Edward Snowden, NSA Whistleblower

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think the real take-away point from all of this is that we as a society need to learn to accept a small bit of carnage around here. The fact is that the gov’t is simply too inept to stop everything all the time. Even if we were all completely OK with the gov’t trampling all over all our civil liberties and so forth, they can’t stop everything. They have their heads too far up their asses to do so.

The random act of violence is always going to happen. The fact is that no matter what, there is going to be some sort of successful terrorist act in this country every few years or whatever, whether it be from Muslims or other Americans. If that is an inevitability, then I’ll take my civil liberties along with it. Because right now, the civil liberties-for-protection from terrorism investment isn’t paying off very well right now.[/quote]

Agree. As long as people believe the lie that we can make the world perfect, they’ll buy the bullshit line spewed by gov’t officials who want more power.

But I will never want to trade my civil liberties for protection, even if it were actually effective and guaranteed. They are too important and they are natural rights.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m not trading my freedom for some bullshit, temporary safety either. I could get killed by anything. I’m much more likely to die in about a thousand different ways other than in a terrorist act.

42

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period. [/quote]

It wasn’t just the FBIs COINTELPRO. James Jesus Angleton started Operation MHCHAOS in 1967 at LBJs behest, and then expanded it tremendously at Nixon’s urging. Spying on Americans, infiltrating and disrupting “subversive” groups such as SDS, The Black Panthers and Ramparts Magazine, and other basic counterintelligence measures were used.

And then you have HTLINGUAL, which was the mail-opening program that opened most of the mail that came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. It ended up being used against all sorts of other Americans were “threats”, both real and perceived, including a lot of politicians, depending on who was in office at the time. It was run, also by Angleton, from about 1952 until 1973.

I don’t know about any assassinations related to the FBI and COINTELPRO, though. I think that some conspiracy theorists out there assign blame for the deaths of people like RFK or MLK, Jr. on COINTELPRO, but I think the only murder that can realistically be tied to something along those lines was the murder of former Black Panther, Fred Hampton. BUt he was killed by Chicago police and not FBI agents, if memory serves me.

So, this sort of thing really isn’t new at al. It’s been going on in some way, shape or form since the earliest days of the Cold War. I think programs like CHAOS and LINGUAL were worse, given that they were specifically targeted at American citizens who were considered dangerous simply because they were vocally against the bullshit policies of each Presidency between Eisenhower’s first term and Nixon’s second term. Not to say that what is going on right now is excusable. But I think that what happened back then was much more insidious than what we see today.[/quote]

You’re correct, It’s the Chicago PD.

43

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Agree. As long as people believe the lie that we can make the world perfect, they’ll buy the bullshit line spewed by gov’t officials who want more power.

But I will never want to trade my civil liberties for protection, even if it were actually effective and guaranteed. They are too important and they are natural rights.[/quote]

They are being taken whether you like it or not. The terrorists have won. They changed the way we live, they have effectively limited freedom in this country. It’s no wonder that the people have made the biggest push for government intrusion are also the ones who are very concerned with protecting the rights of said terrorists. We have given to much freedom for security at this point. Anybody had the misery of flying lately?

44

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period. [/quote]

It wasn’t just the FBIs COINTELPRO. James Jesus Angleton started Operation MHCHAOS in 1967 at LBJs behest, and then expanded it tremendously at Nixon’s urging. Spying on Americans, infiltrating and disrupting “subversive” groups such as SDS, The Black Panthers and Ramparts Magazine, and other basic counterintelligence measures were used.

And then you have HTLINGUAL, which was the mail-opening program that opened most of the mail that came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. It ended up being used against all sorts of other Americans were “threats”, both real and perceived, including a lot of politicians, depending on who was in office at the time. It was run, also by Angleton, from about 1952 until 1973.

I don’t know about any assassinations related to the FBI and COINTELPRO, though. I think that some conspiracy theorists out there assign blame for the deaths of people like RFK or MLK, Jr. on COINTELPRO, but I think the only murder that can realistically be tied to something along those lines was the murder of former Black Panther, Fred Hampton. BUt he was killed by Chicago police and not FBI agents, if memory serves me.

So, this sort of thing really isn’t new at al. It’s been going on in some way, shape or form since the earliest days of the Cold War. I think programs like CHAOS and LINGUAL were worse, given that they were specifically targeted at American citizens who were considered dangerous simply because they were vocally against the bullshit policies of each Presidency between Eisenhower’s first term and Nixon’s second term. Not to say that what is going on right now is excusable. But I think that what happened back then was much more insidious than what we see today.[/quote]

You’re correct, It’s the Chicago PD.[/quote]

Sure it’s happened before to some level, but it still does not equate to randomly gathering and storing information on potentially every person in the country. Those sound like more targeted spying. Not that, that is good either, but it wasn’t a random collection of data on anybody and everybody. That’s what’s happening now.

45

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think the real take-away point from all of this is that we as a society need to learn to accept a small bit of carnage around here.[/quote]

I agree with your overall sentiment/assertion but, as far as we know, that may not even be true. The public is cowed by the probability of carnage. ‘Dozens of terrorists acts were prevented’ by the wiretapping program. When, in reality, it’s far more likely that ‘dozens’ would’ve been prevented without the wiretapping program. 90% of plots that had a 2% chance of being pulled off without wiretapping became 95% of plots that had a 1% chance of being pulled off.

I don’t mean to be too partisan (because this may just be my perception) but, under the last administration, waterboarding was examined by the degree to which it contributed to various intelligence operations. Only the most ardent supporters claimed operations would not have been possible without it. It seems, to me, the opposite isn’t happening with this (these) scandal(s).

Back to your original point, you’re right, kinda gotta accept that everyone’s gonna die sometime and no amount of banning will make tornadoes or dogs go away;

46

http://gma.yahoo.com/u-fears-edward-snowden-may-defect-china-sources-131931617--abc-news-topstories.html

Looks like there’s more to the story now. If it’s true that Snowden is going to defect to China or already has, and that he’s brought all sorts of intelligence secrets with him, I might have to adjust my opinion of him. It’s one thing to reveal a heinous program of mass spying on American citizens. It’s another entirely to defect and give a country like China information that could be used to hurt the country in a way more serious than anything some whacked out Chechen terrorist is capable of.

I can never get over how naive some of these spy-like people are sometimes. He’s flipping out over an intrusion into Americans’ privacy and a trampling of our rights, so he decides to go to CHINA of all places? What a fucking joke. It leads me to believe that there’s something else going on here related to these leaks that we don’t know about yet. Perhaps Snowden was acting as a Chinese agent when he leaked this stuff to the Guardian, rather than a concerned citizen. Much of what I have read certainly is congruent with what I have read about other agents-in-place.

47

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
http://gma.yahoo.com/u-fears-edward-snowden-may-defect-china-sources-131931617--abc-news-topstories.html

Looks like there’s more to the story now. If it’s true that Snowden is going to defect to China or already has, and that he’s brought all sorts of intelligence secrets with him, I might have to adjust my opinion of him. It’s one thing to reveal a heinous program of mass spying on American citizens. It’s another entirely to defect and give a country like China information that could be used to hurt the country in a way more serious than anything some whacked out Chechen terrorist is capable of.

I can never get over how naive some of these spy-like people are sometimes. He’s flipping out over an intrusion into Americans’ privacy and a trampling of our rights, so he decides to go to CHINA of all places? What a fucking joke. It leads me to believe that there’s something else going on here related to these leaks that we don’t know about yet. Perhaps Snowden was acting as a Chinese agent when he leaked this stuff to the Guardian, rather than a concerned citizen. Much of what I have read certainly is congruent with what I have read about other agents-in-place.[/quote]

If one took the time to watch the video, Snowden addresses the whole defection to China thing.

The yahoo piece reveals nothing that hasn’t been fairly common knowledge to those taking the time to actually follow what is going on wrt to his actions over the last few months.

But regardless - whatever his motivations for coming forward were, at least he came forward.

Who is putting the “he’s gonna jump ship to China” narrative out there in the public discourse? The government.

Who has the most to gain if Snowden can be silenced, or marginalized?
The government.

48

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
http://gma.yahoo.com/u-fears-edward-snowden-may-defect-china-sources-131931617--abc-news-topstories.html

Looks like there’s more to the story now. If it’s true that Snowden is going to defect to China or already has, and that he’s brought all sorts of intelligence secrets with him, I might have to adjust my opinion of him. It’s one thing to reveal a heinous program of mass spying on American citizens. It’s another entirely to defect and give a country like China information that could be used to hurt the country in a way more serious than anything some whacked out Chechen terrorist is capable of.

I can never get over how naive some of these spy-like people are sometimes. He’s flipping out over an intrusion into Americans’ privacy and a trampling of our rights, so he decides to go to CHINA of all places? What a fucking joke. It leads me to believe that there’s something else going on here related to these leaks that we don’t know about yet. Perhaps Snowden was acting as a Chinese agent when he leaked this stuff to the Guardian, rather than a concerned citizen. Much of what I have read certainly is congruent with what I have read about other agents-in-place.[/quote]

If one took the time to watch the video, Snowden addresses the whole defection to China thing.

The yahoo piece reveals nothing that hasn’t been fairly common knowledge to those taking the time to actually follow what is going on wrt to his actions over the last few months.

But regardless - whatever his motivations for coming forward were, at least he came forward.

Who is putting the “he’s gonna jump ship to China” narrative out there in the public discourse? The government.

Who has the most to gain if Snowden can be silenced, or marginalized?
The government.

[/quote]

By your own logic, you can also discredit any defense of Snowden’s actions that comes from Snowden himself. Who has the most to gain by denying that he was working for China or that he did not/will not give China any info? Snowden.

49

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
http://gma.yahoo.com/u-fears-edward-snowden-may-defect-china-sources-131931617--abc-news-topstories.html

Looks like there’s more to the story now. If it’s true that Snowden is going to defect to China or already has, and that he’s brought all sorts of intelligence secrets with him, I might have to adjust my opinion of him. It’s one thing to reveal a heinous program of mass spying on American citizens. It’s another entirely to defect and give a country like China information that could be used to hurt the country in a way more serious than anything some whacked out Chechen terrorist is capable of.

I can never get over how naive some of these spy-like people are sometimes. He’s flipping out over an intrusion into Americans’ privacy and a trampling of our rights, so he decides to go to CHINA of all places? What a fucking joke. It leads me to believe that there’s something else going on here related to these leaks that we don’t know about yet. Perhaps Snowden was acting as a Chinese agent when he leaked this stuff to the Guardian, rather than a concerned citizen. Much of what I have read certainly is congruent with what I have read about other agents-in-place.[/quote]

If one took the time to watch the video, Snowden addresses the whole defection to China thing.

The yahoo piece reveals nothing that hasn’t been fairly common knowledge to those taking the time to actually follow what is going on wrt to his actions over the last few months.

But regardless - whatever his motivations for coming forward were, at least he came forward.

Who is putting the “he’s gonna jump ship to China” narrative out there in the public discourse? The government.

Who has the most to gain if Snowden can be silenced, or marginalized?
The government.

[/quote]

By your own logic, you can also discredit any defense of Snowden’s actions that comes from Snowden himself. Who has the most to gain by denying that he was working for China or that he did not/will not give China any info? Snowden.[/quote]

While that is true DB, i do not think it is coincidence that this story was suddenly turned this way. And i very much believe that–given all the things we have just now discovered the people we elected doing–we should probably view with extreme skepticism any tale of his defecting. The timing is far too beneficial and besides, the boys have lost all credibility with me that theyre going to tell any version of truth even remotely close to the real story.

Besides which there is in fact a history of the gov’t leaking thing to press at certain times, even making things up. Thia is not new behavior for them at all.

Maybe snowden is a double. But righr now Occam and his razor tell me otherwise and you should listen to that instead of so willingly buying this new story. Time will tell but right now, i dont feel any need to believe things being told to discredit him.

50

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
http://gma.yahoo.com/u-fears-edward-snowden-may-defect-china-sources-131931617--abc-news-topstories.html

Looks like there’s more to the story now. If it’s true that Snowden is going to defect to China or already has, and that he’s brought all sorts of intelligence secrets with him, I might have to adjust my opinion of him. It’s one thing to reveal a heinous program of mass spying on American citizens. It’s another entirely to defect and give a country like China information that could be used to hurt the country in a way more serious than anything some whacked out Chechen terrorist is capable of.

I can never get over how naive some of these spy-like people are sometimes. He’s flipping out over an intrusion into Americans’ privacy and a trampling of our rights, so he decides to go to CHINA of all places? What a fucking joke. It leads me to believe that there’s something else going on here related to these leaks that we don’t know about yet. Perhaps Snowden was acting as a Chinese agent when he leaked this stuff to the Guardian, rather than a concerned citizen. Much of what I have read certainly is congruent with what I have read about other agents-in-place.[/quote]

If one took the time to watch the video, Snowden addresses the whole defection to China thing.

The yahoo piece reveals nothing that hasn’t been fairly common knowledge to those taking the time to actually follow what is going on wrt to his actions over the last few months.

But regardless - whatever his motivations for coming forward were, at least he came forward.

Who is putting the “he’s gonna jump ship to China” narrative out there in the public discourse? The government.

Who has the most to gain if Snowden can be silenced, or marginalized?
The government.

[/quote]

By your own logic, you can also discredit any defense of Snowden’s actions that comes from Snowden himself. Who has the most to gain by denying that he was working for China or that he did not/will not give China any info? Snowden.[/quote]

While that is true DB, i do not think it is coincidence that this story was suddenly turned this way. And i very much believe that–given all the things we have just now discovered the people we elected doing–we should probably view with extreme skepticism any tale of his defecting. The timing is far too beneficial and besides, the boys have lost all credibility with me that theyre going to tell any version of truth even remotely close to the real story.

Besides which there is in fact a history of the gov’t leaking thing to press at certain times, even making things up. Thia is not new behavior for them at all.

Maybe snowden is a double. But righr now Occam and his razor tell me otherwise and you should listen to that instead of so willingly buying this new story. Time will tell but right now, i dont feel any need to believe things being told to discredit him.[/quote]

If there’s one thing that would be worse for the government than someone like Snowden exposing all of their bullshit spying like what he’d done so far, it would be acknowledging that he’s defecting to a major global rival and might possibly have been an agent of some sort.

I think it’s highly unlikely that he was a double agent. Actually, it’s impossible for him to have been one since he wasn’t a U.S. agent in the first place. I think what is more likely is that he developed a major anti-America attitude and decided that going to China would be a good way for him to stick it to the U.S., especially after he had already released the info he released to the Guardian and the full gravity of what he had done hit him.

51

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period. [/quote]

It wasn’t just the FBIs COINTELPRO. James Jesus Angleton started Operation MHCHAOS in 1967 at LBJs behest, and then expanded it tremendously at Nixon’s urging. Spying on Americans, infiltrating and disrupting “subversive” groups such as SDS, The Black Panthers and Ramparts Magazine, and other basic counterintelligence measures were used.

And then you have HTLINGUAL, which was the mail-opening program that opened most of the mail that came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. It ended up being used against all sorts of other Americans were “threats”, both real and perceived, including a lot of politicians, depending on who was in office at the time. It was run, also by Angleton, from about 1952 until 1973.

I don’t know about any assassinations related to the FBI and COINTELPRO, though. I think that some conspiracy theorists out there assign blame for the deaths of people like RFK or MLK, Jr. on COINTELPRO, but I think the only murder that can realistically be tied to something along those lines was the murder of former Black Panther, Fred Hampton. BUt he was killed by Chicago police and not FBI agents, if memory serves me.

So, this sort of thing really isn’t new at al. It’s been going on in some way, shape or form since the earliest days of the Cold War. I think programs like CHAOS and LINGUAL were worse, given that they were specifically targeted at American citizens who were considered dangerous simply because they were vocally against the bullshit policies of each Presidency between Eisenhower’s first term and Nixon’s second term. Not to say that what is going on right now is excusable. But I think that what happened back then was much more insidious than what we see today.[/quote]

You’re correct, It’s the Chicago PD.[/quote]

Sure it’s happened before to some level, but it still does not equate to randomly gathering and storing information on potentially every person in the country. Those sound like more targeted spying. Not that, that is good either, but it wasn’t a random collection of data on anybody and everybody. That’s what’s happening now.[/quote]

Some people were charged and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. The FBI pushed for them, knowingly, to be convicted of those crimes. All because they were deemed a threat. SIGINT and storing the data is one thing. Personally, I think the FBI telling the local PD to come kick my door in and then being convicted of a crime there’s no proof of me committing would be worse. This is only a continuation of things that have existed for decades in this nation.

52

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]b89 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Quite an interesting story (from his perspective–it is disgusting from a gov’t point of view). I am very glad he did this, and I hope he does not pay a heavy price for his disclosure. I do not think he has done anything wrong, the American people needed to know.[/quote]

We needed to know that’s for sure. Our founding Father’s must be spinning in their graves.

Look at the success of bin ladin and al qaeda’s acts, we are tearing ourselves apart.[/quote]

The terrorists have succeeded. They have made us less free. They could not have hoped for a better result. We need to take that power back. Write your congressmen to stop all surveillance on American citizens. It’s what we must do.
As far as I am concerned, this guy gets a full pardon, and a medal.

Think about how all this stuff ties together and it’s scary: collection of private media emails, specified targeting of people based on their expressed beliefs BY THE GOVERNMENT, rampant spying and the collections of private communications of private citizens. Cameras everywhere (if you think that’s not used for spying, you’re an idiot). Enough is enough. I am pissed.
Write your congressmen. It makes a difference.[/quote]

Domestic spying goes back to the 1950s from what I remember, probably longer than that. Terrorism might be the way politicians can spin this so people concede defeat to them but saying terrorists are the cause of it gives them far too much credit.[/quote]

It’s never been like this. An on going deliberate and random collection of data of potentially every person in the U.S.? No. That’s Soviet style tactics. These are the kinds of tactics that could land an average Joe with differing political views in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water cables attached to his hands.

Many people function on the premise “It can’t happen here!”. The fuck it can’t. It can happen here or anywhere. When you wrap your brain around that fact, then you get the seriousness of this problem.

The scary scenarios are endless. A government unchecked, it a government of oppression. So combine a program that gathers info about the general citizens of the nation and combine that with the repealing of the 2nd amendment. What do you get? The Soviet Union.
Thank God, at least the gun grab failed…for now.
[/quote]

It’s already happened here, COINTELPRO was a long time ago. That’s worse than what’s going on now. American citizens were literally assassinated during that time period. [/quote]

It wasn’t just the FBIs COINTELPRO. James Jesus Angleton started Operation MHCHAOS in 1967 at LBJs behest, and then expanded it tremendously at Nixon’s urging. Spying on Americans, infiltrating and disrupting “subversive” groups such as SDS, The Black Panthers and Ramparts Magazine, and other basic counterintelligence measures were used.

And then you have HTLINGUAL, which was the mail-opening program that opened most of the mail that came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. It ended up being used against all sorts of other Americans were “threats”, both real and perceived, including a lot of politicians, depending on who was in office at the time. It was run, also by Angleton, from about 1952 until 1973.

I don’t know about any assassinations related to the FBI and COINTELPRO, though. I think that some conspiracy theorists out there assign blame for the deaths of people like RFK or MLK, Jr. on COINTELPRO, but I think the only murder that can realistically be tied to something along those lines was the murder of former Black Panther, Fred Hampton. BUt he was killed by Chicago police and not FBI agents, if memory serves me.

So, this sort of thing really isn’t new at al. It’s been going on in some way, shape or form since the earliest days of the Cold War. I think programs like CHAOS and LINGUAL were worse, given that they were specifically targeted at American citizens who were considered dangerous simply because they were vocally against the bullshit policies of each Presidency between Eisenhower’s first term and Nixon’s second term. Not to say that what is going on right now is excusable. But I think that what happened back then was much more insidious than what we see today.[/quote]

You’re correct, It’s the Chicago PD.[/quote]

Sure it’s happened before to some level, but it still does not equate to randomly gathering and storing information on potentially every person in the country. Those sound like more targeted spying. Not that, that is good either, but it wasn’t a random collection of data on anybody and everybody. That’s what’s happening now.[/quote]

Some people were charged and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. The FBI pushed for them, knowingly, to be convicted of those crimes. All because they were deemed a threat. SIGINT and storing the data is one thing. Personally, I think the FBI telling the local PD to come kick my door in and then being convicted of a crime there’s no proof of me committing would be worse. This is only a continuation of things that have existed for decades in this nation.[/quote]

Yeah, this shit is nothing new at all. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be outraged by it. We should. But let’s not pretend that this represents some sort of egregious escalation of past policies or that it’s a new phenomenon, because it isn’t. That’s the saddest part about all of this, really. It’s just another episode in a long list of them.

53

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Wonder if we can get a thoughtful discussion going on here. I’ll try. The major reason that he got up in arms is that the Fed made one of the most momentous legal decisions in history all on their own: They declared that while the Constitution prevents them from eavesdropping directly on the data, they own your metadata.

Metadata is all the information about information. When you send a text message from your phone, for instance, all the routing information, time, date, length, location (GPS anyone?) is part of the metadata, plus anything else about the message anyone can think of (if you send an attached picture, is that metadata??) The push from everywhere is to get as much of this as possible. You want it – it’s how Amazon customizes your wishlist or why Google maps seems to be so helpful. From the perspective of people like me who work with modelling expert systems, content is completely secondary to metadata. When I saw what the Fed had done, I did a double-take because of the gravity of the situation. Statements only have meaning in context, so they really did repeal the Constitution when nobody was looking, though I don’t think they understand the depth that this decision has. They will figure it out and our lives will be potentially much worse off for it.*

What’s more, the Fed effectively announced it owns all metadata, including that in foreign countries. At least a couple of European countries have already filed lawsuits to stop this but apparently they got caught by surprise.

I can see why Snowden did this and because he has run afoul of Federal Law (which requires no criminal intent of any sort for conviction, even on treason which is punishable by death), he did just risk his life to do this and he knew it. I can see why he was terrified of the consequences in what was a bureaucratic decision which actually should have been a very hotly contested public debate.

As always, just being full of shit…

– jj

  • For instance, Federal laws kick into play when things cross state boundaries. There are already laws on the books where texting is a Federal crime if the message goes to an out of state server, even if you are texting your next door neighbor. (The intent was to try and grab drug dealers on Federal charges, so that setting up a deal was punishable even if it fell through.) How would you like to type a wrong number and have the FBI haul you off as a suspected terrorist? If it is a Federal offense – and since the content is irrelevant – you are now guilty. No criminal or other intent is necessary for conviction. See where this is going? The Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure does not apply to your metadata.

PS. The way the Fed got companies to comply was to grant them immunity from prosecution if they did so voluntarily. Notice that the laws to prosecute this as offenses weren’t actually in place yet. This is another strike against them because of the obvious threatening and strong arm tactics they are using already before there is even a legal framework. [/quote]

This is why you are in my top three of all time favorite posters. Wicked smart. Never read one of your posts that I did not learn something.

54

And they still get the votes. Honestly, they’ve got the best job in the world.

55

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

By your own logic, you can also discredit any defense of Snowden’s actions that comes from Snowden himself. Who has the most to gain by denying that he was working for China or that he did not/will not give China any info? Snowden.[/quote]

Who has the longer track record of lying to the American public? Just because one side is a proven liar does not mean the other side is equally as dishonest. Regardless of the rhetoric - defecting to Hong Kong is not exactly the same as defecting to Beijing.

I’m as cynical as the next guy, but I believe Snowden and take him at his word. Maybe it’s a Texas thing - but I tend to trust people until they are untrustworthy.

The federal government - even at its inception - was created to be doubted.

Which is the more logical of the two choices in front of us? Trust the accusations of a federal government incapable of truth and honesty, or trust the word of an individual?

You side with an over reaching, over-powered central government. It’s not a shock given your progressive core belief system.

I tend to side with the individual with more to lose than gain. However, unlike you, my core beliefs do not include sucking on a government teat from the cradle to the grave.

And if nothing else comes of the Snowden expose it has shown - regardless of the consonant or vowel following one’s name - precisely where on the central government scale people reside.

Not shockingly, given a chance to swallow the government line or trust the word of an individual, you tend more toward deepthroating the government than even giving a cursory nod to the individual.

Like I said - it comes as no shock.

56

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

By your own logic, you can also discredit any defense of Snowden’s actions that comes from Snowden himself. Who has the most to gain by denying that he was working for China or that he did not/will not give China any info? Snowden.[/quote]

Who has the longer track record of lying to the American public? Just because one side is a proven liar does not mean the other side is equally as dishonest. Regardless of the rhetoric - defecting to Hong Kong is not exactly the same as defecting to Beijing.

I’m as cynical as the next guy, but I believe Snowden and take him at his word. Maybe it’s a Texas thing - but I tend to trust people until they are untrustworthy.

The federal government - even at its inception - was created to be doubted.

Which is the more logical of the two choices in front of us? Trust the accusations of a federal government incapable of truth and honesty, or trust the word of an individual?

You side with an over reaching, over-powered central government. It’s not a shock given your progressive core belief system.

I tend to side with the individual with more to lose than gain. However, unlike you, my core beliefs do not include sucking on a government teat from the cradle to the grave.

And if nothing else comes of the Snowden expose it has shown - regardless of the consonant or vowel following one’s name - precisely where on the central government scale people reside.

Not shockingly, given a chance to swallow the government line or trust the word of an individual, you tend more toward deepthroating the government than even giving a cursory nod to the individual.

Like I said - it comes as no shock.

[/quote]

You have completely misconstrued my feelings on the matter, to the point where it’s not even worth trying to engage you on the subject any further. All I have to say is that I have never indicated that the government even approaches trustworthiness on this matter. Quite frankly, while I applaud Snowden for pulling back the curtains on these NSA shenanigans, I don’t trust either him OR the government.

57

[quote]JEATON wrote:

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Wonder if we can get a thoughtful discussion going on here. I’ll try. The major reason that he got up in arms is that the Fed made one of the most momentous legal decisions in history all on their own: They declared that while the Constitution prevents them from eavesdropping directly on the data, they own your metadata.

Metadata is all the information about information. When you send a text message from your phone, for instance, all the routing information, time, date, length, location (GPS anyone?) is part of the metadata, plus anything else about the message anyone can think of (if you send an attached picture, is that metadata??) The push from everywhere is to get as much of this as possible. You want it – it’s how Amazon customizes your wishlist or why Google maps seems to be so helpful. From the perspective of people like me who work with modelling expert systems, content is completely secondary to metadata. When I saw what the Fed had done, I did a double-take because of the gravity of the situation. Statements only have meaning in context, so they really did repeal the Constitution when nobody was looking, though I don’t think they understand the depth that this decision has. They will figure it out and our lives will be potentially much worse off for it.*

What’s more, the Fed effectively announced it owns all metadata, including that in foreign countries. At least a couple of European countries have already filed lawsuits to stop this but apparently they got caught by surprise.

I can see why Snowden did this and because he has run afoul of Federal Law (which requires no criminal intent of any sort for conviction, even on treason which is punishable by death), he did just risk his life to do this and he knew it. I can see why he was terrified of the consequences in what was a bureaucratic decision which actually should have been a very hotly contested public debate.

As always, just being full of shit…

– jj

  • For instance, Federal laws kick into play when things cross state boundaries. There are already laws on the books where texting is a Federal crime if the message goes to an out of state server, even if you are texting your next door neighbor. (The intent was to try and grab drug dealers on Federal charges, so that setting up a deal was punishable even if it fell through.) How would you like to type a wrong number and have the FBI haul you off as a suspected terrorist? If it is a Federal offense – and since the content is irrelevant – you are now guilty. No criminal or other intent is necessary for conviction. See where this is going? The Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure does not apply to your metadata.

PS. The way the Fed got companies to comply was to grant them immunity from prosecution if they did so voluntarily. Notice that the laws to prosecute this as offenses weren’t actually in place yet. This is another strike against them because of the obvious threatening and strong arm tactics they are using already before there is even a legal framework. [/quote]

This is why you are in my top three of all time favorite posters. Wicked smart. Never read one of your posts that I did not learn something. [/quote]

To put an edge on jj-dude’s observation, there is a Constitutional justification for the NSA mess:

"Thirty-five years ago in United States v. Choate, the courts ruled that the Postal Service may record â??mail cover,â?? i.e., whatâ??s written on the outside of an envelope â?? the addresses of sender and receiver.

The National Security Agencyâ??s recording of U.S. phone data does basically that with the telephone. It records who is calling whom â?? the outside of the envelope, as it were. The content of the conversation, however, is like the letter inside the envelope. It may not be opened without a court order."

I don’t happen to agree with either the premise or the precedent. Electronic transmissions are different; there is the reasonable expectation of privacy, and the metadata give information on network associations, whereas these are not true of posted letters’ envelopes. This is a violation of privacy and freedom of association and arguably a violation of the First Amendment. Where the Fourth Amendment is violated is the creep of spying from FISA courts (where it is argued that spying on foreign transmissions is legal) to domestic spying.

As for foreign countries–particularly Europeans–the outrage is faked. They–including Angela Merkel–are knee-deep in this, and are only playing “shocked, shocked,” because they were blind-sided by the Guardian articles.

I notice 2 things about Snowden. First, the Guardian has not published any substance in the disclosures; i.e., no agents have been outed, the specific use of the metadata is left unrevealed. The Guardian has simply revealed the existence of Prism and its sources. Second, if all this metadata were important and useful, would not the NSA, or Booz-Allen-Hamilton, have found out about Snowden before he spilled guts to the Guardian? And if they didn’t find him, then of what value is all this spying anyway?

58

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]JEATON wrote:

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Rednose wrote:
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama’s promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor.”

Edward Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why[/quote]

Wonder if we can get a thoughtful discussion going on here. I’ll try. The major reason that he got up in arms is that the Fed made one of the most momentous legal decisions in history all on their own: They declared that while the Constitution prevents them from eavesdropping directly on the data, they own your metadata.

Metadata is all the information about information. When you send a text message from your phone, for instance, all the routing information, time, date, length, location (GPS anyone?) is part of the metadata, plus anything else about the message anyone can think of (if you send an attached picture, is that metadata??) The push from everywhere is to get as much of this as possible. You want it – it’s how Amazon customizes your wishlist or why Google maps seems to be so helpful. From the perspective of people like me who work with modelling expert systems, content is completely secondary to metadata. When I saw what the Fed had done, I did a double-take because of the gravity of the situation. Statements only have meaning in context, so they really did repeal the Constitution when nobody was looking, though I don’t think they understand the depth that this decision has. They will figure it out and our lives will be potentially much worse off for it.*

What’s more, the Fed effectively announced it owns all metadata, including that in foreign countries. At least a couple of European countries have already filed lawsuits to stop this but apparently they got caught by surprise.

I can see why Snowden did this and because he has run afoul of Federal Law (which requires no criminal intent of any sort for conviction, even on treason which is punishable by death), he did just risk his life to do this and he knew it. I can see why he was terrified of the consequences in what was a bureaucratic decision which actually should have been a very hotly contested public debate.

As always, just being full of shit…

– jj

  • For instance, Federal laws kick into play when things cross state boundaries. There are already laws on the books where texting is a Federal crime if the message goes to an out of state server, even if you are texting your next door neighbor. (The intent was to try and grab drug dealers on Federal charges, so that setting up a deal was punishable even if it fell through.) How would you like to type a wrong number and have the FBI haul you off as a suspected terrorist? If it is a Federal offense – and since the content is irrelevant – you are now guilty. No criminal or other intent is necessary for conviction. See where this is going? The Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure does not apply to your metadata.

PS. The way the Fed got companies to comply was to grant them immunity from prosecution if they did so voluntarily. Notice that the laws to prosecute this as offenses weren’t actually in place yet. This is another strike against them because of the obvious threatening and strong arm tactics they are using already before there is even a legal framework. [/quote]

This is why you are in my top three of all time favorite posters. Wicked smart. Never read one of your posts that I did not learn something. [/quote]

To put an edge on jj-dude’s observation, there is a Constitutional justification for the NSA mess:

"Thirty-five years ago in United States v. Choate, the courts ruled that the Postal Service may record �¢??mail cover,�¢?? i.e., what�¢??s written on the outside of an envelope �¢?? the addresses of sender and receiver.

The National Security Agency�¢??s recording of U.S. phone data does basically that with the telephone. It records who is calling whom �¢?? the outside of the envelope, as it were. The content of the conversation, however, is like the letter inside the envelope. It may not be opened without a court order."

I don’t happen to agree with either the premise or the precedent. Electronic transmissions are different; there is the reasonable expectation of privacy, and the metadata give information on network associations, whereas these are not true of posted letters’ envelopes. This is a violation of privacy and freedom of association and arguably a violation of the First Amendment. Where the Fourth Amendment is violated is the creep of spying from FISA courts (where it is argued that spying on foreign transmissions is legal) to domestic spying.

As for foreign countries–particularly Europeans–the outrage is faked. They–including Angela Merkel–are knee-deep in this, and are only playing “shocked, shocked,” because they were blind-sided by the Guardian articles.

I notice 2 things about Snowden. First, the Guardian has not published any substance in the disclosures; i.e., no agents have been outed, the specific use of the metadata is left unrevealed. The Guardian has simply revealed the existence of Prism and its sources. Second, if all this metadata were important and useful, would not the NSA, or Booz-Allen-Hamilton, have found out about Snowden before he spilled guts to the Guardian? And if they didn’t find him, then of what value is all this spying anyway?
[/quote]

Another of my top three makes an appearance and does not disappoint. Now if only Jewbaca would chime in i would have a “hat trick.”

59

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
This whistle blower is every bit the patriot, if not more so, than 98.997% of the military. No offense to the fine folks in uniform, but this guy is risking almost certain death just for standing up and saying, " Hey this shit just ain’t right".
[/quote]

I’m glad this guy came out, but give me a break. Fine folks in uniform are actually risking their life, you know, by being shot at. This guy is/will be a house hold name in a matter of weeks. What exactly do you think is going to happen to him?

He’ll probably write a book and get rich as fuck off this whole mess, yeah certain death…[/quote]

I meant no insult to our soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. It was a woodford-induced rant that came out sounding much different than it did in my head.

My point was that this guy did something that took tons of balls - and if you listen to him, he seems very sincere about his motives for doing what he did.

I think his actions, while most likely illegal, are extremely patriotic in that he did what he did out of love of country - not love of government. [/quote]

I agree with you. It took balls and intelligence to come out with it the way he did. Had he come out a different way, he may well have been, ‘disappeared.’

There is another thing with the intelligence agencies… Are there any orders for them to follow like we have in the military? Like, to only follow lawful orders? The one guy over there that seems to embody what we want to be American Integrity legitimately had his life in danger, and we all really know it’s true, and as serious as a heart attack.

Is there an, ‘anymouse’ or any sort of oversight within the intelligence agencies that specifically look out for the pubic interest? Also, if we know that every other country, to include China are doing the exact same activities we are, why not have the integrity to just put it out in the open for EVERYONE in the world to see?

I’m not saying it would be grounds for us to continue spying, but at least we would know who’s holding what cards…

60