Moment of Truth?

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#1130894 17-Sep-2014 18:29

BurningBeard:
Lyderies: We all know the US government did 9/11 and used it to gain access to the oil fields

Super real troo news. I done seen a YouTube video.

Lol what a roundabout way to get oil! It took about five years in Afghanistan all they found were dust and then they took Iraq oil after giving up on OBL and around 100 trillion dollars??

Batman

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#1130896 17-Sep-2014 18:31

I think all these distraction are making China very happy. If anyone is hacking and spying on everyone else it's them.

Just Google china hacks insert country defence secrets

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#1130899 17-Sep-2014 18:35

wish they would stop introducing Greenwald as the Pulitzer winning journalist, his paper got the award not him.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Technofreak

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#1130951 17-Sep-2014 19:40

testha:
Technofreak:
testha:
Have you ever thought about that this enemy is just being exaggerated?

About 3000 people died in 9/11 in the US. A different country with a very different foreign policy. But somehow this justifies my freedoms being slowly taken away in New Zealand.

About 6000 Kiwis die every year on Diabetes and heart disease, but I can see no one declaring the War On Sugar.

Oh so you don't think we need to keep track of people like this. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11325784

Have a good think and let us know what freedoms have been taken away from you here in New Zealand.

I grew up in a dictatorship and gained most of my freedoms and rights only later in life. Just to name a few:
- Freedom of speech
- access to independent media and information
- democratic elections
- Freedom to travel the world

You said your freedom was being slowly taken away. What freedom have you lost here in New Zealand? I would have sympathy with your argument if freedoms had been lost but there have been none so far, so until then I think this whole thing is a lot of smoke and mirrors.

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#1130953 17-Sep-2014 19:41

Just to recap this whole circus. If I have it wrong please let me know.

KDC promised a bombshell, it never came. It was more like a microburst

Snowden, Greenwald and co started off claiming the GCSB was conducting mass surveillance on New Zealand citizens. There has not been any proof to substantiate this claim

John Key has denied the GCSB has conducted any mass surveillance on New Zealanders

Now Snowden now claims mass surveillance but not by the GSCB.

So I guess at the end of the day John Key was right after all.

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Batman

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#1130958 17-Sep-2014 19:47

Correct. But the dotcom circus has hijacked our elections and it is going to be topsy turvy leading up to Saturday night. of all people. I thought the circus would come from Peters

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#1130971 17-Sep-2014 20:04

joker97: Correct. But the dotcom circus has hijacked our elections and it is going to be topsy turvy leading up to Saturday night. of all people. I thought the circus would come from Peters

Oddly I think the party benefiting the most are the Conservatives.

testha

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#1131005 17-Sep-2014 20:40

Technofreak:

You said your freedom was being slowly taken away. What freedom have you lost here in New Zealand? I would have sympathy with your argument if freedoms had been lost but there have been none so far, so until then I think this whole thing is a lot of smoke and mirrors.

I didnt say that. Have a second read, I highlighted the important bits.

testha:

You got a good thing going on in here in NZ, for me this is the most beautiful country in the world with the loveliest people. I am just very worried about what is happening here lately.

I grew up with a lot of propaganda, FUD and a lot of spying. You always had to watch out what you said, you could never truly speak your mind without the fear of oppression. The government always showed us constantly how evil the enemy is to keep support alive (that damn pesky imperialists!).

And what I am hearing here is getting very similar to the propaganda I heard before. The same tactics are being used at the moment to restrict (public) information. There are secret orders and secret agreements and contracts and an pesky enemy that changes with the time and is getting used to spread fear and acceptance of new laws.

I am against mass surveillance and rather live with the really very low risk of an act of terror in NZ because I know first hand what can be done with that information. You can completely shut down any kind of opposition before they even arise, making most people believe that they are alone with their thoughts. You can use that information to blackmail other people. You can target certain people so you got all important positions in a society covered. No one can be trusted. The whole Justice system becomes a farce and innocent people get arrested and some also die/ get killed.

Being able to communicate your thoughts without any fear of oppression is one of the most important freedoms I know of. Anonymity grants me that freedom. By collecting all that data and giving access to the government you cannot trust anyone anymore. I few people here state that they dont have anything to hide. Only a very few people are as perfect as they claim. There is always something you would rather not explain to the public. With all that data collected you can direct public opinion, shutdown opposition before it arises.

The cool thing about this thread is, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Where I grew up there was only one opinion, the official one. A few of you maybe annoyed by the opposition cause you dont agree with all their stuff, but being able to have a real opposition is what makes a democracy strong.

I am really afraid of losing my gained freedoms. I mean there are now algorithms that decide after scanning my communication that my name should be added in a random database. And because of it I am on some kind of No-Fly list. And lose my right to travel to a country that I would love to visit.

The data gathered with mass surveillance has a lot of potential to be abused. I tried to show you the potential and how this leads to a loss of freedoms.

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#1131007 17-Sep-2014 20:50

testha:

Have you ever thought about that this enemy is just being exaggerated?

About 3000 people died in 9/11 in the US. A different country with a very different foreign policy. But somehow this justifies my freedoms being slowly taken away in New Zealand.

Forgive me if I misunderstood what you wrote here, but it certainly reads to me that you see your freedoms are being slowly taken away by the surveillance that has been alleged.

What was I supposed to understand by your comment I've quoted.

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#1131011 17-Sep-2014 20:56

Technofreak: Just to recap this whole circus. If I have it wrong please let me know.

KDC promised a bombshell, it never came. It was more like a microburst

Snowden, Greenwald and co started off claiming the GCSB was conducting mass surveillance on New Zealand citizens. There has not been any proof to substantiate this claim

John Key has denied the GCSB has conducted any mass surveillance on New Zealanders

Now Snowden now claims mass surveillance but not by the GSCB.

So I guess at the end of the day John Key was right after all.

Much as I seriously dislike dotcom... Would any of the below have been admitted by John Key had Monday not occured?

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/254849/key-makes-surveillance-concessions
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10508710/NSA-spying-can-t-be-ruled-out-PM
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11326387

And an interesting tweet I saw this morning: https://twitter.com/denistegg/status/512005530471395328

Which is a OIA request from Daniel Ayers who is certainly someone I find very level headed in that regard along with being very well respected in the field of computer security.

http://wikisend.com/download/172780/Letter%20Rt%20Hon%20John%20Key%20re%20Mass%20Surveillance%20and%20NSA%20In%20NZ.pdf

I think a lot of valuable questions being asked in there.

Batman

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#1131014 17-Sep-2014 21:04

if the NSA wants to spy on us, the spy on us. we know that already. look, they spy on Merkel, they spy on the Chinese, they spy on whoever they want to. take it up with Obama. JK really has no control over it, but i guess you could say Helen Clark would have been more assertive to Obama, maybe.

and don't forget google reads your emails, so does facebook.

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#1131021 17-Sep-2014 21:08

i guess are you meaning that JK sold us out to the NSA? that i don't know, but when big brother comes knocking and says, you know the trade deal you are after? well, there is a button we want to install on our system, but hey we won't use it, because we promise not to. ok? deal? you get the milk and meat to our shores, we install a button we won't press. otherwise, we trade with australia and china.

maybe something like that is possible

testha

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#1131036 17-Sep-2014 21:40

Technofreak:
testha:

Have you ever thought about that this enemy is just being exaggerated?

About 3000 people died in 9/11 in the US. A different country with a very different foreign policy. But somehow this justifies my freedoms being slowly taken away in New Zealand.

Forgive me if I misunderstood what you wrote here, but it certainly reads to me that you see your freedoms are being slowly taken away by the surveillance that has been alleged.

What was I supposed to understand by your comment I've quoted.

My right of privacy. Being free to communicate privately, educate and inform myself - without being monitored, analysed, judged or blackmailed.

There is also thing called chilling effect that can lead to self-censorship. Both are tools that are being used to control public opinion. A lot of studies have been done that show how effective these are. If you think you are alone with your opinion you are less likely to speak out about it, hence creating a seemingly uniform opinion increasing it even more.

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#1131049 17-Sep-2014 21:52

joker97: if the NSA wants to spy on us, the spy on us. we know that already. look, they spy on Merkel, they spy on the Chinese, they spy on whoever they want to. take it up with Obama. JK really has no control over it, but i guess you could say Helen Clark would have been more assertive to Obama, maybe.

and don't forget google reads your emails, so does facebook.

If the US want to bring nuke ships into our harbor, they bring ships into our harbor. And the French blew up a lefty boat in Auckland harbor but that's all legit right? It happened to the yanks in WW2 so that's fine.

I'm not saying that any leader is particularly better than anyone else.

And I can choose to use Google or Facebook.

joker97: i guess are you meaning that JK sold us out to the NSA? that i don't know, but when big brother comes knocking and says, you know the trade deal you are after? well, there is a button we want to install on our system, but hey we won't use it, because we promise not to. ok? deal? you get the milk and meat to our shores, we install a button we won't press. otherwise, we trade with australia and china.

maybe something like that is possible

US is #3 for us. And I am not saying not have I ever said we should not have the GCSB, or not trade with the us as you seen to keep on going on about when I raise up questions of privacy.

But a serious lack of oversight seems to have come into play here. I think the inspector general needs some serious teeth to be able to get questions answered when she wants them and be sure she is receiving the truth.

I suggest you read the Kitterage Report and see exactly where her issues were with getting to the bottom of the GCSB the first time around. It's fascinating reading especially when she gets into her recommendations. I wonder how many have been implemented?

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#1131056 17-Sep-2014 22:03

testha:
Technofreak:
testha:

Have you ever thought about that this enemy is just being exaggerated?

About 3000 people died in 9/11 in the US. A different country with a very different foreign policy. But somehow this justifies my freedoms being slowly taken away in New Zealand.

Forgive me if I misunderstood what you wrote here, but it certainly reads to me that you see your freedoms are being slowly taken away by the surveillance that has been alleged.

What was I supposed to understand by your comment I've quoted.

My right of privacy. Being free to communicate privately, educate and inform myself - without being monitored, analysed, judged or blackmailed.

There is also thing called chilling effect that can lead to self-censorship. Both are tools that are being used to control public opinion. A lot of studies have been done that show how effective these are. If you think you are alone with your opinion you are less likely to speak out about it, hence creating a seemingly uniform opinion increasing it even more.

Use Tor then if it concerns you so much, or VPN.

Given this is a tekkie forum, I would have expected more people suggesting ways to beat the NSA than I would whingey wooing about how nasty it all is....

I thought tech peeps lived and breathed sticking it to the System!

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