Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 158 posts

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#141

Post by mabhatter »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #66
rainsford wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly get the "cheap sci-fi novel" feeling reading a lot of commentary on the Internet. But honestly, taking a step back and looking at what's actually happening puts things in a much different perspective and makes comments about living in a dystopian future seem more than a little silly. Look at the David Miranda situation. The Internet reaction about living in a police state was immediate, but the rhetoric d…

Well, the whole affair sounds a bit like a he-said, she-said. There are claims that Mr. Miranda was a courier and that they offered a lawyer and water during the 9 hour ordeal. The law office, which represents Mr. Miranda categorically denies that legal representation was ever offered to him, for example. Now, I don't know the truth, but even assuming he had documents they wanted to get their hands on, or files on hi…

If you changed the story to be a known drug dealers wife, it isn't that out of line. Can Miranda clearly say he has NEVER TRANSPORTED leaked documents or known where his partner keeps them? Really? Even more so, can he prove his partner has never tried to use him as a mule to pass confidential information across international borders?

This was just like grabbing a drug dealers wife hoping the drug dealer was just a little too greedy and his stuff in her packages.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#142

Post by rdtsc »

kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

> When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press?

Yes. But I was living in the Soviet Union ;-)

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#143

Post by crpatino »

padobson wrote: post #28
nwh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see a solution, and I'm assuming that nobody else does really. Citizens and foreigners (like me) have equally little power over what their governments do, just a mild decision between two parties come election time. The general population seems to be apathetic about it all, I don't think I know a single person who has any opinion other than the tired "nothing to hide" line.

Sounds like we need a campaign against the "Nothing to hide" line. You could probably point out to them that there are so many laws now, they probably broke 10 of them before they left for work in the morning.

I propose the last verse of Martin Niemoller's poem: "Then they came after me..."

It is as powerful a phrase as we can get!

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#144

Post by betterunix »

keithwinstein wrote: post #39
swalsh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to your first paragraph, its a question I keep wondering. What was different about these leaks then all the previous? Why NOW are people caring?

It's too soon to tell whether this time will be different -- that depends on whether Congress or the executive branch actually changes something in the end. So far it isn't different. From the perspective of the U.S. and U.K., the Chinese and Israelies and French are undoubtedly doing their best to spy on as much of the Internet as they possibly can, and they're probably pretty successful at it, so why would we unila…

We should not merely disarm; we should build up defenses so that our citizens cannot be targeted. At the very least people who operate remailers and Tor exit nodes should not have to live in fear of having teams of soldiers assault their homes.

This is a classic problem for governments when it comes to cryptography and computer security. On the one hand it is easy for enemies to take advantage of the poor state of computer security, committing various acts of industrial espionage or shutting down critical systems. On the other hand law enforcement agencies want to be able to investigate people, and computer security systems can hamper those investigations; similarly our own spies want to ensure that our enemies are not able to protect themselves.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#145

Post by res0nat0r »

espeed wrote: post #123
dragonwriter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth of the matter is, corporations hold more influence with Congress than voters. Corporations are convenient fictions. The truth of the matter is individuals with lots of money and connections hold more influence with Congress individuals without lots of money and connections .

Last year Google spent $18,220,000 lobbying Congress -- #8 on the top spenders list ( http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&index... ). That's not fiction, but it's a drop in Google's coffers. And the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec... ) removed the ban which prevented corporations from using their treasury funds for direct…

Google's mission statement is: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

It isn't to fall on it's sword and risk the entirety of the company fighting the US government on principale. I'd argue that doing that putting out of work tens of thousands of people in the worst case would "be evil".

http://www.google.com/about/

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#146

Post by lttlrck »

chalst wrote: post #83
rainsford wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly get the "cheap sci-fi novel" feeling reading a lot of commentary on the Internet. But honestly, taking a step back and looking at what's actually happening puts things in a much different perspective and makes comments about living in a dystopian future seem more than a little silly. Look at the David Miranda situation. The Internet reaction about living in a police state was immediate, but the rhetoric d…

> the man's journalist husband more or less openly threatens the UK government with the release of more classified information in retaliation Greenwald goes to lengths to refute this interpretation in the article and elsewhere.

Unfortunately for him it's a pretty reasonable interpretation of what he wrote.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#147

Post by lttlrck »

Mordor wrote: post #59
kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

Spying on people is terrorism and should stop ASAP.

No.

https://www.google.com/search?q=spy+define

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#148

Post by betterunix »

RodericDay wrote: post #74
MartinMcGirk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that, in general, people aren't caring. We are caring; the small band of software and technology enthusiasts who develop software and online businesses. We care. But in the grand scheme of things, people don't care so much about this. In the grand scheme of things we are a special interest group, like Anti-Fracking protesters or Animal Rights activists. Until I hear my mother or my girlfriend or my old…

You think Animal Rights Activists and Anti-Fracking Protesters don't care about their privacy? You think they aren't your natural allies on this? They may not understand the mechanisms by which it is all happening, but they are certainly down with the sentiment. The way I see it, geeks have been complicit with the system for a long time, always under the guise of being "moderates". It's only now that massive corrupti…

Except that technically competent people are alone in understanding how bad things are. Most people simply do not understand computers or the Internet well enough to really grok what these revelations mean. It is not just about the mechanisms by which the surveillance is occurring, but the extent to which is can happen (and the extent to which is likely is happening). Until most people understand the difference between policy and technology -- e.g. the difference between "privacy settings" and encryption -- "geeks" will be the only people who really understand these matters.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#149

Post by josephlord »

alistair77 wrote: post #22
kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

I listened to an interview with the Home Secretary, Theresa May, yesterday. She explicitly stated several times that she had no say in the Miranda's detention as it was a police matter. Odd, then, that she is responsible for the secret services and it is MI5, not the police, who are the primary in all anti-terrorism investigations.

The police in the UK do have sufficient independence to arrest against the Home Secretarry's wishes and MI5 have no arrest powers they normally get the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police to do the arresting I believe. However I think that if she had politely suggested that they be careful not to stretch anti-terror laws to far that they would have probably listened.

Re: 'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

#150

Post by betterunix »

adammichaelc wrote: post #128
kleiba wrote: post #2

Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century, you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press? I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like…

What do we do about it? Is it possible to disrupt the government? Somehow create a system that renders them obsolete?

Governments of some kind are needed as soon as you have a large enough population. Our ability to cooperate and peacefully resolve our problems breaks down when there are too many people involved. At the very least we need courts and agreed upon laws, or else we will just splinter off into little gangs that start killing each other whenever there is a disagreement.

The problem here is not the existence of a government, but the specific government that we have. Here in the USA we have soldiers enforcing our laws, and a legal code that can and frequently does turn a routine traffic stop into a multiyear prison sentence. The major political parties in this country are united in their support for this tyranny. In addition, we have spent decades ceding more and more power to the executive branch and creating a government that operates behind a veil of secrecy.

For the Americans here, I propose the following: be brave, vote third party and risk "the other guy" winning. In exchange for a few years with the wrong lizard in power, you will have sent a strong message to the major party that thought it could count on your vote. If the major parties do not learn, eventually the third parties will have so many people voting for them that they will replace the major parties. Either way we will have made progress towards repairing our government.

Post reply on HN