# The Official NSA Thread



## KidTony (Jan 25, 2014)

Alright guys, since some of you are saying too many NSA related threads are popping up, and given the fact that the NSA leaks have a high volume of new stories coming out almost daily; i asked Mega if could just make an official thread where everything NSA related could go into. That way, if you want to discuss these new stories you can just come into this thread, and if you don't, you don't have to see the front page cluttered with new threads.

So let me get things started below:


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## KidTony (Jan 25, 2014)

Obama's NSA blind spot



> President Obama's recent speech on government surveillance is dominating the conversation, but he won't be making the key decisions on the future of the National Security Agency's collection of domestic phone data. The statutory provision authorizing these massive sweeps expires June 1, 2015. If Congress simply does nothing, the NSA's domestic spying program will soon come to a screeching halt.
> 
> The question is whether Americans will seize this opportunity to gain critical perspective on the crisis responses of the George W. Bush years. Voters elected and reelected Obama precisely because he promised to engage in this decisive reappraisal. But his speech failed to redeem this promise.
> 
> ...


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## KidTony (Jan 25, 2014)

Something of interest to those of you in the U.K:

Guardian journalists could face criminal charges over Edward Snowden leaks



> Employees of The Guardian newspaper could face criminal charges over their role in publishing secrets leaked by Edward Snowden, Britain?s most senior counter-terrorism officer has signalled.
> 
> Cressida Dick, an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, confirmed for the first time that detectives were examining whether staff at the newspaper had committed an offence.
> 
> ...





Particularly worrisome. I don't know what kind of protections there are for journalists in the UK, but facing being investigated as terrorists for publishing a story is an absolute joke.

Also, some new polls indicate approval of NSA surveillance are down among party lines:

57% of adults say snowden's leak served the public, only 35% say it harmed. Also, the bulk collection program has a 53% disapproval rating among americans.



USA today with similar stats


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## Alwaysmind (Jan 25, 2014)

Jon Stewart recently pointed out that some leakers have become martyr, albeit they had to wait 40 years to get that recognition. So only 39 more years before Eddie becomes a hero.


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## Golden Circle (Jan 26, 2014)

There's nothing wrong with the NSA, because I'm a total ^ (not the meaning of the word "respect".) who loves strangers rifling through my underwear drawer. Please fuck me harder in the ass, NSA.
[sp]hue[/sp]


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

Alwaysmind said:


> Jon Stewart recently pointed out that some leakers have become martyr, albeit they had to wait 40 years to get that recognition. So only 39 more years before Eddie becomes a hero.



That's pretty delusional. Not all leakers are the same and one most important thing is that they had remained ANONYMOUS for decades.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Dipshits will also consider Manning a hero too when he's just a traitor.  But I guess Benedict Arnold had liberal fanboys and apologists too.


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## KidTony (Jan 26, 2014)

Daniel Ellsberg says hi


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Daniel Ellsberg says hi



Daniel who?


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## KidTony (Jan 26, 2014)

assuming you are trolling but...


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

KidTony said:


> assuming you are trolling but...



Actually I only heard about the Pentagon Papers...couldn't be arsed to read 'em.  tl;dr.


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## KidTony (Jan 26, 2014)

lol...
check out that wiki link, you'll see ellsberg holding a picture of your favorite person in the whole wide world. Funny how when i looked at that link and saw that picture (and assuming you really had no idea who he was) i thought "oh great, this a great first impression for Mael"


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

KidTony said:


> lol...
> check out that wiki link, you'll see ellsberg holding a picture of your favorite person in the whole wide world. Funny how when i looked at that link and saw that picture (and assuming you really had no idea who he was) i thought "oh great, this a great first impression for Mael"



Cool so this guy few people care about supports a bona fide traitor. 

Well at least I know where your head is at...up your ass.


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## stream (Jan 26, 2014)

Don't assume that few people know about the Pentagon papers because you didn't bother to read them, Mael... They were a significant reason for ending the war in Vietnam. Basically, Ellsberg exposed the lies of a corrupt administration, and his leaks were far more important than those of Manning or Snowden.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

stream said:


> Don't assume that few people know about the Pentagon papers because you didn't bother to read them, Mael... They were a significant reason for ending the war in Vietnam. Basically, Ellsberg exposed the lies of a corrupt administration, and his leaks were far more important than those of Manning or Snowden.



Basically I know what they were and I know their importance.  I simply didn't feel the need to read them plus I'm going to be perfectly honest that anyone who is seriously backing up Bradley Manning is not going to receive my support.  Not now.  Not ever.


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## stream (Jan 26, 2014)

Is there something particular you have against Manning? I feel you revile him way more than Snowden, even though Snowden's leaks will have way more consequences...


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

stream said:


> Is there something particular you have against Manning? I feel you revile him way more than Snowden, even though Snowden's leaks will have way more consequences...



Because he's an MI guy like I was and he quite potentially placed soldiers in direct threat (despite what Salon or whomever else may say) over his leaks and his shitposting.  I treat him different that Snowden for one reason only.

He was a serviceman.  

I place a higher level of trust and expectation to anyone who puts on the uniform.  I've met some bona fide shitbags who jawjack or sham all day, but the thought of turning on your own for your own personal feels never crossed their minds.  I've met "mercenaries" who are in it simply for paychecks and hell I'm almost one myself, but the thought of looking like some social justice crusader and diming out our informants was purely despicable in their minds.

Manning pissed on all of that.  He filled out the SF-312 and applied for the TS clearance so he could access JWICS which has some seriously sensitive stuff.  He pissed on it.

He can go fuck himself with a rusty spork.


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

stream said:


> Is there something particular you have against Manning? I feel you revile him way more than Snowden, even though Snowden's leaks will have way more consequences...



7.5k documents indiscriminately leaked. Do people just rally behind anyone these days that seems to subvert authority? Do people even care what separates Assange, Manning, and later Snowden from ACTUAL whistle-blowers? If it doesn't apply to you I apologize but for all the bantering about government sheep some people sure seem eager to simply belong to a different flock.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> 7.5k documents indiscriminately leaked. Do people just rally behind anyone these days that seems to subvert authority?



People have always leeched around those who want to stick it to "the man."

They don't care if they get fucked...any form of authority is hurtful to their feels.


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Dipshits will also consider Manning a hero too when he's just a traitor.  But I guess Benedict Arnold had liberal fanboys and apologists too.



How is Manning a traitor?  you truly are a fucking scumbag Mael why don't you go kill your own fucking self.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> How is Manning a traitor?  you truly are a fucking scumbag Mael why don't you go kill your own fucking self.



Lel nice try, using my own language.

Simply put, he signed a contract, he signed the NDA, he earned himself a clearance, and swore an oath to defend the nation, his fellow soldiers, and the Constitution.  And in one fell swoop influenced by that fucking hamster Assange, he threw it all away.  Also, it does give me great comfort that his only supporters are either irrational/unrealistic hyperliberals and troll loons such as yourself.  

Losing battle ya got, man.


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Simply put, he signed a contract, he signed the NDA, he earned himself a clearance, and *swore an oath to defend the nation, his fellow soldiers, and the Constitution*.  And in one fell swoop influenced by that fucking hamster Assange, he threw it all away.  Also, it does give me great comfort that his only supporters are either irrational/unrealistic hyperliberals and troll loons such as yourself.



Yeah he swore to defend this country against all enemies foreign and *domestic* the things he leaked where, official policy to ignore torture in Iraq when Obama said we don't do that, U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan, that Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives, that there is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Military officials withheld information about the indiscriminate killing of Reuters journalists and innocent Iraqi civilians, The State Department backed corporate opposition to a Haitian minimum wage law, that Egyptian torturers received training from the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, The Obama Administration allowed Yemen?s President to cover up a secret U.S. drone bombing campaign, and God knows what else. 

It gives me comfort to know that you're a scumbag who doesn't know what the fuck the Constitution is and you most likely swore to protect it and the fact you don't know what a liberal and a conservative is.

And yeah I used your language you twat you are the definition of a pussy you disgrace the uniform you wear and the flag that flies above this blessed nation that God himself has protected and ^ (not the meaning of the word "respect".) like you wanna turn away from him. It'd be a blessing if you took your sidearm put it in your mouth and pulled the trigger and saved the world from your ^ (not the meaning of the word "respect".) nonsense. Since facts don't comprehend with your skull.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

So we've gone from loon troll to angry loon troll.

Fun. 

Fucker shouldn't have signed the dotted line if he felt all this crap and was a walking basket case.  That's right, your beacon of hope is a complete nutjob.  Then again you know what they say about birds of a feather...


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> So we've gone from loon troll to angry loon troll.
> 
> Fun.
> 
> Fucker shouldn't have signed the dotted line if he felt all this crap and was a walking basket case.  That's right, your beacon of hope is a complete nutjob.  Then again you know what they say about birds of a feather...



Thats like signing a contract with Charles Manson saying you can't tell anyone that he is murdering people. Keep coming up with this stupid reasons moron I'll keep coming up with logical morally right answers. Something you can't even think of.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> Thats like signing a contract with Charles Manson saying you can't tell anyone that he is murdering people. Keep coming up with this stupid reasons moron I'll keep coming up with logical morally right answers. Something you can't even think of.



Wrong.

Shit's relative, yo.  Getting women to kill Roman Polanski's wife and baby isn't something like operating a Predator drone.

Unfortunately your idiotic inability to distinguish the relative differences clouds your better judgment.

Oh well...not like people will actually believe you anyway so you'll pretty much wallow in obscurity.


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Wrong.
> 
> Shit's relative, yo.  Getting women to kill Roman Polanski's wife and baby isn't something like operating a Predator drone.
> 
> ...



I guess torture is harder then flying a drone right?


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> I guess torture is harder then flying a drone right?



Doesn't make much sence but again I'm sure you can't distinguish Sharon Tate from your militant Islamist.  I mean it's typical of lower-IQ folks like you. :33


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Doesn't make much sence but again I'm sure you can't distinguish Sharon Tate from your militant Islamist.  I mean it's typical of lower-IQ folks like you. :33



No because he leaked more then just drone deaths but keep coming up with excuses as to why the government is justified in its killing.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> No because he leaked more then just drone deaths but keep coming up with excuses as to why the government is justified in its killing.



Never said it was right...just said he fucked over more people than he should, while in uniform, and treason is treason.

So you gonna excuse Arnold too?


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## Zaru (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael, why is your attention regarding the leaker and the leaked info 100:1? Do you CONDONE the things that were uncovered? You practically never mentioned the content of his leaks (as in, the actual terrible shit committed by the US military and intelligence agencies) past the original threads (at least I assume you did, shit was ages ago) yet you bring up how much you hate Manning at least once a week even when nobody else mentions him. 

It's like a guy being idealistically stupid but not actually causing notable harm to anyone aside from reputational embarassment is worse in your eyes than bombing journalists, lying about civilian death tolls, condoning torture and supporting dictators.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Mael, why is your attention regarding the leaker and the leaked info 100:1? Do you CONDONE the things that were uncovered? You practically never mentioned the content of his leaks (as in, the actual terrible shit committed by the US military and intelligence agencies) past the original threads (at least I assume you did, shit was ages ago) yet you bring up how much you hate Manning at least once a week even when nobody else mentions him.
> 
> It's like a guy being idealistically stupid but not actually causing notable harm to anyone aside from reputational embarassment is worse in your eyes than bombing journalists, lying about civilian death tolls, condoning torture and supporting dictators.



Because, and I'll repeat, if you're going to sign an NDA, you uphold it.  It's one of the few ideals I'm going to stick to where there are so few to actually see as worth it.

Also, you fucking children never seem to get it.  It didn't end up causing too much an uproar, *but it could have*.

But again, enjoy your naivete.


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## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Never said it was right...just said he fucked over more people than he should, while in uniform, and treason is treason.
> 
> So you gonna excuse Arnold too?



Arnold betrayed people who where fighting for freedom. Unlike our government that thinks we can do whatever we want.

Who did he fuck over? The people who did wrong?! If you're involved in the wrong doing then good if your taken down! It don't matter if he was food store employee he did the right thing.


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## Zaru (Jan 26, 2014)

Mael said:


> Also, you fucking children never seem to get it.  It didn't end up causing too much an uproar, *but it could have*.


Do you even realize to how many actions of the nation you swore fealty to this applies? 

And if NDAs were never broken, given the effort they went through to stop any leaks through the "official channels", no wrongdoing from your government would ever see the light. So please spare me the naive ideals of your own.


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## KidTony (Jan 26, 2014)

> It's like a guy being idealistically stupid but not actually causing notable harm to anyone aside from reputational embarassment is worse in your eyes than bombing journalists, lying about civilian death tolls, condoning torture and supporting dictators.
> ______



This. Guy needs to get his priorities straight. Pro administration officials leak info of several magnitudes higher classification than anything both Manning and Snowden ever released every other day, but i don't see the pro NSA left going after them.


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## KidTony (Jan 26, 2014)

Zaru said:


> And if NDAs were never broken, given the effort they went through to stop any leaks through the "official channels", no wrongdoing from your government would ever see the light. So please spare me the naive ideals of your own.



Another nail on the head. This is the guy that SCREAMS about how people are too naively idealist, how people need to be realists, etc....but he treats an NDA as if it were some sort of sacred cow of the utmost national importance, and that breaking one is of itself far worse than countless war crimes. Sounds like an idealist to me.


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## Chelydra (Jan 26, 2014)

I wonder if people here think Jonathan Pollard is a hero as well? After all he only released classified information to people whom are not enemies of the United States


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Mael, why is your attention regarding the leaker and the leaked info 100:1? Do you CONDONE the things that were uncovered? You practically never mentioned the content of his leaks (as in, the actual terrible shit committed by the US military and intelligence agencies) past the original threads (at least I assume you did, shit was ages ago) yet you bring up how much you hate Manning at least once a week even when nobody else mentions him.
> 
> It's like a guy being idealistically stupid but not actually causing notable harm to anyone aside from reputational embarassment is worse in your eyes than bombing journalists, lying about civilian death tolls, condoning torture and supporting dictators.



No, that was one document, of 750,000 of which he wasn't he didn't even find himself that revealed this wrongdoing. I think it's a stupid question to ask if he or anyone here condones those sort of actions; because condemning Manning, and condemning that wrongdoing are not mutually exclusive. People choose to make him out to be a hero figure, but then they don't even know the most basic thing about him. We do, we should, and we have punished military criminals, Manning is no different.


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## Mael (Jan 26, 2014)

I smell shillvilege, Seto.

Love the Manning worship too...praise for a basket case traitor.


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

KidTony said:


> This. Guy needs to get his priorities straight. Pro administration officials leak info of several magnitudes higher classification than anything both Manning and Snowden ever released every other day, but i don't see the pro NSA left going after them.



Probably because they have permission and authority to? This is an idiotic point to bring up.


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## Gunners (Jan 26, 2014)

They're not mutually exclusive, but that doesn't mean it is a stupid question to ask because the attitude towards the two is different. There's almost a murderous anger towards Manning, whilst the flagrant violation of people's right to privacy is hand waived as a trivial wrong all countries are involved in.


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

Gunners said:


> They're not mutually exclusive, but that doesn't mean it is a stupid question to ask because the attitude towards the two is different. There's almost a murderous anger towards Manning, whilst the flagrant violation of people's right to privacy is hand waived as a trivial wrong all countries are involved in.



Because no one is defending the murderers as if they were heroes perhaps?

You can more easily amend a passive violation of privacy, compared to the leaking of 750,000 documents once you leaked them without knowing their contents. What the NSA does with domestic surveillance is a violation, but a passive one. The real aggressor as it has been for about the past decade has been private companies.


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## Zaru (Jan 26, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> No, that was one document, of 750,000 of which he wasn't he didn't even find himself that revealed this wrongdoing. I think it's a stupid question to ask if he or anyone here condones those sort of actions; because condemning Manning, and condemning that wrongdoing are not mutually exclusive. People choose to make him out to be a hero figure, but then they don't even know the most basic thing about him. We do, we should, and we have punished military criminals, Manning is no different.



Yeah and do you remember what happened? Oh right, he got sentenced to many years in prison. That's what you call a case closed.

Yet Mael still brings him up more often than KidTony makes NSA threads. He's free to do so... I just don't get the point and his priorities are worrying given that the things Manning unveiled are by any reasonable standard much, much worse than the act of revealing them.


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Yeah and do you remember what happened? Oh right, he got sentenced to many years in prison. That's what you call a case closed.
> 
> Yet Mael still brings him up more often than KidTony makes NSA threads. He's free to do so... I just don't get the point and his priorities are worrying given that the things Manning unveiled are by any reasonable standard much, much worse than the act of revealing them.



As he deserved. 750,000 leaked classified documents of which he didn't know the contents? He got off pretty light. It was the biggest unauthorized discloure of government documents in our history, and he did it all for some shortsighted appeal of fame. 

Manning didn't unveil anything. Even if he did, it doesn't justify leaking the number of documents he chose to do, because most of them had nothing to do with the actual crime. They were private e-mails, formerly strategic locations, personnel info, and a myriad of other info, that thankfully didn't reap any more dire consequences. It is honestly a load of BS, that certain people always think that one has to resort to vigilantism for 'justice', one approach I see people on the left particularly embracing more and more. Vigilante justice is highly volatile, something I find way moreso than most other kinds.

Mael's contempt for Manning isn't unique or isolated, he is a serviceman like Manning was and there are quite a number that have no love for the guy. He violated a very basic creed.


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## Gunners (Jan 26, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Because no one is defending the murderers as if they were heroes perhaps?


What their a point to the rhetorical question? The last time I checked Manning was not a murderer, and my statement is not down to people not viewing Manning ( or people like him as a hero) as a hero; there is a huge difference between not condoning someone's actions and wanting a bullet to be put in their head. 


> You can more easily amend a passive violation of privacy, compared to the leaking of 750,000 documents once you leaked them without knowing their contents. What the NSA does with domestic surveillance is a violation, but a passive one. The real aggressor as it has been for about the past decade has been private companies.


Word of the day, trust. How does it go, _once trust is broken it can never be repaired_? When I mentioned people hand waiving the NSA violation of people's rights as a trivial matter, views like yours are what I envisioned. The situation is not easily remedied, because no person of sound mind can honestly believe that the people, who knowingly behaved in a manner that compromised their rights, will now act with honesty and respect. There is also the issue of the working environment permitting such abuse in the first place, and how this would have been allowed to continue but for the fact that they got their hand caught in the cookie jar.


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 26, 2014)

Gunners said:


> What their a point to the rhetorical question? The last time I checked Manning was not a murderer, and my statement is not down to people not viewing Manning ( or people like him as a hero) as a hero; there is a huge difference between not condoning someone's actions and wanting a bullet to be put in their head.



You can pinpoint to individual wrongdoing in the Manning case. It is clear who was the wrongdoer here. The NSA matter is not so much, you can strip the director of his title, and cripple the powers for the next one that comes up but finding who to really charge is going to land one in an endless quagmire. 



> Word of the day, trust. How does it go, _once trust is broken it can never be repaired_?



Who puts unconditional trust in anything? Moreover, I have to wonder about a person that buys the idyllic rantings politicians give the public. Government has done a hell of a lot worse than the current row of domestic surveillance. 



> When I mentioned people hand waiving the NSA violation of people's rights as a trivial matter, views like yours are what I envisioned.



Because ultimately, it is. It is a bloated, ineffective program that is ultimately passive violation of privacy. We have had surveillance programs in place before, and have had them ended one way or another before; what I find more worrying is the aggressive tactics of private enterprise which are a lot harder to reverse. 



> The situation is not easily remedied, because no person of sound mind can honestly believe that the people, who knowingly behaved in a manner that compromised their rights, will now act with honesty and respect.



Whoever said anything about that? That's why the government needs to be sued to halt the program, and the powers stripped. You should never expect a government to voluntarily end it, and you should never expect a government to voluntarily relinquish powers. They have to be compelled to do so. Legally. Not this vigilantism a lot of people seem to embrace.



> There is also the issue of the working environment permitting such abuse in the first place, and how this would have been allowed to continue but for the fact that they got their hand caught in the cookie jar.



Complacency. Too lax oversight, too broadly defined powers basically.


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## Savior (Jan 26, 2014)

> I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.
> ? Ellsberg on why he released the Pentagon Papers to the press



Eerily similar eh?



> For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal soon discovered that the Nixon administration had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.



per wikipedia


Obama has gone way overboard. It's such a shame. The U.S. is all about fearmongering these days. "We must let the government do anything that is needed to fight terror!!"

People swallow that stuff up no matter the consequences. No matter if there's actually any truth to the government's claims.

Even worse is that the government doesn't even need to defend itself. There's blind Americans like some of the Cafe crew who think every action the U.S. government takes is the right one.


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## BashFace (Jan 27, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> How is Manning a traitor?  you truly are a fucking scumbag Mael why don't you go kill your own fucking self.



*Are you a troll or a dick?*



Jersey Shore Jesus said:


> Thats like *signing a contract with Charles Manson* saying you can't tell anyone that he is murdering people. Keep coming up with this stupid reasons moron I'll keep coming up with *logical morally right answers*. Something you can't even think of.



Ok fair enough makes sense.  

Dude NSA debates get hardcore. I can see how it's a touchy subject but like kill yourself and shit is a bit extreme given he only has a different view. I see people for more guns and I have to tolerate it without telling them to put a gun in their mouth.


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## Son of Goku (Jan 27, 2014)

*Wanted dead by US officials, Snowden tells German TV*



> *Wanted dead by US officials, Snowden tells German TV*
> 
> *Fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has claimed that US government officials "want to kill me" in an exclusive interview which German television says it conducted in Moscow.
> *
> ...






[YOUTUBE]4x38jkFlPeg[/YOUTUBE]


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## Zaru (Jan 27, 2014)

Well... yeah. They said as much just recently.

As for the bit about industrial espionage, Germany is getting really pissed at this point. The NSA lied to Germany multiple times and is also stealing shit from German companies. If that's how the USA treat their friends then they're no better or even worse than Russia and China in that regard.


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## ThunderCunt (Jan 27, 2014)

Oh well, this is surprising. 
Is there any evidence of any specifics of what he has released putting military personnels at risk. 
His leaks have been very generic in nature like, NSA spied on Merkel, NSA spied on US citizens etc.


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## Oceania (Jan 27, 2014)

you know you fcked up when they want you dead, not wanted dead or alive.


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## Le Mâle-Pensant (Jan 27, 2014)

> Industrial espionage too?
> 
> In an earlier snippet released online late on Saturday by the public broadcaster NDR, Snowden claimed that the NSA was involved in industrial espionage and did not limit its espionage to issues of US national security.
> 
> ...



Of course, there is industrial espionnage. This is why Germany is the most spied country in Europe by the NSA. Now Germany shoud defend itself against it rather than expect any change from the US.

BTW, the video is bocked in my country.


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## Griever (Jan 27, 2014)

I assure you, Snowden. US Officials aren't the only ones who want you dead. 

With that said, come on back so we can carve our grief into your hide


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## Mider T (Jan 27, 2014)

Handful of US Officials, in no official capacity, want to see him burn.  Will that order be given?  No.  Snowden knows this but he'll play up that publicity because it helps his cause.


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## Linkofone (Jan 27, 2014)

Living a life of fear ... at least that's what it would like ...


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 27, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Handful of US Officials, in no official capacity, want to see him burn.  Will that order be given?  No.  Snowden knows this but he'll play up that publicity because it helps his cause.



Pretty much.


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## Orochibuto (Jan 27, 2014)

Blocked in my country


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## Overwatch (Jan 27, 2014)

The last thing the US government needs right now is turning the guy into a martyr. They're not THAT thick.


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## Hand Banana (Jan 27, 2014)

udontsay.gif


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 27, 2014)

Industrial espionage? Say it isn't so! I had no idea such a thing existed before today, and it is clear that only one country ever has engaged in such tactics. 

No, really. I don't care at all about that. It's all a game of not getting caught; they should have kept those documents under tighter security. Giving clearance to a private contractor like Snowden was an enormous mistake.


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## KidTony (Jan 27, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Industrial espionage? Say it isn't so! I had no idea such a thing existed before today, and it is clear that only one country ever has engaged in such tactics.
> 
> No, really. I don't care at all about that. It's all a game of not getting caught; they should have kept those documents under tighter security. Giving clearance to a private contractor like Snowden was an enormous mistake.



Which means every "Snowden" out there has access to the communications the NSA has access too. The potential for abuse is infinite.

I also don't understand this line argument that make industrial espionage OK, "because everyone else does it".


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## Zaru (Jan 27, 2014)

So if Germany had used massive spying on american soil for industrial espionage that probably harms american companies, by your logic, that would totally be okay. Everyone does it, after all. "These stupid americans should have kept those documents under tighter security", right? Everything's okay as long as you're not caught!


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## Seto Kaiba (Jan 27, 2014)

Zaru said:


> So if Germany had used massive spying on american soil for industrial espionage that probably harms american companies, by your logic, that would totally be okay. Everyone does it, after all. "These stupid americans should have kept those documents under tighter security", right? Everything's okay as long as you're not caught!



In this case, yeah. Germany has committed such espionage before and been caught, we have caught plenty of allies trying to replicate our military technology. If we cannot catch them in the act then that is only revealing a weakness on our part, if we get caught in the act then that reveals an inefficiency on our part as well. The NSA has proven itself to be bloated and inefficient, and that is more worrying to me than anything.

I wonder if some of you people seriously believe this issue is as simple as the U.S. are the big bad bullies.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 27, 2014)

Brace yourself guys, a bevvy of new articles/interesting blogs coming in:

NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps like Angry Birds to scoop user data

_? US and UK spy agencies piggyback on commercial data
? Details can include age, location and sexual orientation 
? Documents also reveal targeted tools against individual phones_



> The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents.
> 
> The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the documents state, can share users' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation ? and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger.
> 
> ...



Article continues below
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data

NYT's take on this as well:


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jan 27, 2014)

Brace ourselves for what? What would this reveal that wouldn't have been suspected before? It really doesn't matter if the gist of it is "The NSA is spying on you!". The only relevant info at this point would be legal compulsion to roll back such activities or actual removal of the powers that allowed it, or legal vindication of such activities.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 27, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Brace ourselves for what? What would this reveal that wouldn't have been suspected before? It really doesn't matter if the gist of it is "The NSA is spying on you!". The only relevant info at this point would be legal compulsion to roll back such activities or actual removal of the powers that allowed it, or legal vindication of such activities.



Brace yourself for all the new articles that I'm posting in quick succession, lol.


----------



## Zaru (Jan 27, 2014)

What kind of "terrorists" use iPhones, post geo-tagged selfies on Facebook and play Angry birds? Targeting data from such devices and apps clearly has nothing to do with terrorism or national security, so why DO they want all that data?


----------



## Mael (Jan 27, 2014)

Zaru said:


> What kind of "terrorists" use iPhones, post geo-tagged selfies on Facebook and play Angry birds? Targeting data from such devices and apps clearly has nothing to do with terrorism or national security, so why DO they want all that data?



You either have no idea how the fuck metadata works or you just wrote off the Chinese.


----------



## Zaru (Jan 27, 2014)

Mael said:


> You either have no idea how the fuck metadata works or you just wrote off the Chinese.



Mael, pretty much everyone doing shady shit uses cheap, sturdy throwaway cellphones that can't be traced so easily. 
The kind of idiots that get caught through such methods would get caught anyway or never reach the finishing stages of their plans.

More importantly, the NSA keeps destroying the trust and security integrity of the entire tech industry and the image of american tech companies in particular, for laughable gains.


----------



## Mael (Jan 27, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Mael, pretty much everyone doing shady shit uses cheap, sturdy throwaway cellphones that can't be traced so easily.
> The kind of idiots that get caught through such methods would get caught anyway or never reach the finishing stages of their plans.
> 
> More importantly, the NSA keeps destroying the trust and security integrity of the entire tech industry and the image of american tech companies in particular, for laughable gains.



Take it from a guy who spent time in the DIA and worked with IMINT agencies.  Imagery or a lot of other things, like Facebook or YT, can contain portions of metadata you didn't think exist.  If you think the enemy just uses cheap and disposable on a regular basis, you've only pinpointed 30% of the problem.  When I see artwork and portraits that when decoded and inspected closer, containing cryptic messages you'd think a hacker would be doing, it begs the question as to what else they're doing.

Oh and things like KidTony's feels?

Exploitable.

I'll take my better safe than sorry over feels.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 27, 2014)

Politico opinion Piece on how the NSA leaks might shape US politics in the near future:

Candidates of both parties run vs. NSA



> Edward Snowden’s leaks didn’t just cause turmoil in the U.S. intelligence community, prompt international backlash toward President Barack Obama and revive a debate in Congress over civil liberties.
> They spawned a whole new breed on the 2014 campaign trail: The anti-National Security Agency candidate.
> 
> 
> ...



http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/candidates-of-both-parties-run-vs-nsa-102628_Page2.html


----------



## KidTony (Jan 27, 2014)

Lawmakers to Obama: Fire your intelligence chief for lying



> A group of lawmakers is urging President Obama to fire his intelligence chief for allegedly misleading Congress about the scope of the National Security Agency?s surveillance programs.
> 
> ?The continued role of James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs and ensuring the highest level of transparency,? the letter reads. ? Director Clapper continues to hold his position despite lying to Congress, under oath, about the existence of bulk data collection programs in March 2013.?
> 
> ...


----------



## runsakurarun (Jan 28, 2014)

Spying on your own people, and on your allies;  and then blatantly lying under oath to cover up the corruption of power is just evil.

NSA should be disbanded immediately. More Americans are dying and suffering from health issues like heart disease, obesity and overall lousy health care system than terrorism. Why not transfer the funds and technology of the NSA to Obama's ailing health care web site instead?


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

NBC brief report on their story about NSA/GCHQ spying on youtube and facebook videos and how metadata can be a predictive tool of fascinating proportions.

[YOUTUBE]tBe5eQMJ6bc[/YOUTUBE]

Also,

GCHQ head Sir Iain Lobban stands down

*Foreign Office claims 53-year-old spy chief's departure part of long-planned move and nothing to do with Edward Snowden revelations*



> The Foreign Office confirmed that the head of GCHQ, the British spy agency at the centre of the Edward Snowden leaks controversy, is to stand down.
> 
> The departure of Sir Iain Lobban, 53, who has been GCHQ director since July 2008, was being presented by the government as a long-planned move rather than being linked to the Snowden row.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-head-sir-iain-lobban-stands-down

Of course, it was a planned move that had nothing to do with the recent scandals


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

How the U.S tries to silence Whistle-blowers who are in prison, by violating their rights:


Bureau of Prisons Considers CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou?s ?Letters from Loretto? on Firedoglake to Be Dangerous



> The Bureau of Prisons, with a little assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency, have been engaging in a ?ham-handed? attempt to stop former CIA officer John Kiriakou from sending letters from prison, according to a recent letter from prison.
> 
> Kiriakou was the first member of the CIA to publicly acknowledge that torture was official US policy under the George W. Bush administration. He was convicted in October 2012 of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) when he provided the name of an officer involved in the CIA?s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter. He was sentenced to thirty months in jail in January 2013 and reported to prison on February 28, 2013.
> 
> ...



Continues below:


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jan 28, 2014)

He's in fucking prison. They have complete say on what he can and can't do.


----------



## Mael (Jan 28, 2014)

Seto you shill you know logic isn't welcome in this feels hugbox.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> He's in fucking prison. They have complete say on what he can and can't do.



I see you actually read the article...



> He explains on August 30, 2013, he was ?forced to sign? a ?memo? from the United States Justice Department that stated he was ?legally obligated to clear everything? he wrote ?for publication with the CIA?s Publication Review Board (PRB).?
> 
> The Special Investigative Service ?was now demanding that I give all future ?Letters from Loretto? to them, and they would sent it on to the CIA,? he asserts. He was not ?permitted to send a copy? to his attorney or seek any legal advice before signing the memo. ?Failure to follow? would ?result in disciplinary action.?



Both illegal and unconstitutional, but you and Mael don't really care much about whats illegal and unconstitutional these days it seems.


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jan 28, 2014)

Or we're not a fucking tumblr liberal like you. He's lucky to get even that. I don't know too many prisoners that were even allowed to send letters at all. That's pretty much a privilege they gave him, and him being under the prison system, it's theirs to change.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Where the hell do you even come up with this stuff? Every single prison in my state (Florida, which has a horrible prison system) allows their inmates to receive and send unlimited paper mail, and most even give access to email. Did you miss the part where they coerced him to sign a DOJ agreement upon pain of disciplinary action that he would needs clear everything he wrote with a review board *without being allowed to receive advice from his legal counsel?*

Do you have to be a "tumbler liberal" to respect someones constitutional rights now? I didn't realize being so hard-core like you and Mael meant being apathetic, even disdainful of someone's civil and constitutional rights being violated.


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jan 28, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Where the hell do you even come up with this stuff? Every single prison in my state (Florida, which has a horrible prison system) allows their inmates to receive and send unlimited paper mail, and most even give access to email. Did you miss the part where they coerced him to sign a DOJ agreement upon pain of disciplinary action that he would needs clear everything he wrote with a review board *without being allowed to receive advice from his legal counsel?*
> 
> Do you have to be a "tumbler liberal" to respect someones constitutional rights now? I didn't realize being so hard-core like you and Mael meant being apathetic, even disdainful of someone's civil and constitutional rights being violated.





> *Outgoing Correspondence*
> 
> In most cases, inmates are permitted to correspond with the public, family members, and others without prior approval, or the maintenance of a correspondence list.
> 
> Outgoing mail is placed in mailboxes located in the housing units. *Outgoing mail will be inspected by staff*, and must be unsealed when deposited in the institution mailbox.





> *Inmate Correspondence with Representatives of the News Media*
> 
> An inmate may write, following Special Mail procedures, to representatives of the news media when specified by name and title.
> 
> ...





Your state's regulations:





> *All routine mail sent to an inmate is opened, examined, and read by designated department staff.*





> *Can I send an inmate an e-mail message?*
> 
> *No.* For obvious security reasons, inmates are not authorized access to the Internet, or to computers connected to the Internet that can send or receive e-mail messages.
> 
> Inmates are only allowed letters sent through the US Postal Service. See Question 1 above.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Your state's regulations:



None of this is relevant to this story, besides that i said inmates in Florida prisons had access to email, which in my experience (two separate cases) is true, but that might be because they were in federal prison and not state prison. 

The fact that mail is searched is not the point of contention. 

A) They coerced him to agree that his outgoing mail be sent to a CIA approval board without allowing him to to seek legal counsel first. Clearly unconstitutional.

B) He was placed in CI monitoring without being notified which is against prison regulations.

C) They refused him standard mail without informing him of reasons, or allowing him access to an appeal, all against prison regulations.

D) They specifically have a set day for him to receive his mail, which is against prison regulation of distributing mail as they come and are processed.

Clearly, the BOP and the DOJ does not want him to have access to the media and are afraid of what he might report and have no qualms with violating his rights to silence him.


----------



## Mael (Jan 28, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Where the hell do you even come up with this stuff? Every single prison in my state (Florida, which has a horrible prison system) allows their inmates to receive and send unlimited paper mail, and most even give access to email. Did you miss the part where they coerced him to sign a DOJ agreement upon pain of disciplinary action that he would needs clear everything he wrote with a review board *without being allowed to receive advice from his legal counsel?*
> 
> Do you have to be a "tumbler liberal" to respect someones constitutional rights now? I didn't realize being so hard-core like you and Mael meant being apathetic, even disdainful of someone's civil and constitutional rights being violated.



Just as I expected, a child wet behind the ears.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Mael: "I need to decide which cliched ideological label I can apply to that person so I can be relieved of the burden of addressing the substance"

Whoever wrote that must have had you in mind.


----------



## Mael (Jan 28, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Mael: "I need to decide which cliched ideological label I can apply to that person so I can be relieved of the burden of addressing the substance"
> 
> Whoever wrote that must have had you in mind.



I mean really, I stopped trying to refute you because you'll always remain that wide-eyed idealist child who hasn't a real fucking clue aside from what traitors like Manning or screwballs like Assange tell him.


----------



## Golden Circle (Jan 28, 2014)

I'm not a child so I'll call him names ~ Mael


----------



## Mael (Jan 28, 2014)

Golden Circle said:


> I'm not a child so I'll call him names ~ Mael



So you have no real platform either...congrats, nimrod.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Mael said:


> I mean really, I stopped trying to refute you because you'll always remain that wide-eyed idealist child who hasn't a real fucking clue aside from what traitors like Manning or screwballs like Assange tell him.



This from the guy that views betrayal of NDR as a bigger crime than indiscriminate killings, corruption, and civil rights violations out of some army bro spider-sense "feels". Hows that for an idealist.


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jan 28, 2014)

KidTony said:


> None of this is relevant to this story,



Yes it is. the Federal Bureau of Prisons runs the prison he's currently in and it seems that he was given quite the exception when it came to communications with news media. 



> besides that i said inmates in Florida prisons had access to email, which in my experience (two separate cases) is true, but that might be because they were in federal prison and not state prison.



It seems pretty plain, they don't. So maybe you were mistaken.



> The fact that mail is searched is not the point of contention.



It's one of his complaints.



> A) They coerced him to agree that his outgoing mail be sent to a CIA approval board without allowing him to to seek legal counsel first. Clearly unconstitutional.



The guy used to work for the CIA, so obviously he isn't a standard prisoner, and the regulations allow them to do that regardless of his personal approval.



> B) He was placed in CI monitoring without being notified which is against prison regulations.



How would he know then? If you mean the Central Inmate Monitoring System.



> C) They refused him standard mail without informing him of reasons, or allowing him access to an appeal, all against prison regulations.



_*Inmates may be placed on restricted correspondence status based on misconduct, or as a result of classification.*_



> D) They specifically have a set day for him to receive his mail, which is against prison regulation of distributing mail as they come and are processed.



_First class mail is distributed Monday through Friday (except holidays) by the evening watch officer in each housing unit._



> Clearly, the BOP and the DOJ does not want him to have access to the media and are afraid of what he might report and have no qualms with violating his rights to silence him.



He's restricted in what he can do with that to begin with. Some of these he already had in place in becoming a prisoner. His reports clearly fall under their regulations. The only issue that seems to remain is the matter of appeal, if his take on it is true.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 28, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Yes it is. the Federal Bureau of Prisons runs the prison he's currently in and it seems that he was given quite the exception when it came to communications with news media.



How so? He is incarcerated in a federal prison, not in the state of Florida. I merely brought up Florida to show how a state-run prison system (a bad one one that) who are traditionally less lenient than the feds, allow their inmates to receive and send practically unlimited paper correspondence. 

Which exception are you talking about here? He has not my knowledge been granted media access in the prison system, or any special ability to correspond with the outside not granted to other inmates.

What is this "quite the exception" you are talking about, the ability to write and receive letters like..everyone else in the prison?



> It seems pretty plain, they don't. So maybe you were mistaken.



Federal prison do allow it. I have personal experience of it, and it was even mentioned in the story that email access is allowed in this prison.



> It's one of his complaints.



He complains that they have *improperly* gone through his correspondence, and the reasons are outlined in the article.



> The guy used to work for the CIA, so obviously he isn't a standard prisoner, and the regulations allow them to do that regardless of his personal approval.



He is not required by law to send his correspondence to the PRB because they have nothing to do with his past work as officer, and this is mentioned in the article. Furthermore, the point here is that he was* forced, under the threat of "disciplinary action"* to sign a document which states he will send all further correspondence to the PRB without being allowed to seek legal counsel. This is illegal and unconstitutional ,and is a point you have failed to adress three times now.




> How would he know then? If you mean the Central Inmate Monitoring System.



The article doesn't mention how he found out, but it is quite obvious that prison regulations were not followed as the procedure for classification states that _"The case manager shall ensure that the affected inmate is notified in writing as promptly as possible of the classification and the basis for it"_. 



> _*Inmates may be placed on restricted correspondence status based on misconduct, or as a result of classification.*_



Of which the prison broke their own regulations by not informing the inmate that he was indeed under the CIM. And it was noted in the article that despite the warden having the ability to reject mail under such a classification, inmates are to be have a chance to challenge the decision, an opportunity which he was never given.



> _First class mail is distributed Monday through Friday (except holidays) by the evening watch officer in each housing unit._



Per the article, his mail is only delivered on Mondays, which is a violation of prison regulations according to kiriakou, as the other inmates have access to correspondence every day of the week (except the weekend).




> He's restricted in what he can do with that to begin with. Some of these he already had in place in becoming a prisoner. His reports clearly fall under their regulations. The only issue that seems to remain is the matter of appeal, if his take on it is true.



Obviously this is not true as the prison has broken several of its own regulations in dealing with Kiriakou, and specially violated his civil rights by forcing him to sign legal documents without access to his lawyer. In addition to this, despite the rest of his concerns not necessarily being illegal and falling  into the grey area of improper/unfair, they clearly want to control what he tells the outside world, of which very little has to do with any government agency and more on what goes on inside the prison system.

Why offer him this then:

_"He had stopped sending letters, having been informed if he no longer wrote the letters he would be able to get nine months in a halfway house when serving out the final part of his sentence. But the prison broke its promise, and Kiriakou resumed writing letters."_

If they weren't worried about what he and to whom he was writing.


----------



## makeoutparadise (Jan 29, 2014)

*James Clapper says Snowden damaged US security*
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25954638


> "We've lost critical foreign intelligence collection sources, including some shared with us by valued partners," Clapper said
> Continue reading the main story
> Spy leaks
> 
> ...


----------



## Zaru (Jan 29, 2014)

"Valued partners"


----------



## KidTony (Jan 29, 2014)

Edward Snowden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize



> Edward Snowden spent the last year revealing some of the government's most tightly held secrets, kicking off a massive debate about the proper role of America's intelligence services. Now, a pair of Norwegian politicians have nominated the NSA leaker for a Nobel Peace Prize.
> 
> In their nomination letter, Baard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen, who hail from the Socialist Left party, said Snowden's revelations "contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order."
> 
> Nominations ? which are generally secret but sometimes announced by those submitting the paperwork ? must be filed by Feb. 1. Snowden likely has dozens of competitors, so there's no guarantee he'll get anywhere. Still, it'd be ironic if Snowden and Obama each wound up winning the same honor just a handful of years apart.





OMG, if he wins....lol people's head (and a few of them on this board) are going explode!


----------



## Zaru (Jan 29, 2014)

Peace? He might be a less cynical pick than Obama was (who actually won), but that's still kinda inappropriate.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 29, 2014)

A couple new things from Europe:

Huge swath of GCHQ mass surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer

*Legal advice given to MPs warns that British spy agency is 'using gaps in regulation to commit serious crime with impunity'*



> GCHQ's mass surveillance spying programmes are probably illegal and have been signed off by ministers in breach of human rights and surveillance laws, according to a hard-hitting legal opinion that has been provided to MPs.
> 
> The advice warns that Britain's principal surveillance law is too vague and is almost certainly being interpreted to allow the agency to conduct surveillance that flouts privacy safeguards set out in the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
> 
> ...



Continues below:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-mass-surveillance-spying-law-lawyer

Merkel rebukes US and UK over spying



> In a major speech to parliament ahead of talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Merkel said that Western powers sacrificing freedom in the quest for security were sending the wrong signal to "billions of people living in undemocratic states".
> 
> "Actions in which the ends justify the means, in which everything that is technically possible is done, violate trust, they sow distrust," she said. "The end result is not more security but less."
> 
> ...


----------



## KidTony (Jan 29, 2014)

And the most worrisome news of the day:

James Clapper Suggests Journalists Could Be Edward Snowden's 'Accomplices'



> NEW YORK -? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper urged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and his ?accomplices? to return leaked documents during a hearing on Wednesday.
> 
> "Snowden claims that he?s won and that his mission is accomplished," Clapper said, according to a transcript from the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, posted by the Washington Post. "If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed, to prevent even more damage to U.S. security."
> 
> ...





Politico's take:

Clapper refers to Snowden 'accomplices'



> In a statement seemingly directed at journalists, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Wednesday called on NSA leaker Edward Snowden and his "accomplices" to return the rest of the documents in their possession.
> 
> ?Snowden claims that he?s won and that his mission is accomplished. If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed to prevent even more damage to U.S. security,? Clapper said at a Senate hearing.
> 
> ...



http://www.politico.com/blogs/media...-accomplices-182264.html#.Uul5PhRr_z8.twitter


----------



## Golden Circle (Jan 30, 2014)

James Clapper just lost all credibility.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 30, 2014)

One wonders if lying to congress under oath wasn't enough for that... -_-


----------



## Zaru (Jan 30, 2014)

Not having someone like him resign was quite a blunder that will bite them in the ass in the long run.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 30, 2014)

Snowden Docs: U.S. Spied On Negotiators At 2009 Climate Summit



> WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency monitored the communications of other governments ahead of and during the 2009 United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to the latest document from whistleblower Edward Snowden.
> 
> The document, with portions marked "top secret," indicates that the NSA was monitoring the communications of other countries ahead of the conference, and intended to continue doing so throughout the meeting. Posted on an internal NSA website on Dec. 7, 2009, the first day of the Copenhagen summit, it states that "analysts here at NSA, as well as our Second Party partners, will continue to provide policymakers with unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries' preparations and goals for the conference, as well as the deliberations within countries on climate change policies and negotiation strategies."
> 
> ...





In b4, "everyone does it" and "National security"


----------



## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 30, 2014)

KidTony said:


> This from the guy that views betrayal of NDR as a bigger crime than indiscriminate killings, corruption, and civil rights violations out of some *army bro spider-sense *"feels". Hows that for an idealist.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 30, 2014)

Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal

Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups



> Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants.  Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.”  In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government.  This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.  The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
> 
> Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.”  He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).   This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”  Sunstein’s 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story‘s Daniel Tencer.
> 
> ...



Continues below with several updates:


Important to mention that this doesn't implicate the Obama administration of doing anything this guy proposes, but it also worth noting that this guy is a close obama confident, and possible supreme court nominee.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 31, 2014)

And Canada's getting in on the action it seems:

CSEC used airport Wi-Fi to track Canadian travellers: Edward Snowden documents

Electronic snooping was part of a trial run for U.S. NSA and other foreign services



> A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and obtained by CBC News shows that Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal.
> 
> After reviewing the document, one of Canada's foremost authorities on cyber-security says the clandestine operation by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) was almost certainly illegal.
> 
> ...



Continues below


Man, I'm glad that even the mainstream media is getting is realizing that they have to cover these stories. First MSNBC, and now CBC as well. Good for them.


----------



## Jersey Shore Jesus (Jan 31, 2014)

It continues to blow my mind the more we find how the government is spying on us and people on here continue to defend them till their last breath.


----------



## KidTony (Jan 31, 2014)

The canadian conservative response:

[YOUTUBE]CUOXOc68nKY[/YOUTUBE]

Another crude attack on journalists and journalism. WTF does that even mean, "porn spy". lol

Also, they still say "hear hear" in canada? 

UPDATE on this story:

CSEC Snowden docs: MPs grill defence minister on spying revelation

*Tories say independent report shows CSEC obeys law as NDP, Liberals call tracking, spying illegal*



> Opposition MPs say the government has to do more to reassure Canadians after a document newly released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggested Canada's communications spy agency tracked people through free airport Wi-Fi.
> 
> The top secret document shows Canada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal.
> 
> ...



Continues below:


----------



## KidTony (Feb 1, 2014)

NY Times' Jill Abramson: Obama Crackdown Has Created 'Freeze' On Reporting



> New York Times editor Jill Abramson once again condemned the Obama administration's crackdown on leaks, saying that the government's treatment of Edward Snowden has scared potential sources and created a "real freeze" on reporting.
> 
> Abramson said at a Columbia University School of Journalism panel Thursday that Snowden has brought into question matters of source protection, media shield laws and had a ?profound effect on journalism,? the Wrap reported Friday.
> 
> ...


----------



## Zaru (Feb 1, 2014)

"B-But muh official channels!"


----------



## KidTony (Feb 4, 2014)

Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize



> On 13 July 2013 Stefan Svallfors, Professor of Sociology at Ume? University in Sweden, announced on Twitter that he had submitted a formal nomination of Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize. He also released an image of the letter he sent to the Nobel Committee for the nomination.
> 
> Professor Svallfors cites Edward Snowden?s ?heroic contribution? at, for him, a ?great personal cost?, and states that Snowden has shown people that they can ?stand up for fundamental civil and human rights?. Professor Svallfors also refers to the N?remberg trials, which ruled that: ?I was only following orders? may never be used as an excuse for acts that violate civil and human rights.
> 
> ...





Brazilian Nominates Snowden for Nobel Peace Prize



> A Brazilian senator has nominated National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
> 
> Sen. Vanessa Grazziotin heads the Senate panel investigating U.S. espionage in Brazil. She says in a Tuesday statement that Snowden's revelations contribute to a more "stable and peaceful world."
> 
> ...


----------



## Gunners (Feb 4, 2014)

Has anyone read all of these articles? I think it has reached the point where more is less.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 4, 2014)

and they keep going after journalists...

Intelligence chairman accuses Glenn Greenwald of illegally selling stolen material



> A top lawmaker argued Tuesday that journalist Glenn Greenwald is illegally selling stolen material by asking news organizations to pay for access to U.S. intelligence secrets taken from the National Security Agency.
> ?For personal gain, he?s now selling his access to information, that?s how they?re terming it?. A thief selling stolen material is a thief,? House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told journalists after a hearing where the leaks set in motion by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. were a major topic of discussion.
> 
> 
> ...



continues below
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/...gues-selling-snowden-docs-a-crime-103100.html


Senior US congressman Mike Rogers: Glenn Greenwald is 'a thief'



> A senior US legislator has accused the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald of illegally selling National Security Agency documents provided to him by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
> 
> Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House intelligence committee, suggested Greenwald was a ?thief? after he worked with news organizations who paid for stories based on the documents.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ald-thief-snowden-nsa?CMP=twt_fd&CMP=SOCxx2I2


----------



## epyoncloud (Feb 5, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> He's in fucking prison. They have complete say on what he can and can't do.



(Snowden is the new hitler. everyone is out against us. We need to be vigiliant against foreign assholes and Jews who might challenge the US dominance. )

Basically the point of every retarded Seto Kaiba post I have read.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 5, 2014)




----------



## On and On (Feb 5, 2014)

Not sure if this has been posted yet:



Very interesting, very informative, anyone interested in this topic needs to see this. Apparently it's been hard to get a hold of because it keeps getting deleted off sites like Youtube and whatnot.


----------



## Mider T (Feb 5, 2014)

Hopefully it gets deleted off of there too, people have no business hearing that.


----------



## On and On (Feb 5, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Hopefully it gets deleted off of there too, people have no business hearing that.



Yea, the people of the US have no business knowing how the government spies on it's citizens, Australias, Brits, New Zealanders, and Canadians, without calling it "spying", regardless of what it is that they're doing. They have no business whatsoever.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 5, 2014)

anything to give credence to these rumors about Snowden's ARD interview being blocked in any way by the U.S? I haven't heard anything from the standard sources like Greenwald, etc which makes me think it isn't true or they would have been all over it. Though it kind of makes me wonder a bit since this interview seems to have made international headlines, but hasn't gotten much air in the U.S mainstream media.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 5, 2014)

Blocked where? I can't even see it (on the official ARD website) and I'm from Austria. Germany is shitty regarding media and international copyright/streaming.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 5, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Blocked where? I can't even see it (on the official ARD website) and I'm from Austria. Germany is shitty regarding media and international copyright/streaming.



In The U.S. There's been a lot of small time blogs talking about how every time it goes up on youtube it gets taken down, same thing with vimeo, and the U.S Media hasn't not even bothered to give this interview (which apparently was big news in Europe) the time of day.

Though if this is true,  Greenwald and my usual go to peoples for NSA news haven't really touched on this at all, which makes me think is just speculation, or germany being germany and taking the video down themselves with copyright claims.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 6, 2014)

Snowden’s leaks: Are journalists ‘fencing stolen material’?



> t’s against the law to steal classified government material. But is it also a crime for a journalist to sell a story to a newspaper or Web site based on that material?
> 
> Some elected officials and government appointees have suggested the answer is yes in the wake of Edward Snowden’s release of secret documents showing the extent of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities. Since June, Snowden’s documents have been the basis of articles primarily by Glenn Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian newspaper, and Barton Gellman, a journalist working on contract for The Washington Post.
> 
> ...





Even pro NSAers around should be wary of the recent language obama officials have been pushing. Criminalizing journalism should scare everyone, regardless on what side of the fence on the NSA issue you stand on.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 7, 2014)

Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and 'Dirty Tricks



> British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”
> 
> Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and exclusively obtained by NBC News describe techniques developed by a secret British spy unit called the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG) as part of a growing mission to go on offense and attack adversaries ranging from Iran to the hacktivists of Anonymous. According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency’s goal was to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.
> 
> ...



continues below:


original documents


This is apparently the same unit who targeted "hacktivists" with DDOS attacks.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 7, 2014)

Guilty Plea In Fox News Leak Case Shows Why Espionage Act Prosecutions Are Inherently Unfair to Sources



> Former State Department official Stephen Kim announced today he will plead guilty to leaking classified information to Fox News journalist James Rosen and will serve 13 months in jail.
> 
> The case sparked controversy last year when it was revealed the Justice Department named Rosen a “co-conspirator” in court documents for essentially doing his job as a journalist. But a largely ignored ruling in Kim’s case may have far broader impact on how sources interact with journalists in the future.
> 
> ...





official channels? You guys still living that pipedream?


----------



## Zaru (Feb 7, 2014)

> The ruling also gives the government carte blanche power to classify whatever it wants—including waste, abuse, and crimes—and keep it secret under the threat of prosecution of anyone who could potentially reveal it.



I'd like anyone to try defending this shit.


----------



## Blackfeather Dragon (Feb 7, 2014)




----------



## KidTony (Feb 8, 2014)

NYT's take on Stephen J Kim's plea deal:

Ex-Contractor at State Dept. Pleads Guilty in Leak Case



> WASHINGTON — Stephen J. Kim, a former State Department contractor charged with leaking information from a highly classified report about North Korea to a Fox News reporter in 2009, pleaded guilty on Friday and agreed to serve a 13-month prison sentence.
> 
> Mr. Kim became the sixth official to be convicted in a leak-related prosecution by the Obama administration, which has pursued eight such cases to date. Only three leak cases were prosecuted under all previous administrations.
> 
> ...






I see no reason why they didn't drop his case, after Holder agreed to new guidelines that prohibit investigators to falsely label a journalist as a co-conspirator in order to bypass the law that allows for access to their communications. The government basically cheated/was unethical in order to get evidence on this guy, and admitted as much--they should have doped the case like Kim's lawyer asked. I would have fought it, but i guess there's only so much one guy can do against the unlimited resources of the US Gov (6 prosecutors and 12 FBI agents on tap for this case!?!?).


----------



## KidTony (Feb 9, 2014)

Greenwald on CNN

[YOUTUBE]-wVjOF3Vlbo[/YOUTUBE]

Responds to Mike Roger's and his talk of criminalizing journalists, teases more stories to come in his new media venture. I also got from the interview that there might have been more people who came up after Snowden as sources for other, future stories.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 9, 2014)

That vid isn't working, ID doesn't exist
Edit: Nvm you fixed it


----------



## KidTony (Feb 10, 2014)

So Greenwald an co's new site, The Intercept launches today. Expect great new stories from them from now on. For starters:

The NSA?s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program



> The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes ? an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.
> 
> According to a former drone operator for the military?s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target?s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.
> 
> ...



Continues below:


----------



## Zaru (Feb 10, 2014)

Was almost gonna mention that in the drone thread.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 10, 2014)

Greenwald and Scahill discussing their new site, story on democracy now:

[YOUTUBE]tx0LsFMKf54[/YOUTUBE]

And they're take on the recent AP article that the U.S is considering targeting another U.S national for assassination without due process.

[YOUTUBE]laaLzLCvO-I[/YOUTUBE]

and on their new site:

[YOUTUBE]HyjeqdV8kvE[/YOUTUBE]


----------



## KidTony (Feb 12, 2014)

Rand Paul Sues the NSA in the Most Elaborate Email Collection Scheme in History



> Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul will on Wednesday announce a class action suit against the NSA for unconstitutionally (by some estimations) scooping up Americans' telephone call data. Want to join in? Head over to his PAC's website and enter the required fields: email address and ZIP code.
> 
> There's no doubt that Paul is sincere in his opposition to the NSA. As a very-new senator at the beginning of 2013, he established his RebpubLibertarian bona fides by challenging the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA with a lengthy filibuster demanding that President Obama state that he couldn't kill an American in America with a drone. (Obama responded via Eric Holder; he cannot.)
> 
> ...


----------



## Hand Banana (Feb 12, 2014)

> Want to join in? Head over to his PAC's website and enter the required fields: email address and ZIP code.


----------



## Nordstrom (Feb 12, 2014)

Jersey Shore Jesus said:


>



[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWksbtx5JW4[/YOUTUBE]



Zaru said:


> "B-But muh official channels!"



You sound like a certain hacker who fell in love with a beastwoman... :rofl



epyoncloud said:


> (Snowden is the new hitler. everyone is out against us. We need to be vigiliant against foreign assholes and Jews who might challenge the US dominance. )
> 
> Basically the point of every retarded Seto Kaiba post I have read.



Ara, ara, don't we get to listen to that enough as it is? I'm sure there's enough bullshit that just quoting it might be better...



Mider T said:


> Hopefully it gets deleted off of there too, people have no business hearing that.



You have no business with any of us, disappear.



Zaru said:


> I'd like anyone to try defending this shit.



I can think of 6 people, even a mod, off the top of my head.


----------



## Golden Circle (Feb 12, 2014)

^ If you still believe "I've got nothing to hide" then you should read this. Slashdot attracts people more informed than anyone in this thread, save perhaps Zaru and me.





Blackfeather Dragon said:


> [sp][/sp]


[sp][/sp]


----------



## KidTony (Feb 13, 2014)

Opinion: Behold the Selective Outrage Over National-Security Leaks

Whistleblowers are hounded for exposing classified information, but national-security insiders are allowed to do so with impunity.




> Whistleblowers aren't the only ones who reveal classified information.
> 
> U.S. newspapers have recently published articles about two different national-security leaks, both of them sourced to U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
> 
> ...


----------



## KidTony (Feb 14, 2014)

Everything We Know About How the NSA Tracks People's Physical Location

With Monday's new revelation, we can see the NSA's two-pronged system for finding out where people are



> Glenn Greenwald is back reporting about the NSA, now with Pierre Omidyar’s news organization FirstLook and its introductory publication, The Intercept. Writing with national security reporter Jeremy Scahill, his first article covers how the NSA helps target individuals for assassination by drone.
> 
> Leaving aside the extensive political implications of the story, the article and the NSA source documents reveal additional information about how the agency’s programs work. From this and other articles, we can now piece together how the NSA tracks individuals in the real world through their actions in cyberspace.
> 
> ...


----------



## KidTony (Feb 16, 2014)

I'm surprised no one has posted this latest NYT story based on the Snowden documents, showing how the NSA, with help from foreign intelligence organizations (in this case Australia) engaged at least once in corporate/economic espionage when it spied on an AMERICAN law-firm representing a foreign government engaging in a trade deal with the U.S.

The implications of this are outstanding, and should quickly silence those of you skeptical that the NSA is engaging in economic espionage, and furthermore targeting american companies.

Spying by N.S.A. Ally Entangled U.S. Law Firm



> The list of those caught up in the global surveillance net cast by the National Security Agency and its overseas partners, from social media users to foreign heads of state, now includes another entry: American lawyers.
> 
> A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance in which Americans were ensnared by the eavesdroppers, and is of particular interest because lawyers in the United States with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance.
> 
> ...



Continues below


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 16, 2014)

Wow, at this point the question is what hasn't the NSA done?


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Feb 16, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Opinion: Behold the Selective Outrage Over National-Security Leaks
> 
> Whistleblowers are hounded for exposing classified information, but national-security insiders are allowed to do so with impunity.


Since the people who claim to be Whistleblowers aren't and are damaging actual ones, and National-Security Insiders are allowed since that's their job KidTony.

This is getting sad.


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 16, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Since the people who claim to be Whistleblowers aren't and are damaging actual ones, and National-Security Insiders are allowed since that's their job KidTony.
> 
> This is getting sad.



Same said whistleblower who was nominated for a nobel prize of world peace? If we has nominated, that would America would be in the wrong.

It's only getting sad for America.


----------



## Nordstrom (Feb 17, 2014)

klad said:


> Wow, at this point the question is what hasn't the NSA done?



Respect human rights?


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 17, 2014)

Sleipnyr said:


> Respect human rights?



You're going to have to elaborate a little there my friend.


----------



## Nordstrom (Feb 17, 2014)

I dunno, that's why I put up that question mark!


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 17, 2014)

Sleipnyr said:


> I dunno, that's why I put up that question mark!



Okay, because last I heard respecting privacy was a human right.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Feb 17, 2014)

klad said:


> Same said whistleblower who was nominated for a nobel prize of world peace? If we has nominated, that would America would be in the wrong.
> 
> It's only getting sad for America.



Snowden isn't a hero and he never was one. He's damaged international relations, threatened stability, and sold out a NSA agent. 

Klad, why are you such a naive person like Sleip and KidTony?


----------



## Mider T (Feb 17, 2014)

Sleipnyr said:


> I dunno, that's why I put up that question mark!



Pretty much like everything you post.


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Snowden isn't a hero and he never was one. He's damaged international relations, threatened stability, and sold out a NSA agent.
> 
> Klad, why are you such a naive person like Sleip and KidTony?



Sorry for my grammar in my last post, I should really reread my posts word for word. Also, I'm on my phone so it will probably get worse and slow replies.

Also, you doged the point I was trying to make. And Snowden would have to be a hero, American's might not see him as one but the rest of the world does. Also, everything you said was the obvious effect of America spying on people, like if you rob your friend and he finds out. Ofc, relations and stability will be affected, but it will only the perpatruators fault and no one else.

I'm not na?ve, you're deluded.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Feb 17, 2014)

klad said:


> Sorry for my grammar in my last post, I should really reread my posts word for word. Also, I'm on my phone so it will probably get worse and slow replies.
> 
> Also, you doged the point I was trying to make. And Snowden would have to be a hero, American's might not see him as one but the rest of the world does. Also, everything you said was the obvious effect of America spying on people, like if you rob your friend and he finds out. Ofc, relations and stability will be affected, but it will only the perpatruators fault and no one else.
> 
> I'm not na?ve, you're deluded.


No, Snowden is never and will never be a hero. If he truly was, he'd have come back to the US to give his side, instead he goes to one of the countries _with the worst human rights in Europe_, keeps leaking information that actually damages everyone abroad, acts like a moron, tries to help Brazil and ignores Brazil's own domestic surveillance...

You ARE naive. You have no clue what Snowden even did. And you believe countries shouldn't spy on each other even though that's the first thing in diplomacy.


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> No, Snowden is never and will never be a hero. If he truly was, he'd have come back to the US to give his side, instead he goes to one of the countries _with the worst human rights in Europe_, keeps leaking information that actually damages everyone abroad, acts like a moron, tries to help Brazil and ignores Brazil's own domestic surveillance...
> 
> You ARE naive. You have no clue what Snowden even did. And you believe countries shouldn't spy on each other even though that's the first thing in diplomacy.



I'm unsure as to how America would treat him if he came back since they keep giving mixed signals and act to relaxed about him. And do you mean Russia having bad human rights? I don't seem to be grasping what you're saying fully here. I know exactly what kind of information he is leaking and I like it. NSA and America have to stop this spying on every nation, tribe, city and techonological device. I will admit some of the things he does is weird but meh, can't blame his mental state of mind after what he did.

But, you're deluded. Any member of the forum can clearly see it. I KNOW exactly what Snowden did and I fully support him. Sorry to say but some of us don't don't delude ourselves into thinking we're right all the time. And to say every country spies is technically true, but the same thing can be said of pollution, yes everyone does but take some responsibility.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Feb 17, 2014)

klad said:


> I'm unsure as to how America would treat him if he came back since they keep giving mixed signals and act to relaxed about him. And do you mean Russia having bad human rights? I don't seem to be grasping what you're saying fully here. I know exactly what kind of information he is leaking and I like it. NSA and America have to stop this spying on every nation, tribe, city and techonological device. I will admit some of the things he does is weird but meh, can't blame his mental state of mind after what he did.


Russia has the worst human rights record on the planet. And you don't see Snowden criticizing them. Or China's. Or Brazil's.

And you're kidding aren't you? _EVERY SINGLE FUCKING COUNTRY DOES WHAT THE UNITED STATES DOES!_ Every single country spies on one another. Its a crucial part of everything. You are naive.

You're acting like the US is the only country which does that!

And no, you don't know what Snowden actually does. He's an egotist.


> But, you're deluded. Any member of the forum can clearly see it. I KNOW exactly what Snowden did and I fully support him. Sorry to say but some of us don't don't delude ourselves into thinking we're right all the time. And to say every country spies is technically true, but the same thing can be said of pollution, yes everyone does but take some responsibility.


Spying is a crucial part of diplomacy. Every country does it since every country needs to know what the others are holding and doing. And its not delusion, its solid, real life fact. Snowden isn't a hero, he's an egotist whose sold out his own nation for no other reason than for fame.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Russia has the worst human rights record on the planet. And you don't see Snowden criticizing them. Or China's. Or Brazil's.


Russia? You might have a case with the former Soviet Union, but not modern Russia. Not that they're saints or anything, but far from "worst".

Snowden doesn't have a lot of options for countries that would take him since most "good" states would extradite him to the USA in a heartbeat, so he has to stay silent about them. His other option is living on the run in constant fear or getting life imprisonment in the USA (or death, if some agents would have their way).



SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> And you're kidding aren't you? _EVERY SINGLE FUCKING COUNTRY DOES WHAT THE UNITED STATES DOES!_ Every single country spies on one another. Its a crucial part of everything. You are naive.
> You're acting like the US is the only country which does that!


No they don't. Most countries only spy on their immediate surroundings for obvious reasons, and with rather conventional methods. 
Countries like the USA and UK, however, built massive surveillance infastructure and subverted THE ENTIRE INTERNET AND THE SECURITY INTEGRITY OF THE IT SECTOR. They literally want to spy on the entire planet and think nothing is sacred. It's on a completely different scale both in extent and aim.
Many other countries would want to do the same if they could, but they don't. Don't act like what these countries are doing is "normal".

No, on the contrary, spying is a remnant of times like the cold war and the constant threat of international conflict that was present until the end of the last millenium. Countries built their spy apparatus to deal with that climate, but in areas like current Europe it's hardly as necessary anymore. It's just very difficult to downsize such secretive government organizations once they've been fed enough.


KidTony said:


> The implications of this are outstanding, and should quickly silence those of you skeptical that the NSA is engaging in economic espionage, and furthermore targeting american companies.



The shills are gonna act like this economic espionage is done "FOR AMERICA!!!" when it's actually just the government being the extended arm of certain megalomaniac companies who'd sell out americans in a heartbeat.


----------



## stream (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> And you're kidding aren't you? _EVERY SINGLE FUCKING COUNTRY DOES WHAT THE UNITED STATES DOES!_ Every single country spies on one another. Its a crucial part of everything. You are naive.



There is indeed a more or less gentlemen's game between countries to try to spy on each other and try to catch foreign spies. How friendly the game is depends on how tense the international situation is.

But actually, a big part of the outrage over Snowden's revelations is not how the NSA does to spy on _other countries_, it is rather how the NSA spies on US citizens and US companies. 

There is obviously no American law which forbids spying on other countries, but there are laws which forbid spying on US citizens. To justify all of it by saying "because national security" is not very satisfactory, especially considered how little results have been achieved.

And though _you personally_ do not seem to care whether the government is breaking its own laws and disrespecting your privacy, there are quite a few people who do seem to care a lot.


----------



## Golden Circle (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> And you're kidding aren't you? _EVERY SINGLE FUCKING COUNTRY DOES WHAT THE UNITED STATES DOES!_ Every single country spies on one another. Its a crucial part of everything. You are naive.


I am a ^ (not the meaning of the word "respect".), please rape my face. ~you


----------



## Deleted member 23 (Feb 17, 2014)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> I am deluded


You were so wrong, that when I went to bed last night other people came into the thread and called you out on your delusion.


Zaru said:


> The shills are gonna act like this economic espionage is done "FOR AMERICA!!!" when it's actually just the government being the extended arm of certain megalomaniac companies who'd sell out americans in a heartbeat.


Shills? How much have you spent on /pol/?

I went to bed last night and wake up to seeing SSM12's delusions destroyed. Good nap.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 17, 2014)

of a lighter note:

Intercept Editors Win Polk Award for Coverage of Snowden Document



> Intercept editors Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras have won the George Polk Award, one of the highest prizes in journalism, for revealing expansive National Security Agency surveillance programs detailed in documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.  They shared the national security reporting award with the Guardian‘s Ewen MacAskill and the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman.
> 
> Whether Greenwald and Poitras will return to the U.S. to collect their prize remains to be seen, however, as senior government officials have repeatedly employed rhetoric equating the journalism the Polk Award is recognizing to criminal activity. Greenwald is currently living in Brazil; Poitras in Germany. Both are American citizens.
> 
> ...






Polks are one of the most prestigious prizes in journalism.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 18, 2014)

New Intercept Article:

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters



> Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution.
> 
> The efforts – detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls “the human network that supports WikiLeaks.” The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous.
> 
> ...



Continues below


TLDR: You've been to the wikileaks site? GCHQ knows your IP address, and told the NSA about it.

Also, Assange might take legal action.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 18, 2014)

Democracy Now Interview with Julian Assange on the Intercept's story regarding Wikileaks being targeted by the NSA and GCHQ.

[YOUTUBE]iTfguAMVv6Y[/YOUTUBE]

Interview with Michael Ratner, Julian Assange's lawyer:

[YOUTUBE]Ss2tB9-RPAY[/YOUTUBE]

Interview with Jesselyn Radack, Snowden's lawyer who recently detained and questioned about her relationship with her client at Heathrow.

[YOUTUBE]_DXVh81geGk[/YOUTUBE]

Interview with both Ratner and Radack regarding recent revelations of NSA spying on client-attorney communications.

[YOUTUBE]PZaMWmZgXEY[/YOUTUBE]


----------



## KidTony (Feb 18, 2014)

Clapper: We should have told you we track your calls



> The U.S. government long considered its collection of Americans' call records to be a state secret. Now the Director of National Intelligence admits it would have been better if Washington had acknowledged the surveillance in the first place.
> Even the head of the U.S. intelligence community now believes that its collection and storage of millions of call records was kept too secret for too long.
> 
> The American public and most members of Congress were kept in the dark for years about a secret U.S. program to collect and store such records of American citizens on a massive scale.The government?s legal interpretation of section 215 of the Patriot Act that granted the authority for this dragnet collection was itself a state secret.
> ...


----------



## KidTony (Feb 19, 2014)

Greenwald, on the UK courts upholding Miranda's detention as lawful under terrorism laws.

On the UK’s Equating of Journalism With Terrorism



> As my colleague Ryan Devereaux reports, a lower UK court this morning, as long expected, upheld the legality of the nine-hour detention of my partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport last August, even as it acknowledged that the detention was “an indirect interference with press freedom”. For good measure, the court also refused permission to appeal (though permission can still be granted by the appellate court). David was detained and interrogated under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
> 
> The UK Government expressly argued that the release of the Snowden documents (which the free world calls “award-winning journalism“) is actually tantamount to “terrorism”, the same theory now being used by the Egyptian military regime to prosecute Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists. Congratulations to the UK government on the illustrious company it is once again keeping. British officials have also repeatedly threatened criminal prosecution of everyone involved in this reporting, including Guardian journalists and editors.
> 
> ...



Continues below:


TLDR:
-Court upholds the detention of David Miranda at Heathrow as lawful, though it acknowledges that it interfered with press freedoms.

-Miranda plans to appeal the decision.

-UK government argues that the snowden reveal is tantamount to terrorism, drawing parallels with the Egyptian military, which is currently trying Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists.

-Greenwald is of the opinion that if this is lawful, then the law must change. The law is currently under parliamentary review.

-The court reveals that GCHQ was actively spying on the communications of Greenwald, Miranda, and other Guardian journalists. Since the UK lacks constitutional safeguards for press freedom, this is not illegal.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 19, 2014)

> -UK government argues that the snowden reveal is tantamount to terrorism, drawing parallels with the Egyptian military, which is currently trying Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists.


What a fucking joke. The Al Jazeera journalists are charged with links to terrorist organizations and spreading false news. There's no parallel to speak of other than someone wanting to get rid of people they don't like.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 20, 2014)

Zaru said:


> What a fucking joke. The Al Jazeera journalists are charged with links to terrorist organizations and spreading false news. There's no parallel to speak of other than someone wanting to get rid of people they don't like.



I think you misunderstood. The parallels are being drawn by journalists, comparing the Egyptian government's prosecution of journalists as terrorists.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 24, 2014)

U.S. now bugging German ministers in place of Merkel - report



> (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by Barack Obama to halt its spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag paper reported on Sunday.
> 
> Revelations last year about mass U.S. surveillance in Germany, in particular of Merkel's mobile phone, shocked Germans and sparked the most serious dispute between the transatlantic allies in a decade.
> 
> ...





O wow, these people don't learn. And it also seems we got a new source at the NSA.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 24, 2014)

I'm more surprised that the German Bild magazine broke the story.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 24, 2014)

I'm not familiar with them, are they untrustworthy? I' got the article from Greenwald's tweeter feed.


----------



## Zaru (Feb 24, 2014)

Bild has a reputation as a boulevard magazine with a level of quality that is generally made fun of nationwide (but it's still somehow madly popular). They're not known for investigative journalism. 
However, after the point that even Reuters picked up the story, there's probably some sort of credibility to it, so I'll consider it most likely true for now.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 25, 2014)

And one of the most important Snowden stories to come out in a while. This stuff is mind-boggling.

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations



> One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.
> 
> Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations”.
> 
> ...




For all relevant slides and documents, see article.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 25, 2014)

Interview with the Guardian's Luke Harding about his take on the NSA scandal, and specially how he felt he was being spied on/monitored as a journalist when covering the Snowden leaks.

[YOUTUBE]mFO6-Efiz9k[/YOUTUBE]


----------



## Zaru (Feb 25, 2014)

Man that false flag internet ops shit is grade A fuel for a lot of people who thought this was happening. 

Brits are paying their taxpayer money to run psyops against hacktivists.


----------



## Shodai (Feb 25, 2014)

Zaru said:


> Man that false flag internet ops shit is grade A fuel for a lot of people who thought this was happening.
> 
> Brits are paying their taxpayer money to run psyops against hacktivists.



We have become a surveillance state. I blame Thatcher, this probably started under her watch.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 26, 2014)

So i love it how the usual naysayers found a way not to have to argue their support of the surveillance state. Stay away from the big bad NSA thread!


----------



## Zaru (Feb 26, 2014)

Well technically a lot of the recent stuff relates to the UK, who are trying REALLY hard to one-up the USA in that matter.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 26, 2014)

I think GCHQ has already one-upped the NSA, and then some. But to be fair, the five-eyes alliance share information with eachother, so if one is doing something i'm not too sure the other one isn't at least considering it. Snowden got these GCHQ documents because they were sharing it with the NSA, after all.


----------



## KidTony (Feb 26, 2014)

WSJ: Obama Weighing Four Alternatives to NSA Phone Surveillance



> The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama administration has been presented with "four options for revamping NSA phone surveillance"—including one which would scrap it for good.
> 
> The report from the Wall Street Journal cites officials "close to the matter," explaining that the four suggestions for NSA reform have all been submitted ahead of the March 28th deadline outlined by Obama earlier this year. So what, at the moment, are the options?
> 
> ...





And, The Guardian wins award for its work on reporting the Snowden leaks.

Paul Foot award: Guardian wins special investigation prize for Snowden files



> Guardian journalists have been recognised at the Paul Foot award 2013 for their work on the investigation into what files leaked by Edward Snowden revealed about the extent of mass surveillance by British and US intelligence agencies.
> 
> The ?2,000 special investigation award, which was presented at the 9th annual ceremony in London, was won by James Ball, Julian Borger, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Paul Johnson, Ewen MacAskill and Alan Rusbridger.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/26/paul-foot-award-guardian-snowden-files


----------



## KidTony (Feb 27, 2014)

DOJ Still Ducking Scrutiny After Misleading Supreme Court on Surveillance



> in October 2012, United States Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. was in a tight spot.
> 
> Seeking dismissal of a legal challenge against an NSA warrantless electronic surveillance program, the Department of Justice had taken the position that the rabble-rousers represented by the ACLU had no standing to sue because they couldn?t prove they had been subjected to surveillance. But who, if anyone, could prove they were harmed by a program cloaked in secrecy?
> 
> ...



Continues below:


And probably the news of day, Apparent ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻ going on on Reddit in regard to Greenwald's latest piece.

Why Reddit mods are ☻☻☻☻☻☻ing Greenwald's latest bombshell



> It?s been called ?☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻ Fiasco 2: Electric Boogaloo.?
> 
> News over the past 72 hours has been dominated by the implosion of Mt. Gox, once the world?s largest Bitcoin exchange, and a report from Glenn Greenwald on how British intelligence agents have engaged in an extensive disinformation program to mislead Internet users.
> 
> ...



Continues below


read for some good lolz


----------



## Zaru (Feb 27, 2014)

Thomas Drake, former senior NSA executive, shares some interesting insight on the NSA regarding 9/11, the cynical joke that is "official channels" and the problems with "oversight"

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91XZDRsA29A[/YOUTUBE]


----------



## KidTony (Feb 27, 2014)

Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ

• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk
• 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone
• Yahoo: 'A whole new level of violation of our users' privacy'
• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images



> Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.
> 
> GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.
> 
> ...



Continues below
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit 'Radicalizers'



> WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target's credibility, reputation and authority.
> 
> The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger. “A previous SIGINT" -- or signals intelligence, the interception of communications -- "assessment report on radicalization indicated that radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent,” the document argues.
> 
> Among the vulnerabilities listed by the NSA that can be effectively exploited are “viewing sexually explicit material online” and “using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.”



Continues Below


UK’s Spy Agency Obtained Millions of Webcam Images With Help
 From NSA



> NEW YORK – With the assistance and apparent consent of the NSA, Britain’s spy agency GCHQ collected webcam images from the video chats of millions of innocent people, according to a report today by The Guardian. The dragnet surveillance program reportedly swept up the Yahoo video communications of many American and British citizens, and included sexually explicit images.
> 
> “This is a truly shocking revelation that underscores the importance of the debate on privacy now taking place and the reforms being considered,” said Alex Abdo, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “In a world in which there is no technological barrier to pervasive surveillance, the scope of the government’s surveillance activities must be decided by the public, not secretive spy agencies interpreting secret legal authorities. This report also raises troubling questions about the NSA’s complicity in what is a massive and unprecedented violation of privacy. We need to know more about what the NSA knew, and what role it played.”
> 
> The article was based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, and said, “Webcam information was fed into NSA's XKeyscore search tool, and NSA research was used to build the tool which identified Yahoo's webcam traffic… It is not fully clear from the documents how much access the NSA has to the Yahoo webcam trove itself.”





So we're salon liberals and conspiracy theorists right? Where are you now CTK, Seto Kaiba, Mael and the rest of you surveillance state peddlers... Still think nothing is going on?


----------



## Zaru (Feb 27, 2014)

I love the part where they had to install filters/face recognition because the employees were too distracted by watching private cam sex


----------



## KidTony (Feb 27, 2014)

In b4 Mael "Who careeeeeees".


----------



## Flynn (Feb 27, 2014)

Take it in stride nowadays. 

When you're shoving your wang in front of your far away girlfriend, give a tug for the US, Canada and possibly Russia


----------



## KidTony (Feb 27, 2014)

and Most definitely her Majesty's royal spy agency as well.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 3, 2014)

Labour to overhaul spy agency controls in response to Snowden files

Yvette Cooper says debate over privacy, civil liberties and the role of the intelligence agencies has barely started in Britain



> Labour will on Monday propose substantial changes to the oversight of the British intelligence agencies, including the legal framework under which they operate, in response to the revelations emerging from files leaked by Edward Snowden.
> 
> The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is preparing to argue that the current arrangements are unsustainable for the government, and that it is damaging to trust in the agencies if ministers continue to hide their heads in the sand.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ency-controls-cooper-snowden-files?CMP=twt_gu

Also, i found this hilarious.



The ABA giving out a course on "The Ethical Implications of NSA Surveillance for Lawyers", i particularly like this bit:

_"Our panel will take you through the revelations about NSA to date and outline the steps law firms can (and ethically must) take to protect their client data from prying eyes of all kinds - abroad and at home.  The primary rules involved are 1.1 (Competence) including the new comment 8, regarding being competent with technology, and Rule 1.6 (Confidentiality of Information)."_

The debate's over. In the court of public opinion, we won.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 4, 2014)

NSA chief criticises media and suggests UK was right to detain David Miranda

Keith Alexander says revelations have caused ?grave damage? and claims officials are making ?headway? on ?media leaks?



> The outgoing director of the National Security Agency lashed out at media organizations reporting on Edward Snowden?s surveillance revelations, suggesting that British authorities were right to detain David Miranda on terrorism charges and that reporters lack the ability to properly analyze the NSA?s broad surveillance powers.
> 
> General Keith Alexander, who has furiously denounced the Snowden revelations, said at a Tuesday cybersecurity panel that unspecified ?headway? on what he termed ?media leaks? was forthcoming in the next several weeks, possibly to include ?media leaks legislation.?
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/04/nsa-chief-keith-alexander-david-miranda

Oh-oh, looks like there's something in the works to further curtail journalistic freedom.

Then there's this:

#NSA's Keith Alexander says at #Georgetown University: "We're just a few weeks away from new media leaks.", from Greenwald's twitter feed.

Which begs the question of how Mr. Alexander would know about what's going to be published before its published. Wait, don't answer that...


----------



## KidTony (Mar 7, 2014)

Snowden to EU: NSA Spying distracts from real threats




> The National Security Agency?s (NSA) controversial sweeping surveillance distracts the agency from real threats, former government contractor Edward Snowden told European lawmakers this week.
> 
> ?Suspicionless surveillance not only fails to make us safe, but it actually makes us less safe,? Snowden wrote in testimony to European Union Parliament members published on Friday.
> 
> ...





You can read the full transcript of what he said to the EU committee below, great read.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 10, 2014)

SSWX live stream

Great speakers like Snowden, Barton Gelman, Assange, Greenwald, Poitras, the whole crew!


----------



## KidTony (Mar 11, 2014)

*CIA Search of Congressional Computer Sparks Constitutional Crisis*

Update on the CIA vs Congress story. Things getting gud! Feinstein so salty lol.



> Two top Senate leaders declared Tuesday that the CIA?s recent conduct has undermined the separation of powers as set out in the Constitution, setting the stage for a major battle to reassert the proper balance between the two branches.
> 
> Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a floor speech (transcript; video) that Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) immediately called the most important he had heard in his career, said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency?s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them.
> 
> ...





Feinstein's full Statement:


_"The actions the chairman outlined are the latest events that illustrate why I directly pushed CIA Director Brennan to acknowledge the flaws in and misrepresentations about the CIA?s brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program. Unfortunately, the CIA responded by trying to hide the truth from the American people about this program and undermine the Senate Intelligence Committee?s oversight role by illegally searching committee computers. The U.S. Constitution is clear and Coloradans agree: The separation of powers and aggressive oversight are fundamental to our democracy, and Coloradans can count on me to continue to protect these foundational pillars no matter who is in the White House."_

-Mark Udall (D-Colorado)

_"I commend Chairman Feinstein for shining a light on the unprecedented invasion by the CIA into computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee investigators.  The CIA?s own recent court filing makes clear that the work product on these computers was and is ?the property of the Committee.? I share her concern that this search may have violated both federal law and the US Constitution.  In addition to the grave implications for the Constitutional separation of powers, I am extremely troubled that the CIA leadership has neither responded to specific questions about this search nor even acknowledged that it was inappropriate.  This is simply not acceptable in a democracy.

I will continue to support Chairman Feinstein?s efforts to get more answers and accountability from the CIA about this search.  In my judgment, the Intelligence Community leadership?s misleading statements on interrogation and many other issues has undermined their credibility. I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that the facts about the CIA?s detention and interrogation program are made public, so that the American people can make up their own minds about what happened and prevent the mistakes of the past from being repeated."_

-Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)


----------



## KidTony (Mar 11, 2014)

Snowden: Feinstein a Hypocrite for Blasting CIA Spying



> Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden accused Sen. Dianne Feinstein of hypocrisy Tuesday for complaining about alleged CIA spying on U.S. senators while tolerating government spying on private citizens.
> 
> Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that the CIA had searched the committee's computers and that the search was potentially criminal and may have violated the Fourth Amendment.
> 
> ...



http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ci...einstein-hypocrite-blasting-cia-spying-n49881

Snowden responds, and he's absolutely right. Feinstein is outraged now that they are spying on her, her peers, and her staffers, just like she was outraged when she found out we where spying on her buddy Merkel. Where's the outrage over the spying on your constituents, the american people?


----------



## Zaru (Mar 11, 2014)

If even Feinstein gets pissed at something done by an intelligence agency, you know it's serious.

Edit: Wrote that before the second post popped up. Provides context.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 11, 2014)

Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers



> The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.
> 
> Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”
> 
> ...






_"After her speech, Feinstein told reporters that she hopes to make a motion to declassify the report on the interrogation program by the end of the month. It’s not clear if she has the necessary votes to declassify the report."_

Oh man...I'm salivating. This is gonna be the most scathing government condemnation of the bush era programs, and we might actually get it soon.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 11, 2014)

Sen. Wyden: CIA, NSA leadership have developed a pattern of false statements, misleading actions



> (CNN) – Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein suggested Tuesday that the CIA violated federal law by secretly pulling classified documents from her panel's computers during a staff probe of the spy agency's controversial detention and interrogation program.
> 
> Feinstein said CIA Director John Brennan told her in January that agency personnel searched the computers last year because they believed the panel's investigators might have gained access to materials on an internal review they were not authorized to see.
> 
> ...





[YOUTUBE]D6TUqcQJBCY[/YOUTUBE]

and i love this story

The CIA: the double life of Dianne Feinstein

The exasperation with the Democratic senator from California is that she hasn't also directed her outrage at the NSA



> Senator Dianne Feinstein is frequently exasperating. The Democratic senator from California is one day ultra-liberal, in the lead in calling for gun reform. The next she is ultra-conservative, one of the staunchest defenders of the embattled National Security Agency.
> 
> The senator's contradictory nature was on show for all to see on Tuesday, when she delivered an extraordinary speech from the Senate floor. It amounted to the biggest and most public rift between Congress and the spy community since the 9/11 attacks. Ms Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, which has oversight of America's myriad spy agencies, accused the CIA of breaking into the committee's computers. It is an extremely serious charge: a breach of the constitution, the executive branch tampering with the elected branch. She described it as "a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community".
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/cia-double-life-dianne-feinstein

Feinstein is a complete hypocrite. Is outraged when they spy on her and her friends, cares nothing when the american people are spied upon. I hope people press her on this, and from the articles i've been reading the irony of this certainly hasn't been missed.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

*How the NSA Plans to Infect ?Millions? of Computers with Malware*

One of the biggest stories to break so far, the implications are.....

How the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware



> Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.
> 
> The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.
> 
> ...



Continues below in great detail


Actual documents used in the story


edit: For some reason unknown to me, i made a new thread when i actually wanted to post this in the NSA thread. So if any mod sees fit to move this there, by all means do so.


----------



## Toroxus (Mar 12, 2014)

I think new information like this needs it's own thread. I don't feel like having a bazillion threads open scrolling through tons of comments just to see if there's a new article posted on page 16.5 of a 22 page thread.

To that end, I wonder if the NSA has the ability to pressure the anti-malware community into not detecting their malicious code.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

Well, i agree with you but some people in the cafe complained that too many NSA threads were clogging the front page so...

As to your second point, i think that they definitely have that ability, or i should say had. Now, the tech community is super pissed, and all these tech companies are being a lot more hostile to the NSA. You should have seen the SXSW conference, there's a lot of talk there about how the tech community is fighting back, increasing their own standards, etc.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

Because the Cafe has become so saturated with the same people posting the same NSA news, only a few actually care.  So it should be kept to one thread for those who do.


----------



## navy (Mar 12, 2014)

NSA has so much power, so little common sense.


----------



## Toroxus (Mar 12, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Because the Cafe has become so saturated with the same people posting the same NSA news



We already have a solution for that that doesn't merit a mega-thread:
Delete duplicate threads.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

...that's what I'm saying it.  It was more like a "Why is this thread not in the mega thread?"

Mega will probably merge it soon anyway.


----------



## Toroxus (Mar 12, 2014)

That's not what I meant. 
I'm saying there should NOT be a mega-thread.


----------



## Zaru (Mar 12, 2014)

KidTony said:


> As to your second point, i think that they definitely have that ability, or i should say had. Now, the tech community is super pissed, and all these tech companies are being a lot more hostile to the NSA. You should have seen the SXSW conference, there's a lot of talk there about how the tech community is fighting back, increasing their own standards, etc.



Maybe in a case of historic irony, the NSA's greedy idiocy might permanently increase the security in the IT sector as a direct reaction to them undermining it in the first place.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

^That exactly what looks to be happening ATM, from what i've been reading. Still lots of work to go, but tech companies are pissed, and also embarrassed. Even Yahoo added SLL encryption after getting torn a new one by security advocates for their shitty standards.


I've even seen stuff like american bar association giving out courses on how to secure your clients communication from anyone "foreign and at home". The whole mindset on better protections and securing your system seems to be on the rise atm. The only thing left is for me to learn how to use encryption, since i can't make sense of this shit for the life of me.

It's definitely heartening to see the tech industry respond this way over the last couple of months. Don't hold your breath if you expect politicians to solve the issue, but the great thing is that starting to fix the problem doesn't require a policy change (though it would help), the tech industry has great say on how easy it iss for governments to do mass surveillance, without their help it suddenly becomes much harder, and much more expensive for them.


----------



## Zaru (Mar 12, 2014)

KidTony said:


> I've even seen stuff like american bar association giving out courses on how to secure your clients communication from anyone "foreign and at home". The whole mindset on better protections and securing your system seems to be on the rise atm. The only thing left is for me to learn how to use encryption, since i can't make sense of this shit for the life of me.



Sadly it is a LOT of work, especially if you want to be secure against attacks from sophisticated attackers. A lot of convenient software/apps/websites are pretty much unusable to you if you know how unsecure they are.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

Yeah, ATM i pretty much gave up on learning this stuff. I was trying TOR for a bit, but no go. I'm just not very good with computer stuff in the first place.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

Toroxus said:


> That's not what I meant.
> I'm saying there should NOT be a mega-thread.



Apparently you don't remember the front page of the Cafe before the mega-thread.  There's a reason it was created.


----------



## Toroxus (Mar 12, 2014)

This just in: The NSA is a hot issue and everyone should know about it.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

So you don't, didn't think so.


----------



## Nikushimi (Mar 12, 2014)

As if there weren't enough reasons to hate the NSA already...

Can the people responsible for all this please just be arrested and convicted and put away forever for crimes against humanity?


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Apparently you don't remember the front page of the Cafe before the mega-thread.  There's a reason it was created.



Actually, it was created because loudmouths like Mael, Seto Kaiba and yourself couldn't be arsed to stay out of threads you "found annoying", so to stop your incessant bleating i just made a general thread. No one else really minded the NSA threads.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

If that's the case, then why are there others saying the same thing?  And a mod who keeps merging them?

EDIT: In it's rightful place, all's right with the world.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

I was the one who came up with the thread idea, there's no cafe rule saying you can't post threads because some people don't like their content. If i didn't make the NSA thread, people would still posting all these new leaks articles on the cafe without issue. I have no problem with the NSA thread and think it keeps things in a tight place, though most of the new articles don't get as much discussion now but i'm OK with that. However, lets not pretend that everyone was complaining, it was literally 3-4 of you guys Mael, you, Seto Kaiba and CTK. Most everyone else didn't care, and some like Toroxus preferred new threads for the convenience of not having to look through a big thread for updates.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 12, 2014)

Either you're playing dumb or you're just that dull that you missed what was happening.  The same thing happened during the Syria crisis and North Korea trolls, hence their megathreads.  Don't act like this is something strange.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

No mods proposed or made a mega-thread, no users proposed one either. I made one out of my own accord to stop a vocal minority with clear pro-NSA spying biases that were more annoyed by the content of the threads than by their frequency. So I'm not playing dumb, i could have never made the thread and things would have been posted in the cafe to this day.


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 12, 2014)

> *How the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware*
> 
> Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.
> 
> ...





Long article, more at link.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

already posted last page.


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 12, 2014)

KidTony said:


> already posted last page.



Figures.

Whenever there's something relevent, people like Mider T habitually bump it as far down the list as possible with their off topic posts.

Don't respond to them, bro.  They're just trying to obfuscate & bury the important stuff.


----------



## Zaru (Mar 12, 2014)

When was the last time Mider made an on-topic post instead of a meta post regarding this topic? January? All he seems to want is stop people from talking about it.


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 12, 2014)

This isn't the place to discuss *off topic* mega threads, take it elsewhere plz.

Who even gives a shit about that?  Discussing meta threads is about as irrelevent and pointless as you can get.

*edit* - I swear people only bring up topics like mega threads as an indirect means of burying news they personally dislike.  

They only do it to bump stuff to the bottom of the pile where people won't see it.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

Fantastic Democracy Now Pannel on the subject. 

[YOUTUBE]cuX9levGdY4[/YOUTUBE]



Further discussion of the issue with same guests.


----------



## Flynn (Mar 12, 2014)

As much as the practices seem horribly offensive and depraved, the technology behind it is still fascinating. The NSA could be a great tool to work with police enforcement both federal and state-wise if the organization worked simply as a database and to the call of a detective or higher up official


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

And...now someone merged my NSA thread with the CIA thread which are completely different topics.....Good job whoever you are on a being a complete fucking retard.


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 12, 2014)

Ser Jossy of the Feels said:


> As much as the practices seem horribly offensive and depraved, the technology behind it is still fascinating. *The NSA could be a great tool to work with police enforcement both federal and state-wise if the organization worked simply as a database and to the call of a detective or higher up official*



Counterpoint -

The way to reduce crime is to create jobs, promote equality, pay workers higher wages, raise taxes on the rich, crack down on oppressive banks and fraudulent corporate practices.

Surveillance isn't a means of preventing crime or promoting equality.  

It will never be used to make life better for normal people or improve standard of living. 

Its only function is to help banks and other large criminal enterprises be more criminal in the future.

.


----------



## Flynn (Mar 12, 2014)

Never suggested it would do any of those things, so those are only just points rather than counterpoints.

The technology would be a great asset to investigations under police enforcement.



> Its only function is to help banks and other large criminal enterprises be more criminal in the future.


Banks have no use for surveillance, they already have the entire world's commodities legally at their fingertips if they so choose to reach for them.

Corporations sure, they already have access to your MAC address when you walk through certain streets.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

European lawmakers vote in favour of Snowden-inspired data protection overhaul, threaten US trade veto if no action



> BRUSSELS, March 12 (Reuters) - European lawmakers put pressure on EU countries on Wednesday to shield citizens' privacy, warning that they could block a trade deal with the United States if governments did not take a tougher stance on snooping.
> 
> Concluding its own investigation into leaks from former U.S. data analyst Edward Snowden over government spying, an overwhelming majority of lawmakers voted in favour of a resolution warning that the world's biggest trade deal "could be endangered" unless EU countries stopped such surveillance.
> 
> ...







Yes that is members of the european parliament wearing snowden masks as a sign of solidarity. Oh how quickly the things change


----------



## KidTony (Mar 12, 2014)

And on the CIA vs Senate scandal, (since megadeuchebag merged the thread)

Calls for Brennan?s Ouster Emerge Along With Details of CIA Search of Senate Computers



> CIA Director John Brennan?s decision to search Senate committee computers was such a blatant violation of the constitutional separation of powers that some pro-accountability groups in Washington are starting to seek his ouster.
> 
> Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disclosed in a fiery speech on Tuesday that Brennan told her in January that CIA personnel had conducted a search on  computers at a CIA-leased facility that had been reserved for the use of committee staffers investigating the agency?s role in the Bush-era torture of detainees.
> 
> ...



Continues below in greater detail:


and obama being the great leader he is:

Obama: White House won't wade into CIA torture report dispute at this point

White House distances itself from fierce dispute between top senators and CIA over report into use of torture in post-9/11 
interrogations



> Barack Obama sought to distance the White House from the fierce dispute between top senators and the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday, claiming it would be inappropriate for his administration to become involved the clash over an investigation into the use of torture in post-9/11 interrogations.
> 
> In the president?s first remarks about the dispute since Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence accused the CIA of a cover-up and intimidation directed at her staff, Obama said it was not a matter for the White House to ?wade into at this point?.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/obama-feinstein-cia-dispute-distance


----------



## KidTony (Mar 13, 2014)

Follow up to the latest NSA story:

NSA 'hijacked' criminal botnets to install spyware



> (Reuters) - While U.S. law enforcement agencies have long tried to stamp out networks of compromised computers used by cyber criminals, the National Security Agency has been hijacking the so-called botnets as a resource for spying.
> 
> The NSA has "co-opted" more than 140,000 computers since August 2007 for the purpose of injecting them with spying software, according to a slide leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept news website on Wednesday. (r.reuters.com/xut57v)
> 
> ...



http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/us-usa-security-nsa-botnets-idUSBREA2B21420140312

And from the Intercept:

Foreign Officials In the Dark About Their Own Spy Agencies’ Cooperation with NSA



> One of the more bizarre aspects of the last nine months of Snowden revelations is how top political officials in other nations have repeatedly demonstrated, or even explicitly claimed, wholesale ignorance about their nations’ cooperation with the National Security Agency, as well as their own spying activities. This has led to widespread speculation about the authenticity of these reactions: Were these top officials truly unaware, or were they pretending to be, in order to distance themselves from surveillance operations that became highly controversial once disclosed?
> 
> In Germany, when Der Spiegel first reported last June that the NSA was engaged in mass spying aimed at the German population, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior officials publicly expressed outrage – only for that paper to then reveal documents showing extensive cooperation between the NSA and the German spy agency BND. In the Netherlands, a cabinet minister was forced to survive a no-confidence vote after he admitted to having wrongfully attributed the collection of metadata from 1.8 million calls to the NSA rather than the Dutch spying agency.
> 
> ...



Continued Below:


----------



## KidTony (Mar 13, 2014)

And since *Megahairyasshole *merged this thread with the CIA vs Congress thread without reason, and refuses to unmerge them because he's part of the crowd who wants to bury this type of discussion, here we go with more breaking CIA vs Congress stuff:

White House withholds thousands of documents from Senate CIA probe, despite vows of help




> WASHINGTON — The White House has been withholding for five years more than 9,000 top-secret documents sought by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for its investigation into the now-defunct CIA detention and interrogation program, even though President Barack Obama hasn’t exercised a claim of executive privilege.
> 
> In contrast to public assertions that it supports the committee’s work, the White House has ignored or rejected offers in multiple meetings and in letters to find ways for the committee to review the records, a McClatchy investigation has found.
> 
> ...





The white house withholding literally thousands of documents from the senate oversight committee investigating bush era torture programs. So transparent Obama!


----------



## Zaru (Mar 13, 2014)

There's got to be some seriously incriminating shit in those documents if they refuse to comply so vehemently.


----------



## navy (Mar 13, 2014)

NSA puttin in work. How did these fools get caught. And why did you put the CIA story in here?


----------



## KidTony (Mar 13, 2014)

navy said:


> NSA puttin in work. How did these fools get caught. And why did you put the CIA story in here?





			
				Tony said:
			
		

> And since Megahairyasshole merged this thread with the CIA vs Congress thread without reason, and refuses to unmerge them because he's part of the crowd who wants to bury this type of discussion, here we go with more breaking CIA vs Congress stuff



Go thank dickwad mega


----------



## KidTony (Mar 13, 2014)

What happened to all those libertarians?

Republicans back CIA in Senate spying showdown



> Despite early signs of support, Republicans aren?t united in backing California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her dispute with the Central Intelligence Agency.
> 
> Tuesday morning Feinstein accused the CIA of potentially violating the law, the Constitution, and an executive order barring the agency from domestic spying, saying the CIA had without permission searched computers being used by Senate intelligence committee staffers to investigate the Bush-era torture program. The CIA has accused the committee staff of improperly accessing CIA documents.
> 
> ...


----------



## KidTony (Mar 13, 2014)

The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency?s Role in Torture for Years



> The fight between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Committee?s Torture Report ? which Dan Froomkin covered here ? has now zeroed in on the White House.
> 
> Did the White House order the CIA to withdraw 920 documents from a server made available to Committee staffers, as Senator Dianne Feinstein says the agency claimed in 2010? Were those documents ? perhaps thousands of them ? pulled in deference to a White House claim of executive privilege, as Senator Mark Udall and then CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston suggested last fall? And is the White House continuing to withhold 9,000 pages of documents without invoking privilege, as McClatchy reported yesterday?
> 
> ...



Continues below:


----------



## Nordstrom (Mar 13, 2014)

Bumping and causing dorama because of the poor influx of big news lately.


----------



## Kira Yamato (Mar 14, 2014)

*Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA*

*Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA
*​


> Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called President Obama on Wednesday night to express frustration about the government's spying and hacking programs.
> 
> "When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon.
> 
> ...


----------



## Roman (Mar 14, 2014)

> The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat



Wrong. The govt just needs to stay out of it.


----------



## Euraj (Mar 14, 2014)

Freedan said:


> Wrong. The govt just needs to stay out of it.



That would be an unrealistic expectation even if the NSA wasn't out of control. 

Anyway, you can guess how this "conversation" went. "I can understand spying on those guys, but not us." "What are you talking about? We're not spying on you... Hehe. Bye."


----------



## Hand Banana (Mar 14, 2014)

I was a supporter for NSA. Lately tho they seem out of control.


----------



## Doge (Mar 14, 2014)

Maybe he should stop tracking people on Facebook first.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 14, 2014)

Yeah, he's annoyed now that the public debate is clearly against the U.S government on this, didn't mind so much when he was complying with each and every NSA request, and going beyond legal requirements to appease the NSA before the leaks. If you think Zuckerberg cares about your privacy, i got a bridge to Sell in you in NJ.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 14, 2014)

*UN blasts U.S government on human rights failings, including guns, NSA, Gitmo, drones*

US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones

Geneva panel share deep concerns over US record on host of different subjects, including racial inequality and Guant?namo



> The US came under sharp criticism at the UN human rights committee in Geneva on Thursday for a long list of human rights abuses that included everything from detention without charge at Guant?namo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality.
> 
> At the start of a two-day grilling of the US delegation, the committee’s 18 experts made clear their deep concerns about the US record across a raft of human rights issues. Many related to faultlines as old as America itself, such as guns and race.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/us-un-human-rights-abuses-nsa-drones

official U.S response:


----------



## Mael (Mar 14, 2014)




----------



## Hand Banana (Mar 14, 2014)

Ok. So lets move UN since the UN can't really do anything.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 14, 2014)

Britain is treating journalists as terrorists

My links to WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden mean I am treated as a threat and can't return to the UK. We need a free speech roadmap



> Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the UK. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write. For instance, if I were to say that I hoped my work at WikiLeaks would change government behaviour, this journalistic work could be considered a crime under the UK Terrorism Act of 2000.
> 
> The act gives a definition of terrorism as an act or threat "designed to influence the government", that "is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause" and that would pose a "serious risk" to the health or safety of a section of the public. UK government officials have continually asserted that this risk is present with the disclosure of any "classified" document.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ists-terrorists-edward-snowden-nsa?CMP=twt_gu


----------



## KidTony (Mar 14, 2014)

Study on how sensitive Meta-Data actually is. Great read!

MetaPhone: The Sensitivity of Telephone Metadata



> Is telephone metadata sensitive? The debate has taken on new urgency since last summer?s NSA revelations; all three branches of the federal government are now considering curbs on access. Consumer privacy concerns are also salient, as the FCC assesses telecom data sharing practices.
> 
> President Obama has emphasized that the NSA is ?not looking at content.? ?[T]his is just metadata,? Senator Feinstein told reporters. In dismissing the ACLU?s legal challenge, Judge Pauley shrugged off possible sensitive inferences as a ?parade of horribles.?
> 
> ...



Continues below in greater detail


----------



## KidTony (Mar 15, 2014)

Compare the NSA?s Facebook Malware Denial to its Own Secret Documents



> On Wednesday, Glenn Greenwald and I revealed new details about the National Security Agency?s efforts to radically expand its ability to hack into computers and networks across the world. The story has received a lot of attention, and one detail in particular has sparked controversy: specifically, that the NSA secretly pretended to be a fake Facebook server in order to covertly infect targets with malware ?implants? used for surveillance.
> 
> This revelation apparently infuriated Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg so much that he got on the phone to President Barack Obama to complain about it. ?I?ve been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government,? Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post Thursday. ?When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we?re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.?
> 
> ...



Continues below in more detail:


----------



## KidTony (Mar 18, 2014)

HUGE STORY!

NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls



> The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.
> 
> A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
> 
> ...



Continues below in greater detail:


They don't look at content they said.....


>The ability to record "every call nationwide"
>The ability to store such calls for a period of at least 1 month
>The ability to process clipping/cutouts from any of these calls and store them from much longer
>Has already been used against an entire country (information on this withheld by WP on behest of the U.S government)

They aren't listening to your calls they said. Well, they might not be if you are an american living in the good U.S of A, but if you are a foreign national, they might have every single call you've ever made, and not just your metadata. Also, just because it hasn't been reported (yet) that this program or a similar one is used on U.S soil to spy on U.S citizens means nothing. They have the capability to listen to every single one of your calls, every single one you've ever made over the last decade.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 18, 2014)

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case



> The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.
> 
> Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.
> 
> ...



Continued below
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telephone-calls-recorded-fbi-boston?CMP=twt_gu

Sometimes i think this thread is detrimental to discussion. Not as many people check up on it as new articles, and they miss important stories like the ones today. I mean, this is exactly what people where talking about "It's just metadata", no, it's the content of your calls too!


----------



## baconbits (Mar 18, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?
> 
> A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case
> 
> ...



Mega threads suck, KT.  They become swamps of information.  If there's new articles they deserve threads, as long as the articles come from acceptable sources.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 19, 2014)

I agree with that, but unfortunately MegaHarrison does not. He has already said he will merge any thread even slightly referencing the NSA with this one, and went as far as to merge an unrelated thread (CIA vs Congress) as well. I've already challenged him to the staff about it, and they say they will look into it, but haven't gotten back to me. Even if they do, at best they will prevent him from merging unrelated threads with this one, but i doubt any new NSA-related thread will be able to go on the main board without being sent here.


----------



## baconbits (Mar 19, 2014)

KidTony said:


> I agree with that, but unfortunately MegaHarrison does not. He has already said he will merge any thread even slightly referencing the NSA with this one, and went as far as to merge an unrelated thread (CIA vs Congress) as well. I've already challenged him to the staff about it, and they say they will look into it, but haven't gotten back to me. Even if they do, at best they will prevent him from merging unrelated threads with this one, but i doubt any new NSA-related thread will be able to go on the main board without being sent here.



I get your point.  I think most people don't want posters who have a vendetta to keep posting articles about that same topic.  I can understand that but I think that's stupid: everyone in the Cafe has a pet issue and when its not something people want to pay attention to they won't post in it or read it.

So really, what's the harm?  Every new thread is a new chance for someone to see something and not feel obligated to catch up on what has already been posted.  That election thread was terrible and had so much flaming and became such a cesspool that it should have been used as an example of why these meta-threads don't work.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 19, 2014)

I don't mind this thread for the smaller articles, OP eds, and blogs etc--pretty much everything concerning the NSA that's not really enough for a main article, that was kind of my thinking when i proposed and made this thread. The big ones though, should be allowed to be posted on the main page is my feeling, because here they don't get nearly as much traffic.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 19, 2014)

Megathreads are far better than a swampload of threads saying pretty much the same thing, that isn't the reason people aren't posting here.  The reason is people don't really care that much.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 19, 2014)

That's not true. Every time i make an article in the main page, it gets 3-5 times the amount of attention it gets in here. This is irrelevant for me when it comes to the the smaller article this thread was designed for,  for the people that really care about this subject to consume as much of it as they want. The really BIG article however, like the ones i posted yesterday where finally there is hard evidence that the NSA is not just collecting metadata, but content as well would have been a multi page discussion on the main page, and here they are buried among the lesser stories.

Anyway, its how thing are with a shitty biased mod like mega around, so no use crying over it. Moving on.

INTRODUCING EDWARD SNOWDEN, LEADER

He may not even be allowed back on American soil, but Edward Snowden is becoming a pioneer for an America that is finally beginning to value information and transparency over pride and fear.



> Edward Snowden called into a panel at South by Southwest today. He was somewhere in Russia, still on the lam from a United States government that views him as a traitor and wants him imprisoned for it, and he was answering questions from the public, on camera, for the first time.
> 
> Before this, he was a packet of information lopped on a table. He was access to all of the NSA’s misdeeds and little else. He was part of the package deal.
> 
> ...





old, but i really liked this article.


----------



## Zaru (Mar 19, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Megathreads are far better than a swampload of threads saying pretty much the same thing, that isn't the reason people aren't posting here.  The reason is people don't really care that much.



So where's the "Shit going on in Florida" megathread?


----------



## Mider T (Mar 19, 2014)

Because, like I've said before, other states have just as many odd events.  Flordia gets singled out because of the meme and anything odd that happens in FL is reported on while other states are mostly looked over.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 20, 2014)

US tech giants knew of NSA data collection, agency's top lawyer insist

NSA general counsel Rajesh De contradicts months of angry denials from big companies like Yahoo and Google



> The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency?s widespread collection of data, contradicting months of angry denials from the firms.
> 
> Rajesh De, the NSA general counsel, said all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under a 2008 surveillance law occurred with the knowledge of the companies ? both for the internet collection program known as Prism and for the so-called ?upstream? collection of communications moving across the internet.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/us-tech-giants-knew-nsa-data-collection-rajesh-de


----------



## KidTony (Mar 20, 2014)

Inside the NSA?s Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators



> Across the world, people who work as system administrators keep computer networks in order ? and this has turned them into unwitting targets of the National Security Agency for simply doing their jobs. According to a secret document provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the agency tracks down the private email and Facebook accounts of system administrators (or sys admins, as they are often called), before hacking their computers to gain access to the networks they control.
> 
> The document consists of several posts ? one of them is titled ?I hunt sys admins? ? that were published in 2012 on an internal discussion board hosted on the agency?s classified servers. They were written by an NSA official involved in the agency?s effort to break into foreign network routers, the devices that connect computer networks and transport data across the Internet. By infiltrating the computers of system administrators who work for foreign phone and Internet companies, the NSA can gain access to the calls and emails that flow over their networks.
> 
> ...



Continued below in greater detail


----------



## baconbits (Mar 21, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Because, like I've said before, other states have just as many odd events.  Flordia gets singled out because of the meme and anything odd that happens in FL is reported on while other states are mostly looked over.



You didn't really counter Zaru's point.  If you're correct about Mega threads then there should be a "Florida is cray" superthread for that and the rest of the news should have independent threads until some other group of threads can be combined.

We all know we're more likely to read a new thread than page through an old one we've not been paying attention to.  KT might be posting on the same topic but I would have read more of his articles if they were independent threads, and we'd have more discussion on the issue.  Now his stuff gets buried.  It would be better if he posted and he only got five responses than a mega thread like this that never dies but never seems relevant.


----------



## Golden Circle (Mar 21, 2014)

Hacking sysadmins is the one thing you don't do if you don't want to piss off the internet guardians.

Too bad Joe Blogs doesn't care about the platform that they use everyday. Tragedy of the commons indeed.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 21, 2014)

James Risen at Souceconf: Obama administration "the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation" 

love that quote.

Also,

Revelations of N.S.A. Spying Cost U.S. Tech Companies



> SAN FRANCISCO ? Microsoft has lost customers, including the government of Brazil.
> 
> IBM is spending more than a billion dollars to build data centers overseas to reassure foreign customers that their information is safe from prying eyes in the United States government.
> 
> ...



Continues below


----------



## KidTony (Mar 23, 2014)

[YOUTUBE]fBS3d091eRA[/YOUTUBE]

Jimmy Carter interview with Meet the Press. Skip to 3:30, says NSA capabilities have been "misused", mentions he sometimes feels his own communications are are monitored. wow:amazed


----------



## Chelydra (Mar 23, 2014)

And now for more treason,





> Documents leaked by Edward Snowden and reported by the New York Times reveal efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.
> 
> The Times reported the U.S. National Security Agency monitored communications of top Huawei executives looking for evidence of ties to the Chinese government and military.
> 
> ...



Enjoy, revel in it.


----------



## Fruits Basket Fan (Mar 23, 2014)

I heard the UK does something similar by spying on the computers in the UK and even outside (EU).

Meh, the UK and US are two peas in a pod when it comes to name of "safety."


----------



## Jersey Shore Jesus (Mar 23, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Megathreads are far better than a swampload of threads saying pretty much the same thing, that isn't the reason people aren't posting here.  The reason is people don't really care that much.



No its not the same thing it happened with my mega gun thread now. All these news stories we post are cool unlike all the stupid shit that gets posted in the cafe.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 23, 2014)

Chelydra said:


> And now for more treason,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And that article did absolutely no research, since the NYT did not use Snowden as a source for that story. Yeah, revel in your ignorance.


----------



## Mider T (Mar 24, 2014)

baconbits said:


> You didn't really counter Zaru's point.  If you're correct about Mega threads then there should be a "Florida is cray" superthread for that and the rest of the news should have independent threads until some other group of threads can be combined.
> 
> We all know we're more likely to read a new thread than page through an old one we've not been paying attention to.  KT might be posting on the same topic but I would have read more of his articles if they were independent threads, and we'd have more discussion on the issue.  Now his stuff gets buried.  It would be better if he posted and he only got five responses than a mega thread like this that never dies but never seems relevant.



Because "shit that happens in Florida" is too broad for a megathread nor is it one continuous ongoing story.

And megathreads do garner activity,  if they're interesting.   Just look at the Zimmerman thread, NK thread, Olympic thread, Syria thread, election thread, Chris Dorner thread, etc.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 24, 2014)

Carter: Snowden's leaks 'good for Americans to know'



> NEW YORK -- Former president Jimmy Carter defended the disclosures by fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden on Monday, saying revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies were collecting meta-data of Americans' phone calls and e-mails have been "probably constructive in the long run."
> 
> Carter, 89, was interviewed on USA TODAY's Capital Download about his new book, A Call To Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, being published Tuesday. He discussed the need to change the way the U.S. military handles sexual abuse cases, his correspondence with Pope Francis, his grandson's campaign for governor of Georgia -- his former job -- and whether Hillary Clinton would make a good president.
> 
> ...


----------



## Mider T (Mar 24, 2014)

I don't think Carter quite understands the program, he's a little too old.  However the basic tenet is you aren't being spied on.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 24, 2014)

the basic tenent is yes you are, lol. If you are worried about your gay sex vids, too late, they know that too.


----------



## baconbits (Mar 24, 2014)

Mider T said:


> Because "shit that happens in Florida" is too broad for a megathread nor is it one continuous ongoing story.
> 
> And megathreads do garner activity,  if they're interesting.   Just look at the Zimmerman thread, NK thread, Olympic thread, Syria thread, election thread, Chris Dorner thread, etc.



First, I don't think these CIA things are continuous stories.  Snowden leaks are continuous, but different things like spying on the Senate committee and what some members of Congress say, are different stories that deserve their own threads.  Much as many of the stories on China deserve their own threads.

Second, those threads, while interesting, also were plagued by the fact that if you aren't constantly following them you can't keep up with what's new and what isn't.  The Flight that went missing is a good example of this.  

Third, New information comes out and if you follow the news through NF its buried in page six when it actually could lead to something new.  

Fourth, something big deserves a few threads of its own.  So you have one thread swallowing events that are shaping world politics and three separate threads on dick stories.  The dick stories all get their own thread.  The Russians stories get consigned to a mega thread.  Again, that doesn't make sense.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 25, 2014)

*Obama canceling NSA dragnet collection (phone part)*

I felt this was big enough news to warrant its own thread, but if gets moved, oh well.


Obama to Call for End to N.S.A.’s Bulk Data Collection



> WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing to unveil a legislative proposal for a far-reaching overhaul of the National Security Agency’s once-secret bulk phone records program in a way that — if approved by Congress — would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year, according to senior administration officials.
> 
> Under the proposal, they said, the N.S.A. would end its systematic collection of data about Americans’ calling habits. The bulk records would stay in the hands of phone companies, which would not be required to retain the data for any longer than they normally would. And the N.S.A. could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.
> 
> ...


----------



## Hand Banana (Mar 25, 2014)

Basically obama will just call it something else.


----------



## Nordstrom (Mar 25, 2014)

Thank goodness...


----------



## stab-o-tron5000 (Mar 25, 2014)

I'm so glad that the people that tried to cover up a massive domestic spy ring have now decided to be totally straightforward in assuring us that they won't be doing that thing they did that we were never supposed to find about in the first place and are only cancelling because we found out they were doing it.

I see no reason whatsoever not to trust them on this.  

Thank gods that's totally over and we can move on and ignore it now.  


*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now. 

*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now

*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now.

*Spoiler*: __ 



 the NSA is your friend.

*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now. 

*Spoiler*: __ 



 trust the government. 

*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now. 

*Spoiler*: __ 



 we wouldn't lie to you. 

*Spoiler*: __ 



 ignore it now.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 25, 2014)

Edward Snowden Statement on Administration?s NSA Reform Plan



> The following is a statement from Edward Snowden provided to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is coordinating his legal advice and representation:
> 
> "I believed that if the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people.
> 
> ...





OBAMA JUST OPENED THE DOOR FOR SNOWDEN'S IMMUNITY

Obama's overhaul of the NSA spying rules proves it



> Today, Charlie Savage at The New York Times reports that the Obama administration will propose the end of the NSA's bulk data collection program, replacing it with a more targeted, more thoroughly court supervised alternative. It is an imperfect solution for those who suspect that the FISA court is too eager to grant such requests but Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the paper that this was "a sensible outcome."
> 
> As we are a good way through Obama's second term as president, I think it's more than fair to say that we would not be here, at the cusp of sensibility, without the actions of Edward J. Snowden, the former NSA contractor who now lives in Russia under the protection of Vladimir Putin. Snowden took and released an uncounted number of sensitive documents from his employers and is responsible for disclosing the breadth and scope of the NSA's global telecommunications surveillance program. Had the details of this program remained rumor and whisper as they were for the bulk of Obama's tenure, it's a fair bet that nothing would be changing now.
> 
> ...


----------



## Hozukimaru (Mar 25, 2014)

Well reforms are good.


----------



## baconbits (Mar 26, 2014)

Hozukimaru said:


> Well reforms are good.



It depends on what those reforms are.  Some reforms are worse than the problems they attempt to solve.  Obama has a tendency to create "reforms" that limit media freedoms and oversight.


----------



## KidTony (Mar 29, 2014)

Der Spiegel: NSA Put Merkel on List of 122 Targeted Leaders



> Secret documents newly disclosed by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Saturday shed more light on how aggressively the National Security Agency and its British counterpart have targeted Germany for surveillance.
> 
> A series of classified files from the archive provided to reporters by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also seen by The Intercept, reveal that the NSA appears to have included Merkel in a surveillance database alongside more than 100 others foreign leaders. The documents also confirm for the first time that, in March 2013, the NSA obtained a top-secret court order against Germany as part of U.S. government efforts to monitor communications related to the country. Meanwhile, the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters targeted three German companies in a clandestine operation that involved infiltrating the companies? computer servers and eavesdropping on the communications of their staff.
> 
> ...



continues below


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## Golden Circle (Mar 30, 2014)

Spying on your friends is a really stupid idea.


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## Mider T (Mar 30, 2014)

There are no friends,  only strategic allies.   For good reason too, look at Russia, China, Turkey,  and Saudi Arabia.


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## Golden Circle (Mar 30, 2014)

My point being is that your friendship is gone if you get caught with your pants down.


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## Mider T (Mar 30, 2014)

Eh doubtful.  Security alliances trump personal friendships.  It'll make (or has made) the Germans mad but I doubt they'll cut any significant ties.


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## Malvingt2 (Apr 11, 2014)

*Bloomberg: The NSA has exploited Heartbleed bug for years*



> The NSA has exploited Heartbleed bug for years, Bloomberg reports
> 
> Bloomberg is reporting that the Heartbleed bug, which shocked the web security community this week, has been known and actively exploited by the National Security Agency for at least two years. According to two anonymous sources familiar with the matter, the bug was kept secret in the interest of national security, while the agency used it to obtain passwords and other data. Since the bug was first committed in 2012, the report suggests the NSA maintained access for essentially the entire lifespan of the bug.
> 
> The revelation implicates many services that were protected against the initial leak, including Google Mail and Amazon Web Services, since their protection against Heartbleed only dates back to a patch released last week. That would give the NSA access to as many as two-thirds of the encrypted servers on the web. The claim also casts major doubts on the NSA's role in US Cyber Defense. As a former Air Force cyber officer told Bloomberg, "they are going to be completely shredded by the computer security community for this."


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## Zaru (Apr 11, 2014)

So

Let me get this straight

They kept an exploit secret (to probably not catch a single terrorist), willingly and knowingly allowing cyber criminals to harm the sensible data of tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans?

That could almost be considered aiding the enemy


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## rajin (Apr 12, 2014)

this might be considered a grave crime against all human race. they are hell bent on crucifying their name in history as gross terrorist org whom not even hitler could ever match. then they have the audacity to point fingers at others .really low life shameless creatures.


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## PureWIN (Apr 12, 2014)

Okay, now _that's_ seriously fucked up.


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## Ennoea (Apr 12, 2014)

These guys are an embarrassment. Can't even keep a lid on their activities.


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## KidTony (Apr 12, 2014)

if this news about the nsa exploiting heartbleed doesn't piss you off, i don't know what will.


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## Nordstrom (May 8, 2014)

*An avalanche of new Snowden documents to go online next week*


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## Deleted member 234422 (May 8, 2014)

Not gonna lie, I completely forgot about him.


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## Sygurgh (May 8, 2014)

I won't express my opinion about the previous leaks, but this sounds like plain opportunism.


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (May 8, 2014)

Ever the attention whore. If these things are so important they should have all been released at once, but Snowden's little fan club never says that.


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## KidTony (May 8, 2014)

Cardboard Tube Knight said:


> Ever the attention whore. If these things are so important they should have all been released at once, but Snowden's little fan club never says that.



Except they can't, because they need to be vetted first. BTW, Snowden isn't in charge of releasing any documents. He has zero say in what gets published, that's why he gave all of the documents to journalists, so they would review them and decide what to publish and when to publish it, as responsible journalist ought to do. If you had any actual knowledge about anything surrounding the snowden revelations, you would know that, but of course, as one of the people who least contribute to anything on these boards, you are just as clueless today as you were the first time you opened your mouth.


----------



## Cardboard Tube Knight (May 8, 2014)

If he stole the documents how come he couldn't release them himself? If he was so sure that what he was taking was that important then it's all worth releasing. Now you're sitting here telling me that the Government has no right or authority to protect secrets but journalists do? 

So you're for total transparency except when you're not? It sounds like he just grabbed a bunch of shit and ran with it and gave it off to someone else to comb through and that sounds like something a criminal would do considering he didn't even know what he was getting if what you're saying is true. 

On top of that, if the information belongs to the people what right do journalists have to decide what gets released and what doesn't? 

You sound like you're the one who's an idiot, wasn't that what you called me? Why don't you learn to think for your fucking self and get off this anti-government bullshit?


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## KidTony (May 8, 2014)

Cardboard Tube Knight said:


> If he stole the documents how come he couldn't release them himself? If he was so sure that what he was taking was that important then it's all worth releasing.



So he didn't get the Chelsea Manning treatment? So people couldn't say that he indiscriminately released millions of documents without regard. He gave it to journalists from day one, so that THEY, using their years of experience and vetting process to make sure only things the world needed to know where revealed, without revealing names of people undercover or anything that would put people's lives in danger. 



> Now you're sitting here telling me that the Government has no right or authority to protect secrets but journalists do?



Journalists have the responsibility to exercise judgment when revealing classified information. That means exposing the scope of government activity (which in this case is both unconstitutional, and likely illegal) without revealing names of individuals, or details that can jeopardize the lives of agents/informants involved in operations. 



> So you're for total transparency except when you're not? It sounds like he just grabbed a bunch of shit and ran with it and gave it off to someone else to comb through and that sounds like something a criminal would do considering he didn't even know what he was getting if what you're saying is true.



Except and i'm not for "total transparency" and you are putting words in my mouth and setting up a red herring argument. As an American i want to know what my government is doing, why it is spying on me, and under what powers it believes it has the right to do so. I'm not interested in the name of which agent is undercover in which country. That was the major criticism leveled at chelsea manning, that he indiscriminately revealed documents which included names of operatives and might have put them at risk (even though there was absolutely no evidence produced by the prosecution that anyone was directly harmed by any of Manning's leaks). Snowden avoided this by giving all his information to the people supposed to be regulating the government, the media, so that they could exercise judgment and decide what and when to publish any materials.


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## KidTony (May 29, 2014)

[YOUTUBE]pOCmqZzXrdI[/YOUTUBE]

NBC News interview with Snowden in Moscow. Really good.


----------



## Golden Circle (May 29, 2014)




----------



## Patchouli (May 29, 2014)

Just got done watching the interview.

I won't delve into the, "patriot or traitor" argument that NBC is pushing. Personally, I feel the big issue here is one that I actually fully agree with Snowden on. 

Season 2 of The Wire was shit in comparison to the others.


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## KidTony (May 29, 2014)

To those of you who keep spouting that "Snowden doesn't come home to face the music": Here, educate yourselves on why *he can't.*



> An adviser to Edward Snowden said on Wednesday that an unfair legal landscape made it unlikely that the NSA whistleblower would take US secretary of state John Kerry up on his invitation to “man up” and return to the United States.
> 
> In a television appearance on Wednesday morning, Kerry said that if Snowden were a “patriot”, he would return to the United States from Russia to face criminal charges. Snowden was charged last June with three felonies under the 1917 Espionage Act.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/snowden-return-us-kerry-face-charges-espionage


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## The Pink Ninja (May 30, 2014)

*John Kerry tells fugitive Edward Snowden to 'man up'*



> US Secretary of State John Kerry has labelled intelligence leaker Edward Snowden a fugitive from justice who should "man up" and return home.
> 
> Mr Kerry added that if Mr Snowden, 30, "believes in America, he should trust the American system of justice".
> 
> ...



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27614001

Snowden continues to have no balls.

Also thinks he is James Bond.


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## Zaru (May 30, 2014)

"Man up"? Who does Kerry think he is to impose arbitrary gender roles on Snowden? TUMBLR MUST HEAR OF THIS

Also, joke of the week related to Snowden: 


> The NSA says releasing records about Snowden's employment status "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."


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## The Pink Ninja (May 30, 2014)

I really hope they were intentionally making a joke there but governments tend to fail at irony.


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## blueblip (May 30, 2014)

*New evidence shows Snowden did try the official channels at least once*



> *Snowden complained about mass surveillance tactics to his NSA masters*
> _"NSA has now explained that they have found one email inquiry by Edward Snowden."
> 
> by Cyrus Farivar - May 30 2014, 12:22am IST_
> ...


*Source:* 

At this point, I'm going out on a limb and calling the NSA the worst covert intelligence agency on the planet. That is to say, they can't seem to keep ANYTHING under wraps! For the love of zoot suit wearing Jesus, you can't even perform a cover up properly!


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## Hand Banana (May 30, 2014)

Zaru said:


> "Man up"? Who does Kerry think he is to impose arbitrary gender roles on Snowden? TUMBLR MUST HEAR OF THIS



To the TUMBLR MOBILE!!!!!!!


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## KidTony (May 30, 2014)

Daniel Ellsberg: Snowden would not get a fair trial – and Kerry is wrong

Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice



> John Kerry was in my mind Wednesday morning, and not because he had called me a patriot on NBC News. I was reading the lead story in the New York Times – "US Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016" – with a photo of American soldiers looking for caves. I recalled not the Secretary of State but a 27-year-old Kerry, asking, as he testified to the Senate about the US troops who were still in Vietnam and were to remain for another two years: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
> 
> I wondered how a 70-year-old Kerry would relate to that question as he looked at that picture and that headline. And then there he was on MSNBC an hour later, thinking about me, too, during a round of interviews about Afghanistan that inevitably turned to Edward Snowden ahead of my fellow whistleblower’s own primetime interview that night:
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...lsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act


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## Chainwave (May 30, 2014)

MAN UP BRO! Come back to us, so we can imprison you without a fair trial, and keep you in solitary containment until brain rot sets in. Meanwhile NSA's operations will be swiftly relocated and renamed, your example will prevent other whistleblowers from speaking up, and our brand of freedom will prevail FOREVERZ!


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## KidTony (Jun 1, 2014)

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images



> The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.
> 
> The spy agency?s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency?s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.
> 
> ...



Continues below:


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## MegaultraHay (Jun 1, 2014)

*N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images*



> The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.
> 
> The spy agency?s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency?s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.
> 
> ...


----------



## MegaultraHay (Jun 1, 2014)

more stuff here:


> Congress has largely ignored the issue. “Unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data,” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, in a letter in December to the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is now studying possible standards for commercial, but not governmental, use.
> 
> Facial recognition technology can still be a clumsy tool. It has difficulty matching low-resolution images, and photographs of people’s faces taken from the side or angles can be impossible to match against mug shots or other head-on photographs.
> 
> ...


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## Golden Circle (Jun 1, 2014)

OF COURSE they're going to try to identify who you are online. They're interested in everyone because they're spying on everyone. It doesn't matter if you did nothing wrong, they're still going to create a profile of you as a course of business.


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (Jun 1, 2014)

Why isn't this posted in the Mega Thread?


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## Deleted member 23 (Jun 1, 2014)

Cardboard Tube Knight said:


> Why isn't this posted in the Mega Thread?



because this is extra wrong.

NSA at it again.


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## Deleted member 234422 (Jun 1, 2014)

inb4 the selfie fad  was started by NSA for this sole purpose


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## Deleted member 23 (Jun 1, 2014)

Moe said:


> inb4 the selfie fad  was started by NSA for this sole purpose



where's JSJ? I need him to confirm this theory


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## Cardboard Tube Knight (Jun 1, 2014)

A better headline: *NSA Collecting Millions of Faces.*


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## WraithX959 (Jun 1, 2014)

I guess it's good I don't put my image out much.


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## BashFace (Jun 1, 2014)

I know heaps of people take inappropriate selfies that piss people off but i wonder... If an NSA operative took a selfie next to millions of other peoples faces or selfies on a computer and tweeted it would that be inappropriate?


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## Golden Circle (Jun 1, 2014)

I have posted only one image of myself online. In a skype convo. At a time when I didn't not know that microsoft was intercepting links and sending them to the nsa. I'm not going to put the skype botnet on my new computer for that reason.


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## KidTony (Jun 10, 2014)

Too Big To Comply? NSA Says It?s Too Large, Complex to Comply With Court Order



> In an era of too-big-to-fail banks, we should have known it was coming: An intelligence agency too big to rein in ? and brazen enough to say so.
> 
> In a remarkable legal filing on Friday afternoon, the NSA told a federal court that its spying operations are too massive and technically complex to comply with an order to preserve evidence. The NSA, in other words, now says that it cannot comply with the rules that apply to any other party before a court ? the very rules that ensure legal accountability ? because it is too big.
> 
> ...





lol


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## Zaru (Jun 10, 2014)

It's the little "exceptions" they carve out for themselves ("too big to investigate") that make any reasonable person wonder


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## MegaultraHay (Jun 20, 2014)

> House passes new limits on NSA surveillance
> WASHINGTON -- House libertarians and liberals banded together for a surprise win in their fight against the secretive National Security Agency, securing support for new curbs on government spying a year after leaker Edward Snowden's disclosures about the bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone records.
> 
> The Republican-led House voted 293-123 late Thursday to add the limits to a $570 billion defense spending bill. The provision, which faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, would bar warrantless collection of personal online information and prohibit access for the NSA and CIA into commercial tech products.Proponents of the measure described them as government "backdoors" that give intelligence agencies an opening to Americans' private data."The American people are sick of being spied on," said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who joined with libertarian Republicans and liberal Democrats to push the measure.
> ...


----------



## Zaru (Jun 20, 2014)

HA. Rare to read good news about the NSA.


----------



## KidTony (Jun 20, 2014)

was going to make a thread about this. lol, the only time the house actually passes a bill is NSA reform. Shows if there's bipartisanship in ANY issue out there, is on NSA reform.


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## KidTony (Jun 27, 2014)

NSA fears prompt Germany to end Verizon contract



> BERLIN -- The German government is ending a contract with Verizon over fears the company could be letting U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdrop on sensitive communications, officials said Thursday.
> 
> The New York-based company has for years provided Internet services to a number of government departments, although not to German security agencies, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate.
> 
> ...





I do hope that contract was worth tons of money, and that verizon just lost out big time.


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## KidTony (Jul 16, 2014)

Edward Snowden should not face trial, says UN human rights commissioner

Navi Pillay says of former NSA contractor: 'those who disclose human rights violations should be protected'



> The United Nations's top human rights official has suggested that the United States should abandon its efforts to prosecute Edward Snowden, saying his revelations of massive state surveillance had been in the public interest.
> 
> The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, credited Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, with starting a global debate that has led to calls for the curtailing of state powers to snoop on citizens online and store their data.
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...an-rights-commissioner-navi-pillay?CMP=twt_gu


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## KidTony (Jul 16, 2014)

Mathematicians reluctant to work for NSA


----------



## Mider T (Jul 16, 2014)

> KidTony the only one posting in this thread



Actual interesting news


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## KidTony (Jul 16, 2014)

Someone has to keep you clowns honest. The two weeks i was gone ( incidentally because you couldn't handle your problems like a man, and had to report me like the little girl-for fear of another banable "insult"- you are) some of the most troubling new NSA reports came out and none of you people bothered posting it. How the NSA spies on Civil right leaders and prominent members of the american Muslim community, sometimes without even a FISA warrant. I mean, that's the stuff people like you, seto and CTK where saying would NEVER HAPPEN--and once its reported that it does, not a peep from you fools.


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jul 17, 2014)

You're too disingenuous to be honest. Should definitely get over that delusion.



> How the NSA spies on Civil right leaders and prominent members of the american Muslim community, sometimes without even a FISA warrant. I mean, that's the stuff people like you, seto and CTK where saying would NEVER HAPPEN



Like this idiocy. You're so dense that you constantly forget I've told you time and again I'm against domestic surveillance and feel the NSA needs to be scaled down. However the way liberals like you go about it just make them more guarded, it doesn't make them stop. Furthermore, if you know jack shit about your history you'd know this is something that has occurred in every decade. Hell, I believe brought up the matters of the FBI's activities in the past. Specifically under that of J. Edgar Hoover and why FBI directors now only have a term of 1 year. 

Yet in spite of that, I'm not some blindly idealist liberal like you with some stupid "anti-establishment" mentality just for the sake of it. I'm not going to get behind every "little guy" or "underdog" simply because they are railing against an establishment; because that doesn't make them right or any more justified.


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## KidTony (Jul 17, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> You're too disingenuous to be honest. Should definitely get over that delusion.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



go ahead, defend this:

Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On



> The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans—including a political candidate and several civil rights activists, academics, and lawyers—under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies.
> 
> According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the list of Americans monitored by their own government includes:
> 
> ...



continued below:


U.S. Spied on 5 American Muslims, a Report Says




> WASHINGTON — A new report based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden has identified five American Muslims, including the leader of a civil rights group, as having been subjected to surveillance by the federal government.
> 
> The disclosure of what were described as specific domestic surveillance targets by The Intercept online magazine was a rare glimpse into some of the most closely held secrets of counterespionage and terrorism investigators. The article raised questions about the basis for the domestic spying, even as it was condemned by the government as irresponsible and damaging to national security.
> 
> ...



continued below:





Spying on muslim american civil rights leaders, sometimes without a FISA warrant. Stuff you guys where saying would never happen. The NSA does not spy on on american citizens right?


----------



## Cardboard Tube Knight (Jul 17, 2014)

I like how my name comes up. I haven't been looking at your thread because I'm not interested in it. That's the good thing about Mega Threads like this, I have one place I don't have to look.


----------



## KidTony (Jul 17, 2014)

Your name comes up because you where THE person explicitly arguing that the NSA does not spy on american citizens and they are not collecting our communications. To even feign surprise at this is to be brazen beyond belief. If anyone should be commenting on these revelations, it should be you--who said stuff like this would never happen.


----------



## Cardboard Tube Knight (Jul 17, 2014)

KidTony said:


> Your name comes up because you where THE person explicitly arguing that the NSA does not spy on american citizens and they are not collecting our communications. To even feign surprise at this is to be brazen beyond belief. If anyone should be commenting on these revelations, it should be you--who said stuff like this would never happen.



Proof that I said this? If anything I've said I knew this and didn't care.

I've never claimed that they don't spy, what you might be trying to twist with your bullshit is that I've said that they don't read every email or listen to every phone call with a live person. I've said that multiple times because it's impossible for them to do so. Even the task of reading every text would take a force larger than the entire governing body of the US. 

But keep trying to make it seem like you're in here breaking ground with these "revelations". You and the rest of the idealists from places like Reddit, thinking you're changing the world posting memes and worshiping Snowden.


----------



## baconbits (Jul 17, 2014)

Seto Kaiba said:


> You're too disingenuous to be honest. Should definitely get over that delusion.



He's not dishonest, he has a different foreign policy ideal than you or I.  He's honest about his opinions and what he views as valid sources.  Sometimes he makes decent points.  The problem is that he doesn't understand political realism.


----------



## Seto Kaiba (Jul 17, 2014)

KidTony said:


> go ahead, defend this:
> 
> Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On
> 
> ...



You did not read my post at all. Or pretending you didn't, I hope. If you did, might wanna get on some Hooked on Phonics courses, because I was abundantly clear. 



baconbits said:


> He's not dishonest, he has a different foreign policy ideal than you or I.  He's honest about his opinions and what he views as valid sources.  Sometimes he makes decent points.  The problem is that he doesn't understand political realism.



He is dishonest. He has been caught lying about drone programs all the time. He refers often to those sources that cater to what he wants to see. Hell look at his post quoted above. He deliberately ignored as he always does, arguments that compromise the narrative he wants to lay out. He ignores people's clearly expressed stance on matters because of that dishonesty.


----------



## KidTony (Jul 28, 2014)

Top Journalists and Lawyers: NSA Surveillance Threatens Press Freedom and Right to Counsel



> To do their jobs properly, journalists and lawyers sometimes need to be able to keep information private from the government.
> 
> And because what journalists and lawyers do is so integral to safeguarding democracy and basic rights, the United States has traditionally recognized their need for privileged communications.
> 
> ...


----------



## Cardboard Tube Knight (Aug 2, 2014)

*Yawn* 

*Plop*

Oh, what's this? 





> For nearly a year, U.S. government officials have said revelations from former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden harmed national security and allowed terrorists to develop their own countermeasures. Those officials haven't publicly given specific examples — but a tech firm based in Cambridge, Mass., says it has tangible evidence of the changes.
> 
> According to a new report to be released Friday by big data firm Recorded Future, a direct connection can be drawn: Just months after the Snowden documents were released, al-Qaida dramatically changed the way its operatives interacted online.
> 
> ...


----------

