Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
1–10 of 103 posts
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#2Well, at least this sets some balance against Brooks and (have just read it, what a shame...), Friedman! [1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/friedman-blowing-a...
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#3In my honest opinion, I truly believe that this ship has sailed. It is too late to turn back now. Too much money and too much value has been had from these systems for these black projects to be switched off.
They will not budge and those systems will never be switched off. I would bet my last dollar on that premise.
Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go as dark as the modern world currently permits without hindering day to day life.
At a minimum, we now know that we are being watched and listened to on a massive scale. Previously we only suspected the worst. Sadly, the worst was not anywhere near how bad it actually is.
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#4Well, at least this sets some balance against Brooks and (have just read it, what a shame...), Friedman! [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/friedman-blowing-a...
I was thinking of submitting the Friedman article too. Sadly what Friedman fails to acknowledge is that a whole generation is entering puberty now for which 9/11 never happened. But Friedman has always been naive of full of crap depending on the interpretation.
Both Brooks and Friedman have one great problem though - they fail to show some real and tangible harm brought to the US or their allies by this leak.
It is also interesting that the Editorial can be used as rebuttal to those articles.
Schneier is sober and sensible as usual. But sadly among the connected people the opinions are strongly against the leak.
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#5Anyone have a pulse of Congress to know if "PRISM" has become politically toxic enough to warrant change? I'm guessing that if PRISM has SOPA level public distain that real change can happen. If the majority of Americans are shrugging at this, any announced changes may be superficial.
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#6As Bruce Schneier points out in his book Beyond Fear humans are very bad at assessing risk accurately. Ask yourself how scared are you of terrorist attacks vs. heart disease.
Notice how the government is putting much more money into the terrorist attack threat then the heart disease threat?
Here are some of the reasons why people are so bad and assessing risk: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/five_neglects_...
(note finding the actual risk of death by heart disease vs terrorist attack is left to the reader...you might be surprised)
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#7Anyone have a pulse of Congress to know if "PRISM" has become politically toxic enough to warrant change? I'm guessing that if PRISM has SOPA level public distain that real change can happen. If the majority of Americans are shrugging at this, any announced changes may be superficial.
Change! There's a masterful political campaign centerpiece if I ever saw one. Obama's recent comments re: PRISM: "I'm not against change". How vacuous.
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#8In my honest opinion, I truly believe that this ship has sailed. It is too late to turn back now. Too much money and too much value has been had from these systems for these black projects to be switched off. They will not budge and those systems will never be switched off. I would bet my last dollar on that premise. Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go a…
I'm not really sure why you've been down-voted for this?
I agree - I can't imagine a scenario whereby these large scale systems are switched off. Even if we are told they have been switched off or the data destroyed, how would we (as everyday folk) ever verify this?
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#9In my honest opinion, I truly believe that this ship has sailed. It is too late to turn back now. Too much money and too much value has been had from these systems for these black projects to be switched off. They will not budge and those systems will never be switched off. I would bet my last dollar on that premise. Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go a…
No it hasn't. And they'll have to budge, or go out. Too much money has been put (It's the tax-payers money) and value gained (doesn't it sound like finding terrorists this way is as bad as finding the next superstar for Hollywood?) is near-negligible in contrast to the value eroded: trust that's been destroyed - particularly in Internet companies - both inside and outside of US. Think again.
> Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go as dark as the modern world currently permits without hindering day to day life.
You sound low here, but if the above were true then it'd mean that people are willing to live under a dictator too. That's simply untrue.
Re: Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government
#10In my honest opinion, I truly believe that this ship has sailed. It is too late to turn back now. Too much money and too much value has been had from these systems for these black projects to be switched off. They will not budge and those systems will never be switched off. I would bet my last dollar on that premise. Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go a…
You could apply the same logic to Obama's tenure as president, but we all know he can resign any time.