See, that's what I'm trying to tell, What about 'Not in America'?
Before I proceed further, I want to categorically state that I don't intend to come off as supporting privacy violations by one country vs another; My argument over this entire thread has been that it sucks for someone not in any of these countries as they all spy on us and it's taken for granted in this kind of discussions.
That said,
>use a VPN. The NSA can't stop you if you really want privacy.
Because they have 'No logs' policy? Come on, don't be naive. Even the trillion dollar fruit company has been part of the program according to documents which hasn't been disputed.
>This is illegal in China, where every VPN must be state sponsored and monitored.
So you do agree that the Amercian VPN companies or any American company have double standards when it comes to China? Btw, almost every outsider in China installs a VPN to access content outside Great Firewall once they arrive, several U.S. services work without a VPN e.g. iMessage, Skype etc. I have heard of targeted deportation/arrests at airport, but never heard of random phone seizures at Airports.
Same advice, buy a VPN if you want the services that it provides.
>Because they have 'No logs' policy? Come on, don't be naive.
Contract with a VPN that is audited and resides in a legally favorable country. I hesitate to endorse any particular company, but they're out there. Maybe privacy just isn't convenient enough for you.
>So you do agree that the Amercian VPN companies or any American company have double standards when it comes to China?
What are you talking about?
>very outsider in China installs a VPN to access content outside Great Firewall once they arrive
You are allowed to do this at their law enforcement's mercy.
> several U.S. services work without a VPN
Surveillance wouldn't work very well if it made people quit using the services and network.
> I have heard of targeted deportation/arrests at airport, but never heard of random phone seizures at Airports.
I wonder why they don't feel the need to seize phones at airports. As an aside, I recall reading that the PRC forces Uighurs to install spying apps directly to their phones. That is, all the Uighurs who aren't in "Vocational Educational Camps" and have yet to flee to America, where the supposedly oppressive American surveillance state is a breath of fresh air.
This - >
>Same advice, buy a VPN if you want the services that it provides.
>You are allowed to do this at their law enforcement's mercy.
Do you consider secret courts to be in scope of this discussion.
Then there is this That and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
Yes. Secret courts are reasonable due process. Do you have an alternative method that wouldn't release damaging information?
Are you interested in talking about surveillance specifically or every talking point of the usual anti-American tirades?
Yes, independent review by a board or committee separate from the defense intelligence complex who will help determine if the information is actually damaging or if it's just some bullshit a midlevel staffer at the Pentagon determined is 'damaging.'
As an American, I am deeply disturbed by the complete absence of transparency of these programs to Congress and the American people. And honestly I'm not convinced that the people running these programs have any ability to see the forest for the trees, or if they're not just some D.C. automaton skilled enough at groupthink and not asking questions to get the tippity-top security clearance.
Is it a drooling idiot running the program? Dunno. Classified.
Their spying on Americans is reviewed by judges and courts. They get warrants for every american they spy on.
The senate intelligence committee may (behind closed doors and under the oath of secrecy) inquire about just about anything the intelligence community does.
The president may at his or her sole discretion declassify any information.
Haven't you heard, the first rule of conflict is "all warfare is deception"? Try running a state with zero secrets and see how far you get.
Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee. That's like calling the police commission an independent committee. Even if they were, how would we even know if they're not just rubberstamping stuff?
Congress is in the dark. Remember Niger?
"We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing. So John McCain is going to try to create a new system to make sure that we can answer the question (about) why we were there," he said. "We'll know how many soldiers are there, and if somebody gets killed there, that we won't find out about it in the paper." When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was asked later on "Meet the Press" about knowing whether there were troops in Niger, he responded, "No, I did not."
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/politics/niger-troops-lawmake...
If they don't even know where we have troops doing mildly classified stuff, how much do you think they know about black programs that are totally off the books?
The president has thus far decided things like, 'huh, the Coronavirus is a lot worse than everyone thinks...in February...better not tell anyone about it and we should do absolutely nothing to prepare' classified. Great guy to have in charge of that.
Think about the people we're actually fighting wars against? Do you think elaborate deception has made a sliver of difference in any conflict fought by the United States in the past 60 years?
We need transparency and civilian oversight. I'm not afraid of an Afghan Taliban fighter knowing our super secret plan to spy on the planet. I am afraid of a defense intelligence complex that has shown zero hesitancy in the past to spy on Americans and is increasingly operating in the shadows with little oversight outside of the White House.
This whole system is not engineered for the benefit of the American people. It's a juggernaut of bureaucracy and secrecy that serves a defense and intelligence community that is pursuing god knows what.
Source on this?
>Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee.
What does independent committee mean to you? They are from entirely different branches of government. That's as independent as it gets.
The post you linked is from the Senate Armed Services committee which is not the legislative oversight for the NSA. Different people, different processes. Geriatric senators probably forgot we had troops in Nigeria because America has troops in untold dozens of countries. No one remembers the whole list.
If you think the Taliban is our biggest threat you should leave national security to the people who do it for a living.
I can say that there are only 11 judges listed as being on the FISA court, and I don't believe that 11 people can personally oversee every instance of the NSA conducting surveillance on all potential Americans of interest around the planet. Maybe they can. Who knows, it's classified.
Congress is a different branch than the presidency, doesn't mean Mitch McConnell is an independent check-and-balance on the authority of the president.
It's literally their job to be aware of that. They have a staff whose entire job it is to keep them aware of that. If they can't keep track, what's the difference between them and the congressional committee that's supposed to be keeping tabs on the NSA?
The people who do national security for a living are in a bubble that facilitates the construction of boogeymen. And if they can't give me any credible evidence as to the existence of said boogeymen without saying 'sorry, that's all classified,' then why should I believe otherwise?
Right now I'm supposed to be scared of China, but I personally see no evidence that I should be more worried about them than my own president who covered-up the threat from Coronavirus in February, and then tried to blame it all on the Chinese as a diversion. Looks to me like the Chinese were actually trying to warn us in February, while the President was trying to cover it up:
Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China - January 24, 2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study - February 24, 2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...
If the Taliban aren't a threat to U.S. national security, then why was the longest war in American history fought on Afghan soil? Isn't that where all those 9/11 hijackers were from, and the country that bankrolled them? If they weren't from Afghanistan why didn't we sanction or invade the country they were actually from, and that gladly bankrolled the operation? Is that classified too?
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/855611173/fbi-accidentally-re...
Oops... I guess it isn't anymore.
You said
> If they wanted to intentionally examine your network traffic, that would require a court order.
I just gave you an example when that did not matter.
> Are you interested in talking about surveillance specifically or every talking point of the usual anti-American tirades?
Whenever you are willing to have an honest discussion rather than a blinkered and intentionally misleading cheerleading
Prove it.
Regardless of legality.
> I'm very sure that you're wrong. Do you have any evidence that the NSA kidnaps and tortures people?
that NSA can get people tortured or killed without much difficulty.
You started with the claim that unlike China an US citizen is unlikely to get his/her privacy encroached on quoting all sorts of processes. I just gave examples where these processes didnt do much in preventing breaches of such encroachments. Add to that what we know is just a clouded view into the tip of the iceberg because of provisions of secrecy. If the clouded tip of the iceberg looks the way it does, it is not hard for someone not so deluded, or not so deprived of a full deck, to fill in what the rest of the iceberg could look like.
If you disagree show me the proof of
> Americans who are overseas plotting imminent terrorist attacks
Show me the oversight over Anwar Awlaki's assasination that went ahead despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime. Proof of oversight, if you please over the killing of his 16 year old son.
I can play the same game that you have been playing in asking nothing less than irrefutable proof that will stand in a public court. Hope you believe in upholding the same standards over yourself that seek in others.
If you cannot, then how is it different from other places where such proofs are not forthcoming after killings or incarcerations ?
It also links to another similar account a few days before that. And why would Egyptian activists make that up?
Plus, even if the NSA isn't regularly doing the kidnapping, torture, and killing themselves, they certainly help our other organizations do these things. Things like the disposition matrix, black sites, and locally with parallel construction all rely on their surveillance.
Too many unanswered questions. It's more likely she made it up because it gets people angry and that's what activists need to do.
If you have problems with other parts of our government, by all means criticize them and be an activist. Speak your mind and vote. Making up stuff about the NSA is intellectually lazy.
Personally, I agree with the other poster and view the NSA's collaboration as enough evidence, but had remembered seeing the Egypt thing last year.