Well, as you quoted, the author explicitly says that "that inconvenience pales in importance to the actual liberty PRISM strips away from us." Not to mention that it is kind of tragic to lose the ability to use these awesome things that have been built because we can't trust them.
This article seems to misinterpret the (admittedly complicated) facts for the sake of the instant gratification of conclusion-jumping.
From the OP:
> The New York Times says you knowingly participated in the NSA’s PRISM data monitoring program. In some cases, you were asked to create ”a locked mailbox and give the government the key”, to allow it to peer into our private communications and web activity. Even if the exact words of your denials were accurate, they were false in spirit.
Do a Ctrl-F and see if "PRISM" shows up. It didn't for me (not even with case-sensitive option turned off).
OK, now read the passage in the NYT article about ”a locked mailbox and give the government the key”...and then read the paragraph immediately after it:
"The data shared in these ways, the people said, is shared after company lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is not sent automatically or in bulk, and the government does not have full access to company servers. Instead, they said, it is a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data."
FISA != PRISM (or at least, as PRISM has been reported initially), not in acronyms or in spirit.
That complicated? Really? The original Google blog post have a feel of being written by a lawyer. I guess a pass through an authorship identification tool can confirm it. So I guess the story of that post on Google blog was actually a pretty simple one and close to the following: "David Drummond wrote the text, Larry got it as an e-mail, added the subject "What the ...?" ;) and published it".
What about the post reads like it came directly from a lawyer?
I don't disagree that a lawyer vetted it -- lawyers generally vet anything legal related that comes out of an organization. All of the major news stories on this topic have likely been vetted by lawyers.
When you get a FISA letter you aren't allowed to acknowledge that you got it, or tell anyone about it. So yes, there are very tricky laws to skirt around here which necessitate the use of a lawyer when responding to these.
Google has been a strong proponent of transparency around these requests, but they are bound by law to not talk about it, so there's only so much they can do.
Yeah, this is pretty much bullshit (then again, why is Techcrunch being featured again at the top of HN on this subject of all subjects??).
Let's say you have an actual warrant for an actual investigation, to get all of someone's email or Facebook posts. How does that article expect that information arrives? Probably in some kind of "locked mailbox" and the government has the key. It's the same exact thing, it's just the type of order that compelled the act that's different (at least as far as the only evidence we have is a bullshit "locked mailbox" metaphor...again, this is techcrunch).
Therefore, the criticism here should be at the source of FISA authorization and the sources of actual FISA demands. The fact that these companies comply with PATRIOT Act demands -- which they've been fucking telling everyone for years that they have to and that maybe these laws should be revised -- is not some kind of betrayal that they lied about because they said that the NSA doesn't have access to their servers. Just like the local Police Department also has no access to their servers.
OK, so the article grossly underestimates the complexities of PRISM and FISA.
But the facts remain the same: Tech CEOs carefully chose their words in order to make what they said technically true while not addressing the issue as a whole. What the government said was true and what the tech CEOs said was true, yet they seemed to contradict each other. This was a case of careful politicking from all sides.
The thing that confuses me, is did the CEOs really think this contradiction would go in their favor? In other words, did they think no one would call them on that and they would be able to get away with it? Their statements attempted to seem very forward: "Our company 'never' granted 'any' backdoor access" etc. But as a result of that feeling so contradictory to the statements of the government, it necessitated further prying.
What contradiction are you referring to? The government has not explicitly referred to PRISM and even if we take their non-denial to be an affirmation, that doesn't preclude the possibility that Google and Facebook aren't being honest and sincere.
BTW I'm not saying that PRISM doesn't exist. I'm saying its actual details are unclear in significant ways.
> Tech CEOs carefully chose their words in order to make what they said technically true while not addressing the issue as a whole.
I don't understand how you come to this conclusion. All the companies issued flat-out denials, which they are not required to do by law. This is as opposed to the normal "no comment" or "if such an order existed..."
Google said that they only hand over specific data about specific persons after valid court orders have been reviewed by Google's lawyers. So far I have seen nothing to contradict that.
> What the government said was true and what the tech CEOs said was true, yet they seemed to contradict each other.
Could you be very specific about "what the government said"? Are you referring to an actual quote from a specific government official or to some anonymous source?
Techcrunch knows nothing, if this is really going on it will be confirmed by someone within one of the companies forced to implement it within days. As of now I doubt that it is, I think the Washington Post got it wrong. Does anybody think Google and Apple would bend over for the federal government because of some semi-legal secret court order? Give me a break.
Could someone explain to me why the "mailbox" is so scandalous? The government makes a legal, valid request for data on a specific individual. Now the tech company has to relay that information to the government somehow. How would you prefer they do that? Email? FTP? Postcard?
No, they use a secure electronic dead drop. So what? How does that make the various CEOs' statements in any way misleading? The statements were about the government not having the ability to go on unsupervised fishing expeditions. And that seems to be perfectly true and not in any way misleading.
The secure "mailbox" from the NYT article isn't even news. I'm sure I read articles more than a year ago that described Google and others using exactly this type of set up as a way of streamlining subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders.
It is unsettling, but it isn't anything like what was detailed in the PRISM leak.
I mean, okay, so at least the editor and the writer for this article can be sort of credited with promoting discussion of some paper thin lip service, but what about including AOL as part of their list of villains in this narrative.
...or at least offer a "full disclosure" disclaimer at the end of the article, right?
Obviously the same goes for huffington post articles, since they were absorbed by AOL too, after all.
19 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 49.7 ms ] threadThat being said, I still find it odd to bring up the inconvenience of not being able to use Facebook Events.
From the OP:
> The New York Times says you knowingly participated in the NSA’s PRISM data monitoring program. In some cases, you were asked to create ”a locked mailbox and give the government the key”, to allow it to peer into our private communications and web activity. Even if the exact words of your denials were accurate, they were false in spirit.
This is the article that the OP refers to: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-...;
Do a Ctrl-F and see if "PRISM" shows up. It didn't for me (not even with case-sensitive option turned off).
OK, now read the passage in the NYT article about ”a locked mailbox and give the government the key”...and then read the paragraph immediately after it:
"The data shared in these ways, the people said, is shared after company lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is not sent automatically or in bulk, and the government does not have full access to company servers. Instead, they said, it is a more secure and efficient way to hand over the data."
FISA != PRISM (or at least, as PRISM has been reported initially), not in acronyms or in spirit.
I don't disagree that a lawyer vetted it -- lawyers generally vet anything legal related that comes out of an organization. All of the major news stories on this topic have likely been vetted by lawyers.
Google has been a strong proponent of transparency around these requests, but they are bound by law to not talk about it, so there's only so much they can do.
Let's say you have an actual warrant for an actual investigation, to get all of someone's email or Facebook posts. How does that article expect that information arrives? Probably in some kind of "locked mailbox" and the government has the key. It's the same exact thing, it's just the type of order that compelled the act that's different (at least as far as the only evidence we have is a bullshit "locked mailbox" metaphor...again, this is techcrunch).
Therefore, the criticism here should be at the source of FISA authorization and the sources of actual FISA demands. The fact that these companies comply with PATRIOT Act demands -- which they've been fucking telling everyone for years that they have to and that maybe these laws should be revised -- is not some kind of betrayal that they lied about because they said that the NSA doesn't have access to their servers. Just like the local Police Department also has no access to their servers.
Seriously, I think the person writing this article is actually literally retarded....
But the facts remain the same: Tech CEOs carefully chose their words in order to make what they said technically true while not addressing the issue as a whole. What the government said was true and what the tech CEOs said was true, yet they seemed to contradict each other. This was a case of careful politicking from all sides.
The thing that confuses me, is did the CEOs really think this contradiction would go in their favor? In other words, did they think no one would call them on that and they would be able to get away with it? Their statements attempted to seem very forward: "Our company 'never' granted 'any' backdoor access" etc. But as a result of that feeling so contradictory to the statements of the government, it necessitated further prying.
BTW I'm not saying that PRISM doesn't exist. I'm saying its actual details are unclear in significant ways.
I don't understand how you come to this conclusion. All the companies issued flat-out denials, which they are not required to do by law. This is as opposed to the normal "no comment" or "if such an order existed..."
Google said that they only hand over specific data about specific persons after valid court orders have been reviewed by Google's lawyers. So far I have seen nothing to contradict that.
> What the government said was true and what the tech CEOs said was true, yet they seemed to contradict each other.
Could you be very specific about "what the government said"? Are you referring to an actual quote from a specific government official or to some anonymous source?
No, they use a secure electronic dead drop. So what? How does that make the various CEOs' statements in any way misleading? The statements were about the government not having the ability to go on unsupervised fishing expeditions. And that seems to be perfectly true and not in any way misleading.
It is unsettling, but it isn't anything like what was detailed in the PRISM leak.
TechCrunch = AOL
AOL = Program Participant
I mean, okay, so at least the editor and the writer for this article can be sort of credited with promoting discussion of some paper thin lip service, but what about including AOL as part of their list of villains in this narrative.
...or at least offer a "full disclosure" disclaimer at the end of the article, right?
Obviously the same goes for huffington post articles, since they were absorbed by AOL too, after all.