Not use the Internet?

I jest. Use Webmail services based in Europe, preferably run by someone like the Pirate Bay folks or something who are unlikely to cooperate with the authorities. I'm not sure if such things exist but I wouldn't be surprised. That won't help, though, if your recipients still use Hotmail, GMail, etc. Use anonymous proxies when surfing (assuming those haven't been hacked, and I'm sure some of them have been). And keep in mind that this is still a fraction of what Chinese Internet users face in terms of government monitoring.

What is really problematic with this whole thing is that it won't catch who they are out to catch. If I was, say, the Mob, I'd be running my own network of mail servers with encrypted connections between them and a secure portal for external access that is disguised as the corporate Extranet of one of my front companies (preferably one that isn't yet known to be my front company). No criminal or terrorist with a brain is going to use Hotmail or GMail (though it has been proven time and time again that criminals and terrorists can be yutzes as much as anyone).

By the way, it's not hacking. Hacking means doing so illegally by messing with the systems. In this case, it was legal (since they were gathering information on us foreigners, would be a different story if it was Americans) and done with the cooperation of the companies so strictly speaking, this is not hacking. And, it could be argued, that makes it worse.

Final note: while Prism is hitting the news in a big way right now, it isn't like it has been totally off the radar. IT security folks are aware of its existence. It's just that the mainstream media hasn't been paying attention. Too busy chasing after sexy trivial stories as usual.

Mendalla

I wish them happy reading when they get around to my petty subversions. It must be very hard for them to stay awake. Imagine the extreme tedium of ploughing through Americans' usual communications. You'd need the buzz of paranoia to stick at it.

I am pretty certain that if they are hacking US tech, they are also haching non US Tech. I am not sure they do not need the help of those running networks. They needed to change the law in in order to hack US tech, but they were never under US law prohibited hacking non US computer networks.

Even those using non US tech companies, should know that Emails, chat and voice calls take different routes, somestimes the cheapest, and that most internet traffic in Canada, at some points go through the US, especially those headed to other countries.

You are mistaken. They do not use humans, computers are capable of actually doing the work. The computers database created are abled to be search for groups of keywords, which can used by the US to support those that support "their" interests.  For example with this database, they would be able to in Canada (or any country) create  lists of non US, or corportae supporters  

In addition to having access to all of our emails, voip, etc, they are also storing such information on their own networks. for which they are eble to exploit the data for serval reasons. Including how to target voters in elections, in order to get the best results for US interests.  There are no US laws preventing them from doing so, It has recently come to light how the CIA has since WW2 provided intelligence to individuals and groups within the Catholic Church in order to ensure US friendly policy were adopted. One example  In particular the CIA saw Liberation Theology as the biggest threat to US interests in Latin AMerican, and provoded intel and other supports to help surpress it from within the church.

It is not unreasonable than to conclude that the US would provide information to Canadian groups, corporations, and political parties that are favourable to US interests.

Heres a report from the UK which exposes the fact the their gvt uses the US program to spy on it's own citizens.  Is Canada doing the same. I would expect so.

This raises a few questions.

One is the US providing some information, while excluding other information  on our citizens in order to manipulate our gvt, especially when it comes to things like a military budget? In other words, is the US using htis as a chance to manuipulate our gvt policies?

Is it legal for the Canadian gvt to use the US gvt to spy on Canadians, without due process that it is required to do so when it spies using the RCMP and CSIS?

If this is legal, than why bother making illegal for the Canadian gvt to do it using it's own resources?

I thought it was only bad when George Bush did it. Isn't it racist to criticize anything Obama does, or something?

It's racist, Mely, to think that other people think the way you do.

The purpose of this compilation of personal files has nothing to do with terrorism or the mob. It has to do with control - of everybdoy. This is the ultimate police state. We know that the British government has cooperated with it. It's a safe bet that Harper has, too. And this is only the beginning.

I'm astonished at the slight reaction to two of the most important events we are likely to witness.

The american data espionage system covers the whole world. If gives the US government absolute power to destroy its critics - no matter how patrriotic the criticism might be. It h as contained within it unprecendented powers of blackmail, character assassination, and human assassination (through the extra-judicial powers of the president.)

It creates a police state unmatched in history. it means, with not the slightest exaggeration, the end of even a pretence of democracy.

It is also an act of war since it involves intruding on people in countries all over the world. It is as illegal and far more dangerous than the drone programme.

that information is now open to hundreds of thousands of employees of the private companies to whom the US contracts most of its espionage. (The total list of such imployees is probably a quarter of their 1 million total. wotj a large poportion - like Snowden - having full access..) These people can freely steal it, and sell it.

Already in Canada, the the RCMP admits to spying on environmentalists and reporting on them at bi-ennieal meetings with industry leaders. You think that's okay? Well, then let's spy on industry leaders, and report them to protest groups. To say that this is the end to democracy is a neither exaggerated nor hysterical one. And we're, most of us, dipsy doodling along exactly as Germans did in 1932.

This spying will also give big business even greater power in government. We have, like Germany and Italy of the interwar period, entered into a full-blown fascist world. Check a dictrionary. that's what fascist means.

Coupled with this, the US is beginning an intervention in the Syrian civil war (which it actually  has been supplying from the start in a roundabout way) which could well end up with British, US, French and Canadian troops in Syria. It is also possible, even likely, that Israel will intervene to help destroy Syria as a nation, and to fully conquer Palestine. Israeli government officials have already said that all Palestinians should be moved to Jordan.)

This happens in an area already explosive - and one in which China and Russia have crucial interests.

Oh, yes. it also happens as the last Western empire, the US, is in financial collapse through massive corruption and excessive military spending. The reality is that the very wealthy of this world have become immensely wealthy while almost everybody else has become poorer. The very wealthy are not going to invest in the US. Why should they? Free trade allows them to get workers in the Haitis of this world for two dollars a day - and no taxes.

really, this makes Hitler's Germany look like a cakewalk.

The churches were pretty silent in Hitler's Germany. I expect they'll be every bit as silent in this revisitation of hell. Our newspaper sermonette of last week was that it's all part of God's great plan.

Oh. Harper says that our CSIS says that Canadian messages are not being intercepted. That's not possible. Either CSIS is lying and Harper is a credulous moron - or both CSIS and Harper are lying.

God bless America, land of the free...

I too am surprised by the lack of reaction, not just on WC, but in Canada as a whole. The official opposition has raised it in Question Period, but only with regards to the possibility that Canada was getting intel from it as Britain is.

The reaction in Europe is very different. There the European Parliament has been upset over the intrusions into the private lives of Europeans, and have been come more upset as American congressmen and admin officials, in trying to reassure Americans, are essentially saying that for them only American freedom and privacy issues are important, that the NSA should be able to do what ever it wants to in other countries.

MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) are demanding that their gvt demand from the USA that their citizens receive the same protection against spying that US citizens do.  And if they do not get this, that Europe, and it's members states will have no choice but to expel some American diplomats, just as they have expelled Russian diplomats when Russia was caught spying on European citizens.

The reaction among  Chinese citizens is also outrage, that not only are they being spied upon from the own gvt, but a foreign "liberal democracy"  gvt as well.

Paul Krugman, a mainstream US economist and political columnist for the NYT says the US is now more "authoritarian" than democratic.

Krugman is beinng kind. We are repeating the 1930s, with hatred and fear of Moslems being used as Hitler used hatred and fear of Jews.

And Canadians and their churches, for the most part, will sleepwalk through it.

Oh, a small note Europeans do have the same protection that Americans have from government spying.

None.

this is why gov'ts should always have their power limited

(there have been Dawkins' equivalents for a loooong time, but going on aboot gov'ts...they have been responsible for the top of history's examples of horror & pain...)

douglas rushkoff has an interesting riff on the snowden thang

try not to use google (why not?  visit here http://donttrack.us/); try duckduckgo instead.  also, go to one of duckduckgo's webpages for easy-to-grok ways of protecting your privacy http://fixtracking.com/

here's some more advice http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/unknowncountry-weekender-how-go-priva...

as always, have fun :3

Here in Moncton, the churches are reacting. And they're taking action. this weekend, a united church held a berry tea.

that oughta skake 'em up.

yeah, sad to say, but i think barack is actually worse than bush jr...

he's quite the unifying force--surfing the net i see both libbies & connies having the same concerns aboot him...

the price of freedom is eternal vigilance?

which reminds me, did you hear aboot the young Canadian man, mark marek, who was arrested in Edmonton on a charge of 'corrupting morals'...

when i first heard that, i had to doublecheck what country it was in...:3

ACLU sues 5 top fed gov't officials:

"In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union charged that the National Security Agency's now-infamous secret collection of billions of phone records violates the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU sued Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, along with the top political appointees at the FBI, the NSA, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice.

The lawsuit is unusual because instead of standing in for a group of Americans who claim the government violated their constitutional rights, the ACLU itself and its New York affiliate are the plaintiffs.

The two organizations allege in their lawsuit that they are current or former Verizon customers, and note that as frequent legal counsel to plaintiffs in other suits, their phone calls are often 'privileged' communications between lawyers and clients.

The ACLU contends that the NSA's mass-phone-tracking program violates its rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.

The First guarantees 'freedom of speech.' The Fourth protects '[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

'[A]nd no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.'?"