Quote:I appreciate that this man released his findings to American news before going other places with it...

Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:

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I thought he went to American press before the Guardian interviewed him. Did the Brits actually get their hooks into him fist?

Quote:Rod H wrote:

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And the Australian media has been mentioning that our own version of the NSA, is helping them implement PRISM in return for information on what ever they want.

Up to the point of needing a new datacenter to hold & process it all.

Quote:nemonowan wrote:

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Nonetheless, now that the US government has acknowledged that the PRISM data collection program actually exists, there are other implications that are rearing their head:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... 4900.story
A suspect on trial for a 2010 bank robbery claims to have been somewhere else at the time of the robbery, and that the cell phone records would prove it. The phone company has already destroyed those records. So he is now demanding that the NSA releases their copy of the relevant records to the court.

• The NSA has stated that PRISM does not spy on US citizens.
  
• Earlier this week, it came out in the Canadian Parliament that CSEC has a similar program, that does not spy on Canadian citizens.
  
• NSA and CSEC share data, as part of the "Five Eyes" program.
  
• Information provided by friendly governments' intelligence agencies is normally not subject to disclosure in FoI requests, because that might cause the friendly governments to cease being friendly. (At least, that's how it works in Canada; I assume the same applies in the USA.)
  

blackaeronaut Wrote:But, playing devil's advocate here, I can't help but think about the ridiculous amounts of data storage that wiretapping the online activity of everyone would require. Is it even possible for the US Government to securely hold on to that much data?

Quote:In the story of Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, a good deal of the
context is still missing, and what remains is peculiar. Certainly
Snowden styles himself a martyr: "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that
because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy
privacy, Internet freedom, and basic liberties for people around the
world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."
And yet some of the key facts of the case are still in doubt. Does the
NSA really have full access to private companies' Internet servers as
first implied? Or was that, as it now seems, an exaggeration?







Some details now appear to be wrong as well. Snowden might not, for
example, have stolen four laptops as originally and flamboyantly
reported, but instead—less glamorously—removed information on a thumb
drive.





His methods are curious as well. There is a tradition of
whistle-blowing in the United States, even among people who work with
classified information—and there are long established ways to do it.
Snowden might have approached a member of Congress, perhaps one of those
with intelligence oversight. He might have written to his
organization's lawyers, to clarify the legality of his work. He might
have argued his case from within. The legal expert Jack Goldsmith, then
working in the Department of Justice, fought against the use of torture
by the Bush administration. Eventually he resigned and wrote about it.
There were setbacks, but ultimately, Goldsmith was successful: The
policy was reversed.





Snowden chose a different path. He stole a hoard of documents—and
fled to Hong Kong. Thus did he place his ultimate fate in the hands of a
government that exerts total control over its own national Internet,
and which spares no expense in its attempts to penetrate ours. His
decision to speak from there, in public, is also noteworthy: It means
his interest in publicity trumps his stated fear of arrest.