"Microsoft announced yesterday their plans to encrypt customer data to prevent government snooping. Ya right. Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan questions the logic of trusting non-free software,
regardless of promises or even intent. He says, 'Microsoft has made
renewed security promises before. In the end, these promises are
meaningless. Proprietary software like Windows is fundamentally insecure
not because of Microsoft's privacy policies but because its code is
hidden from the very users whose interests it is supposed to secure. A
lock on your own house to which you do not have the master key is not a
security system, it is a jail. ... If the NSA revelations have taught us
anything, it is that journalists, governments, schools, advocacy
organizations, companies, and individuals, must be using operating
systems whose code can be reviewed and modified without Microsoft or any
other third party's blessing. When we don't have that, back doors and
privacy violations are inevitable.'"
And Government speak...
"Josh Gerstein writes on Politico that President Barack Obama told
Chris Matthews in an interview recorded for MSNBC's 'Hardball' that he'll be reining in some of the snooping conducted by the NSA,
but he did not detail what new limits he plans to impose on the
embattled spy organization. 'I'll be proposing some self-restraint on
the NSA. And...to initiate some reforms that can give people more
confidence,' said the President who insisted that the NSA's work shows
respect for the rights of Americans, while conceding that its activities
are often more intrusive when it comes to foreigners communicating
overseas. 'The NSA actually does a very good job about not engaging in
domestic surveillance, not reading people's emails, not listening to the
contents of their phone calls. Outside of our borders, the NSA's more aggressive. It's not constrained by laws.'
During the program, Matthews raised the surveillance issue by noting a
Washington Post report on NSA gathering of location data on billion of
cell phones overseas. 'Young people, rightly, are sensitive to the needs
to preserve their privacy and to retain internet freedom. And by the
way, so am I,' responded the President. 'That's part of not just our
First Amendment rights and expectations in this country, but it's
particularly something that young people care about, because they spend
so much time texting and-- you know, Instagramming.' With some at the
NSA feeling hung out to dry by the president, Obama also went out of his
way to praise the agency's personnel for their discretion. 'I want to
everybody to be clear: the people at the NSA, generally, are looking out
for the safety of the American people. They are not interested in
reading your emails. They're not interested in reading your text messages.
And that's not something that's done. And we've got a big system of
checks and balances, including the courts and Congress, who have the
capacity to prevent that from happening.'"
Modern truth revealer
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