I'm not sure why this is a big surprise to anyone. I'm a cynic, but if anyone asked me whether I think the NSA, CIA, or FBI are eavesdropping on personal communications, I would say, "of course they are." This is nothing new: ECHELON, Clipper/Skipjack, Carnivore, ...
How many times does some one have to say this? I'm sorry, but this sort of comment is getting pretty tiresome.
Yes we all "knew". All of us "knew". Some of us have "known" for something like 15 years. (Which, BTW, is why I'm most sure why Obama is getting so much flack. Its a Clinton - Bush - Obama scandal.)
But none of us, not one, actually did know anything at all. We suspected, or assumed. But we did not know. Not unless one of us is working for the NSA, etc, etc. (Ironic if I have just picked on the one poster who is)
Now we do know. It is absolute. No doubt, no shouting down, we know.
There is a huge difference: Before we were written off as conspiracy nuts jobs. Now we have certain knowledge.
Im not picking on you personally. Your post is one of many in the past couple of days. As such I have not down voted you, that would be unfair. But please, can people stop with this sort of comment? We all know we "knew".
No. Don't downplay people concerned with privacy who noticed a series of obvious, blatant actions over a period of literally decades as cynics or conspiracy nuts.
You are picking on people; we really did know, not "know." It was obvious, it remains obvious, and the fact is that its going to continue and get worse despite the revelations of this week, unless we do something.
Painting rational people who notice and complain about government overreach as paranoid is precisely what enables the expansion of these policies. You should be asking what you can do now to help rather than setting us up to be further discredited or ignored by implying our years of complaining weren't substantiated until just now.
Am I the only one to think this is too good to be true? I mean, this can have the exact opposite effect, and become a big "don't trust what you read on the Internet, kids".
NSA doesn't even have to deny anything. Let the other interested parties wash their hands, and leave with a "told ya" smile.
Not sure if it was intentional or not, but seems a very convenient prank. I know, Conspiracy theory^-1. We'll see.
I mean, I guess I see what you're saying, but obviously at least a handful of people at each of the member companies knew. I believe those are the people the parent comment is talking about.
I guess I'm not so surprised that it's happening and I'm more surprised with the transition from "yeah it definitely looks like they're doing it" to "we have hard evidence that they're doing it."
It's not about surprise, it's about proof. Comments like this are nothing but highschool cool-table karma whoring. "I knew it all along" adds nothing to the conversation. Congratulations for nothing.
Carnivore definitely was, and it wasn't really kept secret. If you worked long enough in telecom or Internet service, you probably got to install a Carnivore box in your data center.
Echelon was indeed confirmed, afaik, although in less apocalyptic terms than initially described, hence deflating the related news-cycle. In a way, 20 years later, all the fuss looks very naïf compared to what GCHQ and friends do nowadays.
