Posts by Russell Brown
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Interesting post by Giovanni Tiso:
The map suggests that intelligence is still being gathered with a degree of selection, but bear in mind that the Utah data centre is not finished yet. When it comes on line, in September of this year, it might be possible to fulfil the vision suggested by PRISM: a world in which all social data that circulates is captured. It is the ultimate banality of our time to suggest that we engage in self-surveillance of our own volition, as a freely made consumer choice. Gates said of the electronically documented life that it would be ‘the ultimate diary and autobiography, if you want one’ but in fact soon enough being on Facebook or on an equivalent service will be about as optional as it was thirty years ago to have a phone (if it isn’t already). Yet how else you describe those geolocated tweets and status updates, or those situating statements – I’m at the supermarket, I’m on the bus – except as a participatory compulsion, a desire, a need perhaps to be plotted on such a map? That it should be a statement of banality is all the more unsettling. We are, each of us, most of us, boundless informants.
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So I’m not the only one astonished by the access Snowden seems to have had:
Some former CIA officials said they were troubled by aspects of Snowden’s background, at least as he described it to The Post and the Guardian.
For instance, Snowden said he did not have a high school diploma. One former CIA official said that it was extremely unusual for the agency to have hired someone with such thin academic credentials, particularly for a technical job, and that the terms Snowden used to describe his agency positions didn’t match internal job descriptions.
Snowden’s claim to have been placed under diplomatic cover for a position in Switzerland after an apparently brief stint at the CIA as a systems administrator also raised suspicion. “I just have never heard of anyone being hired with so little academic credentials,” the former CIA official said. The agency does employ technical specialists in overseas stations, the former official said, “but their breadth of experience is huge, and they tend not to start out as systems administrators.”
A former senior U.S. intelligence official cited other puzzling aspects of Snowden’s account, questioning why a contractor for Booz Allen at an NSA facility in Hawaii would have access to something as sensitive as a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
“I don’t know why he would have had access to those . . . orders out in Hawaii,” the former official said.
I guess there’s some possibility he’s not what he claims to be – the more likely alternative being that the security agency is really not secure.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Don’t overlook the Telecommunications Interception Bill, described in admirable and hair-raising detail by Thomas Beagle on the Tech Liberty blog here .
Indeed. Yikes.
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David Simon has reconsidered a bit:
For my part, I remain convinced that the Verizon call data should be used as a viable data base for counter-terror investigations and that its misuse should be greeted with the hyperbole that currently adorns the present moment. On the other hand, the arguments of others convinced me that while I still believe the differences between call data and a wiretap are profound, and that the standard for obtaining call data has been and should remain far more modest for law enforcement, the same basic privacy protections don’t yet exist for internet communication. There, the very nature of the communication means that once it is harvested, the content itself is obtained. And the law has few of the protections accorded telephonic communication, and so privacy and civil liberties are, at this moment in time, more vulnerable to legal governmental overreach. That’s a legislative matter, but it needs to be addressed. In this day and age, E-communication between individuals, if not public posts on public sites, should have the same measure of legal protection as telephonic communication. So that has shifted for me. This is not to say, of course, that I believe there aren’t legitimate and plausible reasons for law enforcement to sift the internet, or that a PRISM-like monitoring of the internet doesn’t have relevant counter-terror value, but that the acquistion of actual content — at least in the manner of interpersonal communications — should be subject to legal prerequisites comparable to telephonic surveillance. Thanks to those who made clear that PRISM and the telephone call data harvesting are proceeding under different standards.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
That appears to be his shtick. His opinion-pieces are all the same – just different topics.
Quite. But he's a doctrinaire libertarian. It's how they roll.
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A while back, I blogged about the Boosted bid to clear the music in Andrew Moore's 70s skate documentary No More Heroes so the fim can be commercially released.
Well, they've raised $2500 -- but the really big news just got posted this morning:
Amazing news today for NO MORE HEROES!!! With less than 24 hours to go on the Boosted project we are stoked to announce we have teamed up with iconic record label Flying Nun Records, and Mushroom Music Publishing to secure the release of our film.
Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this project. It is only with your generous financial support No More Heroes has reached this tipping point to succeed. All the funds you have donated will assist with the music for the film as promised, and now with the support of Flying Nun and Mushroom Music the film can become a reality. We will keep you posted on the production edit and of course the Film’s re-release event which you will all be invited to. If you know anyone who would still want to donate please tell them there are just hours left. We can now safely say we will be able to thank all contributors to the film in the closing credits.. this really makes you all a part of the film. Stay tuned on our facebook page as well. I will update you shortly with a link to the official Press Release – we wanted you to be the first to know!
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Sacha,
mortgagee sales
Yes, plenty of those in Houston.
And that's at mortgage rates of 3.8%
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Interest rates are currently at an historic low, they are much more likely to increase than decrease. Doubling them from today will place them just about at historic averages. Tripling them wouldn’t be especially unlikely.
And a rise in interest rates seems way more likely than Auckland Council and NZ Government cooperating to solve any issue.
Tripling? You're talking about sending mortgage rates to somewhere between 15% and 18% -- higher than they've been at any time in the last 23 years. And in 1990, inflation was eight times higher than it is now.
There would be mass defaults in Auckland especially, the already-torpid economy would go into a coma and the rise in the dollar would wreak havoc on the export economy -- assuming there were any farmers still in business. Government finances would tank.
So, yes. You would lower house prices. But talk about destroying the village to save it. I submit that a working relationship beween central government and Auckland is infinitely more likely than what you're suggesting.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Angus Robertson,
By doubling or tripling the interest rates charged on mortgages.
Which would be a great way of increasing the number of mortgagee sales among existing homeowners.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to David Herkt,
I wrote the piece out of admiration for Paul, and pride in Paul, respect for Paul, and a huge, huge regard for Paul.
I thought that shone through.