The dangers of our new normal...

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Critics of SOP 303 argue that cellular communication is simply too vital to the public, particularly in times of emergency, to be shut off. Especially if the guidelines for doing so remain secret. “I don’t see any situation where you want to shut down the [cellular] phone network,” says Feld. “In the years since 9/11 we have moved all our critical public safety services onto the cellular network.”

Others question the counterterrorism benefits of shutting down cell service, pointing out that in previous attacks, bombers have detonated devices using their phones’ alarm clock feature, a method that does not require a cellular connection.

Civil liberties groups fear that such far-reaching and unchecked power could be used simply to quell dissent. That’s exactly what happened in August 2011 when officials of Northern California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system utilized its kill switch to temporarily shut off cellphone service in several subway stations. The shutdown wasn’t in response to a terrorist threat. Its purpose was to prevent a demonstration that organizers planned to hold in those stations protesting a fatal subway shooting by a BART police officer.

 

Obama fighting for "cell phone kill switch".

 

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/26/obama-fights-for-secrecy-cellphone-kill-switch.html

[Azalin]

"Civil liberties groups fear that such far-reaching and unchecked power could be used simply to quell dissent. That’s exactly what happened in August 2011 when officials of Northern California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system utilized its kill switch to temporarily shut off cellphone service in several subway stations. The shutdown wasn’t in response to a terrorist threat. Its purpose was to prevent a demonstration that organizers planned to hold in those stations protesting a fatal subway shooting by a BART police officer."

Impossible. According to our resident genius, you're just being paranoid.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

Impossible. According to our resident genius, you're just being paranoid.

 

 

You're so right. I forgot, we have checks and balances AND the freedom machine known as the Internet.

 

Funny, what do most people in America use to access the internet? Their cell phones. But, again, I'm being paranoid. A government approved "kill switch" will only be helpful to ensuring our continued freedoms, at least those freedoms the government deems us worthy of possessing.

[Chef Jim]

The Ferguson shooting was done without due process

So you're saying cops need to hold a jury trial before they shoot a threat? Because it sounds like you're saying cops need to hold a jury trial before they shoot a threat. See how dumb some of the things you say are. And you think you're winning.

[Azalin]

 

You're so right. I forgot, we have checks and balances AND the freedom machine known as the Internet.

 

Funny, what do most people in America use to access the internet? Their cell phones. But, again, I'm being paranoid. A government approved "kill switch" will only be helpful to ensuring our continued freedoms, at least those freedoms the government deems us worthy of possessing.

 

Indeed. Like me, you are beginning to see the light. I didn't realize how paranoid I was being when I began the thread against net neutrality. Government involvement in the internet is obviously all about fairness, and because of the web, we're all even more free than we were before. If the Feds happen to do a little checking up on us along the way, who cares? I mean, if we're not doing anything wrong, then what have we to worry about....right?

[Tiberius]

 

You don't even know how to read your own sources.

 

"The measure by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr would bypass Senate committees and reauthorize sections of the Patriot Act, including the provision under which the NSA is requiring phone companies to turn over the "to and from" records of most domestic landline calls."

No, I do know, you don't. By passing a committee is not avoiding checks and balances you idiot. It brings it to the Senate for a vote. The reason I posted this is to show the anti-Patriot Act bias, obvious the writer was counting on idiots like you not knowing how our system of government works. The writer sure hit the mark!

So you're saying cops need to hold a jury trial before they shoot a threat? Because it sounds like you're saying cops need to hold a jury trial before they shoot a threat. See how dumb some of the things you say are. And you think you're winning.

No, I'm saying the opposite

 

Obama fighting for "cell phone kill switch".

 

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/26/obama-fights-for-secrecy-cellphone-kill-switch.html

First they came for our cell phones...

[/dev/null]

First they came for our cell phones...

 

So I wrote up a rant on Facebook®. But then I realized they would be watching me even more so I did not post the rant. Then Facebook® kept the rant and gave it to the Government anyways

 

Then they came for my scary black semi-automatic rifle

[Deranged Rhino]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/28/snowden-nsa-bulk-collection-bill-senate-mcconnell-burr-column/26299779/

 

 

Reading the McConnell-Burr bill feels like entering a time warp; it is as if Snowden's disclosures and the resulting calls for change never happened. The legislation fails to make even the smallest nod to Americans' concerns. For instance, it could have paired the extension with provisions strengthening oversight or requiring more transparency. But the bill's sponsors are not responding to what most Americans want, or even what the intelligence community wants. After all, the Director of National Intelligence sent a letter to Congress last year supporting legislation that would end bulk collection. Their sole interest appears to be political: to block a reform supported by the Obama administration and most Democrats.

 

(snip)

 

Two independent panels reviewed all the relevant classified information and concluded that bulk collection yielded little or no counterterrorism benefit. Countering the threat from ISIL with an ineffective program does nothing but divert resources from more productive means of intelligence gathering.

 

The line about "most Democrats and Obama" wanting bulk collection reform is laughable... but it's USA Today, so...

[Deranged Rhino]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawb4Xfp3vE

[....lybob]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawb4Xfp3vE

very good

[Deranged Rhino]

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/tech-companies-line-up-behind-surveillance-reform-bill/

 

 

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Reform Government Surveillance, a lobbying group representing many tech companies including AOL (they write my paychecks), came out backing the 2015 version of the FREEDOM Act.

“We support the bicameral, bipartisan legislation, which ends existing bulk collection practices under the USA Patriot Act and increases transparency and accountability while also protecting U.S. national security,” Reform Government Surveillance said in a statement.

(SNIP)

But even with these new privacy and transparency measures, the bill makes concerning concessions on that front when it comes to national security. The last FREEDOM Act failed with a string of Republicans taking the Senate floor and warning drastic reforms would hinder the fight against ISIS.

Edited April 30, 2015 by GreggyT

[OCinBuffalo]

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/tech-companies-line-up-behind-surveillance-reform-bill/

 

 

Oh now this is just hilarious. Let's pretend you are a client, and I'm going to tell you what that means to you:

 

All that is happening here is these big companies want to prevent the government from using the very same strategies, tactics, tools and operations they themselves use. By preventing the government from having carte blanche access to networks and servers, they force the government into becoming their biggest customer, but, a customer who can't decide what he gets to buy, or when, or how.

 

Thus, these companies will decide which data the government has access to, but also, how much the government has to pay them to maintain that access. I'm no big fan of government, and I am "Corporate America", but this is corporate nonsense. And it makes "corporate welfare" look like a PSA. Leftist firms, especially Google, are just as likely to violate your rights as government is. What is the real difference between an NSA Data Warehouse, and a Google Data Warehouse? Nothing. I helped design the first, PASSIVE, spyware architecture. I know damn well what the specs are for these systems. 3 other architects and I wrote them, literally.

 

Finally, Google has already proven itself to be 100% in the tank for Ds, and is using its technical resources and data to actively assist them in winning elections. That's a line that shouldn't have been crossed. Giving $ is one thing. Tracking US citizens for the express purpose of monitoring/gaining their vote is quite another. Where is the oversight on them? What prevents them from leaking search history to damage political opponents? What prevents them from leaking location data for the same reasons? What prevents them from warehousing emails, keystrokes or swipe history, contact info, call history, or even call recordings? Thus, if you understand the processes at work here, and the techincal capabilities: What prevents them from voter intimidation or undue influence? Worst case: what prevents them from weaponizing their analytics and handing them to a Lois Lerner-type?

 

You are right to think we have a privacy problem WRT the NSA, but I maintain it's merely part of a much larger problem WRT government being too large to control and therefore out of control, and their leftist corporate sponsors being completely unnaccountable and out of control.

Edited May 1, 2015 by OCinBuffalo

[Deranged Rhino]

Fed's Anti-Encryption Campaign Ramps Up: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/4/feds-are-using-fear-not-facts-in-anti-encryption-crusade.html

 

 

Last week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, Department of Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnsonbegged Silicon Valley companies to give the government access to encrypted communications, asking the crowd to “imagine the problems if well after the advent of the telephone, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had extended only to the U.S. mail.”

“Imagine an America where federal, state and municipal law enforcement agencies cannot access critical communications, even when legally authorized to do so,” begins a recent Wall Street Journal blog post written by Amy Hess, the FBI’s executive assistant director. “Imagine the injustice if a suspected criminal can hide incriminating communications without fear of discovery by the police or if information that could exonerate an innocent party is inaccessible.”

The reason the FBI, Homeland Security and other agencies want us to imagine these frightening scenarios is that their encryption problem is just that: imaginary. It’s built on the false premise that making encryption more accessible will allow criminals to shield themselves from the law. The only solution, the government says, is for companies to put backdoors into their devices and apps, which by definition means installing defects that make our data more vulnerable to criminals and spies.

(SNIP)

It might also explain why U.S. agencies are still unable to show a single case in which encryption has crippled a criminal investigation. According to annual reports presented to Congress since 1997, encryption wasn’t an obstacle to government wiretaps even once until 2012. Of the 3,576 wiretaps authorized in 2013, the government was bested by encryption in only nine cases. None of those cases involved terrorists, kidnappers or any of the other cyberbogeymen the FBI keeps warning about, and there’s no indication that encryption alone prevented any crimes from being solved.

So either government agencies are being incredibly modest or they’re simply hiding the fact that encryption isn’t a real problem because they already have the means to circumvent it.

 

Shameless fear mongering continues.

Edited May 1, 2015 by GreggyT

[DC Tom]

Last week at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, Department of Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnsonbegged Silicon Valley companies to give the government access to encrypted communications, asking the crowd to “imagine the problems if well after the advent of the telephone, the warrant authority of the government to investigate crime had extended only to the U.S. mail.”

 

 

Um...what?

 

1) No one's denying the government access to encrypted communication. We just want you to GET A GODDAMN WARRANT FIRST! Because,

2) No one's trying to restrict the warrant authority of the government. But you're pointedly asking everyone "Look, let's just forget the whole warrant business, it's so inconvenient." Because...

3) You're not INVESTIGATING crime. You're trying to PREDICT crime, by going on a fishing expedition in an ocean of data.

 

An unbelievable amount of newspeak doubletalk in that one sentence fragment. Johnson's either thoroughly mendacious, or witheringly incompetent. Either way, he shouldn't be in the position he's in.

[Deranged Rhino]

 

 

Um...what?

 

 

It gets even better:

 

 

 

Significantly, with its stipulation, the government has avoided a trial in which the 65-year-old former executive planned to air what he says was his refusal, in 2001, to allow Qwest to participate in a National Security Agency program he believed was illegal. That trial might have attracted some media attention, given revelations over the past two years about the NSA’s illegal collection of metadata on U.S. phone calls and its other once secret programs—disclosures based on documents taken by NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden, now living in Russia. Nacchio contends he was prosecuted only because he refused to go along with the NSA and that his criminal trial was unfairly influenced by his inability to introduce certain classified information. As the combative, Brooklyn born ex-con put it in a CNBC specialon white collar criminals that aired this week: “My crime was a political crime. It dealt with saying `no’ to an intelligence agency doing illegal surveillance.”

 

 

Of course Nacchio is full of **** -- and it can be proven apparently -- but the government is still ready to let him walk away with $18 million in tax payer money just to avoid more attention being focused on the massive (and growing) surveillance of US citizens. You'd think it'd be cheaper to take him out of the picture entirely.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2015/05/01/u-s-avoids-trial-on-ex-qwest-ceos-nsa-claims-with-18-million-tax-refund-deal/

[OCinBuffalo]

 

 

Um...what?

 

1) No one's denying the government access to encrypted communication. We just want you to GET A GODDAMN WARRANT FIRST! Because,

2) No one's trying to restrict the warrant authority of the government. But you're pointedly asking everyone "Look, let's just forget the whole warrant business, it's so inconvenient." Because...

3) You're not INVESTIGATING crime. You're trying to PREDICT crime, by going on a fishing expedition in an ocean of data.

 

An unbelievable amount of newspeak doubletalk in that one sentence fragment. Johnson's either thoroughly mendacious, or witheringly incompetent. Either way, he shouldn't be in the position he's in.

And all of the the above is of course the other side, or, when the pendulum swings too far the other way.

 

There has to be balance. We can't allow the Federal government to have its hands tied by Google et al, or worse, have Google and Yahoo become data privateers for the Federal government. But, we also can't allow the Federal government to do anything without adult supervision. DC_Tom is right: the very last thing we need is government bureacrats thinking they can build, but more importantly, properly run, what they've seen on a TV crime show.

 

It's a complex problem and there are no easy answers. IF we rely strictly on warrants, then we are turning over National Security policy decisions to the Judiciary. Some judge with a wack-job agenda, who thinks Muslim terrorists are "freedom fighters" and doesn't realize that they are actually "tyranny fighters", can be deadly to all of us. It's staggering idiocy, but, there are still people who think Obama's "engagement" policy is not the laughing stock it has proven to be.

 

The Patriot Act was supposed to be able to strike a balance, and we all know it doesn't. FISA courts aen't the problem, IMHO, and should be retained. But, arbitrary, bulk collection of data without a specific cause shown? That has to go.

 

Some of this makes me feel more optimistic.

[Azalin]

Has anyone noticed the start page for Mozilla Firefox lately?

 

 

"What kind of information do you think the United States government should collect about you? Sort it out here, and get smart on surveillance."

 

https://sendto.mozilla.org/page/content/surveillance-interstitial/?ref=20150414Advocacy_Surveil&utm_campaign=20150414Advocacy_Surveil&utm_source=firefox&utm_medium=snippet&sample_rate=0.1&snippet_name=5161

[Deranged Rhino]

The FBI wants us to have computer security so strong only they can break in:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/03/fbi-computer-security-strong-break-in

[Tiberius]

The FBI wants us to have computer security so strong only they can break in:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/03/fbi-computer-security-strong-break-in

Drug lords, terrorists and criminals are all hoping for that stronger security!

[Deranged Rhino]

Drug lords, terrorists and criminals are all hoping for that stronger security!

 

Do you even understand what the FBI is asking for? Of course you don't.