Big Brother is Watching You

[O Really]

A good essay on why Snowden should freeze in Siberia... http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... picks=true

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Time stamp to note= 3:27

[O Really]

NSA official "abused his authority and connections" to harass the husband of a woman he was having an affair with.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... picks=true

(Not really - it was a small-town Texas police chief. So let's just string up all the police departments.)

[O Really]

You're being hyperbolic. No one expects the NSA to be strung up or eliminated, and many of us don't expect law to be changed much at all or for even current law to be adhered to. Heck, Clapper isn't even charged or fired for blatantly lying to his bosses, Congress. It enjoys the epitome of the "Opps Defense".

I don't think it's hyperbolic - it varies only in scope. Not that I'm a supporter or speed traps, but they are generally legal and some say a reasonable effort at law enforcement of speed limits that help prevent accidents. Say some yahoo cowboy decides to stop only hot Latina chicks. Illegal and despicable, yes? Ought to be prosecuted, yes? But once he's exposed, nobody can work that spot again. And everybody thinks every cop working traffic is a pervert. And everybody screams to elimiminate speed checks. And they quit speed enforcement because they can't win any cases. And then a driver going 30 mph over the speed limit at the place where they used to check runs over a kid on his bike. And then they want to know why nobody is enforcing the law.

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IMHO...the imprint these entities brazenly display seems to be criminals...simple!!!
The fact you, and I wouldn't benefit as they do~
We'd be under the jail...and yet they continue unaffected to commit more.. all while profiting
Fact's are fact's!!! There clearly is no even ground when the acts that they conduct results in greater damage done, and bonuses to boot
All while committing equal if not greater offences, in order to regulate the criminal activities it also participates in

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You're being hyperbolic. No one expects the NSA to be strung up or eliminated, and many of us don't expect law to be changed much at all or for even current law to be adhered to. Heck, Clapper isn't even charged or fired for blatantly lying to his bosses, Congress. It enjoys the epitome of the "Opps Defense".

I don't think it's hyperbolic - it varies only in scope. Not that I'm a supporter or speed traps, but they are generally legal and some say a reasonable effort at law enforcement of speed limits that help prevent accidents. Say some yahoo cowboy decides to stop only hot Latina chicks. Illegal and despicable, yes? Ought to be prosecuted, yes? But once he's exposed, nobody can work that spot again. And everybody thinks every cop working traffic is a pervert. And everybody screams to elimiminate speed checks. And they quit speed enforcement because they can't win any cases. And then a driver going 30 mph over the speed limit at the place where they used to check runs over a kid on his bike. And then they want to know why nobody is enforcing the law.

If I'm getting what you seem to be projecting....You believe society needs a parental-like presence to lessen occurrences no matter what happens.... irregardless it still happens~not very effective enforcement, especially given the fact those in charge conduct crimes without persecution, or results at all
You Know the old "do as I say...not as I do" element...that has been proven to be dysfunctional....entirely detrimental

[O Really]

The concept of "society" itself is a "parental-like presence" that impacts the behaviour of its members. I've got nothing against someone wanting to live in a world of his/her own out in the forest somewhere, but if s/he wants to live with the rest of us, yes, there are rules.

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Rules are one thing!!!
It's the unequal treatment, with actions that clearly show disregard, and are in violation of civil, as well as criminal conduct...is fine with you~it keeps you feeling 'safe'...somehow :-0?>

[O Really]

Violations, real or imagined, aren't what makes me feel safer. In a world where most wars aren't country against country, but never-ending skirmishes against cross-national ideologue extremists, it seems it would be nice to have the best and most advanced intelligence gathering and analysis tools and process.

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Due to continual past violations seems 'Res ipsa loquitur' best fits how these corrupt agencies lie to congress, and the citizen's of this country...Hell, even the whole world, yet act as though they are protecting...by violating

[O Really]

Without regard to any specific lies to Congress you have in mind, would you agree that Congress has a history of allowing committees to conduct politically motivated witch hunts where all the questions are of the "have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no" variety, and the purpose of the hearing is to pontificate, humiliate, discredit, or simply scold? Where "I don't know" is never acceptable even if demonstrably true? Where the tone is far closer to cross-examination than fact-finding or investigation, and where every word in every answer is parsed for negative interpretation and further inquiry? Where a real lie might be true in principle or context and where a real truth may be called a lie in a different context? A lot of people made fun of Bill Clinton's questioning the "meaning of 'is'" but in the environment he was in, such detail is not only helpful, it's essential to survival.

[O Really]

One difference is that for years some in Congress were just trying to get at the scope of the issue without witch hunting anyone and were lied and lied to.

Ah, so you do think that if asking nicely doesn't work that "enhanced interrogation" is acceptable?

[Boatrocker]

More patriots vs. the criminal national security state:

The Secret Burglary That Exposed J. Edgar Hoover's FBI

Read that this morning. It'll take 40+ years for Snowden to be regarded as anything but a traitor.

[O Really]

Snowden had to quit, shut up or do it his way, digital fingerprints aren't as easy to wipe down or never leave in the first place as physical ones.

Either of the first two choices would have been preferable, IMNVHO.

[O Really]

I'm glad that you weren't advising the patriots that exposed Hoover's trashing of the Constitution.

It's possible I might even have joined them at the time. But let's see if there are differences in their project and that of Snowden. Here's what they found and disclosed...

"According to its analysis of the documents in this FBI office, 1 percent were devoted to organized crime, mostly gambling; 30 percent were "manuals, routine forms, and similar procedural matter"; 40 percent were devoted to political surveillance and the like, including two cases involving right-wing groups, ten concerning immigrants, and over 200 on left or liberal groups. Another 14 percent of the documents concerned draft resistance and "leaving the military without government permission." The remainder concerned bank robberies, murder, rape, and interstate theft."- Noam Chomsky"

To whom were the documents disclosed? To various people and publications, all in the US.

Who were the subjects of the files? Almost 100% US citizens.

And there was really no question as to whether the actions disclosed were legal, and there was no direct impact on international security measures.

Snowden, on the other hand...

[O Really]

In the essay from the WaPo that you ridiculed a couple of pages ago, I agreed with the writer who said,

"But Snowden did much more than that. [expose illegality] The documents that he gave the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman and the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA’s interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what’s going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls “worldwide,” an effort that (in the Post’s words) “allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.” In his first interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden revealed that the NSA routinely hacks into hundreds of computers in China and Hong Kong.

These operations have nothing to do with domestic surveillance or even spying on allies. They are not illegal, improper, or (in the context of 21st-century international politics) immoral. Exposing such operations has nothing to do with “whistle-blowing.”

Further, although the FBI burglars certainly did a good job of avoiding capture, they did not fly off to China, Russia, and offer to deal more help in exchange for asylum.

[O Really]

As to whether I've changed, I think life experiences are cumulative, and one is affected by his/her life experiences, resulting in changes over time - some good, maybe some not so good. But it's not a change in me, nor a change in the Constitution that gives me a different view of the FBI burglars and Snowden. It's different circumstances and different actions in a different context.

[O Really]

No, they didn't need asylum - they just went on with their lives and there was insufficient evidence for them to be identified as the burglars. But John Raines had been a Freedom Rider and marched in Selma on Bloody Sunday. I'm pretty sure he understood that one may have rights, but often there are consequences in the fight to exercise those rights. I don't know the Raines' of course, but I'm guessing if they had gotten caught, they would have continued their effort in court. I'm guessing they wouldn't have been trying to cut deals with Argentina.

Snowden's disclosures were not limited to illegal activities, and some of the activities he considered illegal probably weren't. Some of the activities he disclosed are not only legal, but an integral part of national defense.

[O Really]

Clearly there are no bright-line black/white answers to the whistle-blowing issues. I think each instance (not just these two) has to be viewed in light of specific facts and circumstances. Personally, I think creating an FBI "file" (active case) on those of the types Hoover tracked is way worse than an analysis of data held by a third party. One is personal; one is systemic and generic. One is installing a stop-light camera; one is waiting for your car to come by and then trip the light so you'll be in violation.

Without defending Hoover or denying that he was a rights-violator, there is "another hand" even to that situation. Many lefty and peace groups, war protesters, etc. were indeed just exercising their right of free speech and dissent. Others, such as the COINTELPRO-targeted Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground exceeded that activity a bit and without regard to what they may or may not have actually done, tried really hard to appear dangerous. Hopefully if you had been running the FBI back then you would not have been so abusive of law and rights as Hoover, but would you not find it somewhat negligent not to have "opened a file" on those groups as well as somebody who called themselves the "Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI"?

[O Really]

...- You can bet your house that everything Hoover did was justified by the same "integral part of national defense" that you cite now . . . until people learned what they were really up to.

Of course. And cutting education budgets are "to improve the system" and making us take off our shoes because of one failed shoe bomb attempt is "essential for security." But overuse of the term as an excuse for anything doesn't mean there aren't things that really are essential.