Intelligence Program Gives US Government Direct Access to Customer Data on Apple Servers [Update: Apple Denies]

[krravi]

I think AP being spied on has changed the tune of mainstream media defending him all the time and now revealing hurtful info as a result. They now periodically get on his case.

EVERYONE should be on his case now that we know he's not only spying on the press, which upset the press, he's spying on us, which should upset us.

And the Fair and balanced networks reaction to this, during the Bush administration was?

 

[thadoggfather]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

2007 Obama strongly despises 2013 Obama.

/thread

 

[SeaFox]

And he must get a pass for continuing to consciously support and implement terrible laws that strip you of your rights, amiright? Bush is responsible for the US in 2013 wholly and Obama, not one bit.

I think you give far too little credit to inertia. Once tyranny has been started it takes a lot more effort to stop it than was needed to begin it. That's one reason why new domestic intelligence gather efforts to fight terrorism are often referred to as "the slippery slope".

I don't think the average person has any power to stop this really at this point, beyond a real, violent uprising, which not enough people will willingly participate in for a variety of reasons (mostly because they're chicken-**** scared to or simply don't care enough). Soapbox is being used and making no impact, ballot box is a joke now. (In Soviet Russia, the government controls the corporations!) That only leaves ammo box, and folks wont do that for fear of how it will effect them personally.

 

[tigres]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

2007 Obama strongly despises 2013 Obama.

/thread

yep.

 

[OafTobark]

You miss Sept. 11,2001 when the greatest republican leaders let 3000 Americans die by failing to act from warnings 6 months prior? Or the 4000 dead and 30,000 wounded with a 2trillion dollar price tag trying to liberate Iraq from itself? those were proud moments in American history. So was the patriot act that enabled the wiretapping your whining about 7-8 years ago, that's real Marecuh.

The point of this is?

I did state the first

 

[nascimento]

media hypocrites

I think AP being spied on has changed the tune of mainstream media defending him all the time and now revealing hurtful info as a result. They now periodically get on his case.

EVERYONE should be on his case now that we know he's not only spying on the press, which upset the press, he's spying on us, which should upset us.

My problem with the "media" is that they could care less about the people. They will gladly go along with social engineering and with dubious ideals.

They only reacted because someone trod on their feet.

 

[thadoggfather]

My problem with the "media" is that they could care less about the people. They will gladly go along with social engineering and with dubious ideals.

They only reacted because someone trod on their feet.

agreed, and they get all up in arms over scandals, then go back to brangelina's boobs and dwell on it for days on end.

 

[iHateMacs]

What annoys me the most, is how this affects people outside of the US too. Surely with this it would allow them to monitor facebook profiles of people in England say.

Good luck with mine. If they want to waste their time reading MY stuff then let them.

I do nothing illegal and as long as they don't sell my bank details then I do not care.

I'd rather they look than get blown up by a bomber they never followed.

 

[macchiato2009]

Obama's Watergate

 

[nascimento]

agreed, and they get all up in arms over scandals, then go back to brangelina's boobs and dwell on it for days on end.

Never seen so much bad journalism.

their biased, make assumptions. ask ridiculous questions. lead the interviewee towards their point of view. Answer their own questions when formulating a question. (everything a good journalist should never do)

No wonder they stuff the heads of the populous with angie and brad! Two buffoons that make no contribution to society yet are treated like deities.

 

[Shrink]

Never seen so much bad journalism.

their biased, make assumptions. ask ridiculous questions. lead the interviewee towards their point of view. Answer their own questions when formulating a question. (everything a good journalist should never do)

No wonder they stuff the heads of the populous with angie and brad! Two buffoons that make no contribution to society yet are treated like deities.

Far be it from me to defend TV news...it sucks beyond belief. Also, I am not defending Angelina Jolie. However it should be pointed out that Jolie does make a contribution to society... certainly an attempt, anyway.

, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Source

 

[Cubytus]

America seems to be throwing money down a bottomless hole pretexting it would curb terrorism. Large-scale surveillance has been utterly ineffective, as the Boston attack took authorities by surprise. Bruce Schneier has already proven that seemingly increased security checks in airports wouldn't stop even a moderately prepared terrorist.

Glad I am not living in this police state, formerly known as the land of opportunities.

In the meantime, your data can be harbored in safer countries. Have a look at OVH.

 

[nascimento]

Far be it from me to defend TV news...it sucks beyond belief. Also, I am not defending Angelina Jolie. However it should be pointed out that Jolie does make a contribution to society... certainly an attempt, anyway.



Source

They are part of a Circus Money-Wheel that makes a lot of people rich. Good for them.
Im sure she (sometimes) is well meaning but my skepticism does not leave me a lot of leeway.!!!

 

[blitzkrieg79]

So we should sacrifice our basic right to privacy and live in a weirdo surveillance police state just so we can..ahem, "prevent" the occasional terrorist attack? Millions more die from cancer, etc., yet Americans can't even agree on a decent healthcare system. Yet very rare terrorist attacks are enough to make us willingly hand over our privacy?

And how effective is such surveillance anyhow? It doesn't seem all that effective.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

- Benjamin Franklin

 

[MarkCollette]

The world hasn't been the same. I was 24 when 9/11 occurred, living in NY. I knew some high school friends who passed away in the towers, and good friends who went down to help (some still experiencing health related issues). I lost my innocence that day, the whole world did. Life seemed so promising in the 90's, the economy was doing well, the digital age seemed to be a new renaissance, people seemed, happier. After 9/11, the world seemed a darker place. Unconsciously, we became less happy and more angry. For a few months after, we were unified. Then the rose colored glasses came off, war(s) took hold, and fear replaced any sense of humanity we had left.

You didn't lose your innocence, you lost your naivete. That's a part of growing up and becoming more aware of the world around you. Had you continued to learn some international history, then you would have realised that nothing new happened, the world wasn't changed by 9/11. Rather, it became changed by the reaction to it, by everyone who didn't understand it in its proper context.

Two take home messages,

2) 911 changed America and the world.

Nope. Look at the UK with the IRA bombings, Canada with the FLQ bombings, Spain with the ETA bombings. All those countries managed to fight terrorism without disintegrating their societies as the USA has proceeded to. 9/11 changed America because you let it, and America changed the world because it had the power to do so, despite mass global protest.

He is a bad President.... he's continued and expanded the whole operation. We currently have a monster NSA data center being built at the south end of the valley where I live. It's going to consume an equivalent of 45% of the entire state's electricity. It is a data-mining, crunching, and threat assessment facility. It will record and analyze every communication inside of the USA... building threat profiles based on the content of these communications. This has happened under this President. Would you say this is merely the guy's before problem? Or would you think that somehow this President has jumped on the train as well?

Almost all of your politicians are corrupt, and they 90% share the same agenda. The only real differences are the rate at which they wish to rush headlong into oblivion, and the special interests that they pander to to get their votes to attain power.

There are 2 fallacies with your statement:

1. You assumed that every threat neutralized is reported. There is no reason to believe that to be true. Especially because:

2. Every threat was started as a "minor threat". Something like 9/11 wasn't planned overnight. If we had known more about such a threat and neutralized it in its initial planning phase, the threat could have been a "minor threat". Instead, we didn't know about it until it happened.

I'm not saying the government (or anyone) should have full access of all information they desire. Of course there needs to be some balance. Without knowing exact what information they collect, there is really no way of coming to any meaningful conclusion regarding the appropriateness of data collection.

You're more likely to get struck by lightening than killed by a terrorist. When you throw trillions of dollars at a minor problem, you deprive the system of the funds to deal with the large, real problems. Problems that have guaranteed solutions, not speculative solutions. A Constitution isn't just a legal document of good ideas, it's a legal acknowledgement of inherent, natural rights. Rights that should never be discarded, for any reason. If giving up your rights is viewed as a medicine, than it is a medicine worse than the disease. It's not like that particular medicine is the only option!

 

[Shrink]

They are part of a Circus Money-Wheel that makes a lot of people rich. Good for them.
Im sure she (sometimes) is well meaning but my skepticism does not leave me a lot of leeway.!!!

Understandable...I want to try to suspend my cynicism occasionally and take the behavior at face value with no concern for the presumed motivation.

 

[urbanlung]

The world hasn't been the same. I was 24 when 9/11 occurred, living in NY. I knew some high school friends who passed away in the towers, and good friends who went down to help (some still experiencing health related issues). I lost my innocence that day, the whole world did. Life seemed so promising in the 90's, the economy was doing well, the digital age seemed to be a new renaissance, people seemed, happier. After 9/11, the world seemed a darker place. Unconsciously, we became less happy and more angry. For a few months after, we were unified. Then the rose colored glasses came off, war(s) took hold, and fear replaced any sense of humanity we had left.

I miss those days. Maybe ignorant bliss, maybe not, but I miss them. I hate the world we have become, isolated, communicating in 1's and 0's behind displays that present a false sense of belonging, connecting to a world that seems more distant, intangible and bleak. Will we ever recover? I don't know. I hope so. That's about all I can do.

The irony is that it was not so much the events of 9/11 but the response to them that has caused the acceleration into darkness.

----------

I don't disagree with any of this, while the Boston Police state lockdown was successful in catching one of the two terrorists, it came at a large cost of our personal rights and freedoms. Locking down a major city like in V for Vendetta with 'cerfew' sets, and having its citizens all abide out of fear, is the most horrifying precedent to set and then condition as a success.

I know it's been ongoing for a while, as long as George Sr since signing that environmental bill in 92 Earth Summit.

Possible even roots well before that. It's impossible to pinpoint, politics will always have some level of corruption if not a lot, undoubtedly.

What upsets me is how characteristically un-cool it is to criticize Obama, if whose name was Bush and was a Republican but with same actions and track record, people would have stopped tolerating this crap a long time ago.

Oh don't like Obama? must be racist or one of them intolerant republicans!!

No, I don't like Obama because he has failed to improve the state of economy, only worsened it, and he is filled to the brim with scandals on his hands, and probably even more that haven't been disclosed but are just around the bend. And I don't believe him because I don't trust anything he says. His speeches are not his actions.

Obama's election has been a boon to the right, for the reasons you suggest. Had a republican president tried to continue this stuff the left would have been calling him out. It is as though Obama is not so much black as teflon.

 

[urbanlung]

That line is going to keep coming back over and over to haunt them.



This is a touchy subject, and it's obviously Top Secret no more. First of all, I'm surprised that they can intercept phone calls surreptitiously without apparently so much as a magistrate's court order. I despise this whole intel gathering as much as the next guy, and view it as an invasion of privacy. I'm also very leery about giving the Fed virtually unlimited powers to use against it's citizens.
(Absolute power corrupts/Power corrupts, absolutely).

But I've come to grudgingly accept it as a necessary evil. Things aren't as they used to be. Terrorism is right here on our soil, right amongst us, and I sleep a little better at night, knowing that the intelligence agencies charged with our protection, have some tools to level the playing field in their fight with those, who would indiscriminately hurt, maim or kill us.

Kudos to APPLE for also, belatedly, joining this program.

In balance the terrorism is not on US soil it is on the soil of every nation that the US wants to exert it's influence. Central America has been pushed around for years by the US both by proxy and invasion. The middle east, Pakistan and beyond are regularly bombed and otherwise attacked by US and allied forces all in the name of defense. The blow back the US gets is surprisingly little.

 

[seble]

Good luck with mine. If they want to waste their time reading MY stuff then let them.

I do nothing illegal and as long as they don't sell my bank details then I do not care.

I'd rather they look than get blown up by a bomber they never followed.

It's not out of the fact of illegality. It's out of principle and rights. The fact they don't even need a court order for this stuff, like explicitly right okay this guy is dodgy, we'll get a court order and properly monitor him. Hmmm well this seemingly innocent citizen could well be dodgy so we'll just monitor him for the hell of it... That's what I don't like.

 

[nozebleed]

sad thing is, every one of you would vote for obamao tomorrow or any other liberal for that matter.

this should be a wake up call, but it wont be.








inb4 REPUBLICANS TOO, THIS IS BUSH'S FAULT etc etc

 

[urbanlung]

try this article

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/07/three-things-young-people-should-know-to-save-the-world/

 

[StruckANerve]

This was originally buried by the Mainstream media when it became public early last year. I've posted about it here before and no one really cared.

Stellar Wind (Code Name)

The amount of resources dedicated to data mining is absolutely monstrous.

Utah Data Center
Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

The Utah Data Center, also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center,[1] is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store data on the scale of yottabytes (1 yottabyte = 1 trillion terabytes, or 1 quadrillion gigabytes).[2][3] Its purpose — as the name implies — is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified.[4] The National Security Agency, which will lead operations at the facility, is the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence.[5] It is located at Camp Williams, near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake.

The data center is alleged to be able to capture "all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Internet searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital 'pocket litter'."[2] According to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, the federal government is legally prohibited from collecting, storing, analyzing, or disseminating the content of the communications of U.S. citizens, whether inside or outside of the United States, unless authorized by an individual warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.[6]

The planned structure is 1 million or 1.5 million square feet[3][7][8] and it is projected to cost from $1.5 billion[9][10][11] to $2 billion when finished in September 2013.[2][3] One report suggested that it will cost another $2 billion for hardware, software, and maintenance.[3] The completed facility is expected to require 65 megawatts, costing about $40 million per year.[2][3]

 

[SoGood]

Nope. Look at the UK with the IRA bombings, Canada with the FLQ bombings, Spain with the ETA bombings. All those countries managed to fight terrorism without disintegrating their societies as the USA has proceeded to. 9/11 changed America because you let it, and America changed the world because it had the power to do so, despite mass global protest.

Pretty stoic. Fact that people are having all these terrorism related discussions is fact sufficient that 911 has changed America.

 

[thadoggfather]

And the Fair and balanced networks reaction to this, during the Bush administration was?

I see what you're trying to do there

 

[AlabamaSlammer]

Verizon NSA Leak

Just wondering about how other Verizon users feel about the NSA getting your phone records. Granted it doesn't show your name or account info but the NSA now knows who and how long you're talking to people on the phone. I'm still doing some research on the document and I don't have all the facts yet about what info the NSA is getting from Verizon but I am wondering if anyone cares or if anyone is pissed off. To me it does seem like an invasion of privacy but they are using the "Patriot Act" to receive all this info without a warrant of just cause.

Now Verizon just happened to be the lucky carrier that had the document leak but I wonder if AT&T, Sprint, T Mobile, and the smaller carriers are also complying with the NSA and handing over daily records on their users.

How do you feel?