[Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 6:21 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> No, massive amounts of information about people doing ordinary
>> things like editing articles about Homer Simpson is kind of the opposite
>> of intelligence; it IS the haystack, not the needle.
>>
>
> And yet, PRISM is exactly about collecting the full haystack.  And it makes
> sense, if you ignore the privacy implications:  Collect everything in your
> multi-zetabyte storage device, even if you aren't going to analyze it right
> away.

And we give every needle a distinct and descriptive name.

> And yeah, editing articles about Homer Simpson is one thing.  Editing
> articles about the Tea Party, on the other hand...

Or DeCSS, or AACS, ..

Or 2012 Benghazi attack, Efforts to impeach Barack Obama, Drone
attacks in Pakistan, ..

Or PRISM (surveillance program), Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, ..

It would be good *if* the WMF can provide assurances to editors that
they havent received any national security letters or other 'trawling'
requests from any U.S. agency.

If the WMF has received zero such requests, can the WMF say that?
There wouldn't be any gag order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter says that the
gag orders were struck down, pending appeal.  That means we may have
to wait a while..

--
John Vandenberg