Open Letter to Ed Snowden

Dear Ed Snowden,

     Although I'm pretty sure that you will never know the existence of this letter to you, I thought I would write it anyway.  There are some things in my heart of hearts that require communicating, even if only to the emptiness of the Internet.

     I am quite frankly appalled at the actions taken by our government since you came forward as the man who leaked information about the N.S.A. spying on all of us world-wide.  My country has proven to be a bully.  Quite a few of the politicians have publicly proven themselves [in my view] to be idiots with no spine.  It is obvious to me that the N.S.A. will continue to do what it is doing for as long as it can.  This is the danger in providing no meaningful oversight to any agency.  I watched what happened with the T.S.A. and I am now watching it again with the N.S.A.  That the F.I.S.A. court rubber-stamps anything that the N.S.A. wants to do is a mere formality-- a hideous kangaroo court-- and of little comfort to those of us who believe in "liberty and justice for all." 

     I was heartened to read that you do not have regrets about standing up for what is right.  You are the true patriot in this.  Not Obama or his ilk who want you brought back to the motherland as a condemned spy even before trial.  You are an hero.  You are my hero, Ed.  I think that if we had ever met, we would have been friends.

     I hope that you are able to leave Russia for a safer place soon.  Although Russia will not extradite [so far], the actions of their police regarding the throwing of dissidents and suspected dissidents into prisons which are basic torture chambers makes me wary of you living there for very long.  So even if you do wind up at the airport or a refugee camp or in an apartment somewhere for awhile out of necessity, I wish you safe passage to a country which will not kowtow to the wishes of the bossy United States.  And once you get there, I wish you both safety and happiness.

     President Obama, like many others who are not techies, confuses the words "safety" and "privacy."  It appears to me that he seems to believe that the more safety one has, the less privacy one is entitled to by necessity.  He doesn't know that safety which is not self-generated is a mere illusion.  He thinks-- I guess-- that destroying all anonymity and privacy will protect the American people from ourselves.  But we don't need surveillance.  Big Government is odious.  I don't want that.  Like you, I don't want to live in a country that polices every e-mail and communication for a list of suspect words.  But I am still here and you are not.  I watch what has happened to and what is happening to Bradley Manning and I know that Daniel Ellsberg has the right of it.  In order for you to have any chance at a life, you have had to sacrifice pretty much everything.  Thank you for not selling out, Ed.  The easier action would have been to shut up, stand down, say nothing.  You chose the rights of the people who inhabit this world over the directives of the government.  For that, I thank you.

     Although countries are caving left and right, I have to believe that there is a place for you and that you will get there.  Whether it is one of the three in South America or some other country, you deserve to be awarded asylum and hopefully citizenship someplace else.  Please know that there are bunches of us here in the United States who are rooting for you.  Be well, Ed.  

                                      Sail Strong!


                                       radical sapphoq       

Sung to the Tune of Blessed Assurance

Boundless Informant, you are so fine.
It is so glorious-- the Big Data you mine.
All metadata you organize.
All peoples' privacy is on the demise.

Tons of information you aggregate,
And so many idiots you aggravate!

PRISM collects it and gives it to you.
Your bots shift through it.  That is what they do.
Snowden flees his country.  The story gets worse.
The FISA and Patriot Act both are a curse. 

Our information you aggregate,
We are the people you aggravate!

Extraordinary oversight does not exist.
You analyze the data although citizens resist. 
They'll never stop you try as they may.
We'll send them to Gitmo overlooking the Bay.

Tons of information you aggregate,
And so many idiots you aggravate!
  
The liar Obama and the NSA too
Don't really want anyone to get a clue.
The court rubber-stamps this so it's legal I guess.  
All of this spying has led to a mess.

Our information you aggregate,
We are the people you aggravate!

Boundless Informant, you are so fine.
It is so glorious-- the Big Data you mine.
All metadata you organize.
All peoples' privacy is on the demise.

Tons of information you aggregate,
And so many idiots you aggravate!

We will not give up fighting with you.
We hate the excuses for the evil you do.
It started before nine-eleven and the TSA.
Shadow government has become the American Way.

Our information you aggregate,
We are the people you aggravate!

    
 
 

PRISM is not just rainbows anymore

Anonymous header which appeared on Twitter.

On June 6, 2013, Americans found out officially that the N.S.A. has been spying on bunches of people.  I say "officially" because this is something that has been suspected.  This happened through some documents that were found and leaked.  There are tons of articles all over the net detailing the story.  We are still waiting to find out what will happen to whistle-blower Ed Snowden who allowed his identity to come out via the media on June 9, 2013.  Great Britian has officially denied Snowden entry.  There has been some speculation that Snowden could apply for political asylum in a South American country or in Iceland.  Iceland is currently being ruled by conservatives so that may not actually happen.  One article suggested that Snowden could go to New Zealand where he could hang out with Kim Dot Com as both battle extradition to the United States.  June 11, 2013 was the day when Edward Snowden appeared to have vanished from his Hong Kong hotel room.  As far as I can make out right now, his whereabouts are currently unknown.

Obama has indicated that this spying is a-okay with him.  Clapper testified that this shit wasn't happening but of course it was. Americans are butt-hurt because who we are calling and how long each call lasts has been collected.  We've been informed that the e-mail snooping is limited to non-citizens living in other places and that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to them.  The F.I.S.A. court has been rubber-stamping anything that the government wants to do.  No warrants are necessary.  Internet companies denied that the government has access to their servers.  Maybe yes through a backdoor or maybe no.  At any rate, Google has admitted to giving the N.S.A. info on thumb drives.  How high tech of them.  Obama says, "American citizens, no one is listening in on your phone calls."  Well okay.  Maybe there are bots trained in voice recognition with a vocabulary list.  Folks from other countries are looking at the uproar and saying, "Hey the U.S.A. has been spying on us for years.  Where was your outrage about that?"  Some Anonymous folks have trolled the N.S.A. with communication utilizing the naughty word list that was published several years ago on the Internet.

PRISM is part of a larger program called Echelon. The word list circulating the Net came from Echelon.  Apparently, knowing geography or talking about the weather can get you under surveillance for using those words on-line.  The logo for PRISM seems to have been influenced in part by a certain Pink Floyd album cover.  At least one person on the net was blocked from selling t-shirts on the internet with the PRISM logo or something like it.  Now we have federal copyright trolls.  

radical sapphoq says:  I hope that Iceland or Ecuador or some other place gives Ed Snowden political asylum.  If not, I don't see this as ending too well for him.  A few of the articles I've read have maintained that there was at least one other whistle-blower in times past regarding spying on foreigners and that every big government spies on its' enemies.  If you read any articles about N.S.A. and PRISM, be sure to read the comments.  Often the comments are more informative than the articles.  An example is reproduced below:

 
[Comment from Scarlett in one of the comment sections of an article about PRISM:]

Don't ask your government for your Privacy, take it back:

• Browser Privacy: HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus + EasyList, Ghostery, NoScript (FireFox), NotScript(Chrome)
• VPNs: BTGuard (Canada), ItsHidden (Africa), Ipredator (Sweden), Faceless.me (Cyprus / Netherlands)
• Internet Anonymization: Tor, Tor Browser Bundle, I2P
• Disk Encryption: TrueCrypt (Windows / OSX / Linux), File Vault (Mac).
• File/Email Encryption: GPGTools + GPGMail (Mac), Enigmail (Windows / OSX / Linux)
• IM Encryption: Pidgin + Pidgin OTR
• IM/Voice Encryption: Mumble, Jitsi
• Phone/SMS Encryption: WhisperSystems, Ostel, Spore, Silent Circle ($$$)
• Google Alternative: DuckDuckGo
• Digital P2P Currency: BitCoin
• Live Anonymous/Secure Linux: TAILS Linux

If you have any problems installing or using the above software, please contact the projects. They would love to get feedback and help you use their software.
Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or theEFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Project.
Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.
If you liked this comment, feel free to copy/paste it.


A few references:  

http://www.tscm.com/NSAsecmanual1.html

http://rense.com/political/weapons/nsa.html

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-v-nsa-challenge-illegal-spying

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

https://epic.org/privacy/nsa/epic_v_nsa.html
 
http://www.nsawatch.org/

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html
 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Security_Agency

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_nsa.htm

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/13377-nsa-we-will-illegally-spy-on-citizens-only-when-absol

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188581/The_GoogleNSA_Alliance_Questions_and_Answers.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/3000879/nsa-wants-hackers-and-it-wants-them-its-side

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/03/04/nsa-utah-data-center-visit/

http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/ 

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/dead_drop/nsa/
 
http://www.naturalnews.com/NSA.html

http://www.examiner.com/topic/nsa

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=nsa

http://mashable.com/category/nsa/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/nsa

http://www.ndtv.com/topic/nsa

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

6/6/2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
6/7/2013
http://www.nsa.gov/    *last modified 6/7/2013
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-memo-4th-amendment-92416.html
6/8/2013

6/9/2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/09/usa-security-identity-boozallen-urgent-c-idUSL2N0EL0A120130609
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-09/nsa-whistleblower-reveals-himself
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance 
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/10/1214996/-Ed-Snowden-Broke-The-Law
http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/homeland_security_patriot_act_fema/news.php?q=1370873093
6/10/2013
http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-history-nsa-contractors/story?id=19366914#.Ub03ci_hdTE
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/06/hong-kong-edward-snowdens-mistake/66054/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/10/us-usa-security-iceland-idUSBRE9590OK20130610
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/snowden-us-china-hacking/66242/ 
http://americablog.com/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance.html
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130609/22400623385/nsa-whistleblower-ed-snowden-my-desk-i-could-wiretap-anyone-you-federal-judge-president-us.shtml
6/11/2013
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-11-nsa-offers-intelligence-to-uk-counterparts-to-skirt-uk-law
http://world.time.com/2013/06/11/last-seen-in-hong-kong-edward-snowden-slips-away/
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/what-extradition-proceedings-against-ed-snowden-would-look-like----and-how-the-us-might-get-around-t.php
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/11/report-nsa-contract-worker-is-surveillance-source/ 
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-06-11/news/bs-te-lindsay-mills-edward-snowden-20130611_1_nsa-laurel-girlfriend 
6/12/2013 
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/12/tester-actually-snowdens-leak-didnt-damage-national-security/
http://pundit.co.nz/content/ed-snowden-could-come-to-nz
6/13/2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/congress-interrogates-intelligence-officials-on-da/
http://news.yahoo.com/ed-snowden-got-secrets-185839357.html
6/14/2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/14/nsa-leaker-ed-snowden-used-banned-thumb-drive-exce/
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/17490723465/leaked-nsas-talking-points-defending-nsa-surveillance.shtml
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-13-ed-snowden-the-geek-who-blew-prism-to-pieces
6/15/2013
http://news.yahoo.com/companies-disclose-surveillance-deal-u-010442116.html;_ylt=Ah4lxcswrq.qP0oFzDdi4tus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTRhaHU0Z3Y5BG1pdANTZWN0aW9uTGlzdCBGUCBUZWNobm9sb2d5BHBrZwMzM2Q1N2IwMS1hMjUzLTNhZDktYWJiNC01MWNjMjMxYjhhNDYEcG9zAzMEc2VjA01lZGlhU2VjdGlvbkxpc3QEdmVyA2RhMDkzOGEyLWQ1N2EtMTFlMi04ZWVmLTYzMDAwYzc0YTI0MA--;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3
http://news.yahoo.com/officials-nsa-programs-broke-plots-20-nations-233703820.html
6/16/2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/16/us-usa-security-idUSBRE95F00B20130616?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews