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Letter to "Extended Family" Assures That NSA Will "Weather This Storm"
An anonymous reader writes "The National Security Agency sent a letter to its employees, affiliates and contractors to reassure them that the NSA is not really an abusive and unchecked spying agency engaged in illegal activity." Whatever you think of the commentary, you can read the original, attached to the linked story.
Seriously, though, just because you say it doesn't make it true.
Actions speak much, much louder.
Not surprised. Not surprised at all.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Acknowledging the problem doesn't exist, it most certainly does.
>>> It was intended to reassure them that the NSA is not really the abusive and unchecked spying agency engaged in illegal activity that someone reading former NSA contractor Edward Snowdenâ(TM)s disclosures might think...
Uhh what? Snowden just released existing documents, he didn't create them.
It stands to reason that the NSA should be judged exactly by their actions, i.e. the content of the documents they themselves created.
Of course they're not "engaged in illegal activity". They control the law.
I am sure that the NSA sees itself as the good guy, and I am sure it does serve some useful, protective services. However, if those services come at the expense of civil liberties then the price is too high. And if it comes at a small cost to civil liberty, then it won't be too much longer until the bureaucracy feeds on itself until the small infractions become large ones.
Of course the NSA will weather it, will continue to exist and will continue to spy. For them it's a (short) embarrassing time after which the news media will forget them and all will be the same for them again.
The ones who pay for this are the US IT companies which will be distrusted world wide and the US government (politicians, diplomats, secretary of state, etc) who will be distrusted even by their closest allies. US companies will notice it in the long term bottom line e.g. when big foreign companies won't outsource to a US company. The public will forget the scandal soon like they forgot Echelon, the big companies who have actual trade secrets however won't, and if they do they will probably regret it soon when their secrets aren't secret anymore and their US competitors magically know everything they do. These losses are however far in the future: more than a quarter away so they will be denied, at least publically and especially by the ones responsible: the politicians.
The politicians will have a lot less trust and goodwill from their foreign counterparts, even and especially from allied countries.
I can't believe that Americans, the worlds greatest talkers of democracy, will tolerate such an uttlerly despicible act of totalitarianism, within their own country.
Well, sure, in theory the people won't stand for this egregious violation of our rights, and come November, you can bet that... Omigawd, did you see what Miley did at the VMAs? And that new video of hers - That girl seems headed for trouble, mark my words! Hey, can you stop and McD's on the way over and get me two Big Macs, a large fry, and a large strawberry shake? No, wait... I need to lose a few pounds, make it a small fry. So, who do you think will win the big game tonight?
To paraphrase the letter:
We're family, we love you, so you should love us. Everything said in the media (except for a few pundits who we are paying off) is lies, the leaks didn't really say what they said. Everything we do is legal because we have the power to define the meaning of legal as anything we do.
Has anybody verified this letter is real? I smell a hoax.
Easy.
The NSA have got files on everyone.
Which politician is going to take them on and see all their dirty laundry thrown to the media?
The mass surveillance apparatus which is unquestionably a violation of 4th amendment protections requires just a few more than 1 in 10,000 agents to carry out. There may very well be a large group of perfectly honest and upstanding agents in the NSA, but the corruption goes much deeper than a few rogue individuals. It goes to the very top, with the head of the NSA perjuring himself to Congress only very shortly before Snowden's documents started trickling out in the news.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
In 6 months we wont remember who the NSA is or what happened.
Humans today have the attention span of a turnip.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The NSA denied the spying flat out, until they were caught.
The government claimed the court oversight was adequate, until FOI releases proved they're not.
They said they were only using the surveillance data to catch terrorists, until it was revealed that the DEA was getting a feed.
Why should anyone, even an NSA employee, believe anything these idiots have to say any more?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Is that completely unrelated to this story, or do we expect the US government to prevent similar from happening here on American soil while the NSA and FBI dutifully obey all laws on the books?
The NSA didn't prevent the lunatic from perpetrating the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.
The NSA didn't stop those idiots from setting off an IED during the Boston Marathon.
The NSA & FBI didn't help with the apprehension of the snipers in the D.C. area a few years back either.
The skippers were caught because they were noticed acting suspiciously in a rest area.
The FBI and NSA didn't prevent the events of September 11, 2001.
I'm afraid you will need a few examples of actual successes in order to make your claims stick, but you are going to have a problem with this, because there are no examples of attacks being prevented.
Oh, and how about that mess in Benghazi ? Yeah, all the NSA spying seems to be really working out
well with respect to keeping Americans safe.
There is no legal impediment to the NSA collecting, logging, analyzing, and possibly mischaracterizing *everything* I do online, and sharing the results of that analysis with the relevant local cops. The constitutional protections extended to American citizens do not apply to foreigners, from those living in other Western democracies, to those living in countries controlled by various "our-sonnfabitches" that the USA has supported over the years. It's well documented that the CIA has, on a regular basis, interfered in the domestic politics of other countries around the world, including aiding politically convenient despots in enforcing repression. In the old days, the computational tools to surveil everyone in the world simply didn't exist, so the CIA and NSA were naturally limited in who they could bother. Now, such limits apply to a much lesser extent. In terms of the technical capability (and I'm not implying equality of motives) it's heading in the direction of what the Stasi could do - to every single person on the entire planet. And, sorry, I am *not* happy that the United States government has that kind of reach. And nor should you be.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Blackmail only works on criminals and sleazebags. If you're doing shit so bad that you're willing to sell out your entire country to keep it quiet you deserve to be strung up by an angry mob.
Ordinary people do stupid and embarrassing stuff, but most people don't have histories that they couldn't come clean about if forced to. Only sociopathic assholes whose lives are entirely built on deception (eg politicians) are susceptible to this sort of treatment.
Blackmail is like Danegeld. Only an idiot would choose to play that game and only a criminal would need to.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
They are only exceptional in the number of their own people they have killed in their history. And with all his bluster about great Russian history, I do very much tie Putin into that part of their history. They’re not fooling anyone with their faux peace blabber. They just one to keep one more client madman on his throne. Unfortunately, as there are no good options in Syria that do not involve
a) killing the wrong side
b) staying home and watching the carnage
c) killing everyone
Russian’s entertaining stupidity is just one of those three options. Taking away Syrians chemical weapons will just be like holding the bully’s gun while he knifes his victim to death.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."