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The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

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Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#21

Post by [deleted] »

tinco wrote: post #9
atmosx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel offended by the way US-media approaches this matter and by my country's stance on the matter (not even a comment about it). Civilisation (broadly speaking) doesn't evolves hand-in-hand with technology. It is the major danger of our future.

Because for non-US countries nothing has changed. It's been a publicly known fact that the US spies on non-US citizens by monitoring internet traffic for over 20 years. Ask any hacker aged over 24. There's simply hardly anything worth being surprised about as a foreign national. If you asked anyone in The Netherlands 10 years ago if they thought their e-mail on Hotmail or GMail was monitored by authorities in the U.S…

[deleted]

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#22

Post by ZoFreX »

tinco wrote: post #9
atmosx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel offended by the way US-media approaches this matter and by my country's stance on the matter (not even a comment about it). Civilisation (broadly speaking) doesn't evolves hand-in-hand with technology. It is the major danger of our future.

Because for non-US countries nothing has changed. It's been a publicly known fact that the US spies on non-US citizens by monitoring internet traffic for over 20 years. Ask any hacker aged over 24. There's simply hardly anything worth being surprised about as a foreign national. If you asked anyone in The Netherlands 10 years ago if they thought their e-mail on Hotmail or GMail was monitored by authorities in the U.S…

Hacker aged over 24 here. Sure, we all knew. But it's one thing to "know", it's another entirely to have tangible proof. Whenever I spoke about this to people 10 years ago the reaction was "there's no proof, you're paranoid, you're a conspiracy theorist". Now we have proof the reaction is "so what, everyone knows that, I have nothing to hide". There's some serious goalpost shifting happening here.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#23

Post by fit2rule »

Dolimiter wrote: post #18
Dolimiter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it. You're saying that the USA spies on all non-US internet traffic. Does that make any sense? Is there any evidence? No and no.

"Yes[1,3] and yes[2]. Have you been in a cave for the past two years?" Yes, the NSA can monitor specific targets. Do they monitor all Internet traffic worldwide? No, such a task is absurd and technically impossible. However I have learned that people's opinions about the NSA are faith-based, and not open to reasoned arguments.

Sorry, but "absurd" - yes it is absurd - THAT THEY DO IT.

And, also: "technically impossible" - also: NOPE. Technically possible! In fact so technically possible it is a done deal. You cannot turn off the NSA, for to do so would be to turn off the entire Internet.. we get the copy, NSA gets the originals.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#24

Post by XorNot »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #20
Dolimiter wrote: post #11

Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee. However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

How would you find any information on the internals of the NSA that isn't hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee? Current employees who are happy and fulfilled in their work in the security services don't tend to say all that much to the press.

The structure of every single one of these stories is a single slide or page or quote, containing maybe less then 50 words maximum.

From there, wild speculation then goes on to breathlessly exclaim about what this really proves, while failing to actually support any of the assertions.

For good measure toss in some wilful blindness about the point of surveillance, mechanics of law enforcement, collective action problems or the fundamental differences between one's own government and a foreign government (hint: foreign governments don't have a monopoly of violence over the citizens of foreign countries).

The people who keep yelling about how nobody cares enough need to consider that just maybe they're not very good at arguing their point.

Cue downvotes.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#25

Post by amirmc »

Dolimiter wrote: post #11

Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee. However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

> "... despite any lack of sense or evidence."

With secret courts, secret interpretations of laws, gag orders etc. How does one obtain hard 'evidence' of anything (beyond whistleblowers)?

And what exactly do you mean by lack of sense? That we apply our limited knowledge to the scenarios described and then discard anything that doesn't neatly fit? That leads to cargo cult thinking.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#26

Post by spindritf »

bakhy wrote: post #5

The same offensive narrative repeats itself. - The government is bulk collecting data on foreigners. - Meh... - They're also incidentally spying on US citizens in the processs. - SAY WHAT?! If the USA could try to acknowledge the human rights of non-US citizens, that would be really nice.

This approach makes perfect sense in a democratic country where people are the sovereign. That's like an intelligence service spying on their own king. It subverts the whole system in ways that spying on foreigners doesn't.

It's not about human rights.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#27

Post by lotsofmangos »

XorNot wrote: post #24
lotsofmangos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you find any information on the internals of the NSA that isn't hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee? Current employees who are happy and fulfilled in their work in the security services don't tend to say all that much to the press.

The structure of every single one of these stories is a single slide or page or quote, containing maybe less then 50 words maximum. From there, wild speculation then goes on to breathlessly exclaim about what this really proves, while failing to actually support any of the assertions. For good measure toss in some wilful blindness about the point of surveillance, mechanics of law enforcement, collective action proble…

Nice story.

This story however has quotes and documents from many different people, including John Tye, Edward Snowden, Jesselyn Radack, William Binney, Melvin Goodman, Loch Johnson, Kenneth Mayer, Christopher Dodd, Ed Loomis and Thomas Drake.

Were you perhaps reading a different article?

edit - I am all for encouraging critical thinking, but you are hardly going to achieve that through complete misrepresentation.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#28

Post by coldtea »

bakhy wrote: post #5

The same offensive narrative repeats itself. - The government is bulk collecting data on foreigners. - Meh... - They're also incidentally spying on US citizens in the processs. - SAY WHAT?! If the USA could try to acknowledge the human rights of non-US citizens, that would be really nice.

Non-US citizens are considered less than humans. To be fair, the same holds to some degree also for lots of kinds of US citizens/residents (blacks, latinos, native americans, etc).

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#29

Post by coldtea »

Dolimiter wrote: post #11

Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee. However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

>Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least.

Yeah, we should all wait until they hand over the evidence in a golden plate, like secret agencies usually do.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#30

Post by RDeckard »

RDeckard wrote: post #14
Dolimiter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're wondering why you are being downvoted... The readership at Hacker News firmly believes that the US is a surveillance state. Stories are chosen and upvoted which confirm this worldview. Dissenting opinions are downvoted. If you're looking for a reasoned evidence-based discussion of the NSA, then choose a different website.

shiiieeeettt... let's see how many downvotes I get for this comment.

Come at me bro!
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