GCHQ and the NSA

[Agent]

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...g-services-nsa

So it's becoming more and more clear the extent of US surveillance does not just apply to its citizens.

Germany has recently ended a pact with the US and Britain that goes back to the cold war: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-ends-c...145752116.html

Our program Tempora, stores phone calls, email content, Facebook content, search history from core internet links. There is no opting out. There is no warrant required. Just mass surveillance.

The US side is even more scary with PRISM. There is too much to list from the article, but in short, mass monitoring at every level possible. Internet, software backdoors and most likely hardware backdoors.

And of course, the big revelation is that the US and UK use each other systems, passing data freely about their citizens and even those who are not due to methods used to capture the data. The BBC was even issued with a Defence Advisory Notice to try and limit the publicity of these systems.

Thoughts?

[chuckskull]

PRISM links broken mate.

Jon Oliver summed up the disconnect between politicians and the public on this one; "We're not saying you broke the law, we're asking why you didn't have to".

The privacy implications are abhorrent, personally I object to any kind of monitoring of my private activity unless I am the subject to an investigation. Wanna collect information on a private citizen then you need a warrant. End of discussion as far as I'm concerned. Star chambers are not acceptable I thought that was settled law.

The XKeyscore presentation is just horrifying; http://www.theguardian.com/world/int...l-presentation Don't forget that to check the date, that's 5 years old now, wonder what they're concocting nowadays.

“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” - Eric Schmidt, seems to ring truer everyday.

Have to give respect to Snowden he walked away from a lot to expose this and didn't do it for his own fame and made every effort only to inform people not damage countries, unlike certain white haired guests of Ecuador. He did it how it should be done. A proper whistle-blower. The media's obsession with him and his girlfriend rather than his stunning revelations is another strike against our feckless 'journalists'.

America's treatment of him and outright hypocrisy on these issues is disgusting, when china does it they're evil, but when America does it's for your own good. Not to mention the rather vile legal argument they make that they only have to respect the rights of Americans not foreign citizens, not that they even keep to that.

[GeorgeStorm]

This is not cool :/

[AETAaAS]

Do you watch the Daily Show, Chuck?

It's weird that there is only outrage about this now. For a while, the US government has had a foot in the door of many ISPs in America. Things like Room 641A only served to demonstrate that there is no such thing as online privacy. Encryption can only serve to delay snoopers and even then, your software/hardware could be riddled with backdoors. I can't remember but there was once an office suite which had built in encryption but versions exported outside the US had half the key known (or thereabouts), making cracking it much easier.

Intel chips could let US spies inside

A while back, the USAF and Lockheed Martin invested in D-Wave Quantum computers IIRC. Both I would suspect for the purpose of encryption cracking. Lockheed Martin is part 'defense contractor' for those who don't know. And is there more scary a bogeyman than those these days?

[chuckskull]

Do you watch the Daily Show, Chuck?

That's it. Thanks it was bugging the hell out of me.

[Firejack]

I've been finding the whole Edward Snowden/ PRISM/ Xkeyscore/ Tempora etc saga a little hard to digest. There is a lot of sensational stories of hypothetical situations that I just feel is cheap headline grabbing and its causing great confusion.

What I'd like to know is how this mass surveillance effects my family and friends. As up until now, its not caused anyone I know any problems.

There is no question these projects run by the security services give them immense power. That doesn't mean they are going to misuse it.

I'm by no means pro-surveillance. I'm just all to aware we don't live in a perfect world.

I would of been more surprised, if in some alternative run of events, the Edward Snowden story was that NSA + GCHQ + all the other intelligence services in the world, were not running their own internet surveillance projects. That would of alarmed me more.

For the time being, surveillance seems a necessary evil.

[Singh400]

I think we all agree that some operations of this type have a certain kind of necessity in today's world.

What I don't agree with it's capturing everyone's information regardless, doesn't matter if you are innocent or guilty. It's all being recorded, that is what is scary and terrifying.

[pp05]

I've been finding the whole Edward Snowden/ PRISM/ Xkeyscore/ Tempora etc saga a little hard to digest. There is a lot of sensational stories of hypothetical situations that I just feel is cheap headline grabbing and its causing great confusion.

What I'd like to know is how this mass surveillance effects my family and friends. As up until now, its not caused anyone I know any problems.

There is no question these projects run by the security services give them immense power. That doesn't mean they are going to misuse it.

I'm by no means pro-surveillance. I'm just all to aware we don't live in a perfect world.

I would of been more surprised, if in some alternative run of events, the Edward Snowden story was that NSA + GCHQ + all the other intelligence services in the world, were not running their own internet surveillance projects. That would of alarmed me more.

For the time being, surveillance seems a necessary evil.

It is particularly problematic in regards to industrial espionage or if you ever came into a position of influence and sought to bring attention to any corruption - potentially they have all kinds of information that they could be spin and ruin someone's reputation.

[TheAnimus]

And meanwhile, we are going to be running all home internet via an opt-out porn filtering proxy. Oh yes.

Our mainstream press are useless, and most of the MPs behind this don't have the slightest idea what this means. I always thought facebook was mankind sleepwalking into an Orwellian dystopia, turns out I wasn't been imaginative enough!

[AETAaAS]

And meanwhile, we are going to be running all home internet via an opt-out porn filtering proxy.

That could be a cover up for the UK spying program. Because to filter, some government middle man is going to be poking around your packets.

[wasabi]

Jon Oliver summed up the disconnect between politicians and the public on this one; "We're not saying you broke the law, we're asking why you didn't have to".

Ah. But there is the problem. The very fact that there aren't many laws about the internet means governments aren't constrained by them. Personally I suspect the internet for 'serious' users will fragment over time into a bunch of encrypted virtual private networks.

[chuckskull]

To answer my own question, seems this is what they're doing nowadays; http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...d-home-to-nsa/ Logical I suppose, but it's very militaristic, more search and destroy than arrest and try. To hell with the collateral damage. He might of had pedos for customers, I don't know. If they're doing it anywhere it's on tor everyone figured that out for themselves, but there are plenty of legitimate users of and uses for TOR. This feels more like sweeping up everyone on the estate rather than only kicking in the criminal's door, unless of course he was a paedophile himself but they don't seem to be accusing him of that only of being a host to it.

Nice to know the slope is at least well greased.

[Singh400]

This guy on Reddit makes a good point.

[TeePee]

http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

[chuckskull]

Don't worry guys there are rules and we only break them like 9 or 10 times a day. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z1 and not to jump to conclusions but there's a noticeable trend in those figures.

Love to see 2013 and GCHQ figures.

[chuckskull]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...etained-uk-nsa
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ained-heathrow
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23750289

Another new low. Using counter terrorism laws to detain a reporter's family. Who is quite plainly not a terrorist, not to mention he was denied counsel, had all his electronics seized(disgusting when you consider he wasn't charged or even arrested) and refusing to to co-operate(your classic "No comment.") is considered a crime in of itself during these interviews.

Greenwald makes the point that even the Mafia wouldn't go after your family and he's right.