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Fashion: T-Shirt: Text
I(heart)GCHQ t-shirt   (+2)  [vote for, against]

At last, the UK has a government that genuinely does listen to the people.

in a display of typical English even-handedness and fair play they they even listen to other people's people as well, as the G8 shows. Huzzah!

Buy the t-shirt - support your national intelligence agency. <starts waving a small Union Jack flag and humming the national anthem>
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 19 2013

'GCHQ' by Richard J Aldrich http://www.amazon.c...ywords=aldrich+GCHQ
Recommended reading. Many of these recent 'revelations' have actually been in the public domain for some while. It's just that not many people were paying attention. [DrBob, Jun 24 2013]

/government that listens to the people/ bun, lol.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 19 2013


but where do you draw the line ?

If I use a credit card to open a door and walk in, is that B&E if there's no damage ? How'bout if there's an open or unlocked window ?
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 19 2013


well, phone company records aren't meant for law enforcement, they're there for internal consistency. A cash-only ISP which rotated customer's IP's on a timeout basis, logless, would be useless to snoopers yet, presumably, legal.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 19 2013


I was more considering a quantifiable listening to the people gadget, with a big dial and a sign saying "I listened to [insert number] of the people today", which could run in the background every time the Prime Minister is on tv.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 19 2013


Assuming that Prism uses some powerful computers and cunning decryption software, perhaps SETI people should just email all their raw data to eachother and wait.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 19 2013


Or Zipf plot political speeches, would be interesting to see the result, contrasted with the calls of marmosets for example.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 20 2013


//Reading the text of the 4th Amendment, I really don't see how obtaining metadata of phone calls from a corporate entity constitutes a violation of individual privacy//

Skipped over the "probable cause" bit, did we ?

You look out your window and there's some guy in your backyard, not a utility worker, writing down your electric meter reading. That's okay because he's not actually watching you plug stuff in ?
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 20 2013


Quick analysis of TB WMD speech vs typical word frequency is fairly interesting. Most of the usual suspects are there, in a slightly different order, except for "we" and "I". We doesn't normally come in at 1.08%, and I is more usually 1.18% not 0.41%.

raw figures TB on the left, typical word freq on the right

the 5.64% - the 5.63%

to 3.31% - of 3.40%

of 3.29% - and 2.99%

and 2.09% - to 2.60%

is 1.90% - in 1.74%

in 1.80% - I 1.18%

a 1.64% - that 1.11%

that 1.62% - was 1.01%

we 1.08% - his 0.88%

it 0.98% - he 0.84%
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 20 2013


//he's in your yard// That's the point: _your_ yard. Your phone usage belongs to you and the company, not the government, not "business partners", unless explicitly authorized by both company and customer.

//Anything that's visible from a public space is fair game//

How about the driveway ? I got a ticket from the lawn police a few years ago for allowing the grass in the backyard to grow too long (I had, on purpose, to see if I could save a few bucks on grass seed by letting it germinate... doesn't work but that's another story). The yard isn't viewable from the street and it wouldn't be the neighbours.

Way I figger, some **** said to themselves "well a driveway is public space", and proceeded to help themselves to a good snoop session while I was out of the country, counting on the fact that the city won't tell you who made a complaint.

Anyways, that's a decent analogy: posties and utility workers have permission to walk on your property. Common sense extends that permission to people who are visiting you with no malice aforethought. Why would that extend to people who are there solely for the purpose of snooping around ?

Anyways, won't be too long before people are getting put on no-fly lists and the like because the voice analysis software can't transcribe them properly.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 20 2013


I greatly appreciate how readily you two completely skipped over my figures. Two hours faffing around with php and a spreadsheet.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 20 2013


Just clocked Snowden's onthe plane to Russia according to the HK newspapers.

No additional charge for this (news) service.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jun 23 2013


<phht> people directly behind would have had to wade through their pile of old oildrums and kitchen appliances to peer over their fence. Of course now my brother and all his friends decided to use the place as a party house so the neighbours really do have something to complain about, and I haven't touched the yard in a few years 'cuz I ain't cleaning up their shit.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 23 2013



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