Originally posted by anotherbob
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Ah, well - that's something, then... -
A rather chilling and illuminating piece post-Leveson by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian that reveals the very different response by both government and public in UK and USA to the NSA/PRISM business.
Britain's response to the NSA story? Back off and shut up
Snowden's revelations are causing outrage in the US. In the UK, Hague deploys a police-state defence and the media is silenced
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https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_prism_global/?ciLYrab - brought to us by a Bryn near us (many thanks again, Bryn) - has now attracted almost 1.2m signatures; do please add yours if you've not already done so.Comment
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Very interesting. though not very surprising. I don't want to stereotype excessively, but we British have had a hang-up about secrecy for a long time. The first Official Secrets Act was 1911 - a Liberal measure taken when "the man on the Clapham omnibus" was starting to look at the scenery. Perhaps the most 'British' actions were those that kept the creation of the first electronic commuter secret (except from the Americans, who exploited it to their benefit) so that we should not let the Russians know about our technology. As bits of the Empire gained independence, we gave them Enigma machines (really!) - clearly altruistic. Perfidious Albion - no. perfidious Britannia.Originally posted by amateur51 View PostComment
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Extract from an email I received on 30 May 2013:Originally posted by Pabmusic View Post
"The government is proposing four key changes to the Freedom of Information Act:
1. Authorities can currently refuse FOI requests if the estimated cost of finding and extracting the information exceeds certain limits. The government wants to allow them to also count the time they spend considering a request. This will make it much easier for authorities to refuse any claim involving new, complex or contentious issues.
2. Lowering the cost limits themselves (These are currently £600 for government departments and £450 for other authorities).
3. Charges could be made for appealing to the Information Rights Tribunal. These may deter requesters from pursuing well-founded appeals and slow the development of case law.
4. Authorities would be allowed to refuse unrelated requests from the same individual or organisation if their combined effect is too time consuming. This could affect the ability of local newspapers, local organisations and even MPs to obtain information on a range of issues from one authority."
So the government wants to invade our privacy but maintain their 'privacy' and that of 'public' organisations. No doubt the BBC will be supporting the changes.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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The government might as well scrap the FOI Act altogether, then. What was the source of your email and whom do you suppose will have recorded the fact of its transmission to you?Originally posted by french frank View PostComment
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It would be provocative of me to give a link to the Unlock Democracy website while some regard it as a trouble-making leftie organisation... but 'twas they.Originally posted by ahinton View Post
As for:
This isn't the US, for goodness' sake :winkeye:. My emails are totally sec ...Oh! just a mo' - somebody at the door ...and whom do you suppose will have recorded the fact of its transmission to you?It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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The UK media seem to have gone quiet on this but an interesting comment in this month's Engineering + Technology (house journal IET) by their Washington correspondent that the biggest losers from the PRISM relevations will be the big US based companies who so freely cooperated with NSA to give easy access to non-USA communications - the same companies that are pushing cloud computing - thus they are likely to see increased resistance by customers to entrust their data to them knowing that they provide such open access to NSA as given the opacity of the US control 'that it is hard to believe the claims of safeguards and specifically directed use now being offered'.Comment
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Interview with Sir Martin Sorrell about NSA/Prism ...
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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has backed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and admitted he feels "a little bit guilty" that new technologies had introduced new ways for governments to monitor people.
In an interview with Piers Morgan (!) he said"Read the facts: it's government of, by and for the people. We own the government; we are the ones who pay for it and then we discover something that our money is being used for – that just can't be, that level of crime."
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Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection.
However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:
• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;
• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
• Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications;
• Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.
The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants.
The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA's foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors – though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis.Comment
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Doctors and lawyers need to think twice about the implication of NSA surveiilance and using cloud computing services ...
Good to read that at least someone is thinking about this rather than running around saying "nothing to worry about here if you've done nothing wrong"Comment
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Well what would anyone expect from a cloud? It can hardly come as a surprise that precipitation of the data there upload takes place, or that governments will seek to seed the cloud to encourage such precipitation where and when they consider it to their advantage. I try to stay away from cloud 'services'.Comment
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Well many people probably do quite happily run around saying such things and if they don't give a toss who reads their e-mails why shouldn't they say such things? What they say is almost certainly true! As for the clients of doctors and lawyers I would have thought the latter in particular might be adept at finding ingenuous ways around the 'problem'.Originally posted by amateur51 View PostDoctors and lawyers need to think twice about the implication of NSA surveiilance and using cloud computing services ...
Good to read that at least someone is thinking about this rather than running around saying "nothing to worry about here if you've done nothing wrong"
The answer for our worried individuals is to set-up their own Cloud (there is an actual app called ownCloud) and e-mail server. In fact just how relatively easily this can be done is in the very latest edition of Linux Format. I'd be surprised it the same were not possible on a Windows machine but if not one can just switch to a more versatile operating system!
When we use the Cloud and webmail we are trusting others to keep our data confidential. The fact that this trust may be badly misplaced on occasion is hardly a major revelation as far as human behaviour is concerned. Surely there are always dangers in trusting others, and especially people like Mr Snowden. Agreed confidentiality can sometimes be betrayed by those with the power to leak it. Surprise, surprise.
So if private individuals wish to keep things secret the best thing to do is to keep their personal matters to themselves. We cannot dis-invent the internet or pretend that GCHQ is not doing the job it was always set up to do ... basically, SNOOP.
Will any of this be so terribly shocking, at least to non-Guardian readers... ?Comment
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Probably not. To paraphrase an earlier post, the most shocking thing about this whole storm in a teacup is that anybody is shocked by it.Originally posted by scottycelt View PostPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain.Comment
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