image stats
rating
3
votes
223
views
6737
uploader
ghost of woberto
comments
11
date added
2013-08-08
category
Sport
previous votes
Loading..
Fuck the USA!
1 star2 stars3 stars4 stars5 stars
Fuck the USA!

"a screenshot of a computer screen"

Rate image:
[ | | ]
[ | ]
Comments for: Fuck the USA!
Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: August 09, 2013 10:26PM

I had an idea for a short story many years ago regarding how the US and the USSR were moving in similar directions. Now there's no need to write it .... the press is doing it almost daily drinking smiley

smoking
smiley
Leland Wildflower Report This Comment
Date: August 10, 2013 02:10AM

This whole administration is a joke. Why the fk can't America wake up already and have a revolution like the rest of the world overthrowing their dictator. Get these asshole politicians out of office and in jail where they belong.
woberto Report This Comment
Date: August 10, 2013 02:36AM

The US are so offended that an email encryption exists that they cannot break, that they put pressure on it's owner to shut it down. How dare he provide a service that the NSA cannot hack! The nerve of that guy. It is obvious that only terrorists would use such a service because regular Americans (or any other nationality for that matter) apparently have no problem with the government tracking there email traffic because it makes the world safer.
What a load of bullshit.
If we could prove that a terrorist ever used the US postal service, would they shut that down? Would they label it a tool of traitors and spies?
Specifically, if a company has any ties to the US then they can request access to emails under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
(*finger3*)
"I am unaware of any situation in which a service provider chose to shut down rather than comply with a court order they felt violated the constitution," said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: August 11, 2013 12:11AM

Hey leland, unlike nearly anywhere else on the ol www, here you can actually say FUCK without gettin the usual boot or censored. Among other reasons, it's why many of us are such loyalists to the joint rock
on

Though our govt has been less than trustworthy for quite a few years, really more like decades, the current level of obfuscation of what is factual has finally risen to tsunami proportions.

With the NAS, DOJ, IRS, DOS and a long list of other alphabet orgs perjuring themselves, then getting caught at it, with no repercussions to follow, I dunno how there's any real hope left but to stand the system on its head and start over with a "get back to basic Constitutional governance" move.

A good friend of mine just found out he was on the No Fly list, which prompted him to implement a FOIA request to see what they had against him. Seems all he got was over 500 pgs of redacted BS, the 1st of which being that in the early 80s he was arrested at a protest on illegal immigration. Since that time there were pages and pages from differing dates, though it was all black ink except for the headings.

But no, obviously there's no domestic spying on US citizens ..... (*horse*) (*finger*)

smoking
smiley



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2013 12:13AM by Mrkim.
pulse Report This Comment
Date: August 12, 2013 12:50PM

Off topic, but you have no idea how tempted I was to edit & censor that 'fuck' winking
smiley

Such nice things. I figured you guys would all have gone and facebooked or .. like .. uuh .. instagrammed nude selfies to each other or something well before now smiling
smiley
Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: August 12, 2013 02:52PM

Bah, you'd have just edited it to FUCK with me pulse clown

Having spent years here now it's pretty apparent you really just aren't the censorist type, which is both a good and rare thing in our all too PC world these days.

Facebook, yeah I finally fired off a page, though begrudgingly and I use it very sparingly as I find the whole concept repugnant to begin with. Just not the type to wanna inform the whole freakin world about every move I make. Coupled with the idea that everything one splays out on the ol interweb essentially has no recall capability, though govts. seem well versed at it these days, doing so in a Facebook way is really a dumbass move.

BTW, what's goin on in the world of data manipulation and historical rewrites these days was so well foretold by Winstons characters job at the Ministry Of Truth in the all too ominously "it's all come to pass now" 1984. One of the few differences is (at least for now) our 2 way video devices still have off buttons ... at least on our end of the screen.

Nude selfies of me? Though I enjoy stimulating certain cerebral areas, triggering ones gag reflex really isn't my bag (throwup)

smoking
smiley
fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: August 27, 2013 06:01PM

i play a couple of games on Facebook and "like" all kinds of random insignificant harmless B.S. just to fuck with whoever is watching / recording my activity.
woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 29, 2014 08:25AM

Here is the latest. Kim will love/hate this update.
And visit Dark Mail Initiative
(*butt*)
My Fellow Citizens,

My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to serve me with a court order requiring the installation of surveillance equipment on my company’s network.

My company, Lavabit, provided email services to 410,000 people *(including woberto), and thrived by offering features specifically designed to protect the privacy and security of its customers. I had no choice but to consent to the installation of their device, which would have provided the government with access to all of the messages, for all of my customers, as they travelled to and from other providers on the Internet.

But that wasn’t enough. The federal agents also said their court order required me to surrender the company’s private encryption keys, and I balked. What they claimed to need were customer passwords, which were sent securely, so they could access the plain-text of messages for users taking advantage of my company’s encrypted storage feature. (The government would later claim they only demanded the encryption keys because of my "noncompliance".) I didn’t realize until I retained an attorney that what the agents proposed would have exceeded their authority.

Bothered by what the agents were saying, I informed them I would first need to read the order they had just delivered and then consult with an attorney. The feds seemed surprised by my hesitation.

What ensued was a flurry of legal proceedings that would last 38 days. When the dust settled I found myself the owner of a $10,000 civil contempt fine, my business shut down, and bit by bit, the very principle upon which I founded it – that we all have a right to personal privacy, slipping quickly away. (To appreciate just how fast the case moved, consider the median timeframe for a similar proceedings was 9.7 months in 2012.)

The government lawyers tried to overwhelm me. In the first two weeks, I was served court orders a total of seven times – leading to contact with the FBI every other day. (This was the stretch a prosecutor would later characterize as the "long period of silence".) It took a week for me to identify an attorney who could adequately represent me given the complex issues involved – and we were in contact for less than a day when agents served me with a summons ordering me to appear in a Virginia courtroom (over 1,000 miles from home). Two days later, after admitting their demand to my lawyer, I was served a subpoena for the encryption keys – also marking the first time they put their demand in writing.

With such short notice, my first attorney was unable to appear alongside me in court. Because the whole case was under seal, I couldn't admit to anyone who wasn't a lawyer that I needed help, let alone why. In the days before my appearance I would spend hours repeating the facts of the case to a dozen attorneys, as I sought someone else that was qualified to represent me. I also discovered that as a third party in a federal criminal indictment, I had no right to counsel. Thus my pleas for more time were denied. After all, only my property was in jeopardy – not my liberty. My right to a “fair hearing” was treated as a nuisance, easily trampled by a team of determined prosecutors. In the end, I was forced to choose between appearing alone, or face a bench warrant for my arrest.

When I appeared in Virginia, the government replaced their subpoena for the encryption key with a search warrant and a new court date. I retained a small local law firm before returning home, and they took on the task of assembling a legal strategy and filing briefs in the few short days available. The court barred them from consulting outside experts, making it difficult to understand the complex legal and technological issues involved. Even a request to discuss the case with members of Congress was denied. To make matters worse, the court wouldn’t deliver transcripts for my first appearance for another two months. My legal team was forced to proceed without access to information they needed.

Then, a federal judge entered an order of contempt against me – without even a hearing. Let me be clear. I did not devoted 10 years of my life to building Lavabit, with its focus on privacy, only to become complicit in a plan which would have meant the wholesale violation of my customers’ right to privacy. Thus with my options in court exhausted, the decision was easy. I had to shut down my service. Placing my faith in the integrity of the appeals process.

When the judge granted the contempt charge unopposed – ignoring my attorney’s request to dispute the government’s claims – he created a loophole. I was never given an opportunity to object, let alone provide a meaningful defense. An important point, since the contempt charge endorsed new legal claims – reversing what the court had previously indicated. Without an objection on the record, the appellate court would rule that my right to an appeal had been waived – since the charges hadn’t been disputed in district court. Given the Supreme Court’s tradition of declining to review cases decided on procedural grounds, I will likely be denied justice, forever.

The most important question raised by my appeal was what constitutes a "search," i.e., whether law enforcement may demand the encryption keys of a business and use those keys to inspect the private communications of every customer, when they are only authorized to access information belonging to a select few.

The problem here is technological: until a communication has been decrypted and the contents parsed, it is impossible for a surveillance device to determine which network connections belong to the targeted accounts. The government argued that since the "inspection" would be carried out by a machine, they were exempt from the normal search-and-seizure protections of the fourth amendment.

More importantly, the prosecution argued the exemption was because my users had no expectation of privacy, even though the encryption they were trying to break was created specifically to ensure a users' privacy.

If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: our courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance in secret, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only a matter of time before you or a loved one find yourself in a position like I was – standing in a secret courtroom, alone, and without any of the unalienable rights that are supposed to protect us from an abuse of the state’s authority.

Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC

With my fight in court all but lost, I am focusing my attention on a technical fix. Help me put control over who reads your email back into your hands. Donate to the Lavabit Dark Mail Development Initiative today. Because keeping your business your business is our business.
woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 29, 2014 09:24AM

up
yours
pulse Report This Comment
Date: July 29, 2014 10:47AM

Yeah. That'd never happen here *cough*

Ignoring the fact that we actually have none of the rights even the US has enshrined in our constitution (even if they are easily trampled).

Pretty much the world is fucked.
woberto Report This Comment
Date: August 02, 2014 02:04AM