This is a Wikiproject "focusing on spying on whole populations of people, especially when a government spies on its own population or allied populations." --HectorMoffet (talk) 01:11, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Surely surveillance of non-allied populations is in scope? (also, "spying on whole populations" is rather POV and hard to define in practice: one man's wicked "spy" is another's dutiful "analyst", and what's a "whole population"?). Nick-D (talk) 07:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
A "whole population" is "basically everybody in a nation". A word like "Surveillance" would probably be more NOV than spying, you're right. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:08, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
This quotation from (Columbia School of Journalism with editors from NYT, Guardian US, legal council for Guardian, member of Presidential panel for NSA reforms) begins to uncover how this issue is vitally important to Wikipedians - who couldn't do a thing without a free and open press:
In a larger sense, though, what information is or is not classified, and what legal protections reporters may or may not have, are beside the point—as these NSA stories have revealed. [The Guardian’s outside counsel, David] Schulz responded to [Washington Post reporter Barton] Gellman’s concerns with this frightening truth: “The technology that we have today, you don’t need to subpoena a reporter anymore. There’s an ability to find out who gave out any information,” said Schulz. “And we should all be very concerned about that, because we all need whistleblowers…. If we don’t have a mechanism that allows for whistleblowers, our whole society is going to suffer.” [...]
[Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center at the journalism school] agreed: “Where oversight has failed, a whistleblower and journalism has succeeded,” she said. “And yet the system is still wanting to punish, if you like, the one thing which has led to transparency and clarity.”
“But that should be completely unsurprising,” [The New York Times Jill] Abramson jumped in, citing the fact that the current administration has investigated seven “criminal leaks,” more than twice the number of such investigations, based on a law passed in 1917, pursued before President Obama took office. That such legal battles were still being fought by James Rosen, of Fox News, and James Risen, of the Times, were mentioned several times throughout the evening. [...]
“Instead of the position that journalists find themselves in where they’re being threatened with prosecution over identifying their sources, we are now being put in the position of something even more chilling—of being ‘co-conspirators,’” said Gibson. The accusation is now “‘You’re part of a conspiracy, possibly involving the KGB, or maybe China. Because the ordinary way of chilling journalism won’t work in this case. And I think this should be profoundly worrying, because that’s not going to stop. That is a ‘Journalism After Snowden’ problem.”
Reviews of Columbia Journalism School "Journalism After Snowden":
Bill Moyers: What the Press Should Learn From the “Snowden Effect” "the Snowden revelations and their subsequent publication haven’t just had an impact on issues of privacy and national security. They’ve also occasioned a re-awakening of a debate about the role of journalism (and journalists) in a democracy and its relationship to authority."
"Snowden wartet auf Asylangebot aus Deutschland." Stern. December 22, 2013. - A blog summary stated that Snowden says that after the Secret Service Committee, he believes Congress will be unable to meaningfully reform the intelligence community, but it would be nice for a German user to tell us what it says
First, I am both pleased to see this, and worried - we have too many inactive projects as this is. But let's hope for the best. With this, I have few tips on my years of experience running several WikiProjects:
WikiProjects need active members. Active members will come through advertising (create and add WikiProject template to all related articles), but they won't stay unless this project is useful. Usefulness comes from discussions (editors replying to queries here quickly), fun activities (competitions, newsletters, barnstars) and useful tools.
Useful tools to add:
Articles: don't list them manually, use a dynamically generated list by User:JL-Bot (that said, I haven't been able to figure out how to make it pretty yet, so I cannot even link to a nice working example on any of my WikiProjects)
Other comments: WikiProject page should be made more friendly and less confusing, see my WikiProjects at WP:POLAND and WP:SOCIO for some ideas. In particular: "Open tasks" does not state what needs to be done. Presumably those are articles to expand/create, but newbies will be confused. That said, such lists are often not maintained, so I suggest just piping to a dynamic list, see what I did at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Poland#Articles_in_need_of_improvement.
Just to add to some of the excellent points made by user: Piotrus above I wanted to say I am impressed to see so much progress on what seems to be a new wikiproject.
Also, sinceI am one of the few editors who routinely tag articles I find with wikiproject banners of projects that I do not belong to, I just wanted to mention it is not clear to me which articles belong here. XOttawahitech (talk) 16:28, 5 February 2014 (UTC) who found this project through a posting made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council
A good shortcut
After getting tired of typing Wikipedia:WikiProject Mass Surveillance, I've gone ahead and made a shortcut at WP:SETEC. It's easy for me to remember, "Security technology" or "Sensor techniques". But we should think about a very short shortcut that would make sense to everyone. --HectorMoffet (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Article taken down by The Guardian: deals to hand over private data to America
This article:
Doward, Jamie. "Revealed: secret European deals to hand over private data to America." The Observer. Saturday 29 June 2013. -- (Archive) Which includes commentary from Wayne Madsen
About Madsen: "He went on to say that seven European countries and the U.S. have access to a fiberoptic cable network, intercepting phone calls, emails, and user logs from websites. The article describes Madsen as having "been attacked for holding controversial views on espionage issues." That's a light way of putting it. Some of Madsen's controversial views include the belief that President Obama is secretly a homosexual and that the Boston bombing suspects were government agents. He's also reported on a "former CIA agent" alleging the 2000 USS Cole bombing was perpetrated not by al Qaeda terrorists, but by a missile fired from an Israeli submarine."
I'm not sure what to make of this. To be sure, the Business Insider article reads to me like a character assassination. They've picked out the two articles and one tweet the guy ever sent that sound most nuts. However nuts they may sound out of context, it is clear that his works were based on documented oddities like photos of young Obama wearing a wedding ring [http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/obama-wedding-ring-mystery-dates-to-harvard/] rather than being random outbursts. I've seen this kind of cyberbullying on Wikipedia --- at some point, we must decide whether we're going to always allow ourselves be swayed by dossier politics, or learn to evaluate the writing rather than the writer. That said, the writing doesn't really say that much: the Five Eyes program is nothing new, and the description of the "Nine Eyes" in UKUSA Agreement closely matches the description of Germany and France as "third parties" in Madsen's article. So the most likely reason why the Guardian might have pulled the article is either that they were cowed by the imminent bullying, or else decided that a report like this just isn't news any more. Wnt (talk) 12:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm also curious about what they said. Unfortunately I haven't found any more info about the pulling. Also it was pulled the same day it was posted (29 June 2013). WhisperToMe (talk) 05:43, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't think I understand what you're asking, but if you go to http://archive.is/ea5wf you can read the article, and save it from your browser if that's what you want/meant. On second thought, those captures may have been made after the Guardian had deleted the story: they came from Google's cache. —rybec08:10, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I don't like the way the high-res JPEG version looks as a thumbnail. There's a Moiré effect and the colours look drab. The SVG version has had the latitude and longitude lines added. —rybec08:18, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
I fiddled with the graphic, now posted at right. Someone with any aptitude for art could do a far better job emphasizing the idea that the octopus is prying up puzzle pieces to make his Wikipedia globe, which admittedly is scarcely visible. Wnt (talk) 22:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
Looks like there's some work to be done! :) Wnt (talk) 01:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC
Note: you can get more out of some of these entries by manually adding "?action=history". It's a Wiki, even if a lot of navigation links are missing... [though actually, it looks like an admin there undid most of the vandalism - out of the entries up to c5i, only a tiny stub about probably non-notable Brian Masterson was still vandalized. Wnt (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
Cell phone kill switch
According to [3][4][5], California has a proposal to force phone manufacturers to include a switch to disable a stolen phone. Of course, my question is about the details: the first source suggests that this is a way to force manufacturers to make phones that can't really be shut off. (Using cell phones that are "off" to spy on conversations seems to be one of the basic spy Holy Grails, isn't it? And aren't some of them already working like that?) Anyway - do we have any articles along this line? Wnt (talk) 21:56, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
The Information Week article says "In order to be effective, this kill switch could not be easily disabled by switching a device off or into airplane mode. As a consequence, any person carrying an always-on device becomes always trackable." It could be mentioned in the mobile phone tracking article. —rybec23:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
If it allows transmissions while in airplane mode, the device violates FAA (and equivalent regulatory agencies in many other countries) regulations, and thus cannot be brought on a commercial air carrier. Plus, of course, there is the fact that if you cannot remove the battery, carrying a spare battery becomes useless. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Partnership between Wikimedia community and Tor community
Does this project agree that Portal:Mass surveillance should be used in all articles about mass surveillance? What will happen if other projects are against portals? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:50, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, the place I see portals for other projects is in their banners, so I've just altered Template:WikiProject Mass surveillance to include it. The image is a little trickier... you have to mess with a protected module that affects many pages, placing it under the first letter of the project name, i.e. I don't want to replace the puzzle piece until I'm a little more sure we're going with this name (also should verify the icon works) Wnt (talk) 15:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
That one is in my userspace so I could play around with it, but I've moved a version to Template:User Mass Surveillance. I did it quickly just using the logo image I'm seeing around here. Does anyone have artistic skills that could create a vector graphics version of the Wikiproject logo that has less details (and thus looks less busy when shrunk down small like this)? Can we decide on a background color? I chose grey because it is neutral, but it looks a bit bland to me. 0x0077BE (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm here to help
I think (and hope) that you'll find my recent changes to The Day We Fight Back are a net improvement to that article. If I have happened to alter or delete content you feel is important, then I apologize in advance. Let's resolve our content disputes amicably. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:09, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Addition to Bio Section
Would anyone mind if I added Richard Ledgett, to the bio section? I think he would be relevant to this wikiproject because he is the Deputy Director of the NSA, headed the official NSA investigation of the Snowden leaks and most of the sources regarding him focus on his involvement and position on NSA surveillance programs.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Seems appropriate to me. That said, we should probably also try to branch out of US Mass surveillance, get some Iron Curtain domestic spying agency chiefs, North Koreans, Chinese, Iranian, etc. I've added a few things to the list so far figuring we're in rapid-growth mode and should be identifying many articles in scope. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 06:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Picture Needed
I've been expanding the Draft:Barack Obama on mass surveillance page, and it really needs a picture or two. Has anyone come across a picture from Obama's Jan 17 NSA speech that was either taken by a government official or released into the Creative Commons? (I would rather use a non-copyrighted photograph if at all possible)Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Probably not quite what you were looking for, but you could possibly take a screen capture of this public domain video of the event. Lighting seems a bit dodgy but I didn't download the mp4, might be some artifact of the youtube upload process or whatever quality I was watching it at. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 05:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
I've added some information on Obama’s statements (plus enough information on reactions to ensure that the article can easily survive an AfD). At this point, I believe the article can easily stand on its own as a start class. Would anyone be interested in going over the article for quality control purposes? Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
"Why Reddit moderators are “censoring” Glenn Greenwald’s latest bombshell "
Thanks for posting this. It's good to see Greenwald turn up again, even if I can't shake the feeling that he's simply been banned from the media and is resorting to something about one step above USENET postings. It is worth highlighting the original article (so far as I can tell): https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ . This article has one of those leaked powerpoint presentations that, by including lots of social science, seems hard to believe has real meaning. Failing to understand it in any concerted way, I'm going to try to pick out epitopes (Wikilinks) from it:
JTRIG - source of the document and of the alleged manipulations. However Greenwald later cites a similar proposal from an "Obama confidant" [6]Cass Sunstein and says that Sunstein was then appointed to the NSA review panel citing [7]. I don't command-F his name there though.
"Discredit a target": "Set up a honey-trap, change their photos on social networking sites, write a blog purporting to be one of their victims, Email/text their colleagues, neighbors, friends etc." (This sounds like classic COINTELPRO, but it seems really prone to exposure. I mean, someone has to writes these blogs and hack into these accounts...) Is there a name for fake victim blogs and deceptive emails? Do we have an article about those kinds of things, at least when kids do them to each other?
"Discredit a company": "Leak confidential information to companies/the press via blogs etc., Post negative information on appropriate forums, Stop deals/ruin business relationships". I feel kind of sorry GCHQ stopped explaining this one - these tactics are a lot more useful for the Populace At Large against the spies than the other way around. :) Again, stumped for names.
"Effects: definition": "Use online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world. Two broad categories:"
"the 4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive" (I'm sorely tempted to classify all the boneheads on Wikipedia and elsewhere as GCHQ, but I rather suspect that the latter is the subset of the former!)
Later on JTRIG is divided into Online HUMINT, Strategic influence, and Disruption and CNA on the slide after HSOC is introduced. (From Wikipedia: CNA = Computer network operations topic "computer network attack" to "disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy" - the 4 Ds we see later - the information or the computers or networks themselves) So now the operations are divided two, three, and four ways. I sure hope the agents sharpened their pencils before class. But wait, there's more:
Online HUMINT is classified under 'magic techniques and experiment' simply enough as individual, group, and global; "Influence and info ops" is divided into psychology, deception, performance, media; disruption and CNA into "professionalism elegance creativity intuition". Shoot, anyone remember the meanings of all the minor Tarot cards?
Redacted names: Very unfortunately, this document is censoring out the names of those directly involved. The text is "Cyber Offsensive Session: Pushing the Boundaries and Action against Hacktivism" by " ---- Serious Crime Effects, GCHQ" and " ---- JTRIG, GCHQ". There's a chance this title is searchable somewhere else...
Greenwald throws in a possible irrelevancy about the PayPal 14, who have apparently been charged with FELONY counts of hitting the "reload" button on their browser. [8] For fuck's sake, has America no real terrorists for a case like this?
The question is likewise raised about Anonymous per se. I didn't see the proof these tactics are aimed that way, but I might have missed something; in any case Greenwald cites [9]
Gambits for deception: a 5x5 matrix is given; I won't copy it all here but note Haversack ruse, Cialdini+2. I'm not sure if this is a series, i.e. "simulate the action, simulate the outcome, time-shift perceived behavior, divorce behavior from outcome, channel behavior" seems like a progression. Wonder where this came from - I doubt they thought it up on their own.
Pulling a group apart relies on "personal power, pre-existing cleavages, competition, ideological differences". No great surprise.
What is surprising is that on preview, we actually have a few blue links! And now, the possibility of getting some more. If we take their magic and make it understood to all, it won't be magic any more. Wnt (talk) 23:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Analysis
OK, to begin with, I run into seven principles of scams (not 20!) in juxtaposition with Cialdini at this page: [10] I have a feeling some GCHQ person/people may have attended [11] where this was presented, what with the other presentations on terrorism, PGP, etc.
Tracking some concepts like ACNO and "key skill strands" seems harder to do - I find someone else moaning he can't find it.
Uh, first off, that's not what canvassing is. Second off, this article is within the scope of this WikiProject and rated at mid-importance, so if there's a dispute it's very reasonable to post about it here. Wnt's message was perfectly neutral, and it's not even at the point of any kind of vote like an AfD or RfC, so (s)he is just asking for a few more editors to join the conversation, not to sway a vote. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 06:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
The largest portion of this article that I am removing is a list of 85 organizations that SWU lists on its website - aside from the fact that this is likely WP:Promotion, Wikipedia is not about regurgitating an organization's website - a link to the website is sufficient.(Hyperionsteel (talk)06:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC))
First off, assume good faith here. It's probably not promotion. Half the list is also recreated in the VentureBeat article linked, indicating that it's the sort of significant information that you'd publish in a news article, which is an even lower bar than inclusion in an encyclopedia. You can argue about how reliable a source that is or the editorial merit of including a large list of supporters, but it's a bit hyperbolic to just assume that it's promotional.
Second, this is a discussion that should be had on, you know, the talk page. Where the conversation is already happening, and where you've already made that point. If we have a whole conversation about it here, later editors won't be able to follow the discussion. I'll mirror my comments from above onto the talk page so you can respond there. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 06:51, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this was canvassing. WP:CANVAS says, right up front: "However, canvassing which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate." No doubt, this was an appropriate forum to request comment, but it was done non-neutrally with the intention of influencing the outcome of the discussion in Wnt's favor. Wnt's wording was designed as an alert to attract editors who would be opposed to the deletion of portions of an article. Also, notice the timing; Wnt's notice here came a mere 9 minutes after I had chimed in at the discussion and consensus was turning against him/her. (My first comment was at 15:44, Wnt's notice here was at 15:53.) This doesn't seem like a coincidence. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:44, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
You're saying that a simple declaration of the proposed changes, followed by the statement "Can someone else have a look at this, thanks" is a non-neutral statement? That's a bit of a stretch. Maybe characterizing it as "delete half the article" could be construed as non-neutral, but that is what's being done and most people on Wikipedia have probably seen situations where doing so is appropriate (in fact, I went over there and mostly agreed with the decision, though not necessarily the reasoning). You'll also notice that there's only 3 editors there, so it's hardly like the "consensus was turning against him", it's just that an additional person came in. This is very common behavior and frankly executed with a much more neutral tone than most would. It's hyperbolic to call this canvassing. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 07:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
No, it fits the definition to a T. The fact that there were only 3 editors involved and the language used wasn't as bad as it could have been is irrelevant. I'm also concerned that this WikiProject is dominated by editors of a particular POV. Call me hypersensitive, but this has been going on a lot lately. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Not as bad as it could have been? How exactly is it even bad? It's a perfectly neutral statement, it's only non-neutral if people have an anti-deletion bias, which is something I don't think you can assume. It seems like your second statement is what makes you think this is canvassing, in which case you don't agree that this is the appropriate forum for such a notification, and that even the most neutral notification would not be appropriate. I don't know if you noticed, but we seem to have reached a compromise almost immediately and almost as a direct result of Wnt's post here - a compromise which involves deleting the list. Given that his/her notification was worded neutrally and the result wasn't a POV attack squad but rather editors reaching a consensus on the matter at issue, and the fact that you acknowledge that the forum was appropriate, maybe we can give Wnt benefit of the doubt here. Regarding the timing, it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to assume that Wnt saw that the conflict was heating up as more people were getting involved, and he/she merely wanted to bring in more interested parties to give their comments on the situation. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 08:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
In response to: "It's a perfectly neutral statement, it's only non-neutral if people have an anti-deletion bias, which is something I don't think you can assume." Wnt is quite up-front with his/her anti-deletion bias. Just do a text search for "deletionist" at User talk:Wnt. Notice some examples:
"in this case (and most others) the debate is really between inclusionists and deletionists"
"I always see the conflict as inclusionist-versus deletionist - even though I know some people push for inclusion or deletion of details based on the viewpoint they favor, my desire is always to see as much information as possible covered."
"the number one requirement for peace is to reject deletionism and let editors work side by side building, rather than tearing down each others' work"
"on Wikipedia, the main "sides" worth speaking of are still the inclusionists and the deletionists."
I would find this to be a much more valid point if this were WikiProject: Deletionism, but it's not. You can expect probably the same mix of inclusionists vs. deletionists here as you would anywhere and so it's not like it was a tailored message for us here. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 18:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Wnt isn't the only anti-deletionist member of this wikiproject, and I haven't noticed any "pro-deletionist" behavior here either. What's more important is that there is a near-total dominance of anti-surveillance members who have supported Wnt in the past. Also, ultimately what we're talking about is Wnt's intention, not the reaction of other forum participants. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "anti-surveillance members" who have supported Wnt in the past". The fact is that the statement was a declarative statement that accurately depicts what's happening. How would you have worded it? It wasn't just about the removal of the list of names, but also about other changes to the article, largely removal of content. Maybe not "deletion of half the article" but "removal of large sections"? The fact is that this is an appropriate place to put such a notice, and there's no reason to suspect that this is an anti-deletionist stronghold or anything, so I really don't find it particularly slanted.
As for the question of intentions, this all goes to the plausibility of Wnt's actions as being purely good faith. WP:AGF is Wikipedia's equivalent of "innocent until proven guilty", and I think that you need a lot more proof than a slightly anti-deletionist but still entirely accurate wording to get me or others to sign on to the idea that this was canvassing. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 19:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Ha ha, "slightly" anti-deletionist. Read what Wnt wrote at User talk:Wnt, and then try to write that again with a straight face. Don't damage your own credibility over such a trifling matter. Please respect my feelings and we can agree to disagree. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not talking about what Wnt has written before. If this is some personal crusade against Wnt and this WikiProject then it's even more inappropriate. We can't "agree to disagree" when you've put a canvassing template on the page of interest and appear to be attempting to bring your preconceived biases to the table. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 20:24, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Now we're getting into personal attack land. My apologies, I misread what you wrote about "slightly anti-deletionist" and thought you were referring to Wnt him/herself rather than to the notice. I have no personal crusade here, and I don't know what "preconceived biases" you're referring to. (Nor should it even matter, as we all bring our preconceived biases to WP, and that's perfectly normal.) Regardless, this is getting rather personal and off-topic. I invite you to continue this discussion on my user talk (or yours). --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:42, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Fleischmann's allegation that I went here in response to him is altogether wrong. Though apparently I started this section after he edited, you can see perfectly well that I stopped to edit the section above immediately before that, because it's more interesting to process through a new Snowden bombshell than to complain about an edit war. I came here because I was at a clear impasse with one other editor. Fleishmann is the one I've mentioned seemed to follow my edits in the past - it is no surprise I couldn't get around to saying something here without him commenting first.
I emphatically deny the claim that it is "promotional" to include an informative quote from the announcement of an event and/or the list of members of a coalition when the article is about the event and the coalition. To the contrary, arbitrarily dismissing and removing information based on your point of view about its point of view is not NPOV.
My reason for including the list in the article is that we can Wikilink and try to understand it. In the last good version [13] the list was largely made up of blue-links: known notable organizations, the association of each and every one of which is worth mentioning somewhere (and this article is the place). The use of this is:
These organizations are not merely members but in many cases sources about the action. For example, I looked up "ACLU" and "Stop Watching Us" to find a statement Snowden had made directly to the ACLU for them to read at the event.
The redlinks in many cases indicate interesting topics for further editing, or likely versions names will be encountered under that we can redirect.
We cannot do "original research" with the information --- but the readers can. For example, I note that two domain name registrars (Gandi.net and Namecheap) are listed among the quite few business members. Remember, a company that receives a National Security Letter isn't allowed to tell their customers that - but so far as I know, they don't yet contain a blanket ban on all political activity whatsoever. So when two companies from one tiny business sectors turn up protesting mass surveillance, that may be an informative sign. After all, DNS providers have their own e-mail relaying features and other private data that might be of interest to these agencies. So I want the readers to be ale to readily track down all the players, especially the "insignificant" ones, and understand what they're about. Wnt (talk) 08:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
In response to your claim that "the association of each and every one of which is worth mentioning somewhere (and this article is the place)", you are incorrect; Wikipedia is not that place (i.e. to regurgitate information from an organization's website). The SWU website is the place to do that- Wikipedia should certainly link to this website, but it doesn't need to repeat it (the argument that something "is worth mentioning" is extremely subjective - Wikipedia is not meant to be an exhaustive and detailed repository of SWU (again, that's what the SWU website if for). Second, you state that "when two companies from one tiny business sectors turn up protesting mass surveillance, that may be an informative sign" - you may be right - unfortunately, for you to make or suggestion that connection based on your own analysis of two separate articles is WP:synth. As for your desire to enable "readers to be [sic] able to readily track down all the players, especially the "insignificant" ones, and understand what they're about", Wikipedia is not the place to promote this cause. And again, your only source for this is the SWU website (sounds kind of promotional too me).(Hyperionsteel (talk)09:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC))
Take away the context and simply evaluate: the subject of article A is part of the subject of article B. Should A and B be connected by a Wikilink? I see a clear yes here. As for the synth, do note that I never added that speculation to the article. As I said, our articles should comprehensively inform so that our readers can make their own interpretations and theories. Wnt (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I still think that copying SWU's website into Wikipedia is just a tad promotional as well as an excessive level of detail. A link to SWU's website is sufficient for any reader to see which organizations support SWU. As I have pointed out, this is the format used on wikipages for similar movements.(Hyperionsteel (talk)13:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC))
I should note that so far the "compromise" involved taking a source with 37 names and delivering a list of 11 names out of it, based on what for all I can tell is personal preconception about which of the organizations matter. I found three media sources just now with 35, 40, and 86 names listed. (I've explained this in more detail at Talk:Stop Watching Us) Wnt (talk) 14:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
To clarify, this compromise was based on the 11 names that were specifically cited within the VentureBeat and Guardian articles (and not just on a list at the end). Personal preconceptions had nothing to do with it.(Hyperionsteel (talk)23:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC))
As I've said above, all this discussion should be taking place on the talk page of the relevant article so that we leave a record for later editors. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Do we have an article devoted to the NSA's program to collect U.S. citizens' telephone metadata? If not this seems like an obvious candidate. Maybe I've missed it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
I think I have selective amnesia. The article is MAINWAY. It used to be called NSA call database and I renamed it months back based on a WaPo article. The MAINWAY article could certainly be better integrated with the rest of the WikiProject articles. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 02:57, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
A call for increased attention at MAINWAY. This surveillance program has received more attention in the media than any other in recent months, but the article remains stuck mostly in the Bush era. No mention of the court decisions, no mention of the political fallout. The reason for our inattention appears to be that most sources do not identify the program by name; however connecting the recent telephone metadata controversy to the "MAINWAY" program is not OR, as it was confirmed by the Washington Post on June 15 in a very important article that has somehow been largely ignored by this community. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Along related lines, I think the following source is worthy of inclusion:
for example (the number and scope of taskforces can be discussed later, but I figure, atleast TF-Espionage,MassSurveillance,as the two original contributing projects, and TF-Intelligence, the phantom project for which WPMILHIST/Intel subtopic exists for) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 14:06, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
There was a former WP:WikiProject Intelligence Agency; we mooted restarting that versus a new mass surveillance wikiproject. More people were enthusiastic about the latter. There's a big difference between writing about famous spies who arranged to obtain difficult data IRL, and government programs that snare communications of millions of people. I think many of us are more interested in privacy and freedom of speech, the laws (if any) that make the mass surveillance possible, more than spycraft per se. So I'd think that we should keep these separate, though I wouldn't disapprove turning the old wikiproject into a disambiguation page or some other sort of loose umbrella. Wnt (talk) 02:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
If the project is supposed to cover privacy and freedom of speech/thought/conscience, seems like this project is misnamed. Privacy violations need not involve mass surveillance (or even surveillance), and squelching speech doesn't require. It's not in the mission statement "improving Wikipedia's coverage of mass surveillance and the organization of information and articles on this topic". One would think the project was about mass surveillance, the actions, implications, organizations, techniques and technology, not privacy or freedom of speech per se. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
@70.50.151.11: As I've said elsewhere, spying on terrorists, criminals, or your own citizens isn't espionage. This WikiProject handles those cases. Espionage is someone spying against a government. I get that you're trying to bring some organization to it, but Mass Surveillance is for editors interested in "privacy." The espionage folks are interested in tradecraft and political intrigues. They're two very different audiences. Chris Troutman (talk)02:59, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
The process of mass surveillance is part of intelligence gathering, and the name of the joint project I outlined has three separate elements "espionage", "intelligence" and "surveillance". It doesn't imply that surveillance is part of espionage, only that both surveillance and espionage would be covered by the project. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 06:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Created new article = Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars
If anyone understands how [14] this is done in real time, what companies are involved, please write something... Wnt (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Apparently, the guy took a picture of himself in his seat and posted it on Twitter. Security saw the pictures on Twitter, and were able to identify the poster and his location because of this[15]. The article states that police and security often monitor Twitter feeds to prevent disturbances, and a threat to run out onto the field that gets retweeted nearly 1000 times is bound to get a lot of attention. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
It seems like a very limited amount of time to figure out exactly who posted a message and reach their seat if they're relying only on Topsy searches and logic. I'm still suspicious that "to prevent bootleg broadcasts" they might have justified themselves a more direct access to the communications with a more plausible time-frame. Wnt (talk) 08:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
So apparently a new movement is starting up to demand increase privacy measures from websites to protect against NSA mass surveillance and they are planning a day of action of June 5th. We could probably get a good article out of this, so I'll create a draft for it. [16]Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:05, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
Definitely. Let's jump on it. Do you have the draft kicking somewhere? Is it a faux pas for all of us to work on your draft? I wonder if we can get it out before June 5th. —f3ndot(TALK) (EMAIL) (PGP)01:16, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Leaflet For Wikiproject Mass Surveillance At Wikimania 2014
Hi all,
My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.
One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.
This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:
• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film
• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.
• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.
• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____
• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost
Hello, the mass surveillance articles are great. As this is a matter of global scale, these should exist in more languages in order to raise awareness about it. Being Greek, I'm especially interested in the Greek audience. I'd like to see these articles translated into Greek, but it's too much work for one person alone. The ideal approach would be to have a translation task force and work in collaboration with the respective local Wikipedia. Could this be an attainable goal? Any sugggestions on how the translation can be accomplished? Thank you. FleetEye (talk) 12:48, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
I just added web beacon to this WikiProject and listed it as "top" importance. Including this one, there are 7 top importance articles in this project.
I thought web beacon should be a priority because it is the tool or concept by means of organizations during surveillance seek to get information about the activities of all Internet users. All Internet users have been the subject of mass surveillance through web beacons.
I know this project is still waiting to happen, but when it does, I think the top-level concepts describing the tools of surveillance are fair proposals for top priority. Blue Rasberry (talk)12:24, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: Thank you for adding it but I very much oppose the "top" priority rating and changed it to mid: only articles that are about very high-level topics of mass surveillance should get that priority set. Specific tools for specific types of mass surveillance should not get this priority. Btw you might be interested in the new surveillance capitalism article (which is a better, more high-level candidate for the 'top' priority; it currently has 'high' set). --Fixuture (talk) 21:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
New book: Citizen Spies: The Long Rise of America's Surveillance Society
It is proposed that this project is merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Espionage. This would benefit both projects which have a similar scope, no content would be lost in merge, and it could be hoped to revive interest in this subject area. Any concerns should be posted here. Dysklyver15:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Me, I'm just used to speaking in the third person, suggestions to this effect have been before but no actual discussion has yet happened. Dysklyver19:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Well I'm not entirely opposed, but I think it's important to consider that Espionage deals primarily with foreign surveillance, whereas mass surveillance often has the connotation of domestic surveillance ("governments spying on their own people"). -Indy beetle (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
I was thinking of doing a complete renovation of the layout of Wikipedia:WikiProject Espionage at the same time, perhaps get some activity happening, I think that the main programs like Tempora and their US equivalents spy on just about everyone on the planet now, and that with the increased terror threats, domestic espionage is a better known fact than it was. I'm not saying its an exact match, but it seems that the two could sit quite neatly together. Dysklyver20:05, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
I just added web beacon to this WikiProject and listed it as "top" importance. Including this one, there are 7 top importance articles in this project.
I thought web beacon should be a priority because it is the tool or concept by means of organizations during surveillance seek to get information about the activities of all Internet users. All Internet users have been the subject of mass surveillance through web beacons.
I know this project is still waiting to happen, but when it does, I think the top-level concepts describing the tools of surveillance are fair proposals for top priority. Blue Rasberry (talk)12:24, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: Thank you for adding it but I very much oppose the "top" priority rating and changed it to mid: only articles that are about very high-level topics of mass surveillance should get that priority set. Specific tools for specific types of mass surveillance should not get this priority. Btw you might be interested in the new surveillance capitalism article (which is a better, more high-level candidate for the 'top' priority; it currently has 'high' set). --Fixuture (talk) 21:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
New book: Citizen Spies: The Long Rise of America's Surveillance Society
It is proposed that this project is merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Espionage. This would benefit both projects which have a similar scope, no content would be lost in merge, and it could be hoped to revive interest in this subject area. Any concerns should be posted here. Dysklyver15:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Me, I'm just used to speaking in the third person, suggestions to this effect have been before but no actual discussion has yet happened. Dysklyver19:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Well I'm not entirely opposed, but I think it's important to consider that Espionage deals primarily with foreign surveillance, whereas mass surveillance often has the connotation of domestic surveillance ("governments spying on their own people"). -Indy beetle (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.
Portals are being redesigned.
The new design features are being applied to existing portals.
At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.
Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
FBI Terrorism Watchlist is Adjudged Unconstitutional
U. S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled that the FBI's "Terrorism Watchlist" is a massive violation of the United States Constitution, noting that the FBI fails to show that any of the Americans that it targets have committed any crimes or is in any way contemplating the commission of crimes, and further noting that the FBI's lists have been repeatedly shown to be inaccurate, having the names of Hollywood celebrities and other obviously-not-suspected-terrorists people on their lists.
The FBI claims to have 1.2 "terrorists" and "terrorists suspects" on their lists, that's %3.1 of the United States population including infants and children.
The Judge ordered the FBI to provide it a plan to "fix the constitutional problem" yet did not order the FBI to stop its criminal activities. SoftwareThing (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Possible problematic editor
Upon spotting the state of the article on PRISM, and on a hunch, I looked at the contributions of User:Factcheck5512 and they all seem to be replacing criticism of the US NSA with pro-NSA propaganda.
I have been informed that the first step of doing something about this is to warn the user. However, I'm not really experienced at this kind of thing, or with Wikipedia in general, and would have a hard time making a civil approach to someone I suspect to be acting in bad faith. Would it be possible for someone else more qualified to look over the case and make that approach?
I will go take a look, I'll see if I can acquire the IP address from which the editor is making updates and see if that indicates a possible political or governmental (foreign or domestic) interest. We might touch bases with an admin to evaluate the IP address and see if it's out of Langley or a known foreign/domestic source. I'll go take a look. SoftwareThing (talk) 16:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it certainly looks like that is a government agent making those edits and attempting to "explain away" criminal activities being committed by the NSA against the United States. A number of those proposed edits should likely be reverted since they are a violation of [WP:NPOV] at minimum. SoftwareThing (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
The level of conspiracy theory that has reached the community of wiki is deeply troubling.
Quoting primary sources is now apparently an issue. The push for anti-government, pro-leak, rhetoric will be corrected.
So, I recommend: Reading the edits in a non-bias lens - this will help you greatly in discovering that prior versions were in simple, legal error.
I'll have to bring this matter to higher wiki authorities for review.
Until then, any edits will be reversed back to the corrected, historically accurate versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Factcheck5512 (talk • contribs) 04:56, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Search Engine Privacy
I wanted to bring to attention that the page for search engine privacy has yet to be graded in terms of quality and importance. I think it would benefit this project to review these guidelines for future editors. Breadyornot (talk) 18:37, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I recently created an article for Anomaly Six, a secretive American company which develops tools that can be used in mass surveillance. Any help would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 17:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)
It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.
The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.
Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.
