Privacy News: Ten States Against the NSA, Snowden Speaks About Espionage
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-27 09:28:36 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-27 10:26:48 UTC
Summary: News from the past couple of days, mostly about the NSA
State-level Actions
-
With the introduction of the 4th Amendment Protection Act this week, Mississippi became the tenth state in the country to consider legislation to make life difficult for the NSA’s ongoing mass surveillance programs.
Edward Snowden
-
Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden told German TV on Sunday about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails.
In what German public broadcaster ARD said was Snowden's first television interview, Snowden also said he believes the NSA has monitored other top German government officials along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
-
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden claims in a new interview that the US agency is involved in industrial espionage.
-
German public broadcaster ARD will air a half-hour interview with NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden on Sunday. The first snippet, aired late Saturday, accuses the NSA of conducting industrial espionage.
-
The NSA agency is not preoccupied solely with national security, but also spies on foreign industrial entities in US business interests, former American intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden, has revealed in an interview to German TV.
-
Snowden says the NSA will use information even if it "has nothing to do with national security".
-
NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden held a public Web chat on Thursday during which he answered questions sent in from hundreds of curious citizens via Twitter. This was Snowden's first live chat since June of last year, and during the broadcast viewers became privy to some of the outspoken leaker's opinions, especially that of the NSA and their previous actions.
Radical Politicians
-
White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden declined to comment, but people familiar with the matter said an announcement is expected soon.
Rogers, a Navy cryptologist, had long been seen as the frontrunner to succeed Gen. Keith Alexander, who has been NSA director since 2005. Alexander, who will retire March 14, is the longest-serving NSA head. He is also the first commander of U.S. Cyber Command, which launched in 2009.
Criticism
-
Just a friendly reminder that the NSA's children's website, "CryptoKids," is an actual thing that exists.
-
If, for instance, you wanted to stop mass shootings, legislation outlawing the sale, possession or manufacture of any gun capable of firing more than one bullet without reloading might work. It would also be a terrible idea.
-
As it tries to protect us from the “bad guys,” the government has become more intrusive in our lives. Where do we draw the line? If you have nothing to hide, would it be OK for government agents to show up unannounced at your door (without cause) to search your home? Would it also be OK for agents to randomly select citizens from off the street and subject them to full body searches?
-
Try to think back to the 1970s if you are old enough. Imagine if one day there had been a decree from the Nixon Administration that all citizens must within a week pay for a hand-held device that will allow government to keep track of all your movements and to monitor your telephone calls and written messages you'd be able send through the air to other devices.
I think it would have scared the crap out of most people, and I think they'd be massive resistance to it. So 40 years later millions of people are cajoled through gradual technological advances, advertisement, government secrecy, and peer pressure to actually line up at stores to pay for the latest model of these monitoring devices.
Corporate Spying
-
The public is fickle; it will always want the next and best thing, and there will always be someone eager to provide it. For a blink of history's eye, that was the Pony Express. No matter how brilliant your business idea, how diligent and disciplined your execution of it, there is forever someone hungrier and faster coming over the horizon.
-
The major selling point for BlackBerry has always been its security and privacy - the way it encrypted communication across its network was the only game in town - that is, until 2010, when governments threatened to “block encrypted BlackBerry corporate e-mail and messaging services” unless their security agencies were granted access to them.
This was the beginning of the demise of Blackberry. Because of The Surveillance State’s inability to spy on their own citizens, governments forced BlackBerry to change their business model, which in turn played a major role in the company’s collapse.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 80 Out of 200: Having Run Out of Time to Meet a Judge's Deadline, Microsoft's Graveley Had Garrett's Lawyers Argued My ~190-Page Defence and CounterClaim (DCC) Was Unclear About My Position
- Nothing could be further from the truth
-
- Cooperation and Collaboration, on a More Personal Level
- Rianne, to me, isn't just a wife; she is also my best friend
- IBM Has Payroll Problems (Just Like Microsoft)
- It's a good thing that many nations around the world are, accordingly if not proactively, divesting from GAFAM
- Links 18/05/2026: 25 Years of OLDaily and Dangers of "Living With Too Much Tech"
- Links for the day
- Trips to London
- London isn't a bad place, but it's a long journey and we'd rather stay in Manchester and write about technology
- Working in the Shell (and Fish)
- Yesterday we spent about 5 hours on the shells and fish
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVI - Campinos Has Put Unfit-for-Employment Drug Addicts in Charge of the European Patent Office (EPO)
- How many months has Campinos got left before the delegates show him the door?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 17, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, May 17, 2026
- Gemini Links 18/05/2026: Poetry, Sauna, and GNU Taler
- Links for the day
- "The Society of Media Lawyers" (UK) is a Truly Malicious Anti-Media Lobby Which Helps Rich/Abusive Americans and Hostile Countries Attack Actual Media Workers in the UK
- They typically source their money from aboard to besiege domestic actors (like honest journalists or independent outlets that document suppressed beats/topics)
- Slop Still Waning, Its Momentum is Driven by Companies That Stand to Lose a Lot (or Everything) When the Bubble Pops
- When it comes to LLM slop disguised as news, it's just not working out
- Gemini Links 17/05/2026: arXiv Brings Down the Hammer, UnderPOWERed, and Slopping With Tcl/Tk
- Links for the day
- Links 17/05/2026: Amazon Employees Herded Into Slop, Taiwan Sold Down the River by Cheeto
- Links for the day
- Links 17/05/2026: Society of Media Lawyers (Brett Wilson LLP et al) Lobby for More SLAPPs in the UK, “Courage in Journalism Award” Given in Oppressive Country
- Links for the day
- Finland Needs to Dump Microsoft (Microslop) for National Security Reasons and the Same is True for Hundreds of Countries
- "I don't see why Ryssäs would want Finns to use microslop products..."
- Cyber Show UK is Already Available Over Gemini Protocol
- This past week the total number of active Gemini capsules hit all-time records several times
- Fight Til the End
- This comes to show that persistence pays off
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 79 Out of 200: They Will Soon Reach the 100 KG (Kilograms) Milestone; Wheelbarrows, Not Justice (Quantity of Legal Papers Sent to Us)
- It's about the quality, not quantity (unless your sole aim is to drown out or "flood the zone")
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXV - Not Bringing Intelligence to the EPO, Not 'Artificial Intelligence' Either (But Intelligence-Eroding Drugs)
- The EPO was meant to be about science and law. In practice, however, it's about breaking the law and being stoned.
- The Cyber Show on Why Coding is Important and Slop Cannot Change or Replace That
- Hand-crafting one's site has plenty of advantages
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, May 16, 2026
- Gemini Links 17/05/2026: Music Theory, Reticulum Git Repos, and Releasing Kiln
- Links for the day
- Links 16/05/2026: Cuba Plunges Into Darkness (Energy Wasted by Nonsense), Googlebooks as Slop Nonsense (Energy Waste and Time Wasted)
- Links for the day
- Links 16/05/2026: Climate Issues, Free Speech, and Monopolies/Monopsonies
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/05/2026: Retreat and Devuan Manuals
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 78 Out of 200: Slandering Me for Saying the Truth About Graveley and Garrett's Abuse of Processes, Stacking Dockets
- These are the sorts of things British taxpayers ought to talk about
- "AI" Became a New Name or Placeholder for Debt
- Because they will only ever lose money for this thing with "tokens" or "potential"
- "Microsoft Goodwill and Intangible Assets" Down Two Years in a Row, According to Microsoft
- Microsoft cannot sell these, so what is their real relevance?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, May 15, 2026
- IBM: Shares Down 30%, Mass Layoffs, IBM Says "Goodwill" Grew by 10% to Over a Third of the Company's Total "Worth"
- According to IBM
- Microsoft LinkedIn Layoffs "Very Likely Higher" Than 1,000 People
- Microsoft is bleeding