An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger

#61

Post by mkingston » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 9:03 AM UTC

ch215 wrote: post #33

For me, the most worrying part of the whole Snowden affair is the absence of anything even close to resembling a debate in parliament. The silence almost speaks for itself. First, Julian Smith secured a 30-minute Westminster Hall tirade on the "The Guardian and its impact on National Security". It was like watching a prosecution with no defence; Smith just declined to give way to any MPs who held a different view. Ne…

I wonder if they've thought through what this intimidation is likely to bring about. The way I see it, if they hit the Guardian or its staff with charges, the leaks will just go somewhere governments have demonstrably been unable to get at them, i.e. Wikileaks or similar. From a government perspective, this is dreadful compared with the conservative publishing approach taken by the Guardian.

Besides, the government wouldn't mind being watched if they didn't have anything to hide.

Edit: I'll just make clear the last sentence was mostly in jest.

Re: An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger

#62

Post by csmuk » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 9:41 AM UTC

ch215 wrote: post #33

For me, the most worrying part of the whole Snowden affair is the absence of anything even close to resembling a debate in parliament. The silence almost speaks for itself. First, Julian Smith secured a 30-minute Westminster Hall tirade on the "The Guardian and its impact on National Security". It was like watching a prosecution with no defence; Smith just declined to give way to any MPs who held a different view. Ne…

Agree entirely but that would go against the state's current policy of limiting press freedom. They're already issuing warnings and roughing up editors. One step forward and we're there. To be honest we won't know if we're there when we are, if we're not already. A lot goes on behind the scenes that we don't see but probably should.

Our government plainly works on the principle of: better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Inquiries are all lead by alumni of the same organisations as the politicians so it's hardly worth it. Plus they'll probably seal the verdicts.

Best option we have is to take the information from the government and publish it without the politicians or the paper's involvement.

Rather an honest criminal than a politician or a newsman.

Re: An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger

#63

Post by turbojerry » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 10:21 AM UTC

ch215 wrote: post #33

For me, the most worrying part of the whole Snowden affair is the absence of anything even close to resembling a debate in parliament. The silence almost speaks for itself. First, Julian Smith secured a 30-minute Westminster Hall tirade on the "The Guardian and its impact on National Security". It was like watching a prosecution with no defence; Smith just declined to give way to any MPs who held a different view. Ne…

I would posit that the reason there is no debate in Parliament is that MPs are afraid of what GCHQ / NSA / etc. might leak about them. What I find more worrying is that there is absolutely no debate about a) the fact British intelligence services have been compromised in the past and are still most likely compromised, imagine what a Kim Philby could do with all this data and b) the possibility of inserting false information into these data stores thus making even completely innocent people vulnerable to being blackmailed.

Re: An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger

#64

Post by atonse » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 8:39 PM UTC

csandreasen wrote: post #57

atonse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you take the most high profile target in the last few years, Osama Bin Laden, you can see that he essentially lived in an electronic black hole. There wasn't even an internet connection or phone line connected to the house he lived in. They'd also burn trash on-site so that it could not be intercepted. Bin Laden also stopped using Satellite phones after it was clear that the NSA et al were very easily eavesdr…

Bin Laden did, which was probably why he was so difficult to track down. My understanding of the situation (correct me if I'm wrong) was that the rest of Al Qaeda and their affiliates were not as careful with their security. He might never be caught using an internet connection or cell phone, but it wouldn't necessarily matter if 90% of his organization did. Nuances would matter quite a bit, too. Bin Laden stopped us…

Oh that's not at all surprising that they tried to roll their own encryption. But if they are already not that sophisticated, then they'd still not be able to glean much value from these revelations.

Surely someone rolling their own encryption doesn't understand the big deal with NSA's BULLRUN program (where they tried to weaken encryption algorithms by planting people in teams and attempted to weaken protocols, or target vulnerabilities in encryption libraries).

Re: An open letter from Carl Bernstein to Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger

#65

Post by jblow » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 8:54 PM UTC

csandreasen wrote: post #51

jblow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful with putting so much emphasis on legality. The fact is that there are so many laws, and some of them are so weird and convoluted, and nobody really understands them all; pretty much everyone does several illegal things every day without even realizing it: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/... Under these kinds of conditions, if someone in an appropriate branch of governmen…

Can you provide a citation regarding any of these secret laws that I could be arrested for, or show any example of people being arrested and tried for violating secret laws? Or was all of this done in secret? The only secret "laws" that I've seen come out of the whole Snowden affair were FISC opinions dictating how the NSA can and cannot act with regards to existing public laws.

Are you kidding? This is well known and the administration even admits it.

For example:

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/27-2