NSA Scandal

[Acidmouse]

Is this a surprise to anyone?

they been doing this for years and years...makes sense if you want to prevent terrorism.

yeah worked with the Bostom bombers presumably they were model citizens in all their online comms, so the authorities ignored the intell that said they were nutjobs.

All this has fck all to do with preventing terrorism and everything to do with making people close to government millions of dollars.  The guy that whistleblew was earning $200k pa reportedly and he wasn't that senior.  So what do you think the owners of these "contractors" are making.

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality. I know it sounds obvious but any help they can get and that includes monitoring comms online for keywords etc helps whether we like it or not that's pretty much a given.

Using it as the sole reason to snoop on everyone is wrong and silly. But trust me it's done in this country and does it need to be outlined why/what they do to everyone?

[Jon MW]

Is this a surprise to anyone?

they been doing this for years and years...makes sense if you want to prevent terrorism.

yeah worked with the Bostom bombers presumably they were model citizens in all their online comms, so the authorities ignored the intell that said they were nutjobs.

All this has fck all to do with preventing terrorism and everything to do with making people close to government millions of dollars.  The guy that whistleblew was earning $200k pa reportedly and he wasn't that senior.  So what do you think the owners of these "contractors" are making.

lol the intelligence services have always paid very generously.

As for the Boston Bombers - just like the tweeter not being allowed entry. that's not really a problem with the surveillance is it? It's a problem with how the data collected is used and analysed.

[doubleup]

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality.

Source?

[Acidmouse]

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality.

Source?

I was interviewed by terrorist police about 2 months after 7/7 bombings as I had previously reported one of them for viewing terrorist websites at a college i worked at.  Also some informal chats with a senior anti terrorist officer in the UK, both experiences gave me a clear outline of the scale of the problem and monitoring that was taking place, just in Yorkshire. During these conversations and my interview it was also obvious that they had monitored these people before and alot of their friends online activity, email, chats, browsing etc...

Like I said, just because its not been explicitly clear how they monitor in this country it IS happening and has been for a while.

[Jon MW]

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality.

Source?

I was interviewed by terrorist police about 2 months after 7/7 bombings as I had previously reported one of them for viewing terrorist websites at a college i worked at.  Also some informal chats with a senior anti terrorist officer in the UK, both experiences gave me a clear outline of the scale of the problem and monitoring that was taking place, just in Yorkshire. During these conversations and my interview it was also obvious that they had monitored these people before and alot of their friends online activity, email, chats, browsing etc...

Like I said, just because its not been explicitly clear how they monitor in this country it IS happening and has been for a while.

Also if they weren't using surveillance information to stop threats - what exactly do you think the intelligence services do all day?


"a while" = pretty much since the Second World War btw

[Acidmouse]

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality.

Source?

I was interviewed by terrorist police about 2 months after 7/7 bombings as I had previously reported one of them for viewing terrorist websites at a college i worked at.  Also some informal chats with a senior anti terrorist officer in the UK, both experiences gave me a clear outline of the scale of the problem and monitoring that was taking place, just in Yorkshire. During these conversations and my interview it was also obvious that they had monitored these people before and alot of their friends online activity, email, chats, browsing etc...

Like I said, just because its not been explicitly clear how they monitor in this country it IS happening and has been for a while.

Also if they weren't using surveillance information to stop threats - what exactly do you think the intelligence services do all day?


"a while" = pretty much since the Second World War btw

no idea what they do, I guess thats for others to talk about.

[doubleup]

for every bombing, act of terrorism that actually happens you will have 1000's in this country that have been squashed well before it is reality.

Source?

I was interviewed by terrorist police about 2 months after 7/7 bombings as I had previously reported one of them for viewing terrorist websites at a college i worked at.  Also some informal chats with a senior anti terrorist officer in the UK, both experiences gave me a clear outline of the scale of the problem and monitoring that was taking place, just in Yorkshire. During these conversations and my interview it was also obvious that they had monitored these people before and alot of their friends online activity, email, chats, browsing etc...

Like I said, just because its not been explicitly clear how they monitor in this country it IS happening and has been for a while.

You said there were many thousands of plots foiled.  

So where are the court cases?  There should be about 2 a day so where are this week's ten?

[wazz]

What make me smile are the way people get their hair off with all this government surveillance stuff but don't say a word about how the big corps such as Google do everything in their power to get as much info about us to make as much money as possible under the premise that they are doing us a favour.

What makes you think people aren't also annoyed about that? There are loads of people who refuse to use Google or give them real information; even those who do still use Google, and complain about the US governments' surveillance would be perfectly reasonable to do so. Every level of their government has shown itself to be corrupt, overly power-happy or incompetent; sometimes all at the same time. I doubt Google have any nefarious intentions to use information about me worse than personalising my adverts. Which I don't like, but I can get over.

I don't buy this whole 'price of freedom' crap, nor this mythical, unfounded 1000:1 ratio.

[titaniumbean]

 Every level of their government has shown itself to be corrupt, overly power-happy or incompetent; sometimes all at the same time.

this is my main issue. cant trust any of the fuckers.

it's not like US have everyones best interests at heart, or that they actually like freedom/democracy/transparency all the sorts of things they like to preach about.

i'm much happier to have security services in charge of this sort of treasure trove of data, as opposed to governments/politicians, sudo contractor/previous government twats pretending they have best interests at heart when constantly furthering personally capitalist and US focused agendas.

[snoopy1239]

There must be a line though, surely. How would you feel if you found at that your phone lines had always been tapped, or that there were hidden cameras in your house just in case you did something bad? Would be people be okay with being tagged and surveyed 24//7?

[titaniumbean]

There must be a line though, surely. How would you feel if you found at that your phone lines had always been tapped, or that there were hidden cameras in your house just in case you did something bad? Would be people be okay with being tagged and surveyed 24//7?

we're hardly far off that, there are ways to turn on computers web cams etc etc

[Jon MW]

There must be a line though, surely. How would you feel if you found at that your phone lines had always been tapped, or that there were hidden cameras in your house just in case you did something bad? Would be people be okay with being tagged and surveyed 24//7?

we're hardly far off that, there are ways to turn on computers web cams etc etc

We're nowhere near that level

Like has been said before itt the web surveillance being done is just exactly the same level as what has been done for the last 50 odd years; the fact that people transmit quite so much information about themselves over the internet means that more data is being gathered - but it's being gathered by (pretty much) the same process.

And it's not like they're individually listening in to phone calls or reading emails - almost all of it is to do with the metadata - i.e. who you're talking to rather than what you're saying.

Things like phone taps and secret cameras and the rest have been available for all the time the intelligence services have been going on - we've probably got more legal safeguards and oversight to protect against it's abuse now than at any other time in it's history.

So at worse things are exactly the same now as they always have been, and at best they're better.

[titaniumbean]

was just pointing out that all these non tech savvy people seem to have no clue how things work or are transmitted and cant comprehend how much control/access people can have.

at the same time you can have vastly paid private contractors for 'defence' who are all about security and high level super dooperness being hacked by a 15 year old in their pants, oh kewl thank god we're leaving our high level security advice up to someone who cant protect an email server. marvelous.

the people that get punished for these leaks/embarrassments are the people who should be being used to strengthen our defences against that little building in china (lets not forget we've got barely anything of value any more that's secret as they have accessed it all) rather than becoming a target for assasination by team america.

it's bad form to point out the horrific injustices those in charge do but at the same time those in charge are let off without any punishment because 'they don't want to look back' and it's 'not in the public interest' (because the public might realise what utter dousches are in power making decisions that affect their lives daily), sok though team america can imprison the bulk of it's young black population on the auspice of counting to 3 being brilliant lawmaking and inherently just.

tis a very stupid country with some very stupid rules, luckily enough they have all the heavy weaponry and all the influence. marv.

[titaniumbean]

gotta love a good rape

http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/john-fugelsang-welcome-to-america-where-hacking-is-now-worse-than-raping/

[bobAlike]

What make me smile are the way people get their hair off with all this government surveillance stuff but don't say a word about how the big corps such as Google do everything in their power to get as much info about us to make as much money as possible under the premise that they are doing us a favour.

What makes you think people aren't also annoyed about that? There are loads of people who refuse to use Google or give them real information; even those who do still use Google, and complain about the US governments' surveillance would be perfectly reasonable to do so. Every level of their government has shown itself to be corrupt, overly power-happy or incompetent; sometimes all at the same time. I doubt Google have any nefarious intentions to use information about me worse than personalising my adverts. Which I don't like, but I can get over.

I don't buy this whole 'price of freedom' crap, nor this mythical, unfounded 1000:1 ratio.

I have no problem whatsoever with governments snooping to keep us safe as long as that is the reason behind it. I do however have problem with the likes of Google snooping wifi connections etc. just so they can deliver targeted adverts. And the lol bullshit that they didn't know it was happening.