Holy fucking shit.
I just read an article about Barton Gellman, one of the journalists that wrote the snowden articles for the Washington Post and one of the 3 that got contacted directly by snowden.

It seams like several intelligence agencies tried/succeeded to compromise his infrastructure.
His iPad got compromised through an RCE exploit.
The turkish intelligence service tried to compromise his laptop by tricking him into installing a customized RAT.

Like fuck man, I can't imagine how it is to be targeted by pretty much every government there is.

That’s what happens when you expose the illegal shit the people in power are doing: they make your very existence illegal, and make it illegal for anyone to even meet you let alone help you. Interact with Snowden? Disappear for extensive questioning.

They hate him so much it really makes me wonder what else they might be doing.

But it’s funny. He’s (supposedly) not in trouble for actually exposing the crimes, but for leaking the related sensitive documents. Without the documents, there would be no proof of any crimes, and it would all have been dismissed as rumor and hearsay — and he would have disappeared as a threat to the State anyway. Thus in order to expose the crime, he needed to commit a crime himself. It’s amazing how those in power protect themselves with the law, and callously screw over everyone else.

Fear is your biggest enemy. If you don’t fear you can do literally anything.

@vane people in fear do the most.

@ilechuks73 ... the most stupid things

@subspace And we’ve never landed on the moon because the Earth is both flat and hollow, right?

@subspace why buffalo herd run away from one lion ?

I guess I read the same article. netzpolitik?

@subspace wtf he had top-level security clearance at NSA and therefore was able to collect all those documents rather easily.
would be a bit more difficult to get the same amount of documents from an intelligence agency which you don't have access to.

@subspace Mass surveillance programs ran by the US government compromising the privacy of nearly every person in the world, pretty much.

As for your NSA being the good guy part, an ex-NSA director even went to the UK to talk the government out of the new mass surveillance law over there because he says it doesn't work.

But of course mass surveillance doesn't work. The criminals you really want to catch will use under the radar stuff.

And then, compromising the fundamental rights for possibly catching some criminals in the process... Nah.

@subspace I am pretty sure here is nobody that would doubt that China and Russia are big in the mass surveillance game as well.

But at least we know way more due to Snowden with PROOF due to the documents wich have been made public with the supports of professionals and journalists that have a reputation that suggests that they are trustworthy.

We know about specific programs like Prism, XKeyscore, FISA Courts, the Five Eyes Committee which is way bigger now as well due to all the documents.

Gosh, I really hope you're just a troll having a blast right now 'cause I am triggered, there are already too many people with such a mindset.

@linuxxx well I’m sure politicians are not interested in people who are not interested in them. Otherwise it’s waste of money and resources. I’d rather be scared of social network and search giants that aggregate everything and sell advertising. Those can manipulate public opinion more easily then some countries that at least need to publicly show how they spend money.
Let’s not forget that advertisements are not older then computers.

@F1973
Excerpts from the translation of the book "Dark Mirror" from Barton Gellman.

Source (German):
https://netzpolitik.org/2020/...

English:
https://bartongellman.com/dark-mirr...

@subspace I find it funny how it's not clear to which of my points you are responding and that you're definitely not responding to all of them. This shows a lack of knowledge from your side.

Of course there's the usual new guy talking shit about Snowden. Every single time he's mentioned, there's at least one.

@saucyatom
Thx, forgot to add that.