US and UK struck secret deal to allow NSA to 'unmask' Britons' personal data

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-deal-surveillance-personal-data

by shill • 13 years ago

196 44 13 years ago

The new revelations on this NSA stuff aren't surprising; the theme has been set and now we're just thinking, "yeah, no surprise there."

bmelton2• 13 years ago

And if they just "stay the course", then the next generation won't think anything about it -- it'll just be par for the course, similar to how random DUI stops work now, which are a warrantless invasion of one's privacy without grounds.

The problem is that nobody really fought that fight, because to do so would have been a defense of drunk drivers, basically. Now DUI checkpoints are commonplace (though some areas are making progress), and things like Stop & Frisk are only problems for those affected.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." — HL Mencken

smtddr3• 13 years ago

it'll just be par for the course, similar to how random DUI stops work now, which are a warrantless invasion of one's privacy without grounds.

I think I'd like the DUI comparison to be expanded on a bit. How are they being used to invade one's privacy without grounds?

denzquix• 13 years ago

Surprise is overrated. The truth has no responsibility to blow your mind every day.

summerdown22• 13 years ago

At least in the Uk, there seems no democratic lever to adjust to change this. I don't know of a single national party that wants to roll back the surveillance.

Following Russel Brand's interview about why there's no point in voting:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/russell...

... all parts of the establishment rallied around, saying how people had fought for years for the right, and how important it was in a democracy:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ignore-russell...

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/05/opinion/liu-not-voting-for...

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/russell-brand-robert-web...

... but really, what's the point? I know there are big differences between the parties, and that voting will make a difference. But so many of the places where their policies are identical are the ones I care about.

I wish this post wasn't coming from a place of deep frustration, but the only way I can imagine this working is as described by Daniel Ellsberg, where learning top secret knowledge changes people:

"... it will have become very hard for you to learn from anybody who doesn't have these clearances. Because you'll be thinking as you listen to them: 'What would this man be telling me if he knew what I know? Would he be giving me the same advice, or would it totally change his predictions and recommendations?' And that mental exercise is so torturous that after a while you give it up and just stop listening. I've seen this with my superiors, my colleagues....and with myself.

"You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you'll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You'll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you'll become something like a moron. You'll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours."

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-...

But if politicians always believe they know better on this subject, what does that say about democracy? And how does this line up with the same people happily admitting they don't understand modern technology?

rst• 13 years ago

Likewise in the US --- Obama campaigned, to some extent, on a rollback of this stuff, but he's been gung-ho in favor of it once in office.

rwmj2• 13 years ago

Politicians do look at how people vote. This is why UKIP has such a disproportionate influence on the policy of the current government.

"Alternatives" to democracy aside, you should vote every time, even if it's for a throwaway candidate that you believe in but think will never get in.

summerdown22• 13 years ago

Could you expand on why it's important to vote, because at the moment I can't see it. Arguably, lots of voting has got us to where we are now.

The main problem I see is that the winning party uses voting numbers to claim a mandate.I'm currently reaching the conclusion that the only way to get meaningful change is for enough people to avoid voting that any idea of mandate becomes ludicrous and the disillusion has to be addressed directly.

dantheta• 13 years ago

I have trouble finding any candidates I can believe in. The only benefit (for me) of the two main parties is that their stance on any issue is widely known regardless of who the individual candidate is, so I can avoid them. I like the idea of independent MPs, but it can be hard to tell ahead of time whether the candidate is a wingnut, even with fairly careful research.

I might vote, but tend to spoil the paper when I can't find a palatable candidate. I also live in an area that has had an unbroken chain of conservative MPs for the last 400 years, and will probably continue to have one for a very, very long time.

ekianjo• 13 years ago

"Alternatives" to democracy aside, you should vote every time, even if it's for a throwaway candidate that you believe in but think will never get in.

Care to come up with an argument instead of saying you should ?

joe_the_user• 13 years ago

Politicians do look at how people vote.

I'm sure that's true. Indeed, in all but the most completely insane dictatorships, politicians carefully consider the behavior of the public.

I would just like to point out that there is quite a gulf between "Politicians do look at how people vote" and "government by the people and for the people". Votes having some effect doesn't make a nation a democracy.

Further, the idea that civic duty can be evoked on the principle that you should vote because it might make a difference is rather dubious. The idealistic energy of the young isn't likely to be mobilized with the slogan, "who know, you might have some effect". On that same principle, I pray to the Fly Spaghetti Monster each night to deliver us from corporate corruption. That too might make a difference.

rett12• 13 years ago

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk

_bfhp• 13 years ago

taken from a blog I keep up with:

poc: capitalistic systems like the u.s. and many other countries thrive on the labor, execution, detainment, exploitation for profits and even processing of minorities into their institutions and even depend on racial inequalities to keep the status quo, the two are undeniably linked. we are so essential to that system's well being that they're still trying to keep us out of voting decades after martin luther king and malcolm x. to remove a strong leg on this oppressive system would obviously mean raising awareness, action and spreading information about such an oppressive system so that we can do something about it like destroy it and replace it for something more humane and less centered around white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism, racism, sexism, neocolonialism and whiteness.

white media:

russell brand: idk things are really fucked, the environment, politics, voting, y'know? something fishy is going on around here and we gotto get to the bottom of it..

white media: OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG REVOLTION HAS BEGUN LATS NIGHT

coldtea• 13 years ago

... but really, what's the point? I know there are big differences between the parties, and that voting will make a difference

I'm not even sure of that. How different was life and policy under Major or Blair?

csmuk• 13 years ago

Fuck all. Different figureheades and parties serving the same idea.

Create• 13 years ago

Our purpose this time being to consider the political meaning of Mr. Snowden and the future he has brought us, we must begin by discarding for immediate purposes pretty much everything said by the Presidents, the Premieres, the Chancellors, and the Senators. It has been a remarkable display of misdirection and misleading, and outright lying. We’ll come back to it, but it will not serve us at the outset.

What matters most—and what it has been the goal of the Presidents, the Chancellors, the Premieres, and the Senators not to say—is how deeply the whole of the human race has been ensnared in this process of pervasive surveillance that destroys freedom.

The fastening of the procedures of totalitarianism on the human race is the political subject about which Mr. Snowden has summoned us to an urgent inquiry. And it is that inquiry which it has been the goal of pretty much every body responding on behalf of any Government or State not just to ignore but to obscure.

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html

w_t_payne2• 13 years ago

Personally, the only alternative that I can think of is suicide. Not a nice thought, but I cannot really think of any other way.

IanCal• 13 years ago

The national identity register was scrapped after it was started, that wouldn't have happened if Labour had stayed in power. The Lib Dems were the main party opposing it, it's one of the reasons I wanted them in.

biffa• 13 years ago

I'll be voting LibDem too. They stand up for civil liberties more than Labour or Conservative. Hell, I would vote for a party that had Ron Paul's values and I am far from being right wing. At least he would strongly fight against the erosion of civil liberties and that's the top priority for me.

znowi• 13 years ago

Russel Brand is right. There's no point in voting as there's no actual representation. Political establishment serves the money. More money today than ever before.

Like with commercials, people are fooled into the electoral system and how their votes make a difference. Look at the US 2008 election. "Yes, we can" and all that. What did change fundamentally?

A problem (or, perhaps, an opportunity) with Russel Brand's message is that the only way to make voting count is to start a revolution. Today's intermingled system of politics and big money will not subside on its own.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Snowden's NSA leaks truly are the gift that keeps on giving.

prawn• 13 years ago

Fiveyesia. Effectively operating as one bloc when it comes to security and domination; at war with whatever parts of Eastasia or Eurasia seem threatening. And the security of that bloc trumps the personal rights of any of its members who aren't wealthy enough to dictate the maintenance of power.

shn• 13 years ago

There's no democracy only a shadow of it. We are pushed and shoved and most of the time did it ourselves voluntarily after listening patriotic brainwashing. We are ruled by elites, by big money, period. Worse is some really think that they own the country. I remember in a movie (can't remember now) a guy asks Matt Damon, Italians has this, that owns this, what you own? And he answers "we own the country". Those NSA people think exactly that way, they think they own you. Big companies think they can bend any rule. So don't expect anything change much for the benefit of the "taxpayer".

I find it extremely weird that these agencies need to hide what they are doing. Why do it in secret if this is democracy? What is wrong with what they are doing if they are not harming people? Gathering intelligence is their job, we need it. Bogeys know that too. But still they need to do it in secret. Then there must be something wrong with not what they do, but what they do with it.

joeshevland• 13 years ago

Unfortunately I agree with you.

I think increasing public awareness and loosening the old media hegemony will change things. In time.

vellum• 13 years ago

That would be from the Good Shepherd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwve70eeTqg

Eye_of_Mordor• 13 years ago

I think we're almost at the point where we all live in this secret state reading the same media and suffering the same banks. It doesn't matter what country you live in or who you vote for - the results are the same. People fought and died for this 'democracy' 70 years ago and it's rotten to the core. Every time I see a politician, I'm looking at a loser, someone who is useless and not part of my life at all. Just a mouthpiece of a failed state.

andy_ppp• 13 years ago

At this point you can't trust the government to even bother to lie to you; just a no comment, as if it's none of your fucking business. Carry on eating twinkles and let us protect you from The Bad Guys.

Wasn't there a time when people accepted the risk of random terrorism as being small, but worth it for our freedoms? I 'd prefer that over "trust me we're doing this for your (our?) own good".

At this point you can't trust the government.

veganarchocap• 13 years ago

I would normally make better points and comments on articles like this, but all I have left to say on this is: What a bunch of utter cunts.

US and UK struck secret deal to allow NSA to 'unmask' Britons' personal data

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