Slashdot Mirror

Why shouldn't they trust him? He was polygraphed.

FTA:

"In the classified world, there is a sharp distinction between insiders and outsiders. If you've been cleared and especially if you've been polygraphed, you're an insider and you are presumed to be trustworthy," said Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/08/net-us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9A703020131108

Lowest bidder, or only bidder?

This is an honest question...If you Google "who bid on healthcare.gov" several seemingly right-leaning sites say there was only one bid and it was won by Ms Obama's crony CGI.

Reuters and others say there were 4 total bids, although I cannot find who those other 3 bidders are or what their bids were. And the end of that article states "No other IT contractors have come forward to say they, too, bid on the contract to build Healthcare.gov."

So honest question: which is it? As the project sponsor (taxpayer) I'd like to know. As an IT Professional that runs web projects (in the private sector) I would get fired for not getting competing bids on a project with budgets order of magnitude less than this.

Recalls due to manufacturing defects that cause car fires have happened many times. Here is one for the Honda Fit from June of this year.

There have been three Telsa Model S fires during the past five weeks. If the feds failed to look into this, no matter how much you don't happen to like it, they would be derelict.

The grownups are stepping in now. Deal with it.

Here's a source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/17/us-usa-healthcare-technology-insight-idUSBRE99G05Q20131017

The work on Healthcare.gov grew out of a contract for open-ended technology services first issued in 2007 with a place-holder value of $1,000. There were 31 bidders. An extension, awarded in September 2011 specifically to build Healthcare.gov, drew four bidders, the documents show, including CGI Federal.

Most paedos in the UK work for the British government

oh, none of us who are aware of thre reality would weep any tears if the tsa, nsa and even cia went away tomorrow.

I'm curious, does the "reality" you inhabit have foreign nations simultaneously revealing their nuclear submarine force along with state media published maps of nuclear strikes against the US?

Does your "reality" include another foreign nations probing the defenses of the US and its allies with nuclear bombers?

Russian bombers buzz U.S. territory — again
Russian Bombers Perform Simulated "Strikes" on Sweden, U.S.
US scrambles jet fighters after Russian nuclear bombers circle American airspace over Guam
Pictured: The moment RAF jets intercepted Russian bombers flying in British airspace

Do US allies in your "reality" worry about invasion or blackmail by rearming adversaries?

NATO stages exercise as rearming Russia worries some allies

Did the TSA in your "reality" keep 1,549 firearms off planes, not to mention other weapons?

TSA Finds Guns on Hundreds of Passengers Each Year

all those opaque cant-see-thru orgs have no reason to exist other than TO exist and keep themselves in power. blech! the american public (and world public) has had enough of this BS!

The TSA, CIA, NSA aren't "in power." They answer to the government in power, just like the FBI, Interior Department, Coast Guard, Social Security administration, and a host of other government agencies.

BlackBerry calls off sale, will replace CEO

Of asylum he was supposed to stop with all of the publication of information.

A pledge not to publish more information that could harm the United States was the condition under which Putin said Snowden could receive safe harbor. "Edward assured me that he is not planning to publish any documents that blacken the American government," Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's Russian lawyer said.

I guess we can all assume that Snowden is just a media whore looking for attention and to be honest, I think a good portion of the information being "leaked" is in fact made up. The last set of slides about the Google Data Center interception information was a sketch. Although we now know some of this information is valid, I'm starting to think that some of it is contrived. Certainly when dealing with espionage issues the notion of counter-espionage and disinformation campaigns come to into play. That way we all get confused as to actually what the US government is doing and how it's doing it. In the end we get confused about they said this and they said that and then we jump straight into the HealthCare.gov website fiasco and how Americans will lose medial insurance policies they've had and will have to get more expensive ones with higher deductibles starting in 2014. That and the government shutdown are great ways to spin this story to the back pages. Conspiracy Theorists in 10 years will look back and probably say that Snowden worked for the NSA all along and was actually spying on the Russians for the US.

Marathon runs obviously need an armed guard every 10 yards along the course. We have proof that terrorists see marathon runs as a target!

You joke, but...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/02/us-usa-newyork-marathon-idUSBRE9A104A20131102

Correct. It was a no-bid contract. Interestingly, Toni Townes-Whitley, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, is a Princeton classmate of Michelle Obama. In addition to being college classmates, both Obama and Townes-Whitley are members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

I find this repeated on lots of conservative blogs, the fox news site, and the washingtontimes site, but nowhere else. Here is what reuters has to say:

The work on Healthcare.gov grew out of a contract for open-ended technology services first issued in 2007 with a place-holder value of $1,000. There were 31 bidders. An extension, awarded in September 2011 specifically to build Healthcare.gov, drew four bidders, the documents show, including CGI Federal.

So, yet another right wing lie. What a surprise.

The US hasn't used this data to physically harm anyone. There are plenty of allegations that the US used the data for economic advantage, but no examples of specific operations that did so. And if such operations existed Snowden would have exposed them.

Even if you don't consider planting backdoors and weakening crypto damage, Presidential Policy Directive 20 is about having ready for using those intrusions, backdoors and so on to harm. And Petrobras is an example of specific operation of using that data for economic advantage. But even snooping with other intentions than detect that is a terrorist there is damaging enough, even if it is just to find how to access and plant backdoors in a otherwise secure network (i.e. Tor users)

Now the genocide and holodomor can safely continue indefinitely! Aren't we a nice species?

Maybe you should have kept looking. I found coverage from news services that many news outlets would rely upon, major and minor newspapers, broadcast networks, industry publications. Just a sample, there is a lot more.

Anti-NSA rally attracts thousands to march in Washington
Hundreds march at anti-NSA rally in D.C.
Protesters march in Washington against NSA spying
Anti-NSA rally targets Washington

I don't know what the fuck this article or the summary are on about.

Amazon is profitable. They (and many other multinationals) claim not to have profits on their ginormous revenues by shifting those profits offshore to avoid paying tax in their core market countries.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/19/oecd-tax-reform-proposals-amazon
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/22/us-eu-tax-avoidance-idUSBRE94L0GW20130522

Non-partisan news report on IRS targeting groups associated with the Tea Party. Spoiler: initiated by a conservative Republican IRS manager. White house not in the loop.

Wait, you want to abolish the police?

I'd say that Germany wanting their own internet now, joining the BRICS countries to do so is something of value.

It's time that the world realizes that internet is incompatible with having a bully with power over it.

I'm not saying the technology might not prove itself within a few decades

Toyota will start selling it's hydrogen fuel cell car in 2015.

The bottom line is that fuel cells work, and hydrogen storage is at least as safe as gasoline. On of the big stumbling blocks is cost. Toyota has managed to reduce the platinum requirement from 100g to 30g.

Did you really just say that a District Attorney would never make a mistake? The ownership of Backpage.com is trivially verifiable, you can read about the split between the publishing side and the backpage.com side all over the internet and you can read that the owners of each side are not named Dan Pulcrano.

Foreign visitors to U.S. hit record in 2011

That report talked up a whopping 4% increase in tourism during 2011 as compared to 2010.

It doesn't mention the 7% drop in 2009, give any other historical context, or even mention that in many countries annual population growth exceeds 4%. If you only tell part of the story, you can draw whatever conclusion you like.

I stopped visiting the US (and I used to go semi-regularly on business) once all this TSA shit started

Nobody noticed.

Foreign visitors to U.S. hit record in 2011

If you are deliberately killing innocent people with drones, you aren't doing it right. That is why they don't deliberately target innocent people.

That's the point: they don't deliberately target innocent people. Drones seem to still kill a fuckton of civilians, though.

Former US drone pilot quits, regretting bombing innocents, including children

U.S. Accused of Using Drones to Target Rescue Workers and Funerals in Pakistan

Living Under Drones: Stanford International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic"

There were 4 bidders according to Reuters.

Where did you get your information?

Reuters puts money spent so far at $200M, and project at $300M. Source: As Obamacare tech woes mounted, contractor payments soared

You can make your point without resorting to embellishments you know.

How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?

How much does having your citizens not being able to afford medical care cost the economy?

The leading cause of Bankruptcy in the US is medical costs. The number of people who die in the US every year because they simply can't afford medical treatment is 45,000 (in 2009, more now I suspect). Older Americans can't start small businesses because they would lose their healthcare, which is typically provided by their job.

The economic cost is really incalculable

A Harvard Study suggests Americans throw away billions of pounds of good food per year because they believe the best before date indicates when food goes bad.

the problem is that the preventative care is not cheaper.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229356/preventive-care-myth/michael-fumento
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-preventive-economics-idUSBRE90S05M20130129

I will tell you right now why they are gullible and easily fooled. It's because they are too lazy to go out and do research, and find out the data for themselves.

Oh, the irony. Where's your research? Where's your data? Oh that's right, you're wrong in this particular case, so you have none. Stop it, get some facts and we can have a real conversation. Here's mine: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624

it is opposed by more people than favor it

I'm not sure I believe this. but even if that was true, you would probably have to include 'faux news' viewers in that ie, the gullible and most easily fooled.

How ironic, you're horribly misinformed and you mock the other gullible people. Obamacare is opposed by a majority. At it's creation, it was opposed by a significant majority. Since, it has gained some support, but is generally still unfavored. Some of the individual provisions of the bill on the other hand hold majority support: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/24/us-usa-campaign-healthcare-idUSBRE85N01M20120624

However, it's very disingenuous to claim that Americans like a ~4000 page bill just because they like 1 or 2 things in it.

If I recall, Hyrdo-Quebec would be very happy to keep the lights on in NYC. No need to keep Indian Point open at all. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/18/utilities-blackstone-champlainhudson-idUSL2N0D51QA20130418

Since 2000, we have seen serious major acts of terrorism in this country typically once or twice a year.â

Really? I don't recall one or two major acts of terrorism a year since 2000. In fact I only recall one (7/7), and maybe you could count the bungled attempt to bomb an airport but those guys were laughably dumb. So what are the other 20 odd major acts of terrorism that I somehow slept through?

( Note to moderators: The question was asked, I'm answering it. )

Here is a starter for you. I'm quite sure there are more out there since this was just a hasty search. When I started this post I was assuming that plots would count as "acts," but it looks like the number goes well over anyway between the various Islamists and the Real IRA. (As this was done in haste I may have posted something redundant, but it really doesn't alter the outcome much. A more careful search would no doubt turn up more.)

Bomb plot: Life sentence for Irfan Naseer, ringleader of Birmingham men planning wave of UK suicide attacks

London terror bomb plot: the four terrorists

Four men pleaded guilty to plotting a Christmas bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange and causing a 'Mumbai-style' atrocity.

Fertiliser bomb plot: The story

Five men have been convicted of plotting to build a bomb which police say could have killed hundreds of British people. The men were caught after police and MI5 launched a massive surveillance operation.

British terrorists conspired in bombs plot - security officials

Counter-terrorism officials said last night they believe British terrorists who are still at large were involved in the conspiracy to launch car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
Details emerged as it became clear that five of the suspects under arrest are doctors working and training in the NHS, and one is a doctor working in Australia where he was arrested last night.

Airline terror trial: The bomb plot to kill 10,000 people

On honeymoon in the sunshine, Britons who forged a terror plot to plant peroxide and bleach bombs in Jewish areas

Shasta Khan and her husband also had beheading videos, bomb-making guides and bleach at their home
Police found the terror-related material after being called to a domestic dispute at their house
A satnav showed they had been on multiple trips to Jewish populated areas looking for targets

British soldier hacked to death in suspected Islamist attack

A British soldier was hacked to death by two men shouting Islamic slogans in a south London street on Wednesday, in what the government said appeared to be a terrorist attack.

A dramatic clip filmed by an onlooker just minutes after the killing showed a man with hands covered in blood, brandishing a bloodied meat cleaver and a knife. "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day," the black man in his 20s or 30s, wearing a wool jacket and jeans

"Far from moving away from solar, they are thoroughly enjoying it's benefits and building more."

You speak truer than you know.... http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/25/france-tax-conventional-power-accelerate-shift-renewables/

In fact, it is the economics of France's new build that is changing their mind on nuclear energy. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/03/us-edf-nuclear-flamanville-idUSBRE8B214620121203

Well, we now know that the NSA has been secretly and illegally handing off intelligence to other agencies (SOD, DEA, IRS, etc.) for years, telling them to cover it up for court cases via a process called "parallel construction". So it would be completely within their established modus operandi.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

Personally the ACA is the same thing as the UN coming in and telling the people of France they have to either buy 'insurance' for a product they don't want or pay a fine,

Actually it's like France telling the people of France they have to pay into statutory sickness funds. But odd you bring up France: If we used their system we could use the savings to retire the personal income tax. Freedom from income tax sounds like a worthy freedom, n'est-ce pas?

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/09/11/a-tale-of-two-healthcare-plans/

And where is the sharing of that information with Israel? And where is the part where this is not surveillance, but directly hacking into personal machines and servers planting backdoors on them? Also, if your private data have some corporation interested on it, would it go there?

In light of the importance of this project, the thing is cheap at 600 million

Cheap? You can start an entire company for that amount! Here's what $600 million could buy (from the last Powerball drawing):

$600 million.

For those of you who think people should be forced to give up their money to the "poor unfortunates", here's what $600 million can buy.

For those technologically inclined, you could have bought your own fiber optic network provider.

$600 million for a lousy web page is not cheap.

Azerbaijan and BP http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/19/bp-azerbaijan-100bn-dollars-gas-deal
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewhulbert/2012/10/12/is-bp-on-borrowed-time-in-azerbaijan-yes-but-so-is-baku/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-bp-azerbaijan-idUSBRE89N0PC20121024
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/19/bp_strikes_gas_deal_with_azerbaijan_newscred/
Complex but after fall of Soviet Union the UK got in fast and was very friendly :)
Soviet Union left a lot of oil related factories, workers apartments and did a lot of exploration.

Perhaps more interesting is the memo that broke today from when HP was delisted fro the Dow Jones Industrial Average (having occurred last month):

"I hope that every HP employee took today's announcement personally," she said in the one-page internal memo on September 10. Calling HP's departure from the benchmark index it joined in 1997 a "blow to our brand," Whitman said the moved showed many people still harbored doubts about her turnaround plan. "We need to make every sale," she stressed in the memo, which was seen by Reuters. Whitman's urgency is easy to understand. Two years into what she has always described as a five-year effort, HP's sales and profits are still sliding and Wall Street is losing patience. The stock has fallen 17 percent in the past three months and is down more than half its value since 2010.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/us-hp-restructuring-analysis-idUSBRE9970XL20131008

So Whitman has a turnaround plan which is clearly failing. This kind of "employees need to get more intense" plea is usually one of the last gasps of a failing company, IMO. Also notes that one her major moves was to throw executives out of their offices and into an open cube farm. So "rearranging the deck chairs" is quite literally part of what she's doing.

Hmmmm....

The paper said a senior Somali government official confirmed the raid, saying, "The attack was carried out by the American forces and the Somali government was pre-informed about the attack."

- Al Shabaab leader believed killed by U.S. commandos: NYTimes

More bullshit superpower propaganda lies, from the United Snakes.

Two Failed U.S. Raids

Yesterday two U.S. raids attempted to abduct a man in Libya and a man in Somalia. The raid in Libya did get the target but already has some bad impacts for the Libyan government. The raid in Somalia, by so called elite SEAL forces, failed completely.

The raid in Libya caught one Abu Anas Al-Libi, accused in connection with the bombing of a U.S. embassy in Kenia some 15 years ago. It also killed some 15 Libyan soldiers. The man, one Abu Anas Al-Libi, has lived away from Libya and came back after U.S. and NATO forces waged war against the Libyan government under Ghaddafi. He seems to have lived quite openly in the capitol Tripoli:

His brother Nabih told The Associated Press that just after dawn prayers on Saturday, three vehicles full of armed men approached Abu Anas’s home and surrounded him as he parked his car. The men smashed his window, seized his gun and sped away with him, the brother said.

The raid will surely lead to some controversies:

CNN said that the Libyan government knew the raid was being carried out. This has been denied today by the government, which has posted a statement on its Facebook page, saying it knows nothing about the reported seizure. It went to to say that it had contacted the US “for clarification”.

The various gangs that are the now the major powers in Libya will see this raid as (another) attack on Libya's sovereignty. Some major blowback against the interim government and other targets can be expected. There was already a tribal response against the government but the only mentioning of it is buried deep in the 25th paragraph of the NYT version of the story:

The capture of Abu Anas also coincided with a fierce gunfight that killed 15 Libyan soldiers at a checkpoint in a neighborhood southeast of Tripoli, near the traditional home of Abu Anas’s clan.

Some "coincidence" ...

The botched raid in Somalia was on a beach house allegedly used by the local Al Shaabab jihadists. The raid was first reported by locals and then by the Al Shaabab itself:

Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Musab, spokesman for Al Shabaab’s military wing, confirmed the raid and disclosed in a recorded press statement that the militants “repelled a midnight raid by white infidel soldiers”.

Abu Musab said: "We fought back against the white infidel soldiers with bombs and bullets, and they ran back to their boats. One member of Al Shabaab was killed and the white infidel soldiers failed their mission. We found blood and equipment near the coast in the morning,” he added in a recorded press statement posted on militant websites.

There was a lot of confusion about this raid and it took nearly a day until the U.S. confirmed that it forces had been beaten back. At one time the NYT and Fox News said that a senior Shabaab boss was killed while NBC said he was captured and AP said he was not found. This reminds one of all the propaganda claims made about the Bin Laden raid. This time though we will immediately know for sure as the book about this SEAL raid

"Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who -- if anybody -- 'wants to shut down the government.' But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare."

No need to read minds, just read a newspaper like the conservative Washington Examiner from July when they were pushing for it as a GOP tactic, headline:

"Republicans are willing to shut down government to stop fraudulent Obamacare subsidies".

http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-republicans-are-willing-to-shut-down-government-to-stop-fraudulent-obamacare-subsidies/article/2533356

Acting like there's some question of who's to blame is ridiculous. In addition, we know that there are votes in the House to pass a full-funding bill right now but the GOP leadership won't allow the vote to occur. (See "discharge petition" in the House below):

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/05/us-usa-fiscal-idUSBRE98N11220131005

This is not about monitoring anymore, probably never was

...giving the agency opportunity to launch prepared attacks against their systems

They are actively attacking Tor nodes and clients, be or not outside US, being used for criminal activities or just someone worried about his own privacy.

This is not about defending against terrorists, they are attacking the US citizens that dares to try to have some privacy. Along with foreing citizens worried about the same.

And they are not just forcing everyone to be unsafe, they are too, so others (foreing countries, private companies wanting to get rid of competitors, hacking groups, old-style criminal organizations, even terrorist groups) can use the same tools/backdoors/exploits as them, being either provided by leaks (not just Snowdens unknown predecessors, there are a lot of private companies with high security clearance with access to all of that that could have their own agenda (Snowden worked for one of them), or just plain hacking (like yesterday's Adobe one that could had leaked where Acrobat or Flash have NSA backdoors).

Not so much, it appears. Analysis: Despite fears, NSA revelations helping U.S. tech industry

I wouldn't get too worked up about it. Analysis: Despite fears, NSA revelations helping U.S. tech industry

Looks like it is a little more confirmed now, the shots were from the police. http://live.reuters.com/Event/Politics/91888535

I suppose that you mean economically harmful for US corporations, having competition is definately not what is capitalism about.

Is not just monitoring. Your lack of security will be used against you. If you have something critical enough in another country, you probably have a logical bomb running on your infrastructure. Stuxnet is an obsolete example by now.

But even without logical bombs, information means control, if they have all your information they could control you, or your population. If your country don't lick the boots of the USA overlords, they could spill secrets about your government that could put it in trouble, or make the population revolt. Even just stealing money of banks of enough people could trigger that revolt. And the killer secret could be just a grandmother telling in facebook to her contacts that she saw certain politic in a place where he shouldn't be. And the revolt will be pretty useful to put a puppet in power, is not that we didn't see that in the past years, and how well it went for the local population, during and after all got "solved".

In this scenario won't be surprised if most still independent countries just close ties with US and US companies, puts protective monitoring in all communications and restrict what can access citizens and foreigners. Probably the ones that in a year still didn't do it are not truly independent.

Do you realize that TEPCO has no plan to even decommission these reactors, let alone clean up the mess that they have now?

Arguably "decommissioning" Fukushima Da-ichi isn't a problem because the reactors are already way, way out of commission. Decommissioning is what you do to unexploded reactors. The problem now is containment (very difficult because of groundwater flow) and then cleanup (a very long-term job).

There is no current plan to remove those spent rods--they just sit there.

Actually TEPCO is planning on moving the spent fuel rods from the mostly-unexploded reactor come November, but they're going to want to do it very very carefully. Getting them moved seems like an important thing, but actually doing it is probably the most dangerous part.

Seriously, nobody has any idea what to do about this.

And there's the rub. The problem is that there basically isn't any way to clean up a situation like Fukushima where there's a meltdown in groundwater; this has been known to the nuclear industry for decades, and the answer has always been "we know this is an unsolveable problem, but we believe the odds of this happening are so low as to be unthinkable, because we have multiple redundant safety systems." The GE boiling water reactors especially took this philosophy to extremes; they don't have containment to deal with a meltdown because the suppression torus was supposed to make a meltdown impossible.

This kind of tempting-the-wrath-from-high-atop-the-thing reasoning from the industry is exactly why the anti-nuclear-power protest movement started gaining traction in the 1970s. Activists kept asking "yes, your active failsafes are shiny, but what if the unthinkable happens? How will you clean it up?" And the industry kept saying "we can't, but don't worry, it won't! Stop worrying!"

As anyone in IT should know from bitter experience, you can have all the multiple redundant disaster planning you want, but reality always tends to come up with interesting disaster scenarios your plan didn't account for. And "we're betting the worst case will never happen" is your cue to sell stocks and head for the door.

"Beyond that, failure to raise the ceiling would mean missed payments on existing U.S. government debt. And that might have terrifying consequences."

According to what I was told yesterday, this is unconstitutional. Debt payments _will_not_ be missed. http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2011/06/28/default-not-an-option-under-u-s-constitution/

It would seem that Krugman is basing his entire article on incorrect information. The dollar will not become insolvent. The stock markets may crash, but that would only be due to canceled government contracts and 800 000 people out of governmental work.

So you feel it is ironic that the NSA didn't catch something that the NSA has publicly stated they are not looking for? NSA isn't law enforcement, they may sometimes help them out or give them info they have found, but it isn't their job to collect data for busts like this.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

We already know the NSA is sharing information about illicit drug trafficing with the DEA, and asking the DEA to obfuscate where the information is coming from.

> When an activist intentionally breaks a law as an act of civil disobedience,
> usually the goal is to be caught

So was every gay person who engaged in relationships with other gay people an activist? Or were they all criminal scum because they didn't intend to get caught?

> As a matter of course, anyone accused of a crime could be protected from inquiries
> without a warrant, to prevent overzealous prosecutors from going after the activist's associates.

As a matter of course, we already can see the results of this. We already have drug cases where police have received secret tips and then manufactured a false chain of events to justify an arrest and hide the real source of information. This kind of protection after the fact is necessary, but its hardly sufficient: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

> For a government that ostensibly follows the will of the people, protecting those participants from
> injustice, regardless of their opinions, is its duty. Being inside those closed doors and aware of
> everything going on, with strong operational security, helps fulfill that duty

follows the will of the people WITHIN LIMITS. It doesn't matter if the will of the people is to silence speech, it is not the governments job to enforce that.

Those limits specifically include protections against search. They specifically were aimed at preserving personal privacy behind closed doors. I cannot believe that the people who wrote the 4th and 5th amendments would have envisioned such a program as falling within their powers to implement.