Government snooping, backdoors and #necessaryhashtags

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Why, Dick Cheney, obviously.

Why would Dick Cheney be posting here at mersenneforum.org ?

[ewmayer]

Classic snark-headline from ZH:

Obama Addresses Germany: "Ich Bin Ein Berlistener"

One reader invokes the ghost of Ronald Reagan addressing then-Soviet leader Gorbachev:

"Frau Markel, TEAR DOWN THIS [FIRE] WALL!!!"

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Why would Dick Cheney be posting here at mersenneforum.org ?

Turn your humor filter several notches up....

[only_human]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Why, Dick Cheney, obviously.

Didn't we learn with Nixon? No one named Dick should be trusted near the reigns of government. Cheney got addicted. Deceiving about aluminum tubes in a planted newspaper article and quoting other governments' intelligence agencies when the info was poor quality or wrong were easy highs. He's hooked and needs treatment. The first step will be getting his friends to stage an intervention... hmm more staging, and friends? This might be hard.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by chappy

Remember back in the good old days when the leaders of the CIA were so inept that they used unencrypted gmail drafts to communicate their affairs?

Maybe, we saw that all wrong and they knew their wasn't any point to hiding it.

I take some solace in the thought that some poor NSA minion is having to sort through all of Dubslow's Skrillex noise searching for message in the madness.

"Damn it! We've had another analyst go mad, this Dubslow kid must be an evil genius!"

Let's see, the "Good Old Days"^{[SIZE=3]®[/SIZE]} as in The Past Five Years? Doesn't that cover the period when Petraeus and his mistress were using the Draft Dodge?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Turn your humor filter several notches up....

You're a real font of information, except for answering a straight question with a straight answer.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

You're a real font of information, except for answering a straight question with a straight answer.

Ok, straight answer. The post in question was a joke. Clear now?

[ewmayer]

NSA Secret Warrantless Spying Rules Revealed (Latest from The Guardian, here via ZeroHedge)

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

You're a real font of information, except for answering a straight question with a straight answer.

Cheesehead... With the greatest of serenity, it would do you good to try to take everything a little less seriously.

Most of us here are very serious; but somehow we still enjoy humor.

[Nick]

Ross Anderson has some good points in a new article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...lients-snooped

[ewmayer]

U.S. charges Snowden with espionage: Federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials.

The leaks have sparked national and international debates about the secret powers of the NSA to infringe on the privacy of Americans and foreigners. Officials from President Obama on down have said they welcome the opportunity to explain the importance of the programs and the safeguards they say are built into them. Skeptics, including some in Congress, have said the NSA has assumed the power to soak up data about Americans that was never intended under the law.

There was never any doubt that the Justice Department would seek to prosecute Snowden for one of the most significant national security leaks in the country’s history. The Obama administration has shown a particular propensity to go after leakers and has launched more investigations than any previous administration. This White House is responsible for bringing six of the nine total indictments ever brought under the 1917 Espionage Act. Snowden will be the seventh individual when he is formally indicted.

Re. "one of the most significant national security leaks" - If the 'leak' discloses unconstitutional actions by the government, is it not "reporting a crime"? Because if national security somehow "requires lawbreaking", then the rule of law is ended along with the legitimacy of the so-called government, and the issue is moot. Moreover, if things are at that point, the U.S.' own very founding document is exceedingly clear:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.


Regarding the indictment, a fellow whistleblower had this to say today:

"It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice." -- Julian Assange

More Assange:

Edward Snowden is the eighth leaker to be charged with espionage under this president.

Bradley Manning’s show trial enters its fourth week on Monday.

After a litany of wrongs done to him, the US government is trying to convict him of "aiding the enemy."

The word "traitor" has been thrown around a lot in recent days.

But who is really the traitor here?

Who was it who promised a generation "hope" and "change," only to betray those promises with dismal misery and stagnation?

Who took an oath to defend the US constitution, only to feed the invisible beast of secret law devouring it alive from the inside out?

Who is it that promised to preside over The Most Transparent Administration in history, only to crush whistleblower after whistleblower with the bootheel of espionage charges?

Who combined in his executive the powers of judge, jury and executioner, and claimed the jurisdiction of the entire earth on which to exercise those powers?

Who arrogates the power to spy on the entire earth - every single one of us - and when he is caught red handed, explains to us that "we’re going to have to make a choice."

Who is that person?

Let’s be very careful about who we call "traitor".

Edward Snowden is one of us.

Bradley Manning is one of us.

They are young, technically minded people from the generation that Barack Obama betrayed.

They are the generation that grew up on the internet, and were shaped by it.

The US government is always going to need intelligence analysts and systems administrators, and they are going to have to hire them from this generation and the ones that follow it.

One day, their generation will run the NSA, the CIA and the FBI.

This isn’t a phenomenon that is going away.

This is inevitable.

And by trying to crush these young whistleblowers with espionage charges, the US government is taking on a generation, and that is a battle it is going to lose.