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Cowards

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Re: Cowards

#31

Post by eightyone »

chime wrote: post #8

What if companies that do not wish to do evil adopted unspoken signaling mechanism for silent protests? What if every time n NSLs were fulfilled since start of year, they donated to EFF? What if $1 was donated to EFF for every 1 GB of data they shared? Would that be illegal?

What you're talking about is referred to as a warrant canary. There's a nice Wikipedia entry on the subject, if you're interested. [1]

Check out [2] for an example of one.

Perhaps we should be pressuring companies like Dropbox (whom was implicated as "coming soon" in the documents leaked) to implement such a system.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

[2] http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

Edit: Now thinking about it, Dropbox was probably already hit with a request. Maybe we should focus on other services that may be of future interest to the government?

Re: Cowards

#32

Post by [deleted] »

sage_joch wrote: post #6
jmduke wrote: post #2

There's a meme on Reddit that revolves around 'so brave': basically calling people/posts/comments out for obvious pandering. This reads like a pastiche of Keith Olbermann, all bravado and empty gusto. Arrington writes: What has these people, among the wealthiest on the planet, so scared that they find themselves engaging in these verbal gymnastics to avoid telling a simple truth? and then acknowledges that doing so,…

> What the hell does this even mean? It means that if telling the truth is illegal, they should have the courage to break the law.

[deleted]

Re: Cowards

#33

Post by rdtsc »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #11

Yup, because instead of expecting politicians who made the laws and judges who approved the FISA orders, let's call out the CEOs. I don't even understand the outrage that most US citizens are showing at the moment for the said firms even after realizing that any access that may have been provided was through the channels that the governments had 'legally' set up. And that at least some of the companies had resisted.…

Just because the laws, judges and politicians are not behaving well, doesn't make CEOs' behavior admirable.

The allegation is that they are deliberately misleading. I don't know if it is true but that is what they are attacked for.

Heck maybe people perceive that a single CEO like Page or Zuckerberg do have more power to change things than those in Congress or Obama. That says something as well.

It is also a battle of expectations. Maybe many expect NSA, Obama and other secret government agencies to fuck everything, but they thought, heck at least the "Do No Evil" Google will stand on our side, or my buddy Zuck will.

Re: Cowards

#34

Post by mintplant »

Wait. That's it? That's all PRISM is--a special method of handing over information that is requested via court order?

Is this correct?

Re: Cowards

#35

Post by fredBuddemeyer »

arrington needs friends in silicon valley a lot more than he needs your clicks. whatever you think of the man this is an honest and indignant post and it's an example of the courage he speaks of.

it is fascinating that this concept is so difficult for an otherwise intelligent community to grasp and a reminder of why we still need journalists.

Re: Cowards

#36

Post by cromwellian »

Arrington is a drama queen IMHO, there are more important voices like the EFF, ACLU, et al to listen to on this issue. It's hard to trust where this indignation is clickbait fake, or real.

Re: Cowards

#37

Post by lesedilino »

prayag wrote: post #9

I can't believe that people are getting mad these private enterprises. If you want your government not to spy on you, tell THEM. The governments was made to serve the people. The companies are going to do what they think is their best fiduciary responsibility. Get mad at your representatives in congress, not your email providers.

Asking your government to change the laws when your government has shown you have no power over it is a waste of time.

There's a growing intellectual understanding that corporations control the governmental processes from start to finish. Therefore, asking the government to change is stupid.

If the King rules your country, petition the King for mercy.

If an oligarch rules your country, petition the oligarch for mercy.

If a corporate elite rules your country, petition the corporate elite.

Democracy is, quite simply, completely dead. Gone. Done. The government does not institute change based on democratic opinion. You have no control over your government. They aren't the real seat of power in this society.

Having said that, most of the power resides on Wall Street and in the Military-Industrial-Security complex rather than Silicon Valley corporations. But these Silicon Valley corporations are now rich enough to change the laws. They can crown themselves King with the right kind of manoeuvring, and Arrington here is trying to get them to do so.

Petitioning Larry Page or Paul Graham to have a conscience is far more fruitful than voting for the government you want.

Re: Cowards

#38

Post by anigbrowl »

btilly wrote: post #25

Nice. Quote the NY Times article describing how things work, and fail to quote the bit where the employees tasked with responding to FISA orders, and who were possibly involved in the program, were legally not allowed to inform the CEO of what they were doing. CEOs who are not informed can release statements indicating the depth of their ignorance without being deliberately dishonest. That said, the alleged situation…

Oh come, why do you have to spoil the confirmation bias party?

Re: Cowards

#39

Post by prollyignored »

At this point, we are just guessing.

* Backbone route

* SSL, MIM hack

* indirect access like real-time backups.

* sudo RO access via vpn

* Remote Access to BigTable queries

* Team inside the company

* What china does.

Gotto love lawyers. They harp on the most ambiguous term.

Cowardice is an accurate term to describe ferengi, not to mention unpatriotic.

Who wants to give up the Jacuzzi ?

Re: Cowards

#40

Post by anigbrowl »

mintplant wrote: post #34

Wait. That's it ? That's all PRISM is--a special method of handing over information that is requested via court order? Is this correct?

But it's the principle of the thing, even though we evaluate the risk of terrorism in terms of incidental probabilities, rather than the principle that you should be able to go about your life without being randomly killed. This is different because it's destructive of liberty, unlike corporations doing the exact same thing for profit.
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