of data by the NSA doesn't have any more of a tangible impact on most people's lives than does Google's or Facebook's. To put this another way, very few Americans have altered their behavior because of Snowden's revelations. And it's largely because the government hasn't given them any reason to. The NSA can read my e-mail, but I can safely say "Fuck the NSA" without consequence. In contrast, when I was in China, attempting to visit a prohibited website would result in my Internet connection being blocked for up to an hour. Or to pick an example in the U.S., making an illegal turn in front of a traffic camera would result in my getting a ticket. Absent that sort of "feedback" from the NSA's surveillance, the harms of mass surveillance simply don't click with a lot of people. That's not to say such very real harms don't exist. The NSA's data collection is tied in various ways to the no-fly list, the war on drugs, and targeted assassinations, each of which result in visceral, immediate harm to real people. But from my perspective, the surveillance aspect of these stories have not been told particularly well.

RexRollman 13y ago

Correct. Cowardice and apathy are allowing this to continue.