Is there anyone out there still defending the NSA?

Is there anyone out there still defending the NSA and criticizing Edward Snowden? The NSA is thoroughly corrupt.  Why the fuck do they think that law abiding citizens put locks on our doors and carefully employ passwords when we use our devices on the internet? This is arrogant and illegal activity--just because their big budget has allowed them to invade our privacy ubiquitously doesn't make it legal. Hundreds or thousands of NSA operatives should be escorted out in handcuffs, starting with those at the top. Consider today's report by Der Spiegel--it is a detailed article filled with red flags:

Sometimes it appears that the [NSA's] spies are just as reliant on conventional methods of reconnaissance as their predecessors. Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called "load stations," agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer. These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the "most productive operations" conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks "around the world."

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Sign of the times regarding government surveillance

Back in June, ProPublica published an article advising methods for communicating over the Internet while maintaining privacy. Edward Snowden's revelations have now caused ProPublica to issue a big red flag on its article. Encryption might no longer be effective. How did we get to this point where it is obviously illegal for the government to break into my house and rummage through my drawers without probable cause, but they rummage through my data with the help of and coercion of corporate communications companies? They do it because they CAN do it. These revelations also point out that in the political world explanations are streams of sounds (or scribbles) that would lack any punch except that they are created by entities that can threaten violence. In the case of the NSA, it is the violence of the police state. It is a violence so pronounced that it has ruined the possibility of investigative journalism which, until recent times, was the People's best chance to keep their government in check.

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Encryption tools for journalists

Glenn Greenwald recently answered questions on Reddit, including the following: Reddit comment: "Thanks for doing this. At the university I work at, we are putting together a workshop for Media Professionals, including journalists regarding IT security. We plan on covering: PGP, truecrypt, TOR, OTR, and strongbox. What tools, concepts, or techniques should we be teaching aspiring journalists?" Glenn Greenwald: "That's so great to hear. One of the most gratifying things I've seen since this all started is how many journalists now communicate using PGP, Pidgen, OTR, TOR and similar instruments of encryption. Just as was true for me, so many national security journalists - including some of the most accomplished ones at large media outlets, the ones who work on the most sensitive materials - had no idea about any of that and used none of it. Now they do. In this age of a War on Whistleblowers and sources and ubiquitous surveillance, it's absolutely vital that journalists learn advanced encryption methods and use it." It's a shame that modern day journalists need to spend so much time learning about and using encryption technology to protect their sources from spying by the United States and other governments. What would the founding fathers have said about this more than 200 years ago, that the federal government is spying on its own citizens without probable cause and even spying on journalists?

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Thank you, NSA

David Meyer "thanks" the NSA for making us all insecure. His analysis is spot on, and it should outrage everyone who has tried to password protect anything on the Internet:

What is so jaw-droppingly idiotic about your actions is that you have not only subverted key elements of modern cryptography, but you have also appointed yourself as the guardian of the knowledge that the resulting vulnerabilities exist. And if your own security systems were up to the task, then those secrets wouldn’t be sitting in the offices of the New York Times and ProPublica. One must possess a Panglossian view on things to assume that Edward Snowden was the first person out of the many thousands in his position to make away with such material. He brought it to the public, and without that move there’s a good chance you wouldn’t have even known he took it. So who else has it? Bet you have no idea. So well done; you’ve probably put your own citizens at risk.

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