

Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying - fchollet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying

======
knowtheory
I dig the letter, but someone needs to have edited this for content.

> _" reports based on information provided by a career intelligence officer"_

That's clearly factually incorrect. Snowden wasn't a career man, and also
wasn't an officer. He was an IT infrastructure analyst. He's a support guy.

Reading posts like this make the distinction (even w/in the intel world) very
clear: [http://qz.com/92509/edward-snowdens-lesson-to-both-
businesse...](http://qz.com/92509/edward-snowdens-lesson-to-both-businesses-
and-the-nsa-your-it-people-are-your-biggest-risk/)

------
SeanDav
I see that Google, Facebook, Microsoft et al are conspicuous by their absence
from that list. Kind of shouts out how little they feel for your (and my) data
privacy.

~~~
mtgx
It would be pretty shocking if Microsoft continued the "Scroogle" charade
after all of this.

But you're right, I would've thought Google and the others would be the
_first_ to start a major lobbying campaign against NSA's surveillance powers.
So maybe they don't really care about user privacy that much, or don't think
this story will damage them too much in US or abroad, and that they don't
really need to do anything to fix the broken trust relationship they have with
their users now.

~~~
youngerdryas
Or if Google continued their "Don't be evil" façade.

~~~
cobrausn
Or if Facebook... well. Guess they didn't really ever pretend, did they?

------
blhack
The spying will never, ever stop.

This plays out as: The NSA etc. claim "Okay, we've stopped spying!" right up
until they get caught again.

Then the cycle starts over.

\--

There is no technically feasible way of ensuring that you're not being snooped
on. Thus: you will always be snooped on.

~~~
shpxnvz
I doubt that the NSA, or the executive branch, or the legislature, will ever
be put in a position to have to claim that they've stopped spying.

There will be brief outcry, some half-hearted claims by a few in charge that
they will look into it, and after the next shooting or terrorist attack it
will be on the second page, soon to drop off the radar completely.

At least that's what I'd put my money on. They won't even be bothered to lie
about it.

------
gridmaths
I would like to see Googles name on this action.

Now is the time for Silicon Valley to step up.

~~~
gridmaths
I dont really mean this as a criticism..

but it seems like a good opportunity to really send a message.

------
RexRollman
It won't have any effect. Most people don't care, so long as they feel safe
and aren't inconvienced.

~~~
fchollet
Maybe you're right, maybe most people think that they have "nothing to hide"
and want the government to "protect" them against the current boogieman (the
USSR, now Islamists, tomorrow China?).

But most people _do_ care about Freedom and civil liberties, on a less
"abstract" level. They just don't quite see the connection yet.

And then it's _our_ responsibility to inform those who don't care of the
reality of what's happening and what is at stake --freedom of speech,
democracy. Before it's to late to do it.

~~~
will_brown
I think the public out cry of loss of civil liberties in this instance verse
the relative lack thereof regarding the Executive creating the authority to
name US citizens for extra judicial targeted drone strikes is very telling.

It is not that people fear, or care more about the governmental power to
intercept our electronic communications than the reality that citizenry might
be killed without right to trial - they feel the loss of civil liberty in one
instance is more likely to affect them personally, that is why it is important
to remember "injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere." \- MLK Jr.

~~~
tome
That's not the only reason. With drones strikes we all can essentially see
when they've been carried out. With wiretapping there is no such evidence.

------
chx
Complete waste of time. This is not where your problems are nor is it going to
lead anywhere. May I offer
[http://chxrambling.tumblr.com/post/52584359139/why-are-
you-s...](http://chxrambling.tumblr.com/post/52584359139/why-are-you-so-
outraged-now)

"you need to attack corporations bottom line for political reasons and make it
very clear that's what you are doing"

------
mladenkovacevic
It is interesting to conjecture and theorize about the personality of the US
intelligence community and just what price they are willing to pay to protect
different types of information.

For example: I wonder how much of their secrecy is really about protecting
American citizens. After the Boston bombings (and 9/11 for that matter) there
seemed to be no secrecy about the bombers. All types of information came out:
that Russian intelligence had warned them about these guys, that one of them
had already been investigated by the FBI for something else. All the
information coming out had this open, non-secret feel. Same for 9/11: we
suddenly knew about the movements and actions of the terrorists for months
prior to the World Trade acts. How they trained, how they hijacked the planes,
how Bin Laden had engineering insight and knew that hitting the towers at a
certain height would make them collapse.

PRISM seems murky as shit compared to that. It's almost like it's dealing in a
completely different type of information altogether. This is what makes me
wonder about what percentage of PRISM-type surveillance is really about
locating some band of terrorists training in some desert camp. The secrecy
around it seems much more likely to protect the spies than the American
people.

I do refuse to believe that the NSA employees are merciless warmongers looking
to secretly destabilize nations and install puppet regimes while somehow
profiting off of the anarchy that ensues (although a lot of US history is
precisely that). I think most of them genuinely believe that they are doing
good work that makes the world a safer place. But the personality of the
organization they work for doesn't fit the rest of the picture and I just
wonder what it is they are told in order to feel that the secrecy is
justified.

------
ewbuoi
It's funny how they put 4chan with the 'F's in the list of supporting
companies instead of at the beginning where you'd normally find names starting
with digits.

~~~
crusso
Yeah, 4chan shouldn't be your lead-in supporting web community when you're
trying to look legitimate. It's bad enough that silly sounding names like
"Boing Boing" are in there so early.

------
DamnYuppie
Perhaps the bigger issue we need to discuss is are entities like the NSA
providing value, honestly how many intelligence agencies do we need?

------
IanDrake
How is the NSA going to stop doing something they've never admitted to doing?

~~~
alan_cx
If desirable, stopping, or better regulating the NSA is the government's job.
Of course they wont suddenly decide to stop.

~~~
Spearchucker
Stopping the NSA is about as likely as a snowball surviving Jenna Jameson's
cleavage.

More probable is renaming PRISM and (if the political heat [sorry] warrants
it) splitting it into smaller entities, and then re-mount [ok, I'll stop now]
the business-as-usual bike, as though nothing had ever happened.

~~~
alan_cx
I volunteer for snow ball duty....

I know what you mean though. My point is that you need the political will, and
politicians are way too scared of a bomb going off, and the people forgetting
that they demanded privacy, asking why the NSA didn't magically know of it in
advance.

I do think the people need to once and for all decide on what they want, and
once decided, be reminded of it every year or so.

My opinion is that Im happy to take more risk of being killed in a terror
attack and keeping freedoms. Since one is about 1000 times more likely to be
killed in a car crash, I reckon we can have some freedom back.

~~~
Spearchucker
We agree.

------
justncase80
I wonder what would happen to these companies if they simply refused to comply
with the order to give access to their data?

~~~
sc00ter
They'd allegedly get lucrative govenment contacts cancelled:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_for_NSA_spying](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_for_NSA_spying)

It has also been suggested that the insider trading charge were trumped up as
retribution, in that the CEO was accused of purchasing shares with 'insider'
knowledge of government contacts, but that he was prohibited by law from
publicly disclosing those contracts.

