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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a secret electronic eavesdropping program that scours global telephone records and Internet data trails – including those of Canadians – for patterns of suspicious activity.
Mr. MacKay signed a ministerial directive formally renewing the government’s “metadata” surveillance program on Nov. 21, 2011, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. The program had been placed on a lengthy hiatus, according to the documents, after a federal watchdog agency raised concerns that it could lead to warrantless surveillance of Canadians.
There is little public information about the program, which is the subject of Access to Information requests that have returned hundreds of pages of records, with many passages blacked out on grounds of national security.
It was first explicitly approved in a secret decree signed in 2005 by Bill Graham, defence minister in Paul Martin’s Liberal government.
It is illegal for most Western espionage agencies to spy on their citizens without judicial authorization. But rising fears about foreign terrorist networks, coupled with the explosion of digital communications, have shifted the mandates of secretive electronic-eavesdropping agencies that were created by military bureaucracies to spy on Soviet states during the Cold War.
The Canadian surveillance program is operated by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), an arm of the Department of National Defence.
In recent days, disclosures of secret surveillance programs operated by the U.S. National Security Agency have set off a storm of debate. Leaked documents and accounts have described an NSA project known as PRISM that allegedly gives the agency access to data from nine U.S. Internet companies including Google and Facebook. Another leaked document describes the existence of a government program that collects the “telephony metadata” surrounding millions of phone calls placed by Americans every day, without anyone listening to the actual conversations.
In Canada, a similar sensibility – though not the same sweep – appears to have also taken root. “Metadata is information associated with a telecommunication … And not a communication,” reads a PowerPoint briefing sent to Mr. MacKay in 2011. “Current privacy protection measures are adequate,” officials said, as they sought renewal of the Canadian metadata program.
CSEC and the NSA take pains to distinguish between the contents of a communication (which is out of bounds legally, if it involves a citizen) and the surrounding metadata (which is considered in play).
Mining metadata may never reveal what is said. But phone records, Internet Protocol addresses, and other data trails can reveal who knows whom, and how well. Authorities who suck up signals on a vast scale can use the metadata to create pictures of social networks, even terrorist cells, if they armed with enough raw computing power to sift through gigantic pools of data.
In Canada, a regime of ministerial directives – decrees not scrutinized by Parliament – have authorized the broad surveillance programs. How the data is obtained has not been disclosed in the documents obtained by The Globe or in comments from CSEC.
Officials do say that CSEC “incidentally” intercepts Canadian communications, but takes pain to purge or “anonymize” such data after it is obtained. Beyond that, “metadata is used to isolate and identify foreign communications, as CSEC is prohibited by law from directing its activities at Canadians,” wrote spokesman Ryan Foreman in an e-mail to The Globe.
CSEC is subject to oversight by a watchdog agency known as the Office of the CSE Commissioner, which has given broad approval to the metadata-mining program.
Five years ago, however, Justice Charles Gonthier, a retired Supreme Court judge, raised questions about the practice, according to government records released to The Globe.
Could CSEC, he asked, be wrongly passing along information to partner agencies, such as the RCMP or CSIS? While raw intelligence is sometimes allowed to pass between these agencies, Justice Gonthier’s broad concern was that CSEC’s metadata-mining efforts could be used as an end run around lawful warrants.
He wrote in a 2008 memo that ironing out such rules was important, since they set up “the legal requirement (e.g. ministerial authorization vs. a court warrant) in cases where activities may be ‘directed at’ a Canadian.”
CSEC suspended its metadata-mining program for more than a year in 2008. The documents show that Mr. MacKay signed a new ministerial directive in 2011 to continue the surveillance under new rules – and also authorized other espionage programs, some of which have been completely censored from the Access to Information documents obtained by The Globe.
He decides to hide in the mandarin oriental instead of Chungking mansion.
__________________ There's a phallic symbol infront of my car
Quote:
MG1: in fact, a new term needs to make its way into the American dictionary. Trump............ he's such a "Trump" = ultimate insult. Like, "yray, you're such a trump."
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FastAnna you literally talk out your ass
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I have nothing to hide. I don't break the law, I don't write hate e-mails, I don't participate in any terrorist organizations and I certainly don't leak secret information to other countries/terrorists. The most the government will get out of reading my e-mails is that I went to see Now You See It last week and I'm excited the Blackhawks are kicking ass. If the government is able to find, hunt down, and stop a terrorist from blowing up my office building in downtown Chicago, I'm all for them reading whatever they can get their hands on. For my safety and for the safety of others so hundreds of innocent people don't have to die, please read my e-mails
And a response on why you should care about our privacy.
Spoiler!
I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:
1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.
Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person.
With this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad.
2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.
3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.
You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren't home. You can't reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven't been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn't there.
4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It's like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him "fuck you dude what are you laughing at can't you see I've got a fucking wound on my leg?"
"Sorry," he says. "I just didn't know anyone read the news anymore." There haven't been any real journalists for months. They're all in jail.
Everyone walking around is scared. They can't talk to anyone else because they don't know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they're sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It's always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.
You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you're basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can't use a phone or email. You can't get a job. You can't even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to be labeled as traitors.
This all happened in the country where I live.
You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.
Maybe Obama won't do it. Maybe the next guy won't, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn't about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it's about your daughter or your son. We just don't know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?
You know for me, the reason I'm upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant "liberty and justice for all." You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That's what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren't standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?
Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?
I didn't make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn't happen in America. But guess what? It's starting to happen.
I actually get really upset when people say "I don't have anything to hide. Let them read everything." People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.
My thoughts when this first broke is...didn't we already know?
Like, there are stories of monitoring stations being right next to where the international cable comes on shore.
So, if you have a system that can check and monitor just that part...then its not a big leap to say you can do it all.
Plus...this came out that Bush instituted warrantless wiretapping.
So the 'new' revelation is the computer component. Well, no shit. I'd be curious what the actual access to servers looks like. I can't imagine that facebook just gets pulled aside when they get big enough and are told the truth about being a player in silicon valley.
If that's the case, then as a terrorist, I'm going to set up my own server to use for all my illicit communicating.
I suspect its more tapping in along the way to view whats happening. And if that's the case, I'd really love to see the technology that goes into this.
Let's also remember, the internet was a US gov't project. Everyone thinks that they are so dumb. Dude...Al Gore built the fucking thing with his own two hands
Hmmm I first heard about the NSA when I read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. Came out back in '98 but still worth the read if you're into those kind of novels.
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He didnt choose a bad place at all HK seems like a great choice
what's hilarious though is that American networks twisted the fact that he was in Hong Kong into him being a traitor and running to the Chinese Govt. to spill his secrets to them instead of focusing on what he revealed
Shit like this would end up causing riots in Europe/Middle East/Asia but of course in North America they don't give a shit as long as they have a big mac to shove down their throats and guns to buy (more so in USA of course)
Ultimately, you can say that a great many things are done in the name of national security. It wasn't that long ago that Jews were executed in the name of national security.
You can spend these billions upon billions of dollars building better ways of scanning and coding and filing away data and at the end of the day the nation you are securing is gone. The concept of privacy is forgotten. And the thing of it is, when something like this exists, its so easy to push the boundaries further and further.
Fuck, I get so angry at people. They wrap this into a Bush vs. Obama argument. Or a republican vs. democrat argument. Dammit man, its not! This is a US government argument. One party after another has looked at this, one senator after another. President after president signing away on more and more laws that combine together to capture more information, and read through more data.
It's gone beyond an issue you can vote on.
It's become part of the country.
You are afraid. And more and more because of gentlemen named "Snowden" and "Manning" you are getting to understand what lengths people are going to because of it.
for all his bluster of hope and change, obama is turning into black bush. executing american citizens overseas, wiretapping...its a brave new world we live in unfortunately
Not enough sex for a Brave New World. But it is a very interesting hybrid of Huxley's and Orwell's visions.
what i dont understand is that in the 60s/70s the younger generation was much less politically apathetic and more inclined to question authority and practice civil disobedience
what happened? it seems nowadays, obedience and subservience is rewarded and cherised as values of a good citizen (or kid)
i can see why the gov't is so vehemently against drugs and other such substances, an educated nation with a expanded consciousness is dangerous to the status quo
Serious question here -- why are people so upset when their email and online activities get eavesdropped and analyzed by some computer algorithm? Undoubtedly, people's privacy are being violated (albeit merely by computer programs), and I am not saying that is a good thing at all. But when the goal of such electronic monitoring is to catch terrorists, I am a little more ok with the means.
The single most important points that I see here is -- would we rather see more of the Boston marathon bombing stuff happening? or would we rather give up a little bit of our personal privacy if it means terrorists ploys (esp small scale and distributed ones like the Boston bombing) could be more effectively thwarted?
As long as the following 2 conditions are followed:
1) the collected data gets wiped after they are deemed to be irrelevant, and
2) the collected data only gets used for counter-terrorism purposes
I would reluctantly put up with the background computer analysis.
I'm surprised this video hasn't been posted yet. But for those that are questioning why it's OK for the government to spy on us withour legal consent need to watch the video on why Snowden decided to give up his 300K/year job and living in Hawaii for the people.
Serious question here -- why are people so upset when their email and online activities get eavesdropped and analyzed by some computer algorithm? Undoubtedly, people's privacy are being violated (albeit merely by computer programs), and I am not saying that is a good thing at all. But when the goal of such electronic monitoring is to catch terrorists, I am a little more ok with the means.
The single most important points that I see here is -- would we rather see more of the Boston marathon bombing stuff happening? or would we rather give up a little bit of our personal privacy if it means terrorists ploys (esp small scale and distributed ones like the Boston bombing) could be more effectively thwarted?
As long as the following 2 conditions are followed:
1) the collected data gets wiped after they are deemed to be irrelevant, and
2) the collected data only gets used for counter-terrorism purposes
I would reluctantly put up with the background computer analysis.
People like you are scum and do not deserve to live in a democratic society.
Canada and usa are founded on the fundamental ideals of justice liberty and equality. No matter the method, any violation of these ideals are unjust.
Its an old cliche but those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither Posted via RS Mobile
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