The wall separating “foreign” intelligence operations from domestic criminal investigations has finally, fully collapsed. The FBI is now acting on a rule change initiated by the Bush administration, and finally massaged into actionable policy by Obama: Now, FBI agents can query the NSA’s database of Americans’ international communications, collected without warrants pursuant to Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act. That law put congress’ stamp of approval on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was widely denounced as totalitarian when the New York Times’ James Risen exposed it to the world in 2005.
Remember when they told us this wouldn’t be a slippery slope?
Cute.
Remind me, when was the CIA, FBI and NSA join audit going to happen? It was scheduled for 1959, so it must have been completed at least once. Right?
I’ve worked in (local) government for most of my adult life, and at least on that level, an audit is a rubber stamp affair. Unless your agency is doing something completely and utterly bonkers and not even attempting to clean it up before the audit, it will pass with flying colors. It’s hard work to fail an internal audit since they are designed to be passed.
I would imagine the federal government is very kind to itself in its internal audits as well.
That’s why Snowden was able to get away with it.
But how does Snowden get away with not fixing his damn glasses in all these years?
I disagree with many here, and in the tech industry in general over things like the FBI- Apple decryption spat.
But this is pretty clearly unconstitutional and should be protested to the utmost. I will be contacting all of my legislators as well to protest at all levels.
I would encourage all US citizens to do the same:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contacting.htm
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Note: the senate website is currently not working :/
Edited 2016-03-11 14:50 UTC
Funny how these things happen, isn’t it?
Seriously, while I’ll lodge a protest, it isn’t going to do any good. The feds can do anything they want in the current political climate and they’re not bound by the will of the people. They haven’t been in a long time.
That might be close to the truth, but If we never protest then we are as responsible as that are actually doing it.
On this, at least, we agree. I just don’t expect them to care.
That’s a load of crap. Protesting, or lack of, is in no way a deciding factor in who bares responsibility. You think these agencies give two shits about protesters? Absolutely not. Have you forgotten what country you live in? One that will do and say whatever it wants, anywhere anytime, whether its people like it or not. But hey, if you think you can protest/complain them into changing their mind, go for it.
Seriously? When it came time to sign the Declaration of Independence, you must have been the guy in the powdered wig with a pouncet-box ‘twixt finger and thumb saying: “But hey, if you think you can protest/complain them into changing their mind, go for it.”
Don’t be foolish. The world you’re living in today is vastly different from that one. You like in a surveillance society where governments gather mountains of data on their enemies, their allies, and their own people, 24 hours a day. The US Government today is nothing like what its forefathers intended. Its a government that lies to everyone, will cheat & steal, and will circumvent its own laws and the constitution itself at will. But yeah, the power of protest will keep all that in check and under control right?
Don’t lose focus of what we’re talking about. No amount of protesting is going to cause the government and all its agencies to stop mass spying and inter-agency sharing of information on its own citizens.
And when the signers protested he sniffed from the vapors of his pouncet-box, containing a sponge soaked in pungent vinegar to ward off diseases and offensive odours; flounced his wig and said to them: “Don’t be foolish. The sun does not set on his Majesty’s Empire. No amount of protesting is going to cause his Majesty’s empire and all its agencies… & etc.”
Edited 2016-03-12 20:49 UTC
So in other words, you’re completely ignorant to the world you live in and how governments in the age of technology and 24/7 surveillance conduct themselves. Go ahead though, protest your little heart out. I’m sure if you do it long enough they’ll stop collecting data on you and start respecting your privacy & wishes.
Exactly why some people love encryption on everything.
A useful reminder that there are members of the public who support mass surveillance.
They also support the guns they say they will overthrow the government with too.
Its not about actually changing anything, its about doing the right thing. If there is a man suffering a heart attack and I, as a certified CPR guy, do nothing, I’m not legally in any trouble. And heck, the success rate of CPR sucks, badly. Even ER doctors that do it regularly aren’t very successful. But, my intrinsic Kantian Moral imperative tells me I must try, because it is the right thing to do.
Same thing here. Odds of success are low, I understand that. But, if I do nothing, I hold myself guilty.
I think a lot of people here have an attitude of “all or nothing” and not willing to stick with something out of fear of not getting immediate “all or nothing” results.
appear around ignorance and misery, sooner or later. But mighty hubris calls for suppressing the ignorants and the miserables.
How this came to happen? Need to learn, from recent past.
They felt compelled to build a building within the building.
Snowden used to throw his cell inside the fridge. That won’t cut the ‘cheese’ anymore when IoT arrive.
Are Us regular citizens going to be compelled also about our environment and things.
Is that how a Nation is going to spend the energy, creativity and happiness of his soul, his people?
RE: RE: Is that all?
When able to see all creatures not as resources, or instruments, but as life companion.
Not only when able to see all as we see our beloved dogs, but also able to see as our beloving dogs see us.
…but also able to see [all] as our beloving dogs see us.
Chill down guys, this fuzz isn’t worth a shit. They are only bringing American people to the same line with the rest of the world. They have had free hands on spying anyone outside EU without any control in the past too.
Effectively, they’re only extending the same old surveillance to the rest 5 % of the world population.
Maybe n that’ll be true one day.
But until there is the same (full) transparency on all the dealings and communications of the powers that be that they deem appropriate to grab from the rest of us. I say, chilling isn’t in the 98%’s best interest
Neither is frothing too mind. We need to collectively put a little bit of energy each into rebalancing things.
Goes for comms, economics, all
“Land of the free”…. Wasn’t it? Or am I mistaken about a great big deal of things?
Sounds like the national anthem are going to be a hollow symbol in the future. Land of the free? My ass.
On unappalled merchandising of the human condition.
“Your jobs are being taken over by machines,†she says, venting her frustration with self-service checkouts and Internet banking. Couple this with a housing crisis, low-paid, insecure work, mounting student debt and an indifferent government, and she concludes angrily that my generation are “basically fuckedâ€. Sitting in her car in the dark outside my house, I feel slightly tearful.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/12/millennial-baby-boomer…
Is this their present? To those who still don’t understand.
“… and I can only wish Rhiannon and her friends luck. They’re going to need it.”
“Sitting in her car in the dark outside my [rented] house..”
that Law Enforcement is also asking for enhancing the actual lame state of Comm security and User privacy.
[And yes, Apple is a very good civil performer, at this two issues].
They are also Demanding access to what their Law Frames endow them to access in order to carry on their duties. And will not desist.
And no, as PR suggest, this two aspects are not scientifically or technologically incompatible. People around here knows it.
One of the first HP Photo smart cameras:
https://srsnl.home.xs4all.nl/hp/phsmrevw.html
Now going to time travel to HP Laboratories, as Chief Engineer of design, of this PhotoSmart C5340A.
First task is to add a screen. Piece of cake. They didn’t know how, on a cheap way. I know.
Second task is to add encryption, satisfactory to a year 2016 user, HP and Law Enforcement. Lots of them still work!
Present day HP has tasked me this also, acknowledging now that still working devices could be used for bad purposes, [as child pornography].
[Pay is very good for time travelers ‘fixers’. Did you know?]
Any ideas that could help me?
If smart-phones are a so ‘jumpy’ issue, then allow ourselves to start the conversation about a more extensive theme, as that of digital privacy, and security.
The better
Talk about the very first iPod. As all life friends that happen to reunite again after many, many years of total absence
Bought a very costly interface that allowed me to connect the memory card directly to the original USB specification/protocol.
Still can connect the camera itself through a serial link and installing my old Win95 CD an its correspondent software. Also can connect to current Linuxes over Pre-UEFI stacks.
Haven’t tryied on UEFI’s ones.
Is now, and in the near future, a potential instrument of crime.
Is that every shot I take with it should be digitally signed’. Not talking of meta-data on the file, but ‘noise’ signed. Even for a device this aged.
As a smooth criminal, should ‘wash’ the noise of the photos.
That I took a last look at the meta-data, but if my memory doesn’t fail -as is happening a lot lately- it included the serial of the device.
No GPS crossing, timer, gyroscope, accelerometer or device ID cards, as actually customary.
There is the particularities of the optics and sensor. On having a good bunch of my photos, Law enforcement could physically profile my camera.
Also helping to profiling is the actual specifications of the sensor and the coding of the firmware.
Law Enforcement could make use of their face recognition resources.
If face recognition exist, why not site recognition, furniture recognition?
With billions of cameras happily connected to the ‘cloud’, and wandering all around, is this too much impossible?
A matter of Intelligence discretion? Are we citizens allowed to converse about the privacy and security issues of this -museum grade- instrument? Are we really, REALLY invited to this conversation? Asking to POTUS.
Is a matter of Intelligence discretion, then what could we say about ‘state of the art’ civilian Smart-Phones?