The thing is, there *are* tools that most of us can access that well protects our commsec. For whatever one might want to do in a web like environment there is TOR, for accessing computers directly and securely there is PuTTY, through which one can port almost anything. We need to use these tools just as 'regular folks' with 'nothing to hide'. What this will accomplish is increasing the overall encrypted traffic which then causes less attention to be drawn towards users of strong encryption. The parallel issue is transaction analysis, that 'meta data' the talking heads keep going on about, the gleaning of information from knowing the who, where, when of communications events even if the content was not recorded or obscured, may well be best addressed by that Dinosaur of internet protocols, USENET.
This issue has become a matter of what can we do now that we've been slapped in the face with the knowledge that the government spies on us. Taking a care to one's own communications security is always, ultimately, one's own responsibility. Snowden remarked on this when he said to a question, that 'strong encryption is about the only thing you can still count on' while also noting that 'end point security' was pretty much hash everywhere thus explaining how the NSA is able to compromise our messages and calls. Regardless of any political pressure we might gin up to bring the Spooks to heel, I'm not discounting the effort, I think the wide-spread adoption of Secure Communications Practices serves us well on several fronts. A measured civil disobedience action being not the least of these.
Given that the colonel's heavy weapons were bought from us, (okay, mostly from the French and Russians) with funds garnered from selling Libyan oil to us, (okay, the Italians burn most of it but being liquid, the commodity is traded globally), I'd say we 'western industrialized' peoples bear a certain responsibility for his predations, or at least his ability to do so with artillery and air bombardment. Leveling the fight is thus, in my view, valid. The Libyan Opposition has had a month of combat to start to figure out how its done and it is they who must carry the fight to whatever conclusion. I'm still disheartened when I see video of brave young men rushing off to the fight, shooting into the air and not a one of them carrying a shovel. War is a hard lesson but accelerates the soldier building process. The Libyan opposition forces at least have a chance now. They are in much better shape politically and my hope is that they can be generous in victory, leading to a reconciliation amongst the people.
The thing is, there *are* tools that most of us can access that well protects our commsec. For whatever one might want to do in a web like environment there is TOR, for accessing computers directly and securely there is PuTTY, through which one can port almost anything. We need to use these tools just as 'regular folks' with 'nothing to hide'. What this will accomplish is increasing the overall encrypted traffic which then causes less attention to be drawn towards users of strong encryption. The parallel issue is transaction analysis, that 'meta data' the talking heads keep going on about, the gleaning of information from knowing the who, where, when of communications events even if the content was not recorded or obscured, may well be best addressed by that Dinosaur of internet protocols, USENET.
This issue has become a matter of what can we do now that we've been slapped in the face with the knowledge that the government spies on us. Taking a care to one's own communications security is always, ultimately, one's own responsibility. Snowden remarked on this when he said to a question, that 'strong encryption is about the only thing you can still count on' while also noting that 'end point security' was pretty much hash everywhere thus explaining how the NSA is able to compromise our messages and calls. Regardless of any political pressure we might gin up to bring the Spooks to heel, I'm not discounting the effort, I think the wide-spread adoption of Secure Communications Practices serves us well on several fronts. A measured civil disobedience action being not the least of these.
Given that the colonel's heavy weapons were bought from us, (okay, mostly from the French and Russians) with funds garnered from selling Libyan oil to us, (okay, the Italians burn most of it but being liquid, the commodity is traded globally), I'd say we 'western industrialized' peoples bear a certain responsibility for his predations, or at least his ability to do so with artillery and air bombardment. Leveling the fight is thus, in my view, valid. The Libyan Opposition has had a month of combat to start to figure out how its done and it is they who must carry the fight to whatever conclusion. I'm still disheartened when I see video of brave young men rushing off to the fight, shooting into the air and not a one of them carrying a shovel. War is a hard lesson but accelerates the soldier building process. The Libyan opposition forces at least have a chance now. They are in much better shape politically and my hope is that they can be generous in victory, leading to a reconciliation amongst the people.