US in hot water over Prism

[Batman]

As I said, you can pick & choose the legal opinion, ( from WIKI ):

The UN Charter

is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law. Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men – 15 from

Saudi Arabia

– did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal.

—

Marjorie Cohn

, professor at

Thomas Jefferson School of Law

, president of the

National Lawyers Guild

^[3]

you can interpret your opinion all you want. it is and was a legal war, rightly or wrongly

[badgerx16]

you can interpret your opinion all you want. it is and was a legal war, rightly or wrongly

 

But 'war' can only be declared by one state against another - the US instigated an action of 'collective self defence', ( not a 'war of aggression' ), against a terrorist cell, which the UN Security Council did not ratify the action; ISAF was only created after the Afghan Interim Authority had been established, when the UN was presented with a fait-accompli.

[pap]

you can interpret your opinion all you want. it is and was a legal war, rightly or wrongly

 

You can try and riff on the Afghanistan war all you like to prove whatever point you're trying to make.

 

Regardless of the legality of the Afghanistan war, it wasn't the right response, and I suspect it has a lot to do with the Taleban refusing to play ball on an oil pipeline through Afghanistan.

 

Then we move onto Iraq, which was entirely illegal, resulted in the deaths of a million people, and for what? Freedom? Democracy? Or oil?

 

The US had plans to invade Iraq well in advance of 9/11, even going as far as divvying up the oil rights. Tom Clancy often refers to war as "armed robbery writ large" in his books. Seems to be an apt enough description.

[Batman]

But 'war' can only be declared by one state against another - the US instigated an action of 'mutual collaborative defence' which the UN Security Council did not ratify; ISAF was only created after the Afghan Interim Authority had been established, when the UN was presented with a fait-accompli.

 

since when was war declared here against afghanistan? it wasnt. war was declared on al qaeda and those that helped them. The Taliban allowed afghanistan to be used as a training camp for those evil people. that is a fact and that is why they were set upon. How well that has gone is not the issue.

 

we can go round in circles, but the UN Security Council made this a 'legal' war.

anyway. like I said before. France opposed such wars. Strongly opposed Iraq 2003. Yet the other week, they had a squaddie in Paris get stabbed to death by an Islamic nutter. Whats the excuse there if the season we are under threat is mainly because of illegal wars?

 

my opinion is that we are too scared to offend islam in general over here that we allow preachers of hate, those who hate our way of life (not benefits or NHS though) we allow them to stay and as a result, radicalise Michael from islington and the like. That has little to do with the politics of Afghanistan, a country that none of these folk have probably ever been, nor would have likely to go to had 9/11 never happened

[pap]

I was amused and slightly disturbed to see the comments earlier about Russia and China not holding back.

 

First off, do we really want to compare ourselves with those two states? China isn't a democracy, and Russia is rife with corruption and special interests. The point? Neither of them are going around proclaiming any moral authority, and neither have ever been billed as the Land of the Free ™.

[badgerx16]

since when was war declared here against afghanistan? it wasnt. war was declared on al qaeda and those that helped them. The Taliban allowed afghanistan to be used as a training camp for those evil people. that is a fact and that is why they were set upon. How well that has gone is not the issue.

 

we can go round in circles, but the UN Security Council made this a 'legal' war.

anyway. like I said before. France opposed such wars. Strongly opposed Iraq 2003. Yet the other week, they had a squaddie in Paris get stabbed to death by an Islamic nutter. Whats the excuse there if the season we are under threat is mainly because of illegal wars?

 

my opinion is that we are too scared to offend islam in general over here that we allow preachers of hate, those who hate our way of life (not benefits or NHS though) we allow them to stay and as a result, radicalise Michael from islington and the like. That has little to do with the politics of Afghanistan, a country that none of these folk have probably ever been, nor would have likely to go to had 9/11 never happened

 

How many terrorist acts have ever been committed in GB or the US by Afghans, or more specifically the Taliban ? How many Afghan civilians have died since the US started the military campaign ? Who is the 'terrorist' ?

The UN SC did not make the war 'legal', it endorsed military and Police support for the Afghan Interim Authority, which was formed as a result of the Bonn Agreement, from a number of anti-Taliban groups and some exiled political leaders that the West approved of.

 

Following your logic we would have been entitled to invade Eire because the IRA had training camps and arms caches there.

[Batman]

How many terrorist acts have ever been committed in GB or the US by Afghans, or more specifically the Taliban ? How many Afghan civilians have died since the US started the military campaign ? Who is the 'terrorist' ?

The UN SC did not make the war 'legal', it endorsed military and Police support for the Afghan Interim Authority, which was formed as a result of the Bonn Agreement, from a number of anti-Taliban groups and some exiled political leaders that the West approved of.

 

Following your logic we would have been entitled to invade Eire because the IRA had training camps and arms caches there.

its not following logic, it is the facts of what happened.

Like I said, you can take any point of view you want to prove some point. The facts remain

[pap]

its not following logic, it is the facts of what happened.

Like I said, you can take any point of view you want to prove some point. The facts remain

 

C'mon now, Batman.

 

badgerx16 makes an excellent analogy there, in more ways than one. Should we have invaded the ROI to get rid of the terrorists?

[badgerx16]

...The facts remain

 

Would that be your facts or mine ?

[Saint in Paradise]

What I find most amusing is the fact that so many people appear surprised about this news.

[OldNick]

What I find most amusing is the fact that so many people appear surprised about this news.

We are such a free society. Lol, we are not allowed to park our cars on our streets, we have to take passports,even when in Europe, to go to a solicitor or open a bank account we have to take a driving licence/passport. The lists of restrictions on our lives is massive, but of course we believe we are free. I believe in order in society and so am not too upset, but to think we live in free society is pretty naive IMO

[pap]

What I find most amusing is the fact that so many people appear surprised about this news.

 

I find myself in agreement with both buctootim and Verbal on their respective points.

 

We are heading into some very dangerous times. I said earlier that I didn't want to turn this into a conspiracy thread. Still don't. However, Tim's point about the slow crawl to an authoritarian regime is well made.

 

Also, Verbal's point about the EU is bang on. I have zero confidence in the UK as an independent player on the world stage. We have marched in lockstep to American foreign policy, and I believe that's wrong too. The Conservatives love American ideas; much of their policy is inspired by largely failed American programmes, such as welfare-to-work. I still have no idea why a supposedly left-wing government (Labour in the 2000s) would cosy up to the most hawkish US administration since the 1960s. I'm not sure that I ever will.

 

Ideally, I'd like our country to position itself as a wise state. We have enough of our own history to know the score, to be an independent voice, to have the confidence to say "hang on, old bean - are you sure you want to do that?". Furthermore, the peace settlement in Northern Ireland shows that we do have the maturity to deal with terrorists, or freedom fighters, or legitimate politicians as we have now. It wasn't easy. It required some hard choices, and still does now. I'm writing from Northern Ireland right now. My client is having a sports day in the near future. No-one is allowed to wear football shirts, or anything that might indicate some sort of sectarian allegiance. The wags at work have pointed out the irony of having a sports day yet not being able to wear sports shirts, but to me, I totally understand where the firm is coming from.

 

Things have moved on a long way since the Troubles. They've done so because people have genuinely considered contentious issues with sensitivity. It's not perfect; and believe me, a lot of stuff that is reported here isn't necessarily made into a big thing on the news, as it used to be in the 1980s. The dreaded question "what are ye" is still asked all too often. Even so, it's a sh!tload better than where we were.

 

I'm not sure if anyone has ever solved a terrorist problem simply by killing them all, simply because that act in itself creates more of them. We should have used our expertise in delicately handling the NI situation and applied it to the situation in the Middle East.

[aintforever]

It's naive to think it's just the US doing this, I expect our secret services do exactly the same. Im neither surprised or bothered by it to be honest.

 

Digital communications is such a powerful tool, our government would be foolish not to utilise it fully to combat terrorism.

[pap]

It's naive to think it's just the US doing this, I expect our secret services do exactly the same. Im neither surprised or bothered by it to be honest.

 

Digital communications is such a powerful tool, our government would be foolish not to utilise it fully to combat terrorism.

 

You're missing the point.

 

They work for you, or are supposed to anyway.

 

You think this is an example of working for the common good? If you do, please check out Edward Snowden's account first.

[solentstars]

I find myself in agreement with both buctootim and Verbal on their respective points.

 

We are heading into some very dangerous times. I said earlier that I didn't want to turn this into a conspiracy thread. Still don't. However, Tim's point about the slow crawl to an authoritarian regime is well made.

 

Also, Verbal's point about the EU is bang on. I have zero confidence in the UK as an independent player on the world stage. We have marched in lockstep to American foreign policy, and I believe that's wrong too. The Conservatives love American ideas; much of their policy is inspired by largely failed American programmes, such as welfare-to-work. I still have no idea why a supposedly left-wing government (Labour in the 2000s) would cosy up to the most hawkish US administration since the 1960s. I'm not sure that I ever will.

 

Ideally, I'd like our country to position itself as a wise state. We have enough of our own history to know the score, to be an independent voice, to have the confidence to say "hang on, old bean - are you sure you want to do that?". Furthermore, the peace settlement in Northern Ireland shows that we do have the maturity to deal with terrorists, or freedom fighters, or legitimate politicians as we have now. It wasn't easy. It required some hard choices, and still does now. I'm writing from Northern Ireland right now. My client is having a sports day in the near future. No-one is allowed to wear football shirts, or anything that might indicate some sort of sectarian allegiance. The wags at work have pointed out the irony of having a sports day yet not being able to wear sports shirts, but to me, I totally understand where the firm is coming from.

 

Things have moved on a long way since the Troubles. They've done so because people have genuinely considered contentious issues with sensitivity. It's not perfect; and believe me, a lot of stuff that is reported here isn't necessarily made into a big thing on the news, as it used to be in the 1980s. The dreaded question "what are ye" is still asked all too often. Even so, it's a sh!tload better than where we were.

 

I'm not sure if anyone has ever solved a terrorist problem simply by killing them all, simply because that act in itself creates more of them. We should have used our expertise in delicately handling the NI situation and applied it to the situation in the Middle East.

i,m amazed how many on here are happy to give away their freedoms,if they followed history they will find governments have always used acts of terrorism to justify weakening of the protection of law and liberty.i think they should read 1984 and see the film v for vendetta.

if those who are happy and want the state to read our emails and web information and listen to phone calls without warrants and rule of law maybe they won,t me mind coming round to look has well you can take my word on trust.

[badgerx16]

It's naive to think it's just the US doing this, I expect our secret services do exactly the same. Im neither surprised or bothered by it to be honest.

 

Digital communications is such a powerful tool, our government would be foolish not to utilise it fully to combat terrorism.

 

The point about Prism is that in the main it's the US authorities 'snooping' on non-US citizens, outside the USofA. They have explicitly stated that this isn't happening on US soil as it contravenes their Civil Rights - "the communications-collection programme was 'designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-US persons located outside the United States". "It cannot be used to intentionally target any US citizen, any other US person, or anyone located within the United States...'", ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541 ). The Verizon Court Order enforces surveillance on telephone calls where one participant is outside the US, calls entirely within the borders are not affected.

[Batman]

you say give away your freedoms now.

the moment any of you sign up to here, use facebook and other social media sites, you open yourself up to be looked upon

 

nothing on the internet for every day use us secure. Watching users has been going on since the birth of the net

 

'Open Source Intel' is absolutely massive at every level. At any one moment, the Chinese government will have at LEAST 5000 people working around the clock trying to use the internet to its advantages. Their expectation of what is acceptable on this subject is far more 'lose' even compared to the USA.

 

it is quite alarming what anyone with time can find out about someone by monitoring facebook and using 192.com.

[pap]

you say give away your freedoms now.

the moment any of you sign up to here, use facebook and other social media sites, you open yourself up to be looked upon

 

nothing on the internet for every day use us secure. Watching users has been going on since the birth of the net

 

'Open Source Intel' is absolutely massive at every level. At any one moment, the Chinese government will have at LEAST 5000 people working around the clock trying to use the internet to its advantages. Their expectation of what is acceptable on this subject is far more 'lose' even compared to the USA.

 

it is quite alarming what anyone with time can find out about someone by monitoring facebook and using 192.com.

 

I can't agree with much of this post. First off, as someone who uses multiple social media channels, I accept that when I tweet something, or blog something, those comments can be attributed to me. I've made the conscious choice to put something in the public domain and put my identity behind my words.

 

Beyond that, I think we're entitled to a level of privacy. If I've established privacy settings on Facebook, my expectation is that they'll be upheld. I certainly expect web-based email services like Gmail to be private, as would most people. Naive? Possibly, but not out of step with what we profess to be; a free society.

 

The China comparison is again, irrelevant in my view. For starters, they're pretty upfront about the kind of society they run, and in their own country, have run a very restricted version of the Internet. The means of access is also very different. China have to hack for our info; the US just go to their corporations and demand it.

 

I work with Americans almost every day of my life. This is not a country full of arseholes, but some of its organisations, particularly those that don't get swept away with a change of administration, have had unchecked power for far too long. The NSA and CIA are great examples of this. The Department of Homeland Security is a worrying new one, and a little too close to "Department of Fatherland Security" to me. Un-American too, if you hold the view that they like their checks and balances.

 

Fortunately, a majority of the American population agree. 61% of them want more oversight, particularly as they are also (rather circuitously) being spied on. Thanks to the Five Eyes international security arrangement, the US can collect information on its own citizens if it's harvested by a Five Eyes partner, essentially leaving the system wide open for abuse.

 

I know that my interpretation of events differs from mainstream opinion, but even if I accept the narratives without question, I don't accept the response. A few of us chortled at the mindless jingoism of US citizens when the Tsarneavs were apprehended, yet a short time afterward, we saw similar, if not worse stuff here - tinged with a lot of racist sentiment. Sorry, but that isn't the sort of Briton that I admire or would want to be. Our country certainly isn't the Britain that our ancestors fought to protect when the forces of the Third Reich were arrayed against us, and I'm sure that many of those people would be alarmed, not just at the authoritarian track we seem to be following, but also the meekness of the population in accepting it.

[hutch]

Just a small point, but the number of radicalised British Citizens with roots in Pakistan (mainly, but there are others) makes all British Citizens legitimate targets for those fighting a war against Muslim-inspired terrorism. Sometimes when I arrive at Terminal 3 and join the queue for British Citizens, I could swear I'm in the wrong queue, or the wrong Country even.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for multi-culturalism, I live in the rainbow Nation after all, but there are very sound reasons why the information-gathering anti-terrorism spooks around the world are very interested in what goes on in the UK. That isn't going to change.

 

If you don't like what your Government is doing, vote for another one. If you can't, then accept that you're in the minority.

[Barry Sanchez]

How many terrorist acts have ever been committed in GB or the US by Afghans, or more specifically the Taliban ? How many Afghan civilians have died since the US started the military campaign ? Who is the 'terrorist' ?

The UN SC did not make the war 'legal', it endorsed military and Police support for the Afghan Interim Authority, which was formed as a result of the Bonn Agreement, from a number of anti-Taliban groups and some exiled political leaders that the West approved of.

 

Following your logic we would have been entitled to invade Eire because the IRA had training camps and arms caches there.

 

In the 70's it was very close to that actually, operation motorman +1. Israel have been doing that for years. The Russians did it as well, nothing new.

[pap]

If you don't like what your Government is doing, vote for another one. If you can't, then accept that you're in the minority.

 

Doesn't seem to matter what party you vote for. Labour were the last crowd I'd expect to embark on wars of aggression. The Conservatives don't seem to be any different, and despite the initial hope that Obama offered, Guantanamo Bay is still open and massively intrusive spy programs are operating on private citizens.

 

61% of US citizens clamouring for greater oversight of intelligence services suggest that the minority, at least over there, are the ones that believe that the state should wield such power over its citizens.

[Barry Sanchez]

I can't agree with much of this post. First off, as someone who uses multiple social media channels, I accept that when I tweet something, or blog something, those comments can be attributed to me. I've made the conscious choice to put something in the public domain and put my identity behind my words.

 

Beyond that, I think we're entitled to a level of privacy. If I've established privacy settings on Facebook, my expectation is that they'll be upheld. I certainly expect web-based email services like Gmail to be private, as would most people. Naive? Possibly, but not out of step with what we profess to be; a free society.

 

The China comparison is again, irrelevant in my view. For starters, they're pretty upfront about the kind of society they run, and in their own country, have run a very restricted version of the Internet. The means of access is also very different. China have to hack for our info; the US just go to their corporations and demand it.

 

I work with Americans almost every day of my life. This is not a country full of arseholes, but some of its organisations, particularly those that don't get swept away with a change of administration, have had unchecked power for far too long. The NSA and CIA are great examples of this. The Department of Homeland Security is a worrying new one, and a little too close to "Department of Fatherland Security" to me. Un-American too, if you hold the view that they like their checks and balances.

 

Fortunately, a majority of the American population agree. 61% of them want more oversight, particularly as they are also (rather circuitously) being spied on. Thanks to the Five Eyes international security arrangement, the US can collect information on its own citizens if it's harvested by a Five Eyes partner, essentially leaving the system wide open for abuse.

 

I know that my interpretation of events differs from mainstream opinion, but even if I accept the narratives without question, I don't accept the response. A few of us chortled at the mindless jingoism of US citizens when the Tsarneavs were apprehended, yet a short time afterward, we saw similar, if not worse stuff here - tinged with a lot of racist sentiment. Sorry, but that isn't the sort of Briton that I admire or would want to be. Our country certainly isn't the Britain that our ancestors fought to protect when the forces of the Third Reich were arrayed against us, and I'm sure that many of those people would be alarmed, not just at the authoritarian track we seem to be following, but also the meekness of the population in accepting it.

 

I would have thought that our "British" equivilent of that man out of the enemy of the state would not have touched facebook, google and twitter........................

Edited 14 June, 2013 by Barry Sanchez

[pap]

I would have thought that our "British" equivilent of that man out of the enemy of the state would not have touched facebook, google and twitter........................

 

Why on earth would you think that?

 

I've put my twitter handle on here loads.

[Barry Sanchez]

Why on earth would you think that?

 

I've put my twitter handle on here loads.

 

Because the authorities now have you, why would you risk it? Too much man, too much.

[Barry Sanchez]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/

[pap]

Because the authorities now have you, why would you risk it? Too much man, too much.

 

Goes back to Bill Hicks' simple choice. Fear or love.

 

Not going to live life as a mute or anonymous coward out of fear.

[Barry Sanchez]

Goes back to Bill Hicks' simple choice. Fear or love.

 

Not going to live life as a mute or anonymous coward out of fear.

 

Using the supposed functions of the enemy so you serve their purpose, you show em champ.............

[Verbal]

i,m amazed how many on here are happy to give away their freedoms,if they followed history they will find governments have always used acts of terrorism to justify weakening of the protection of law and liberty.i think they should read 1984 and see the film v for vendetta.

if those who are happy and want the state to read our emails and web information and listen to phone calls without warrants and rule of law maybe they won,t me mind coming round to look has well you can take my word on trust.

 

In one maybe less obvious sense, Orwell’s 1984 is out of date, because in the novel the proles – the majority of the population – were allowed to work themselves to death outside of state surveillance.

 

But what we have now is total surveillance, at least in the sense that anyone at all can come to the attention of ‘security’ by keying strokes into a keyboard that can act as a tripwire not just for terrorism or violent crime, but for anything the security services decide they want to monitor. And what they watch can be changed almost in an instant, without the need for warrants or oversight because it is done in the name of a generalised ‘intelligence-gathering’ – profiling of an entire population.

 

So the model for this kind of pervasive watching, in which major online multinationals collude, is not 1984, but an electronic version of the total surveillance of the East German Stasi – an intelligence and security institution designed to be so vast that it could watch everyone within its borders. As forerunners of online monitoring, the Stasi were world experts on typewriters – able to trace the source of anti-State pamphlets or pieces of samizdat to a single incriminating machine.

 

On the other hand, we shouldn’t sink into the assumption that the monitoring state is all-powerful and always able to get its intelligence right. We already have a sense of this with ‘targeted’ google ads which frequently draw bizarrely wrong conclusions about people’s age, sex, interests, etc.)

 

In any case, the history of the internet has always been that of a struggle between a freedom to say whatever you want vs state monitoring and control. And actually no one has won that battle yet – even the Chinese state fails to contain a huge number of independent-minded bloggers and activists. So if Chinese dissidents can keep their collective voices heard without being flattened, I’m sure we can manage. And there WILL be a pushback from internet-freedom advocates - new ideas and new technologies.

 

Or we could all buy typewriters.

[buctootim]

Airlines have been warned not to convey Edward Snowden to the UK. This more than anything shows what is being lost. Britain has a very long and honourable tradition of giving shelter to asylum seekers - from the Spanish Inquisition, the Hugenots, through to WW2 and the cold war. More recently that openess has been stretched by economic migrants and those who want to foment against their adopted country.

 

Regardless of whether you think he was right or wrong, surely there can be no clearer example of a man deserving of the title of political refugee and genuine asylum seeker than Snowden. Britain should have the balls to welcome him imo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22902098

[Patrick Bateman]

It's not really been a sterling week for the Land of the Free ™.

 

The Guardian have been plugging away at the Prism data surveillance program and have had some interesting pieces over the last few days.

 

Essentially, the US has been using a program called Prism to get access to individuals' personal data, the sort of common-or-garden stuff you see on social networks. Details are sketchy. Big IT corporates like Google have insisted they've not given unfettered access to user data, but then, they've also had to admit they're under some serious non-disclosure agreements. We're currently in the weird position where these companies are currently determining how much of what they've disclosed they can disclose.

 

Apple and Facebook are also confirmed to be involved, while many other US companies are reported to be responding to data access requests.

 

This hasn't gone down too well in the EU. The Justice Commissioner has written to the US Attorney General asking some very direct questions.

 

Her view is that information should only be released in "clearly defined, exceptional and judicially reviewable situations", things that the US has not been overly strong on in the past decade.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22872884

 

For the record, I've no intention of turning this into a conspiracy-style thread. The intention here is to gather opinions about how we feel about a foreign government being able to look at almost any of your electronic communications, supported by major corporations that people place a lot of implicit trust in.

 

Let's do it.

 

 

To be honest, who cares and why? If my boring life is interesting to someone sat in a bunker in deepest USA then; "Hi, hope your doughnuts and coffee are going down well. Have a nice day"

 

Seriously ... I don't get why people really care? The majority of us are fairly boring, law-abiding people, so what's the concern.

[aintforever]

The point about Prism is that in the main it's the US authorities 'snooping' on non-US citizens, outside the USofA. They have explicitly stated that this isn't happening on US soil as it contravenes their Civil Rights - "the communications-collection programme was 'designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-US persons located outside the United States". "It cannot be used to intentionally target any US citizen, any other US person, or anyone located within the United States...'", ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541 ). The Verizon Court Order enforces surveillance on telephone calls where one participant is outside the US, calls entirely within the borders are not affected.

 

I still don't have any issues with it.

 

If the argument is against a government trying to be too controlling what the US does is irrelevant because they have no authority over us. Anyway whatever the laws are you can guarantee the secret services will do whatever they want anyway. If you type "how to make a bomb" into google you can bet your life someone somewhere will be sat there looking through your computer and will know pretty much everything about you in minutes.

[buctootim]

To be honest, who cares and why? ......Seriously ... I don't get why people really care? The majority of us are fairly boring, law-abiding people, so what's the concern.

 

To me its the combination of giving up privacy together with loss of electoral accountability which is the problem. I don't really care if current Labour or Tory governments have access to my data. I do care about sharing of that data with supra national bodies because imo we are on a path to federated blocs where individual citizens have even less say. The downgrading of national governments into little more than local councils is only about 50 years away if we aren't careful. And when no-one is accountable you get dictatorship.

Edited 14 June, 2013 by buctootim

[Batman]

To me its the combination of giving up privacy together with loss of electoral accountability which is the problem. I don't really care if current Labour or Tory governments have access to my data. I do care about sharing of that data with supra national bodies because imo we are on a path to federated blocs where individual citizens have even less say. The downgrading of national governments into little more than local councils is only about 50 years away if we aren't careful.

 

Isn't it google and facebook sharing your data?

[pap]

To be honest, who cares and why? If my boring life is interesting to someone sat in a bunker in deepest USA then; "Hi, hope your doughnuts and coffee are going down well. Have a nice day"

 

Seriously ... I don't get why people really care? The majority of us are fairly boring, law-abiding people, so what's the concern.

 

You don't need to break the law to be at risk of this sort of surveillance. Consider for a moment, the full range of "services" on offer by the intelligence community. I think we can all accept that extra-judicial killings are carried out in our name by security services. That'd be one of the more extreme services they offer, although I'm certain that they have a lot of other tools at their disposal, such as blackmail, etc. Take the example of someone locked deep in the metaphorical closet, an adulterer, or someone who has nasty things to say in private about his or her employer/other person of influence. None of this is illegal, but it can all be used as leverage against private individuals, either by the security services themselves or someone working for them with access to that information.

 

I've seen the nothing to hide business on here before, and I don't buy it. First, many people routinely break little laws every day; we even had a thread here on that very subject. Others break bigger laws, but aren't actually doing anyone any harm and as the examples above show, you don't need to have broken any law to be at danger from the disclosure of personal information ruining your life.

[hutch]

I still don't have any issues with it.

 

If the argument is against a government trying to be too controlling what the US does is irrelevant because they have no authority over us. Anyway whatever the laws are you can guarantee the secret services will do whatever they want anyway. If you type "how to make a bomb" into google you can bet your life someone somewhere will be sat there looking through your computer and will know pretty much everything about you in minutes.

What about if you type it into a football fan forum?

[buctootim]

What about if you type it into a football fan forum?

 

Its too late. He's not with us any more.

Edited 14 June, 2013 by buctootim

[pap]

I still don't have any issues with it.

 

If the argument is against a government trying to be too controlling what the US does is irrelevant because they have no authority over us. Anyway whatever the laws are you can guarantee the secret services will do whatever they want anyway. If you type "how to make a bomb" into google you can bet your life someone somewhere will be sat there looking through your computer and will know pretty much everything about you in minutes.

 

Have you seen the rather one-sided extradition treaty we have with them?

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

Does anyone REALLY care that much. I assume the lefties do? Personally, as long as society becomes a safer place for it's citizens then I am happy for it.

 

I reckon the people who have a problem with it have got computers laced with kiddie p0rn.

[solentstars]

Does anyone REALLY care that much. I assume the lefties do? Personally, as long as society becomes a safer place for it's citizens then I am happy for it.

 

I reckon the people who have a problem with it have got computers laced with kiddie p0rn.

oh dear you are really a disgusting individual trying to link child porn to people who have another view and those who value liberty is disgusting.

[pap]

Does anyone REALLY care that much. I assume the lefties do? Personally, as long as society becomes a safer place for it's citizens then I am happy for it.

 

Yes. People do.

 

http://stopwatching.us/

 

 

I reckon the people who have a problem with it have got computers laced with kiddie p0rn.

 

solentstars covered this, I believe. All that remains is for me to call you a cocksmith.

[pap]

Never a more apt time to dredge this classic up outside of the What are you listening to thread.

 

Just victims of the in-house drive-by....

 

[video=youtube;o_-QGNUYL5g]

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

Wow, some people can't take a joke can they? Why so serious?

[pap]

Wow, some people can't take a joke can they? Why so serious?

 

Don't ever quit the day job to be a stand-up comedian, DPS.

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

Don't ever quit the day job to be a stand-up comedian, DPS.

 

As long as you don't to go into Politics (although I suspect George Galloway would lap up your warped sense of reality).

[pap]

As long as you don't to go into Politics (although I suspect George Galloway would lap up your warped sense of reality).

 

Don't fancy politics under the two Tory party system, mucker.

[Patrick Bateman]

You don't need to break the law to be at risk of this sort of surveillance. Consider for a moment, the full range of "services" on offer by the intelligence community. I think we can all accept that extra-judicial killings are carried out in our name by security services. That'd be one of the more extreme services they offer, although I'm certain that they have a lot of other tools at their disposal, such as blackmail, etc. Take the example of someone locked deep in the metaphorical closet, an adulterer, or someone who has nasty things to say in private about his or her employer/other person of influence. None of this is illegal, but it can all be used as leverage against private individuals, either by the security services themselves or someone working for them with access to that information.

 

I've seen the nothing to hide business on here before, and I don't buy it. First, many people routinely break little laws every day; we even had a thread here on that very subject. Others break bigger laws, but aren't actually doing anyone any harm and as the examples above show, you don't need to have broken any law to be at danger from the disclosure of personal information ruining your life.

 

I honestly couldn't care less who monitors what I do - they can listen to every breathing word I say (or type) for all I care! And if you're silly enough to slag off your employer on any forum (no matter what that forum is) then tough.

[pap]

... or someone who has nasty things to say in private about his or her employer/other person of influence. None of this is illegal, but it can all be used as leverage against private individuals, either by the security services themselves or someone working for them with access to that information.

 

I honestly couldn't care less who monitors what I do - they can listen to every breathing word I say (or type) for all I care! And if you're silly enough to slag off your employer on any forum (no matter what that forum is) then tough.

 

Dude, do you actually read these posts before responding?

 

I'd have thought the in private thing made it pretty explicit I was talking about email. Sorry if that wasn't clear, but your inbox and outbox are subject to scrutiny too.

[aintforever]

Have you seen the rather one-sided extradition treaty we have with them?

 

Er yeah, that's a huge concern. Next time I hack into NASA I will make sure I'm more careful.

 

Seriously, who gives a flying f*ck if google share their info with the US government? I couldn't think of anything more trivial or boring than knowing what you or I search the internet for. As for reading my emails, the same, even I get bored reading my emails. Good luck to the fella at the FBI who has to trawl through the pages of the garbage I get sent.

[pap]

Er yeah, that's a huge concern. Next time I hack into NASA I will make sure I'm more careful.

 

Seriously, who gives a flying f*ck if google share their info with the US government? I couldn't think of anything more trivial or boring than knowing what you or I search the internet for. As for reading my emails, the same, even I get bored reading my emails. Good luck to the fella at the FBI who has to trawl through the pages of the garbage I get sent.

 

Why are you even asking this? This thread has several examples of people that give a f**k, along with their reasons why.

 

I don't know if you've noticed, but the US government hasn't exactly been on top form lately. Detention without trial. Torture. Extraordinary rendition. Extrajudicial killings of US citizens. One illegal war. One massive overreaction in Afghanistan. Over 1 million people dead because of US policy.

 

If it were any other country that were doing this, particularly those that the West have labelled as bad guys, you'd be appalled. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not as trusting of US government motives as you.

[solentstars]

You should care about privacy because if the data says you've done something wrong, then the person reading the data will interpret everything else you do through that light. Naked Citizens, a short, free documentary, documents several horrifying cases of police being told by computers that someone might be up to something suspicious, and thereafter interpreting everything they learn about that suspect as evidence of wrongdoing. For example, when a computer programmer named David Mery entered a tube station wearing a jacket in warm weather, an algorithm monitoring the CCTV brought him to the attention of a human operator as someone suspicious. When Mery let a train go by without boarding, the operator decided it was alarming behaviour. The police arrested him, searched him, asked him to explain every scrap of paper in his flat. A doodle consisting of random scribbles was characterised as a map of the tube station. Though he was never convicted of a crime, Mery is still on file as a potential terrorist eight years later, and can't get a visa to travel abroad. Once a computer ascribes suspiciousness to someone, everything else in that person's life becomes sinister and inexplicable.