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And since when mass surveillance is a new thing? [...] Countries were conducting mass surveillance since pretty much WW2 Since when are nukes a new thing? Coun

by moe 12y ago

And since when mass surveillance is a new thing? [...] Countries were conducting mass surveillance since pretty much WW2 Since when are nukes a new thing? Countries have been going to war for centuries! Can you see how absurd a notion that is? The NSA will soon be able to record every move you make and every word you speak or write during your lifetime, in realtime. Not much later it will be able to do this for entire populations. None of this has been possible until very recently. Conflating this kind of mass surveillance with the past practices of manually opening letters and wiretapping phones would be very naive. About your PS 2.0... Since you apparently still don't realise how completely irrelevant that number is; Twice as many people were killed by lightning strike in the same timeframe.

dogma1138 12y ago
"The second report (rapport complÈmentaire d'activitÈs 1999) deals with the ECHELON system in much greater detail. It gives a view on the STOA study and devotes one section to explaining the technical and legal background to telecommunications monitoring. It concludes that ECHELON does in fact exist and is also in a position to listen in to all information carried by satellite." "According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect such traffic at nine major Internet exchange points (IXPs). The first two such sites identified, FIX East and FIX West, are operated by US government agencies. They are closely linked to nearby commercial locations, MAE East and MAE West (see table). Three other sites listed were Network Access Points originally developed by the US National Science Foundation to provide the US Internet with its initial "backbone"." "...leading US Internet and telecommunications company had contracted with NSA to develop software to capture Internet data of interest, and that deals had been struck with the leading manufacturers Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use. The latter allegation has proven correct (see technical annexe). Providing such features would make little sense unless NSA had also arranged general access to Internet traffic." This is from the EU Parliamentary reports compiled in the mid to late 90's. You can find that and much more in the EU online library under "Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System" and the SOTA reports... Again not saying it's OK, but FFS this has been going on for a LONG LONG time, people really need to get some perspective and focus on what actually matters. The NSA won't stop "spying" it's what they are for, who and how actively they are doing it should be the main issue here. On the PS part, well duh, the numbers are completely irrelevant it as was the arbitrary statistic about being in a train accidents vs terrorism. Bring up a dumb point get a dumber reprisal...
- moe 12y ago
  who and how actively they are doing it should be the main issue here Yes, it absolutely is. Yet for some reason you keep trying to defend their Orwellian ambitions with some handwavy "they have always been spying, it's their job"... The NSA is not "spying" in the romantic sense that you seem to be caught up in. It is installing global surveillance, a google index of all communications worldwide (ICREACH). This goes far beyond keyword sniffing on phonecalls or opening letters. They are implementing the exact kind of surveillance that totalitarian regimes are condemned for (see e.g. the movie "The Lives of Others"), at an unprecedented scale. And their justification is the defense against a "threat" that is less likely to harm you or me than a lightning strike. If you can't see the blatant disproportion here, and the extreme concentration of power in an institution that has largely detached itself from democratic checks and balances, then you must really have paid not much attention to the Snowden revelations.

by moe 12y ago

dogma1138 12y ago

"The second report (rapport complÈmentaire d'activitÈs 1999) deals with the ECHELON system in much greater detail. It gives a view on the STOA study and devotes one section to explaining the technical and legal background to telecommunications monitoring. It concludes that ECHELON does in fact exist and is also in a position to listen in to all information carried by satellite." "According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect such traffic at nine major Internet exchange points (IXPs). The first two such sites identified, FIX East and FIX West, are operated by US government agencies. They are closely linked to nearby commercial locations, MAE East and MAE West (see table). Three other sites listed were Network Access Points originally developed by the US National Science Foundation to provide the US Internet with its initial "backbone"." "...leading US Internet and telecommunications company had contracted with NSA to develop software to capture Internet data of interest, and that deals had been struck with the leading manufacturers Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use. The latter allegation has proven correct (see technical annexe). Providing such features would make little sense unless NSA had also arranged general access to Internet traffic." This is from the EU Parliamentary reports compiled in the mid to late 90's. You can find that and much more in the EU online library under "Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System" and the SOTA reports... Again not saying it's OK, but FFS this has been going on for a LONG LONG time, people really need to get some perspective and focus on what actually matters. The NSA won't stop "spying" it's what they are for, who and how actively they are doing it should be the main issue here. On the PS part, well duh, the numbers are completely irrelevant it as was the arbitrary statistic about being in a train accidents vs terrorism. Bring up a dumb point get a dumber reprisal...

moe 12y ago
who and how actively they are doing it should be the main issue here Yes, it absolutely is. Yet for some reason you keep trying to defend their Orwellian ambitions with some handwavy "they have always been spying, it's their job"... The NSA is not "spying" in the romantic sense that you seem to be caught up in. It is installing global surveillance, a google index of all communications worldwide (ICREACH). This goes far beyond keyword sniffing on phonecalls or opening letters. They are implementing the exact kind of surveillance that totalitarian regimes are condemned for (see e.g. the movie "The Lives of Others"), at an unprecedented scale. And their justification is the defense against a "threat" that is less likely to harm you or me than a lightning strike. If you can't see the blatant disproportion here, and the extreme concentration of power in an institution that has largely detached itself from democratic checks and balances, then you must really have paid not much attention to the Snowden revelations.