I am a US citizen, and all of my email communications are being held indefinitely by the NSA. If in the future, a federal agency becomes interested in me, they can scour the entirety of my private communications, throughout my lifetime.
I was lead to believe that in the US, my email was stored on the servers of a private company, and that they could not be read unless a judge signed off on a warrant that justified the need. This is not the case. Furthermore, it seems that the NSA has cataloged other information about me, including my telecommunication metadata, as well as my activity on many private networks. I am under NSA surveillance at most times.
It would appear that the US government does not trust any of its citizens enough not to record them to the best of their ability. The US might not appear to be a police state at present, but by becoming a surveillance state, its government agencies have assumed the capabilities of one.
The NSA did not want the information regarding its actions disclosed. The private companies that were providing their customer’s information to the NSA mislead their customers on the NSA’s behalf to maintain this secrecy. The NSA does not want to dissuade us from using the services it monitors.
When a government copies all of your mail, analyzes all of your telecommunications, and monitors your private interactions, you live in a surveillance state. If these powers are abused, you live in a police state. Lack of abuse does not equate to freedom, however. Freedom is ensured by limits on power, not simply by the nature of its application.
From my personal perspective, the US is a surveillance state. Currently, most Americans share this perspective. I expect that the US will remain a surveillance state hereafter; governments rarely give up power. However, I don’t expect that it will always remain benevolent for so many of us. In time, more Americans will experience life in a police state.
I am a US citizen. I live in a surveillance state.
From somewhere on the web: …They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about. They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret. They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed. They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion. They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood’s number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about…
If they really need that stuff, then I would support a fully open database, say after a year's delay. But only government officials are categorically identified by IP/phone number. I was not upset at the NSA monitoring cross-border conversations/emails. This really bothers me. -XC
They're not supposed to "target" domestic traffic. Their means of "targeting" are very coarse, and if there's any restriction on what they can do with domestic traffic they got without "targeting" it, no one has mentioned it yet. Monitoring international traffic is part of the NSA's job, so while admittedly I don't think the NSA should exist at all, I also think that if it's going to, it should be constrained to only doing its job, and forbidden to keep or share with any other organization domestic traffic that wasn't "targeted". As it stands, there's been no mention of any rule against it collecting (but not "targeting") citizen's emails, and then passing anything interesting it finds along to the FBI.I was not upset at the NSA monitoring cross-border conversations/emails. This really bothers me.
And not to mention the FBI has extensive tapping/eavsdropping programs of it's own, which it could also share the other way with the NSA. All enforcement branches have their own massive data collection and mining programs with the intent of "snooping". Carnivore was one of the FBI's programs that made some headlines a few years ago. It's in the same vein as the NSA/PRISM outrage going on now, except there wasn't any outrage over it at the time really, it still made a lot of headlines. Carnivore, after it made headlines, had it's name changed and went further underground to difuse some of the negative press it was getting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software) Was later changed (or replaced with) to:passing anything interesting it finds along to the FBI.
I would like to point out none of this makes us any "safer"
I agree. It didn't stop 9/11, or Boston, or the 7/7 bombings in London. But the one quote that I always try to remember, from the West Wing, and I'm paraphrasing here. It was made by someone talking about the CIA and they said "The problem with our reputation is our successes are private, our failures are public." Again, I agree with you, but that quote (although from a TV show), kind of made me ponder the situation national security agencies are in a little deeper.
the problem with the CIA is that its failures are largely private as well. it is feedback free system with no accountability.
This was not well written. Should not have included a call to a phone sex line because no one can relate to that. Also HIV testing service? I mean sure they have those, but if you have an insurance company you'd probably just go through your doctor... Should be just the second two points. Maybe something that is more embarrassing but relatable...more bland "They know you've been calling your doctor multiple times over the course of a week, and then after the final call you started to call up numbers you haven't called in months or even years for short conversations" Edit: oh perhaps. "they know you haven't called your son in years".
I live in Norway. For comparison, the government here cannot monitor your web activity. Or your phone records. Private surveillance cameras must be pointed away from streets and sidewalks. Traffic cameras, if they do not issue a ticket, must delete data about your transit within 30 seconds of recording it. Citizens are not permitted to take pictures of other people, or inside buildings. There are 7 police video surveillance cameras in the entire country, all in Oslo. Privacy is important here. Even if it makes police work more difficult. Even though the Norwegian government isn't monitoring me though, I'm still being spied on by the U.S. I use gmail, which we now learn might all be copied (easy enough). And my data surely travels through U.S. servers, so the NSA knows what I buy and many of the websites I visit. Yep, even though I'm living and conducting my business in Europe, the U.S. is spying on me. While Norway is deleted records that are 30 seconds old, I don't expect the NSA will delete their records. At all. Ever. Even if they say they will. And I don't expect they will stop. Even if they say they will. Everyone's pretty screwed. Time for a new mode of email. Some kind of anti- Tin Can.
The EU Justice Commissioner has written to the US Attorney General to demand answers on PRISM and whether it has breached the rights of EU citizens. Full BBC article, including the questions, here:
I find it very interesting that the Navy and DARPA (and even the State Department) fund the Tor project. If you don't already know, Tor is an anonymity mode of browsing the web. Traffic isn't pin-pointed to a specific location and is encrypted heavily through each node it passes, however any content can be seen at the exit. Just not who it is coming from (or where). Very interesting indeed that these organizations have given us the tools to evade the programs they created to spy on us.
I'll be damned. wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)#History That's very interesting, I haven't played with Tor in a long time but I never got the impression it even needed a lot of funding. I just kind of thought it was more of a grassroots open source project.Originally sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory[8] (which had been instrumental in the early development of onion routing under the aegis of DARPA), Tor was financially supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation from 2004 to 2005.[10] Tor software is now developed by the Tor Project, which has been a 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization [11] based in the United States of America [1] since December 2006. It has a diverse base of financial support;[10] the U.S. State Department, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the National Science Foundation are major
contributors.[12] As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project's $2M annual budget comes from the United States government, with the Swedish government and other organizations providing the rest,[13] including NGOs and thousands of individual sponsors.[14]
The Tor guys are pretty open about how they got their funding and their relationships with government. I'd say most the time they give talks it comes up at least tangentially. Both of the developers have faced harassment by government officials and support for their work. The U.S. government is a big operation with many competing interest.
I think Mr. Feiffer has the answer. bent. Corners torn. Never sealed correctly. Like they didn't give a damn whether I knew they were reading my mail or not. I was more of a militant in those days, so I decided to fight fire with fire. I began writing letters to the guy who was reading my mail. I addressed them to myself, of course, but inside they went something like: "Dear Sir: I am not that different from you. All men are brothers. Tomorrow instead of reading my maul in that dark, dusty hall why not bring it upstairs where we can check it out together! So I wrote a second letter. "Dear Sir: There are no heroes, no villains, no good guys, no bad guys. The world is more complicated than that. Come on up where we can open a couple of beers and talk it all out." (checks Patsy. No reaction.) Again, no answer. So then I wrote: "Dear Sir: I've been thinking so much of my own problems, too little of yours. Yours cannot be a happy task-reading another man's mail. It's dull, unimaginative. A job-and let's not mince words- for a hack. Yet I wonder-can this be the way you see yourself as a hack? do you see yurself as the office slob? Have you ever wondered why they stuck you with this particular job, instead of others who have less seniority? Or, was it, do you think, that your superviser looked around the office to see who he would stick for the job, saw you and said, 'No one will miss him for a month!'"And still no answer. But that letter-(checks Patsy.) that letter never got delivered to me. So then I wrote: "Dear Friend: Just a note to advise: you may retain my letters as long as you deem fit. Reread them. Study them. Think them out. Who back at the office is out to get you. Who, at this very moment, is sitting at your desk reading your mail? I do not say this to be cruel, but because I am the only one left you can trust-" No answer. But- the next day a man. saying he was from the telephone company showed up-no complaint had been made- to check the phone. Shaky hands. Bloodshot eyes. A small quaver in his voice. And as he dismembered my phone he said, :"Look. What nobody understands is that everybody has his job to do. I got my job. In this case it's repairing telephones. I like it or don't like it but it's my job. If I had another job- for example, with the F.B.I.--or someplace, putting in a wiretap for example or reading a guy's mail- like it or don't like it it would be my job! Has anyone got the right to destroy a man for doing his job?" I wrote one more letter-expressing my deep satisfaction that he and I had at last made contact, and informing him that the next time he came, perhaps to read the meter, I had valuable information, photostats, recordings, names and dates about the conspiracy against him. This letter showed up a week showed up a week after I mailed it, in a crumpled grease-stained, and scotch-taped envelope. The letter itself was torn in half and clumsily glued together again, In the margin, on the bottom, in large, shaky letters was written the word "Please!" It was after this that I began to wonder: if they are so unformidable then why fight back. (Patsy moves.)Every day the mail would come later and later. And it would be
lets make a secure anonymous network and use it exclusively to share poetry.
exactly I least we would be free in some space.
I think you win, a little like the improbability drive. <- this makes the poem post-modern? messages encoded in poems are never caught.
It's not that hard to set up a Tor hidden service.
would the us government make a system that made you invisible to them?
What do you think we can do? I'm glad that Ron Wyden is one of my Senators and that Earl Blumenauer is my Rep (he has consistently voted against expansion of the surveillance state). I don't know what my other Senators stance is on the surveillance state is, but I know I will vote for anyone who is more interested in civil liberties than safety. If I had known that my vote for a third party candidate would have given Mitt the election I still wouldn't have voted for Obama. This administration is nothing but vulgar. I knew then that it has no respect for the constitution or the citizenry, it only wants to tighten its grip on power. When will people vote on constitutional values, the right to be secure in your effects and person against unreasonable search and seizure, to value their privacy? As much as I think Rand Paul is a nitwit I'd probably vote for him at this point. We aren't going to get revolution at the point of a gun but I hope it's still possible that we might get it at the voting booth.
You have NO IDEA how much it pains me that I am beginning to agree with this. I would not want to live in a country that enacted all he argues for at all but he's one of the only horses in town when it comes to our privacy, which has been absolutely demolished. I mean, it's already gone. We only have privacy in the sense that nobody cares enough to glance at us at this particular moment. They're fine with this, because they have recorded all of our previous moments.As much as I think Rand Paul is a nitwit I'd probably vote for him at this point.
Yo, I think I have a pretty good idea how painful it is. I think the first time I realized that I could vote for Rand Paul I started hysterically laughing in a way that bordered on tears. I think we are fucked when I would chose someone like him to best represent my interest.
I write my representatives from time to time, and I will here. Perhaps #tincan could be considered "something". I will also express my views with as many people as possible, as above. Of course, my voting will be affected by this. Do you have any suggestions?
Yes. Institutions and operating procedures develop around these new technologies and resources. At first they serve the intended purpose, but over time they become increasingly bureaucratic and inflexible. In time the needs and actions of the society drifts away from the functional effect of these institutions, and well before these systems change, people must bend to their design. In the US, this is exacerbated by the influence of lobbying in the political process. You can see varying degrees of this in the US penal system (particularly its influence on drug and immigration law), in the military complex, in agriculture, and in copyright and patent law. In short, the system and the laws to support it no longer reflect a desired reality except for those that have political power in the sector. However, what’s most troubling about this new complex, is the nature of it. By design, this surveillance complex will have tools to protect itself that others do not. As an example, journalists have had a very difficult time challenging this surveillance, as they must first prove that they have been adversely affected by it. However, the information they require to prove it is secret and cannot be used in court.
Don't forget they develop a survival instinct and desire for self-preservation as they are ultimately staffed by humans who a) believe in the value of the job they are doing, and b) want to keep doing it for selfish monetary reasons even if they don't ideologically care that much.
The organizations themselves become experts at lobbying for their own existence and expansion. Even if the only reason is people still have a job to go to in the morning. That's really all it takes (this gave us the military industrial complex you alluded to). It's scary how true this is. If you thought the military-industrial complex was intractable, you've not seen anything yet...Yes. Institutions and operating procedures develop around these new technologies and resources. At first they serve the intended purpose, but over time they become increasingly bureaucratic and inflexible.
However, what’s most troubling about this new complex, is the nature of it. By design, this surveillance complex will have tools to protect itself that others do not.
This claim hasn't been made by any of the leaks.I am a US citizen, and all of my email communications are being held indefinitely by the NSA.
It seemed to me implied at the time, but here it is being made explicitly.
You are right, it is probably for storing the meta data on phone records and other documents. In order to believe they are storing internet records you'd have to believe that there was a massive leak laying out the program they had in place and that the leak was actually wrong.