#stopprism

[generalinjusticeblog]

Is the NSA Blackmailing Officials Into Supporting Snooping?

Why are the likes of Sen. Dianne Feinsteinso supportive of wide-reaching National Security Agency surveillance even as polls show a majority of Americans horrifiedby such intrusions? At the risk of venturing into paranoid territory, could it be that the NSA has gone all J. Edgar and compiled compromising information about officials who might otherwise be a bit less enthusiastic about snooping? That's what Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union wonders, and he has some evidence to support his theory.

[generalinjusticeblog]

NSA Storing Internet Data, Social Networking Data, on Pretty Much Everybody

Two new stories based on the Snowden documents.

This is getting silly. General Alexander just lied about this to Congress last week. The old NSA tactic of hiding behind a shell game of different code names is failing. It used to be they could get away with saying "Project X doesn't do that," knowing full well that Projects Y and Z did and that no one would call them on it. Now they're just looking shiftier and shiftier.

The program the New York Times exposed is basically Total Information Awareness, which Congress defunded in 2003 because it was just too damned creepy. Now it's back. (Actually, it never really went away. It just changed code names.)

[generalinjusticeblog]

Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, called on the public Wednesday to help defend his agency's powers as Congress mulls restrictions aimed at protecting privacy. 

"We need your help. We need to get these facts out," Alexander said during a cybersecurity summit at the National Press Club. "We need our nation to understand why we need these tools."

He warned that if Congress hampers the NSA's ability to gather information, it could allow for terrorist attacks in the United States similar to last week's massacre in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya. 

"If you take those [surveillance powers] away, think about the last week and what will happen in the future," he said. "If you think it's bad now, wait until you get some of those things that happened in Nairobi." 

He said the United States is fortunate to be able to have "esoteric" discussions because the NSA and other agencies are effective in stopping terrorists. 

[generalinjusticeblog]

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and Sen. Dianne Feinstein have put federal prosecutors in quite a bind after they made public comments about the use of secret NSA surveillance in terrorism investigations.

Now defense attorneys in a Florida case are turning the words of those top officials against prosecutors, urging a federal court to force the federal government to disclose whether it obtained evidence against their client through a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FAA, which has been at the center of the Edward Snowden leaks.

In a Tuesday filing (see below), attorneys for Sheheryar Alam Qazi — who was charged with planning to blow up a bomb in New York City last December — argued that federal prosecutors were obligated to disclose to them if secret surveillance had been used in the investigation.

[generalinjusticeblog]

I am The Other.

No, not from Game of Thrones.

I mean I am the "other" contemptuously categorized by my government, a vast category of people with an interest in using encrypted communications to thwart my government's attempt to spy on me.

Yesterday documents revealed by Edward Snowden suggested the scope of the NSA's efforts — and successes — in defeating commercial encryption on the internet:

The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.

People much smarter than I am suggest that the NSA hasn't, and very likely can't yet, break all crypto technology currently available to us, andthat there are still methods of keeping our communications secure from spying by the Security State. I hope that my more technologically adept co-bloggers will expand on that point in this space in the near future, and will watch for discussions elsewhere.

[angelclark]

Katy Perry has decided her next album will be PRISM, the same name as the ‪#‎NSA‬ surveillance program... Interesting choice... 

http://shockerdaily.com/2013/07/30/katy-perry-announced-her-new-album-by-parking-a-huge-gold-truck-in-hollywood/

[stopprism]

Richard Stallman speaks on RT:

Fight now!

[ancaporado]

What Would the Material Difference Be?

I've been considering this idea lately, after having heard the quote from Stefan Molyneux, "If you took a person from the 40s and showed them Hiroshima and Detroit in 2013 they would think that Japan dropped the bomb and won the war - this is the destructive effect of statism." (Can't find the exact quote but that's the idea).

So what I've considered is if one were to objectively analyze government policy and laws would you be able to determine if the government was democratically elected or a foreign occupier. Is there a material difference between an enemy occupation and a domestic tyranny?

If the government

-restricts the production of power

-forbids the exploitation of natural resources

-prohibits free trade

-criminalizes common behavior through victimless crimes

-punishes whistle blowers

-denounces cries of tyranny as unfounded

-declares the domestic dissent a greater threat than foreign forces

-encourages illegal immigration with welfare at the expense of the taxpayer

-provides generous bailouts for firms with government ties

-increases the rate of taxation while increasing the debt to future generations

-subsidizes governments which have long standing animosity towards the nation

-sends domestic troops on extended foreign tours

-establish domestic surviellence

-attempts arms registration/confiscation

-views the constitution as an impediment not a guide

-suppresses voting and access to democratic institutions

-major media outlets only discus government talking points and opposition is often manufactured or purposefully mediocre

-courts are no longer impartial and offer retaliatory sentences and charges

-frequently appeals to race or class to keep society divided and justify police state behavior

You are living in an occupied nation.

You and your fellow citizens are viewed as tax cattle or insurgents by the state. Any and all excuses will be used to extort, imprison, torture, and kill you. Organizing peaceful resistance will be met with ridicule, intimidation, and violent retaliation.