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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 16, 2011 - 10:00pm PT
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I'm not at all a tinfoil hatter. If anything, I've been supportive of government intrusions to privacy as a form of rebellion to my mom's fear of it. I've always had the attitude "I don't have anything to hide, what's the big deal?"
The scale of the violations are so vast that it's hard to comprehend. Remember what a big deal Watergate was, and this is so so so much bigger. So much bigger. What has our fear of terrorism cost us?
This is not a wanker blog rant:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1
It is not just a conspiracy theory or baseless accusation. This is clearly identified source reporting that lays out how our National Security Agency, with cooperation between executive and judicial branches of our government, has created a google-like searchable database of communications within the US that directly violates legal requirements for warrants.
On some level, I think all geeks would assume this technology and implementation was bound to happen.
More interesting to me is the depth of the story in terms of different parties and viewpoints, politics involved, and specific retaliation against whistle-blowers who saw something that was wrong and tried to do the right thing. The system was not about being fair, it was about crushing those who didn't go with the program of secret violations.
It really makes me wonder how far we are from George Orwell's 1984. Damn too close for my comfort. In the last decade, individuals have surrendered electoral power to corporations (indirectly through campaign finance laws upheld by the Supreme court), have lost ability to act in privacy to take a stand against a government that might lose its way, and are losing the power to call out abuses of power in the government. It's such a short run from there to a world that most of us would not want to accept. But once it gets past some point on the slippery slope, with the unbelievable power of our military, it is just an invincible force like a sci-fi dystopia.
I don't know what to do about it, except share my outrage and maybe communicate with my legislative representatives, assuming they're not too afraid of blowback to do something about it.
Would we have problems with terrorism if we didn't have such an F'd up history of meddling in other countries for our country's gain? Do New Zealand and Switzerland have major issues with terrorist threats? How do we as a country get back on track so I don't fear for the world my children inherit?
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karodrinker
Trad climber
San Jose, CA
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May 16, 2011 - 10:11pm PT
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I immediately thought, crap, nutjob hit his head on his big fall and now he's crazy, but this is stinky sh#t here, big brother coming soon kind of sh#t.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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May 16, 2011 - 10:38pm PT
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good link, thanks
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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May 17, 2011 - 08:42pm PT
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"Soylent Green is people!"
Remember how you laughed at the dystopian vision of Soylent Green?
Welcome to the future.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 12, 2011 - 02:37pm PT
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I'm probably on a watch-list for posting this, but....
NEWS UPDATE:
"Ex-Official for N.S.A. Accepts Deal in Leak Case"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/us/11justice.html
This relates to the National Security Agency employee who leaked information to a reporter about an NSA scandal that wasted $1B+ and violated US privacy laws. He was facing 35 YEARS in prison for espionage, but many folks say it was just retaliation for exposing the dirty laundry. In short, the program taps data from everyone's Internet connections, phones, credit cards, etc. and provides search and correlation (muck like the concept in "The Last Enemy" TV series. The original in-house program was like $3 million, but it was scrapped in favor of the outsourced $1BILLION program.
“This is a victory for national security whistle-blowers,” said Jesselyn A. Radack, a former Justice Department official who works at the Government Accountability Project, a group that has helped represent Mr. Drake.
Reference back to the first indictment against the guy from 14 months ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/16indict.html
I suspect the May 2011 New Yorker article had a lot to do with influencing this outcome. It made the prosecution less comfortable sharing the evidence they planned to use in the prosecution of this case, because it was more damning for the big-picture problem that Drake was trying to expose.
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Jun 12, 2011 - 03:00pm PT
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we are all being watched.. the sh#t will hit the fan someday..
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apogee
climber
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Jun 12, 2011 - 04:00pm PT
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Anyone that tries to reduce this stuff to a simple Red vs. Blue issue is seriously deluded or ideologically detached from reality. The Bush Admin certainly utilized 9/11 as a means to push the legal boundaries of privacy, but the Obama Admin has only perpetuated it (and in many cases, accelerated it).
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Jun 12, 2011 - 04:15pm PT
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Thanks for posting, nutjob!
I find it ironic that there are such huge systems monitoring us, using our tax dollars, but in many states battles are being fought over taking video of the cops using a cellphone. The issue involves wiretap laws written before the existence of current technology. I always assumed it was legal to video and record in a public place.
check out the story:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/07/the-war-on-cameras/singlepage
The War on Cameras
It has never been easier—or more dangerous—to record the police.
Michael Allison, a 41-year-old backyard mechanic from southeastern Illinois, faces up to 75 years in prison for an act most people don’t realize is a crime: recording public officials......
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apogee
climber
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Jun 12, 2011 - 04:35pm PT
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A quote from Zimmerman's piece:
"Senate Bill 266, a 1991 omnibus anticrime bill, had an unsettling measure buried in it. If this non-binding resolution had become real law, it would have forced manufacturers of secure communications equipment to insert special "trap doors" in their products, so that the government could read anyone's encrypted messages. It reads, "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law." It was this bill that led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year, shortly before the measure was defeated after vigorous protest by civil libertarians and industry groups."
Really, scary, spooky, 1984-kinda shite.
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R.B.
Trad climber
Land of the Lahar
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Jun 12, 2011 - 05:08pm PT
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When they come banging on your front door ... how you gonna come? With your hands up in the air ... or on a trigger of a gun ...
 The Clash, Guns of Brixton.
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IT
climber
The ID
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Jun 12, 2011 - 06:05pm PT
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For anyone who wants to blame a particular political party for this, the program, which it is illegal to even write a note like this one about, was started during the first Bush administration and largely developed during the Clinton administration. Subsequent administrations, including the latest one, have only fed money into it at increasing rates.
There is quite a lot of infrastructure out there to capture the data.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Jun 12, 2011 - 06:18pm PT
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not every country can be Canada.
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bmacd
Social climber
100% Canadian
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Jun 12, 2011 - 06:41pm PT
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good articles - thanks
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Jun 20, 2011 - 12:01pm PT
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I subscribed to Reason for years.
Slowly but surely libertarian ideas are coming to the fore.
Just look at Ron Paul.
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Jun 20, 2011 - 12:07pm PT
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jun 20, 2011 - 12:17pm PT
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Get gunz and relax, bra! That's how I roll...
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Jun 20, 2011 - 08:28pm PT
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Rand Paul tried his hardest to filibuster the Patriot Act renewal with a 30 hour effort. Without that it likely would have been made permanent. But we still have at least 4 years of swat teams rappelling through windows because somebody downloaded some suspicious porn.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 20, 2011 - 09:05pm PT
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Bluey, it's funny you should mention guns....
The second amendment to the constitution (right to bear arms) was to let individuals fight back in the future if the government becomes oppressive in spite of the checks and balances.
Consider that a current government, if it becomes "oppressive," presently has sources of unlawfully obtained information to crush any opposition when it's just a handful of people, before they've even told their spouses about it. This seems good to stop "terrorists" now, but when will we wake up and see we are really living an Orwellian 1984 with no way to change it?
Where are the checks and balances against an oppressive government?
Supreme Court ruled 5/4 to let corporations spend unlimited amounts in advertising for political campaigns, which clearly influences elections (see republic mid-term wins after Obama elected on democratic wave):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
Cheney/Halliburton profits acquired at the cost of war and lives from lower socio-economic classes. The abuses go well beyond Iraq. A good sampling of the timelines and incidents:
http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/warcontracts/cheney-halliburton.pdf
Money "stolen" from taxpayers and given to AIG and other TARP fund recipients, while extortionate bonuses paid to top AIG executives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIG_bonus_payments_controversy
We clearly see the influence of large corporations on American policy, and as it becomes more objectionable, we have few tools to resist it. It's not inconceivable that 50 years from now we'll have similar rights to 18th century Scottish coal-miners.
This, in my mind, is the most important "big picture" reason to maintain integrity for the legal process to obtain personal information about American citizens. It's ironic that republicans require the NRA and gun lobby to win elections, and yet the principle behind the 2nd Amendment is given away as part of these privacy abuses also supported by the republican coalition in the name of business-friendliness, and national security (to deal with consequences of past US international business dealings).
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