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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#311

Post by brabel »

genman wrote: post #304
brabel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface. Just look at past secrets that have been disclosed recently and think: should those things really be secret? I say absolutely no. The mentality of keeping things secret to hide your real intentions, or to not upset people too much (or they will panic!), or to…

I think you completely misinterpret the situation with Russia and China. Russia and China have the objectives of their own. For Russia it is to expand their empire that in their own mind rightfully belongs to them. They didn't attack Ukraine because of US actions but because they seriously believe that they have some kind of right over Ukrainians lands, or even more seriously, that Ukrainians don't exists. If US woul…

No, you're misrepresenting it. Your rationale is that Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory, and that's why it attacked Ukraine... a primary school level of simplification.

You ignore that Russia's number one fear after the collapse of the USSR was for another military invasion from the West, as had happened several times over the last few centuries... that Russia's border with Ukraine is its most "porous" border, easy to cross for whatever purpose, including a military invasion... that NATO's whole purpose since it was founded has always been to counter Russia, so the Russian's fears that NATO is an enemy are absolutely correct... that Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution caused Ukraine to go from a neutral country (or a buffer country as most people call it) to being actively hostile against Russia, which was the trigger for the Crimean invasion in 2014... that the US and UK, as guarantors of the Budapest Agreement with Russian and Ukraine, should have immediately intervened to defend Ukraine when that happened, but did absolutely nothing, giving Russia confirmation that it would be able to keep Ukraine out of NATO by force, which is really what it is trying to do currently... and finally, that every country has its motivations to do the things it does, a lot more complex and subtle than "being evil and wanting more land", and perhaps trying to understand what those motivations are, why their culture has evolved the way it has and how it is likely to react to your actions, would go a very long way to avoiding stupid conflicts like this. But yeah, it's so much easier to keep parroting the news and thinking of the whole story as a black-and-white, villain VS hero story.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#312

Post by pydry »

rayiner wrote: post #173
pydry wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.

[flagged]

I'm not really interested in arguing about the who is worse scoreboard.

I just want America to become less like Russia not more.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#313

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

chrysler wrote: post #310
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is completely correct. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia repeatedly tried to join NATO. It was rebuffed by the US - why? Instead of forging a new alliance, the west preferred to uphold old friend-enemy distinctions, and instead moved the NATO ever closer to Russia‘s border, ignoring its security needs and breaking old promises (as evidenced by the embassy cable leaks). Then, Ukraine shelled the Russian civili…

>> After the collapse of the USSR, Russia repeatedly tried to join NATO. That never happened. You will no find no trace of that in State Duma transcripts, policy papers or any other contemporary source. I can show you a long trail of adopted laws and doctrines for countries that eventually joined NATO (or failed in their bid), but nothing of this sort exists for Russia. It's a hoax invented to justify the invasion of…

> That never happened.

Even left-wing Guardian admits as much, you can find easily find other sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s... The West offered the "Partnership for Peace" program at the beginning of the 90s a distraction simply because they didn't see Russia as partners, but as defeated enemies. Even if we concede for a moment that this promise never happened, lots of people, among them Joe Biden, admitted back then that this would be a move that Russia could never accept. I think Bidens words were it would create a "vigorous and hostile reaction". You can of course claim that this does not justify the invasion, but then you basically say Russia can never have legitimate security interests that run counter to the west.

> The narrative that NATO promised never to accept Eastern Europe (and broke that promise) was invented much later

That has been claimed often but proven wrong by the cable leaks.

> His infamous lecture that presents a totally warped view of the world

This is just a generic ad-hominem. If you have substantial rebuttals, I'm eager to hear them.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#314

Post by bostik »

still_grokking wrote: post #234
dudul wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?

It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be…

I keep saying that what we are currently living through is a surprisingly accurate reflection of how democracy began. In the city state of Athens, all free men had the vote. The definition of "free man" just happened to exclude approximately 97% of the population.

Our governments have since figured out that you can merrily hand out the privilege, as long you remain in control of what is allowed to be put on the vote in the first place. I'm not alone with my view, btw. Lessig has made the same point in his "Country of Lesters" talk.[0,1]

0: https://www.politicallawbriefing.com/2013/04/a-lester-whats-... (overview, writeup)

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g (recorded talk)

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#315

Post by cout »

motohagiography wrote: post #52

When the Snowden docs came out, the main thing that surprised me wasn't the tech, it was the scale. I thought I had seen the tip of the iceberg doing security work for over 15y prior, but I had barely seen ripples in the surface. Most of what I saw would have been in the category of "BULLRUN," which I incorporate into client threat models today, but also some of the ISP interception equipment I saw at peering points…

I thought it was pretty widely believed before the snowden leaks that the US (and in particular the NSA) did warrantless surveillance of US citizens. What was lacking was credible evidence; anyone who claimed it was widespread before snowden could easily be written off as a conspiracy theorist.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#316

Post by Loquebantur »

phs318u wrote: post #294
Joeri wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of democracy is not that everybody is perfectly informed to come to the logically best outcome. The point is that it gives a people agency over their own future. If they choose to be ill-informed and pick bad candidates, they own the consequences. Democracy does not lead to the best outcome, but to the most fair one.

> they own the consequences No. We own the consequences. > the most fair one. The most fair, yes, probably. The fairest? No. Though I’ll admit I’m stumped (though in good company I suspect) as to how to possibly achieve the fairest outcome. I suspect it’s a platonic ideal, barring a Star Trek reality coming to life.

Not having the solution ready doesn't mean it wouldn't exist at all.

Humans are very diverse in their abilities and society needs to account for that. Division of labour is key here.

Not everybody needs to decide on or be informed about everything. What is necessary is transparency, accountability and the resulting trust in those responsible.

Our societies are so messed up in that regard, we don't even consider that being possible anymore. But it is.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#317

Post by HellDunkel »

brabel wrote: post #311
genman wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely misinterpret the situation with Russia and China. Russia and China have the objectives of their own. For Russia it is to expand their empire that in their own mind rightfully belongs to them. They didn't attack Ukraine because of US actions but because they seriously believe that they have some kind of right over Ukrainians lands, or even more seriously, that Ukrainians don't exists. If US woul…

No, you're misrepresenting it. Your rationale is that Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory, and that's why it attacked Ukraine... a primary school level of simplification. You ignore that Russia's number one fear after the collapse of the USSR was for another military invasion from the West, as had happened several times over the last few centuries... that Russia's border with Ukr…

You could have made your point without accusing anyone of parroting „the media“. Russia has agreed to the borders of Ukraine in 1993 and from then on 2 more times. They have onesidedly broken the agreement and attacked a peaceful neighbour, no commitment to not joining NATO has been granted. These are facts you can easily look up, no need to come up with made up security concerns which have been no problem a decade earlier.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#318

Post by nyokodo »

luke727 wrote: post #299
nyokodo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was flying to Ecuador and his passport was revoked when he was in Russia Says who. > If you speak out against Ukraine in Russia you get shot, and he has a wife and kids now. That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.

> Says who. Just a few tabloid rags like The Washington Post [1], The Guardian [2], and The Atlantic [3]. > That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now. Pledging allegiance is required to obtain Russian citizenship, which grants him additional protections from the United States. It is also required to obtain a Rus…

> Russian citizenship, which grants him additional protections from the United States

Protections he apparently didn’t need for nearly a decade, but did once Russia was executing its genocidal war. Your “he’s merely scared of America” narrative doesn’t hold water.

> trapped him in an adversarial foreign country

No one made him travel and his passport was revoked before flying to Moscow, evidence elsewhere on the thread. He trapped himself!

> timing makes for awkward optics, but I'm going to cut the guy some slack

Russia is systematically raping and murdering Ukrainians while Snowden is giving his oath to Russia and you call that “awkward optics?”

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#319

Post by amoshi »

m4jor wrote: post #141
amoshi wrote: post #44

>Intelligence professionals talk about how disorienting it is living on the inside. You read so much classified information about the world’s geopolitical events that you start seeing the world differently. You become convinced that only the insiders know what’s really going on, because the news media is so often wrong. Your family is ignorant. Your friends are ignorant. The world is ignorant. The only thing keeping…

>Don't want to agree? You end up like Qwest (CEO got jailed) or Yahoo ($250k daily fine until they comply). The power gained is immense though, just read about XKeyScore. also the Lavabit owner, Ladar Levison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

>Afterwards, Levison wrote that after being contacted by the FBI, he was subpoenaed to appear in federal court, and was forced to appear without legal representation because it was served on such short notice; in addition, as a third party, he had no right to representation, and was not allowed to ask anyone who was not an attorney to help find him one. He also wrote that in addition to being denied a hearing about the warrant to obtain Lavabit's user information, he was held in contempt of court. The appellate court denied his appeal due to no objection, however, he wrote that because there had been no hearing, no objection could have been raised. His contempt of court charge was also upheld on the ground that it was not disputed; similarly, he was unable to dispute the charge because there had been no hearing to do it in. He also wrote that "the government argued that, since the 'inspection' of the data was to be carried out by a machine, it was exempt from the normal search-and-seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment."

This is just absurd.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#320

Post by GartzenDeHaes »

HellDunkel wrote: post #317
brabel wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're misrepresenting it. Your rationale is that Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory, and that's why it attacked Ukraine... a primary school level of simplification. You ignore that Russia's number one fear after the collapse of the USSR was for another military invasion from the West, as had happened several times over the last few centuries... that Russia's border with Ukr…

You could have made your point without accusing anyone of parroting „the media“. Russia has agreed to the borders of Ukraine in 1993 and from then on 2 more times. They have onesidedly broken the agreement and attacked a peaceful neighbour, no commitment to not joining NATO has been granted. These are facts you can easily look up, no need to come up with made up security concerns which have been no problem a decade e…

It's worth noting that the agreements that guarantee Ukraine's borders also guarantee Russia's access to their black sea military bases in the Chimera.
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