IWETHEY v. 0.3.0 | TODO
1,095 registered users | 0 active users | 0 LpH | Statistics
Login | Create New User
IWETHEY Banner

Welcome to IWETHEY!

New Scaremongering.
Read the comments.

1) The report is out of Germany, not the US. The NSA is supposed to be collecting foreign intelligence - it's their mission.

2) If the NSA is collecting information on and investigating the activities of particular US persons based only on their browsing activities, then they are breaking the law in multiple ways.

3) The code doesn't say "everyone who reads LinuxToday LinuxJournal has a dossier at the NSA". The code is more particular and more nuanced than that. The NSA is looking for foreign people who have a connection to extremism or extremist forums and who are trying to hide their communications. In what way is that an inappropriate investigation by the NSA?

4) As pointed out in the comments, we don't know if the NSA is using things like this as a honeypot to find foreign sources and potential "humint assets" (spies). There could be multiple reasons for doing things like this, none of which are nefarious.


As usual, popular reporting on this stuff eliminates all nuance. It's all "Big Brother NSA is spying on you and reading all your stuff!!!11" It's still not true, and hasn't been true in any of the reporting since Snowden outed himself, no matter how much the scare mongers want people to believe it.

As with almost all "sensational" reporting, it makes sense to turn off one's lizard brain on first reading a report like this and assume it is wrong and then work to find something closer to an original source to find the meat (if any) in the story.

My $0.02. HTH.

[edit:] As indicated.

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who never read LinuxJournal but did browse LinuxToday occasionally, back in the day.)
Expand Edited by Another Scott July 6, 2014, 02:10:13 PM EDT
New OK, you win: they are Trustworthy.
Their individual agendas are 100.0% [in a sand-box] under NSA internal-surveillance.
There are NO wink-wink-nudge-nudge-nudge activities yet-detected==there are none.

I must recalibrate my Trust-[referent] as I see that my calibration has been to NIST-verifiable Standards and my re-Assurance [referent] remains double-plus-Ungood.
I must yield; else: the Rat-cage (though--don''t tell Anyone!--I'd confess more readily in the weasel-cage, as I fancy a greater familiarity with weasel mindsets, during my tenure in the larger-Cage.)

My logic [referent] remains flummoxed, as I cannot bridge the gap from that to Reason [as has no Universal referent, ever since "Your President is not a crook!" was a national best-seller.]
I have corrected my alarmist/too-rigorous interpretation--best I can, all things considered--to reflect a more fair-and-balanced assessment of my environment {mea culpa}

Fool me 66 times: shame on you. Fool me 166 times: shame on you. Fool me 666 times: shame on me.

I shall practice contrition and, as Non-US Persons are non-humans within that External world, I shall no longer ponder the effects of their privacy being our lawful prey, in perpetuity; they will soon grow to love the security which our unassailable efforts towards peace, freedom and Justice will be bringing to the entire planet. How could it be otherwise?

(Perhaps even My Gramma will smile.. that somewhat canted-one? as she finally espies a cohort--a real American Patriot at. last. Fair enough that she receive the confirmation that she was Right, all along.)
(I hope she doesn't insist on the American-Jesus thing, though; I mean.. sharing that Heaven-thing with ... you know.)


Carrion, to the tune,


You who have dreams, if you act they will come true.
To turn your dreams to a fact, it's up to you.
If you have the soul and the spirit,
Never fear it, you'll see it thru,
Hearts can inspire, other hearts with their fire,
For the strong obey when a strong man shows them the way.

Give me some men who are stout-hearted men,
Who will fight, for the right they adore,
Start me with ten who are stout-hearted men,
And I'll soon give you ten thousand more.
Shoulder to shoulder and bolder and bolder,
They grow as they go to the fore.
Then there's nothing in the world can halt or mar a plan,
When stout-hearted men can stick together man to man.

Give me some men who are stout-hearted men,
Who will fight, for the right they adore,
Start me with ten who are stout-hearted men,
And I'll soon give you ten thousand more.
Shoulder to shoulder and bolder and bolder,
They grow as they go to the fore.
Then there's nothing in the world can halt or mar a plan,
When stout-hearted men can stick together man to man.




I so hate the thought that my presence amidst the collective vox-pop might waste the time of even a single Operative: who could be better applying self to collecting information about planned protests by the misguided, those anarchists demanding plebiscites and other local actions with terroristic-potential, should one of them be armed. Or thinking about becoming armed. With a box-cutter, say. or three.

(Will this get me off most (known-) Lists?) I could rephrase for them, if it is, again Double-plus-ungood; I so at a loss for words in this pit-bull -vs- hamster National Contest of Willfulness and Newspeak er, ..you know?)
I Shall Comply, (even though that word [complaisant] retains some treacly overtones of [submission]--all further aspects of a necessary re-[edification], I expect.)
:-)2
Security! Security! ... I'm Secure! At Last!! {sob}
New Come now.
I've said before I may be too trusting on this stuff. You guys may be right. I don't see it at the moment, but it's not impossible that my mind will be changed. It's been changed on other things...

From last July:

http://forum.iwethey.org/forum/post/show.iwt?postid=377823

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Well, I start from here:
As others and I have commented periodically, yours is an impeccable--perhaps unique?--'record' in these parts, concerning an always even-handed er, 'framing' of issues
(especially the root-ones, those whose outcome affects n other huge sub-issues.) ie Should anyone ever impugn your trustworthiness? I'd simply recite my idiot-mantra:
..well, now we know about you; what about Bach?


I replied to those 3 sane, informative links; declaring crap-shoot.. that l o n g year ago.
I could not then rebut the clarity and evident-correctness of their observations, as culminated (in synopsis) in the larger Questions: Whom? would-you ... be willing to trust? Trust!..??
But my answer would remain, as to the highest-levels at which "we TRUST: a One known personally over n-years":
Nobody. And certainly not a collection-of-bodies.

Usually we aren't forced to assign such a meta-human Character to actual persons; most of us realize that we are indeed-All fallible. within our jelloware mix of factoids, theories and emtional responses to all that mix. There are divorces after n-years, betrayals after n-minutes or years, etc. So proffering Absolute-Trust is a denial of knowledge of inner-human monkey-minds, everywhere.

Sane as are your rebuttals to the hysterical, as each event adds to previous: they do not satisfy. How could they, as "Reason-itself is seen to be, increasingly, thrown to wolves"
in countless events we are all privy to. Americans, for the first time IME are being subject to the depravity, crassness/greed: characteristic of many leaders whom 'we' have supported all-along: in our ceaseless construction of pure-materiaistic Empire.

It's a year later.. I suspect that all those people who began from a moderately-open mind from the get-go: when we Knew we didn't know-enough yet to Judge, have refined their opinions re NSA via all which has transpired (maybe you have, too?) We won't 'settle' this demi-issue re. a guy named Snowden, in any near-next, I wot. But the Issue which is really to be faced is: what 1984, Brave New World etc. also attempted to limn: (and is rendered into doggerel by the sanctimonious pronouncements of the Kristols and loonies everywhere.)

I cut some slack for any immediate fulminations of Snowden. or any trivial personal exaggerations: who amongst us could summarily-flee/a so-necessary adjunct--and remain a paragon of wise pronouncements? I submit that we have heard from several since.. in close proximity to him--who agree in his sincerity and his aims--then, as subsequently.
(If he's a 'traitor', via its entirely slippery definitions: he has lots of company in the dis-USA, including moi,)

Maybe it's as simple as: How much Control by Authority? [-figures? -robot-computers? -dogma of all origins?] am *I* willing to accept, while still believing I can live a life something like that limned in the US Declaration of Independence et. seq.?? ..or a hundred other metaphors we each generate in moments of stress.

When I hear a bell which promises some next intrusion into my choices?--Pavlov got it right--I salivate.
Finally: Alex, for just one--has experienced moment-by-moment, the effects of premeditated propagandized strife, as most now alive in the dis-US today.. have only read casually about.
We are all neophytes in deciding next.. how to approach the lessening-of the demolitions we see now, regularly.
I'm sure that we both much prefer that this shall be done by more Words than by The Usual.

Happy post-July 4th: nobody's been assassinated here, lately! :-) {whew}



Ed:oTpy


But wasn't Siggie Romberg a real He-Man cha. cha cha! ... (er, for the Ages Aged?)
Expand Edited by Ashton July 7, 2014, 12:42:40 AM EDT
New Re: Come now. for every cop who uses
the computer to checkout a good looking gals license plate to get an address, I am led to believe all of the fed contractors (except for snowden) would never do such a thing, cross their hearts and hope to die. I am having trouble buying that.....
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Let me know when the NSA puts millions in prison.
We know that the "war on drugs" was used by the police to put millions in prison. We know that Snowden ran off with hundreds of thousands of documents that he swore to protect. We know that he bragged about being able to tap the communications of the president of the USA. We don't know that contractors with TS clearances working for the NSA are snooping on the President, celebrities, or ex-girlfriends, let-alone throwing millions in prision.

Somehow, I don't think the parallels are very compelling. YMMV.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I DO know
That the NSA hands illegally gathered info to the DEA which then constructs reasons to pull people over (parallel construction) as part of the war on drugs, your 1st example. Which in turn SHOULD make you rethink your position.

But you won't.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parallel-construction-revealed-how-dea-is-trained-to-launder-classified-surveillance-info.shtml

And it's a good thing this info came out, since I knew about it long before it was published, via a friend of a friend who did it for a living, which I could not state lest they come after me.

Expand Edited by crazy July 8, 2014, 11:43:47 PM EDT
New Fascinating.. Really! A How-to Manual, redacted-or-not.
No humorous wink-wink-nudge arabesque, but a sequential (straight-faced!) laying out of just How you..

[Ex:]
[Remember, anyone, in the boffo Sir Ian Richardson trio? To Play the KIng ... House of Cards, when: the (woman driving a Saab) goes to pick up the original/sole-copy of a vastly incriminating document re the PM: and the 'Problem' is evident by a glance at the photo-on-top, held in a transparent envelope? She remarks on this fact;
the supercilious custodian (think I recall him as the Heavy in The Raj?) replies.. One Averts One's Eyes. ... you'll recall this snippet: as she leaves with the file, her Saab explodes.
[/]

That's it exactly, and as already suggested n-times ago: for Spooks--in their chosen line of work and via its own Tradecraft-undercurrents of ethics-free pure pursuit of Dirt--the Enemy is indeed the Courts, the Citizens=='civilians'.. and anyone else seeking to artificially hamper The Hunt. Ever-for: its own sake.
qed (for anyone who has ever become Identified with.. any Project whatsoever; thats 99% of the population I know!)

And.. *parallel construction is a stereotypical McGuffin for every such clandestine mind-set, yet. Just a new obfuscation.
* [oblig: cha. cha. cha.] ..for every employed euphemism

Ugly/ugly--and familiar. Of course too, I could very well be mistaken: a million people might, next, come-Alive. (Believe that phenom is labeled "a Conscious(ness) Shock" in some quarters).

Carrion.

(Of course! I wish you Luck on the roulette-wheel of our massively-complexificated, jargon-bound Legal Monster.) Sometimes actual Reason does prevail and you've got enough chops..
not to piss-off any of their primadonnas of pettifoggery: they are soo Proud of their l33t skillz, ya know.
(You do know.)


..Some pretty incisive quips in (the first 56) comments. Nary a bald-faced idiot-troll, that alone surprising. Anyone who's had direct experience of the sort of cop as makes it into our countless links of arrant-Cop-knavery, gets a free overview of just how the dis-USA's path to dissolution Works: er, with granularity.

My next-door neighbor, way-back in the academic ghetto/Berkeley hills: seemed a bright young guy (late teens when I moved-in.) He decided to become a Cop. Met him only a few times over next couple years.
That 'bright young kid' walked and talked like a (restrained-) Storm Trooper, all unawares as to his own changed mien :-/ Reminded of that Ace-bloviator, Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur (and his "old soldiers never die"--soon a pop-song--closure to his farewell address, along with his idea of his last-thoughts-as would be: ..and the Corps! ..and the Corps! ... (and a third one.) Cadets went Wild.. so do they all.

As for, "U.S.A."?

Gehabt! Kindern
New Back to the original Reuters article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

The two senior DEA officials, who spoke on behalf of the agency but only on condition of anonymity, said the process is kept secret to protect sources and investigative methods. "Parallel construction is a law enforcement technique we use every day," one official said. "It's decades old, a bedrock concept."

A dozen current or former federal agents interviewed by Reuters confirmed they had used parallel construction during their careers. Most defended the practice; some said they understood why those outside law enforcement might be concerned.

"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates legalizing and regulating narcotics.

Some defense lawyers and former prosecutors said that using "parallel construction" may be legal to establish probable cause for an arrest. But they said employing the practice as a means of disguising how an investigation began may violate pretrial discovery rules by burying evidence that could prove useful to criminal defendants.

[...]

The SOD's role providing information to agents isn't itself a secret. It is briefly mentioned by the DEA in budget documents, albeit without any reference to how that information is used or represented when cases go to court.

The DEA has long publicly touted the SOD's role in multi-jurisdictional and international investigations, connecting agents in separate cities who may be unwittingly investigating the same target and making sure undercover agents don't accidentally try to arrest each other.

SOD'S BIG SUCCESSES

The unit also played a major role in a 2008 DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; he was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.

Since its inception, the SOD's mandate has expanded to include narco-terrorism, organized crime and gangs. A DEA spokesman declined to comment on the unit's annual budget. A recent LinkedIn posting on the personal page of a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million.

[...]

Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one former U.S. military intelligence analyst.

"They do a pretty good job of screening, but it can be a struggle to know for sure whether the person on a wiretap is American," the senior law enforcement official said.

Tips from domestic wiretaps typically occur when agents use information gleaned from a court-ordered wiretap in one case to start a second investigation.


FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New As usual, you swallow the party line
And I can't post any more on the subject
New No need.
I understand that power can and sometimes will be abused. That's why good people need to be in these positions, and clear rules need to be in place.

The power is not going to go away, no matter how much we wish it would. We need to make sure it's harnessed correctly.

Hang in there.

Cheers,
Scott.
     Hey AS, you ever read a Linux Journal article? - (crazy) - (26)
         So you're telling me ... - (drook) - (1)
             The assumption is - (crazy)
         Meh. It mentions Tor. - (Another Scott) - (6)
             Meh back - (crazy) - (2)
                 Reread my next-to-last sentence. Thanks. -NT - (Another Scott) - (1)
                     Methinks the gentleman doth [Not-] protest too much - (Ashton)
             s/can and cannot/may and may not (legally)/ -NT - (drook)
             Russia offers $110,000 to crack Tor. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                 Re: entry fee required - (a6l6e6x)
         I have the CD archives they've offered... - (folkert) - (3)
             I think they've struggled to attract talent - (pwhysall) - (2)
                 Don't think that would have helped much... - (folkert)
                 Nothing new here - (scoenye)
         Re: Hey AS, you ever read a Linux Journal article? - (Another Scott) - (12)
             so, scaremongering or simply eye opening? -NT - (crazy) - (11)
                 Scaremongering. - (Another Scott) - (10)
                     OK, you win: they are Trustworthy. - (Ashton) - (9)
                         Come now. - (Another Scott) - (8)
                             Well, I start from here: - (Ashton)
                             Re: Come now. for every cop who uses - (boxley) - (6)
                                 Let me know when the NSA puts millions in prison. - (Another Scott) - (5)
                                     I DO know - (crazy) - (4)
                                         Fascinating.. Really! A How-to Manual, redacted-or-not. - (Ashton)
                                         Back to the original Reuters article. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                             As usual, you swallow the party line - (crazy) - (1)
                                                 No need. - (Another Scott)

No clue.
73 ms