341–350 of 459 posts
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Is there any way to buy the ebook directly (or at a bare minimum without drm)?
(Macmillan employee) To my knowledge, no and probably no. I'll inquire. I'm aware that it's available at Kobo in EPUB format but that includes Adobe DRM. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/permanent-record-7
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There are in fact whistleblower laws. The big question at hand is how it was handled. Snowden claimed to go to his superiors first, which checks off an important box. So the question is if he did that or not. I believe he was also supposed to attempt to report to Congress before he can legally go to the media. It's definitely a gray area and if you believe it is right probably depends on how much you trust the govern…
I believe he did the right thing, I probably should have made that more clear. I also understand why the government still can't possibly treat him in anyways but as a traitor
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I think system administrators would take exception to your claim they don't help build anything. Also, Congressional report prepared by whom? Can't take a report by the fox guarding the hen house seriously.
I was a system administrator with similar responsibilities for several years, and it was quite clear who the system architects were and who the maintainers were. It's a minor point, but speaks to Mr. Snowden's reportedly inflated self-importance. It's up to all of us to take this report, and news reports and autobiographies, as seriously as you think they deserve. This provides background information not commonly kno…
Both groups would have been necessary to build the a long term system.
Beyond that, I don't see how his status while working for the intelligence sector is very important, and I've never gotten the impression Snowden was trying to boast about how achievements there.
Seems odd that every picture of Edward Snowden shows one of the nose pads on his glasses missing.
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Simply asserting that you're somehow impervious to corporate power is not an argument. Individuals only have the absolute power to not transact in an ideal market where there is vibrant competition for your business, and our real market is far from ideal. 1. Persistent psychological manipulation (advertising), including political manipulation, based on knowing your weaknesses better than you know yourself. 2. Punitiv…
> Punitive insurance rates based on unreasonable inferences, especially for mandatory insurances. Like say doubling your auto insurance rate for buying more than a few beers per week. Or your health insurance going up from buying a power tools. Is it just supposed to be self-evident that those inferences are unreasonable? I've always thought that this was an interesting argument. If there is some form of correlation…
One of the tendencies of the neo-puritanism that has become prominent in the last decade is a real willingness to abandon any boundaries that have kept corporations from using certain kinds of information against individuals -- boundaries that were in large part legislated during the civil rights era.
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So inform us. Present evidence for your opinion or keep your opinion to yourself.
Here's a decent article highlighting 4 attacks of the 50 they claim to have foiled since 2001. https://www.ibtimes.com/four-times-nsa-surveillance-programs...
> “Without the 702 tool, we would not have identified Najibullah Zazi,” Joyce said later in the hearing.
Okay, sounds pretty legit. His plea bargain was partly informed by threatening his parents[1], but it does sound like there was a lot of other evidence collected through traditional police methods.
> The second instance described was a thwarted plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Under Section 702's authority, the NSA monitored a known extremist in Yemen who was communicating with a man in Kansas City, Mo. This information led the FBI to Khalid Ouazzani, his co-conspirators and ultimately the plot to bomb the NYSE. Ouazzani ultimately confessed to sending money to al-Qaeda and was never convicted for the stock exchange plot.
Okay, so we... removed a small funding source of Al Queda? Maybe it's just me, but if I were trying to attack Al Queda's funding, I'd start with not having the CIA give them millions of dollars[2] before going the "surveil all Americans" route. For comparison, the CIA gave them $2 million in one payment[2], while Ouazzani gave them $23K[3]. The NSA yearly budget is ~$10 billion.[4] The NYC police budget was $5.6 billion in 2018[5] and they handled 295 homicide cases in 2018[6].
> The third instance cited by Joyce was the case of David Headley, an American in Chicago who aided the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. The FBI had received a tip about his involvement in the attacks when the NSA’s 702 surveillance also identified Headley as involved in a plot to bomb a Danish newspaper office that had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed that were considered offensive by some Muslims. “Headley later confessed to personally conducting surveillance of the Danish newspaper office,” Joyce said.
So basically, this guy was already going to be arrested for the 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks, but due to surveillance they were able to also charge him for... surveiling. The irony is staggering.
> Regarding the final case, Joyce testified that data collection under Section 215 helped uncover terrorist activity that the FBI had been unable to detect previously. In 2007, the FBI closed an investigation it had launched shortly after Sept. 11, when it could not connect the subject of the investigation to terrorist activity. Years later, under its Section 215-sanctioned metadata collection program, the NSA identified a phone number in San Diego that was in contact with a known terrorist overseas. The NSA’s discovery allowed the FBI to reopen the investigation and disrupt the terrorist activity. Joyce later confirmed that the activity involved providing financial support to a designated terrorist group overseas.
This could not possibly be more vague.
Ostensibly, since the source is the NSA's PR team, these were the best cases the NSA could come up with? This sounds like a strong argument that the money should be better spent on traditional law enforcement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najibullah_Zazi#Guilty_plea
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/world/asia/cia-funds-foun...
[3] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/kansascity/press-releases/...
[4] https://threatpost.com/nsa-metadata-program-likely-not-cost-...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Departmen...
[6] [Excel File Warning] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/excel/analysis_an...
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> What harm do you claim the NSA did to Americans in that time? The GP did not say "NSA", but "US government". See for example: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Correct, this is what I meant.
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Because it is a interesting avenue to investigate if someone wants to know more.
Well you’re wrong so there’s that. You can’t give up your citizenship as a result of running for a foreign office.
Seems like an assumption about the value of other people's time vs. your own.
Seems odd that every picture of Edward Snowden shows one of the nose pads on his glasses missing.
That does bug me now, having just looked at a lot of pictures, but it does appear you can find pictures where this is not the case, eg, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/national-security-age...
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> He spent 7 years locked in an embassy ... To avoid criminal charges for things unrelated to his political/journalistic exploits. Plenty of people run when faced with possible jail time, e.g., Roman Polanski.
This is a lie. He stated from the start he was hiding to avoid extradition to the United States for his journalism.