Snowden and the NSA

[TRoaches]

Here is an interesting development:

 

MoD serves news outlets with D-notice over surveillance leaks

UK TO BRIT HACKS: SHUT UP - DEFENCE MINISTRY WARNS AGAINST LEAKS ON JOINT US-BRIT SPYING

 

Do you think that maybe the reporters are being surveilled to enforce the D notice to protect the surveillance program? I would imagine so! The Guardian article also mentions that a foreign secretary in charge of the GCHQ appeared on BBC radio and was not asked about the G20 spying, which would indicate that they were complying with the notice.

 

Things like this make me imagine Orwell in a higher dimension screaming "I TOLD YOU!!! I F%$#@ING TOLD YOU!!!"

[JimboUK]

The sheer scale of this is mind boggling. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

 

@TRoaches Defence Advisory Notices are just that, "Advisory", they can't be enforced. They are being complied with less and less as they're increasingly being misused these days, neither the Guardian or Guido took a blind bit of notice of that one.

[ginnyfizz]

jim_uk, that truly is mind boggling. Makes me ashamed to be British. The sad thing is that scale of our Government's control freakery is no surprise to me. I am truly disturbed that the presumption of innocence that had been sacrosanct in our legal system is now being brushed aside. This mass seizing of our communications just in case we have misbehaved erodes that principle.

[JimboUK]

They must see us as the enemy, there is no other explanation for it. It makes a mockery of our parliamentary system as well, they know they'll struggle to get the Communications Data Bill through parliament so they've just ignored the law and gone ahead with collecting data anyway. If this had happened under a Labour government I wouldn't have been surprised, it's just the sort of thing they'd do, the fact that it's happening under the Tories and Liberals proves just how unconservative the Conservatives are and how illiberal the Liberals are. The fact that our government aren't only spying on us but on people worldwide should be a major embarrassment but they don't seem to care, like you it makes me ashamed to British.

 

 

And now this.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/22/edward-snowden-us-china The Chinese aren't going to be amused.

[ginnyfizz]

For those of us who in the eyes of many are sinners and, like me, have the misfortune to be both unemployed and disabled (the two are often connected as employers are not very enlightened when they see you on crutches), some of the Tory cronies want it to get a whole lot worse;-

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2346714/Why-Osborne-publish-names-benefits-claimant--pay-An-incendiary-idea-save-500m-A-DAY-welfare-bill.html

 

That (insert expletive) Mark Littlewood is actually suggesting that people like me should have the details of what we are paid in benefit put up on the internet for everyone to see. Yes, a Tory suggesting private information should be revealed. I wonder if they are actually trying to goad us "parasites" into cutting the benefits bill by committing suicide?

[JimboUK]

I'm sure IDS will love the idea, he'll make you hang a sign around your neck too. The comments are cause for optimism, even the rabid Daily Hitler readers think he's a lunatic. This really is an appalling government, I didn't think it would be possible to have one worse than Gordon Browns but the Tories and their Lib Dem poodles have managed it.

[sukeban]

Word on the street is that Snowden is in Moscow now, apparently en route to either Ecuador, Venezuela, or Cuba. American news outlets have been depressingly predictable in their claims that he is "assisting our enemies" and guests on the major networks seem to be competing with one another in decrying just how much "irreparable damage" he has done to American national security.

 

I have also been exceedingly amused by the attempts to spin Russian involvement as "yet another" example of "Russia thumbing its nose at the United States" and completely ignoring the current context of the US-Russia relationship. For example, was it not even a week ago that Obama decided to begin supplying arms to the fundamentalist militias in Syria, with the express aim of ousting one of Russia's last surviving allies in the region? About two years before that, did we also not "bait and switch" Russia at the UN over Libya, turning the no-fly zone into a policy of complete regime rollback? Did the previous administration also not attempt to expand NATO directly up to the Russian border as well as successfully undermine Russia's influence in the Central Asian states to make for easier supply lines to American troops fighting in and occupying Afghanistan? Finally, did the United States not attempt to install its prototype missile defense system in Poland the Czech Republic, a move that could only be understood as an attempt to counter Russia's second-strike capability? All of which is not to say that Russia is a model state--far from it!--but more to say that I find it utterly laughable for anyone to contend that Russia is being unduly aggressive toward the United States when any fair-minded observer can see that it has been the United States undermining Russia's strategic interests at almost ever turn.

 

As for his asylum prospects, I'd personally opt for Iceland--but (likely owing to their new government) that seems to be out of the question. With his remaining options, I'd probably opt for either Cuba or Russia over Ecuador or Venezuela, primarily because of Cuba's climate and/or Russia's considerably more advanced state of development. The problem in Russia would be the FSB hounding you 24/7, and likewise the problem with Cuba is that its continuity of government cannot be taken for granted once the Castro brothers finally do pass away. I suppose that's why Ecuador is considered to be his most likely destination, as Correa is an amazingly popular leader (with growing authoritarian tendencies...) whose hold on power seems the most stable over the long-term. The political situation in Venezuela seems more like a coin-flip, as Maduro lacks the charisma of Chavez even if he has majority support for the time being. Venezuela is also far more strategically important to the United States, so the prospects for subversion against the host government would appear to be much higher in Venezuela (and we did, of course, already attempt to stage a coup back when Chavez was newly elected...) than in Ecuador.

Edited June 23, 2013 by sukeban

[Nintii]

If I was him I'd go to Zimbabwe ... no one hates the West more than Pres. Robert Mugabe ... and seeing that the British are sitting on top of Robert Mugabe's hate list (along with everything Western), as an icon of Western corruption he'll fit in quite nicely there.

Ah yes, nothing like sipping a good French brandy as the huge red sun goes down over Lake Kariba and the cry of the fish eagle echoes across the waters ... *klink* cheers.

[JimboUK]

It is Ecuador according to this, it's probably the best option. You have to laugh at those politicians complaining that allies should be helping the U.S capture him, it was those "allies" the U.S and U.K have been spying on. There wouldn't be a problem if the two countries security services hadn't been acting like a modern day Stasi.

[Dark0ne]

We live in such a superficial world, so quick to pass judgement on what we know so little about, and doubtless will ever know any more than the very slightest of scratches on the surface. You look at all the buzz news over the past few years; drones, water-boarding, state-sponsored hacking and espionage and this latest Prism stuff and you can very easily and quickly pass judgement on topics that you cannot fathom the depths of in both pros and cons. Sure, you can try and make a list but they'll be largely full of black or white judgments that don't take in to account the ridiculously grey nature of the subject at hand.

 

The prism stuff sounds awful on the surface. The government spying on its own citizens. It's got all the makings of an Orwellian future. But what or who has it saved? Has it saved anything at all? Does that matter to you? Take it to a silly extreme for a second and imagine Prism had prevented a dirty bomb from going off in London/New York/a large city where your mother lives, is it still bad then? What if it prevented 2? 5? 10? Of course it's bad, just like waterboarding is bad, but if you told me waterboarding had led to information that prevented a multitude of Brits from being blown to pieces on a bus on their way to work then...things get muddy.

 

I mean to defend absolutely nothing. What I mean to portray is the ridiculous complexities of the politics and much darker aspects of our world that we know absolutely nothing about and like to pretend don't exist, but most definitely do. Frankly, if there's one thing that surprises me more than anything in this area of life it's how little terrorism there actually seems to be in the Western world. Our news bombards us with non-stop bad news of Al Qaeda this and splinter terrorist cell that, but where are these mass-jihads? When you really think about it, how freaking hard can terrorism really be? How hard is it to pull up some rail tracks? Contaminate some rural water supplies? Knock out some bus drivers and ram some buildings? That's what I don't quite understand; the possibilities are endless on the terrorism front and they seem pretty damn straight-forward, so either (1) terrorism isn't half as prominent as we're made to believe (2) our counter-terrorism forces are actually pretty freaking good at what they do, but we obviously never hear about it because it's top-secret/a thankless job (and Prism is likely a part of this), (3) terrorism is a lot harder than I think it is and I have no clue what I'm talking about or (4) all of the above.

 

My thoughts on Prism? I live in the UK where my every footstep in a public space is caught on CCTV. How naive do you have to be to have not already at least suspected this? There's been reports of "black rooms" controlled by intelligence services in ISP data centres for years now. Heck, regular articles were in the news a couple of years back because the Americans were doing everything in their power to try and prevent new fibre lines being laid between countries without first going through America. Why do you think that was? The rumours spread then that the Americans were spying on data. What's changed since then? Nothing.

 

Everyone is hacking everyone. Welcome to the freaking internet, where it's been like this for 20 years. Care that much about it? Go download TOR and get involved.