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So you're mad at that while enabling Google Now/Apple Location History/etc?

Who cares! If they want to see pictures of my cats, so what.

Who cares? I can't believe that people are so blind. You fail to realize that it's not only your cat pictures. What if the government intercepts a picture of you smoking and your health insurance premiums just rise for no reason. You then have no clue as to what happened. Or the government has proof that you text messaged a family member that was later involved in a crime and the government has you associated and tags everyone you know. You then apply for a bank job and you get denied employment. Your son applies to the military and gets denied. It just does not stop with cat pictures. Don't underestimate anything or anyone.
 
It's not the concept of PRISM and the NSA I take issue with. It's its built in lack of accountability, transparency, or outside oversight that makes me uncomfortable. Like I said down in the PRSI thread, it's a system with no checks and balances, and is practically begging to be abused.

100% correct!
 
In case anyone missed it, General Hayden who was the Director of the NSA, bridging Bush and Obama Administrations, was on the PBS News Hour last week saying how safe this process is and how there "were no abuses (ever)". Yet when he was on a commuter train blabbing in deep background to a reporter, a guy in the seat behind them was Tweeting the conversation in realtime. Upon learning of this, Hayden was quite upset about how his privacy had been infringed.

That said, anyone who has read "The Puzzle Palace" knows that the "Director" is just the public face of the NSA and that day to day ops are run by the Deputy Director. We have not even scratched the surface yet.
 
It's not the concept of PRISM and the NSA I take issue with. It's its built in lack of accountability, transparency, or outside oversight that makes me uncomfortable. Like I said down in the PRSI thread, it's a system with no checks and balances, and is practically begging to be abused.

this guy gets it...well put sir.
 
This is a pinprick. This program is for a number of select individuals who the NSA targets for special attention,

I didn't knew that you have to tap all the traffic between data centers without knowledge of companies to target "select individuals"
 
This is all laughable… my goodness people… some of you sound like everyone is after you! Apple… the NSA… etc…

Yeah… this is not cool of the NSA and they seem to have overstepped their bounds, but I don't believe there's some huge conspiracy to spy on the average person.

But... that is exactly what the NSA are doing. Tapping iPhones is a small part of their business, compared to their business of hoovering up every single byte of data that flows in and out of major internet hubs. Their algorithms spy on the average person, like they do with every other person, all the way up to the private communications of national leaders.
 
100% correct!

To further my argument, what's so terrible about having the technology in place, but only using it when you get a warrant? Data collection isn't exactly a frightening concept in and of itself. These days, it's a natural part of the investigative and/or intelligence gathering process. With the right amount of controls in place, it's not all that scary.

But what they're doing is collecting vast amounts of information and storing it, regardless of if they need it or not, and the only assurance we have that no one's going in there and using all this raw data for their own ends is a cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die promise that can't be verified beyond their own statement.

"Are you doing anything that could be considered underhanded with all this information you've gathered"?

"No".

"Prove it to me".

"Don't have to. You just gotta take my word for it".

Right now, I don't believe they're doing anything bad with it...well, beyond that one guy using all the tech at his disposal to spy on his girlfriend or whatever. But what about 10 years from now? 20? There's no oversight. Anyone with the right connections could potentially be given access to it all, which would give them enough leverage over anybody they want to do anything they want. And there's barely anything in place to prevent that from happening. I'm sorry, but the honor system just isn't enough here.
 
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but do people actually think that just because Apple says this means anything? (If false) They could inform Apple that it's in our nation's best interest for us to not be in-the-know, et cetera., and "ask" them to release a statement like this.

Many people are of the opinion that Steve Jobs was the last guy stopping NSA from adding :apple: to its list of successful targets. He died pretty suddenly too..

And the NSA could have infiltrated Apple in many ways - Apple is pretty expansive these days in terms of Employees. iOS is sufficiently big and I'm sure that some project manager could easily insert some rogue code without anyone of the inner circle knowing anything about it (unless they peer review each other's code, which I doubt seeing the pressure they are under these days).
-------
PS. RIP Steve miss your vision!
 
Lol

The NSA will most likely respond like Apple would if they buy a company

The NSA spies on people from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.
 
First read about Echelon in print form back in '99 on a magazine I thought was just entirely nutjobs with nothing else to do. But now... It just makes you wonder.

How many conspiracy theories turn out to be reality? Not many, but this is one of them...like the AT&T room.
 
Honestly getting sick of all the lying. Clearly one side is lying. I somehow doubt the leaked documents are lies.

I love Apple but come on...

You should read the original post more clearly... the leaked documents do not implicated Apple. They discuss a tool in development by the NSA that can be used on an iPhone. They claim to have developed the tool. There is nothing about Apple's corroboration or knowledge on the document... the presenter merely speculated that they couldn't have made it without Apple's help. That speculation was put to rest when Apple denied such a claim (assuming you believe that they are telling the truth...)
 
I'm fairly confident that it was in fact in America and was wealth redistribution.

It's not corrupt politics, either. It's more like the government didn't have any other choice. Basically...

"Hey failings banks, wealth managers, and investment houses! You're all a bunch of bastards who got us into this mess, but we have to dump tons of money on you in order to prop you up. Cuz if we don't, and you go under, we'd all kinda get ****ed even harder than we already have been".

Or in other words, dumping tons of money on the banks to keep them afloat is why we ended up with merely The Great Recession, rather than The Great Depression II.
 
Let's put it that way: Millions of Jews, Hugenots, Kurds and native American Indians did not have anything to hide either.

People with your attitude really need to read up on world history, Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Huxley's Brave New World. That should answer your question.

Thanks to the NSA, you live in a place that is worse than Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. If Hollywood wouldn't keep you so distracted, you would wake up screaming in your bed.

trust me, the USA is not worse than soviet russia and has never been
 

That sketch is ironic. Sometimes if I ring my phone or utilites company when I'm feeling particularly obtuse. This is what happens;

Me : Dials number.
Them : Answers phone and begins scripted answer containing the phrase, "Please be advised that this conversation is being recorded for quality and training purposes, good morning and how can I help you today?".
Me : That's fine. It's only fair to say by the way that I'm recording this too.
Them : Doooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
 
It's not the concept of PRISM and the NSA I take issue with. It's its built in lack of accountability, transparency, or outside oversight that makes me uncomfortable. Like I said down in the PRSI thread, it's a system with no checks and balances, and is practically begging to be abused.

On point. Which is why I'm glad all these documents are being leaked to the public. Now that we're aware, we can act and do something about it. Hopefully as soon as possible. This is the type of power one does not one to go unchecked.
 
But... that is exactly what the NSA are doing. Tapping iPhones is a small part of their business, compared to their business of hoovering up every single byte of data that flows in and out of major internet hubs. Their algorithms spy on the average person, like they do with every other person, all the way up to the private communications of national leaders.


spying on national leaders is their job
 
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