I am not flippant enough to say that the NSA revelations do not matter, but what are we supposed to do? The Middle Eastern terrorism threat is real and we need to be able to stop them anyway necessary.
All it takes is one of them to hit every Walmart in the neighborhood, buy every pay-as-you-go phone they have, then pass them out to their friends in every Mosque. Now you have a new terrorism threat. So, welcome to the real world my friend, and wake up. On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Scott McEachern wrote: > On 10/08/13 16:36, Martin Schröder wrote: >> YYCIX is subject to canadian laws. >> It likely must have a lawful interception interface for the canadian >> police/whatever. > > Americans are subject to the highest law of the land: The US Constitution. > You know, that document the President and damned near every government > employee has sworn an oath to obey and protect. > > The NSA has broken that oath. Not long after the Snowden leaks started, the > Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, spoke before congress and > explained what the NSA is "up to", in an attempt to play down Snowden's > revelations. Then more Snowden documents came out, proving that the DNI just > /lied/ to congress. Curiously, he's not in jail, and is still in office. > Lying to congress is an indictable offense, er, a "felony offence" in US > legal-speak. > > Now here's another fun bit of trivia for you: The constitution outranks > *all* other laws, like state, regional, municipal, etc. All except one: > Foreign treaties. They hold equal rank to the constitution. Think about > that, vis a vis foreign treaties with other intelligence agencies. The same > applies in Canada with our Constitution and Bill of Rights. > > Lawful interception, you say? Subject to Canadian laws? Privacy laws? > There are no privacy laws in either the US or Canadian constitutions; look it > up. But we /do/ have treaties. > >> Canada is a member of Five Eyes. > > Thank-you for proving my point. Nice treaties with the other members since > 1948. Treaties that have equivalent legal weight to the constitutions of the > respective countries. > > If you think our (Canadian) "morally superior" privacy laws, and our > national/provincial privacy commissioners have any say in the matter, you're > fooling yourself. > > A couple of weeks ago, John Tory, a very well-respected radio commentator > (and former lawyer, former CEO of Rogers, former politician, etc.) on a > respected AM talk radio station, interviewed a fellow who works deep inside > the telecom industry. Sorry, I can't remember the chap's name. Tory asked > the guy, "So what ISPs are giving customer data to the government?" The guy > deadpanned, "All of them. All of them are doing it." > > Of course, there's no actual proof of this at the moment, but given what > Snowden has released so far, and what those documents indicate (eg. PRISM) I > think this theory has moved from "pure speculation" to "most likely" status. > > -- > Scott McEachern > > https://www.blackstaff.ca > > "Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug > dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any > public into allowing the government to do anything with those four." -- > Bruce Schneier
