NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

Post by brown9-2 » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 6:45 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #91

bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. Even we…

> actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. And there is an interesting counterpoint to that, e.g. > "If the Americans eavesdropped on cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil, and those responsible must be held accountable." http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/28/world/obama-unaw...

Post by brown9-2 » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #92

mapgrep wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was letting information flow between its data centers completely unencrypted until last month . http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... Last month! Think about that for a second. Most people on HN wouldn't send a single file to their own backup provider in the clear. Google was sending gushing torrents of data, presumably including email, IMs, etc, over long distances that way. That's v…

> Google was letting information flow between its data center completely unencrypted until last month. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... . Last month! Over their own private WAN. The analogy would be sending things in the clear over your LAN. [Citation: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~rcs/research/google-onrc-slide... ]

Post by unreal37 » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

bostonpete wrote: post #144

bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. Even we…

> actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. Aren't Google and Yahoo US persons? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Corporatio...

Post by cromwellian » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 6:47 PM UTC

jakewalker wrote: post #98

cromwellian wrote: post #86

Why didn't they release these documents a long time ago when everyone was racing to judgement that Google, Yahoo, et al were secretly in cahoots with the NSA helping to build drag-net surveillance extranet stuff for them? These are very important revelations! I mean, when Greenwald/Snowden/Guardian released the original PRISM accusations, these slides would have provided a much much more important set of evidence, in…

Who knows how many thousands of pages they need to read and understand? Also, don't underestimate the difficulty of a reporter understanding these thousands of documents sufficiently to recognize when one is really important.

Post by a3n » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #116

bradleyjg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the people who were actually in Germany breaking German law were (likely) on diplomatic passports and so have plenary immunity. Meanwhile, under international law, which German courts take seriously even if US courts do not, senior state officials have functional immunity for actions taken in an official capacity with a disputed exception for violations of jus cogens +. While there may be some roo…

Typically, if a diplomat constantly breaks the laws of the nation they're sent to in this manner, they get kicked out, and if the sender country in question keeps sending this sort of diplomat, the embassy would eventually be closed.