The NSA checks your e-mail
It’s like something out of a movie, really. Half the time, one wonders if the NSA exists. The other half of the time, you wonder what it is they do all day. Well, whistle-blower Mike Klein, best known for lauching the AT&T / NSA eavesdropping scandal, has added a bit of clarity to his claims. His new accounts suggest that he personally witnessed (and connected) a secret NSA facility, "secure room 641A in AT&T’s San Francisco switching center." What he primarily noticed was, as he was wiring the room, the gear that was being used was incapable of the specific filtering suggested by the government. There was no way the installed equipment could do anything other than send an exact duplicate of e-mails, web traffic, and phone calls by both AT&T, as well as other various carriers. Says Klein, "the splitter device has no selective capability, it just copies everything. We’re talking about domestic traffic, as well as international traffic, and that’s what got me upset to begin with.” Gee…we wonder how long it will take for this guy to have an "accident" or simply "disappear." Make the jump for the full details of the mysterious "room 641A." And no, this isn’t an episode of LOST.
More power to them. Honestly, is this really a big deal? 98% of it is junk anyway, and if the 2% stops something then good. If they really want to read about my technology gadget fetish or how I like to search for lame videos on youpo — oops, youtube.com the have at it!
Uh, Jeff F, this is a HUGE deal because it is flatly unconstitutional.
Do you mail letters? Do you put them in envelopes? Why do you do that if you don’t mind everyone reading them along the way?
How about when you email a friend saying that you are ill, and suddenly you can’t get health insurance anymore. Or, when you say over the phone that you are a democrat and all of a sudden you get audited by the IRS?
Simply put, there is some private information that the government has a right to know (crimes, etc.) but they must follow a process first to get it (court, probable cause, warrant).
If it’s unconstitutional, then every loyal American should routinely include blocks of random characters in their emails, so the spooks can never be sure they are not encrypted messages and have to waste vast amounts of computing capacity chasing wild geese.
To outsiders, it’s disappointing that for all their flag-waving, our friends and defenders, the Americans, have just rolled over and pissed in the air like a puppy at the most horrendous abuses of their Constitution. “My President, right or wrong” is surely the highest treason.
Technically, I believe it’s a right thing to do. You forward all traffic to central location with powerful computers and brains behind them and that’s where you analyze and sort out traffic.
May sound a little skewed, but it’s my money that pays for this equipment.
“Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder”
@M – Has congress declared war? Have they not voted on and allowed the Patriot act? I hear you on the whole privacy issue, but our past can teach us a lot. Look at how things were during WW I or WW II, a newspaper could not publish your covert plans back then.
I’d recommend the following excellent read that covers a great deal of this:
HTH
Yes– it is hugely unconstitutional.
Yes– there is a basic human right to privacy (contrary to the belief of Albert Gonzalez or whomever that joker is at the link you cite)
Yes– f**king waterboarding IS f**king torture.
NO– this isn’t America anymore; it looks and smells more like Nazi Germany or Texas.
Good. You have nothing to worry about if you are an upstanding citizen of this country.
Well…I guess I’m not going to send anymore e-mails.
On Nov 15, 2007 @ 3:17 pm, Jeff F Said:
“@M – Has congress declared war? Have they not voted on and allowed the Patriot act? I hear you on the whole privacy issue, but our past can teach us a lot. Look at how things were during WW I or WW II, a newspaper could not publish your covert plans back then.”
What, like throwing every Japanese-American into camps? Yeah, that was awesome. Oh, the PATRIOT act is bad enough, and even that doesn’t authorize this.
I agree with @M. Couldn’t have been said better.
OK seriously guys we’re all here to discuss cell phones and other hott tech items, not to discuss these stupid things our politicians have put into law or for that matter, politics in itself. Yea this is wrong and stupid but this is like arguing over a Ford EDGE being better than the Lincoln MKX, they’re the same damn car and that’s it, nothing more nothing less.
But the Edge has a nice shiny blue logo while the Lincoln does not.
Jeff F.,
lol. I dunno if I had to choose I’d probably get the Lincoln I mean it has a little better build quality but not by much and it feels better put together…wait whytf am I talking about this?