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posted by janrinok on Saturday May 23 2015, @10:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-what-I-was-expecting dept.

Representatives from Google, Apple, and Vodafone have attended a high-level and closed-door meeting at a mansion in Oxfordshire. On the agenda: the state of government surveillance and what to do about it:

The attendee list is impressive. Key speakers included former acting CIA boss John McLaughlin; former White House deputy chief of staff Mona Sutphen, the current and former heads of the UK's GCHQ; the current or former heads of intelligence agencies in Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Germany; and the EU's counter terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove.

The tech industry also sent representatives, including Google's legal director Richard Salgado; Jane Horvath, Apple's senior director of global privacy; and Apple's product security and privacy manager Erik Neuenschwander, as well as Vodafone's external affairs director Matthew Kirk. Some members of the press were also included on the roster. Duncan Campbell, who publishes hard-hitting exposés of government spying (including for The Register), David Ignatius from the Washington Post, the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera, and the historian Professor Timothy Garton Ash.

All participants were bound by Chatham House rules; an agreement not to publicly attribute comments to particular participants. The three-day meeting was held in an English country house, and no public minutes of the conversations will ever be published.

[...] Duncan Campbell told Snowden newsletter The Intercept that the meeting is a very positive sign and, while not going into too much detail, said that the conversations were very encouraging – perhaps the revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden are having a positive effect. "Away from the fetid heat of political posturing and populist headlines, I heard some unexpected and surprising comments from senior intelligence voices, including that 'cold winds of transparency' had arrived and were here to stay," he said. "Perhaps to many participants' surprise, there was general agreement across broad divides of opinion that Snowden – love him or hate him – had changed the landscape; and that change towards transparency, or at least 'translucency' and providing more information about intelligence activities affecting privacy, was both overdue and necessary."

 
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  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:35PM (#186999)

    I think that people have tired of the near-constant surveillance stories we get here and at other sites. Average people just don't care about it. Even techies don't care, or just assume it has always been happening. Maybe that is why there are so few comments for this story? There is nothing left to say about this topic?

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:42PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:42PM (#187004) Homepage

    There are so few comments because the story was just posted, dipshit.

    However, I do have an issue with this submission as well -- calling The Intercept a "Snowden Newsletter?!"

    Really? [firstlook.org] Really?! [firstlook.org] REALLY?!! [firstlook.org]

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:49PM (#187007)

      It was posted over an hour ago. That's lots of time for comments. But nobody cares about his issue any more. We've been exposed to it to the point of exhaustion. That's why all we can do is pick apart how useless this submission is.

      • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:53PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:53PM (#187009) Homepage

        I modded you -1, Disagree.

        -- Ethanol-fueled

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:56PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:56PM (#187011)

          At least you had the balls to admit to it. Good show, chap! Good show!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:22AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:22AM (#187033)

          > I modded you -1, Disagree.

          There is no such thing. Only +0 Disagree.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:39AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:39AM (#187038)

            You know what he meant.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:59AM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:59AM (#187111) Journal

        For most people this story was posted on a Saturday evening or Sunday morning. You'd be amazed at just how many people have lives outside of their basements. The comment count is about right for the time of day/week.

        More importantly, the story is significant because it indicates an acceptance by the security and intelligence services that they need to justify their demands for ever more data about us, and perhaps because the rift that has grown between commercial giants and various governments is obviously having an effect - if not, why would they need to discuss it?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:18AM (#187020)
    There are so few comments because there isn't much to talk about for this particular story. We have a closed door meeting between intelligence and industry bigwigs where the attendees haven't said anything really substantial about what was discussed. Yeah, and? Maybe later we'll hear about something substantive that came out of this but until then it's almost a non-story.
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:39AM (#187022)

      It shouldn't be on the front page, being an obvious non-story and all that.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:59AM (#187052)

    Mass surveillance violates people's fundamental liberties, and in many places, is illegal. Illegal surveillance that violates people's liberties is something we should all be talking about. Few other issues are as important as this.