The following rush transcript probably contains errors and/or omissions…
The Gray Lady Awakens to Snooping
Rex Latchford with another DayPage.
The Grey Lady Wakes from her Nap
— When the NewYork Times, which is slow to criticise the Federal Government, leads off an issue with three stories about inappropriate and/or illegal spying, you know the story has gotten big. Again.
The story in first-place has nothing to do with Edward Snowden-leaked information. The headline reads “No US Action on Privacy Law, so States Lead the Way — Lawmakers in 10 states have passed more than two dozen privacy laws this year on phone tracking, the use of drones, and other topics, as support for limits on surveillance has grown.” It’s hardly the first time the States have moved to act when the misguided and bumbling federal government fails to act. Over two dozen privacy laws have passed in more than 10 states this year from states as different as Oklahome and California.
“For Internet companies, the patchwork of rules across the country means keeping a close eye on evolving laws to avoid overstepping. Many companies have an internal team to deal with state legislation. And the flurry of legislation has led some companies, particularly technology companies, to exert their lobbying muscles — with some success — when proposed measures stand to harm their bottom lines.” — that could hurt efforts to curb surveillance.
The Times #2 story is a backgrounder on how the NSA started tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkle’s phone back in 2002 when she was a comparitive nobody – and indication of the scope of phone tapping everywhere and on everyone.
The #3 story is about NSA’s tapping of Yahoo! and Google: tapping the fiber optic cables that connect the companies to the net. Google, for one, is fighting back by unleashing strong encryption on their connecting links. But, with what is now known about the extent to which the NSA has cracked codes, there is little confidence in any commonly used encryption systems. Despite the revelations over the past 5 months, the NSA still has the world by its balls. The question is: can they be stopped? And if not, how total will the destruction be?
NY Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed today titled “The Spies Who Loved to Damage Our Reputation”. Kristol takes the NSA to task for just some of its’ transgressions.
The extent of this should be clear by now. We’ve just spend an entire DayPage and barely scratched the surface of what’s in today’s issue of the NY Times alone. Today’s Guardian, for example, has still more coverage of this issue.
Everyone should care about this because it’s not only sick, creepy, and illegal, but it has already begun to damage the key concepts and institutions that make up the world we, well, lived in. What lies ahead in the world envisioned by the NSA is dark indeed. That alone could fill many day pages.
So for now, that’s DayPage. Collect them all at DayPage.net — they’re free to download — we’re on Facebook and Twitter and Tumbler, and it’s a production of RadioInfoWeb. I’ll see you next time for another… DayPage…