Snowden Fallout Updates
Time for another DayPage, I’m Rex Latchford…
Time for a roundup of Snowden news. It’s overwhelming and surreal, I know. But for those of us paying attention, it’s shattered the world view of many. Innocense gone, and all that…
The government, U.S. and most others, have totally blown our trust by systematically spying on us to a degree that bespeaks mental illness. We have been betrayed. Not surprisingly, given the previous point, because governments are horrible at keeping secrets, and now they have them all. It makes Facebook look small-time as far as spreading secrets goes…
The following stories from the last few days were all published in The Guardian, and you can read about the details at their website “theguardian.com”.
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of The Guardian writes:
[now here, he attempts to write in a level tone, as politely as being British allows…]
“Orwell could never have imagined anything as complete as this, this concept of scooping up everything all the time.
“This is something potentially astonishing about how life could be lived and the limitations on human freedom,” he said.
Rusbridger said the NSA stories were “clearly” not a story about totalitarianism, but that an infrastructure had been created that could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.
“Obama is a nice guy. David Cameron is a nice social Democrat. About three hours from London in Greece there are some very nasty political parties. What there is is the infrastructure for total surveillance. In history, all the precedents are unhappy,” said Rusbridger, speaking at the Advertising Week conference.
He said that whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked the documents, had been saying: “Look, wake up. You are building something that is potentially quite alarming.”
Rusbridger said that people bring their own perspectives to the NSA revelations. People who have read Kafka or Orwell found the level of surveillance scary, he said, and that those who had lived or worked in the communist eastern bloc were also concerned.
“If you are Mark Zuckerberg and you are trying to build an international business, this is dismaying to you,” Rusbridger said.
“Orwell could never have imagined anything as complete as this, this concept of scooping up everything all the time.
“This is something potentially astonishing about how life could be lived and the limitations on human freedom,” he said.
Rusbridger said the NSA stories were “clearly” not a story about totalitarianism, but that an infrastructure had been created that could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.
“Obama is a nice guy. David Cameron is a nice social Democrat. About three hours from London in Greece there are some very nasty political parties. What there is is the infrastructure for total surveillance. In history, all the precedents are unhappy,” said Rusbridger, speaking at the Advertising Week conference.
He said that whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked the documents, had been saying: “Look, wake up. You are building something that is potentially quite alarming.”
Rusbridger said that people bring their own perspectives to the NSA revelations. People who have read Kafka or Orwell found the level of surveillance scary, he said, and that those who had lived or worked in the communist eastern bloc were also concerned.
“If you are Mark Zuckerberg and you are trying to build an international business, this is dismaying to you,” Rusbridger said.
He said that as the NSA revelations had gone on, the “integrity of the internet” had been questioned. “These are big, big issues about balancing various rights in society. About how business is done. And about how safe individuals are, living their digital lives.”
Looks like all we have time for now is some headlines:
- The NSA infiltrated the design committees of encryption algorithms to secretly install backdoors. These algorithms are legally mandated for transcations such as those by financial institutions. They are also widely used in products such as those by Apple, Microsoft, and in web browsers and smart phones.
- Phone companies are remaining silent over the legality of NSA data collection. Apparently they never raised a peep of concern over the illegal wiretapping and data collection.
- The NSA has infiltrated the world’s telecommunications companies with agents posing as employees, to ensure data collection is complete and absolute.
- Even staunch supporter of the status quo Republican congressman Bob Goodlatte calls for ‘robust oversight’ of NSA programs and that ‘further protections are necessary’. But not so fast! So far the NSA has flaunted its disobediance of regulations and regulators.
- And finally, in Brazil, predident Dilma Rousseff asks “Do I look happy, Mr. Obama?” and hopes her recent snub in cancelling a historic meeting with President Obama will send a signal. The Snowden documents show the US spied on her personal communications, targeted her computer systems, and more…
That’s all we’ve got time for… but join me again tomorrow, for another turn of the DayPage. You can find all the ripped and torn pages of the past at DayPage.net – a production of Radio InfoWeb – see ya!