[jerf]

"barely news...."

"hard to find anyone that actually cares...."

What Wikileaks is changing, and what has had a real effect even here on HN let alone out in the normal world, is that we didn't quite know that the government was doing all these things. We very very very much expected that they were doing these things, but we were never faced with cold hard evidence. And a great deal of the rest of the populace sort of vaguely expected that the government was collecting stuff, but when faced with concrete evidence of this fact, it became real. Even those who strongly suspected only suspected in very vague terms, but now we have details, which is qualitatively different.

If you want people to care, it seems you need this concrete evidence, not just very well-sourced supposition. I say "it seems" because I am not theorizing about this; I am observing the reality on the ground. It doesn't matter how true it may be theoretically that we shouldn't have needed this information, how we should have theoretically had all the info we needed to care, because I observe that we in fact we didn't have enough information to care, because largely, we didn't. If you want to counter that, please provide me with the observations that I'm wrong and people had enough to care, not just theory. (Though that will require you to contradict your own point that people don't care.)

I suggest to you that you meditate on where you got the idea that Wikileaks is a "threat" for releasing this information, which seems like it ought to help you towards your goal of getting people to care about these things, but which somehow you've talked yourself into trying to downplay and ignore. Who's the source of that idea, and who's pushing it? Are you sure you want to absorb the idea from those sources?

You don't have to "like" Wikileaks to use this information, nor do you have to trust their motives beyond ensuring that the provenance of the files are correct. I do suggest keeping in mind that they may still be filtering the flow (they are certainly modulating it, as they themselves say, so this is no accusation or anything), but you can still do correct logic on the information that is provided (assuming it is accurate). You just shouldn't do any logic based on what is missing. (However, I can't say I'm seeing very many people making that mistake.)

[3131s]

GP is lamenting the fact that this is "barely news" and the bit about Wikileaks being a threat was sarcasm.

[SomeStupidPoint]

Why should I care a spy agency has spy tools? (Which is all these leaks show.)

I mean, the CIA could always have broken in to my house undetected and set up tiny microphones -- why should I worry now that they use computers as part of that, but not then when it was bugs transmitting radio?

The reason people don't care now is why they didn't care then: so what? Do you really believe the CIA gives a shit about what you have to say?

[belorn]

There is this old joke that one should think like ones neighbor: its not me they want, its the neighbor.

Joke a side, so long you are not political active, don't run a company, are not a doctor, a lawyer, or a priest, vote for the right political party, have friends with any of the above, or have children or spouse that are friends with any of the above, then it is likely that they don't care what you say. Just make sure you got a high enough citizen score.

[1001101]

> Do you really believe the CIA gives a shit about what you have to say?

As we learned from the Snowden leaks, surveillance is being conducted on a massive scale under the purview of a secret court that rubber stamps whatever comes across its desk, and not in a targeted manner as in your bug argument.

I still have a right and desire for privacy, which is not a function of whether or not the CIA, or anyone, cares what I say or do.

This level of clairvoyance is too much power for any one person or group to have, and is of what Orwell and others have rightly warned us.

[SomeStupidPoint]

I'm sorry to be blunt, but you seem uninformed.

All of the information we saw from the Snowden leaks was passive interception of lines they had a legitimate need to tap. What they did, which I dont agree with, was intercept all the data and analyze it to deduce likely targets, rather than explicitly targeting data to capture. That was the entirety of the Snowden leaks: they're overly broad in their selection criteria because they wanted to run targeting filters instead of having to pick targets before intercept.

That's a whole different sport from pretending they tap every computer in the world with spy tools. Legally, ethically, and practically.

So I think you (and sibling comments) are simply uninformed, delusional, and making up wild, unreasonable accusations based on emotion, not rational thought.

[3131s]

> That was the entirety of the Snowden leaks

Is that so? So the NSA did not secretly collect all data from the unencrypted fiber between Google and Yahoo's data centers? And the NSA never paid RSA Security 10 million dollars to back Dual_EC_DRBG as part of the broader program Bullrun intended to subvert and weaken cryptographic protocols that underlie our national security and critical online infrastructure? You are aware that the Snowden documents discuss intelligence agencies outside the US as well, and detail our coordination with these agencies? What about spying on allied foreign world leaders? Gag orders placed on the largest companies on earth? Parallel construction?

I am almost skeptical that you are intentionally understating the significance of what the Snowden documents revealed.

[willstrafach]

He appears to be correct. Much was editorialized, so legit issues got mixed up with false statements.

> So the NSA did not secretly collect all data from the unencrypted fiber between Google and Yahoo's data centers?

I recall mentions of this, but do you have a source for your "all" claim here? As that would be a bit different than passively watching for specifically tasked IPs (or other selectors).

> And the NSA never paid RSA Security 10 million dollars to back Dual_EC_DRBG as part of the broader program Bullrun intended to subvert and weaken cryptographic protocols that underlie our national security and critical online infrastructure?

I believe this was theorized based on something that did look legitimately concerning in a Classification guidance document, but this was not substantiated within the leaks. Did new material come out which substantiated this claim?

> You are aware that the Snowden documents discuss intelligence agencies outside the US as well, and detail our coordination with these agencies?

We definitely partner with agencies outside of the US, this is not a secret.

> What about spying on allied foreign world leaders?

This was also certainly in the leaks. Countries gather intelligence on other countries, whether that is for nonproliferation reasons, understanding military intentions, or other reasons. People are free to believe that this shouldn't happen, but again, not much of a secret.

> Gag orders placed on the largest companies on earth?

What are you referring to here? Collection for FISA targets, or something else? Not very clear (We probably do agree with it being problematic).

> Parallel construction?

This was in articles about the leaks, but I do not believe there was any material in the leaks which indicated that this was a known practice (versus a theory of what might happen).

[3131s]

You seem to be right about parallel construction as practiced by the DEA/NSA. That revelation came out in a Reuters' report in 2013 rather than from the Snowden leaks.

Regarding gag orders, I'm referring to National Security Letters. Google, Yahoo, Twitter, etc. all received them with corresponding gag orders.

The NSA's documents when referring to the collection on those unencrypted fiber lines use the terms “full take,” “bulk access” and “high volume”. Perhaps they do not duplicate and store everything, but they certainly have access to everything, which is not much better.

You can read more about Bullrun on Wikipedia. It seems there is much known definitively about it, and it's the source of the statement I made almost verbatim.

You may not find some of the content of the leaks surprising, but many do, and I was treated like a conspiracy nut for years and years for even broaching the subject. The extent of the coordination with foreign intelligence agencies, while also not surprising to me, is highly significant because it presents an obvious loophole to the whole "we don't spy on American citizens" with the unspoken addendum being "(but our allies do, and we can access that data whenever)".

Maybe you and I have pretty different notions about what is acceptable in terms of "intelligence" gathering. I believe that all spying, whether on Americans or foreigners, is wrong. I want to see the NSA, CIA, DIA, and organizations like them splintered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the winds, to borrow a phrase.

[sanityUnbounded]

The logistics of breaking into a house undetected to set up tiny microphones suggests a lot of manpower, and to do that to each house in the United States would be near impossible without raising suspicion.

The reason to care now is because it likely wasn't happening then.

Also, whether the CIA "gives a shit" is irrelevant. It is still happening regardless, and you cannot know for certain what the CIA does and does not "give a shit" about.

If you have documents showing what this data is being used for, do the world a service and release them.