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Free Speech vs. Surveillance in the Digital Age
Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.
A Wall Street Journal report this week claimed that the "Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale." The article named Nokia Siemens Networks as the provider of equipment capable of "deep packet inspection." DPI, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "enables Internet Service Providers to intercept virtually all of their customers' Internet activity, including Web surfing data, e-mail and peer-to-peer downloads."
Nokia Siemens has refuted the allegation, saying in a press release that the company "has provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran." It is this issue, of what is legal, that must be addressed. "Lawful intercept" means that people can be monitored, located and censored. Global standards need to be adopted that protect the freedom to communicate, to dissent.
China has very sophisticated Internet monitoring and censoring capabilities, referred to as "the Great Firewall of China," which attracted increased attention prior to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. A document leaked before a U.S. Senate human rights hearing implicated Cisco, a California-based maker of Internet routers, in marketing to the Chinese government to accommodate monitoring and censorship goals. The Chinese government now requires any computer sold there after July 1, 2009, to include software called "Green Dam," which critics say will further empower the government to monitor Internet use.
Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media policy group, says the actions of Iran and China should alert us to domestic surveillance issues in the U.S. He told me: "This technology that monitors everything that goes through the Internet is something that works, it's readily available, and there's no legislation in the United States that prevents the U.S. government from employing it. ... It's widely known that the major carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon, were being asked by the NSA [National Security Agency], by the Bush administration ... to deploy off-the-shelf technology made by some of these companies like Cisco." The equipment formed the backbone of the "warrantless wiretapping" program.
Thomas Tamm was the Justice Department lawyer who blew the whistle on that program. In 2004, he called The New York Times from a subway pay phone and told reporter Eric Lichtblau about the existence of a secret domestic surveillance program. In 2007, the FBI raided his home and seized three computers and personal files. He still faces possible prosecution.
Tamm told me: "I think I put my country first ... our government is still violating the law. I'm convinced ... that a lot more Americans have been illegally wiretapped than we know."
The warrantless wiretapping program was widely considered illegal. After abruptly switching his position in midcampaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama voted along with most in Congress to grant telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon retroactive immunity from prosecution. The New York Times recently reported that the NSA maintains a database called Pinwale, with millions of intercepted e-mail, including some from former President Bill Clinton.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was recently asked by Sen. Russ Feingold if he felt that the original warrantless wiretap program was illegal:
Feingold: "[I]s there any doubt in your mind that the warrantless wiretapping program was illegal?"
Holder: "Well, I think that the warrantless wiretapping program, as it existed at that point, was certainly unwise, in that it was put together without the approval of Congress."
Feingold: "But I asked you, Mr. Attorney General, not whether it was unwise, but whether you consider it to have been illegal."
Holder: "The policy was an unwise one."
Dissenters in Iran and China persist despite repression that is enabled in part by equipment from U.S. and European companies. In the U.S., the Obama administration is following a dangerous path with Bush-era spy programs that should be suspended and prosecuted, not extended and defended.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
- Posted in
44 Comments so far
Show AllGovernments of large nations and the elites who control them will always opt for surveillance under the theory that they aren't doing their duty unless they know all they can about anyone who might be construed as a threat.
That includes all folks such as us who post to progressive websites, forums, and blogs. They know who we are and if they do ever become threatened by folks who think like we do, they have the means to round us all up and send us to high tech re-education camps (or some other Guantanamo-like place if we aren't among the lucky).
Maybe if we stay as we are, kvetching ineffectually, they won't bother. But know that they can.
Paranoid - I have simply assumed, for quite some time, that the government watches websites like this, and can probably identify us. I don't care. I am also certain that fusion centers throughout the US have already compiled, with the aid of their handpicked cohorts, a list of local 'radicals' to be watched if another 'Pearl Harbor' or '9/11' were to happen. And five years ago I scoffed at the idea that 9/11 was an inside job - now I believe it is a real possibility.
Read what I wrote above about the genesis of the 'states' secrets act.' See how it all fits in. Also, read Tim Weiner's book, 'The Legacy of Ashes - The History of the CIA' and all will more fully understand the depravity and inhumanity this nation is capable of leveling on other human beings.
The 4th Amendment is Dead.
Obama was a pallbearer at its funeral with his FISA flip-flop.
You can bet your last federal reserve note that Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor has secretly been vetted on this issue.
The surveillance state is here to stay.
We need to replace the stars on the American flag with a picture of a router.
A good article by Amy.
Yes, the 4th Amendment is DOA, and Obamacain and his man Holder are perfectly comfortable with that.
great. the 'unwise' defense. why bother even having a judicial branch.
Ms. Goodman's concern regarding illegal surveillance is certainly justified. One wishes though that she would have noted how the the presence of 85 cameras surveying the skies and the area around the most heavily guarded building on the planet-namely the Pentagon-failed to reveal the presence of a clearly defined airplane striking the Pentagon on Sept.11, 2001. It would seem that it should be impossible for anyone to justify the need for illegally wiretapping American citizens when a program designed to function effectively in the nation's capitol ended up failing miserably. Yet the FBI was very quick to make sure that not only should all 85 cameras and tapes in and around the area be confiscated very soon after the crash but it was only until a Freedom of Information Act was effected that the Pentagon decided to finally release all of five frames, which turned out to be quite blurry and ambiguous, in order to substantiate its nebulous claim that a Boeing 757 jet had slammed into the Pentagon.
The point is that the use of tapes and surveillance equipment can be manipulated very easily in order to justify the nefarious aims of a less than benevolent government. All the more reason for a cry to be heard throughout the land:
Reopen and re-investigate 9/11.
O'bomb'a is a turncoat. The guy got into office with a lot of high falutin promises and turns out to be what we all hoped was not true - Bush Lite. He has caved in to the military-industrial complex, the police-security state, healthcare insurance companies, etc. And I imagine we will see him continue to argue state secrets, executive privilege, etc., all the way along.
Face it folks. America is a fundamentally different country from the one we were taught to believe existed. It now embodies the worst of Stalinism and fascism. I do not throw these charges out lightly. Witness the Orwellian claims of concerns related to Iran's elections while we know the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen right here in our own countries. Add to this the claims that we should be concerned about protestors on Iranian streets when Amy herself we taken prisoner by our police in Minneapolis for doing her job as a journalist. And she was not alone.
I know personally the kind of intimidation thrown at protestors by the police security state in this country. I mean the military is classifying such first amendment gatherings as "low-level terrorism." I kid you not.
At our five year Iraq War protest, the 40 or so people who turned out were greeted with at least 100 cops, many of them non-uniformed and driving large SUVs, filming all of us up close, taking pictures. It was a sad state of affairs.
We have lost much more than the fourth amendment. The fifth, the first, the third, and habeus corpus etc., all trashed in the name of the "War on Terror." While 53,000 of us die every year from a lack of healthcare, we gut the bill of rights over the 2,700 that died on one day in 2001 (and has many have pointed out, this travesty probably took place with the support of elements of the federal govt).
In sum, we are no longer a free nation.
It should also be noted that the [alleged] agent of change has caved in and accepted the fairy tale provided by the Bush administration when Obama stated in the speech that he gave at Cairo, Egypt on June 4 that:
"But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed 3,000 people that day. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."
Opinions not to be debated? Since when did this country become a dictatorship that one cannot dispute the feeble explanations put forth concerning the strange events that took place on 9/11/01?
odoco
Reference the State Secrets Act: original case which set precedent was in the 1940 - 50s; B-29 bomber went down, widows of pilots never fully told why their husbands died; further investigation by them and their children discovered that negligence was reason for plane crash - Air Force and government wanted to avoid liability - SO THEY INVENTED THE STATE SECRETS DEFENSE - this was all on public radio last night - 89.3 FM in Kansas City if you want to check, came on about 7 or 8 oclock. Supreme court eventually refused to hear the case; now lower appellate courts are beginning to question the legitimacy of the genesis of the 'state secrets act' itself.
This is very important - the very case that allowed Bush and cohorts to commit war crimes was bogus to begin with - A LIE!
readers can listen to a podcast of the story at this american life.
This American Life
Origin Story - Broadcast June 19 - June 21
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
{Act Two. The Secret Life of Secrets.
Ira tells the story of the 1953 U.S. Supreme Court case that formed the basis for the controversial state secret privilege—the precedent that allows the United States government to stop lawsuits by claiming that national security secrets might be revealed in court. Ira talks to Barry Siegel, author of the book Claim of Privilege, and Judy Loether, whose father’s death was at the center of the landmark Supreme Court case. (14 minutes)}
...peace...
thank you iowablackbird for the more specific info.
you're welcome odoco.
i had a WTF moment when i heard this story. another example of how the reptilians can sift through copious legal opinions and cherry pick legal precedents to suit their nefarious intentions (global domination).
thank you for reminding me of the story. it's another indicator of how twisted and dishonest our society has become. the fact the story was told on public radio, instead of being presented by attorneys to the justices of the supreme court, speaks volumes to the times we're living in.
...peace...
I was aware of this but will listen to the broadcast. Thanks!
People should be concerned about protesters in Iran, for the same reasons they should be concerned about protesters in the US.
(Authoritarian) governments all over the world are using similar tactics against those who (might) express dissent. CCTVs, taking pictures of protesters, databases, laws that allow governments to collect and store internet and cellphone usage of all their citizens in extensive databases, laws that allow governments to censor internet information, laws against civilian citizens taking pictures, laws against civilian citizens making video recordings. Etc. To justify these measures they all use the same arguments: "terrorists" and protecting the children. Including labeling any and all protesters as "terrorists". The Iranian government has also labeled the protesters in Iran as "terrorists".
Look my friend. If everything in AmeriKa was free and easy, sure, I might have time to worry about what's going on on the other side of the world. But things aren't free and easy. And much of what is going on on the other side of the world is courtesy of the U.S. govt.
So, given this, I will ask you the following question. Given the corporate media is incessantly and non-stop challenging the election results of Iran and actively supporting the protestors and making a big case of any harm that is being caused to them related to their protests, which of the following deserves more news coverage?
1) The Iranian protests
2) The killing of 60 innocents yesterday by a U.S. Air Force missle(see here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/us-missile-strike-pakistan)
3) The huge refugee problem in Pakistan as a result of our bullying of Pakistan's government to crack down on its own people (not unlike Iran, but for different reasons) (see here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31519200/ns/world_news-washington_post/)
Hint: two of these stories deal with American imperialism and are not being covered at all by the major networks and barely receive any lip service in most of the country's newspapers.
Also, as has been stated by Paul Craig Roberts, one can think of the entire Iranian issue as an Orwellian exercise: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ignorance-is-Strength-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-090623-723.html and http://www.opednews.com/articles/Iran-Falls-to-US-PSYOPS-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-090623-599.html.
I believe in taking care of our backyard first. And we have many things to take care of right here.
Hint: nothing that the US government is doing with regards to electronic communications is unique. It is happening all over the world. Including the use of "terrorism" as a justification.
This isn't about taking care of anyone's backyard first. It is recognising what (authoritarian) governments are doing, and the tactics that they use to justify their actions.
Let's see - we claim we are the "leader" of the free world. But we should focus on other countries faults without first correcting ours.
I like your logic. It says much about where we are today.
Right. Because I said we should focus on other countries' faults without first correcting ours.
You wrote: "This isn't about taking care of anyone's backyard first."
I took that to mean that you don't agree that we should clean up our own mess first.
You're the one concerned with Iran - not me.
I think we have enough issues here at home to address regarding loss of rights, police intimidation, and surveillance. You appear (though somewhat confusedly) to suggest that their is some sort of equivalence here between U.S. actions towards its citizenry and Iranian actions towards its citizenry, and this equivalence forces us to pay attention to what is going on beyond our shores.
I think this is ridiculous. Just what would you have us do to prevent Iranian violence against protestors (or conversely, what would you have us to to protect Iranian property from Iranian protestors)?
I would suggest that there is nothing we can do. There are things we can do here.
I think the list of violent actions against protestors in this country is pretty self evident. You may not be familiar with Kent State or the Haymarket Massacre, or even Wounded Knee, but you should be.
"You appear (though somewhat confusedly) to suggest that their is some sort of equivalence here between U.S. actions towards its citizenry and Iranian actions towards its citizenry, and this equivalence forces us to pay attention to what is going on beyond our shores.
I think this is ridiculous. Just what would you have us do to prevent Iranian violence against protestors (or conversely, what would you have us to to protect Iranian property from Iranian protestors)?"
One, it is ridiculous to pay attention to what is happening around the rest of the world? Especially since what is happening is similar in some ways to what is happening in the US?
Two, paying attention does not mean intervening.
"I think the list of violent actions against protestors in this country is pretty self evident. You may not be familiar with Kent State or the Haymarket Massacre, or even Wounded Knee, but you should be."
Your point being? I am fully aware of those.
Sioux Rose
RFLOH: Good post. I think they also can and will use the "state secrets" excuse, and with "eminent domain," it would not be difficult these days to invent an excuse to seize property... all for "national security." A government that bypasses law after law is one that makes me wonder if a time will come where gold caps will be confiscated from living persons' teeth to help pay down the national debt, again all in the interest of "national security."
I just assume that I am being monitored ALL the time. I assume also that I am on the terrorist watch list. Just because I call a lie a lie.
Who knows maybe we are all funneled into little Common Dreams Groups of a few hundred people who only communicate with others of like minds. When we sit down on a computer a chip implanted at birth identifies us and our content is displayed accordingly.
This is not true yet because other people can read my posts, but one day we may find strange things happening. That's when my computer along with the TV goes to the trash.
Well, well. It seems Obama is a uniter not a divider after all. The administration is fast fusing itself with republican ideology. Maybe Rush is right. The Nazis were leftists. United we stand. Gott mit uns. Amerika uber alles.
The first time I saw a cell phone with a built-in camera, I thought "Wow, now we're potentially a nation of 300 million Zapruders, they'll never be able to hoodwink us again."
But now I don't know. Somebody who's informed, please tell me how much control the bastards really have over data flow? Can a few incriminating live-action photos be stopped without crippling the 'net, which it seems would bring commerce to a screeching halt?
The main problem is, if you look at what the average person can do with Photoshop, what do you think a government with unlimited funds and power can do to the truth?
Re-read Orwell's 1984. Winston's job was to correct "mistakes" in history so history agreed with what the government said. When I see and hear the revisionist history that is passed to the kids today, I am appalled. I lived through the tail end of the Great Depression-I (I think GD-II is on the way), the War, Korea, Vietnam, et al., and the stuff being taught today is NOT the way it happened. My wife and I often cross check with each other to make sure our memories are correct, but the kids today are taught garbage, not history and government.
Yes, Big Brother IS watching you, me, and everybody else. The thought police are making their lists, and checking them twice. We may be behind the razor wire whether we are naughty or nice.
This is certainly not new. These guys have learned from experts and adapted it to modern methods of propaganda and new equipment for surveillance.
---------------------------------
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country."
Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946
---------------------------------
If these guys had had the surveillance techniques we have today, we would all be speaking German and heiling the swastika in our schools as a pledge of allegiance.
given: we are prisoners within our own borders...the very words I'm typing now are being filtered and manipulated in any way desired...as others have stated, the folks running this website have my name and email, as do those running a number of others...caught between financial shenanigans, employment collapse, and rapidly-advancing and increasingly pervasive surveillance and weaponry combined with emergent rescinding of my constitutional protections under false, yet unchallenged, pretenses, my options as an individual citizen are uncomfortably few, especially when public assembly and discourse are considered terrorist acts...this lack of options drives to my only logical conclusion: the concurrent attempts to drain the constricting system of required resources by consuming as little commercial product as possible, while also restoring my own ability to support myself, which is why the emphasis on gardening...of course, if I lose my home and the surrounding property I have worked into a flourishing garden, I would be trespassing to partake even of my own efforts...housing, and property ownership, will become a huge issue in this country before too much longer...
question: where do they get these people, my fellow countrymen, who are willing to enforce twisted systems by incarcerating or killing folks doing them no actual harm, but merely expressing opinion?
given: even if that were to be a problem, drones will answer...computers don't care, they just follow code...
"question: where do they get these people, my fellow countrymen, who are willing to enforce twisted systems by incarcerating or killing folks doing them no actual harm, but merely expressing opinion?"
-- they mold them from playdough in churches across the nation. i got mine, god loves me, you're an infidel - get out of my way. i'll pray for you when you die and go to hell. in the mean time - you owe me rent and a lot of money for just living.
maybe we should all post the lord's prayer on our front doors - when the goon squads come to throw us into the camps.
"Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread;And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from the Evil One."
i wonder what the interest rate, up there in heaven, is on a 30 yr fixed mortgage these days, or how much a crummy studio apt is going for up there.
maybe if i pray a little harder, god will provide the answer, considering he's tapped everyone's phone since the beginning of time, since day 1.
...peace...
"The New York Times recently reported that the NSA maintains a database called Pinwale, with millions of intercepted e-mail, including some from former President Bill Clinton."
From private American citizen, former president Bill Clinton to who? Hillary? His lawyer, regarding a possible tax problem? His family doctor, referencing a Viagra prescription? The head of the DNC, discussing hush-hush partisan campaign strategy, fundraising, or the latest legislative head count on DC beltway legislative manuevering? Does it really matter?
Amy Goodman, Thomas Tamm, and the good folks over at the Free Press media group, focus on the heart of the Fourth Amendment issue - the creation of a massive digital communications database, maintained for retrieval and reconstruction at any later point in time, by the country's premier electronic spy agency. J Edgar Hoover should have been so lucky as to have sophisticated technology like this at his finger tips and personal disposal back when he was at the height of his power and sinister influence at the FBI.
Paranoid Pessimist correctly highlights the double standard at work.
Perhaps there is a gnome somewhere, constantly or periodically monitoring the e-mail and digital voice communications of significant political players like Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Sy Hersch, or perhaps Ms. Amy herself. You and I are free to kvetch and post to our hearts' content among ourselves without Big Brother bothering to listen in. Yet should small fish like us ever emerge from the big pond to possibly experience our allotted ten minutes of fame, publicly raising some progressive value that actually threatens the comfort level of the powers-that-be, you can bet your sweet ass that at that moment in time the NSA database would be thoroughly mined, thoroughly reconstructed, and mercilessly used.
That is why Mr. Tamm's revelation of installation of the NSA splitter by the Bushie spooks, pre-911 and post-911, with good old boy assistance from the big telecoms and no FISA authorization or oversight whatsoever, lies at the heart of the matter: simply because the technology now exists to create such a colossal, indiscriminate, permanent digital communications database provides no justification for our government to in fact create it, thus infringing systematically upon the privacy of president and peon alike.
And if, conceivably, vacuum cleaner entities like Pinwale do get created, it is immensely dangerous to entrust the keys to this treasure trove of First Amendment protected data over to the faceless, fascist-leaning spooks who run the nation's national security system.
Congress should criminally outlaw creation of any such universal digital archive tomorrow. They learned nothing from Vietnam. Did they similarly learn nothing from Watergate?
Bill from Saginaw
I find this article unduly negative, especially since it starts out pointing out the value of citizen reports available through the use of uploaded video. A case in point is the continuing enquiry into the death by Taser of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport. The evidence now suggests that the RCMP officers involved lied through their teeth at the enquiry.
"Global standards need to be adopted that protect the freedom to communicate, to dissent"
Wow, what a great idea! Look how effective the UN convention against torture has been.
The only way to combat increasing government control of the Internet is by learning and employing techniques that hackers use. The government will never be able to effectively control the net, other than by shutting it down which they can't do since it will cripple commerce. There are plenty of 10-15 year olds who can circumvent anything thrown at them.
I know many companies do not allow laptops to cross international borders with proprietary company information and secrets on them. The road warriors then communicate online. If DPI becomes widespread then these companies will simply use or are using encryption. Encryption is fast, works on the fly and would require several months for NSA to break.
"The government will never be able to effectively control the net, other than by shutting it down which they can't do since it will cripple commerce."
While I appreciate the thought behind this comment, I wonder which concern they view as greater? The collapse of commerce, whether internet-driven or no, which relies on economic and ecologic behavior that is self-destructing, so appears inevitable, anyway, and which, as we are now seeing, can be produce incredible profit for them along the way, or large-scale rebellion, which will probably result from the inevitable collapse of commerce, and quite possibly threaten the lives of actual persons, no matter how wealthy?
I find problems here.
Cryptography's helpful but not a cure-all. Gov't and big $$ do not always need to know what's in each file or packet each packet to track someone down.
UN standards have not worked effectively, true. 0 standards worked less. Needing more than standards does not mean not needing standards.
There are clever kids, sure. There are also plenty of people in search of the ANY key. Not all hackers write well, particularly the 10-year-olds. Not all writers write code or understand protocols or see the computer for anything but an opaque box.
Not all who must transmit valuable information understand either. Some info transfers anyway; some does not.
There's nothing mutually exclusive about laws against surveillance and for human rights at local, county, state, national, and international levels and people developing the skills to protect themselves. These more likely have a both|neither relationship rather than either|or. If government has less to intimidate people, people may try more and develop more skills.
Finally - Prof, this is less directed at you than broadcast - but I often wonder why there should be a specific level of positiveness in an article and how that would be decided. For instance, Goodman does not suggest here that government control of the Net is at all certain or would be complete. Surely suggesting that laws should exist to protect human rights does not mean that one does not feel that the Net is not a technology that helps level info production and distribution -- which Goodman writes pretty clearly at the outset.
This Amy Goodman article is about digital control of citizens and their ability to express themselves and be heard. So then Common Dreamers, why does this website, Common Dreams, censor comments, make people disappear, and block TCP/IP addresses. Reading Amy Goodman's article on Common Dreams is the kettle calling the pot black. And as usual, I expect to be banned for the ninth time. Welcome to the USA Internet and screening version of what is happening in Iran today. For shame, Common Dreams.
I do NOT work for CD, but your comment shows some naivete about telecommunications. Common Dreams may block TCP/IP addresses in order to PROVIDE a degree of privacy. As for monitoring and censoring of messages, as the provider of this outlet, CD accepts a certain degree of responsibility of what is printed. Should it be used for slander, hate speech, etc, the web site can be held responsible to a certain degree. Simply stating that one refuses to accept responsibility does not necessarily relieve that entity of such. Providing Amy Goodman's article for everybody to read in no way implicates Common Dreams as to it's agreement or disagreement. See, you have not been 'banned for the ninth time'.
Simply Google: Common Dreams Censorship - and educate yourself.
Hi Jozef, did that.... More than just you have had this experience. I was struck that the first three sites I visited did NOT provide a "privacy" statement on their home page or upon their 'about us' pages. NotMyTribe has a 'blank' page when I hit the 'contact us' button.... I have not personally experienced this at CD, but who knows, according to my 'profile' I've only been an active member for 8 weeks and 6 days, there is plenty of time in the future. Thanks for the info though, forewarned is forearmed.
Just because a person is 'paranoid' does not mean that somebody is NOT out to get them. Like many on this board, I suspect that 'big brother' is always watching and that even with the use of a pseudonym, true identity can always be obtained. And like many, I suspect that by the time we hear about it, it's been here for a while.
BUT, technology has it's own undoing. With so much information being obtained, the ability to analyze what is captured is reduced. In the case of 'blocking' like in China and Iran, there will eventually be so many sites on the list, that the blocking server will become overwhelmed. In the case of 'information capture' such as here in the US, the ability to actually analyze the traffic becomes tedious and there are not enough trained traffic analysts available.
Much is gleaned just by documenting the "to - from", the "time" and the "duration" of such communications however. Take time to smell the flowers for it is a brave new world.
our enemies rejoice in the arrogance displayed before the "Senate" by the Holder creature, and in the cowardly response of the "Senate." in a country of free men, jail or worse would be the answer to such arrogance.
At least these people have "twitter", the Palestinians don't have nothing.
May I commend and recommend Phil Zimmermann of PGP Inc., "Pretty Good Privacy."
http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/background/index.html
Zimmerman pioneered a state-of-the-art public key encryption system, underwent persecution and risked jail to keep from putting a "back door" in it to facilitate government and corporate spying.
This is a good encryption program.
The existence of a good encryption program does not at all mean that gov't filtering projects are not dangerous, but it may get someone away from some problem at some point.
My computer has a little box that pops up saying "the information you are about to send is not encrypted and can easily be read by a third party". I assume that even encrypted sites are easily read if someone was serious enough about it.
Before we get paranoid and fearful of the all powerful big bro, why not get creative and make them assume they are in turn being watched? It's easy to fall into a victim mentality. They want us to think that way.
The people hold the power, not the NSA or Verizon or AT&T.
Make the watchers know they are being watched.
"the Obama administration is following a dangerous path with Bush-era spy programs that should be suspended and prosecuted, not extended and defended."
My sense is that it is well possible to prempt a HANDFUL of mentally ill people from committing acts of violence through spying on them. Still, we REPORTED 1.5 million acts of violence in the US in 2007 alone. Contrast that with the fact that we have lost not much more than 3,000 Americans through terrorism in our entire history. Conclusion: We spend a disproportionate amount of resources "fighting terror" compared to preventing everyday violence, which claims exponentially more victims, including almost 5,000 US soldiers... more than died through terror in our entire history as a nation.
What the above means is that we have our priorities screwed up. We are not trying to prevent violence. We are demonizing people, conquering, looting, and committing unspeakable atrocities in the name of national security. The truth is that our national security is not threatened.
We generate a great deal of anger through our policies, and busy ourselves trying to suppress that anger. We exploit the manifestations of that anger to feed an empire, not to stand up for humane principles.
We should come out with a more genuine, more collaborative approach. Violence is overrated.
You don't negotiate peace. You simply stop killing people. They're not after us because of our freedoms. They're after us because we drop bombs on their funeral processions with the goal of controlling their resources.
Is violence really so rewarding that there's no way to stop us, thus stopping "them"?
Amy, Please comment and on how you conduct journalism, knowing your telephone calls, emails, are recorded, probably all listened to, read, by humans, at any rate by computers which signal for humans, when the computer finds flagged words in your conversations (voice recognition simultaneous transcription). You mainly report, so please ask your investigative journalist guests their nuts and bolts, how they receive and initiate contacts, converse with them, receive documents, in an attempt to evade this surveillance. How can a citizen contact an investigative journalist they trust, here, the report implies, the FBI continuously recorded all telecoms to the NYT. -CJ Harwood, WarLaw
My, my, my.... how we wander... electronic surveillance, Amy Goodman.... 9/11 Truth.... Great stuff. JOZEF.. I consider myself a Libertarian, but having worked within the Federal government for over 30 years, and having had my initial training in intelligence gathering (ASA) back in '68, I certainly find the official 9/11 commission report FULL of questionable 'findings'. Even those naive enough to buy into their findings on towers 1 and 2 can not defend the 'pulling' of tower 7. Amy Goodman is a fine person, but perhaps she is like many that have information that they will take to the grave... don't know. Electronic surveillance is here to stay.... the newest version of the 'Newspeak Dictionary' will be on sale at the end of the monty....