Obama Admin. admits to surveillance methods: Beating a Dead Horse Pt. 74

[eugene]

and as for eugene, you're once again making a completely useless "point" that you then claim is some "anthropological observation" once it becomes perfectly obvious the "point" was pretty useless. thanks to you we all know that snowden is a guy and has a political stance. thanks a lot!

 

the point was always an observation, lump, godel and probably waschbar did see what i was trying to show, namely libertarian discourse acting as some sort of false consciousness, perhaps it was a bit of a stretch assigning it to snowden but it's kinda hard to know for sure without more context.

 

watmm is not a bad example of this too btw, how many threads did we have about constitutional violations and how many did we have about healthcare ? i think i can remember only one.

[delet...]

well at that point you have a difference of opinion on the goals of the nation between those running it and those paying for it. that disconnect is probably the worst problem with US politics today, and one of the reasons obama laughably campaigned on transparency.

 

 

yes that's why i don't get your voter turn outs. Perhaps if a concerted campaign was made to the taxpayers that they should take fiscal responsibilty by controlling who got voted in, that argument may resonate and you would have an huge turnout, compared to the 58 % of voter elligible that turned out in 2012.

 

It's your money they're spending, it's not like you're making bank, make sure you say where it goes by voting,

[lumpenprol]

Boom goes the dynamite, was this posted yet?

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/3-former-nsa-employees-praise-edward-snowden-corroborate-key-claims/276964/

 

Read this.

 

I'm so fucking pissed...livid

 

Just shut down the NSA, fuck this shit.

[Guest theSun]

what about when choice 1 is a fuckface, 2 is a dumb shit and 3 will never win?

 

even if there were good choices, the american voter is powerless unless you live in one of a handful of swing states.

[goDel]

Boom goes the dynamite, was this posted yet?

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/3-former-nsa-employees-praise-edward-snowden-corroborate-key-claims/276964/

 

Read this.

 

I'm so fucking pissed...livid

 

Just shut down the NSA, fuck this shit.

 

 

Good article.

 

IMO, the core of the solution lies in this quote:

 

 

• "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

 

Creating such a path. Simple as that.

[lumpenprol]

there are always good comments on these articles, gives me faith in the american public...

 

ElFuegoDiablo Nun Yerbizness • 3 hours ago

• −

Beyond what Marie found substantive, what I found substantive was the firm rebuttal to the very frequent criticism that Ed Snowden should have worked behind the scenes to blow the whistle from within.

It seems that this system of self-regulation is completely broken. As others have said, all that this current system produces today is more skillful whistleblowers. I don't agree 100% with Snowden but if reforms are not undertaken within the security apparatus, the next leaker(s) will be much more devastating than Manning or Snowden.

1.4 MILLION people with clearances? What are the odds that at least one of these people are sympathetic to al Qaeda or will "turn" at some point? There needs to be better oversight of the NSA, it is a deep black pit at present.

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  Marie_Antoinette ElFuegoDiablo • 3 hours ago

  Right on. And an expensive pit at that. How expensive? No one even knows, expense reports are classified. We can only go by the size of the mansions being built in the DC suburbs by tech "entrepreneurs." That's our money and our Constitution going up in smoke.

Nun Yerbizness Marie_Antoinette • 3 hours ago

"...an expensive pit at that."

the private sector knows how to milk taxpayers dollars out of our government through contracts.

"our money and our Constitution going up in smoke." Cheney/Bush mission accomplished.

[lumpenprol]

sorry, the formatting looked good before I posted

[lumpenprol]

this has video: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

 

IMO, the core of the solution lies in this quote:

 

 

• "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

 

Creating such a path. Simple as that.

 

 

You think shutting down an illegal prison holding a hundred or so prisoners is nigh on impossible, but doing what you just suggested is somehow simple?

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

I'll read the rest of this thread later *leaves and forgets*

 

Leave and forget. This thread is tedious as fuck.

[goDel]

 

 

IMO, the core of the solution lies in this quote:

 

 

• "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

 

Creating such a path. Simple as that.

 

 

You think shutting down an illegal prison holding a hundred or so prisoners is nigh on impossible, but doing what you just suggested is somehow simple?

 

 

Yes. There's hardly a budget issue. Nor is international law involved. Or other countries. Or large amounts of stakeholders. The only thing required is a procedure for people in such organisations to be able to safely "blow their whistle". Isn't there already a law about the protection of whistleblowers in the US legal system?

[Guest theSun]

worked well for manning

[goDel]

worked well for manning

 

Before I get accused of thinking that Manning should be behind bars, WHICH I DON'T, I'd like to try to point out there are some differences between leaking information and leaking aspects about how things work behind the scenes. If Snowden would have leaked all the internet traffic which is stored by the NSA, like Manning did in a way, this would be another story, imo.

 

If Manning leaked how many people have access to the cables, how simple it is to access them, and what activities are being done the generate more cables and perhaps added some internal powerpoints as some kind of proof, the Manning case would be similar to the Snowden case.

 

IMO, Manning is not a whistleblower in the sense Snowden is. And that doesn't imply that I think Manning got what he deserved.

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

 

 

 

IMO, the core of the solution lies in this quote:

 

 

• "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

 

Creating such a path. Simple as that.

 

 

You think shutting down an illegal prison holding a hundred or so prisoners is nigh on impossible, but doing what you just suggested is somehow simple?

 

 

Yes. There's hardly a budget issue. Nor is international law involved. Or other countries. Or large amounts of stakeholders. The only thing required is a procedure for people in such organisations to be able to safely "blow their whistle". Isn't there already a law about the protection of whistleblowers in the US legal system?

 

 

[goDel]

? Care to use some extra words in this shameful disaster?

[SR4]

 

I'll read the rest of this thread later *leaves and forgets*

 

Leave and forget. This thread is tedious as fuck.

 

 

pretty much.

[awepittance]

sorry if this has already been posted. I find this polling data pretty disturbing, but also not surprising

check it out



the left Obama supporters would like to think of themselves as less partisan and more educated than a typical right winger, but to me this poll shows that regardless of education level, the desire to be a sycophantic government lover when your party is in the whitehouse still rules all.

 

I haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez said after Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency's previously secret surveillance activities:

"What we learned in

there is significantly more than what is out in the media today

. . . . I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe

it's the tip of the iceberg

. . . . I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way,

what astounded most of us, too

."

The Congresswoman is absolutely right: what we have reported thus far is merely "the tip of the iceberg" of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world. She's also right that when it comes to NSA spying, "there is significantly more than what is out in the media today", and that's exactly what we're working to rectify.

But just consider what she's saying: as a member of Congress, she had no idea how invasive and vast the NSA's surveillance activities are. Sen. Jon Tester, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the same thing, telling MSNBC about the disclosures that "I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever" and adding: "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee."

How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism
Glenn Greenwald

[SR4]

but dude, we can't fix it, its beyond fixing, that shit is fucking impossible.

 

what we need is detached, cool, aka. sane thinking in these circumstances. Let's not get all bent out of shape over illegal prisons or mass communications surveillance.

[awepittance]

so many levels of 'nothing to see here' style propaganda going on in this sycophantic pro Obama MSNBC segment. Glenn is interviewed in the manufactured framed context of 'if this leak was such a big deal, how did the NSA not know snowden was working with you'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bGeMMyZmyQ

[awepittance]

i just had a terrible thought (a rather paranoid one) that what if this is just all a big setup like the Dan Rather military discharge story from 2004 to ruin Glenn Greenwald's career.

[goDel]

It's a bit of a longshot to draw those conclusions from those numbers, imo. I mean, what kinds of possible explanations could there be? Explanations could range from the difference in questions/wording, differences in population characteristics , perhaps even a universal change in acceptance of big data. What makes you say those numbers are influenced by political preference? Other demographics might be more important. Age, for instance.

It's a bit too easy to just throw it all into the sycophantic bag, imo. For instance, a number of years ago more people were concerned about google collecting data than they are now. And I don't think that has got anything to do with people sheepishly following whatever Obama does.

 

Oddly enough, looking at the total % nothing much has changed.

 

But of course, if you want to put the label sycophantic on all those stupid Obama voters, by all means, eat your heart out.

[lumpenprol]

this has video: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

did everyone watch this? I love these 3 guys

[lumpenprol]

So here's one of the head NSA guys testifying they don't have the powers that Snowden claimed..thoughts about his denial? Lying through his teeth, lying by omission/avoidance, or telling the truth?

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/nsa-surveillance-secret-programs-terror-plots/2434193/

[eugene]

in any case it probably means that snowden doesn't have the data/capability to prove anything of this kind because i don't think that the nsa boss would be so unambiguous if there was a possibility of snowden (or maybe other leakers) easily contradicting his statement while basing on something substantial.

[lumpenprol]

right, that was my thought too, but he does phrase things carefully. Also the questioner asked "by flipping a switch", it might be clicking an option on the computer screen, lol.

 

Also people should read the article below the video, it spells out in a bit of detail cases where they say the tech stopped specific terrorist plots.