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Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#161

Post by drsintoma »

pitchups wrote: post #49

It is remarkable how similar the two statements from Larry Page (LP) and Mark Zuckerberg (MZ) are below. The same responses worded slightly differently, and expressed in the same order: LP: "...we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers." MZ: "..Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government dir…

Let's not rule out the possibility that Zuckerberg saw Page's statement and sort of copy-pasted it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#162

Post by samstave »

jlgreco wrote: post #135
samstave wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see Eglin's sockpuppets all the time on reddit, they are actually pretty easy to spot.

The airforce base has sock puppets?

Basically, yes - its been confirmed that they have a shit-ton of traffic to reddit from Eglin, and the rumor is the HBGary scandal is related to this as they do a lot of online "sentiment shaping" from there.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#164

Post by jongraehl »

jhandl wrote: post #44
kjackson2012 wrote: post #11

It's so creepy how Zuckerberg and Page, as well as every other CEO's responses are worded exactly the same. The same goes for Apple too. It's entirely not believable that everyone's answers would sound so similar.

I can't help but think that they agreed to word this so similarly as a way to hint that the words have been put in their mouths. It's like what somebody that's being held hostage would do to make you understand that they can't talk freely.

Zuck likely saw the Page stmt before he+lawyers finished theirs, so it's not at all necessary to jump from "doesn't seem independently formulated" to "therefore govt handlers probably gave them a PR formula".

Anyway, what difference does the origin of the statement make? The companies are either trying to deceive us, or they aren't. What matters is what's being done to us. We're all powerless here except to let politicians know we're unhappy, will vote against, fund EFF, etc. "Gotcha" parsing of official statements is not an important tool in this fight.

Personally I find ridiculous the notion that proud public figures will feel less ashamed technically not lying than actually bald-faced lying. Either way, you've sacrificed public credibility. So the whole discussion of "is this really a denial?" is uninteresting to me.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#165

Post by nostromo »

untog wrote: post #134
pitchups wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>..another possibility is that they want people to notice the similarities and become more upset about PRISM. Ah, that makes sense, if they are under a gag order, but yet want to subtly convey that they are under a gag order! It would be a brilliant way of circumventing it.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can admit to a gag order being placed on you. As in, FB and Google would be totally entitled to say "there is a gag order preventing us from going into this". So they don't need to convey anything.

You're wrong on this one sadly.

If you receive a national security letter, you are not allowed to tell anyone (not your family, not your lawyer, not anyone).

If you break the life-long gag order, you go to jail for up to 5 years.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifte...;

Hundreds of thousands of these have been issued, and the above story (about the owner of an ISP) is one of the few cases where someone fought back and won the right to speak about it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#166

Post by adventured »

btilly wrote: post #65
jlgreco wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are NSLs addressed? I assume to the CEO, but what if one was sent to a departmental VP? Would that VP be permitted, by the NSL, to inform the CEO that the letter had been received? For that matter, who is the CEO authorized to tell if the CEO got the letter. Obviously they have to be authorized to tell at least enough employees to actually implement the demand.

Google's statement was strong enough to rule out the possibility that either the CEO or chief legal counsel was aware of the existence of NSLs or warrants that are nearly as broad as what Verizon received. Therefore, while they can't say one way or the other whether they receive NSLs, it is a safe inference that Google has not received broad NSLs.

No it wasn't strong enough.

All the companies ruled out is direct access (and Microsoft said is if there's a voluntary program, they're not part of it; they didn't rule out an involuntary program of course).

They did not rule out even something so simple as an API, or another party doing the work for the NSA (which the NSA then taps into, ala the Palantir concept).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#167

Post by criley »

adventured wrote: post #130
slg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication that there is some central figure behind this giving these companies scripts to read meets the most common flaw of governmental conspiracy theories. It requires the government to be simultaneously incredibly competent and incompetent. If the NSA was able to keep this project under wraps for so long with the number of people involved, I think they would be smart enough to at least slightly alter the wo…

You're wrong, it does not require that they be incredibly competent, not in the least. It requires that they coordinated with the companies PR departments in the process of setting up the program. The companies asked: what if the shit hits the fan, or this comes out in the public, what do we say? And the government had a simple, boilerplate answer for it. You wouldn't even have to work with the PR dept, just one sing…

If that was the case, then why are the CEO's putting their personal names on the line?

It's trivially simple for an expendable PR person or lawyer to go on the blog and make an "official" statement ghostwritten by the NSA/etc.

But that's not what happened. Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg posted using their accounts, and if it wasn't them, it was ghost written and borrowing their name and reputation (ie, they own it).

So, the CEO's are intentionally lying and intentionally attaching their names what could be the biggest lie they tell in some time.

Seems very stupid, why would they do that? Why not sacrifice a scapegoat? PR departments are full of useful scapegoats.

The Government forced them to reply personally to bolster credibility? But now we're back into the laughable conspiracy area again.

Or of course, they're telling the truth. For all we know, these companies reached out to each other, not the government, on the response.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#168

Post by coldtea »

paulrademacher wrote: post #127
dkulchenko wrote: post #23

Look at the two writeups (Zuckerberg's and Page's) side by side. Each has 4 paragraphs. Each of the pairs of paragraphs addresses the same thing. 1st paragraph: we wanted to respond to these claims. 2nd paragraph: never heard of PRISM, don't give direct access. 3rd paragraph: each request goes through legal channels. 4th paragraph: encourage governments to be more transparent. Terrifying. EDIT: It gets worse. Here's…

You seem to be suggesting one of two things. Either: 1) The heads of these companies had a conference call this morning and agreed on a 4-paragraph format, with specific points for each paragraph. Or 2) The federal government instructed each company to respond today, with a 4-paragraph point-by-point, and then Larry and Mark obediently complied. Ludicrous.

"Ludicrous"?

Are you kidding me?

In any case of accidental exposure of a covert government operation involving many such parties, there would be instructions how to handle the media.

Those could be known in advance (at least for some cases), or they would get a call in case of emergency with instructions on what they are allowed to reveal and how to say it.

It's not different than what would happen at a multinational if there was some embarrassing incident related to one branch (e.g a costly in human lives accident). The legal/marketing team would reach to each branch pronto, with instructions what to say to the media. So, if the media get the manager of the, say, Canadian, branch, he would say more or less what the manager of the German branch would tell to his media.

The only "ludicrous" thing is your misplaced scepticism -- as if things thing isn't both obvious and something that's standard practice to media handling from entities of any scale...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

#170

Post by danso »

btilly wrote: post #151
danso wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that has bothered me is that neither the Guardian or the Washington Post (someone kindly post the link if I've missed it) has posted more than just a few slides of this 41-slide presentation. I understand the leaker may want as few of slides as possible shown due to the danger of them being watermarked, but the few slides posted so far alone seem to lack important context. Secondly, in defense of the compan…

Implicit confirmation that the programs described in the press are real and as described goes all of the way to Obama himself. For example he responded to a reporter today by saying, "With respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to U.S. citizens and it does not apply to people living in the United States." If the programs were not as described, Obama would have certainly said so. Instead he confirmed…

FWIW, here's the press conference referred to, and here's the question:

> Q Mr. President, could you please react to the reports of secret government surveillance of phones and Internet? And can you also assure Americans that the government -- your government doesn't have some massive secret database of all their personal online information and activities?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. When I came into this office, I made two commitments that are more important than any commitment I made: Number one, to keep the American people safe; and number two, to uphold the Constitution. And that includes what I consider to be a constitutional right to privacy and an observance of civil liberties.

Now, the programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified. But they're not secret in the sense that when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program. With respect to all these programs, the relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006.

I'm not arguing against you, I'm saying that his statement is vague, and that it could just be a broad assertion of the executive powers. It doesn't matter whether the program is called PRISM or SUPERPATRIOT or what (in the president's reasoning), such surveillance measures have been legally approved and are regulated, if the government chooses to undertake such measures in the name of security. This is not the same as acknowledging that PRISM exists (which would put Google/Facebook's claims to the test).

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