Anybody here who implicitly trusts big business and the oversight it has nowadays, raise your hands...klr wrote: And people are far more willing to let them have it than they would governments. Maybe they just don't see corporations as being so dangerous, but they should be, seeing as that information is likely to does get sold on/leaked to other interested parties.
NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Ian wrote:Anybody here who implicitly trusts big business and the oversight it has nowadays, raise your hands...klr wrote: And people are far more willing to let them have it than they would governments. Maybe they just don't see corporations as being so dangerous, but they should be, seeing as that information is likely to does get sold on/leaked to other interested parties.
Anyone who thinks that big business is more of a risk to your freedom than government agencies which undermine the sovereignty of the people, and which seek to squirrel their way out from under proper democratic oversight, and which engage in semantic "find the maiden" sleight of hand with definitions of torture, which routinely engage in kidnapping and which blatantly ignore "habeus corpus", and which ignore centuries of legal process by holding people indefinitely without charge, is stunningly naive.
There is a reason that government agencies are supposed to be constrained.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Huh?Ian wrote:It’s a stretch to use the term whistleblower when discussing Snowden. A whistleblower publicizes a specific case of wrongdoing. Snowden publicized something controversial, not outright illegal. By the way: the Snowden the public knows is a VERY different character from the one some others know about. If all I knew was what I’d read in the press, I’d simply be saying that he’s a rather naïve but still noble-minded leaker, and what he did deserves some admiration as the benefits likely outweigh the damage done. And isn’t it curious where he ran to? Not unlike what many people here might say about him.
However…
Here’s a hypothetical scenario: let’s say you’re in a position to commit an enormous act of treason against your country, stealing and transferring huge amounts of sensitive information, terabytes in fact, and for some reason you’ve decided to go through with it. This is something that will likely cost your country tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, will seriously endanger the security of its citizens and international interests, and could very well get a lot of people killed. You already know how your government is going to react: 1) it’ll want to prosecute you (and will actually be obligated to at least request your extradition), and 2) it’ll be desperate to downplay just how badly it has been damaged. In fact, the scale of it will be so big that other countries are going to be reluctant to offer you asylum. What will you need to assist you as you run from prosecution? You’ll need an insurance policy, otherwise you're doomed. And the best policy is publicity; staying anonymous after having done something like this is a sure ticket to prison or worse. So, out of the mountains of data you’ve collected, the vast majority of which is not illegal or even controversial, merely sensitive, you find some program that would sound controversial to the public. That little fraction of the information you have is the part which you hand over to a news reporter. Next thing you know, much of the public hears about this disclosure, figures they have heard plenty about the story and so they understand it well, and they call you a whistleblower and an idealistic martyr for privacy rights. And they’ll shake their fingers at the oppressive government asking for your extradition, as you rather oddly run off to Russia of all places...
This is all strictly hypothetical of course, ok? Got it? Good. Now, let's go back to calling Snowden a noble whistleblower...

Apparently it's more than that.Anyway, just focusing on the NSA story (and this little soliloquy I've posted once before): it’s hard for me to get excited about it. Archiving records of telephony metadata?
The difference is that with corporations you have a choice (to some degree) whether to engage their services. They also have legally enforceable privacy contracts. Government spying is pervasive and although you say nothing illegal has happened, that's not my understanding of it, and I doubt that the matter is that cut and dried. There's also the matter of the NSA boss lying to congress. Something you didn't address properly last time this issue was discussed....meanwhile, private corporations know FAR, FAR more about exactly who you are and what you spend your time and money on. More than the intelligence community ever could or would even want to. When it comes to privacy rights, I for one don’t worry about Big Brother. I understand the intel community and its oversight too well for that. I worry about Big Business.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Cormac wrote:Ian wrote:Anybody here who implicitly trusts big business and the oversight it has nowadays, raise your hands...klr wrote: And people are far more willing to let them have it than they would governments. Maybe they just don't see corporations as being so dangerous, but they should be, seeing as that information is likely to does get sold on/leaked to other interested parties.
Anyone who thinks that big business is more of a risk to your freedom than government agencies which undermine the sovereignty of the people, and which seek to squirrel their way out from under proper democratic oversight, and which engage in semantic "find the maiden" sleight of hand with definitions of torture, which routinely engage in kidnapping and which blatantly ignore "habeus corpus", and which ignore centuries of legal process by holding people indefinitely without charge, is stunningly naive.
There is a reason that government agencies are supposed to be constrained.

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"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
I doubt it'll be too long before big business is government (for all intents and purposes, at least).
I'll play it safe and remain paranoid about both of them.
I'll play it safe and remain paranoid about both of them.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
I don't wonder at all.rEvolutionist wrote:You've got to wonder whether some of these agencies think they've become a law unto themselves.

I think the best people like Snowden can do is shine the light. It's up to the rest of us to exterminate the cockroaches.I think we need more people like Snowden to shine a light on these cockroaches, and at some point exterminate (metaphorically speaking) a good portion of them.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
So, how is this hypothetical person benefiting from all this information? Selling it to martians? I guess you should expect Snowden to be picked up by a friendly UFO any day now.Ian wrote:Here’s a hypothetical scenario: let’s say you’re in a position to commit an enormous act of treason against your country, stealing and transferring huge amounts of sensitive information, terabytes in fact, and for some reason you’ve decided to go through with it. This is something that will likely cost your country tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, will seriously endanger the security of its citizens and international interests, and could very well get a lot of people killed. You already know how your government is going to react: 1) it’ll want to prosecute you (and will actually be obligated to at least request your extradition), and 2) it’ll be desperate to downplay just how badly it has been damaged. In fact, the scale of it will be so big that other countries are going to be reluctant to offer you asylum. What will you need to assist you as you run from prosecution? You’ll need an insurance policy, otherwise you're doomed. And the best policy is publicity; staying anonymous after having done something like this is a sure ticket to prison or worse. So, out of the mountains of data you’ve collected, the vast majority of which is not illegal or even controversial, merely sensitive, you find some program that would sound controversial to the public. That little fraction of the information you have is the part which you hand over to a news reporter. Next thing you know, much of the public hears about this disclosure, figures they have heard plenty about the story and so they understand it well, and they call you a whistleblower and an idealistic martyr for privacy rights. And they’ll shake their fingers at the oppressive government asking for your extradition, as you rather oddly run off to Russia of all places...
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Yeah, this is the critical point, I think. All these big tech companies, including one here in Australia, have voluntarily agreed to do the NSA's bidding in this regard. I really want to know what made them voluntarily agree to this. I don't think they had any legal obligation to do it.JacksSmirkingRevenge wrote:I doubt it'll be too long before big business is government (for all intents and purposes, at least).
I'll play it safe and remain paranoid about both of them.
Last edited by pErvinalia on Sat Aug 03, 2013 3:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
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Re: NSA: Paying GCHQ to spy on Americans....
Warren Dew wrote:I don't wonder at all.rEvolutionist wrote:You've got to wonder whether some of these agencies think they've become a law unto themselves.

Yeah, that's what I meant. We need the likes of Snowdens who have access and knowledge about this stuff to tell the rest of us. The rest of us have no way of getting this knowledge without the whistleblowers.I think the best people like Snowden can do is shine the light. It's up to the rest of us to exterminate the cockroaches.I think we need more people like Snowden to shine a light on these cockroaches, and at some point exterminate (metaphorically speaking) a good portion of them.
Sent from my penis using wankertalk.
"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
"The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007.
"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
"Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt.
"I am seriously thinking of going on a spree killing" - Svartalf.
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