Irish public rather blasé about PRISM?

Scofflaw

Just reading around the Irish internet on the PRISM leaks, and it strikes me that pretty much everybody is going "meh, tell us something we don't know". There's a fair amount of coverage, with the IT in the lead, but the Journal not far behind - there's even a "Rapid Response" panel discussion tomorrow at the Science Gallery about it. But the reaction in comments and social media seems to be quite underwhelming.

Is this the result of previous revelations about Echelon, GCHQ wiretapping, etc, or a side-effect of historically having been a nation with a long historical awareness of informers and surveillance, and of interest to the security forces of our nearest neighbour?

Should we be calling for something to be done? And if so, by whom?

cordially,
Scofflaw

enigmatical

Ireland and also the UK are hardly bastions of data protection legislation.

Almost all of our data protection laws were of EU origin, not something we came up with ourselves.

In fact, the European Parliament's probably our strongest advocate for open internet policies and privacy protection.

rumour

Scofflaw wrote: »

But the reaction in comments and social media seems to be quite underwhelming.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Careful you're being monitored.

opti0nal

Scofflaw wrote: »

..the reaction in comments and social media seems to be quite underwhelming.

1:We don't want to upset the Americans.

2:It would only draw attention to the local equivalent of PRISM, the Data Retention Act which stores all our call details, locations, email and Internet meta-data making it available on request to a variety of government agancies such as the Gardai and Revenue.

3: Article in the Economist puts the argument that we've already surrendered our privacy to the the private sector, so why not let the government have a slurp too?

4:If you've done nothing wrong...

Zascar

opti0nal wrote: »

4:If you've done nothing wrong...

Sorry, but that's not the point.

Have a watch of this video for a very good explanation of why you should care:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

My name is URL

Bruce Schneier succinctly outlined why people should care, and why we need whistle-blowers like Snowden.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/government_secr.html

Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal -- or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law -- but because we have a right to know.

Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we're living in a police state. We need whistle-blowers.

The whole 'if you have nothing to hide' argument does my head in. It's a false dichotomy at best and a dangerous way of thinking at worst. It implies that you're either guilty of something and therefore have a reason to hide it, or you're not guilty of anything and have no reason to want to hide stuff. It works on the premise that the sole / main reason for true privacy is to conceal wrongdoing.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/58468-muslim-quip-led-terror-probe

Look at the above example. A man sends an innocent text message to his work colleagues at a trade show; telling them to "blow away" the competition. This man has "nothing to hide" yet his words resulted in him being arrested, and searched, which is bad enough. But the worst part is that he was no longer able to get a certificate of good conduct which is required for his work in finance. Although he is totally innocent, he still lost his livelihood.

opti0nal

Zascar wrote: »

Sorry, but that's not the point.

Have a watch of this video for a very good explanation of why you should care:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

You want me to follow a link and have my accessing it recorded, and used against me during a visit to room 101 at some point in the future?

Why not make your point here, or are you afraid to voice your opinion?

Zascar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM

opti0nal

Zascar wrote: »

<link to a youtube video>

You seem to be reluctant to express your opinion in words of your own?

Zascar

I don't feed trolls. Watch the video. I share his views.

Cody Pomeray

I welcome PRISM.

It's not like the US authorities are poring over individual facebook chats and individual e-mails, unless you are putting words like 'ammonium nitrate', 'detonator' and 'Allah Akhbar' in close proximity. (Maybe this post will show up on their radar)

This work is being done by complex algorithms, and your emails are unlikely to be seen by anybody but you... unless you leave your facebook open in a public space, and get fraped, which apparently is when you are raped on facebook. These things are far more likely invasions of privacy, if people are genuinely concerned.

If you think about it, this 'surveillance', which makes it sound more sinister than it is, is not wholly different to facebook or gmail or boards.ie 'monitoring' your content and creating ads aimed at your demographic.

The US security authorities are just seeking out a very particular type of demographic. To be frank, I trust them more than I trust a lot of private corporations, including facebook.

RandomName2

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I welcome PRISM.

It's not like the US authorities are poring over individual facebook chats and individual e-mails, unless you are putting words like 'ammonium nitrate', 'detonator' and 'Allah Akhbar' in close proximity. (Maybe this post will show up on their radar)

Is terrorism directed against America really a concern of a country like Ireland?

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

This work is being done by complex algorithms

Unlikely. Since targeting a demographic is likely to be based upon psychological profiles, a hands-on human element is likely to be at the core of such monitoring.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

The US security authorities are just seeking out a very particular type of demographic. To be frank, I trust them more than I trust a lot of private corporations, including facebook.

What can a private corporation do to you? Not much, and the only real undesirables from a corporation's point of view would be people criticising that corporation's products. If you don't like one you can always vote with your electronic feet, after all.

Mind you, these same corporations that you don't seem to particularly trust have appararently signed up with PRISM.

As for the 'if you have nothing to hide' argument, the same could be used for clothes... (insert reference to controversy caused by "x-ray" scanners in airports)

opti0nal

Zascar wrote: »

I don't feed trolls. Watch the video. I share his views.

I don't click on links in empty posts. You express your views here and we discuss them.

Why are you afraid to express your opinions?

opti0nal

RandomName2 wrote: »

What can a private corporation do to you?

Deny you a loan? Fire you? Not hire you? Rat on you?

My name is URL

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

The US security authorities are just seeking out a very particular type of demographic. To be frank, I trust them more than I trust a lot of private corporations, including facebook.

Young to middle-aged male Muslims?

With all the billions pumped into programs like this, how much of it actually pays off? How many terrorist plots have been thwarted as a direct result of it all? I honestly can't say I know of one. Two of the dumbest, most foolhardy; bro-terrorists managed to go undetected just months ago.. despite having a substantial online presence with some quite alarming content prior to the bombings. The best threat-detection algorithms in the world failed completely.. the people responsible for overseeing it, failed completely.. even though they were officially warned about a potential threat.

So I'd really love to know why you'd trust those guys any more than you'd trust private-corporations. Private corporations have something to lose when it goes tits up. Government agencies just have to shuffle the deck a little and people will naively assume they have their best interests at heart and can do no wrong.

Boggles the mind.

Cody Pomeray

RandomName2 wrote: »

Is terrorism directed against America really a concern of a country like Ireland?

Only in a very roundabout way; it is of concern to any jurisdiction with economic and cultural links to the US, though.

Since targeting a demographic is likely to be based upon psychological profiles, a hands-on human element is likely to be at the core of such monitoring.

Yes, above the level where your inputs attract attention because of the terms and word combinations you're using.

What can a private corporation do to you? Not much

Apply for a court injunction to prevent your interactions in sharing information, see today's High Court judgement in EMI & Sony v. UPC & others, when it becomes available.

As for the 'if you have nothing to hide' argument, the same could be used for clothes... (insert reference to controversy caused by "x-ray" scanners in airports)

My argument is not "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear". My argument is "if you've nothing to hide you're unlikely to come to anyone's attention" - just as happens in real life, under everyday policing.

20Cent

The reaction does seem a bit blasé I suppose everyone suspected that it happened but having it proven is another story. It is outrageous and even if it is legal it shouldn't be.

The worst thing about this is how it can stifle discussion, people might think twice about criticising certain things or expressing opinions because it could be used against them later.

opti0nal

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

My argument is "if you've nothing to hide you're unlikely to come to anyone's attention" - just as happens in real life, under everyday policing.

Unless a computer 'algorithm' flags you.

Say you've been planning a trip and your local airport closes because of bad weather. You're so angry, you tweet that you're so angry you'd like to blow up the airport...no everyday policeman would take that seriously.... right?

Or..as a result of a freeely expressed opinion here, you get extra attention from US immigration on your next visit?

KyussBishop

It allows the US to spy on Irish citizens (since data can be pretty indiscriminately pulled from co-operating companies), and maintain retrospective records going back years, unhindered; so definitely yes, there should be a response.
The EU already seems to be demanding answers from the US, so that is a positive sign at least.


One of the most notable things about this, is how the NSA is collecting enormous amounts of raw Internet traffic from everyone (including those whose data happens to route through US servers), and storing it for retrospective analysis when they flag someone.

Not only that, but it has been suspected (but totally unconfirmed) that the NSA don't just stop here, but that they may have negotiated taps on some major international fibers as well; it's incredibly easy to setup such a tap for duplicating fiber traffic.


As mentioned already, it's worth noting that we already have a lesser version of this here, with our data retention laws (though I'm not knowledgeable of the extent of those laws);
I would be very surprised if access to that stored data is locked down sufficiently, to prevent abuses and inappropriate accesses.

Same goes with the NSA data: Nothing to stop massive abuse of it, in a privacy-destroying way.

opti0nal

KyussBishop wrote: »

As mentioned already, it's worth noting that we already have a lesser version of this here, with our data retention laws (though I'm not knowledgeable of the extent of those

Just all the phone numbers you dial and those who dial you, plus addressees of any emails, plus the location of your mobile phone at all times, plus connection and and disconnection metadata of your internet connection and the domains of all web sites you visit.

Available on request, without a court order, to various government departments.

Retained for up to two years for everyone here.

Scofflaw

A decent article about the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra: http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/19/debunking-the-dangerous-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear/

His five essential points:

1. The rules may change

2. It’s not you who determine if you have something to fear

3. Point two assumes that the surveillance even has correct data

4. Laws must be broken for society to progress

5. Privacy is a basic human need

At some point, the surveillance and security apparatus people like Cody Pomeray support as necessary and proportionate to ends they consider valuable could be used for ends they do not consider valuable. Having accepted the surveillance initially, what would their argument be at that point?

No system is perfect - and being wrongly accused is not "nothing to fear", because even an erroneous accusation requires you to defend your freedom and good name, either of which may be irreparably damaged, at a cost to your well-being and finances. Depending on what you're accused of, the error may have permanently deleterious effects, and your chance of demonstrating a material error in a top-secret monitoring programme is, shall we say, slight.

cordially,
Scofflaw

yara

opti0nal wrote: »

1:We don't want to upset the Americans.

2:It would only draw attention to the local equivalent of PRISM, the Data Retention Act which stores all our call details, locations, email and Internet meta-data making it available on request to a variety of government agancies such as the Gardai and Revenue.

3: Article in the Economist puts the argument that we've already surrendered our privacy to the the private sector, so why not let the government have a slurp too?

4:If you've done nothing wrong...

no 3 we opt in/sign up for/pay subscriptions to internet/phone providers with the private sector, that at least is one thing in our favour but government can feck off!!

no 4 same could be said of our glorious "leaders" and as time goes on we find out how dirty they all are!!

jebus wept

yara

Scofflaw wrote: »

Just reading around the Irish internet on the PRISM leaks, and it strikes me that pretty much everybody is going "meh, tell us something we don't know". There's a fair amount of coverage, with the IT in the lead, but the Journal not far behind - there's even a "Rapid Response" panel discussion tomorrow at the Science Gallery about it. But the reaction in comments and social media seems to be quite underwhelming.

Is this the result of previous revelations about Echelon, GCHQ wiretapping, etc, or a side-effect of historically having been a nation with a long historical awareness of informers and surveillance, and of interest to the security forces of our nearest neighbour?

Should we be calling for something to be done? And if so, by whom?

cordially,
Scofflaw

no, way too many of us have our heads buried too deep in the sand for it to even register on most peoples radars by **** i'd get a kicking if i personally acquired my neighbours private info and he was told about it by some whistleblower but world leaders, ara that's just the way it is yad yada yada

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I welcome PRISM.

It's not like the US authorities are poring over individual facebook chats and individual e-mails, unless you are putting words like 'ammonium nitrate', 'detonator' and 'Allah Akhbar' in close proximity. (Maybe this post will show up on their radar)

This work is being done by complex algorithms, and your emails are unlikely to be seen by anybody but you... unless you leave your facebook open in a public space, and get fraped, which apparently is when you are raped on facebook. These things are far more likely invasions of privacy, if people are genuinely concerned.

If you think about it, this 'surveillance', which makes it sound more sinister than it is, is not wholly different to facebook or gmail or boards.ie 'monitoring' your content and creating ads aimed at your demographic.

The US security authorities are just seeking out a very particular type of demographic. To be frank, I trust them more than I trust a lot of private corporations, including facebook.

howya Obama

My name is URL wrote: »

Young to middle-aged male Muslims?

With all the billions pumped into programs like this, how much of it actually pays off? How many terrorist plots have been thwarted as a direct result of it all? I honestly can't say I know of one. Two of the dumbest, most foolhardy; bro-terrorists managed to go undetected just months ago.. despite having a substantial online presence with some quite alarming content prior to the bombings. The best threat-detection algorithms in the world failed completely.. the people responsible for overseeing it, failed completely.. even though they were officially warned about a potential threat.

So I'd really love to know why you'd trust those guys any more than you'd trust private-corporations. Private corporations have something to lose when it goes tits up. Government agencies just have to shuffle the deck a little and people will naively assume they have their best interests at heart and can do no wrong.

Boggles the mind.

the best algorithms in the world don't account for secret use of patsies to heighten fear amongst their own people, sure the DHS has confirmed they had planned for months and put into action bomb detection drills that morning http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/boston-marathon-security-plan_n_3150518.html

still convinced america has got all our best interests at heart with every move they make??

20Cent wrote: »

The reaction does seem a bit blasé I suppose everyone suspected that it happened but having it proven is another story. It is outrageous and even if it is legal it shouldn't be.

The worst thing about this is how it can stifle discussion, people might think twice about criticising certain things or expressing opinions because it could be used against them later.

we've been blazé about most things up to this so why not continue

fighting irish me hole!! roll over irish these days!!

jmcc

Scofflaw wrote: »

Just reading around the Irish internet on the PRISM leaks, and it strikes me that pretty much everybody is going "meh, tell us something we don't know". There's a fair amount of coverage, with the IT in the lead, but the Journal not far behind - there's even a "Rapid Response" panel discussion tomorrow at the Science Gallery about it. But the reaction in comments and social media seems to be quite underwhelming.

Well that's what you get in Ireland for having a media filled largely with technological numpties masquerading as "technology journalists". So a panel of people will be talking about the story that everyone (?) is talking about? But do they know what they are talking about? Unlikely. This story is about Intelligence, Big Data, Cryptography, Mathematics and Politics. Most of the background to this story is still classified and the most of the "technology journalists" in the Irish media haven't a clue about any of those subjects and the press releases printed on drool-proof paper have not been released yet.

So yes - the general response is going to be 'Meh!'.

Regards...jmcc

KyussBishop

The problem with the topic, is that (like a lot of political and particularly economic issues), it has a learning curve (and a somewhat technical one in this case), which contributes to making its significance both difficult to explain, and to understand.

Add to that, the creeping slippery-slope nature of it, where abuse and privacy violations have been suspected for so long, that they become normalized and you get the "nothing new here, move along" attitude, when proof actually emerges showing it's true.

It doesn't help either, that I don't think a lot of the Irish public generally likes to get politically active about pretty much anything, and I'd even go sofar as to say it is looked down on (except when something reaches mainstream acceptance, like abortion and gay rights).


Still though, Europe seems to be a promising hope for clamping down on this and enforcing decent privacy, data protection and net neutrality laws.

Cody Pomeray

opti0nal wrote:

Say you've been planning a trip and your local airport closes because of bad weather. You're so angry, you tweet that you're so angry you'd like to blow up the airport...no everyday policeman would take that seriously.... right?

Actually, in the US? I think they would. I once got a bollocking from an angry French lady at Beauvais for abandoning my bag for less than a minute. Airport officials always operate with a certain level of paranoia, I'd suggest.

Scofflaw wrote: »

At some point, the surveillance and security apparatus people like Cody Pomeray support as necessary and proportionate to ends they consider valuable could be used for ends they do not consider valuable. Having accepted the surveillance initially, what would their argument be at that point?

We would be opposed to it, of course.

However, lets put this in context. There are many perfectly ordinary powers which are exclusively invested in the State which, if that State desired, might be extraordinarily abused.

On another thread there's a guy asking about citizens being stripped of their naturalisation by the Minister for Defence. That's something the law provides for. The law also allows the Minister for Defence or the Courts to call in your or my passport, and essentially prevent us from quitting the country. These are reasonably uncontroversial powers, which are open to an extraordinary abuse, in theory.
But just like PRISM, at some point we generally just have to trust that 'abuse' is not around every corner.

Yes, there are laws which are open to abuse. But once it gets to that stage of abuse, there are other constitutional and human rights that kick in, and that's the important thing.

If it gets to the stage where a Republican administration is lifting people into vans for having expressed support for Democrats,. well there is already a long list of US Constitutional and Human Rights that are being infringed in that hypothetical case, and these rights are fully justiciable.

No system is perfect - and being wrongly accused is not "nothing to fear"

To be clear my point is not "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear". I am saying these algorithms operate like any regular policing: if you've nothing to hide you're unlikely to come to the attention of the police.

KyussBishop

What you describe there affects individual people, the privacy invasion the US is undertaking effects every single person in their country, and even a sizeable portion of the rest of the worlds population, that use the services of companies the US can demand info from.

Overnight, the US could turn their system from a data-collection system, into a system of censorship and mass-privacy violation, which can be used to find and broadly target huge swathes of political opponents; a good phrase to describe it is "turnkey tyranny", where the US (and all of its future governments) has all the infrastructure in place that it would need, in order to enable total online surveillance, and persecution of political opponents.

This is retrospective too: They are storing years worth of data on everyone, so once they 'turn the key' so to speak, they can also dip into records going back years, to look for political targets.


That is an ability that no government in the world should ever have, because abuse of it is guaranteed to escalate, and because it is so potentially harmful to society.

Cody Pomeray

KyussBishop wrote: »

What you describe there affects individual people, the privacy invasion the US is undertaking effects every single person in their country, and even a sizeable portion of the rest of the worlds population, that use the services of companies the US can demand info from.

Only in the sense that facebook ads are also affecting you, in that they are automated to scan your inputs and identify your demographic. What is happening at present is that US security is using technology to do exactly the same. At least they're not bombarding us with ads.

Overnight, the US could turn their system from a data-collection system, into a system of censorship and mass-privacy violation

Yes, over the same night, facebook could go renegade and publish all private interactions and withold all data or use your data to fraudulent ends.

What would we do if either happened?

We would have recourse to the Courts. We have legally enforceable rights to privacy and freedom of expression; these rights are provided for in the Irish constitution. More importantly, these are US Constitutional rights too.

What would we do in the case of the courts being usurped? Well that's something that is so far left of field that it doesn't bear any relation to what is actually under discussion.

You have an analogous situation with the police. Sure, there is a theory that we are open to being dominated by our local police services, but we generally trust that our justice system will safeguard our personal freedoms via the Courts.

KyussBishop

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Only in the sense that facebook ads are also affecting you, in that they are automated to scan your inputs and identify your demographic. What is happening at present is that US security is using technology to do exactly the same. At least they're not bombarding us with ads.

No, that is wrong. The US are collecting raw internet traffic on everyone, which is stored in datacenters for years, and which can be retrospectively looked back on.

They can access everything you do on the Internet, if they target you (not just what you do, but all of the contents too), and where they are unable to do this, they can access a huge amount of information about you from companies whose services you use.

This is nothing like ads, which require your co-operation to track you (I have them all blocked), this is the potential for complete tracking, of everything you do online.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

KyussBishop wrote:

Overnight, the US could turn their system from a data-collection system, into a system of censorship and mass-privacy violation

Yes, over the same night, facebook could go renegade and publish all private interactions and withold all data or use your data to fraudulent ends.

You don't understand the breadth and consequences of the system in place in the US. They can track literally every packet of data coming from your Internet connection, and can store years worth of that data automatically for everyone, which they can retrospectively look back on whenever they like.

This is everything you do on the Internet, not just Facebook, or any other isolated service.


For a physical analogy, imagine microphones and video cameras all throughout your house, and in public everywhere, collecting years worth of data on everything you do at all times, which can be retrospectively looked back on with little effort.

It is the equivalent of that, but on the Internet.

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

We would have recourse to the Courts. We have legally enforceable rights to privacy and freedom of expression; these rights are provided for in the Irish constitution. More importantly, these are US Constitutional rights too.

That is the whole point: The US government is trampling all over the constitutional and privacy rights by doing this, and there is no legal recourse, because the US government has 1: Pushed through many very favourable 'terrorism'-related laws legalizing much of this, and 2: Has gone even further in their interpretation of those laws, and is using 'national security' as an excuse, for keeping even the legal interpretation they use secret (i.e. they literally have placed themselves beyond the law here).

That is exactly what is under discussion; that's what has happened.

Cody Pomeray

KyussBishop wrote: »

No, that is wrong. The US are collecting raw internet traffic on everyone, which is stored in datacenters for years, and which can be retrospectively looked back on.

For a physical analogy, imagine microphones and video cameras all throughout your house, and in public everywhere, collecting years worth of data on everything you do at all times, which can be retrospectively looked back on with little effort.

To be clear, facebook is only an analogy. I am aware that the 'surveillance' goes beyond facebook and gmail. I'm just using them as examples of where personal information is "volunteered to the internet", so to speak.

The core issue heres here are
1. The right to privacy is not, and must never be, absolute. It must be balanced with other rights, and the rights of others.
2. The internet is not an absolutely private space. Just like the family home, which is otherwise inviolable under common law and the Constitution, your pocket of the internet must be subject to a "search" by the police when they have legitimate grounds for suspecting you of a crime.
3. Legitimate grounds for suspicion cannot be established by the unlawful violation of privacy, but it seems clear that the use of algorithms to scan information which is volunteered to the internet is not actually an invasion of privacy in the sense of normal human observations.

The US government is trampling all over the constitutional and privacy rights by doing this, and there is no legal recourse

Only if you think rights to privacy is being violated by technology which scans the internet for the vocabulary of terrorism, and only if you believe freedom of expression and the right to privacy are absolute rights, and no Constitution that I have ever heard of provides that they are absolute.

KyussBishop

Another example of worthwhile suspicion, that would be very nice for a whistleblower to confirm:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/text/ireland/ojsnqlmhojey/

We know for sure that illegal wiretapping went on in Ireland in the past, and we know that the regulations on telecoms providers are piss poor in this country, and we know there are pretty wide ranging data retention laws.

Massive recipe for abuse there. It is also technically trivial not just to tap peoples phones, but all of their Internet data as well.