Glenn Greenwald published another article with documents from leaker-on-the-lam Edward Snowden today. This article centers around a program called XKeyscore, an NSA tool that is allegedly capable of hoovering up everything a user does online (content of email, chats, etc.). It formed the basis for Snowden’s claim that he could access Barack Obama’s email content if he had the address. The summary and an excerpt from The Guardian:
XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’
• XKeyscore gives ‘widest-reaching’ collection of online data
• NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
• Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
• NSA’s XKeyscore program – read one of the presentationsA top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
[snip]In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual’s email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA.
The article also includes a link to a presentation on XKeyscore from February 2008. Lots of technical info there to be parsed.
The NSA denied wrongdoing in a statement to The Guardian:
NSA’s activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests.
XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA’s lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system.
Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA’s analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks … In addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate misuse from occurring.”
Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law.
These types of programs allow us to collect the information that enables us to perform our missions successfully – to defend the nation and to protect US and allied troops abroad.
But of course, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Intel officials are getting their chance to explain today, since there’s a Senate judiciary committee going on right now. You can stream it here.
srv
Can we just start impeachment proceedings already? It’s just too far out to get excited about Hillary.
plus: Verizon order released by Admin
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
I stumbled on that dwarf-on-dolphin site completely by accident. Really.
pharniel
Of course they have this. The component industry companies normally charge 15$ a service but the NSA got a bulk deal…
Just Some Fuckhead
Presumably a SME will first catch these septuagenarians and octogenarians up on the whole computer/internet thing and what it means to the people who actually use it?
Villago Delenda Est
How come Greenwald is still on the grid if he’s so concerned about all this?
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: That one is easy: “HE WON’T COWER IN FEAR FROM THOSE WHO WOULD SHRED LIBERTY!” It’s so GOS one month ago.
different-church-lady
Is this one based on misinterpreted PowerPoint slides too?
Poopyman
@pharniel: Really. In the grand scheme of things, the NSA having the ability to access your transactions is the least of your worries.
In my experience (don’t ask) these things are true. And believe it or not, the great majority of folks take USSID 18 very seriously.
Poopyman
@different-church-lady: A bit, yes.
jayjaybear
@different-church-lady: “Revelations sponsored by PowerPoint and Greenwald’s ego. Greenwald’s ego: Power to the people! (With enough left over to light Rio de Janeiro for six months.)
Shakezula
Do we have any confidence that Greenwald now has a better grip on the topic?
Paul in KY
Look at the access Bradley Manning had, and he was a 3 striper. Wouldn’t surprise me that there was lax control over just whose online activities were being perused.
Just Some Fuckhead
As you know.. the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
And what we have done at the NSA is to simply require all the tubes to be constructed out of clear plastic so they are see-through.
? Martin
Ok, I just read it and I’m missing what’s outrageous about it. They’re doing public eavesdropping. This is the digital equivalent of sitting behind a target in a restaurant and overhearing a public conversation – and nobody here would be outraged to learn that our intelligence agencies do that on a regular basis. None of the data they reference is encrypted. It’s all information we’re sending through public servers (the internet’s infrastructure is shared and public), and they aren’t capturing all of it, just bits that they target (they admittedly don’t have enough sites/servers to do more than specific targeting).
This just seems like another example of people thinking the internet is more private, secure, and anonymous than it is. Now, the NSA has brought some of this outrage upon itself by not demonstrating what safeguards are in place against using this outside of the national security apparatus (which they really, really need to address), but that is also a product of folks like Greenwald convincing people that the government is spying on everyone all the time. I’m not prepared to buy into that particular conspiracy theory.
Belafon
Considering a number of large business can and do track everything you do on the network, including if you do something like write a CD or attach a thumb drive, I would have to believe that the NSA has the checks they mentioned.
At the same time, you can’t collect billions of pieces of information and then go “is someone doing something wrong?” At best, they could go, “Let’s see what John Cole has been up to” after they got the information on who John Cole is, what his phone numbers and usual IP addresses are, and what his pets do on the internet when he’s gone. If we could do the first, we’d be on our way to curing cancer, deciding which form of government and economy would be most optimal, and inventing teleportation, because those would be small problems compared to finding “who was bad”.
cleek
any chance Greenwald has given 1/4 of the real story here – the 1/4 that panics his panic-addicted sycophants ?
no, not a chance?
ok then. panicked conclusion-jumping it is!
Rex Everything
If this news makes you feel a bit uneasy, just recite our latest addition to the catechism: Only Republicans are afraid of the government. There. Better?
srv
@Poopyman: 25-ish some years ago, n00b seasonal Tax Examiners would start at an IRS Service Center and log into IMF. Trainers always warned that checking your exes or bf’s or some celebrities tax records would get you in trouble.
Two or three would disappear within a week or so. Curiousity is stronger than common sense.
The thing is, once W said we were at war and damn the procedures, 99.99% of these “professionals” rolled over in an instant. Very few of them blew any whistle. So they’re serious, like David Addington and John Yoo are serious.
RSA
I wish Greenwald would work with a tech journalist. In this case, he writes,
But of course XKeyscore can’t search through data it hasn’t seen. I think “NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet'” implies to the non-tech reader that “a user” means “every user”. I’d really like to know more about the scope of data collection and less about what can be done with the data collected.
scav
Horrors! the govt can do with oversight what some kids in basements need malware for!
Poopyman
@Just Some Fuckhead: Thank you, Zombie Ted Stevens.
different-church-lady
@? Martin: Non-insane people could see some gray territory there — reasonable expectations of privacy can apply to even data going through public servers. But because it’s gray, it would probably up to courts to decide the matter one way or the other.
The real problem for us trying to honestly understand all this is that it requires unpacking all these different suitcases, sorting through the contents of each, examining each bit, putting them into separate piles, and then figuring out what’s reasonable and what’s not. Whereas Snowald and their apostles just want to take everything, cram it into a single steamer trunk labeled ‘SHREDS OF FOURTH AMENDMENT!’ and pretend we don’t notice them jumping up and down on the thing because it won’t close properly.
Belafon
@Paul in KY: First off, a 3 striper, as you call him, is given access to do the job. A 3 striper cook has access to knives that could be used to kill someone, a 3 striper soldier has access to enough weapons to kill a large number of people.
There’s this really remarkable device, called the brain, that can be used to get around any rule or equipment to keep this data private. Because of this, we have to rely on the people at some level to do their jobs properly. It’s no different than the expectation that the operators at a power plant don’t flip the controls and blow up the plant, or airplane pilots don’t just see how fast their jumbo jet will go.
Poopyman
@scav:
FTFY
? Martin
@srv:
Those policies are pretty widespread. They exist in health care, education, and lots of other industries. In almost all cases those policies are followed, yet we assume the feds don’t follow them at all. It’s a bit of a double standard.
And Bush did a lot of damage to our faith in government. Part of what I’ve always liked about Obama was what I perceive to be a sincere desire to fix that. I’ll admit that he’s not as forceful and proactive at times, nor public enough about what’s being done (and I do know from my job that many things are being done, but they are irritatingly quiet about it).
Michele C.
@? Martin: I used to run servers for a living at a pretigious Midwestern university and we had a huge kerfuffle once when some dean-type sent her long-distance calling card password to herself in an e-mail and a work-study study used it to call home. Everyone but the computer geeks were completely shocked that a student who worked with the mail servers could read an e-mail as they assumed privacy where none existed. I remember trying to explain that e-mail is a lot like a postcard, and getting blank stares. The student in question specifically worked with the mail servers! Now, she was also easy to catch since she just used it to call home, but seriously.
ChrisNYC
@RSA: That is the big hole (or snowjob) in the story. There’s reference again and again to “the database” and quantitative guesses at its size but they don’t say what’s in it or how it got there — but leave the very strong impression that it’s everything that everyone does on the internet always, though that can’t possibly be true.
Shakezula
I also have to wonder how this will impact Snowden. Putin keeps making weird comments about him not being allowed to embarrass the U.S., and he has applied for temporary asylum in Russia. This doesn’t seem timed to help him.
schrodinger's cat
All these Snoreden revelations are a snooze fest, if you want to live under the radar there are two choices, go completely off the grid, no credit cards, no internet etc. etc or be Dick Cheney. I don’t know why this comes as a huge surprise to people.
scav
@Poopyman: Aka multinational finance corps? :)
Amir Khalid
Agree wth the caution about any claims from Greenwald. As Dave Letterman might ask, is this a thing or not a thing? When Greenwald has made a persuasive case that this is indeed a thing, then you guys can start freaking out. Until then, chill.
Belafon
@Belafon: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are cruising at an altitude of 30,000ft at a speed of 500 miles per hour. In a few minutes we will begin a steep descent in order to try to break the sound barrier. A pilot in a rival airliner came within a few mph before pulling out at 10,000 feet. We are going to see if going to within 5,000 feet of the ground will allow us to cross the barrier. Stewardesses, please make sure everyone is strapped in.”
Mandalay
@Poopyman:
So what? Even if they are true that isn’t the issue. For example, consider the claim
Well that’s just dandy, and may even be factually accurate, but the NSA won’t even tell Congress what is “within the law”! So you have a claim that superficially sounds cool (“proper and within the law”) but is actually meaningless.
The NSA refuses to be held accountable, and a spineless Congress refuses to take them on. Until that happens, all claims that they are good guys doing the right thing are a heap of shit.
? Martin
@different-church-lady:
There’s tons of gray territory, don’t get me wrong. But I’ll return to a point that I’ve raised repeatedly about all of this:
If you think the NSAs access to data is the problem, you’re heading down a dead-end. Digital data is unbelievably easy to acquire and access, so much so that we need to just accept that everyone is going to have a hell of a lot of our data, mainly because we make such an ungodly amount of it public. From this post, through public servers if you have the means, you can find out who I am, where I am, what computer I’m using, how to find me at pretty much any point in the future whether I change computer or change locations using the same computer. The NSA can track me extremely well simply by reusing the tracking mechanisms that Google, Amazon, and others have created for their own ability to track me.
This has to return to policy. Accepting that the NSA has access to this stuff, what are the policies that govern who they should track and when, and what auditing system is in place to ensure that those policies are being followed. The policies are too opaque, and the auditing is completely opaque. I see no reason why either one needs to be other than the intelligence agencies have never felt compelled to respond to public opinion, and I think they are just horribly bad at it. As a start, they really should let Google et al publish their statistical data – it would help all involved.
Ted & Hellen
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Brilliant.
I grovel at your moth eaten slipper wearing feet.
scav
@Amir Khalid: ”Chill” no longer appears to be a supported setting on the American blender.
(could we somehow blame this on global warming? That could get things going in certain venues.)
ChrisNYC
@Shakezula: It’s prob in his self interest to stay relevant, which this would go toward.
Also, like with a few other instances since he flew, the point here seems to be “US officials lied.” They tried it with the flimsy case against Clapper on the Wyden question. They did it (laughably) with Obama and not scrambling jets. So here, he said he could read Obama’s email. US officials say no. And now GG says, “Aha! read this incomprehensible doc and take my word for it that it means that Snowden was telling the truth.” Snowden has some public interest rehab to do at this point and catching officials lying would do it.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Newspapers consistently report that the horoscopes are one of their most popular features, and if they dropped them, because they have no basis in scientific reality, they would bleed subscribers faster than they are already.
Of course this comes as a huge surprise to people. There are a lot of really stupid people out there.
Ted & Hellen
But Glenn Greenwald is snooty to the other kids in the dining hall!
And Edward Snowden is a geek! And thinks he’s sooooo cool and smart and stuff!
? Martin
Whoops:
Good job, GOP. Was the catalyst for this whole thing that you laid off the guy for completely partisan reasons? I’d probably be pretty pissed off at government in that case too.
burnspbesq
@cleek:
How could you even think that? Saint Greenie has only your best interests in mind, first, last, and always. Don’t believe me? Ask him.
cleek
@ChrisNYC:
from the slides, it looks like XKeyscore is a set of 500+ servers, sitting at various spots around the world, logging and indexing everything that goes through that server, within the last 3 days (probably due to storage limitations).
analysts can query these servers to search for specific traffic patterns. they give examples of “Find someone in Pakistan speaking German” or “show me all documents that reference OBL”.
sounds pretty slick.
doesn’t bother or surprise me in the least.
we’ve known for a long time that the govt is able (technically and legally) to snoop internet traffic. and one should use the internet with this in mind.
ArchTeryx
@Belafon: Of course there’s this little thing called the Vne (Velocity Never Exceed) where the airframe starts to take damage then fall apart, but whoever let a little thing like that stop them?
Anybodybuther2016
And here we go, what’s wrong Betty? Was there insufficient Hillary fluffing in the last thread? Did you have to balance things out by shitting on PBO?
Anoniminous
Greenwald is freaking that a system designed to know where the user has been, what the user has done, and what the user is doing knows where the user has been, what the user has done, and what the user is doing and people (and cybernetic devices) can access where the user has been, what the user has done, and what the user is doing.
whatever
Ted & Hellen
@different-church-lady:
Congratulations.
Over the last few weeks, particularly as it applies to the NSA/Snowden/Greenwalk revelations, your commentary here has earned you the title of BOTSPLAINER EMERITUS PATHETICUS.
mk3872
Snowden said he could access anyone’s email content if he really wanted to? Wouldn’t that break the law as well as NSA`s protocol?
So what is he saying here? The NSA protocol is too lax?
Wow, Betty, you are right: Bombshell indeed!!
Mandalay
@? Martin:
Exactly this.
As I just posted, the problem is accountability. Unless Congress develops a spine nothing will change.
Gin & Tonic
@cleek: Haven’t terrorists ever heard of SSL?
Eric U.
I guess it’s my browser, but that powerpoint goes dark after the first 3 pages. I don’t doubt that the government collects some of this info with malware. They did the stuxnet virus after all.
It does bother me that the NSA let a clueless contractor hire a clueless dimwit like Snowden to do this work. This is the real scandal, we’re just doing too much “analysis” for government types to do it all. The whole thing is a grift, and they are using up massive amounts of electricity to do it.
burnspbesq
Doesn’t bother me to learn that NSA has this capability.
Does bother me to learn that internal controls appear to be relatively lax.
Contra Martin, I think there is a legitimate issue about reasonable expectation of privacy here, regardless of what Paragraph 17(f)(9) of any particular service provider’s TOS might say.
askew
Eh, Snowden/Greenwald have been wrong about too many things for me to take them seriously especially when Snowden has been on a tour of enemies of the U.S. with classified material.
Gin & Tonic
@Anybodybuther2016: How’s this shitting on PBO? Did he create the NSA? Did he sign the PATRIOT Act?
ChrisNYC
@cleek: But maybe not:
“One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications. Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications:”
Does that mean what it says — that the target (one target) gets “marked for surveillance”, i.e. collection? Or does it mean what the overall implication of the story is: that the “targeting” is really just an ability to query data that is collected of everything and everyone. It’s not at all clear to me in the story and it should be.
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno about the rest of you, but my feardar automatically goes up when Martin shows up to explain everything away. I guess I’ve been successfully programmed to distrust his judgement lo these many years.
Ted & Hellen
Wow.
Betty Cracker being attacked as insufficiently worshipful of Obama.
All is chaos.
Anoniminous
@? Martin:
The problem is to stop agencies staffed by prying nosy-parkers, where successful prying nosy-parking is rewarded, with the latest gadgetry for maximizing prying nosy-parkering, to not be prying nosy-parkers.
Lot’s of luck with that one.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Villago Delenda Est:
Greenjob is starting to sound like the guy at a garage who drives up sales by telling women that the muffler bearings in their cars are shot and the washer fluid and filters are overdue for changing. I can’t wait to hear about the next name of yet another government program that sucks up even MORE DATA than the last one!
Fucking yawn…
cleek
@Gin & Tonic:
if i was the NSA, i’d do my best to make sure there are lots of incorrectly implemented SLL apps out there for terrorists to use.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Now I understand why you are so confused. No rational person would try to gain an understanding of national security through your “suitcase” approach. It is doomed to failure.
boatboy_srq
@Just Some Fuckhead: Assuming they get past Stevens’ Intertubez, with a SME to help them get up to speed they might actually obtain a better understanding of the online intel gathering than they currently have of the law.
/snark
I’d ask to be reminded why this is such a colossal scandal now, except I recall that when this was all being designed/funded/executed Shrub was pResident, and anyone who objected was drowned out in “USA! USA! USA!” fashion with “supporting Teh Terrrrrrists” and “Fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” and “mushroom cloud” and “with us or against us” jingoism.
I still say the only reason this is such a hot potatoe (H/T Dan Quayle) to the Reichwing is because the scary KenyanIslamoFascoSoshulistUsurper in the WH can suddenly read all the email/SMS/chat between them and their mistresses/boyfriends, rogue bankers, arms dealers and other unsavory characters, and they’re terrified the NSA will publicize what live-boy/dead-girl/humongous-Caymans-bank-account/massive-weapons-stockpile/whatever that lurks in their various closets.
Belafon
@ChrisNYC: So, do you think there’s a menu listing either 300M+ people (the US population), or 7B people (the whole population), or 6.7B (everyone but the US)?
The Moar You Know
Right on up there with “We’re only looking at the metadata. We’re not actually reading your emails and listening to your phone calls.”
I don’t believe them, quite frankly.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, when the intertubes were first invented by Al Gore and Vint Cerf, one of the things that was a feature was the fact that email could be traced, so you could verify the source. Another thing was that there were no controls on email to prevent mass mailings, because mass mailings were considered by protocol to be not a good idea unless there was an operational need to send out a mass mailing. Remember, kiddies, that this was first tried out by both the military and the academic communities, where a certain amount of self-restraint was expected on the part of the users of the systems.
Then, in 1994, all hell broke loose when America Online got access to the ‘tubes, and the spam started flowing. And flowing. A system designed with individual self-restraint as an assumption got flooded by vile Ferengi shitstains looking to MAKE MONEY FAST.
In those early days, as the ops manager of a small ISP, I valiantly stood in the front lines of those seeking to hold back the flood of spam. By 2000, the battle was over, and spammers had won. Now there is an ongoing technical war between spammers and spam fighters.
The problem with all these things is not technical, it’s social. And the intertubes reflects the sick society we are all a part of, in which both Mammon and Moloch are the true gods.
The NSA has protocols in place that can be violated, this is true. So do 747’s. Just because you CAN do something does not mean you SHOULD do something, but Greenwald assumes that the two are identical.
Amir Khalid
@scav:
I am sorry to hear that. I had a colleague who had some strange verbal tics. “Chill” was one of the less annoying ones.
Betty Cracker
@Anybodybuther2016: LOLWUT? I’m not an HRC fluffer, and I’m not crapping on Obama.
ChrisNYC
@cleek: And now I think definitely not. First line of the story
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Millions can’t possibly be all internet traffic, right? Has to be a subset.
Belafon
@cleek: When I was learning about networking, I always wanted to write a server app that would sit on my machine, and when someone tried to connect through one of the telnet/ftp ports, it would just make up a random file structure and files.
ranchandsyrup
I always assumed that this info was already captured. Should I still run around in circles or light my hair on fire?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Balloon Juice’s Resident Sandusky Child Rape Apologist:
Wow! Coming from an expert in being pathetic, this means absolutely nothing to anyone but you.
Congrats?
Davis X. Machina
@mk3872:
Email only ≅ mail, not quite = mail
ChrisNYC
@Belafon: It says the way it finds data is you put in an email address and the system spits out matches or close matches and then the analyst picks which of those email addresses it wants. It sounds lots like document management systems for big litigation. “Find me more documents like this”…
srv
@Belafon: http://www.dc-8jet.com/0-dc8-sst-flight.htm
Possibly supersonic: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e9f_1180909211
Corner Stone
Yawn. Known. Burger.
Can I join the BJ Sophisticate Society now?
Villago Delenda Est
@ranchandsyrup:
You should not, but certain “personalities” who are found often in the comments should, by all means, find that fire to light their hair with.
Betty Cracker
@mk3872: Note the question mark. I’m not going to pretend I know WTF it all means, and I’m not going to run every bit of this NSA crap through my Political Agenda Confirmationizer either. I’ll leave that to y’all. ETA: Not YOU in particular.
ranchandsyrup
@Villago Delenda Est: Heh. It’s not the issue, it’s who they can bludgeon with any issue.
INPEACH!
srv
We need a cleek script that will pie the NSA
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’d like to see you back this contention up with actual quotes that indicate he said that.
cleek
@Villago Delenda Est:
gg would be shocked to learn that the govt can also listen to land line phone calls, open and read your mail, bug your house, break down your door and take all your stuff, track your can, and monitor what you watch on TV! all they need is a signature from a judge.
TYRANNNNNYYYYYYY
Corner Stone
Well, DNI Clapper is now on record having to “correct” at least two lies to Congress on different occasions.
So I’m definitely inclined to take this NSA spox statement at face value.
JPL
This is good news for the United States post office.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: You should have used several question marks to indicate that it was very possibly unbelievable information. You know people around here are sensitive to that sorta stuff.
cleek
@ChrisNYC:
might be that the server network isn’t big enough to get all traffic. it does sound like it’s not internal to the US, for one thing.
Belafon
@Corner Stone: Wasn’t at least one of the things he had to correct was because the NSA told him that he was wrong?
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
Are you really as stupid as you post? Some say you are, some say you are not.
Greenwald assumes the worst without the slightest hesitation. Sort of like the Dark Lord puppet assumed that Saddam was totally in league with Osama, therefore we must invade Poland, stat!
Corner Stone
@srv:
Or we could just follow along with some commenters here who have decided to speak Marklar in all their posts.
handsmile
Saw this movie (for the nth time, after a number of years) on the big screen this past weekend. Seems more prescient than ever.
“You may say that I ain’t free, but it don’t worry me….”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3wi0GUqF-U
For those with the capacity to recognize that this is not about Greenwald (just like it’s not about Snowden, the point made by James Fallows/John Naughton), here’s James Bamford who knows rather a bit more about the NSA than most who type here:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/nsa-they-know-much-more-you-think/
Belafon
@cleek: Until you got to the part about needing a judge’s signature, I thought you were talking about a bank.
Corner Stone
@cleek:
They know how many times I go to the bathroom? My God!
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est: I think based on the things you have said with no further substantive issue that your comment here is quite amusing.
ETA, and let me save us some time:
VDE: Ah ha! So you are just as stupid!
Me: Yes, indeed.
VDE: Tumbrels for all!
Just Some Fuckhead
Great, now we can’t have a conversation about this very important topic because Corner Stone ruined the thread.
Thanks asshole.
The Moar You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: We’re out of time, so we’ll have to leave it there. I’m Ron Burgundy. Stay classy, San Diego.
gene108
The internet changed the privacy rules.
We live in an era where our once private information is aggregated and easily accessible in ways we didn’t conceive of growing up. Every company with an inclination does data aggregation on what I do, where I shop, what websites I visit and what that says about where I might shop, etc.
I’ll worry about the government spying on me, when and if they actually use this information for any nefarious purpose, such as start doing midnight arrests of people to be shipped to GITMO.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gene108:
How would you know?
FlipYrWhig
@RSA:
Yes, and that’s what Greenwald has been doing from the moment the story first broke. He IMHO deliberately blurs the distinction between “they’re doing this to everyone” and “they could be doing this to anyone.” So the Real Issue is how a person gets on the “anyone” list, and if there are enough checks and reviews in place to prevent its being abused (e.g., by employees snooping on celebrities and exes, the way srv suggested above, or, worse, by employees sniffing out dissidents and non-violent activists).
Yatsuno
@The Moar You Know:
The NSA isn’t giving us much reason to trust them. Now if only there were some organisation that could get them to disclose their activities by passing a law saying they had to…no don’t tell me it’ll come to me here in a minute…
Anybodybuther2016
@Gin & Tonic: That’s my point. We have known about this for years. I have never been delusional enough to think that my phone calls, emails and Internet searches have ever been private and most americans think the same way. So you have to ask yourself why is the media trying so hard to create a scandal involving PBO when all of these programs were in existence before anyone had ever heard of him?
Comrade Jake
This certainly gives the impression that analysts are doing this all the time, without warrants. I’m reasonably certain that’s what GG wants people to walk away from the story with, at least.
Corner Stone
@handsmile:
I read that entire piece but I didn’t see any quotes from Martin in it. So I’m not sure exactly how to approach it.
Martin, what’re your thoughts on this whole Bamford shenannies?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@handsmile: Whoa, was that a scene at the Opry Belle I caught a glimpse of? Man, that takes me back.
FlipYrWhig
@cleek: And even if they don’t have a signature from a judge they can still kick down your door for no reason, because the “policy” of “signatures” doesn’t take the capability away–boots, guns, muscles, surliness, etc. For all you know they’re coming for me right
Corner Stone
@Comrade Jake:
How many hours a day would be acceptable? There have to be limits!
different-church-lady
@Ted & Hellen: Put it on the mantle with the others.
Shakezula
@Anoniminous: This. Actually.
The minute a nation (or kingdom or tribe) decides “Hey, we’re going to gather intelligence using methods other than walking up to people and asking. And by the way, we’re doing it to protect everyone from Bad Guys. Oh, and we need to make sure Bad Guys can’t find out what we’re doing so it and the people who do it will all be really secret,” human nature will dictate any means of gathering intelligence will be abused.
So we’ll continue to go back and forth with the countless intelligence agencies getting caught out and saying “OK we won’t do that any more,” and then waiting until the coast is clear…
Emma
@gene108: Every time this comes up, I go back to basics: (1) we need to determine, as a society, what privacy means in an age where most daily tools are connected to the Internet and in which a large number of people happily give away information through social media; (2) given that the tools of collection are available easily not only to the government but to private companies, what kind of rules are in place to protect against abuse and how are they enforced; and (3) why can’t the NSA release information after a certain set period of time has passed?
Nobody listens. Except probably my employer (am on lunch break guys!)
Ahh says fywp
@? Martin: Why make noise and turn it into another partisan battle? I think Obama these days baits them strategically.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Look dude or dudette, I understand he was given that level of access for a reason. However, due to the lax controls in his shop, he was able to access that daat for non-governmental reasons & secret it out of the secure zone, etc.
My point was, if ‘3 striper’ Manning had the freedom (lax supervision) to do what he did, how much control do they put on a 200 K a year CIA analyst working out of Boaz Allen?
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: In retrospect, I realize I left out the “and only then can you see correctly how they’re all connected to each other” step.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anybodybuther2016:
I know this is going to sound like crazytown but maybe they aren’t trying to create a scandal involving President Barack Obama? Wait wait wait. Hear me out. Just try to imagine other scenarios wherein it would be a newsworthy item at this particular time and place in history.
cleek
just for fun, Google “Xkeyscore jobs”. there are tons of jobs available!
Paul in KY
@ChrisNYC: Sounds like it is about as easy as setting the preferences for your webmail avvount.
Ted & Hellen
@gene108:
Of course by then it’s too late.
Why do you assume that’s not already happening.
You are so brilliant! And sophisticated! And above all these petty bourgeois concerns!
ranchandsyrup
The great firebagger/teabagger reacharound is almost complete. This is great news for Aqua Buddha. My FB feed is full of redneck teabillies who are jus’ sayin’ that spying is bad and it doesn’t matter any more if it keeps us safe.
I heart humanity.
pat
@Eric U.:
I think the problem is that the geeks who know computers (like Snowden) might be basically border-line sociopaths with very little knowledge of how the world works.
I can imagine him going in, hacking a few programs, and thinking WOW that was EASY….
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: Yep, your Facebook feed proves something incomprehensible. Mine also does that occasionally. Thank you for sharing.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: He knew there was no connection, that was just some BS concocted to put a fig leaf on their criminal actions.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We’ve known this for years. There’s nothing illegal about it. Yawn. Nothingburger. I’m not surprised, fully expected it.
Actually, we could just go ahead and have a decent conversation about it nonetheless.
Roger Moore
@ChrisNYC:
Actually, the US officials aren’t saying no. They’re saying that if he tried to do so without authorization, they would notice and do something about it. So the question is more about how we control analysts’ ability to snoop through people’s information: do we only let them do it with explicit permission, or do we give them a lot of rope and see which ones hang themselves? I think this is a worthwhile discussion to have, but it’s not the main one we’re having.
FWIW, I suspect this is pretty close to the root of the whole Snowden affair. My guess is that Snowden was trying to make a really big splash by gathering some information he shouldn’t have been allowed to have and ran afoul of the procedural safeguards the NSA is talking about. That’s why he panicked and went on the run and why he lacks a real smoking gun of the NSA spying on Americans.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@cleek:
On the upside, all the lefties under 40 I know on Facebook are suddenly talking about using PGP (or similar) for their emails.
Those of us who’ve been suggesting this for 20 years (and were laughed at by the then-analogues of those very same) are… amused.
Belafon
@Paul in KY: My point is that in order to lock down the information that Manning released, it would make the data effectively unusable because you could never do anything useful with it. If every time you had to get to this information, you had to go through three people and two doors, you would never get anything done. So, there’s a balance between locking it down and making it usable. And there’s a weak link in there, called a human.
Now, it does seem like Snowden’s screening might have been weak, but that’s because of hindsight.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: When they put the sack over his head & frog march him to the black helicopter.
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: You’re welcome :). Aren’t all of these posts just our opinions sometimes backed with evidence but frequently not? I can see how you got to “proves” but there’s a leap there.
Ash Can
The article indicates that XKeyscore is used to search the agency’s own databases, presumably populated with data already obtained with a warrant — using a highly secretive legal process, to be sure, but obtained with a warrant nonetheless. (H/t a techie commenter at LGF) So what’s really new about this information? And why is it being released now? The timing combined with the lack of substance suggests to me that Greenwald felt as though his name had been out of the headlines for too long, and he was starting to miss being the center of attention.
Why, instead, aren’t we discussing here Sen. Patrick Leahy’s FISA Accountability and Privacy Protection Act, which is, oh I don’t know, an ACTUAL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, or at least a clear step in that direction? Is it not sensational enough?
Ted & Hellen
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
Wow, that’s really great how much more hep and hip and knowledgeable you have always been, you know, moreso than everyone else.
Awesome!
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: I have no idea what your point was because you didn’t specify who the firebaggers are and what is their gripe in this particular situation and how that corresponds to your teabagger friends. And then prove each camp actually holds the views you ascribe to them and are in perfect alignment.
But really, don’t.
gene108
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I still believe America is a long way away from the sort of police state folks seem to think Snowden’s information reveals, where the American equivalent of the NKVD or Stassi or whatever are digging up dirt to on people to arrest for any possible opposition to the government or actions that do not conform to government doctrine or just for shits and giggles, because the government needs another show trial to amuse the masses.
I think the gun-nuts are nuts for thinking any new gun law is going to start America off on the slippery slope that will lead to the confiscation of all guns in defiance of all evidence that no gun law has outlawed gun ownership.
I think, from seeing how these surveillance laws have no appreciable impact on me and those I know, the civil libertarians who think this is the first step towards the slippery slope of an American police state need to chill out a bit.
The line between ‘x’ is in my home and government cannot come in without a warrant and ‘x’ is in the public domain has been blurred by technology, as the recent ruling on government tracking a suspect’s whereabouts via cellular provider’s records shows.
In short, the issue of privacy in the internet age is not clear cut.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I like the fact that they are implying that someone can get authorization to read the President’s emails.
Someone not the President being able to authorize this…
different-church-lady
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
Now if everyone would only use it on their Facebook posts as well, so that nobody could read them, the world would be a much saner place.
ChrisNYC
@Roger Moore: I agree with your overall points. It’s frustrating that Snowden actually seems to be saying “the problem is that only policy stands in the way of abuses” and the gloss on the stories is “there are abuses — the system itself is an abuse.”
On the denials of the Obama email claim — there is this which seems to be a clear no:
“US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden’s assertion: “He’s lying. It’s impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do.””
I still don’t understand how he could read Obama’s emails unless Obama is under surveillance and in the database. Which would be a nice tea party twist to the whole thing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
OH!
Hopefully, Gene is a communist so he goes first and then the rest of us can decide how many more groups should be targeted before doing something. Yawn.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Michele C.:
I did a lot of sysadmin work back in the mid-90s.
I once forged an email from a Program Manager, to himself, as he watched, just to show him how damned easy it was to do so.
(Granted, back then you just had to telnet to the right port and type some commands to sendmail, so it was somewhat easier back then).
The Moar You Know
@Jockey Full of Malbec: I’m laughing now because that boat has sailed. PGP can be broken in close to real time at this point. 10 years ago it was great.
Email should have been encrypted from day one. I know why it wasn’t, but the original developers really should have though that shit through.
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well there appears to be some reading comprehension (which you frequently hammer people on) issues here. The word “almost” invalidates your “perfect alignment” assertion. But, it’s clear to me that yr just being a cockbag here. Especially if you want me to prove something I didn’t intend.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gene108: tl;dr
Paul in KY
@Belafon: I worked in a Top Secret shop for 3 years. Not as much data as Manning had (I assume), but we had all that 3 doors & keylocks & 2 people watching what everyone was doing & vaults (especially for the COMSEC stuff).
If you say having that level of security for TS stuff makes it unweildy to use that data, then (IMO) the data shouldn’t be TS to begin with.
There are people doing jail terms right now for not handling TS data in the correct manner (and I’m not talking about giving it to outside agencies/people).
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: Perhaps, but it was a really stupid thing to suggest in the first place. Are you high?
Yatsuno
@Ash Can:
Has Saint Glenn given his blessing to the legislation yet?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ash Can: “Why, instead, aren’t we discussing here Sen. Patrick Leahy’s FISA Accountability and Privacy Protection Act, which is, oh I don’t know, an ACTUAL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, or at least a clear step in that direction? Is it not sensational enough? “
Umm, that a possible solution to a problem, not the problem! We Must Panic Because Of The Problem!
Saint Greenwald, Patron Saint Of Rio, please save America!
Corner Stone
Oh Mike Rogers, you had me at Hello!
Just Some Fuckhead
My Facebook told me two groups I don’t like are in agreement.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: When I go, you better do something!
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: No, but I wish I were. If we’re speculating here, you still pissed that I made fun of you for trying to make Stuck’s passing all about you? There is no cure for narcissistic personality disorder, ya know?
Betty Cracker
@Ash Can: Busted. It’s all about click bait. Seriously though — Leahy’s bill sounds like a good one. I don’t read LGF (still haven’t forgiven the proprietor for having been such a dick post-9/11), and I didn’t happen to see it covered elsewhere, so I didn’t know about it until you brought it to my attention. For which I thank you. But I still say GG’s article is well worth discussing here, sensational or not. I’m learning things in this thread, even if I have to dodge jerking knees and troll scat to find tidbits worth considering.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
I love you like a brother, Paul, but Greenwald is gay and he lives in Brazil. My hands are tied here.
Corner Stone
If you believe the on the record testimony of intelligence officials (and Sen Wyden has publicly stated it is “much worse” than what they testified to), then they can go three hops deep on any target.
Now, I’m no choir boy but I feel pretty damn confident I can put some stink on every commenter here if I wanted to go through three hops deep into your life.
Does that put you in jail? Does that harm you in any definable way? Does it even cause you to think twice before you call your local car mechanic Abdul?
Eh, of course not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: I don’t remember you doing that but I’m not surprised to find out this isn’t the first time you’ve said something stupid.
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: Won’t be the last for the both of us either. Or anyone else. So your point is?
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY: I’ll say a quiet little prayer for you each night when I sprinkle the fish food to my betta fish Mahmoud.
I can’t say it too loud though because I’m afraid they might hear me.
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
I don’t think they are. Snowden and Greenwald are talking about the capabilities of the software while ignoring the procedural controls designed to prevent abuse. They think it’s scary that a NSA contractor theoretically could look at the President’s emails, even if there are procedures in place to prevent that from happening. I think that it’s OK to have the capability as long as there are effective procedures in place to prevent its misuse, though I’d like to see more evidence that such effective procedures are in place. OTOH, I think he would have bolstered his case that he could snoop the President’s emails by including some emails from [email protected] (or some other obvious address) in the information he leaked; that he hasn’t done anything of the kind makes me more inclined to believe that the NSA has procedures in place that actually do prevent some kinds of snooping by their analysts.
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: My point is you said something retarded a few minutes ago. I already told you that. We can be done any time you’re ready to let it go.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: Green Balloons!
? Martin
@burnspbesq:
It’s not a TOS issue with the provider. TCP/IP is designed to take everything sent over it, break it up into little pieces, and then send each of those little pieces down indeterminate routes. So when you send a message, there is absolutely no way of knowing if it will go through a router in Los Angeles or Pakistan on its way to NY. It could go through an undersea cable, or bounce off of a satellite. So there’s absolutely no way that anyone can give any expectation of privacy.
Comrade Jake
@Roger Moore:
My take as well.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore:
I think that would have been antithetical to his case and instead of bolstering it would have only furthered the calls from every person who currently dislikes him and wants him in a deep dark hole.
Can you imagine the level of vitriol this would have been turned up to if he made public some email between Obama and virtually any person?
The number 11 would have been left way behind in the rearview mirror.
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sure thing. Your response to my retarded statement was retarded. Such is commenting and having opinions and imposing meaningless standards on others’ opinions.
Still think you’re occasionally funny, though.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: IMO, you shouldn’t have let it out that you named your ‘fighting fish’ Mahmoud. Thats a mooslim name thar, I do believe. Right now the servers are whirring & the lights are dimming in Fairfax.
From what I’ve heard, you probably don’t want them force feeding you…
Just Some Fuckhead
@ranchandsyrup: Great, we have that in common.
Socoolsofresh
@different-church-lady: Oh, how am I not surprised by your response, and Martin’s and Manatee.. always the same shit, let’s hate on Greenwald but lets also have a reasonable discussion about this, have to explain it away because it isn’t a big deal. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be some type of libertarian retard firebagger, lets call everyone names. When government actually tries to pass something to curb it, they are being too harsh, blah blah blah.
ranchandsyrup
@Just Some Fuckhead: Wunderbar. Hands across the blogoshpere.
gene108
@Ted & Hellen:
The current Constitution governing this country has only been in use for 223 years.
Since the Alien and Sedition Acts, the WW1 laws that banned anti-war protests and whatever other stomping on people’s rights this country has flirted with did not turn the U.S. into a Stalinist police state, Obama’s* use of the NSA to gather metadata surely will!
The issue of what we consider private in the era of the internet, GPS, etc. probably needs to be hashed out because technology has gotten ahead of whatever laws are on the books.
*Does dovetail nicely into right-wing fantasies about Barry-Obama, which is probably why there’s such a freak out over this in wing-nut land, while they applauded Bush & Co. for the USA PATRIOT Acts and other actions.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
Fine. If including emails from the President would make people angry at him, why not include some from somebody else who obviously shouldn’t be a target of NSA scrutiny but who would arouse less ill will, like the editor of the NY Times or WSJ. Or he could include something salacious and obviously not national security worthy, like emails from a famous celebrity. The point is that if he wants to prove that the NSA can do X, Y, and Z, he should provide some evidence that he actually has done X, Y, and Z, not just a PowerPoint presentation that obliquely suggests that Z might be possible.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Did anyone ever respond to this?
Socoolsofresh
Not sure what motivates you guys more. Blind partisan devotion, or seething Greenwald hatred. I guess a little bit of both. I imagine peoples heads here would explode if Greenwald actually praised the Democratic Administration. But then they would have to stop having such repulsive views on domestic spying.
Ash Can
@Betty Cracker: I’m very, very fond of you and your posts, which I’m sure enhanced my disappointment at seeing you quoting Greenwald’s article uncritically here. I do agree that it’s a subject worth discussing, and we certainly have been discussing it — and it’s nice to see folks like Patrick Leahy discussing it too, since they’re the ones who can actually do something about the real problem.
The “bombshell” information that Greenwald and Snowden have revealed so far has already had so many holes blown through it under scrutiny that I find it impossible to take Greenwald’s word at face value regarding anything. And this latest article of his appears to be no exception. However, I’ll certainly grant the point to Greenwald and Snowden that they resurrected a discussion that started, but got swept under the rug, years ago, and has needed to take place ever since — and that hopefully can be resolved at least in part now, through the actions of people like Sen. Leahy.
Ted & Hellen
@Paul in KY:
Of course someone else can authorize it: The representatives of the oligarchs who tell Barack what’s what and what to do.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes. Sir Belafon of the Righteous Order of High Rectitude did in fact respond. S/he stated that clearly Clapper was not, in point of fact, responsible for his own testimony to Congress but the error did, indeed, lie with some unnamed underlings at the NSA. Who provided clearly erroneous information to the DNI, who does not in any way actually oversee the NSA.
So, as usual, I have been left de-pantsed.
fuckwit
Can someone please stop using the word “new” in all this?
I’ve been bitching about Carnivore since it was called that, and first installed in datacenters in like 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29
I think this system has changed its name several times, been expanded over the years, and now includes data from corporations like Google and Facebook, but basically it started as packet sniffers in major data centers, reading everything you do, and storing whatever it chooses to (or has the disk capacity to).
Mmkay?
Also, too, just use SSL and Tor and use PGP for your emails. Everything should be encrypted everywhere, without that, you have no privacy and never have.
Anyone who has ever worked as an IT person knows this. Nothing is private on the internet, unless you go full cypherpunk, which is what we all should be doing.
Xantar
@Roger Moore:
Exactly. By Greenwald and Snowden’s logic, we should be freaked out by the fact that the police could break down my door, shoot me dead, and then dump my body in an unmarked grave. They have all the technical capability, but there are safeguards and procedures in place which prevent it (most of the time).
So what we need is something equivalent over the NSA, and everybody ought to be able to agree that Leahy’s bill is worth supporting. I was beginning to despair until Ash Can linked to it. I didn’t think Leahy’s bill was that obscure, but I guess it is.
Paul in KY
@Socoolsofresh: I think for most of them it is seething Greenwald hatred. I sorta like the guy, feel he is monomainical about his issue (civil liberties), but that’s the kind of guy/gal you need to balance out the crazies on the other side of the fence.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: Ok, I can agree that any clearly useless and otherwise private email should be the example. However, it is my personal opinion that actually taking that action is wholesale beside the case Snowden wanted to present. It is IMO, not material to what the actual issue is. It would not have alleviated any of the naysayers beliefs and would have served to be a focal point for contention that further distracted from larger programs/issues.
I understand your suggestion, I simply disagree it would be helpful in any way.
Paul in KY
@Ted & Hellen: I just teed that up for you right there, didn’t I?
Corner Stone
Man, over 170 posts and no links to what a writer for a once popular TV show has to say about all this?
You guys are slipping.
Ted & Hellen
@Paul in KY:
Indeed!
fuckwit
Oh, also OTR for chat, SSLEverywhere and Tor for browsing, and PGP or GPG for email.
You’ll never be protected against subpoena’s or someone intent on social-engineering you, but encryption is essential for avoiding casual massive snooping programs like these.
Keith G
@Yatsuno: The President is one.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: lolwut
Corner Stone
@Paul in KY: Well, as long as they don’t know about my upcoming trip to Yemen then I think it’ll…all..be..
Dammit!!
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
Let me translate: Govt. surveillance and snooping is just like rape. If it’s inevitable, just lay back down and enjoy it. Give a reach-around. Swallow that force-fed jiz. But most of all: just take it and shut your pie hole.
I find it amazing that the collective yawn from so many here. Do any of you have no principles whatsoever? Is your only guiding light flicking shit at Greenwald, Sully, McArdle, et al?
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Hell, I don’t know. It was all I could make out of it. Either Clapper lied during testimony or he relied on info the NSA later told him he lied about. So I could only conclude Clapper didn’t actually lie it was someone else’s fault. Because otherwise I’m not really sure how it was any kind of actual rebuttal to my comment at all.
Take a look and tell me:
Belafon
Ash Can
@Betty Cracker: And PS, my disappointment lasted for about 3 minutes, and as always I look forward to all of your next posts. :)
El Tiburon
@Amir Khalid:
And ignore those Congressional hearings spurred by the Snowden revelations. And by all means ignore Daniel Ellsberg claims that these leaks are the biggest in US history. Why? Because shitting on Greenwald is like the Best Thing in The Entire World!
Socoolsofresh
@fuckwit: There was an article that came out a few weeks ago detailing how the NSA automatically flags any message that is encrypted, so that might not totally work either.
El Tiburon
@cleek:
(German accent): And present your papers when demanded Juden!
Remember: Big Brother is watching and WE LOVE IT!!!!
Hey, those Men In Black snooping through your trash and looking under your bed? Hey, use your trash and underneath your bed accordingly!
It is really amazing that people like you exist that feel we must accept government intrusion as just a part of life and act accordingly.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Ted & Hellen:
Yeah, it is, actually. Deep domain knowledge has a way of doing that.
BTW, if I ever need any advice on shitty celebrity kitsch, though, you’re my go-to guy. So don’t feel envious :)
Betty Cracker
@Ash Can: Well, here’s the thing: I don’t know enough about how data is captured, parsed, etc., to know if the latest Snowden doc dump is merely annoying confirmation of what we already knew or a revelation of something truly outrageous. That’s why I put it out here for discussion. If I was “uncritical” of Greenwald’s article, it’s because I’m truly trying to figure out what it means from every source I can, including the folks here.
I do think Greenwald can be a thin-skinned, sanctimonious ass sometimes, and I don’t trust ANY libertarian to be a good government advocate, but that doesn’t mean Greenwald isn’t worth listening to occasionally, if only as a starting point for a larger discussion — as you noted.
I do think it’s amusing that one faction here seems to expect ritual denunciation of Greenwald (make the sign of the evil eye and spit three times!) while the other accuses anyone who is even mildly critical of the man (or Snowden) of being a totalitarianism-tolerating, Obama-worshiping link-ho. Color me unaffiliated, I guess.
Keith G
@Anoniminous:
CX@Shakezula:
That is a concern that so few seem to acknowledge: It’s less about what has happened or what is happening, this is about trajectory and momentum. Where is this leading and how quickly are we getting there.
People given policing powers always want more policing power. The results of these behaviors will certainly be used to limit civil liberties. Those actions may be widespread or discreet. I have not studied a government formed by man where this has not been borne out.
El Tiburon
@Eric U.:
Interesting. Why is Snowden a dimwit?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker:
“Color you illiterate” might be more accurate. You were right about the first group. The second group is actually, “what the holy fuck is all the hate about.”
Jewish Steel
@cleek:
Some say my can is trackable from space. But I’m working on it, alright?
Socoolsofresh
@El Tiburon: Snowden is a dimwit because he is a whistleblower. Which is considered dimwitted here.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: I think it’s the incompetence vs. dishonesty dodge.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead: Oh, bullshit. Right here in this thread, we have someone drawing an analogy between not freaking out about the NSA and being sanguine about rape. The people who are allegedly “wondering what the holy fuck is all the hate about” might want to take a look at what they’re slinging — in every goddamned thread on this fucking topic, I might add.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: Did you ask that someone if they have a group or did you decide everyone who wasn’t in Group A was automatically in his/her group?
El Tiburon
@Villago Delenda Est:
Say what you want about Greenwald, but what you can’t say is that he haphazardly gives his opinions without thoroughly immersing himself in the topic. If you say this, then you are showing your ass as a fucking moron. Now, you can disagree with his conclusions, but to say he just tosses opinions around is utter and complete bullshit.
Also, the comparison to the prior morons that got us into Iraq based on equating Saddam to Osama, we all know they knowingly lied and coerced and fudget the facts.
So your entire premise sucks and you should delete it and consider hiding in your closet for being such a dicktard.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Is the complaint that the government has too many people under surveillance, not enough skeptical scrutiny of how they get on the list, and that we have no way of knowing whether we ourselves are on the list? You’ll get no argument from me about any of those. But Greenwald and Snowden want to whip up fears that this is ALREADY HAPPENING TO EVERYONE!, and it sticks in the mind that way, and I don’t like it when smart people fall for cheap rhetorical tricks.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Socoolsofresh:
Sure.
Now let’s talk about how well he put together his travel itinerary, about how he missed that little step of actually going to any foreign embassy or consulate while trying to apply for asylum. That right there shows just how well Mr. Snowden does not think things through.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: OK, but if you handwave away the whole idea that laws and policies can check that drift towards authoritarianism and abuse–which Snowden definitely does, and IMHO Greenwald does too often too–then what are you left with? What can stop it? Is it just slippery slopes all the way down?
Emma
@El Tiburon: Now that is a fuckwitted thing to do. Comparing the NSA to the Nazis? And to a dystopian novel? And you wonder why people back away when they see you coming?
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: I don’t really think Larry David has much to say on this topic.
I am not a kook
@The Moar You Know:
I know this is a dead thread, but…
Please don’t set yourself up as a tech expert on this blog if you have no idea what you’re talking about. Link to something to back up your claim that PGP (or GPG) can be broken in real time, please?
As for “email should have been encrypted”, the protocols were designed in the late 70’s and early 80’s when there were tens or maybe hundreds of nodes on the internet. Any encryption designed into the protocol then would be trivial to break now, but also would have been very computationally expensive to use at the time.
Oh, Jockey Full of Malbec, you can still telnet to the mail listener port and type in your email just the way your email program does it. Nothing magic about it.
El Tiburon
@gene108:
Got a point here. As far as any of us know, the government has never used illegally obtained information for nefarious reasons people against its own citizens.
I challenge any of you to present any information to the contrary. I doubt even historical icons like, oh, I don’t know, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have any problem with this assertion.
So, if any of you can present any credible evidence that the government has ever used illegally obtained information and then used it against its citizens, I’ll stop commenting forever.
El Tiburon
@Emma:
First I was comparing Cleek to the Nazis.
And people back away out of respect.
Pure respect.
HG Hay
@El Tiburon:
Please see Greenwald’s review of Zero Dark Thirty and Gary Brecher on Greenwald on Mali. Thanks.
different-church-lady
@Socoolsofresh: Ain’t taking that bait.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: But there’s no way to make that impossible, is there? I mean, since the invention of governments, governments have had the power to use superior force to harass and coerce the citizenry. What stops them from doing it to everyone all the time now?
Socoolsofresh
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Right, he should have had the most perfect plan together before doing any of this! He should have gotten asylum preemptively before leaking the documents! Anyone can armchair analyze what he should have done. He did what he did, and I say it wasn’t that bad. At least he isn’t rotting in a jail cell yet. I think that was pretty smart of him to have avoided that so far.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
My complaint in the context of my comment was how Shrodinger’s Cat stated we all need to alter our behavior on the internet because the government is watching. That’s my complaint. The complacency. Not anger. But just acceptance. As a nation and people we now accept the government can access every single phone call and e-mail, etc. we do. And that it me and you that should act accordingly.
This I have no idea what you are talking about. But, I will say it seems you are giving Greenwald a lot of power. Are you implying he can get everyone in a frenzy on his word alone? And what words is he using? Seems to me he is reporting on the contents of leaked documents. I don’t give Greenwald nor Snowden that much power. Perhaps people are worked up because of the contents of the documents.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@The Moar You Know:
Now that any script-kiddie can run brute-force algorithms on a rack full of graphics cards, assume that ANY encryption that isn’t a one-time pad will, eventually, inevitably, be broken. Especially if/when quantum computing advances past the theoretical stage (IMO in 20-40 years).
I’d go even further: packet-level encryption should have been built in, from Day One. Or at least they should have left some hooks in for future needs. They should have known better, frankly.
IMO, long term, TCP/IP will eventually have to be completely replaced with something else.
Eric U.
all I know is contained in xkcd/386
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
With this mentality – nothing.
Are you saying we must accept the government is simply too big and powerful for We the People to do anything about?
Did not the Church Commission have some success? Then what the hell are we all doing here discussing politics if there is nothing we can do?
Jockey Full of Malbec
@I am not a kook:
This is true (it’s still sendmail much of the time)… but nowadays you have to authenticate to the server. There’s a password to crack And if someone malicious has your password, they might as well just log in as you :)
Back in the Wild West days, mail servers wouldn’t even authenticate the user, you’d just type “From: [email protected]” and it would happily accept that as the sender, and reflect that in the headers.
NNTP servers didn’t authenticate back then, either… which is how USENET Spam was born.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Most people who are worked up are worked up because the story sunk in as “the NSA is always collecting data on all of us.” All the successive revelations seem to indicate that the strong version of that claim is at worst untrue, at best misleading. If the story had originally been “the NSA has the capacity to always collect data on all of us,” it wouldn’t have mushroomed like it did, and if it had originally been “people who work at the NSA can violate procedure and snoop through records,” IMHO it would have died on the vine.
So I’m of two minds on all of this. I have to grudgingly credit Greenwald and Snowden for bringing back up issues of privacy and surveillance. But I will continue to fault them for having done so in (knowingly, I’d say) hyperbolic ways that pander to paranoiacs across the political spectrum.
schrodinger's cat
@El Tiburon: Don’t attribute to me stuff that I did not write or imply and don’t trivialize rape. Thanks.
El Tiburon
@HG Hay:
I very clearly recall this episode. Greenwald made it very clear that before watching the film, he was commenting and critiquing OTHER critiques of the film. Now, you may disagree with this method which is your right and is fine. But to simply say that Greenwald tossed out an opinion without doing research is demonstrably false. For you to argue otherwise is, again, you showing your ass.
Ok, so we must take one person’s opinions (Brecher) as gospel? Again, you can disagree with Greenwald’s analysis all day and night, but to argue that he just tossed it out there without doing the due diligence is again showing your ass. It’s simply not true.
Now, take someone like the Jim Hoft – the Stupidest Man on the Internet. This is an example of an asshat tossing his opinions around without having clue #1.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: Greenwald and especially Snowden are the ones saying there’s nothing we really can do, because they think laws and regulations can’t put the toothpaste of technology back into the tube (terrible metaphor). That’s what I don’t get. There are already things in place that hinder the government from abusing its powers. There can be more. Great! Bring it on! But I don’t see why there’s this other prominent strain in the argument that emphasizes instead that, pfft, laws are just procedures. If we don’t trust the whole concept of law, we’re seriously adrift and there’s no saving us from going Lord of the Flies meets Clockwork Orange tomorrow.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: I think you’re exactly right. Well said.
I am not a kook
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
It was. Look up IPsec, which came out in the early nineties. It’s used for VPNs and stuff. The problem is that it doesn’t work well with the way the internet today is cobbled together (NAT, network address translation, for example, which is how we’re skating by the fact that there are no more available IP addresses for all the things people want to put on the net). Also too, encryption is computationally expensive to do right. Up until very recently computers and routers didn’t have enough horsepower for widespread encryption.
IMO, long term, we’ll all be dead and won’t care. I’ve been in this business for over 20 years and IPv6 (the next version of IP) has been just in the horizon for all that time. Problem is that there is so much old crap on the internet that doesn’t speak anything but plain ol’ IPv4 that it’s a huge pain in the ass. There has been some movement in the last couple of years because we’ve finally hit the limit of IPv4 addresses.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: A study of history indicates that the slopes are indeed slippery. To combat that, good policy is always important, but policy alone will fail.
Obsessive vigilance & activism are also very much required. And no politician can be given a pass regardless of their party, gender, hiistory, or race/ethnicity.
Just Some Fuckhead
Went back and read the thread to figure out what the hell you were talking about, BC. I see now you were referring to the El Tiburon Group.
Gin & Tonic
@Jockey Full of Malbec: but nowadays you have to authenticate to the server
Less often than you’d think.
Oh, and I’d go even further: packet-level encryption should have been built in, from Day One. Or at least they should have left some hooks in for future needs. They should have known better, frankly.
Ain’t hindsight grand? We should also have bought AAPL in 1984.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Socoolsofresh:
And anyone can see that he planned this thing through using the Underpants Gnomes business plan as a template:
1). Steal classified information
2). Give classified information to blogger
3). Go to Hong Kong
4). ?
5). FREEDOM!
He obviously realized that a warrant for his arrest would be issued at some point, otherwise he wouldn’t hole up in Hong Kong. From there it was Step 4.
Have you not read about the restrictive rules of the Moscow Airport Marriott? He’s rotting in a jail cell right now- because he’s a fucking dimwit.
Betty Cracker
@El Tiburon: Now, that’s unfair to Mr. Hoft. He squoonches his face up and thinks very hard before tweeting photos of white, Canadian hockey hooligans burning cars in a city with mountains in the distance as proof of rampaging black mobs in Miami rioting over the Zimmerman trial.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, that’s your opinion. This story has certainly sunk in and it could be because the documents reveal a level of spying we were not aware of. Or, as some say, we all knew the NSA could do it then what’s all the hub-bub? Well, there is a lot of attention here and it could be because people are shocked that the NSA can (as best I can gather) listen to and intercept every single piece of data transmitted at anytime with oversight. Can this not be the reason? Why must you assign it to the Super-Ninja Power of Greenwald to incite a riot?
Well I disagree with this assertion. I agree that some have asserted these things, but this does not make it so.
Ted & Hellen
@Ash Can:
And PS, my disappointment lasted for about 3 minutes, and as always I look forward to all of your next posts. :)
Ahhh…and now we have BC slapped right back into line and reassured of her position in the tribe.
All is well.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: Great, yes, but in that case Snowden-Greenwald’s dismissiveness about laws and policies as bulwarks against the abuse of technology is even more deflating. I know I’m being stubborn but I don’t understand where there is to go with a conversation like this: “The NSA has the capacity to spy on anyone, maybe even everyone.” “OK, how do we stop it?” “We can’t.” “Not even with a law?” “Laws are just procedural fixes.” “So what do we do?” “—-.”
El Tiburon
@schrodinger’s cat:
You are right and I was wrong. Although, to be fair, I wasn’t trivializing rape but mocking idiot Republican politicians from Texas. Either way it was wrong and unfair.
Ted & Hellen
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
Funny how BJ negative critical opinion of my crayon art falls precisely along Botsplainer tribe lines.
Someguy
Just another phony scandal.
Ted & Hellen
@Betty Cracker:
Oh poor, sweet Betty, who never flings any shit whatsoever in her posts, and is ever so sensitive to those who do.
Excuse me while I vomit from laughing.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well, good. I figured you were (and are) engaging in your usual performance art. Which is fine! But ET is hardly the only person here who goes apeshit if someone criticizes Greenwald or implies that the NSA dealio isn’t worth getting all that worked up about (neither is ET the most egregious, for that matter). This thread has actually been one of the milder ones. So far.
El Tiburon
@FlipYrWhig:
I can’t argue with you because I don’t know what they have and haven’t said. But if you believe Snowden’s stated intentions for leaking these documents, it was to start a national dialogue so as to change what is happening.
And while it is true that the saying that ‘presidents don’t voluntarily give up power’ is mostly true, it doesn’t mean we can’t change the system. Didn’t the Amash amendment fail by a dozen votes? Would it really have mattered if it would have passed? I don’t know. So I ask again: then why are we here? To just hear about Cole’s animals or to discuss politics and somehow be part of a grassroots movement in changing US policy?
Betty Cracker
@Betty Cracker: Le sigh. I spoke too soon.
gene108
@El Tiburon:
Yup.
The government didn’t shove MLK into a work-camp for the rest of his life, so he could not organize protests against segregation and economic exploitation.
Whatever the FBI did in tapping his phone lines and spying on the Civil Rights movement kept the white male power structure safely in place, which is why the thought of a woman or black President today seems as far fetched an idea as it was in 1956, when the bus boycott was launched.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon:
Is that last bit supposed to be “without oversight”?
If that’s what you’re shocked about, the thing is, it hinges on “can.” Is legally authorized to? Has the technical capacity to? Is already doing? “Listen to and intercept every single piece of data” is not what the reporting indicates, not even Greenwald’s, because Greenwald himself retreated to saying all he did was repeat a claim from the NSA slide, not confirm that claim, and others disputed both the claim and how to interpret it (most notably “direct access”).
At any rate, yes, there needs to be a tougher and more skeptical review of how FISA works, how intelligence is gathered, what digital privacy means, etc. I’m all for all of those. I’m no expert and defer to those who are. I concede that I wouldn’t have thought of those without the prompting of the Greenwald-Snowden stories. But I still resent the way G-S went about telling those stories, especially this notion that the law makes no difference, which is what lies beneath the “turnkey tyranny” claim.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: Too soon and too wrong. There is no El Tiburon Group. You have my word on that.
OTOH, there is a group as you previously described. At least one of that group has four to five different pseudonyms all chiming in and backing each other up for the express purpose of appearing to be a group.
We may simply be arguing semantics but I’m suspicious when a motley assortment of individuals who may never number more than one or two in a single thread are described as the antithesis of the Balloon Juice hive mind that is omnipresent.
FlipYrWhig
@El Tiburon: I agree that that discussion is why we’re here. I think that if we took Snowden entirely seriously on his own terms, though, we’d have to conclude that that discussion is pointless, because the law doesn’t matter, the tech does, and the tech can’t be un-invented. That’s why G-S shrug off the existing laws. By their logic, IMHO, it will always be possible to shrug off all future laws too. Which makes the discussion moot. And I don’t know where that leaves us.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: What Snowden and Greenwald think really doesn’t matter. What does matter is the contents of the documentation. And the contents of that documentation has surprised many longtime observers of the way our government works – And more than a few members of Congress.
I wish people would stop making this about the mental fitness of Greenwald and Snowden.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Wow. This is remarkably close to a “some say XYZ” post.
Betty, I love you. And I love your posts. So I’ve been a little disappointed in your unfettered inability to pledge complete and total fealty to whatever the party line is of Group A that JSF is referring to.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Ted & Hellen:
Feel free to show where, exactly, on this thread I have ‘Botsplained’, Leonardo.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Well, as it turns out, it’s trolls. All the way down, even. Imagine MY disappointment!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Betty Cracker: Careful, many here feel that Corner Stone is in that mythical Group B, perhaps even their ringleader.
Betty Cracker
@Jockey Full of Malbec: Speaking of Malbec, ever tried Trivento Reserve? It’s good — and cheap!
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: “Mental fitness” isn’t the issue. But I think they’ve been willfully misleading about the difference between what could happen and what is currently happening, and their having blurred that difference has resulted in tiresome “Obot iz Obotting,” “Firebagger iz Firebagging” acting out. And to me that deserves a fair amount of pushback, even as the Real Issue ™ remains surveillance and how to limit it, and privacy and how to strengthen it. And even as G-S are the ones who brought those issues back from the back burner, which is to their credit.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Betty Cracker:
(Googles) Sadly, no. But thanks much for the recommend.
I do like Argentine wines. Layer Cake is a go-to favorite that’s easy to find, and not much more expensive (their Pinot Noir isn’t half bad, either, IMO).
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Goodness, no! Just know that I am here for you, even when those vicious Group A people reject you for insufficient credulity. I’ll always accept you for who you are.
fuckwit
@FlipYrWhig: It leaves us to use encryption and onion routing everywhere. Which is what we should have built into our tech 15 years ago, but didn’t. “Too hard! Users don’t want to deal with that! etc etc etc”
You can’t uninvent technology. You have to escalate and fight it with better technology. Has ever been thus.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Me too, Betty, but I’ll still occasionally go apeshit because that’s just how I roll.
Socoolsofresh
@Just Some Fuckhead: I am no pseudonym, let me tell you. I just have nothing to contribute to the animal posts.
Ripley
I believe the term is ‘stillborn.’
Just Some Fuckhead
@Socoolsofresh: Find yourself a group to be a part of and then you can participate with your group on any thread regardless of the topic. Can I recommend Group A?
LAC
@? Martin: “but that is also a product of folks like Greenwald convincing people that the government is spying on everyone all the time. I’m not prepared to buy into that particular conspiracy theory”
C’mon…don’t you want to join your fellow Greenwaldians in the “jump off a bridge and scream” festival? You will also get a copy of his forthcoming book “Told ya so…told ya so…told ya, told ya , told ya so”
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est: The interesting part here, and I mean that in the most fallacious way possible, is that you have absolutely no quotes or actual, real, identifiable backup to support your stupid fucking contention.
And yet, like The Dude, you abide.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
I’m not entirely sure that’s what he’s trying to convince people of, so I reject your stupid fucking postulation in its entirety, but after you have a few more discussions with those IT guys who hated on the whole $20M slide bullshit thingie previously, maybe now you can forthrightly convince us all here that the NSA is not, in fact, spying on everyone all the time.
Because it sure as fuck seems like they fucking are.
LAC
@Corner Stone: Wow, Corner Stone – back to your late afternoon temper tantrums, I see.
Corner Stone
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Anyone here want to tell us the NSA is not, in fact, capable of doing whatever the fuck it feels like at any time?
Because we have lying ass DNI person before Congress getting repeatedly pantsed, and turtle after turtle revealing the pieces they get to play with. Basically with no oversight.
Corner Stone
@LAC: Shouldn’t you be spending your time in the barrel about now?
I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Betty Cracker
@Jockey Full of Malbec: Layer Cake is one of my favorites too. The Trivento Reserve isn’t as good, but it’s about half the price, at least, it is in my neck o’ the woods.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: See-through tubes! I called this one.
LAC
@Corner Stone: I don’t know what that is you are babbling about . I do know that you are reading like a five year old an hour past his nap with a juice cup full of soda. “Everybody get mad!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Go lie down with a cold compress.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: You are like some sorta freak magnet with a new one every day. Relatedly, I was thinking about asking Betty if she’d be interested in joining the Cracker Pack.
Corner Stone
@LAC: Are you trying to tell us that Wednesday is not your day to be in the barrel?
Well, shit. Exactly what day(s) do you hop in the barrel?
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: LAC is like one of those fish that swim around El Tiburon Group and hope to nibble on anything left over after the big fish are done feasting.
Not really a freak, just freakishly stupid and boring.
Pretty soon we’ll get a comment about a dinner table or some shit. LAC likes to talk to those because s/he can feel upwardly mobile when dressing them down before bedtime.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig:
Politics is an activity mastered by those who have learned to willfully mislead. Whether it be a “”missile gap” or a pledge to “hold Wall Street accountable” even the best (YMMV) political leaders have learned the value of misleading the public in order to accomplish a worthy cause.
It suck, but it’s the way the world turns. Thus I can not get too interested in claims that GG and Snowy have hyped. In the game of US hypers, there two young men are rookies in a game played (especially at the top) by pros.
Keith G
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Redundant. She already lives in Florida.
Corner Stone
@Socoolsofresh:
Calling bullshit here. I think we all have a little something to contribute regarding the most aggressive lover we have ever encountered.
LAC
@Corner Stone: Corner Stone – since we are doing amateur psychology – you are self important, thin-skinned arrested adolscent who consistently resorts to name calling and sadly ineffective attempts at insults when your ego is threatened in any way. Once confronted with the reality that others do not agree with you and do not see things as you do, you spiral into defensive rants that are heavily laced with obscenities until you finally peter out.
Corner Stone
I’m thinking of getting a new tat. Maybe something like pirate blades crossed with the script of “C-CPI 4-Evar!” underneath.
And a big nasty skull up top.
Corner Stone
@LAC: Good sweet Christ. Man have you missed the mark. That’s awful.
I’m not even sure where to start. When I realize others don’t agree with me? What website are you on?
Now, I may be an adolscent, which I can only conclude is one who is youthful and fresh smelling, but you have really missed just about all the rest of it. And you didn’t even mention my bedwetting complex!
Hold on, I need more obscenities before I peter out.
Whatever it is you do when you’re not spending time in the barrel, please get back to that.
Because you are just awful at this. Now I see why you keep mentioning dinner tables as your go to insult.
Yikes.
Keith G
@LAC:
While the overt actions are reasonably well described, you have really missed the boat in detailing the motivation.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Hey you fucking fucko, that’s not motherfucking cool in any shitty ass bitchin kinda way.
And I’ll thank you to kindly go North in a Southbound bus. Kind sir.
LAC
@Keith G: Corner Stone’s motivation? Other than being annoying? I am interested in what you think is Corner Stone’s motivation. Other than being angry that folks are not embracing teh Greenwald.
I do notice that the false bravado in Corner Stone’s last post sounds a little strained and too “HAR HAR HAR” – I might have hit a sensitive spot.
Rex Everything
This is kind of a good thread! Not the direction I expected it to take…
Elie
@Anoniminous:
THIS THIS THIS
sorry for the major caps citing a comment way back in the string, but this is the heart of his shit, not the heart of this very important issue…
Keith G
@LAC:
What do I think? Well let me refer to the wisdom of my spirit guide:
Just Some Fuckhead
@Keith G: I’ve never liked you. I want that on the record before you are found guilty of colluding with the El Tiburon Group to undermine Group A.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Not a bad start, but you did peter out at the end.
Ajaye
@Just Some Fuckhead: how did they know in Argentina when people just started disappearing?
Elie
@Eric U.:
“It does bother me that the NSA let a clueless contractor hire a clueless dimwit like Snowden to do this work. This is the real scandal, we’re just doing too much “analysis” for government types to do it all. The whole thing is a grift, and they are using up massive amounts of electricity to do it. ”
Also this
Socoolsofresh
@LAC: Everyone has to be on a team with you. It explains your hyper-partisanship.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ajaye: This is your story, you tell it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Socoolsofresh: Are you interested in joining the Cracker Pack?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Rex Everything:
What kind of stuff are you looking for, if you don’t mind me asking? We can possibly do a special request thread on a slow night.
LAC
@Socoolsofresh: IIf you mean there is one side where there is a reasonable thinking and facts and then there is other side where you are, then yes… TEAM!!
LAC
@Keith G: You can’t go wrong with Groucho Marx, but I think it is wasted on Corner Stone. Not a sense of humor with that one.
Ajaye
Most of my fucking friends are fucking pinko stalinist leninist soshulist maoist communists and the fucking nsa surveillance jack booted thug run federal gubmint has not fucking hauled any of them fucking away.
Keith G
@Ajaye: Assuming that your comment is sincere (always an issue this late in a thread), here is what I consider a level-headed framing of this issue.
As I typed up thread:
Rex Everything
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Oh, you know, the usual. A little bondage, a little bestiality … nuns, Bronies, enemas … nothing weird!
BruinKid
Yeah… no.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: I know. I used too many obscenities at the beginning. Dammit…zzzzzzz….
Corner Stone
@BruinKid: I can’t tell from all the blockquoting. Are you approvingly posting something from LGF, or saying “no” to something from LGF?
This will be on your final exam to determine what Group you’re in.
Corner Stone
@Rex Everything:
Awww, hell. I’m sorry to disappoint you but ABL only cross posts vaginal issues nowadays.
Which is cool! I mean, I’m down with the vagina and all that business!
Corner Stone
@LAC: You’re about the most humorless little fuck around. Mainly just a bunch of “attaboys” posted after your blogging betters here.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ajaye: Sounds like you and your little Bronie friends might want to do a little larping with Rex.
Yatsuno
The TBogg unit is in sight! Keep it up almost three-fifths of the way yhere!
Corner Stone
@Ajaye:
That’s nice and all, but I’m not hearing anything about a newsletter to which one might subscribe.
LAC
@Corner Stone: whatever… I know that a self absorbed twit like you always needs the last word. I’ll check back later for your shits of wisdom.
handsmile
@Yatsuno:
I’ll do my part to bring us one comment closer to that lofty achievement (also will help to deter me from commenting on a thread devoted to speculation on 2016 GOP presidential candidates on July 31, 2013):
From the Guardian, a detailed and informative account of today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on NSA surveillance programs:
“US Senators rail against intelligence disclosures over NSA practices”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/us-senate-intelligence-officials-nsa
Very worthwhile to read the whole article, but herewith a long excerpt from its final paragraphs:
“Two senators said they would introduce legislation as early as Thursday that would change the transparency rules and the structure of Court oversight around the bulk surveillance.
[Senator Al] Franken said he would introduce a bill forcing the NSA to disclose how many Americans have had their data collected, and how many Americans’ data the NSA has analysed once placed in its databases. Last year, the NSA denied it had any way of estimating that number, and told Wyden that providing it would violate Americans’ privacy.
Documents published by the Guardian that Snowden provided, however, revealed an NSA analytic tool called Boundless Informant that displays the country of origin of collected communications.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he would also submit a second bill on Thursday to significantly reform the Fisa court process, including the introduction of security-cleared special advocates, to challenge the position of the administration.
He said the Fisa court needed to become more adversarial. “I think the current design of the Fisa courts is stacked against the protection of our civil liberties and can be improved and enhanced, without sacrificing either speed or security.”
Would appear that some don’t consider this matter to be a nothingburger.
Corner Stone
@handsmile:
Tonight on Chris Hayes show basically admitted he has discovered how little he actually knew about what the NSA et al have been up to.
Now, the BJ Sophisticate Society can all tell us peons here how deeply Yawn. Known. Burger. This all has been, but if a US D Senator, actually multiple ones now, go on record and say, “Hold up there podnah!”, I kind of have to guess that a bunch of silly mofos have all been fooling themselves as to the actual breadth and scope.
Corner Stone
This! Is! Sparta!
LAC
@handsmile: some might not But how about the others who we slept through and allowed to hold an elected position?
LAC
@handsmile: I mean since some of us are pretending that this issue has been on our minds since 2006. How did we elect congressmen who are united behind the patriot act? Hmmm…. What could it be?
Corner Stone
@LAC:
[double checking to see if this is an AL thread…ok]
Man, you are about as fucking dumb as a stack of wet cardboard. What the fuck is this even supposed to mean?
Ajaye
@Keith G: yeah it is a concern, but not an imminent threat to everyday life for everyday folks in the gools old USA. Franken and company can go to town and prune it all back and put in some safety guards. I Reserve hysteria, outrage and righteous indignation for stuff like women’s rights going down the tubes, climate change deniers, black kids getting killed for walking while black, cops tasering old people, too many folks languishing in jail for drug charges, the fucking fuckety fucks who keep trying to repeal Obamacare etc. and to any nsa analyst reading this, no I am not a larper or Brony, nor do I associate wih same. Nor have I ever been a member of any brony club nor have I ever attended a brony convention, nor do I have a costume or even one difurine in the back of some closet, nor have I ever watched My Little Pony on purpose, though I am willing to throw my teenage saughter under the bus on that one but please do not call her a pegasister.
Paul in KY
@BruinKid: Nah, never any reason to lie in a document that can be read by high level burocrats who have the appropriate access. That’d just be silly.
Corner Stone
Jesus. I can’t believe I actually typed the word “vagina” earlier.
***shutters***