On-Topic Edward Snowden: NSA Whistleblower Revealed, Interview

[tigerfan482]

Buckets of it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-nsa-files

It's all metadata, all uncorrelated with user data, all with no reasonable expectation of privacy, and all of it perfectly legal to gather. It's not spying if it's information willingly given up (in the case of metadata) in a situation where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. The spying comes when your emails are read and your phone calls are listened to, which there is no evidence of.

And people seem to be confused about what it is the NSA is provided. They don't make copes of everyone's phone bill and send them to NSA. They send NSA a list of all of the calls made in a day, which includes an originating phone number, a destination phone number, and a call duration. There is no identifying information in that and it requires a court order in order to correlate any identifying information to those numbers.

 

[kallipolis]

You're talking about one charge that he pleaded not guilty to. There are 10 others that he has pleaded guilty to. Even if he is found not guilty on this one charge, he is still guilty of those 10 he pleaded guilty to.

Yes, the most serious.

- - - Updated - - -

Buckets of it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-nsa-files

The Guardian is off limits to American patriots for fear that the truth might be infectious.

 

[bankside]

Tiger fan to buckets of evidence you respond with shovels full of unquestioning nationalist marketing babble. The data is clearly captured in a coherent integrated form to intrude grotesquely in the private sphere. Not because someone has complained to the police about a suspicious neighbour. Not because an idiot wrote a letter that crossed the line from angry opinion to credible threat. We are observed for the simple reason that your government is just nosy.

A seal of approval from a "star chamber" court does not make anything legal.

 

[T-Rexx]

It's all metadata, all uncorrelated with user data, all with no reasonable expectation of privacy, and all of it perfectly legal to gather.

All untrue.

Ever since phones were invented, collection of call records ("metadata") has required a court order. Because there is most definitely an expectation of privacy.

It's not spying if it's information willingly given up (in the case of metadata) in a situation where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

But the information is not "willingly given up." And there is an expectation of privacy. Therefore, by your own definition, it is "spying."

The spying comes when your emails are read and your phone calls are listened to, which there is no evidence of. And people seem to be confused about what it is the NSA is provided. They don't make copes of everyone's phone bill and send them to NSA. They send NSA a list of all of the calls made in a day, which includes an originating phone number, a destination phone number, and a call duration. There is no identifying information in that and it requires a court order in order to correlate any identifying information to those numbers.

Actually, there is evidence of emails being read, phones tapped, and a lot more:

Alleged NSA internal slides included in the disclosures purported to show that the NSA could unilaterally access data and perform "extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information" with examples including email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats (such as Skype), file transfers, and social networking details.[2] Snowden summarized that "in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want".[10]

According to The Washington Post, the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be U.S. citizens, but in the process, communication data of some U.S. citizens are also collected unintentionally.[1] Training materials for analysts tell them that while they should periodically report such accidental collection of non-foreign U.S. data, "it's nothing to worry about".[1]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

 

[T-Rexx]

Today, the airplane of the Bolivian president (flying back from Moscow) was denied access to Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian air space at the request of the US government, on suspicion that Snowden was on board.

The plane landed in Vienna, and was searched. Snowden was not on board.

I wonder that anybody believes anything the US government says anymore.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23158242

 

[JayHawk]

It is rather interesting that in spite of their public bravado, the governments involved have no problem attempting to capture and turnover Snowden. Like I said, if any of you think your government doesn't do this stuff then you are delusional.

 

[tigerfan482]

Tiger fan to buckets of evidence you respond with shovels full of unquestioning nationalist marketing babble. The data is clearly captured in a coherent integrated form to intrude grotesquely in the private sphere. Not because someone has complained to the police about a suspicious neighbour. Not because an idiot wrote a letter that crossed the line from angry opinion to credible threat. We are observed for the simple reason that your government is just nosy.

A seal of approval from a "star chamber" court does not make anything legal.

The "buckets of evidence" you cite are nothing more than what has already been discussed here and what has been repeatedly shown to not contain any evidence of Americans being spied on. What every one of those articles references (of those that actually reference any source material) show that the government collects metadata, which it is legally allowed to do. There has been no evidence, either in your link or anywhere else that the government is actually spying on Americans.

And a seal of approval from the court Constitutionally instituted to deal with these matters does make it legal. In fact, it's the very definition of being legal.

All untrue.

Ever since phones were invented, collection of call records ("metadata") has required a court order. Because there is most definitely an expectation of privacy.

But the information is not "willingly given up." And there is an expectation of privacy. Therefore, by your own definition, it is "spying."

Not true in the least. Please brush up on the Supreme Court decision in Smith vs. Maryland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland AND http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=442&page=735

Held:

The installation and use of the pen register was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant was required. Pp. 739-746.

(a) Application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a "legitimate expectation of privacy" that has been invaded by government action. This inquiry normally embraces two questions: first, whether the individual has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy; and second, whether his expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 . Pp. 739-741.
(b) Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he did, his expectation was not "legitimate." First, it is doubtful that telephone users in general have any expectation of privacy regarding the numbers they dial, since they typically know that they must convey phone numbers to the telephone company and that the company has facilities for recording this information and does in fact record it for various legitimate business purposes. And petitioner did not demonstrate an expectation of privacy merely by using his home phone rather than some other phone, since his conduct, although perhaps calculated to keep the contents of his conversation private, was not calculated to preserve the privacy of the number he dialed. Second, even if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation of privacy, this expectation was not one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." When petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the phone company and "exposed" that information to its equipment in the normal course of business, he assumed the risk that the company would reveal the information [442 U.S. 735, 736] to the police, cf. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 . Pp. 741-746.

Actually, there is evidence of emails being read, phones tapped, and a lot more:

You're right. There is evidence there. Just not evidence of Americans being targeted and spied on. That article contains numerous references to the fact that PRISM was set up to get foreign information from foreign people that is passing through the US. There is a possibility that some US person communication may be inadvertently collected (such as if they're getting all of the e-mails for some terrorist suspect in Yemen and one of those e-mails happened to be to a US person), which is why they have minimization procedures on how to handle that information when it is found. But there is zero evidence that the NSA targets or collects on any American citizens and anything they do get that concerns American citizens is incidental to what they're targeting and is minimized per the leaked minimization procedures.

Let's just take a look at the select quote you went with:

Alleged NSA internal slides included in the disclosures purported to show that the NSA could unilaterally access data and perform "extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information" with examples including email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats (such as Skype), file transfers, and social networking details.[2] Snowden summarized that "in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want".[10]

That's a lot of indefinite if-type statements in there. It's also a lot of claims that aren't backed up by any evidence at all. Why did Snowden not provide evidence of this ability to gather "anything he wanted"? He calimed to have the access and authorities. Why not release an e-mail of Obama's? Why not release a voice cut of one of his co-workers ordering a pizza? Why not give something to support this idea that the NSA is just collecting and storing all of this information?

As I've said before, the slides are evidence of nothing but a technological capability. They give no information whatsoever as to who it targets. Both the government and the participating companies have said that a) there is no mass collection of data, but it is instead a collection of targeted data and b) a warrant is required to get such data. There is no evidence showing this to not be true. In fact, even Snowden himself made no claims that NSA was actually using this to target and spy on Americans. He has only made the claim that it COULD be.

Today, the airplane of the Bolivian president (flying back from Moscow) was denied access to Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian air space at the request of the US government, on suspicion that Snowden was on board.

The plane landed in Vienna, and was searched. Snowden was not on board.

I wonder that anybody believes anything the US government says anymore.

And where do you get the information that the US government requested it? Not a single source, other than a Bolivian government official, has mentioned the US at all in there. Apparently, you seem to believe a lot of what you hear, so I'm surprised you don't believe the US government while you're at it.

 

[Telstra]

Enemy of the State (1998) Predicts Edward Snowden's Revelations

Who is watching the NSA ?
if B is watching the NSA, who is watching B?
if C is watching B, who is watching C ? .... etc ?

 

[tigerfan482]

Enemy of the State (1998) Predicts Edward Snowden's Revelations

Who is watching the NSA ?
if B is watching the NSA, who is watching B?
if C is watching B, who is watching C ? .... etc ?

The one thing I'm glad he brought up is the Boston bombing suspects, which blows a huge hole in anything people seem to allege the government is doing. It's the perfect example of how the Fourth Amendment ISN'T being ignored. The two Boston bombing suspects were both protected individuals (one being a naturalized citizen and the other being a legal resident alien.) So the FBI was very limited in how they could pursue them without probable cause warrants. When Russia alerted the US to possible issues with the eldest son, the FBI went back to them for evidence to present to a court for a probable cause warrant. Since Russia never replied back with any evidence that could be used, all the FBI could do was question the guy (by his own volition) and then let him go on his way. If the NSA and FBI work together to spy on all Americans e-mails and phone conversations without a warrant, they could have easily targeted this guy and seen what he was up to. As it turns out, since they do actually respect the Fourth Amendment, they were unable to do anything since they didn't have enough to get a probable cause warrant. Thus, a classic example of people who wish to do us harm exploiting our system in order to hide their misdeeds or planned misdeeds from those who could stop them.

 

[Telstra]

The issue is, who watch the NSA?
Where are the checks and balances if the NSA spy on businesses/private citizens for other purposes.

 

[tigerfan482]

The issue is, who watch the NSA?
Where are the checks and balances if the NSA spy on businesses/private citizens for other purposes.

Congress. The courts. Those are the Constitutionally declared checks and balances. And both have reviewed and approved what the NSA does. And not a single member of Congress or the courts has accused the NSA of any wrongdoing or violation of rights. Of course all of them give the obligatory "we need to ensure rights aren't violated" to appease their constituents, but not one accusation or any shred of evidence of wrongdoing (which would include spying on Americans without a warrant) has been levied.

 

[bankside]

You're kidding yourself, maybe, tigerfan, but not fooling too many other people.

A court that meets in secret to review the activities of officials who make "erroneous" statements to the elected officials in charge is no court worth having. And our names are not the only private things about us. When governments build up dossiers of our entire identities but then pretend it doesn't matter because the name is not attached (until they decide to attach it) then you've lost the whole point of freedom.

I'm sure you can still find some East Germans who believe their government was "perfecty constitutional" and "perfectly legal." And after all it was the German Democratic Republic. But it is just smoke and mirrors and more shovelling.

BTW, let yourselves be spied on if you like. But what I give a damn about is the spying on the rest of us.

 

[kallipolis]

Congress. The courts. Those are the Constitutionally declared checks and balances. And both have reviewed and approved what the NSA does. And not a single member of Congress or the courts has accused the NSA of any wrongdoing or violation of rights. Of course all of them give the obligatory "we need to ensure rights aren't violated" to appease their constituents, but not one accusation or any shred of evidence of wrongdoing (which would include spying on Americans without a warrant) has been levied.

Ha ha ha he he he

Head buried in the sand

 

[Telstra]

Congress. The courts. Those are the Constitutionally declared checks and balances. And both have reviewed and approved what the NSA does. And not a single member of Congress or the courts has accused the NSA of any wrongdoing or violation of rights. Of course all of them give the obligatory "we need to ensure rights aren't violated" to appease their constituents, but not one accusation or any shred of evidence of wrongdoing (which would include spying on Americans without a warrant) has been levied.

Which courts? Must name names.
Otherwise you are just guessing.

 

[tigerfan482]

You're kidding yourself, maybe, tigerfan, but not fooling too many other people.

A court that meets in secret to review the activities of officials who make "erroneous" statements to the elected officials in charge is no court worth having. And our names are not the only private things about us. When governments build up dossiers of our entire identities but then pretend it doesn't matter because the name is not attached (until they decide to attach it) then you've lost the whole point of freedom.

I'm sure you can still find some East Germans who believe their government was "perfecty constitutional" and "perfectly legal." And after all it was the German Democratic Republic. But it is just smoke and mirrors and more shovelling.

BTW, let yourselves be spied on if you like. But what I give a damn about is the spying on the rest of us.

I'm sorry you feel that way. It's a Constitutionally instituted court given the powers to rule on classified information. It exercises it's Constitutional duties. Just because you don't like its decisions doesn't mean they're any less valid.

And what evidence do you have of "dossiers" being built up against you? Has Snowden even made that claim? More tin-foil hat paranoia.

And if you're so upset about spying, go file a lawsuit to compel evidence that you are being spied on.

Ha ha ha he he he

Head buried in the sand

Do you even know what that means, because I'm thinking you don't. Do you have anything to refute what I said as being untrue? Or is it just you avoiding an issue you have nothing to support your position on?

Which courts? Must name names.
Otherwise you are just guessing.

United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which also has an appeals branch to it as well as the United States Supreme Court.

 

[Kulindahr]

even us law has something called whistleblower protection, because there is recognition that this kind of action may be necessary, ethical, and correct. The whole point is to encourage leaks of embarrassing or damaging information when it shows wrongdoing, government overreach, and to protect the individual from retaliation by the embarrassed government.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/surveillance-0

let's get the most contentious point out of the way first: Edward snowden made the right call to make public the extent of the national security administration's surveillance of electronic communications. The american people can now have a debate about whether or not they consent to that level of surveillance in order to prevent terrorist attacks, a debate that we were previously denied by the government's unwillingness to disclose even the broad outlines of what the nsa was doing. There may be some slight risk that knowing more about the breadth of nsa surveillance will lead terrorists to take better precautions in concealing their communications. But that risk seems manageable, and is of far less importance than the ability of americans, and the rest of the world for that matter, to finally have an honest discussion about how much we think our governments should be able to see of our online behaviour.

one does not have to be a tin foil milliner to believe snowden acted with integrity and did something of value for free societies. To suggest it's one and the same with 9/11 conspiracy theorists is just an empty tantrum, not an argument.

For the record, there is also a big difference between snowden (who disclosed a specific piece of information, after he considered the potential harm to society of keeping it secret, and found the consequences of secrecy to be detrimental to society and alarming) and manning (who was having a tantrum of his own, had no purpose or reasoned consideration behind his disclosure except to "get even," and did nothing to mitigate the effects of leaking information indiscriminately.)

qft

 

[Kulindahr]

Didn't know that human rights are now privileges.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a13

Articles 13 - 15

Yes. Even by the government-worshippers' theories, Snowden has those rights, and to interfere with them is a human rights violation. Why? Because all the countries involved are part of the organization whose statement that is, and affirm it.

 

[Kulindahr]

He is not facing political persecution. He is facing criminal prosecution.

Sure.

And all those Soviet prisoners in mental hospitals were there because they really were mentally ill....

 

[tigerfan482]

Yes. Even by the government-worshippers' theories, Snowden has those rights, and to interfere with them is a human rights violation. Why? Because all the countries involved are part of the organization whose statement that is, and affirm it.

You may want to reread those rights again, because they do have exceptions to them (more specifically, article 14 (2)). And has anyone shown that any of those have been denied Snowden yet?

Also, I'm glad you recognize this document as valid, since Article 8 shoots holes all in your argument of governments not giving you rights:

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Seems like even the UN recognizes that fundamental rights are indeed granted by a Constitution and the law instead of being inherently bestowed by some Creator. But I'll give you an out, since that document is nothing more than a fancy piece of literary work. Not one country on this planet follows all 30 of those articles and no one is held legally liable for it. As it refers to itself at the top, it is merely "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations..."

Sure.

And all those Soviet prisoners in mental hospitals were there because they really were mentally ill....

And this is relevant to the discussion how? Snowden is charged with a codified crime (several, actually) and is being sought to come back and answer for that crime. He is not being arbitrarily sought because of his political views or beliefs. There is a difference between persecution and prosecution and you can't hide behind one to avoid justice from the other.

 

[palbert]

The full text of the United States' extradition request for Edward Snowden to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/int...dition-edward-snowden?CMP=twt_fd&CMP=SOCxx2I2