Multiple Subkey Pairs

[Tristan Santore]

On 14/03/14 16:06, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
>> The NSA e.g. denies to archive content of us-american citizens mails.
>> It is
>> thus perfectly reasonable to assume it does so with all other ones.
>
> They also deny being able to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
> is it thus perfectly reasonable to assume they can violate the other ones?
>
> "Just because they deny X means it's reasonable to believe Y" is logic
> that will get you in a whole lot of trouble.  If you have evidence to
> support your assertion I'm sure we'd all love to hear it -- but as I
> don't believe such evidence exists, the most we can reasonably say is
> "we don't know."
>
>> Besides, you believe their denials - are you kidding?
>
> Let me tell you a story about Allan.  Allan was a great guy, one of the
> true heroes of American government.  He never got the recognition he
> deserved.  Allan was a veteran FBI agent with a Ph.D. in criminal
> justice, with a thesis that focused on police corruption.  His life goal
> was to someday get appointed as a federal judge.  He authored part of
> the FISA Act.  Later in his life he was appointed by the Attorney
> General to become the Department of Justice's gatekeeper to the FISA
> Court.  All warrant applications had to go through him.
>
> He thus had two compelling reasons to be strict about the warrants he
> presented to FISA.  The first was that he hated corruption in a
> deep-in-his-bones way.  The second was he knew that if he allowed any
> inadequate warrants to be presented to the FISA Court, those inadequate
> warrants would come up in Senate confirmation hearings for the federal
> judgeship he wanted.  As a result, he had a reputation for being harder
> to convince of a warrant than the FISA Court itself was!
>
> -- Now, who told me about him first?  My father, a federal judge who at
> one time was tapped for FISA.  (He refused for personal reasons: he was
> approaching retirement and didn't want the additional
> responsibilities.)  Dad had a good laugh about it and thought that if
> the American people ever knew it was harder to get Allan to bring a
> warrant application to FISA than it was to actually get FISA to approve
> a warrant, they'd be reassured.  Dad would tell me all about how in all
> the time Allan had been responsible for bringing warrant applications to
> FISA, FISA had only ever denied three or four -- and that years later
> Allan was still sore about those!
>
> Nowadays, of course, the meme is "FISA has only rejected a handful of
> warrants in all its time!  Clearly, it must be a rubber stamp court!"
> Nothing is further from the truth.  For many years the reason why FISA
> so rarely bounced an warrant application is because Allan refused to
> bring inadequate ones to the Court.
>
> The former General Counsel of the National Security Agency, Stewart
> Baker, has written a fine book that I think everyone here should read:
> _Skating on Stilts_.  Baker has some harsh words for Allan, claiming
> that he was such a hardass about warrant applications that he got in the
> way of many national security investigations.  I first read this shortly
> after Allan's death and I almost bust a gut laughing.  If he knew that
> his major claim to fame was having GC-NSA call him an obstruction to
> national security, I think he'd consider his place in posterity to be
> well-established.
>
> Allan died of cancer a few years ago -- but before he did, he achieved
> his life goal of being appointed to the federal bench.  I had the honor
> of talking with him on several occasions from 2008 to 2010.  Even dying
> of cancer, he was still a partisan for integrity in government.  His
> commitment to it even in the face of imminent death impressed me as few
> things in the world have.
>
> Do I believe the NSA when they say that for U.S. persons only metadata
> is collected?  No.
>
> But it was Allan's job to watch the NSA, and I trust that Allan didn't
> lie to me.
>
> I know that the common meme on this mailing list is, "ooh, government
> *bad*, government *always* looking for ways to exploit us."  But that's
> an insulting and childish belief.  It's about as grown-up and about as
> mature as believing there are monsters under the bed or a bogeyman in
> the closet.
>
> Government *can be* bad, sure.  Absolutely.
>
> But government also has people like Allan, and when we forget that we
> diminish ourselves.
>
> Frankly, I think people on this list ought celebrate his birthday --
> March 4 -- as some kind of holiday.
>
> You know what?  To hell with it.  I /will/ celebrate his birthday, just
> ten years late.  I'm going to make a donation to GnuPG today, in the
> memory of a government intelligence official who stood up for civil
> liberties.  They *do* exist.  Werner, if the donation I make later today
> could be credited as "In memory of the Honorable Allan N. Kornblum,"
> that would be appreciated.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Kornblum
>
>
>
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> Gnupg-users at gnupg.org
> http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Totally off-topic. But that your father was a highly positioned judge, 
would make you rather biased.
They do process any US email going in and out of the US, be it by US 
citizens or not. Also, quite frankly, all of such assurances are totally 
meaningless, as we in the UK (GCHQ), do that work for you and vice 
versa. So, you see, the issue is not necessarily that the US government 
is spying on the German government, or the UK government, and they doing 
it on each other of course. The real issues are that they are a. 
violating UK law or US law by sharing information or getting the other 
party to use that information, which at least in the UK is so unlawful, 
you would need 50 negative words to describe how unlawful that approach 
is (according to a former Intelligence and Security Committee member). 
b. By intercepting any messages, by tapping into POPs or undersea cables 
you are by de-facto already obtaining communications content without 
warrants. Because of course that would make it almost impossible for 
them to gather information otherwise. They would be in court all day long.

Quite frankly though even Germany and many other European governments 
co-operate in intelligence matters by sharing data on their citizens.

Mrs Merkel was only appalled that her Governments stuff was being spied 
on, quite frankly I do not think she particularly cares about German 
citizens or residents.

The fact is, now every citizen can communicate at will, with a lot of 
people at once, broadcasting their views without having a media 
organisation filter it, is scaring any executive in the world, be it 
China, Germany, the Uk, Russia, the US or anyone other country you can 
think of.

Of course, all terrorists and organised crime people know they are being 
spied on. So, they already have changed heir tactics, even way before 
Edward Snowden released the files. That is, not communicate via mobile 
phones, email, or written letter. We had a prime example here in the UK, 
where terror suspects, who later got convicted, met in a public park. 
And that is where they would talk, now the only reason they got caught 
is, because of the old traditional intelligence gathering methods aka 
actually surveying the actual targets.

Every time you hear politicians say mass surveillance stops terrorism 
without showing actual convictions, is rather laughable, especially if 
that surveillance covers national borders too.

Anyway, enough of this. Pointless discussion really. Only thing you can 
do is complain to your MP, Congressman/Woman, Member of the Bundestag or 
maybe even Landtag(Bundesrat), or who/whatever is responsible in your 
country. Or better yet, unlawfully spy on your politicians, by planting 
bugs in their constituent offices, tap their mobiles send them malware, 
tap into their phone lines. Then broadcast all you found on the 
internet. Including their family affairs, potential conflicts of 
interest and corruption, including secret deals. They will love that I 
am sure. Note: This is a bit of sarcasm! We are world renown for that in 
the UK.

Maybe then they will wise up to why mass interception is not only wrong, 
but also yields very little real useful information.


Regards,

Tristan

-- 
Tristan Santore BSc MBCS
TS4523-RIPE
Network and Infrastructure Operations
InterNexusConnect
Mobile +44-78-55069812
Tristan.Santore at internexusconnect.net

Former Thawte Notary
(Please note: Thawte has closed its WoT programme down,
and I am therefore no longer able to accredit trust)

For Fedora related issues, please email me at:
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