Summary: Even the best journalists and national security experts have difficulty with technical stories like the recent NSA revelations. Today Marcus Ranum (bio) cuts through the government’s lies, explaining the truth behind the NSA’s tapping vital telephone and email communication systems.
.
Article deleted at author’s request.
For More Information
Background:
- An archive of articles about the government’s increasing surveillance of Americans, at ProPublica
- A summary of the many different means by which the government spies upon us at Washington’s Blog, 6 June 2013
- “Fair Warning: Julian Assange’s Cypherpunks“, Adam Morris, Los Angeles Review of Books, 28 April 2013 — Assange warned us
- “The NSA Doppelganger“, Rick Perlstein, The Nation, 7 June 7, 2013
The revelations:
- “The National Security Agency: surveillance giant with eyes on America“, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, 6 June 2013 — “The NSA is the best hidden of all the US intelligence services – and its secrecy has deepened as its reach has expanded”
- “NSA taps in to internet giants’ systems to mine user data, secret files reveal“, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, 7 June 2013 — “Secret PRISM program gives intelligence agency access to web and email of Google, Facebook and Apple customers”
- “U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge“, Washington Post, 6 June 2013
- “Boundless Informant: the NSA’s secret tool to track global surveillance data“, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, 9 June 2013 — “Revealed: The NSA’s powerful tool for cataloguing data – including figures on US collection”
- “Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations“, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, 9 June 2013 — “The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows”
- Important: The NSA Files at The Guardian — archive of the leaked documents and news articles
Analysis:
- Priorities of Justice in New America: “Judge behind phone records threw out Obamacare“, AP, 6 June 2013
- “Could There (Finally) Be a Backlash Against Domestic Surveillance?“, John Sides (Prof, Political Science, George Washington U), The Monkey Cage, 6 June 2013 — The answer is no.
- “The Perils of (Vague Delegations of) Power“, Andrew Rudalevige (Professor of government, Bowdoin), The Monkey Cage, 6 June 2013 — Why could the government collect data on pretty much every phone call you make? The answer gives a lesson in legislative drafting
- Section 215: The White House’s Bullshit Talking Points, Marcey Wheeler, 6 June 2013
- “What’s the Matter with Metadata?“, Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 6 June 2013
- “Public Documents Contradict Claim Email Spying Foiled Terror Plot“, BuzzFeed, 7 June 2013 — “Defenders of “PRISM” say it stopped subway bombings. But British and American court documents suggest old-fashioned police work nabbed Zazi.”
- “The tangled web of empire“, Stephen M. Walt (Prof of International Affairs, Harvard), Foreign Policy, 7 June 2013 — The government’s growing power is an inevitable result of the Long War.
- “Security-State Creep: The Real NSA Scandal Is What’s Legal“, Rebecca J. Rosen, The Atlantic, 7 June 2013 — “The Court has failed to develop a robust system for applying the Fourth Amendment meaningfully to the questions of the 21st century”
Consequences: the US government has just trashed the overseas reputation of our tech & telecom industries
- “How PRISM could ruin Apple, Google, and every other big tech company“, Farhad Manjoo, Slate, 7 June 2013
- “NSA Surveillance Threatens US Competitiveness“, Richard Stiennon, Forbes, 7 June 2013
Posts about these revelations, and what they show about America:
- Attention fellow sheep: let’s open our eyes and see the walls of our pen, 2009 — Five years ago these programs, and their growth, were easily visible. We just didn’t want to see.
- The NSA news might be a birthday for the New America!, 7 June 2013
- The US government spys on us because America is a democracy, 8 June 2013
- Our opinion leaders defend the government’s surveillance programs, 10 June 2013
We must conquer the future, or it will conquer us
.
.