n 1901, Fancy Cycling, an extraordinary book by Isabel Marks, was published, showing straight-faced paragons of Edwardian society pulling off some pretty daring (and peculiar) stunts. Marvel as these tailored tricksters demonstrate how to pick up a handkerchief without dismounting, ride backwards while seated on the handlebar, and ’tilting at the ring’
via Edwardian stunt bikers – in pictures | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
[Oh hey look, it’s another intelligence leak! This one’s actually great news — if world leaders are being spied on, maybe something’ll actually get done about it :). -egg]
On the eve of the G8 summit (taking place in a specially prepared Potemkin village in N. Ireland), the Guardian has published another Edward Snowden leak, this one describing how the UK spying agency GCHQ aggressively spied upon delegates to the G20 summit in 2009. According to the documents, UK spies attacked foreign delegates by “reading their email before they do” intercepting their BlackBerry messages and calls in real-time; capturing logins at special Internet cafes so as to spy on delegations after the event; getting NSA reports on attempts to crack Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev’s satellite calls; and continuously logging and analyzing who was calling whom.
The report suggests that British delegation was briefed throughout, and that the operation was “sanctioned in principle at a senior level in the government of the then prime minister, Gordon Brown.
via Snowden leak: How UK spies attacked delegations to the 2009 G20 – Boing Boing.
“In the longer term, we all need to work to reduce the power imbalance. Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights. Today’s Internet feudalism is both ad hoc and one-sided. We have no choice but to trust the lords, but we receive very few assurances in return. The lords have a lot of rights, but few responsibilities or limits. We need to balance this relationship, and government intervention is the only way we’re going to get it. In medieval Europe, the rise of the centralized state and the rule of law provided the stability that feudalism lacked. The Magna Carta first forced responsibilities on governments and put humans on the long road toward government by the people and for the people.
“We need a similar process to rein in our Internet lords, and it’s not something that market forces are likely to provide. The very definition of power is changing, and the issues are far bigger than the Internet and our relationships with our IT providers.”
[Hey look! Scary information about the NSA! Surprise! -egg]
…In that way, Prism helps justify specific, potentially personal searches. But it’s the broader operation on the Internet fiber optics cables that actually captures the data, experts agree.
“I’m much more frightened and concerned about real-time monitoring on the Internet backbone,” said Wolf Ruzicka, CEO of EastBanc Technologies, a Washington software company. “I cannot think of anything, outside of a face-to-face conversation, that they could not have access to.”
[Hey look, it just keeps getting worse. -egg]
The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”
If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analysts decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSAs formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadlers disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
via NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants | Politics and Law – CNET News.
[I am so friggin tempted. -egg]
“the Supreme Court has refused to consider the legality of the N.S.A.’s wiretapping programs on the tautological ground that no prospective plaintiff has standing to sue, because the relevant programs are so secret that any one citizen can only “speculate” whether or not he or she has been spied on.”
via The ‘One-Way Ratchet’ of Executive Power: Was Cheney Right About Obama? : The New Yorker.
[Hey, here’s an awesome short story about what intelligence professionals can achieve with metadata and the internet. Written in response to the new NSA revelations. -egg]
Flood waters surround a pool in Germany.
via riotclitshave, Flood waters surround a pool in Germany..
[If you only read one essay about the NSA revelations, make it this one. Really insightful. -egg]
The frameworks of “innocent until proven guilty” and “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” are really really important to civil liberties, even if they mean that some criminals get away. These frameworks put the burden on the powerful entity to prove that someone has done something wrong. Because it’s actually pretty easy to generate suspicion, even when someone is wholly innocent. And still, even with this protection, innocent people are sentenced to jail and even given the death penalty. Because if someone has a vested interest in you being guilty, it’s not impossible to paint that portrait, especially if you have enough data.
via danah boyd | apophenia » where “nothing to hide” fails as logic.