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Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

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Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#61

Post by MaysonL »

northwest wrote: post #6
monsterix wrote: post #5

I have a feeling that everyone having this tool is a better situation than only few-at-the-top having it. Older people who sit at the top tend to elicit a different and often machine-like behaviour [1] on emotional or privacy matters. Their decisions are likely to be blind to what people in their privacy want - that is emotional freedom. And their micro-decisions could be worse. Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM sear…

> Rather I'd suggest that the PRISM search tool be made available to every citizen on the planet. Of course you are joking. But if you think about it: If humanity is forced to give up privacy, the only way we could achieve this would be by giving it up symmetrically : If everybody is naked, it's normal and not a problem anymore, provided we can then evolve our culture to completely drop the "judging".

Every average citizen's privacy is gone, to whatever extent somebody powerful wishes it to be. The question is how much privacy and secrecy will the powerful be able to enforce for themselves.

Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#63

Post by petegrif »

malandrew wrote: post #53
jkestner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a great volley back on how revealing metadata is, a la the Paul Revere piece. I know the White House has to keep these records - if congresspeople (AND their staff) don't, there oughta be a law.

Which watchdog group (e.g. EFF, change.org) would be the best one to propose a congressional metadata law? If our elected officials can see value in knowing the metadata of his or her citizens, then the citizens that elected those officials should be able to see the metadata of everyone his or her congressman calls, meets with or emails. The same should apply to all the senior staff of any elected official. One of th…

Great idea.

Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#64

Post by D9u »

drewcrawford wrote: post #16
northwest wrote: post #3

“I was back out at NSA just last week, spent a couple hours out there with high and low level NSA officials,” Chambliss said. “And what I have been assured of is that there is no capability at NSA for anyone without a court order to listen to any telephone conversation or to monitor any e-mail.” How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies for just about anything, now? After they blatantly lie in Congre…

> How _dumb_ must one be to continue to trust these agencies Taking a deep breath for a moment, if you look at TFA it contains two contradicting allegations, from sources that appear to me to be roughly similarly credible. On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other? And why are the people who believe the other source "lobotomized"? I am not really sure what is going on here,…

     On what evidentiary basis have you decided one source is more reliable than the other?
When one of those sources is caught in multiple lies, the prudent will tend to discount that source as untrustworthy.

Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#65

Post by Amadou »

mpyne wrote: post #58
zaroth wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. Never mind that it's not legal to read emails, except with a single court order saying that it's legal to read EVERYONE'S emails. Which I believe they have. The main problem is the "business records" clause in PATRIOT must be found unconstitutional.…

> I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. That's true for the vast majority of law enforcement though. The police have the technical ability to pepper spray you, or arrest you, or shoot you. It is compliance with policy and legal requirements that (generally...) prevent them from not shoo…

> That's true for the vast majority of law enforcement though.

I think you've completely missed the point. The impression that a layman will take from Chambliss's statement is that it is technically impossible for the NSA to collect emails.

This situation is not the same as your examples like pepper spray because everyone understands that a cop with a can of pepper spray is able to use it or misuse it and no amount of legal mumbo jumbo will stop him in the moment. The naive - and intended - interpretation of Chambliss's statement is the equivalent of saying the cops don't have any pepper spray to begin with.

Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#66

Post by Amadou »

thufry wrote: post #62

Of course - Snowden was about as "low level" of a guy as they come (contractor for four months) and was able to basically access everything.

Don't assume that contractors start at the bottom. I've got personal experience doing DoD contracting and the entire reason I was there was because I was a systems expert. Even if they had not given me root access, I could have had it at any time because I knew the systems better than they did.

The details are fuzzy due to incomplete reporting, but it seems Snowden had worked for the CIA for many years before going to Booz Allen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career_in_the_U....

Re: Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have Powerful and Invasive Search Tool [video]

#67

Post by 3327 »

rhizome wrote: post #35
3327 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I am pro him or not but if everyone was held accountable for the dumb stuff they said in their early 20's everyone would have a sick of shit hanging around their necks.

It's not meaningless, though. I would say that the reason is not that it betrays what they really think, but that older people learn not to say it out loud. In this sense you would essentially be saying, "don't judge him until he learns to hide his true thoughts." I'm not saying this is what you truly feel, but you relate a cultural convention that perpetuates a stereotype that young people are stupid.

I think your comment is a correct assessment. Adults do learn this but in addition to learning to hold back your thoughts maturity brings many changes in view and ideology, and I suspect that as many of us might have, Zuck's ideas and views most likely changed dramatically from his early years in college to adulthood - or not. But I think the safer assumption would be it has, for the better or worse that we cannot know but personally I prefer to give people the benefit prior to the doubt.
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