The Common Ills: Barack doesn't want a conversation

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Barack doesn't want a conversation

More damage from Barack's illegal spying as another closure is announced as a result. Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing) reports, "Groklaw, an award-winning campaigning website that played a pivotal role in the SCO case (a proxy war in which Microsoft tried to kill GNU/Linux) and others, is shutting down, over the revelation of widespread, deep email surveillance. In an open letter, Pamela Jones, the site's owner, cites the open letter posted by Lavabit founder Ladar Levison when he shut down rather than cooperating in surveillance of his users. Specifically, he said that he'd stopped using email, and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too."

August 9th, Shannon Young (Free Speech Radio News) explained:

Texas-based encrypted email service provider Lavabit abruptly closed down Thursday afternoon. In a carefully worded statement, the company's owner and operator Ladar Levison wrote that the decision was between shutting down Lavabit or becoming "complicit in crimes against the American people." Levison added that, despite the constitutional right to free speech and making two separate requests, he has been legally prevented from sharing the experiences which led to the drastic decision. The wording of the statement suggests Levison is under a gag order which can accompany National Security Letters or sealed court orders.
Hours after Lavabit made its announcement, Silent Circle chose to shut down its encrypted email service, stating the company could not guarantee the privacy of data sent over email. In its statement, Silent Circle said it has not received subpoenas, warrants, or security letters, but chose to act in a preemptive manner. Silent Circle will continue to offer its real-time voice and encrypted instant messaging services, which use different protocols than email.

Lavabit founder Ladar Levison told Amy Goodman (Democracy Now! -- link is video, audio and text), "I don’t think I can continue to run Lavabit abroad as an American citizen. I would have to move abroad, effectively, to administer the service. As an American citizen, I’m still subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the United States, particularly as long as I continue to live here. You know, that’s why I have a lot of respect for [NSA whistler Ed] Snowden, because he gave up his entire life, the life that he’s known his entire life, so that he could speak out. I haven’t gotten to that point. I still hope that it’s possible to run a private service, private cloud data service, here in the United States without necessarily being forced to conduct surveillance on your users by the American government."

Groklaw's slogan was "When you want to know more but don't know where to look." Wikipedia notes the following awards Groklaw was honored with:

2012 - ABA Journal Blawg 100 ^[11]
2010 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) 2010 Pioneer Awards^[12]
2009 - Top 200 Tech Blogs: The Datamation 2009 List "The famed Groklaw is still going strong, far past the SCO case that first brought the blog to prominence."^[13]
2008 - The Award for Projects of Social Benefit - The Free Software Foundation (FSF)^[14]
2007 - Knowledge Masters Award for Innovation - Knowledge Trust and the Louis Round Wilson Academy ^[15]
2007 - Best FUD Fighter - Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards^[16]
2005 - Best News Site - ConsortiumInfo*.org - Pamela Jones/Groklaw: Best Community Site or Blog (Non-Profit)
2005 - Best Blogger of the Year - Dana Blankenhorn, Corante^[17]
2004 - Best Website of 2004 - The Inquirer^[18]
2004 - Best Independent Tech Blog - TechWeb Network: Readers Choice Award
2004 - Best Nontechnical or Community Website - Linux Journal: Editors' Choice Award
2003 - Best News Site - OSDir.com: Editor's Choice Winner

Rob O'Neill (ZDNet) adds, "Groklaw rose to fame for its coverage of the SCO intellectual property lawsuits against the likes of IBM and Novell. It went on to cover a host of other cases, often defining the interface between open source and proprietary software." Jones writes in the last post:

Harvard's Berkman Center had an online class on cybersecurity and internet privacy some years ago, and the resources of the class are still online. It was about how to enhance privacy in an online world, speaking of quaint, with titles of articles like, "Is Big Brother Listening?"
And how.
You'll find all the laws in the US related to privacy and surveillance there. Not that anyone seems to follow any laws that get in their way these days. Or if they find they need a law to make conduct lawful, they just write a new law or reinterpret an old one and keep on going. That's not the rule of law as I understood the term.
Anyway, one resource was excerpts from a book by Janna Malamud Smith,"Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life", and I encourage you to read it. I encourage the President and the NSA to read it too. I know. They aren't listening to me. Not that way, anyhow. But it's important, because the point of the book is that privacy is vital to being human, which is why one of the worst punishments there is is total surveillance:

One way of beginning to understand privacy is by looking at what happens to people in extreme situations where it is absent. Recalling his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi observed that "solitude in a Camp is more precious and rare than bread." Solitude is one state of privacy, and even amidst the overwhelming death, starvation, and horror of the camps, Levi knew he missed it.... Levi spent much of his life finding words for his camp experience. How, he wonders aloud in Survival in Auschwitz, do you describe "the demolition of a man," an offense for which "our language lacks words."... Our function of privacy is to provide a safe space away from terror or other assaultive experiences. When you remove a person's ability to sequester herself, or intimate information about herself, you make her extremely vulnerable....
The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition....
And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched -- which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting. ... Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

I've quoted from that book before, back when the CNET reporters' emails were read by HP. We thought that was awful. And it was. HP ended up giving them money to try to make it up to them. Little did we know.

Mike Masnick (TechDirt) observes:

The fallout from all of this NSA surveillance will take a very, very long time to measure, but it will be profound. The government, again, has put so much emphasis on the "benefit" of preventing an exceptionally low probability event, that it barely even considers the massive costs on everyone else. PJ is shutting down Groklaw because of the same reasons as Lavabit shut down. But it is the same root cause. The power of a surveillance state to spin out of control has wide-reaching consequences. It's difficult to see how anyone can claim it's worth the costs.

The illegal spying is a crime. Barack Obama's authorization and comfort with the spying doesn't make it legal. The Constitution trumps Barack. He is neither king nor God and it's past time he was made aware of that. Last week, Senator Ron Wyden's office issued the following statement from Wyden and Senator Mark Udall:

Friday, August 16, 2013
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) issued the following statement regarding reports that the NSA has violated rules intended to protect Americans' privacy thousands of times each year. Wyden and Udall are both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“The executive branch has now confirmed that the 'rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans' have been violated thousands of times each year. We have previously said that the violations of these laws and rules were more serious than had been acknowledged, and we believe Americans should know that this confirmation is just the tip of a larger iceberg.

While Senate rules prohibit us from confirming or denying some of the details in today's press reports, the American people have a right to know more details about of these violations. We hope that the executive branch will take steps to publicly provide more information as part of the honest, public debate of surveillance authorities that the Administration has said it is interested in having.

In particular, we believe the public deserves to know more about the violations of the secret court orders that have authorized the bulk collection of Americans' phone and email records under the USA PATRIOT Act. The public should also be told more about why the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has said that the executive branch's implementation of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has circumvented the spirit of the law, particularly since the executive branch has declined to address this concern.

We appreciate the candor of the Chief Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court regarding the Court's inability to independently verify statements made by the executive branch. We believe that the Court is not currently structured in a way that makes it an effective check on the power of the executive branch. This highlights the need for a robust and well-staffed public advocate who could participate in significant cases before the Court and evaluate and counter government assertions. Without such an advocate on the court, and without greater transparency regarding the Court's rulings, the checks and balances on executive branch authority enshrined in the Constitution cannot be adequately upheld.”

The release was in reply to major scoop. Thursday night, Barton Gellman (Washington Post) broke the news:

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

If Barack really wanted a conversation, not only would he not be carrying out a witch hunt against Ed Snowden, he'd also declare that Wyden and Udall could speak openly about their concerns without fear of legal repercussions.

But Barack doesn't want an honest discussion. He wants to shut down the discussion while pretending he's encouraging it. Further revealing just how out of control and unethical the White House has become, they were behind the detention of David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, in an attempt to punish Greenwald for his reporting on the illegal spying.

Greenwald Tweeted this morning: