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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama Administration Launching NSA Transparency Website
We also will be creating a website next week that is going to serve as the hub for further transparency, so this can be a home for citizens who are interested in learning more about our activities and declassifying efforts in responding to queries that people have about these programs, said a senior administration official on a phone call with reporters ahead of a scheduled President Obama press conference.
The official also said that in line with the Presidents direction, the Department of Justice is going to be releasing the legal rationale for the governments collection activities under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the Patriot Act provides the legal basis for some of the National Security Agency surveillance practices that have become a subject of national contention and a locus for criticism of the Obama administrations culture of secrecy in the wake of revelations leaked by Edward Snowden to The Guardian.
Obamas opening remarks at the press conference on Friday will focus on the ongoing national debate and dialogue that he has encouraged as it relates to our intelligence community and, in particular, our surveillance programs, and some of the steps we have been taking as a government to respond to the Presidents interest in pursuing greater transparency and pursuing necessary reforms to help build public confidence in our surveillance programs and our intelligence community, broadly, a senior administration official said.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/obama-administration-launching-nsa-transparency-website
tblue
(16,350 posts)Least that's what some here have said. That, and it's all a figment of Snowden's & Greenwald's imagination. This will be interesting. Can't wait to see it.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)what can you say?
Aerows
(39,961 posts)I guess we can't all keep up with the times.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)when in fact the most controversial part has been known to anybody paying attention since '06. some of us thought it was f'd up then as well as now. my all time favorites are the strawmen posts along the lines of "if nowden didn't reveal anything new, why is he being prosecuted?" as if the phone metadata program is all he released and as if he didn't steal even way more than he released and as if he didn't flee to an authoritarion country and threaten his own.
amazing, the traitor snowden and his defenders.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)and it has been highlighted that our criminal courts are prosecuting people based upon tips that started with NSA surveillance.
That means many innocent people didn't get a fair trial, and many guilty people can now appeal.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)for starters.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)interpretation of the law.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)point is moot.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)don't care for, no matter who is in the Oval Office.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)but Snowden is a traitor for fleeing to authoritarian regimes and sharing other stolen secrets with them.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)of the person in the Oval Office, and not the principle behind why there are many people that dislike the policy.
Snowden isn't a traitor in my view UNTIL it is completely shown that he has sold government secrets, has aided and abetted the enemy and defied the precepts of the Constitution. I personally don't believe he has done those things. When it has been shown that he has, I'll condemn him as quickly as anyone, you included.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)and you think his KGB handler, excuse me lawyer, isn't part of a mission to drain those laptops?
Aerows
(39,961 posts)or that he has a "handler" or anything of the sort happened. You may be of the opinion that it happened that way, but it doesn't mean that it did.
I don't know. You don't either. We can speculate until the sun goes up and down, but it isn't clear by a long shot.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)we know his lawyer is a big mover and shaker in the Russian state security apparatus.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)in the general public. Do you have some inside information, or is this speculation and popping off? Because either shouldn't be happening if it was official.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Tsinghua University, widely regarded as the mainlands top education and research institute, was the target of extensive hacking by US spies this year
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266892/exclusive-nsa-targeted-chinas-tsinghua-university-extensive-hacking?page=all
A supporter of President Vladimir Putin who supported Putin's election campaign last year, Kucherena also has a legal practice in Moscow that takes on high-profile cases.
He also sits on the "public council" of the Federal Security Service (FSB), which was created by Putin in 2006.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g8VxMJ-Rk1g2-rCyqzjdO2zmuHdw?docId=CNG.4d19f8675cf9b564045e6e60706bbcbd.c1&hl=en
Aerows
(39,961 posts)I think that disqualifies you for discussing tech. Good God.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)no they don't have that kind of storage space. that is ridiculous.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)I'd like to introduce you to new technology. With redundancy. Not just once. It can do it twice. Maybe three times. Failover is amazing, plentiful and gorgeous.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)You couldn't be. Text is easy. Voice streams have become MUCH easier. They can be compressed to 64-bit and fully discernible. Would you like to guess how much space a 64bit or 128bit conversation needs, space wise? A few GPUs that can crunch it? Not much, my friend.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)warned us of the Tsarnaev brothers, and we did nothing about it. All that security apparatus, and they blew 7 American citizens to smithereens, and decimated several people including a man that lost both of his legs.
What did all of this horseshit that we spend billions of dollars on do? Dead citizens to terrorist attacks that this entire bullshit couldn't do anything about.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)And your belief that it doesn't involve listening to or recording conversations is pretty naive. Such a thing would be what? Classified!
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)the NSA has it all.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)they don't even have the space for the metadata.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)You think they don't, and redundancy? Good God.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)That's NOT what this is. Read again: "address concerns over the transparency of controversial dragnet surveillance programs." It's a spin website and nothing more.
Misleading Subject Line. I call bullshit. Again.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)before the crushing defeat comes that it's PR that doesn't work.
I give them points for trying, but their points don't buy jackshit or votes.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)Lord knows what else it will do.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)...it's making a massive database of porn?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)and they are all proclaiming "this is bullshit, and you shouldn't be doing it."
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)but some think nothing can harm them until the poll and public opinion says otherwise.
tazkcmo
(7,306 posts)Our government has no credibility anymore. Are they liars now or were they liars before? It has to be one of the times because the story is changing. Stopped "several" terrorist attacks turns into maybe one. With a warrant turns into mass data collection on everyone for which no warrant is needed. So U.S. Government, are you liars now or were you liars before and why should I believe you at all?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)You know, the 4th Amendment. Don't leave the door open for innocent people to get prosecuted because secret surveillance sets them up to get sent to prison. Don't leave the door open for guilty people to be able to overturn their sentence because illegal (or at the very least, unethical) means were used.
I don't think that should be difficult to understand.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)We've seen evidence that statutes protecting routing data (which is not protected by the 4th Amendment) have been violated. So, since what you want is already what's happening, I guess we're all good?
Aerows
(39,961 posts)in my valid concerns. What is going to happen is innocent people sent to jail and guilty people having sentences turned over. Which do you think is wrong, because I think both things need to happen, and the only people benefiting are going to be lawyers, not people stuck in jail for no reason, and guilty people that get out on a technicality that they are lawfully able to utilize.
Law is to protect the innocent. If it lets go of the guilty, that is the price of living in a free society. When it becomes a tool to subjugate the innocent to beat the innocent and the guilty alike into submission, it isn't law, it's anarchy.
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
Yep, it never really was the surveillance.
nt.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)It doesn't start with a "T."
Response to woo me with science (Reply #8)
DesMoinesDem This message was self-deleted by its author.
DesMoinesDem
(1,569 posts)And like change.gov it will be full of bs and then shut down after it has served it's purpose.
PSPS
(13,635 posts)First, they are going to "address concerns over the transparency of controversial dragnet surveillance programs."
But, no. Not really. It will merely be "a home for citizens who are interested in learning more about our activities and declassifying efforts in responding to queries that people have about these programs." In other words, just more of the same spinning likely with lots of "least untruthful answers."
And then there's the claim that they will release "the legal rationale for the governments collection activities under Section 215 of the Patriot Act." But that's meaningless because it supposedly "provides the legal basis" for only "some" of the NSA's wholesale law breaking. The rest must be one of those many "secrets" that must never be disclosed lest the earth go hurling off its orbit.
Then there's the usual wordy boilerplate about "some of the steps we have been taking as a government to respond to the Presidents interest in pursuing greater transparency and pursuing necessary reforms..." blah blah. In short, as our so-called "constitutional scholar" joke of a president would say, "shut up peons and eat your peas." If Obama were really interested in "pursuing greater transparency and pursuing necessary reforms," he could accomplish that by fiat.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Because what's being kept secret is secret.
AndyA
(16,993 posts)It will load a secret program onto your computer without your permission, along with your IP number, operating system, screen size, etc.
From then on, it will track every key stroke you make.
Oh, it was transparent, all right...it warned you what was happening...the black text on the black background was indeed there!
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)If you fill out these blanks on the screen, we can see if we are. In the meantime, please feel free to go to our, "Ask Mr. Privacy" forum, where we have "Privacy Stranger Danger" for your kids, "Paranoid Me" the simple question and answer area about stuff all things that we will tell you are paranoid about, and how you as an average citizen do not have to worry about anything in the least.
The "Mr. Privacy" forum is moderated by a third party multinational that hires mostly Cheetos eating non-dating moderators, so keep it clean, don't ask TOO many probing questions, do not mention any household cooking equipment, except for Martha Stewart mixers, and please do not mention the Obama administration or it's policies, as there is another site on the internet that can handle the "issues" you may have with it with people trained to do that.
Remember, your rights as a citizen are important to us! Give us feedback at the "Chattin' bout Delusions" area, and as always we hold your information and your rights to privacy sacred.
At this moment, your computer will start a non-denominational prayer to begin your session.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)"Now don't worry citizen, all your concerns about transparency will be kept private here":
AppleBottom
(201 posts)After all we don't have a domestic spying program right? So why all the sudden lip service for NSA transparency...
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)"In the opening remarks to his press conference, Obama promised that the NSA would hire a full time privacy and civil liberties officer."
Uh, yeah.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And it's going to tell us all about installing skylights in the NSA data center in Utah in order to go green.
Autumn
(45,120 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Wait...even more fun than coloring, maybe they'll have pages where you can click on a word to redact it with a black rectangle. You win once you've redacted all the nouns on a page.
millennialmax
(331 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)I'm terribly sorry that reality refuses to line up with the points you'd like to be able to make.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)that need connect the dots and paint by numbers kits.
Asking if the telecoms have storage capacity. For fuck's sake. It's like asking if the sea has enough water and salt.
Response to DisgustipatedinCA (Reply #53)
deenamathew This message was self-deleted by its author.
Cha
(298,018 posts)Russia already has one. they'll accuse PBO of copycatting Putin.. that champion of Human Rights.
"These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations."
http://wikileaks.org/Statement-by-Edward-Snowden-to.html
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)and contains as much useful stuff as this website likely will.