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RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 10:04:30 AM   
WinsomeDefiance


Posts: 6719
Joined: 8/7/2007
Status: offline 		You know, I have a friend. Well, an ex room mate, ex lover. Whatever, still a good friend.

One of the conversations I recall having with him, was after 911. He told me that when his department came across domestic information, while sifting through foreign correspondence, they had to immediately turn off their computer; step away from it and inform their superiors. The computer was taken away, and they were assigned a new computer. He wondered how, and IF, that would change in the following climate of fear. It was a simple musing. I guess we know (at least partially), how that fear was leveraged.

Now, he was one man, in one department, in one small area. How relevant that is, in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't hazard a guess. But, this thread brought it back to mind.

Government policy, no matter how initially benign it is intended to be in the beginning, does seem to have a snowball (avalanche?) effect. As a single citizen - following the political threads/news - it can feel like a single person at the foot of a mountain trying to brace themself against an avalanche.

I follow the political threads peripherally. Quite honestly intimidated by it all. I make no claims of being smart enough to really comprehend the grand scheme of things. The last few years, I admit to not feeling any warm fuzzies and while I enjoy my smart phone and tablets and nooks, my internet access, my facebook account and the google query options; I've come to believe that I've traded something intimate and precious for those conveniences. I've always thought myself a private person, but that's a silly notion these days in light of security cameras, internet access, gps, smart phones, drones, and PRIZMs and Patriot Acts and all the other monitoring agencies out there. Can you really go anywhere (virtually or literally) that you aren't being recorded?

However, I'm one person in a world of 7+billion people. My life and daily activity seems so inconsequential as to be laughable at the notion that unless I really fucked up and got involved in some seriously ridiculously dangerous stuff - I'm of no special interest to anyone. That's a freakishly insane amount of data to sift through. I mean, I don't even know how many of the 7+billion people on the planet are living lives plugged in to the data hub, but I'm guessing a pretty large portion of the world's population is.

So now, I wonder, maybe the individual is SAFER if the government bogs itself down shifting through bigger and bigger massively cumbersome data analysis efforts. Instead of being afraid of going online and trying to hide our activities - we would be better served to merely FLOOD the hub with even more recipes and blogs and naked pictures and LULZ and silly videos of grandmas dancing to oldies music on their front steps. Instead of being the person bracing themself against the avalanche - accept that our daily activies, virutal or otherwise, ARE the avalanche.





(in reply to thishereboi)
Profile   Post #: 61
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 10:16:47 AM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC

You have always been more pessimistic than me. Even if my worst fears are materialized the future is a big place... really, really big.


I seem to recall you calling me an optimist, too, on occasion.

Nobody's saying it's impossible to undo, but you'll have to admit lower action potentials are entropically favorable.

IWYW,
— Aswad.


_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


(in reply to JeffBC)
Profile   Post #: 62
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 11:54:15 AM   
JeffBC


Posts: 5799
Joined: 2/12/2012
From: Canada
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: WinsomeDefiance
However, I'm one person in a world of 7+billion people. My life and daily activity seems so inconsequential as to be laughable at the notion that unless I really fucked up and got involved in some seriously ridiculously dangerous stuff - I'm of no special interest to anyone.

I understand your reasoning but that will be your downfall. You ARE of interest... great interest. As are all 7 billion other humans. And technology is rapidly bringing us to the place where we CAN look at all 7 billion of them in detail and as needed.

Let's try this for a mental game. Imagine yourself some crazy evil overlord intent on taking over the world. Say... "Dr. Evil". Now, imagine came to you and offered you this gizmo.

Crystal Ball 3000: This unique device will show you, in near-real time or even real time what every single person in the United States is currently doing and saying. It will also enable you to scroll backward in time and observe their life in minute detail at any point in time. You can see who they spoke to and when and what they talked about. You can see who they had sex with and what they did and whether she liked it or not. You can tell what church they go to and what they say at those church meetings. You can tell if they are pleased with you as their evil overlord or not and who, specifically, is less happy about it. You can tell EVERYTHING... like watching the move of their life on your big screen TV complete with rewind and fast forward.

Are you interested in my product because that is what they are building... here... now... today. Not in some dystopian sci-fi world but as we speak with multiple projects which are known and presumably a ton more that are not. The Crystal Ball 3000 does not exist yet but I'd give it maybe a decade tops for completion and it's coming online in partial pieces quickly as we speak.

Do you, as small, unassuming, WinsomeDefiance want ANYONE to have such a thing even if you are planning on being a good girl?

< Message edited by JeffBC -- 6/9/2013 11:59:14 AM >

_____________________________

I'm a lover of "what is", not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. -- Bryon Katie
"You're humbly arrogant" -- sunshinemiss
officially a member of the K Crowd

(in reply to WinsomeDefiance)
Profile   Post #: 63
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 12:29:46 PM   
JeffBC


Posts: 5799
Joined: 2/12/2012
From: Canada
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad
Nobody's saying it's impossible to undo, but you'll have to admit lower action potentials are entropically favorable.

Sure... but over the long view chaos theory enters my mind and is... well... chaotic :)


_____________________________

I'm a lover of "what is", not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. -- Bryon Katie
"You're humbly arrogant" -- sunshinemiss
officially a member of the K Crowd

(in reply to Aswad)
Profile   Post #: 64
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 12:55:14 PM   
Owner59


Posts: 17033
Joined: 3/14/2006
From: Dirty Jersey
Status: offline 		"Edward Snowden identified as source of NSA leaks"

Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old system administrator and former undercover CIA employee, unmasked himself Sunday as the principal source of recent Washington Post and Guardian disclosures about top-secret NSA programs, denouncing what he described as systematic surveillance of innocent citizens and saying in an interview, “it’s important to send a message to government that people will not be intimidated.”

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said Saturday that the NSA had initiated a Justice Department investigation into who leaked the information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html




President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday.

The law enforcement and security officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normally conduct such investigations, including the FBI and Justice Department, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a British and an American newspaper.


http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_23415470/u-s-likely-open-criminal-probe-into-nsa

_____________________________

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"

President Obama

(in reply to JeffBC)
Profile   Post #: 65
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 1:04:36 PM   
Brutalessons


Posts: 21
Joined: 7/3/2012
Status: offline 		Anyone for the way back machine?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

Anyone remember this guy?

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 66
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 1:47:35 PM   
WinsomeDefiance


Posts: 6719
Joined: 8/7/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC
...

Do you, as small, unassuming, WinsomeDefiance want ANYONE to have such a thing even if you are planning on being a good girl?


Do I want it? No. As you say, the technology already exists and is rapidly becoming more efficient. I don't in anyway disagree with this.

I've watched over the last year numerous 'security' trucks in my own home town 'upgrading' the street cameras and monitoring devices. I can't go a few blocks in any direction and not be monitored by security cameras and I don't even live in a large city. Damn near every phone has camera and a video recording device and nothing happens that it isn't uploaded onto YOUTUBE within seconds - just in case the counties/cities/state/federal cameras didn't catch what happened.

If you only knew how in depth I could go into why I hate the reality of this, but won't because I'm not about to put those facts out there.

Yes, the technology exists to do as you say. If, tiny unassuming WinsomeDefiance were to become the focus of those daunting technological abilities - it wouldn't bode well for poor good girl Winsome.

However, here's my point, in the virtual world of data - where one in nearly 8 billion has now become one in an infinite array of data processes (not all of them even interconnected) that require specific data queries to pinpoint and extrapolate - I've become a single snowflake in an avalanche of snow flowing down an entire mountainside. More realistically, I've probably become more of a single molecule of a single snowflake in an avalanche spanning the globe, but why quibble?

Not that it isn't possible, with technology, to locate that single snowflake but why would it be relevant unless that special little snowflake somehow drew attention to itself? Even WITH the technology and a strong desire to locate specific special little snowflakes - it isn't necessarily that easy.

My grandfather was a federal agent, my father-in-law on the team of engineers that built the Patriot missile, my father Air Force Intelligence with ridiculously high security clearance, my mother a Christian Coalition lobbyist who made the news as 'an unidentified mole that leaked information from a closed political meeting," and my ex worked for the NSA, he also had respectable enough high security clearance. If I haven't been on a list by one organization or another vetting me as a security risk - I'd be surprised. Even with that, I'm still unassuming WinsomeDefiance, good girl and insignificant snowflake

So, in a world where such technology exists and I'm essentially powerless to do 'f'all to stop it my best option (so far as I can deduce) is to be as insignificant as possible OR to be as visible as possible as to be untouchable OR to somehow be consequential enough politically influence laws and procedures that reduce the potential for abuse (I'm not).

Can't unscrew the pooch, so far as I can tell.

I hate that the technology is being used the way it is - and suffer no illusions that the only ones to suffer from it will be the 'terrorists'.

When it comes to global terrorism, I think American politics has invented its own special brand of self-fulfilling prophecies.

WinD

< Message edited by WinsomeDefiance -- 6/9/2013 2:07:10 PM >

(in reply to JeffBC)
Profile   Post #: 67
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 3:40:16 PM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline 		well, I consider that when i move, that is private info imo and yet USPS sells that info to marketing & data companies to flood you with junk mail & invade your privacy in a variety of ways.. what exactly is to stop the US govt (ya know, cuz it needs the bucks) to eventually sell all that online info they have collected to Big Biz? that would be like hitting the lotto for marketers... ya know, cuz if you arent committing any crime you have nothing to fear (except those unintended consequences)..

btw, not only is there google glass out there.. there is development of the same thing in contact lense form so likely impossible to tell when you are being videod..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

(in reply to WinsomeDefiance)
Profile   Post #: 68
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 4:05:20 PM   
WinsomeDefiance


Posts: 6719
Joined: 8/7/2007
Status: offline 		You know, before I moved here 2 years ago, I had set up all of my utilities so that everything would be up and running when I moved in.
I already had a mailbox full of unsolicited advertisements welcoming me to 'my new home' before I'd even moved in. That was pretty weird.

So, yep. I get your point. There are consequences. Never said there wasn't.

I think you are maybe confusing my point about the potential logistical issues regarding the use and control of massive quantities of data with my support of the process (I don't like or want or appreciate or support the technology).

I hope I made it pretty clear that it would suck pretty hugely to be the focus of that technology. If I failed to do so, that was my lack of communication and I'm glad to clarify.

Now. Just out of curiosity. What do you do or have you done to prevent or mitigate the consequences of the USPS selling your information?

Also,
Thanks for the heads up, guess getting contacts to replace my old granny glasses is out.

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 69
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:27:55 PM   
JeffBC


Posts: 5799
Joined: 2/12/2012
From: Canada
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: tj444
ya know, cuz if you arent committing any crime you have nothing to fear (except those unintended consequences)..

LOL, except for... every US sadist on these boards is committing a crime. Is there some jurisdiction in the US which recognizes SM? Canada does I had thought nowhere in the US did.

_____________________________

I'm a lover of "what is", not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. -- Bryon Katie
"You're humbly arrogant" -- sunshinemiss
officially a member of the K Crowd

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 70
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:33:25 PM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline 		Just so you know, I am not attacking your (or anyones) viewpoint..
I am only here for a short time so leaving the US and then doing things to limit the US being able to access and save my online info in whatever country I move to is my long-term solution to it.. I can not affect change to any country & (oddly enough) I see voting is for those people that are there for the rest of their lives to decide the direction of their country, not me..

Since I dont trust the govt, I dont join any groups or attend protests (like OWS) as I dont want to bring attention to myself and end up on some dam list.. It makes for a lessor world when people have to decide between privacy and free speech but that is the way it is and I chose many years ago that my privacy is more important to me.. This place is the only one where I do express my opinions and my reasons for them.. but ultimately, I feel that if Americans want to change their country for the better, then its up to them to do that.. or not..

As far as USPS goes, I only use PO Boxes so marketers are not all that interested in sending me junk, I do get some but not that much.. Its a lot harder for them to target market someone when you dont have a residential address they can link to stats & demographics.. I know you can opt out of junk mail but I dont trust those lists to do what they are supposed to do.. and not all marketing corps access those lists so the best you can hope for is getting a little less.. With things like banks, I do opt out of their marketing tho..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

(in reply to WinsomeDefiance)
Profile   Post #: 71
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:44:05 PM   
Owner59


Posts: 17033
Joined: 3/14/2006
From: Dirty Jersey
Status: offline 		Wow,that`s sad...

You`re a victim of your own fears and are allowing that to limit yourself, your interests, your freedom and possibly your own happiness.

_____________________________

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"

President Obama

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 72
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:45:45 PM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC

quote:

ORIGINAL: tj444
ya know, cuz if you arent committing any crime you have nothing to fear (except those unintended consequences)..

LOL, except for... every US sadist on these boards is committing a crime. Is there some jurisdiction in the US which recognizes SM? Canada does I had thought nowhere in the US did.

I dont know if there is or not but since I am not a sadist or interested in that kink, its not my problem..
There are some pretty weird laws in the US.. some you wonder why they felt the need to make some of them laws.. all you need to do is google weird american laws and split a gut laughing at some of them.. but the law is the law & if you do any of those things you have committed a "crime"!..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

(in reply to JeffBC)
Profile   Post #: 73
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:54:02 PM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Owner59

Wow,that`s sad...

You`re a victim of your own fears and are allowing that to limit yourself, your interests, your freedom and possibly your own happiness.

Hardly,.. I have seen how the US govt treats people and I choose not to live like that.. luckily I am not a citizen so I have more freedom than the majority of Americans do.. I think its sad Americans have the illusion that they live in a free country.. Only the 1%ers have any sort of freedom here..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

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Profile   Post #: 74
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:54:56 PM   
YN


Posts: 699
Status: offline 		Why do you live in the United States if you hate the country and the people there so much?

If, as you say, Canada is such a prefect place, what possessed you to leave?

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 75
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/9/2013 6:58:17 PM   
WinsomeDefiance


Posts: 6719
Joined: 8/7/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: tj444

Just so you know, I am not attacking your (or anyones) viewpoint..
I am only here for a short time so leaving the US and then doing things to limit the US being able to access and save my online info in whatever country I move to is my long-term solution to it
.....

As far as USPS goes, I only use PO Boxes so marketers are not all that interested in sending me junk, I do get some but not that much.. Its a lot harder for them to target market someone when you dont have a residential address they can link to stats & demographics.. I know you can opt out of junk mail but I dont trust those lists to do what they are supposed to do.. and not all marketing corps access those lists so the best you can hope for is getting a little less.. With things like banks, I do opt out of their marketing tho..


I didn't feel attacked.

Best of wishes in your move to a different country. (edited because the question had been answered already)

If I move again, the post office box solution sounds like a good one. I tended to blame the cable and utility companies since I hadn't put in a change of address.

< Message edited by WinsomeDefiance -- 6/9/2013 7:24:17 PM >

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 76
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/10/2013 5:26:37 AM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: WinsomeDefiance
If I move again, the post office box solution sounds like a good one. I tended to blame the cable and utility companies since I hadn't put in a change of address.

A PO Box is more secure also, to prevent ID theft, as no one can just come up to your mailbox and take out your mail as can be done with home delivery.. I also never leave mail for it to be picked up, I always take it to the Post Office and drop it directly there..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

(in reply to WinsomeDefiance)
Profile   Post #: 77
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/10/2013 5:43:36 AM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: YN

Why do you live in the United States if you hate the country and the people there so much?

If, as you say, Canada is such a prefect place, what possessed you to leave?

I have never ever said I hate the American people, I hate your govt cuz its repressive, there is a huge difference.. and obviously the whistleblower feels similarly about his govt.. I feel sorry for Americans cuz they are stuck with a shitty political system and a govt thats gone rabid... (it has been rabid for a long time tho, any country that wants to throw someone in jail for decades just cuz he played chess is rabid, imo) Any country that steals from honest citizens that have not done anything wrong (forfieture laws, eminent domain, etc) is fucking rabid.. and not to mention that the govt is owned by the 1%ers & Big Biz.. it does not have the good of the citizens and country at heart.. So yeah, I oppose that.. so do some Americans, btw..

I also never ever said Canada is such a perfect place, if it was and I saw no problems (which are primarily the Americanization of Canada) I would still be there.. it is a freer country but its unfortunately been touched by the US govt, some of the laws there are from the US, although they are saner versions (forfieture in Canada requires you be found guilty in court of a crime before your assets can be taken, unlike the US where they can take your assets without even charging you with any crime)..

_____________________________

As Anderson Cooper said “If he (Trump) took a dump on his desk, you would defend it”

(in reply to YN)
Profile   Post #: 78
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/10/2013 6:53:12 AM   
YN


Posts: 699
Status: offline 		I am not from the United States.

But when did they (the United States) take your property, and for what reason?

And many see Canada as "Yankee Junior." Having visited both countries, I admit to seeing little difference either culturally, or how either government treats it's people. If anything the Canadian national government is more authoritarian that that of the United States, and more right wing in nature as well.


As far as the topic of this thread goes, Canada also routinely spies on it's internal dissidents.

(in reply to tj444)
Profile   Post #: 79
RE: NSA Prism program - 6/10/2013 7:10:50 AM   
Yachtie


Posts: 3593
Joined: 1/18/2012
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: WinsomeDefiance
we would be better served to merely FLOOD the hub with even more recipes and blogs and naked pictures and LULZ and silly videos of grandmas dancing to oldies music on their front steps.


Said the very same thing to a friend this morning. The problem with data storage is just that, storage. Unlike boycotts, such is easy. Just the push of a button. Could be the same email sent 15x a day. Like an attorney burying an opponent in paper.


_____________________________

“We all know it’s going to end badly, but in the meantime we can make some money.” - Jim Cramer, CNBC

“Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell

(in reply to WinsomeDefiance)
Profile   Post #: 80
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