The Orwellian Re-Branding of “Mass Surveillance” as Merely “Bulk Collection”
Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled “torture” with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the…
Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled “torture” with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand “mass surveillance” as “bulk collection” in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal). In the past several weeks, this is the clearly coordinated theme that has arisen in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as the last defense against the Snowden revelations, as those governments seek to further enhance their surveillance and detention powers under the guise of terrorism.
This manipulative language distortion can be seen perfectly in yesterday’s white-washing report of GCHQ mass surveillance from the servile rubber-stamp calling itself “The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament (ISC)”(see this great Guardian editorial this morning on what a “slumbering” joke that “oversight” body is). As Committee Member MP Hazel Blears explained yesterday (photo above), the Parliamentary Committee officially invoked this euphemism to justify the collection of billions of electronic communications events every day.
The Committee actually acknowledged for the first time (which Snowden documents long ago proved) that GCHQ maintains what it calls “Bulk Personal Datasets” that contain “millions of records,” and even said about pro-privacy witnesses who testified before it: “we recognise their concerns as to the intrusive nature of bulk collection.” That is the very definition of “mass surveillance,” yet the Committee simply re-labelled it “bulk collection,” purported to distinguish it from “mass surveillance,” and thus insist that it was all perfectly legal.
This re-definition game goes as follows: yes, we vacuum up and store literally as much of the internet as we possibly can. Then we analyze all the data about what you’re doing, with whom you’re speaking, and who your network of associates is. Based on that analysis of all of you and your activities, we then read the communications that we want (with virtually no checks and concealing from you what percentage of it we’re reading), and store as much of the rest of it as technology permits for future trolling. But don’t worry: we’re only reading the Bad People’s emails. So run along then: no mass surveillance here. Just bulk collection! It’s not mass surveillance, but “enhanced collection techniques.”
One of the many facts that made the re-defining of “torture” so corrupt and indisputably invalid was that there was long-standing law making clear that exactly these interrogation techniques used by the U.S. government were torture and thus illegal. The same is true of this obscene attempt to re-define “mass surveillance” as nothing more than mere innocent “bulk collection.”
As Caspar Bowden points out, EU law is crystal clear that exactly what these agencies are doing constitutes illegal mass surveillance. From the 2000 decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Amann v. Switzerland, which found a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and rejected the defense from the government that no privacy violation occurs if the data is not reviewed or exploited:
The Court reiterates that the storing of data relating to the “private life” of an individual falls within the application of Article 8 § 1 . . . . The Court reiterates that the storing by a public authority of information relating to an individual’s private life amounts to an interference within the meaning of Article 8. The subsequent use of the stored information has no bearing on that finding (emphasis added).
A separate 2000 ruling found a violation of privacy rights even when the government is merely storing records regarding one’s activities undertaken in public (such as attending demonstrations), because “public information can fall within the scope of private life where it is systematically collected and stored in files held by the authorities.”
That’s why an EU Parliamentary Inquiry into the Snowden revelations condemned NSA and GCHQ spying in the “strongest possible terms,” pointing out that it was classic “mass surveillance” and thus illegal. That’s the same rationale that led a U.S. federal court to conclude that mass metatdata collection was very likely an unconstitutional violation of the privacy rights in the Fourth Amendment.
By itself, common sense should prevent any of these governments from claiming that sweeping up, storing and analyzing much of the Internet — literally examining billions of communications activities every week of entire populations — is something other than “mass surveillance.” Yet this has now become the coordinated defense from the governments in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It’s nothing short of astonishing to watch them try to get away with this kind of propagnadistic sophistry. (In the wake of our reports with journalist Nicky Hager on GCSB, watch the leader of New Zealand’s Green Party interrogate the country’s flailing Prime Minister this week in Parliament about this completely artificial distinction.)
But — just as it was stunning to watch media outlets refuse to use the term “torture” because the U.S. government demanded that it be called something else — this Orwellian switch in surveillance language is now predictably (and mindlessly) being adopted by those nations’ most state-loyal media outlets.
Last night, I was on the BBC program Newsnight to discuss the new report. As usual, they decided to interview me first, and then interview a security services official after me, so that I could not respond to what the official said. In this case, the interviewee after me was former GCHQ director David Omand (last seen refusing to answer a difficult question about surveillance from the U.K.’s often-excellent Channel 4 by literally walking away from the interview, insisting he had to catch a train).
The somewhat contentious BBC interview from last night is worth watching, in part because Omand literally demands that there be no more surveillance disclosures or debate because The Committee Has Spoken (also a clearly coordinated message). But it’s worthwhile even more so because this interview illustrates the “bulk collection” language fraud that is now being perpetrated with the eager help of the largest media outlets in these countries:
Photo: Press Association/AP
Thanks for continuing to represent many of us in the Five Eyes countries who are very concerned about our government’s mass collection of private data. Here’s a tip from someone who’s been in the media eye for comments. I refused to go on air when I knew I was the first one to speak and they had another in the wings to discount my comments. If I wasn’t the last to speak I didn’t go on air. But this is only useful if you are the only one who can speak to the details they want.
PS You don’t have to answer their questions as they would like and when asked a question it is an opportunity to bring forth comments they don’t want to here. After all, they rarely get a straight answer from politicians who like to dish out dribble to reporters.
The premise of this story is accurate, but we must also confront the re-branding of whistleblowers’ leaks. A few have said, and more are noticing, that the information Edward Snowden provided, ostensibly in a public-minded way, is being held in a few unaccountable hands at a media concern from which premiere reporters have departed in discontent. This contrasts with the Pentagon Papers, which released in their entirety with many eyes able to examine the evidence.
This questionable approach makes Mr. Greenwald’s description of the re-definition game rather ironic: “…[W]e then read the communications that we want (with virtually no checks and concealing from you what percentage of it we’re reading), and store as much of the rest of it as technology permits for future trolling. But don’t worry: we’re only reading the Bad People’s emails.”
This de facto privatization of the Snowden leaks must be addressed without the bluster to which Mr. Greenwald sometimes sinks.
I agree, “Harry”, Greenwald and company should release ALL of the Snowden material in one “(un)foul” swoop, just as the Pentagon Papers were. Of course, take out all of the names that could be harmed as a result of their release; but, other than that, release ALL of the rest. Parsing them out to us leaves, first, too much room for the previous disclosures to have “fallen down the memory hole” by the time the next, new revelations are released; and, second, not knowing what if anything is being left out that we need to know, and that we need to know NOW, not at a later date, if at all.
It is true that Greenwald has shown himself to be quite trustworthy in his telling it like it is on a good many things, but he is a finite, errant person who could be, for all we know, bowing under (some?) government pressure to not release aspects of the material(s) and information THAT SHOULD BE RELEASED IN FULL, WITHOUT *ANY* PREVARICATION. He must not bow under ANY such pressure; and, even if it threatens his life at the hands of the government to not bow to any of that pressure, he must be a truly-courageous person and let us know all that we need to know, without parsing it over time, AND LET US DETERMINE WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW BY RELEASING ALL OF IT, ALL AT ONCE.
That Greenwald is not doing the foregoing, for whatever rationalizations, are some of the reasons why many if not all of Sibel Edmonds’ concerns about Greenwald and company holding complete control over all of the Snowden material, and only parsing it out, are legitimate concerns. The following are her and related articles about this issue:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/01/pando-expose-glenn-greenwalds-boss-billionaire-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government/
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/04/03/bfp-exclusive-and-an-oligarch-shall-lead-them-omidyar-greenwald-first-look-medias-attack-on-the-future-of-the-press/
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/12/13/greenwald-omidyar-joint-venture-the-blurring-lines-between-being-a-source-being-a-journalist/
Talk about transparency. We need, and Greenwald and company need to provide, TOTAL transparency concerning all of the Snowden documents; and the ONLY way they can do that, is to release all of the documents all at once. It appears that Snowden himself disagrees, and fully trusts Greenwald and company to parse them out over time (which, it is my belief, Snowden should not be doing), as Snowden wanted in the first place under various rationale (that are insufficient reasons as far as I’m concerned, for holding the material back and only parsing it out a “little” at a time).
I’m pretty sure that Daniel Ellsberg and company could have, and probably thought about, done much the same and only parsed out the Pentagon Papers revelations, but he and they, for very good reasons, opted to release same all at once. [I wonder what Dan Ellsberg feels about the piecemeal release of the “Snowden Papers” over time, and if he wouldn’t agree that they should be (and/or have been) released all at once. If he has an opinion on the matter, he should let it be known far and wide; and, if he agrees with the “Snowden Papers” only being released piecemeal, he should explain his rationale for that far and wide as well.]
Rewriting of my last foregoing paragraph so it is more grammatically correct:
I’m pretty sure that Daniel Ellsberg and company could have done, and probably thought about doing, much the same thing and only parsed out the Pentagon Papers revelations, but he and they, for very good reasons, opted to release those documents all at once. [I wonder what Dan Ellsberg feels about the piecemeal release of the “Snowden Papers” over time, and if he wouldn’t agree that they should be (and/or should have been) released all at once. If he has an opinion on the matter, he should let it be known far and wide; and, if he agrees with the “Snowden Papers” only being released piecemeal, he should explain his rationale for that far and wide as well.]
Naturally, the real terrorists, the U.S. and other Western governments, and their “intelligence” system, believe they are above international law(s). In fact, as far as they’re concerned, those laws only apply to those they want to go after, and do a token charging and convicting of a previous U.S. and/or other Western government “friend”, in order to bring about regime change, and setup a puppet government more compliant with the wishes of global government enslavement, subjugation, domination and control. Slobodan Miloševi? of the former Yugoslavia (Serbia and the Balkans) is a prime example who was destroyed by them, as well as others.
Thus, the countries of the Western imperialism and enslavement regimes [doing away with all True Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s)] can violate the war crimes statutes and other international laws with impunity and immunity; and they’re doing so increasingly. All of the previous stops are more and more rapidly being removed, and practices such as torture are being flaunted in our faces, in effect saying, “Just try to stop us if you dare; we don’t answer to international law(s). And, if you try too hard to attempt to stop us, we will destroy you, too”. Western terrorism is the the rule of the day, and controls all of the terrorism organizations extant today.
You wrote, “… under the guise of Terrorism.” Do you know what “guise” means?
I liked this article the first time I read it in the Guardian in June 2013. I think Glenn Greenwald wrote that one.
By the way, the Intercept used to have the total number of page views of an article very conspicuously at the top of every page. Why have you gotten rid of that feature? Cost of electricity? The NSA? More Omidayar cutbacks? The intern in charge of turning over the numbers got a job in porn?
You know what would be really Orwellian? Have the Government recruit a super secret mole to pretend to “defect” to Russia with a massive amount of “secret” information, then divulge that “confidential’ data to the Russians, while at the same time proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the United States Government did not intentionally violate the Constitution even one tiny bit. That would kill two birds with one stone: Feed bad intelligence to the enemy, while making the good guys look clean as a whistle. That would be doubleplusOrwellian 11th dimensional chess.
I mean, how else do you explain a “spy” who was “trained” to be a spy having months and months to steal data from the NSA, who had worked for the CIA and two NSA contractors, who had Administrative Privileges–and stole the Administrative Privileges of others–giving him access to mountains of “Top Secret” information on NSA-linked computers, and who handed all of that information to a “journalist,” who was NOT employed by the NSA or Homeland Security or the FBI, and who had 21 months to write about all the leaked matter, but who still could not come up with a tiny intentional violation of the Constitution by the Obama Administration? That would be crazy Orwellian, if you ask me.
@Benito Mussolini
Your Excellency:
With great respect I approach you from Human Relations at TI. I beg your pardon for breaching a normally private matter in public, but we’ve been unable to reach you at your old telephone number.
We would like to offer you a half-time position at TI. Your asides rise to the level of feature posts by our most senior correspondents. And our secret keystroke app tells us readers are scrolling down to your avatar as soon as they log on and before they read the posts, if they read the posts.
Normally, we are against hires from the revolving door of government and the private sector. But you seem to have managed that so well in the past, we’ll risk it this time.
You will be assigned an almost new office on the top floor. We hope you fit in better than the hotspurs who preceded you. You need only write one post per week, but be available the rest of the time to counsel our stable of writers, most of whom don’t see matters from the point of view of officials trying to keep the lid on.
Your office will be shared with another half-time hire, the lady who speaks through a pillow, of which there are so many (the pillows) where she now works. Hence the muffled spelling, don u no. But keep that under your bowler because we are still working on our approach to her.
A Presto.
Good work. You should apply for that job.
Hmmm, both GCHQ and NSA are tasked with both securing their nations internet security…AND weakening internet security in order to facilitate spying (by them)
…slight conflict there.
…and it seems government ministers charged with approving malware and hacking operations, don’t know their http when it is staring at them from across the inter-tubes.
“GCHQ’s hacking operations are conducted with little to no oversight and risk “undermining the security of the internet”, leading online privacy experts have warned. Even when oversight is required, GCHQ has revealed that ministers don’t have the technical knowledge to understand what it is doing. Privacy campaigners today described the issue as “a major scandal”.
…Concerns have also been raised about GCHQ’s dual remit of hacking computer systems and networks while also ensuring the strength of Britain’s cybersecurity. The agency hoped its classified Edgehill decryption program would be able to crack encryption used by 15 major internet companies and 300 virtual private networks (VPNs) by 2015, according to leaked documents. It has been claimed such widespread and sophisticated attacks on encryption could fundamentally weaken online security.
In September 2013 academics specialising in cryptography warned that “by weakening all our security so that they can listen to the communication of our enemies, [GCHQ and the NSA] also weaken our security against our potential enemies”. In an open letter cryptography experts at Bristol University called on GCHQ “to reveal what systems have been weakened so that they can be repaired, and to create a proper system of oversight”.”
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-03/16/gchq-hacking
A review of Paul Craig Roberts’ How America Was Lost: from 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State January 4, 2015
Americans need to understand that they have lost their country.
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2015/01/04/513867a-review-of-paul-craig-roberts-how-america-was-lost-from-911-to-the-policewarfare-state/
From that article
“Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington’s huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity.”—Paul Craig Roberts
If you ran into the Smith v. Maryland decision on the street, would you duck around a corner, Glenn? Where is your apology to General Clapper for all but lynching him in the Guardian, when you wrote that he was deceiving Congress? You know by now–even Snowden admits it–that Congress was briefed on the NSA programs every six months and that the whole Congress had up and down votes on each of the programs.
When will you apologize for implying that the Government was using American “locator” information with the 215 Telephone metadata program? When will you apologize for claiming that, using the PRISM program, Government agents were literally inside ISP offices milking the data from routers as if they were cows?
When will you correct these stories? Your 178 commentators would like to know.
Hey there Goofus, good trolls are substantially more subtle.
Good BBC cartoon (posted on Twitter) https://twitter.com/AbujomaaGaza/status/577151148278284288
My wife walking by when playing this video when Glenn got defensive:
Who is that? He sounds like an asshole!”
Agreed. Asked a pretty straight forward question, Glenn resorts to the mother of all red herrings: Britain’s complicity in the Iraq War. Big surprise. I was impressed by this reporter and her not falling prey to Glenn’s predictable diversionary tactic. The point she seemed to be alluding to was spot on. And to expand,If a government report or judicial decision (ex: Judge Leon) condemns the Goverment, Glenn will be the first to champion their findings (ex: PCLOB on Section 215 metadata collection or the Presidents Review Panel) but if they dare conclude otherwise, Glenn will resort to discrediting them or calling into question their motives (ex: Parliamemt is dysfunctional and didn’t even know about some of GCHQ’s actions!). It’s the downside of “adversarial journalism.” Glenn’s too entrenched to concede anything that disagrees with his established narrative. But Glenn’s speed to misdirect the discussion to torture and Iraq was embarrassingingly quick and his anger towards this reporter made him sound like a jerk. Such a performance may earn him some back pats and plaudits amongst his personality cult, but I think the casual viewer will not be so easily swayed by Glenn’s subpar interview. Let Snowden do more of the talking Glenn, he is much less irritable and actually knows the subject matter.
Pathetic that you want to think/believe/pass on that that is a point in your favor. Plus, you’re apparently using One “casual viewer” for your polling statistic for you to come to that conclusion.
I think Nate is just trying to validate his wife’s ‘casual viewer’ analysis in hopes she puts out tonight.
What you said does not even make sense…Therefore, you will fit in perfectly around here!
And I never said my wife was a “casual viewer,” that is your own uninformed assumption.
What the fuck does, your words, “walking by” sound like to you, Mr. casual troller?
Casual viewing.
KISS, don’t write words you don’t want to defend.
She didn’t watch the video, but overheard Glenn’s defensive tone. Why fixate on such an inane part of my comment? But please, presume to your heart’s content! Your contention is inconsequential.
Also, the notion that I defend my words for this discussion is kinda funny. What exactly am I defending!? That because my wife is supposedly a “casual viewer,” she represents all casual viewers and that this is some statistically sound conclusion!? That’s one of the more meaningless and vapid strawmans I’ve encountered around here. But even more alarming, you are co-opting the ramblings of Kitt. That alone should have given you reason to pause; after all, you’re not exactly standing on the shoulders of an intellectual giant….
Well, I might suggest anyone in a loving committed relationship doesn’t typically brandish their spouse like a weapon while trying to pick any sort of fight, even one of words. I might also suggest your having written, “And I never said my wife was a “casual viewer,” that is your own uninformed assumption,” pretty much makes you an expedient liar – because you directly implied that so-called strawman yourself in the original comment – at least twice. Additionally, your original comment and subsequent reply seem but one more standard example of the intentionally weak trolling I accused you of here almost a year ago. Except, you seemed more careful with words – then.
Kitt and I have barely exchanged “heys” over other commenters once or twice and I believe his opinion of me is still out, though I know neither of us are shoulder standers. But whatever you have to tell yourself to shake off a valid criticism, I guess, and you’re probably also correct you don’t need to defend anything you write here – because I doubt it’d change anyone’s opinion of you much, anyway.
Worse than that, he’s likely fabricated the incident entirely.
The fact that you (and, purportedly, your wife) think that is actually evidence that Glenn is doing it exactly right. The Internet exploded with impressed folks high-fiving Glenn over his handling of Wark — spewings from professional gadflies such as yourself are less than irrelevant.
He and Jeremy are both interviews that, no matter how hard they try, media’s incapable of setting up and using as tools.
“Glenn resorts to the mother of all red herrings: Britain’s complicity in the Iraq War.” – Nate
The Irag War is anything but a red herring in this discussion, it is the elephant in the room. It was this initial, Orwellian re-branding of that “necessary” war that diverted the entire worlds attention away from the reasons why governments should and should not go to war, and it’s been nothing but a lie-fest ever since.
The real ass-holes are the ones who not only promulgated this fucking fiasco in the first place, and continue to re-brand it (and those that help them, the MSM, and viewers like you) in order to make the ongoing wars, killings, torture, and violations to our civil liberties more “user friendly” and palatable to the pablum fed masses.
The real problem isn’t that ass-holery abounds, it’s that too much of it’s still trickling down. What we need more of instead is the righteous indignation (which is what Greenwald really exhibited here) and it needs to be said more forcefully and more often in order to keep it headed in the right direction.
“Johannes had once said that violence and cruelty were just a stupid person’s way of making himself felt, because it was easier to use your hands to strike a blow than to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to the problem.” – Anne Holm, I Am David
“My wife walking by when playing this video”
Mie husbint wus ingauged inn karnel ackdivitees width hisself wile yer wief whatch u viddeos don u no. I tel him whatch viddeos liek Nait dew width Mabel oar hiss wief. I prey four hur an mie husbint an yew Nait afore teh Lourd tel yer wief shee two grabb shee hummer an smoat yew cuz yew weery frum she chek all tiem waht videeow u whatch:
Yew muss no bea weery nait oar shee use hummer an putt nale inn u tempule don u no
@GG –
So, he’s saying that he has nothing to hide from anyone, and to prove it he should be willing to give you his passwords?
(The quote is from yesterday’s Ryan Gallagher article.)
I can’t and don’t speak for Glenn, but when I first read that I wanted to sit Mr Afuga down and explain reality to him. Of course, it is hard to know whether he was fully and/or accurately quoted.
It seems clear from the context that Afuga was saying that he’s not doing anything illegal or that warrants surveillance. At the same time, he’s objecting to the surveillance because it “may have exposed some of the sources of the leaks he publishes online”. So, he’s not even saying that he has “nothing to hide” from the government. And that puts him one step further away from Greenwald’s interpretation. Most people are saying they are innocent, and therefore have nothing to hide from the government, and therefore don’t object to the surveillance. Afuga isn’t consenting to be surveilled by anyone; he’s just asserting his innocence.
While it may seem cruel that government takes advantage of this naïve trust, it should be remembered that the relationship between predator and prey is not as one sided as it may seem at first glance. Society is an ecosystem and a natural balance must be maintained, as predicted by the Lotka-Volterra equation.
All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_
That island in the great lakes (mentioned in your link) is discussed in the following tv series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_%28TV_series%29
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is a 2011 BBC documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis.[1] The series argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity and instead have “distorted and simplified our view of the world around us”.[2] The title is taken from the 1967 poem of the same name by Richard Brautigan.[3] The first of three episodes aired on Monday 23 May 2011 at 9pm on BBC2.[2]
snip
Episode one Love and Power
In the first episode, Curtis tracks the effects of Ayn Rand’s ideas on American financial markets, particularly via the influence on Alan Greenspan.
Episoed three The Monkey In The Machine and the Machine in the Monkey
This programme looked into the selfish gene theory which holds that humans are machines controlled by genes which was invented by William Hamilton. Adam Curtis also covered the source of ethnic conflict that was created by Belgian colonialism’s artificial creation of a racial divide and the ensuing slaughter that occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is a source of raw material for computers and cell phones.
end
What is most disturbing in the third part is the notion that altruistic dissenters of a modern world system are helpless to effect change and that even commenting on a blog will bring no change to the status quo. Quite depressing really.
predator-prey relationship of wolf and elks
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_%28TV_series%29
Left out episode two The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts
snip
At the time, there was a general belief in the stability of natural systems. However cracks started to appear when a study was made of predator-prey relationship of wolf and elks. It was found that wild population swings had occurred over centuries. Other studies then found huge variations, and a significant lack of homeostasis in natural systems. George Van Dyne then tried to build a computer model, to try to simulate a complete ecosystem based on extensive real-world data, so as to show how the stability of natural systems actually worked. To his surprise the computer model did not stabilize like the Odums’ electrical model had. The reason for this lack of stabilization was that he had used extensive data which more accurately reflected reality whereas the Odums and other previous ecologists had “ruthlessly simplified nature.” The scientific idea had thus been shown to fail, but the popular idea remained, and even grew as it apparently offered the possibility of a new egalitarian world order.
snip
I do see the higher order connotations of your metaphor. Yet, narrowing on its biological aspect, predator-prey relationships may only happen among (not within) species/groups sharing some sort of existential baseline. When the U.S. government invades countries what they ultimately seek, even with the use of force, is to persuade them into accepting their b#llsh!t, somehow work them into their “freedom-loving” subjects
in which all kinds of complex intersubjective relationships (not just monetary ones) happen and a very important underlying tenet is -trust-
Once trust is severed it is very hard to “fix” (or, for that matter, do) anything. Kind of what has happened in the Middle East. How could the Israeli and U.S. governments possibly accuse anyone of being “terrorists” and not respecting basic human rights? What is exactly the odd joke they are trying to convey to us?!? (I can imagine those people thinking themselves)
They paraded sodomized Kadhaffi as part of his assassination. Mobs of “crazy” “radical” fanatics attacked then the U.S. embassy and did the same thing to their representatives. The U.S. government with their f#ck the EU, other foreign and local supporters have been genocidally killing people in their target countries at a rate way greater than Nazis’ during WWII (and that is a very easily falsifiable statement, a very simple 3rd grade Math calculation will show you what I mean, so they can’t blame it on the low Math standards in the U.S. nowadays)
Duce, I think it was you who pointed out that ISIS is more transparent in their terrorism and I took it as more than an odd (sad, true) joke. ISIS certainly is a terrorist organization, but what exactly makes terrorism by the USG “better” or “more morally responsible”?, that it is of the “democratically” elected kind?, that they kill people using drones?, that ISIS “simply” behead people on camera using knifes in totally “technologically unkosher” ways?, that they are not paying franchise money for using U.S. torture and murdering tactics?
Satyagraha,
RCL
Here is a perfect example of what I was talking about. So they “freedom-lovingly” mess with Russia/Russian people in any way they possibly can (without thinking that Russia will come out stronger from having to redefine their economic ties with the West) and then they blame them as some sort of antisocial psychopaths:
theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/15/donald-tusk-putins-policy-enemies-conflict-european-council-sanctions-russia
I think like, who was the UN general secretary who said the U.S./the West/the U.N. was “morally bankrupt”? …
It is part of what happens with decaying societies, when you desperately need for people to like/respect you more than they actually need to and your own arrogance drives you crazy, because you are “hearing God” telling you to “spread democracy” (TM), to make sure “there is freedom in the Universe” (TM), that whatever you do you to it for “greater good” (TM) (even if it is for a few members of a plutocracy) …
The trick of branding anyone who doesn’t agree with them with a “terrorist-potential”, “freedom-hating” index as we all are right now doesn’t seem to be working that well.
Satyagraha,
RCL
Of course its legal when you have the power to change the law and influence policy toward making it “legal”. I doubt the original intent of any historical figures who wrote laws protecting civil rights was to reverse the actions of the government at a later time.
Glenn, languages/English grammar is not my forté, but I think MASS SURVEILLANCE on your title should have been hyphenated, not quoted.
Yet, there isn’t anything new about that kind of b#llsh!ting word play. It is actually a very natural and “logical” outcome of their own mindset. The only new thing is that now they are applying their b#llsh!t to their own. IMO this is what actually makes people angry. But then I wonder, what did they expect?
They say life is a b!tch, they also say that: “God works in his own ways” …
I am kind of amazed to notice how people who consider themselves to be “‘the’ free and ‘the’ brave” submit to that kind of b#llsh!t including their “‘free speech” media. The Castro brothers own the media in totally open and unpretentious ways. Could you imagine the New York Times using as their motto (instead of that responsibly silly “all that is fit to print”): “mouth piece for the U.S. plutocracy”?
They prominently write on top of the very first page in capital bold letters: “ÓRGANO OFICIAL DEL COMITÉ CENTRAL DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA”
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/
Given the options, I have to admit that I never thought of Castros’ style of plain and open dictatorship as being more honest and their consciousness as being more respectful and humane, somewhat less crazy.
You don’t really have to run a dictatorship, own the media in order to control people perception of reality, “responsibly free” journalism will “freely” and “responsibly” take care of that for you.
Satyagraha,
RCL
Bully.
“I bully the shit out of pompous idjits like our Alpha Brown, and do so by applying his own standards mercilessly to his many risible and illogical scribblings.” Mona
Oh yes, you are the toughest and meanest bully I have ever met. I start shaking as soon as I see the name “Mona”!
Okay let’s be honest. I actually see you as a comedian not a lawyer. It is actually very hard to take you seriously. I start laughing at you even before I read your comments. I am laughing while I am writing this right now. The funniest part is the amount of energy you spend to “bully” me. You are so predictable that sometimes I have been managing to have you answering me over and over for hours. And your inconsistency is so hilarious. For instance, you claimed I am “obsessed” with your thoughts, but that does not mean I want your attention. You wanted all commentators to ignore me while you kept chasing me for hours and at the end you stated I am the one who wants to be ignored. About your obedience to the Great Leader? This is how to boil your temper: ” Greenwald is wrong” and this is how to cool you down: “Greenwald is great”. The challenge I have been facing is to have you send the images again. I keep asking for them, but you keep resisting! Oh yes, every time you believe you are insulting me you are actually making me laugh, hence why I keep asking you to use stronger insulting words or images.
I am already laughing at your next response to that comment!!
Your newest account, “Jerry Savage,” asked me:
Playing along with him/you, I went for “bully.”
Ah, and we get back to the inquiries you won’t answer, because you can’t without conceding you are a fool. Here again you use the phrase “Great leader” to describe Glenn. But you won’t answer this set of questions from an older comment:
_____________________________________________________________
First our man Alpha had claimed:
“Ah, and we get back to the inquiries you won’t answer, because you can’t without conceding you are a fool” Mona
Free World!!
You can believe I am a fool, an alien, a coward, a bird…but yet you are the one doing exactly I requested. So please, do as you told keep asking the same questions and I will answer it the way you want when you reach the thousand mark.
You already are, and long have been. All can see what you will not address, and draw from that the obvious conclusion about your character and intellect. Your consistent refusal to accept the emptiness of your arguments when confronted by clarifying inquiries shows everything I wish to show about your “reasoning.”
So, I will keep asking, you will keep running, and if you are as pleased with the results as you want me to believe, we’ll both be satisfied. For Alpha, at this point, my questions are rhetorical; they make my points merely by being posed.
You forgot to ask the question again in your last comment.
No I didn’t. This thread is stale; when it’s time again, you’ll see it again.
“Formal testing and work performance indicate my (reading) skills there appear to be rather advanced” Mona
“The questions she (Kirsty Wak) asked were SIMILAR to what many people have asked him ( Greenwald) before or have raised on social media.” Alpha brown
“Please cite 3 of these “many people” who asked questions “SIMILAR” to those Kirsty Wark did.” Mona
Kirsty Wak: “Do you fear for your safety?”
PBS Frontline: ” What are your FEAR, as far as what this means for you and your ability to move around, and your ability to go to the United States, and what the United States government might do to you, simply because you reported the story?”
Kisty Wak: “Why should you be the arbiter of what is in the public interest and what is vital to national security?”
Bill Maher: “I can understand why the president of the United States would ask why does Glenn Greenwald get to decide what is classified to the American people?”
Kirsty Wak: . “How can you be sure that your actions have not made it easier for the terrorists. You can’t prove a negative, can you?”
NPR : what is your response “On whether or not the leak has hurt the NSA’s ability to detect terrorist threats”
Why don’t you use your “advanced reading skills” to read and understand your own questions and to grasp the meaning of the word “similar”?
No hon, you had ordered me to improve my “reading comprehension” ability because I was flummoxed by this word salad from you, and I assured you the problem isn’t me:
No, it is really not you. It is your Great Leader’s ability to prevent you from using your brain and perform your own analysis. He thinks and you follow!
Wark’s questions of Greenwald were, as many have observed, dumb and deeply hostile:
Kirsty Wark: Well, Glenn Greenwald is the journalist responsible for releasing the information leaked by Edward Snowden. He joins us from
Rio. Good evening Glenn Greenwald. Um, First of all, Why should you be the arbiter about what is in the public interest and what is vital to
national security?
Kirsty: But what what you have eh shown is is that where that huge metadata connections… Now, Those connections are often made to track
would-be terrorists. As a very result of those being known to people all over the world, terrorists, would-be terrorists, change their tactics. So
it is very possible that you actually by your actions make it easier for terrorists to understand how to evade all the checks that are made on
them online.
Kirsty: But what I want to ask is, How can you be sure that your actions have not made it easier for terrorists to operate? You can’t be sure of
that. You can’t uh prove a negative of that, Can you?
Kirsty: You, let, you, There’s vast amounts of material I gather that you have that still has not been reviewed at the moment. Do you have
this? Is it in your bedroom in Rio?
[To which Glenn answered: “I’m not going to talk about what’s in my bedroom and I’m not going to talk about the security measures.”]
No other reporter has been that obnoxiously persistent and dumb — and right off the bat, without any interest in what the documents reveal about invasion of privacy — about pushing the government’s narrative that Glenn has seriously harmed national security, and you can’t show otherwise, because such an example doesn’t exist.
“No other reporter has been that obnoxiously persistent and dumb…”
Yes, like everybody else who asked the same questions!!
No other reporter did that, which is why Wark has been widely singled out for ridicule. Had another journalist(s) employed the same barrage of hostile questions, they too would have been held up for mockery. But no one did; just Wark.
“Why should you be the arbiter about what is in the public interest and what is vital to
national security?” Wark
“…why does Glenn Greenwald get to decide what is classified to the American people?” Bill Maher
“How can you be sure that your actions have not made it easier for terrorists to operate? You can’t be sure of
that. You can’t uh prove a negative of that, Can you?” Wark
what is your response “On whether or not the leak has hurt the NSA’s ability to detect terrorist threats”? NPR
Tell your Great Leader to bring the questions he wants the BBC to ask him next time they interview him. Obviously, he does not have a problem with other people asking him the same questions. You are even going so far as to deny a fact right on your face. Is it the tone of the journalist that made the questions different? Tell your Great Leader to be a man and stop whining because a woman talked tough to him. Now go ahead unleash your assault! (always do as you told!!)
Alpha Brown snorts and sniffles:
First our man Alpha had claimed:
To which I quite reasonably responded many threads ago and several times since:
Alpha Brown does not understand these questions, he implies. Well, I realize that especially the last one does entail some facility in abstract thinking, but I don’t figure the difficulty level to be beyond the average college sophomore. So, Alpha, get some help from you roomies or parents, ask them to explain my inquiries, and then attempt a response, eh?
I told you I might respond when you ask the questions a thousand times!! Let me know when you reach it.
Huh? You just said you already did reply. I asked you to please link to that, or reproduce it here.
Thanks.
Yes, but I might answer it the way you want it if you ask a thousand times.
They are straightforward, reasonable questions. For what good reason would you not answer them now?
Huh? You just said you already did reply. And I requested that you link to that reply, or, in the alternative, that your reproduce it here.
Thanks.
Jun 7, 2013 William Benny – The Government is Profiling You (The NSA is Spying on You)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB3KR8fWNh0
NSA stores data to target any citizen at any time – Greenwald October 29, 2013
http://rt.com/news/greenwald-interview-nsa-data-903/
GCHQ is full of shit:
I have to say that the *proper* way to understand the purported meaning of an idea named “blanket surveillance”, would have to be by considering ‘surveillance’ as a factual event (a real thing), and not the other way around where one then would likely consider ‘BLANKET surveillance’ to be a meaningful thing (as if it was real), specifically as if there was something different with the ‘surveillance’ part just because the notion of coverage/totality had other types of surveillance be understood and regarded as something completely different from so called “blanket surveillance”.
Sure one can utter the words ‘blanket surveillance’ and having attributed any other notion to those words (good intentions, necessity etc), but if one is to take the “surveillance” part seriously, specifically with which what is the basis of such surveillance, the directives (anything to do with “datalagringsdirektivet” in norway, completed or not) that have information being stored (effectively recorded) as data and/or metadata would OBVIOUSLY be something one must then consider to be ‘blanket surveillance’, regardless of the the explicit intention for performing the act of ‘surveillance’ at any point in time, and regardless of coverage.
So, the trivial notion of ‘BLANKET surveillance’ seem to depend on an absolutist qualifier, in which ‘blanket’ is only meaningful when the surveillance is complete, total, or absolute with regard to people, technology or places i general. Having the ISP’s and corporations do the spying for govermental directives is no good.
Just because GCHQ claim to not wanting, nor intending to have blanket surveillance, doesn’t excuse their surveillance as if it wasn’t blanket surveillance!
For sake of clarity with regard to GCHQ’s investigative powers, the really ONLY interesting discussion in having including such statements from GCHQ for saying that UK doesn’t have blanket surveillance, would be to come to an understanding of how such surveillance comes about in the first place, SOMETHING I am sure people would understand to effectively be the snooping on people’s lives enmasse. Whether or not this snooping is of all the people is not what is so damning, and so, the “blanket” part of this isn’t a big deal, and especially not when both a reader of the news is likely to associate the notion of “blanket” with total surveillance and when GCHQ is likely to associate “blanket” as a disqualifier for their work which so to speak is in question here.
There is a big difference in having people talking about “blanket surveillance” as it if came about as an intention, and to talk about “blanket surveillance” as a part of reality having been instituted as surveillance or being incidental, BECAUSE these two “things” are obviously two issues that does not come from each other . One deal with motivations and the other is about reality, however both the means and the will to conduct and institute surveillance come from the goverment.
When Obama said “Nobody is reading your emails” he was not lying, but speaking the truth. Just as Bill Clinton spoke the truth when he said he did not have sex with that woman. It is all a matter of how you define the terms you are using. No human is reading the billions of emails collected each day because they couldn’t possibly do so. But you can be sure computer programs are scanning every word, looking for patterns and key terms, and flagging anything suspicious for further processing.
Another of the euphemisms that always annoys me, is when a news reporter, like on PBS refers to water-boarding as “simulated drowning”… As if it wasn’t real drowning, but something less horrible– a simulation of torture! The person was very much being purposely drowned, forcing them to breathe water up their nose, into their lungs, and then reviving them, over and over and over again…. What part of that is a simulation? This was why they needed to have doctors present, so they knew how far they could go without actually killing anyone, and thus pretend it wasn’t technically torture, since it supposedly didn’t damage them permanently.
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky : Global Research, March 05, 2015
http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-is-a-conspiracy-theory-what-is-the-truth/5429344
What is a Conspiracy Theory? What is the Truth?
Obama is on a hot war footing. Western civilization is allegedly “threatened by the Islamic State”.
The “Global War on Terrorism” is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor.
We have a “Responsibility to Protect”. Humanitarian warfare is the solution.
Evil folks are lurking. “Take ‘em out”, said George W. Bush.
The Western media is beating the drums of war. Obama’s military agenda is supported by a vast propaganda apparatus.
One of the main objectives of war propaganda is to “fabricate an enemy”. As the political legitimacy of the Obama Administration falters, doubts regarding the existence of this “outside enemy”, namely Al Qaeda and its network of (CIA sponsored) affiliates must be dispelled.
The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that Muslims constitute a threat to the security of the Western World.
Humanitarian warfare is waged on several fronts: Russia, China and the Middle East are currently the main targets.
1/- Xenophobia and the Military Agenda
The wave of xenophobia directed against Muslims which has swept across Western Europe is tied into geopolitics. It is part of a military agenda. It consists in demonizing the enemy.
Muslim countries possess more than 60 percent of total oil reserves. In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Iraq has five times more oil than the United States. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The “Demonization” of Muslims and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, Jannuary 4, 2007).
A large share of the World’s oil lies in Muslim lands. The objective of the US led war is to steal and appropriate those oil reserves. And to achieve this objective, these countries are targeted: war, covert ops, economic destabilization, regime change.
2/- The American Inquisition
A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires social subordination, the political consensus cannot be questioned. In its contemporary version, the inquisition requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a means to spreading Western values and democracy.
A good versus evil dichotomy prevails. We must go after the bad guys.
War is peace.
The ‘big lie’ has now becomes the truth … and the truth has become a ‘conspiracy theory’.
Those who are committed to the Truth are categorized as “Terrorists”.
According to Paul Craig Roberts (2011), the conspiracy theory concept “has undergone Orwellian redefinition”…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-and-the-orwellian-redefinition-of-conspiracy-theory/25339
“A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps….
In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.”
Fiction becomes fact.
Investigative journalism has been scrapped.
Factual analysis of social, political and economic issues is a conspiracy theory because it challenges a consensus which is based on a lie.
3/- What is the Truth
The real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war.
The homeland is threatened.
The media, intellectuals, scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the unspoken truth, namely that the US-NATO led war destroys humanity.
When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.
When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down: pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. Opposing the war becomes a criminal act. Meanwhile, the war criminals in high office have ordered a witch hunt against those who challenge their authority.
The Big Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.
It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.
It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow human beings.
It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and the police state as the sole avenue.
It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.
Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.
This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.
Let us reverse the tide.
Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.
Break the American inquisition.
Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.
Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.
Bring home the troops.
Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal war.
********************************************************************
===> Ben Bradlee’s Not Such ‘A Good Life’ by James DiEugenio on March 10, 2015
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/10/ben-bradlees-not-such-a-good-life/
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/10/ben-bradlees-not-such-a-good-life-part-2/
===> The CIA and America’s Presidents by JOHN CHUCKMAN, Weekend Edition March 13-15, 2015
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/the-grand-illusion-about-terrorism/
===> Peak Crony Capitalism: First Citi Writes US Financial Laws, Now Boeing Tells Ex-Im Bank What To Do by Tyler Durden on 03/13/2015
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-13/peak-crony-capitalism-first-citi-writes-us-financial-laws-now-boeing-tells-ex-im-ban
===> Russia is now monitoring the world’s mass media for bias by Alexey Khlebnikov on 02/25/2015
http://www.russia-direct.org/analysis/russia-now-monitoring-world%E2%80%99s-mass-media-bias
===> Table 3: Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-3-inequality-adjusted-human-development-index
Please note that USA has the second WORST inequality in income %, 2013 (35.6) among very high human development countries. The first one is Chile (36), the third one is Argentina (28), UK has 18.8, Israel 19.6…etc.
Please note, no figures available for New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Cuba and Kuwait. ==> Do not forget to read the notes, definitions and main data sources at the bottom of the document Vladimir Putin’s legendary speech at Munich Security Conference on 10 February 2007 How Putin Blocked the U.S. Pivot to Asia by MIKE WHITNEY, Weekend Edition March 6-8, 2015
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/06/how-putin-blocked-the-u-s-pivot-to-asia/
===> Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin “Stunned” At US Desire For War In Ukraine by Tyler Durden on 03/08/2015
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-07/whos-isolated-now-germany-warns-washington-over-nato-commanders-dangerous-propaganda
===> Russia’s Remarkable Renaissance by F. William Engdahl on 09.03.2015
http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/09/russia-s-remarkable-renaissance-2/
===> The Hilarity of George Soros in Munich by F. William Engdahl on 19.02.2015
http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/19/the-hilarity-of-george-soros-in-munich/
http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/19/the-hilarity-of-george-soros-in-munich/
Keep up the good work Glenn !
Zorglub a French citizen…
Having just had occasion to revisit TomDispatch (thank you, Alpha Brown!) I suggest all hurry there to read Andrew Bacevich’s darkly hilarious send-up of the policy wonk– especially of the natsec variety — in the piece Rationalizing Lunacy — The Intellectual as Servant of the State:
Rest here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175965/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_how_to_create_a_national_insecurity_state/#more
God, Newsnight has gone down the toilet. The video pre-amble was limp, lacked information, and the narrator sounded drunk. That host is an unbelievable dimwit.
Greenwald, you’re a hero. Thank you.
“Last night, I was on the BBC program Newsnight to discuss the new report. As usual, they decided to interview me first, and then interview a security services official after me, so that I could not respond to what the official said.”
I saw this, and I didn’t expect that they would let the two of you get into it. Newsnight is clearly deferential to security, military, and high ranking political figures. Otherwise, they can be relentless. A good example is a somewhat recent interview of Asma al-Assad by Kirsty Wark. As I remember though, Asma was at least given enough time to demonstrate her competence and the merit of her point of view, which I think is pretty typical. On Newsnight, if things threaten to get interesting, they may occasionally have a chance of succeeding.
Meanwhile in Canada…Obama’s Canadian allies are changing their spying laws, check this out…Canada’s spies will be allowed to do anything, short of killing and raping.
“Bill C-51 would allow CSIS to move from its central current function — information-gathering and associated surveillance with respect to a broad area of “national security” matters — to being a totally different kind of agency that now may actively intervene to disrupt activities by a potentially infinite range of unspecified measures, as long as a given measure falls shy of causing bodily harm, infringements on sexual integrity or obstructions of justice. CSIS agents can do this activity both inside and outside Canada, and they can call on any entity or person to assist them.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/27/open-letter-to-parliament-amend-c-51-or-kill-it/
I think Dick Cheney called it, “going to the dark side”…or “taking the gloves off” or something, anyway, it looks like Canada is getting there.
“A lot can be inferred as to someone’s leanings on a particular topic by the questions they ask.
In the first hour of testimony at Thursday’s review of the government’s anti-terrorism bill, Conservative MPs posed only one question.
“Are you fundamentally opposed to taking terrorists off the streets?” Conservative MP Rick Norlock asked Carmen Cheung of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association — an echo of former public security minister Vic Toews’s “stand with us or with the child pornographers” statement.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-c-51-committee-hears-monologues-but-few-questions-1.2992615
This is supposed to be the best legal anaysis of Canada’s new Patriot act, C51:
“The Maher Arar story has warned us about the dangers of sharing information- intelligence which may be less than reliable, but s.6 of the proposed Information Sharing Act seems to forget these lessons in authorizing further sharing of information “to any person, for any purpose” so long as it is in accordance with existing law, law which itself is highly permissive of information sharing.”
http://antiterrorlaw.ca/
Is it my imagination or all of America’s allies doing a 180 on civil rights? Wow…a bill that “eviscerates privacy”.
Nearly twenty years ago, that was Stephen Harper, then a Reform Party MP warning against the privacy implications of an electronic voter registry and the fear that information sharing within government raised significant privacy concerns. Today, there is a very different Stephen Harper, who as Prime Minister is fast-tracking a bill that eviscerates privacy protections within the public sector and is even blocking the Privacy Commissioner of Canada from appearing as a witness at the committee studying the bill.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/03/why-the-anti-terrorism-bill-is-really-an-anti-privacy-bill-bill-c-51s-evisceration-of-government-privacy/
Past models of surveillance are passive ones. They consist of digital devices which monitor, store, analyze and recommend countermeasures based on communications between human beings. The computer merely reacts to what human beings are doing.
The future, as evidenced in this doll, is for the cloud to take the lead role. Humans can’t really be trusted to communicate directly with each other, even if those interactions are continually monitored. So eventually, most people’s primary interactions will be with machines, and direct communication between human beings may even be prohibited. The machines will be faithful friends, patient teachers and forgiving masters. Surveillance will be an infinitesimal part of their total role – so there is no use getting all worked up about it.
Sounds like psychohistory and eerily similar in ways to a bit more densely populated Solaria (“The Naked Sun,” Asimov).
I have to ask, Duce, are you actually R. Daneel Olivaw?
Creepy it is, Duce, though anticipated for some years now. In your hyperlinked article, one commenter notes the “Talky Tina” (also titled as “The Living Doll”) episode on Twilight Zone. And don’t assume that the doll will be passive for long: we already have interactive dolls, albeit therapeutic ones.
http://www.parorobots.com/
But, be advised that problem robots and interactive surveillance were part of our literature for a long time. Asimov, Rod Serling, Orwell, Philip K. Dick. It’s a journey that began in the imagination of our darkest minds decades ago, and now the technology now makes us possible for us to dwell, forever — in the Twilight Zone. (cut to credits)
We are pleased to report that since acquiring her new J*lie doll three months ago, Susie has decreased her interactions with her siblings by 15% and increased her interaction with J*lie by 72%, leading to a significant decrease in her oppositional defiant behavior. Suzie’s Z-Score is now within 10% of the mean on 9 of the 10 factors measured on our patented J*lie Personality Form. It is clear that her older sister had been exposing her to ideas and concepts which she was not yet ready to absorb. Fortunately, J*lie is pre-equipped with a module for tempering the influence of older sisters.
We would also request that you reduce your interactions with Susie, so as to give her more time to play with J*lie. Studies have shown that too much attention from parents can have an unhealthy effect on a child’s ego. This can be difficult to accept at first, but we have a responsibility under the Child Development Act and will be obliged to report you unless the requested adjustments are made.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing J*lie.
We are pleased to report since acquiring her new AK-15, Susie has decreased her interactions with her J*lie doll by 100% and increased her interaction with human beings by 100%, leading to a significant increase in her happiness and well being.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for choosing Smith and Wesson.
” we already have interactive dolls”
Yes we do.
Eavesdropper Barbie: Privacy fears over talking Barbie doll that records conversations
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/eavesdropper-barbie-privacy-fears-over-talking-barbie-doll-that-records-conversations-1491904
Duce, “creepy” doesn’t adequately capture that doll. Thanks for the link as well as your clever prose. I’ve tweeted the story about that heinous toy.
(Considered giving a h/t to Benito Mussolini, but, well.)
We are definitely getting there!
You never know what is in those brainless, morally deafferented morons’ minds, nor should you care (which also helps a healthy purpose), but one of the reasons why I may have been included in the FBI criminal index list is because I don’t carry or own a cell phone, I am not on facebook, I don’t watch TV, … However, I love to read off of paper books, which, since it is off the grid (they can’t track your annotations, or it is way too difficult for them using breaking and entering procedures/black bag operations, when you do them on paper. On top of that I use my own acronyms and short hand ;-) …
I remember right after people started to use cell phones in NYC I got a (917) prefixed phone for my land-line (even NYNEX reps would give me sh!t in disbelief). They target you based on “patterns” and they (typical of cognitively handicapped people) then try to make you responsible for whatever they fancy themselves about you. I mean, when you dream you had sex with a coworker or a student you rationally understand it was just a dream, you would not walk up that person and tell her: “Hey, you were great last night!” Gringo police is quite a bit like that, they can’t tell apart reality from what goes on in their minds …
I remember NYPD’s commissioner going berserk to the point of passing criminal laws about people using someone else’s cell phone. Why would the police care so much about you using some else’s tennis racket?
Satyagraha
RCL
Once again, thank you for your work!
The BBC are merely a state sponsored propaganda machine whose primary purpose is to prop up the UK Establishment.
Greenwald seems to accuse a network of bias as a result of tough questions addressed to him. The same strategy used at Hardtalk that consists of evading questions by referring to the Iraq war failed again as both journalists got him back to the point. Talking about the false reasons for the Iraq war is not evidence that an official is lying at this moment about another issue (Hardtalk). Talking about the Iraq war is not an answer to the question regarding the integrity of the report writers (BBC Newsnight last night).
Whenever the BBC asks Greenwald to provide evidence that a public official is lying, he talks about the lack of credibility of public officials by referring to the Iraq war and then he states the evidence consist of statements from other public officials. It seems public officials are credible whenever they make statements that support Greenwald’s point of view.
You mean this absurdly hostile interview that got Kirsty Wark ridiculed all over the internet? http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/04/glenn-greenwald-kirsty-wark_n_4043667.html (And which was called “hostile” by all sorts of sites and people?)
It depends on whether they have a pretty strong motive to lie. When they do, they generally do. Sort of like how statements against interest are generally exempted from the rules of evidence ban on hearsay.
You are a supporter of your Great Leader, so of course as any other supporters you will find a rigorous interview to your Great Leader “hostile”. The questions she asked were similar to what many people have asked him before or have raised on social media. The questions she asked the public officials were also raised by many people in politics, social media etc…However, I do understand your dedication to your Great Leader.
“It depends on whether they have a pretty strong motive to lie. When they do, they generally do.”
Yes, for instance to obtain Snowden’s supporters vote they might lie by contradicting security officials who state the documents have helped terrorists. Obtaining as many votes as possible by pretending a pro privacy stance is a strong motive to lie for politicians, isn’t it? Or maybe it is not a strong motive when it comes to a position that supports Greenwald’s views. Suddenly politicians’ lack of credibility is gone when they take a view that satisfies Greenwald. That VIEW even becomes EVIDENCE to accuse the other politicians of lying according to Greenwald regardless that he, himself, continuously blames all these individuals for their lack of credibility.
I might have some solutions. Greenwald can either present evidence as compelling as the ones he presented that proved mass surveillance to back up his claims that the security officials are lying or he can direct us to a politician with credibility,(which is almost impossible) who will certifies that the security officials are wrong. In the meantime I will still proudly hold the Honor you have given me, that whether a journalist presents evidence to back his claims depends on me!
And you are a coward who runs from inquiries he can’t answer: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/13/orwellian-re-branding-mass-surveillance-merely-bulk-collection/#comment-116935
“Coward” that’s set? Come on, Mona, more insults please.
Sometimes, I spend hours and hours answering your comments, demanding answers from you….Ooops that is you not me. You are the one who find so much time reviewing, commenting, bashing, and insulting me.
So you are the one obsessed with what I think!! Well, sorry for all the energy you are spending one me, but I am not obsessed with your opinions. Some of your questions are so redundant and illogic you will to have ask them a thousand times for me to even think about answering them.
And yes, I am very very very scare of you and your impressive argumentative skills.
Is it your view that the level of discussion on social media is the proper model for journalistic interviews? If yes, from where do you derive this standard?
Please cite 3 of these “many people” who asked questions similar to those Kirsty Wark did.
That is laughable question.
A way journalists inform the public is by asking questions to people that most of us cannot access. Journalists gather the public’s concerns everywhere: the streets, the bus stations, social media, surveys…It is the journalists’ jobs to bring those concerns to the individuals that the public cannot access. Maybe your Great Leader believes he should be immune to that process, but he is not. Well, let me rephrase my statement so you can ask another laughable question.
The questions she asked were similar to what many people have asked him before or have raised on social media, on the streets, on news sites, on talk shows, etc.
Bill Maher question to Greenwald: “… I can understand why the president of the United States would ask why does Glenn Greenwald get to decide what is classified to the American people?”
PBS Frontline question to Greenwald “So you’re sitting in Rio. This has all gone down. You’re seeing what’s happening. What are your FEAR, as far as what this means for you and your ability to move around, and your ability to go to the United States, and what the United States government might do to you, simply because you reported the story?”
NPR question to Greenwald “On whether or not the leak has hurt the NSA’s ability to detect terrorist threats”
npr.org/2014/05/14/312454746/greenwald-on-nsa-leaks-weve-erred-on-the-side-of-excess-caution
Our man Alpha Brown claims that this:
is the equivalent of the widely ridiculed performance of Kirsty Wark and her inane and deeply hostile questions put to Glenn.
The Kirsty Wark debacle went viral; the PBS interview did not. Wark’s embarrassing performance went viral because so many were amused/bemused by the woman’s unhinged rancor and hostility. But to little Alpha Brown, there’s no distinction at all, or so he pretends.
What?
Improve your reading comprehension skills.
Formal testing and work performance indicate my skills there appear to be rather advanced. When I cannot parse a paragraph such as yours, the problem almost certainly abides in the writer.
Entering some terms into The Comment Generator™ gets one a graf far more sensible then yours:
or
Much more comprehensible. So Alpha, when next you wish to communicate an idea, stuck some of your “ideas” in the Comment Generator and post those results: http://www.komentz.org/ This should advance the discussion well.
Thanks for your work, Alpha brown… obviously Greenwald is among the most arrogant and biased journalists in the world. It’s a shame so many from the far left, and right, embrace his work. Bias, lies and spin define how The Intercept does business. That’s why so many of their most talented writers and researchers quit after just a few months.
Mona, are you a bully or just another paid troll?
Bully.
I bully the shit out of pompous idjits like our Alpha Brown, and do so by applying his own standards mercilessly to his many risible and illogical scribblings.
“Greenwald seems to accuse a network of bias as a result of tough questions addressed to him.”
You dolt. Glenn’s gripe is over the fact they don’t let him respond to the blatant distortions spoken by the selected government stooge.
I’ve never seen Glenn duck a question that was cogent; hence his constant avoidance of responses to you, alpha beta. You are the number one number 2.
“Glenn’s gripe is over the FACT they don’t let him respond to the blatant distortions spoken by the selected government stooge.”
Basically according to you, he is the one who should decide who gets interviewed first. Even after he was allowed many times to respond to governments’ views on Hardtalk, Echo Chambers by himself and he was given the opportunity to challenge public officials to their face on BBC Newsnight before. So, if the interview format and the schedule are not designed according to Greenwald, then the network is biased. Is that the way it works now?
“His constant avoidance of responses …”
I do not care whether Greenwald or you even read my comments. Fortunately, I am not silenced by the Venezuelan government, so I speak my mind. It is very interesting that all commentators here stating that I am begging for attention are the ones who follow me and answer my comments continuously. One of them (Mona) even stated I am the one who wants to be ignored after she recommended that EVERYBODY should ignore me!
Well, Glenn’s gripe is a small piece of evidence, but not remotely the whole of it. As Glenn wrote early this month (in a column on which you commented so you should know this):
Studies are referenced, which confirm what many people already know, including Glenn.
Whether the BBC committed genocide, started a war, use poison gas against kids going to Kindergarten in 60s, 90s, last year is not the point here. Your Great Leader accused the network of being the “most biased in the world” in their COVERAGE OF MASS SURVEILLANCE. There is nothing in the evidence you provided that supports that claim, because that study had nothing to do with the BBC coverage of mass surveillance. If there is a study relating to that coverage that proves Greenwald’s accusations, please share it with me, so I can bash the BBC as well.
Previously I have asked you about this odd useage. You replied:
And I asked:
Well?
Please provide evidence that I have ever said — explicitly or in sum and substance — that you are “begging for attention.”
My conclusion is that statement from you:
“Hon, you are obsessed with what I, and others here, think about you.” Mona 07 Feb, 2015 3:41PM
Maybe I am wrong, maybe you meant something different, but you have to pay attention to my comments to state what you think about me. Sorry, but that idea does not dominate my mind at all.
Translation: “I, Alpha Brown, yet again cannot substantiate one of my claims.”
That’s bullshit. Greenwald is a bully, and has ducked many questions! I’m still shocked his buddies in the mainstream media– such as Brian Williams– never make that point. He refuses to say how many documents he got from Snowden, and who exactly has reviewed the documents. Don’t be so stupid and subservient to Greenwald that you fail to see the obvious!
I’ll bet you’re also shocked that Kim Kardashian isn’t hosting C-Span’s Booknotes.
Alpha – your assessment is spot on, I made a similar post above. Glenn can evade or deflect questions with the best of them.
I was ashamed as a UK citizen of this committee’s work. Led by the disgraceful Hazel Blears, an ex Labour minister.
did froomkin die?
Glenn, everybody, again I suggest you re-read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” More succinct than 1984 and very on point here.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
While one of the clearest descriptions of some kinds of political language, Politics and the English Language no doubt serves as a primer for those wishing to evade, obscure and deceive.
It seems to me when “torture” becomes “ETIs”, the people mis-using language aren’t blithering idiots — lazy and foggy minded (as Orwell assumes) — but rather very astute professionals who exploit language as a propaganda tool.
It’s easy to dismiss people who use the acronym ETI (for instance) as idiots or State appeasers, but they’re not idiots … and if they appease, they have first-hand knowledge of their own appeasement.
They know exactly what they’re doing.
Glenn complains because the televised format prevents him from challenging his “debate” opponent.
It’s not a debate!
It’s a way of managing viewers’ perceptions.
The illegality (unconstitutionality, etc.) of the NSA mass surveillance program is beyond dispute.
It betrays the most fundamental values of Western society — respect for truth, freedom from State intrusion into private lives, independent adjudication, open government, etc.
Yet it is a fait accompli.
People lack the political power necessary to chase this monster back into a cage where it belongs.
Think of the US as enhanced democracy.
“Mass” and “bulk” mean the same. So do “surveillance” and “collection.” They really are struggling semantically to find euphemisms which can hide the truth of what they do, and failing.
”… mean the same. So do “surveillance” and “collection.”
Utter twaddle. I suggest you google the following search terms ‘define: surveil’ and ‘define: collect’
“As usual, they decided to interview me first, and then interview a security services official after me, so that I could not respond to what the official said.” Glenn Greenwald
Yes, the BBC usually makes it hard for Greenwald to respond to what officials say. Perfect examples are BBC Newsnight in October, 2013 in which Greenwald responded to officials present in the BBC studio, BBC Hardtalk, November 2013 in which Greenwald was given the opportunity to respond (by himself) to what many officials have stated and BBC Echo Chambers, May 2014 in which Greenwald was given the opportunity by himself to respond to what many officials have stated.
They learned their lesson. The way he handled interviewer Kirsty Wark, and “Baroness” Neville-Jones, former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, is as entertaining as all hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkGDTnsOkxM
The Internet exploded with delight at Glenn’s smackdown of the BBC’s absurdly hostile Kirsty Wark. From Huffpo UK: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/04/glenn-greenwald-kirsty-wark_n_4043667.html
Not hostile. Tough questions. It might be the reason he claims “BBC was the most biased network in the world.” Maybe your Great Leader does not feel he should be subject to tough questions as he feels he should decide who gets interviewed first.
And maybe you will finally explain the logical basis for this useage. It’s among the several issues you have steadfastly refused to address about your own standards even as you heavily criticize those of others.
You have claimed:
And I responded:
Well?
I have already explained that usage. However, I do understand you will never stop asking that question because you disagreed with the answer. Unfortunately, I do not have to answer any of your questions. But I might make an exception if you ask them a thousand times. Keep the count because I am not.
Oh dear, I do apologize if I missed it. Please link me to that reply, or reproduce it here.
Thanks.
HuffPo UK headline: “Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald Versus BBC’s Kirsty Wark In Hostile Newsnight Interview”
AOL/UK: ‘Glenn Greenwald faced off against BBC journalist Kirsty Wark in a deeply hostile interview on Thursday night’s edition of “Newsnight.”‘
TomDispatch: “Holy Toledo, you’ve gotta watch this! Glenn Greenwald in a 14-minute interview with the BBC in which the interviewer is utterly, totally hostile, offering up one aggressive, remarkably dumb question after another about how he might be helping terrorists.”
Yves Smith: “Yves here. This BBC NewsInsight interview is a remarkable little piece. Greenwald confronts a clearly hostile set of questions from the BBC interviewer. He is not amused and comes pretty close to giving her a dressing down. Go Glenn!”
There’s more.
Nice smackdowns, Mona; in both replies; thanks.
We may not have a Great Leader, but at least we’ve got a really Great Troll.
Notice that the Tom Dispatch definition of the questions is, “remarkably dumb.” Not “tough,” as the increasingly doltish Alpha brown characterized the questions.
That “Smackdown” is better:
“But I would defend all the questions Kirsty did ask him as perfectly LEGITIMATE. The central charges, as you know, against Snowden and Greenwald are that their disclosures have damaged national security and put people at risk, and that they are not able to keep secure the highly sensitive material they still hold. Those are not manifestly ludicrous claims and it is facile to dismiss them out of hand as establishment flannel. Any interview which did not throughly probe Greenwald on them would have been supine in my view.It’s worth pointing out that these ALLEGATIONS WERE MADE BY INTERVIEWEES IN THE FILM THAT PRECEDED the interview so it would have been doubly odd not to press Glenn on them.”
Ian Katz, former editor of the Guardian
I wish I was a Great Troll, but I am just a highly paid top secret government agent. I wish I could tell you more, but I am G55 fully classified.
Followers of the Great Leader live in their own world where even personal opinions is enough evidence to back up serious accusations and dissenting opinions are automatically qualified as “stupid”.
Oh, Alpha, you are so everything you wrongly argue Glenn is. You dolt, you state:
You know what else Mr. Katz is? The editor of BBC Newsnight. Responding to strong criticism of the Wark performance.
Why did you omit that highly relevant piece of information, Alpha Brown?
Former “deputy” editor, actually. But this is what you left out:The quote was from Ian Katz, as The Current Editor of BBC Newsnight when he made that statement. Your use of that quote without noting that is typical of you. Plus you left out the context from the paragraph that followed the quote, which was this:
“All outlandish claims of damage to national security in response to The Guardian’s publishing of leaks, which cannot be substantiated with concrete examples (and likely will never be), are designed to disrupt and suppress journalism. They should be viewed as nothing less than an attack on press freedom.”
And this:
“From Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Cobain, here are ten good reasons why claims about risks to national security should not be trusted. The list includes clear examples of security services and the government working to suppress information and stifle debate.”
British Prime Minister Endorses Parliamentary Investigation into Guardian for Publishing Snowden’s Leaks
By: Kevin Gosztola
“Why did you omit that highly relevant piece of information, Alpha Brown?” Mona
Why is it relevant? As the editor isn’t he allowed to defend the objectivity of his program?
You also failed to mention that Tom Engelhardt and Nakedcapitalism share and support most of Greenwald’s. Why?
It is actually irrelevant whether they support Greenwald’s views or not. Yes, he is the editor of BBC Newsnight and also a former editor at the Guardian who handled the release of secret US documents (like Greenwald). All of them are giving their opinion regarding the journalist’s performance without accusing her of committing any crimes. Like Ross Clark (Daily Mail) who believed Kirty Wark was not tough enough and BBC Newsnight has become the “Guardian lapdog”.
“Alpha, you are so everything you wrongly argue Glenn is” Mona
I think you should first read and analyze my articles before you compare me with your Great Leader. Snap!! I do not have any articles!!
Another amazing interview Glenn. You need to get on corporate/state TV as much as possible. You always wipe the floor with them and you reach the snoozing masses that won’t otherwise hear this stuff.
Twice the analysis is (literally) emphasized to make the point that what’s being done is more than just “bulk collection”, but in doing so, ground is given. If bulk collection is “mass surveillance”, that’s where the line should be held. To suggest that it’s less of a crime – or less clearly a crime – if the data isn’t analyzed is a victory for the “Orwellian re-branding”. Instead of emphasizing the analysis, it should be placed in parentheses.
“Enhanced interrogation” is a crime only if it can be shown to meet the definition of “torture”. Therefore, if bulk collection is a crime in its own right, the analogy is inapt. And the two decisions by the European Court of Human Rights held that collection (and storage) alone is sufficient for a violation of privacy. So, instead of making it an issue of semantics and propaganda, why not emphasize the point that what is being done is an abuse no matter what it’s called?
Perhaps, but just because something is a violation of privacy doesn’t make it a crime, whether it’s bulk collection or anything else. The question is whether, in ECHR and UK HRA terms, the activity is necessary, lawful and proportionate. Article 8 of the ECHR sets this out clearly:
“1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
Like it or not, no court or public body has found GCHQ’s activities to be in breach of these principles. However it has been found that historically there was insufficient transparency around the safeguards governing these activities; and that UK law in this area is pretty much unintelligible and needs to be re-written (both of these factors mean the ‘foreseeability’ test in human rights law is not met). By the way this isn’t Orwellian, just a bit complicated!
That is just embarrassing. There is nothing human or right about that list of loopholes–morals and economic well being–you guys actually swallow that crap. What the hell is “the right to respect”? Right off the bat it screams scam, but number 2 lives up to its name quite well, because that is just one steaming list of fuck you. Why even bother quoting that nonsense. Pathetic.
…erm, because it’s the European Convention on Human Rights which is the basis of UK human rights law. So whether you think it’s crap or not, it’s the law, and therefore highly relevant to this debate.
Since we are taking about the UK wouldn’t it make more sense to actually post the relevant UK law instead of something that it is just based upon? Unless, of course, that’s all you got–which would seriously suck.
It has got to be disappointing that after writing up that ECHR crap that Saudi Arabia still won’t join the EU.
And I’m not criticizing its precision. The message is loud and clear. Also understand, whatever smack talk I have for others, times it by a million for the US.
To cut to the chase.
You need to prove that Mass Surveillance doesn’t violate the best protections afforded by UK law. All the ECHR says is that your rights concerning privacy and search and seizure are dictated by the laws of the country which currently has jurisdiction over you. Which is a big no shit sherlock moment. It tells us nothing about UK law, or human right for that matter.
If the ECHR is the best protections you got, then you got nothing because it doesn’t actually say anything.
With that said, it would not surprise me in the least that you guys got nothing in the protection department, and I will happily concede that Mass Surveillance doesn’t violate the best protections afforded by UK law.
Sorry thelastnamechosen, for some reason I’m not getting an option on the site to reply to your posts, so I’m having to post here. The link to the UK Human Rights Act is here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents
And the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents
These are the laws that authorize surveillance by UK authorities.
I suspect Saudi Arabia would need to be in Europe to join the European Union.
The ECHR is also a lot more precise than the 4th amendment which refers only to ‘probable cause’.
I love the part regarding in what way a public authority may intervene to put a stop to entropy.
“There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except…, for the prevention of disorder …”
The laws of physics may be affected by an asserted authority to do so; how human.
Lol – nice to get a good joke on this site for a change!
Only to the extent one “gives ground” when accurately stating a process or position.
My point is about what is being emphasized. As the title — The Orwellian Re-Branding of “Mass Surveillance” as Merely “Bulk Collection” — and the text I quoted indicate, the emphasis is on the difference between the two terms. If one believes that bulk collection is mass surveillance, to emphasize the difference between the two is to give ground. It reduces the gravity of bulk collection. If one believes that bulk collection is mass surveillance, that should be the main point.
A policeman standing in a public square is performing surveillance. Twelve policeman standing in twelve public squares is mass surveillance. It merely refers to the act of observing on a large scale.
Bulk collection implies some form of long term storage of information. If in five years time, one incurs the wrath of someone in authority, that information can be searched to find something incriminating. This affords a means of leverage over selected individuals, something which mass surveillance alone does not provide (it is the difference between watching someone and filming them).
So you are correct that one term is not a euphemism for the other – they describe different activities. But to be effective, they must be combined with a third activity – pattern analysis. This makes it unnecessary to wait until someone’s actions define them as a person of interest. The analysis allows you to find them in your data, based on ideas expressed, or networks of contacts, before they even engage in any overt acts of dissent.
All three are required – mass surveillance (observation), bulk collection (storage) and analysis (heuristics) – in order to assign a threat score to every single person in the world. So perhaps an overarching term is required. I would nominate ‘The Disposition Matrix Society’.
Nice try … but here’s how it works benitoe: “bulk collection” is really just pre-surveillance. There is no such thing as “mass surveillance” of bulk collection (for obvious reasons~ i.e. you can’t ‘surveil’ everybody.), there is only possible “analysis (which some highfaluting people call: heuristics.)”.
Now, I have no truck with specific, targeted surveillance. In fact, I would implore those with the wherewithal to target and surveil the ‘bad guys’ as soon as they do bad things (if arrest/capture is not feasible) … instead of this ‘bulk/mass collection’ nonsense. *James Bond targeted and surveilled Goldfinger all the way into Bluegrass Airport and Pussy Galores’ flying circus show (* I was so enamored I subsequently saved all my lunch money and took flying lessons at Bluegrass Airport secretly hoping my instructor would be Pussy Galore!)
(note. “Liberal democracies have laws which restrict domestic government and private use of surveillance, usually limiting it to circumstances where public safety is at risk.” ~wikipedia)
Anyway, the point is: “mass/bulk” collection actually interferes and obstructs the ability to target and surveil the ‘bad guys’. Afaict, bulk/mass collection can serve no useful or legitimate purpose … it can only undermine both liberty and security.
@bahhummingbug
Security evolves. Those used to the old paradigms will resist, claiming that the new techniques must be less effective. But that is just the natural conservatism of human nature at play. Allow me to use myself as an example.
I used to patrol the borders of my land to prevent incursions by intruders. This was exhausting work and took up most of my time.
So I installed security cameras along the perimeter. Now, I could sit in my safe room and relax while I surveilled the rows of monitors on the walls. But this was still just mass surveillance – i.e. observation – and while less tiring, it was still time consuming.
So I wrote some software that would trigger an alarm if one of the cameras detected any motion. Now I could leave the safe room for short periods of time, to do other things like make tea, secure in the knowledge that I could react to the alarm.
But the darn cat was always triggering the alarm, causing me to go on red alert for no reason. So I modified the software to eliminate certain patterns, such as the cat, to reduce the incidence of false alarms.
I store all the recorded video, so that I can go back and examine any anomalies – but full time real time surveillance is no longer necessary. I can even fritter away some time making silly posts on the internet.
My present system, which combines observation, storage and analysis, is far more effective than the old simple one of mass surveillance.
That’s a wonderful system for herding cats and making tea if you’re into that sort of thing. *I am glad you have the luxury of ‘frittering’ away your time here, though.
Now, then …
>”I used to patrol the borders of my land to prevent incursions by intruders. This was exhausting work and took up most of my time.”
Well, I will certainly call ahead from now on! *the NSA apparently assumes everybody in whole wide world is an intruder … friend and foe alike!
>”So I installed security cameras along the perimeter. Now, I could sit in my safe room and relax while I surveilled the rows of monitors on the walls. But this was still just mass surveillance – i.e. observation – and while less tiring, it was still time consuming.”
I should say so. I’m surprised you have time to take a dump. *you know, I can tell by looking at Snowden (a handsome lad) he has spent Waay too much time looking at rows of monitors. I hope he’s enjoying the fresh air of Moscow.
>”So I wrote some software that would trigger an alarm if one of the cameras detected any motion. Now I could leave the safe room for short periods of time, to do other things like make tea, secure in the knowledge that I could react to the alarm.”
Did you write the software that triggered your fear … as well as the alarm?
>”But the darn cat was always triggering the alarm, causing me to go on red alert for no reason. So I modified the software to eliminate certain patterns, such as the cat, to reduce the incidence of false alarms.”
Don’t forget to write software that eliminates Sasquatch (aka Big Foot).
>”I store all the recorded video, so that I can go back and examine any anomalies – but full time real time surveillance is no longer necessary. I can even fritter away some time making silly posts on the internet.”
Not wittingly, I hope? *I’ve often wondered how Brennan and the boys even have time to testify if they ‘collect it all’?
>”My present system, which combines observation, storage and analysis, is far more effective than the old simple one of mass surveillance.”
Dang nation … I only have a ‘welcome mat’ !
Always a pleasure, benitoe.
“(* I was so enamored I subsequently saved all my lunch money and took flying lessons at Bluegrass Airport secretly hoping my instructor would be Pussy Galore!)”
bahmihummerbung hunnee ef u wanna fli wiht poosy golower awl u ned to dew iz cum on ofer too teh Minkoff Hous uv Playjur an we kan huk u up.
Myrna don let teh sawsquatz in ennymoer. tehy broek awl teh furnichur an a gud chunck uv teh budjut don u no.
I must be dreaming … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2nCyF0Lec
To be fair the agencies having been calling it ‘bulk collection’ for a long time. It’s only since Snowden that the term ‘mass surveillance’ has been used by anybody. So whichever term you think is more accurate, you can’t really say the agencies are “now rebranding” mass surveillance as something else. See this link, which shows the use of the term ‘bulk collection’ in Obama’s Jan 2014 speech (i.e. over a year ago).
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/19414/bulk-collection-of-signals-intelligence-technical-options
The agencies did. In August of ’13, The Electronic Frontier Association published ‘A Guide to the Deceptions, Misinformation, and Word Games [Intel] Officials Use to Mislead the Public About NSA Surveillance’ which in turn embeds links to an awesome NSA “bizarro dictionary” which includes special meanings for words like “no.” https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/guide-deceptions-word-games-obfuscations-officials-use-mislead-public-about-nsa
But politicians generally, and certainly the media, did not adopt this Orwell-speak.
Agreed – it’s GG’s claim that the UK government is “now” rebranding that I was unsure about.
The woman that hosted the BBC interview is the most brainless POS yet.
As I read the Guardian editorial, I heard it in the voice of David Attenborough, just as he narrated the Blue Planet series from the Beeb. This lent a fun flavor to it
GCHQ are monitoring everyone’s emails even if they want to admit it or not. The truth is that British intelligence is a rats nest of liars and criminals who should not be trusted. Mass surveillance or bulk collection as they like to call it now has little to nothing to do with catching terrorists or paedophiles. This is just a smokescreen for what they are really are doing with the data that they are collecting like gathering up potential blackmail information on politicians and judges, insider trading or even a COINTELPRO style psychological harassment program called organized stalking. Urban Dictionary gives a short but good description on this little known subject right here http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=organized%20stalking
Perhaps in warped Big Brother logic and semantics, spying on their own citizens only attains the “mass surveillance” level once they’ve identified every single person within 5-Eyes that doesn’t like what they’re doing – and is then able to live monitor each of them 24/7/365? Anything less is still defined as just “bulk collection” because that has to be dug through by computers or humans, at least milliseconds after the fact…
The elephant in the room is why is the government “collecting” everything and how does this differ from “surveillance” (at least in the government’s eyes). I haven’t seen the media really discuss what I believe is the distinction very much. The government has made statements indicating the distinction is to be able to look back at data after something happens. Is there more? President Obama has said “people” aren’t reading your emails.
The article points out how the judiciary can view this as just collecting what is in the public domain (bits over a wire). But this definition has become different from what it was in the 1970s. Things were not done digitally. So maybe you went to Sears and bought something with cash on your day off. But today you do it on a computer or you use a credit card. So every little aspect of your life is out there in the public domain and can be potentially tracked by the government. Do we want this? We are a democracy and if we don’t want it we in theory have the power to tell our elected representatives we don’t like this type of intrusion into our private lives since 99.9999999% of us are not terrorists.
Oh that’s easy. Surveilling means you do it in real time. Collecting means you let it gather then sift through it over a cuppa then apply analysis via heavily rewarded third party ‘solutions’. Collections is when you do not pay an overdue bill. And we all know tbat that is cheating. Surveillance though is wrong because they cannot analyse it nearly as well. Be assured redefining words will make all of this go down much smoother. After all it isn’t like they’re gonna hire tens of thousands of underqualified security guards to watch milions of cameras in each city. For that we need bulk technology and the ability to weed out anomalies. and as a tax payer wouldnt that be a cheaper solution?
“So every little aspect of your life is out there in the public domain and can be potentially tracked by the government.”
At least you’re not in denial that your being cattle-logged. If you want what’s behind that door, you might have to go someplace many people treat like science fiction.
Think: Minority Report meets Soylent Green at Gattaca with orders bellowed from tyrannical experts in an Ivory Tower. That’s beyond both Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
Oh, so you live in a world without eugenics campaigns and genocides? Ok. Go back to sleep then. Zzzzz
Somewhat off topic and hilarious
This story is from the Swedish website thelocal.se and it reads just like the onion.
———
Swede’s 21st balloons dubbed ‘IS’ propaganda
After Sarah Ericsson hung up balloons in the shape of the number ’21’ for her birthday, her home was paid a visit by Swedish police who thought they stood for ‘IS’ and had been put up by supporters of the Islamic State extremist group.
“It was a little strange,” whispered the 21-year-old to The Local from the library at Blekinge Institute of Technology in southern Sweden, where she is taking a course in Spatial Planning.
[…]
A passerby had called them after looking through the window at two balloons pushed together to make the number ’21’ and confusing their reverse image with the letters ‘IS’, which the extremist group also known as Isis and the Islamic State often uses as part of its propaganda.
“We understand why someone would report it if they thought it looked like IS-propaganda, although everyone else just thought it looked like the number ’12’ from outside,” Ericsson later told The Local via email.
[…]
But despite police accepting the error, Åkesson said he was still asked to remove the balloons from the window.
“They asked me to take down the balloons to avoid further misunderstanding. We laughed some more about it all and they wished me a nice day, and wished my girlfriend a belated Happy Birthday,” he said.
“Extremism should always be taken seriously, and we did take the balloons down immediately,” added Ericsson in her response to The Local.
http://www.thelocal.se/20150224/swedes-21st-balloons-dubbed-is-propaganda
What a servile creature.
Cowardliness is a very poor response to fear-mongering.
You are certainly right to credit Orwell. As he stated in his blueprint for society, Nineteen Eighty Four (emphasis mine):
However, Orwell only anticipated a system overseen by fallible human beings, who could easily, through human error, overlook small acts of rebellion. A system of oversight by computers, in contrast, can be created to be universal and virtually perfect so that even the slightest unorthodoxy is detected and corrected with no need for human intervention.
So mass surveillance is inadequate – bulk collection and decision making by computers is a much more robust and desirable system. Those who have ‘nothing to hide’ – the people that Orwell dismisses disdainfully as not ‘important enough to be worth watching’ have finally found a home. Even if they don’t merit human oversight, they can be monitored by artificial intelligences, which help guide them into the same channels of orthodox thinking as their more enlightened peers.
Everybody will be an equal participant in a society of uniform thought, free from regressive points of view.
Oh, great…
I mean, all hail The State!
You appear to be betting that computer algorithms cannot detect sarcasm. This may presently be true, which is why all communications will be stored and subject to follow up analyses. This is similar to the strategy followed in storing samples from drug testing of athletes. What is undetectable today, may be easily unmasked tomorrow.
What is undetectable today, may be easily unmasked tomorrow.
Well then, according to some people here, you’ll be out of a job, eh Beeno? Might even have to report to your local Fusion center for further processing. Of course, as a paid government propaganda stooge, you’ll have your official get out of jail free papers handy I’m sure.
Glenn got it right. It’s re-branding spin. It’s dog whistle to the people making the most money from the machinery that does the surveillance. All that scraping’ and cleanin’, culls and filtering.. that’s $$$ for Booz Allen. Whenever your done giving them your money.. let us know.
When you hear the words ‘bulk collection’ ..that is the sound of monetized saws butchering up your information while these Good Germans pass around the hunks to any ISE with their hand out. Then they re-package to pass it around through every other agency ISE 3rd Party contractor and then recycled redundantly on your dime. Agencies (plural): DEA, CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, DNI (and your securitized/militarized LOCAL PD).. then the Post Office is telling on you too ( X-raying your mail)… and then IRS politically profiling people they’re gonna steal from this year… and then the EPA from the people they’re gonna steal from this year too for their auctions..
It’s corporate welfare and it’s endless, unless you end it. :P
Indeed, Duce, and the only problem is that “1984” got mistaken for a manual of instructions, or at least the “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”, by Emmanuel Goldstein. Text here:
http://georgeorwellnovels.com/books/goldstein-book-from-orwell-1984/
Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka are all mourning their creation, now plainly in control. Hope and change is upon us. War is peace. Bulk surveillance is but enhanced freedom.
The video is great! Glenn bemusedly (and accurately) explains to the BBC “journalist” that she’s proceeding as if the conclusions of eight politicians enjoy the status of a papal encyclical, and the woman snorts — yes, she does.
That snorting action might be an express code of distress to the puppet masters when threatened by a reasonably intelligent argument.
Sort of like an “S.O.S.”
It indicates that she is waiting for further instruction (prompt) to formulate her next gaseous response.
At least politicians are democratically accountable, unlike journalists and TI bloggers.
Thanks to Ed Snowden and a TI “blogger” whose reporting won a Pulitzer, Polk, and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the people now have the information they need to help keep politicians democratically accountable.
And Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize! Doesn’t mean he’s right.
Yup.
Keep believing that elections change everything…
Bush… Obama.
Blair… Cameron.
They’re as different as night and day…
… or at least dusk and dawn…
…. or at least they look a little different… except for the suits and policies.
That’d be right up there with being a bit less pregnant.
And why would anyone with an ounce of common sense give any credence to a broadcast journalist obviously acting as the voice piece media for GCHQ namely the BBC?
Propaganda delivered direct to home courtesy of the Five Eyes.
Bottom line here is that the government puppet masters can canonize their illegal operations with new titles and offer feeble explanations to their collective soul’s (or should I say absence of soul’s?) content.
Mass Collection still equals Mass Surveillance and only a buffoon passing gas out of the the wrong orifice would claim otherwise.
In other words call the illegal activity whatever you want. I call it Bull Shit!
You and Mona were thinking along the same lines as I was when I watched the video. Her demeanor toward Glenn and toward that former GCHQ head showed quite a difference. I also wonder if these surveillance state apologists ever feel the least bit robotic – they seem to repeat the same phrases and lame arguments over and over.
More and more of us should call them on their Orwellian language switch – and keep calling and demanding some real reforms and privacy protections.
“This parliamentary report comes on top of two independent court judgments, which comes on top of two major reports by the senior judge who is the surveillance commissioner, and they all conclude that there is no mass surveillance going on, they conclude that what is going on is within the law, it’s necessary, it’s proportionate, it keeps us safe” – Nomand
Just a few questions that could potentially help determine the validity, or the falsehood of the conclusions in the report: who are these two independent courts? who is the senior judge who is the surveillance commissioner? Are they in any way tied to Parliament or the GCHQ? Would they have any underlying interest in claiming that the GCHQ is not conducting and has not conducted any illegal operations including mass blanket surveillance?
If anybody would be able to answer these questions it’d be much appreciated
“I would say this report should draw a line under these endless accusations that the British Intelligence Community is trying somehow to circumvent the law.”
David Omand sounds an awful lot like Bill Cosby’s lawyer.
I’m new to this fight for our civil liberties, personal freedom and privacy, being an ordinary American citizen who lives a simple life but nonetheless happened to pick up No Place To Hide from the library one afternoon after watching Glenn Greenwald support Edward Snowden on Bill Maher’s Real Time after Richard Clarke, whom I’ve always seen as one of the good guys, called Snowden a traitor. Having read Glenn Greenwald’s book and watched Citizenfour twice, it is so clear to me now how patriotic and heroic Edward Snowden actually is, and how insidiously Machiavellian the United States government and the rest of the world have become. No Place To Hide, indeed; however, I do like hiding out here at The Intercept. Thank you for this good, good work!
Glenn
Also wondered if you had any thoughts or have had a chance to review the newest “immunity” provisions for telcos who “voluntarily” turn over, without warrants, customers information to the government as part of the newly proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that just came out of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Of course Sen. Wyden was the lone dissenting vote.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/12/us-senate-advance-cybersecurity-bill-nsa
Glenn
Did you see this–Julian Assange is finally going to be interviewed by the Swedish prosecutor in the Ecuadorian Embassy instead of Sweden:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/13/julian-assange-wikileaks-swedish-prosecutors-london-interview
I can’t imagine that whatever transpires they prosecutor wouldn’t continue to try and have him come stand trial in Sweden, but you never know. But at least it’s a small step toward resolving the matter one way or the other.
Oops I see you linked it already on your Twitter feed. Should have known you’d already seen it.
Dude… I’ve never seen a host act like such a craven apologist for the powers that be. Not even on Meet The Press, and that’s saying something.
I liked the intro bit asserting no “mass casualty attack since the London bombings is a significant achievement …” as if the only reason for such is the non-mass surveillance that is being conducted so let’s have a little good will.
I also enjoyed the interviewer’s opening to Glenn, “You might not like it but this appears to be a, a clean-ish bill of health.”; typical British ‘Wot’s all this then with you not toeing the line …’. It’s referred to as ‘telling a question’ in an attempt to control the conversation.
So is it ok for me to peek at a woman in the shower as long as I don’t look at her breasts, or any other part of her body normally covered by clothing?
No, no, no! It’s only OK for you to peek at a woman in the shower if you don’t intentionally look at her breasts before you determine whether any other part of her body poses a conceivable threat to someone, and take some photographs of her to add to your archive to help you make sure, if she’s an American citizen, that you don’t inadvertently spy on her again. (I mean, when you peek in her shower again, and make a second batch of photos, and determine whether any part of her is a threat again, you need to run the new photos in your database to compare to the old ones and if they’re a match you have to stop looking, though you certainly don’t need to stop filming just in case she turns out to be a terrorist after all and you need to examine her more closely later)
It is not OK if it’s the Bates Motel.
My bulk finger movements on this enhanced abacus can’t explain how I feel about these i) *** ii) *** iii) *** people.
“Under the guise of terrorism” made me laugh out loud, but it should probably be “under the guise of fighting terrorism.” Also, long ago not “log ago.”
forth last paragragh typo.
“It’s nothing short of astonishing to watch them try to get away with this kind of propagnadistic sophistry.”
propagandistic.
I am no longer astonished by anything the five eyes do. They get away with murder
hunnee propagnadistic sofasstree iz wut Myrna engayj inn wen she survailz a cliumts bullk an determinz it duznt haev teh masss he claimz.
The dishonesty begins at the outset — “if you believe one version of events..”. How either of those BBC employees sleep at night is beyond me. Oh that’s right — all BBC hires are vetted by MI5 so their twisted thinking is baked in.
With his blue tie and suit Glen looks Senatorial.
Senator Greenwald?
Do you think Greenwald could pass the same corporate vetting that Senator Obama willingly submitted to?
Don’t mistake oligarchy for democracy.
Ultimately that should be nothing more than easy fodder for comedians, both professional and amateur, for nonstop jokes and ridicule. But you can’t overstate how improper that statement or request, or whatever David Omand hopes it to be, is.
Also, framing those who have been learning about the reality of the mass surveillance as simply “supporters” of Glenn and of Snowden is an attempt to dismiss everyone who has accumulated enough information to have gathered some level of an educated opinion about the mass surveillance as “Left” “Right” “Republican” “Democratic” or whatever stunted label Omand is trying to cause the listener to imagine, rather than the possibility that people of sorts are capable of, after reading for nearly two years what has come out of the Snowden documents, coming to their own conclusions and assessments based on what they have learned rather than on what they are labeled as.
That’s more sort of fancy talk than I usually bother with about the Omands of government. My short summary is that Omand can easily be recognized as a despicable propagandist liar, and that anyone paying any attention at all should be able to recognize that with very little trouble at all.
Here’s a good debate with Omand:
good point at 23:00- (paraphrasing) “You don’t need a search warrant to go into somebody’s house and look through someone’s filing cabinet, when you can go through the cloud and see what documents they have…our ancient laws have to adapt to us living our lives electronically…When Sir David Omand says he can’t tell you what damage has been done by Snowden and the Guardian, a bell should go off in a democracy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBjlOj–NvQ
1:19 – Omand thinks what is more important than oversight is that the spies have “the right kind of self-discipline”
This is funny 1:27 Omand thinks that instead of leaking and publishing, Alan Rusbridger and Snowden should have marched into congress, and that would have “forced” Obama to do something.
another aspect of David Omand’s entirely expected b#llsh!ting, ad hominem talk is whatever he referred to as “guerrilla tactics” by Glenn …
They do consider outright manipulations by the mainstream media to be “responsible”, so good-old (endangered, rapidly going extinct) journalism is considered now to be “guerrilla tactics”?
Satyagraha,
RCL
Important point to remember. The only real protection that we UK citizens have at present is through the ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights).
It is the aim of the current Conservative led UK government to withdraw the UK from this convention . The excuse being used is that the UK need to be able to deport more immigrants and this line is fed to the media constantly. Never is the protection for UK citizens from mass surveillance an issue in this case.
We have a General Election in the UK in 8 weeks time. If the Conservatives win, polls are currently pretty tight, then it is their intention to carry forward this proposal.
That will leave UK citizens with no written legislation protecting their rights as individuals from the state.
More on the UK/ECHR issues here in this old Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/sep/30/conservitives-scrap-human-rights-act
Yes, The UK government said they want to scrap the Human Rights Act. Or as they put it, they want to “fix” the human rights laws.
“The regime under which UK intelligence agencies, including MI5 and MI6, have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful, the British government has admitted.
The admission that the activities of the security services have failed to comply fully with human rights laws in a second major area – this time highly sensitive legally privileged communications – is a severe embarrassment for the government. “
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/18/uk-admits-unlawfully-monitoring-legally-privileged-communications
The BBC interviewer starts her Orman interview with….”How much of this is REALLY going on?” (Apparently the BBC isn’t sure yet if GCHQ is tapping the undersea cables, or not)
And she let’s Orman end with the accusation that Greenwald and his “supporters” are a threat to security. It stands to reason that if the government sees journalists and their readers, as threats to security, journalists and readers would be among those few *** who legitimately should have their emails read, yes? You would think a journalist, even one on a state broadcaster, would have not let that go unchallenged.
“You would think a journalist, even one on a state broadcaster, would have not let that go unchallenged.”
Yep. I used to think that, not anymore.
WOW. Thanks for bringing that up (I don’t always catch every word on these videos). Yes, you would think a so-called journalist would challenge any notion of any journalist being a “threat to security.” No wonder our “corporate media” is so abysmal.
The joys of automation -or- Even my grandmother doesn’t think computers are autonomous third parties
– Information is collected by computers–but that doesn’t count because a human hasn’t touched it yet.
– Information is searched by computers–but that doesn’t count because a human hasn’t touched it yet.
– Information is scored and weighted by computers–but that doesn’t count because a human hasn’t touched it yet.
– Information that is scored and weighted is then used to direct more computer collection–but that doesn’t count because a human hasn’t touched it yet.
Spies should be seriously worried about their jobs because the five heads see computers as a constitutional and legal exceptions. Nothing counts until a human is involved, so the less humans involved the better.
This philosophy is demonstrated well by the committee report.
The “targeting, filtering, and searching” are done by a computer so, obviously, they don’t count. In the US where there are protections against the actual collecting of information, the information is not even considered collected until it is touched by a human hand.
By declaring that computers are above the law and constitution, governments have made technology the single greatest threat to human freedom. Not because of technology itself, although in some cases the technology is bad enough by itself, but because computers are considered outside of the law.
It’s like saying that land mines don’t count because a human isn’t actually killing anybody.
Exactly, a computer is an artifact. So is a pencil, a calculator, a piece of paper, a pair of eyeglasses
is it reasonable to say “The spy didn’t spy on Smith, The spy merely held the piece of paper which recorded the markings of the pencil based on the output of the calculator and as seen through the spy’s eyeglasses”?
A human made the machine, A human set the machine in motion to do a task. A human received the product delivered by the machine. Whether you crunch the numbers with an abacus or a supercomputer…
the “several stages of targeting, filtering and searching” are created by humans. They could be saints and never make mistakes, never take advantage of the information for personal gain, never use the data for politics, ….or, more likely, the targeting, filtering and searching are done by mere mortals. Putting such a powerful tool, a worldwide data sucking system, into the hands of a secret government body with little visible oversight…is a bad idea.
“In the US where there are protections against the actual collecting of information, the information is not even considered collected until it is touched by a human hand.” Exactly. This is one of the bizarre NSA re-definitions of normal words. Vaccuming up communication and storing it forever is not “collection” in the NSA’s dictionary. That’s how the agency bigwigs get through public Congressional hearings without admitting what they do. That’s how recruiters and agency spokespersons fend off inquiries about whether they do disgusting, unethical shit. “We don’t collect the public’s communications,” they say. They don’t explain that they have secretly redefined the word “collect” to make an end run around the law.
This is the precedent set by the ‘robo-signers’ in the foreclosure crisis. As long as a machine puts pen to paper and says that your house is the property of some bank you never met, it’s all perfectly legal. As far as I understand, you might eventually manage to sue and get a small cash settlement for your lawyer, but nobody’s ever going to jail and you’re never seeing your house again.
Their gobbledygook would make Herr Goebbels laugh! Right on, Glenn
No audio in your interview video.