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Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

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Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#161

Post by dllthomas »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #143
refurb wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit simplistic, no? Sure, you might only come back to your farm in one piece, but what if the alternative to going to war is never coming back to your farm? What if it means leading a life that is far worse that what you currently have?

Yeah, what if indeed? Germany attacked Poland allegedly in self-defense, with exactly those arguments, can't wait for the mushroom cloud blah blah blah . So are we talking about there actually being the need for self-defense, or about self-defense as pretext for self-destruction of the many for the gains of the few? The few existential threats the US faces seem mostly to be inside of it.

They probably didn't say "mushroom cloud"

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#162

Post by mpyne »

hga wrote: post #132
venomsnake wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same that will happen when my little pony characters begin to worship chaos undived and add Abbadon the Despoiler in the crusade against Gandalf who is sitting on the golden throne. The idea of a successful attack on US with missile is just bad B movie trope. Even USSR strategies were for massive waves of missiles that could overpower the defenses. Non state actors cannot manufacture nuclear weapons. This thing i…

Who said anything about missiles? For best effect, smuggle in a device and do the mother of all "suicide bombings" from a general aviation plane at optimum height and location. Nasty detail: as of when I left the D.C. area, the defense plans for the White House would only shoot down the 2nd airplane which violated the relevant restricted air space.... We also have absolutely no defenses for anything from our east, un…

> As for sources, IF they got enough HEU they could most certainly manufacture working gun assembly nuclear weapons; as usual the trick is getting the fissionables, but are you entirely, "You Bet Your Life" sanguine about Pakistan's control over its nukes and nuclear materials???

I will note that Manhattan Project scientists were so confident in the gun-assembly nuclear bomb, that they didn't even bother testing it (in the age before computer-aided design, no less!). The first working gun-assembly bomb was detonated over Hiroshima. In other words the first atomic bomb ever dropped in anger had never been test-fired, that's how confident the designers were that it would work.

The real magic of the Manhattan Project had been the industrial-scale development required to piece together all that weapons-grade nuclear material in the first place, not the design itself.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#163

Post by mpyne »

robomartin wrote: post #158
graycat wrote: post #131

I suggest that, on the question prominent in this thread, "what should the US do about terrorism and the claimed excesses of the NSA", there is now an answer that is unavoidable, rock solid, quite clear, maybe crystal clear, even if it does not address all concerns. Here in logical steps is the unavoidable answer: (1) Due to whatever in history before 1776, the US founding fathers gave us the Constitution. Soon they…

I am sure you meant well but I found your write-up somewhat scattered and lacking a logical conclusion supported by prior points. This is easy to do if one is writing with passion. I've done it too. If your point is that we will ultimately be protected by the Supreme Court, I think you are wrong. This is the same Supreme Court that enabled Obamacare, a law that allows the Federal Government to force every american to…

> This is the same Supreme Court that enabled Obamacare, a law that allows the Federal Government to force every american to buy something.

That's exactly like saying the Federal Government forces everyone to get married and have children, since they'll charge you higher taxes if you don't.

As it stands, I can remember a greater perversion of authority: the USA PATRIOT Act...

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#164

Post by mpyne »

dllthomas wrote: post #160
Sven7 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the surveillance state will exist. Cause the answers are non-obvious. What I find most annoying about the comments on hacker news over the last couple weeks, is the amount of people crying about the problems or potential problems and hardly anyone talking solutions. The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.

Simple proposal that I think everyone would agree is preferable to what the NSA is currently up to: What the NSA is doing, but properly implementing mandatory access control (like what they added to Linux over a decade ago with SELinux) to ensure that admins do not have more access than they should. That said, I'm not eager to let them define the Overton window and just settle for that - I'm leaning a little further…

I'd even add more technical controls on top of accountability/oversight compliance organizational changes:

- Any data collected under a general warrant is encrypted immediately.

- Access to this data is audited to a WORM-style server.

- Decrypting the data requires 2 persons to provide a key (I believe there are crypto schemes that do this in the literature; if not I'm sure NSA could figure it out).

- The process that decrypts the data after the authentication creds are provided also notifies a random 3rd party within NSA (or even a Congressional/FBI/etc. panel setup for this purpose).

On top of this there need to be changes to how NSLs and FISA warrants are treated. They are secret only so long as needed for the law enforcement purpose.

Afterwards, if there is still an issue of sensitivity from a counter-terrorism standpoint (e.g. enemy groups would learn too much about our capabilities if fully detailed NSLs/warrants were public), then they are scrubbed as little as necessary to allow for public dissemination. This could mean aggregate reporting, sunset provisions for gag orders, etc. But having permanent gag orders is not befitting our Republic.

Finally I agree that having NSA write its own rules is not a good idea. I would require Congress to set overarching policy and limits on NSA's actions and prevent Congress from delegating that into the Executive Branch. I think even the Dems and GOP could hopefully get along long enough to ensure national security is being guarded...

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#165

Post by hga »

mpyne wrote: post #162
hga wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about missiles? For best effect, smuggle in a device and do the mother of all "suicide bombings" from a general aviation plane at optimum height and location. Nasty detail: as of when I left the D.C. area, the defense plans for the White House would only shoot down the 2nd airplane which violated the relevant restricted air space.... We also have absolutely no defenses for anything from our east, un…

> As for sources, IF they got enough HEU they could most certainly manufacture working gun assembly nuclear weapons; as usual the trick is getting the fissionables, but are you entirely, "You Bet Your Life" sanguine about Pakistan's control over its nukes and nuclear materials??? I will note that Manhattan Project scientists were so confident in the gun-assembly nuclear bomb, that they didn't even bother testing it (…

My only quibble, and I think it's a big one, is that they did before hand prove they knew what they were doing with the plutonium implosion Trinity test. When that much more complicated Gadget worked, it gave everyone a lot of well deserved confidence in the whole effort.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#166

Post by camus »

dllthomas wrote: post #161
PavlovsCat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what if indeed? Germany attacked Poland allegedly in self-defense, with exactly those arguments, can't wait for the mushroom cloud blah blah blah . So are we talking about there actually being the need for self-defense, or about self-defense as pretext for self-destruction of the many for the gains of the few? The few existential threats the US faces seem mostly to be inside of it.

They probably didn't say "mushroom cloud"

Bush did ,that's the point.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#167

Post by camus »

Sven7 wrote: post #82
grey-area wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks. They do cause damage and mayhem, however that is strictly localised unless the government overreacts and introduces draconian measures in a mistaken attempt to find terrorists under every rock. The UK survived decades of terrorism (sponsored by some US politicians like Rep. Peter King, now so ferocious against terrorists) without relying on mas…

If you were a Congresswoman, and a terror attack happened in your district, and you give this speech, what do you think the reaction would be?

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#168

Post by camus »

rahoulb wrote: post #81
Sven7 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet politicians the world over, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks are expected to act tough. I have never heard a shit happens lets move on speech.

There are often politicians (and others) who say "we will not let them change our way of life, because that would hand them victory". The fact remains that our way of life has changed, in the name of security.

This is where i say USA lost the fight against terrorism. USA became the evil it claimed it was fighting.

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#169

Post by nitrogen »

powertower wrote: post #141
kinghajj wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to all of his leaks so far. > Because that's what the NSA and CIA do, and all the other countries take part in. It's part of the game nations play. Yeah, and so? That doesn't make those actions right, nor Snowden's actions wrong. > Even Google is claiming the media is downright lying about what is going on. It's he-said they-said right now, but Snowden has documents that allegedly corroborate his story,…

> Yeah, and so? That doesn't make those actions right, nor Snowden's actions wrong. It makes those actions necessary, and his actions absolutely wrong. > It's he-said they-said right now, but Snowden has documents that allegedly corroborate his story, while all we get from the ISPs, telecos, and the government are simple denials. What we got was clarifications and specifics to the media's sensationalism and falsehood…

Why are you ignoring the first leak, the Verizon order?

Re: Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S.

#170

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

mpyne wrote: post #157
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My point is people have to be pushed to answer the question on how to tackle terrorism It barely deserves a response. Practically nobody dies of terrorism. >to take this debate in a constructive direction. To derail the debate with FUD?

"Practically nobody" has been caught up in NSA shenanigans either. What people are worried about is the possibility of this destroying our Republic, but we've actually watched the planes fly into the Twin Towers. So one of these concerns is more concrete, if that's all you're worried about.

>So one of these concerns is more concrete,

Right, we're clearly remiss in prosecuting gov't overreach.

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