Edward Snowden: The Hegelian Dialectic

[Luxman]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ations-to-come-reporting-them-is-not-a-crime/

 

[horn_dog]

Here’s the full TED interview, and what Snowden had to say on Tuesday night.

“The Biggest Revelations Are Yet To Come”

 

[BCT]

:coolthumb:Oliver Stone with Snowden's legal adviser Jesselyn Radack:coolthumb:

She looks pretty yummy.

 

[eric2136]

Obama unveils plan to change NSA data collection

The Obama administration laid out a new set of surveillance rules Thursday that would transfer the storage of millions of telephone records from the government to private phone companies.

The plan, developed in response to protests about the reach of National Security Agency surveillance tactics, requires a sign-off from Congress.

"Having carefully considered the available options, I have decided that the best path forward is that the government should not collect or hold this data in bulk," Obama said in a statement. "Instead, the data should remain at the telephone companies for the length of time it currently does today."

Obama pledged to work with Congress on developing a workable plan that would accommodate counter-terrorism investigations while protecting constitutional liberties.

"I am confident that this approach can provide our intelligence and law enforcement professionals the information they need to keep us safe while addressing the legitimate privacy concerns that have been raised," Obama said.

Government officials could still access the phone data with approval from the special foreign intelligence court, according to the plan, though there are exceptions in cases of national security emergencies.

The House Intelligence Committee issued a plan this week that would also transfer storage authority to phone companies but allow the government to access records without prior court approval. A judge would review the government's request after agents obtained the data, a provision that has drawn objections from civil libertarians.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said requiring judicial approval for record searches in every case would slow down probes, giving terrorism suspects "greater protections than those given to U.S. citizens in criminal investigations every day in this country."

Overall, however, Rogers said he's glad "the president has moved our direction" on an NSA overhaul.
The idea of ending government storage of metadata appears to have bipartisan support.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Intelligence Committee's bill starts "a bipartisan conversation" about surveillance programs, and he added, "I expect part of this effort will include the end of the government holding onto bulk data."

Under both plans, phone companies would in some way be compelled to provide metadata, including incoming and outgoing phone numbers and call times, in a readily usable format.

As the administration and Congress debate new NSA rules, Obama has directed the Justice Department to ask the special court for a 90-day extension of the existing program.

Officials with the phone companies said they want to study the details of a final plan.

Randal Milch, general counsel for Verizon, said phone companies should not be required to do anything more for the government than what "they already do for business purposes." Milch said phone companies respond in a timely way, but "should not be required to create, analyze or retain records for reasons other than business purposes."

Some members of Congress -- such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- have called for tighter restrictions on NSA surveillance activities.

NSA revelations, including reports that it has spied on foreign leaders, have triggered criticism of Obama.

Tweeting shortly after Obama's audience Thursday with Pope Francis, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the president should have told the pontiff: "Forgive me father for I have spied."
NSA surveillance techniques became public last year with leaks from former contractor Edward Snowden.

Obama called for new NSA rules in a January speech, and he gave aides until March 28 — Friday — to develop legislation to end the NSA's ability to sweep up and store all kinds of telephone records.

Snowden, now living in Russia while facing charges in the U.S., praised Obama's efforts earlier this week.

"This is a turning point, and it marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government," Snowden said in a statement released by the ACLU, which is helping with his legal representation.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-agency-edward-snowden-metadata-plam/6950657/

 

[eric2136]

GCHQ's dark arts: Latest Leaked Snowden documents reveal online manipulation, Facebook, YouTube snooping

http://www.zdnet.com/gchqs-dark-art...ion-facebook-and-youtube-snooping-7000031598/
GCHQ has developed a toolkit of software programs used to manipulate online traffic, infiltrate users' computers and spread select messages across social media sites including Facebook and YouTube.
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The UK spy agency's dark arts were revealed in documents first published by The Intercept, and each piece of software is described in a wiki document written up by GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The document, which reads like a software inventory, calls the tools part of the agency's "weaponised capability."

Some of the most interesting capabilities of the tools on the list include the ability to seed the web with false information — such as tweaking the results of online polls — inflating pageview counts, censoring video content deemed "extremist" and the use of psychological manipulation on targets — something similar to a research project conducted with Facebook's approval, which resulted in heavy criticism and outrage levied at the social media site.

A number of interesting tools and their short descriptions are below:
• ASTRAL PROJECTION: Remote GSM secure covert Internet proxy using TOR hidden service
• POISON ARROW: Safe malware download capability
• AIRWOLF: YouTube profile, comment and video collection
• BIRDSTRIKE: Twitter monitoring and profile collection
• GLASSBACK: Technique of getting a target's IP address by pretending to be a spammer and ringing them. Target does not need to answer.
• MINIATURE HERO: Active skype capability. Provision of realtime call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.
• PHOTON TORPEDO: A technique to actively grab the IP address of MSN messenger user
• SPRING-BISHOP: Finding private photos of targets on Facebook
• BOMB BAY: The capacity to increase website hits, rankings
• BURLESQUE: The capacity to send spoofed SMS messages
• GESTATOR: Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (YouTube)
• SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE: Perfect spoofing of emails from Blackberry targets
• SUNBLOCK: Ability to deny functionality to send/receive email or view material online
• SWAMP DONKEY: A tool that will silently locate all predefined types of file and encrypt them on a targets machine
• UNDERPASS: Change outcome of online polls (previously known as NUBILO).
• WARPATH: Mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign.
• HUSK: Secure one-on-one web based dead-drop messaging platform.

The list, dated from 2012, says that most of the tools are "fully operational, tested and reliable,” and adds: "Don't treat this like a catalogue. If you don't see it here, it doesn't mean we can't build it."

"We only advertise tools here that are either ready to fire or very close to being ready," the document notes.
The release of these documents comes in the same week that the UK intelligence agency's spying activities are being investigated by surveillance watchdog the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). Civil liberty groups set a legal challenge against the GCHQ in order to question the legal standing of schemes such as Tempora — a project revealed in the NSA scandal that showed the agency placed data interceptors on fiber-optic cables that carry Internet traffic to and from the UK.

 

[knowone]

Yes, Bob, you are correct ! And so why, then, did he feel it necessary to flee the country if the law should be on his side ? The answer to this question is what has so many people in America, and around the world, so concerned.

Because he knew how Bradley Manning had been treated for a previous leak. (Kept naked in a cell for two years, no access to a lawyer, other violations of UCMJ,)

 

[eric2136]

Operation Mockingbird: The NSA and CIA's Manipulation and Control Of The Media: Social Media Schills and Sock Puppets

*Beware of the CIA/Military Online Personna Management Plants in forums such as this. They are facist operatives authorized by an amendment to the 2013 NDAA to spread false domestic propaganda against anyone in the world, including US citizens. This is being done in conjunction with a Military-Industrial Complex Controlled Media to attempt to control authentic socio-political commentary and debates, and in general, destroy, and/or stifle, free speech on the internet that, in any way, counters the establishment's objectives.*

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

*The "trolls" she describes sound very familiar!*

Some History Of Operation MockingBird.

 

[Luxman]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/10/privacy-matters-ted-talk/

 

[Luxman]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/11/second-leaker-in-us-intelligence-says-glenn-greenwald

 

[Luxman]

http://www.newyorker.com/new-yorker-festival/live-stream-edward-snowden

 

[Luxman]

http://cryptome.org/2014/10/roark-risen.htm

 

[Supafly]

When I read this, I had to laugh bitterly:

... Snowden, now living in Russia while facing charges in the U.S., praised Obama's efforts earlier this week.

"This is a turning point, and it marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government," Snowden said in a statement released by the ACLU, which is helping with his legal representation.

Are you kidding me? Obama plans to 'outsource' the handling/storage of personal data and this is supposed to help? Do you know why the 'Outsourcing' concept is so cherished by companies and governments? It is because the companies doing the work then are affiliated to the actual benefitting ones - but at any point, the cord can get cut, and the heads of companies or state can say: "Why, I never knew they would do THAT!". If serious legal situations arise, the 'proxy' company can get dissolved, and now try to catch a ghost.

I am sure THIS is what stands behind that plan for making private companies doing this. So nobody can sue the government or hold Obama himself accountable.

 

[Deepcover]

Bradley Manning had been treated for a previous leak)

You mean Chelsea Manning. Can't believe they put her behind bars

 

[Ace Boobtoucher]

You mean Chelsea Manning. Can't believe they put her behind bars

I can't believe you can't believe Bradley Manning is some kind of fucking hero.

 

[eric2136]

ISIS Beheadings of Journalists: CIA Admitted to Staging Fake Jihadist Videos in 2010

Questions arise after experts say Foley ISIS beheading video likely "staged"

“The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory,” the article states. “The actors were drawn from ‘some of us darker-skinned employees.’”

Other CIA officials admitted to planning several fake videos featuring former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, one of which would depict the leader engaged in sexual acts with a teenage boy.

“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one of the former officials. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/isis-b...-staging-fake-jihadist-videos-in-2010/5399345

 

[Ace Boobtoucher]

You're an idiot.

 

[Deepcover]

I can't believe you can't believe Bradley Manning is some kind of fucking hero.

I believe Chelsea Manning did the right thing. She's got balls

 

[eric2136]

Edward Snowden Warns Canadians To Be 'Extraordinarily Cautious' Over Anti-Terror Bill
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/02/03/edward-snowden-ucc-canada-surveillance_n_6601812.html

Be Informed
http://www.stopc51.com/beinformed.aspx

Bill C-51 Eliminates the Ability of our 
Elected Officials to Protect Us Section 30(7)
1. Bypassing our elected official's ability to vote out laws that are not the will of, or in the interest of the Canadian people.
2. Allows government agents, (not elected officials) to create binding laws behind closed doors.
3. New powers will allow enforcement of these laws by the searching and seizing of private property and bank accounts without warrants.[

Fast Tracks New Drugs to Market; Reduced Safety Measures
1. By shortening the approval process for new drugs.

2. By placing the responsibility of safety on drug companies with a proven track record of downplaying the health risks and side effects.
Increased numbers of adverse drug reactions will lead to an increase in malpractice and personal law suits against doctors who prescribe new drugs which have not been tested properly for health and safety risks.
University of Arizona, concluded that overall, the cost of U.S. drug related morbidity and mortality exceed $177.4 billion in the year 2000 with over 200,000 deaths created annually.
Ernst F.R., Grizzle A.J., Drug Related Morbidity and Mortality: Updating the Cost-of-Illness Model,* J Am Pharm Assoc. 2001;41:192-9

Makes Upwards of 70% of Natural Health Products illegal
1. At the current rate of licensing failure, more than 70% of natural health products will be illegal.
2. Broad definitions will allow government agents to invoke enforcement on people who do as little as share a “therapeutic product” with a friend. Garlic and many other foods are therapeutic products.

Not "one" person has ever died in Canada because of a Natural Health Product.

"Bill C-51 is not about Canadian Safety
**Bill C-51 is about Big Pharma"

Bill C-51 will allow binding laws to be created in secret
In Canada the law making process takes place in a public forum with our elected officials voting for or against them. They are held accountable to the public for their decisions. If Bill C-51 passes, it will allow laws to be created behind closed doors, by government agents who may not have our best interests in mind.
"Bill C-51 is not about Canadian Safety
**Bill C-51 is about Big Pharma"
Bill C-51 will allow binding laws to be created in secret
In Canada the law making process takes place in a public forum with our elected officials voting for or against them. They are held accountable to the public for their decisions. If Bill C-51 passes, it will allow laws to be created behind closed doors, by government agents who may not have our best interests in mind.

 

[Deepcover]

An old article but after watching "The Falcon and the Snowman" wanted to know Boyce thoughts on Snowden, NSA and the Internet...

Ex-Spy Christopher Boyce on Snowden, WikiLeaks, and NSA Backdoors

By Patrick Gray 09.27.13

A smart young dropout is welcomed into a promising career in the top secret world of U.S. defense contracting, but he’s quickly shocked to discover the deception practiced by America’s intelligence agencies at the highest levels. Disillusioned and outraged, he takes matters into his own hands and begins exfiltrating highly-classified documents right under the nose of his employer.

Today, that might describe NSA leaker Edward Snowden. But back in 1975, it was 22-year-old Christopher Boyce, who joined TRW as a telex operator and found himself handling some of the the government’s most sensitive communications. From inside TRW’s “Black Vault,” Boyce claims he learned the CIA was actively undermining the elected, left-wing government of Australia.

But instead of leaking to the press, as Snowden, and WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning, would do decades later, Boyce became a spy. He embarked on a personal mission to damage the U.S. defense and intelligence complex, supplying classified crypto keys and program information to his friend Andrew Daulton Lee, who in turn traveled to Mexico and sold the information to the KGB.

Boyce and Lee were arrested in 1977 and both convicted of espionage.

In January 1980 Boyce escaped from the Lompoc federal penitentiary and went on the run, robbing 17 banks in Idaho and Washington State before being recaptured in August 1981. He was released from prison in 2002 and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, Cait.

The saga was the subject of the book and film The Falcon and the Snowman, but now Boyce, his wife Cait and their friend Vincent Font have published their own e-book sequel, The Falcon and the Snowman: American Sons.

Boyce spoke to WIRED about the changing face of espionage; WikiLeaks, Manning, Snowden and the radically changed world that awaited him when he walked out of prison.

WIRED: What do you think of the Snowden leaks?

Boyce: Well I think he’s done a service to the Bill of Rights. I think he’s protecting our freedoms. I’m glad he did what he did, I think it’s too bad that he wound up in … Putin’s Russia, he should have gone to Venezuela or somewhere else. But I’m glad he did what he did, and I’m glad Manning released what he released, and I hope there are other contractors our there contemplating a similar move.

I think that if contractors are going to leak info they need to go where they’re going to have asylum, stay there and then leak. And then that way the story becomes what they’re leaking and not the chase.

The chase is over, and it appears he’s going to stay where he’s going to stay and I’m sure the Guardian and other persons have copies of everything he got. It does seem like every time the government opens their mouth, he just releases more compromising information that makes them look like fools.

WIRED: If you were 30 years younger, do you think you would have been more like an Edward Snowden than someone who was going to sell secrets to the Russians?

Boyce: I have a quarter of a century of experience in the federal prison [system]. I almost spent 10 years in solitary confinement, and I just don’t think I could ever do that to myself again. I couldn’t bring the rage of the government down on my head again. Snowden’s a braver man than I would be now. I couldn’t do that again, and I’m sure there are hundreds and hundreds of other NSA contractors who also are thinking, ‘I couldn’t bring the power of the fed government down on me like that.’

He’s a better man than I am at this stage of my life, I suppose I’m a bit worn out by it all.

But there’s a big difference now — it’s so much easier to release stuff. Back then, even if you went to a New York Times reporter, how would you know they wouldn’t go to the FBI?

WIRED: Given that, do you think there’s a role for organizations like WikiLeaks?

Boyce: I think that eventually the U.S. government will get their hands on [Assange] too … I think they’ll eventually get him. But yeah, I wish there were another 100 outlets like WikiLeaks out there. And I’m sure there are many people that want to repeat WikiLeaks [MO] but the problem as I see it is I had always thought the Internet was going to be this thing that opened up the world. When I came out of prison I went “wow,” this was going to be what united people everywhere, what created a free flow of information.

But instead it seems to me that it’s become something for the government to monitor and watch us, to collect our emails and monitor who we’re calling and how long we’re speaking to them. I’m kind of shocked by that, by Snowden’s revelations. I thought the internet was going to be something that broke down secrecy, but it appears that the NSA and the British are using it for evil purposes and destroying our civil liberties in the process.

WIRED: What would you like to see happen? At what point would you be satisfied that things are on track?

Boyce: Well I think that I’d like to have real review and then specifically why should the government record all of our email? Why do they need to keep a record of everyone we call and how long we speak? Things like these are abuses, I think.

They need to go. Will they go? I doubt it. In this country, all of our addresses and return addresses on all our packages and letters are photographed now by the post office. Why is that necessary? That just seems to me like overkill.

I think everything since 9/11 has been. The Patriot Act and all this, it’s all overkill. It’s overreach by the surveillance state.

WIRED: Assange thought that if he published a whole bunch of information and enlightened the public with these revelations that things would change. Nothing has really changed since the WikiLeaks dumps.

We’ve got Ed Snowden also, who’s releasing all these secrets. Things might change but nothing has yet. So to what degree do you think the ‘problem’ is the public doesn’t have access to enough information about what governments are doing versus the problem being just general apathy?

Boyce: Well, I agree with what my wife Cait said here not so long ago: The average American is more interested in how much cream and sugar he has in his coffee than his civil liberties.

I have to tell you that I’m very pessimistic. I think the surveillance state will get stronger and stronger. I’m not optimistic at all that civil liberties are going to be protected, and I think that’s the direction that we’re headed. […]

What shocked me was the NSA is forcing the communications and internet companies and the security companies to leave these backdoors in their security systems, so we really don’t have any privacy whatsoever. But the good thing you can say about Snowden is that now this has all come to light people are talking about it. Will Congress do anything about it? I doubt it, but at least this allows Google and the other internet companies to push back and to fight this intrusion into the internet.

But you can tell just from talking to me, I’m not a technical person. I’m 60 years old and I lost 25 years of my life while all this developed.

WIRED: We’ve taken information and made it infinitely and instantly replicable, which is why we’ve wound up with WikiLeaks and people taking huge caches of documents. So the idea of using a camera to smuggle out a few documents [like you did] these days is just completely foreign.

Boyce: I used to smuggle out secret documents hidden in potted plants. If Snowden had to do that he would have been at it for a million years. Especially Manning, God.

WIRED: What do you think Andrew Daulton Lee would think of you now?

Boyce: Well the truth is, when I escaped that made his incarceration much more onerous. Bad things happened to him. He was taken to Eastern penitentiaries, he was assaulted and attacked. His life became much worse for him after I escaped, and he probably ended up doing more time because I escaped.

He holds that against me and I understand that, I just wasn’t, myself, going to stay in that prison if there was any way I could break out of it, [but] he was done taking risks with his life at that point. And so it’s legitimate, I think, the animosity that he has towards me. I definitely, from that point on, made his life worse.

You know, I think of Daulton as the friend of my childhood, a pal that I had that I flew hawks with and played football with and went to school with. I think of him like that, but I don’t really think of him now that much, other than I regret we’re no longer friends.

WIRED: We’ve got leakers like Chelsea Manning and Snowden. If I put you in the same category, the three of you had ideological motivations for taking classified information and pushing it out into the public domain. Except in your case you took this information and gave it to the Russians. I’m wondering how it is that you can morally justify the decision to hand over those things to an enemy of the U.S.

Boyce: Well, I myself did not sell them. My co-defendant did. I had never really intended that was how it should play out. But mainly I was just so fed up with the American intelligence community that I wanted to damage them. I just went off on a one-man war against the intelligence community. As ridiculous as that sounds, that’s was what I was doing.

WIRED: To what degree do you think your motivations and the motivations of someone like Chelsea Manning are actually the same? Because they seem strikingly similar.

Boyce: I had an utterly conservative upbringing, but as I grew up I watched the Vietnam War unfolding, I watched the assassinations, I watched all of the racial riots and I watched the impeachment of President Nixon.

The Federal government was becoming worse and worse and I really had no experience growing up as a young man in the national government becoming anything but more and more, in my eyes, evil, to the point where I just utterly rejected the whole thing.

I was looking for a big enemy to fight. I don’t know what’s in my personality that caused me to do that but I wanted a big powerful enemy to joust.

WIRED: Do you see common ground with Manning?

Boyce: I would think so. But I also think Manning was utterly repulsed by all of the content of much of what he was revealing. Honestly, I just feel sorry for the guy, and I feel sorry for Snowden because I eventually think they’ll get their hands on him and I think the Department of Justice is going to turn their lives into a living nightmare.

I don’t think that he’ll stay in Russia forever, and I think eventually they’ll get him.

But it’s my fervent hope that among those hundred, thousands of contractors that there are others like him who are just as appalled as he is who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect civil liberties. If we have any hope, that’s where it lies.

 

[eric2136]