Snowdon is a dummy

I have no idea why you think I'm trying to be insulting.

Regardless, let's take this to another thread. I'm going to be scarce for a few days but I'll be around. If you start it I'll come by. Otherwise, I'll start it when I have more time.

The review of US surveillance programs which Barack Obama promised would be conducted by an "independent" and "outside" panel of experts looks set to consist of four Washington insiders with close ties to the security establishment.

The president announced the creation of the group of experts two weeks ago, in an attempt to stem the rising tide of anger over National Security Agency surveillance techniques disclosed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Obama trumpeted what he said would be a "high-level group of outside experts" tasked with assessing all of the government's "intelligence and communication technologies".

However a report by ABC News, which has not been denied by the administration, said the panel would consist of Michael Morell, a recent acting head of the CIA, and three former White House advisers.

The list of apparent panel members prompted criticism among privacy and civil liberty advocates, who said the review would lack credibility and was unlikely to end the controversy over US surveillance capabilities.

When Obama announced the review earlier this month, he said it would "step back and review our capabilities – particularly our surveillance technologies". The panel would also be asked to ensure there is "absolutely no abuse" government spying programs, Obama added, in order to ensure "the trust of the people".

The review was one of four concrete proposals laid out by the president, including working with Congress to draft new legislation, to reassure the public about NSA surveillance tactics and bring about reforms.

In addition to Morell, who was deputy director of the CIA until just three months ago, the panel is believed to consist of former White House officials Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire.

None responded to requests for comment, however sources close to Sunstein and Swire said they understood them to have been selected. A formal White House announcement is expected soon.

Sunstein, a Harvard law school professor who has been described as an intellectual inspiration for Obama, only left his job as White House's "regulatory czar" last year.

Sunstein is a particularly controversial appointment. In a paper in 2008, he appeared to propose the US government employing covert agents to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and activist websites that advocate theories that are considered false and conspiratorial.

He has also proposed reformulating the first amendment, arguing that in some instances it goes too far in protecting damaging forms of speech.

He is married to Samantha Power, the former White House adviser whom Obama recently appointed as US ambassador to the United Nations.

Richard Clarke, the fourth member of the panel, is a well-known and sometimes outspoken figure in the intelligence establishment who served as a senior White House adviser to the last three presidents.

He now runs a private security company, Good Harbor Security Risk Management, headquartered in Washington.

"This group is very closely related to the White House already," said Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "When we go down this road of having executive branch insiders continually placed in charge of reviewing the executive branch, it is more of a fox guarding the henhouse situation."
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If you are not willing to do what is needed to get elected...what good are your ideas? And how much attention should be paid to your constant harping about the people who are willing to do it?

No hyperbole here.

I consider calling what someone else said "hyperbole" as insulting, JPB. I gotta admit that I use that insult occasionally.

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.

-J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.

Quote:

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.

-J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

UK’s secret Mid-East internet surveillance base is revealed in Edward Snowden leaks

Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt.

The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.

The information is then processed for intelligence and passed to GCHQ in Cheltenham and shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States. The Government claims the station is a key element in the West’s “war on terror” and provides a vital “early warning” system for potential attacks around the world.

The Independent is not revealing the precise location of the station but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden. The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on these documents in recent months has sparked a dispute with the Government, with GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives containing the data.

The Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage “buffers” and then sifted for data of special interest.

Information about the project was contained in 50,000 GCHQ documents that Mr Snowden downloaded during 2012. Many of them came from an internal Wikipedia-style information site called GC-Wiki. Unlike the public Wikipedia, GCHQ’s wiki was generally classified Top Secret or above.

The disclosure comes as the Metropolitan Police announced it was launching a terrorism investigation into material found on the computer of David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald – who is at the centre of the Snowden controversy.

Swire brings years of expertise in online privacy and cybersecurity issues. While he was particularly critical of abuse and overreach in the Bush administration’s surveillance programs and counterterror policies, Swire has also taken issue with current NSA programs and the authorities that govern them.

Swire, now a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, recently signed on to two amicus briefs to the Supreme Court challenging the surveillance programs reveled by NSA leaker Edward Snowden. One brief Swire signed says that the NSA’s order for Verizon to turn over phone call logs and data “clearly violates the law and presents an extraordinary risk to personal privacy of millions of US persons. … Such sweeping collection of data about individuals who ‘have done nothing to warrant government suspicion … has the potential to be a 21st-century equivalent of general searches.’”

In a recent interview with Information Security Media Group, Swire laid out his specific criticisms. “The problem with great big databases is, once they exist, people find ways to use them,” he said. “I also think the collection about Americans doing domestic calls is highly questionable under the Fourth Amendment.” Swire added that there should be more transparency of the programs and the legal theories governing them.
He also said the U.S. has been “whittling” away the right checks and balances on national security issues over the last 12 to 14 years. “It’s time to say it’s a moment of relative calm when we can look at it relatively rationally and put some checks and balances back in place,” he said.
Leslie Harris, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, praised Swire’s reported appointment, telling the Guardian that it’s a “home run” for privacy advocates.

The Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage “buffers” and then sifted for data of special interest.