this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 205 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Collect this article as NFT, wtf??? Sorry, I am not sure I can trust that site on anything now.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 7 months ago

My immediate reaction was the same. I don’t trust the NSA at all, but I’m certainly not going to trust anything this site says when it’s shilling the article as an NFT.

[–] givesomefucks 34 points 7 months ago

OP actually posts a lot of sources, but it's probably a bot.

I have seen more than few accounts that soley post this website though. It's obvious all their articles are fearmongering to encourage crypto.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Sorry about that, the headline was caught my attention while I was surfing.. You should ignore the crypto / nft thing

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

you got baited by the site, probably bullshit made for clicks

[–] [email protected] 38 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Well Snowden did tweet it. They don't really report much more than that.

Link

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Aah, modern day reporting, where they just talk about tweets and X, formerly twitter.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What does it even mean to collect it as an nft?!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Nothing, really.

It means you get a little certificate.
That says you own the article.
But you can't edit it.
But you can show it to your friends.
But not if the site is down.
But the resale is gonna be like, whoa~
Maybe $50 less than you paid for it.
But the sentimentality is worth it.
You should definitely get two.

[–] Heavybell 14 points 7 months ago (4 children)

You get a special unique(?) cryptographic token containing a link to the article, presumably.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Left handed mouse in the background image is unusual.

[–] deafboy 11 points 7 months ago

Not for the men of culture...

[–] [email protected] 65 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The bill in question is H.R. 7888: Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act: To reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

The concerning section of the text of the bill in question.

Elizabeth Goitein's claims are not correct as the amendment is more narrowly defined than she has claimed. But the amendment is still overly broad and an inappropriate overreach of government surveillance.

Elizabeth Goitein is Co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

FYI, the article got the date of the House vote incorrect (it was Friday April 12, not Saturday April 13).

[–] Jiggle_Physics 8 points 7 months ago

For those who refuse to read a little bit. The bill says what Goitein has posted. However it also includes a number of exclusions to those conditions.

Those exceptions being:

a public accommodation facility

a dwelling, as that term is defined in section 802 of the Fair Housing Act

a community facility, as that term is defined in section 315 of the Defense Housing and Community Facilities and Services Act of 1951

a food service establishment, as that term is defined in section 281 of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 (7 U.S.C. 1638)

So, this excludes places people live, community provided facilities to access the internet, and any other publicly provided internet point of access, and places that serve food, like starbuck's wifi.

It is still overly broad, to say the least. Personally I am of the opinion that organizations like the NSA already operate in such a manner without impunity as it is and we are just slowly bringing the law up to speed.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Anyone remember when China routed the whole internet through their country for like nine minutes?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I was curious and looked it up and apparently it was way longer than nine minutes (more like two and half years), if this is what you're referencing. Crazy.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

I think they’re taking about accidental incidents like this one, but that is also a very interesting find.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (3 children)

If the NSA is just days away from taking over the internet, then I wonder what is holding them back from doing it now...

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] spez_ 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wonder what's stopping them from doing it now?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago (6 children)

He had my support until he signed himself over to Russia. It may have been his only choice, but what he says doesn't matter one way or the other in my book.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago

I still support him. I don't blame him for being forced into russia. He gave up a lot to let us know what was going on.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

True. He's probably telling the truth about a lot of things, but notice what he doesn't say. He's a smart guy and is not saying certain things to stay on Putin's good side.

He's been in Russia 10 years now. He would probably be out of jail if he had surrendered. Chelsea Manning is already out:

She was sentenced to 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. On January 17, 2017, Obama commuted Manning's sentence to nearly seven years of confinement dating from her arrest in May 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Always cloak a lie in truth.

[–] Ultragigagigantic 16 points 7 months ago

You shouldn't misrepresent his dire situation. There were sadly no good choices for the man.

He is a hero for his sacrifice, regardless of where he lives.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (8 children)

Because the US is so much better?

[–] Ultragigagigantic 6 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How do you mean? What did he do besides have his passport revoked in Russia?

I'm out of the loop.

Has he made some pro-Putin statements since?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It sucks but what else was he supposed to do? He had no passport and if he got extradited to the USA then he'd spend years of a life sentence in solitary confinement at a CMU prison or worse. Take one look at how the US government treats those they consider terrorists and you'll understand his decision.

Obligatory fuck Putin and his war on Ukraine.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Imo its understandable since he's going to have to live in russia for the rest of his life if he doesn't want to live in a US prison for the rest of his life.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Yeah. He's 100% compromised. People don't have to hate him or what he did, but once you put yourself totally within a power like Putin, you're effectively dead.

I think For All Mankind also did a great job showing that dilemma in later seasons.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

Since some people are having issues with the site, here it is from the ACLU:

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/congress-passing-bill-that-massively-expands-the-governments-power-to-spy-on-americans-without-a-warrant

ACLU Statement on Congress Passing Bill that Massively Expands the Government’s Power to Spy on Americans Without a Warrant

This bill would reauthorize Section 702 surveillance for two more years without any of the necessary reforms to protect Americans’ civil liberties

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives passed a bill today that will reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for two years, expand the federal government’s power to secretly spy on Americans without a warrant, and create a new form of “extreme vetting” of people traveling to the United States.

When the government wants to obtain Americans’ private information, the Fourth Amendment requires it to go to court and obtain a warrant. The government has claimed that the purpose of Section 702 is to allow the government to warrantlessly surveil non-U.S. citizens abroad for foreign intelligence purposes, even as Americans’ communications are routinely swept up. In recent years, the law has morphed into a domestic surveillance tool, with FBI agents using Section 702 databases to conduct millions of invasive searches for Americans’ communications — including those of protestersracial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, journalists, and even members of Congress — without a warrant.

“Despite what some members would like the public to believe, Section 702 has been abused under presidents from both political parties and it has been used to unlawfully surveil the communications of Americans across the political spectrum,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “By expanding the government’s surveillance powers without adding a warrant requirement that would protect Americans, the House has voted to allow the intelligence agencies to violate the civil rights and liberties of Americans for years to come. The Senate must add a warrant requirement and rein in this out-of-control government spying.”

In the last year alone, the FBI conducted over 200,000 warrantless “backdoor” searches of Americans’ communications. The standard for conducting these backdoor searches is so low that, without any clear connection to national security or foreign intelligence, an FBI agent can type in an American’s name, email address, or phone number, and pull up whatever communications the FBI’s Section 702 surveillance has collected over the past five years.

The House passed all the amendments to expand this invasive surveillance that were pushed by leaders of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the committee closest to the intelligence agencies asking for this power. The bipartisan amendment that would have required the government to obtain a warrant before searching Section 702 data for Americans’ communications failed 212-212.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

Well, seeing as it's the NSA, they're likely doing this now but working for a more legal possibility.

If they can access your hardware now they fuckin will. They definitely aren't asking for permission... or forgiveness for that matter.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

And, if passed, these tools will fall into the hands of the next president. We're in such a generic Tom Clancy script, it's boring.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't trust him ever since he sided with the Kremlin. Also what is this website...

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Once this bill passes, there is absolutely nothing stopping the NSA from doing an IP lookup on this comment/my account, and putting me into a "potential domestic terrorist - watch closer" list. A list that will eventually be used later, for some reason or another, so let's just hope we never get an authoritarian in the White House with stacked courts! That could never happen here, could it?

P.S. If you live in the US, just part of your connection going to another country (be it a CDN or server hosted in Canada, or US server gets overwhelmed and switches to Canada) - full content logs for you.

Cointelegraph is (was at least?) a reputable source for national security news. It's mainly for OSINT and national security interested folks who know better than to do the majority of their research on a smartphone, so it may not be great on mobile, I don't know.

Snowden chose Russia because the other option was life as a political prisoner without a chance at a fair trial. Egotist, sure, but at least we know what we know now. Can you imagine how fucked we'd be if he never leaked them?

And regardless of the source, (site or person quoted), what he's saying is absolutely true. The NSA is about to be able to gather ALL mass communications and look at them whenever, without a warrant which was the only safeguard before.

I'm legitimately about to throw my tech into a fucking dumpster and get a dumbphone and a smartphone with all hardware removed besides what's required by Briar.

Most will read this and think I'm being overly paranoid. When I talked about the FVEY (now 14EYES) surveillance dragnet before the Snowdon leaks, everyone thought the same.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (2 children)

He didn't side with the Kremlin he chose not to go back to the Land of the Free and be tried for being a whistleblower or worse. Self-preservation.

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[–] TropicalDingdong 8 points 7 months ago

Which days though? because Wednesday is still reserved for my dudes.

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