Is there a problem they canât create on the way to not solving anything?
How much are we shelling out for this?
It seems to have been lost amidst the original Snowden avalanche that âeconomic wellbeingâ is used, at least by GCHQ, as fair grounds for spying GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications | GCHQ | The Guardian
I would have thought âeconomic wellbeingâ could mean everyone from union reps to business-owners, politicians to lawyers, financial journalists to academics, people who criticise capitalism to, well⌠anyone who participates in economies?
Now that you mention it, I suppose Pinks smashing the heads of Wobblies would also describe their work as protecting âeconomic wellbeing.â
See, this is the leaks telling us something we didnât already know. I keep up with the news, and I wasnât even remotely surprised by most of the leaked info weâve seen so far. Just a few months ago, though, our government was bitching about the PLA hacking a bunch of American companies, and the government. At that point, I was opining that US companies were at a disadvantage, because, while the NSA was obviously better at hacking other governmentsâ computers than the PLA, they werenât going to waste their time giving sensitive info to US companies about their competitorsâ operations, because they had bigger fish to fry. Whatever PLA people were doing the hacking, on the other hand, would almost certainly be shopping their data around to any Chinese company they thought could use it. This leak pretty much says that my assessment of that was completely wrong, and our government is operating a whole lot more like the CCP than I would have expected, despite my not being particularly idealistic about things like that.
In our politically-correct age, they prefer the term âa uniquely holistic approach to corporate risk managementâ. (Also for restructuring reasons, most of their ground-level jackboots will be seen wearing the âSecuritasâ logo.)
Yup, itâs a divinely broad term. And presumably the economy whose âwellbeingâ is being âdefendedâ is the country of whoever happens to be doing the spying at the time.
Gah, internets is broke.
Basically, the NSA and GCHQ are positioning themselves to be âinside tradersâ on every legitimate deal, as well as every dirty deal, and free themselves from having any dependency on governments for funding.
Once that happens, they will be unstoppable and a constant, persistent and pernicious presence in everyoneâs life.
They will stop all crime other than their own and any they deem useful to their aims.
One objection to Pointextersâ original T.I.A. was that if it was allowed to operate without total openness and strict operational monitoring and oversight, it was going to find ways to operate outside the laws of any end every country.
It may be too lateâŚ
This is not really a new development. It was widely reported more than a decade ago that the NSA used their ECHELON system to conduct economic espionage against âfriendlyâ nations. Whether or not this has been confirmed, Wikipedia claims that EU member states have been advised to use cryptography to defend against ECHELON. (It remains to be seen how much good that does them, in the light of new revelations about the NSAâs ability to compromise or decrypt widely-used cryptographic systems).
Quelle surprise. At this point, itâs hard to even raise an eyebrow over the NSAâs behavior. The organization has become its own stereotype for misguided, unprincipled over-reachâŚironically, an officially sanctioned American agency caroming down some very un-American roads to Hell. Even late-night comedy canât do justice to the inanity.
Hey, I stuck up a liquor store for âeconomic reasons.â Will that fly as a defense in court?
Get the NSA in an honest court and they will be convicted. The NSA is operating much like Al Capone, their crimes are so vast that you can get them on something. In Al Caponeâs case it was tax evasion. Iâm sure if your open their books and files you will find a vast criminal empire.
I remember the overall reaction to the Echelon revelations: âitâs all tinfoil-hattery and unsubstantiated rumoursâ. For years, just talking about it would label one as a clueless conspiracy theorist.
Now we have loads of original, undebatable documents saying itâs all true. All there, black on white from the horseâs mouth. This is game-changing on so many levels.
And please, letâs stop with all this âitâs not surprisingâ bull*. If it was common knowledge, how come that Edward Snowden will never be able to go home? That laws and international agreements were abused to down the Ecuadorean Presidentâs plane? That UK police abused antiterrorist legislation to get their hands over a couple of flash drives? If it was all unsurprising, how come that one Mr. Clapper was found lying not once, not twice but three times, addressing either the public or Congress? How come that the Brazilians are mad, that Germans are marching in the streets?
Iâm familiar with one in front of Congress, with his famous head-rubbing tell ⌠would you happen to be able to describe or have links for the other two?
Jody Westby of Forbes argued that due to the revelations, the American public should ask Clapper to resign from office, arguing that âNot only did Mr. Clapper give false testimony to Congress, even his June 6 statement was false. We now know â since the companies identified by the Washington Post have started fessing up â that lots more than telephony metadata has been collected and searched.â
And then the latest press release stating that their spying of Petrobras was not done with the intent of giving national companies an undue advantage, when everyone knows that US intelligence and US companies have a number of agreements and programs to exchange classified information (e.g. http://rt.com/usa/us-firms-trade-information-684/ but there are plenty of pre-Snowden stories out there, particularly related to the energy sector).
The FBI seems to have a focus on âeconomicâ issues as well â often duplicating stuff that is the responsibility of their siblings in customs and border protection.
This is just begging for a Most Interesting Man in the World meme: âI donât always break into websites, but when I do itâs for economic reasons.â
Picture of Clapper: âI donât usually talk to Congress, but when I do, I just lieâ.
Picture of Alexander: âI donât usually spy on the internet, but when I do, I read everyoneâs emailâ
Whatâs amazing to me is that they broke into SWIFT⌠That banking exchange moves 15 million plus financial transactions a day for 9000+ banks around the world. I donât know of any viable competitor and this is sure to have worldwide financial impactsâŚ