Talk:2010s global surveillance disclosures/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Orphaned references in Timeline of mass surveillance disclosures

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Timeline of mass surveillance disclosures's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "http":

  • From Cyberwarfare: Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies, Vol. 8, Iss. 1 [October 2008], Art. 2. pp.42 (2008). http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=cm (2008). Retrieved January 2013. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  • From 2013 global surveillance disclosures: Barton Gellman and Matt DeLong (August 15, 2013). "First direct evidence of illegal surveillance found by the FISA court". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 16, 2013.

Reference named "WP20130830":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 01:31, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

NSA primary sources

This looks to be a fantastic resource - it's a rundown of the leaks thus far, with links to their respective RS. petrarchan47tc 04:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Findings on Italy

English article:

WhisperToMe (talk) 02:38, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

NSA and AT&T and how NSA collects data

WhisperToMe (talk) 21:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Scope of article

Should this article be limited to the contents of disclosures only? Or should we include some background details about the spy agreements related to Snowden's documents? -A1candidate (talk) 14:39, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

If the content is limited to the current subject matter, I think that the title is wrong. There is no context as to what "Global surveillance disclosure" means. I appreciate that you are now asking for feedback. However, I think that there should have been more consultation on the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures page and consensus reached before these extensive changes were made. There was a discussion starting at Talk:2013 global surveillance disclosures#Size of article which is now hidden behind a redirect. Major changes such as these need to be spelled out and agreed to by consensus before they are carried out, IMO. The discussion had only just begun and there was no general agreement. I have concerns about these changes. I won't list them all just now, except to say that there is little context given in several of these articles to let the reader know clearly what they are about. It would have been far easier to start from the original "2013 mass surveillance disclosures" article and begin to establish sub articles. In support of your proposal, I suggested that we begin by establishing sub articles (and had set up one as an example of what I meant). However, I stated that we should keep the original root article until we had created sub articles. One editor agreed with me and there were no other comments when you peremptorily made these massive changes. This is not collaborative editing. We need to figure out how to address this. Suggestions? Sunray (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
I continue to agree that the title and presentation needs to be discussed. It seems the titles of 3 Snowden-related pages (timeline, aftermath and this one) have now switched to the singular when referring to the disclosures, increasing the confusion and diversion from RS. Also, we need to get clear on whether the NSA is indeed leading this global surveillance (RS seems to indicate this), and whether the disclosures and surveillance we're talking about are directly related to Snowden, as RS indicates, and if so, make needed changes to these articles to make this clear. I see a pull towards "it's not the NSA, it's everyone" and a downplaying of the source of all of this: Edward Snowden. petrarchan47tc 23:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

More sources

WhisperToMe (talk) 02:48, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:59, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

(N)POV re: foreign nationals / US citizens

Just a quick suggestion: Should not the english language version of Wikipedia appeal equally to all english-speaking people(s)? Or is the general meaning that this is the U.S. version? In the article's leading section, there is the phrase: "foreign nationals as well as US citizens", implying that everyone not a US citizen is a foreigner. In my opinion this is not a neutral point of view, but a US-centric one. Please also see the map showing countries in which English is the main or secondary language in the article about the English_Wikipedia. I therefore suggest rephrasing that fragment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phellmon (talk • contribs) 01:23, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Bill Clinton on spying

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:21, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Merkel-Obama meeting

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

EU parliament meeting

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: rename to "2013 Global surveillance disclosures"

I think the scope of this article is too broad. The first half talks about the chronology of American global surveillance. However, they are not the subject of the article and should not be described at length. The focus should be on the disclosures. Also, listing everything in chronological order is too confusing. The article would be much better if we broke them down by technical aspects, legal authority/related court cases, popular reaction, economic effect, and perhaps diplomatic repercussions. Many of these subjects spill over into the scope of other articles, and should be linked accordingly, but please: lets keep the scope limited to the 2013 Snowden leaks. Thoughts? Rustyfence (talk) 07:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The article is organised by the chronology of the disclosures, beginning in 1972. The pre-2013 section is mainly about the disclosures. Rustyfence has already moved this article from Global surveillance disclosure to 2013 Global surveillance disclosure, implicitly changing the scope of the article. The bulk of this article is about leaks by Edward Snowden; explicitly making it about them seems fine. Limiting it to 2013 might be a mistake, because more of Snowden's documents may be published after the end of this month. Something like "Edward Snowden disclosures" or the longer but less ambiguous "disclosures by Edward Snowden" ought to be good titles, if the article is to be only about the information released by him. He acknowledges having released the documents. —rybec 11:40, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

It might be useful to research how the Snowden leaks are referred to most often in RS. And since only 1% of the leaked material has been reported on thus far, it does seem a mistake to label them by the year rather than by the leaker. I wouldn't recommend "NSA leaks" either, as there have been multiple, albeit lesser-known, NSA leaks in the past. I would vote to call the article "Snowden NSA leaks". petrarchan47tc 06:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Rybec's suggestions for the title are good too. And as Rustyfence says, if (since) the article is focused on the Snowden (not necessarily 2013) leaks, then background information should be presented in proper context, perhaps even splitting it off and leaving a small summary here. The Snowden leaks are an enormous story to cover and don't need the added weight of telling the history of American global surveillance. I also like Rusty's idea to cover each program, disclosure and fallout separately. I agree that chronological order is not a good way to present this material. petrarchan47tc 06:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with Petrarchan47 that "Snowden NSA leaks" would be the best title for this article. My second choice would be "2013 Global surveillance disclosures." However, in either case, I think that it would be important to summarize the background of these disclosures—likely best done in a "History" section. Snowden's leaks were part of a process of disclosures that originated in the 1970s and related to patterns of mass surveillance that originated in World War II. All this needs to be covered, IMO, to give the reader adequate context. Sunray (talk) 19:49, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Definitely - context is a must. However, the balance of text, as well as the title, should stick to the focus of the article. The context shouldn't need too much space, and "History of NSA leaks" should be a standalone article. petrarchan47tc 03:21, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I think a good compromise would be to create a new page for the history section and summarize the most important points within a single section here. -A1candidate (talk) 09:45, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

That would be good if we could tighten the scope of this article to Snowden's leaks, and refer to them as RS does. While it is true that a global surveillance web is being revealed by the leaks, we have to stick to using RS for our coverage. For the most part, the language and presentation used in this article diverges from RS, and leaves me confused. It's as if editors are trying to tell a story different from the one found in media. I suspect it's due to geo-location of editors, and the use of different media. In the US, RS refers to the Snowden leaks as NSA leaks, not mass or global surveilance leaks. It's hard to understand why we can't have an article that clearly covers Snowden leaks and fallout. By clearly, I mean refer to this information the same way most RS does. That was the original intent for this article. For such an important story, it's baffling that we are still discussing this problem. petrarchan47tc 19:48, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
I've been looking at how RS refers to the subject of this article, and would love to hear what others are noticing as well. From the US media, this story is framed as "NSA", and very little attention is given to Five Eyes or to the willingness of 'most Western nations' to aid NSA surveillance. The introduction to this article does not sound like the coverage I am seeing. It doesn't mention "leaks" and "Snowden" in the same sentence, and there is no redirect here in case someone Googles "Snowden leaks" or "NSA leaks", as far as I am aware. The intro would be perfect for an overview article, but not one devoted to Snowden leaks. What do others think? How is this story told in your geo-location? Please bring links, and I will do the same. We should be able to figure out the scope and title as well as needed offshoot articles by looking at upcoming "end of the year" summaries, and their wording/presentation. petrarchan47tc 01:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
NSA leaks redirects to this article; I've just created Snowden leaks as a redirect to Edward_Snowden#Leaks; NSA leaks is linked that section in the Snowden biography. —rybec 01:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Brilliant! Now we need to review the Lede to this article, because it's really the Lede for a different (yet-to-be-created) article, an article that includes the full story of surveillance. Excuse my stating the obvious, but this article's Lede needs to make clear that the focus is on the Snowden leaks. petrarchan47tc 05:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

This discussion has stalled out. Does anyone object to changing the title to "2013 global surveillance disclosures"? If not I'll change it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, we're in 2014 now, aren't we? -A1candidate (talk) 11:26, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Sorry I'm late to this discussion. I do object to the proposed title change. These leaks are still occuring and there is speculation that other NSA employees or contractors are leaking documents. Also, all of the leaks should not be attributed to Snowden. For example, there is reason to believe that the NSA ANT catalog may have been leaked by someone other than Snowden. Der Spiegel/Applebaum have not implicated Snowden. I agree that the article has some scope ambiguity, and that there may be a better title (2012-2014 global surveillance disclosures?).- MrX 14:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I too object. As MrX observes, the leaks are ongoing. In particular we should bear in mind that Snowden passed a huge cache to reporter Glenn Greenwald, who has been releasing them in a trickle. Moreover, Greenwald has announced a new journalistic venture, funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar, and a book on this topic forthcoming in April. It's likely that Greenwald will use both his book and the Omidyar platform to publish additional disclosures from his repository of Snowden leaks. Changing the title so as to limit our article's scope to 2013, scarcely four days into 2014, is premature. JohnValeron (talk) 16:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
To reinforce my foregoing objection, on January 3, 2014, Glenn Greenwald appeared on Fox News, where he was asked: "You have a lot of additional information. Will you be releasing more? And if so, when?"
"Oh, definitely," Greenwald replied. "You know, Edward Snowden said his job is done—meaning him as a whistleblower, he got the information to journalists—now our job as journalists is to inform the American people about what their government is doing to them. And there’s a lot more stories coming in the early part of January—the first two or three months—that I think are going to be very, very interesting to Americans about what their government is doing to their privacy in the dark." JohnValeron (talk) 19:37, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
The story [1] about NSA's efforts in quantum computing was first published in January 2014, and is mentioned in the article. —rybec 04:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Any objection to "2013-2014 global surveillance disclosures"? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I object to your amended proposed name change as being premature and unnecessarily limiting to a subject that is still in the process of playing out. Cryptome reports that of the 1.7 million documents Snowden walked away with, only a few hundred have been made public, and estimates that at the present rate of release it'll take 42 years to publish the complete trove. See http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm. Why are you singularly intent on making this change only 2½ weeks after it was first proposed—what's the rush? JohnValeron (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I only agree that the title should be plural. I'm not sure why it's necessary to include a date range though. WP:TITLE instructs us to create concise titles that are "no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." The fact is, we don't know that 2014 will be the end of these disclosures.- MrX 18:15, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
MrX, thanks for pointing that out. I focused on the dates and failed to notice adding "s" to disclosure. Yes, agreed, by all means it should be plural. But let's leave dates out of title. JohnValeron (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
Don't we have to distinguish the recent wave of disclosures from the ones that came before? (Some of those are covered at NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07).) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
The title "Global surveillance disclosures" distinguishes this article's subject matter from NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07). Please note that the latter's lede begins: "The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy ('warrantless wiretapping') concerns surveillance of persons within the United States who were in contact with 'terrorists' during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror." (Emphasis added.) The first word in the successor article's title—Global—immediately differentiates it from domestic surveillance. JohnValeron (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Maybe we should just pluralize the title now, and then consider adding a range of years after this spate of disclosures is clearly over.- MrX 16:36, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
I concur with MrX. In his blog today, Glenn Greenwald (the keeper of Snowden's unreleased leaks) writes that "there are many, many more that will be published in the short-term. … Our work is very far from done: there are many, many more documents and stories that we will publish." See http://utdocuments.blogspot.com.br/2014/01/email-exchange-with-reader-over-first.html Given the enormous volume of the Snowden cache, I doubt Greenwald's piecemeal release will be complete by the end of 2014. For now, we should just pluralize our title. JohnValeron (talk) 17:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
There's an article called South Sudanese conflict (2013–present). Now that the early disclosures have been split off into History of the global surveillance disclosure, having "2013–present" in the title here would accurately indicate what's in the tin. —rybec 14:09, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
While I opposed inserting "2013-2014" at the beginning of the title, I agree with Rybec's suggestion to add "(2013–present)" at the end of the title. This approach is better because it demarcates a chronological starting point for the article without limiting its terminal point. JohnValeron (talk) 15:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I could live with that as well.- MrX 16:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Full support from me. petrarchan47tc 22:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

New sources

WhisperToMe (talk) 21:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

How GCHQ Monitors Germany, Israel and the EU

Spielgel Online By Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark; December 20, 2013 petrarchan47tc 03:00, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

NSA Reportedly Paid A Security Firm Millions To Ship Deliberately Flawed Encryption Technology

  • Reuters By Joseph Menn; December 20,2013
petrarchan47tc 03:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

N.S.A. Spied on Allies, Aid Groups and Businesses

NYT By JAMES GLANZ and ANDREW W. LEHREN; December 21, 2013

petrarchan47tc 03:56, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

2013 in Review: The Year the NSA Finally Admitted Its "Collect It All" Strategy

They're probably already here, but just in case, a helpful list from EFF. petrarchan47tc 03:14, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Additional new sources

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

NSA capabilities with its TAO

There's more stuff about the NSA Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO) and other NSA stuff:

I'm glad German newspapers are publishing articles in English. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

ACLU sues US government

WhisperToMe (talk) 10:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to remove references not publicly available.

I wanted to verify the information listed in reference 111 but found that the link requires a WSJ login. I'm not sure if policy permits such links as references but either way I propose removing such links, find alternatives or remove the content which can't be verified. Sephiroth storm (talk) 04:39, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia explicitly allows references behind paywalls, though it's preferable to get refs without paywalls. However you can verify info by asking the friendly folks at Wikipedia:RX for the source. They'll send you a personal copy. WhisperToMe (talk) 11:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Sephiroth storm (talk) 13:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Section clarification.

I don't understand this: "Even if there is no reason to suspect U.S. citizens the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center is allowed to examine the government files of for possible criminal behavior. Previously the NTC was barred to do so, unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation."

The first part is unclear. If there is no reason to suspect a target is a US Citizen? The CIA and the NSA are both primarily focused on Non US citizens so it makes sense to target non US persons. Who exactly are you talking about? "is allowed to examine the government files of for possible criminal behavior." - government files of what? what files? A database, a system, what files? "unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation." What other reason would the files be accessed? Do we have reporting of the files being accessed for individuals who were not terror suspects or related to an investigation? I'd normally access the reference myself to see but, look above. Sephiroth storm (talk) 04:46, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Even though the NSA's charter is that it should only collect data on foreigners, it is also collecting data on US citizens in its mass surveillance efforts. The agency says that it is not intentional with US citizens but there is a lot of controversy about it. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:11, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

How the NSA Threatens National Security

From The Atlantic today: How the NSA Threatens National Security.

"U.S. government surveillance is not just about the NSA. The Snowden documents have given us extraordinary details about the NSA's activities, but we now know that the CIA, NRO, FBI, DEA, and local police all engage in ubiquitous surveillance using the same sorts of eavesdropping tools, and that they regularly share information with each other."
"We have no evidence that any of this surveillance makes us safer". petrarchan47tc 01:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

​Former NSA whistleblowers plead for chance to brief Obama on agency abuses

The letter: is here

"A group of former National Security Agency insiders who went on to become whistleblowers have written a letter to President Barack Obama, requesting a meeting with him to offer “a fuller picture” of the spy agency’s systemic problems.

The group of four intelligence specialists - William Binney, Thomas Drake, Edward Loomis and Kirk Wiebe - who worked at the NSA for “a total of 144 years, most of them at senior levels” stressed in the letter the need for Obama to address what they’ve seen as abuses that violated Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights and that have made proper, effective intelligence gathering more difficult.

“What we tell you in this Memorandum is merely the tip of the iceberg,” the group, calling themselves the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), wrote. “We are ready – if you are – for an honest conversation. That NSA’s bulk collection is more hindrance than help in preventing terrorist attacks should be clear by now despite the false claims and dissembling.”

The group criticized the NSA for its vast data collection policies, which they say bars the agency from effectively tracking actual terror plots in advance, such as the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2012." From RT. petrarchan47tc 00:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

partial impartiality

"On October 31, 2013, Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the German Bundestag, met Snowden in Moscow and revealed the former intelligence contractor's readiness to brief the German government on NSA spying."

If Germany is in bed with the NSA to the extent indicated in the article, why would it need a briefing from Snowden? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.16.6 (talk) 08:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

DROPOUTJEEP

NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone FORBES; By Erin Kain; 12.30.13

Includes video of Jacob Applebaum at the Chaos Communication Congress expanding on the NSA's abilities.

"And even the Apple iPhone — one of the most popular handheld devices in the world — can be exploited by the NSA, according to one of the classified documents, to let officials surreptitiously take pictures with the mobile’s camera or stealthy turn on its microphone, access text messages or listen to voicemail." petrarchan47tc 05:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
DROPOUTJEEP may be in need of creation, if there is enough RS. petrarchan47tc 23:25, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers

Latest leak: N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers New York Times; By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKERJAN. January 14, 2014 petrarchan47tc 09:13, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep

Latest from the Guardian:

  • NSA extracts location, contacts and financial transactions
  • Dishfire program sweeps up 'pretty much everything it can'
  • GCHQ using database to search metadata from UK numbers

petrarchan47tc 20:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Broken Redirect

Dishfire redirects here, yet the page makes no mention of it whatsoever 108.182.88.129 (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

There's a new page created for it here -A1candidate (talk) 22:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "bbc":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 23:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

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