
Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance - eplanit
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/snowdens-chronicler-reveals-her-own-life-under-surveillance/
======
GigabyteCoin
>a book she’s publishing to accompany the exhibit includes her journal from
the height of that surveillance, recording her first-person experience of
becoming a spying subject, along with her inner monologue as she first
corresponded with the secret NSA leaker she then knew only as “Citizenfour.”

That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is effective"
for me.

They were actively spying on her concurrently while she was "the subject of a
grand jury investigation" and still were unable to deduce that she was
_actively conspiring with Edward Snowden_ which would ultimately decimate
their reputation worldwide.

~~~
exo762
>>a book she’s publishing to accompany the exhibit includes her journal from
the height of that surveillance, recording her first-person experience of
becoming a spying subject, along with her inner monologue as she first
corresponded with the secret NSA leaker she then knew only as “Citizenfour.”

> That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is
> effective" for me.

Ohh it is so much worse than that. For me eye opening moment was CCC 2015 talk
"What does Big Brother see, while he is watching?".

The main takeaway. People engaged in surveillance are not "evil",
"villainous", "dark", "shadowy" or "dangerous", or even "malicious". They are
bunch of very sad, very pathetic wankers. Their job has less meaning than any
other job I can think of. (Even TSA airport checks may be more meaningful)

This is a powerful talk. And it frames global surveillance just as it should
be framed. As a waste of money, people going through soul killing, democracy
killing, privacy killing motions. Without any chance of getting closer to
declared goal, using methodology that if anything, hurts their declared goals.

Unless their real goal is control! But in such case they should be called out
on that and de-funded.

~~~
fossuser
I think Mass Surveillance is a bad idea, extremely high risk and the potential
for abuse is high. I also think that it consolidates too much power in one
place which is dangerous for the future and the secrecy is a big problem.

That said there is an obvious use for it in helping stop attacks and
pretending there isn't is weird to me.

> That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is
> effective" for me.

Specific evidence of success is likely to be classified. It's possible attacks
have been stopped - the classification of information makes it hard to know
either way.

Though mass collection can help, if you have intel of suspicious people you
could look through the entire history of their communication - see what
they've been saying and to whom. When you newly learn that a person is a part
of ISIS (for example) you can look through their entire communication stream
retroactively. Since the attackers are not always that sophisticated (they
used SMS in Paris) you can potentially learn a lot of information by doing
this (their network, maybe plans).

They're posting videos of themselves on youtube showing off weapons and
locations - I suspect there's a lot of information available in their
communication that's useful for stopping attacks. It's a tool you would
obviously want if you had to do the job.

That said I think the secrecy is dangerous because it prevents the public from
being able to determine what level we'd accept (and legal recourse against
abuse). It also is more likely to encourage abuse and since James Clapper lied
to congress about it we can't trust the organizations that have tasked
themselves to do it.

Thinking long-term, it took a long time to get relatively benign governments -
consolidating this much power in one place (especially in secrecy) is
something we probably shouldn't do.

~~~
tremon
_there is an obvious use for it in helping stop attacks_

It's not that obvious to me. Can you explain why you think this is obvious?
Because in order to stop attacks, you need specific, actionable intelligence.
Indiscriminate collection of data just muddies the water.

I was going to do a simple calculation here, but wikipedia already has a nice
illustration from Cory Doctorow:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox#Discuss...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox#Discussion)

~~~
fossuser
Sure - as mentioned in my previous comment it gives you an entire history of
communication to retroactively analyze.

It's not likely to reveal much alone (too much noise - like you suggested),
but given a lead from some other means you can use it as a tool to look
through the recent communications of that suspect and their close network.

This would be a tool that would be useful to have and since people planning
violence are likely communicating about plans - looking at comms could lead to
actionable intelligence.

Is this potential intel worth the risk of abuse? I think probably not, but
that should probably be decided by the society being surveilled. Either way it
definitely should not be done in secret.

I worry that trying to argue surveillance is entirely useless will do more
harm overall because to those 'in favor' of surveillance it's a dumb position.

------
rdl
I was in Iraq at the time, and probably interacting with people one step away
from the people involved in persecuting her. Based on everything I saw at the
time, they were perhaps well meaning but utterly overwhelmed and without any
handle on the situation, and once something like this starts, it snowballs and
has a life of its own. The terrifying thing is when this happens to someone
who isn't a white US citizen journalist...they can easily end up in local
detention or even theater detention or more, indefinitely, or be killed.

I wish I could apologize to her for what she went through. It probably is
better for the world that she went through it, was then an even more effective
journalist, and then in contact with Snowden, but it was a huge sacrifice I'm
sure.

~~~
x0x0
The iraq war, where we gave the bottom 10% of your high school class the
ability to cause the US to harass this woman for a decade on a hunch. Sans
evidence. As you obliquely mentioned, it also explains half or more of the
people in Guantanamo.

The whole thing should be viewed as a horrific embarrassment, but I think it
reveals quite a bit about our actual (as opposed to our rah rah freedom)
principles.

~~~
acqq
> The whole thing should be viewed as a horrific embarrassment

Even if her problems are something which can easier provoke empathy in readers
here (as in "I could be her") they are insignificant compared to the problems
of the people in Iraq in which they are as the effect of the political
decisions of the government for which we assume that it did what its duty is
and which got the wide support for the war: the US government which according
to their own press statements did this "to bring democracy" and "because of
WMD" in Iraq. It turned out there were no WMD there and that the "proofs" were
a lie.

[http://www.salon.com/2015/05/20/george_w_bushs_cia_briefer_a...](http://www.salon.com/2015/05/20/george_w_bushs_cia_briefer_admits_iraq_wmd_intelligence_was_a_lie/)

The US soldiers who were there are probably the most credible source to talk
about what they've actually brought there. For the current results just look
at the map that includes ISIS controlled territories:

[https://pietervanostaeyen.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/img_50...](https://pietervanostaeyen.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/img_5089.png)

And the statistics:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraqi_insurg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraqi_insurgency_%282011%E2%80%93present%29)

Not to mention neighboring Syria and what's left from the country there.

Are we able to have empathy for the people there too?

~~~
rubberstamp
Its not about democracy. What the US govt did is fool its citizens by telling
them they were going to war over wmd and democracy. US is protecting saudi
govt which is not a democracy. And usa did overthrow a democratically elected
Iranian govt. So much for wanting to give people democracy.

US has no business meddling in other soverign nation's affair. That nation has
people who will bring about a change if they really want change. US doesn't
need to force democracy on those people as it ends up only destabilizing the
whole region. Trying to change too much at once never flies. Not to forget
democracy isn't even the ideal form of govt, especially when US itself isn't
improving its own democratic process. First improve things at home.

Its real pity some citizens had to go through this much pain to bring to light
illegal mass surveillance activity. I fail to see any difference between an
oppressive govt and us govt now a days. This is becoming an orwellian
nightmare.

------
secfirstmd
___Excuse blatant Plug_ __:)

When we built Umbrella, we had in mind the example of Glenn Greenwald and
Laura Poitras meeting Edwards Snowden. Initially Snowden tried to make contact
but Greenwald found the process of digital security too cumbersome and
awkward. Poitras however was more persistant. Also, when Greenwald and Poitras
went to Hong Kong, they knew little or nothing about physical security. We
wanted to change that and make it easier to have everything a journalist like
Glenn Greenwald would need to do to meet a source in their pocket - everything
from sending a secure email to meeting a source in a high risk location where
they may be under surveillance from a regime which may threaten their vital
work. So we launched an open source Android app called Umbrella -

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella)

[https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_android](https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_android)

It's still a long way from being perfect but hopefully will make the life of
future Laura Poitras, just a little bit easier.

~~~
junto
While I think your cause is noble, can you really trust Android, and even if
you can trust Android, can you really trust the baseband firmware?

~~~
secfirstmd
No. But as we all know, there is practically no firmware which can be trusted.
I think the issue is always about measuring risk versus the threat level.
Journalists that we train every day all over the world are always going to
carry out high risk activities. The temptation is always to try to build a
tool for the most extreme threat model and in the process, bypass the most
common threats - leaving the average journalist with even less protection.
Indeed, we increasingly find far much focus amongst our trainees on high level
NSA Prism the stuff while little consideration of the basics - passwords, who
has access to information in your own office, dealing with physical
surveillance etc etc - all of which oir experience has taught us is far more
common security hazard to journalists.

------
vorg
> the surveillance targeting Poitras had transformed her into a nervous wreck.
> [...] she describes feeling constantly watched, entirely robbed of privacy.
> “I haven’t written in over a year for fear these words are not private,”
> [...] She sleeps badly, plagued with nightmares

Poitras and others being surveilled by people in the US and other governments
represent an extreme point on a spectrum. Lower down the spectrum are many
more people who each have one or more busybodies from government, academia,
the media, business, entertainment/sports, or religion, etc after them for
some reason/s. Those busybodies often discover and collude with each other.
The resulting surveillance and interference against us is probably quite tame
compared to what the US govt has done against Poitras, but intense enough that
we can extrapolate to more easily appreciate what she's gone through.

------
rl3
> _She notes her computer glitching and “going pink” during her interviews
> with NSA whistleblower William Binney, and that it tells her its hard drive
> is full despite seeming to have 16 gigabytes free._

Peculiar. There's a decent chance that it wasn't related to espionage. There's
also a smaller chance that it was espionage gone awry, but I highly doubt
state level actors are that clumsy.

If it was espionage it was probably intentional. To what end I'm not sure.
Attempts to interfere with the interview seem pointless at best, at least for
the sake of interference itself. Probably some sort of psychological game or
intimidation. A unit like TAO likely has encyclopedic manuals dedicated to the
art of using their capability to mess with people's heads.

On the bright side, it's at least comforting that we aren't seeing privacy
activists being locked away due to planted evidence that appears forensically
legit. State actors have the capability to do this if they want.

~~~
ptha
_She sleeps badly, plagued with nightmares about the American government. She
reads Cory Doctorow’s Homeland and re-reads 1984, finding too many parallels
with her own life._ , the psychological aspect is very troubling. A government
state doesn't actually have to put you under constant surveillance, they just
have to make you think you're under constant surveillance.

The unintended consequence of the surveillance may have hardened her resolve
to be a privacy advocate, but it certainly didn't do her mental health much
good.

~~~
Kristine1975
_A government state doesn 't actually have to put you under constant
surveillance, they just have to make you think you're under constant
surveillance._

It's the old idea of the Panopticon as envisioned by Jeremy Bentham: Achieve
compliance not by watching everybody all the time, but by creating a system
where everybody could be watched at any time.

~~~
lucastx
I like how the Panopticon concept is complemented by the Synopticon one, as in
"many watches few". It's close to the "sousveillance" concept.

What may save us from a dystopic totalitarism is the freedom and agency we get
through our devices and networks. Certainly software freedom, use of
cryptography and uncensored, inclusive basic communications infrastructures
are needed.

------
dineshp2
If you imagine yourself in the future(maybe 50 years in the future) and look
back at the present and think about the present,specifically regarding
privacy,mass surveillance,data collection,the state of the law and the power
that the Government and corporations have over people's life, it seems totally
ridiculous to me.

This is a problem that can only be solved if the vast majority of the
population gets involved and cares about the pressing issues in the world.

One of the great side effects of the explosion of the internet is that it has
created a potential medium for everyone to participate in the process of
democracy and law making. With the awareness and the right tools to enable
participation of the masses in every decision that the Government makes, we
can limit the power that the Government and corporations have in the process
of democracy and law making.

And with participation of the common man,we can finally move towards a
democracy in the true sense of the word.

~~~
arca_vorago
Which is exactly why the totalitarian state has been kicked into high gear in
response. Throughout history technological change that has enabled
communication and the passing of information has been responded to by the
oligarchy by taking control of and limited that media. Telegraph/gram, radio,
telivision, the printing press and so on.

Part of my theory is that it just took them a little while to understand
exactly how dangerous the internet is to them, but now they have fully
realized this it has almost forced the implimentation of the surveillance
state so that later the cat can be walked back on dissidents.

Its what William Binney and Thomas Drake call the "turn key totalitarian
state". It may not be turned on yet, but the structure is being put in place.
All it takes is a martial law enabling event and a potus willing to turn the
key.

Which is why I think everyones going to be amazed when Jeb gets the nom and
steals the election.

~~~
infinite8s
And the 2 degree climate change over the next 50 years is likely just the
trigger needed to justify martial law (much of coastal Florida is expected to
flood, the North East of the US will have the extremes of weather that we've
just started experiencing, much of the farm belt is expected to undergo
drought).

------
lambdasquirrel
Every time I hear one of these Bernie supporters talk, I want to remind them
of Obama in '08\. We thought Obama would be the guy to save the country this.
But reality is a lot more complicated than ideals. It's actually a bit like
startups in that sense. You can have all the ideals you want but it doesn't
matter a whit without execution.

~~~
x0x0
The structure of the US government has an unusually high number of veto
points. Presidents have, as opposed to similar positions in other countries,
much less power to push their agenda. People who don't understand that change
comes slowly in the US, and requires serious organization to push through the
house and senate, are being silly and simultaneously sabotaging their
ostensible goals. viz Obama supporters not voting in off-presidential year
elections and hence crippling his ability to push legislation.

~~~
lambdasquirrel
Well go ahead. All of you mod me down. But you cannot explain the executive
Branch's response to Snowden. Did the Republicans in legislature do that? No.
That was purely the administration's choice.

~~~
dang
> _Well go ahead. All of you mod me down_

The HN guidelines ask you not to comment like this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
junto
With regards to the excerpt below and out of general interest (since I'm not a
journalist, nor know any), what ethical responsibility should journalists have
concerning intervention when reporting in wartime?

    
    
      He later told the Army investigators that he “strongly
      believed”—but without apparent evidence—“POITRAS had 
      prior knowledge of the ambush and had the means to report 
      it to U.S. Forces; however, she purposely did not report 
      it so she could film the attack for her documentary.”
    

Should they remain objective in such a hypothetical situation? Are there
standard rules of guidance for journalists?

~~~
15thandwhatever
[http://keywiki.org/Laura_Poitras#Pre-
knowledge_of_ambush.3F](http://keywiki.org/Laura_Poitras#Pre-
knowledge_of_ambush.3F)

------
_jomo
> it tells her its hard drive is full despite seeming to have 16 gigabytes
> free.

If she has a lot of small files she might have run out of inodes [0] which
will report "no space left on device" when trying to create a new file,
although there's still space left. Inodes store a file's attributes. In ext4
they're limited to total disk space / 16Kb, so a lot of files <16kb will cause
trouble.

You can check inode usage via `df -i`.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode)

------
webjames
I'll preorder the book, interestingly it wont be available until May in the UK
but Amazon will ship from the US.

Can anyone recommend any other similar books in the meantime?

------
jlgaddis
I pre-ordered her book on Amazon a few days ago and am anxiously looking
forward to the day it arrives.

------
mynewtb
I wish they would focus on releasing more documents instead of navel gazing...

~~~
privong
> I wish they would focus on releasing more documents instead of navel
> gazing...

Both are useful. In this case, it is providing an explicit, human narrative
for the harm that surveillance can inflict. Many people respond more strongly
to emotional anecdoes than to hard data (pretty much the reason why low-
probability terrorist attacks are disproportionately feared over more common
ways to die), so having a more emotional, anecdotal account of the actual
effect of surveillance on people is also important.

