Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen • Hacker News Board

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#151

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 3:57 PM UTC

mangala wrote: post #143

ams6110 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were two big reasons reasons the US went into Iraq. One was Saddam Hussein and WMD. Everyone believed that he had them, and it's a matter of fact that he had used them in the past. Though they were never found, it's not illogical to believe that he was simply able to move them elsewhere or destroy them before they were discovered. And taking out his regime would remove a large destabilizing factor in that part…

This was the narrative toed by the Bush administration and Fox News, but many Americans and the international community by and large did not agree.

I think that's largely a case of selective memory. People often have a rosy memory of what they believed.

Bush said he had clear evidence of WMD's in Iraq, that he showed this to Blair and Blair confirmed. I think it would be fair to say that most people would agree that Hussein wanted WMD's.

So I think it's fair to think that most Americans and most in the international community believed that Iraq had WMD's. The argument was mostly over whether an invasion was an appropriate response.

It was only "crazies" who believed both that Bush lied and that he was able to either snooker Blair or convince him to join in the lie.

Sometimes the crazies are right, though.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#152

Post by tlrobinson » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:02 PM UTC

chokma wrote: post #38

gasull wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#153

Post by toomuchcoffee » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

TL;DR - The Committee is outraged that the NSA is developing expensive software in house, rather than from Google or Oracle. But no one raises an eyebrow at what that software is being used for domestically.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#154

Post by ynniv » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

accountswu wrote: post #149

ynniv wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually surprising that US fell for it. The US didn't fall for anything - 9/11 was an opportunity to advance military goals in the Middle East. We planned to invade Afghanistan before the event[1]. About three weeks afterward this plan was expanded to include seven countries in ten years ("Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran")[2]. Some of those were accomplished by the "…

I agree for the most part, with a minor disagreement on the following statement: >The only confusing actor is Bin Laden, who attacked a superpower that had already expressed a desire to invade his people. The superpower was already occupying much of his people through puppet dictators; the Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni, Bahraini, Jordanian and Lebanese for example. Israel was created out as a "Jewish state" on 78% of Pales…

I understand his impetus, but not his actions. It would be foolish to expect his actions to promote the Islamist cause, and in hindsight they are the worst possible actions one could take to advance his cause. However, given his connections to western intelligence agencies I don't think that he was acting on the behalf of Islam.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#155

Post by toomuchcoffee » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #146

hooande wrote: post #29

About ten years ago, the NSA got direct access to every phone call, text and email sent via AT&T from the west coast to asia. Every. Single. Message. Set up shop next to the servers and just copied all of the data coming across. I think that by "dossiers" this guy meant "social network information from communication logs". They can start with your number (any number) and see who communicates with it. And then see who…

> If it makes you feel any better, facebook has a similar level of information about you and they haven't done much harm with it. How do you know?

Because they say so. Ain't that enough?

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#156

Post by Create » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

toomuchcoffee wrote: post #153

TL;DR - The Committee is outraged that the NSA is developing expensive software in house, rather than from Google or Oracle. But no one raises an eyebrow at what that software is being used for domestically.

they had to demonstrate, that they "gave up" in-house dev

http://accumulo.apache.org/

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#157

Post by olavk » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

Nelson69 wrote: post #126

olavk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you buy into "because they hate our freedom". In reality OBL couldn't care less about US domestic civil rights and liberties. He cared about US presence in the middle east and support for Israel. The "the terrorists have won"-notion is based on the viewpoint that terrorists are just evil and want "bad things" to happen to their enemies. So whatever unpleasant consequence for you means that the terrorists have…

If you believe that the US spending isn't infinite, then spending on this helps aid his cause. Eventually, the spending shuts off and the US pulls out, right? We're talking about healthcare spending vs. military spending at some point. Other than shipping lanes and some oil supplies, all other middle east presence seems optional. This NSA database has to cost a lot and a) they aren't supposed to admit it to the Ameri…

If US pulls out of Iraq and Afganistan (not even leaving bases), then we are just back to pre-9/11 status. Only if US furthermore pulls fully out of the middle east, including cutting support to Israel, then OBL have achieved a goal. This is very unlikely to happen.

Sure, NSA is expensive, but come on, it is not going to bankrupt the US to the extend they have to give up strategic influence in the middle east!

Again, OBL does not care about US healthcare spending. That something is bad for ordinary americans does not mean that it further the terrorists agenda.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#158

Post by javert » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:19 PM UTC

chao- wrote: post #78

javert wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably about a year and a half older than you, a US citizen, and I don't feel that way at all. The government used to not be spying on me. Then, in the last decade, the chance that it would started to rise. In the last 5 years, it became likely. Now, with this story, if it's true, we know that it's almost certainly spying on me . (And to clarify, I'm not a criminal or anything remotely criminal in any way, shap…

The government used to not be spying on me... In the last 5 years, it became likely. I'm going to pick on the 5 years & 10 years estimate, if you don't mind. If no one was spying on you then, it was because you were a child or teenager, and presumably not very interesting. If you were someone of major consequence five years ago (2007, to keep things in perspective), or even a decade ago (2002), you'd surely have at l…

A counterpoint to my argument is that this is the government

I think this is a much bigger deal than you do. Any government is always a threat to you, because governments weild force, and the actors within government can change rapidly.

A company that has your data is not a physical threat to you. (Unless the government isn't doing its job - in which case disfunctional government is the more fundamental problem.)

So, in summary, it is utterly unjustifiable for the NSA to spy on every average American, whlie it is utterly justifiable for companies to collect what data on you they manage to get their hands on.

By the way, it's not that nobody was spying on me 5 years ago because I was a teenager. Nobody was spying on me then because the government was not as evil. If I was a teenager now, or even a child, the government would be spying on me today.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#159

Post by Zarkonnen » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:19 PM UTC

kitsune_ wrote: post #79

Switzerland had a huge surveillance scandal during the 80's. It was named "Fichenskandal" or in English, "Secret files scandal". More than 700'000 people or organizations were targeted, usually people on the left: unions, feminists, environmentalists etc. A friend of my father runs an independent book store and he requested his files after the scandal was made public. He received a stack of paper over 10 inches high.…

I remember going to a demo against the fiches. I had a sign with a fish on it. The fish was crossed out. I was five.

But, seriously: the impulse to keep files on "internal enemies" is strong in any state, but it's come to the fore in a scary way in the last decade.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#160

Post by ams6110 » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 4:21 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #135

This is going to be embarasing the next time there is a major terror attack (hopefully it won't happen, but statistically it is likely eventually) when it turns out that they had the data on everybody but somehow didn't act on it.

It's far easier, after you know what happened, to go back to the data and "connect the dots" to claim it should have been foreseen and acted upon. But beforehand, the dots could have been connected in any number of permutations and paths, so it becomes impossible to act on every possibility that can be forecast in advance.