Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
The Guardian just published another pretty interesting Article... You might want to visit the Guardian for the screenshots of the slides, BTW.
- Spoiler:
- XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'
(c) Glenn Greenwald, 31 July 2013
• XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data
• NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
• Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
• NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.
"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.
Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.
One training slide illustrates the digital activity constantly being collected by XKeyscore and the analyst's ability to query the databases at any time.
The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted.
Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used.
One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."
The NSA documents assert that by 2008, 300 terrorists had been captured using intelligence from XKeyscore.
Analysts are warned that searching the full database for content will yield too many results to sift through. Instead they are advised to use the metadata also stored in the databases to narrow down what to review.
A slide entitled "plug-ins" in a December 2012 document describes the various fields of information that can be searched. It includes "every email address seen in a session by both username and domain", "every phone number seen in a session (eg address book entries or signature block)" and user activity – "the webmail and chat activity to include username, buddylist, machine specific cookies etc".
Email monitoring
In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA.
One top-secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites".
To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the emails are sought.
The analyst then selects which of those returned emails they want to read by opening them in NSA reading software.
The system is similar to the way in which NSA analysts generally can intercept the communications of anyone they select, including, as one NSA document put it, "communications that transit the United States and communications that terminate in the United States".
One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications. Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications.
Chats, browsing history and other internet activity
Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media.
An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
An analyst can monitor such Facebook chats by entering the Facebook user name and a date range into a simple search screen.
Analysts can search for internet browsing activities using a wide range of information, including search terms entered by the user or the websites viewed.
As one slide indicates, the ability to search HTTP activity by keyword permits the analyst access to what the NSA calls "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet".
The XKeyscore program also allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies.
The quantity of communications accessible through programs such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were 850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added.
William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications."
The XKeyscore system is continuously collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for short periods of time. Content remains on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is stored for 30 days. One document explains: "At some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours."
To solve this problem, the NSA has created a multi-tiered system that allows analysts to store "interesting" content in other databases, such as one named Pinwale which can store material for up to five years.
It is the databases of XKeyscore, one document shows, that now contain the greatest amount of communications data collected by the NSA.
In 2012, there were at least 41 billion total records collected and stored in XKeyscore for a single 30-day period.
Legal v technical restrictions
While the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 requires an individualized warrant for the targeting of US persons, NSA analysts are permitted to intercept the communications of such individuals without a warrant if they are in contact with one of the NSA's foreign targets.
The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants.
"The government doesn't need to 'target' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications," said Jaffer. "The government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans" when targeting foreign nationals for surveillance.
An example is provided by one XKeyscore document showing an NSA target in Tehran communicating with people in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and New York.
In recent years, the NSA has attempted to segregate exclusively domestic US communications in separate databases. But even NSA documents acknowledge that such efforts are imperfect, as even purely domestic communications can travel on foreign systems, and NSA tools are sometimes unable to identify the national origins of communications.
Moreover, all communications between Americans and someone on foreign soil are included in the same databases as foreign-to-foreign communications, making them readily searchable without warrants.
Some searches conducted by NSA analysts are periodically reviewed by their supervisors within the NSA. "It's very rare to be questioned on our searches," Snowden told the Guardian in June, "and even when we are, it's usually along the lines of: 'let's bulk up the justification'."
In a letter this week to senator Ron Wyden, director of national intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance.
Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".
However, Wyden said on the Senate floor on Tuesday: "These violations are more serious than those stated by the intelligence community, and are troubling."
In a statement to the Guardian, the NSA said: "NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against – and only against – legitimate foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests.
"XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA's lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system.
"Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA's analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks … In addition, there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent deliberate misuse from occurring."
"Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law.
"These types of programs allow us to collect the information that enables us to perform our missions successfully – to defend the nation and to protect US and allied troops abroad."
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Oh, and this is both pretty scary but funny, too:
So better be careful what you post on Facebook if it involves the NSA even if it is just a joke...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/us-military-and-german-police-respond-to-facebook-post-about-nsa-walk-a-911451.htmlNSA Joke: US Military Intervene over Facebook Event
By Judith Horchert
As a joke, a German man recently invited some friends for a walk around a top secret NSA facility. But the Facebook invitation soon had German federal police knocking at his door. They had been alerted by the American authorities.
Normally, Daniel Bangert's Facebook posts tend to be of the serious variety. The 28-year-old includes news items and other bits of interest he encounters throughout the day. "I rarely post funny pictures," he says.
Recently, though, he decided to liven up his page with something a bit more amusing -- and decided to focus on the scandal surrounding the vast Internet surveillance perpetrated by the US intelligence service NSA. He invited his friends on an excursion to the top secret US facility known as the Dagger Complex in Griesheim, where Bangert is from.
He described the outing as though it were a nature walk. He wrote on Facebook that its purpose was to undertake "joint research into the threatened habitat of NSA spies." He added: "If we are really lucky, we might actually see a real NSA spy with our own eyes." He suggested that those interested in coming should bring along their cameras and "flowers of all kinds to improve the appearance of the NSA spies' habitat."
Perhaps not surprisingly, not many of his friends showed much interest in the venture. But the authorities did. Just four days after he posted the invitation, his mobile phone rang at 7:17 a.m. It was the police calling to talk about his Facebook post.
'I Couldn't Believe It'
Bangert's doorbell rang at almost the exact same time. The police on the telephone told him to talk with the officers outside of his door. Bangert quickly put on a T-shirt -- which had a picture of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on it along with the words "Team Edward" -- and answered the door. His neighbor was outside too so as not to miss the fun.
The police wanted to know more about what exactly Bangert had in mind. "I couldn't believe it. I thought: What? They are coming for such nonsense?"
Bangert says he answered all of the questions truthfully, saying that, yes, his intention was that of heading out to watch the spies. "The officers did smirk a bit," he notes.
How, though, did the police get wind of Bangert's planned "nature" walk? A spokeswoman for the police in nearby Darmstadt told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the US Military Police had found the Facebook post and passed it along to German officials. The Military Police are responsible for security within the Dagger Complex, but outside the fence, it is the Germans who are in charge.
Not long later, Bangert got another call asking him to report to Central Commissariat 10 of the German federal police. They too then sent an officer to his home. "The wanted to know if I had connections with (anarchist groups) or other violent people," Bangert says. He told the officers that he didn't, repeating over and over that he "just wanted to go for a walk."
Ignoring the Police
The officers, says Bangert, were unimpressed and called him a "smart aleck," before hinting strongly that he should obtain a demonstration permit before he embarked on his outing. They then told Bangert not to post anything about their visit on the web.
Bangert took their first piece of advice, registering his "demonstration" even though, as he says, "it wasn't supposed to be one." But he ignored the police's second suggestion and reported on their visit on his Facebook page. "How much more proof do you need," he wrote. "Everyone says that they aren't affected. But then I invite people for a walk and write obvious nonsense in the invitation and suddenly the federal police show up at my home."
The police spokeswoman sought to play down the incident. The officers from Central Commissariat 10 are responsible for public demonstrations, she said. And the fact that the American Military Police reported the Facebook post isn't surprising either, she said. The police, she noted, usually only learn of publicly announced Facebook parties when they are notified by those affected.
More Walks in the Future?
Nevertheless, news of the incident spread rapidly via Twitter and blogs, and the local media reported on it as well. "My grandma was angry with me," Bangert says. "She said: 'You have to be careful or you'll get sent to jail.'"
He wasn't sent to jail, of course. But the added interest in his invitation meant that some 70 people gathered on Saturday for the NSA safari in Griesheim -- along with two police cars, one in front and one behind. "Some members of the group tried to get the NSA spies to come out of their building," Bangert wrote on Facebook afterwards. Unfortunately, they didn't see "any real NSA spies." But they had a good time nonetheless -- to the point that many suggested another walk just like it.
So is he planning a repeat? "I didn't say that and I didn't write it anywhere," Bangert replies. The smart aleck.
So better be careful what you post on Facebook if it involves the NSA even if it is just a joke...
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
food for thought and a silly question
if lets say allot of people lying on the phone on their (so called)planned attacks on many ways wouldn't that massively *bleep* up their system
if lets say allot of people lying on the phone on their (so called)planned attacks on many ways wouldn't that massively *bleep* up their system
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Well, IMO the NSA won't actually get info about the real bad boys as I'm pretty sure these won't use the infos way that are easy to listen in. IMO the NSA, the US government and the other secret services and governments that are involved just want a mechanism to monitor the public to be able to curb unrest easily and to crack down on dangers to their powers easily and thorougly.la bestia negra wrote:food for thought and a silly question
if lets say allot of people lying on the phone on their (so called)planned attacks on many ways wouldn't that massively *bleep* up their system
And to those who claim "If you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear", just look at this example where things could easily change for you without you doing anything wrong:
Imagine there would have been this surveillance already available in 1930. At this time you still had no real problem being a Jew in Germany and imagine you used Facebook to post for example photos of your kid's Bar Mitzvah ceremony with pictures of your family and some dozen guests. Suddenly in 1938, the systematic extermination of the Jews starts. The Gestapo decides to systematically search für keywords connected to Jews, and boom, everybody including you and your family on your Bar Mitzvah photos gets hunted down, deported and killed. Oops.
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Being a cooking afficionado can get you in trouble in the US nowadays:
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cookerNew York woman visited by police after researching pressure cookers online
Long Island resident said her web search history and 'trying to learn how to cook lentils' prompted a visit from authorities but police say search was prompted by tipoff
(c) Adam Gabbatt, 1 August 2013
A New York woman says her family's interest in the purchase of pressure cookers and backpacks led to a home visit by six police investigators demanding information about her job, her husband's ancestry and the preparation of quinoa.
Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husband's hunt for backpacks and her "news junkie" son's craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a "perfect storm of terrorism profiling".
Members of what she described as a "joint terrorism task force" descended on Catalano's home on Wednesday.
Catalano was at work, but her husband was sitting in the living room as the police arrived. She retold the experience in a post on Medium.com on Thursday. She attributed the raid largely to her hunt for a pressure cooker, an item used devastatingly, allegedly by the two Tsarnaev brothers, in Boston, but also used by millions across the country to prepare vegetables while retaining most of their nutrients.
The story later took on a different complexion when police finally explained that the investigation was prompted by searches a family member had made for pressure cooker bombs and backpacks made at his former workplace. The former employer, believing the searches to be suspicious, alerted police. Catalano said the family member was her husband.
In her first post, Catalano, a writer for indie music and politics magazine Death and Taxes wrote:
"What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband's Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.
Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.
A million things went through my husband's head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.
"Are you [name redacted]?" one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.
They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son's bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be."
At this point, Catalano said, the police were "peppering my husband with questions".
"Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked."
It was at this point that the conversation took a delightfully culinary turn, with quinoa making an unlikely appearance in the police inquiries:
"Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked."
The joint terrorism task force did not press Catalano's husband on the dilemma facing liberals over whether quinoa consumption is ethically sound – many Bolivians can no longer afford their staple food now everyone in Brooklyn is eating it.
"By this point they had realised they were not dealing with terrorists," Catalano said.
Still, she was left worried by the visit, which she attributes to her family's internet history.
"I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.
All I know is if I'm going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I'm not doing it online.
I'm scared. And not of the right things."
Late on Thursday, Suffolk County police confirmed its officers had gone to the house, but explained that it was as the result of a tipoff and was not due to monitoring of home internet searches.
In a statement, the office of the county's police commissioner said:
"Suffolk County criminal intelligence detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore-based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee's computer searches took place on this employee's workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms 'pressure cooker bombs' and 'backpacks'."
After the visit the incident was "determined to be non-criminal in nature", the statement said.
Earlier on Thursday, the FBI told the Guardian that Catalano was visited by the Nassau County police department working in conjunction with Suffolk County police department. "From our understanding, both of those counties are involved," said FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser. She said Suffolk County initiated the action and that Nassau County became involved, but would not elaborate on what that meant.
The Nassau County police department said Catalano "was not visited by the Nassau police department" and denied involvement in the situation.
In a new post on her Tumblr on Thursday, Catalano said: "We found out through the Suffolk police department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house."
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
The demand for P.r.r.essure c00kers is going to fall drastically
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
At least the demand to order them online
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Not sure if it was posted but Snowden has been granted asylum in Russia
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
In Germany, there are voices getting loud that Edward Snowdon should be invited as a witness to make testimonies about the NSA proceedings to determine how much of German law was broken, which means he could then put into a witness protection program. (One has to wonder though, if that wouldn't be an even easier way to make him disappear for good then ^^)
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Good for Germany that people are standing up to this disgrace.
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
That's because we had recent first hand experience (Nazi Germany and G"D"R) what happens when the people in power spy on the population - and where it can lead: to millions of people that don't fit in or say something that doesn't agree with the authorities to be imprisoned or killed.juveman17 wrote:Good for Germany that people are standing up to this disgrace.
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
rwo power wrote:That's because we had recent first hand experience (Nazi Germany and G"D"R) what happens when the people in power spy on the population - and where it can lead: to millions of people that don't fit in or say something that doesn't agree with the authorities to be imprisoned or killed.juveman17 wrote:Good for Germany that people are standing up to this disgrace.
Hopefully it will lead to some change in Germany and around the world. Shame most of the national politics in the US is corrupted.
In the recent Congressional voting on whether to stop funding the NSA, the Congressmen who voted against the bill received more than double in defense industry campaign contributions than people who voted against it. Here's a graph.
While it may not seem a big difference, 122% more is a massive difference and a huge incentive for Congressmen to choose which way to vote.
Source: http://boingboing.net/2013/07/27/bribery-pro-nsa-congressional.html
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
@Juveman
Indeed!
You know, the whole current situation eerily reminds me of the questions that were always poised towards Germans: "Didn't you realise what was going on?" and "Why didn't anyone stand up against the proceedings leading to WWII and the holocaust?"
Well, right now the alarm bells ring in any German as every German is taught very thoroughly at school about how the Third Reich and Hitler started to happen.
You had an economy crisis and many discontent people. Then Hitler set up an outside enemy (Jews - or today read Islamists / terrorism) to distract people from the inside problem. Moreover, the Jews had a lot of money and Hitler needed money for his power fantasies, just like today oil is a very sought after commodity.
Then all streams of information were directed in a way that the normal citizens were made to believe what the people in power deemed useful and information that could hut the people in power was carefully put under the table. Of course Hitler had it a bit more difficult as he could only use newspapers and the Wochenschau (in cinemas) for his propaganda.
Of course the propaganda made sure that people believed everything was for their best and it was in everybody's interest to wage a war on the evil Jews (at first the money of the Jews was sufficient, the rest of the world came a little later when Hitler needed even more money to support his megalomaniac ideas).
Of course he set up a very efficient police state, too - and as we know, Germans are very efficient, so they managed to collect information on who was a Jew and thus due to be exterminated down to the nth generation. Ah, and just before that startet, it was of course told everybody "If you don't do anything bad, you have nothing to fear." Do you really think they would have had it so easy to find out all the Jews when they at first thought "Why should be hide that we are Jews - this is nothing wrong after all".
Well, now the NSA and GCHQ and the other secret services involved can easily collect even more data on the people than Hitler's Gestapo or Honecker's Stasi could ever have wished for - including tidbits that currently might still appear innocent, but maybe in the not too far future could easily be used against them. By the way, "Stasi" is short for "Staatssicherheit". In the US they seem to call it very similarly "Homeland Security".
Just look at the current situation in Russia. Only in the last months, Putin decided to crack down hard on homosexuals. If he really wants to exterminate them, he only needs to sift through the online communication / Facebook entries / etc of the Russian people and he will have a nice list of people that he can easily put away, as just last year (or the year before that) there was no legislation that made it illegal to talk about homosexuality in Russia. Today it is suddenly a crime that can be punished. Oops.
You know, I watch how things currently develop, and I read comments in blogs and forums of US and English people who naively say "I don't mind if they collect my private data, I have nothing to hide", and I can but shake my head and wonder if they have learned nothing at all from the atrocities of WWII and the Holocaust.
Indeed!
You know, the whole current situation eerily reminds me of the questions that were always poised towards Germans: "Didn't you realise what was going on?" and "Why didn't anyone stand up against the proceedings leading to WWII and the holocaust?"
Well, right now the alarm bells ring in any German as every German is taught very thoroughly at school about how the Third Reich and Hitler started to happen.
You had an economy crisis and many discontent people. Then Hitler set up an outside enemy (Jews - or today read Islamists / terrorism) to distract people from the inside problem. Moreover, the Jews had a lot of money and Hitler needed money for his power fantasies, just like today oil is a very sought after commodity.
Then all streams of information were directed in a way that the normal citizens were made to believe what the people in power deemed useful and information that could hut the people in power was carefully put under the table. Of course Hitler had it a bit more difficult as he could only use newspapers and the Wochenschau (in cinemas) for his propaganda.
Of course the propaganda made sure that people believed everything was for their best and it was in everybody's interest to wage a war on the evil Jews (at first the money of the Jews was sufficient, the rest of the world came a little later when Hitler needed even more money to support his megalomaniac ideas).
Of course he set up a very efficient police state, too - and as we know, Germans are very efficient, so they managed to collect information on who was a Jew and thus due to be exterminated down to the nth generation. Ah, and just before that startet, it was of course told everybody "If you don't do anything bad, you have nothing to fear." Do you really think they would have had it so easy to find out all the Jews when they at first thought "Why should be hide that we are Jews - this is nothing wrong after all".
Well, now the NSA and GCHQ and the other secret services involved can easily collect even more data on the people than Hitler's Gestapo or Honecker's Stasi could ever have wished for - including tidbits that currently might still appear innocent, but maybe in the not too far future could easily be used against them. By the way, "Stasi" is short for "Staatssicherheit". In the US they seem to call it very similarly "Homeland Security".
Just look at the current situation in Russia. Only in the last months, Putin decided to crack down hard on homosexuals. If he really wants to exterminate them, he only needs to sift through the online communication / Facebook entries / etc of the Russian people and he will have a nice list of people that he can easily put away, as just last year (or the year before that) there was no legislation that made it illegal to talk about homosexuality in Russia. Today it is suddenly a crime that can be punished. Oops.
You know, I watch how things currently develop, and I read comments in blogs and forums of US and English people who naively say "I don't mind if they collect my private data, I have nothing to hide", and I can but shake my head and wonder if they have learned nothing at all from the atrocities of WWII and the Holocaust.
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Ugh Rwo I was posting a full essay on my phone explaining everything and it just refreshed and disappeared
Ill try and make my post again on my computer
Ill try and make my post again on my computer
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Smartphones are evil, you know ^^juveman17 wrote:Ugh Rwo I was posting a full essay on my phone explaining everything and it just refreshed and disappeared
Ill try and make my post again on my computer
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Haha yea ugh I'm just pushed because it was a really long and well written post
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
If it was critical versus the NSA, maybe it got filtered by themjuveman17 wrote:Haha yea ugh I'm just pushed because it was a really long and well written post
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Conspiracy theory? Edit: I love the NSA!
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
See! It is them all the time!!
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Haha and il post what I was going to say soon I'm still on my phone
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-sends-massive-amounts-of-data-to-the-nsa-a-914821.html
Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Damn I guess i'm being monitored.. it would be a shame if they saw what i had on my computer.. inappropriate videos, if you know what I mean.
FennecFox7- Fan Favorite
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Exactly that's why quite some people are going pretty ballistic here. Especially our president Gauck, who was involved with laying open the things the Stasi did, is not amused at all.juveman17 wrote:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-sends-massive-amounts-of-data-to-the-nsa-a-914821.html
rwo power- Super Moderator
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Re: Move over, Big Brother, NSA is doing it far more efficiently...
Goodbye innocent until proven guilty
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