51–60 of 135 posts
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the techy in me is greatly impressed that can do this. the libertarian in me is greatly annoyed they can do this.
Please don't politicize civil liberties. If progressives and libertarians can come together on anything, it's this.
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More or less, yes. However, the danger is really only to people outside the safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see it being a huge danger. However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or anything truly draconian takes place. There isn't any need in Democracy. You need to only control 51% of the engaged voters [e.g. the people who actually vote] and a…
Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few decades.
The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…
This is sex dirt and drug dirt. Money dirt is crucial to the functioning of politics, and I'd like to see a similar list of politicians who have survived evidence of kickbacks, bribery, money laundering, and misuse of campaign funds. Sleeping with someone other than your wife while being videotaped smoking crack will not put you in prison.
>I by no means assume that everyone in politics lacks personal integrity.
This is a straw man.
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The NSA is recording every call in the Bahamas and Afghanistan. They can listen to any call made in the last 30 days. (Edit: Only cell phone calls, but still.) It's possible that a similar rolling-window system is in place for calls going through the USA. Bahamas: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-p... Afghanistan: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-mass.html
Neither of those two places could be described as having a particularly high volume of calls though. Its an order of magnitude or more difference in sheer volume you'd be looking at.
The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…
2) It doesn't require all politicians to be be lack personal integrity and give way to blackmail, even a few can tip a balance.
3) Selective/distorted leaking could also tip the balance in places as to who gets elected.
4) Calls could be monitored to take advantage in negotiations for example by knowing what the real bottom line is in a negotiation, knowing which parts of a coalition can be picked off and exactly what they have been offered.
The question is not could the NSA take absolute control of all politicians but how many they would need to cause real corruption of the process. And I'm not saying that they are doing it now but that they shouldn't be allowed to get to a position where they could.
Regarding this in your disclaimer: "I am absolutely certain that there are enough politicians ready to mobilize to roll back NSA surveillance programs if they really think the programs are excessive in their scope."
Firstly there is no sign that they knew anything of the scope until Snowden, secondly "why aren't they doing it?" or failing that "if what we now know isn't excessive what would be?"
Disclaimer: Not a US resident or citizen.
The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…
First of all, whether they are shameless or not doesn't really matter. If sexually explicit pictures of a politician end up on the internet, his reputation takes damage. It's beyond his control. Plenty of politicians are willing to go to great lengths to avoid this. So what does it matter if he's shameless or not?
Second of all, politicians and other powerful people might have something to hide that isn't just embarrassing but is also illegal. It's certainly not beyond the capabilities of the NSA to target powerful people that oppose the NSA while ignoring those that support them.
For example, in the news you might read about a CEO that gets convicted of insider trading. Nothing to worry about, right? Well, what if the NSA purposefully targeted him because they don't like whatever it is he's doing? Using parallel construction, it wouldn't even have links to the NSA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandal...
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No: the NSA is recording at least 80% of all calls and will, towards the end of the year, have the capacity to record 100%.
You're assuming that the 20% drop off is due to capacity. That isn't my understanding of the current situation. The Utah facility gives them the ability to store calls for longer, it doesn't increase their scope. The reason they don't record 20% of calls is, from my understanding, that they have internal rules against recording certain people important to the democratic process within the US (e.g. politicians (and th…
The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…
At this point in the debate it has been observed on a number of occasions that ranking officials at the NSA are dishonest. They have made comments both sworn, and in general press releases / statements (on the record) that have later been proven false; and we have reason to believe those officials knew they were making false or misleading statements at the time. So in short, the NSA, and the intelligence community in general have destroyed their credibility.
>Several comments ... write about NSA blackmailing politicians. I don't believe it will happen in general, for reasons I have mentioned before here on HN.
I personally suspect that it already happens. We know that it has happened before (it was a favorite tactic of J Edna Hoover). I see no reason to think that it can't/isn't currently happening.
>I call baloney on the idea that NSA can keep politicians on its leash simply by knowing their secrets. Some politicians have PUBLIC lives full of dirt, and still get elected and influence policy anyway.
I think that is a naive outlook, and that naughty habits of conduct actually serve the purposes of an extortionate NSA/FBI quite well. The NSA does not need to "keep politicians on a leash". They may merely need an occasional favorable vote or motion on the floor. Knowing the internal communications of congressional staffers (and their normal voting habits), they wouldn't need to risk extra exposure to get a marginal vote over the hump. Not to mention getting people like Ruppersberger, Rogers, Feinstein, etc. appointed to the appropriate committees.
The fact that some politicians run successful campaigns despite imperfect, even scandalous personal lives isn't proof that every politician / official is indifferent about their reputation, or that they are invulnerable to blackmail.
I can't really address your last points as they are your personal opinions but I think that most Americans have very naive and uninformed notions about how governance actually works, as opposed to the textbook version of it we were all taught in school.
The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…
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I've seen that argument before but honestly... What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected? Nothing, really.
It's much easier and faster to use existing infrastructure than having to build a new one.
Additionally, while the people capable of building this infrastructure might refuse to do it under a fascist regime, they're comfortable doing it now under a democracy.