Snowden and the questions it asks.
 

Watched Snowdon last night and it left me with more questions than answers.

1. If the US can do this then so can Russia, China, US, UK and a few more countries. So stopping the US doing it is not going to protect your privacy.

2. What is privacy in the 21st Century and how do we achieve is? Definitely not by going online.

3. How many people have been saved, can be saved and how many events like 9/11 have or will be avoided because security forces are look at what people are doing online and their phones?

Personally, I do so little that it no longer bothers me that huge computers are recording this message. From GFY>Google>NSA.

As for security forces looking at naked pictures posted online by girls for their boyfriends. The best way to avoid that is to take away their phones.

It's time to realise the 21st Century is the time when being online or on a mobile phone. You give up any right to privacy.

Been resisting watching the movie, not sure how interesting it would be :2 cents:

I haven't watched the movie but.... I've always assumed that the US, Russia, China, UK, Germany, France, and others, can hack at will....

In the 1990s I worked for the phone company. I was a supervisor at a Pacific Bell directory assistance office (remember 411?). We had two large "operator" rooms where the phone operators worked, and in-between them was the switching room... Which connected all of the phone lines in the entire area code. At times I was in charge of the entire building. Once a week or so the FBI would come in to tap phones. You could see the taps on the floor - the recording devices were about the size of shoe boxes and just sat there on the floor. This was thirty years ago. I can only imagine what they can do now.

I don't care. People get all crazy when it comes to "privacy". My text messages are always about future plans, where we are going to meet, what time, etc. I'm not involved in anything illegal. Worst case they might discover I like watching spanking videos, but that is hardly a secret.

1. Don't plan illegal actions on the Internet.
2. Don't say anything you do not want to be repeated in a court of law.
3. Don't engage in any illegal porn you are being watched perhaps.

?Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then.? ― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

I love how you jump into just about every thread about the election and call the people in the US sheep for voting for Hillary or being controlled by the 1% and the career politicians, but you have no problem just rolling over and surrendering your privacy to them.

It's 100% propaganda

Welcome to 10 years ago Paul :thumbsup

Use anonymous browsers and encrypted messaging.

Pro tip, when you do commit your crime make sure to leave your cellphone on and at home streaming netflix or some music app!

Thanks :thumbsup

Not bad but fails to ask or answer the important questions. Way too liberal in its approach.

I make a choice between surrendering my privacy and catching criminals who want to kill us.

You obviously have also surrounded your privacy by posting online. You cab regain it be throwing out your computers and cell phones. The Ethernet is now like the streets where police patrol, it's open to being spied on.

And stay indoors and put blinds over the windows so no one sees you.

Always assume your shit is being monitored and don't send stuff you don't want others to see, read, or hear

While I understand that pretty much everything you do online is tracked and logged somewhere by someone, I still like the idea that the government can't read my text messages or listen to my phone calls, or read my emails without a warrant. Just allowing them to spy on people whenever they want for whatever reason they want is a terrible idea and a terrible precedent to set.

Snowden (the film) was OK.

Citizen Four (the documentary) was great :2 cents:

Citizenfour (2014) - IMDb

Funny. I checked the Citizen 4 link and after a few seconds the screen went white and I got the connection reset notice.

I guess William Binney is right about monitoring and the fake news Russia hacks. GFY>NSA>Google.

Do you prefer 9/11 attacks?

Until the West pulls out of fucking up the ME. It will always be at risk with 9/11 style attacks. Paris, Ohio, Orlando, San Bernardino, Garland, Boston, etc. Were ones the security forces failed to prevent.

How many of these were because of information the security force gleaned from, reading text messages or listening to phone calls, or reading emails?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...orist_attempts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ates_post-9/11

Let's be honest no one is looking at what you do. It would take a staff of 10, million to look at every individual. Computers employ bots to trawl for keywords that flag certain people and habits. Then a human looks at it and a warrant is minutes away if required.

The problem for those collecting this information is not revealing how they do it or that it works. No point in telling the enemy you are watching them.

But and it's a big one. The people trawling for this information have to answer to the President to ensure they're effective.

Therein is the problem. There are rules in place that these people are supposed to follow and they are not. Snowden proved this with what he leaked and nothing has happened to change that. The only one punished was Snowden himself. Add in that there isn't any credible information that proves these programs even work and it makes is scary to me.

No, they likely don't give a shit about an average person, until that average person fits a keyword profile. There was a guy here in Portland not too long ago who was arrested and held without any charges filed against him for three weeks. He was suspected of being a terrorist. Turns out he was a college student researching terrorism. He lost his job and had serious issues catching back up at school, not to mention all the idiots who now think he actually is a terrorist.

I look at it like this. If you give the government a little power they will want to take a lot and once they have a lot they aren't going to give it back. With no checks and balances, the power can be easily abused. There are plenty of ways for our law enforcement officers to keep us safe without these crazy invasions of privacy.

Also, we had plenty of warning about a 9/11 type of attack. Our intelligence agencies told Bush and Ashcroft that Bin Laden was planning an attack many times. They ignored the information. Ashcroft even told them to stop bringing Bin Laden up to him. Had they listened to the intelligence they may have been able to stop it without a massive NSA data mining campaign.