omnibus PRISM/NSA/free Edward Snowden/encryption tutorial thread

Leakers are necessary in a security state. I'm glad someone is willing to push some of these secrets out into the light.

ends/means etc

MLK said there are just laws and unjust laws. i think the info snowden made avaiable had little reason to be classified and that the public is better off than it was 2 weeks ago

Sure, which is why I value the info more than Snowden

the sheer number of documents that get classified every year is kind of stunning.

for me the issue isn't every leaker being a hero so much as the obama admin's reaction to leakers being horrifyingly over-the-top and frankly kind of tyrannical.

i do pretty much regard snowden as a hero, though.

snowden's a cool dude but i'm probably a bit more defensive of him than i would be ideally, given the mud-slinging attempts against him etc. i mean ideally the guy wouldn't be chraged w/ espionage

yeah agreeing w/ JD as per yoosh

You guys are in my cabinet iirc

can i be seward?

I call dibs on Salmon P. Chase.

I want to be Secrtareies of Fart

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/784386973.jpg

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/06/demonizing-edward-snowden-which-side-are-you-on.html#entry-more

way more in favor of demonizing Assange tbh

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/pages/poll-edward-snowden

speaking of balls

“Those people should be shot in the balls,” Snowden said of leakers in a January 2009 chat. Snowden had logged into an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server associated with Ars Technica, a popular tech news site. While Ars itself didn’t log the conversations, multiple participants in the discussions kept logs of the chats and provided them to the technology site.

At this point, Snowden’s evolution into a fierce critic of the national security establishment was in its early stages. Snowden was incensed at the New York Times, which had described secret negotiations between the United States and Israel over how best to deal with Iran’s suspected nuclear program.
“Are they TRYING to start a war? Jesus christ. They’re like wikileaks.” Snowden wrote. “You don’t put that s— in the NEWSPAPER.”

“They have a HISTORY of this s—,” he continued, making liberal use of capital letters and profanity. “These are the same people who blew the whole ‘we could listen to osama’s cell phone’ thing. The same people who screwed us on wiretapping. Over and over and over again.”
He said he enjoyed “ethical reporting.” But “VIOLATING NATIONAL SECURITY? no. That s— is classified for a reason. It’s not because ‘oh we hope our citizens don’t find out.’ It’s because ‘this s— won’t work if iran knows what we’re doing.’”

“I am so angry right now. This is completely unbelievable.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/26/four-years-ago-ed-snowden-thought-leakers-should-be-shot/

snowden... otm?

disappointed the post didn't include "-in-the-balls" at the end of the URL there

he evolved

you might someday xp

‏@chrislhayes
Quite an ideological journey for Ed Snowden … This seems to make the act of conscience motivation *more* credible

agree tbh

I see a significant difference between the leaks Snowden was describing in 2009 and this one

well and as has been discussed doc dump vs. targeted release are v diff imo

it's been mentioned over and over, but i'm not sure what the "terrorists" learned from the nsa leak. that they're trying to monitor their phone calls and internet usage? that doesn't strike me as a huge blow to national security.

whereas leaking "secret negotiations between the United States and Israel over how best to deal with Iran’s suspected nuclear program" seems a bit more consequential.

in other words hurting otm

Im confused as to why nobody has talked to him in the last couple days.. if hes just chillin in an airport how come nobody has seen him?

other day one of the reporters who was stuck on the flight to cuba landed back in moscow and chatted with a customs guy who said he sees him all the time

probably bs, but lol

used to think they should be shot in the balls, now he thinks they will be shot in the balls

BREAKING: Snowden found crying in Sheremetyevo Airport, shot in balls

are we really surprised that a guy who worked at the cia and then the nsa once felt that way?

what snowden leaked poses zero threat to national security; it poses a threat to the obama admin's ability to keep a lid on policies they know the public would be creeped out by.

In 2009 Snowden prob thought the gold standard was for pussies, too. But Snowden isn't the story, or he shouldn't be. Who cares what some 29 year old chatted about when he was 24? Either we care about NSA's harvesting data on billions of daily phone calls or we don't care. Snowden's faded opinions are irrelevant.

As Sen. Wyden keeps saying, no one has made a case that we couldn't achieve the same ends through less intrusive means. And yes, slippery slopes do apply here.

right

the plurality of american/english journalists with any national security remit are complaisant dicksucks who will personalize/psychologize this ephemera like it has any consequence to the material disclosed

The ACLU lawsuit, which establishes standing to sue bcz ACLU is a Verizon customer, seems like the most promising avenue being followed atm. The 'national conversation on security and privacy issues' Obama said he wanted really sucks ass so far. But "national conversations on X issue" usually suck ass.

http://nsa.motherboard.tv/

ACLU will lose but am so glad they are fighting. I should give them more money.

yeah i give them 10 bucks a month but i r poor

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-chief-says-surveillance-programs-helped-thwart-dozens-of-plots/2013/06/27/e97ab0a2-df70-11e2-963a-72d740e88c12_story.html?hpid=z1

NSA head vs 2 Senate Dems

Two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, have questioned whether the collection of tens of millions of domestic calling records has helped thwart plots.

“It appears that the bulk phone records collection program under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act played little or no role in most of these disruptions,” the senators said in a statement. They did note that targeting foreign communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was useful but that conflating these programs as one effort was misleading.

President Obama on Thursday defended the handling of the international chase for the former government contractor, calling it a legal matter and saying he was “not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker.” Asked whether he had personally called Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladi­mir Putin about Snowden, Obama said he had not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-snowden-playbook-obama-administration-prioritized-legal-channels-over-diplomacy/2013/06/27/17523a0a-de7b-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html?hpid=z1

how old would a hacker have to be to make scrambling jets worthwhile?

17, like Broderick in WarGames

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7b6lfHFPz1qzx3igo1_500.jpg

Would scramble jets for.

there it is

Nina Khruscheva rants, goes in on Cheney

commenters are largely unimpressed

In 1982, for example, when I was in high school in Moscow, I was on the phone with one of my closest friends, talking about how relieved we were that Leonid Brezhnev had finally died, after 18 years of stifling power. Suddenly, there was a metallic click on the line and we heard a dour man’s voice. A KGB functionary, no doubt. “Hang up the phone,” he demanded, “immediately.” We did.

I dare anyone to tell me that this has happened to you in the United States.

yeah we have a fuckin budget here

hah

is julian assange gonna turn ecuador into reddit island

a dreamland where the bitcoins flow like water and nobody has to worry about broads calling it rape when they wanted it

Can you take me higher ruh. To a place with bitcoin streams ruh.

Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/26/195045/memories-of-stasi-color-germans.html