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DEF CON Advises Feds Not To Attend Conference
tsu doh nimh writes "One of the more time-honored traditions at DEF CON — the massive hacker convention held each year in Las Vegas — is 'Spot-the-Fed,' a playful and mostly harmless contest to out undercover government agents that attend the show each year. But that game might be a bit tougher when the conference rolls around again next month: In an apparent reaction to recent revelations about far-reaching U.S. government surveillance programs, DEF CON organizers are asking feds to just stay away: 'I think it would be best for everyone involved if the feds call a "time-out" and not attend DEF CON this year,' conference organizer Jeff Moss wrote in a short post at Defcon.org. Krebsonsecurity writes that after many years of mutual distrust, the hacker community and the feds buried a lot of their differences in the wake of 911, with the director of NSA even delivering the keynote at last year's conference. But this year? Spot the fed may just turn into hack-the-fed."
I have never really been comfortable with having the Feds in there in the first place. Anyone in government can potentially serve in a prosecutorial role, and the government has demonstrated over the years they are perfectly willing to demonize hackers if it serves a need. Thinking about Mitnick, Gonzales, and a bunch of other guys who got railroaded here, along with 2600 meetings where we would get interrogated just for showing up to have coffee.
It's a little like inviting the fox into the henhouse to have these guys around. Pretending that they care about the hacker community is a little hard for me to do.
I imagine after being asked NOT to attend, they will be FAR more interested in attending.
I don't like this type of relationship.
Defcon hasn't been about Defcon for a long time now. Since, what, Defcon 5 or 6? Ever since they moved out to that dumb Alexis hotel.
The REAL conference is Blackhat Briefings, which goes on during the week and is attended by serious people. Then, on the weekend, we bring the freaks out for your amusement and cap off Blackhat with Defcon. It's all about $$$$$ for Darktangent.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You can't use that to recognize the feds. All hackers wear black. And sunglasses the whole day long.
However, feds burn. And why do feds burn? ... Because they're made of wood. ... Because it floats. ... A duck!
How to know if one's made of wood?
And what also floats?
So, if the guy weights like a duck, he's a fed!
I'll be the one dressed as a lumberjack, covered in salt.
I am guessing they are generally physically fit with short cut hair.
Just because you "know" you'll get beaten when walking around in a Ku Klux robe in Queens, New York at night (which is perfectly legal afaict), this doesn't mean beating you up is allowed, and that it isn't a crime that should be prosecuted.
So before you joined the agency, did you see yourself more as a Dale Cooper or as a Fox Mulder?
huzzah! This is 100% true. Still, if someone phones in that there's a credible threat (bomb, beating, whatever) to the speaker, the protestors won't be allowed on campus.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
"hack the fed" (whatever that means)?
Yeah, that seem like a real challenge .. ;) huhum :)
"hack the fed" (whatever that means)?
Yeah, that seem like a real challenge .. ;) huhum :)
sure, but bring your own axe.
does this law exist in America? i know we have it here in the UK - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement_to_ethnic_or_racial_hatred
This is the government we're talking about here, such disclaimers won't work against them, they either win in court or when they don't, they ignore the court anyway with complete impunity.
Did our ancestors really fight for this? I begin to wonder why they fought at all just so you can sit on your ass watching American Idol whilst having complete apathy to politics. The public deserve the government they get, in this case, the inaction of said people deserve to be ruled by a totalitarian government with an iron fist.
Please... would DEFCON organizers be so kind to ask the spooks to stay out not only of the conference but out of the entire citizens life? Thanks.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The Feds who show up and identify themselves as Feds aren't the Feds you need to worry about anyway.
When you dance with the Devil, the Devil doesn't change - you do.
Look up Smedley Butler. He joined for patriotism, he was decorated for bravery and then he was used to murder civilians for agribusiness. Here we are a century later and the game is the same. Young men join for patriotism and end up murdering civilians for the profits of the 1%
In USA, Fed hacks YOU!
In an alternate universe the Def Con membership includes somebody by the name of Snowden... is he considered a Fed or not-Fed?
No. The First Amendment right to freedom of speech applies to hate speech, so long as it isn't treating.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States
You are right of course. There is however practical justice, legal justice, and moral justice. They don't all demand the same outcome for the situation you describe.
Personally I still feel that anyone working at NSA is a collaborator is tearing down our Constitutional freedoms. Until they leave their employment there they absolutely deserve to be shunned by the rest of society. Note I don't say attacked or harassed.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This link, Hate Speech: United States, is two clicks from your link.
You can't use that to recognize the feds. All hackers wear black. And sunglasses the whole day long.
The resolution to this is; hack everyone. If they were a fed, you'll be able to figure that out by the contents of their e-mail account and their My Documents folder.
If they didn't turn out to be a fed, you just scribble a quick apology and leave it as a note on their desktop; after you phinish bragging.
ive never been nor shall i go for that very reason they do go.
anyone that thinks they are a hacker why the fuck would you out yourself so badly to them...
unless your a nsa type.
THATS what it has become a nsa recruiting ground for jerks.
Although (as seen here on /.) that's not been going too well for them lately, at least publicly.
But time, and the "law" is on their side.
And of course, they don't even have to physically go there to find out what's going on.
Showcase something smart, but borderline legal, and maybe you'll get a call after the conf. "inviting" you to join the team.
Would it be any more difficult to spot one of the vast numerous contractors that work at the behest of the feds?
Spot the fed may just turn into hack-the-fed
I hope you are not suggesting DEFCON might go Brazilian on them?
Who knows? An Orwellian surveillance state is a lot more serious than soccer.
The conference organizers will likely get their wish, one way or another. For various reasons (Congressional budget fights, sequestration, a few high-profile wastes of taxpayer money, and an overarching effort to look austere) the administration has clamped down hard on all kinds of meetings and official travel, even in support of the agency mission. See Executive Order 13589 for more details. Lengthy approval processes, limits on number of Federal attendees at conferences, and restrictions on weekend travel will keep the Feds away from this conference. The irony is that the administrative cost of policing federal travel, combined with the missed opportunities for buying cheaper airfare and early conference registration, could be costing more money than it saves.
Are they? Do you actually have any inside knowledge of the NSA and what they do, beyond what you read int eh papers and hear on /. ? Like any fed agency it's largely ordinary civil service just doing a day to day job to feed their family. Most of them are ordinary people no more deserving of your hate (and yes, it is bigoted hate, oriented around their job instead of race or creed) than anyone else. Most of them are probably doing harmless innocuous work, or actually tracing workable intelligence leads towards the bad guys. the few actually involved in "the bad stuff" we all hate are probably the same ordinary civil service workers who just "doing their job" and give no more thought to the moral rightness of what theyre doing than a Chevy worker does as he tightens the same nut 50k times a day as the line moves past.
Your unreasonably unlimited hate and vitriol only helps fuel the problem.
Beleive it or not the intelligence community does serve a useful purpose, and the scandal is only one facet of them.
Better to narrow your focus only towards the ones actually responsible, the ones in charge, politician and appointee alike, who decided they needed to violate our rights to "keep us safe". Hating them all is unreasonable and no different than any other unreasonable guilt-by-association based hatred through history.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I think I've Spotted a Fed. Do I win something?
If you think the Feds you knew were there were the only Feds there, you're an idiot.
Personally, were I an FBI wonk, I'd have long-ago made penetrating DEFCON a priority on so many levels and so long ago that I'd have deep-penetration spooks in the leadership today, guiding policy. That's practically Machiavelli 101.
Hell, I'd have even doubled-up, and sent honeypot Feds to BE hacked/cracked/busted, so the Defcon kids would feel like they were winning, ala:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8581/4puc.jpg
(SFW aside from PG13 language).
-Styopa
Does "Fed" include all the people in that room who are contractors for various federal agencies?
Does anyone believe that being once removed by virtue of a private company makes you any less part of the police state?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Lengthy approval processes, limits on number of Federal attendees at conferences, and restrictions on weekend travel will keep the Feds away from this conference.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!1!
Actually, you lose. What you spotted was a reasonable person with a brain.
Sometimes, in rare moments, these ordinary people do extra ordinary things (Mr. Snowden) to help shine a light on a corrupt system; corrupt from the top down, not so much the bottom up. Most times they come to work like most people, processing paper work, managing information, and trying to make it to the end of the day so they can enjoy life. As the GP said, save the vitriol for those that make policy or even better, if you don't like the current batch of policy makers, work to get rid of them in the next round of elections.
If that was your attempt at humor...try again.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
If you blow the whistle on them, you win a shit load of trouble for yourself.
My Slashdot friend PopeRatzo directed my attention to the following article, which provides a good overview for those unfamiliar with the Obama administration's "Insider Threat Program;" if any doubts remained regarding "the most transparent administration in US history," prepare to be even more disgusted:
Obama’s crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S. [2013-06-20]
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Some federal agencies are still the good guys. Or at least are necessary. And the IT security folks in those agencies want to be able to defend the data, paid for or supplied by U.S. citizens, from the bad guys (criminals, other governments). There's an old saying (or maybe it was a song) that one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch. There's another one about throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I understand and concur with the desire to protest the current surveillance state. But is it really a good idea to deprive NOAA or the IRS of the tools they may need to protect the integrity of climate or weather data, or to keep your tax returns out of the hands of identity thieves? Don't forget, we still have common foes out there. And not everyone in the U.S. government was complicit in the domestic surveillance.
I agree with this to an extent, but "just following orders" generally doesn't cut it. Of course this case is more nuanced than genocide, but the principal is the same.
No of course not. That's the problem.
You could use the exact same defense for the Stasi. East Germans had no nice and official documentation about what they did, unless they worked for them. Were they therefore not entitled to have an opinion about it?
Are they? Do you actually have any inside knowledge of the NSA and what they do?
I'm not convinced. I've not seen conclusive evidence. Oh sure, I'm sure they stop a terrorist now and then, but the question is whether the threat they themselves pose to liberty is worse than the threats they deal with.
History suggests it is: people have vastly overestimated external threats compared to the threat from people nominally tasked with defending them.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Yeah, if it's routine for them to do evil I guess that makes it alright.
I suspect the person you replied to was just joking, but it says something about Slashdot that you just can't be sure anymore.
How could anyone read the summary with its "time-honored 'Spot-the-Fed' tradition" and then NOT conclude I was joking?
By attending this conference, you consent to having your systems hacked, and to have your mouth sewn to the anus of another user, whilst possibly having another user's mouth sewn to your anus to form a human centiPad.
You didn't read the agreement?!? It can't read!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Please stay off my phone records and phone calls, and stay out of my internet logs, and all that noise..
They just won't be having any fun, and will have to keep a lower profile this year unless their goal is to literally destroy the event. Which is a distinct possibility. The threat this poses to our freedom of association is more deeply concerning to me than any specifics of what they might do.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The resolution to this is; hack everyone. If they were a fed, you'll be able to figure that out by the contents of their e-mail account and their My Documents folder.
If they even *have* a My Documents folder on a laptop at Defcon, you're most of the way to proving they're a fed...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Why not?
Because we are not them.
It might be because we're humorless drones...or because the joke fell flat. I saw the connection, I didn't find the humor. You could have gone with "I think (well actually your first mistake. Think implies a guess which means you have doubts thus you should not have raised the point) I spot a Fed...No, wait...to reasonable, I'll keep looking".
Now that would be a tip of the hat to the original summary line, but be respectful of the poster's view and a level of "funny" for /.
You took the lazy, grade school route for humor with bad timing...that's how.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
No you just look at what color cowboy hat they are wearing surly
I think he's generally right but certainly not in the case of THIS conference.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Many of these large acts of evil can't happen without a lot of support from average people. So long as the average people in the NSA just doing their jobs help organizations like the NSA to remain staffed an operational they are complicit in the dirty dealings of the organization.
The leaders do share a huge share of the ethical burden but definitely not all of it. They could not do what they do without so many people willing to help them and so many people that consider something to be just a job and don't look at the ethical issues at all.
I wish we knew a lot more about these organizations. They should receive positive feedback when they operate the right way and negative when they act the wrong way. Right now they only get negative and I doubt the organization is universally bad but without both reinforcements and greater public awareness along with people unwilling to do these immoral acts it is very hard to get change.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
We've heard that "Just following orders" defense somewhere before... You might want to Google that and see how those trials turned out. The fact that they are mindless drones in a machine that is performing reprehensible acts, but hold no hate for their victims themselves, does not make them innocent. After Snowden, anyone willing working for the NSA and not looking for work elsewhere is approving of and endorsing their crimes.
America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936
it would go "These are not the drones^HFeds you are looking for"
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
On the other hand, the founder is a consultant for homeland security and has invited the feds since the first year.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Not only does that law not exist in America, that law would be unconstitutional in America. 1st Amendment, y'know.
So your argument is they are just following orders? That's pretty funny.
This is my philosophy: If the government considers it a weapon, that alone should invoke the Second Amendment. Any legal scholar worth his salt knows that said amendment is a doomsday clause.
--
Another fine opinion from The Fucking Psychopath®.
Does it seem strange that someone working for the Federal Government (DHS) is asking other Federal Employees to stay away?
It's perfectly reasonable to hate an entire organization if they're involved in anything worthy of receiving that hate even if it's .01% of the people in that organization if they refuse to acknowledge their fault and change for the better.
The Feds at DefCon and Black Hat mostly just wear jeans and t-shirts like everyone else. It's a little easier at Black Hat because many of them won't put their company name on their badge. DefCon doesn't have identification on badges.
DefCon is cash only, no registration, no identifying information.
I agree - if this was a "How to be a more effective person" conference, it'd probably be denied.
Like any fed agency it's largely ordinary civil service just doing a day to day job to feed their family. Most of them are ordinary people no more deserving of your hate (and yes, it is bigoted hate, oriented around their job instead of race or creed) than anyone else.
Would you make the same arguments about e.g. Al Qaeda's accountant? Or the contractors on the Death Star?
Most of them are probably doing harmless innocuous work
If you sweep the floors for the enemy, you're still working for the enemy.
Beleive it or not the intelligence community does serve a useful purpose
Only useful to those interested in projecting American hegemony across the planet for all of eternity.
the same ordinary civil service workers who just "doing their job" and give no more thought to the moral rightness of what theyre doing than a Chevy worker does as he tightens the same nut 50k times a day as the line moves past.
And that's the problem. They're morally negligent, that's no better than being morally wrong. Remember, the only thing required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. These people aren't just doing nothing, they're providing support.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Wow, mark this day on the calendar, folks. It's the day you saw a Slashdotter in support of the Nuremberg defense. Is this, like, the anti-Godwin?
Openness to all & the free exchange of ideas and information with curious people doesn't seem compatible with the exclusion of any one group.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Right! I mean why did everyone in Russia hate the secret police? What's wrong with secretly spying on all your neighbors? Dose that make them bad guys?
Yes.
Better to narrow your focus only towards the ones actually responsible...
The people (the ordinary 'Joes') who carry out the order are the ones actually responsible, not the ones who make the order, which is nothing but words. It the action that counts, not the tongue wagging.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yeah, this.
I'm sure that throughout the decades there were perfectly normal and nice people that participated in the KKK. I imagine in some regions it was more of a BBQ-club than a hate-mongering organization. That people joined simply due to the social stigma of not joining, they liked their neighbors, and oh yeah, ra ra white power.
But that doesn't matter, because the leadership of that organization is bat-shit anti-social insane. And by being in that group the members gave legitimacy to those leaders and provided them power. A nutter with just his cats to talk isn't a political threat. It's not a voting bloc. It's not an establishment that people in power care about. The nutter can still be dangerous all by himself, but not the sort of social force that the KKK represented. The leaders of the KKK aren't a big threat if they don't have anyone to lead.
I don't particularly blame people working in federal positions for the atrocities of the federal government across the board. The postal worker in town didn't torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The US general in Iraq didn't illegally spy on US citizens. But they do share some of the blame just for being in the same group. The same way that I share some of the blame by being a US citizen. (Because we run this town, right? Right!?)
But I 100% completely blame the NSA workers associated with this spying project for being complacent about it's violation of the US constitution. I've worked places where the broad governing rules were paid lip service, and everyone generally agreed that we should be following them, but specifically disagreed about how we were blatantly violating them because of excuse excuse excuse, it's-special-in-this-case. If the hammer came down, EVERYONE in that company deserved to be hit. I know, I know, you wants to keep your job, you don't want to rock the boat, and you think you're doing some good in the world. So pass the buck. Send an email. Ask the boss in a very traceable and and blunt way. Do that and now it's HIS problem. Give him some time to decide if he wants to double-down on doing something illegal or if he wants to fix it. If he doesn't fix it, GO OVER HIS HEAD. Because it's good for the company/government/society to fix these problems. In the long run.
And if you can't trust the official channels, fuck it, blow that whistle.
Ohh poor NSA worker (or contractor), they have no choice but to work for an agency that has been proven to be hostile to both the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in creating this monstrous weapon, has shown their naked aggression to all people of the world.
Oh wait! They do have a choice. If I were them, I would be living in fear that one day their child will ask them: "Daddy, did you help them build the apparatus of tyranny?"
Just because we have a corrupted system that has allowed these blatant breeches, doesn't mean that these law twisters are the only source of moral authority. That poor little NSA worker has their own moral authority to either stand up (like Snowden did) or sit down, quit their immoral job and get a job that is compatible with the common standards of morality that we have enshrined in documents like the Constitution and the UDHR.
Ah, you mean the same document which has rules against unreasonable searches? How's that working out?
Ok, so insert a few random leaked documents into every presentation. By the end of the week, anyone with a security clearance will have so much paperwork to do explaining why they had unauthorized access to every one of hundreds of pieces of classified information, they won't get around to doing any real work until the week before DefCon 2014.
0 1 - just my two bits
Not really fair. The government employs at least 30% of workers in our country. These are people who have to work somewhere.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Don't give us this "just doing my job" nonsense.
Oddly, this is what the German people said consistently during WWII. "I didn't see anything" (but in german) was very common. People turn a blind eye because they need a job. When that desperation is so acute that people can be turned to do something terrifying collectively then there's a problem.
Also, those people KNOW what they are doing, piece by piece, little by little. Actual people allow those decisions, and must be stopped.
-
Most times they come to work like most people, processing paper work, managing information, and trying to make it to the end of the day so they can enjoy life.
And why does that excuse them from assisting evil? These people have a moral responsibility to evaluate the system that they are working in.
As the GP said, save the vitriol for those that make policy
Policy doesn't do anything if there aren't people to carry out that policy. Those who choose to help carry out bad policy are bad people.
if you don't like the current batch of policy makers, work to get rid of them in the next round of elections.
Was that *your* attempt at humor? We tried getting rid of the neocons in 2008, look at what that got us. Democracy is well and truly broken in the US. You're not going to do anything from the top down. Only when the people rise up will real change happen.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
tons of porn on every screen, people drinking all day long, and ill mannered conversation
I fail to see what Fed's even gain from attending.
Might want to connect the dots. You've never worked at a federal agency have you?
You have plenty of opportunity to provide factual rebuttals here, and good arguments are modded up. All we have here are unsupported assertions that the NSA mostly does good, and the old "I was only following orders excuse". *THAT* is what you'd expect to see at Fox News.
Reasonable people with a brain can do better. Try harder.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Folks: If I was a fed, I would be happy not to go there! That has got to be the most uncomfortable place to hold a conference like this. It's been over 100 degrees there lately. That is hot and uncomfortable!! Can we please move this thing to a place that's cooler and more comfortable, like Seattle or Portland, Oregon??????? Mark
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Apparently you don't know the answer to your own response. 99% of the German soldiers that used the just following orders defense had no punishment. Only ranking officers in the decision chain were punished and only the highest ranking officers or those in charge of the worst atrocities (such as the officers in charge of the death camps) were hanged. Most of the ordinary military personnel, even those staffing the death camps saw no punishment at all. If you were aware of history you would know this, it was quite controversial at the time but the Allied Millitary command felt it would do more long term damage to peace and the future German state to punish ordinary soldiers even if they committed atrocities.
I still have my "I am the Fed" shirt from 2005. Fond memories. :)
Have you ever been to Defcon? If you spot the fed, and you're right, you get a T-shirt that says so.
Disregarding everything else...
Was that *your* attempt at humor? We tried getting rid of the neocons in 2008, look at what that got us. Democracy is well and truly broken in the US. You're not going to do anything from the top down. Only when the people rise up will real change happen.
No. I don't joke about Franchise. Democracy will be broken the day the vote is removed. Till then you, I, we need to keep trying to change. So this round failed, figure out how to fix that and try again.
The problem with people "rising up" these days is that it tends to get very bloody, very ugly, and to chaotic to be managed. OWS failed, not for passion, but they could not find a cohesive voice. An angry mob may kill the Gentry, but they are still just an angry mob sloshing around with little guidance. I would prefer the US not look like Syria in a few years, or Egypt; fractured societies using violence to achieve a means to an end while a few feed off the chaos. Want to get out Republic back, vote for a moderate republican, not an extreme liberal. Vote for a reasoned voice then hold them to it.
I agree that what represents a politician (leader) in the US is pretty sad, but there are some notables to (Sen Warren for example) that serve as an example of what we once had in Congress.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Since when do Serfs tell the Watchers of the corporate serfdom what to do? If you want to be in this position, change the hierarchy of power to 'we the people'. Until then, bow to the watchers and your corporate overlords.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
They are making a choice to work there even though they know what the organization does. They are not innocents caught in the crossfire.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Does it seem strange that someone working for the Federal Government (DHS) is asking other Federal Employees to stay away?
No, not really.
If you ask nicely enough, maybe they'll go away. Remember to say "please".
"Hey, look man, I don't gas the Jews, I just pull the Zyklon B canisters off the truck, hook them up to this valve in the 'showers' and press the 'gas the Jews' button. Gotta pay the landlord, ya know?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Even better than this: use the following as a style guide for presentation templates:
http://www.ncis.navy.mil/securitypolicy/seced/trng/NSMC%20Student%20Guide/sg_4-1.pdf
Every slide in the deck labeled TOP SECRET with headings listed as 1.4(d) TS//NOFORN, with at least one slide of a leaked document embedded should be enough to keep anyone with security clearance out of the presentations, or with a lot of paperwork.
For that matter, just make the sign-in pages leaked documents -- nothing quite says headache like explaining what your signature is doing on a document outside of your clearance.
Does he also quack like a duck?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Or they're running a very quirky honeypot...
My Documents folder is filled with Badgers. Lots of Badgers. ;)
I don't read AC A human right
Heh, reminds me of a joke involving Militias -
Roughly speaking, you have an extremist militia going, then they go to do the bust, but it turns out EVERYONE is a member of some police department.
I don't read AC A human right
1. 'Inadvertently' seeing classified, for somebody with any clearance, is a single piece of paper.
2. It's simple enough to say they have 'need to know'
3. Paperwork snafus aside, once something is leaked it's no longer classified. The paperwork snafus have been epic with the latest leaks though...
I don't read AC A human right
Democracy will be broken the day the vote is removed.
What good is a vote between two predetermined choices? You don't just need a vote, you need a functioning electoral system that's actually responsive to the will of the people. What we have instead is much more akin to the magicians choice than a carefully designed instrument that measures the will of the people. Until we have preference voting, publicly funded campaigns, and a media that doesn't black out third party candidates, we really don't have a meaningful franchise at all.
The problem with people "rising up" these days is that it tends to get very bloody, very ugly, and to chaotic to be managed
True. That's supposed to serve as incentive for the powerful to behave well. They will be the first against the wall after all. Prison terms within the legal system are the ideal approach, but when the government is too corrupt what do we have left?
Want to get out Republic back, vote for a moderate republican
We tried that in 2008, look what it got us.
Vote for a reasoned voice then hold them to it.
I would love to, there are none on the ballot that have a chance of winning.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
While I agree with most of what you say, I will dissent, slightly. As someone who has worked there and has friends who work there, your statement "the few actually involved in "the bad stuff" we all hate are probably the same ordinary civil service workers who just "doing their job" and give no more thought to the moral rightness of what theyre doing than a Chevy worker does as he tightens the same nut 50k times a day as the line moves past." just doesn't cut it.
There are moral (and legal) obligations outlined by NSA policy, and federal policy that whistle blowers should be protected. These policies clearly stipulate that if you are asked to do anything that breaks the law (which is perhaps arguable in the case of this "scandal") it is each and every employee's responsibility to report it.
Whether or not they are "just doing their job" they need to be held to a higher standard because their job isn't just tightening a nut, it's protecting people and their freedoms. It's not the same level of responsibility at all as the guy putting the blinker on your car.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
What leftists like you don't realize is that in order to effect change from the bottom up, you have to stop picking and choosing which people and which behaviors you like, and support all the power of the people over that of government every time.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That's supposed to serve as incentive for the powerful to behave well.
Generally most of what you say has some validity, but when I read the words I feel you leave some gaps in actionable options. Take the quote above, when the Gentry could only depart on stagecoach, fast horse or fleet foot your comment has power. In today's world, not only can the powerful quickly, "as in minutes" depart for locations unknown, they can more likely direct from parts unknown thus saving themselves from bloodshed. We are talking here about those that run the government (yes, I'll include our CEO bosses). So we ride up, we wave torches, we wave pitch forks, we destroy property, we find lackeys or minions to hack to death while the whole time the powerful just wait till the pressure is released then step back into power. Not very effective change.
I'm not quite there yet, where you are idealistically. I still believe People can effect change, but it is becoming just that much harder. I wont be around for this, but I get the feeling within 50 years, the US will explode like countries in the Arab Spring. When it happens the people who lit the match (back to 2000 in my book) will have created their safe zone in a new location. What was the US will be a splintered land of extremist individual or combined states. It wont be Civil war of two sides, but multiple factions vying for grabbing as much power as can be had.
Man, now you got me depressed and this had started off from just a bad joke...(sigh). My one faith is that there is a silent majority of people that upon wakening can be a powerful enough force to stem the tide. Leaders like Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren can get enough of a voice to show the populus there is a better way then chaos.
We'll see.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Indeed, and part of it is the enlisted troops swear an oath to obey their officers. Officers are assumed to have brains, but not enlistees or non-coms (except Warrant Officers). If enlisted guys thought they could be punished for breaking the law but following orders, they'd be thinking more about their orders and less about just getting them done. Let the officers do the thinking, that's the military way.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
oh fuck it, it was a simple joke, a reasonably funny and lighthearted one. and very, very on topic. actually... i think i have spotted another fed ;)
(disclaimer : 'fed' from the usa, not from any other federative composition in the world; this statement is not meant to shock residents of the usa)
Rich
Man, now you got me depressed and this had started off from just a bad joke...(sigh).
Hey, YOU thought it was a bad joke. I think it was appropriate, and so do the slashdotters who used mod points instead of comment. :p
That said, this has been a good discussion with some valid points raised. Myself, I've just about run out of faith that this can all be fixed with elections. I sure hope it can be, and I sure hope what we get next is better, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on it. Sadly, the USA has seen better days...
Walking away from a job and starving is only good as an individual moral stand.
Sadly, too many people care more about putting food on the table than they do standing up for what is right, which means the corrupt bosses that the first group walks out on has a ready supply of fodder to replace them with.
Beleive it or not the intelligence community does serve a useful purpose
They're certainly good for getting tens of Billions of tax$ into contractor's hands. Apart from that, why'd 911 happen??
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Are the feds officially unwelcome, or just being told the equivalent of "attend at your own risk because there's going to be a bunch of people here that you royally pissed off"
The NSA does a lot of good things and certainly isn't all bad. But the down side here is that the good things they do are also classified. There are many people who work in the NSA who do amazing things and they can't talk about them. Imagine all the folks in the CIA and NSA that may have helped with identifying where Osama Bin Laden was. The Seals didn't just happen upon a house in the middle of Pakistan by accident. That effort no doubt took years to analyse, coordinate, plan, and to do all over again. Imagine the analyst who positively identified Obama? Imagine the pride they had when they found him. But they can't even tell their husband or wife. There are things everyday that our intel agencies do that the world will never know. Sans the aliens, in some ways, it's a lot like Men in Black.
But on this note, and not to get too involved in the debate on surveillance, we are quick to criticize the NSA for the revelations that Snowden released, but yet we have companies like Google, who's job it is to suck up all the information in the first place. Think about it, Google has access to probably nearly every webpage on earth, a huge percentage of our emails, a huge number of our cell phone and VOIP calls, pictures of our doorsteps, and now is even coming out with a pair of glasses for everyone to walk around recording their day-to-day lives, and an ultra highspeed Internet that they can see all of our day to day surfing on. If we're worried about metadata in the hands of the NSA, why are we not worried about the intrusiveness of the companies we do business with?
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
That is why as a society we need to create a cost to becoming that fodder. If you know that doing something will make you a social outcast; might make you less employable in the future, etc. You will be less likely to do it; even if the pay is good today.
People do think about they future. Voluntarily joining a class of untouchables is not something they are likely to do. If you don't want government to engage in these activities make it impossible for them to find willing workers; by making the works unwilling.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html