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

In which Jeffrey Toobin loses his mind.

an embedded maroon

seriously, that fuckin guy

And it is simply grotesque that Snowden compares these thousands of government workers—all doing their jobs to protect the United States—to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.

It took an extra 12 years after it was announced, but irony is finally really dead.

dzhozef tsnowaev

srsly i

does it seem likely that russia and china didn't know any of this stuff? given the scale of the program and the number of people involved, that they have been taken aback by what he has released?

or that the rest of the information he has would be some incredible treasure trove

groklaw dude freaks out, leaves Internet http://goo.gl/HGCvf9

Hilarious that he goes on and on about privacy and then endorses trusting your email encryption to a third party. GPG exists, dude.

*she, sorry

PJ's heart is in the right place, but she really needs to explore her options. It's understandable that GPG is, from a practical standpoint, too 'complex' for the regular Joe, but she could do her part in helping spread the word about it.

Because, unfortunately, if only PJ uses GPG it won't make enough of a difference. Her users/those who email her need to use GPG and at the moment the average user would not take the time to learn how to set it up.

Kolab is also a bad option. Switzerland's gov't logs emails, as well, and is probably worse than the US.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london?CMP=twt_gu

slightly less febrile than yesterday's rusbidger piece

It’s true, too, that while the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court is largely toothless, it has, on occasion, rejected some N.S.A. procedures, and the agency has made adjustments in response. That is not the act of an entirely lawless agency.

"not entirely lawless": the NSA's new motto

However, in a subsequent meeting, an intelligence agency expert argued that the material was still vulnerable. He said by way of example that if there was a plastic cup in the room where the work was being carried out, foreign agents could train a laser on it to pick up the vibrations of what was being said. Vibrations on windows could similarly be monitored remotely by laser.

man spy shit is cool

OMG! Ban windows!

Mac only

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100231711/why-does-being-a-relative-of-glenn-greenwald-place-you-above-the-law/

When we all heard he had been arrested, we all thought “That’s a disgrace, why should someone be arrested simply because his partner works for The Guardian?” But that goes the other way as well. Why should David Miranda be allowed to happily saunter around carrying Britain’s most sensitive secrets simply because Glenn Greenwald is his spouse? Are we seriously saying the phrase “I’m with Greenwald” should now act as an international get-out-of-jail-free card?

seriously fuck toobin. what is his problem?

Should we tolerate a dipshit Telegraph blogger who's only notable because Glenda Jackson is his mum? xp

seriously fuck toobin. what is his problem?

― k3vin k., Tuesday, August 20, 2013 6:14 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

his "morality is built on the letter of law" logic is p common among lawyers i've known that don't think that hard.

i thought toobin was a guy that thought hard. now i'm not so sure.

<I> if there was a plastic cup in the room where the work was being carried out, foreign agents could train a laser on it to pick up the vibrations of what was being said. Vibrations on windows could similarly be monitored remotely by laser.</i>

Most incredibly, this technology is almost 100 years old: Lev Sergeyvich Termen was doing it for Russia circa 1930, using microwaves.

yeah i've liked toobin's reporting but have always kept my distance from him - i remember a profile he wrote on clarence thomas a few years ago, which was fine in its analysis of its subject's style and influence, but was strangely averse to picking a side. now that he's picking sides...

As part of his SCOTUS book, it's clear from the Slobbo chapter what side Toobin's on.

i read toobin's book on the 2000 election a long time ago, remember it being pretty good. i've usually enjoyed his NY stuff, so it's sad to see him decline so drastically.

I lol'ed

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7749458432/hE1B9A136/

yeah i've liked toobin's reporting but have always kept my distance from him - i remember a profile he wrote on clarence thomas a few years ago, which was fine in its analysis of its subject's style and influence, but was strangely averse to picking a side. now that he's picking sides...

― k3vin k., Tuesday, August 20, 2013 6:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and he has chosen the side all his friends are on and that pays him a shitload of money. dude is totally gonna back the status quo.

Was PJ also saying that it's all well saying "use PGP" but the NSA are keeping things for as long as they need in the hopes of one day breaking them, so that's still no reassurance to her?

I was surprised at her reaction, but I can see her point, and I don't think it's just over-reaction.

technically-minded folks who are looking for alternatives to cloud services right now may be interested in this: https://github.com/al3x/sovereign

I would like that, but that is indeed very "technically minded"..

Was PJ also saying that it's all well saying "use PGP" but the NSA are keeping things for as long as they need in the hopes of one day breaking them, so that's still no reassurance to her?

I was surprised at her reaction, but I can see her point, and I don't think it's just over-reaction.

― stet, Tuesday, August 20, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-david-miranda-guardian-hard-drives

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, said that two GCHQ security experts oversaw the destruction of hard drives on 20 July in what he described as a "peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism". Rusbridger had told the authorities that the action would not prevent the Guardian reporting on the leaked US documents because Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who first broke the story, had a copy in Brazil, and a further copy was held in the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/us/roberts-varies-pattern-in-choice-for-spy-court.html?_r=0

sounds like a good democrat

"centrist"

Jeffrey Toobin gives us some more:

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Tuesday strongly defended the British government's nearly nine-hour detention of David Miranda, the partner of The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald.

Toobin argued on CNN's "AC360" that British authorities were "justified" in the detention.

"Let's be clear about what Mr. Miranda's role was here. I don't want to be unkind, but he was a mule. He was given something, he didn't know what it was, from one person to pass to another at the other end of the airport. Our prisons are full of drug mules. Glenn's view is, as long as one of the two people at either end of that transaction was a journalist he can take anything he wants."

Pretty sure detaining suspected drug mules under anti-terrorist legislation would struggle to pass muster with most 'legal analysts'.

maybe not this one

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/08/20/jeffrey-toobin-preaches-on-sanctity-of-government-secrets-despite-once-stealing-classified-documents/

Damn. I didn't know Toobin had worked with Lawrence Walsh.

from the comments. Note the commenter:

Jane Hamsher August 21st, 2013 at 12:19 am
7
In response to DSWright @ 4
He has done a weird about-face. The last time I was in NY Glenn and I had lunch with him. He seemed very interested at the time about HB Gary and nefarious things the government was doing against Wikileaks. Maybe he was being disingenuous, or his position was nuanced in a way I didn’t understand. But his tone and perspective about government surveillance seemed radically different than they are now.

35 years in jail for Manning

optimistic speculation he could get paroled after serving 1/3rd of that

to be honest it's much better than i expected, even if the idea of spending longer in jail than i have literally been on earth is totally unfathomable to me

Yes, it's 'better', but I'm already sick of hearing everyone on twitter saying WOW it's ONLY 35 years! LUCKY BRAD! It's still criminaly long, an atrocity.

yes

it's just also worth keeping in mind that half an hour ago i was expecting them to say something like 75 years

Oh definitely, I'm glad it's 35 instead of 75. I still have trouble fathoming what it must be like to be in his shoes right now.

Obviously this below is tiny compared to Manning, but worth reading to see how even whistleblowers who follow the rules re issues without such national security importance get treated. The article is even written by inside the beltway centrist elist Milbank

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-price-gina-gray-paid-for-whistleblowing/2013/08/20/9fe80c98-09cb-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html

She was the Army civilian worker who, before and after her employment, exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement — and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels. Pentagon sources have confirmed to me her crucial role in bringing the scandal to light.

Gray, who worked in Iraq as an Army contractor and Army public affairs specialist, is now unemployed and living in North Carolina.

....
Snowden’s case is quite a bit different, and murkier; his dalliances with China and now Russia raise questions about his motives. But Gray’s case shows that Snowden was correct about one thing: Trying to pursue the proper internal channels doesn’t work.

If the Obama administration wants whistleblowers to take the “proper” route, it needs to protect them when they do.

Obviously this below is tiny compared to Manning, but worth reading to see how even whistleblowers who follow the rules re issues without such national security importance get treated.

Untrue. Jeffrey Toobin said it isn't so.

Sadly, the Toobin view is shared by many, I think. Most are unaware of how the Obama administration treats whistleblowers, and some even when aware are still not sympathetic. Most people don't know about whistleblower Thomas Drake who had all the charges but 1 dropped against him, but could not get his security clearance back and is now working in a mall Apple store.

But you know that.

Was PJ also saying that it's all well saying "use PGP" but the NSA are keeping things for as long as they need in the hopes of one day breaking them, so that's still no reassurance to her?

I was surprised at her reaction, but I can see her point, and I don't think it's just over-reaction.

― stet, Tuesday, August 20, 2013 5:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah fair enough. It's tempting to go all spy games with encryption and Tor, but even if it's hypothetically possible for someone really savvy to hide their trail, it doesn't change the fact that we increasingly live in a police state.