[bestbits] RE: [governance] Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data

[michael gurstein]

A good discussion perhaps for a journalism school (how to characterize
levels of complicity) but nothing written there changes anything material
about the revelations.

 

M

 

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net] 
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2013 4:19 AM
To: michael gurstein; governance at lists.igcaucus.org;
bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [governance] Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to
track global surveillance data

 

And as a counterpoint I would appreciate your comments on this 

http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-the-collapse-of-jo
urnalism-7000016570/

--srs (htc one x)

 

On 9 June 2013 1:40:45 PM "michael gurstein" wrote:

What this below appears to say is that the surveillance procedures are done
within and in accordance with a broad interpretation of US law which is, of
course, designed to protect the rights of US citizens (how well that is
being done is another question of course).  

What it also says is that "foreigners" i.e. everyone else in the world are
to be treated as potential suspects and are thus fair game.  Given the
global reach and current dominance of US Internet corporations and the
central role of the USG in all aspects of global Internet activities
including Internet governance (or lack thereof) and of the US based
technical community in all aspects of the technical operation of the
Internet the implications of this position need hardly be spelled out.

Thus, at least in this context we, i.e. everyone else in the world appear to
have no rights and little protections except those that totally outclassed
institutions such as the EU or other national, privacy protection regimes
might provide to their citizens.  

Of course, since the parties from whom the data is being acquired i.e. the
dominant US Internet corporations are not directly subject to any laws
outside of the US and since they along with the USG and their civil society
and technical community collaborators have been so active in ensuring that
no such regulatory regime could be created, such protections seem to be more
or less non-operational.

BTW, I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed earlier to
McTim and others re: the position and response of the "technical community"
to these revelations.

M