151–160 of 208 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you are for the rule of some laws and not others? Just because you are pro-pot doesn't mean you are pro-child-molestation, right?
'rule of law' means something specific. To vastly summarize, if a law is unjust change the law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many lines that one could draw to divide this whole mess into two sides. Who's the 'us' and who's the 'them'? I can think of quite a few lines to divide up the power-centers and sociological groups, and the intelligence community/military-industrial complex is almost always on the wrong side. How about Congress vs. the Executive? The people in congress, our elected representatives, have been asking serious…
Because every group you've named has the same overarching goal - to keep people free and safe. Pretending like the intelligence community is some kind of evil monster is a great way to get ignored by the intelligence community, and for good reason.
This statement sounds hopelessly naive to me. Sure, those groups say they work to keep people free and save, but their track record with those goals is tragically abysmal. In fact, there is mountainous and credible evidence that their activities are accomplishing the exact opposite of their stated goals (see the history of intelligence activities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the rest of the Americas and familiarize yourself with the phenomenon of 'blowback').
Additionally, even if we take them at their words, their efforts at secrecy prevent us as citizens from any kind of meaningful oversight.
> Pretending like the intelligence community is some kind of evil monster is a great way to get ignored by the intelligence community, and for good reason.
Given that the intelligence community ignores the questions and objections of the very powerful - our Senators and Represenatives - how is anything I say going to effect who they ignore or pay attention to? Oh noes, they're going to ignore us even harder! What are we going to do?!?!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you seriously comparing protecting the environment to embarrassing a government in to open disclosure? Really? Two completely different things.
Not really, trusting/encouraging commercial entities to morally parse which laws they should and shouldn't obey seems absolutely crazy to me. Not sure what is going on with the massive cognitive dissonance being displayed. Government ignoring constitution/laws for perceived moral/efficiency benefits BAD, commerical entities ignoring laws for perceived moral/efficiency benefits GOOD.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside from the details that show the NSA having employees in companies install monitoring hardware worldwide? Or those that assist in providing data in return for some themselves? None of that counts to you because "there's just no reason to believe such a thing." You are essentially saying you don't believe anything you may have read in the past few years counts as control. What IS control then, other than the abili…
Did you just ask "What is control, other than the ability to control others"? Do you honestly not recognize the shell-game you're playing with that question? You're responding to all of the things I said with tricks and games. You don't want to talk facts, so I don't want to talk with you. I'm done, unless you want to stop drawing conclusions and start painting a real picture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki The relevant parts: In April 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama placed al-Awlaki on a list of people whom the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities.[32][33][34] The "targeted killing" of an American citizen was unprecedented. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court.[32][34][35][36] Al-A…
Ah, so not the streets of the US, which is what I said. Got it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"No one has "control" over the Internet." Aside from the people who control the hardware, and the NSA/others seem to have control over those people, getting them to install monitoring hardware. "I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric" I am able to be prosecuted for creating "hacking tools" while Endgame Systems has the NSA pay them a million+ a year to access data from those "hacking tools." 'There are even t…
wiki.echelon2.org, huh? The US military uses weapons citizens are not allowed to own or create on a regular basis. Is Lockheed Martin or Boeing not on our side because they make fighter jets that only the US government can buy? It's only "us vs. them" in your head. You're why we can't get jack shit done in congress - people like you get time of day from congressmen and women and then when someone like me wants to tal…
Well you turned rather insulting.
While I understand that Lavabit and others have taken a stand, Im not sure that I would call going out of business fighting. I see this as an NSA victory. If they could shut down all of these niche secure email businesses, what option will people have but to use less private alternatives? I would argue that a shut down is exactly what the NSA wanted from lavabit. Of course the flip side is that you don't want to be c…
If they could shut down all of these niche secure email businesses, what option will people have but to use less private alternatives? I think Ladar Levison answered that question, implicitly, in his shutdown announcement: "I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States." It is high time to provide secure services hosted in countries withou…
It makes me happy to see Schneier get more mainstream press these days. As someone who has followed his blog for years it's about freaking time he got more attention.
Even if the only purpose is to propagate absurdly naive and ineffective ideas? What, google and apple "fighting" the US Government they've gladly been cooperating with since forever??? Why doesn't Schneier call them out for what these corporations really are, government snitches? What makes Schneier think any of these companies want to do what's "moral"?? This article is one of the most naive pieces I've ever read. I…
Look at it this way: if every tech CEO is complicit without coercion (a strong possibility), the purpose of the article is to take away their shield, and convince the reader that those CEOs are morally culpable for not defending their customers. It's about calling the bluff by proxy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…
Depends on which law is being broken. In addition to whether the law is moral, there's also the business implications. Markets serve customers first. If the companies colluded to act morally in their customers interest and against repressive governments, then I don't see it being a comparable issue. They would be rewarded longer term with customer loyalty. If oil companies collude to ignore safety regulations, that w…