Is surveillance justifiable?

[Serpentine]

 

[Star Wars]

100 times more people die of bathtub drownings in the U.S... does that mean NSA should have cams inside the bath tub ?

 

[Tanja]

100 times more people die of bathtub drownings in the U.S... does that mean NSA should have cams inside the bath tub ?

LOLOL no, NSA knows people die before they die =)) if they die, it is NSA's intention

Julian Assange said "victory of sorts" for Edward Snowden

After Obama's announcement of considering to limit the surveillance programmes in order to restore public trust, WikiLeaks founder stated it was "a victory of sorts" for Edward Snowden and his supporters.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called President Barack Obama's announcement of plans to limit sweeping US government surveillance programmes a "victory of sorts" for fugitive former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

"Today, the President of the United States validated Edward Snowden's role as a whistleblower by announcing plans to reform America's global surveillance program," Assange said in a statement on Saturday.

"Today was a victory of sorts for Edward Snowden and his many supporters," Assange said in the statement, which was posted on the WikiLeaks website. He also stated that the people of the U.S and around the world owe whistle-blower Edward Snowden a debt of gratitude.

"The simple fact is that without Snowden's disclosures, no one would know about the programmes and no reforms could take place," he said.

Assange accused the US government of "stunning" hypocrisy in its treatment of Snowden while it gave asylum to thousands of dissidents, whistleblowers and political refugees from countries like Russia and Venezuela. He stated that Obama goverment had prosecuted "twice as many" whistle blowers as all other US administrations combined.

In announcing his reform plans on Friday, Obama vowed to improve oversight of surveillance and restore public trust in the government's programmes, saying the United States "can and must be more transparent."

 

[MtRtMk]

Interview with the founder of Lavabit. Look at how carefully Levison has to choose his words.

[Sorry. Not enough posts for direct links. Just replace * with w]
EXCLUSIVE: Owner of Snowden’s Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov’t
w*w.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service

Also, a related interview with an ISP who was gagged by the FBI.
Former Internet Provider Gagged by National Security Letter Recounts How He Was Silenced for 6 Years
w*w.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/former_internet_provider_gagged_by_national

Of particular note is a clip of Obama (in the second link) when he was a Senator in 2005 (contrast it with his behavior now), in which he states,

This is legislation that puts our own Justice Department above the law. When national security letters are issued, they allow federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive, how wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary. All that is needed is a sign-off from a local FBI agent. That’s it. Once a business or a person receives notification that they will be searched, they are prohibited from telling anyone about it, and they’re even prohibited from challenging this automatic gag order in court. Even though judges have already found that similar restrictions violate the First Amendment, this conference report disregards the case law and the right to challenge the gag order. If you do decide to consult an attorney for legal advice, hold on. You will have to tell the FBI that you’ve done so. Think about that. You want to talk to a lawyer about whether or not your actions are going to be causing you to get into trouble. You’ve got to tell the FBI that you’re consulting a lawyer. This is unheard of. There is no such requirement in any other area of the law. I see no reason why it’s justified here. And if someone wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document, through the library books that you read, the phone calls that you’ve made, the emails that you’ve sent, this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear your plea; no jury will hear your case. This is just plain wrong.

 

[Tanja]

NSA surveillance program does not harm anyone (?!)

The White House on Wednesday denied that the NSA has domestic Internet surveillance program and "domestic information was only occasionally accessed by the NSA" Josh Earnest said.

 

[Tanja]

Interview with Jillian York (part 1)
Interview with Jillian York (part 2)

FNOTW is honored to have an interview with Jillian York. This part of the interview covers Jillian's activities as a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and her opinion on regulation on the Internet.

FNOTW: Could you introduce about yourself?

Jillian: My name is Jillian York and I work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. My background is in looking at free expressions, online censorship, surveillance privacy with the focus on the Middle East and North Africa.

FNOTW: What have been your activities of Electronic Frontier Foundation?

Jillian: As an organization, we work on all forms of digital rights in the US and internationally through different strategies.

Strategy in the US is typically policy through education as well as advocacy in technology. International strategy is the focus on policy, technology, capacity building and activism.

FNOTW: What inspires you to devote your effort to Freedom of Expression?

Jillian: I got into this space because about 10 years ago, when I lived in Morocco and I first encountered censorship on the Internet myself and I got interested in the implications of that. And I later worked on academic researches on internet censorship and then became an activist through there.

FNOTW: What are your thoughts on the freedom of expression over the Internet at the moment around the world?

Jillian: Actually what I notice is the similarities more than differences. It’s true that there are varying degrees to which the government censors the Internet. So what you see is for example Saudi Arabia is incredibly restricted, same as China, Vietnam, Iran, Tunisia before the revolution and other countries. But in the same time there are many similarities between countries such as the type of technology that they use. There are a lot of similarities in countries which have different primarily religions, which I think is really interesting.

One of the thing that I interested in is how Saudi Arabia is more similar to China now to say Morocco. What fascinated me the most is what make these countries similar.

The other component would be the fear from the government. The government fear the level and amount of expressions that the internet affords us.

FNOTW: Do you think that freedom of expression should be totally unregulated or somewhat regulated?

Jillian: I am actually sort of free speech absolutist. I believe that we should be able to be free to say whatever we want. I don’t believe in any prior restraint on speech.

But at the same time, regulation itself, regulation on the internet is still a necessary feature so there are areas in which it does make sense to regulate the use of internet. I just don’t believe in the regulation in speech on the internet.

FNOTW: As FNOTW covers the most debatable conflicts around the world such as China-Tibet, Syrian conflict, Israel-Palestine, Turkey, etc. we are aware of the challenges the people have met over the communication on the Internet. Most of all, the government has the power to control media or shut down the internet connection in order to prevent the opposition from spreading their own propaganda.

What do you think about that? Is this justified that the power of the Net lies in the hand of the government?

Jillian: This is something that concerns me that the government has more power than citizen in the Internet or far beyond the Internet.

Specifically, in terms of government propaganda, like you see countries like China with their fifty cent army pay people to leave certain type of comments or report on inappropriate speech on social media platforms. And we see that sort of things spread in other countries including democratic countries like Israel.

I think that’s something we would see more in countries like the US in the future and that really does concern me. In a lot of these cases, government propagandas are disguised as ordinary conversations. We have seen like Bahrain and Syria pay people to defend the country but pretend to be ordinary people. I think that’s where propaganda becomes particularly nefarious.


FNOTW: So who should take control of the Internet? Or should anybody at all?

Jillian: This is a really tricky question. The traditional form of internet governance has come from the multi-stakeholder initiatives, where governments, companies and NGO’s, etc. all take part in the conversations in the Internet Governance Forum, which happens every year, the world’s ever known information society.

But none of these have sort of binding resolutions that come from them so nation state are still able to regulate the Internet as they see fit. And we do see this happen even in the US, for example when it comes to copyright.

So it’s hard to answer the question who should take control of the Internet. But I do still believe in the approach of multi-stakeholders on the Internet where everybody has a fair say.

FNOTW: But if the government is involved, of course they want to take control?

Jillian: We cannot easily wrest control of the internet from governments. What we can do is to keep control over the technologies that we use through the Internet, for example cartography. That’s something where I would want to ensure that governments don’t have control over, for example, the key length of cartographic software.

http://fnotw.org/Article/Full/2574

 

[Karasonmuno]

Whatever "harm" the revelations brought were far outweighed by their gains. The U.S. cannot be allowed to continue its illegal surveillance over the world.

 

[Arya Desa]

Whatever "harm" the revelations brought were far outweighed by their gains. The U.S. cannot be allowed to continue its illegal surveillance over the world.

Say the man from a country where freedom isn't even in their lexicon.