Posts by Harry Anslinger 11 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Dec 2014
The NSA can simply outsource the information gathering to British allies in order to maintain the ability to monitor American communications. Simple compartmentalization to circumvent the nasty lack of legality in what they do. They've had ample time to develop their workaround solutions.
As an American I urge all my international friends and colleagues to NOT believe that the NSA is ending mass data collection on US citizens. My experience is that Americans never relinquish a capability once achieved (see nuclear weapons). In any case, mass surveillance of non-Americans continues. Generally, Americans do not harbor ill intent, however if American politics ever devolve and we transform into a theocracy - all bets are off.
Our government has repeatedly proven that it cannot be trusted to respect the 4th amendment rights of American citizens. Our electronic communications are routinely intercepted, recorded and analyzed without the benefit of a warrant or probable cause. Encryption to thwart government intrusion on the private communications of American citizens is essential.
I think it's great that anonymous is outing KKK members. I think they can perform further public service by outing the 1% contributors to SuperPACs.
The cockroaches always scurry for cover under the light of public exposure......I applaud anonymous for lighting up the KKK cockroaches.
Brennan's use of a commercial email system isn't due to a lack of security understanding due to his age - some of us of that generation wrote the tools we all use today - it's specifically lazy and sloppy to maintain sensitive content on an AOL email account.
Brennan by the nature of his profession knows better and yet failed to take precautions. It is scary that these individuals are tasked to maintain our safety - they can't even manage their electronic communications.
Americans like to declare our own actions legal and appropriate. We do know however that the NSA and its leadership lie to us and Congress with impunity. Nothing the NSA says can be trusted or believed. They consider oversight a nuisance and our CIA friends have directly lied to Congress. Lying is core to the job description.
We like to believe in American exceptionalism, but what we are really exceptionally good at is spying on others and justifying anything we choose to do. For Americans, the end usually justifies the means and we confidently will declare ourselves the moral arbiters of right and wrong.
One arm of the US government - the NSA - conducts the most intrusive sweeping data intelligence gathering activities, targeting foreign governments (friendly and not), commercial interests (Petrobras et al.), and even American citizens.
Another arm of the US government compiles and stores sensitive data on American citizens who work for Government agencies and the military and fails to implement even rudimentary safeguards to protect sensitive information.
The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are purchasing Italian spyware to use in investigations, and they are asking for backdoors in encryption technology. Multiple law enforcement agencies are conducting extensive domestic surveillance using aircraft, automated license plate reading technology and tracking movements and communications of Americans without warrants.
There are numerous reasons for patriotic Americans to question whether the US government is acting in our best interests and according to our values. It is evident that the government cannot be trusted with our data and it cannot be trusted with oversight. The wonderful thing about the Internet age is that it enables the people to take back their government in new and interesting ways. Americans are nothing if not inventive. I expect interesting times ahead.
The NSA is supposed to be capturing and storing the Internet for their surveillance purposes. We already have a mechanism for capturing and storing the bits - courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. I welcome future electronic deletion - nature has it's change agents - we are all just dust in the wind.
Law enforcement has no privacy rights in public while performing their duties. Citizens may observe, photograph and film them as long as they do not interfere. Citizens have the right to report on the location of public officials performing their public duties.
National Sheriff's Association can go f**k themselves. Citizens have the right to observe and report on law enforcement.
Disclaimer: I got my MCSE in Windows NT days, and worked at Microsoft through the Windows 2000 and XP days.
Today my work issued hardware runs iOS, my personal computers have Linux Mint 17.1 and my personal devices are Android based. I can accomplish all my tasks with less hassle and overhead.
For me now Microsoft Windows is just not worth the cost and maintenance involved.
Given the clear insidious exploitation of Internet infrastructure by US intelligence gathering agencies, any company that uses US based SaaS services or stores corporate data on US based servers is failing their security and fiduciary duties to their shareholders. No US company or server can be considered as all data and communications will be available to the NSA and potentially misused by other US government agencies.
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