Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Legal Beagle: Kim Dotcom and the GCSB, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Given the whole basis of their actions being legal depends on whether the person of interest is an NZ citizen/resident, it's hard to figure that their processes *wouldn't* involve a check on the databases of Immigration and Internal Affairs.
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Legal Beagle: Kim Dotcom and the GCSB, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Never going to happen
Well, there's Twitter's Firehose for a start. I'm fairly sure the NSA would be one of their small number of paying customers. The CIA has a VC arm, In_Q-Tel who could possibly have invested in Facebook.
At the other end of the scale, the big two telcos's profits are heavily aligned to the level of regulation applied by government. It's not hard to believe that voluntary compliance with GCSB demands might be linked with favourable outcomes in this area.
(Then you've got a company that's the largest email provider in the world and also runs a huge repository for multimedia. They don't get raided, like Mr Dotcom. Part of the quid-pro-quo for that might be a measure of co-operation, too).
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the FBI's partner agency here is the NZ Police, through which any requests for GCSB involvement would have come
I think the steps might be:
a. GCSB provide data (in bulk, probably) to NSA
b. NSA provide information on requested subjects to FBI
c. FBI request NZ Police to lawfully "re-obtain" said information
d. NZ Police request GCSB assistance
e. GCSB obtain interception warrant
f. GCSB supply information to NZP / FBIIn this case they may have omitted to launder the information through steps c-f and inadvertently produced the illegal content in court.
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Anyway, I'm wondering where GCSB stand if they persuade an ISP, telco or social network operator to "voluntarily" provide them with a feed. Could they argue that this isn't interception? Or that interception only occurs if they analyse and disseminate the data - before that (including dumping the data in an Echelon type system), it's just technical processing.
(And since they work in secret, they only have to convince themselves that they have that right).
Also, they have a budget of $56million. That's a lot of money to execute "two or three warrants a year".
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Legal Beagle: Kim Dotcom and the GCSB, in reply to David Hood,
"any wireless connection" given the speed with which wireless security can be broken
Not the case. If it is, go break the wireless in your local grocery store and change the price of razor blades to $2 a packet.
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Didn't they have a system at high decile schools like Auckland Grammar whereby if you were in the rugby team or whatever, the teachers signed you off as passing university entrance without actually needing to do any exams?
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Russell Brown,
It'd be useful to post an example of a blog copying and pasting a whole story? I'd have thought if you did that persistently, you'd get at least a cease-and-desist.
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Sacha,
Hard to tell what his complaint was. Copyright law is pretty wide, and if some behaviour still isn't actionable, then what's the grounds for complaint.
In countries without newspaper monopolies, like the UK, other newspapers will grab copies of rivals when they appear in the middle of the night and produce "spoilers" for their later editions. This is an old tradition - is that acceptable, because it's kept within the "club".
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Hard News: Tired and emotional, for reals, in reply to Felix Marwick,
lifting whole articles is taking the piss
It's also a breach of copyright, correct? You could sue, or call in the black helicopters (which I understand are now available to anyone with a copyright beef, or do you need to show a US passport?)
However, the facts in your articles describe things that happened. You don't own those facts. I can summarize them in my own words and you don't have recourse, beyond loud grumpling.
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Definitely not super -- that's not among the "main benefits"
Super is, of course, five times more expensive than the next benefit category. But it's for old people, who are considered Us, not Them.
See, the demonization of beneficiaries serves several purposes to our rulers:
- generating an underclass such that the "mainstream" have somebody to look down on, a bit like Afrikaaners in apartheid South Africa
- enabling the government to appear on the side of the "mainstream" and against the feared and hated Other
- ensuring business owners have a pool of cheap, compliant labour who need to work or starve