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Snowden

Discussion in 'Serious' started by VipersGratitude, 3 Jul 2013.

  1. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    I never know how to start these threads, other than asking - What's your opinion on the whole thing?
    (I've seen some insane comments on the guardian's website. Are bit-techers just as crazy?)
     
  2. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Man, I'm not touching that one with a ten-foot barge pole.

    Flame extinguishers at the ready...
     
  3. Andy Mc

    Andy Mc Modder

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    Whistleblower.

    The Americans are all concerned with US citizens being listened in on, but what about us Europeans?


    Now where did I put my tinfoil hat...
     
  4. Aterius Gmork

    Aterius Gmork smell the ashes

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    Snowden aside, I for one would really like to know the opinion of people from the first or second party countries:

    Do you think it is okay - or even necessary - that your country copies the personal data of the people of another allied country?

    This is an honest, no rhetorical question.
     
  5. KayinBlack

    KayinBlack Unrepentant Savage

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    I think it's a horrible breach of my right to privacy. So what if I have nothing to hide-that's not the point. I've done a lot of business with people overseas-so I got extra scrutiny. The point is not that my deals were above the board, or that I don't even have any porn on my PC (I don't have a PC, for that matter, I'm using my wife's) but that I was being spied on in the name of "protecting liberty."

    Those who would exchange essential freedoms for temporary safety deserve neither freedom or safety.
     
  6. Andy Mc

    Andy Mc Modder

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    It is a breach of trust and my privacy. We are only in this situation because of our governments meddling. Orwell may have gotten the year wrong but he was right in predicting where we are going as a society.
     
  7. Big_malc

    Big_malc Minimodder

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    Nineteen_Eighty-Four for anyone not old enough :p
     
  8. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    The NSA, FBI, DHS, and this administration are doing everything they can to keep us safe from terrorism... :worried:
     
  9. Blazza181

    Blazza181 SVM PLACENTA CASEI

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    1984 + 29, I guess.

    Orwell plus copper. Sort-of makes sense.
     
  10. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    Someones making a MOUNTAIN out of a molehill aren't they?

    Ok ok, i'll go.
     
  11. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    [​IMG]
     
    kenco_uk, boiled_elephant and Nexxo like this.
  12. walle

    walle Minimodder

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    It is not the job of the government to keep people safe, as for national securtiy I have to say that I'm leaning more and more towards that being a cop out used by government to cover their own wrongdoings and crimes. They can always say, to shut people up "its national security", you know, it defeats everything.
     
    Last edited: 3 Jul 2013
  13. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    Oh my, I'm going to disagree with Eddie. That's never happened before :lol:

    While I don't disagree that prevention of terrorism is the goal of this program, I seriously question the value of that goal. Put another way, I encourage Americans to come to grips with the fact that people out there want to kill you, but probably won't succeed and quit worrying about it and go on with your lives. I find the American willingness to give up freedom and liberties in the name of security disgusting and misguided. Then again, Anyone who has been around Bit since the latter part of the second Bush presidency knows that I don't hold my fellow countrymen in very high esteem.

    I see Edward Snowden as a hero, and a much purer one than Julian Assange, who has sacrificed everything he has known before to bring out this information without any reasonable expectation of reward. It's unfortunate that this story hasn't resulted in such an iconic image as the man standing in front of the tanks in Tienanmen Squareto remember him by.
     
  14. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

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    I think Eddie was being sarcastic. Very, very sarcastic. :D
     
  15. sp4nky

    sp4nky BF3: Aardfrith WoT: McGubbins

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    I think Snowden's done both the UK and the US a gigantic favour, if only they'd be smart about how to manage the issue. Now that there's no secret about wiretapping going on, emails being read, stuff being posted on forums, etc. this information can openly be used for criminal prosecutions whereas previously they'd have had to use it to find other evidence that could be used openly, so as to protect their source of the original information.
     
  16. Porkins' Wingman

    Porkins' Wingman Can't touch this

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    I fully agree with those above on the issue of using 'security' as a justification for anything, but it is an inevitability under State rule - the State must protect itself to survive, and that means quashing any potential threats to the State, by whatever means. The cat is out of the bag. The more individuals participate in State affairs, the stronger the State becomes.

    Hence Snowdon is now finding there are few options left. I wonder what his motives were and what he expected to achieve. My initial, conditioned, reaction was that he was a beacon of light, but domestically the impact of his 'revelations' doesn't appear to have been worth the sacrifice he's made.

    The international situation is perhaps different, but not significantly, its just a political embarrassment. Nobody's fooling anyone by pretending that they're surprised and outraged. We all know digital communications are inherently susceptible to these practices, did anyone genuinely trust that the veil of 'privacy' would be respected?

    Edit: that's a good point you make sp4nky, the authorities could use it as a renaissance and drop the burden of respecting privacy during evidence collection. Although whether that's healthy in the long term.... this thing is only going one way, unless there's a real civil uprising in western democracies, but can anyone really see that happening in our lifetimes?
     
    Last edited: 4 Jul 2013
  17. miller

    miller What's a Dremel?

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    I don't use facebook but I have often seen people complaining that the security/personal settings have changed and facebook often seems to be encouraging people to give out more of their info, I've always thought this was just to do with target advertising but now we find out that facebook has allowed the security services access all areas maybe it's not to do with advertising and it's done at the request of the security services so they can gather even more info on people?

    It's also very ironic that the monitoring and storage of communications in the UK has been publicly discussed in the last few years and we know that ISP's now have to keep search histories and maybe emails and that was thought to be a huge invasion of privacy but all the time there was in fact far more detailed and invasive monitoring and storage of our communications already happening.

    How many of the politicians and a certain prime minister stood in the house and told us that our privacy was of the utmost importance and priority yet all the time they knew that we were being monitored far more than we could have imagined.
     
  18. Andy Mc

    Andy Mc Modder

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    No. None of the named Tech firms have said this is the case, possibly due to the secrecy cause in the gag orders, but it is more likely due to it being true.

    Current opinion is that the spooks are tapping the Tech firms up-stream links so are able to capture all data going in and out of the firms, without them knowing.
     
  19. miller

    miller What's a Dremel?

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    Yes that makes sense but with the consent and power of the US government behind the security services you have to wonder if any American company could stop them from doing what they want, who knows what "pressure" they could apply to make a company conform, dig up some dirt on some top facebook people, blacken a few names and a company that's now on the stock market takes a dive and loses millions, a few years ago if someone had suggested that I would have thought paranoid and conspiracy nutter but not anymore :worried:
     
  20. sp4nky

    sp4nky BF3: Aardfrith WoT: McGubbins

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    Nobody can stop them because they aren't asking permission, they aren't applying pressure, they are just tapping into the data, reading it as it moves from one place to another.
     

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