kimlelly

> Rather, we should be discussing realistic solutions.

Everything has already been discussed. Multiple times over. And when you repeat yourself, you get downvoted.

> Calling people insane won't win you any favors.

I say exactly what it IS. It IS INSANE.

I do NOT give a fuck about any favors. I don't care about any fucking karma points - we're turning into a turn-key totalitarian system, and people act like nothing has changed.

You got https://prism-break.org/

Now go and do your homework, I'm not your dad.

I'll say it again, because I was immediately downvoted into invisibility:

You CAN NOT continue to use products and services by NSA companies like Microsoft - Yahoo - Google - Facebook - PalTalk - AOL - Skype - YouTube - or Apple and THEN turn around and BITCH AND CRY ABOUT LOSING YOUR RIGHTS AND PRIVACY.

This is completely INSANE, you NEED TO WAKE UP!

EDIT: Yeah, let the censuring begin again. You know what? When I look at the people here on HackerNews, I'm beginning to see a SOCIETY THAT ACTUALLY WANTS TO BE FUCKED - DEEPLY EVEN.

Good, continue to support the surveillance state with

- either your data

- and/or your money.

Sincerely, your NSA

> I would like someone from Google, Facebook, et al to testify under oath that there is no direct access.

Do you really have that much faith in those companies? Seems like some kind of super-power to me.

Anyone still using - Microsoft - Yahoo - Google - Facebook - PalTalk - AOL - Skype - YouTube - or Apple?

Yeah, I thought so.

EDIT: Seriously, downvoters: you NEED TO WAKE THE FUCK UP !

In that case, only severe pain can help us.

The thing is, it will be way more difficult to correct the problems, once we really feel the pain.

"As people worldwide chat, browse and post images through online services, much of the information flows within the technological reach of US surveillance. [...]"

Relevant poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6017918

Also keep in mind, that it's not just traffic routed via the US that is being intercepted.

It's public knowledge that the NSA is building multi-billion surveillance/interception centers in (at least...) Germany.

Interesting twist.

Relevant poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6017918

Munich has not only migrated its administration to open source solutions, but even sends its citizens open source OS CDs.

People slowly begin to understand, it seems.

:-) I just read this article - nothing personal, but I can't call that "journalism"; I find it really hard to take it seriously.

Don't take this personally (you're in good company...):

We need to STOP saying:

1. "I'm so not surprised"

2. "That has zero chance of happening"

What we NEED to do is:

1. Think about things we CAN do

2. Find others to EXECUTE these things

3. TALK about this action

Anything else is just demotivating people. And that will only make things worse.

EDIT: To the downvoters - that's exactly what I'm talking about.

It's the Principal-Agent problem:

The citizen is the Principal who mandates the Agent (the government) to do something for him.

Now, if the Agent fucks up (and I'm sure we all agree that this has been the case worldwide for a very long time now), it becomes the responsibility of the Principal to replace the Agent with the right one. And this applies not just to single politicians but to entire political structures.

Well, European citizens will have to get off their butts and get used to actually go out and vote for different people, now.

> Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

Correct, that and the NSA infrastructure on European soil has to vanish.

Yes, the US can threaten every EU nation individually, with the help of the remaining EU nations. The punishment is isolation and it's called playing nations off against each other. It's a nice game theory thingy.

Europe is no longer an independent entity, it's more and more becoming the colonies of the US. We have very real facts that make this obvious:

1. the President's plane incident

2. the absence of honest outrage on the part of EU politicians regarding all the recent news

3. the direct surveillance collaboration with the NSA

4. the fact that the NSA is allowed to build multi-billion surveillance centers in Germany

5. refusal of help to Edward Snowden

Please add your observations to this list.

Japan, welcome to http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/

> America's government is so corrupt it is no longer democratic.

Unfortunately yes, absolutely.

And you begin to see a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the level of corruption and the "quality" of the policy decisions that are made, example: The Iraq war. Another one: the "inertia" regarding climate change action (it's just corporate power effing it all up for us).

It really has a grave effect on all human beings on this planet. It's clear that this has become a fundamentally global problem.

This is currently the most open mobile OS. Count me in!

And I thought it couldn't get any better... It's as if they were hellbent on destroying the US economy.

On slashdot: http://slashdot.org/submission/2785283/switzerland-say-no-to...

You're right in the sense that tech will never be the "final" solution.

But we need to use all the privacy-enhancing tools we can get our hands on, on the way to "real" solutions: You can't organize activities and exchange your thoughts freely while being watched by the government. The fear of being put on "the list" will stifle free speech and therefor sabotage the creation of any meaningful movement. It's called "self-censorship" and I've been told it's the worst form of censorship.

So yes, migrate all of your communication towards encryption and use an open-source operating system.

Agree, local storage should always be the default choice, whenever you can.

Great, thanks!

Everybody, vote that Reddit post up!

I still don't see a post on Slashdot and/or Reddit!

If you do, please post a the link here. If you don't, please post if you have an account there. Democracy says hi and thanks!

Yes, you CAN ALL be part of this!

The world's HN readers are now the LOBBYISTS of this petition! Yes, just like the corporate lobbyists in Washington - probably even more powerful considering our numbers.

All you have to do is LOBBY the sh*t out of your colleagues in Switzerland. Everybody knows somebody in Switzerland. If the whole world lobbies the people in Switzerland, that petition will reach Mach10, like yesterday.

EDIT: Why should you participate? You get to store your data in a western country that will continue to defend privacy and democracy.