Bill Maher decides to permanently entrench himself on the wrong side of history

[awepittance]

 

maher has a good point about the danger of two delusional paranoiacs

have you even read any of the documents eugene? Maybe they aren't as paranoid as you've lead yourself to believe they are

[eugene]

 

 

 

maher has a good point about the danger of two delusional paranoiacs controlling the flow of government secrets. this whole snowden-greenwald ordeal is driven by this innate american libertarianist logic that the state is out to get you. this stuff would fade into irrelevancy much quicker in saner countries.

 

I often agree with you but on this I think you couldn't be more wrong.

 

It is irrelevant if the state is currently "out to get you" or not. The question is, do they have the power to get you at their whim, whenever, wherever, and for any reason at all?

 

But I imagine the benefit of a decentralized govt. with limited powers is lost on some...

 

they always did/do have the power to get you, even physically, i mean what prevents cops from shooting at random people or army launching an airstrike at your home ? exactly the same institutions/beliefs that prevent it from peeking at your gmail account. it was a matter of technological advance whether state will have such capabilities for spying, but it's a matter of proper functioning of the state whether it abuses such capabilities.

 

there's nothing more dangerous than weak, decentralized governments of the type paultards/greenwald/snowden are proposing in an era of globalization.

 

so secret FISA courts launch air strikes, got it.

 

This may be hard to grasp for someone who has grown up in a place where a constant fear of attack and victim mentality has continually been used to justify a near police state, but it doesn't have to be that way.

 

" it's a matter of proper functioning of the state whether it abuses such capabilities." But the only way to prevent abuse is to have some level of accountability and a degree of transparency. We all know that govt. agencies in the US are required to get a court order for a wiretap, that's become common knowledge, is used in movies and TV shows like "The Wire". We may not know when it's done, or the particulars of each case, but we know that it's done, and are assured that in the fullness of time almost any record should become available through the Freedom of Information Act, if not through other means. But since 9/11 we've had the curtailment of the FOIA, the creation of secret courts which were hardly known about, let alone sanctioned by the general public/voters...that had the power to basically "batch stamp" en masse invasion of privacy...the mass culling of phone records and internet data...and most of this information was kept from members of congress...though we don't know to what degree this system has been abused yet, it's clear it is ripe for abuse, with little to no "checks and balances"...

 

Curious if you even buy the concept of "innocent until proven guilty"? If the state owns all data, they won't have to prove anything...In a democracy we should have the right to conceal things from the government...can you really not see this?

 

 

the point about airstrikes or police conduct or nsa is this: if you generally trust police not to rob you or shoot you why do you mistrust nsa on privacy abuses? both are perfectly capable of concealing their trails. so i think this public hardon about this ordeal is very irrational.

the secrecy of those post 9/11 courts and expanded authorities IS obviously sanctioned by the public because bush was reelected after implementing them (and obama admin, afaik, reduced their authority somewhat). i don't think you can say that just because their operation is secret it's ripe for abuse, ironically you don't know what this veil of secrecy covers exactly (some of snowden leaks did unveil inner oversight, i remember) and their secrecy is obviously important to their functioning. snowden and co had enough time to expose abuses but they revealed nothing of that kind. it's perfectly fine to debate the need for secrecy and those powerful tools for surveillance, but this debate went full retard from the get-go with speculations and baseless accusations of abuse.

 

saying that state own all data is like saying that cops own all our lives. they don't own it, they have a right to access to it under specific circumstances just like a cop has a right to shoot you under specific circumstances. also, i don't think you have a right to conceal criminal activity from the government.

[Adieu]

 

Didn't read the entire thread, but I watched this interview last night on HBO. I didn't really see much wrong with it. Maher seemed to be supportive of their efforts while at the same time maintaining a somewhat impartial stance and also asking questions that both lead the conversation in a good direction and touched on important nuances of the situation. I don't get why this interview would be offensive for anyone other than a conservative Maher hater.

 

Also, Greenwald's intentions are of a secondary significance to the results of the efforts of all involved. It only matters if his potential for personal gain somehow adversely affects the originally intented goal.

calling edward snowden 'fucking nuts' was an impartial stance?

 

it was offensive to me because Bill Maher used a typical normally right wing smear to attack somebodies character for trying to point out the dire nature of the situation. Instead of facing reality himself he decides to call someone who's faced it insane.

 

 

Well, to be fair, he said his claim was fucking nuts, and that he only says nutty shit some of the time. He has remained supportive of the issue and their efforts. Maybe his opinion is unnecessary noise. Maybe Snowden's claims are exaggerations. I don't really know.

 

Personally this doesn't really change my opinion of the man. He is kind of a cunt, but he is a better cunt than most cunts.

 

I would like to request a copy of my entire internet activity history from the government though. That seems like it would be fucking awesome to look through. All those Aim conversations from my childhood. I can't even imagine.

[eugene]

 

 

maher has a good point about the danger of two delusional paranoiacs

have you even read any of the documents eugene? Maybe they aren't as paranoid as you've lead yourself to believe they are

 

i did follow it for a while but all of the publications followed a similar patter: "here's what government can do, imagine if it abuses this power, isn't it scary ? be afraid...be very afraid." so this is really stupid imo, why not worry and write about potential abuse of nuclear arsenal instead ? sounds even scarier to me.

[awepittance]

so you're ranking the importance of it based on the potential danger? Can't someone be writing about the dangers of privacy encroachment and let others write about the dangers of nuclear power? What an odd and nonsensical criticism

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

[eugene]

you're strawmanning, i didn't say anything about importance or non-imporatnce of talking about privacy encroachment. my original message is just a couple of hundreds of pixels above yours, make an effort and respond to what i actually wrote.

 

neither of my examples are dealing with actual talk about privacy abuses or dangers of nukes but the idiocy of saying "potentiality=necessary abuse" in order to scare people and make some noise in a typical yellow press kinda way.

[eugene]

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

what facts are you talking about ? snowden's claim that government is spying for each and everyone of of americans which maher called "nuts" ? but he was exactly right because the fact that government can do that doesn't mean it does it and snowden didn't present anything to support such statement of his.

[Adieu]

 

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

what facts are you talking about ? snowden's claim that government is spying for each and everyone of of americans which maher called "nuts" ? but he was exactly right because the fact that government can do that doesn't mean it does it and snowden didn't present anything to support such statement of his.

 

 

He called nuts the claim that they have on record for each american every single conversation you've had over the internet ever.

[goDel]

100 billion for world peace, please!

[awepittance]

 

 

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

what facts are you talking about ? snowden's claim that government is spying for each and everyone of of americans which maher called "nuts" ? but he was exactly right because the fact that government can do that doesn't mean it does it and snowden didn't present anything to support such statement of his.

 

 

He called nuts the claim that they have on record for each american every single conversation you've had over the internet ever.

 

this is what he did, which is weird to me because when did examining reality as it is become nuts and living in a delusional bubble state = sane?

 

and yes of course I'll concede my headline for this thread as hyperbolic as fuck, if it wasn't made even more obvious by the sub-title which called Bill Maher a brown-shirt. But this has been a long time coming for him, it's not just this interview which made me see Maher this way. He's been cumilitively building up his national security state apologies for 5 years, and he doesn't seem to be backing down any time soon.

[awepittance]

 

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

you're sure i did exactly what? Only read the commentary but didn't read the documents? Well you're wrong because I did both, but it's funny to me you see them as 'idiotic' and 'scaremongering' but you've just admitted you didn't read the actual documents, don't you consider that maybe just a little bit willfully ignorant? How could you form an opinion about an editorial commentary on a document being 'idiotic' without actually reading the document they are commenting on? I would expect more critical thinking coming from you Eugene.

[eugene]

 

 

 

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

what facts are you talking about ? snowden's claim that government is spying for each and everyone of of americans which maher called "nuts" ? but he was exactly right because the fact that government can do that doesn't mean it does it and snowden didn't present anything to support such statement of his.

 

 

He called nuts the claim that they have on record for each american every single conversation you've had over the internet ever.

 

this is what he did, which is weird to me because when did examining reality as it is become nuts and living in a delusional bubble state = sane?

 

 

what the fuck is "examining reality" ? is what greenwald and snowden spew out is automatically "a reality" ?

 

does the government have that data or not ? does it abuse it or not ? can snowden prove it or not ? that's what you're supposed to talk about (and tons of other unsupported, hyperbolic claims that they've released) instead of some half assed attacks on meaningless entertainment show hosts.

[LimpyLoo]

JE, I think the most important question is what should be secret and what shouldn't be. Like I said, the gov't needs to keep secrets and the citizenry needs to expose secrets that shouldn't be secret. So Maher simply draws the line somewhere else than you (and me).

[eugene]

 

 

from your response, and please correct me if i'm wrong, it doesn't seem like you've actually sat down and read the content of *any* of the leaks, but if stating facts already makes one 'paranoiac' in your book, maybe you just don't want to read them? paranoia can be infectious

i didn't read the actual documents but their (idiotic, scaremongering) interpretation by the guardian, i'm pretty sure you did exactly that.

you're sure i did exactly what? Only read the commentary but didn't read the documents? Well you're wrong because I did both, but it's funny to me you see them as 'idiotic' and 'scaremongering' but you've just admitted you didn't read the actual documents, don't you consider that maybe just a little bit willfully ignorant? How could you form an opinion about an editorial commentary on a document being 'idiotic' without actually reading the document they are commenting on? I would expect more critical thinking coming from you Eugene.

 

when they published and interpreted specific parts of document they did bring the exact citations, and i think they interpreted those wrongly. in an older thread i showed one of such instances where they interpreted one of the paragraphs in a completely nonsencical fashion and made a huge story out of it.

[Guest disparaissant]

JE, I think the most important question is what should be secret and what shouldn't be. Like I said, the gov't needs to keep secrets and the citizenry needs to expose secrets that shouldn't be secret. So Maher simply draws the line somewhere else than you (and me).

hey now don't forget, you can't disagree with someone or question their motives because that's ad hominem now. awe said so!

[awepittance]

that's not what I said at all, i said attacking the fact that he works for a billionaire or that he gets paid to do journalism is a baseless ad hominem attack, a convenient way to 'discredit' Greenwald without actually addressing the content of anything he's leaked, and that's exactly what you did repeatedly at the beginning of the thread

[Guest disparaissant]

attacking and questioning the fact that he works for a billionaire who is on record as speaking out in favor of punishing whistleblowers is ad hominem? lo-fucking-l. okay.

[awepittance]

JE, I think the most important question is what should be secret and what shouldn't be. Like I said, the gov't needs to keep secrets and the citizenry needs to expose secrets that shouldn't be secret. So Maher simply draws the line somewhere else than you (and me).

I guess at this point I'm totally beyond this mode of thought, because A) this NSA spying grid has clearly gone beyond anything having to do with protecting us from terrorism when you include things such as the NSA spying on the Brazilian PM or the German PM B) President Obama has done absolutely abysmal and defensive posturing damage control where has hasn't debunked a single one of the revelations (assuming they are true, which by all accounts they are)

 

the government lost it's chance long ago in my eyes of having any legitimate reason whatsoever to violate the constitutional protections of privacy to fight the war on terror.

[awepittance]

attacking and questioning the fact that he works for a billionaire who is on record as speaking out in favor of punishing whistleblowers is ad hominem? lo-fucking-l. okay.

but that's a different issue, if you want to debate Pierre's involvement that's relevant. The way you started your involvement in this thread was attacking Greenwald because he was a 'neo liberal hack' instead of criticizing his interpretation of the documents or the way he's gone about leaking them. You finally addressed the methodology in which he's leaked them as a problem (to you) and once I explained the strategy behind it and why it has worked far better than Wikileaks or other massive leak dumps you didn't respond to what i said.

[LimpyLoo]

 

JE, I think the most important question is what should be secret and what shouldn't be. Like I said, the gov't needs to keep secrets and the citizenry needs to expose secrets that shouldn't be secret. So Maher simply draws the line somewhere else than you (and me).

I guess at this point I'm totally beyond this mode of thought, because A) this NSA spying grid has clearly gone beyond anything having to do with protecting us from terrorism when you include things such as the NSA spying on the Brazilian PM or the German PM B) President Obama has done absolutely abysmal and defensive posturing damage control where has hasn't debunked a single one of the revelations (assuming they are true, which by all accounts they are)

 

the government lost it's chance long ago in my eyes of having any legitimate reason whatsoever to violate the constitutional protections of privacy to fight the war on terror.

 

 

Okay so literally everything the gov't does should be public?

 

If not then you're sucked back into the debate.

[Guest disparaissant]

and you started this thread by calling bill maher a brownshirt and yet it's hard for you to understand why i might have gone about this the way i did? you didn't exactly set a precedent for a rational debate on the subject

 

i don't like the way greenwald is going about this, by the way, because it's not free information if one person has access to it, and if that one person - who is being paid by a billionaire who is literally a caricature of neoliberal ideals - gets to decide what is relevant and what should be released. that's shady as fuck.

[Guest disparaissant]

i literally am agog that someone like you is just fine and dandy with greenwald being bankrolled by a guy who has directly stated that whistleblowers should be jailed, that leaks shouldn't be released to the public, and who has cut off funding to numerous whistleblowers and their various means of donation. paypal cut off wikileaks and cut off chelsea manning's defense fund. it seems to me that you are so blinded by your (unwarranted, imo) adulation of glenn greenwald that you're willing to completely turn a blind eye to how utterly and perversely shady this is.

[Adieu]

It's kind of funny that people can think that a government abusing its power to collect all the data from every citizen isn't in fact abusing the data they have collected. Collecting the data to begin with is an abuse. As citizens of the United States we are continually abused by our government on a daily basis. We have no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they wanted trust and faith they should have not broken and damaged it. Let's not apologize or support their efforts.

[eugene]

Collecting the data to begin with is an abuse.

says who ?

(not that i believe that it collects all data or keeps "everything we ever did on the internet")

[LimpyLoo]

It's kind of funny that people can think that a government abusing its power to collect all the data from every citizen isn't in fact abusing the data they have collected. Collecting the data to begin with is an abuse. As citizens of the United States we are continually abused by our government on a daily basis. We have no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they wanted trust and faith they should have not broken and damaged it. Let's not apologize or support their efforts.

 

Regardless of how corrupt the us govt is, they still need to keep secrets. Governments need double agents and clandestine operations and all that shit.

 

So it's not a matter of apologizing for or supporting their efforts, it's just a matter of what should be secret and what shouldn't be.