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NSA Targeting Domestic Computer Systems
The NSA was originally supposed to handle foreign intelligence, and leave the domestic spying to other agencies, but Presto Vivace writes with this bit from CNET: "'The National Security Agency's Perfect Citizen program hunts for vulnerabilities in 'large-scale' utilities, including power grid and gas pipeline controllers, new documents from EPIC show.' 'Perfect Citizen?' Who thinks up these names?"
"The program is scheduled to continue through at least September 2014," says the article.
People seem to forget that Intelligence gathering is only part of NSA's mission.
They are also tasked with ensuring the security of the nations computers, cryptosystems and more recently critical infrastructure. But people will believe what they want to believe, so any more when people ask me if stuff in Enemy of the State is accurate I tell them 100%. They're not likely to believe that no, it could actually take weeks-months to get reliable intel data and it's usually generated by some analyst that's 17-25 years old sitting in some windowless building with a crappy computer.
The same kind of people who dreamed up "Operation Enduring Freedom". At least they got the "Enduring" part right.
I can't speak for AC, but a lot of things in life are different than a video portrayal. Automobile accidents, for instance. I don't watch television much at all, but the most catastrophic accident on television is - just a little messy. Being a first responder even at a relatively minor accident can be unsettling. I've tossed my lunch at major accidents, and had a hard time falling asleep that night. Few people can appreciate an injury as simple as a broken leg, until they put their hands on that broken leg, and can feel how the bone grinds away, cutting muscle and other tissue as it does so.
Naturally, I've never lived through what AC posted. No concentration camps for me, but I can sort of imagine the difference from what we've seen in movies and television. Very different, indeed.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
+1 for the sig... best chuckle I've had all morning :)
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button