I just put this on wendydavis’s myfdl diary, a concise comment to the Yves Smith article I mentioned above, plus fun oneline comment on the comment. I think it bears on the issue: “…Nathanael says: June 17, 2013 at 1:29 pm Well, duh. “1) The main import of what Snowden revealed is not that state [...]

Here’s the comment from Yves’s piece, (plus a fun one liner to follow it.) …”Nathanael says: June 17, 2013 at 1:29 pm Well, duh. “1) The main import of what Snowden revealed is not that state secrets are insecure, but that business secrets are insecure 2) That if business secrets fall into the hands of [...]

Yes, it is long; one has to be fresh (and interested in an essay directed towards the tech companies with many connecting links, not all of which I explored). I hope Yves won’t be annoyed if I just give you her conclusionary paragraphs, and in a separate post I will give what I think is [...]

I would respond to the approach you describe, E. F. Beall, that the issues this new one is purported to ‘hide’ were on the back burner well before this story broke. The timing of it was closer to both the meeting between Obama and the Chinese head over China’s supposed infiltrations (are we to suppose [...]

jaango, with respect – Tom Englehardt has the solution I think. This security folderol not only threatens us, it threatens them. I believe it’s simply a gargantuan attempt to illustrate the old saw: The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And we’re still finding out how very big they are. Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden [...]

Very much in the same spirit, UCT1, is this, from a fine diary here by Tom Englehardt: “…An all-enveloping atmosphere of secrecy is not a natural state of being. Just look at us individually. We love to tell stories about each other. Gossiping is one of the most basic of human activities. Revealing what others [...]

Thank you, Mr. Englehardt.

Yes, Yves is a lady, and some lady at that. She recently did a series of articles footslogging to the warehouses where the mortgage settlements were being fabricated – Pulitzer stuff, in my opinion. In that article she links to Marcy Wheeler’s coverage – too many excellent takes over at emptywheel.net/ for me to reference [...]

You can fool some of the world some of the time…

Sorry, “panicking”.

The NSA scandal is not something that our ptb government would willingly inflict upon itself, unless they have an underlying need to selfdestruct. Going globally as they are now forced to do by their own expansionary practices, what they need globally is trust for the lovely system they have all devised. That’s probably why Naomi [...]

Here’s the pertinent quote, though I do advise reading the entire article: “…The wee problem is of course that Obama has so often lied egregiously, well beyond previous political norms, that it’s remarkable that he has any brand equity remaining. Admittedly, his strategy has worked just fine up to now, but he’s made the mistake [...]

Very much a must read this Monday morning, wendydavis, is Yves Smith’s excellent analysis and compilation of collusionary tactics between the tech industry and government: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/techies-efforts-to-own-snowdennsa-surveillance-narrative-fail.html I was struck by her awareness of the international implications of this escalating story – that it could mean the international character of our internet communications, which we take [...]

Thanks, wendydavis. It would seem lots of folk didn’t know this stuff. Here’s an excerpt from a scoop.co.nz article (That’s New Zealand to the uninitiated): “…InternetNZ Acting Chief Executive Jordan Carter says a great deal of New Zealanders’ Internet traffic over PRISM partners services will have passed and is passing through the United States. New [...]

I am reminded once again of Alexandre Solzhenitsyn’s “The First Circle.” That novel was about such a surveillance state developing inside the USSR in its early stages. The only way it could succeed, though, was to have the technical geniuses, the Silicon Valley of its day, in a special prison where they experimented to devise [...]

Well, I don’t have a cellphone, never have had one, never will. If they close up shop on my landline, that’s the end of the telephone for me. I’ve been without one before; it’s blessedly quiet. But going over to my email to have a look at photos a friend sent – all of a [...]

I hadn’t thought of that, E.F. Beall. Very much to be hoped. What did strike me, though, was that even though the invasion did proceed, Bush withdrew the UN push – publicity has a way of cowing even tyrants. Thanks for keeping this going in spite of technical difficulties. And certainly, given this example of [...]

Here’s the link:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/14-10

“Katherine Gun and the Deja Vu of NSA Secret Ops” by Marcia Mitchell

I learned a lot I didn’t know from this.