Silicon Valley appears open to helping US spy agencies after terrorism summit

[Chef Eric]

Source: The Guardian

Technology giants appeared to be open to helping the US government combat Islamic State during an extraordinary closed-door summit on Friday that brought together America’s most senior counter-terrorism officials with some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives. The remarkable rendezvous between Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and others and a delegation from the White House revealed a willingness on the part of tech firms to work with the government, and indicated that the Obama administration appears to have concluded it can’t combat terrorists online on its own.

A briefing document sent to tech executives Friday morning in advance of the meeting and shared with the Guardian laid out a wish list from the government delegation, which included America’s most senior spy, director of national intelligence James Clapper.

“We are interested in exploring all options with you for how to deal with the growing threat of terrorists and other malicious actors using technology, including encrypted technology,” the briefing document said. “Are there technologies that could make it harder for terrorists to use the internet to mobilize, facilitate, and operationalize?”

Despite recent fights over civil liberties, encryption, and surveillance, tech executives appeared receptive to this message, according to sources familiar with conversations at the meeting.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/08/technology-executives-white-house-isis-terrorism-meeting-silicon-valley-facebook-apple-twitter-microsoft

---

Just one more story that shows we are living in a surveillance state.

Sometimes it seems as though the Patriot Act was a metaphorical opening of Pandora's Box, and that we can never go back to that time in which the fourth amendment was taken seriously.

I believe this is just one more reason to vote for Bernie Sanders, the candidate who voted against the Patriot Act... twice. Not that Sanders can turn back the clock, of course. But he at least he understands that we have a serious problem on our hands.

[houston16revival]

1. Safeguards

could have been implemented to uphold the fourth amendment while
still gathering terrorist intelligence. Making such gathered evidence inadmissible
or sequestered if unrelated to terrorism, for example. Not one politician went there.

[JonLeibowitz]

2. Perhaps, but not when it comes to strong encryption, as Tim Cook points out.

[Bernin]

4. That's b/c

it was never about terrorism to start with. If you recall, the patriot act was sitting on a shelf just waiting for an opportunity.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. No, we live in a de facto police state

Last edited Fri Jan 8, 2016, 11:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I have been saying it for years.

Now we are being sold out utterly by the oligarchs to keep the political class happy.

[JDPriestly]

5. Yes. Some years ago I googled the name of a guy I dated in college in the 1960s.

Months, maybe even more, later, I went to visit a friend of mine. She had attended my wedding with my husband of 50 years and worked for a company that was part of the defense industry. She introduced me to a "friend" and "co-worker" of hers who asked me about the man whose name I had Googled.

Very strange. Very strange. I still have no idea what became of the guy I dated in college. I'm not about to google his name again.

I'm just an ordinary person. I've never worked for the government or been in the military but I did live overseas for a number of years. Still. . . . .

This was a very strange experience. I had another strange experience after I signed up for Facebook. Very odd.

[GoneFishin]

6. "terrorism summit"? More like "Arm twisting and horse trading summit."

“We are interested in exploring all options with you for how to deal with the growing threat of terrorists..."

What a bunch of bullshit. Deal with the tsunami of murders by cops first. It's obviously a much, much bigger danger to human life, and a cancer rotting the country from within.