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Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

nytimes.com

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Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#21

Post by idlewords »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #3

Instead of being buried at the end of the article, Bamford's penultimate paragraph In Moscow, Mr. Snowden told me that the document reminded him of the F.B.I.’s overreach during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when the bureau abused its powers to monitor and harass political activists. “It’s much like how the F.B.I. tried to use Martin Luther King’s infidelity to talk him into killing himself,” he said. “We said those k…

The Church Committee succeeded pretty well; the reforms held for a number of years.

These kinds of checks on state power require regular maintenance. What we need is a modern Church Committee, not to throw up our hands at the political system entirely.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#22

Post by CamperBob2 »

idlewords wrote: post #21
CamperBob2 wrote: post #3

Instead of being buried at the end of the article, Bamford's penultimate paragraph In Moscow, Mr. Snowden told me that the document reminded him of the F.B.I.’s overreach during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when the bureau abused its powers to monitor and harass political activists. “It’s much like how the F.B.I. tried to use Martin Luther King’s infidelity to talk him into killing himself,” he said. “We said those k…

The Church Committee succeeded pretty well; the reforms held for a number of years. These kinds of checks on state power require regular maintenance. What we need is a modern Church Committee, not to throw up our hands at the political system entirely.

Accompanying one of his later document releases, Snowden himself said:

   In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential 
   enemies are doing, the United States government has 
   perfected a technological capability that enables it to 
   monitor virtually all message traffic.  Now, that 
   is necessary and important to the United States as we 
   look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must 
   know, at the same time, that capability at any time 
   could be turned around on the American people, and no 
   American would have any privacy left, such is the 
   capability to monitor everything — telephone 
   conversations, email messages, it doesn't matter.  
   There would be no place to hide.

   If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator 
   ever took charge in this country, the technological 
   capacity that the intelligence community has given the 
   government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and 
   there would be no way to fight back because the most 
   careful effort to combine together in resistance to the 
   government, no matter how privately it was done, is
   within the reach of the government to know. Such is the 
   capability of this technology.

   I don't want to see this country ever go across the 
   bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make 
   tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that 
   all agencies that possess this technology operate within
   the law and under proper supervision so that we never 
   cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which 
   there is no return.
Oh, wait, no, those words weren't from accused traitor Edward Snowden in 2014, they were from Senator Frank Church in 1975, recast slightly in modern terms to avoid premature discharge of irony. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee )

Sounds like they "succeeded pretty well" to me, too. Succeeded in predicting the future.

What, in your opinion, will be different this time around?

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#23

Post by eli »

alan_cx wrote: post #16
CamperBob2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those working within the system should follow Snowden's example, IMHO. Force the government to either stop these practices altogether, or reveal their true cost to the American way of life.

Why should any insider do that? Snowden did it, and look what happened. Nothing. Sad truth is, the majority don't care. If they did, then it would be reflected in voting, and things would change. But no. Mean while, Snowden is a wanted man in exile. Don't get me wrong, I don't like this one little bit, but it seems I'm in a minority.

Reforms don't happen overnight.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#24

Post by damon_c »

dragonwriter wrote: post #18
alan_cx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should any insider do that? Snowden did it, and look what happened. Nothing. Sad truth is, the majority don't care. If they did, then it would be reflected in voting, and things would change. But no. Mean while, Snowden is a wanted man in exile. Don't get me wrong, I don't like this one little bit, but it seems I'm in a minority.

> Snowden did it, and look what happened. Nothing. "Nothing" understates the impact. Sure, no one insider's revelations alone will suffice to radically change the situation, but, to borrow a Medieval adaptation of a classical aphorism, gutta cavet lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo .

For my fellow uneducated hackers: "a water drop hollows a stone not by force, but by falling often"

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#26

Post by mox1 »

rasz_pl wrote: post #25

> it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. minimized?? Im pretty sure he meant Anonymized

No he meant minimized, which in FISA terms means purged of irrelevant and over-collected information, including data about US persons.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exh...

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#27

Post by CamperBob2 »

rgkjrengkjreng wrote: post #14
yetanotherHNacc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a similar incident that comes to mind, BlueCoat hardware deployed by Assad's government in Syria. It was found that Assad was having traffic monitored through BlueCoat proxies installed at the ISP level. Logs were leaked showing monitoring of religious, sexual, political content. Of course many are now dead, countless others imprisoned. Much thanks to BlueCoat and salesmen who assisted Assad's government in…

I've noticed this as well. Similarly, reddit will completely shut down any threads that start to become too activist on the grounds of "witch hunting." It's amazing how we've already systematically nerfed the internet as a tool for bringing about political change.

To be fair to the authors of the HN guidelines, witch hunting has been a serious problem on Reddit. Few people want to see HN become another Reddit.

But reverting this title was arguably inappropriate because the NYT's original title is misleading in its understatement.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#29

Post by idlewords »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #22
idlewords wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Church Committee succeeded pretty well; the reforms held for a number of years. These kinds of checks on state power require regular maintenance. What we need is a modern Church Committee, not to throw up our hands at the political system entirely.

Accompanying one of his later document releases, Snowden himself said: In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables it to monitor virtually all message traffic. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that…

You can't expect reforms made in the seventies to constrain intelligence agencies indefinitely. The Church Committee imposed real, effective limits on domestic surveillance that it took the best part of three decades to weasel out of. Why not do it again, and do it more regularly?

You seem to be arguing that because the Church Committee didn't fix the problem of government overreach once and for all, it accomplished nothing.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#30

Post by mpyne »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #3

Instead of being buried at the end of the article, Bamford's penultimate paragraph In Moscow, Mr. Snowden told me that the document reminded him of the F.B.I.’s overreach during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when the bureau abused its powers to monitor and harass political activists. “It’s much like how the F.B.I. tried to use Martin Luther King’s infidelity to talk him into killing himself,” he said. “We said those k…

> We can't fix this by working within the system. That's what the Church Committee tried to do. They failed. There is no reason to think their twenty-first century counterparts will not fail again.

So take it to the logical conclusion and disband the state completely.

Or more to the point, be intellectually honest, and argue for the thing you actually want, instead of disguising it with smoke and mirrors about the supposed "impossibility of oversight".

The Church Committee was actually brilliantly successful, if the Snowden leaks are any indication of their effect on NSA. Instead of simply breaking the law outright, they employ every possible trick in the book to get what they need while staying within the confines of the law. Never mind that those interpretations don't hew to what you think the law should be, they were trying very hard to stay within the lines.

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