March 10th, 2008
Creeping totalitarianism: The NSA, personal data and you
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe @ 8:12 am

Bob in HI

From Wired’s 2006 article, we learned that there are multiple nodes where it is most likely the hoovers are in place. I say find the addresses and stand on a corner and ask the public question, “Who is violating our 4th Amendment rights?”

Now the “low-hanging fruit”.

Since the San Francisco “secret room” is numbered 3, the implication is that there are at least several more in other cities (Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego are some of the rumored locations), which likely are spread across the United States.

And this list is a linked PDF file.

Another “Cut-In and Test Procedure” document dated January 24, 2003, provides diagrams of how AT&T Core Network circuits were to be run through the “splitter” cabinet (PDF 7). One page lists the circuit IDs of key Peering Links which were “cut-in” in February 2003 (PDF 8), including ConXion, Verio, XO, Genuity, Qwest, PAIX, Allegiance, AboveNet, Global Crossing, C&W, UUNET, Level 3, Sprint, Telia, PSINet and Mae West. By the way, Mae West is one of two key internet nodal points in the United States (the other, Mae East, is in Vienna, Virginia). It’s not just WorldNet customers who are being spied on — it’s the entire internet.

Simply accept and understand that you (ahem…) crap bigger than any of the political weasels involved and you will be fine.

I have about a half dozen emails setup. Two of them are absolutely anonymous and cannot be traced to me in any way, shape, or form (eat that shitheads at NSA/FBI!), not even through the IP traffic logs at the providers. Poor babies, must give them fits. I especially like to encrypt nonsense messages and send them from one account to another just to produce untraceable, undecipherable noise to f*ck with the bastards…but I digress. They are trying to argue that email (and to a certain extent, cell phones) are “different” and totally untied to location/nation/nationality and so the only way they can get any information out of it is to suck it ALL up and find the juicy stuff inside the mess.

This, of course, is rife for abuse and WILL be abused. This sort of sniffing ALWAYS is abused by those at the controls. They can’t help it and cannot prevent it. Power seeks to increase power (and wealth) so they WILL and DO misuse the information to try to weaken political opponents (of their agency, the current partisan government, various other vested interests) so regardless of any original “good” intent, it cannot be good in practice because IT NEVER IS. It NEVER stays within the original intent or within the original bounds.

The NSA is sucking up everything because they cannot understand or accept that liberty and freedom is hard and has (totally acceptable) costs associated with it. They suck up everything because out of a bazillion benign spams for penis enlargement or colon cleansing or for refinancing your house, there is one message in the bazillions that hints at someone having an ill intent on freedom and liberty…so they need to destroy freedom and liberty in order to save freedom and liberty. Understand?

Shuster did excellent work until his recent unfortunate comment.

As most of us know who frequent this place, he was particularly good during the Libby trial.

This is Nixon’s Big Lie strategem written in letters a mile high. The game seems to be to enlarge the wolf pack to the size of a herd of buffalo. Then no number of Democratic “mounties” can catch them all, or the big ones. Meanwhile, the mounties will have to put out fires all over camp, re-dig the wells and latrines, rebuild the cabins and wagons, and re-negotiate with all the locals whose friends and relatives the departing knaves have scalped for eight years. No number of capable mounties could accomplish that in four or eight years. Bush’s debt load alone will take more than a decade to repay.

The Republican Party has converted Norquist’s magic formula for ascendancy from starve the beast to starve America, but be sure to make a profit from it. Just for giggles, let’s watch what it costs in dollars and political capital to reverse a single stream of outsourced contracts. Take your pick.

Call your Senators and Representative today — and tell them no telecom immunity and to stand up for the rule of law and the Fourth Amendment. Security and civil liberties protection are not mutually exclusive.

and don’t forget to ask for a polka-dotted pony while you are at it!!

after all their capitulations since taking over Congress in 2006, they know this when the faxes and letters come in from Left Netrootsia: there will be no consequences of disregarding this plea like all the others, for the Axiom of Automatic Support for the Least Worst is as strong as ever, and there is no 3rd party threat to speak of.

don’t the futility muscles get tired after so much exercise?