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Thomas Drake: You're Automatically Suspicious Until Proven Otherwise
colinneagle writes "RT had a very interesting interview with former NSA official turned whistleblower Thomas A. Drake, who said, 'Security has effectively become the State religion; you don't question it. And if you question it, then your loyalty is questioned.' 'Speaking truth of power is very dangerous in today's world,' he added. The interviewer pointed out that investigative journalists are labeled as 'terrorist helpers' for trying to reveal the truth, to which Drake said the government's take is 'you go after the messenger because the last thing you want to do is deal with the message.'"
Network World also has a pretty good article on William Binney's keynote at HOPE 9, wherein he revealed some technical details and a bit more background on the NSA's domestic surveillance program. Unfortunately, neither audio or video of the talk are available yet.
But Americans have been hugely keen on giving more and more power to their federal government, so this is in inevitable byproduct. Of course there must be some government, but not one that grows without bound and attracts power hungry, corrupt authoritarians.
But hey, keep on voting for those Republican and Democrats, because that's been working out so well thus far, amirite?
Many of us already know exactly what is being stated. You really only needed to investigate the Tea Party, OWS, and the Ron Paul followers to know this was happening. Many leaders of those groups have been jailed, detained, and publicly discredited by corporate owned media.
Without the common statements regarding famous books, what people should be fearing is tyranny. Tyranny is a very short step away from where we are now. I would be a fool to state that it's everyone in Government. I would be a bigger fool to deny that there are people in Government pushing for a Tyrannical State and Oppressive Government.
Guard that 2nd amendment right people, since you are dealing with people that are armed to the teeth and have no issues killing civilians. Simply look at the body counts in the Middle East, Africa. Do so with unbiased corporate owned media, or check numerous sources.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
'Security has effectively become the State religion; you don't question it. And if you question it, then your loyalty is questioned.'
Sounds exactly like the conditions that people lived in under the rule of the Nazis and Communists. The "the land of the free and the home of the brave" have become what they fought so hard against - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Heil Amerika!
The summary phrases it as though the person making the statement is stating his own position. In fact, he's attributing this position to the opposition.
It's like having a summary which says "(name): Muslims should take over the world" without mentioning that the quote is from someone who doesn't like Muslims and is attributing that idea to them, and is not a quote from a Muslim at all.
This is just a sad testament to what GW Bush helped to destroy -- a land of the free and home of the brave. Now it's the land of the slaves and home of the caged. Don't piss off your masters or you *will* be dealt with.
You really didn't understand a single word I said.
When the purges come, encouraged and led by people like you, they will not stop at just the people you yourself hate, they will continue until they meet up with you, personally. This was true during The Terror and every purge in history.
Here's your shirt.
--
BMO
But Americans have been hugely keen on giving more and more power to their federal government
Sigh. No. The ignorance of history by the average American is appalling. No, this is nothing new. It goes back to the 1798 Alien and Sedition acts, at least. There's nothing "more and more' about it-- you do remember the domestic spying of the 1960s and 1970s, right? Or the Kent State incident where National Guardsmen shot a bunch of students on the quad (who, as it turned out, didn't even have anything to do with the protests over which that the Guards had been called out?) Well, no, probably you don't. What is new is the large amount of push-back against giving power to the federal goverment.
There's been for the last two centuries a give and take between cries for security and the desire for non-interference; or, if you like, the battle between fear and freedom.
, so this is in inevitable byproduct. Of course there must be some government, but not one that grows without bound and attracts power hungry, corrupt authoritarians. But hey, keep on voting for those Republican and Democrats, because that's been working out so well thus far, amirite?
You're ignoring large amounts of debate and back-and-forth in order to phrase things as simple freedom-versus-evil. Even in the two-party system, the parties are not monoliths; opinions are not uniform nor black-and-white. However, if you don't like the two-party system, you might try to see if you can advocate changing the ballotting system that we currently have, which drives the politics to two parties. Try advocating approval voting, for example, which is a system that is not biased toward two parties: http://www.electology.org/approval-voting http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/center.html (or any of several other methods that don't fail badly with multiple candidates).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Correction... *religious extremists* are evil. That term also covers the assholes who believe we should herd gays into concentration camps and let them starve.
There is nothing inherently evil about Christianity or Islam. As usual with the human condition, it's assholes that screw everything up.
Ron Paul and today's "libertarians" are not libertarian by the traditional meaning of the world.
We need to call them what they are: corporate anarchists. Traditional libertarians didn't believe in elevating the rights of *any* institution (public or private) to that of the individual because it is dangerous and it would be a concentration of power. These idiots believe more in the rights of corporations than people.
the idea is to cure our government of it's corporate disease, not condemn the whole thing. and replace it with what? no one controls a revolution. everyone suffers and what comes out on the other end can very well be worse
so, as much as i despise the corporate influence on our government, i would equally warn against the parent poster who seems a little too eager to grab his gun
think too much like the parent poster, with vicious enemies out to kill him around every corner, and this turns you not into the instigator of righteous revolution, this makes you a deluded paranoid schizophrenic shooting up a mall
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is nothing inherently evil about Christianity or Islam.
Sure there is: they both require you to put non-Bayesian means ahead of Bayesian means as a way of knowing reality, and that is the root of all evil.
In the case of religions, scripture and ecclesiastical authority are the favoured non-Bayesian means. In the case of political organizations, party doctrine and ideology are the favoured non-Bayesian means.
Whenever anyone attempts to induce someone to abandon the only possible consistent way of knowing reality--Bayesian reasoning about systematic observations and controlled experiments--they are committing the most fundamental act of evil possible.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Our choice nowadays is between Romney and his Gestapo, or Obama and his Stasi.
Nazi Germany or East Germany, choose your hell. Personally, I'll take modern Germany, they have more freedoms than we do.
Well sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. I'm not sure though, what the rest of the world will have to go through, while the US goes through it's Third Reich Phase.
False. People comparing Obama to the Russians are stone cold drunk. The choice is between Romney and his corporate fascism, and Obama and his corporate fascism. Both use the policies and methods of right wing totalitarianism. The difference is Romney will mean a more conservative than now supreme court, is entirely in the corporation's pocket, and is going to pander to religious conservatives out of desperation. Obama will mean a possibly liberal-lite supreme court, is sticking out of the corporation's pockets (and sometimes isn't in there at all), and won't always pander to religious conservatives so much as give in to them.
The supreme court is really the big reason to vote one way or the other.
And any group who rises up will be labeled a "terrorist organization" so that when they are exterminated by the Feds in front of the media cameras, the general public, who are under the impression that the "government is always right and tells the truth", will just think, "They had it come'in." And the media will just fall in line and report about the "terrorist cell" and bring up clips of Timothy McVeigh or any other home grown group who had something against the government and committed violence.
The trouble is most Americans have no clue what freedom is. They think that as long as they can drive their cars where ever they want within the US, eat all they can, have their TV and bitch about the government to their buddies and online then they are "free". All this monitoring - like the Stasi - and the searches - electronic strip searches - are all necessary for our security and freedom.
Oh and the biggest thing that cracks me up is gun ownership. Yeah it's our right but what we're legally able to own is nothing to compared to the military. Even if we were legally able to own a rocket launcher, a F-18, a howitzer and a nuclear weapon, very very very few of us could afford it.
To quote Pris from Blade Runner, "We're stupid." We let it happen. We let the media - ALL the media - act incompetently, stupidly, and forced them via ad dollars to report the fluff and bullshit that they do now.
Trolling much? http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslimfaith.asp
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."