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Reform Government Surveillance

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Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#121

Post by justin66 »

hooande wrote: post #116
pg wrote: post #19

Among other things, this is the tipping point for how Snowden will be viewed. If all these powerful companies agree, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, that this is an important problem, then Snowden is ipso facto a hero for bringing it to our attention. The curious thing is, I feel the linkage works in the other direction too. If Snowden had been caught and was now having his brains scrambled by solitary confine…

There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Government surveillance has become a political wedge issue, similar to abortion. No one likes it or encourages it but people have strong…

> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor.

Let's break this down. You'd have to:

not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union

not know that Russia wasn't where Snowden was trying to end up

not understand the difference between a political defector (defecting to a political system that doesn't exist anymore!) and a guy trying to evade prosecution

I don't say this very often but I don't think people are as dumb as you think they are. People who think Snowden is a traitor would feel the same if he were in Iceland or something right now.

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#122

Post by sklivvz1971 »

Honestly this makes me a little upset. While I am happy that these corporations are taking a stand against surveillance, I am not convinced of their intentions:

* This summer's hailstorm was about NSA but also about them. This site obviously ignores this and shows these corps as innocent victims, which they are not.

* It's clearly too little! "Governments should reform themselves". How should they do that? There are absolutely no proposals on how to fix this on this site.

* It's clearly too late. This should have happened before Snoweden, not six months after.

This is just "let's go back to normal" propaganda, "damage control" PR. Nothing will change because of this.

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#123

Post by dingaling »

pavs wrote: post #70
molecule wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-46280830-1', 'reformgovernmentsurveillance.com'); ga('send', 'pageview');

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Interesting tool, but it just appears to set _gaUserPrefs to a function that returns true.

window["_gaUserPrefs"] = { ioo : function() { return true; } }

Couldn't a nefarious site just over-ride that later in the page-load process?

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#124

Post by unionpivo »

justin66 wrote: post #121
hooande wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Government surveillance has become a political wedge issue, similar to abortion. No one likes it or encourages it but people have strong…

> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Let's break this down. You'd have to: not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union not know that Russia wasn't where Sn…

Considering that the group of people we are talking about probably overlaps with people who still think Obama is a muslim [1], I think you are giving common sense too much credit

[1]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/obama-muslim_n_1706...

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#125

Post by scrrr »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #122

Honestly this makes me a little upset. While I am happy that these corporations are taking a stand against surveillance, I am not convinced of their intentions: * This summer's hailstorm was about NSA but also about them . This site obviously ignores this and shows these corps as innocent victims, which they are not. * It's clearly too little! "Governments should reform themselves". How should they do that? There are…

They quote Zuckerberg on that site: "Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information."

So what about limits on how businesses collect information?

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#127

Post by melling »

justin66 wrote: post #121
hooande wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Government surveillance has become a political wedge issue, similar to abortion. No one likes it or encourages it but people have strong…

> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Let's break this down. You'd have to: not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union not know that Russia wasn't where Sn…

I'm sorry but this is just wrong. If Snowden was is Iceland, Switzerland, Germany or France he would certainly be viewed differently. Russia still has a way to go politically. Putin has been running the country for how long? Journalist tend to get killed:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in...

And Russia is also a dangerous place to be gay. Snowden in Russia looks like politics on the part of Russia. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't find out some time in the future that Russia has their own surveillance program that was similar to ours.

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#128

Post by aragot »

This is an extremely talented commercial suggestion: On one side, as a European, I would NOT support it; and on the other, it looks like a very, very legitimate bill ("why would anyone oppose!?"). Good job for the PR people behind that move! Here's why:

* It says "Governments" (plural). That means because US security agencies have thoroughly breached the borders of acceptable privacy, now all governments should diminish their control. I'm aware Eu agencies do the same, but they don't build as big datacenters as the NSA does. By not having the same budgets, Eu agencies don't overreach as much as the NSA does.

* As a European, the best protection I see against all-spying programs is to have competitive European web services. For example I would support a Eu decision to require a European email address for communication with governments, or similar rules designed to make sure Europeans communicate through safe channels with their governments. It is also EU's role to make sure we have enough competitors so that citizens can use local providers (competitors to Fb, etc) to store their data in Europe, if those consumers trust European spying agencies. As a desired side effect, it is a way to grow our economy.

The Reform Government Surveillance would prevent us from passing reforms to locate European citizen data in Europe. Therefore, it's a very talented move from those 7 companies, and comes right at the right time.

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#129

Post by ENGNR »

melling wrote: post #127
justin66 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Let's break this down. You'd have to: not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union not know that Russia wasn't where Sn…

I'm sorry but this is just wrong. If Snowden was is Iceland, Switzerland, Germany or France he would certainly be viewed differently. Russia still has a way to go politically. Putin has been running the country for how long? Journalist tend to get killed: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in... And Russia is also a dangerous place to be gay. Snowden in Russia looks like politics on the part of…

He wouldn't have made it to Iceland. The USA grounded a government owned plane travelling within Europe to Austria when they thought he was on it.

Realistically, China and Russia are the only nations powerful enough to stand up to the USA.

Re: Reform Government Surveillance

#130

Post by MatthiasP »

melling wrote: post #127
justin66 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor. Let's break this down. You'd have to: not know the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union not know that Russia wasn't where Sn…

I'm sorry but this is just wrong. If Snowden was is Iceland, Switzerland, Germany or France he would certainly be viewed differently. Russia still has a way to go politically. Putin has been running the country for how long? Journalist tend to get killed: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in... And Russia is also a dangerous place to be gay. Snowden in Russia looks like politics on the part of…

If Snowden fled to Iceland, Switzerland, Germany or France he would be already sitting in a US prison cell.
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