World's Biggest Comspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

It matters what Snowden says, because he's basically speaking from the point of view from an actual employer using that app. If he says he can do all the stuff with that application and there may not be any official documentation actually saying it as explicit as he does, that doesn't mean Snowden is telling garbage. So yes, it does matter what he says. And yes, it deserves a bit more attention than given. The fact he names a specific name of the application, which actually does exist should signal there might actually be a fire where Snowden says he saw lots of smoke.

The internet copying bit. Well, that's basically what the british NSA has already admitted doing. And I would be surprised the NSA doesn't.

There's only a couple of cables on the floor of the atlantic ocean where much of all digital traffic goes through. You basically need only one location to tap into all this traffic and you already have a large part of the digital traffic across the globe. It's pretty simple really. Sure there are lots of servers at various places across the globe, but what percentage of international traffic would go through these cables?

I mean, given what the government has already admitted of doing (analysing messages across the us border (with americans)), it's not a giant step for the actual reality behind a remark like that to be that in all the dots on the borders of the US in the picture below, the government taps this traffic (logic: it goes to outside of the US, so it's perfectly within the legislations). And compared to the amount of traffic, the amount of locations where these information carrying cables is surprisingly small. In short, it's a perfectly practically viable solution and legally as well. Because one could argue, the action of copying the traffic is to analyse communication with people outside of US laws.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039974/The-deep-web-The-new-map-undersea-cables-world-clicking.html

there has to be something much more serious supporting his authority on those issues besides own words, it's a simple courtroom logic. the nsa statements contradict many of his statements (regarding unwarranted access, for example), so it's his word against theirs. so unless you're a loony, conspiracy gobbling libertarian that strongly believes that the only purpose of the government is to enslave you, how do you determine whom to trust given this info ?

i see your point regarding centralized channels for internet traffic, but i really have no idea how internet traffic works and whether it's really that easy to siphon and make sense of that vast info stream and determine that this particular bit of data is text from this email to that and so on.

another major thing that i notice is that greenwald and his cult are simply incapable of differentiating between capability and action. so for them the mere fact that information is automatically collected and sits on some nsa hardrive without ever being eyed by a human is spying/an evil domestic surveillance program/"just like 1984" and so on, they simply ignore the fact that there are strong institutions intervening in the process. it's like saying that usa capability of destroying the whole world with nukes several times over is an active world destruction program.

well, if snowden would have said loony things, wouldn't you expect the government to behave accordingly (instead of this international riot between countries not delivering him and the us). do you really think the us would go through all this crap, if there wasn't something at stake?

as far as the distinction between capability and action goes, i think greenwald & co's point is that it doesn't really matter. the capability is already a problem. and the actions are behind closed doors and in-transparent. but even if there weren't any action, the nsa shouldn't even have this capability. the point is the entire process is in-transparant. so are the "intervening processes" and in a way even the legislation. the simple fact that legislation is about international communication with people from the us opens the door to all communication simply by the way the actual digital traffic runs across the world. in a way you could say the legislation is too stupid to proficiently protect us-citizens' privacy/freedom.

in short: there's a combination of in-transparency (nsa process, intervening processes, judicial processes, and (political) decision making process (even on governmental levels)), poor legislation wrt the nowadays technical capabilities, a number of politicians basically confirming lots of stuff is happening which they aren't allowed to reveal but would get people jumping in the curtains if it would, a bunch of former nsa employees wistleblowing and confirming the politicians and eachother (snowden included).

The entire story cries: FIRE!

the riot is in the press and general discourse, i don't see anything extraordinary about u.s. conduct in trying to apprehend him. by strictly legal definition he committed treason (or whatever leaking of secret documents is called in the u.s) and the state has to grab him. the whistleblower protection thing covers cases where only illegal activity was revealed, he doesn't fall into this category at all.

re: "capability is a problem" , well it's really open to debate, governments already have much more scarier capabilities, so it's a matter of regulations imo. the thing was designed as in-transparent, and as long as it was designed according to the laws technically it's not a problem. the fact that the ignorant public is shaken by some of those reports, well, it's a different thing entirely.

This (implied) idea that legal, illegal and laws are black/white is as understandable as problematic. I could start with all kinds of arguments, but the main point is that laws are imperfect and the distinction between legal and illegal non-trivial/subjective. I mean, was OJ Simpson guilty? Why is he a free man?

The problem currently is that the activities of the NSA are considered "legal" and there are people (Snowden, for example) arguing what the NSA does, or can do, is as legal as what OJ Simpson did, metaphorically speaking. OJ wasn't guilty either, if you catch my drift.

So following your reasoning we've entered an odd situation where a whistleblower like Snowden can't be protected because the NSA does nothing illegal. Good joke. The entire point of the whistleblowing was that things are happening "legally" which shouldn't be legal in the first place. Do you notice how dysfunctional this entire whistleblower-protection plan is within this context? Isn't that a bit worrying, to say the least? Isn't it odd the other nsa whistleblower weren't allowed to publically whistleblow, but had to do it behind closed doors? You should be happy with someone like Snowden, really. All the "reasonable" whistleblowers remained largely invisible to the public. If that doesn't ring an alarm, I don't know what will.

Only in the Disney world this protection plan would function. You know, a world where legal and illegal are obvious and black/white. And law is perfect in every way.

*coughs*

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NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls

Exclusive: Spy agency has secret backdoor permission to search databases for individual Americans' communications

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls

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The communications of Americans in direct contact with foreign targets can also be collected without a warrant, and the intelligence agencies acknowledge that purely domestic communications can also be inadvertently swept into its databases. That process is known as "incidental collection" in surveillance parlance.

But this is the first evidence that the NSA has permission to search those databases for specific US individuals' communications.

im not familiar with oj simpson thing at all so the analogies are over my head.

whistle-blowing (in u.s) has a pretty broad and clear definition: "Whistleblowers may file complaints that they believe reasonably evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.", your definition is impossible to work with. and who said that whistleblowing is supposed to be public exactly ? if the organization is secret it's likely that the process of persecuting abusers will also be secret so not to undermine the whole organization.

snowden claimed that there is violation of law (anyone gets anything he want without warrant), if he had the evidence (besides his own words) he could have easily fallen under the protection act (and if it that failed he could have gone public), but outright leaking secret stuff just doesn't cut even if it may seem so righteous to him and GG.

!?

My definition impossible to work with? How so? Why isn't it obvious that the broad/clear definition doesn't suit this particular context? Assuming that things are made legal which shouldn't have been made legal, but have become legal because, amongst other things, they were able to keep it out of the public eye. How should protection work here?

"And if that failed he could have gone public"...welcome to current reality?

Whistleblowing which isn't public? Sounds useless. The whole point is taking things out in the open.

Outright leaking secret stuff? Who? Snowden? If you're talking about Manning I could understand where you're coming from. Dumping huge datasets of cables online through wikileaks without any filter is what I consider "outright leaking". That's obviously not what Snowden is doing. What's your point?

The leak is filtered. It's using journalism instead of internet. The actual info is not data with personal info, but knowledge about policies and processes. It's mostly investigative journalism using Snowdens experiences, but also senators, as you can see in the posted piece of the Guardian. Do you consider that outright leaking?

I'm not sure what your take is on the current events, but imo, it's not much more than Snowden making public that things happen in the NSA which shouldn't be happening there. Without any other context or proof, this is merely someone's personal opinion. What creates the story is that those things are happening outside of public eye and that if true, these things are pretty questionable, to say the least. One might argue, questionable enough to warrant public discussion. What the posted article shows amongst other things, is that it puts previous remarks by the government/nsa into question. So instead of questioning Snowden's proof, the investigative journalism is actually digging deeper than before and finding all sorts of things raising more and more questions.

And besides, I think it's odd that you claim Greenwald & Co are using hyperbole over nothing, but it's perfectly fine for the US government to apprehend Snowden. For what exactly? Leaking non-important information? Or just out of principle? What did he leak, btw? A powerpoint? Did that powerpoint warrant apprehension? Really? So the government is trying to apprehend a former NSA analyst over a couple of powerpoint slides? Is that it?

The point is: Snowden, among other people, makes it possible for journalists to do their jobs. Like posting that piece I quoted. Is that apprehensible?

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The point is: Snowden, among other people, makes it possible for journalists to do their jobs. Like posting that piece I quoted. Is that apprehensible?

 

 

it depends on the damage one does during the process.

Have you seen the Obama session which ended a couple of minutes ago?

So he basically said he asked for a serious examination of the program himself before Snowden even started leaking. One of the reasons being, that technology and the old legislation were running out of touch. So what does this say? Well amongst other things that "capabilities" and "legalisation" do not see eye to eye and what is implied is that the checks and balances weren't optimal. Of course he's not admitting bad things have happened. There's no need to admit anything of that kind. At least, not at this point in time. (= there is no proof (publicly available))

The irony is that the Snowden leaks basically made the process Obama himself asked for more public. I'm actually paraphrasing Obama here, I kid you not. Some would interpret this as the US president actually agreeing with Snowden.

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My definition impossible to work with? How so? Why isn't it obvious that the broad/clear definition doesn't suit this particular context? Assuming that things are made legal which shouldn't have been made legal, but have become legal because, amongst other things, they were able to keep it out of the public eye. How should protection work here?

 

the patriot act and surveillance stuff that's related to it were very widely reported from what i remember, it was criticized but generally the public simply accepted it, which was understandable in that climate.

What's your point? I'm talking about "this particular context"...meaning in the present. And you're talking about "in that climate", which I think means "right after 911". Ehm...so your argument is what again? That the laws that were made in that climate are still good and or supported by the general public? And should therefore not be questioned?

Proper channels before leaking stuff? What do you mean with proper channels? Leaking outside of the public eye? And what makes you say GG, or rather, the Guardian is not a proper channel? Have you seen the Charlie Rose interview of the people from the Guardian about the leaks that awe posted earlier? Those people seem competent to me. And so does the Guardian as a newspaper. Or are you still reasoning the secret stuff has a right to remain secret (even if there's no real reason for it to remain secret).

And let's be specific about what Snowden did when you talk about leaking: he gave journalists of the Guardian secret documents. If you've seen the Charlie Rose interview, you may have seen those people of the Guardian saying they have tried (and still do, i presume) to contact the government about the stuff they obtained to have their opinion (for instance). So, again: Snowden provided journalists with secret information.

the point is that the laws made back then, that enable this kind of surveillance, are lawful, and they were and are always open to public criticism (unless some machinations were in action to push them which im not aware of). so i don't understand your saying that "things made legal that shouldn't be legal", they were made legal in a legal manner !

proper channels means this basically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Whistleblowing.pdf

im pretty sure that giving away secret documents to journalists is simply illegal and can potentially make more harm than good (i know i sound like some gov. bureaucrat but it's very plausible, although i don't know to which degree the leakage of those particular documents may be harmful). and yeah, i think there is room for secrecy in regards to the operation of intelligence organizations and such, otherwise they lose their potency.

  On 8/9/2013 at 11:30 PM, eugene said:

 

(i know i sound like some gov. bureaucrat but it's very plausible, although i don't know to which degree the leakage of those particular documents may be harmful).

this is perhaps the most self-aware thing you've said in history of being a watmm poster. *high-five for for the realization*

the flaw in your logic Eugene is that you assume that not only the Patriot Act had judicial oversight but that NSA wiretapping does too. For your description of it being 'legal' it would have to at least briefly pass through the channels that determine if something is legal or not. A secret FISA court who's rulings aren't even publicly available to the senate intelligence committee (pretty much the highest judicial oversight we have in terms of the wiretapping programs besides the executive branch) is the one who has decided in this case that the NSA program as it stands now is legal, in completely secrecy. That's not the law as i understand it, it's using back channels to pass secret law that no one, not even the highest ranking senators and congress people are even aware of. While the Patriot Act was passed during a laughable and embarrassing climate of child-like fear, the NSA wiretapping goes much further than even the jurisdiction of that. As Russ Feingold said back in OCtober of 2001 (the only senator to vote against the patriot act) they can request secret surveillance information on anyone by only having to say it's for a terrorism investigation, they literally only have to claim that with no proof or evidence to circumvent normal probable cause. The whole thing is an utter joke, and even I'm surprised that you Eugene continue to try and find ways to defend it, apparently you don't believe in the constitutional measures designed to protect your privacy against this type of stuff?

Also how sad is it that we're still sitting here talking about how what Manning did was 'irresponsible' when no one seems to give a flying fuck that here is a video he leaked of a bunch of US military punks killing 2 innocent Reuters journalists with 50mm rounds, literally exploding their bodies into meat District 9 style because some assholes were trigger happy. It's crazy to me how this is where the discussion goes over time VS the murder of journalists.

So, how do you read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/obama-surveillance-reform_n_3733090.html

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"Unfortunately, rather than an orderly and lawful process to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way," Obama said. "But given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives."

But not always fully informed way? How can the outside world even have a fully informed way of discussing classified information? And because the outside world isn't fully informed, it should remain silent and have "the fully informed" make all the decisions? I hope you agree this cannot be part of a serious democracy. At least, not in the way the patriot and surveillance act allowed.

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"One of the concerns that people raise is that a judge reviewing a request from the government to conduct programmatic surveillance only hears one side of the story ... [that] may tilt it too far in favor of security, may not pay enough attention to liberty," Obama said. "While I've got confidence in the court and I think they've done a fine job, I think we can provide greater assurances that the court is looking at these issues from both perspectives, security and privacy."

Again, it's interesting how he's proposing to change oversight and allowing more transparancy even though he won't call Snowden a patriot. Why's that? OK, that's a rhetorical question. But the point is, even though Obama might argue he was planning to makes those changes all along, the actual appearance is, it took a Snowden for the government to put words into (hopefully) action. It's all political mumbo jumbo, imo. He won't be willing to admit bad things happened, or could have happened, but he's willing to admit things could be better and has some changes he would like to implement. So it's either what the GOP says: Obama's trying to save face by proposing some unnecessary changes to perfectly fine laws. Or he actually thinks the laws need to be changed, implying they weren't optimal to begin with and imo essentially agreeing with Snowden.

What would it be? Is Obama agreeing with someone who's been charged with 3 felonies? The president of the US? Really? That's impossible! So he's just saving face because....well, what face would he even need to save at this point? Don't forget the international community at this point, btw. Even though it was hardly talked about. There's always those magic words about how this program was designed to respect the privacy of US-citizens as much as possible. Read: we do spy on the rest of the world as they're outside our laws of privacy.

Also notice how the rest of the world doesn't necessarily differentiate between partners of the US and non-partners. What's worse, various partners have already admitted of working alongside the US (Britain, Germany, and there's probably more). So, people from the US, please don't send me any mail, because I'm outside of the US and I'm therefore fair game to the NSA.

  On 8/10/2013 at 12:55 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

Also how sad is it that we're still sitting here talking about how what Manning did was 'irresponsible' when no one seems to give a flying fuck that here is a video he leaked of a bunch of US military punks killing 2 innocent Reuters journalists with 50mm rounds, literally exploding their bodies into meat District 9 style because some assholes were trigger happy. It's crazy to me how this is where the discussion goes over time VS the murder of journalists.

Well Manning did a couple of things. Leak that video. Leak cables. Leak.... probably something more? Depending on personal preferences one or the other might be the dominant leak. To make my point against Snowden "outright leaking" I had to use the Manning leaking cables example to make a distinction.

That doesn't imply not giving a fuck about that leaked video of journalists being killed in Iraq. When it comes to the official whistleblowing definition, this basically belongs exactly inside those definitions. So there's actually a strong case, I'd argue, for Manning being a whistleblower for leaking that footage. But that doesn't hold for those cables, imo. Even though I'm happy he did leak those, btw.

  On 8/10/2013 at 12:55 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

Also how sad is it that we're still sitting here talking about how what Manning did was 'irresponsible' when no one seems to give a flying fuck that here is a video he leaked of a bunch of US military punks killing 2 innocent Reuters journalists with 50mm rounds, literally exploding their bodies into meat District 9 style because some assholes were trigger happy. It's crazy to me how this is where the discussion goes over time VS the murder of journalists.

if he only leaked this thing noone would call him irresponsible, but he did that and some hundreds of thousands other secret documents.

regarding your previous post i really dont have deep enough knowledge about fisa and the court reply to it properly. although i do know that the fisa court mainly deals with warrants and doesn't legitimize the whole nsa conduct and its different programs. secondly, there's zero evidence that nsa goes beyond what patriot act allows. hearsay evidence like that of the senator is worthless if you want to actually prove something, you should know that given your experience with such things

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there's zero evidence that nsa goes beyond what patriot act allows

So what was your take on the "loopholes" piece earlier.

Legally, what the NSA is doing is just as "legal" as corporations using taxfree havens. It's extremely difficult to actually prove things are illegal when there is so much not transparent in the first place, and secondly the legal system being too primitive to actually guarantee being a safeguard against "fraud".

  On 8/9/2011 at 2:53 AM, Braintree said:

  On 8/10/2013 at 1:34 AM, goDel said:

 

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there's zero evidence that nsa goes beyond what patriot act allows

So what was your take on the "loopholes" piece earlier.

it's either i don't understand that nsa speak and guardian's interpretation at all or the whole argument is based on a speculation that querying americans' names was actually allowed in that upcoming "oversight process", for which they have no evidence.

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"While the FAA 702 minimization procedures approved on 3 October 2011 now allow for use of certain United States person names and identifiers as query terms when reviewing collected FAA 702 data," the glossary states, "analysts may NOT/NOT [not repeat not] implement any USP [uS persons] queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]."

The term "identifiers" is NSA jargon for information relating to an individual, such as telephone number, email address, IP address and username as well as their name.

 

The document – which is undated, though metadata suggests this version was last updated in June 2012 – does not say whether the oversight process it mentions has been established or whether any searches against US person names have taken place.

so they don't know the result of the process but claim that nsa loophole allows (in the present tense) "warantless search for americans' names" in the article title, is this some shitty sensationalist journalism or am i missing something ?

i think youve proven to us all, that there is a lot that you are missing

i was just gonna sit back and read the debate, but the second you busted out the term "Loony", not to mention your following posts, it become clear to me that you are so far out of reality, that not only is it hard to take you seriously at this point, i dont believe anyone can even help you

good luck buddy

  On 8/10/2013 at 3:25 AM, Jody Dark said:

i think youve proven to us all

who is it you're representing exactly ?

  On 8/10/2013 at 4:07 AM, eugene said:

 

  On 8/10/2013 at 3:25 AM, Jody Dark said:

i think youve proven to us all

who is it you're representing exactly ?

 

you have zero evidence that Mr. Dark is representing anybody.

you are turning into a Chomsky worshiping sensationalist.

(No disrespect intended, clearly). This conversation reminded me of the following video, worth checking it out.

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[...] You cannot change their mind; even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logical behavior. [...] Exposure to true information does not matter any more. A person who is demoralised is unable to assess true information; the facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures, [...], he will refuse to believe it - until he receives a kick in his fat bottom. When a military boot crushes his balls, *then* will he understand, but not before, that's the tragic of the situation.