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Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

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Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#381

Post by e3pi »

Proleps wrote: post #98
digitalengineer wrote: post #82

Dutch person here with a little insight what's to come for you guys. Some information about our tiny little country (in Wester Europe, very pro-US) with just 17 million people. Our government listens in on more calls every year than in the whole of the US combined. All our telecommunications providers are forced to have the capability to intercept all traffic (phone and internet). Encrypted data must be stored for an…

Weird thing is, nobody seems to care. I care, it's one of the reasons I will keep voting for the pirate party.

Vote: Pi Rate Party International(PRPI) ...Krypto-Anarchic-Socialists?

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#382

Post by betterunix »

javert wrote: post #18
mtgx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. You should also be fighting it with every fiber in your body. Generations behind you gave their lives for rights like these, and the current generation seems to be giving them away because they are too busy chatting with friends on Facebook to care about it. And if you don't fight it now peacefully, you'll be fighting it in the streets in a bloody revolution, in a decade or two.

I don't see any way to fight it now. What are your suggestions? If we were to have a revolution here, even in a decade or two, we'd probably end up with something much worse than what we have now.

"I don't see any way to fight it now. What are your suggestions?"

Develop and deploy good cryptosystems, and encourage people to use them. My mother uses OTR to chat with me; she does not fully understand why it matters (or even that it is being used), yet our conversations are safe from prying eyes. Sure, it is just a small step, but it is better than nothing. A lot of small steps would quickly make the NSA's program prohibitively expensive (even for the NSA).

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#383

Post by betterunix »

rvschuilenburg wrote: post #123
Proleps wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird thing is, nobody seems to care. I care, it's one of the reasons I will keep voting for the pirate party.

Same here, and it confuses the hell out of me. Everytime i tell someone about yet-another-privacy-issue, and each time they answer "well, i have nothing to hide".

To which you respond, "Then why do you have your curtains drawn?" Most people parrot the "I have nothing to hide" line without realizing that they actually do want some measure of privacy.

You can also put it in terms of hackers: maybe they have nothing to hide from the government, but what about from hackers? People seem to be more concerned about that sort of thing. The same technologies that would thwart the NSA also happen to be good at thwarting other attackers.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#384

Post by e3pi »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #183
Proleps wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird thing is, nobody seems to care. I care, it's one of the reasons I will keep voting for the pirate party.

I think people did care but we see these stories so regularly now, even though I know it's a bad thing, I find it hard to care.

>... I find it hard to care.

A name defines, your name and your privacy; defines you exclusive of everything and everybody else. Without privacy, arguably you do not exist.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#385

Post by betterunix »

walshemj wrote: post #378
flyinRyan wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the US two party, first-past-the-post system is better?! Why would normal citizens vote for the president? There are only two possible outcomes of that: a president gets selected who basically blocks what the rest of the government wants (this is how it works in the US and exactly what the FF wanted) or the people pick a president who would work with the government but would have been picked with your curre…

Yes its is it makes for a stronger government and reduces the influenced of extremists holding the country to ransom.

"Yes its is it makes for a stronger government and reduces the influenced of extremists holding the country to ransom."

The problem is that there is no real choice here; you have a right-wing party and a slightly more right-wing party, and then a bunch of powerless minor parties. Nobody is holding the country ransom because there is no real disagreement. Occasionally the parties clash over the budget (as they did recently), but on the whole the country has generally followed the same path for decades now.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#386

Post by e3pi »

digitalengineer wrote: post #372
tripzilch wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Dutch. Didn't know about the drones, got a link for that? I believe you (esp. given all the other crap they pull), I'm curious how and where they use the drones.

There have been 81 official drone flights the last 5 months using the 'Raven' drone. Police are now learning to control the 'Scaneagle'. Amsterdam cops have already broken 2 of their drones... See: http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/05/09/bevestiging-na-kamervrag...

Slings? Wristrockets(tm), slingshots, rock?

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#387

Post by Zimahl »

mullingitover wrote: post #380

This is pretty unconstitional, but there's a problem with the constitution and the government. Thwarting the constitution is pretty simple if you have enough willing (or unwilling but coercible) participants in government. We have three co-equal branches of government. If two branches collude to thwart the constitution, they will always succeed because they can override the third branch. And of course if all three br…

It's a lot like Andrew Jackson's "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_v._Georgia

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#388

Post by jl6 »

foobarqux wrote: post #235
jl6 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation showing a fall in standard of living since 1970?

Elizabeth Warren's research would be a good place to start. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A#t=8m25s

Sorry, I wish I had time to watch an hour-long YouTube video :( I was hoping that, if this claim were true, it would be easy to demonstrate with a graph or some numbers.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#390

Post by e3pi »

betterunix wrote: post #382
javert wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any way to fight it now. What are your suggestions? If we were to have a revolution here, even in a decade or two, we'd probably end up with something much worse than what we have now.

"I don't see any way to fight it now. What are your suggestions?" Develop and deploy good cryptosystems, and encourage people to use them. My mother uses OTR to chat with me; she does not fully understand why it matters (or even that it is being used), yet our conversations are safe from prying eyes. Sure, it is just a small step, but it is better than nothing. A lot of small steps would quickly make the NSA's progra…

"The cypherpunks credo is 'privacy through technology, not legislation.' The law of the land can be changed by the next administration. The Laws of mathematics are more rigid."
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