[lern_too_spel]

The last section reads like the ravings of a conspiracy nut. From associating the DARPA grants that fund many university computer science projects with nefarious spy collaboration to repeating PRISM is the long-debunked full take program of Greenwald's fantasy, it's straight lunacy.

[api]

A lot of what's happened in the past ten years is straight out of the rantings of 1990s-era conspiracy nuts.

If anything, the 90s conspiracy wackos were too conservative. Nobody would have imagined that everyone would think it perfectly okay to carry a portable device that constantly reports their location to central servers 24/7, not to mention that it has a microphone that can be switched on by malware.

[adventured]

The Patriot Act, indefinite detention, torture camps, the NDAA bill, NSA spying, the immense violations by the FBI and DEA when it comes to parallel construction and aggressive localized spying and tracking, StingRay, fake cell towers, local jurisdictions (eg Virginia) compiling phone records and tracking citizens, killing thousands of innocent people around the globe via drones, Guantanamo, arresting people under terrorism charges for joking on Facebook or online games, the TSA, Homeland Security...

And on and on

If you told someone in 1997 that that's how America would look today, they'd never believe it.

[xnull2guest]

Can you speak more about NDAA?

Oh man there's so many things I want to add to your list.

[dismal2]

Please read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

It actually does what you claim was Greenwald's fantasy/lunacy

[lern_too_spel]

I know all about Xkeyscore: https://medium.com/state-of-play/getting-xkeyscore-right-f49...

It's a database that has nothing to do with a full-take of Google data with Google's cooperation as claimed by Greenwald and repeated by Assange to support his thesis. Greenwald's PRISM fantasy is just that.

[grecy]

> reads like the ravings of a conspiracy nut.

As do all the articles about the information Snowden made available to us.

Imagine it's somewhere in 2005-2010 while reading... you would be nuts if you didn't think they were conspiracy nuts.

[DanBC]

ECHELON was an open secret much earlier and the European Paiament had written reports on it in the 1990s.

People claiming it was conspiracy theory were fucking idiots given all the reputable evidence. The stuff about Boeing and McDonnal Douglas was late 1999 / early 2000.

[contingencies]

European Parliament report was issued in 2001. The difference back then was that everyone in the general population considered you a nutcase if you described it to them. These days, only perhaps 60% of people consider you a nutcase.

[mpyne]

The only things that has been surprising about Snowden's revelations have been, in some cases, the scale (MUSCULAR comes to mind) and the audacity (Dual EC DRBG, which is technically "strong crypto", unless your opponent is NSA).

Warrant/NLS compliance (PRISM) was never a conspiracy theory, nor was foreign intelligence interception on domestic networks (regulated since 1978 by the FISA, with explicit increases in scope by PATRIOT ACT, and very public debates about "warrantless wiretaps" in the middle of the last decade).

Moreover what's notable about Snowden's leaks is how many conspiracy theories they didn't substantiate. No black helicopters are mentioned. Even the super-sekrit slides stamped TOP SECRET and EYES ONLY (which were never supposed to be seen by the sheeple) make reference to having to comply with First Amendment rights, civil liberties oversight, court orders, etc.

But people crow about conspiracy theories here because they honestly believe that showing specifics of programs and authorities that were widely known in general is proof of conspiracy.

[AnimalMuppet]

> ... make reference to having to comply with First Amendment rights, civil liberties oversight, court orders, etc.

I just wish they did more actual complying, and less lip service to compliance. I especially wish they'd think a bit about the spirit, not just the letter.

[runjake]

Could you address specifically which parts you are referring to? I speed-read through it and didn't notice anything that wasn't established fact, especially the DARPA bits.

[api]

We need an analogue of Godwin's law for the use of the phrase "conspiracy theory." It's a term used by naive establishmentarians to discredit any attempt to dig into the darker reaches of politics, even when the stuff being discussed is well documented and consistent with historical fact.

[mpyne]

Is "establishmentarian" supposed to be the new "statist shill"?

[olefoo]

I rather think it was a play on the word "antidisestablishmentarian" which technically would be one who is opposed to the disestablishment of the Anglican church as the official church of those lands governed by the queen of England. [1]

In this case an establismentarian would be presumed to be anyone who favors the current order of things; whether it be a democracy, a cryptocracy or a kakistocracy.

So, yes. A statist shill.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidisestablishmentarianism

[dismal2]

Please let us know how it has been debunked.

[lern_too_spel]

The NY Times published a correct description of PRISM very shortly after Greenwald's published his insane misread. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-compani...

This description matches the declassified PRISM documents, the description in Snowden's leaked slides, US law, the miniscule price tag in Snowden's slides, and the description of a specific PRISM integration I heard from one of the implementers (possibly one interviewed in the nytimes story).

[dismal2]

I believe he is referring to XKeyscore, not PRISM, which is as insane as it sounds, unless you believe the NSAs denial.

[lern_too_spel]

No, he is very clearly referring to Greenwald's PRISM fantasy. From the article: "Caught red-handed last year making petabytes of personal data available to the U.S. intelligence community through the PRISM program...."

[dismal2]

You are arguing semantics and I'm talking about what the NSA is actually capable of. Please read this paragraph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore#Capabilities

[valas]

The original story tries to implicate Google in opening their servers for "full take" data feed.

XKeyscore was a program to analyse data siphoned from wiretaps. This is what caused that infamous ppt slide "SSL Removed Here ;-)" which, among other reasons, caused Google to start encrypting all of the inter-data center links.

[lern_too_spel]

You are arguing about a program that has nothing to do with Assange's thesis that Google is an arm of the US State Department. This isn't merely semantics.

[mkal_tsr]

That's a lot of citations there, thanks for backing up your claims!

[lern_too_spel]

It's in TFA. What citations do you need?

[jeangenie]

This comment reads like the ravings of a deluded government stooge.

[CyberDildonics]

Debunked?