Government snooping, backdoors and #necessaryhashtags

[ewmayer]

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year: report: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

In what the Post said appeared to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.

LOL, "temporarily" - I guess that massive data center they're building in Utah is to provide more "temporary" storage.

[Nick]

Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours

David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ained-heathrow

Is this a blatant attack on press freedom in the West?

[xilman]

There seems to have been some interesting developments in the Snowden story. The UK PTB have courted controversy but the US denies responsibility.

This looks very much like an opportunity to sit back, enjoy the show and tuck into the

[only_human]

U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border
Laura Poitras makes award-winning controversial films, and is targeted by the U.S. government as a result
BY GLENN GREENWALD Apr 8, 2012

But Poitras’ work has been hampered, and continues to be hampered, by the constant harassment, invasive searches, and intimidation tactics to which she is routinely subjected whenever she re-enters her own country. Since the 2006 release of “My Country, My Country,” Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every time during that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration). Each time, they detain her, and then interrogate her at length about where she went and with whom she met or spoke. They have exhibited a particular interest in finding out for whom she works.

It’s hard to overstate how oppressive it is for the U.S. Government to be able to target journalists, film-makers and activists and, without a shred of suspicion of wrongdoing, learn the most private and intimate details about them and their work: with whom they’re communicating, what is being said, what they’re reading. That’s a radical power for a government to assert in general. When it starts being applied not randomly, but to people engaged in activism and journalism adverse to the government, it becomes worse than radical: it’s the power of intimidation and deterrence against those who would challenge government conduct in any way. The ongoing, and escalating, treatment of Laura Poitras is a testament to how severe that abuse is.

If you’re not somebody who films the devastation wrought by the U.S. on the countries it attacks, or provides insight into Iraqi occupation opponents and bin Laden loyalists in Yemen, or documents expanding NSA activities on U.S. soil, then perhaps you’re unlikely to be subjected to such abuses and therefore perhaps unlikely to care much. As is true for all states that expand and abuse their own powers, that’s what the U.S. Government counts on: that it is sending the message that none of this will affect you as long as you avoid posing any meaningful challenges to what they do. In other words: you can avoid being targeted if you passively acquiesce to what they do and refrain from interfering in it. That’s precisely what makes it so pernicious, and why it’s so imperative to find a way to rein it in.

[firejuggler]

Prosecutor in the manning's case ask judges for at least 60 years of prison plus a 100K$ fine.
http://news.yahoo.com/prosecutor-ask...213806467.html

[only_human]

By the way, Laura Poitras, who I mentioned above as a person receiving extraordinary harassment, intimidation and searches when traveling is the person that David Miranda had just spent a week visiting in Berlin.

[kladner]

Yes. She moved abroad to avoid US air ports and all the detention, interrogation, and harassment. Her life got somewhat easier once Greenwald publicized the situation.

[ewmayer]

Guardian says Britain made it destroy Snowden material: LONDON (Reuters) - The British authorities forced the Guardian newspaper to destroy material leaked by Edward Snowden, its editor has revealed, calling it a "pointless" move that would not prevent further reporting on U.S. and British surveillance programs.

In a column on Tuesday, Alan Rusbridger said he had received a call from a government official a month ago who told him: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." The paper had been threatened with legal action if it did not comply.

Later, two "security experts" from the secretive Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had visited the paper's London offices and watched as computer hard drives containing Snowden material were reduced to mangled bits of metal.

Asked by the BBC who he thought was behind those events, Rusbridger said he had "got the sense there was an active conversation" involving government departments, intelligence agencies and the prime minister's Downing Street office.

Downing Street and GCHQ declined to comment.

Rusbridger said the "bizarre" episode and the detention at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday of the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald showed press freedom was under threat in Britain.

...

Rusbridger said the destruction of the computer material was "pointless" as there were other copies of what was lost, and it would not stop the Guardian from pursuing Snowden stories.

"We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents. We just won't do it in London," he said.

The thuggishness appears to be getting more naked all the time.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Guardian says Britain made it destroy Snowden material: LONDON (Reuters) - The British authorities forced the Guardian newspaper to destroy material leaked by Edward Snowden, its editor has revealed, calling it a "pointless" move that would not prevent further reporting on U.S. and British surveillance programs.

The thuggishness appears to be getting more naked all the time.

It seems aimed at intimidation as well as retribution. Welcome to the "Free World"^TM

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by kladner

It seems aimed at intimidation as well as retribution. Welcome to the "Free World"^TM

Anyone want to open a book that there are backups somewhere?

IMO, this is simply pathetic. And not useful to anyone's cause.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by kladner

Yes. She moved abroad to avoid US air ports and all the detention, interrogation, and harassment. Her life got somewhat easier once Greenwald publicized the situation.

At least she didn't pick the UK. The US and UK seemed to be in a race to the bottom. Shining examples and role models for fledgling democracies got lost along the wayside.