Well IMO this is one brave man:

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance[/url

A very considered approach to leaking what he did. Very careful not to jeapordise individuals but to expose the NSA and the lack of any real democratic scrutiny of what they are up to.

Just goes to show when people go on about things being legal (which in theory what the NSA is doing is) it doesn't mean it is right.

I wonder if those who argue tax avoidance is OK because it is legal think this is OK because it is also legal?

Considering the type of punative sentencing they have in America I cannot decide on brave or stupid.

I think it was naive of people not to think was was happening. I have "joked" (but seriously) about this for quite some time. It's obvious and inevitable that the information will be harvested and misused by all sort of people - companies, criminals and the state. The answer is simple - if you don't like it chuck your computer and mobile 'phone away and pay for things in cash.

It will help, in that case, if you don't need such items for, say, work or the search for work etc. you'll have the devil's own job to get paid in cash, so you'll need to be part of the system on that basis too.

Then, of course, there's all the CCTV and goodness knows what other surveillance, so perhaps you should never venture out of your home?

The idea that we should accept the 'end of privacy' as a price for our security - which such invasions of privacy does not and cannot remotely guarantee - is BS.

Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither

A very fine Ben Franklin quote.

I agree. But until people stand up and be counted it'll happen. I don't see mass protests, I do not see mass expulsions of mainstream MPs at elections, I do not see direct action against the political establishment. In other words, the majority of us are content to sleep walk into totalitarianism.

Well Snowden certainly stood up to be counted and if you read about his motives one of the reasons he states is he was waiting for a leader to do so but when none came forward he decided he had to act. He thought Obama might reel in the punitive acts that allow these things to go on but he is as bad as all the rest.

Also while you may have joked about it and although I could be wrong, I am not sure you have grasped the extent of what has been going on. He reckons various acts such as the Patriot act directly undermine the US constitution in that they usurp the 4th and 5th amendments.

The 4th is to do with which guarding against unreasonable searches and seizures whereby they should only happen if there is probable cause and if given that a warrant is then obtained. So sifting through peoples emails as a matter of course is against the US constitution. The 5th is about abuse of government authority and legal procedures whereby Snowden thinks the FISA act (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ) and amendments to it (such as as the Patriot act) mean there is little due process other than rubber stamping of warrants (to get past the 4th amendment and instigate searches) by a secret court.

Now given the American public tend to be very suspicious of "big government" this kind of trampling over the constitution may well result in more people standing up to be counted. That is also one of Snowden's motives. By exposing what he sees as fundamental assaults on the constitution he hopes to motivate more than simple controversy.

This is a big issue. It's being said this is the biggest and most significant bit of whistle blowing since the 2nd world war.

Be interesting to see what transpires but reading various comments from around the net he is getting a lot of support from American citizens compared to others such as Assange. The fact he seems to have taken the moral high ground leaves the USA with a bit of a problem of how to deal with him. Going to be interesting to see what happens with this one.

Even though he may have not actually said it, I prefer his quote:
[i"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy"[/i

I did titter when Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page announced that there was no way Facebook & Google would allow the NSA to harvest information.

Of course they wouldn't but only because the NSA wouldn't pay the commercial rate

What a paranoid lot you are. The very fair reasoning is that, if the government knows, sees, hears and reads everything you say or do in your entire life, without exception, then it can eliminate crime. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

Steve Bell in today's Guardian



Don't have nightmares folks

Is it the extent of phone-tapping etc that is seen as the problem, or the lack of control and accountability? I thought they were able to do this sort of data mining previously, just with court permission?

Reminds me a bit of Christopher Boyce from the Falcon and the Snowman (great movie BTW). He supposedly had similar motives for his leaks, but ended up in the slammer. Mind you, after he escaped he also started robbing banks...

I think it's more that nobody really knows what these agencies are actually doing or what they're allowed to do. It feels, even if its not true, that they can do virtually what they like.

If its as I've heard that they cannot read the content of these communications without a specific warrant and its just the details like who you're contacting, duration, volume etc then that doesn't worry me too much as I believe that's just extending current powers of surveillance from the physical to the digital/electronic world. I'm sure I read somewhere that the FBI has had the power to record the number of and who you were sending anything through the post to for decades in America.

However, if that's not the case and they can or do read content then that bothers me very much for obvious reasons. As does the concern about how easy it may be to obtain warrants from "tame" judges.
It's obviously a difficult one, because if the government come out and explain exactly what these agencies do then it obviously leaves loopholes open immediately for people to avoid being caught. If they don't then it merely adds to the feeling that no-ones in control of these agencies.

Whatever the reality is though, I think there needs to be much stronger parliamentary control and more transparency, though I understand some things are always going to need to be secret.

If I am paranoid you are naive.

Read these two links and then come back and tell me you still think the "nothing to hide..." position is still valid.

[urlhttp://falkvinge.net/2012/07/19/debunking-the-dangerous-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear/[/url

[urlhttp://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trust-blog/2009/02/debunking-a-myth-if-you-have-n.html[/url

It's the lack of accountability in that the courts in the US that issue warrants are not a grand jury or equivalent (as they should be according to the constitution) but are secret courts set up specifically for the job. The argument is all they do is rubber stamp warrant applications.

There is also the problem that the various acts are vaguely worded in in a legal sense. For example it's entirely plausible for the NSA to be saying they want to tap into communications of someone who they [ithink[/i is outside the USA (which would be legal if they were) when the suspicion is they are being deliberately disingenuous to use apparent non-residence as the excuse to look at someone within the USA. They breaks the 4th amendment and is also what leads to accusations of rubber stamping warrant applications.

I think he just might have been taking the p!ss.

I think he just might have been taking the p!ss.

Good post.

To add, though: I think it helps to create a paranoid climate – not just in terms of 'security' and its supposed needs, but also in terms of the sort of comments about us having to accept that privacy is dead.

It seems quite extraordinary how many people are so easily lulled into the belief that (to whatever degree it is happening) widescale surveillance is acceptable: 'if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear' etc.

I bet the same people still:

• think that the kind of surveillance operated (for example) by the Stasi in the DDR was wrong;

• wonder how people in the DDR (and other countries) could be lulled into accepting and going along with such levels of state surveillance.

Would calling someone from a payphone (coin) box still baffle the intelligence gathering departments like in The Sopranos for instance ?

Just asking...

Hugo Rifkind's piece in today's Times is good, if you have access.

But it's just another step on an increasingly slippery slope, isn't it? If we all just accept that the world's governments can monitor who we're contacting, when we contact them and for how long, we're then only one step away from routine monitoring of the content of our communications as well.

You're possibly right, I see it more as merely adjusting the surveillance as we've adjusted our means of communications though. But that next step is the vital one, and shouldn't be undertaken without (relatively) open debate. That again comes to the crux of it for me, we don't know what they can do and what they can't do and we don't know who is supposed to be monitoring and policing them. As DaveO wrote, its the lack of accountability that is the major issue in my opinion.

Yep, along with the vilification of immigrants and Islam from certain groups and media outlets. As you say, the same kind of people who vehemently oppose, or say they do, the secret power of the state as evidenced by the Stasi etc. The same kind of people who will be strongly in favour of the death penalty. The same kind of people who would demand monitoring of people who look at any kind of pornography or anything "obscene" in case they might be paedophiles.
Ironically they're generally the first to defend Britain as a bastion of freedom and tolerance, yet that British culture is being destroyed by allowing the freedom of foreigners to enter the country and the tolerance to allow them to practise their own religion or culture.
Hypocritical idiots, I generally call them. Or Daily Mail readers for short.