The dangers of our new normal...

[Deranged Rhino]

Rand Paul Is Right: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

The way it works is, the FISA court, through Section 702, wiretaps foreigners and then [NSA] listens to Americans. It is a backdoor search of Americans. And because they have so much data, they can tap — type Donald Trump into their vast resources of people they are tapping overseas, and they get all of his phone calls.

And so they did this to President Obama. They — 1,227 times eavesdrops on President Obama’s phone calls. Then they mask him. But here is the problem. And General Hayden said this the other day. He said even low-level employees can unmask the caller. That is probably what happened to Flynn.

They are not targeting Americans. They are targeting foreigners. But they are doing it purposefully to get to Americans.

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Bose headphones spy on listeners - lawsuit

 

Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.

The complaint filed on Tuesday by Kyle Zak in federal court in Chicago seeks an injunction to stop Bose's "wholesale disregard" for the privacy of customers who download its free Bose Connect app from Apple Inc or Google Play stores to their smartphones.

"People should be uncomfortable with it," Christopher Dore, a lawyer representing Zak, said in an interview. "People put headphones on their head because they think it's private, but they can be giving out information they don't want to share."

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/bose-headphones-spy-listeners-lawsuit-174749975--finance.html

[boyst]

Its different when its apple who tells you all of this, though.

 

Ahhhh sheeple. You're so !@#$ing stupid.

[Tiberius]

French Election being hacked to support right wing candidate.

[ALF]

French Election being hacked to support right wing candidate.

 

I cannot imagine Marine winning in France. They have big problems but will not go that extreme jmo

[Deranged Rhino]

French Election being hacked to support right wing candidate.

Or, considering the timing (too late to impact the election's outcome), it's a leak (not a hack) designed to keep the target painted on the big bad Bear.

[Deranged Rhino]

Julian Assange Rape Inquiry Is Dropped but His Legal Problems Remain Enormous

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/world/europe/julian-assange-sweden-rape.html

 

...And JA's response:

 

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/865553683387367425

[snafu]

Julian Assange Rape Inquiry Is Dropped but His Legal Problems Remain Enormous

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/world/europe/julian-assange-sweden-rape.html

 

...And JA's response:

 

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/865553683387367425

I wouldn't expect him to come out of the embassy and squint into the light of the sun anytime soon.

[Deranged Rhino]

I wouldn't expect him to come out of the embassy and squint into the light of the sun anytime soon.

 

Agreed.

[B-Man]

TO BE FAIR, WHO DIDN’T HACK THE U.S. IN THE OBAMA ERA?

Did China Hack The CIA In Massive Intelligence Breach From 2010 To 2012?

And back then, nobody much cared about foreign hacking.

But then, that was before it was thought to cost Democrats power. . . . . Now it’s a crisis!

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/265423/

Edited May 21, 2017 by B-Man

[Deranged Rhino]

 

TO BE FAIR, WHO DIDN’T HACK THE U.S. IN THE OBAMA ERA?

Did China Hack The CIA In Massive Intelligence Breach From 2010 To 2012?

And back then, nobody much cared about foreign hacking.

But then, that was before it was thought to cost Democrats power. . . . . Now it’s a crisis!

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/265423/

 

 

 

Related: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html

[Deranged Rhino]

Still going through this... but here's the FISA court requests from 44's administration in September.

 

The headline so far:

 

"Moreover, NSA upsteam collection acquired Internet communications that were to, from or about (i.e., containing a reference to) a selector tasked for acquisition under Section 702. As a result, upstream collection could acquire an entire MCT for which the active user was a non-target and that mostly pertained to non-targets, merely because a single discrete communication within the MCT was to, from or contained a reference to a tasked selector."

https://i.imgur.com/VysdzE9.png

 

What that means in short is the NSA massively overstepped its reach (shocking).

 

It's saying that if you were a US citizen who was not on a target list, your communications were intercepted if it had a matching selector (email address, phone number, et al). So, for example, if the selector was say Julian Assange's wikileaks email address, your communications were picked up and unmasked if they in any way referenced that address or anything related to Assange, his email, or wikileaks.

 

Let that sink in.

 

This is significant because it shows NSA was in violation of its internal minimization rules. The NSA is not supposed to spy on citizens just for referencing or discussing a selector, not without a FISA warrant, but this is showing that's exactly what they did/are doing.

 

Those thinking that the fourth amendment is still functional need to read this.

 

Full doc: https://www.scribd.com/document/349261099/2016-Cert-FISC-Memo-Opin-Order-Apr-2017-4#download

[GoBills808]

Still going through this... but here's the FISA court requests from 44's administration in September.

 

The headline so far:

 

"Moreover, NSA upsteam collection acquired Internet communications that were to, from or about (i.e., containing a reference to) a selector tasked for acquisition under Section 702. As a result, upstream collection could acquire an entire MCT for which the active user was a non-target and that mostly pertained to non-targets, merely because a single discrete communication within the MCT was to, from or contained a reference to a tasked selector."

https://i.imgur.com/VysdzE9.png

 

What that means in short is the NSA massively overstepped its reach (shocking).

 

It's saying that if you were a US citizen who was not on a target list, your communications were intercepted if it had a matching selector (email address, phone number, et al). So, for example, if the selector was say Julian Assange's wikileaks email address, your communications were picked up and unmasked if they in any way referenced that address or anything related to Assange, his email, or wikileaks.

 

Let that sink in.

 

This is significant because it shows NSA was in violation of its internal minimization rules. The NSA is not supposed to spy on citizens just for referencing or discussing a selector, not without a FISA warrant, but this is showing that's exactly what they did/are doing.

 

Those thinking that the fourth amendment is still functional need to read this.

 

Full doc: https://www.scribd.com/document/349261099/2016-Cert-FISC-Memo-Opin-Order-Apr-2017-4#download

I don't really have a problem with the 'to' or 'from', but 'contained a reference' is really terrible.

[Deranged Rhino]

I don't really have a problem with the 'to' or 'from', but 'contained a reference' is really terrible.

 

Agreed.

I'm not anti-law enforcement or intelligence services. I understand and respect the fact that there are bad guys out there who want to hurt innocents. I also understand that there are trade-offs we must make to live in both a free and safe society. What I have a big problem with is secretly violating the constitutional rights of innocent Americans - not to stop terrorism - but to stop dissent, free speech, and free thought.

The thing that's nuts about this release is that the topic of this particular FISA request was (essentially) Russian interference in the election. Which also happened to be the biggest news story of the year (not a coincidence imo for multiple reasons, this being one of them) - meaning, everyone was talking about it/referencing it/searching the internet about it. This document shows us that the NSA has repeatedly and unabashedly violated our constitutional protections and collected our communications just for talking/thinking/learning about the biggest news story of the day.

That's how control is achieved. This is the template for how the USIC can not only sidestep the constitution whenever it pleases without recourse, but it also shows how easy it would be for the USIC to manipulate the national conversation (through their sources in the media) in order to sort out who's a threat or a dissenter versus who is "loyal" to their chosen cause/narrative/agenda at the time.

And that's the dark side of this topic and why I rode the left so hard the past 3 years about this topic and their blind support of the NSA program. It wasn't to bash them, it was to wake them up. This isn't about left or right. This isn't about politics. Because eventually there's going to be a person in the Oval whom you disagree with politically. And that president will have the reigns of this massively powerful and invasive surveillance state.

Without privacy, freedom dies. That's not hyperbole. The ability to both express and challenge new ideas are the bedrocks of not just traditional liberalism, but of progress.

I didn't write this back then thinking of Trump, but it is amazing how much of the bolded came true (from Gator's POV at least):

 

let's say worst case. All of the above, whatever. So what's your point? What the hell is your point and solution?

 

 

 

Let's walk this out a bit more. The bulk of your assets are in 1s and 0s on a computer, you access this through your debit cards and credit cards. All of that is logged and stored for analysis whenever it's deemed necessary. More and more of your bills are paid with automatic debits from your accounts, increasing your dependency upon being connected each passing day. So far you've never tripped any alarms or alerts at the state level because you live an otherwise normal life and abide by the laws of the land. You're not a killer, you're not a terrorist, you're not a kook plotting to blow someone up for whatever reason. You're Gatorman, US citizen, going about your day.

 

Cut to 2016. Unless something mildly historic happens, the GOP (whom you seemingly don't like very much, go along with it if that's not entirely accurate for the sake of this example) is going to win the presidency. Now, imagine that they ran your WORST nightmare, doesn't matter who -- it could be W again -- and he won. Now the GOP is in power, controlling the senate, house and executive. Now imagine that the new president is every bit the bastard you fear he would become, he's overturning gay marriages, he's repealing the ACA, he's about to start WW3 by bombing Iran because he had a bad BM to start his morning -- I'm talking your absolute worst nightmare of a president. Still with me?

 

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by Deranged Rhino

[Deranged Rhino]

Bumping this post in light of this news:

 

Justice Department wants data on anti-Trump protesters. An L.A. tech firm is resisting

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-trump-protests-dreamhost-20170815-story.html

 

 

let's say worst case. All of the above, whatever. So what's your point? What the hell is your point and solution?

 

 

Let's walk this out a bit more. The bulk of your assets are in 1s and 0s on a computer, you access this through your debit cards and credit cards. All of that is logged and stored for analysis whenever it's deemed necessary. More and more of your bills are paid with automatic debits from your accounts, increasing your dependency upon being connected each passing day. So far you've never tripped any alarms or alerts at the state level because you live an otherwise normal life and abide by the laws of the land. You're not a killer, you're not a terrorist, you're not a kook plotting to blow someone up for whatever reason. You're Gatorman, US citizen, going about your day.

 

Cut to 2016. Unless something mildly historic happens, the GOP (whom you seemingly don't like very much, go along with it if that's not entirely accurate for the sake of this example) is going to win the presidency. Now, imagine that they ran your WORST nightmare, doesn't matter who -- it could be W again -- and he won. Now the GOP is in power, controlling the senate, house and executive. Now imagine that the new president is every bit the bastard you fear he would become, he's overturning gay marriages, he's repealing the ACA, he's about to start WW3 by bombing Iran because he had a bad BM to start his morning -- I'm talking your absolute worst nightmare of a president. Still with me?

 

Rightfully enraged by #45's new policies, you begin to exercise your right to free speech by donating money to the opposition party. The new president, as part of his scheme, wrote an executive order (classified top secret) that added "alerts" to all the watch lists of the surveillance apparatus. These alerts create a list of anyone who donates to the opposition party, or anyone who mentions going to a rally on the phone/email/text/social media. Even in jest. The moment you begin to move those 1s and 0s around in your bank account towards Elizabeth Warren's campaign, you're added to their watch list. Without needing a warrant, or without you having any knowledge they're doing so, the intelligence apparatus begins to go back through your entire history to see who you are. To look for ways to discredit you should they need to. Let's say this bastard of a president wants to take it one step further and freeze anyone's assets who pop up on the watch list (regardless of reason). So, your bank accounts are frozen (without warning), your mortgage payments, car payments, all your bills begin to mount up with no way to pay them. When you go to the bank to solve the problem, the bank tells you their hands are tied. The government doesn't have to tell them why they ordered your accounts frozen, that's classified. The bank has to comply and you're !@#$ed. No access to your money, no understanding of why this happened... all because you tried to voice an opposition opinion as is your right as a US citizen.

 

All of this, right now, today, is legal and possible without a warrant or need for judicial oversight. Think about that. Without due process, the US Government can declare you a threat to national security (without having to prove anything more than a suspicion) and completely remove your democratic means of expressing yourself. This has always been possible on some scale, history is full of tyrants imprisoning innocents. But no tyrant has ever had the amount of control today's US Government is capable of. I said it earlier and you scoffed, but if information is power then what the government has today is absolute power. And that always leads to absolute control.

 

While the idea of the above scenario seems unlikely to go that bad in a year's time, what happens 10 years from now? Twenty? Say it's 2035, it's been over two decades without a terrorist attack on US soil. ISIS / whoever is the boogeyman of the day has been defeated. But these policies are still on the books because the public has already considered them a fait accompli -- who's stopping the powers that be in 2035 from amending these laws and powers to suit their own political interests? Especially when they don't have to tell us (as the law is written today) that they've changed it at all?

 

You'll read this and think it's paranoia, but I urge you to inform yourself on the realities of the world you're living in first. If you do, you'll see that everything I walked out in this scenario is legal and possible today. The only thing that has prevented it from happening are the people currently in power. How much faith in those elected representatives keeping to the straight and narrow without abusing what essentially is unlimited power over the individual do you actually have? Hasn't there been enough political malfeasance over your lifetime to make you at least a little suspicious or hesitant to willingly surrender your individual right to privacy and due process to a faceless, nameless government entity with zero oversight?

 

You ask me for solutions and I have some. But not many. Why? Because this is an issue that isn't even being debated, it's difficult if not impossible to find a solution to something without understanding the full picture. Bits and pieces of that picture are now public but not the entire thing. We're not allowed to be fully aware of all the issues because our government doesn't think we're capable of making such choices for ourselves.

 

And attitudes like the one you're demonstrating in this thread are exactly why they may ultimately be right.

And once you absorb that... imagine what happens when it's not the US Government at the wheel of this kind of apparatus, but the Chinese/Russians/Iranians/Exxon/Apple/Google et al. If you don't think government is capable of overstepping their power and limits, how much faith do you have in corporations or criminal enterprises exerting the same type of restraint?

 

That's another reason why this is such an important issue. We might be the first perhaps only government to have this kind of capability presently, but we certainly won't be the last.

[GG]

Greggy, just revisiting our initial suppositions. This story supports my PoV that the bigger danger is how the technology is applied in the private sector and its potential for harm, and not so much from the scary government monster.

 

The words FOR SHAME have long been spoken to people accused of offensive behavior. Now, thanks to the Internet, those words (and worse) can be sent, sometimes unjustifiably, to millions around the world

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Greggy, just revisiting our initial suppositions. This story supports my PoV that the bigger danger is how the technology is applied in the private sector and its potential for harm, and not so much from the scary government monster.

 

It does.

 

Though, for clarity, I've never denied the private sector's ability to do harm with regards to this topic. There's no question it's dangerous - but in terms of being able to smite an individual, the private sector (alone) can't match the state's abilities. But I don't think it's a true either / or answer. Not when the private sector is so deeply interwoven with the federal government, especially silicon valley companies.

 

Both are dangerous. Together they're catastrophic to a free society.

[Deranged Rhino]

On 3/15/2015 at 2:57 PM, Deranged Rhino said:

 

Let's walk this out a bit more. The bulk of your assets are in 1s and 0s on a computer, you access this through your debit cards and credit cards. All of that is logged and stored for analysis whenever it's deemed necessary. More and more of your bills are paid with automatic debits from your accounts, increasing your dependency upon being connected each passing day. So far you've never tripped any alarms or alerts at the state level because you live an otherwise normal life and abide by the laws of the land. You're not a killer, you're not a terrorist, you're not a kook plotting to blow someone up for whatever reason. You're Gatorman, US citizen, going about your day.

 

Cut to 2016. Unless something mildly historic happens, the GOP (whom you seemingly don't like very much, go along with it if that's not entirely accurate for the sake of this example) is going to win the presidency. Now, imagine that they ran your WORST nightmare, doesn't matter who -- it could be W again -- and he won. Now the GOP is in power, controlling the senate, house and executive. Now imagine that the new president is every bit the bastard you fear he would become, he's overturning gay marriages, he's repealing the ACA, he's about to start WW3 by bombing Iran because he had a bad BM to start his morning -- I'm talking your absolute worst nightmare of a president. Still with me?

 

Rightfully enraged by #45's new policies, you begin to exercise your right to free speech by donating money to the opposition party. The new president, as part of his scheme, wrote an executive order (classified top secret) that added "alerts" to all the watch lists of the surveillance apparatus. These alerts create a list of anyone who donates to the opposition party, or anyone who mentions going to a rally on the phone/email/text/social media. Even in jest. The moment you begin to move those 1s and 0s around in your bank account towards Elizabeth Warren's campaign, you're added to their watch list. Without needing a warrant, or without you having any knowledge they're doing so, the intelligence apparatus begins to go back through your entire history to see who you are. To look for ways to discredit you should they need to. Let's say this bastard of a president wants to take it one step further and freeze anyone's assets who pop up on the watch list (regardless of reason). So, your bank accounts are frozen (without warning), your mortgage payments, car payments, all your bills begin to mount up with no way to pay them. When you go to the bank to solve the problem, the bank tells you their hands are tied. The government doesn't have to tell them why they ordered your accounts frozen, that's classified. The bank has to comply and you're !@#$ed. No access to your money, no understanding of why this happened... all because you tried to voice an opposition opinion as is your right as a US citizen.

 

All of this, right now, today, is legal and possible without a warrant or need for judicial oversight. Think about that. Without due process, the US Government can declare you a threat to national security (without having to prove anything more than a suspicion) and completely remove your democratic means of expressing yourself. This has always been possible on some scale, history is full of tyrants imprisoning innocents. But no tyrant has ever had the amount of control today's US Government is capable of. I said it earlier and you scoffed, but if information is power then what the government has today is absolute power. And that always leads to absolute control.

 

While the idea of the above scenario seems unlikely to go that bad in a year's time, what happens 10 years from now? Twenty? Say it's 2035, it's been over two decades without a terrorist attack on US soil. ISIS / whoever is the boogeyman of the day has been defeated. But these policies are still on the books because the public has already considered them a fait accompli -- who's stopping the powers that be in 2035 from amending these laws and powers to suit their own political interests? Especially when they don't have to tell us (as the law is written today) that they've changed it at all?

 

You'll read this and think it's paranoia, but I urge you to inform yourself on the realities of the world you're living in first. If you do, you'll see that everything I walked out in this scenario is legal and possible today. The only thing that has prevented it from happening are the people currently in power. How much faith in those elected representatives keeping to the straight and narrow without abusing what essentially is unlimited power over the individual do you actually have? Hasn't there been enough political malfeasance over your lifetime to make you at least a little suspicious or hesitant to willingly surrender your individual right to privacy and due process to a faceless, nameless government entity with zero oversight?

 

You ask me for solutions and I have some. But not many. Why? Because this is an issue that isn't even being debated, it's difficult if not impossible to find a solution to something without understanding the full picture. Bits and pieces of that picture are now public but not the entire thing. We're not allowed to be fully aware of all the issues because our government doesn't think we're capable of making such choices for ourselves.

 

And attitudes like the one you're demonstrating in this thread are exactly why they may ultimately be right.

 

And once you absorb that... imagine what happens when it's not the US Government at the wheel of this kind of apparatus, but the Chinese/Russians/Iranians/Exxon/Apple/Google et al. If you don't think government is capable of overstepping their power and limits, how much faith do you have in corporations or criminal enterprises exerting the same type of restraint?

 

That's another reason why this is such an important issue. We might be the first perhaps only government to have this kind of capability presently, but we certainly won't be the last.

 

In light of the previous administration using FBI and the DOJ to create the basis for a  FISA warrant to illegally spy on the opposition candidate, I figured this was worth bumping. 

 

 

[DC Tom]

23 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

In light of the previous administration using FBI and the DOJ to create the basis for a  FISA warrant to illegally spy on the opposition candidate, I figured this was worth bumping. 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, I remember this.  This is what led gator to saying it's no big deal because Nazis did it too, and ultimately to the identification of a brand new logical fallacy, the Gatorman Fallacy.

 

I hate this thread.

 

 

[TakeYouToTasker]

2 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

Oh yeah, I remember this.  This is what led gator to saying it's no big deal because Nazis did it too, and ultimately to the identification of a brand new logical fallacy, the Gatorman Fallacy.

 

I hate this thread.

 

 

Good grief.  Do you remember where that nugget of stupid is?