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NSA links of the morning

2013-12-18 16:40:16.897931+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Edward Snowden's 'open letter to the Brazilian people' – in full (someone copied it on Facebook)

Foreign Policy: Tone-Deaf at the Listening Post: My day at the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade.

... This official also hoped that the Obama administration would crack down on these reporters, saying, "I have some reforms for the First Amendment." I honestly do not know whether that last statement was a joke or not. Either way, it's not funny.

RT Ron Wyden ‏@RonWyden:

Pretty astounding when a fed. judge says "James Madison...would be aghast" while describing a surveillance practice http://www.wyden.senate.gov/ne...bulk-collection-of-phone-records

NSA collection of phone metadata likely in breach of fourth amendment – read the judge's ruling.

[ related topics: Politics Law Current Events Civil Liberties Handicaps & Disabilities ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2013-12-18 16:58:09.703184+00 by: Jack William Bell

Lately I've realized the problem with the national dialogue on this subject is the focus on the surveillance. We need to talk about the bad things that could be done with that information. We need to acknowledge publicly the fact a panopticon society can never also be a democratic society.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-12-18 17:33:04.42028+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

You mean like NSA employees stalking romantic interests? I just tried to find a good example of us ignoring police abuse of driver's license and similar databases for stalking, and the results were so overwhelming I couldn't find a good single example to link to, but we don't see people screaming for better controls on those.

So, yes, we need to do that and we've needed to do that for ages. The problem is that we think of 1984 as a literal story, rather than a metaphorical one the implications of which have already arrived.

And hanging this off here:

RT Trevor Timm @trevortimm

I was going to write a takedown of @60Minutes' awful NSA piece this morning, but the DC District Court did it for me. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...a-mass-phone-surveillance-likely

#Comment Re: made: 2013-12-18 17:59:35.762825+00 by: Dan Lyke

Meanwhile, Oakland internal memos show that the surveillance center the police department has built there is more focused on reacting to political protest than crime.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-12-19 00:01:52.275559+00 by: Dan Lyke

These probably deserve their own front-page post, but they're also blog entries linking to other sources: