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NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

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Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#91
post #62

Argh. Important subject material, crappy article, lots of confusion, argh argh argh. TL;DR: everything about the WAY this story was reported is an obvious deception. First, methodology. This is blogspam that adds nothing to the original article at http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EF9BC1BF-34EB-41... (at least they link it). That article, in turn, cites no sources. So I'm basing the following only on those…

Fuck you techdirt I've had that reaction so many times now that I eventually stopped clicking on any story from there. All they ever do is pander to their readers' preconceptions. With friends like these, we don't need enemies.

Yep. That's my feeling about them in a nutshell--even if they might occasionally find something worth outrage, it's mixed in with so much other noise that I can't take them seriously.

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#92
post #62

Argh. Important subject material, crappy article, lots of confusion, argh argh argh. TL;DR: everything about the WAY this story was reported is an obvious deception. First, methodology. This is blogspam that adds nothing to the original article at http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EF9BC1BF-34EB-41... (at least they link it). That article, in turn, cites no sources. So I'm basing the following only on those…

Fuck you techdirt I've had that reaction so many times now that I eventually stopped clicking on any story from there. All they ever do is pander to their readers' preconceptions. With friends like these, we don't need enemies.

If you see blogspam like this flag it. It doesn't deserve the traffic.

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#93
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the subpoena is a new legal instrument True, but there isn't an 18th century analogue to a company that has all of your personal correspondence.

There were newspapers, which people would post open letters in. I seem to remember a Reddit post about some gentleman calling another one a "scoundrel" and a "coward" and challenging him to a duel. Later (in the 19th century), there was Western Union...

I like this point, but I have some questions.

1. What information would the newspaper keep that isn't published? Would they file all the envelopes of regular correspondence?

2. How deep and old would Western Union's records be?

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#94
post #62

Argh. Important subject material, crappy article, lots of confusion, argh argh argh. TL;DR: everything about the WAY this story was reported is an obvious deception. First, methodology. This is blogspam that adds nothing to the original article at http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EF9BC1BF-34EB-41... (at least they link it). That article, in turn, cites no sources. So I'm basing the following only on those…

Fuck you techdirt I've had that reaction so many times now that I eventually stopped clicking on any story from there. All they ever do is pander to their readers' preconceptions. With friends like these, we don't need enemies.

With friends like these, we don't need enemies.

An online colleague once coined Japhy's Law. It says: "The facts you really want to be true are those you should be most skeptical of." It should be written on every blog.

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#95
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were newspapers, which people would post open letters in. I seem to remember a Reddit post about some gentleman calling another one a "scoundrel" and a "coward" and challenging him to a duel. Later (in the 19th century), there was Western Union...

I like this point, but I have some questions. 1. What information would the newspaper keep that isn't published? Would they file all the envelopes of regular correspondence? 2. How deep and old would Western Union's records be?

1. The envelopes, probably not. They would probably at least keep a log of correspondence received and sent, accounts payable and receivable, payment receipts, etc. If they have stories that make factual claims then they'd want to retain the journal/notes that went into each story for some nominal amount of time as well, if only to defend their name later.

2. Don't know, but the easy answer is "As long as the government required it to be". Even the NSA gets rids of their data after 5 years (or so they say).

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#96
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the subpoena is a new legal instrument True, but there isn't an 18th century analogue to a company that has all of your personal correspondence.

In the 18th century as now you could have chosen to give all your personal correspondence over to some company.

But why would you? There's no purpose to having a company store all of your letters.

Using GMail gives me a free email account with lots of storage, search, and spam filters.

Re: NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

#97
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about responsiveness as much as it is about self-interest and bureaucratic thinking that is inherent in all institutions.

That neither contradicts my point nor validates your earlier assertion. This conversation isn't going anywhere so I'm abandoning it now.

It's not about validating an assertion as much as it is about exploring the truth.
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