Al Gore And Tim Berners-Lee Condemn NSA Surveillance: Appalling And Unconstitutional
from the and-one-of-them-actually-invented-the-web dept
There's the famous (incorrect) meme out there that Al Gore once took credit for inventing the internet (he didn't), but it does appear that he has one thing very much in common with the guy who actually invented the web (which, of course, is not the internet), Tim Berners-Lee: they're both absolutely disgusted by the NSA's surveillance activities. Al Gore slammed the NSA in a speech in Montreal, saying that the NSA's activities were "outrageous" and "completely unacceptable." He even went so far as to say that Snowden "revealed evidence of what appears to be crimes against the Constitution of the United States." Furthermore, he took on the oft-repeated claim from the NSA and its defenders that they need to collect all the haystacks by quoting a scholar on the CIA: "when you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s not always wise to pile more hay on the haystack."Meanwhile, Berners-Lee gave an interview with The Guardian, in which he similarly ripped into the NSA and the GCHQ for their efforts to weaken security standards so they could crack stuff more easily themselves:
He said the agencies' decision to break the encryption software was "appalling" and "foolish", as it directly contradicted the efforts of both the US and UK governments to fight cybercrime and cyberwarfare, which they have identified as a top national security priority. Berners-Lee also decried the move as a betrayal of the technology industry.He went on to argue that the oversight of the intelligence community appeared to be "dysfunctional and unaccountable," and praised whistleblowers like Snowden, saying that civilization has "depended on whistleblowers, and therefore you have to protect them."
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Filed Under: al gore, nsa, surveillance, tim berners-lee
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"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
This is a heck of a lot closer to what he said then the Sarah Palin quote of "I can see Alaska from my house". Which she did not say either.
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It *IS* closer than Palin's claims. Gore has indeed been a tremendous help to the development of the internet during his political career.
Source: Snopes, with a full debunking of Gore haters
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I meant that the claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet is not closer to being true than the claim that Palin said she could see Russia from her house.
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Re: Alaska
Still glad that she's not your VP though. A scary thought.
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But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/07/google_nsa_intercepts_the_register_forecast_9_years_ag o/
You kids are not going to be able to separate and protect your precious Google while condemning NSA. Logic requires to recognize that all spying is the same: its purpose is social control. And particularly since every bit of info that Google or Facebook or Apple or Microsoft gets, NSA will get too, every piece that fails to mention the co-conspirator corporations is both wrong in practice and lying by omission.
And whoever gets money by selling info obtained without any actual legal basis to do so: a supposed agreement that I can't stop except by foregoing the net entirely is not only NO agreement at all, it's force and fraud, then you too are in the conspiracy, and will one day regret your small part in helping the fascist state take over.
The phony deal that evil people (and gullible fools) try to force on us: You can't have the benefits of technology unless give up all privacy.
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Re: But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
I agree. But, although I pretty much despise Google, there is one difference which doesn't lessen the problem but alters the contract: the fact that they're often very willing to fully inform the idiot who uses their service that he/she has no expectation of privacy, because they will be scanning their shit.
One can and should avoid Google, but as with all monopolies, they're hard to ignore and evade. We need a distributed, FOSS, peer-to-peer alternative for Google. A sort of "Seti@Home" but for search indexing.
Now, you seem to have some obsession with Techdirt for not sufficiently taking Google to task for their involvement in this (and I admit their "fuck you NSA" PR move was ridiculous) but from where I sit, Techdirt is doing an awesome job reporting on all of this. And I'm taking the entire media landscape into account, because I've been following this closely.
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Re: Re: But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
Already exists.
http://yacy.de/en/index.html
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Re: Re: Re: But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
Although I did expect there to already be something like this, I don't think I knew this project. But.. we also need it to take off and eventually overtake Google.
I'll try to do my part. I'll check it out. Thanks for the link!
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Re: Re: Re: But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
Why in gods name Java. A great idea murdered.....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: But it's not just NSA. It's corporate surveillance systems TOO.
Yeah, I agree about the Java. I've had to mess around with a bunch of the default settings in YaCy to keep it from sucking to many CPU cycles and bandwidth.
I keep hoping someone forks a compatible version in some other language.
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well, yeah, unless it's the hay you are interested in and using the specter of needles as justification.
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Of all the points to focus on in comments...
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It's because he did not become president that he can say this.
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Al "Clipper" Gore?
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