NSA takes one-two punch to the face The US National Security Agency has been hit by two legal losses that may put the last part of its controversial spying program on US citizens under threat. In one case, brought by customers of AT&T and run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the NSA was ordered [PDF] to provide relevant evidence that would prove or …
The rest are operating BAU.
If you are unable to verify a statement how can you know if it's true?
I think you've be very foolish to think the NSA does not have a Plan B to continue what their management seems to think is their "sacred" mission to spy on everyone, all the time, forever.
I don't doubt they have invoked another plan that is currently under the radar. The trick is make it harder for them to find accomplices and easier for whistleblowers to come out of the shadows. The next whistleblower will be believed while the earlier ones were often ignored.
@John Smith 19
Yes, the NSA takes the long view of surveillance, not letting little roadblocks like the failure to sell Congress on the Clipper Chip, or NSA discomfort with ACTUALLY scrubbing U.S. citizens data from its various databases, per the letter of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This you can see from the NSA's efforts over the past couple decades to water down post-Clipper encryption by subverting standards/vendors, or increasingly moving its surveillance operations offshore to places like the UK and Australia or outsourcing them to allied sigint agencies that can surveil Americans all they want, or by just keeping the FISA court in the dark about what is really going on.
(I could say more, but some guys in black are abseiling through my windows. Nooo!! Not the Taser! And this black bag over my head smells funny in a not ha-ha way.)
Indeed. Electrocuted and bankrupt.
BTW Terry Gilliam always said he did not make up that idea for "Brazil." He said he got it from a report that some political prisoners had received essentially a bill for "time and materials" for their interrogation.
Water, electricity and skilled labor is expensive.
Yes. the difference is that if it's illegal, then at least it won't be routinely used to combat domestic crime or misdemeanors. ubiquitous surveillance is the most dangerous when everyone knows its happening and when its regularly used to change people their behavior.
It already has been, with the DEA falsifying the source of some information against drug dealers where the "confidential informant" was in fact the NSA supplying phone and email data (although following their SOP this was probably a digested version, no direct quotes etc).
Whilst you are no doubt going to get down-voted, I have to agree somewhat.
America is the first country that we all tend to think of when shit starts rolling downhill, and they are up to a lot of shit, then it all rolls downhill to the rest of us.
However, America is usually the only country that manages to muster up some kind of defence and motivation to challenge the powers that be - unfortunately that doesn't tend to roll downhill.
Eventually America might end up with some degree of balance and checks in their system, whilst the rest of us suffocate under a mountain of rolling shit.
I've often thought that it would be nice to take the positive traights of each nation and roll them into one nation without all the negatives. For example, I love the American positivity in the face of overwhelming reality (but I don't like the arrogance/ignorance that often goes with it).
I liked the British stoicism (don't see much of that anymore sadly) and sheer grit, but I don't like their holier than thou mentality (in the face of overwhelming reality etc. ;) )
The French have (had?) this great militant attitude to authority if it pissed them off. We used to moan about them blocking up the ports and setting huge piles of sheep on fire, but I miss those days - everyone seems to have lost their bollocks, and I know why...
Self-censorship. If you think that you might get a knock on the door in the middle of the night because of something you said that someone in power didn't like (and they'll know because they're spying on everything you say and do) then you adjust your behaviour.
This frog is boiled.
"Two sets of judges rule for citizens and against government"
Just a minor technical point: in a democracy, aren't the citizens the government that elects an administration to run things?
Stop calling these clowns "the government"; that gives them much more scope than they are supposed to have.
When unelected bodies have free secrete access to private information of millions, they have the chance of becoming little Batistas and often seems to be the case with time....The only way to stop abuse of power is to notify the person whose information is accessed by anyone about the identity of the body/person and specific purpose of accessing that information. If a person is suspect, s/he should be notified and asked to explain the suspicious activity before further steps are taken. The government of the people cannot be without the consent of the governed every step of the process to defend the greater good for the benefit of all in a polity. Otherwise, little Batistas will destroy the whole society...
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