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Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

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Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#251

Post by INTPenis »

Rest in peace sweet prince. I'll never forget this discovery, it was probably my first realization that whatever is possible technically is most likely being done somewhere to exert power over people.

And in this case most people in tech knew you could split a network backbone, and if you can do it then most likely someone is doing it. But Mark actually brought it into the light.

And that's what we can't forget in 2025, that whatever is possible technically is most likely being done by someone somewhere. Today it would be using AI to oppress people, track citizens, predict crimes, accuse people of crimes they might commit, or whatever your imagination anchored in technical reality can picture.

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#252

Post by somenameforme »

autoexec wrote: post #226
somenameforme wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No it didn't, not at all. The leaks clearly showed email as being one of the many things being directly surveilled. Here is one of the many slides directly acknowledging as much. [1] If you mean the rhetoric around it, then yeah - politicians lie, especially when engaging in what would be seen as deeply unpopular behavior. This isn't a shock. I assure you the admin that passed indefinite detention without charg…

I actually believed Obama when he spoke about ending the NSA's mass surveillance on the American people. He taught constitutional law. He knew exactly how wrong it was. I suspect that once he got into office he was either strong armed into changing his tune (and into ultimately giving the NSA more spying powers on the public) or he was shown enough secret evidence that it scared him into thinking it was necessary to…

The sayings about power corrupting date back to time immemorial. It's easy to say something is wrong (or right) when you are in no position to meaningfully impact, or be impacted, by what you're speaking of. It's another altogether different thing when you are in a situation to define the limits of your own powers, or that which even might affect you.

This, in many ways, is what made the Founding Fathers so unique. They were in a position to grant themselves effectively any and all powers they might ever desire. Yet instead, they sacrificed all of that in pursuit of a more free and just society, in many cases to their own detriment. In modern times I do not think there's any real comparable examples. Instead it's just endless power accumulation, tempered only by the oft liminal protest of the citizenry.

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#253

Post by nabla9 »

kstrauser wrote: post #28
AtomBalm wrote: post #22

He revealed unlawful surveillance years prior to and of the same gravity as Snowden, but only one became a celebrity. I would love to know the reason for that.

I say this without intending to denigrate Snowden at all: Klein's situation was less messy. Snowden had a top secret clearance and vowed to safeguard all the secrets he came across. Klein was just a regular guy doing regular work for a regular company when he saw something strange. That doesn't mean I think Snowden was wrong, just that there's a ton of room for people to say "I agree with him but he shouldn't have do…

Snowden explained it well. There were four other whistleblowers besides Snowden and Klein.

(1) Russ Tice: USAF intelligence analyst

(2) William Binney: NSA Technical Director.

(3) Thomas Tamm: DOJ lawyer

(4) Thomas A. Drake: senior executive at NSA

Each of them was a senior position relative to Snowden and Klein and all these cases were shut down. What change Snowden had to do traditionally by the book whistleblow or tiny traditional leak. He made the conscious decision to take the information so that they could not shut him down, and make a scene from outside the US (Hong Kong) so that there would be time to talk to the press.

Snowden made a political crime that was morally justified. It was not self serving. It turns out that Americans don't care but at least he made a splash.

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#254

Post by aucisson_masque »

bb88 wrote: post #222
anonym29 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't simply tapping phones, it is the warrantless collection of close to all global electronic communications. And the immorality doesn't stop there, that's where it starts. "We kill people based on metadata." - General Michael Hayden, former Director of the NSA, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and former Director of the CIA. This includes innocent people. Women, children, civilians. D…

If you're in a war of attrition (like the the US was in Afghanistan), and the other side already has agreed it's okay to kill innocents (9/11), then you're not going to win by fighting an "ethical" war -- whatever that means. I'm not going to defend the CIA/NSA for actions taken inside the country. On the other hand, I'm not going to second guess decisions happening on the ground in an active war zone.

The end never justify the mean, that's how you end up with concentration camps, massive executions and other atrocities.

Beside, killing without distinction combattant and civilians didn't work, see the result of the American Afghanistan war.

Even during the war, 99% of the country was to the hand of war leaders and talibans because everyone hated Americans. Guess why.

It took only a handful of days for Talibans to defeat the American sponsored 'democratic' gouvernement.

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#255

Post by nabla9 »

jmpman wrote: post #36

I expect there were 10,000 who knew, and he’s the only one who spoke up. Now, the other 9,999 likely believed it was to thwart terrorism, as this was post 9/11. Maybe those who had visibility into who was being surveyed were checking to ensure the spying didn’t cross their ethical boundaries. Interesting to think of what each individual in the system was considering.

>he’s the only one who spoke up.

Not true.

(1) Russ Tice: USAF intelligence analyst

(2) William Binney: NSA Technical Director.

(3) Thomas Tamm: DOJ lawyer

(4) Thomas A. Drake: senior executive at NSA

Each of them had a senior position relative Klein and Snowden and all these cases were shut down and you seemingly never knew about them.

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#256

Post by rcxdude »

genewitch wrote: post #87
aio2 wrote: post #2

Damn. I don't know if this started the whole movement or whatever you'd call it for this push towards privacy and the general public knowing about it, but it helped a lot. Before him releasing info about room 641A and whatever else, there really wasn't definitive evidence of any government spying and tampering, and either with the intention of starting this movement or simply letting people know, he was a big push in…

not only was there not "definitive evidence"; if you said that the companies did that sort of thing you were called a conspiracy theorist whackaloon. oddly 85% of the general public suddenly was like "well of course they spy on email" after all this came out.

That's not the general sentiment I recall. There was a general sense of 'the government's probably watching' (along with who knows who else: early internet protocols like email really aren't resistant to snooping by more or less anyone), just no public info on specifically how (and you might get some disapproving looks if you claimed any specific approach without evidence).

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#258

Post by DoingIsLearning »

aio2 wrote: post #2

Damn. I don't know if this started the whole movement or whatever you'd call it for this push towards privacy and the general public knowing about it, but it helped a lot. Before him releasing info about room 641A and whatever else, there really wasn't definitive evidence of any government spying and tampering, and either with the intention of starting this movement or simply letting people know, he was a big push in…

> started the whole movement or whatever you'd call it for this push towards privacy

I don't really like this framing because it makes it sound like if you care for privacy you are some form of fringe advocate.

We should always try to reframe:

Would you be ok with government employees or law enforcement indiscriminately opening your letters? Ask any senior and the answer is a clear no.

So why are we discussing this as if privacy is entirely optional as soon as you change medium from written letters to emails, sms, instant message?

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#259

Post by mandmandam »

somenameforme wrote: post #252
autoexec wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually believed Obama when he spoke about ending the NSA's mass surveillance on the American people. He taught constitutional law. He knew exactly how wrong it was. I suspect that once he got into office he was either strong armed into changing his tune (and into ultimately giving the NSA more spying powers on the public) or he was shown enough secret evidence that it scared him into thinking it was necessary to…

The sayings about power corrupting date back to time immemorial. It's easy to say something is wrong (or right) when you are in no position to meaningfully impact, or be impacted, by what you're speaking of. It's another altogether different thing when you are in a situation to define the limits of your own powers, or that which even might affect you. This, in many ways, is what made the Founding Fathers so unique. T…

> In modern times I do not think there's any real comparable examples

There are real comparable examples, from South America and Africa, and America herself. You won't hear about them much, partly because they break important narratives and partly because often the US went to extraordinary lengths to smear, coup and/or murder those people.

Examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

Re: Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died

#260

Post by Hikikomori »

neil_s_anderson wrote: post #54
kstrauser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not want my data included in the dataset. "We're not looking at it, pinky swear!" rings hollow.

Why would an analyst at the NSA be looking at your communications data? It's a bit like the police getting a search warrant to look around your home. If there's no legitimate reason to do it, like having reasonable suspicion of a crime that requires investigation, then they're not going to.

How long until the new US administration starts using this data?
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