As this is a German production, let's see whether or not your countries are being (geo-)blocked from watching this brand new interview. It is available here, I just watched it, but I hear other countries may not be able to watch it.
Snowden-Interview in English | NDR (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x38jkFlPeg#ws)
If you can't watch the above on YouTube, there is one that might w@&k -- on vimeo.
Edward Snowden's First Television Interview (ARD/Germany) on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/85155619)
First link blocked in U.S. already. Suspect 2nd link won't stay up very long as there is a lot of damning (and as near as I can tell accurate) information about the thugs that are currently in power here. The fact that the first link is blocked shows proof behind Snowden's words that information released in the public interest has little hope of prevailing in the face of the political control/subjugation strong arm tactics that being brought to bear here in the U.S. or for that matter probably everywhere else in the world.
8-X
I've probably put myself at more risk that I'd really prefer by watching that but then it appears that the only way these days to receive full constitutional rights and the surrounding considerations that supposedly go with being a U.S. citizen these days is to be locked up in a prison. :-\\
These are indeed grim days.
Total control, total observation, total paranoia.. Mr Obama, our Big Brother.
I thought it might be a good idea to w@&k for NSA. I visited their page a while ago, but unfortunately you have to be a US citizen to apply for a job there ::)
I cannot watch the first link, and have no problem watching the vimeo origin.
Can't watch it
First vid blocked here (surprise surprise), second link worked.
There is currently an excellent documentary series running here called Persons of Interest which details the extent to which ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) has been spying on its own citizens for decades, particularly during the cold-war paranoia of the sixties (yes, that affected us too). And of course it is still going on, to a greater extent than ever now in this digital age. Quite an eye-opening show and a damning exposé of how a "security" organisation can be allowed to operate outside the law and ultimately turn against the citizens that it is ostensibly protecting.
How could anybody trust any security organisation armed with sweeping powers and effectively given carte blanche in its activities to ethically "regulate" itself? What a joke! These people are the very definition of unethical, people who make their living scorning all regulations and eschewing rules and laws in their paranoid, power-crazed zeal to strip everybody bare and lean on whoever they want, regardless of any question of guilt, innocence, or civil rights. It's like a big game to them, with the general populace as their playing pieces.
Sobering stuff indeed.
The 2nd link as of right now is still working here in the U.S. if I right click and open in new window.
There was a report that hit the news cycle earlier today that the game Angry Birds (for lack of better words) has script in it that allows the NSA to pretty much rifle all the information stored on your portable device/cell phone. Emails, instant messages, Facebook password (actually any pass you've typed into your device), also includes GPS locations you've visited (if your unit has that ability). Basically any App you have on your cell phone if you have Angry Birds your interactions with those other Apps are all on the record too.
When I bought my 20 inch tablet it was with a clean install stripping off the HP bloatware and only briefly did it ever touch the internet as the Win Office Suite was being loaded there at the Windows kiosk. Included in the accompanying Instructions, promotional materials and fluff was a card inviting me to drop by the Windows App store and pick up my free copy of Angry Birds... ???
Fortunately i decided my tablet was for w@&k only and shut off all the near field sharing features like Bluetooth and WiFi as soon as I got it home.
Both are geoblocked for me... :o
I'd like to bring up one argument in favour of this whole big brother theme going on about NSA and other agencies collecting the living daylight out of us citizens. For so long they have been collecting this data on a global scale, and meanwhile I've never heard of extreme abuse of that info. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we are more concerned about what they 'could' do with the info they gather than with what they did so far with that info.
This doesn't mean I'm in favour of a government spying on me, not respecting my rights as a civilized individual, but I'd rather have the NSA spying on me than some sort of jihad group or other fanatic religious army. I'm pretty far from blind trust in western governments, but I still believe they serve the human rights better than most known alternatives.
Having said that, I still think we should continue to criticize and fight against these federal abuses, if only it was to make the governments aware of the importance of political support for whatever they do and the explainability to the people they 'serve'. So give it up for Edward Snowden and the noble deed he did to make us aware, no, to get this theme out of the dark 'speculational corner' and give it some glance of reality.
:bow :-X :)
Having continued to collect your personal data, the problem for you is not what they might do with it but that they have been both able to do it and that they actually have been doing it. It should only be done if they had a valid reason to believe that you were an actual threat and only with a warrant issued by a court.
Stiku: wow ???
Mandru and all, check this out. "tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data)
:-(
Oh Jesus. It doesn't stop..
Actually, you might want to keep track of what's going on at
http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files (http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files)
No matter where you look, you keep finding shocking revelations. Yesterday's news, at CBC (Canada) read here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csec-used-airport-wi-fi-to-track-canadian-travellers-edward-snowden-documents-1.2517881 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csec-used-airport-wi-fi-to-track-canadian-travellers-edward-snowden-documents-1.2517881)
QuoteCanada's electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal. ... the federal intelligence agency was then able to track the travellers for a week or more as they — and their wireless devices — showed up in other Wi-Fi "hot spots" in cities across Canada and even at U.S. airports. ... CSEC called the new technologies "game-changing," and said they could be used for tracking "any target that makes occasional forays into other cities/regions."
We're already trussed up, skewered and turning slowly over the flames my friend. It's too easy for me to spend too much time dwelling on it.
Something like 80% of the new cars sold in the U.S. this year will also feed data about speed, GPS location (where you shop, where you buy gas, who you are visiting, etc...), seat belt usage and the fuel economy of the vehicle which can be used to calculate either the number of people in the vehicle or if it is being used to transport potentially questionable materials.
It also gives your insurance company more information about your driving habits than you'd really like them to have.
There was a report on the news this morning about iPhone blowing up in a girl's pocket. This was a new APP I wasn't aware that the Fed had been given permission to utilize. ;)
Oh. :-D
I remember reports about those RFID (
Radio-
frequency
identification) chips that are little bigger than a grain of rice.
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It can be embedded about anywhere, for instance in a label of your jacket or in a pack of cornflakes. And then.. you're a walking beacon broadcasting your position. They are in use. For instance in a supermarket to track customers or in storage facilities to find items or perhaps in an online order of an item to track its position so you can observe where your new purchase is tarrying at.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid)
Quote from: Art Blade on February 01, 2014, 08:28:38 AM
It can be embedded about anywhere, for instance in a label of your jacket or in a pack of cornflakes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid)
Or in the back of your neck or your arm. My cat had one implanted when I adopted him several years ago. It's coded with my contact information should he become lost and recovered by animal services.
A despicable twist has arisen with the new nationalized medical program here in the U.S. (I won't name the '
obamanation' so this comment doesn't pop up on Google searches :D ). It is required in order to meet compliance standards for our personal doctors to be intrusively snoopy with ultra personal questions. Things like "What are your personal orientations regarding religion, political alignment and do you have fire arms in your home?" and so on.
How easy would it be for compliant physicians swayed away from any personal code of ethics by promises of total student loan debt forgiveness to implant these chips secretly under the guise of a vitamin shot or say a mandatory contagious disease inoculation?
"Yes! Let's stamp out that nasty spirit of free thinking in one generation!" Without the chip the child could be deemed unable to enter the public school system to begin their Govt. approved and liberally administered proper indoctrination.
You know, I've always heard that cream rises to the top but more and more it has been my personal observation that scum always rises a lot faster.
Heh heh heh :-D
Scum and all kinds of dirt may try to covertly stick to the bottom with grim determination refusing to let go but when levered out, it virtually shoots up -- right in our faces.
I w@&k on the psychiatric department of the local prison and many of our inmates think they are wearing chip implants from the secret services so that they can be sexually violated by government agents at night ??? ??? ???
who knows, they might be right. :-D
There's a unique irony in that Binn.
A rumor spread among prisoners who have no real say in how they are treated. They are in no real position to resist any type of assault if those government agents wanted to sexually violate them. If that was what the agents wanted to do they'd just do it in broad daylight and hide the bodies as needed.
That is indeed true. Why putting so much effort in hiding their presence and deeds, by wearing invisibility suits and use remote control chip implants?
It both makes the patient special and explains why nobody agrees with him :angel:
Enough off topic; I was thinking the other day I wouldn't be surprised if half of the recent news about what NSA and alike agencies are doing to observe and control our behaviour is spammed by those agencies themselves, to create mist and to make people tired of 'yet another confession about a secret agency'. I have already unclutched to the whole issue.
It's like the horrible news around for example the Syrian war; after hearing the terrible deeds over and over for years already, nobody is paying attention to it anymore. :-\\
I hope for the opposite. The amount of keywords such as NSA and Snowden will more likely clog up their system the more popular it gets. The more attention (by yet another released document) they get, the less efficient they become and their original assignment, to prevent terror and the likes, is in danger to get lost in their own overdoing it. Imagine the sheer number of people and the amount of money they get, wasted on collecting ALL data there is rather than focusing on actual hints and tips and reports. If all those ten thousands of people worked on just a few dozen cases, man, that would be impressive. Now they're all busy collecting rubbish just in case. They are prepared to seek the needle in a haystack by gathering, collecting, categorising and computing every straw yet they don't even know whether there is a needle or not. And the scariest bit: Those various agencies in the USA gather their stuff independently and some of those are not supposed to share it. Someone needs to sort out all that BS. They w@&k for the people they spy on and lie to. And the same goes for all big players around the globe. :D >:(( :'(
Quote from: Binnatics on February 04, 2014, 02:03:52 PM
That is indeed true. Why putting so much effort in hiding their presence and deeds, by wearing invisibility suits and use remote control chip implants?
Invisibility suits? Now that's just crazy! (
Puts on suspicious face eyes narrowed glancing left, right, left, right )
This controversial and potential mushroom cloud attractor popped up not too recently not far from where I live:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)
Constructed supposedly for domestic data collection but then as Snowden made perfectly clear it's not just American's info being collected.
As for the footprint of this installation (shown in the wiki photo and diagram) the buildings you can see above ground level are mere ripples of water from the tip of an emerging iceberg. Running hundreds of feet deep it probably rivals NORAD in fortification. Also the $ values quoted in this article are most likely understated by a factor of 100.
If and when the flash comes at least it will be quick.
Quote from: mandru on February 01, 2014, 07:23:48 AM
It also gives your insurance company more information about your driving habits than you'd really like them to have.
It's a good thing I purchased my fast cars a few years ago. I don't speed much in my most recent acquisition - a Diesel pick-up truck - kind of a land yacht, really
This is data warfare. I don't expect anyone to be picky. :-\\
I'd like to get a land-yacht like that PZ :-X :)
I haven't got any cars at all. :)
Quote from: Art Blade on February 06, 2014, 10:15:02 AM
I haven't got any cars at all. :)
City boy! ????
Spoiler
:laugh:
Our minister of Home Affairs is one step from falling due to an NSA-related scandal here in Holland. He lied in public about our own secret service providing phone tab info (1.8 million calls) to the NSA :angel:
we'll see a lot more of that. The only problem: it doesn't solve the problem.
We're seeing some of that here. Relations between Australia and Indonesia are on shaky ground as a great deal of evidence is emerging that our government has been spying on, and wire-tapping, Indonesian government figures for years. There's nothing like forging cordial relations between nations... and this is nothing like it.
The only thing you can trust politicians to do well is to make it impossible to trust them.
Quote from: Art Blade on February 06, 2014, 10:15:02 AM
I haven't got any cars at all. :)
You've had plenty of virtual ones! :-D
If only some of the drivers here were merely virtual... I'm thinking about acquiring a second-hand tank. It may take me a bit longer to get to w@&k, but there'd be no argument over who has right-of-way >:D
Quote from: fragger on February 06, 2014, 09:52:38 PM
If only some of the drivers here were merely virtual... I'm thinking about acquiring a second-hand tank. It may take me a bit longer to get to w@&k, but there'd be no argument over who has right-of-way >:D
:laugh: :laugh:
And you could probably drive in a straight line as well >:D
Hehehe :-D :-D
There's a McDonald's which pretty much lies along that straight line between home and w@&k. If I ever did choose to eat from the dreaded "Slack Mack's" (as if) I could make my own drive-through window >:D
Hahaha :laugh: :-X
That would be a good Burger-Shot :-D
New interview uploaded yesterday March 10, 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPrDqoaHHSY#t=25 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPrDqoaHHSY#t=25)
and the a better cut version / audio
Edward Snowden and ACLU at SXSW (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIhS9aB-qgU#ws)
Snowden's testimony as requested by the European Parliament for their inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens, uploaded as of March 7, 20014
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf)
More on the NSA subject at ACLU.org (American Civil Liberties Union)
https://www.aclu.org/time-rein-surveillance-state-0 (https://www.aclu.org/time-rein-surveillance-state-0)
Big brother is watching...
"1984" -- it used to be almost unthinkable.
I was exploring a few of the other articles at the ACLU website and was quite taken with this statement in one of them:
"Privacy is a fundamental part of a dignified life".
I don't think it gets much simpler than that.
indeed :)
Quote from: PZ on March 11, 2014, 03:28:05 PM
Big brother is watching...
Only it turned out "Big Bro." :angry-new:
That would be funny except for the fact that Bro being raised in Hawaii (two eyes (ii) watching) a real hotbed of racial tension by his white grandparents and went from being a pot smoking, crack using school skipper to being slipped straight into an Ivy League College by some invisible string pullers through impossible to investigate means.
Really? ????
I'm saying this cat's share of the American Black Experience is shallower than the reflective coating on a cheap dime store pocket mirror.
A couple days ago I had a passing stray thought:
It'll soon be the ides of March + The steps of the Senate + "Et tu Biden?"
Ah well. It gave me a good laugh. ^-^
:-D
Nice :-D
The unconscionable practice of governments covertly spying on their citizens on the grounds of "protecting" them, or even of simply upholding the law, isn't anything especially new.
I was just watching an episode of one of Ken Burns' wonderful documentary programs, this one from his Prohibition series, and in light of the discussion going on here I was struck by the following account:
During the Prohibition era in the U.S., Roy Olmstead was a very promising police officer in the Seattle Police Department, attaining the rank of lieutenant until he lost his job in 1920 as a result of his bootlegging activities. Once he'd been kicked out of the force he began trafficking illegal liquor in earnest, becoming one of the most successful booze-smugglers in the Pacific Northwest. He became known as "The Good Bootlegger" since his grog was undiluted and, unlike many others in his line of w@&k at that time, refused to become involved in any of the more nefarious illegal activities such as prostitution, gambling or drugs and insisted that his employees not carry firearms, telling them that he would "rather lose a shipment of liquor than a life".
The police knew what Olmstead was up to but he was too slippery for them to catch out, so eventually in order to nail him the police resorted to a new form of evidence gathering - wire-tapping. This was brand-new technology back then and nobody was really sure if the evidence so gathered would hold up in court, or even if it was constitutionally sound. When Olmstead was finally arrested, his lawyers were confident that the case would be thrown out, declaring that the police's wire-tapping activities constituted "unreasonable search and seizure" and that it would indeed be unconstitutional for Olmstead to be convicted on the strength of them, especially since the wire-tap was carried out without a warrant.
To cut a long story short, the authorities did in fact convict Olmstead after reviewing the transcripts produced by the wire-tap. However, before handing down sentence, the justice presiding over the case, Louis Brandeis, made the following pronouncement to the court:
"Embedded in the American Constitution is a right to privacy... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal - well meaning, but without understanding, to declare that in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means. To declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution".
I point out that this declaration was made in 1926. And I believe that what Brandeis meant by "terrible retribution" was that such arrogant violation of an individual's constitutional rights would, one way or another, come back to bite the insidious encroachers big-time, and in some way that they haven't foreseen. In Snowden's case, we can but hope...
So has anything changed since 1926? Not enormously, it appears.
As it transpired, Olmstead was eventually granted a presidential pardon in 1935 by none other than FDR and not only had his constitutional rights restored to him in full but even had his original $8,000 fine remitted to him (plus court costs).
Can Snowden expect to receive such contrition or remuneration from his government in the future? Not bloody likely, I'd say. Like technology itself, the blind zealousness of those in power has progressed somewhat since then.
interesting post, fragger. In addition to your comment I would like to quote Mr Snowden (quote taken from his testimony to the European Court this month, see the link (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf) in one of my previous posts)
QuoteUS government officials have declared me guilty of crimes in advance of any trial,
they've called for me to be executed or assassinated in private and openly in the press, they
revoked my passport and left me stranded in a foreign transit zone for six weeks, and even used
NATO to ground the presidential plane of Evo Morales - the leader of Bolivia - on hearing that I
might attempt to seek and enjoy asylum in Latin America.
That is very shocking and not inspiring confidence. All this reminds me very much of what happened when the Third Reich was being installed. Step by step laws were altered, revoked or issued and powers were shifted until the entire system was undermined and people would still think, "it's not going to be that bad, we are in control of this." The outcome was a bit different, though. The system systematically erased all opposition.