When Vladimir Putin Is Envious Of Your Surveillance State, You've Gone Too Far

from the that's-quite-a-statement dept

Fri, Dec 20th 2013 8:12am — Mike Masnick

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a big press conference on Thursday, and spent some time talking about President Obama, Ed Snowden and the various US surveillance programs that have been revealed. Putin appeared to be quite supportive of the surveillance programs, saying that he believes that the US's surveillance programs are a "necessity" and "mainly directed at fighting terrorism," so there's not a real problem with them. He even defended collecting data on everyone "because you have to monitor not only a specific terrorist suspect, but rather his whole network of relationships." That Vladimir Putin would appreciate vast spying power is hardly a surprise. But this claim is raising some eyebrows:

"How do I feel about Obama after Snowden's revelations? I envy him because he can do this without incurring any consequences."

Did you catch that? Putin, the former head of the KGB, and very well known for using Russian intelligence services to his strong advantage is envious that President Obama has all this surveillance capabilities at his fingertips and that all of this can be revealed "without incurring any consequences." It seems like there should be a general rule of thumb: when Vladimir Putin is envious of your surveillance state, you've gone too far.

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Filed Under: barack obama, nsa, surveillance, surveillance state, vladimir putin

27 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 6:32am

he can do this without incurring any consequences

Obama: YES, WE CAN.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:20am

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality tv...
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out_of_the_blue, 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:27am

Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
Yes, that's relevant because you and those 'strines have gone too far in your own way. Exactly what spying does planting a "security certificate" on my computer enable? Did you know about this up front, Mike, and do you now approve of planting a certificate on computer of every visitor to the site?

Teh internets is showing more every day how it's a SPY GRID. The Stasi would be envious of even Techdirt's ability to SNOOP on everyone.

The NSA is kind of minor compared to commercial snoops, #1 being Google.

If you're serious about trying to stymy spies, kids, use the Firefox extension Noscript -- and be sure to remove Google's paid for whitelisting -- plus a hosts file to block known parasites and web bugs, at the least. But as this "security certificate" bit shows, those don't prevent all snooping: they're constantly working on new ways to not only snoop but correlate with all other sources.
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DannyB (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:30am

Putin may be spreading disinformation
Putin may be saying this in order to cause more American outrage in the hope of dismantling he NSA's spy network by causing an over-reaction.
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Londo Mollari (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:33am

Re: Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
Why don't you do us all a favor, Blue, and limit your contributions in these discussions to silence? Google was never mentioned in the article, yet you insist on bringing it up. I do not understand this strange fetish you have with them. And you have failed to demonstrate how Techdirt does any sort of spying, which it does not. You know, Blue, you could give Mr. Garibaldi lessons in paranoia, and believe me, that is saying something.

There are times when I am uncertain which is worse: our out-of-control spy agencies or the politicians who serve and enable them. Shadows in another form, either way, and equally dangerous. We must stop them somehow, before they take us over the edge of the abyss with them.
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Charles (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:37am

Re: Putin may be spreading disinformation
If so, I hope it works.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:58am

Even soviet russia had more freedom than the US does now.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 8:59am

Just as moral as...
"There is nothing to be particularly pleased about, nor is there anything to be particularly upset about. First of all, spying has always existed and it is one of the oldest professions, along with some others that I will not name here."

Is he equating spying to what I think he is?
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Gwiz (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:08am

Re: Just as moral as...
Is he equating spying to what I think he is?

Probably. You can get screwed by either.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:08am

Re: Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
It's hilarious that you live in constant fear of the things you willingly choose to use every single day.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:14am

My history may be a little rusty, but did Obama get held up as an ideal for Communism? Hay, calling him a totalitarian wasn't good enough, maybe there's enough of the "red scare" left.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:15am

Re: Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
"If you don't like Amazon, you don't have to use it." - blue
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:46am

Re:
It doesn't yet have the tax base required to carry out USA style surveillance of its population.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:46am

Re:
In Russia serious tv is reality tv and news are for entertainment. It is disturbingly close to western tv culture!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 9:55am

Re: Putin may be spreading disinformation
After reading "...because he can do this without incurring any consequences." I thought something similar - it seemed like a provocative jibe.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 10:05am

Re: Just as moral as...
"The great nations have always behaved like gangsters, the small nations like prostitutes." ~ Stanley Kubrick
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 10:19am

Yo, Momma.
The only thing missing from that insult was your momma.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 11:13am

it should also mean that those at fault, who gave the orders, regardless of who they are, should be held criminally responsible!!
democracy is being killed off bit by bit, and all to the advantage of businesses, just like Orwell said. it's just a little bit behind his schedule. the really worrying thing is the industry that is trying to bring about democracy's downfall. surely there could have been a better choice than a fucking industry that exists on make believe, couldn't there? what a joke!! fuck up the whole world, all for the sake of forcing someone to watch a crap movie and make them pay to do so at that!!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2013 @ 11:24am

Re:
Except the right wing seems to be pretty much on board with surveillance state stuff and they were the ones calling him a "communist". Which is pretty stupid since they mean to say socialist but failed at basic reading tests and can't tell difference.

They cry and complain about how Federal Healthcare is some sort of violation of an amendment and when pushed say "uuuh... I guess the 10th??" Whereas we have these fourth amendment trampling going on and where are the cries now? No where? In fact they talk about how it's just fine and dandy? Like seriously, they got what they want. Something they could actually attempt to impeach the president on AND THEY SIT AROUND AND JUST COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW SOME DUCK WITH A BEARD SHOULD BE ABLE TO SAY WHAT HE WANTS!
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John85851 (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 2:57pm

No consquences for the leader
Maybe I'm reading the quote wrong, but it sounds like Putin isn't so much envious of the NSA as he about Obama not suffering because of the leaks. The NSA spied on everyone, we all know it happened, yet not one single Republican is talking about even impeaching Obama because of it. (Yet they talk of impeachment for lesser things.)

Every foreign leader should be envious of how our leaders can do so much to erode our freedoms with no consequences.
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lucidrenegade (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 3:40pm

Re: Re: Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
Why don't you people just report and move on? He/She/It just gets off on the attention, so just don't give them any.
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That One Guy (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 4:05pm

Re: Putin may be spreading disinformation
And the downside to this would be...?

Funny(though not in the 'haha' sense)thing about the NSA is, with all the crap they've been caught doing, at this point pretty much nothing would seem to be too unbelievable for them to have done.

'They're tracking people from satellites!' used to be tinfoil hat territory, but now it's '...and the latest leak shows that the NSA can not only track a cellphone in real time, they can turn on the video and audio recording capabilities of it, even if you turned it off'.

With all the NSA has done, there is no 'too low', 'they'd never do something like that', there's just 'they might not have done X, but we don't have sufficient evidence to say either way yet'.
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That One Guy (profile), 20 Dec 2013 @ 4:14pm

Re: Re: Putin may be spreading disinformation
Well it's true isn't it? Even with all the crap coming out about the breaking of laws, shredding the constitution, and all the other stuff that's been done, who exactly, out of those involved, from the top on down, has received more than an angry letter/talking to about it?

Heck, you've even had judges ordering some of those involved to do something, and the ones on the receiving end of the order just laugh it off and ignore it, so 'provocative jibe' or not, it's completely accurate.
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Anonymous Howard (profile), 21 Dec 2013 @ 2:52am

Re: Re: Re: Why does "theconversation.edu.au" need a security certificate here, Mike?
You have no idea how long I been telling this to peeps without any success.
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edinjapan (profile), 21 Dec 2013 @ 6:31am

Welkom to the USSA
Putin is envious that the United States of America (soon to be the United Socialist States of Amerika) has become the most intrusive force on the planet? Poor guy... Could it be that he can't get away with everything he wants because too many people remember the excesses of the old Soviet Union?
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Brazilian Guy, 21 Dec 2013 @ 7:47am

Re: Re: Putin may be spreading disinformation
After the Nerds and Geeks became mainstream, now its time for the Conspiracy Theorists? Theres a niche for then between the Zombie Survivalists, the Anonymous masks and the hipsters. I can see it clearly now:

"People used to laugh at my tinfoil hat, but now i sell them in the amazon"
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2013 @ 11:58am

Tyrants and their toys
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