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."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:05PM
So the most "reputable" source that this summary links to is The Register. The rest are even less reputable.
I don't get my news from Alex Jones. I don't get my news from FOX News. I try to get my news from much more reputable sources.
SoylentNews editors, please, let's try to focus on submissions that link to sites that are reputable.
If a submission links to questionable sites, especially if politics is involved (like in this case), pass on the submission.
We need more good submissions, like those from Hugh Pickens. He always writes really good summaries, and they link to reputable sources, too.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:41PM
I don't think that comment should be modded Flamebait. It makes some good points. I don't know who Duncan Campbell is. I don't know what Document Cloud is. I don't know what First Look is. I've heard of The Register before, but I don't know much about it other than I've seen Slashdot subs link there, which maybe should make me question it. Linking to better known news sources should be encouraged here. Linking to unknown news sources should be discouraged. If a link is made to an unknown news source then it should at least be backed up with a well known news source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:48PM
I don't think that comment should be modded ________. It makes some good points. I don't know ________ is. I don't know ________ is. I don't know ________ is. I've heard of ________ before, but I don't know much about it other than ___________________________________, which maybe should make me question it. Linking to better known news sources should be encouraged here. Linking to unknown news sources should be discouraged. If a link is made to an unknown news source then it should at least be backed up with a well known news source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:03AM
Let me give this word game a try.
Well it was kind of fun. But I think I like watching football more.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:42AM
You are replying to your own posts again - but at least you have dropped the pretence of being a different AC. The moderation of your story is a reflection of what members of the community think, the fact that it suffered initially might be due to your previous posting history.
I suspect that there are few alternative news sources because it was hoped that the meeting would have gone unnoticed - fortunately, that did not happen. However, there are some [rt.com]. Duncan Campbell is a well-known British journalist [wikipedia.org] who specialises in reporting such topics. As for "Linking to unknown news sources", perhaps you should broaden your reading material a little and then such sites would cease to be unknown, or were you intending to suggest more 'mainstream' news outlets? We have submitters from around the world and they often use local media reports as a basis for their stories. We do not maintain a list of acceptable news sources.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:23PM
Do they watch me when I peepee and poopoo?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:52PM
That comment is actually the most relevant, on-topic comment posted so far. Unlike all of the other comments, it actually addresses the issue of surveillance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:59PM
Sadly, the parent is correct. Too bad it was modded down.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @08:00AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:13AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:45AM
Hi, janrinok!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @02:29AM
Nice try. But still wrong.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:52AM
I don't post as AC, unless I annotate my comment with my username. Why should I hide, I'm meant to be approachable :)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:35PM
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?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:42PM
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
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
I modded you -1, Disagree.
-- Ethanol-fueled
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:56PM
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
> 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
You know what he meant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @07:59AM
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
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:39AM
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
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.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:07AM
The real issue is that everyone's just gone ahead and accepted System D.
Oh sure, everyone pissed and moaned for a few months, but now it's just accepted.
What the hell happened? Am I the last person on earth who gives a shit about ANYTHING?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:48AM
I started using FreeBSD, and I couldn't be happier. Since I don't use Linux any longer, why the fuck would I care about malware that only affects Linux?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @10:45AM
I'm with you, but you wait--they're already talking about porting system d over to the BSDs. Then what?
Also, note that I got modded -1 Offtopic.
I expected as much.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:08AM
I'll believe this translucency when it becomes actual action. Press releases have no bearing, law is ignored etc.. But action speaks volumes.
Otoh, watch out for the reversal in the next step..
Don't believe that it last forever. But it might.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:23AM
That's OUR f***g business model!
(signed)
Google
Apple
Microsoft
Samsung
telecoms
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:56AM
...but the writing is on the wall. Everyone should use secure comms, and if the govt wants to read your mail, get a warrant. Even in shill democracies like the UK, they can implement some decent reforms.
But secret meetings don't mean anything. The agenda is set before, and the meeting is only held to make everyone thing there is a choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @02:38AM
And the public asks: "did you do something good?", they answer: "yes, we did something good", whatever the F they did.
Illegal activities had been running for a long time (and continue at double pace now), and to calm the public they come up with "cold winds of transparency have arrived and are here to stay" bullshit. Or in other words: "we can't ever tell you what we did, but it was really really good. We thought about you all the time. We are your best friend. We spent days and nights working to protect you."
In reality, they must have decided on foolproof ways to protect themselves from any future Snowden. These people lied all the time, and they are lying now. They are simply "untrustworthy", never to be trusted again.
And how do we know they weren't meeting in an "English mansion" for the hookers and coke?