Watch: Snowden Explains How the NSA Can See Your Naked Pics

How do you make Americans care about government surveillance? Naked photos, according to Last Week Tonight host John Oliver.

Oliver traveled to Russia recently to sit down with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and explained that most Americans don't seem to care about secret National Security Agency (NSA) programs that snatch up huge amounts of your data without your knowledge.

As Snowden explains why mass surveillance is a critical issue, Oliver interjects. "This is the whole problem. I glaze over because it's like the IT guy comes into your office and you go, 'oh s**t ... don't teach me anything, I don't want to learn, you smell like canned soup,'" he quipped.

What to do? Explain it in terms that people understand: Dick pics.

Oliver showed a clip of New Yorkers reacting to the possibility that the government had access to the naked photos they email or text to people. All of them were horrified. "This is the most visible line in the sand for people," Oliver says. "Can. they. see. my. dick."

So Oliver asked Snowden to explain each of the NSA's more controversial programs in the context or whether or not they allow the government to sift through your more private photos. Here's what he had to say:

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): Yes. It allows the bulk collection of metadata that is one-end foreign. If you have Gmail, anytime that mail crosses outside the border of the U.S., your junk ends up in the database. Even if you send it to someone in the U.S., your domestic communication can go from New York to London and back, and get caught up in the database.

Executive Order 12333: This is what the NSA uses when the other authorities aren't aggressive enough or they're not catching what they want. When you send your junk through Gmail, that's stored on Google's servers. Google moves data from data centre to data centre, invisibly to you, so your data could be moved outside the borders of the U.S. temporarily. So when Google moves it, the NSA catches a copy of that.

PRISM: This is how they pull your junk out of Google with Google's involvement. The government deputizes tech companies to be their surveillance sheriffs.

Read more @ http://au.pcmag.com/internet-products/29651/news/watch-snowden-explains-how-the-nsa-can-see-your-na 

 

John Oliver’s Dick Pic Interview With Edward Snowden Is Probably The Most Valuable Thing He’s Ever Done

Yesterday Last Week Tonight flagged that this week’s episode would have a special 45-minute runtime, because “there was an awful lot of last week to cover this week”. Besides that, there was absolutely no fanfare given to an episode that featured the most fascinating and important LWT segment yet — one which accomplished what major traditional news outlets couldn’t, and found a way to talk about mass government surveillance in a way that people genuinely understand and respond to.

The centrepiece, obviously, was John Oliver’s revelation that he travelled to Moscow to interview NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden — a huge get for any media outlet, let alone one that preceded the broadcast of that interview with YouTube footage of a baby turtle humping a Croc — and broke the surveillance debate down to one question: “can the government see my dick?” (It turns out yes, yes they can. They know your dick better than you do.) It’s a neat trick, but it works: people care whether private photos of themselves can be seen by people other than the people they were taken for. It’s not “metadata” or “PRISM” or any other tech buzzword removed from most people’s experiences; it’s something real, and close. That’s what makes John Oliver so fascinating and valuable to watch; he can bring vague, far-off concerns and make them real to you.


Read more  @ http://junkee.com/john-olivers-dick-pic-interview-with-edward-snowden-is-probably-the-most-valuable-thing-hes-ever-done/54527

 

Rand Paul: 10 things to know about soon-to-be presidential nominee

Read more @ http://rt.com/usa/247185-rand-paul-issues-positions/

 

How the 2016 Republicans Will Debate NSA Reform

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are not going to just talk about government spying during their presidential campaigns. The tea party senators are going to force the other Republican White House hopefuls to talk about it, too.

That's because few policy zones divide the GOP more than the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs. And on crowded primary debate stages, every candidate will be jockeying with the rest of the field to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.

While Paul wants to dismantle NSA spying and Cruz wants to reform it, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are intent to preserve the agency's powerful capabilities. Other likely contenders, ranging from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to Dr. Ben Carson, have largely ducked giving specifics prescriptions on the NSA, a National Journalanalysis has found.

Read more @ http://www.govexec.com/management/2015/04/how-2016-republicans-will-debate-nsa-reform/109351/

 

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul Push NSA Surveillance as GOP Campaign Issue

The controversy surrounding domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) is expected to divide hawks from libertarians in the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the National Journal.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, both staking out a libertarian/tea party position, are strong opponents of the NSA vacuuming up phone records of Americans in search of terrorist or espionage threats.

Paul would dismantle the NSA; Cruz would reform the agency.

Cruz backed the USA Freedom Act sponsored by Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont which — had it passed — would have reformed but not gutted the Patriot Act.

Paul, the singular presidential contender who uncompromisingly opposes NSA surveillance, voted against the measure because he wanted to altogether de-authorize the Patriot Act, according to the Journal.

Other likely Republican Party hopefuls are either less clear-cut on the issue or supportive of NSA surveillance.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has been critical of both the NSA and the Obama administration's handling of the agency, but has offered few specifics.

Read  more @ http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/nsa-surveillance-phone-data-patriot-act/2015/04/06/id/636581/ 


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~