no_opinions
This is a good reason why Chinese needs to democratize totally and switch things up.
The issue is, when you live in China and luck strikes out, there's no choice but to conform, or face suffering, which if Xinjiang is any measure, includes deprivation of liberty. Take pity on the one who has disagreement with the system in PRC.
I don't understand a government lasting long without elections by the people. I don't get their end game on the world stage. They remind me of Kefka from Final Fantasy VI, or team rocket in Pokemon, because news often planning some conspiracy or trap that'd backfire on them in the end.
In other words - we don't know who they even are. Just that they're furtive and evading authorities.
The unlawful entry in itself is bad, but what exactly they're doing, which could range from a scheme to dodge customs fees, unfairly circumvent immigration procedures our democratically elected congress put into law, to drug running, to spying, to hurting people.
Every country identifies its entrants. Why are people so eager to make light of such a fair procedure?
There is a serious national security rationale backing identifying an "unlawful entrant" ASAP. I hope the law gives the government maximum authority and upgrades their tools so they can keep us safe.
I wish places like ACLU would be good examples and be candid. By the way they talk in this letter - it's not like they disagree with a law - it's like they're against the concept of the most basic principle of international travel: Getting your passport stamped.
If they had to pay US companies back for all the IP they've stolen / used without licensing, they'd be broke.
People often forget that foreign governments are targeting USA and US persons abroad. There isn't another move left but to have surveillance tools and ingest a lot of data. If the advantage is lost, it will be someone else having it.
This also extends to military things. It'd be nice if we all cooperated as countries and built a space elevator. But that's a child's fantasy, in the end there's a power dilemma.
The thing with surveillance / war industry / etc. is there isn't a better alternative. It's not about being bullheaded and mean - it's about the very real threat of losing dominance and having foreign powers boss you around. This has happened to many countries throughout the history of civilization.
Instead of complaining about surveillance in intelligence, which likely doesn't relate to you, why not complain about "normal" civil liberties in a criminal law context - for instance, stricter rules around stored data. Other things include better social benefits, affordable housing, better representation as consumer (e.g. right to repair)?
I bet security will mean a lot more when the system being protected helps the common person more. :)
What would be some examples of an abuse?
What would be some examples of a powerful surveillance technology?
For instance, what "surveillance technology" isn't already an internal diagnostic tool for day-to-day system administration for a telecom/service provider?
Only difference is who picks the target and them having oversight (likely having to provide a predicate/rationale). Why is this so bad?
If there's a lack of oversight, what rules and systems would you suggest to prevent abuse, as you define it?
The tools should be as powerful as possible. To keep people safe, shouldn't infrastructure be powerful enough to tap anything instantly with proper authorization, even backward in time? Why not?
Then we're focused on making rules better. Isn't that the best thing to do in a system of laws and standards?
Imagine if you could change any aspect of the system to make it more proportional, fair, ethical, whatever. Why not think about asking the right questions, weighing the pros and cons, and tailoring a way to improve it with minimum side effects?
Also, sometimes the regulations are so strict, it's dangerous.
For instance, here's an example where the rules around stingrays being so strict led a guy to get away with murder (in eyes of the judge):
> Circuit Judge Yolanda Tanner said in court Monday that while she is suppressing the evidence “with great reluctance,” Copes is “likely guilty.” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/citing-unconstit...
I wonder what it would have been like had that case been in Florida. Which has sweet inevitable evidence law.
Is it the immigration policy, the immigration court system? individual agents/employees?
Doesn't every country have a counterpart to ICE that handles immigration rules?
Are there any countries that allow people to come and go without identifying themselves and having permission?
How is requiring identification and a visa (authorization) human rights abuse? If that's the standard for human rights abuse, then how can we own/lease/operate a car, have a bank account, rent an apartment, have an email account, access the internet, and so on?
Isn't identification and permission justified merely for the sake of bureaucracy? How else would you be able to keep an email inbox and go back to it without someone saying its you, and/or the mail being lost?
Maybe immigration policies could be improved, what specifically is it that could be done better?
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20191202/BILLS-116s178-...
With all this laser focus on HK / Xinjiang / Tibet something is bound to come up. If they cut the losses by giving independence, maybe leaders would avoid ICC-esque indictments from all this mess.
Maybe it'd be worth allowing anonymous mandatory polling on policies, that way it's not capitulating to external influences and getting a handle of what people are thinking.
But then maybe it's just better to monitor wechat and QQ. But since people feel their stuffs being read, they'll tone down the rhetoric and "behave good" and feign ignorance. A meaningful way of gauging public opinion is now tainted, so much for that. Now there will pockets of people silently stirring in contempt. The usual suspects and instigators won't be the ones to worry about. It's just too much to handle.
And besides all the while we're daydreaming scenarios China can remain unified, people would feel very strained and be suffering. Where do we draw the line between people's feelings and stubborn pride trying to force far flung regions into submission? Maybe it's best to reframe things into what makes society happiest, easiest to manage, and invent a leadership and organizational structure based on those premises. That'd be the most Chinese thing to do.
If China ever has a prolonged economic downturn and stricter sanctions, what happens then? What moves are left?
And in the case of Xinjiang is right now, unfortunately!
> Surveillance makes them paranoid and then depressed and then they snap and bad things happen.
Two points / ways I can take that:
- Big picture: In Eastern Europe, the turning point was more more complicated than that. Many informants / surveillance - but they were ancillary - antagonists being monitored were eclipsed by legitimate beef with how they were getting treated day to day. There were strikes, austerity things, and the security apparatus clamping down harder was probably one of the last straws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution
The other thing worth mentioning is how the government monitored and disrupted strikes in workplaces, which presents an impossible situation to employees. In USA there are rules around that: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/i.... In this instance coworkers, eventually will talk to each other, and this situation is so much more direct and practical rather than a vague thoughtcrime thing
- Individuals: There are people who develop schizophrenia, very rarely will they be violent. That process begins partly due to biology and partly due to trauma during childhood, and sometimes involves substance abuse. They are super, super sensitive and associate conspiracies to objects, people, and events. They attract attention to themselves, and the thing just feeds itself.
Persecution is a recurring theme (it's not that people are oh so nice! the world is bad and spiteful), and it commonly manifests itself with suspicion of being watched and followed. Also noteworthy is the intensity attributed to events, and the compulsion they feel to keep bringing it up. Common is bringing up sexual fears out of thin air (https://youtu.be/5LPS7E-0tuA?t=525), superego run amok. The sad truth is many were traumatized as children and further degraded as an adolescent. Not being able to process twisted family situations makes it extraordinarily hard for them. You wouldn't want to trade childhoods with them.
Normal people feel distrust, in these cases they're processing information extremely dysfunctional way. Like people who complain about privacy, they have an amazing pattern of not understanding technology, laws, and organizational structure. Everyone is busy and stressed with their own lives and trying to figure it out (and people are also caring, on the other hand, but they won't accept that). You'll also notice the common theme of omnipotent paternal/maternal persons or organizations. There's always an information deficit, they don't go research or pull documents on a subject.
They feel there's no potential reality for them without a punishing, omnipotent presence. So they're in hell, no doubt.
I don't think there's any kind of cell phone that can avoid being triangulated. I believe it has to do with call routing.
If that mechanism was completely removed, wouldn't there be no way for us to get phone calls, and calls would drop between towers.
Wouldn't a better way of exploring this be to begin at who is accessing the data and why? Businesses have a legitimate case to access their own information to provide a better experience, at the very least.
Also if it's a criminal / national security purpose, what's wrong with the idea of a big data / hay stack warrant, in certain circumstances? Isn't there some situations where it'd clearly make sense?
> The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is broken.
While there's probably always a case to improve things, when I read conversations on data privacy, I feel many don't want to draw nuance into the technical and legal specifics.
Regardless of society, isn't there always a certain kind of person, due to their upbringing, feels persecuted, though? Isn't there also a type of person who just raises a stink out of pure catharsis? Aren't they almost always ignorant of basics behind the law or technology of what they rant about, often both?
If it was really a sincere thing, why not go into details: e.g. For instance, GPS'ing a vehicle. State or federal law? What predicate / proof is needed? Is there a notification or redress? How long does it last? Any scoping/minimization? Is it supervised judicially or administratively?
While I think of it, maybe there's a reason these things are kept ambiguous, I guess in every country: I don't think people want organized criminal enterprises like mobsters, spies, drug lords, and terrorists gaming the system.
> State and corporate stalking must stop.
I don't think all government surveillance is the same. In most cases they seek authorization to access a private businesses data some how.
If someone is a "normal" consumer, a hospital patient, etc. I don't think the conversation is the same anymore. Wouldn't this be what most normal people care about?
- Consumer-based: Facebook and Google's type of data collection is best handled through the use of GDPR-like legislation, in USA. It's just a matter of these tech companies lobbying and watering down the statute so it's ineffective.
When this conversation gets brought up in congress, I implore everyone to go to https://congress.gov and read the actual bill to make sure it covers everything they claim. Look at it side-by-side with GDPR. Is it really giving consumers the protections they feel they deserve from businesses (I guess we can use the term "user")? Politicians are masters at making bills seem like they handle an issue when they're stripping regulation and giving a deal to business interests at the expense of natural persons.
Business get bail outs all the time and are very hawkish making sure their legislation meets their interests. They have lawyers and team up to secure objectives, no care is given to making sure it's not to the detriment of "us". Natural persons are quelled by nice little platitudes, that's why reading bills themselves instead of news articles/tweets is so important.
- National security in terms of subversion: This is the one that worries me most because it depends on how national security is defined based on a countries policies. In China, this entails this Xinjiang and Hong Kong situation. From their view, they are quelling uprisings, but one could also intellectually argue HK / Xinjiang / so on should have self-rule and nation status.
If you want to talk about human rights and surveillance, what liberties do the people in Xinjiang have? Imagine being born in your ancestral homeland and find your own culture is being methodically destroyed from foreign oligarch bureaucrats thousands of miles away. If you were Uighur and born there, how would you make sense of life?
When people in Xinjiang are being watched closely, the backstory has such direct implication to people's lives, and what options do they have to leave? To redress grievances? When does it finally end?
US and UK have a history of giving countries democratic self-rule and a rolodex of success stories. There will always be surveillance in various ways, hopefully in the future the backdrop with Xinjiang will be them 1. protecting their own independent nation and 2. consumer data protection laws? (not to say East Asia region are privacy sensitive as US/EU, heh)
- What do people really feel?
Would an independent Xinjiang vote for a GDPR-like consumer regulation? If you look at Kazakhstan, it doesn't feel like they care about surveillance at all. It's not fashionable to pretend to care about, a la twitter, people have other pressures in live to worry about.
On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the same people who line up to get $1600 smart phones. They don't wait for GDPR laws to pass before getting a phone, they hit "I agree" to the privacy policies on tons of apps/websites. I wonder how much it really matters to them. :P It's not easy to tell what a society feels.
Blackmail / extortion / compromise trap right there. Don't email em, don't talk to em.
If you're an American and you go there, they have dirt on you and can threaten to reveal it if you don't play ball with them.
Shame on you, North Korea!
Also that feel when the only tech smarts you can get is cryptocurrency folks
But what did Griffith see when he asked for permission from the State department, though? Did he know violating sanctions was criminal, or something potentially that'd be an infraction? Couldn't it be a civil penalty?
Is there an official form for what asking to visit a country under embargo (e.g. North Korea or Iran) looks like?
Is there a template/example for what a denial to visit an embargoed country looks like?
For instance if there's something involving classified information, I'm to understand there is SF-312 (https://fas.org/sgp/isoo/new_sf312.pdf). It's all about explaining who / what / where / why and that there are criminal penalties for mishandling info / leaking / etc.
So, do we know how much Griffith knew of the implications of what he was doing?
Judging by comments, GDPR is something people in US may like. It may satiate a lot of concerns consumers balk at.
Did you know GDPR doesn't apply to law enforcement/security agencies collecting data?
Even if US changed (whatever that would mean, I don't know) regulations/laws in this respect, there's still going to be mechanisms where data has to be bulk collected for a security purpose.
The reason why is nobody has devised a way to know for sure what's interesting, at the time, while it goes through the wire, reliably, because it'd require being able to predict the future.
What is trying to be accomplished? Just relieving stress by acting out against authority figures? Or are they trying to improve the law?
What part of immigration law / regulation is at issue? Is it the actions of particular employees? Is it with CBP, ICE, or USCIS?
I am of the understanding this is about undocumented immigrants. Isn't filling out a landing form required by every country?
What specifically needs changing? If you want to get together and "replace ICE", why not? People love improvement. Go and write a better law than Joe Lieberman, he created DHS.
(He also also was the independent that voted against the public healthcare option in ACA, 59 votes, he said something like, "I'm going to be stubborn on this one")
For more info on this, Mustard's documentary on the Buran: https://youtu.be/CwLx4L5NRU0?t=175
Could you describe in words how to make a friend, or courtship that applies to every situation, or every person, and every situation?
Try to quantify how disruptive it is (or isn't) to send in a source, verse tap lines, etc. How does it effect their life?
Does it involve a foreign target or a US one? Should they be dealt with differently?
Can you write a regulation something flexible enough a wide array of circumstances / need to acquire information can be satisfied, but minimize intrusion upon people?
If someone had a better idea, what's wrong with that? But most people, including informant handlers themselves - which are human beings also - can't even figure out own personal relationships. I could only imagine how traumatic their family, love and social life has been for them to get in that position.
- FISA court (judicial)
- House / Senate intel committee (legislative)
- IC Inspector General (executive, they police the agency itself)
To those outside USA, FISA is like an intelligence related court.
From an earlier gov brief:
> Our government is tasked with protecting an interest of utmost significance to the nation - the safety and security of its people.
By definition, a government targeting its own citizens, except very exigent circumstances, is not protecting its people. It's targeting them, what are they? Are they a saboteur? A patsy?
I think the FISA court is finding the circumstances being put through under these orders aren't very pressing issues.
A country's intelligence wants to stop spies, terrorists, and gain positive foreign intelligence, they don't want psychopaths who feign ignorance of memes getting their jollies off on destroying the lives of its own citizens.
Also, judging by the comments I read, I think users want a GDPR-like law to protect their personal information when dealing a consumer setting. For stuff related to OP https://icontherecord.tumblr.com and its post relating to IC IG and FISA are US ways of oversight in that area.
I thought civil liberties was about fine tuning the scope of the government's power from sweeping in innocent citizens. EFF doesn't attempt to suggest a statute to do a better job in these areas. It lumps together a complicated subject.
They appear to believe any reason the government has to want to access E2E communication is illegitimate.
> Facebook and others would face immense pressure to also provide them to authoritarian regimes, who might seek to spy on dissidents in the name of combatting terrorism or civil unrest, for example.
It's blocked in China. Russians use VK.
> Many people—including journalists, human rights activists, and those at risk of abuse by intimate partners—use encryption to stay safe in the physical world as well as the online one.
If someone's safety was at risk, why would they be on Facebook at all though.
They sell their data in bulk. Maybe what you really want is a GDPR-like assurance as a consumer.
> “enable law enforcement to obtain lawful access to content in a readable and usable format.”
It's public information this is already done by large companies.
Why not make this into a conversation about who can access the data, for what reasons, and what threshhold of proof is needed to minimize the sweep?
> law enforcement and national security agencies in these three countries are asking for nothing less than access to every conversation that crosses every digital device.
Law enforcement and national security are not the same thing.
They're exacerbated by places like EFF that blur them together to get donations and keep laypeople running in circles.
EFF is supposed to be staffed with lawyers. The least it could do is help the public understand the intricacies.
The infrastructure should be there. If there's a court order or lawful authorization, info should be accessible without delay.
But
The way to do that would be more systems of review for when it's used, generally making the standards more strict, less ambiguous.
But
The problem is there are side effects to changing the law that can give away methods and also put convictions at risk. There's other ramifications we may not know about until it was put in effect, but they could be negative. I bet that's one reason there isn't as much movement in the area.
There was an article in the news recently that right now in USA the case law considers unopened email to be discarded.
GDPR went into effect in EU. That is another aspect that US doesn't a similar thing for (does it need one? I don't see people bringing it up often, convince me otherwise?)
My point is, backdoors are more of a hypothetical thing. The legal framework around them and making them better is more productive use of your time.
That would involve people coming together and nuancing what the types of privacy are and whether it involves US people, foreign countries, drug dealers, etc.
> If USA government employees are more accountable than China government employees, China wins!
"Transparency and accountability in foreign policy/information gathering only applies to the country with a FOIA system conveniently available and uses english!"
Being "better", whatever that means, would still be at the bottom. It'd be difficult to do worse, assuming the Xinjiang / HK stuff.
I look forward to a new muckrock feature where FOIA can be sent to Iran, China, and Russia to open up like USA and other European countries.
Also since US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange, I'm sure Russia/China/other countries targeting USA won't have any leakers themselves. Their people being so well treated and obedient, such great gentlemen, even if they feel flustered and out of place over there, no matter, they can just trust in the virtues of their system and everything will be just fine. :)
/s
I view Chinese people individually, and on the whole, as very humanistic. The real question is what would China look like if its system represented the sentiment of its people?
I think they like private property, inheritance not being taxed, and in general focusing on their own lives without interruption.
Like anywhere else, many Chinese people enjoy civil engagement.
If China broke up into multiple countries and had a union to reduce redundancy/inefficiencies in common areas, that'd be a huge improvement.
This also preserves Chinese culture/customs on a more granular basis.
It's easy to see the level of desperation behind the words, they're provocateurs deliberately being disingenuous to get clicks, with a big smile of how they're duping everyone.
They're very mean and hurtful and should apologize. If only they just admitted they are in huge debt, in an expensive city, and have lack experience in the world.
Also, one more thing:
> people with seniority who would have helped them with topics were laid off
The management definitely betrayed the ones that made them. You can see it when you click some news articles and instead of a reporter, there is music and text scrolling made by some intern. Behind that, there were once proud people with jobs, and it has to be hell for them.
Maybe I don't get it, but wasn't there a concept a ways back where they had standards, legitimacy (gravitas even) and were good quality? I guess the end of newspapers destroyed that.
By the way, do you ever notice that news in UK, Australia seems a bit more sober and more mature than USA?
I thought it was supposed to be this amazing intellectual, philosophical, humanistic thing spreading the courageous word of the truth to unwoked. These people were supposed to be focusing on what we have in common and building common ground.
Fundamentally, the formula of news in 2019 is like this (working on the this):
Create a topic that ignores basic human need that everyone struggles with (housing, school, paying bills, romantic life, family, etc), then imply something less urgent needs priority - oh, and only an arbitrary subset of people have problems. We need to reshape society now, after all, everyone else has an easy life.
Deprive people the validation of even having their needs recognized, even in the title itself. It insults men, women, young, old, of all situations equally :) Except if you use private mode.
The leaker is on the best behavior to impress their new handler. They're suckers and getting played.
An analogy to what Snowden did: How would you feel if you had a significant other that promised themselves to you, but behind your back, connected with someone else, some jester/stranger/charlatan. Hurtfully, you find they were eager to move mountains for them, and all the while criticizing your mere existence as a person. It'd be safe to say they've broke their vow, even though they haven't officially acknowledged yet.
And judging by the posts/comments I read on here and news sites, I'm not sure people understand the difference between information gathering, criminal investigations, and consumer / medical / etc. privacy. Don't you think it'd be better to agree on a common ground that these are different purposes before engaging in a dialectic on it?
I bring up him having workplace / life stress, because he's human. He fits a model very similar to traitors who worked for their gov that spied for other countries, except he replaced his handler was a journalist. What he says here is spooky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9yK1QndJSM&t=70
Put is this way: Why should I get my safety as a US person put at risk so someone can publicize their story that someone leaked something again? In that video at 1:00. He's trying to make it so classification basically no longer has meaning, if they defect to a journalist.
> Besides the unconstitutionality of inwards-facing spying it is also a red herring.
I'd think a normal person would expect that: if you're a national, your government should be protecting you, not targeting you with those tools. Unless it's your intent to destroy it somehow.
For the sake of encouraging understanding: I think constitution is used as a way to imply subjectivity of what feels right. Unless you have court decisions to mention. The constitution hasn't been updated much and the case law is porous. Example: Unopened email after a certain time is treated as abandoned.
Don't you think the policies around the use of the data gathering tool / method is more important than the tool existing or not? Based on how Snowden evangelization goes: if we took its philosophy to its logical end, people will just leak every source / method, the system will never improve, and it wouldn't be very safe for us!
There's conflicting stories on Edward Snowden's history. There's accusations acted out in the workplace and possibly embellished information about himself [1]
There are things in the report that made it look like he planned out taking the data. That's the most damning information against him. If that didn't exist though, or was refuted, the story could be more sympathetic.
There'd still be allegations in this summary he may expect to confront eventually, fibbing about his legs, cheating on an entrance exam, him misrepresenting his job positions as if he was more senior than he was, based on the report, he appears to self-aggrandize out of habit.
In his upbringing he probably had events with parent/authority figures where he learned to lie to cover up his mistakes as a survival tactic. It's progressed to more than hiding, if he cheated on an entrance exam, some people may see that as fraudulent.
He would allegedly break chain of command and email managers too high up when localized stuff happened, his story feels more like someone who was under a lot of pressure and needed more experience defusing issues in a professional environment.
The leaks themselves:
He didn't suggest improvement to the laws or regulations. He divulged the methods themselves, which other governments were probably doing anyway. Those other countries won't stop doing it, and they'd be happy if adversaries stopped.
In his videos / posts, he never talks about how information could be used to prevent a terrorist attack, surveilling / interrupting a spy cell, gathering other valuable information for his country to better understand things. It's as if he had his wish, he'd throw away the whole system.
It's like he can't discern consumer privacy (which is minimal in US), from protecting data from criminals (which is improving with TLS, 2FA, etc), from his own job. I wouldn't look to him as a role model for national security, civil liberties, or even basic ethics.
[1] https://republicans-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hps...