Verizon Customer?

[Frank]

Seems a couple of antagonists are attempting to pick fights and deteriorate the discussion into a pissing match.....these two need to cruise back to Gregg's backyard and get milked ....or something

[The Feral Slasher]

Yeah it is.

To echo BB's post in response to FS, I most definitely care about privacy rights. But I'm not going to get on my soapbox and parrot what Greenwald or Snowden have to say simply because our desires may overlap.

I'm going to figure things out for myself.

I am of the opinion that neither you, nor Johnny, nor BB can figure this out. The only people who know the whole truth is the government, everyone else is speculating. Do you think the government owes us answers ? As I mentioned earlier, this was an issue long before Snowden came along and we have had Senators and former NSA employees issuing warnings. the question is whether the American people get to know what is going on.

[Moonlight J]

He doesn't have a tech blog, but he should have been the president of the USA. I guess he knows nothing either?

He also urged Barack Obama and Congress to review and amend the laws under which the NSA operated.

I believe that just about every one of us in here has made this same point already, if not repeatedly. Maybe not in multi-quote linked & bolded fonts, but we have.

[chancellor]

Good article. I hope that the credentials and thoroughness of a writer like Kurt Eichenwald will help quell the hysteria.

Eichenwald's article is good, but his belief and reliance on Section 702 of FISA is gravely misplaced...or he's a well paid lackey of the administration. Given his rep, I'm going with the former.

On one hand, we have Section 702 of FISA which assures us that PRISM will only be used against foreign nationals outside the United States. Hmmm.

On the other hand, we have had the Attorney General assert that the president has the right to assassinate a foreign national who presents a clear and present danger to the US outside the US. The AG has also asserted the president has the right to assassinate a US Citizen on foreign soil (and has done so). Moreover, the AG has also asserted their may be extraordinary times when a US citizen can be assassinated ON US soil. Hmmm.

Lessee, the AG asserts the President has the right to kill US citizens without trial both outside the US and inside the US, and we're to believe they won't/don't use PRISM for such efforts.

Sorry, I can't accept that. I may dislike the President and hoped he'd not have been elected, but I've never considered him stupid. And to kill US citizens without trial anywhere without having the absolute best intel available would be stupid.

[johnnya24]

I believe that just about every one of us in here has made this same point already, if not repeatedly. Maybe not in multi-quote linked & bolded fonts, but we have.

Yet another rationalization. Anytime anything is put in front of you that increases the likelihood that this is not all smoke and mirrors, you find a nice convenient rationalization.

The fact that you and OA know this to be so wrong, and are doing everything in your power to bracket off the bad parts, and convince yourself that it can't be the case, or that it isn't the case ... that is what we are arguing about if you want to break it down.

From my own point of view I just don't understand this approach. There is nothing positive or productive that can come from these lackadaisical uncritical interpretations. Everything these last 15 years has been screaming abuse of power, and despite the fact that again and again this is being shown to be the case, you still can't exorcise yourself from the desire to believe that everything is just fine and dandy.

How can you seriously reconcile Gore's comments, that these actions are a CLEAR breach of the constitution, and are way overstepping the mark, with what you have said previously in this thread? I think Al Gore has a lot more insight into what is happening that these stupid tech blogs you guys keep linking us to. I think Al Gore knows a little bit more about the potential for the abuse of power than you or I. I think Al Gore has the kinds of contacts in Congress Government and beyond that will enable him to verify these facts before making such a unambiguous public statement "This is my view violates the constitution" ... no equivocation. Rather than raising red flags, you're absorbing it into your worldview.

"This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear," he said. "It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is."

Gore added: "This is not right."

It doesn't get anymore forthright than that. Law AND the constitution ... not law OR the constitution.

Apart from the circumvention of the constitutional; the infringement of individual liberty; the abuse of power; the inability to refute these claims; startling evidence of a lack of separation of power between executive, judiciary, congress and military; the lack of proper oversight and alternative thinking; the lame unconvincing justifications (not refutations); the lack of transparency and forthright responses; the lying to congress; the hypocrisy; and the aqueducts ...

... two of the most dangerous revelations that have come out of this for me, are:

(1) the massive extent of the privatization of the intelligence services ... the primary goal for private companies is profit not national security
(2) the way so many sane folk are making curt distinctions between "legal" and "constitutional" ... if it's not constitutional, it's NOT legal! That is the point of having a constitution FFS.

You're job as a citizen is to help keep in check the powers that be. Not simply accept everything they tell you.

[PaleoMan]

[johnnya24]

Obama is your Blair. Anger will be replaced by intense disappointment, and then anger again as you have to live with the legacy. You know what they say about a lover scorned (thought I'd be PC ). Blair is now a hate figure over here, on both sides of the fence. I remember walking into the office of my History professor the day after Labour won the first election in my living memory in 1997. I was really happy and really naive. He just scoffed and said "you'll see".

From hope to fear: the broken promise of Barack Obama

Over the last two weeks, the world has seen an extraordinary series of revelations about the scale, size and activities of the National Security Agency under Obama's administration. Though he came to power decrying the secret actions of Bush, Obama has embraced and extended many of the same activities. His NSA uses a secret court system to get permission for its shadowy work, hauls out "metadata" on millions' of Americans' phone calls, taps into the biggest and most powerful internet companies of the Information Age – Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Yahoo, Google – to monitor and snoop. Its tools have names like Prism and Boundless Informant, as if their inventors were all too aware that they resembled dystopian science fiction.

Yet Obama has flippantly dismissed the controversy. Resorting to the worst tactics of the Bush years, his message is: "Trust us. We're the good guys." And then Congress is briefed – in secret, of course – about the "dozens" of terrorist plots such industrial-scale espionage has stopped.

[Hornsby]

At the end of the day, here's what it all boils down to for me: I simply don't believe a word that my Government is saying on this issue, not when the head of the NSA lies right in the face of a congressional committee.

Back at an open congressional hearing on March 12, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.” As we all now know, he was lying.

We also now know that Clapper knew he was lying. In an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that aired this past Sunday, Clapper was asked why he answered Wyden the way he did. He replied:
“I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked [a] ‘when are you going to … stop beating your wife’ kind of question, which is … not answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘No.’

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/06/fire_dni_james_clapper_he_lied_to_congress_about_nsa_surveillance.html

Now, this has been repeated in this thread several times...so why on Gods Green Earth would you believe a word these charlatans have to say, let alone defend them. It just leaves me shaking my head...

[Moonlight J]

It's not a rationalization, Johnny, it's avoiding a rush to judgment on the entire situation. We don't have all of the pieces to this puzzle yet. Simple as that.

Sorry, this just doesn't rank that high on my list of priorities. Do I like it? No, not fully. It just doesn't impact what I believe to be my priorities in life.

It doesn't inhibit my ability to provide for my family, or their safety. Everything else in life will always take a back seat to those two issues. That is my litmus test on everything.

[Moonlight J]

Totally. Wars of aggression? Doesn't affect my family. Gay rights? Nope. Homelessness? Poverty?



Let all those motherfuckers eat cake.

Well, I've had family members fight in those wars, I have gay aunts, have housed friends down on their luck, and spent 5 years in government housing as a child.

nvm...

I should just have used this from the beginning

[nots]

Well, I've had family members fight in those wars, I have gay aunts, have housed friends down on their luck, and spent 5 years in government housing as a child.

nvm...

I should just have used this from the beginning

So in your view, if I have no dog in the fight and it doesn't affect my ability to provide for my family, then I don't need to be concerned about it?
If I have no gay aunts, I can blow off that issue?

[bryanbutler]

MJ didn't say he didn't care about anything else, he just prioritized this particular issue less than others that affect him (and his family) more directly.

jesus, you guys are twisted in a knot on this one. we've all said we don't like it. some of us would prefer to wait until we have more facts until we start calling for the government's collective head(s). my youngest son said something to my older son this morning that i think is appropriate: "your knees must be sore from jumping to so many conclusions."

but apparently, if we don't agree with you on everything, we're to be vilified because we fully support everything the government does.

i, like MJ, see no further use in attempting to engage in thoughtful dialog in this thread. it's impossible.

[Roto Rooter]

Well, I've had family members fight in those wars, I have gay aunts, have housed friends down on their luck, and spent 5 years in government housing as a child.

nvm...

I should just have used this from the beginning

[The Feral Slasher]

MJ didn't say he didn't care about anything else, he just prioritized this particular issue less than others that affect him (and his family) more directly.

jesus, you guys are twisted in a knot on this one. we've all said we don't like it. some of us would prefer to wait until we have more facts until we start calling for the government's collective head(s). my youngest son said something to my older son this morning that i think is appropriate: "your knees must be sore from jumping to so many conclusions."

but apparently, if we don't agree with you on everything, we're to be vilified because we fully support everything the government does.

i, like MJ, see no further use in attempting to engage in thoughtful dialog in this thread. it's impossible.

Pretty sure MJ jumped into the thread calling Snowden a traitor and surmising that his goal in the whole episode was to get a movie made about him. Hey, I guess that passes for thoughtful dialog...

[The Feral Slasher]

At the end of the day, here's what it all boils down to for me: I simply don't believe a word that my Government is saying on this issue, not when the head of the NSA lies right in the face of a congressional committee.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/06/fire_dni_james_clapper_he_lied_to_congress_about_nsa_surveillance.html

Now, this has been repeated in this thread several times...so why on Gods Green Earth would you believe a word these charlatans have to say, let alone defend them. It just leaves me shaking my head...

Yeah, still waiting for an answer on that one. Especially in light of the recent spying on journalists episode you'd think everyone might have just a little concern about what the government is up to. Instead it's a focus on trashing the messengers.

One other thing I don't understand, if all these reasonable and knowledgable guys have so much better info than Snowden and Greenwald, where did they get it ? And how is Snowden a traitor for revealing what everyone already knows ?