Posted on 06/16/2013 11:22:07 AM PDT by oblomov
The NSA slide that tech experts say Glenn Greenwald misinterpreted. (The Guardian/NSA, US Federal Government.)
Glenn Greenwald has posted a response to his critics today, including myself, titled “;On PRISM, Partisanship, and Propaganda”: “In a Nation post yesterday,” he writes, “Rick Perlstein falsely accuses me of not having addressed the questions about the PRISM story.” Actually I didn’t accuse him of not having addressed “the questions,” but instead a single question, which he still does not address: whether, in his claim that corporations have allowed the National Security Agency direct access to their servers, he misunderstands the meaning of the word “server” in an NSA slide to imply “all their data,” when it probably means “places to store a highly delimited amount of secured data the companies have agreed to provide to the government after consultation with their lawyers in response to government requests made through legal channels.” (By the way, you can still hold that those “legal channels” are ghastly, invasive and immoral, as I suspect they may well be, and stimultaneously believe that Greenwald may have made a grave and self-defeating error both in terms of accuracy and in terms of advocacy.)
My interpretation comes from someone I deeply respect and trust, Karl Fogel, whose professional integrity dwarfs just about anyone else’s I know. Karl explains a bit more about his qualifications to speak below; you can learn more about those at this link. I asked him to respond to Greenwald’s response, which I publish below. Further discussion of the technical issues can be carried out at his personal site, Rants.org.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
Wanted to post this to remind FReepers that, like our friends on the self-styled "right", the left's statist sheepdogs are out in force defending the NSA's surveillance programs.
I just received the following via email. Amazing what the cameras can do:
Hiding in a crowd? No more. Wait till this loads and zoom in... So you thought you might hide in the crowd?
This picture was taken with a camera 70,000 x 30,000 pixels (2100 MegaPixels).
It can identify a face in a multitude.
The cameras are not sold to the public and are being installed in strategic locations. (This one is in Canada)
Place the cursor in the multitude of people and left double click a couple times. It will continue to show the people much closer, when you double left click again or click more if needed. Amazing!!
There were thousands of persons and yet one can spot and recognize any face.
Imagine what this means...
http://www.gigapixel.com/image/gigapan-canucks-g7.html
The misdirection seems to favor Google.
From comments at end of Nation story:
gemini33333
The most important issue to be addressed, Perlstein is this:
**** WHY did FOGEL not disclose his CONFLICT OF INTEREST, working for New America Foundation, funded by former Google and Microsoft executives?
The Nation will discover the horrors of PRISM as soon as a Republican president is elected.
Justice Department Expands Hunt for Data on Cellphones
Cellphones seem to be increasingly attractive to the Department of Justice, documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union show. Agencies affiliated with the department used more than 37,600 court orders in 2011 to gather cellphone data, a sharp increase from previous years. They were almost equally divided between “pen register” data, which captures outgoing phone numbers, and “trap and trace” orders, which refer to incoming phone numbers, which means one phone could have two separate orders associated with it.
The total number has roughly doubled since 2007, when cellphone communications were more limited.
By law, the data can be obtained without a search warrant establishing probable cause, though the authorities do need to tell a court that it is relevant to an investigation. To get a wiretap that allows authorities to actually listen in on the contents of a call has higher legal barriers; law enforcement officials have to convince an impartial judge of probable cause.
(Excerpt)
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/justice-department-expands-hunt-for-data-on-cellphones/
Obama’s NSA eavesdropping goes beyond that of Bush... after campaigning on the promise of: “ No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me!”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9845595-7.html
headlines read: “NSA Exceeds Legal Limits In Eavesdropping Program”, “ U.S. phone intercepts go beyond legal limits” , and “NSA Found Improperly Spying on Americans”.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123985123667923961.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE53F09820090416
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/15/justice-dept-nsa-improperly-spied-americans/
Snowden is a Chinese agent. It’s so bleeding obvious.
There is no “camera” that can take that image in one “exposure”. They use a camera mount that swivels around and takes multiple images with an ordinary camera. The images are then stitched together using Gigapan software.
Anyone can buy the hardware and software to do this if they are so inclined. Starts at $300.
If true, how would this fact justify PRISM, Echelon, or other “pre-crime” programs directed against the American people by the ruling class?
Holy crap.
I'd seen that picture before but never with the clarity this one showed. Wow, I mean, throw in a little facial recognition software, and voilà! We know where you were.
From CNN today:
KURTZ: And now you think they have flipped?
GREENWALD: They have completely switched gears.
KURTZ: Yes.
GREENWALD: Yes, you can even look at polling data. Overwhelmingly, Democrats opposed NSA surveillance programs back in 2006 and overwhelmingly they now favor them because it’s a Democrat in power who’s doing it rather than a Republican.
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