Talk-Polywell.org

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 8120421175
For years a leading advocate on freedom in software against abuses by copyright and patent law, Groklaw founder PJ is being driven offline and out of public view by fear of the NSA and associated government instruments.

The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too.

There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum.

What to do?

What to do? I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure it out. And the conclusion I've reached is that there is no way to continue doing Groklaw, not long term, which is incredibly sad. But it's good to be realistic. And the simple truth is, no matter how good the motives might be for collecting and screening everything we say to one another, and no matter how "clean" we all are ourselves from the standpoint of the screeners, I don't know how to function in such an atmosphere. I don't know how to do Groklaw like this.

Why don't they understand that nothing is looked at unless cued?
This whole thing works just like public surveillance cameras. If there is a crime, the cops get a court order to go and review camera footage from where they can find it. Be it traffic cameras or private security...

If you want to truly stress with unneccessary pain, then flop and twitch needlessly over this:

Big Brother is Watching

"Why don't they understand that nothing is looked at unless cued?"

Why don't you understand that with this administration, your political views are a cue?

Why do people just assume the government has good intentions? And why do people just assume that good intentions are good enough?

ladajo wrote:Why don't they understand that nothing is looked at unless cued?

Sure. Also gun registration lists won't be used to round up guns.


Perhaps that is the situation now, but later?

TDPerk wrote:Why don't you understand that with this administration, your political views are a cue?

kcdodd wrote:Why do people just assume the government has good intentions? And why do people just assume that good intentions are good enough?

Looks like me and the libertarians agree on stuff for a change.

TDPerk wrote:"Why don't they understand that nothing is looked at unless cued?"

Why don't you understand that with this administration, your political views are a cue?

I don't think that political views are enough of a cue for NSA to go dig a file for domestic puposes. Now if you are tlkaing about NSA digging files for the likes of Harry Dexter White and looking at his international interactions. Well that is another thing. But that would mean the FBI would get oversite, and also that a court order be required. And it would be subject to review while inprocess. Until the FBI got in the loop, Harry Dexter White would be "Named U.S. Person". In any non-domestic law enforcement context, he would remain "unnamed U.S. Person". DoD would never know who he is. Nor CIA. etc.

But none of you clowns really know how that stuff works.

In any event, that does not mean I do not have issues with abuse of executive authority exhibited over that past two democratic administrations.

The trouble with socialism is that eventually those folks who stuff you take to give to others will rise up against it.
Should I make a list of examples?

Edit: Corrected name spelling.

ladajo wrote:
I don't think that political views are enough of a cue for NSA to go dig a file for domestic puposes. Now if you are tlkaing about NSA digging files for the likes of Harry Dean White and looking at his international interactions. Well that is another thing. But that would mean the FBI would get oversite, and also that a court order be required. And it would be subject to review while inprocess. Until the FBI got in the loop, Harry Dean White would be "Named U.S. Person". In any non-domestic law enforcement context, he would remain "unnamed U.S. Person". DoD would never know who he is. Nor CIA. etc.

But none of you clowns really know how that stuff works.

My thinking is that your explanation of how it is SUPPOSED to work is merely a public relations description. When *THIS* Nazi administration wants to do something, they don't let a little thing like LAW or PROCESS stand in the way.


"L'État, c'est moi."

Slowly at first, then all of a sudden, the Obama administration has devolved into the Obama regime. Obama does whatever he wants. Those pesky impediments on his predecessors — namely, federal law, the separation of powers, and the Constitution — have proved as tough as tissue paper in containing Obama’s ambition to impose statism on America. From Obamacare to unions to telephones, it’s basically another day, another decree.

http://nationalreview.com/article/35651 ... oy-murdock

ladajo wrote:I don't think that political views are enough of a cue for NSA to go dig a file for domestic puposes. ...

Not targeting most people, it isn't worth the trouble.
Not from an honest government.
But from a nakedly corrupt regime looking at a mover and shaker of a community that could be a political threat if mobilized, easily.

PJ has been non-political. But she's influential in a large community of technically competent, freedom loving people who, now motivated, may create tools that make the Surveillance State less effective.

My thinking is that your explanation of how it is SUPPOSED to work is merely a public relations description. When *THIS* Nazi administration wants to do something, they don't let a little thing like LAW or PROCESS stand in the way.

Having read a number of "unnamed U.S. person" things, I would tend to disagree.
But maybe I am making that up. After all, vee haff vays off knowing whos youf arrr.

<muhahhah>

<...ha...>

<sniff>

<cleans monocle>

<sniffs again>

Edited above to correct Dean to Dexter. My Apologies, I was commenting on the fly and not paying enough attention.

Also commenting on the fly cause I have just about no free time recently. Saw this on news feed at work and thought of what IIRC you were saying Ladajo about the NSA not actually grabbing data unless auto filters picked up keywords.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... uirements/
Did I misunderstand ?

There are ways around the monitoring systems, the Chinese have perfected this (not the government ones). The super paranoid way to go about it is to build your own email server at your home while purchasing a domain name with a MX record. You can then create accounts locally for anyone you feel the need for secure communication with. You'll also have to manage your own PKI keys to go with it. This method is the only way to guarantee 100% privacy as you control all the components required (there are plenty of open source email clients that will work with this). You can even go a step further and utilize various open source utilities to create a completely enclosed secure global network to communicate and share data with, it's not super expensive but it does require quite a bit of know how (not the CSI type).

All University, ISP or big provider (hotmail / gmail / yahoo) servers will be open to Government inspection, yet it's important to remember they can only read the data passing through them. If you need to use them you can do a double wrap where the actual message is written and encrypted by a different program then attached to the email and sent over those public monitored services, the other side must possess the required PKI keys to decrypt the attachment. The biggest issue is getting the keys out but there are some fairly ingenious methods to go about it.

This is the government trying to do this massive monitoring is utter bullsh!t. Any terrorist organization can do exactly what I'm talking about while totally side stepping all forms of state surveillance. And they would have a very "life and death" reason to do this along with the required networks established for physical delivery of keys.

ladajo wrote:

My thinking is that your explanation of how it is SUPPOSED to work is merely a public relations description. When *THIS* Nazi administration wants to do something, they don't let a little thing like LAW or PROCESS stand in the way.

Having read a number of "unnamed U.S. person" things, I would tend to disagree.
But maybe I am making that up. After all, vee haff vays off knowing whos youf arrr.

<muhahhah>

<...ha...>

<sniff>

<cleans monocle>

<sniffs again>

Let me take another stab at making my point. Most of the time it works exactly as you say. When der Fuhrer decides he wants it to work differently, it will.

palladin9479 wrote:There are ways around the monitoring systems, the Chinese have perfected this (not the government ones).

Not entirely. Hiding the contents of your communications isn't so hard with available software. Hiding that you're communicating with or via a given entity is much harder, and enough in itself to attract regime ire if the entity communicated with is identified with disfavor. For a nation without a tradition of free speech, using a service that facilitates anonymous communications may be a crime.

Solutions exist for metadata snooping resistant communications, at least in theory, where no single 3rd party in isolation can see which pair of people is communicating. But to my knowledge no services set up to do so, and uncertainty whether a surveillance state could be snookered or forced to allow them.