Tag: NSA

Latest Revelations concerning the NSA, a division of the Claus Industries [Humor]

T Rob has the scoop:

It was revealed today in secret documents leaked to this reporter that the US National Security Agency (NSA) is actually a division of Claus Industries, LLC, a company synonymous with its eponymous founder and CEO, Santa Claus….Years ago, as world population rose beyond Santa’s ability to personally keep track of all of us, he first subcontracted, then eventually built his own surveillance teams.  Over the last decade, dedicated Claus Industries surveillance teams have been deployed to every country around the globe, all of them posing as government spy agencies.

The real take home of the Snowden leaks [Article]

Charlie Stross believes the three-letter acronym agencies haven’t considered a problem: Gen X & Gen Y.

The key facts are: Generation X’s parents expected a job for life, but with few exceptions Gen Xers never had that — they’re used to nomadic employment, hire-and-fire, right-to-work laws, the whole nine yards of organized-labour deracination. …..

… Edward Snowden is 30: he was born in 1983. Generation Y started in 1980-82. I think he’s a sign of things to come. PS: Bradley Manning is 25. 

A few perspective about the reasons for large-scale spying [Article]

Dave Winer articulates. Read it.

We can’t change any of these things. We will have an economic collapse. The climate will disrupt our lives in unimaginable ways. And hackers will rule us. All this will happen.

Charlie Stross had a recent blog entry about this too.

George Carlin referred to this a long time ago. Will anyone listen?

My Life in Circles: Why Metadata is Incredibly Intimate [Article]

In light of NSA’s spying revelations, Matthew Harwood shows how incredibly intimate metadata really is:

Metadata, no matter what the detractors say, collected over time is an intimate repository of our lives–whom we love, whom we’re friends with, where we work, where we worship (or don’t), and whom we associate with politically. The right to privacy means our metadata shouldn’t be collected and analyzed without reasonable suspicion that we’ve done something wrong.

Recruited by the NSA: A student writes about the experience [Article]

Madiha Tahrir’s interrogation of the NSA language recruiters at her college went viral last week. Another student who was in the room writes about the experience:

Madiha Tahir has opened our eyes to a new form of protest. It is far more difficult than traditional public demonstrations but it has the potential to be far more effective. Instead of drum circles, placards, and chants, it relies on facts, arguments, and eloquence. It doesn’t target the upper echelons of the government…Instead, it targets the low-level employees and middle managers, the people who are essential to the day-to-day operation of these agencies. Its goal is to remind these people that they have moral agency, that evil actions don’t occur simply because high officials order them, but rather require that people like them carry out orders that come down from on high. It aims to remind impressionable young people like the high school students in that audience that they don’t have to go to work for agencies like the NSA.