[P2P-F] Fwd: [Debate-List] (Fwd) Internet under threat - can US Congress defend against Obama-Stasi state and Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft

Wed Jul 31 18:59:02 CEST 2013

i have cancelled these mailings---please send no more.  thank you.  dmc
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Dianne Connelly
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On Jul 31, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:

>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:58 PM
> Subject: Fwd: [Debate-List] (Fwd) Internet under threat - can US  
> Congress defend against Obama-Stasi state and Google, Facebook,  
> Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft
> To: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>, Orsan Senalp <orsan1234 at gmail.com 
> >
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za>
> Date: Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 5:31 AM
> Subject: [Debate-List] (Fwd) Internet under threat - can US Congress  
> defend against Obama-Stasi state and Google, Facebook, Yahoo,  
> Amazon, Apple and Microsoft
> To: DEBATE <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>
>
> (Will there be new cloud alternatives to the big capitalist firms so  
> that there's an easy answer to this? "when your chief information  
> officer proposes to use the Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store  
> for your company's confidential documents, tell him where to file  
> the proposal. In the shredder." How come we've not seen any firm not  
> from the US step into the huge breach so we can all stop being so FB/ 
> Google-reliant?)
>
> Edward Snowden is not the story
>
> The fate of the internet is
>
> The press has lost the plot over the Snowden revelations. The fact  
> is that the net is finished as a global network and that US firms'  
> cloud services cannot be trusted.
>
> by John Naughton
>
> The Observer (July 28 2013)
>
> Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what  
> he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This  
> insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media,  
> for reasons that escape me but would not have surprised Evelyn  
> Waugh, whose contempt for journalists was one of his few endearing  
> characteristics. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible  
> ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in  
> swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather  
> than a whistleblower.
>
> In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What  
> matters is that they did. So as a public service, let us  
> summarise    what Snowden has achieved thus far {1}.
>
> Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency  
> (NSA) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and  
> videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired  
> the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret  
> court, it has been able to bend nine US internet companies to its  
> demands for access to their users' data {2}.
>
> Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US  
> government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised  
> business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such  
> as Booz Allen Hamilton and, in the process, high-level security  
> clearance to thousands of people who shouldn't have it. Nor would  
> there be - finally - a serious debate between Europe (excluding the  
> UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US)  
> and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom  
> and security lies.
>
> These are pretty significant outcomes and they're just the first- 
> order consequences of Snowden's activities. As far as most of our  
> mass media are concerned, though, they have gone largely unremarked.  
> Instead, we have been fed a constant stream of    journalistic pap -  
> speculation about Snowden's travel plans, asylum requests, state of  
> mind, physical appearance, et cetera. The "human interest" angle has  
> trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us  
> about how our networked world actually works and the direction in  
> which it is heading.
>
> As an antidote, here are some of the things we should be thinking  
> about as a result of what we have learned so far.
>
> The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network  
> are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would  
> eventually be Balkanised, that is, divided into a number of  
> geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as  
> China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they  
> needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now,  
> Balkanisation is a certainty.
>
> Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become very  
> contentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps  
> have been abusing their privileged position in the global  
> infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to  
> continue to control it has become untenable.
>
> Third, as Evgeny Morozov has pointed out {3}, the Obama  
> administration's "internet freedom agenda" has been exposed as  
> patronising cant. "Today", he writes, "the rhetoric of the 'internet  
> freedom agenda' looks as trustworthy as George Bush's 'freedom  
> agenda' after Abu Ghraib".
>
> That's all at nation-state level. But the Snowden revelations also  
> have implications for you and me.
>
> They tell us, for example, that no US-based internet company can be  
> trusted to protect our privacy or data. The fact is that Google,  
> Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral  
> components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but  
> nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed  
> to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by  
> employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that  
> if you're thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to,  
> say, Google or Microsoft, then think again.
>
> And if you think that that sounds like the paranoid fantasising of a  
> newspaper columnist, then consider what Neelie Kroes, vice-president  
> of the European Commission, had to say on the matter recently. "If  
> businesses or governments think they might be spied on", she said,
>
>     they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be  
> cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone  
> else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or  
> know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door -  
> it doesn't matter - any smart person doesn't want the information  
> shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss  
> out on a great opportunity. {4}
>
> Spot on. So when your chief information officer proposes to use the  
> Amazon or Google cloud as a data-store for your company's  
> confidential documents, tell him where to file the proposal. In the  
> shredder.
>
> Links:
>
> {1} http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/global/the-service-of-snowden.html?_r=0
>
> {2} http://www.theguardian.com/technology/internet
>
> {3} http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/ueberwachung/information-consumerism-the-price-of-hypocrisy-12292374.html
>
> {4} http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-654_en.htm
> _____
>
> John Naughton is professor of the public understanding of technology  
> at the Open University.
>
> ***
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/politics/momentum-builds-against-nsa-surveillance.html
>
> New York Times   July 28, 2013
> Momentum Builds Against N.S.A. Surveillance
>
> By JONATHAN WEISMAN
>
> WASHINGTON — The movement to crack down on government surveillance  
> started with an odd couple from Michigan, Representatives Justin  
> Amash, a young libertarian Republican known even to his friends as  
> “chief wing nut,” and John Conyers Jr., an elder of the liberal left  
> in his 25th House term.
>
> But what began on the political fringes only a week ago has built a  
> momentum that even critics say may be unstoppable, drawing support  
> from Republican and Democratic leaders, attracting moderates in both  
> parties and pulling in some of the most respected voices on national  
> security in the House.
>
> The rapidly shifting politics were reflected clearly in the House on  
> Wednesday, when a plan to defund the National Security Agency’s  
> telephone data collection program fell just seven votes short of  
> passage. Now, after initially signaling that they were comfortable  
> with the scope of the N.S.A.’s collection of Americans’ phone and  
> Internet activities, but not their content, revealed last month by  
> Edward J. Snowden, lawmakers are showing an increasing willingness  
> to use legislation to curb those actions.
>
> Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and Zoe  
> Lofgren, Democrat of California, have begun work on           
> legislation in the House Judiciary Committee to significantly rein  
> in N.S.A. telephone surveillance. Mr. Sensenbrenner said on Friday  
> that he would have a bill ready when Congress returned from its  
> August recess that would restrict phone surveillance to only those  
> named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation, make  
> significant changes to the secret court that oversees such programs  
> and give businesses like Microsoft and Google permission to reveal  
> their dealings before that court.
>
> “There is a growing sense that things have really gone a-kilter  
> here,” Ms. Lofgren said.
>
> The sudden reconsideration of post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism policy  
> has taken much of Washington by surprise. As the revelations by Mr.  
> Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, were gaining attention in the  
> news media, the White House and leaders in both parties stood united  
> behind the programs he had unmasked. They were focused mostly on  
> bringing the leaker to justice.
>
> Backers of sweeping surveillance powers now say they recognize that  
> changes are likely, and they are taking steps to make sure they  
> maintain control over the extent of any revisions. Leaders of the  
> Senate Intelligence Committee met on Wednesday as the House  
> deliberated to try to find accommodations to growing public  
> misgivings about the programs, said the committee’s chairwoman,  
> Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.
>
> Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat and longtime critic of the  
> N.S.A. surveillance programs, said he had taken part in serious  
> meetings to discuss changes.
>
> Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the  
> panel, said, “We’re talking through it right now.” He added, “There  
> are a lot of ideas on the table, and it’s pretty obvious that we’ve  
> got some uneasy folks.”
>
> Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and the chairman  
> of the House Intelligence Committee, has assured House colleagues  
> that an intelligence policy bill he plans to draft in mid-September  
> will include new privacy safeguards.
>
> Aides familiar with his efforts said the House Intelligence  
> Committee was focusing on more transparency for the secret Foreign  
> Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees data gathering,  
> including possibly declassifying that court’s orders, and changes to  
> the way the surveillance data is stored. The legislation may order  
> such data to be held by the telecommunications companies that  
> produce them or by an independent entity, not the government.
>
> Lawmakers say their votes to restrain the N.S.A. reflect a gut-level  
> concern among voters about personal privacy.
>
> “I represent a very reasonable district in suburban Philadelphia,  
> and my constituents are expressing a growing concern on the sweeping  
> amounts of data that the government is compiling,” said  
> Representative Michael G. Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who  
> represents one of the few true swing districts left in the House and  
> who voted on Wednesday to limit N.S.A. surveillance.
>
> Votes from the likes of Mr. Fitzpatrick were not initially  
> anticipated when Republican leaders chided reporters for their  
> interest in legislation that they said would go nowhere. As the  
> House slowly worked its way on Wednesday toward an evening vote to  
> curb government surveillance, even proponents of the legislation  
> jokingly predicted that only the “wing nuts” — the libertarians of  
> the right, the most ardent liberals on the left — would support the  
> measure.
>
> Then Mr. Sensenbrenner, a Republican veteran and one of the primary  
> authors of the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act, stepped to a microphone on  
> the House floor. Never, he said, did he intend to allow the  
> wholesale vacuuming up of domestic phone records, nor did his  
> legislation envision that data dragnets would go beyond specific  
> targets of terrorism investigations.
>
> “The time has come to stop it, and the way we stop it is to approve  
> this amendment,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said.
>
> He had not intended to speak, and when he did, he did not say much,  
> just seven brief sentences.
>
> “I was able to say what needed to be said in a minute,” he said  
> Friday.
>
> Lawmakers from both parties said the brief speech was a pivotal  
> moment. When the tally was final, the effort to end the N.S.A.’s  
> programs had fallen short, 205 to 217. Supporters included  
> Republican leaders like Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of  
> Washington and Democratic leaders like Representative James E.  
> Clyburn of South Carolina. Republican moderates like Mr. Fitzpatrick  
> and Blue Dog Democrats like Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon  
> joined with respected voices on national security matters like Mr.  
> Sensenbrenner and Ms. Lofgren.
>
> Besides Ms. McMorris Rodgers, Representative Lynn Jenkins of Kansas,  
> another member of the Republican leadership, voted          yes. On  
> the Democratic side, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus,  
> Representative Xavier Becerra of California, and his vice chairman,  
> Representative Joseph Crowley of New York, broke with the top two  
> Democrats, Representatives Nancy Pelosi of California and Steny H.  
> Hoyer of Maryland, who pressed hard for no votes.
>
> On Friday, Ms. Pelosi, the House minority leader and a veteran of  
> the Intelligence Committee, and Mr. Hoyer dashed off a letter to the  
> president warning that even those Democrats who had stayed with him  
> on the issue on Wednesday would be seeking changes.
>
> That letter included the signature of Mr. Conyers, who is rallying  
> an increasingly unified Democratic caucus to his side, as well as 61  
> House Democrats who voted no on Wednesday but are now publicly  
> signaling their discontent.
>
> “Although some of us voted for and others against the amendment, we  
> all agree that there are lingering questions and concerns about the  
> current” data collection program, the letter stated.
>
> Representative Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, a Republican who voted for  
> the curbs and predicted that changes to the N.S.A. surveillance  
> programs were now unstoppable, said: “This was in many respects a  
> vote intended to send a message. The vote was just too strong.”
>
> Ms. Lofgren said the White House and Democratic and Republican  
> leaders had not come to grips with what she called “a grave sense of  
> betrayal” that greeted Mr. Snowden’s revelations. Since the Bush  
> administration, lawmakers had been repeatedly assured that such  
> indiscriminate collection of data did not exist, and that when  
> targeting was unspecific, it was aimed at people abroad.
>
> The movement against the N.S.A. began with the fringes of each  
> party. Mr. Amash of Michigan began pressing for an amendment on the  
> annual military spending bill aimed at the N.S.A. Leaders of the  
> Intelligence Committee argued strenuously that such an amendment was  
> not relevant to military spending and should be ruled out of order.
>
> But Mr. Amash, an acolyte of Ron Paul, a libertarian former  
> congressman, persisted and rallied support.
>
> Mr. Sensenbrenner and Ms. Lofgren said they were willing to work  
> with the House and Senate intelligence panels to overhaul the  
> surveillance programs, but indicated that they did not believe those  
> panels were ready to go far enough.
>
> “I would just hope the Intelligence Committees will not stick their  
> heads in the sand on this,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said.
>
>
>
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