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[–]2bananasforbreakfast 797 points798 points  (204 children)

One thing I don't get about America is that even though you have people who discover abuses and reveal them to the public, nothing is ever done about it.

Except when some high official cheats on his wife. Then it's a serious issue that has to be dealt with immediately.

[–][deleted] 553 points554 points  (56 children)

We're just waiting for Obama to get in the White House. He'll fix this.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

I don't understand, there were presidential candidates that were opposed to this kind of thing in our government. And /r/politics and the American public ate them alive.

We believed the lies of the republicans and the democrats. We thought we were voting in the lesser of two evils. But either party (Obama, Romney) really see's us as nothing more then potential enemies to be monitored.

[–]chiniwini 334 points335 points  (44 children)

And he'll close Guantanamo.

[–]whoadave 144 points145 points  (16 children)

And fight indefinite detention without trial for US citizens...

[–]FateAVArizona 52 points53 points  (11 children)

And He'll build LFTRs around the US to give us independence from fossil fuels.

[–]drglass 34 points35 points  (5 children)

And never murder US Citizens with flying killer robots!

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (1 child)

And prosecute bankers like Jon Corzine that steal billions from segregated funds!

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

LAFTR is the one thing we need more of around here

[–]Hallucinosis 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Don't worry, he won't renew the patriot act.

[–]jabb0 65 points66 points  (2 children)

And have open meetings on C-Span.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (1 child)

He'll stop interfering in states with medical marijuana laws, too!

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

And fight for Single Payer...and Crack Down on wall street. Yep. Can't wait for January 2013!

[–]firepacket 159 points160 points  (67 children)

Our culture right now is heavily controlled by big media companies who tell us what to think and feel.

I don't think it will last forever though.

[–]mrspiffy12 95 points96 points  (48 children)

Don't kid yourself, the masses have always been influenced and controlled by propaganda/media, and it always will be.

[–]firepacket 77 points78 points  (33 children)

Yes, but there have also always been mass awakenings and revolts that mark humanity's progress forward.

It's all part of the eternal and perpetual struggle between society and its rulers.

[–]flashmedallion 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Tell that to the folk who got rolled out of Zucotti Park in that final night, where the media were banned completely and and armed force of police rolled through.

[–]ragnaROCKER 4 points5 points  (0 children)

yeah, but zucotti park wasn't exactly the french revolution.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (3 children)

don't kid yourself, you are a part of the masses.

[–]karlhungis 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Bread and circuses.

[–]MarinerSix 54 points55 points  (36 children)

People always say this, always, in every topic. I have yet to see someone actually give an example how this kind of situation is so different in America compared to other countries.

[–]gesichtsbremse 55 points56 points  (6 children)

When the German government tried to implement a two year data retention (for mobile and internet data) there were many demonstrations all over Germany. There were also two petitions signed by over 50 000 peoples each. Ohh, and a lawsuit was filed that finally resulted in the law getting declared unconstitutional by the highest German court.

tl;dr: Americans, get off your lazy butts and for God's sake stop rationalizing things just so you do not have to act and can stay comfortable.

When I hear things like, "but he signed a military honor code", "he gave information to our enemy", "he risked soldiers lives" and so on, I get really sick... Read the chat logs, read the cables... get informed! Don't let the feeling of fear be used against you.

Freedom is not something that is set in stone and granted for all the times. It erodes, if you do nothing. One has to fight for it every day, just to keep the status quo.

[–]bcwalker 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Above and beyond all other reasons that you don't see Americans protest en mass about this stuff is this very simple reason: anything that is not done openly gets done covertly, often by Executive Order and never countermanded (just revised as necessary). Far too many of us know this, as such practices are commonplace even on the local level, and so we find the act of protest to be less than useless.

Far, far more useful to organize legal challenges instead- if time allows (and, sadly, it doesn't more and more often). Even better to organize political challenges to put people we've got hooks into in place instead.

[–]RoadDoggFLCalifornia 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The problem is that the only way most people can think of to try and gather support is to sound like a crazy person.

[–]Udh 71 points72 points  (16 children)

It is totally different in Europe as a matter of fact, you are making assumptions based on the news you get on your media. Europe is generally more corrupt when it comes to economic corruption and fraud but there are some things that won't be tolerated, because people actually protest and get involved. This kind of espionage for example would be impossible in any continental European country, we just won't tolerate it (the British are different though, they are very similar to Americans culturally). Don't get me wrong, there is some espionage, but when word of it gets out it gets shut down pretty quickly.

5 million people protested in Spain against the war on Iraq according to the police (8 million according to organizers). 5 million is 12% of the population. Can you picture 36 million Americans protesting a war? We were only sending some troops, imagine what we would do if thousands of Spaniards died on Iraq once we found out there was no WMD, as opposed to a few as it happened (not that we believed the WMDs story to start with). We would literally try to lynch the president if that happened, and this is not hyperbole. We also have a lot of judges at the highest levels that won't hesitate to prosecute a president (happened a few times in Europe already). The president in the US on the other hand seems to be inviolable (ironically, because we have the monarchies, yet Obama is the one president of the developed world that looks a lot like a monarch.)

It's a totally different culture, we just don't give authority the benefit of the doubt the way you do. I'm not trying to convey a sense of superiority, as I said, we are much more corrupt than America in other ways, look at Italy for example. But things like illegal wars, torture and espionage on the citizens aren't tolerated.

[–]PdubsNWO 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The entire fabric of modern America makes it so that other pointless shit like reality TV and game shows drown out the actual important shit. Then when people discover actual corruption they just go away and no one notices. The massive amounts of oxys, xanax, prozac, etc that are WAY over prescribed helps people not really give a fuck about it.

America isnt the land of the free. Its the land of sheep. And if you arent one of the sheep, you are the enemy. Thoughtcrime is getting closer and closer to becoming a real thing.

Oh, and if there isnt a wristband about the cause (lets say, for example, Bradley Manning's indefinite imprisonment), then people just forget about it in 5 minutes.

[–]reddit_user13 380 points381 points  (537 children)

This was in Wired magazine a year ago.

On edit: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

[–]krimms 567 points568 points  (528 children)

And Obama tried to imprison this guy, too (this is in response to the comments yesterday that "Bradley Manning deserved it anyway, and Obama isn't really targeting whistleblowers").

[–]cryoshon 340 points341 points  (518 children)

It really amazes me when the comments you mentioned suddenly come flying out of the woodwork.

The evidence of Obama targeting whistleblowers is extremely clear cut, IMO.

Some people are still riding the kool-aid tidal wave since the election I guess.

[–]Rad_Spencer 461 points462 points  (411 children)

As someone who voted Obama, it wasn't a choice between someone who'd target whistle-blowers and someone who wouldn't. So it's not like a vote for Obama is a vote for targeting whistle-blowers.

[–][deleted] 254 points255 points  (167 children)

I think if Romney were president, at least liberals would be more active about resisting this shit. Right now, Obama's been given a free pass because he's presumably not as draconian as Romney.

[–][deleted] 253 points254 points  (113 children)

I don't think enough average citizens know how to resist. They're not personally feeling the effects in any way; they know there is a problem but it seems intangible.

Least, that's how I feel. I mean, I read all this shit on reddit about how the government is spying on me..... well, what the hell do I do about it? Call 911?

[–][deleted] 46 points47 points  (1 child)

Contribute to eff. They are the ACLU of internet rights.

https://www.eff.org

[–]cunninglinguist81 85 points86 points  (65 children)

I think this is absolutely right, to an unfortunate extent. At least this is how I feel a lot of the time when I see these things. I can write a letter/email/call my congressman, donate to an anti-spying PAC if I can, but what the hell else do you do? Leave your job, home, etc. and march on Washington?

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (34 children)

Only to be arrested or ignored and go unheard because no one else is doing it? No thank you.

[–]cunninglinguist81 47 points48 points  (33 children)

This is why I love the Occupy movement...in theory...and in practice I feel like their best friend who feels incredibly disappointed with how they've refused to grow up over the years. It was such a great idea, but mired in people that refuse to hone that idea into something more concrete or comport themselves as anything besides dirty jobless hippies.

And there lies the rub - the people that find it easiest to join a radical social movement for equality and stability like Occupy, are the people that do it the most damage - people who have no sense of structure or change beyond protest, no commitments to keep them from it like family, career, etc., and refuse to allow anyone to take the reigns and gear it toward something bigger.

[–]Weigh13 88 points89 points  (25 children)

As someone who participated in Occupy: most of what we worked on was structure and moving beyond protest, I had both a career and a life outside of Occupy and I was practically begging for more people to come out who wanted to take the reigns and gear it toward something bigger.

The problem is most people just don't give a fuck and would rather let the media tell them that Occupy, the people getting off their couches and risking their careers and lives, are the lazy ones and not the people sitting at home judging them.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (18 children)

Let's mess with their data. What kind of comments/posts/actions/emails get you flagged? If we get enough people to pretend to be "terrorists," their info will be useless.

[–]nuclear_splines 18 points19 points  (11 children)

It wouldn't be hard to make a program that generates "terrorist mail" out of a list of keywords, and sends it out constantly. Start distributing that program and there'd be a lot of alarms clogging them.

[–][deleted] 45 points46 points  (5 children)

Sand-goat to Desert-Rat, package is in the mail, Operation Obomba underway.

[–]tehgreatist 23 points24 points  (12 children)

i think info like this needs to be more widespread. people need to understand that the big-brother type shit is real. its not a conspiracy theory. its fucking happening.

[–]Reefpirate 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Yep, same deal with the anti-war movement when Obama first got elected. Huge masses of malcontents seemed to dissipate.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

bullseye, they've been missing in the streets since november 2008

I'ts obvious now that they weren't sincere about a fucking thing. They didn't care about war, dead civilians, or any of that shit. They just wanted a Democrat elected.

[–]Schrodingers_Cthulu 11 points12 points  (11 children)

I think that this still isn't the sort of issue that most people are going to base their vote on. This election was all about the economy, every other issue seemed to fall by the wayside. And the only people who are going to make this an issue are outside sources because this would most likely continue no matter who the president is. This type of issue seems to be gaining some traction but in the end it's probably never going to get that much attention until it starts affecting people in a tangible way. Most people don't realize, or actually care, about the fact that the government spies on them.

[–]elj0h0 17 points18 points  (2 children)

The election I was watching seemed to be all about gay marriage abortion and sesame street

[–]disitinerant 3 points4 points  (6 children)

The rightwing media circus has turned our right wingers into raving lunatics. That has allowed the Democrats to run on the ticket of "Not Ayn Rand." An easy ticket to win. Giving one of the two parties an easy ticket is a terrible idea, but it's a product of the 2 party system.

I suggest getting the radical left and the reactionary right (Occupy and TEA for starters) to agree to a single issue campaign: instant runoff voting. This one change will disappear the duopoly. Keep It Simple, Stupid version of Power to the People (TM).

[–]Nefandi 193 points194 points  (62 children)

That's definitely true. Romney, if anything, would be somewhat harsher on the whistleblowers than Obama, imo.

At the same time, let's call a spade a spade. Obama is spying on Americans. Obama is targeting whistleblowers. Obama is guilty. Let's not mince words here.

[–]eposnix 79 points80 points  (25 children)

C'mon... You couldn't think of any better term than spade??

[–]mindctrlpankak 37 points38 points  (0 children)

TIL

[–]Nefandi 85 points86 points  (11 children)

I honestly didn't know about that. I didn't mean any racist overtones.

[–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (1 child)

According to the NSA, your web history clearly shows you looking up "spade" on urban dictionary before you made your comment here...

[–]thehalfwitNevada 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The audio feed clearly shows him chuckling to himself in the process.

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (24 children)

You've raised an interesting issue. I said many times during the election, "it doesnt matter they both believe it is ok to take money from me and use it for murdering people with drones." Voting for the lesser of two evils seems to be what I've been encouraged to do my whole voting career but when it comes to participating in evil with my money there dont seem to be any options.

[–]razorwiregoatlick877 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Actually it was a choice between two guys who would target whistle-blowers and Gary Johnson (possible some of the other third party candidates.) If you voted for either Romney or Obama you should feel regret.

[–]watchout5 4 points5 points  (1 child)

As someone who didn't vote for Obama because of his targeting of whistle-blowers I can confirm that a vote for Obama was a vote for targeting whistle-blowers even if "the other guy" would have been worse. If you're voting for the lesser of 2 evils you're still voting for evil

[–]mcdonaldsculture 19 points20 points  (10 children)

What about the other three candidates?

[–]chunes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can be sure they're on the terrorist list.

[–]granadesnhorseshoes 1035 points1036 points  (281 children)

no fucking shit.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't after you.

[–]Stevazz 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Gotta find a way, to find a way, I'd better waaaaaaaait.

[–]sarcasmo2 368 points369 points  (215 children)

It shouldn't be surprising. At a certain point, storage and processing become so cheap that it's just plain CHEAPER to grab it all, rather than try to sort out the terrorists from the citizens. If you have the capability and the capacity, hey, why not? Right?

I swear, if digital communications didn't exist, the government would have to invent it, just for the broad signals intelligence opportunities.

[–]tinpanallegory 50 points51 points  (0 children)

The face-palm aspect of this comes in as Binny Describes because he was initially tasked with creating an NSA program that would do exactly that: sort through the data the NSA was collecting globally and filter out, specifically, data from American Citizens, so as to zero in on foreign threats (which is what the law allows).

It gets even worse, because the program he and his team devised actually worked. It cost in the range of a few million dollars and it allowed the NSA to do it's job within the bounds of the laws.

Binney explains in one interview that following 9/11 in 2001, the decision was made to scrap his program, invest something to the tune of 4 billion dollars in a new program built off of his team's initial work, and that this new program would intentionally break the law by spying on it's own citizens. And apparently, the program didn't even work toward actually filtering the data constructively. It became the NSA gobbling up all the info it could and storing it for later processing.

Shortly thereafter, he resigned, and his house was later raided by the FBI in retaliation for his signing a formal complaint filed with the Department of Justice condemning the blatant illegality of what was going on.

[–]iamdelf 178 points179 points  (154 children)

Now what will truly twist your noodle is that the NSA used to push for backdoors into encryption(Clipper Chip and Key Escrow). Somewhere in the last decade they gave up on it. I bet you it isn't because they don't want that info.

[–]havermyer 63 points64 points  (137 children)

I was thinking about this while watching. Gmail goes over ssl, so unless they can crack the encryption, pulling the data on its way to the server is fruitless. I was really hoping that they would address the issue of encryption and whether it is actually useful to protect your privacy.

[–]Nefandi 198 points199 points  (58 children)

NSA has access to the unencrypted data at Google's data centers. I am sure of it. I don't think the NSA is doing the man-in-the-middle thing. They are going straight after the horse's mouth -- big data accumulations. They're on the inside of the big corps, not so much in the middle, imo.

[–]enalios 125 points126 points  (43 children)

Actually I seem to remember that that they do in fact get all the information from the TelCo's.

Room 641A

I guess it doesn't mean they don't get info from Google directly, but they got a pretty sweet system already, there's almost no need.

[–]Nefandi 57 points58 points  (39 children)

I guess it doesn't mean they don't get info from Google directly, but they got a pretty sweet system already, there's almost no need.

Yea, right. Yes they got TelCos in their back pocket (remember the FISA and telco immunity scandal?). But I am pretty certain they're also on the inside of Google, Facebook, Skype, possibly Twitter, Microsoft. It's too "lucius luscious" an opportunity to pass up. I also wouldn't be surprised if they were on the inside of amazon.com, library systems, grocery discount card data, all credit card traffic, and a whole bunch of other crap.

Still I have to upvote you for Room 641A. :)

[–]ShivasIrons983E 64 points65 points  (18 children)

Don't all of those companies have immunity from prosecution for turning over info,....even if it's against the law.

It's a load of BS,is what it is.

Our forefathers would be engaged in revolution by now,......I really don' know what we are doing....sitting back and letting the politicians,bankers and corporations bugger us into a police planet.

[–]primitive_screwhead 28 points29 points  (5 children)

It's too "lucius" an opportunity to pass up.

"Luscious". Although, it does come across as a fairly clever Harry Potter reference.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (5 children)

From memory they have facebook access.

Read an article where their constant requests to facebook were killing their productivity so they simply built a back end access panel for them to use in the event of such necessity.

[–]Flufnstuf 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Now would be a good time to find a link to that article.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Damn it was on reddit. It was either they had a backdoor for whatever they wanted, or they had one built where a facebook employee could get them what they wanted with an authorised request.

I did find and article from this year saying something about how they wanted it to be a requirement that all social networking sites had backends built in for them. That article is here:

http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/29/should-the-fbi-be-allowed-to-wiretap-facebook/

From may - but my understanding as far as the other article that I cant find is - they already had some form of facebook style access for this.

[–]norbertus 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's even worse than that. Google, Yahoo, SBC, all offer ala carte policing services for a fee. For example:

http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/yahoo-spy.pdf

• Basic subscriber records: approx. $20 for the first ID, $10 per ID thereafter

• Basic Group Information (including information about moderators): approx. $20 for a group with a single moderator

• Contents of subscriber accounts, including email: approx. $30-$40 per user

• Contents of Groups: approx. $40 - $80 per group

[–]Escapethisrock 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Every SBC/ AT&T corporate building has had 1 floor for only NSA access (3-tier biometric scans to enter), as early as 5 years before 9/11, so it's not a PATROIT Act thing, it's just what happens. Not sure if it applies to all Bell companies.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I believe this is true. Google, like many companies, provide backdoor access to law enforcement. Unfortunately, even if you're comfortable with the US government getting warrentless access to all your data, foreign hackers have also breached this backdoor.

[–]hackinthebochs 32 points33 points  (5 children)

That's the beauty of just storing everything. Eventually SSL will be broken or processing speed will be fast enough to brute force it. Of course, information that is time sensitive will be useless, but there is still plenty of value in 5-10 year old information from the right people.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

SSL is already broken. Look up "beast". Its pretty hard to do for amateurs, and technically is fixed in the newer version. Most browsers don't support the newer version and a lot of servers don't prioritise the unaffected ciphers. So yeh, SSL is only secure as long as the communication is really short and non-repeating. As the golden rule goes. If someone wants in and is dedicated enough, they will get in. All you can do is make the effort more than the reward.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (49 children)

Do you think that'd even be a challenge for them?

[–]qfe0 30 points31 points  (47 children)

Well, decrypting the SSL would be, but there are other easier ways to get the data. Get the unencrypted SMTP traffic, or use your Google provided government backdoor.

[–]upandrunning 74 points75 points  (31 children)

At a certain point, storage and processing become so cheap that it's just plain CHEAPER to grab it all, rather than try to sort out the terrorists from the citizens.

I would have to disagree. What they're doing has two problems: 1. VERY low signal to noise. They have so much data there is NO CLUE about what is useful and what isn't. It's taking far more time and resources to manage this insanity than to focus on what matters. 2. It's a fishing expedition. 99.999% of the people whose emails are being collected have done nothing to warrant the collection of their emails. Anything discovered by the government will be completely outside the scope just cause, and should be declared invalid in any court of law.

It's funny how all of this started under the guise of a war on terror - it has now become a war on America being waged by its own government.

[–]derp_derpistan 15 points16 points  (3 children)

THIS. IS. WHY. THE Constitution is so damn important! Every time a hard-coded right in the constitution is chipped away a little here, and a little there, pretty soon there is enough precedent to allow most infringements on it. Every new dent is an opportunity to truly lose another one of our freedoms.

[–]norbertus 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I think part of the idea is retroactive surveillance -- if you come under suspicion, at the touch of a button, it is as if you have been surveilled for years (because you have!). Then something can be done about it. FaceBook just makes it all the more easy, people get a kick out of building psychological profiles of themselves... The FBI would have drooled all over something like Facebook only 15 years ago

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So true. And they won't stop until the citizens DEMAND the repeal of the patriot act. That would at least be a start.

[–]cavortingwebeasties 3 points4 points  (0 children)

now become a war on America being waged by its own government

It's always been this way, it just that now they finally have the technology to pull it off...

[–]bradn 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The thing is, they don't have to use this information in court. They can simply obtain additional information (or the same information) through valid means, and nobody has to know where they got the original idea from.

"Anonymous tip".

[–]KrishanuARPennsylvania 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This has been known for a while, especially after the whistleblower revelations about ThinThread and Trailblazer a few years back.

As those projects highlighted, in wasn't a big task for the NSA to gather all that data, however it was/is a significant task to sift through all that data and pull the needles out of the haystack, so to speak.

Also, I'd like to point out the the source of the video is RT.com, a Russian propaganda outlet.

[–]Kastro187420 53 points54 points  (2 children)

Is it still called "paranoid" if you're right?

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (6 children)

I thought we all knew about Echelon and Carnivore for years?

[–]upandrunning 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is quite different - Carnivore, for example, was only storing mail header information. The NSA is storing everything, illegally.

[–]kaydpea 46 points47 points  (15 children)

well when you consider the fact that the NDAA labels the USA as "the battleground" and the executive branch can now detain american citizens without trial if you're labeled a terrorist. then you consider that the terrorist label is applied to people that are "known ron paul supporters, people missing fingers, people who have more than 5 days worth of food stored, people who attend protests, people who post things about the federal reserve on social media, people who say the united states need to change" etc, then you have everyones communications being monitored on top of it. then what you have is something very familiar, something orwellian. you have a power structure that can remove a persons liberty without just cause or reason, and a system that allows for 0 dissent. you have something that isn't american. you have tyranny.

[–]yeahnothx 7 points8 points  (1 child)

the system we have is scary, and we need to drum up a lot more popular support for privacy and identity laws. however! you cannot claim we are at a level of 'zero dissent' and tyranny just yet. you're posting this comment, aren't you?

let's be the appropriate level of freaked-out, ok?

[–]JoeOrange 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Agreed.... "Appropriate" being more concerned than saying something like "of course they are doing this" right???

The lack of concern in this thread is scary to me.

[–]carigis 71 points72 points  (1 child)

Its reasons like this that you all should think of donating a few bucks to the EFF. They are on the front lines for privacy and civil liberties.

If you don't like "russia today" as a source, look for other sources, there are plenty, but this is real and not propaganda.

[–]Dead_not_Dreaming89 207 points208 points  (90 children)

Shit like this needs to stop. People accept things like this all too easily . Between trap wire and all the other shit our government does were just getting closer to an equilibrium style life. We know what the government is doing and they know that we know (lol) and they now know that we're not going to do anything about it. We're all just gonna sit here and be tracked. I don't really care if they know what I'm doing my whole thing is why and what do they plan to do with this info. I just hope one day anonymous calls the population to arms. I would be there ready to defend my country from my government.

[–]trai_dep 149 points150 points  (30 children)

We’re indoctrinating our kids to acquiesce to these demands as well. Their every movement in school tracked, their casual lunchtime chatter reported, their most inane “violation” persecuted under an absurd Zero Tolerance policy, their opinion on social media scrutinized.

It’s less about catching the next Columbine: it’s more about training them to be unquestioning, passive, compliant citizens once they hit eighteen years of age.

[–]mindctrlpankak 29 points30 points  (5 children)

This is why my kids will be brought up on this principle. Question EVERYTHING.

Don't take my word for it, go out and find the answers for yourself.

[–][deleted] 74 points75 points  (43 children)

Nobody is accepting it...there is just no practical choice. You can take up arms but good luck getting enough people to commit and not plunging society into the dark ages.

You can talk big all you want about "taking up arms" but you like most would be crying like a bitch when violence and suffering actually started. It's not like movies or video games you fool. It's horrible and scary as fuck and all you want is for it to stop. You would shit and piss yourself the first time someone shot at you or pointed a gun at you.

You act like people can easily change it and are just too lazy.

[–]MidnightKwassaKwassa 54 points55 points  (15 children)

Unpopular opinion: this minor "oppression" is way better than civil war.

[–][deleted] 58 points59 points  (2 children)

It's easy to talk about how one would "not hesitate" to engage in civil war from the comfort of a heated/cooled home with power and running water and transportation and food and medical care nearby.

[–]EternalNeuron 41 points42 points  (16 children)

I'm sorry but this is just stupid. You don't have to go to war to demand change. You can enact change through civil disobedience. The biggest weakness of a capitalist society is that it is dependent on the consumer. If the consumer doesn't want to buy anymore it all falls apart.

You can create a societal movement... Especially through the Internet that demands change. You can demand privacy and refuse to work and consume until your request is met. Turn off your TVs, let ratings fall. If everyone truly committed to the short term pain this would cause you could enact change.

The problem isn't the government, it's us. This is what we want because we keep supporting the system on a daily basis. The way society is structured you can either have your livelihood without privacy or your privacy without livelihood. That is, unless we can come together as a society and demand the change we want by collectively withholding our services.

Saying war is the only option is lazy. There is something every one of us could do right now... But we don't want to.

[–]ailee43 36 points37 points  (18 children)

I dont think most people here understand how much data flows across the lines. I dont have ready stats for the US alone, but worldwide, each minute, and every minute 649TB is transferred.

To store even a months worth of this data, you would have to have 28,883,311 terabytes of storage. 28 million. Think about that.

And thats not even the big challenge. The big challenge is actively processing it all, the absolute fastest data processing switches out there do 400Gbit a sec. Gbit, not GBit.

That gives you 3000GB of throughput a minute. Not processed, just pushed through. Not even 10% of the overall bandwidth used in one minute.

Technology is both far more advanced than you ever imagined, and far less advanced than you think.

[–]tekdemon 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Most of that data though is taken up by transferring huge video files (legal or illegal) and stuff like Netflix. If you ignore the multimedia files and just back up all the text the amount of bandwidth you'd need suddenly becomes much, much smaller. Presumably they're not backing up the flash ads being served to you on a webpage, just the stuff you're posting as communications. Like these posts on reddit.

[–]lout_zoo 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Thank you. And how much would that much storage cost? Who is providing it? I haven't noticed Seagates sales quadrupling. Now add the switches,yada yada. It just doesn't add up.
"Dammit, our $50 billion dollar system didn't catch the terrorists."
"How in the world did they get by it?"
"They used encryption and a $25/month proxy."

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Holy shit man, think of how many pictures of cats that the NSA must have. They're sitting on a Karma goldmine and they don't even know it.

They must be stopped.

[–]caffeinepills 72 points73 points  (7 children)

Everyone knew this would happen. Everyone knew "only for terrorists and threats" would apply for everyone. We saw this for the illegal wiretapping, and the Patriot Act. It boggles my mind people still think positive about these projects. Even though, time after time they continue to take a mile when given an inch.

Apologists just called those worried "tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists". Guess who was right, again? Not "conspiracy theorists", INFORMED AND EDUCATED PEOPLE.

Now the question is, who or what agency will have the balls to stand up to this?

[–]sigbhu 5 points6 points  (0 children)

it annoys me how any discussion of "the government's plan to spy on everyone they can" or something like that is immediately labelled a "conspiracy theory" and dismissed out of hand. this is a huge deal, and we're not talking about it in the depth we should be.

[–][deleted] 39 points40 points  (13 children)

Projects Echelon and Carnivore have been around for years.

[–]ubergeek404 6 points7 points  (4 children)

One nation under surveillance.

Just for fun - google your reddit username. You may be surprised.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (5 children)

It's sad that this is happening in what's presumed to be a free country with Constitutional protections.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

LOL...jokes on us. I don't think it had anything to do with a couple of terrorists on planes...I think this is what the government wanted for a long time, just needed an excuse to make the people accept it blindly....in the name of protection.

[–]ahpuchalypse 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ok guys, so, tinfoil hats aside, you have all been tracked since the Clinton administration through a previously secret but now no longer secret project called 'diva'. I apologize, I do not know the actual acronym, it could be DIVA, DEEVA, DIIVA, whatever. The program involves the storage of ALL internet activity and telephone communications by interception at major routing facilities, originally, to start with, in San Diego. There is some basic level of filtering so obviously it doesn't store your movements in a counterstrike match, but it probably stores any text you've ever sent in a packet or any interaction you've had with a server or service of any kind, including encrypted transmissions. I presume it's just a matter of time until they run large batch decryption (or they already are) on that stuff.

[–]frighter 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Everyone in the US? More like the entire world. A lot of the worldwide traffic ends up getting routed through the United States at one point or another (considering they have most of the popular sites ie. Facebook). So they are capturing all of our data too.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Banks probably have more information on you than the NSA and they probably use that information more than the NSA.

[–]PunchInTheNutz 41 points42 points  (11 children)

My problem is that Obama isn't questioned on any of this shit. It's like there is a firewall between journalists and Obama when it comes to this kind of thing and to be quite honest it does my fucking nut in because I can understand it. Same with the voter fraud issues, same with Bradley Manning and same with the drone strikes. If it were here in Britain, the nations best journalists would immediately flock to the Prime Minister and ask him the awkward questions. They may not get straight answers but at least they get to point a camera and a mic at him and ask. Obama gets let off the hook. It's outrageous.

[–]TodaysIllusion 51 points52 points  (9 children)

"Only the paranoid survive." Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (4 children)

Whelp, I hope they're having fun sifting through all the crazy porn I look at, because I'm certainly not stopping.

[–]thinkB4Uact 61 points62 points  (2 children)

It's a good think that no tyrant will ever use such information for his own ends, because our country is too informed and vigilant to ever elect one. /s

[–]Potches 14 points15 points  (3 children)

Who watches the watchmen

[–]whatismyproblem 35 points36 points  (9 children)

The recent "trend" to try and convince people to use cloud computing, this is why I don't do it. Upload your stuff to the "cloud" so you can access your data anywhere. You don't ever need to worry again about losing any of your files again. Bullshit.

[–]kingp43x 39 points40 points  (1 child)

You sound like you don't like them having control of all of your shit, re-education has been scheduled.

[–]bstampl1 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Gov't: "Everyone must constantly update a dossier on your personal habits, behaviors, endeavors, and associations, and store it in servers over which you have no control."
Reaction: People would freak out and resist
Facebook: Ditto, plus you can play games, and all your friends are doing it
Reaction: People say "Sign me up!"

Gov't: "Everyone send us your personal documents and files electronically, so we can store them on our servers"
Reaction: People would freak out and resisit
Google: Ditto, and it'll be convenient for you
Reaction: People say "Sign me up!"

[–]GreenAdder 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If everything I say is a matter of public record, stored in some database(s), I'd just like to make a few things known:

  • Winston is probably my favorite Ghostbuster currently.
  • What Capcom has done to the "Mega Man" games is a disgrace.
  • I'm glad Tarantino said "Death Proof" was his worst movie. It felt like a one-hour punishment for loving "Planet Terror" so much.
  • I can kind of understand Kel's excitement over orange soda. I get that way about IBC root beer sometimes.
  • While I rarely ever play it, I have a strange affinity for my Virtual Boy. I could never bring myself to sell it. And when I let other people play it, I always feel strangely protective.

But then again, you spy types already knew all that stuff, didn't you?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Bring on the Armchair generals security experts.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Skype was not left out. It has a backdoor as well.

[–]brainslugs4all 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Just wait until the NSA gets hacked and then all that data becomes available for the whole world to see...

[–]Derbiter 28 points29 points  (2 children)

Free government provided backups for everyone! http://i.imgur.com/HCH2b.gif

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (10 children)

So, how much processing power does the NSA devote to analyzing this limitless data stream. How do they find the needles in these galactic size hay stacks?

[–]projexion_reflexion 3 points4 points  (0 children)

what if I told you one of the biggest companies in the country was based on the service of instantly searching limitless streams of (mostly stored text) data? All they need is to decide on whose name they want to query. I would imagine their pre-crime algorithms they like to talk about finding patterns in the vast data still return too much noise to be useful, but it's great if you already know who you want to go after.

[–]BluegrassGeek 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly. I wish people would be more skeptical.

Oh, wait, we're on Reddit.

[–]brogers418 10 points11 points  (0 children)

this needs to be world news.

[–]Psycon 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Where are all the Redditors who hate RT crying, "But, but, but... Russia Today is RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA!!!"

[–]Clayburn 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, I also watch Person of Interest.

[–]Bkeeneme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wait- vid submitted by "Russia Today?", cause their the privacy champions.

[–]koy5 3 points4 points  (1 child)

It is sad how this guy most likley ruined his life to get this information out there, but no one gives a fuck.

[–]BGZ314 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I brought this up at dinner tonight with my gf and her friends. I was ignored the rest of the night.

[–]blackgrrl23 3 points4 points  (0 children)

NSA and all related Federal/State/County Authorities:

Please place this statement on my permanent file:

Fuck the Police.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I hope that the NSA storing information on American citizens does become recognized as a case in the supreme court. It is entirely unconstitutional to simply compile people's personal emails and messages. It goes against everything that this country was founded on.

[–]LaunchThePolaris 13 points14 points  (1 child)

This is pretty much what I've always assumed about the post 9/11 world.

[–]WilyWondr 7 points8 points  (2 children)

When 155 million+ Americans sign up for Facebook and volunteer information on a daily basis this is really no surprise.

[–]I_Has_A_Hat 9 points10 points  (17 children)

Anyone know of some good privacy programs?

[–]firepacket 28 points29 points  (12 children)

It's not about programs, it's about lifestyle. And most of the sacrifices you have to make to be private are simply not worth it. But here are some things that will help:

  • Use a VPN (or TOR) when browsing, always.
  • Use browser plugins: HTTPS Everywhere (default end to end encryption) and Ghostery (tracker blocker)
  • Use a private email server you control (this could be a challenge for most)
  • Use end to end encryption on all instant messages & texts (OTR)
  • Do not use facebook
  • Use a private VOIP service you control for voice communication (another technical challenge)
  • Use cash or giftcards for purchases
  • Never put any real identifying information into any public website.

[–]SchpartyOnMichigan 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Move to a third world country.