August 18, 2013
By Mickey Friedman
Pity the paranoids. This has not been an easy time for those who think they’re being watched.
Remember when we thought paranoids had lost touch with reality. That, deluded, they had constructed a world where they were observed, listened to, their actions and thoughts charted, their mail read.
Someone with a lot higher security clearance than I’ve got should say we’re sorry. Should admit they were on to something. That what’s really going on might be worse than what they imagined.
Thanks to Edward Snowden we now know that no amount of tin foil, however tightly wound about our brains, is going to do the trick.
Because there is a small army of Snowdens out there listening in, watching what we Facebook, Google, and what we Yahoo, sucking up every bit of digital flotsam we email out into the worldwidewebiness.
At first, I thought Snowden was exaggerating:
“Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector, anywhere … Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a Federal judge to even the President if I had a personal e-mail.”
The President of the United States is only one of the many powerful people in America who preferred things the way they were. When the paranoids were paranoid and the rest of us were sleeping. I don’t think the President was happy that Snowden woke us.
He went on Jay Leno to reassure us:
“We don’t have a domestic spying program. What we do have are some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack,” he said. “That information is useful.”
I guess not enough people watch Jay Leno these days so the President had to hold a press conference to tell us that he didn’t think Snowden was a patriot and that really truly he was thinking about making changes at the NSA way before Snowden blew the whistle. But he wanted to fix things in a “lawful, orderly way.” Unfortunately, Snowden actually made everything more difficult because … well … he threatened national security by telling us and the entire world that we spy on everyone. Then the President said that if Snowden was really a patriot he would come home so that we could throw his ass in jail until hell freezes over because we’re still the land of the brave and the home of the free trial, except when it comes to whistle-blowers and Bradley Manning.
Then President Obama tried to reassure us:
“I want to make clear once again that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused above all on finding the information that’s necessary to protect our people and, in many cases, protect our allies.”
Maybe President Obama hasn’t seen Snowden’s NSA Power Point presentations. The documents about Prism and XKeyscore. The servers all over the world. The trillions of communications. The ability to suck up 99% of all communications that travel the underwater cables. Doesn’t know about the hundred million pounds we’re given England to get us even more data.
Nothing the President says changes the fact Snowden risked his life to tell us what’s going on. Why was Snowden concerned?
“Because even if you’re not doing anything wrong you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”
While the President emphasized his good intentions and the minor reforms he wants to make, two US companies decided to go out of business. Both offered safe and secure and private email communication
Hinting he had been served with a secret government order to provide access to his customers’ communications, Ladar Levison, the CEO of Lavabit, chose to shut down rather than be “complicit in crimes against the American people.”
Levison told Forbes:
“the government has the legal authority to force you to do things you’re uncomfortable with. The fact that I can’t talk about this is as big a problem as what they asked me to do.”
Levinson said: “If you knew what I know about email, you might not use it either.”
Then “seeing the writing on the wall,” Silent Circle, closed its encrypted e-mail service and destroyed its email servers.
Pity the paranoids. Pity me. I am paranoid.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-august-9-2013-news-conference-at-the-white-house/2013/08/09/5a6c21e8-011c-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden