PRISM: NSA's leaked internet surveillance program

Not arguing, just using the opportunity of your agreement to demonstrate a different way to think about conspiracy theories.

 

Are there any other sources of 'western' news other than Reuters or AP? I mean the actual people who sell this commodity to Sky and CNN etc?

And who sources it for the other sides?

Any ideas? Serious question...

 

A lot of information is controlled by governments. Bill Moyer's documentary, "Buying the War", is unfortunately an excellent example of the Bush administration's control of infomation.

But governments don't control it all, they're out there competing with all the cats one can't possibly put back in the bags.


[Admittedly grossly oversimplified history of the news media]
The broadcast media in the US is owned mostly by the big 6. And a lot of print news has been bought up and investigative reporting budgets gutted. So essentially the mainstream news is not much more than milquetoast.

The Internet came along at a good time to fill the void. It remains a decent source of investigative reporting but with a different set of problems too numerous to detail here.

Looking back over the last couple centuries, first it was the telegraph and print news that expanded people's information access. Later radio, which started commercial free joined the ranks. Once radio was commercialized, the quality of that expanded information deteriorated. Then came TV and at some point the business model of investigative reporting gave way to the cheapest thing they can sell that keeps people watching.

Now that's boring the hell out people and they're turning to the Internet. As long as we can keep the 'pipes' open, there will be access to expanded information. The Net is absorbing the majority of the consumers of mainstream media and changes will probably follow the same pattern. Large corporate interests will attract the biggest audiences and only a minority will be well informed, ... which if you think about it, it has always been that way.


So here we are, a major disclosure about government surveillance (which I bet is no different in Russia and China) will be old news in a couple weeks.

 

I got an interesting FDA alert today: Cybersecurity for Medical Devices and Hospital Networks: FDA Safety Communication

Probably coincidental, but curiously so.

 

moved to other thread

 

I know these threads overlap some but I think your post fits better in the other thread which is more about political ideology as opposed to cyber-spying and government surveillance.

 

From a technological standpoint, and I'm not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but if they are collecting data en mass, this will be more of a reactive than a proactive measure. There's no way to CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY review every little blip that they capture. Every little HTTP or HTTPS request, or even the ones that don't utilize standard networking protocols. Even more so, how are they going to 100% tie this data to our personal information? I have a Sprint Network powered internet device, I'm not the only one that uses it. My IP Address changes a lot. I find it hard to believe that they are capturing everyone's data. I'd find it more realistic if they were capturing specific data types or requests, or data that uses a specific structure. Which means they are looking for something specific. Of course, what that specific data happens to be I can't even speculate. But I doubt me looking at funny pictures of cats on Facebook is something that the government is going to be monitoring actively or concernedly.

I'm personally more worried about a SkyNet scenario than I am something like this.

 

Why don't they use all this technology for catching paedophiles?

If Obama came out and said "Through Prism, we caught a Paedo ring and saved x amount of kids" there wouldn't be a problem.

 

I hate to say it, but that'd pretty much get everyone behind the program and those of us against it for privacy reasons will be told, "THINK OF THE KIDS!!! DUR DUR DUR!!!"

 

I think I mentioned it already but, I'd be happy if they tracked down all those robo-callers the phone company claims they have no way to trace or block.

 

Because that isn't a matter of national security, which I've come to realize is a very vague term. Also, it doesn't matter who this technology is used against. The point is that it's illegal. Collecting and going through emails, phone records, etc. can easily be used to target someone. It's also unnecessary because all officials need to do to legally go through someone's email or phone records is get a warrant, which is easy to get. All you need to do is go to a judge and say, "Hey, this guy may be a terrorist. We need a warrant." I guarantee you that you'll get the warrant right away.

 

The NSA still needs a warrant to read your e-mails or listen to your phone conversation.

The only thing the NSA is collecting is meta-data. Legally, they can collect who-called-who-and-when from the phone companies without a warrant, because in legal terms, the actual conversation is the private content and the numbers are given freely to a third party. (Verizon, AT&T, etc..)

It just gets difficult when phone meta-data regulations are applied to e-mails, where meta-data can be a lot more information.

But the NSA is still not eavesdropping on peoples calls or e-mail.

 

Yes, legally they do, but then again, this whole program is illegal.

The problem is that the NSA relies heavily on private contractors to collect data. So like Snowden said, it's really easy for anyone working at any of those companies to look through emails.

 

Back before I became disabled, I worked in computer security. I developed a patent in use by some large government departments which enables developing security models from diverse security feeds.

The thing to remember is that metadata is still data and can be used to find someone guilty. The 4th is, sadly, too vague to support either side of the arguement, but there's plenty of reason to be concerned about this issue.

 

Did you miss the part where they can't collect e-mails without a warrant?

 

But they do collect emails. That's the whole point.

The government knows that programs like PRISM are unconstitutional. I think it was last year when they covered up a court ruling against unconstitutional surveillance. Of course, until the Supreme Court says it's illegal, it's technically legal, but that's not a good standard to follow. Also, the EU is pissed because FISA 1881a (the rule that makes prism "legal") applies to people located outside the US, so citizens in European countries may be targets as well. Furthermore, a FISA 1881a certification only lasts for a year. However, the emails and phone records collected by the NSA are kept indefinitely. These are just a few of the things wrong with programs like PRISM.

By the way, the program scans for keywords in emails, and some of those keywords are absolutely ridiculous. Some examples include "Bubba", "secure", "dictionary", debugging", "sex", "nerd", and "bank." So if I write an email that says something like "Bubba was having sex with a nerd in a secure room at the bank while debugging an online dictionary," the NSA scanners are going to go crazy.