Digital Duck & Cover

First of all, time to gloat! Beat the New York Times to it with plain logic!

We said in the post "More secret than PRISM: Project YAWN" that all the talk of "back doors" was babble, and we feel so confirmed by the New York Times piece that came up while we were sleeping.

The K-Landnews RR (Random Research, or Arr! Arr!) team had a look at the surveillance brouhaha in the media and the reactions of the European politicians.

Digital Duck & Cover across Europe by politicians.

Nothing has shut them up like this in the short lifetime of TheEditor.

We have elected a bunch of people who feel like heroes when they finally support gay marriage or who will protect the country from a few thousand poor migrants from other European Union countries, but they totally disappear when life gets really interesting.

In Germany, the only politician who apparently did not get the Shut the F**k up Memo was the Agriculture Secretary. Worried that German cows with an internet connection -- they exist! --might be spied on, she said something about the responsibility of the big internet names, and someone said they should "look into" whether Germans were affected by the Prism.

Just as logic won the day in our front door poke, we will tell you right here: yes, Germans were affected.

Please, prove us wrong. You'll get the Susan B. Anthony dollar (minus shipping and handling). That piece of monetary hardware is still in our drawer.

To be fair to our officials, the world ain't a simple place, and we did not personally elect any of them -- being foreigners and such.


As an American citizen in Germany, after a couple of years, your file with the immigration folks is likely to be anywhere from 5 to 20 pages thick.

As a German citizen in the U.S. you should not be surprised to see a file of about 500 to 1000 pages after a couple of years.

We spoke to a friend of the K-Landnews (abbreviated as FK) to get some insight into who does what with your data as a non-US citizen. Like for all interviews real or fake of the K-Landnews, the language is edited to such an extent that the best text analysis software out there will return a "single individual" with a likelihood of 99%.  It's our way of having fun with the old internet.

K: What are your qualifications with regard to the topic?

FK: None. Or rather none that I want to elaborate on.

K: Well...that is a credential right there, just kidding, let's cut through the chase. What is your opinion on the data collection debate?

FK: I don't want to address the legality of any of that, it's not my business, and you can fix any legal system anyway. I find it outright hilarious that the Europeans have zero backbone. A few days before Prism became public, the Russians wanted passenger data for all flights out of Europe that fly over or land in Russia. You should have heard the Western Europeans yell foul. We get this data, no questions asked.

K: So, you see it from the perspective of power?

FK: Of course. Look at what we call the Visa Waiver program for the US. If you live in one of the privileged countries you have to get a pre-approval ID.
Where do you think the data collected for this go? How does Fort Meade sound, and what do you think happens with them there?

K: It is all legal, isn't it?

FK: Let's just say it is all perfectly legal. The point is that you don't know what happens once you click submit. Let me give you a couple of other examples. If you work at the European office of an American defense company, don't you assume that someone runs a data set or two through the big box?
Or, if you work as a non-US citizen for the American military anywhere on the planet, be it Italy or Turkey or Iraq, your personnel file has a line that contains the two words "Fort Meade", and you really want that part of the file to say that there is no record.

K: That's standard procedure, correct?

FK: It is, and perfectly reasonable, too. I use it to illustrate that you as a foreigner can be in the NSA database without ever having been to the US, without having a hint of threat about you. What do you think happens with the fingerprints and the picture they take when you enter the US?

K: In your opinion, did Prism sweep up any records of German citizens?

FK: Can I prove it in writing? No. But for all intents and purposes, you should assume it. For simple technical reasons first. Big data are not easy to handle, even if you get big bucks for fancy machines and big brains. And the other thing is, when are you a foreigner and when are you not? If you are in the US on any sort of visa, where the waiver is a visa by another name, you are a foreigner, so are you under the Prism, or under a slightly different program that uses the same hardware, or do you enjoy the same freedoms as American citizens?

K: What is your opinion on the British use of Prism?

FK: It's obvious. Your earlier post about Britain as the potential 51st state of US was a bit closer to reality than you thought, wasn't it? They open themselves up to all sorts of new accusations -- for example, take Wikileaks and Assange, there may be no connection whatsoever, but if you accuse the Brits and the US of some sort of deal that links using Prism and sticking it to Assange, they can deny but who believes them?

K: Do you think German intelligence made use of Prism?

FK: I don't know, maybe not as blatantly as the Brits, but data are data, and if you are a German spook, would you ask how certain data were obtained?

K: You do not expect more openness?

FK: Why would anybody want to? They believe, they have nothing to gain from transparency and honesty. Mr. Obama picked his battles, health care and gay rights for snooping, and you should pick yours, too. You are pretty safe as long as nothing goes very wrong.

K: If it does?

FK: Then you need influential friends, or you are just fucked.

K: That's not encouraging.

FK: Just live your life as best as you can, you have enough on your plate as is. In most countries, you are more likely to die in a car accident than in some spook run dungeon. And for Ms. Merkel or Mr. Cameron, news about a program like Prism is a great reminder of how powerless they really are. Their job is to bail out banks and regulate the curvature of bananas. Even the most bland United States lawmaker has more power than they ever will. Just chill.

K: Is the world more secure than twelve years ago?

FK: No. If my government has nothing better to do than sift through incredible mountains of data of people as boring as myself, it is not productive. I am grateful I had the opportunity to be close to power when I was, and there are some great people there, but many of those don't last. The others enjoy power, and they are very caught up in the games, you can get serious tunnel vision.

K: What about the claim that lives were saved?

FK: They don't tell us anything about it, so I do not believe it. There were claims that torture had given great results, and then they backpedaled. Now, they have once again given the conspiracy theorists an early Christmas.  But that's not even all of it. Every single day, things happen where you can ask yourself, can they do that? Yes, we can.

K: Are you saying the wingnuts are right?

FK: No, but there are common interests between the various actors, political parties, foreign governments, corporations, that mesh well. At least, the conspiracy theorists should see that the dreaded United Nations world government won't happen. Maybe, we'll look back one day and say, this is how the first half-world government started, but it doesn't matter to you or me.

K: Can we finish with your thoughts on Utah?

FK: With my guess, sure. I would use one part of Utah to try to get to a real time location system for everybody on the watch lists as well as immediate contacts. I am not going beyond this, sorry. Again, it doesn't matter to you or me, the old Roman panem et circensis works well enough thousands of years later. Please, respect the whistleblowers, they can be the loneliest people on the planet. Live your life, it is short, take care of your loved ones, and let the bullies play government among themselves. Not what the Founding Fathers intended but they did add  the pursuit of happiness.

One more thing:
Quick question,  the acronym Prism is clear when you have the PRISM logo next to it, but, look, if you close your eyes and your pronunciation ain't exactly spot on, do you realize what you get? If you don't understand, talk to a linguist near you.