[Tangaroa]

AJAX and REST sure are evil. The fact that 229 people have upvoted this is certainly proof that web-based UIs are something that we as hackers ought to oppose.

We are all aware that PRISM has been exposed to be nothing more than a user interface to information provided by companies that receive a search warrant after the request has gone through courts and lawyers, right? Surely 229 users of Hacker News cannot be that uninformed about PRISM, after so many front-page articles on the subject giving so many opportunities to hash out the details of what it is and is not, that they imagine it to be something nefarious?

[ajross]

It's good to be skeptical, and it's important to counsel against irrational or knee jerk judgements. But you're way, way too far on the other side of this.

When a related warrant, having "gone through courts and lawyers", turns out to have been a blanket demand for all call data from all Verizon customers, I think it's reasonable to assume that perhaps the checks and balances aren't as robust as we'd hoped.

And for those outside the US, a response like this seems quite reasonable to me. After all item #2 is "Uncover the facts".

[pedrocr]

Note the .EU domain name and the non-US/Europe focus of the content. As far as I've seen reported or stated by US representatives there's no going "through courts and lawyers" for non-citizens. PRISM may very well not have changed any of that but it was at least a wake up call outside the US for the fact that using US-based companies puts decisions about your data privacy in the hands of governments that view you, as a foreigner, as having absolutely no rights.

This is particularly scary because people have so far been used to considering the Internet as a sort of borderless global place and when it comes to privacy from government snooping it definitely is not.

[embolism]

Right since we can be certain that only the US government does anything like this. Put your data anywhere outside the US and it will be safe.

[justincormack]

Thats why much of this is a call for more transparency and law within Europe, including banning things that may be happening in the US, whether they are or not. We know that some European governments are doing things along these lines (with lower budgets). We had the Stasi in Europe, just a few years ago; we invented the Panopticon, and we have had a very mixed record.

[embolism]

Good luck with that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-...

[pedrocr]

Not my point at all. If I put my data in a European datacenter I'm in the same legal jurisdiction as the potential government snoop. If I put it in the US the USG may be more or less prone to snooping than my local government but what I'm sure of is that I will never have any legal standing to challenge it if it does snoop.

I knew this before of course. And before I assumed the snooping was low enough that I didn't care that I didn't have any legal standing to challenge it. Now I'm not so sure.

[moheeb]

So does this mean I don't have to listen to people on HN complain about Netflix/Xbox Live/Pissroulette/etc. not being available outside the US anymore? Thank God!

[betterunix]

"We are all aware that PRISM has been exposed to be nothing more than a user interface to information provided by companies that receive a search warrant after the request has gone through courts and lawyers, right?"

The Obama administration is awfully worried about people knowing about the existence of that front end. There are high-ranking officials committing perjury before Congress in an attempt to cover this story up. Somehow I doubt that they are worried about a mere front end.

Really, your response follows the same line of reasoning as the least untruthful statements being made to Congress right now. You are being pedantically specific -- PRISM itself may indeed just be a front end -- while ignoring the real story here, which is the NSA's ongoing wholesale surveillance. You are ignoring the fact that the NSA is keeping information that might be indicative of criminal activity, a dangerous mixture of intelligence gathering with law enforcement. When members of the Senate are saying that this is the tip of an iceberg, I do not think you can just write off this story as some misinformed reporters hyping up a front end.

[dram]

Well it is officially SIGAD US-984XN, so by its own definition it intercepts signals- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGINT_Activity_Designator

It is not just an interface. The NSA is collecting data and using secret courts. The programs are clearly unconstitutional. If they are needed and the people want them, let's pass a Constitutional amendment. That's how it's supposed to work.

[oceanstone]

The issue isn't JSON vs XML.

If the NSA were making individual wiretaps based on criminal suspicions, that would align with the Constitution. Instead, they are wiretapping almost everyone in the US.

Reference: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/