
Jimmy Carter Believes NSA Is Reading His E-Mails [video] - drkrab
http://time.com/34848/video-jimmy-carter-believes-nsa-is-reading-his-e-mails/
======
roflc0ptic
What a well made, awful little article. "But hey, for all you critics, there's
always the Carter method." This is intended to be funny, but it's also
intended to be belittling. Framing not wanting to be spied on as being a
"critic" is reasonably toxic.

"The NSA can keep phone records made from another country for up to a month."
As far as details to share, like. This has to be intentionally weak. Other
details they could share: the NSA scoops up your emails and your phone
records.

I don't know what the mechanisms are (e.g. I'm not positing lizard men are
doing this), but way in which so much reporting aims to delegitimize any
opposition to total surveillance is fascinating. What causes this?

~~~
acqq
Luckily there is a transcript:

[http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-
transcript-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-
march-23-2014-n59966)

Q: "the N.S.A. has argued that this kind of intelligence gathering is critical
to try to protect the American homeland?

JIMMY CARTER: That has been extremely liberalized and, I think, abused by our
own intelligence agencies. As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my
own communications are probably monitored."

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fiatmoney
The usefulness of the mail system for anonymous/pseudonymous communication is
really underrated. It's pretty easy to mail a reasonably tamper-evident,
encrypted letter anonymously in a way that doesn't raise any red flags and is
unlikely to result in the ciphertext being noticed and stored forever. This is
more than can be said for PGP-encrypted email.

~~~
chimeracoder
IANAL, but IMHO, the _only_ reason that snail mail is more secure/private is
due to the laws that protect snail mail (extensive), versus the laws that
protect your email inbox (nonexistent).

Keep in mind that the USPS can (and does) scan the front and back of
envelopes[0]. Keeping this information indefinitely is tantamount to storing
email "metadata" (information which is intrusive enough that it's what caused
Groklaw to shut down).

Also, it's easier than one might think for a determined adversary to discern
the contents of the letter - either by opening it carefully so that it appears
unopened, or by (e.g.) shining a light to

There are defenses against this too, but I wouldn't assume the physical post
is inherently more secure than email.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-
illegib...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/us/where-mail-with-illegible-
addresses-goes-to-be-read.html) \- I can't find the original link that
asserted that they store this information indefinitely, but IIRC the USPS
didn't make much of an effort to hide it.

~~~
fiatmoney
Yes, pmail is strictly more secure than email (noting that nothing is 100%,
blah blah). A letter contains less metadata than email - only the recipient
address needs to be valid, where "validity" means "corresponds to a
deliverable address" with no requirement that it correspond to a particular
identity. Merely observing the contents, without triggering your tamper-
evidences, requires at least semi-skilled labor. This labor needs access to
the physical letter, which means the USPS at some point is directly involved
in cooperating & keeping their mouths shut. Notably, applying all this takes
the adversary more time per interception than it takes you to write another
letter. The contents can still be encrypted regardless.

Do not make the perfect the enemy of the better. This is the kind of thinking
that gives us big scary warnings for self-signed SSL certificates, and lets
plain HTTP connections proceed unmolested.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
This is a pdf for a camera that has the same sensor as is used in mail sorting
equipment.
[http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_...](http://fairchildimaging.com/files/2kand4klvcameramanualrevc_001.pdf)
Here is the equipment in action.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynZ4klX2BE)

I never built mail sorting equipment, but I did work with that camera quite a
bit. It has very good sensitivity. For a lark one day, I decided to see if I
could read mail through the envelope. So, I fed some junk mail in front of it
and found that for non-privacy type envelopes, it was almost as easy to read
what's inside (top page) as what was on the outside of the envelope. Multiple
pages stacked and folded made it impossible to read everything, but you could
have read the outer page portion of a tri-folded letter on each side. Keep in
mind that I implemented this for fun on a slow afternoon (and it required no
special wizardry). Given time and resources, maybe a second camera or
different lighting, a lot more might be achieved. Even a naive approach of
scanning a letter multiple times under different lighting conditions might be
enough to read a large fraction of letter mail. It would take less than a
minute. It would not require opening or touching the letter more than an
ordinary mail sorter.

Now I am not alleging that I think that all mail is stored/read, but I am
saying that the tech needed to do that to some degree exists and is at least
partially in place.

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pnathan
I am sorry for Mr. Carter, but the NSA is also reading everyone else's email.
He is not special in this regard (although I am sure his correspondance is
significantly more interesting than mine).

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lotsofmangos
Is probably the only method you could use to get people at the NSA to read
correspondence from Jimmy Carter anyway. Hell, it may even do them some good,
they might quit the day job and go take up disease eradication, or something.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
The NSA has some fondness for Carter. They named their submarine after him.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter)

I still haven't figured out if it is meant as an insult, or if Jimmy Carter is
some kind of super secret spy.

~~~
lotsofmangos
That's not its name, it's a designation. It's the sub that's assigned to
spying on Jimmy Carter.

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tmzt
I guess their activities vis - a - vis him are not covered in his daily
briefing, assuming he elects to receive one.

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d0vs
Just curious, for what reasons could Carter "communicate with a foreign
leader?"

~~~
andyjohnson0
Possibly:

 _" Presidents may use their predecessors as emissaries to deliver private
messages to other nations or as official representatives of the United States
to state funerals and other important foreign events. Richard Nixon made
multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia and was lauded
as an elder statesman. Jimmy Carter has become a global human rights
campaigner, international arbiter, and election monitor, as well as a
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize."_ [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States#Post-
presidency)

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coldtea
Believes? Of course they are.

------
mpyne
Interesting Jimmy Carter international diplomacy fact: During the lead-up to
the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, Carter wrote to many foreign leaders and
members of the UN Security Council opposing U.S. action and urging those who
received his letters to oppose White House policy in favor of his diplomatic
strategy.

He later did the same thing to Clinton, though not nearly so bad.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2002/05/jimmy_carter.html)

~~~
alex_young
Why is this bad? Isn't diplomacy an inherently good thing?

BTW, that article is almost hopelessly hyperbolic. I really want to understand
why diplomacy and Carter's advocacy are potentially wrong, but the author
choose to level a personal attack rather than making reasoned arguments which
may or may not have lead me to understand his position.

~~~
mpyne
It is hyperbolic, but I was honestly surprised when Googling that anyone had
written an article about it at all (I had learned of the meddling from
Scowcroft/Bush's book).

To answer your question though, diplomacy is certainly good and should be the
first choice. But it's not "inherently good"; just ask Czechoslovakia how they
felt about Chamberlin's diplomacy with Hitler.

More to the point, nations have to live with the results of their diplomatic
efforts, so it's important that those efforts are attuned to work together.

If you were a CEO trying to shift company strategy to focus on a certain goal,
you'd find it at least annoying if a former CEO went out and directly worked
against that strategy because they "had a better way to do it". Even worse,
being pulled in both directions could end up leading to a worse outcome for
that company than if one or the other solution had been chosen.

~~~
unclebucknasty
OTOH, Carter was not a party to formal diplomatic channels and did not
represent himself as such. I doubt that he generated confusion WRT whatever
official diplomacy may have been taking place. In fact, his point was that
there was none to speak of; only a march to war.

So, another way to look at it is that he is retired from public service and is
simply a private citizen who also happens to have a pretty big megaphone due
to his former gig (and humanitarian work thereafter). He has a responsibility
to speak out when he believes his country is running off the rails, as do all
American citizens. His voice just happens to carry a bit further than most.
So, in fact, one could argue that his is a greater responsibility to speak
out.

~~~
mpyne
> So, another way to look at it is that he is retired from public service and
> is simply a private citizen

He was President of the United States. He will have a State Funeral held upon
his death (a date which will be too soon no matter when it happens). He is the
farthest thing from "simply a private citizen", at least in the context of the
foreign policy of the nation he led for four years.

But either way, go check out the "Carter Doctrine", which he promulgated
during his term in office if you think he was opposed to all force.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Michael Jackson also had a pretty massive funeral, but WRT to U.S. Foreign
policy he was a private citizen. Yes, the country will "officially" honor
President Carter upon his passing; and yes, we still call him President
Carter, but there are no foreign leaders who believe that he is driving U.S.
Foreign policy. As such, his statements were simply the opinions of a well-
known private citizen who objected to the country's march to war (along with
many others).

> _if you think he was opposed to all force._

Well, I never said he was opposed to all force.

EDIT: BTW, did you edit your comment to which I first responded on this
thread? Seems that there was initially language in it suggesting that Carter's
statements might have created confusion about official U.S. foreign policy.
That's actually what I was addressing. Guess I should have quoted.

