One top-secret document obtained by The Post described it as “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
Intelligence community sources said that this description, although inaccurate from a technical perspective, matches the experience of analysts at the NSA. From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may “task” the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company’s staff. […]
According to a more precise description contained in a classified NSA inspector general’s report, also obtained by The Post, PRISM allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises, according to sources familiar with the PRISM process.
That sounds like a backdoor that allows the NSA to request essentially whatever information it wants for foreigners from Google, Yahoo and the rest. There’s been a lot of talk (here’s a good summary) that the characterization of PRISM as “direct access” was an overreach. This Post piece makes that access sound pretty fucking direct to me.
If this goes like other big leak stories of the last few years, we’re going to be hearing more clarifications like this one as reporters go through the documents they have. There are a lot of reasons for this, including the rush to get something out quickly, reporters’ lack of technical knowledge, and the “blind man and the elephant” phenomenon when dealing with top secret information, which means that reporters have to make qualified guesses about facts that are just hinted at in the leaked documents.
And, yes, Glenn Greenwald has an anti-surveillance agenda, so when he makes an educated guess, he’s going to assume the worst. That might bite him in the ass at some point, but reading today’s Guardian story and looking at the supporting documents, I don’t see a big overreach. The “Boundless Information” slides show that the NSA has collected 3 billion items of information on Americans in April, and that the US is coded “yellow”, which means the amount of information collected here is comparable to China. Arguing over Glenn’s spin is one thing, but unless these documents are some kind of fabrication, the NSA has some explaining to so, since they’ve categorically denied gathering “any kind of data at all” on Americans.
But I’m sure those of you who were calling me a bad Democrat for the crime of mentioning Glenn’s reporting have a reason why today’s Guardian story is completely wrong, too. Because the most important thing here isn’t what the NSA is collecting on Americans, but the fact that Glenn Fucking Greenwald is the guy reporting it.
Lavocat
Yeah, Glenn Greenwald has an “anti-surveillance agenda” just like the rest of us have an “anti-killing-Americans-without-due-process-of-law agenda”. I guess that’s just the way we freedom-loving types roll.
Way to wear your Glenn-bashing on your sleeve, Mix.
Marc
It’s possible both for their to be legitimate issues and for Greenwald to be dishonest in how he spins them. If people don’t believe his angle, that might be because he has a long track record of distortion and leaving out things that don’t fit his agenda. These persistent traits of his have consequences for his credibility, or lack thereof.
Mike Lamb
That’s what you picked up from his post? That he’s bashing GG? Wow. Someone’s a touch defensive.
mistermix
@Lavocat: That’s a fucking complement, you moron. It’s a good agenda to have, I share it. Just saying someone “has an agenda” isn’t a criticism – everyone has an agenda.
D58826
To fracture a cliché a bit – even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so Greenwald’s agenda may be suspect but the facts might be accurate
Fred
Goooohly! They really are out to get us. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Corner Stone
Before this thread goes to 100 with everyone telling us how GG has been wrong about everything he’s written or said since January 2009, can we get some comments carefully parsing wording proving again how wrong he is this specific time?
RaflW
I’ll say again today what I said yesterday, because this story will be repeating itself (in more detail), too, for many days: The FISA court is the problem.
Yes the spying is bothersome. But unless the spies can do something actionable with the data, it’s just data. Having a secret, unaccountable court OK the detailed searches and the pulling of additional info for who-knows-what is the problem.
Right now this may all be working swimmingly to detect and foil international terror plots, but I want there to be a mechanism for declassifying FICA court records some reasonable amount of time later. We’ll never know, or only piece together anecdotal reports of abuses if they never have to fess up.
Yes some details would have to be redacted to protect sources and methods, but an invisible court that only reports to a handful of Senate and House members also sworn to secrecy does not cut the mustard in a putative democracy.
ETA: I don’t give a crap about GG. Bashing or praising. Whatever. He’s got a job to do, he’s doing it, and people hate it and love it. C’est la presse.
askew
@Marc:
Yep, that is it in a nutshell.
Greenwald has also had an anti-Obama agenda for years now so I have to take anything he writes about with the same skepticism I would have of a Ron Fournier written article.
The Senate is bringing immigration reform to the floor this week. I realize the liberal blogs/pundit have got OUTRAGE fever, but I hope they don’t ignore immigration reform in their frenzy to say Obama = Bush. There is a good chance we’ll need to start calling Senators this week to get them to vote yes on immigration reform bill and liberal pundits/blogs have shown they have problems focusing on more than one issue at a time.
the Conster
Well, the Republican Patriot Act author says collecting phone data is “un-American”. That’s all I need to know.
Mino
And James Risen, a pro’s pro? What’s the rational for discounting his reporting?
askew
I am in the minority here, but I still think finding out who is leaking classified information is the more important aspect than finding out NSA is viewing our data. There has been leaks of classified information for months now and that is very concerning. With all the ratfucking the GOP has been doing to the Obama admin, I would not be surprised to find out that it is a Republican on the House/Senate Intelligence Committees or one of their staffers.
NSA has filed a criminal compliant to find out who the leaker is and I know DoJ has been investigating other leaks. I think we need to know where this information is coming from.
Emma
And it’s the Post, the same outfit that yesterday WATERED DOWN their own story about this without acknowledging they did it. I’ll wait to see what they do next.
Odie Hugh Manatee
“… which means that reporters have to make qualified guesses about facts that are just hinted at in the leaked documents.”
Now that made me lol, “reporters have to make qualified guesses”, now that’s really humorous. Our press flat out sucks until they have a story that confirms what you already believe. Get back to me when they find something different about something that most of us already knew was going on in one form or another for years now. Oh, and if any laws were broken, that too. Right now everyone is groping an elephant while blindfolded and congratulating themselves without knowing exactly what they are congratulating themselves about.
I also love how the Post is now committing journalism in the eyes of some of you. Yeah, Judith Miller and others like her are probably laughing at you for that one. But don’t let me dampen your outrage…lol, carry on!
RaflW
@askew:
You know, some people just have an anti-Presidential power agenda. Drones and civil liberties are serious matters, even if GG is over the top in his obsessions.
At times I’ve been pissed at Jon Stewart for going after Obama, but what I realize of late is that treating Obama as if he shouldn’t be criticized is absurd.
Obama has in a number of areas been a maximalist about presidential power. His administration has bungled some things like veteran’s care. That type stuff deserves criticism, even if he is “one of our own.” It’s a brittle victory and a shallow coalition that can’t deal in critique.
That said, there are plenty of folks who fly off the handle about useless twaddle who really are just angry morons and alleged liberals. There is an important distinction between critique and just plain impotently angry rage that all the magic ponies didn’t get delivered. That line gets pretty subjective, so watch out.
Tokyokie
Years ago, Jack Anderson had a bit in his column indicating that a certain freshman congressman had been seen repeatedly speeding through school zones in a red sports car. It was one of those items in which all the insiders knew to whom Anderson was referring, and thus chagrined, the subject, who happened to be my congressman, took to the House floor to forcefully deny, on the record, that he had ever sped through a school zone in a reds sports car.
Turns out he owned a yellow sports car.
And I’ve thought from the get-go that GG’s report was one of those kinds of deals: He’s inaccurate about some of the details for a variety of reasons, but the overall thrust — that unaccountable spy agencies are sweeping up data on all electronic communications in the United States — is essentially correct, and that’s the part that should worry us, whether it’s technically legal under the pernicious Patriot Act or not.
Mark B.
This is another example of how it’s impossible to be a democratic president in the current political climate. Nobody can say that this program is illegal, and it’s not something that the Obama administration created. The amount and type of data is similar to what google collects from its users. Actually, google is far more intrusive. Yet somehow, Obama is some kind of a monster since he uses the tools that Congress created in 2006 for tracking and data mining from communication networks after the Boston bombings.
We can have a debate about whether this is right or wrong, but the time for that debate was when the Patriot act passed congress. It’s like someone opened the barn doors 7 years ago and just now noticed the livestock is gone. They were gone 5 minutes after you opened the gate! If we want to fix this, then we will have to repeal the Patriot act. Getting mad at the president for actually using it is, in my opinion, monumentally stupid. If he had not, the right wingers would also be incensed, because …
Libby
To be clear domestic surveillance is a bad thing, but my problem is at this point, with a few exceptions, I don’t trust the media any more than I trust the govt. How many times have they got the story right in the first few days of any big story? Saw on twitter that media got the Santa Monica shooting story completely wrong the first day. And leakers are not the same as whistleblowers. It’s not like leakers have never lied to their sources to suit their own agenda. See Jon Karl, or Judith Miller.
Rush to publish is as big a problem as the surveillance. Doesn’t make for accurate info IMO. Your mileage may vary.
Sorry this is a hit and run. I’m on my way out the door.
Just Some Fuckhead
@RaflW: lolz
Maybe you could be bothered to draw up a list of what is acceptable criticism and what is not now that you’ve decided criticism is okay.
Clown.
MattF
I’ll note that there’s a need-to-know issue on the matter of how NSA gets data from various places. Analysts “cleared for PRISM access” will not generally have a need-to-know exactly how the data was obtained– and in fact I’d expect the PRISM system would be specifically designed to appear as a black box to people who access it.
cathyx
@askew: I hope that when President Obama leaves office at the end of his term that he gives you some kind or award or recognition because that kind of loyalty needs to be rewarded.
Violet
I must be the only one with my mind in the gutter. With a title like this, I thought the post was going to be about pr0n. Makes the spying stuff seem like an anticlimax. Pun intended.
pokeyblow
Obama has no choice other than to install an American Stasi.
Because of Max Baucus.
Applejinx
I guess a fair question would be, “do foreign countries already harvest all the internet information they want through other backdoors, rendering all of this sort of moot”.
Not that they aren’t entitled to make a big show of outrage! This is pretty bullshit.
Extreme societal transparency is hard to get used to, but the thing is to prevent it from becoming one-sided. It’s too easy to blackmail and frighten people who are already threatened, and most Americans are threatened in one way or another (at the very least, economically).
If a guy working for a secret court can say, “Oh, you don’t like it? *makes note* You now have a pedophilia arrest on your permanent record that nobody can see except, oh, potential employers, landlords, you know. Have a nice life, little man,” then it’s a system just begging to be corrupted further and exploited. It’s an express elevator to hell and societal collapse to have the ‘gods’ that unaccountable, and I use the term because it gives anonymous Politburo functionaries the power of gods, kinda like post-collapse USSR.
There are many parallels, honestly.
There’s some defense in living humbly and being like ‘fuck you, I’ll own all of my actions publically if I have to’, but to resist that kind of power (even passively) requires cojones and willingness to have your life destroyed that it’s unreasonable to expect normal people to have. You have to have ALREADY come from a screwed-up life to be able to face this stuff clear-eyed and unafraid. You have to be prepared to go “All right, kill me and to hell with you”.
That is no way to run a society.
Bruce S
Read this…
http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-the-collapse-of-journalism-7000016570/
and this…
http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/
Greenwald is hyping this and it’s nothing new. It’s also in broad outlines what the government should be doing in the face of certain kinds of threats. The worst thing about this is how little rational discussion there is, as opposed to hype in the supposedly “best” sources of journalism. This is an area ripe for discussion and I’m not horrified at the so-called “disclosures” – except for the remarkable sloppiness, undisclosed back-tracking in the WaPo stories and the inability to link the programs to any abuse. The latter would be news. But there’s really nothing here that we didn’t already know was going on. At the outset Greenwald seemed like he was doing some legitimate reporting around the issues that he’s most concerned with – it’s seeming less so with each “revelation” that rings increasingly hollow and scattershot. What’s most worrisome – although not surprising – is that he’s dealing with some supposedly old school editors and they obviously don’t have any higher standards than a blog or “new media” like Salon. Not really surprising, especially given what we know about WaPo, but “just saying.”
It’s unfortunately becoming legitimate and reasonable to speculate about who is playing Greenwald, knowing his penchant for hysterics about this stuff.
me
@RaflW: Everything is the problem. The President for letting the NSA exploit every seam and loophole in the law (at least he appears to not be letting them ignore the law), the FISA court for being useless and Congress, with a few exceptions, for being worse than useless.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Odie Hugh Manatee: The Post must be upping their “game” before the oncoming paywall.
GregB
What is wrong with you people? *9/11 changed everything!
*Except when there’s a Black President.
Dude in Princeton
@Mark B.: So if I understand you, let’s not get mad at the President for using the Patriot Act, but at the same time let’s try to get it repealed, on the grounds that…we’re okay with his use of it?
And Google is more intrusive? Not if you don’t use Google products.
MikeBoyScout
Yeah, but we’re all “safer” from teh terrorism and stuff.
To paraphrase an infamous unindicted war criminal ‘If there’s a 1% chance, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response.’
And anywho, how can one argue or complain when the names of the software used to pry into our lives has such cool names!
LAC
@Odie Hugh Manatee: amen!!! There’s a much overdue debate (try back in 2006 and bush’s warrantless searches) needed about the Patriot Act and FISA in this country. what this peevish post makes clear to me that the story is not about the WAPO cya-ing itself with its fluid reporting, the desperate need to vindicate ole chinless glenn for doing his patented narrative writing followed by interminable “updates” (otherwise known as facts) or mistermix’s channeling REM’s “everybody hurts”.
Someone’s agenda, even when it might be righteous, is lost when facts are selectively used or when that person becomes blinded by their ambition or personal animus. I take everything greenwald has written with a grain of salt because of that.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Bruce S:
I think Greenwald is playing Greenwald, like an out of tune, three-stringed violin.
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Yeah, that’s the ticket! :)
@LAC: “I take everything greenwald has written with a grain of salt…”
I take what he says with a few pounds of plain salt, not that fancy pink Himalayan stuff.
piratedan
sorry mix, I’ll stick with what I’m getting from LGF, ZDNet and CNET regarding this “issue”. The government collects data, always has, with the advent of the Patriot act, more so. They use this data as ONE of their tools in the intelligence arena to track bad guys. There is a process by which they do so that is murky and not well understood (hey it’s R legislation, lucky to have any oversight at all) but has been on the books dating back more than the current administration. For those who have been anti-Patriot Act all along, this ads fuel to the fire, to those that are anti a Near President, it’s just the latest of the current string of outrages of Presidentin’ while Black. The Prez himself has stated that they’ve attempted top ADD additional oversight to this where they can, in their attempt to be more transparent, which has naturally led to cries that he’s not being transparent enough (gee, whocouldanode) while almost everyone wuz snoozing about this before with notable indifference when we had a pigmentally challenged President. If we’re following the money, 20M is a helluiva deal for your totalitarian police state metadata data mining operation for everyone in the US consideriung the same amount of jack wouldn’t buy you all of the commercial time in the 1st quarter of the Super Bowl, much less run a Government program.
The fact that this has been spearheaded by GG doesn’t help their cause thanks to his history of applying cleek’s law to establish his position in regards to this administration . Followed by the fact that the WaPo has edited their story with nary a word about corrections in opposition to their own policy doesn’t give me any warm and fuzzy feeling about the veracity of the claims.
Nothing wrong about having a discussion regarding privacy in the Internet Age and the discussions on how much access to data law enforcement should have (much less businesses and corporations) to be able to track our purchases and movements and viewings, but I’m not going to do so by letting the fainting couch collective be the ones to set the framework for the discussion.
askew
@RaflW:
I don’t have problems with Obama being criticized, but there is a point when it becomes irrational or not based in reality. Greenwald has always been like that and Stewart’s been going after Obama for years and without cause in many cases. His attacks on Obama during the health care debate pretty much sealed it for me. He was going after Obama for saying that health care was complicated and that is why the bill was taking a long time and why it was so long. Stewart has a libertarian disdain for government that I find gets in his way of understanding government in a lot of ways and he’s just never been an Obama fan.
I think there are legitimate issues to go after Obama on. I think he isn’t doing enough to set the agenda in DC. His staff seems to react to news instead of making it. He’s got a giant executive branch. Why aren’t they pushing out more progressive administrative rules or executive orders. Why is he letting many spots go unfilled in the judiciary/executive branch? He hasn’t even nominated anyone for lots of these spots. I think he has too many Clinton people in his admin who are so risk adverse that his WH has seemed paralyzed at times. I’d like to see one of the Davids come back to the WH and to get some new blood in there that isn’t exhausted and is excited to get something done.
MikeBoyScout
Good news!
The NSA has filed a “crimes report” to investigate who violated their privacy!
Sasha
What I find frustrating about this discussion is the failure to acknowledge that this is what the American People want. You can’t just look at this in a vacuum. I thought President Obama was spot on when he said that you cannot total protection from terrorism and have total privacy. The political consequences of another terrorist attack would be catastrophic. And not just to President Obama; it would be extremely damaging to the Democratic Party. Many of the same people who are hollering now would scream bloody murder if a terrorist attack happened and it became known that the Obama administration didn’t avail themselves of every tool.
Why are liberals attacking the President for this when the alternative is to potentially destroy his presidency? He didn’t create this system and we, as a people, need to agree on what’s important to us. I bet you dollars to doughnuts, that if put to the vote, most Americans would choose total surveillance if they believed it would make them safe. I wouldn’t make that choice, but then again, I wouldn’t make a lot of choices that the majority makes.
Bruce S
@Mino:
I saw Risen on Joy Reid’s hosting of The Ed Show, and I hate to say it but Bill Maher handled this story on his Friday night show with more context and better perspective than Risen did. Which is, of course, sad. Because Maher isn’t a very good source of anything other than a laugh.
Alex
The Boundless Information slide shows WHERE the information is collected, not WHOM the information is collected against.
KCinDC
Note also David Simon’s followup in which he says the debate in the comments on his previous post changed his mind on a few things.
LAC
@cathyx: I
And I hope that when he leaves office, you will continue your righteous indignation tour.. Oh who am i kidding? It will be like pre 2008 with you: not a peep.
Matt McIrvin
@Mark B.:
This stuff is very likely all legal; the scandal is that it’s legal. If people weren’t aware of this, I’m all in favor of pushing this story to make them aware.
Is it personally unfair to Obama to knock him for doing something that’s (a) legal, and (b) quite probably politically popular, at least during most of the time he was involved? Probably, but who cares? Barack Obama is the President of the United States, in many ways the most powerful human being in the world, in possession of one of the biggest megaphones in the world, and he’s highly skilled at rhetoric for the purpose of defending himself. I’ve defended him many times from attacks that are completely nonsensical (the last time was just a few days ago, in fact), but bending over backwards to be personally fair to him should be fairly low on our list of priorities.
If his reputation suffers as a side effect of Americans finally getting fed up at unaccountable government agencies snooping on them arbitrarily, I’m not that concerned about it.
I am, anyway, not so sure that Americans are fed up about it outside of the liberal-blog-reading set, and some of the more civil-liberties-friendly libertarians like Greenwald and Friedersdorf. Outside of blogworld I have had many conversations with self-identified liberal Democrats who are, so far, perfectly OK with it, and do not get why TSA agents sniffing at my shoes and spies looking for terrorist codewords in my email does not make me feel safer. If this story means that concern with this stuff is actually finally getting some traction, that is a fine thing. It might discourage the blogworld left but it’s not as if it’s going to drive anyone into the arms of the Republican Party, since this seems to be one scandal that, thus far, the Republicans really don’t want to capitalize on.
4tehlulz
@Bruce S: Click here for a list of people who I think are playing Glenn and the WaPo.
No bonus points for figuring out which list I’m pointing to.
BTW, if you want to have fun, imagine what would be happening right now if a Democrat leaked this (for the sake of argument we’ll say this is true) to Glenn during the Bush administration. Do you think the staffer would have been hung or burned at the stake?
desertflower
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/
You may want to read this.
Bruce S
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Greenwald is Greenwald…but this is starting to seem like the Jonathan Karl “White House emaills” which were obviously doctored and supposedly “leaked” to Karl as part of a strategy that pretty obviously was being driven by some GOP House member or members and their staff to create a narrative that would be much more difficult to claw back than to promote with phony “information.” Once that bogus stuff was out there, it continued to frame everything that came after – with no consequences for ABC and Karl. It was almost the perfect experiment if you wanted to prove how corrupt and lazy our media are – although that is obviously the least likely explanation for it.
me
@Alex: Yep, that number could include the call metadata info from Verizon and the other phone companies.
desertflower
The details of this “bombshell” are being pulled back by the minute….In efforts to be FIRST, and not ACCURATE…this is what passes for journalism today. Sad.
http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-the-collapse-of-journalism-7000016570/
Knockabout
Mistermix throwing Zandar under the bus like that over Glenn Greenwald? Let me get my popcorn!
the Conster
@Sasha:
Since Congress is less than useless and doesn’t want to do anything about this, I look forward to the next presidential candidate running against NSA overreach and calmly explaining to the American public how the possibility of a few terrorist attacks here and there are just the price
we’reyou’re going to have to pay for more online privacy.Matt McIrvin
I should add that it’s completely unclear to me what the actual facts of PRISM are at the moment. Major news stories are saying things that are flat-out contradictory.
askew
@Sasha:
Because too many liberals don’t understand how politics works and thinks that attacking Obama all the time makes them seem smarter and more independent. And then when Obama’s 2 terms end in 2017, they can bitch that Obama didn’t get much done and completely ignore that they spent 8 years weakening him so his agenda couldn’t get through Congress. The true difference between the far right and the far left is that the far right at least understands politics.
Maude
@askew:
About the nominations. Obama is being blocked in the Senate. When he nominates someone, it can take a very long time before there is even a hearing, never mind a floor vote.
Putting people though that is pointless.
Obama did nominate 3 judges. Let’s see how long it takes before any of them get a hearing.
A lot of nonsense that is floating about isn’t worth it for the WH to respond to. Obama does propose thing ans the media pretty much ignores them. infrastructure and jobs being two of them.
You can read what is in the Federal Register at the CFTC site. Obama has recently done some executive orders.
schrodinger's cat
Before I run out of the room with my hair on fire can somebody please explain it to me, how this is all Obama’s fault.
LAC
@KCinDC: BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yeah. I read it and wow, what a generous spin you put on that column. You must be dizzy.
piratedan
@schrodinger’s cat: he’s guilty of Presidentin’ while Black again….ymmv.
Violet
@Sasha:
Agreed. A recent example is the TSA saying they’d start allowing people to bring small pocket knives onto planes. The American public did not like that decision. It’s not safe! Terrorists could take down a plane if they had a pocket knife! Pilots and flight attendants protested the decision.
The TSA made the decision both because they felt the American public would be safe if pocket knives were allowed on planes. But no, the American public wanted more security, more scrutiny, and less freedom to bring things on planes.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@KCinDC:
I like this…
His commenters helped him realize that the Verizon ‘stuff’ and this ‘stuff’ are two different things, two different things that our own mistermix was conflating yesterday.
@Bruce S:
Combine that with a narcissistic GG who is desperately searching for his next 15 minutes of fame…
and here we are.
Matt McIrvin
@Sasha:
No, we don’t! My God, large bipartisan majorities of Americans support all kinds of things that are wrong and absurd. I definitely reserve the right not to agree with them.
LAC
@Odie Hugh Manatee: me? I like kosher. :-)
Knockabout
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s the President, he’s choosing to enforce and expand a clearly unconstitutional law, and he’s done it every second of his presidency?
Stop me when I’m wrong here.
Cacti
@RaflW:
What Glenn thought of Presidential power post 9/11
becca
I am ambivalent. I internalized the 60’s civil unrest, so I expect the PTB can find a way to screw me should I become a nuisance.
Even if they pinky-swear they’ll stop, I wouldn’t believe them.
Quite the quandary.
schrodinger's cat
@Knockabout: Why is the law unconstitutional? Has the Supreme Court ruled against it or was it overturned by Congress.
Second point, if this has been happening since he took office, why the brouhaha right now. I find the timing of the latest tantrum by the media highly suspect.
piratedan
@Knockabout: unconstitutional? really? how about you stop there then.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@askew:
I like that some lefties are pissed that Obama is using these ‘tools’ that were given to the President, with many saying that he shouldn’t use them at all. Yeah, just wait for the next Republican to take the office so they can pick where Bush left off.
Because Obama sure isn’t going to get those powers revoked, not with our current Congress.
@LAC:
Isn’t freedom great?! :)
Cacti
@Knockabout:
As it is “clearly unconstitutional” you should have no problem citing case law that supports your position.
So, let’s have it then.
Maude
@schrodinger’s cat:
TROLL
Usually hounds Zander.
Mark B
@Dude in Princeton:
My point is that if you cede power to a government, you shouldn’t be upset when they use it. As far as me being upset about it, it kind of depends on the details. If they are only using the data for node analysis related to legitimate law enforcement purposes, yeah I’m perfectly ok with that.
Have you ever used google traffic maps? where it tells you where the congested areas are, and how fast traffic is moving? Do you know how they collect that data? Google it, it’s an interesting story.
Redshirt
Begun today’s Greenwald War has.
4tehlulz
@Cacti: lol. Anyone else’s opinion would be invalid forever.
(Also, I want to slap his editor for not fixing that incorrectly used “between.”)
Knockabout
@schrodinger’s cat: And yet every challenge to the PATRIOT Act is quashed before it can reach the Supreme Court because even questioning the surveillance regime is not allowed. Obama has no problem with that.
But go on thinking the problem here is Greenwald’s credibility.
Baud
My eyes glaze over reading that stuff, but I didn’t see the reference to “3 billion items of information on Americans” in the slides.
ETA: I can easily see the telephone metadata information reaching the 3 billion mark, but that data is reportedly not tied to individual identities.
Mark B
@schrodinger’s cat: It hasn’t been happening since Obama took office, it started long before that. And even before the Patriot Act, the government has been collecting lots of information legally from communication networks.
lojasmo
@RaflW:
That would make sense if GG hadn’t had his tongue in Bush’s transverse colon.
Anoniminous
If the goal is to be an intrusive nosy-Parker this is the way to do it. With any amount of luck they did it in a way other cyber-warfare experts in, say, the People’s Republic of China, will take a couple of years to figure out how to crack. Since unless there is a direct stand-alone physical line (best) or ‘hardened’ networking capability (second best) running from the, e.g., Google servers in Finland, to the NSA data warehouse in Utah, there are exploitable vulnerabilities that will, in time, be exploited.
And “content tasking instructions” is good. It’s the usual bland, emotionless, techno-scientific, truth-hiding verbage I’ve come to expect from DC. “Content tasking instructions” sounds so much better then “reading your email,” “grabbing your credit card numbers,” and and “creating the information-base necessary for identity theft.”
Bruce S
@Cacti:
It’s never a good idea to use someone’s words totally out of context. Obviously Greenwald became a harsh critic of the Bush administration, the war, the Patriot Act, etc etc long before Obama’s taking office. (I frankly can’t understand the mindset of people who supported the Iraq war, which was obviously being hyped with bogus intel and was strategically foolish at best, but people like Cole and Greenwald who at the least woke up after a bout of being brain dead deserve a bit better than to be treated as if they still agree with Dick Cheney,) If you want to gin up sympathy for Greenwald and discredit criticism of him, keep making dishonest and frivolous arguments against him.
mattH
@askew:
You understand that we might never know if something like this is happening unless it’s leaked and I DO NOT CARE who is leaking it. I don’t care if they are leaking for personal gain, I don’t care if they are leaking it for political gain, I don’t care if they are leaking it on a lark, I don’t care if it fell out of their satchel on the way to the bathroom. We haven’t talked about how there’s too much secret classified material to begin with, but even if you have no reason to think this shouldn’t be classified, I don’t see how letting anyone hide this from the very citizens who have been told that it wasn’t happening, and that the motives of the individual leaking it, is more important than the fact that we have had it more or less hidden from us.
Cacti
@4tehlulz:
Greenwald is a Bushbot turned Paultard, despite the enthusiasm with which white liberal bloggers like to hump his leg.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MikeBoyScout:
Ha. Is that as good news as finding out the President may indeed know who is being disloyal in the Balloon Juice commentariat?
Mark B
@Baud: @Matt McIrvin: My point is that if you’re upset at how a president that you’re generally in agreement with is using the law, wait until we have a President Cruz. That bastard is going to push the envelope so far that he’ll make the Stasi look like the Boy Scouts. Don’t attack the president, attack the legal framework that makes this kind of action possible.
Having said that, it seems to me like a lot of the hair tearing and beating of breasts is a little overblown. Collecting information on who’s calling who and when has been going on for a long time and has been pretty routinely approved by the courts. I guess it’s time to start using carrier pigeons.
schrodinger's cat
@Mark B: I know, I know, just trying to show inconsistent this current argument is, even if you accept their most ridiculous rationalization, i.e. Obama started it.
4tehlulz
@Knockabout: lol. So the problem isn’t that the challenges were illegitimate, it was the panopticon suppressing dissent.
You forgot to work in the JEWS too, though I’m sure that’s coming soon.
Cacti
@Bruce S:
Right on cue, a member of the howler monkey brigade here with the “How dare you actually use Glenn’s words against him”.
Baud
@Mark B:
I’m not sure how that was directed at my comment, but I support greater transparency and controls written into the law so that a future Republican president can’t abuse the capability.
Matt McIrvin
@askew:
Huffington Post people attacking Obama from the left has jack squat to do with Obama being unable to get his agenda through Congress. What did it was the 2010 midterm election, and Democrats didn’t turn out for the 2010 midterm election because, absent extraordinary circumstances, Democratic constituencies tend to only vote in presidential elections. Democratic turnout in 2010 was completely normal for a midterm election; but the Tea Party excitement got old white Republicans to get out there and vote, which they’re already more likely to do in the first place.
If it were all about Obama, you’d think he wouldn’t have been reelected in 2012.
I am concerned about the possibility of 2014 being another Republican wave election. But the problem there is how to get Democrats to vote when they’re not voting for Obama. The last time that happened was 2006, when the shoe was on the other foot, and Bush was far more unpopular than Obama is now.
Baud
The real tragedy here is how the longstanding and venerable practice of “backdooring” is being dragged through the mud.
Knockabout
@Cacti: what’s really going to piss people like you and Zandar off is that the only person in Washington willing to take the PATRIOT Act to the Supreme Court is Senator Rand Paul.
Mark B
@Baud: Reply fail, I don’t know how your name ended up in there. Should have been a reply to Matt.
MikeBoyScout
@12 askew:
You know what would stop leaks of “classified data”? Not having classified data.
Don’t know if you’ve ever viewed “classified data” or had the responsibility to classify data, but I’m here to tell you that there’s very little which protects anyone’s security beyond CYA.
askew
@Maude:
Obama’s been giving the same speech on infrastructure and jobs for years now. Of course the media isn’t going to cover it. They need to change it up and start actually using their executive power.
lamh36
Not for nothing, but Man, when can the Hilary Clinton presidency begin? I gonna be trolling hard when it starts. Noe I just gotta decide what to call em, ssince I’m always called naive lil Obot. Clintonista is so 90s, and PUMA is soo 2008. Hmmm, maybe Hillary-bots or Hill-bots?
IDK what im gonna do uf HRC doesnt win.
Redshirt
@Baud: Someone has to be a “backdoor man”.
Redshirt
@Knockabout: Ah yes, Rand Paul, America’s greatest protector of Freedom.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Bruce S: “… but people like Cole and Greenwald …”
Cole woke up to reality and embraced it, admitting he was wrong in the past. Greenwald stuck his tongue in Bush’s asscrack and when something not-so-tasty came along, he moved over to taste the Ron Paul asscrack.
Two different people on two different courses in life. One is not like the other, not in the least.
Wayne t
I’m curious if the gov has all this direct access don’t they already know who all the leakers are? It seems they still have to get some kind of warrant, right? Meaning there is some kind of check and balance going on somewhere. If not, why did they need a chat room guy to find out who Manning was?
I’m confused by the whole thing.
NobodySpecial
@Matt McIrvin: Will you stop with the revisionist bullshit? Liberals turned out in 2010 just like in 2008. What killed Obama was the ‘moderates’.
Bruce S
@Cacti:
So you’re really that fucking stupid? Not my problem.
Cacti
@Redshirt:
As long as you’re white and have a penis.
Cacti
@Bruce S:
More from your “progressive” hero.
On the dangers of the Hispanic menace:
Baud
@lamh36:
Sorry, not me. I sucks fighting an asymmetrical battle, but if a firebagger or PUMA approved candidate wins the Democratic nomination and the presidency, she (or he) will have my full support (absent some extraordinary circumstance).
piratedan
@Redshirt: well sure, if you’re a white property owner, otherwise, not so much
Cacti
@piratedan:
And a bro of course.
If you’re a chick and get prego, that womb of yours is State property.
lamh36
@Baud: oh, im still supporting. I’ve been Dem all my life, but I won’t lie and say I won’t enjoy some trolling along the way
Knockabout
@Redshirt: as opposed to Obama data mining every American. Sure. The bad guys here are Greenwald and Paul.
Redshirt
@piratedan: Well, yeah. That’s what The Founders intended, is it not?
Cacti
Papa Doc Paul of course offered an exception to wombs being State property in the case of “honest rape”.
Redshirt
@Knockabout: Yes, Rand Paul would never data mine you and me. He’s against data – Big Data too – as I understand. As is much of the Tea Party. Down with Data!
lojasmo
@Knockabout:
Don’t be dumb.
“And yet every challenge to the PATRIOT Act is quashed before it can reach the Supreme Court”
That is a lie.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Cacti:
Gee, that quote sounds exactly like ummm, lessee, I know, I know, don’t tell me, let me remember!
Oh, something a Republican says!
Baud
@lamh36:
Gotcha. Same here. I hope we get the opportunity in 2017.
Bruce S
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Sorry, but Greenwald has been consistent in his obsessions ever since he first began dissenting from his initial stupidity. This is a fake argument. I didn’t say that Cole and Greenwald were identical, except for them having been dumb as fuck in supporting the Iraq war and then breaking with Bush. In that regard they are both total assholes who woke up to some degree of rationality. Biggest difference now is that Cole doesn’t even attempt anything resembling journalism. And to paint Greenwald as simply a supporter of Ron Paul is also dishonest. You’re not doing yourself any favors with this simpleminded crap.
elftx
I do wonder if GG’s real agenda is to get Rand Paul in the spotlight as much as possible for a future election
Cacti
@Redshirt:
Rand is also against the use of Dr0nez! on US citizens, unless they rob 50 bucks from a liquor store.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mattH: Not to be flippant, but you’re not making a lot of sense. There’s this thing in the government regarding classified information called “need to know”. Governments and large organizations have secrets that cannot be released outside the institution without some level of damage. What is the public’s need to know about the details of the programs, here?
What is “this”, exactly, that you think is illegal or is worthy of concern?
The US government has been collecting information on foreign communications since the 1940s. As that link points out, a lot of the abuses were reigned in by the Church Committee in the 1970s.
There has been a lot of hysterical screaming about wire-tapping and spying and so forth. There has been no evidence thus far (at least none that I’ve seen) that US people are being illegally spied on by these leaked programs. Node analysis isn’t wire-tapping.
You may think you’ll be happier if there were no consequences for the release of classified information, but leaks don’t happen in a vacuum. The leaker has a story they want to tell. That story sometimes illustrates illegalities and crimes. I haven’t seen any indication thus far that that is the case here. It seems, instead, to me at least, to be leaks by someone who doesn’t like a legal (and fairly well known capability – at least since 2006 – (note in that case, Bush’s people were going around the FISC and breaking that law)) system that has oversight.
Cui bono on these leaks?
Be skeptical. The press rarely gets these things right when they’re first released.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
the Conster
@Cacti:
Maybe, in the end, it’s not even the politics that matter the most to Glenn Greenwald. Maybe what’s most important to him is ensuring that he’s not ignored.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Bruce S:
I’m not doing myself any favors?? Why bless your heart for your concern about little ol’ me!
GG has been consistent, consistently conservative.
@the Conster:
Exactly.
piratedan
@Redshirt: The Founders… when you say it like that it sounds like the moniker for a nefarious group in the next Grisham novel :-)
piratedan
@Cacti: well don”t forget the poors, someone has to tote those guns in defense of their Freedoms. I guess I can dream that someday the Republicans won’t treat anyone lower than middle class like the Brits did the Irish for a couple of centuries.
Davis X. Machina
@Matt McIrvin:
I think recent developments guarantee it. Apply the principle of cui bono to the last three or four weeks’ news.
Mission accomplished.
Yatsuno
Jeebus Mixie, the fucking horse is dead. I promise you. Now stop beating it and get a cat or something. Jeez.
someguy
Well, I guess this past week was the start of the period when we find out who is liberal, and who is just a cheap partisan whore* who will tolerate anything, as long as their guy is doing it.
Let the games begin!
*Actually, I shouldn’t insult sex workers here. They provide a service, in exchange for pay. People who hew to patently dishonest political talking points without being paid to do so are not the “sex workers” of political discourse, they’re simply amoral and promiscuous.
Todd
You want to harbor a reasonable expectation of privacy by longstanding legal principles? Get off the Internet. Send letters through the post office. Get paid in and use cash for all your transactions. Buy magazines anonymously at news stands. Ditch cable. Ditch your grocery and pharmacy discount cards. Don’t mail or Internet order any good or service. Join no groups or clubs. Don’t borrow money or use credit cards or use banks. Don’t get any pharmaceut!cals.
Remember, each of these services offered by unaccountable corporate giants have valued business partners with which they share your information, and you can’t stop that – its written into every single transaction.
Of course, you’ll be disconnected from modern life and living like a nut (or the abjectly poor, which you will also be) but you’ll have privacy.
You can have privacy or the ubiquitous conveniences modern life offers, but you can’t have both at the same time.
Choose.
Baud
@Yatsuno:
Why aren’t Democrats talking about JOBS?!
Redshirt
@piratedan: They are new Gods, are they not? And like all Gods, they can be twisted to whatever purpose you like.
lojasmo
@Bruce S:
-GG
Bruce S
@Cacti:
You’re a fucking idiot – as obvious in your calling Greenwald my “progressive hero.” He’s neither a “progressive” IMHO or anything close to my “hero.” Go fuck yourself. Really. You”re just a dipshit with attitude. Useless. You’re not capable of honest discussion of anything – a total asshole. You’re fucking with the wrong person. And your original use of his quote was fucking dumb and dishonest in its implications. Nor do I give a flying fuck what Greenwald thinks about immigration. Contrary to your hype, I’m not in love with Glenn Greenwald. I just know a classic form of bad argumentation when I see it. You’re pulling stuff out of your ass. I think it’s time to call me a “Firebagger” just to put the cherry on top of your stupidity..
Todd
You want to harbor a reasonable expectation of privacy by longstanding legal principles? Get off the Internet. Send letters through the post office. Get paid in and use cash for all your transactions. Buy magazines anonymously at news stands. Ditch cable. Ditch your grocery and ph4rmacy discount cards. Don’t mail or Internet order any good or service. Join no groups or clubs. Don’t borrow money or use credit cards or use banks. Don’t get any ph4rmaceut!cals.
Remember, each of these services offered by unaccountable corporate giants have valued business partners with which they share your information, and you can’t stop that – its written into every single transaction.
Of course, you’ll be disconnected from modern life and living like a nut (or the abjectly poor, which you will also be) but you’ll have privacy.
You can have privacy or the ubiquitous conveniences modern life offers, but you can’t have both at the same time.
Choose.
Cacti
@someguy:
And someguy is here to tell us who all the True Scotsmen are.
Cacti
@Bruce S:
Yes, yes. Fucking idiot. Fucking stupid.
Got it. Thanks.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW:
This, this, this.
It’s not transparent. It’s not public. It’s basically a fucking star chamber, and it was used that way with malice aforethought by the Dark Lord and his puppet, the deserting coward.
Davis X. Machina
@Baud: The people they know, and socialize with, and who finance their campaigns, already have them?
Mark B
@someguy: A very persuasive argument. That’s a really good way to cultivate friendships.
Redshirt
@someguy: And who are you supporting? Unicorns? Republicans? RONRANDPAUL? Tell us what the solution to your concerns would be – no secrets? No data? Please elaborate from a non-partisan whore perspective.
Villago Delenda Est
@Todd:
Stop making sense, you terrible, evil person you!
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
Pretty much. Also, a significant number of people without jobs don’t vote, or are likely to blame Democrats or “both sides.” It’s an awful dynamic.
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Word.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
Neither are grand juries, and those have been used to charge US citizens with crimes for, oh, about 237 years now.
Villago Delenda Est
@the Conster:
Attention whore Greenwald is in utter ecstasy right now. He’s getting metric assloads of attention.
He’s in fucking heaven, he is.
Bruce S
@lojasmo:
Which is, of course, all a preface to his discussion of how he came to oppose the Bush administration policies in significant ways. Which anyone who isn’t brain dead knows he did. Of course the answer to his breaking with Bush for 12-year old minds is “Ron Paul!”, because Greenwald isn’t happy with Obama. This is childish stuff. You guys are truly lame. Leave debunking Greenwald to people who have some chops – the mindless sandbox stuff buys you nothing.
Mark B
My cousin, who is a lawyer, has a profitable sideline locating bail jumpers for bounty hunters. She doesn’t actually nab the perps, she just tells the guys where to find them. How she does it is by getting on Facebook and doing a couple of simple searches. It usually takes less than 5 minutes. It also helps that almost every photo posted on the internet contains location metadata. Very profitable for her.
the Conster
@Todd:
We could also have a serious discussion about the American consumer culture and the American business interests that demand global resources to create and meet the demand of that culture and the scale of the American economic and military footprint in the world to secure those interests that creates the blowback which creates the “need” for such a large security apparatus. In other words, looking in the mirror.
Sometimes I crack myself up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
The difference is grand juries are made up of everyday citizens. That creates something of a check and balance on them, internally. It’s not an individual issuing edicts without any check on him…we’re again being asked to trust the integrity of that individual.
Bruce S
@Cacti:
Actually, the money quote was “Go fuck yourself” for your totally dishonest effort to paint me with your bullshit. Got it?
Marc
@someguy:
Matt Drudge had a legitimate scoop in the Lewinski matter. Does that mean that we have to accept every single thing that he, and his partisans, have claimed before or since? Woodward did important work in Watergate. Does that mean we now have to take as gospel truth every right-wing thing that he now spits out?
I think it’s good that we’re having this discussion. I suspect that it’ll end up a lot less dramatic than is being claimed, but I’m prepared to be proven wrong and to acknowledge that. But I am certain about something that will happen even if Greenwald is proven to be utterly off base to the satisfaction of virtually everyone.
I know full well that this is going to mean that people like you are going to claim total vindication in every crackpot accusation against Obama, and it will be used to justify future (and past) Drudge-like things from Greenwald and allies. That doesn’t make it so. And this isn’t about who is a “liberal”. The far left has always hated liberals, just as communists hated socialists. And the far left doesn’t get to define what a liberal is, or what we believe.
Cacti
@Mark B:
Private investigators, process servers, and law firms also use Skiptrace software every day that can pull up all of your former phone numbers and addresses, credit reports, loan and job application info, utility bills, and tax information among other things.
D58826
@RaflW: I understand the difference between collecting data and doing something with it, but as sure as the sun comes up, somebody is going to pull the same kind of dumb stunt that theirs agents did with the tea party data. While the technology allows for collecting huge amounts of data, J Edgar Hoover managed to terrorize his enemies using only index cards, so the problem isn’t new
Without strong oversight (from CONGRESS? ha ha) and transparency we are putting all of our trust in the better angels of our leaders and spy’s..
Unfortunately there also bad guys out there with evil intent so we can’t just shut the programs down, bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best!
Cacti
@Bruce S:
Yes, you can’t make a post without immediately resorting to name-calling.
Got it.
Jasmine Bleach
@Dude in Princeton:
Actually, Google is very intrusive, even if you don’t use Google products.
Most web pages (in my experience, about 80%-90% of ’em), have Google Analytics, Google AdSense, or Google+ trackers installed into them (including this very site!!!–I get notice of a Google AdSense tracker here every time I visit). These drop normal/flash cookies onto your computer, build profiles about your computer as you move from site to site, and sells these profiles to other parties. Evidently, through PRISM, the NSA would have this information as well.
In order to really avoid Google, you have to use something like the Ghostery plug-in for your web browser to stop it–or be more brute force like turning off cookies and flash and images in your web browser. And not use Google search or maps. And not use Android. And not use YouTube.
Just FYI.
Facebook and Twitter are everywhere (on websites), too. As well as other advertisement and social media companies, like Pinterest and DoubleClick (and a whole lot more).
Davis X. Machina
@Baud I think of Steve Randy Waldman I am sure didn’t originate the term, but I met it there first — the median influencer.
The median resident of the US is different from, has different politics — mostly none at all, really — than the median eligble voter. The median eligible voter is different from the median registered voter. The median registered voter is different from the median influencer — the person with enough time, money and resources to give to candidates and causes to move the needle off the status quo. And the median influence is a median. The influencers are not identical to your classic Marxian capitalists, or the bosses of political caricature.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out, e.g. Scott Brown’s Senate campaign was not put together from the dollars and dimes of unemployed workers. But Elizabeth Warren’s campaign was not put together from the dollars and dimes of unemployed workers, either.
It’s the median influencer whose Weltanschauung is the template for the political world we have.
Short of violent revolution, change happens one of two ways — change who that median influencer is, or change the furniture that lies in their heads, their unchallenged, reflexively-assumed picture of how things are and need to be.
Mark B
@Cacti: Right, she also uses that, but usually Facebook (and other social networking sites) provides information on where the person is RIGHT NOW, instead of historical info about where they were in the past.
Todd
@Knockabout:
Please describe your legal premise behind your statement that there is something unconstitutional about these programs, and refrain from consulting publications from either the hippie press, Aryan Nations, or anything on Tim McVeigh’s prison library reading list.
Thanks in advance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Todd: Bullshit. Restrictions on invasions of privacy can certainly be updated to fit the digital age. It isn’t like mail couldn’t be opened if the post office wasn’t forbidden to do it.
As far as using this to attack Obama goes, he isn’t a civil libertarian. No one who is electable to high office really is. They may bullshit about it like the Pauls, but when push comes to shove powerful people use the power available to them. If people don’t like it, they should take steps to limit the power available to the president. Sunset the AUMF, repeal the Patriot Act, ensure that the FISA court is not a rubber stamp. and so on.
I don’t approve of the wholesale collection of people’s communications by the government; per my view of the Fourth Amendment, collecting everything about everyone is inherently unreasonable. My guess, however, is that my view is not widely shared.
Cacti
@Mark B:
Understood.
Just pointing out to the howler monkey brigade that unless they’ve been living off the grid their entire lives, there’s already a trove of easily accessible life information about them out there.
nineone
@Knockabout:
Nailed it. See, that wasn’t so hard.
Mino
@Bruce S: Watched the clip. He was asked 2 questions. One was background. The second was very interesting, but she killed the lede by affirming, without proof, that a warrant would be necessary before the govt could dig deeper or go further. FISA has been rendered rubberstamp for years and gives the govt 3 days before it even needs a warrant. He did make the point that the last couple of years has exponentially changed our usage of digital for communications and business activity. And that AI can use that 24-hr trail to extrapolate an awful lot.
She passed on a lot of questions that might have been more informative to her audience by sticking to the political. He did what he could.
Bruce S
@Marc:
I don’t actually think Greenwald is “far-left” – I think he’s a classic dyspeptic crank who is reacting to having been burned by his prior belief that all was well and he “wanted the President to succeed.” I think he’s to be commended for breaking with the Bush administration – but I don’t think that there’s any informed political ideology – more like a generic anti-government impulse to trust no one or nothing and assume the worst, conspiracies around every corner. I’m not even sure that he’s what one might consider a consistent “liberatarian” because I know nothing about what he thinks about, say, socialized health insurance or the Federal Reserve. He might be for stuff that’s generically “liberal” in some areas. Not really important, given the turf he’s claimed. But as a character, I see him occupying similar space to the the now octogenarian Nat Hentoff, who has made common cause with people on the far left and the far right over the years, depending on his mood and the issue. These guys can occasionally find a nut and probably play a useful role in largely “tribal” politics (also Hentoff was always a great music critic, apart from his broadsides on social issuess), but mostly they end up as cranks who don’t have any long-term allies or allegiances.
Bruce S
@Cacti:
You stupid shit – in response to a comment of mine which had no name-calling, you come out of the gate with “a member of the howler monkey brigade.’ You really are just a petty little asshole.
Once more with feeling – Go fuck yourself.
Cacti
@Bruce S:
Fascinating.
You’re a regular 21st century Cicero.
Davis X. Machina
@Bruce S: The Hentoff analogy is superb.
Sasha
@the Conster:
Privacy is actually an interesting concept; it’s really a construct of modern society. In a tribal society there is no real privacy, although there are things that are not discussed and things that are not “seen”. It’s hard to cheat someone in a culture that has no privacy and it’s hard to steal from someone if everyone around knows “that necklace” belongs to “Sue” or that there is no way a ditch digger could afford “that coat”.
I lead a very boring life and I don’t suppose I really care who knows what about me but others don’t and that’s what worries me about this. The potential for blackmail and coercion are real and we don’t really have a way to address that. I just feel about this subject the way I feel about drilling: Unless there is some fundamental change in the American people, the vast majority are willing to have the NSA spy on everyone all the time and will demand that every drop of oil be sucked from from the earth.
Todd
For my business site, I have provider based analyticals that tell me where my clickers come from, the system used by my clickers, the referring sites, which search terms were used, etc. I haven’t checked, but I’m sure that there’s a screen displaying the IP addresses.
Yet I’m supposed to believe that there is some legitimate and reasonable expectation of privacy?
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I can call spirits from the vasty deep. If the restrictions are going to be more than aspirational, they’re going to have to actually restrict something.
If the restrictions are going to be more than aspirational, we’re going to need a sea-change in the permanent government. The national security state has existed, in all its bipartisan glory, differing to be sure in degree, but not in kind, since the Manhattan Project and the Allied crypto successes of the 1940’s. (Some will chase it back as far as Wilson’s WWI efforts.)
Mino
@Anoniminous: “PRISM allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers.”
This is the questions James Risen should have been asked about. Is this FISA rubberstamped, too? Or does it even require FISA? Will this ever be allowed to be challenged in a court?
Omnes Omnibus
@Todd: I may choose to share certain information with commercial providers. I may share enough that some one who has access to everything I have shared can build a complete picture of my life. I do not that by choosing to participate in many aspects of modern society I am choosing to surrender my right to privacy. You seem to be suggesting that the options are to retreat to a cabin in Montana or accept that nothing I do is private. If so, I disagree and think that we can construct a legal framework in which a reasonable amount of privacy is protected.
Sasha
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, we as a people, need to decide what will be legal and what will be illegal and what our government will prioritize and what it won’t.
Anya
Why is not post not showing? WTF?
the Conster
@Sasha:
Americans are fat dumb spoiled children who want what they want when they want it with zero inconvenience. First and foremost they want to feel safe, so yes, choosing between privacy, safety and convenience when realistically it’s not possible to have 100% of all three, they’ll choose safety and convenience, but will still think they should be able to have privacy too. Like I said, Americans are children.
Mark B
@Bruce S: Ah, the old Saturday Night Live ‘Point/Counterpoint’ skit: “Jane, you ignorant slut!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina:
I certainly don’t disagree with that.
Todd
@Sasha:
This. The distance previously provided by ships, motorized transport and large swaths of readily available productive land has been digitally erased.
Meanwhile, corporate America is into all our shit, irrevocably, and people are all a-squee about providing an accountable, democratic government with the same data they’ve willingly coughed up to Transunion, Experian, Verizon, AT&T and all of their unknown, valued third party business partners.
Emma
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually, to a large extent, unless you use electronic tools that allow to search anonymously AND you make no online payments or purchases AND encrypt all your online communications you have already surrendered some of your privacy rights. That’s what I mean when I say we need to define what “privacy” is and rewrite the laws accordingly.
Sasha
@mattH:
Do you care if they are doing it in hopes of bringing down the democratically elected president? Do you care if they are doing it to further the Republican agenda? Do you care if they have decided that they owe no loyalty to the President or this government? Do you care at all that the next thing they leak might be extremely damaging to the national security of this country or to our ability to function on the international stage?
Mark B
@Omnes Omnibus: In theory, you have the choice to opt out of commercial information gathering activities. In practice, that’s really not an option if you use the Internet or the telephone. And god forbid you use a smart -phone, which is constantly keeping track of your physical location and keeping a log of it. Most software end-use agreements these days allow an incredible amount of data collection from the user.
Matt McIrvin
@Todd: The Fourth Amendment:
Current case law doesn’t support the idea that these are unreasonable searches, so attacking this in court may be a lost cause. But case law has been wrong about many things before, and, in particular, Fourth Amendment protections have eroded grievously in the past couple of decades. I don’t see anything wrong with arguing the unconstitutionality of these laws in a political arena.
gogol's wife
Зелёные воздушные шары
Bruce S
@Mino:
I think that’s what’s questionable is that “last couple of years” bit. Risen just seemed satisfied with reeking his “seriousness” as I recall the interview. But I don’t see anything new here.
This is an old story that is being hyped for some reason that’s not immediately apparent. The tech writers are doing better reporting than Greenwald, et. al. – who seem to be milking this for sensation rather than insights. But they won’t drive the narrative, anymore than McClatchy dissenters from the mainstream media narrative could impact the rush to war in Iraq.
I don’t know of a single thing that’s come out of this that I can trust as “new information” or deeper insight into the program. My reference to Bill Maher was because he perfectly nailed the fact that this has been reported on for years and, presumably, nobody really gave a fuck until “Obama!” I tend not to go for the conspiratorial – but it looks to me like there is a barrage of bogus or ridiculously hyped stuff being put out there to weaken the President politically. I’ve begun to assume – especially since the silent walk-back by the Washington Post of their original reporting – that this is another episode along the lines of feeding phony emails to Jonathan Karl. Greenwald is the perfect and more-than-willing foil to hype a very old tale with some supposedly new – and increasingly dubious – details. I have to say that in the larger scheme of what actually ails our country right now, I don’t give a shit about this stuff. I’m very critical of certain aspects of the Obama administration, but regarding national security I think he’s done an excellent job of containing the worst of what Bush wrought without dropping the ball in confronting al Qaeda. These threats are real – regardless of how terribly the Bush administration abused the 9/11 moment. What I’ve seen from Obama is all I could ask for in an imperfect world. I want the government to use this meta-data information, and I don’t see a change in the nature of the FISA courts or the intelligence oversight committees to make the process more “pure.” So IMHO Obama’s working with what he’s got – he’d be remiss to simply end these programs – the political fallout of that aside.
Todd
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, that is what I’m suggesting.
Your cellphone provider’s valued business partners are in need of profit, which they are willing to share with your provider for data on you.
Also, your grocer has valued relationships with vendors. They’re tracking your purchases in order to accommodate those vendors, and the info is so valuable that you get a discount between 5-10%, just for allowing them to do it. I suspect that turning off all the tracking and data mining by law would cause a huge spike in unemployment while raising the cost of retail goods and services by as much as 5 points across the board.
That doesn’t even begin to touch the volumes of regulation that would have to be generated; the cost of the enforcement regime would be tricky, too.
Anoniminous
@Mino:
Good questions!
No idea what the answers are. I can only talk about the Techy-Tech aspects, that’s where my knowledge lies.
Anybodybuther2016
@Mark B.:
Bruce S
@Mark B:
It’s pretty simple – this asshole made an absolutely useless “argument” about Greenwald, using one of the oldest forms of misdirection in the book. Then when I pointed it out with not one iota of vulgarity, the person in question called me a “member of the howling monkey brigade.” So no. It wasn’t part of any routine. Just an honest reaction to dishonest bullshit and a decision to revert to verbal abuse. So you’re as full of shit as he-or-she is. And are more than welcome to go fuck yourself as well.
gogol's wife
@lamh36:
The Kos crowd are going to make sure we don’t get any Democratic president in 2016.
Mark B
@Bruce S: I admire your people skills.
Yatsuno
@gogol’s wife: Had to Google that, but d’accord.
Todd
@Matt McIrvin:
The expectation of privacy always had to be reasonable. Hell, Smith v Maryland affirmed the warrantless collection of pen register data in 1979, that isn’t just a couple of decades.
Cacti
@Bruce S:
After which, you proved my point with great style and flair, flinging handful after handful of verbal feces.
Mino
@Bruce S: So your rebuttal is that Risen was smug? And everyone is being Dan Rather-ed, to use a more commonly know rat-fucked individual? Wow.
LAC
@Bruce S: wow, all that whining about name calling And here you are, two steps away from the “obot cultist” bullshit, This is why this conversation needs to be with pragmatic people, not with cranks who feel the need to take emerging facts and disregard them for Greenwald’s vanity.
gogol's wife
@Yatsuno:
I said up above that I wish we could have a Prince Harry thread!
Bruce S
@Mark B:
You get what you deserve – which is a modicum of respect until you come out of the gate shitting yourself. In which case your stupidity isn’t my problem. I don’t have a lot of patience for bullshit or assholes. Since you seemed to want to make me the bad guy in that exchange, rather than the asshat who started the name-calling, you also got what you deserved.
Omnes Omnibus
@Todd: As I said, I disagree with your framing. I think that a legal framework can be constructed that does provide privacy protections.
Also, I am basically done with this discussion. Over the past few days, it has degenerated in dead equine flagellation with four basic groups saying the same things over and over again. There are the Obama-blamers, the Obama-defenders, the privacy-should-still-existers, and the privacy-is-deaders. No one is saying anything new or interesting.
piratedan
@Bruce S: all of which implies that for all of the idiocy that we see in the Republican partisan party politics and the media’s mad scramble for sustaining the clicks/revenue model that there is a very savvy cabal of operators out there doing their best to continually manage the outrage machine and treat and use our MSM like a squirrel chasing canine.
Conspiracy theories blending shades of Illuminati crossed with Three Days of the Condor notwithstanding, it’s those fuckers that bother me because they treat us like nothing more than cannon fodder. What I want to know is who is deciding that this is news and why is it news now.
Sasha
@the Conster:
I guess I have to agree with all of that and yet, are we really that bad? Haven’t we risen to past occasions? And are we that different from other people? There are times when I really do feel that we are the “New Romans”.
Cacti
@Todd:
For instance, buy a pregnancy test from any national grocery chain and pay with the plastic.
Within the next 2-weeks you’ll be receiving direct mail advertising on cribs, car seats, diapers, formula, etc.
Davis X. Machina
@piratedan:Me too. ‘ Cui bono‘ is always your friend.
White Trash Liberal
Just to get meta and define my own critique of GG:
I don’t care that he’s a Johnny-come-lately. If anything, I am ecstatic that he wrote about his past trust of authority and conversion to full-throated critic. I think it is wrong to attack him for his confessional.
My critique is against his focus, because I believe it is disingenuous. He has championed the work and character of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. Both of these writers have spent their lives writing about the history of US abuses of authority. They both always couched their critiques in the premise that this is an ongoing struggle.
GG’s scope is myopic. History began with Bush and GG’s own revalation that the authority he trusted lied and betrayed the public trust. And this history continues under Obama, and if you dare dispute this extraordinarily narrow narrative you are a Dear Leader cultist.
He knows better. I know he does. He has to know, given his awareness of Chomsky and Zinn, that civil liberties abuses are a feature of US history and not a sudden collapse because of Bush and Obama. But, if you engage him or his howler monkeys on the history of the national security state (especially since the Cold War), you will be called an apologist.
The lurch towards tyranny is a perpetual fight to which we must gird ourselves. This fight transcends party because it is embedded into the nature of power itself. By making this fight limited to the scope of personality and individual executives, GG plies a false and divisive narrative. The fact that I am certain he knows better makes it all the more reprehensible.
Bruce S
@LAC:
You happen to be as disconnected from reality as your comrade.You obviously haven’t read what I’ve written on this. Your comment is embarrassing in context. Truly ignorant. If you want to defend the half-cocked version of what’s wrong with Greenwald’s reporting, that’s fine. But with your characterization of me, you’ve proven yourself to be one more stupid asshole yammering senselessly.
Anybodybuther2016
@Mark B.: They don’t care. Obama bashing =$$$. If civil liberties are a BFD why haven’t we heard about how stop and frisk is unconstitutional? Where was the outrage when the lapd executed that rogue cop?
Mark B
@Bruce S: Because you and I are mostly on the same side on this issue, I’ll take another stab at trying to get through to you. ‘He started it’ isn’t really a good defense for unleashing a stream of invective and insult. It’s dumb, and it’s guaranteed to end whatever thoughtful debate you thought was going to occur. Perhaps you think that’s not possible. Very well, continue to scream and howl, then.
Bruce S
@Cacti:
“After which”??? Oh yeah – “after which” I proved that your flinging crap at me was justified because I didn’t smile and pat you on the back, but threw it back. Quit offering even more abundant evidence of your assholery.
Cacti
@Anybodybuther2016:
Because that one concerns mostly people of color.
Mark B
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s a good summary. You can include me in the last group, with some hope that we can enact laws that somewhat limit that tendency, while keeping the ability of the government to do legitimate investigations which are not too invasive. Knowing where to draw that line is the real devil.
Cacti
@Mark B:
Don’t worry, he will.
Bruce S
@Mark B:
Ah, yes – civility uber alles. Perhaps you should have directed your ire at the person who started the invective. I am not here to win friends and influence people in the face of being called a “howling monkey” for pointing out that someone is using a classic false argument. I’ve been called a “Firebagger” here so many times for the fact that I try not to engage in tribal think, it’s amazing. You see the same crap above from another one of these mindless characters accusing me of giving Greenwald cover. There’s a cohort here who have a history of this bullshit. As I said, they get what they deserve. There’s no “debate” with them – it’s all about invective.
Todd
@Cacti:
Or dog food, or cigarettes, or cereal with a store discount card, then watch the mail.
Bought a new car from a dealer? Expect multiple warranty offers and phone calls from third party vendors at the 12, 24 and 36 month stage.
Noticed a spate of credit card offers? Look at your credit report, and find inquiry entries from card issuers you never applied to or dealt with.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark B: I fall in to the third group. I know government has a legitimate need for a lot of information. I prefer to err on side of making government show the need for it before handing things over.
Sasha
@Anybodybuther2016:
This is so true. If “Stop and Frisk” is constitutional (and it has been held up many times) what isn’t? But “Stop and Frisk” is limited to Black and Latino men so it’s no big deal. I can think of few more vile and pernicious policies than this one.
Bruce S
@Cacti:
You do realize that your original comment about Greenwald was totally dishonest, I assume. Since your only defense was to make some ridiculous assertion about him being my “hero” and then pulling another quote which had nothing to do with my point. You’re not very bright if this is what you think constitutes useful or interesting discussion. All you’ve done is double down on your being full of crap from the get. You are welcome to Mark B’s sympathy. It doesn’t make your comments any more astute.
Todd
@Omnes Omnibus:
That would be me. If info is good enough for the corporate free for all, it should be good enough for the government.
Omnes Omnibus
@Todd:
No fucking shit.
Mark B
Cacti: Prediction confirmed.
bemused senior
@desertflower: As a fairly recent insider at one of the listed silicon valley companies, I know that what the cnet article says is correct in that case. The system used is the one for all subpoena requests. It is specific to user ids. It is not a firehose. It is cognizant of geographical location because it deals with the diverse laws of the many jurisdictions the company’s users reside in. It is overseen by the legal department. Do a search for the published processes for submitting data requests by law enforcement on the various providers’ sites.
Redshirt
@Todd: I’m with you. You’ve made great points here.
I’ll add that while I consider this the unavoidable reality, I also have taken lots of measures personally to maintain my privacy. There’s many ways to do this – for example, don’t use Google for everything. Diversify your internet usage among different providers because if there’s one thing you can count on, is that Google does not want to share data with Microsoft and vice versa.
Mark B
@Redshirt: Actually diversifying your internet usage just increases your exposure to datamining.; Yeah, Microsoft isn’t sharing with Apple and Apple isn’t sharing with Google but they’re all sending info to third parties (not just government) which are free to aggregate the data. As far as collecting data on users, Microsoft is better than Google, but they’re all bad.
mattH
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
If it’s common knowledge, covered by instruments of law, why is it top secret? More importantly, how do we know it’s not in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment? The only assurance we have is “the attorney general and director of national intelligence must show the FISA court that they have procedures “reasonably designed to ensure” that their intercepts will target foreigners “reasonably believed” to be overseas”.
Considering both the actions and the data are not even reviewable by either corporations that are providing the data, nor any other potential oversight group, how can we determine it’s legal? It’s a black box inside a black box.
bemused senior
Also, regarding the ability to map individual users via IP addresses, search for “carrier grade NAT”. The arrival of IPV6 on the internet backbone, together with the fact that a lot of consumers use old network gear that doesn’t support IPV6, means that ISPs are installing gateways that map IPV4 to IPV6 addresses. It is not possible to directly glean the mapping from the other side of the gateway. This has required any IP address based assumptions used in such things as targetted advertising by geolocation to be rethought. The same will be true for law enforcement use of these techniques. CGN only allows determination of the location of the gateway.
mattH
@Sasha: If “they” can pin this on the current President, after the FISA amendments have been reauthorized by a sitting congress twice, then we already live in a Banana Republic and just need to sit back and enjoy the ride.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mattH: As in much of life, at some point you have to trust people and the system. The people who work for the NSA and the FISC are citizens, too. As in grand juries (or regular juries), one has to accept the judgement of people for the system to work.
Of course, the legal structure matters, too. There has to be checks and balances in programs like this. And there are. Maybe they need to be changed. That we don’t know. But we do know (at least based on the reporting thus far) that the legal system in place is being followed. I’m sure that GG would have liked nothing better than to say and provide evidence that laws were broken. AFAIK, he hasn’t done that.
If you fear that laws are too broad or are being abused, then you need to replace the people who write and enforce the laws. That’s the way our system works.
As David Simon argued, there are always tradeoffs.
We know about lots of things that are still secret. Plans for nuclear bombs, for instance. The need to keep secrets even when programs are known isn’t going to change.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Spaghetti Lee
Jesus, how do you all have the energy to do this all on a Sunday before noon?
Redshirt
@Mark B: I fail to see how using multiple service providers actually increases your exposure to data mining. Please explain.
Having different data profiles with different services ensures, in my opinion, that no one company has all the data on you.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Glenn Greenwald: The velvet glove used by the likes of Grover Norquist to cover evidence otherwise left when drowning government in the tub.
(FYFWP!)
Mark B
Right, but all of them have different collection policies and the data they collect is somewhat different, so you’re providing a more complete picture of yourself than you would if you provided it to only one provider. I really don’t think it’s a big difference either way, but I don’t think it really provides you any protection at all from having your personal data shared, since all of the providers will share some of your data with third parties. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea, but the idea that spreading your profiles in order to increase privacy isn’t something that provides much in the way of protection.
Redshirt
@Mark B: Here’s an example: I have three email addresses, each with a different provider. One of them is my personal address, with my real name. I use this only for correspondence with friends and for business. The other is used for e-commerce, and does not have any of my personal information. The third is used to sign up for things – websites, forums, etc. It also does not have any of my real information.
With this model, I assume the only people who know what I am actually buying is the credit card company, the product supplier, and the shipper. The email provider could glean some information about the purchase type and other generalities, but would be hard pressed to link that information to me personally.
Now, of course, if I am under investigation by the authorities, all this information could be deciphered in time. But in terms of general marketing/data mining, discrete profiles ensures no comprehensive picture.
What do I have wrong?
LAC
@Bruce S: and you are an insufferable asshole whose every post is a reflection of what is wrong when greenwald asslickers invade comment boards with their patented smug bullshiit
If we are back to name calling today….
Omnes Omnibus
@LAC: It is, of course, quite possible to bothered by perceived and/or potential 4th Amendment violations by the government without being either opposed to Obama or a Greenwald sycophant.
Mark B
@Redshirt: this helps you somewhat in terms of keeping people from sending marketing emails to your personal account, or other accounts. However, it would be pretty easy to connect all three accounts with a little bit of node analysis supposing you use all three from the same computer. This is pretty much the main job of software like PRISM, as far as we know. So, yeah, it’s not a bad idea to separate your accounts like this, but as far as providing true privacy from a concerted attempt to find your real identity and connect up the dots, it’s useless.
And the first time you reply to an e-commerce email from you personal or work account, you’ve broken this system.
Redshirt
@Mark B: Sure, as I said, if I was under a real investigation, everything would be revealed in time. However, like with the current situation we are discussing, as I am not under investigation, even if all this data is collected, it’s not simple to construct a comprehensive picture of what I’m doing. As opposed, for instance, in using one Gmail account to do everything on the Internet.
And yes, of course, one instance of cross-pollination would ruin the setup. Which brings me to my point, I guess: It is possible to provide yourself a modicum of privacy in this world of constant data collection – you just have to use some effort. That in and of itself would preclude many from doing so.
Furthermore, you can use different credit cards at different times; shop at different grocery stores; don’t buy everything from Amazon, etc.
jamick6000
my favorite non-substance part of all these Greenwald scoops: watching the meltdown of people like ABL and Zandar. They’ve been shitting on GG for years, and now Glenn! of all people, the one they hate most! uncovers a massive story that supports what he’s been saying all along. It’s so perfect, almost too on-the-nose.
Now Glenn’s on the Sunday shows, written about in the NYtimes, getting the respect and attention they crave.
The jealousy and impotent rage of GG’s critics is transparent in their writing. Zandar is questioning the timing of these leaks. One of the most popular obama bots on twitter is talking about a coup against the president.
That’s all these pathetic, mewing fascists have left, plus the ridiculous semantic argument about direct access. They’ll continue pumping their bilge into the internet, but they’ll look more and more ridiculous doing it. Everyone should enjoy the show.
Redshirt
It’s interesting how a couple of posters seem to focus exclusively on Zander and ABL. I wonder why that is?
Mark B
@Redshirt:
And that time would be measured in seconds.
Anya
@Redshirt: I think it’s because they both have a parent who’s white.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@White Trash Liberal:
Where/when has Greenwald championed Zinn?
Redshirt
@Mark B: I disagree. These folks are not all powerful, all knowing. Not yet, at least.
Mark B
@Redshirt: True, it might take hours, depending on how many resources they want to devote to the problem. They’;re not all powerful, but it’s not that difficult of a problem.
Heliopause
@Todd:
I like your incisive analysis.
Hey gals! Wanna get raped? Dress like this.
Wanna not get raped? Dress like this.
Choose.
Redshirt
@Mark B: It would take more than hours, but yes, all would eventually be revealed. But that’s my point – with a bit of effort, you can overcome the initial level of data mining. It would take an extra effort (as in, you’re under investigation) to put all the pieces together. This is a modicum of privacy, while still using the conveniences of the modern world.
LAC
@Omnes Omnibus: of course it is. But it requires a thoughtfulness and a pretense of not having selective amnesia. And honesty. It has taken 48 hours for this story to change and facts to emerge, and yet we have folks how are still arguing disproven information. And we have Bruce and his wounded male ego flinging poo. So, there we are.
All this armchair governing but where were we in 2004 when bush got reelected? Where were we on this issue? Are we going to be there in 2014? Are we really going to take those concerns voiced here and do something or are going pat ourselves on the back about paying lip service concerning civil liberties? Because if all this is about is getting our pout on about the president or adding twitter followers to greenwald, then this is a waste of time.
And, not for nothing, but I do not want legitimate safety issues to be compromised for the vainglory of some agenda driven expat safely swanning about in brazil.
? Martin
If true, that would cost way more than $20M, a cost which comes directly from Greenwalds source. So that needs to be reconciled. Apple alone has $3B in data centers, and only half of that is serving domestic users. How is the NSA running a program for $20M that is pulling live data from $1.5B worth of data center? Google and Facebook have even larger international userbases and even larger data centers.
Look, if you have leak that you think proves a global government and industry conspiracy that every part of government and industry has strongly denied (and not in some weasel way, either) then you need to have pretty good evidence of it. When the evidence you produce also contradicts what you are claiming, then you need to come up with much better evidence.
I’ll again note that the slides that GG is basing this on says to go to an FAA procurement program called PRISM for more details: http://www.dot.gov/individuals/privacy/pia-prism
Nobody has explained that. I’ll again say that GG is getting punked here. I think that presentation is at least partially fabricated. It might be based on some real information, but I think it’s been embellished to get GG attention.
Mark B
@Redshirt: I applaud your efforts to keep your e-life organized and sanitary, but I do think you’re overconfident about the level of protection it provides for you.
We can agree to leave it there, if you like.
White Trash Liberal
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
They appeared together on Scott Horton’s radio show a few times in 2008. I had thought he wrote an obit praising him, but that was a Richard Greenwald, so I may be wrong.
jamick6000
@LAC:
i think we have a closet neocon here.
jamick6000
@LAC:
i think we have a closet neocon here.
jamick6000
@LAC:
i think we have a closet neocon here.
LAC
@jamick6000: I think we have someone with zero patience. One more time for the cheap seats!
Corner Stone
The source for GG’s NSA leak has outed himself:
link
jamick6000
@LAC: hahaha you got me on that one!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@White Trash Liberal:
Yeah, the things Zinn covered are definitely not in Greenwald’s wheelhouse.
FWIW, I’d be laughing if Greenwald had ever championed Zinn, but not over their differences. Zinn wasn’t that good a historian.
Here’s what I mean. mix wrote this about Greenwald:
Unlike Greenwald in this case, Zinn had access to the facts. When he came to the American reaction to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Zinn was critical of FDR for not going to war, though the facts tell us that we were in no position to fight a war at that time. Not too many pages later, Zinn is critical of FDR for going to war, in spite of the facts (well known by 1941) relating to the Rape of Nanking, and, ya know, the attack on Pearl Harbor. Then there’s Zinn’s statement that LBJ had some sort of Christian Dominionist agenda in Vietnam, and Zinn’s characterization of Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia as straight-up genocide.
Zinn is highly regarded in certain political circles, but not so much amongst historians- not much at all. His work required an objectivity that his political leanings would not allow.
lojasmo
@Bruce S:
I am not injured by your childish bullshit, Bruce.
GG is a conservative libertardian. His pretzel logic and half-assed assessment of the situation is not impressive to anybody but firebaggers and conservatives.
Dr. Squid
And now we know that GG’s source is no longer anonymous and has high-tailed it to freedom-loving China. Makes for a really interesting TL, all going, “CHINA? WTF?” in unison.
burnspbesq
Breaking news: blind squirrel finds nut.
Ramiah Ariya
I am guessing soon Edward Snowden, the leaker, would get the countertop inspection, along with his daddy issues and if he is gay.
Ramiah Ariya
Let me tell you something – I did not miss a single post from Greenwald in the past 7 years. And about the same time I have been following balloon-juice.
Greenwald did not change. He has always been championing his causes as well as consistenly made the same arguments against Bush and Obama.
Yet, until 2009, Balloon juice commenters celebrated him. Then suddenly Greenwald bashing started – now some are saying here that he was supporting Bush.
The problem is not Greenwald. He has been consistent. The problem is you.
LAC
@Dr. Squid: I am going to have reread this a little later. It was like people magazine threw up in there. All that was missing was a picture of him in a natty suit lounging pensively in his hotel room with the caption “Hero? That word is loaded term for this unassuming risk taking whistleblower with just right on his side”
Cacti
@Dr. Squid:
As one of the LGF commenters noted, we used to call guys like Snowden “double agents” rather than “whistleblowers”.
Bill E Pilgrim
@askew:
This says it all. “Glenn Greenwald may be writing things I actually agree with, but since he’s critical of Obama I have to smear him by equating him with Ron Fournier.”
To paraphrase Mistermix’s last line, here’s a similar thought: Imagine for a moment that the important aspect of every issue is not “How does this reflect on Barack Obama?” but instead the topic at hand, in this case, whether this is all a dangerous situation in terms of having a free press free from the danger of prosecution for doing their jobs.
grandpa john
@Mark B: regarding your reply to bruce , as his ourburst reminds me of this
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Marc:
I’m late to the party, but this sums it up.
eco2geek
There are two things I’ve learned by reading through the comments section:
Whatever news Glenn Greenwald reports is wrong because Glenn Greenwald.
– and –
If you express disapproval of any Obama policy, you’re demonstrating that you’re out to destroy Obama’s entire legacy.
(Actually, these opinions have been demonstrated at BJ many times before. It’s becoming a recurring theme. Being an Obot apparently leaves little room for nuance.)
Mino
Jesus Christ, I think it has devolved into Greens and Blues. https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/343787856864608257
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Ramiah Ariya:
Except that for the fact that many of us are more than willing to place the blame for these snooping laws where it belongs- on Congress- and we actually offer some solutions that don’t involve a blanket government-is-by-definition-bad sentiment. Greenwald fails on both accounts.
lojasmo
@Redshirt:
Because libertarians are fixated on melanin enhanced (or challenged) Americans.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Dr. Squid:
And Assange went to the embassy of that *cough* bastion of journalistic freedom *cough*, Ecuador.
Corner Stone
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I’ve never understood this critique. He now endorses the entire history of the host country?
Mark B
@grandpa john: That’s awesome. I’ll need to add it to my list of quotations so I can bust it out from time to time.
Mark B
@grandpa john: Heine is a treasure, I particularly like this quote:
“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.”
Heinrich Heine
and this one:
“True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.”
Heinrich Heine
ellennelle
um, wow; comments here are all over the map, both individually and as a cluster.
so, a bit difficult to discern anything resembling reason.
but, just to add to the mix, the more intellectually curious among you might actually view the video interview greenwald did with the whistleblower himself:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
i’m of 2 minds about the question, and even after watching this, don’t know which side to fall on. freedoms and protected rights are excellent, but so is the common good. who among us would choose to allow a mass of folks – or even one individual – get killed while protecting an abstraction? seems to me the right to actually live is the first such right assumed in any US historical document. the president, and the government in general, are obliged to at least consider our safety.
plus, i am inherently suspicious of haironfire hysteria from any corner; it clouds rational thought.
on the other hand, big brother is way too real a possibility to ignore.
so, just watch this guy, listen to his reasoning, but more importantly, listen to his reasoning after you learn the level of actual hands-on knowledge he had, and then see if it does not force a rethink. no matter which side of the fence you’ve been tilting toward.
Redshirt
@Mark B:
Sorry for my absence. I was outside.
I don’t think I’m overconfident. As I’ve said many times, I have no doubt that if under investigation, all my internet and telephone records would come to light, eventually. I’m just quibbling with your assessment that it’s a matter of seconds/hours to find out everything about me. It’s harder than that, and only certain law agencies have access to the info anyways. Local cop Rusty doesn’t have access to NSA algorithms in his squad car. Yet.
And, again, my main point, they’d have to get warrants to do the search. Same as yesterday. Thus, I don’t understand the uproar over these recent revelations of government data collection. Having the data in aggregate is not the same as having detailed information about every American and foreign individual.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Corner Stone:
The entire history isn’t what’s questionable in this case as much as the modern history. Assange promotes transparency of government (“Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society’s institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations.”), while the current government of Ecuador has punished journalists who exposed evidence of that government’s corruption. If Assange’s stated platform was for transparency of certain governments or organizations, there would be no hypocrisy. Assange ‘s position seems to have morphed into a better society for all people as long as it doesn’t negatively affect Julian Assange’s personal situation, which differs little from the policy adopted by Rafael Correa.
the Conster
@ellennelle:
I watched it – what does he want? It’s like one big WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
mk3872
It is not a “backdoor” because that implies that the tech companies would allow unabated, unknown access to their systems at all times.
The tech companies allow the NSA to grab the data when a FISA court approves it.
And it is NOT mining data from Americans. It can only be used for foreign citizens.
So, you & Greenwald having your facts wrong just about describes what is wrong.
What these systems do is all there now in the declassified description of them from the NSA.
mk3872
So, Balloon Juice bloggers and readers who hate surveillance still fill-out comment forms on websites like this one with names & email addresses?
I’m surprised you don’t cover your heads when typing emails and put towels under doors like the NSA leaker claims he does.
How is this paranoia any different than the tin-foil hat nuts on the Right??
Sasha
@Ramiah Ariya:
Not me. I’ve thought he has racial “issues” for many years. I can’t stand him. He is self-absorbed, bigoted and indifferent to any issue that doesn’t affect him directly.
schrodinger's cat
@Ramiah Ariya: Wow, so now you speak for all the commenters on Balloon Juice. Who appointed you the spokesman for BJ commentariat, Tunch?
ETA: And you can read minds, you know what everyone who comments here, thinks. Your abilities, they astound me.
Keith G
I find it remarkable that so many folks here say things that wind up sounding like this
and this
And those who state that this is about GG’s lack of felicity toward Obama.
I don’t care who the President is nor do I care who the complainers are when it is brought to my attention that the government is behaving in a troubling way.,
And that seems to me to be a paramount question, “Are these behaviors troubling – both now and in their predictable (if unchecked) future evolution? I don’t care about when they started as much as I care about learning about their current scope and who the accountable decision makers are. I am perturbed that such information has to be leaked out of an administration that had promised to be so very transparent But I am only perturbed, as this is not a deal breaker….it is politics and Obama is a politician who now understands the benefits of holding information close. and hoping to gain good spin with a selective leak or two.
Another very political behavior Obama has gotten good at is creating virtue out of necessity. It’s obvious that he didn’t want to talk about this (or drone policy), but now that his hand is being forced maybe he can make something good out of this hash.
Qui "Sunny" Bono
That’s a relief.
For a good minute there, it seemed the right was more divided than the left.
Good thing that nightmare is over.
taylormattd
@Emma: they didn’t water it down. They completely changed the entire point of the story, and did so without acknowledging it.
mclaren
The solution to this whole problem is simple: call Glenn Greenwald names. He’s pompous, he’s a grifter, he’s self-serving, he’s a preening egotist, and he probably has B.O. too.
There’s no problem in America that can’t be fixed by finding an innocent bystander, calling him names, and showering anyone who dissents with acid contempt.
mclaren
Sure somebody can say the program is illegal.
The PRISM program is grossly illegal. It clearly and flagrantly violates the fourth amendment of the constitution, which prohibits “unreasonable search and seizure.”
The PRISM program also violates the fifth amendment requiring due process of law and it also violates the fourteenth amendment of the constitution which prohibits any part of government, federal state or local, from depriving a citizen of his civil rights under the constitution.
mclaren
@eco2geek:
There’s a third thing you learn from the BJ comments section:
Anyone who criticizes the Democrats or Obama is a filthy Republican neocon secretly in league with the corporate vultures.
Mnemosyne is particularly in love with this dishonest tactic.
mclaren
@Sasha:
Spoken like one of Richard Nixon’s defenders during his impeachment hearings.
Every dishonest insinuation you make here was made by Nixon’s defenders back in 1975. Fortunately, Americans didn’t fall for that kind of disingenuous sophistry then, and I suspect they won’t fall for it now.
Let’s be clear about this: it doesn’t matter a damn why someone brings to light gross violations of the constitution.
I doesn’t matter a damn what the intent is of someone who revealed corrupt or illegal or unconstitutional activities by secret branches of the U.S. government.
It doesn’t matter a damn whether someone who decides to tell the truth in public is “loyal” to the president or not.
It doesn’t matter a damn whether “the next” some hypothetical evil evil eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil thing might happen because an American citizen decided to stand up and do the right thing and tell the truth in public, and remember we don’t want our first warning that whistleblower has gone too far to be a mushroom cloud (to quote that master of dishonest sophistry Condoleeza Rice).
Stick a fork in yourself, you cowardly bully-worshiping bootlick. You’re done here. If you don’t like the constitution of the united states, emigrate to North Korea. Your contemptible post extolling “loyalty” above honesty and pimping vague warnings about an unidentified but sure-to-be-sinister “agenda” that whistleblowers might have is something I’d expect to hear from one of Kim Jong Un’s stooges — not an American.
Facepalm
It’s simple:
Obama betrayed the Fourth Amendment.
Apparently Obama’s most partisan supporters have either never read the Constitution, don’t understand the Constitution, or don’t care about the rule of law (perhaps out of fear of the boogeyman or simple authoritarian submission to their chosen leader).
I used to think most of those types were straight-up Republican. But here we have an army of Obama supporters rabidly defending one of the most egregious abuses of Republcian Bush’s Presidency (criminal spying) now cheering the same deeds done by Obama.
FOURTH AMENDMENT:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”