
NSA surveillance: tech companies demand sweeping changes to US laws - Cbasedlifeform
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/nsa-surveillance-tech-companies-demand-sweeping-changes-to-us-laws
======
beloch
In the nineties (and even later) I read a lot of cyberpunk set in near-future
dystopias where government power had crumbled and evil megacorps ruled the
world, usually at the expense of personal liberty and privacy (the two are
closely related).

Now the megacorps are trying to defend our personal liberty and privacy from
governments that have gotten too powerful (albeit mostly because it would
improve sales)! That's... unexpected.

~~~
weland
> Now the megacorps are trying to defend our personal liberty and privacy from
> governments that have gotten too powerful (albeit mostly because it would
> improve sales)! That's... unexpected.

Don't be too quick about it. Once the megacorps win the war, it's interesting
to see who will defend our personal liberty and privacy _from them_.

~~~
pjc50
Indeed. In the UK, we're wrestling with a rightwing _news_ junta with its own
surveillace abuses, intertwined with the police.

The power to dig up every detail about someone's life then publish it for the
adverse judgement of millions of people is capable of great destructiveness if
abused.

~~~
Silhouette
_In the UK, we 're wrestling with a rightwing _news_ junta with its own
surveillace abuses, intertwined with the police._

While that may be true, it's not really the same situation.

For one thing, it seems clear that the behaviour in question was illegal, and
people are going to jail for it.

For another, guessing that someone won't have changed the default PIN to
access their voicemail is not on the same technical level as, say, building
backdoors into widely used hardware by being sneaky with state-of-the-art
mathematics.

------
Theodores
Something has gone wrong here, the contractors for the intelligence community
were not thinking properly. This could have been avoided had there been more
fake terror plots 'foiled' by the hard efforts of the snitches. The rationale
for the mass surveillance could have been more credible had that happened. As
it is nobody really believes they spy on us to catch the terrorists,
paedophiles and drug kingpins.

Perhaps greed got in the way too. Had the intelligence community contractors
outsourced some of their work to the 'normal' internet companies and not seen
them as 'enemy' then it would have been harder for them to complain about what
has been going on. They could have co-opted Microsoft to build their tools,
got Google to build their data centres, helped out Yahoo and bought a few more
Apple boxes, making Silicon Valley dependent on them for a large chunk of
their revenue stream. They would then have towed the line that bit better,
portraying themselves as good patriots for helping the government win The War
Against Terror. As it is we now have two types of tech mega-corp, those
wanting the surveillance state and those that don't want it. Had greed not
gotten the better of the likes of Lockheed Martin this could have been
avoided. This is a sad day for big brother.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
> They could have co-opted Microsoft to build their tools

"Xbox One Kinect reading emotions and heart rate"
[http://www.shacknews.com/article/79301/xbox-one-kinect-
readi...](http://www.shacknews.com/article/79301/xbox-one-kinect-reading-
emotions-and-heart-rate)

;)

------
001sky
_This places them in direct conflict with Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic
chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who is sponsoring a rival bill
that would enshrine the right of security agencies to collect bulk data.

Feinstein, who represents California, has been accused by critics of being a
cheerleader for Washington's intelligence committee but now faces opposition
from her state's largest industry._

This is a start. Representavtives need to represent...+1 for stepping up and
being heard.

~~~
x3c
>.... a cheerleader for Washington's intelligence committee

Well, if that's not sexist..

~~~
jnbiche
Well, first check out usage: "accused of being a cheerleader for" -bbc

(a BBC headline dominants the first several dozen results)

You'll see that it's very commonly used in reference to males. In fact, it
appears that most of the references are to males.

Also, you may not be aware, but most university cheerleader squads in the U.S.
are co-ed.

~~~
wavefunction
President George W Bush and Governor Mitt Romney are former male cheerleaders,
for example.

------
Cbasedlifeform
About bloody time, is my immediate reaction. And Diane Feinstein should resign
in shame. But I'd be more impressed with MS, Google, Apple et al if they had
told the NSA initially to go Cheney themselves.

~~~
salient
She should be recalled. She's done enough damage as the Chief of Intelligence
Committee in Senate, and she's going to do more in the next 5 years if we let
her. I still remember getting my stomach turned by how aggressively she pushed
the FISA Amendments Act renewal, last year, before Christmas, with no real
debate.

~~~
puppetmaster3
Explain this \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4ixxFhvY2k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4ixxFhvY2k)
vs this please \- [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/dianne-feinstein-sets-
recor...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/dianne-feinstein-sets-record-
with-7-3-million-votes/)

How does that work? I'm in her district, afaik software engineers vote against
her.

------
csmuk
Before the revelations appeared, these companies did little to fight it. There
are ways of acting against it proactively without breaking any NDA's and laws.

Only when confidence in their business declines because people found out
exactly how complicit they'd been, they decide to do something about it.

We know where the priorities _really_ are. In this case it's a publicity
thing. They've been caught with their pants down.

If there's no source code or it's"cloud" based then I refuse to do business
now.

~~~
CamperBob2
_There are ways of acting against it proactively without breaking any NDA 's
and laws._

I can't think of any. The system seems carefully rigged to neuter the checks
and balances originally built into it.

What are some examples of effective legal actions against an omniscient
surveillance state that, historically speaking, threatens politicians even
more than it does the average citizen? Maybe I should do some more reading to
understand how Hoover's FBI was finally reined in.

------
pkill17
All signs point to a hasty implementation of this; seems like there was some
pressure on the companies included, or an urgent turn around.

All the articles were clearly planned; The Guardian has already run two
stories, each published exactly at midnight. That said, the
www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com site seems almost haphazardly thrown
together; graph tags are butchered making sharing awkward with a terribly
misleading preview, Apple's logo is left out of the first batch of supporters,
the logos at the bottom are awkwardly aligned, etc.

I'm not exactly sure how to decipher all this; could the hasty implementation
be good news? A sign that it's not taken seriously?

~~~
wyclif
Try sharing to Twitter, G+ or LinkedIn from
www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com and see how smoothly they've implemented
the social aspect </sarcasm>

------
GuerraEarth
They were all collaborators. They collaborated. Lavabit was not a collaborator
and Lavabit did not collaborate--in case it needs to be more clearly stated.

------
gesman
Good ideas, the wording is wrong though:

>> ...to call for reforms to restore the public's trust in the internet...

In Internet we trust. Abusing it is the issue to deal with.

>> ... have united to demand sweeping changes to US surveillance laws..

Of course but don't forget to add the statement about "enforcing" the [new and
existing] laws.

Otherwise it'll become like a gun control game for politicians - "lets add new
laws to solve the problem".

------
azaydak
It is understandable why Google, Facebook, and the others want changes to US
laws. They feel that the bad publicity is hurting revenue. It will be
interesting to see stance of companies that gain from the bad publicity like
those whose business is based on securing and encrypting private information.
Many of them have used the government's bad behavior as a marketing platform.

------
walshemj
Sweeping changes to privacy laws which presumably would apply even more so to
them - has some one not told them be careful what you ask for any new laws
will have exceptions for national security which will not apply to the Googles
of this world.

------
sneak
Somebody called it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6005447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6005447)

------
DennisP
I don't think changing laws without changing capabilities is going to convince
many people.

Shutting down the giant NSA center in Utah might do the job.

------
puppetmaster3
This is just PR. If they wanted changed they would get a lobbyist to make a
donation to their campaign. Done.

