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Cowards

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Re: Cowards

#41

Post by scythe »

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.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United States of Atrocity in futile protest of its horrifying surveillance subterfuge.

It's very easy to ignore this sort of thing when it's not your ass on the line. Bradley Manning had a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes with nobody around you who can get hurt. The feds turned Sabu, the infamous LulzSec hacker, by threatening his three-year-old daughter. The United States government is not above such tactics.

I don't, frankly, believe that Arrington himself would behave much differently in the same situation. Life is not that easy.

Or, in the timeless words of Robert Oppenheimer:

"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."

Re: Cowards

#42

Post by lawnchair_larry »

zhemao wrote: post #15

The system the NYTimes article outlines is still quite different from what the original leak suggested. According to the Times article, the requested data isn't placed into the locked mailbox until the FISA request is reviewed by somebody at the company. This is nowhere near the same level of access as what the PRISM leak suggested. So if what the Times article says is true, Zuckerberg and Page's statements weren't m…

You're confusing the two leaks (I did too, it's deliberately confusing). The PRISM project does not even require FISA approval. The reason it exists is to not require FISA approval. The analyst just has to check a box saying that they reasonably believe that there is a 51% chance that the target is foreign.

Re: Cowards

#43

Post by mtgx »

"What we have in our hands now is the first concrete proof of U.S.-based high-tech companies participating with the NSA in wholesale surveillance on us, the rest of the world, the non-American, you and me," he said.

- Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finnish software security firm F-Secure.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillanc...

Re: Cowards

#44

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: Cowards

#46

Post by Achshar »

zhemao wrote: post #15

The system the NYTimes article outlines is still quite different from what the original leak suggested. According to the Times article, the requested data isn't placed into the locked mailbox until the FISA request is reviewed by somebody at the company. This is nowhere near the same level of access as what the PRISM leak suggested. So if what the Times article says is true, Zuckerberg and Page's statements weren't m…

Did you even read the NYT article? They said requests can be very broad, like logs for certain search terms and people staying in the company building for weeks with all the data being gathered in government laptops. That is pretty much realtime and "direct access".

Re: Cowards

#47

Post by treeface »

scythe wrote: post #41
sage_joch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United State…

I think the point the OP is making is that if it were someone like Mark Zuckerberg, the protest wouldn't be futile. It would likely trigger a nationwide debate about the constitutionality of the program and it would possibly be overturned in court.

Re: Cowards

#48

Post by Achshar »

mtgx wrote: post #43

"What we have in our hands now is the first concrete proof of U.S.-based high-tech companies participating with the NSA in wholesale surveillance on us, the rest of the world, the non-American, you and me," he said. - Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finnish software security firm F-Secure. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillanc...

That is the most terrifying thing to me. The US government can do anything with their people. It's their government after all and they are responsible for running it. But US government doing wholesale surveillance on everyone else? Fuck them if thats what is happening.

Re: Cowards

#49

Post by lawnchair_larry »

mtgx wrote: post #43

"What we have in our hands now is the first concrete proof of U.S.-based high-tech companies participating with the NSA in wholesale surveillance on us, the rest of the world, the non-American, you and me," he said. - Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finnish software security firm F-Secure. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillanc...

I'm not even sure how "we're only spying on our friends" is supposed to make anything better. Like no one in any other country has a right to privacy.

Re: Cowards

#50

Post by polarix »

milkshakes wrote: post #29
dylangs1030 wrote: post #23

An article that waxes poetic, yet is so very hollow and devoid of realism. What would you have these companies do? Band together in a mighty ring of technological resources and begin a Privacy Revolution? This is unrealistic. As an American, I am saddened and angered by the recent news of the past two days. I am disgusted with what our government has done - what it has hidden from us, to take advantage of us unawares…

Arrington was addressing the leaders of these companies, not the organizations themselves. While corporations obviously do not have consciences nor moral compasses, his point was that humans do, or at least they should. And I think he was pretty clear about what he would have those leaders do: > Perhaps you could all get on a conference call tonight and double dare each other to do it all together, at the same time.…

See the people who are making these statements don't know. The only people who know are the ops teams, and they really can't tell, because they could fairly easily just disappear.
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