Snowden on Tech Security at SxSW, Austin

If you want to hear/see:
Note:  technical difficulties make it hard to follow.  I'll watch for a written transcript.

UPDATE: Here's the video, slight tech problems, but with (mostly correct) closed caption as well:

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Brave New World?

[...] Crimea - a Russian-majority peninsula that juts into the Black Sea - saw its regional parliament vote unanimously in favor of rejoining the Russian Federation on Thursday after 60 years spent under Ukrainian control.

[...]

Met with condemnation by the new government in Kiev and the international community as a whole, the odds are stacked against Crimea. But with a public referendum on the matter slated for March 16, it is pushing forwards nonetheless — and wading into murky waters.

“We genuinely don’t know what would happen,” said Richard Gowan, a political analyst with NYU’s Center on International Cooperation. “Generally, a transfer of territory cannot be based simply on a unilateral declaration by the inhabitants of that territory.

Which is surely the only way such a transfer SHOULD happen.

They So Are NOT a Rubber Stamp

The federal surveillance court that has approved all but a fraction of the NSA's intelligence requests nonetheless rejected a petition by the government to retain phone records for longer than five years, as is currently allowed.

The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (also known as the FISA Court) was established in 1978 as a gatekeeper that would approve or deny surveillance warrants against suspect foreign enemies living inside the United States. Since that date, the court has denied 11 of the nearly 34,000 surveillance requests by the government.

  RT

See? Eleven. It’s not a rubber stamp court.

I’d like to know what those eleven requests were.

The judge concluded that any reason to keep the telephone records is outweighed by the damage that such a decision would do to privacy.

Because immediate privacy is meaningless, but after five years – sacrosanct.

Looks like the Snowden Effect has pressured FISA to come up with something that looks like they’re on the ball.

Speaking of Snowden, upon request, he gave written testimony to the EU:

Recently, governments have shifted their talking points from claiming they only use mass surveillance for "national security" purposes to the more nebulous "valid foreign intelligence purposes." I suggest this committee consider that this rhetorical shift is a tacit acknowledgment by governments that they recognize they have crossed beyond the boundaries of justifiable activities.

[...]

I do seek EU asylum, but I have yet to receive a positive response to the requests I sent to various EU member states. Parliamentarians in the national governments have told me that the US, and I quote, "will not allow" EU partners to offer political asylum to me, which is why the previous resolution on asylum ran into such mysterious opposition. I would welcome any offer of safe passage or permanent asylum, but I recognize that would require an act of extraordinary political courage.

  

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1061127-vjhvekoen1ww.html#document/p1 (provided via TechDirt)

It's Sunday

Rather than being taken to jail, sex workers apprehended on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona are being handcuffed and brought to a church, where they can decide if they would rather be incarcerated by the state or undergo diversion therapy.

  RT

Take the jail. It’s less harmful in the long-run.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Internet Service in the Greatest Country on Earth (™)

According to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.

[...]

The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries. Fiber optic connections offer a particularly compelling example. While expensive to build, they offer faster and smoother connections than traditional copper wire connections. But Verizon stopped building out fiber optic infrastructure in 2010 — citing high costs — just as other countries were getting to work.

[...]

The idea of a regulated market being more conducive to competition may be alien to free market ideologues, but telecoms and internet is a real world example of deregulation leading to monopolization instead of competition in lots of markets.

  The Week

As Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, seeks the federal government’s approval for a $45.2 billion deal to buy No. 2 Time Warner Cable (TWC), the company, and Cohen, are everywhere in Washington—pressing their case with members of Congress and their staffs by day and entertaining them by night. In 2013, Comcast spent $18.8 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than any company except defense contractor Northrop Grumman (NOC). The company gives millions of dollars to politicians of both parties through its political action committee. The Comcast Foundation donated $16.2 million to charities in 2012, often inviting politicians to attend events, where they can be seen and photographed supporting worthy causes. “They are ubiquitous,” says Gene Kimmelman, former chief counsel for competition policy at the Department of Justice. “They really have everything covered at the highest levels of skill and experience.”

[...]

Some regulators and consumer advocates argue Comcast’s proposed union with Time Warner would create a cable behemoth, leaving customers with fewer choices and higher bills. “There’s a strong case to be made why this merger shouldn’t be approved,” says Michael Copps, a former Democratic member of the FCC and the only commissioner to oppose the Comcast-NBC deal. “It’s just so much power for one company to amass, and it’s not just cable,” says Copps, now an adviser to the consumer group Common Cause. “They’re a broadband company, they’re a broadcast company, they’re new media, they’re old media, they’re telecom, they’re everything.”

  Business Week

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And Now He Even Talks Like Him

The twinning of Obama and George W is now complete.

Obama is interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg News

[...]

He says he opposes Congressional attempts to impose new sanctions on Iran because there are always little pauses in negotiations: “Even in the old Westerns or gangster movies, right, everyone puts their gun down just for a second. You sit down, you have a conversation; if the conversation doesn’t go well, you leave the room and everybody knows what’s going to happen and everybody gets ready. But you don’t start shooting in the middle of the room during the course of negotiations.” Nothing says negotiating in good faith like references to Gunfight at the O.K. Corral fantasies.

  WIIIAI

Alas

Author Teju Cole was asked what book he would recommend to President Obama:

I suppose at least a little faith in literature’s ability to make us better is what lies behind this question. But I have no such faith. The president has already read many wonderful books from many different cultures. Now we need him to act justly in certain matters: to stop killing people extrajudicially, and to stop deporting people with such enthusiasm. I doubt that more reading will quicken his conscience in these matters.

  NYT

Shall We Check in on Liberated Libya?

[Feb. 14, 2014: A] senior army officer in Libya on Friday announced a military takeover, the suspension of Parliament and a new “road map” for the future.

Then, nothing happened. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called the supposed coup “ridiculous.” A military spokesman called it “a lie.” None of the Libyan Army’s few tanks or soldiers made any visible moves. The empty Parliament was quiet.

[...]

Perhaps the most positive aspect of the Libyan chaos may be a rough balance of local powers, in which no single leader or institution is strong enough to declare a coup or dictate a “road map.”

[...]

The Libyan transitional government has struggled in vain to build a national military or internal security force that might subdue fractious local militias that have sprung up across the country.

  NYT

[March 3, 2014:] Libya’s parliament moved into a five-star Tripoli hotel Monday, a day after rioters armed with knives and guns stormed the legislature building.

[...]

The parliament’s term expired Feb. 7, but lawmakers voted to extend it with plans to hold elections in the spring. Since then, hundreds of protesters have held daily demonstrations demanding that the body be dissolved.

[...]

[On Sunday, o]ne guard was killed while trying to protect workers trapped inside, security official Essam al-Naass said. Two lawmakers were shot in their legs, one was wounded by broken glass, and others were beaten up while trying to leave the premises.

[...]

In Sunday’s violence, dozens of protesters swept into the parliament chamber during a session, firing guns, throwing bottles at lawmakers and setting fire to furniture. They took the seat of the parliament’s president — the head of a main Islamist bloc — tied it to a lamppost outside and set it on fire.

  

Everything is coming along swimmingly.

The Age of Deliberate Ambiguity in Politics

For the last two decades, the corollary to giving Russia a "voice without a veto" in Euro-Atlantic security affairs has been to offer Russia's neighbors a "pledge without power"--to make promises which appear to convey binding security guarantees but without creating the mechanisms for their enforcement.

[...]

The promiscuous usage of the term "partner"--to suggest a quasi-alliance relationship with a country without any formal treaty guarantees--has been particularly problematic. States like Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan offered military forces in support of U.S.-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, believing in a transactional approach to international relations--that their willingness to put forces to fight and die alongside U.S. troops in the Greater Middle East created a reciprocal obligation of the United States to, in turn, guarantee their own security.

  National Interest

Fooled them, didn’t we?

This brings us to the question of the legal standing of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States (along with the United Kingdom and Russia) pledge to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine. This promise was an important incentive in getting Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. [...] It was never ratified by the Senate and it offers no security guarantees whatsoever to Ukraine.

I wonder who’s sorry now.

Everybody's a Comedian

Apparently, David Cameron is politics' Rodney Dangerfield - can't get no respect.






And then the bandwagon got crowded.