You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

So, after the revelations that the NSA is tapping directly into the Google and Yahoo data centers without their (apparent) permission or even knowledge, the NSA of course denied everything, but in that usual weasel-speak method where they don't deny what they're actually doing, instead denying things that they don't do, but trying to word it so that you think they're saying something they actually aren't. (One of their favorites is "we don't do X under this program" -- because they do X under a different program.)

The Washington Post follows up here with some analysis of the weasel denials, and additional evidence that, yes, the government has definitely intruded directly into Google and Yahoo's internal networks.

PRISM is just the cover story. The real story is unlimited, total snooping, all the time. Then they use PRISM to pretend like they had court justification to search you.

We showed some of the NSA’s briefing slides to private sector experts with detailed knowledge of the internal corporate networks of each company. In separate conversations, they agreed that the slides included samples of data structures and formats that never travel unencrypted on the public Internet.

Again, it is no coincidence that Spitzer's phones were tapped. Everyone's phones are tapped. But Spitzer was going after the banks, so the security state destroyed him.

Lavabit has a Kickstarter up to clean up and release the source code for it's backend.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Kevin Gosztola at Firedoglake has some interesting observations on the Miranda thing: In David Miranda’s Case, UK Security Services Argue Traveling with Secret Documents Is ‘Terrorism’

With this authoritarian logic, Miranda’s case has become an example of how a state can repress journalism by deciding that a journalist or media organization has political or ideological motives and, therefore, does not have a right to report on certain material the state does not want the public to debate and discuss, such as the contents of documents from UK’s spy agency, GCHQ. It shows that labels can matter and, if the state can convince a public that a journalist is really an activist, that can be useful in controlling information.

So if the state says you have an opinion, then it's terrorism, not journalism.

Just some reading if anyone is curious.

“NSA Chief Keith Alexander Slams Reporters,” Nov. 1, 2013:

“Leahy and Sensenbrenner Join to Introduce USA Freedom Act,” Oct. 29, 2013: www.leahy.senate.gov/press/leahy-and...

"The Obama Administration and the Press,” Committee to Protect Journalists, Oct. 1, 2013: http://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama...

plavonica wrote:

More policing shenanigans.

Not just the police there. The doctors acted illegally too. Hopefully they will loose their licenses.

plavonica wrote:

shenanigans

What a nightmare that must have been.

Malor wrote:
plavonica wrote:

shenanigans

What a nightmare that must have been.

That's literally torture and violation. If true, they should all be behind bars.

And I hope the guy ends up *owning* the city of Deming when the lawsuit is over.

DSGamer wrote:
Malor wrote:
plavonica wrote:

shenanigans

What a nightmare that must have been.

That's literally torture and violation. If true, they should all be behind bars.

I'm with DSGamer here. It's way, way, way beyond shenanigans and closer to war atrocity.

This is actually getting some attention, and both conservatives and liberals are - justifiably - enraged.

The kicker? That hospital billed him for those procedures and is now threatening to send him to collections.

Seth wrote:

This is actually getting some attention, and both conservatives and liberals are - justifiably - enraged.

The kicker? That hospital billed him for those procedures and is now threatening to send him to collections.

Wow, that's an amazingly messed up situation to begin with, and for them to have the gall to make him pay for it? WTF. I hope the ACLU takes those clowns to the cleaners.

Honestly I think the doctors and police involved should see jail time. The hospital should be placed under immediate federal review for performing a procedure against the patients will and have it's records ripped apart top to bottom, the police chief should be fired for cause and every officer should be required to attend mandatory re-training.
And then the victim should own about 50% of the hospital and the town.

Seth wrote:

The kicker? That hospital billed him for those procedures and is now threatening to send him to collections.

Wow, talk about sending your family a bill for the bullet.

The story gets more complicated:

Woof![/url]]
Our investigation reveals another chapter. Another man, another minor traffic violation, another incident with Leo the K-9 and another example of the violation of a man's body.

Police reports state deputies stopped Timothy Young because he turned without putting his blinker on.

Again, Leo the K-9 alerts on Young's seat.

Young is taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and just like Eckert, he's subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach and an anal exam.

Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant.

We've learned more about that drug dog, Leo, that seems to get it wrong pretty often. He might be getting it wrong because he's not even certified in New Mexico.

If you take a look at the dog's certification, the dog did get trained. But his certification to be a drug dog expired in April 2011. K-9s need yearly re-certification courses, and Leo is falling behind.

realityhack wrote:

Honestly I think the doctors and police involved should see jail time.

Absolutely they should. They won't, in fact many of them probably won't even get fired, but they should.

Not that I was ever going to go to New Mexico, but that kind of seals the deal.

As an FYI, K-9 units are VERY good at interpreting subtle cues from their owners to create an alarm, and pretty universally terrible at actually finding drugs.

They're mobile probable cause units and little else.

In Nevada, the drugs dogs are deliberately trained to alert when the officers tell them to.

Malor wrote:

In Nevada, the drugs dogs are deliberately trained to alert when the officers tell them to.

I don't doubt it; there are stories in MI of similar training. German shepherds and other dogs are extremely observant and *extremely* smart; even a blink or a shifty look from their owner can be trained as a command to bark/scratch/alert people to a spot and poof! Probable cause to destroy property.

Googlers tell the NSA to f*ck off.

https://plus.google.com/108799184931...
https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/p...

Our most paranoid friends were right. Grist

We now know just how much of what happens on or near the internet is being catalogued by our government (basically, everything). Environmental activists have a history of drawing the attention of the surveillance-minded, especially if they are working in landscapes — forests, tar sands — that are financially valuable to someone.

I’ve been asking people to connect these dots. Some of the most interesting answers came from Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT and co-founder of the international news blog Global Voices. As someone who works with activists around the world, Zuckerman has a unique take on the social and technological aspects of living under surveillance. He talked with me recently about how changes in the technological landscape have forced changes in privacy strategies.

Edwin wrote:

Our most paranoid friends were right.

You don't have to be paranoid to be right about how and whether we're being surveilled.

Tanglebones wrote:

In a bit of irony re: Glenn Greenwald's choice of home nation -
Brazil Admits It Spied On U.S. Diplomats

I have no problem with a country spying against any foreign diplomats on its soil, because a significant part of American diplomatic staff abroad are spies themselves.

More precisely, a significant number of spies are *added* to diplomatic staff. I think the number of State Department employees overseas who are actually spies is pretty small, for obvious reasons.

Seattle is getting in on the game.

You Are a Rogue Device

A New Apparatus Capable of Spying on You Has Been Installed Throughout Downtown Seattle. Very Few Citizens Know What It Is, and Officials Don’t Want to Talk About It.

---
CIA pays AT&T $10 million a year for call data.

As recently noted, you'd be hard pressed to find a company that has been more cooperative with the NSA's massive global information hoovering than AT&T, who has not only allowed the agency to clone fiber lines at network head ends, but has even advised the government on how to best break the law while acting as volunteer intelligence analysts. This is all quite profitable for AT&T, be it via multi-billion-dollar government contracts, or direct wiretap payments.

Now a report in the New York Times reveals that AT&T is also getting paid by the CIA for access to international call data, including the overseas call data for Americans. Americas. The Times note that the agreement is entirely voluntary, does not require subpoenas, and AT&T is getting $10 million annually for their cooperation. Continuing a pattern of muteness on the issue, AT&T only offered this comment when asked about the payments:

quote: "We We value our customers privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects. We do not comment on questions concerning national security."

The CIA Should probably be annoyed that they're having to pay for information, since AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein suggested the NSA is getting copies of every shred of data that touches AT&T's network for free.

There is monetary incentive to continue violating privacy.

DoJ is scaling back claims about value of bulk phone records collection because they are falling apart under scrutiny.

http://justsecurity.org/2013/11/07/b...

It's never been about terrorism. Never. That was just the cover story.

I thought this article was fantastic: When the Man Comes Around, Give Him This Form (warning, the form itself is a pdf).

Attached to the e-mail was a document called the “Public Servant’s Questionnaire.” The form asks government officials to answer 16 basic questions about their investigation in the event they have shown up on a citizen’s doorstep to “take a look around.”

The Public Servant’s Questionnaire includes questions like the following:
•Will [the] Public Servant furnish a copy of the law or regulation which authorizes this investigation?
•Does Public Servant reasonably anticipate that any information sought or collected in this investigation will form the basis of or lead to criminal action against Citizen or any other entity?
•Will Public Servant read aloud that portion of the law authorizing the questions Public Servant will ask?
•What other uses may be made of this information?
•[Will the Public Servant] name all other agencies or government sources that supplied any information pertaining to Citizen?

Far from being unreasonable, the answers to these simple questions can be illuminating for property owners who are surprised to see government officials on their doorsteps. You can use the answers to this questionnaire as a resource to understand why the government employee has showed up on your doorstep.

The reaction of cops asked to fill out this form would be interesting to see.

Nevin73 wrote:

I thought this article was fantastic: When the Man Comes Around, Give Him This Form (warning, the form itself is a pdf).

Instructions unclear, imprisoned in Guantanamo.

Put that away before I arrest you for obstruction of justice... oh BTW we are now going to come up with a reason to tear your life apart.

Author Of The PATRIOT Act Goes To EU Parliament To Admit Congress Failed, And The NSA Is Out Of Control

Sensenbrenner promised more strict oversight from Congress, but also noted (realistically) that Congress's authority is mostly limited to domestic spying -- and that the US government needed to work more closely with foreign governments concerning foreign spying.