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Citizenfour 2014 - Edward Snowden

Ninja 666

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I recommend watching the documentary on Edward Snowden. It's created by the journalists who broke the story. They've filmed from the first time they met Edward in Hong Kong in his hotel room.

It has a lot of valuable information on how the internet and telephone surveillance functions. And in segments also gives a presentation on how this can be used.

It gives an insight into what type of technology the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created. And it also gives an insight into how the journalists has to go about breaking the stories, their insights into how the government reacts, and their worries surrounding this. The journalist do not go straight back to the USA after breaking the story, for worries of what is going to happen to them, and the journalists in the UK worries about posting the story involving the names of the companies that worked with the NSA due to similar reasons.

Two interesting things Edward Snowden talks about are: Drones, and the capabilities of the devices that collects information. They can log into drones from their desks, the drones are flying above houses, and they watch the drones logging information about the movements going on around there.

But the big revelation comes here. The devices that collects information can, I quote: “...as of fiscal year 2011, they could monitor 1 billion telephone or internet sessions simultaneously, per one of these devices. And they could collect at a rate of about 125 gigabytes a second. Which is a terrabit per second.” They had twenty sites of these, so at least 20 billion. I quote: “But these are all outdated, we've expanded pretty rapidly.” The documentary taped him saying this in 2013.

An example of how the mined data can be used: You have your credit card, and you have your cellphone. They can track your movement through the telephone poles and your phone, and they can collect data on what you have bought. They can also figure out which people you've potentially interacted with along your way, as they collect information on everyone so they know who is traveling along to the same destination as you are. Add in: your telephone conversations, social medias public and private messages, like on Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Yahoo, Hotmail. Your Google searches. And the websites you visit. The NSA didn't only collect information domestically in the USA, but also internationally.

Another interesting way is how the government reacted. The American government charged Snowden with the Espionage Act, there are lawyers who discuss what this does to his case:

“As you know in June, Snowden was charged with three legal violations felonies. Principally under a World War One era criminal law called the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act is an extremely broad criminal prohibition against the sharing or dissemination of what's called National Defense information. It was only used to prosecute people who had been accused of acting with a foreign power. Spies, not whistle-blowers. And it's a very unusual legal representation I think not just for all of you, but for me as well.

The Espionage Act does not distinguish between leaks to the press in the public interest and selling secrets to foreign enemies for personal profit.

So under the Espionage Act it's not a defense if the information that was disclosed should not have been withheld in the first place, that it was improperly classified. It's not a defense if the dissemination was in the public interest that it lead to reforms. Even if a court determines that the programs that were revealed were illegal or unconstitutional ---that's still not a defense under the Espionage Act. The government doesn't have to defend the classification, it doesn't have to demonstrate harm from the release, all of this is irrelevant.

So when we say that the trial wouldn't be fair... We're not talking about what human rights lawyers think of as fair trial practices. We're saying the law, the statue itself, eliminates any kind of defense that Snowden might be able to make and essentially would equate him with a spy. And of course those three accounts could be increased to a hundred or two hundred or three hundred, they could charge him separately for each document that has been published by a journalist.

And I think that we all recognize even though we sit here as lawyers in a lawyers meeting that it's probably 95% politics and 5% law.. how this would be resolved.”

They authorized the FBI to work with the CIA and foreign intelligence partners in finding out Snowdens plans and the location of people in contact with him worldwide, and tasked to use "all appropriate means" - including government pressure "where appropriate" - to persuade media to refuse publication, UK government pressured the English journalists at The Guardian to destroy the archive they've received from Snowden. And the FBI approached and told the guy who created the "encryption program service" Snowden used, that because he couldn't turn over the information "from that one particular user" due to the encryption, he would be forced to give up those SSL keys and let the FBI "collect every communication on his network without any kind of transparency".

Edward Snowden talks in an intelligent and simple, easy to understand way, painting a good overview of the situation.

The documentary is called "Citizenfour" and it's from 2014.

I just had a 'random thought'. The information they gather with time, location and all the other stuff described above, gives the government a lot of information about a persons personality. How they move and act, what type of people they interact with. Now combine that with their buildings filled with computers and people working 8 hours shifts in shaping public opinion in the comment sections and other places of information. They do have a good setup.
 
Thanks, I'll give it a watch. I was always curious about Edward Snowden ever since he was, "viral" per-say.
 

Al Jilwah: Chapter IV

"It is my desire that all my followers unite in a bond of unity, lest those who are without prevail against them." - Satan

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