Former CIA and NSA employee source of intelligence leaks

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't have a problem with that. Just don't let them bundle said "services" with the phone/OS.

It's not a bundled service.  it's a statement of the conditions under which the company is prepared to provide the service.

Look if I am wrong and you and Guller & Co are correct, there is a massive multi-billion opportunity for someone to steal huge market share in the hottest tech market that exists today, by simply offering a tablet with a very strict privacy policy.  Your theory is that no one is picking up the $100 billion coin because of market failure.  My theory is that the coin isn't there becaue given a choice, people would rather pay $50 less or get a snazzier user experience, at the cost of MicroApplooglazon collecting data on which Starbucks franchise they most frequent.

[mongers]

Judging from the comments, and the posters taking sides, I have to conclude that Americans have been so successful at exporting democracy abroad that they didn't keep enough of it for internal consumption.

[katmai]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

I have yet to be disappointed by a Languish poster.

[alfred russel]

Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. are global companies that happen to be located in the US. They are going to end up in a competitive disadvantage if the US government has access to ordinary foreign use.

[DGuller]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

I have yet to be disappointed by a Languish poster.

[citizen k]

Edward Snowden has blown the whistle on this presidency. You have to wonder: Will Obama see out his full term?

"They could pay off the Triads," says Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower interviewed by the Guardian in his Hong Kong hideout. Meaning: the CIA could use a proxy to kill him for revealing that Barack Obama has presided over an unimaginable – to the ordinary citizen – expansion of the Federal government's powers of surveillance over anyone.

Libertarians and conspiracy theorists of both Left and Right will never forget this moment. Already we have Glenn Beck hailing Snowden on Twitter:

_{Courage finally. Real. Steady. Thoughtful. Transparent. Willing to accept the consequences. Inspire w/Malice toward none.#edwardsnowden}

Snowden will be a Right-wing hero as well as a Left-libertarian one. Why? First, he thought carefully about what he should release, avoiding (he says) material that would harm innocent individuals. Second, he's formidably articulate. Quotes like the following are pure gold for opponents of Obama who've been accusing the President of allowing the Bush-era "surveillance state" to extend its tentacles even further:

_{NSA is focussed on getting intelligence wherever it can by any means possible... Increasingly we see that it's happening domestically. The NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone, it ingests them by default, it collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and its stores them for periods of time ... While they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting your communications to do so. Any analyst at any time can target anyone...}

I do not see how Obama can talk his way out of this one. Snowden is not Bradley Manning: he's not a disturbed disco bunny but a highly articulate network security specialist who has left behind a $200,000 salary and girlfriend in Hawaii for a life on the run. He's not a sleazy opportunist like Julian Assange, either. As he says: "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

It will be very difficult for the Obama administration to portray Snowden as a traitor. For a start, I don't think US public opinion will allow it. Any explanations it offers will be drowned out by American citizens demanding to know: "So how much do you know about me and my family? How can I find out? How long have you been collecting this stuff? What are you going to do with it?"

Suddenly the worse-than-Watergate rhetoric doesn't seem overblown. And I do wonder: can a president who's presided over, and possibly encouraged, Chinese-style surveillance of The Land of the Free honestly expect to serve out his full term?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100220938/edward-snowden-has-blown-the-whistle-on-this-presidency-you-have-to-wonder-will-obama-see-out-his-full-term/

[citizen k]

Snowden is not Bradley Manning: he's not a disturbed disco bunny ...

[Monoriu]

I really want to get some drama out of this.  The HK police, Chinese army, US CIA agents, secret good guys, Al Queda, all want to get hold of him one way or another.  There are good looking females, gadgets, car chases etc in this script.  What else can go wrong?

[Kleves]

Today on the radio, I heard that 56% of Americans supported this program.

[Valmy]

Today on the radio, I heard that 56% of Americans supported this program.

Only 56%?  Maybe all is not lost.

[Warspite]

That's the difference between you and me. You think it's fine for Apple to sell private data and hand it over to the government. I think the government should prevent Apple and from collecting and selling said data.

I think Apple, Microsoft, or Company X should be free to enter into whateve contractual arrangements that want to make with their customers with regard to data, so long as they aren't fraudulent or coercive.  As a matter of observable fact, many people seem perfectly willing to accede to these arrangements (myself among them), which gives rise to obvious inferences about reasonable expectations of privacy in that data.

IMO, this kind of thinking makes no sense.  Individuals have no negotiating power, and no realistic option to refuse to use all services that can potentially spy on them.  They also have a pretty limited ability to comprehend the 40-page legalistic snowjob that Apple calls EUA.  The main reason for government regulations protecting consumers is the fact that consumers have neither the power nor the expertise to make truly informed decisions in many areas.

You can decide quite easily to not use iTunes or be sucked into the Apple ecosystem. Not having a Facebook account is not a disaster. It is not beyond the realms of feasibility to avoid using Gmail by purchasing one's own webspace and having one's own private mail server.

The fact is people tend to prefer convenience to the jealous guarding of all their details. Whether that is right or wrong is beside the point; people understand what information they are granting to private actors because it's right their on the sign-up form. And, at least here in the UK, firms have to clearly state what they may do with this data.

I suspect your real disagreement is with other consumers who don't place the same value on a particular subset of privacy that you do.

[Bluebook]

IMO, this kind of thinking makes no sense.  Individuals have no negotiating power, and no realistic option to refuse to use all services that can potentially spy on them.  They also have a pretty limited ability to comprehend the 40-page legalistic snowjob that Apple calls EUA.  The main reason for government regulations protecting consumers is the fact that consumers have neither the power nor the expertise to make truly informed decisions in many areas.

Privacy policies are good deal shorter than a typically full EULA.  Taking Apple's as an exemplar, it is concise and free of legalisms.  Such policies are written with an attempt to balance likely customer reaction with the value to the company of being able to collect the data, which can be quite substantial.  Geolocation in cell phones has been around for a long time now and I don't think it is exactly unknown to consumers.  If we are going to have the government enact comprehensive protective legislation in every single area where staggering ignorance might compromise an interest, the government is going to be very busy.

Not really, we have such laws in Sweden. DG has a point that you fail to adress in your reply; the entering into contract is not between two equal partners, and the only option is to refuse the service altogether. Considering how important an internet access and a phone is in everyday life, refusing service is not a realistic alternative. Which leaves consumer protection legislation.

[Bluebook]

I don't have a problem with that. Just don't let them bundle said "services" with the phone/OS.

Look if I am wrong and you and Guller & Co are correct, there is a massive multi-billion opportunity for someone to steal huge market share in the hottest tech market that exists today, by simply offering a tablet with a very strict privacy policy.  Your theory is that no one is picking up the $100 billion coin because of market failure.  My theory is that the coin isn't there becaue given a choice, people would rather pay $50 less or get a snazzier user experience, at the cost of MicroApplooglazon collecting data on which Starbucks franchise they most frequent.

No, you are actually twice wrong. DG is right but there is no such market because no one can realistically expect to build a new Google or Facebook right now. And even if they did the "no spying" promise is worthless since the consumer can never know if it is true or not, regardless what the new company promises in its EULA or whatever.

[Tamas]

Well, at the end of the day, Facebook and iAmawesome is not REQUIRED to be had. You have an option to decline.
I would not want government stepping into contracts deciding what's fair and what not, not on this level for sure.


And this is completely beside the original issue, which is the 1984ish level of detailed oversight they are building over every mundane details of our lives.

[Warspite]

IMO, this kind of thinking makes no sense.  Individuals have no negotiating power, and no realistic option to refuse to use all services that can potentially spy on them.  They also have a pretty limited ability to comprehend the 40-page legalistic snowjob that Apple calls EUA.  The main reason for government regulations protecting consumers is the fact that consumers have neither the power nor the expertise to make truly informed decisions in many areas.

Privacy policies are good deal shorter than a typically full EULA.  Taking Apple's as an exemplar, it is concise and free of legalisms.  Such policies are written with an attempt to balance likely customer reaction with the value to the company of being able to collect the data, which can be quite substantial.  Geolocation in cell phones has been around for a long time now and I don't think it is exactly unknown to consumers.  If we are going to have the government enact comprehensive protective legislation in every single area where staggering ignorance might compromise an interest, the government is going to be very busy.

Not really, we have such laws in Sweden. DG has a point that you fail to adress in your reply; the entering into contract is not between two equal partners, and the only option is to refuse the service altogether. Considering how important an internet access and a phone is in everyday life, refusing service is not a realistic alternative. Which leaves consumer protection legislation.

Neither Facebook nor Google are important to everyday life: they are useful, but not important. There are plenty of alternatives to the Google ecosystem, and Facebook is just an elaborate time-wasting scheme. It's emphatically not equivalent to the importance of a phone line, no matter what the Silicon Valley technologists spout on about.