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NSA Planned To Discredit Radicals Based On Web-Browsing Habits

wired_parrot writes "New leaked documents show that the NSA was not only monitoring suspected radical sympathizers, but planned to discredit them based on their web-surfing habits. This includes not only evidence of porn browsing and online sexual activity, but also extortion and blackmail based on inappropriate use of funds. At the same time, the leaked document notes that very few of the targeted contacts were associated with terrorism."

415 comments

  1. FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    first "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've nothing to hide" post!

    1. Re:FP by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      first "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've nothing to hide" post!

      well, they're just redefining(or thats the way it's always been in usa seemingly) trying to achieve change of system as being radically wrong.

      reminds me of this airhead minister we had for a while in finland who remarked that it's preposterous that some people were trying to change the law... which was funny because she worked in the parliament - and the main function for the parliament is to change the laws.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:FP by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I have nothing to hide, but I still don't post my name here...

      Anyone posting your quote should be required to post their real name.

    3. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That explains why the US government is so butthurt over leaks.

    4. Re:FP by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      What I want to hide depends entirely on who's looking for it.

      The government already knows my real name, and knows I use "Sarten-X" as an alias, too. The government also already knows my address, and if agents want to come visit, they're welcome to.

      On the other hand, I don't trust the Internet fuckwads nearly so much, so "Sarten-X" is all you get.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    5. Re:FP by Internetuser1248 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On the subject of stupid/corrupt officials, just a translation for those who don't already know:

      Radical sympathiser (Governmentish)
      Noun
      A person that disagrees with our right to absolute power over everything.

    6. Re:FP by Enry · · Score: 1

      With oversight from Congress. BSAB

    7. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      reminds me of this airhead minister we had for a while in finland who remarked that it's preposterous that some people were trying to change the law... which was funny because she worked in the parliament - and the main function for the parliament is to change the laws.

      Obamacare is the law of the land. Don't try to change it. Don't even mention repealing it!

    8. Re:FP by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 1

      The Bush administration started the programme under discussion.

    9. Re:FP by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually this is one case where I might accept that argument.

      I look at porn and we can basically say every other human with internet access has as well.

      I also have intoxicating liquors in my home!

      The only way this impacts anyone is if they are in the closet or something. Just having looked at porn is not something anyone in 2013 should be concerned about, at least not anyone I hang out with.

    10. Re:FP by jdogalt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      well, they're just redefining(or thats the way it's always been in usa seemingly) trying to achieve change of system as being radically wrong.

      And then the next moment deciding to create and use a Kompromat database to prevent any undesired changes to the system. A revelation like this leads me to these sorts of philosophical and ethical ponderings- Would the sorts of NSA employees that decided to engage in these sorts of 'political ratfucking campaigns' also have thought that it would have been ethical to- e.g. pay a million dollars to a monica lewinski to seduce a president, in order to discredit him? I mean, after all, it's just a little victimless 'penetration testing' to increase the security of the overall system right? Just like breaking a little law against cruel and unusual punishment of a fellow human being in order to serve a greater good against terrorist criminals? Or would it make a difference depending on whether or not Hillary gave the thumbs up to the operation? Just musings on justice...

    11. Re:FP by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Well then, perhaps we now know what happens when they start gaining traction in their efforts to fo the unimaginable.

    12. Re:FP by Sentrion · · Score: 1

      That, and the corporations that own both parties.

    13. Re:FP by lgw · · Score: 2

      The fact that all the corporations that care about the NSA scandal are quite unhappy wit the NSA says: maybe there's less corporate control than you imagine. Of course, if your point was "we have two big-government, pro-corporate" parties, then I agree completely.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    14. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Clinton started it.

    15. Re:FP by Dragon+Bait · · Score: 1

      Clinton started it.

      You mean with operation Carnivore. Yes, but he had a D after his name. That means something. What it means, I don't know. But it means something.

    16. Re:FP by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 1

      I have nothing to hide, but I still don't post my name here...

      As if that's even the slightest inconvenience to the NSA.

    17. Re:FP by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      Uhhh..."redefining"? This is just COINTELPRO updated for the age of social media. The government has been suppressing and in some cases outright murdering activists for decades, this is nothing new. For an example see the middle of the Wiki entry I linked to, outright execution of an activist by members of the US gov, no charges filed of course.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    18. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even with just Sarten-X, I know you're a Kerbal fan with at least 56.5 hours of play time for the last 15 days ... and that's only a "Feeling lucky" query ;)

      That's why I love to remain an Anonymous Coward!!!

    19. Re:FP by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Alright then, here's my list of keywords when I search for porn: fellatio, anal, straight, asian, furry, futanari, yaoi, tentacles, 42, milk, eggs, coffee.

    20. Re:FP by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      ...and I don't consider that something to hide.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    21. Re:FP by ultranova · · Score: 1

      The fact that all the corporations that care about the NSA scandal are quite unhappy wit the NSA says: maybe there's less corporate control than you imagine.

      We created the corporations to serve us, but they escaped our control and turned against us. If there's a sliver of a soul somewhere in those inhuman abstract entities, I wonder if they can feel and appreciate the irony as history repeats?

      Oh well. No matter which one wins, we lose.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    22. Re:FP by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      Damn, dude. Tentacles and eggs together... that's just gross.

    23. Re:FP by lightknight · · Score: 1

      And they see nothing wrong with that...

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    24. Re:FP by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1

      Are the corporations really upset or are they just feigning indignity to appear more sympathetic to the consumers? I think if they were really upset it's because the gov't has all this juicy data that they aren't sharing with the private sector...yet.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    25. Re:FP by demachina · · Score: 1

      I think it was Turing who actually started it. Its been going on since at least World War II in electronic form. Only thing that has happened lately is the move from tapping copper undersea cables and RF to tapping fiber optics and routers. That and they have the compute power and storage capacity to do it to everyone instead of select targets.

      --
      @de_machina
    26. Re:FP by s.petry · · Score: 1

      What? Wait a minute. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have repented for their sins? Or perhaps they just claimed "sorry" to gain some users back that are now uneasy? I believe the latter is much more accurate.

      Sure, many businesses were blind to what's going on just like Joe the Plumber. Many businesses don't want to cooperate and have refused to cooperate with certain Government agencies. That would be fair. These are not the "big" ones that are working with the Government in abusing their power and trust.

      You should also be asking if the big ones got big because they are "players". When looking at the Microsoft anti-trust cases, I think there is at least some validity to that line of thinking. The MySpace vs. Facebook stories also hint that in at least some cases this may be true.

      The point is that you need to have some caution when making a blanket statement like "all corporations care about the NSA scandal and are quite unhappy wit the NSA", because that is not true for the people holding the power over many very key pieces of the spy grid. Search Engines, Social Networking, Operating Systems, etc... And we already know that AT&T has given copies of every data link to the NSA, so they are guilty also.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    27. Re:FP by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Depends on what type of porn, and what community you live in.

      PS: Thanks for volunteering yourself as the spokesperson for the entire population. I'm sure your particular beliefs apply to everybody in the country.

      --
      No sig today...
    28. Re:FP by lgw · · Score: 2

      Why do you imagine that Google is happy that it gave data to the NSA, and is now losing business as the result? Google definitely isn't happy that the NSA was tapping their inter-data-center links.

      No, the NSA was not some creation of Goole et al.

      Now, if you want to assert that "there are some powerful people who both own shares in large corporations and have lots of influence over the government", then sure, that seems obvious. But there's not some nefarious conspiracy of random corporations to control the government just to mess with you; well, other than the MPAA/RIAA, but they lost all sanity long ago. Some of the government's actions are clearly to benefit influential corporations, but the government has plenty of time left over to screw with you in many, unrelated ways.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    29. Re:FP by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is you are not a politician running for office on a conservative family ticket. So the NSA/CIA/Corporate Contractors are targeting protesters by blackmailing politicians into writing laws allowing undesirable to be charged and tried for meaningless crimes, where the court case and associated imprisonment are the penalty, as the whoops tee hee let you go after some number of years in prison and on trial, lost job, lost house etc. So it is all about extortion upon a plantery scale targeting anyone and everyone.

      Catch, once you become bogged in lies and bullshit and the whole world also knows you have the technical capability of creating digital illusion, actually making up evidence rather than gathering real evidence, everyone just stops believing you. That is the real problem with the illusion of digital evidence, it all can just straight up be made up and no one can tell the difference. Once they have shifted to the dark side with extortion, then they are on the dark side and with that it means that truth and lies have the same value and they use which ever is the most convenient, hence nothing they say can be believed.

      I mean gees, Uncle Tom Obama the Choom Gang Coward, how much more obsequious can he be to US intelligence agencies without the American public finally waking up to the idea that the NSA/CIA are blackmailing him into it. Some of the ludicrous crap that has been coming out of that guys mouth recently, surely it must be noticeable that it is a script written by others as it bears little or no relationship to his original speaking style or content during his first years in office. It is pretty bloody obvious that even he doesn't believe half of the stuff that is coming out of his mouth nowadays.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    30. Re:FP by s.petry · · Score: 1

      I never said Google created the NSA, save your straw man next time. I asked the question of whether or not Google became so big because they play ball with Government agencies where others did not. That would not be the sole reason, obviously, but it could easily play a big role.

      Claiming that Google is happy or unhappy with the arrangement is not really relevant to the fact that they do play ball. Google has not changed any policies after the revelations. The only thing that has happened is that they claim they want to be more transparent about it. That was the point of the comment about "repent"ing. Google today is still giving the NSA, data and people are still giving Google data to play middle man with.

      Your last paragraph is a speculation, just like claiming that there is some big conspiracy is a speculation. With little facts available due to the secrecy, your speculation is no better. In fact with all of the leaked data over the last few years, your speculation is worth less than someone claiming it's nefarious.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    31. Re:FP by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      It is a bit subtler than that :

      incredibly relevant SMBC

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    32. Re:FP by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1
      True... but I'm not trying to hide from the NSA.

      If I wanted to, I probably could, but it would take living off the wired grid and changing my life in ways that I'm unwilling to do so.

      So could I just up and disappear? Sure, but I don't want to, so I don't, and thus can't avoid the NSA.

      However, I'm also not planning to do anything the NSA would care about, so I am pretty safe in that regard.

    33. Re:FP by lgw · · Score: 1

      I was on the topic of whether "the corporations" own both parties. My point was that "own" is too strong a claim, as evidenced by the NSA. The government does more evil than just the bidding of "the corporations".

      Now to expect American corporations to openly defy American law would be a bit too far in the other direction, no?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    34. Re:FP by inasity_rules · · Score: 1

      Hello!. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

      --
      I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
    35. Re: FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. Consider, the purpose of this is to discredit people I.E what they have to say holds no merit because they watch people having sex online.

      Though it's a pretty common thing for people to look at Porn this is not what's open for debate. Defaming the person is.

      Say a political figure who holds favorable policies for the average person. Let's say this political figure tries to stop the next 'would be' SOPA. Well of course his porn is going to discredit him.

      A politician trys to help with some form of education reform. Oh well he looks at porn so who will listen to 'that perve'.

      This is Hoover tactics. People say it's bush administration or obama. Oh no this started all way back when Mr Crossdresser was running the FBI.

    36. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tough for Obama to be tough on the NSA when they can easily blackmail him. It wouldn't even matter if he didn't do anything wrong in his entire life, they can make it up and at least half of America would believe it. I mean look at the absolutely ridiculous junk that is spread (e.g. he can't be president because he was born in (fill in foreign country) even though his mother was a citizen and it wouldn't matter if he was born in a foreign country (or does that just apply to McCain and Ted Cruz).

      We are done. We have created a security apparatus that makes the Stasi look like a kindergarten tattle-tail. What can dismantle the NSA, who can challenge their power? Snowden tried. By any logical standard he should be lauded as an American hero and those that actually sought to harm the USA by empowering the NSA to subvert it should be on trial or sitting in a foreign country, fearing for their freedom.

    37. Re:FP by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Am I correct in guessing that English is not your first/primary language? Your phrasing makes better sense if that is true, so I probably assumed incorrectly you were being very literal.

      Let me move your comment into the two questions I see, and I'll answer both. Answers are of course my educated opinion, and I may be able to point to materials for understanding.

      1. Do corporations own both parties in the US Political System?

      No, however people that own very large and key corporations do. Television for example provides a means for select people to present candidates to the public. The hype and lies about Obama would not be possible without a media conglomerate advertising the person and distorting reality for viewers.

      2. Do American corporations openly defy US Law?

      Yes, quite frequently. Occasionally they are charged with crimes and face justice, but not as often as they should. Outrage about illegal acts is often pacified by media for given corporations, and information is simply not provided in many cases. See the answer to question 1. People in power controlling media means that reality is manipulated. Very few Americans know for example that Dole had mercenary forces in South America murdering civilians for farming lands and rights.

      References: Plato's "The Republic" see "The Allegory of the Cave". Gary Allen "None Dare Call it Conspiracy". Mark Dice "Illuminati Fact vs. Fiction". The first shows that the manipulation of reality is a science going back thousands of years. The last book by Mark Dice contains hundreds of references to other works showing the controlling structures behind corporations and media.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    38. Re:FP by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      This is just COINTELPRO updated for the age of social media.

      Interesting comparison. I recall Chomsky saying that Watergate is often referred to as the the good old days when there was serious hardhitting journalism, but those were also the days when COINTELPRO was uncovered and nobody cared.

    39. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However, I'm also not planning to do anything the NSA would care about, so I am pretty safe in that regard.

      Stupid goddamn sheep. MLK and John Lennon weren't doing anything that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover should have cared about, but they still ended up with their own files.

    40. Re:FP by Gen_Music · · Score: 1

      FFS Americans, you are not the only bloody people on the planet. 5 Posts in and you've already stated banging on about your completely optional healthcare, and a few seconds later your stupid Republican/Democrat Bread and Circuses party. Repeat after me.

      Who. Gives. A. Fuck.

      Why? Becasue they are two sides of the same fucking coin and the sooner you stop quibbling over who's right and wrong the sooner you'll get off your asses and start actually worrying about what you should replace them with, because my personal opinion is that they are both cunts who need to die.

      And please NSA, blow me up over this. I dare you.

    41. Re:FP by Magius_AR · · Score: 1

      about your completely optional healthcare

      Optional? I wish. The rest of your rant was spot on though.

  2. Porn browsing? by aliquis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?

    If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..

    1. Re:Porn browsing? by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

    2. Re:Porn browsing? by jasper160 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am sure the NSA was spending hours "analyzing" the material.

      --
      No good deed goes unpunished.
    3. Re:Porn browsing? by rnturn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ``If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn.''

      If anything, I'd mistrust the people who make a big deal about never looking at internet porn. Just look at the frequent revelations involving vocal evangelists.

      Trying to lean on people based on their internet browsing habits? It seems that someone's trying to quell any public dissent on NSA snooping on Americans. "Listen buddy... icksnay on the oopingsnay or we'll let everyone in your church know about those web sites you visited last Wednesday evening between the hours of 9:00PM and 10:30PM."

      --
      CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
    4. Re:Porn browsing? by firex726 · · Score: 2

      So porn today is like drinking back in the wild west, with regards to trusting people?

    5. Re:Porn browsing? by khasim · · Score: 1

      In theory it is not that they watch it but what they watch.

      Suppose the NSA loads up the computer of some "radical" with 100's of gigs of interracial gay enema porn and then "reveals" the dirty sex browsing history to the world.

      In reality, you'll just be convincing the people who already don't like that person that he is a filthy disgusting bad person. And the people who approved of his ideas will claim it is a conspiracy by the NSA/FBI/CIA/whatever to discredit him and that those pictures were planted.

    6. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?

      If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..

      Precisely. YOU wouldn't. The vast majority of the country, however, would. The vast majority of news outlets would. More to the point, both have an implicit distrust of people who watch porn. And your cavalier attitude towards the opinions of other people outside your social circle would throw you right into the sort of situation the NSA wants: You casually browse porn as if nobody you know cares, you shoot your mouth off about something they don't want you to, the news media picks up on leaked data, the public doesn't trust you, and you fail to realize that your opinions on the innocence of pornography are what's dooming your opinions and any semblance of a "movement" to obscurity in the eyes of the public (the same public from which you REQUIRE SUPPORT in order to get anywhere with any radical ideas you might have), no matter how "logical" or "right" you believe your opinions to be nor how irrelevant to the discussion your porn habits are.

      Seriously, the entire "treat the public as an amorphous, impossible-to-comprehend blob we can safely ignore" attitude is what's killing any attempt at nerds taking over areas of public policy. We seem to think the public doesn't matter so long as we have cold, impersonal logic on our side, and we're reliably proven wrong on that every single time as people who are "undeniably wrong" gain all the public support they need at the expense of any support for us, leaving us dumbfounded and baffled. And then the next issue comes up and we do the exact same thing, somehow SURE it'll work THIS time...

    7. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

      Apparently you've never visited Washington, DC, where the "escort" business thrives due to its many politician and high-ranking government official client-base. Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts", assuming he can afford them, the police will have his name in the newspaper faster than a Gulf of Mexico Hurricane flattens a school.

    8. Re:Porn browsing? by SirGarlon · · Score: 4, Funny

      If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..

      What about someone who just reads erotica ... while naked and covered in butter? Hypothetically, of course!

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    9. Re:Porn browsing? by Thanshin · · Score: 2

      It's even stupider than that, as whoever accuses first would instantly become an incredibly juicy target for any magazine to publish the "true story behind the accuser".

      Unless the NSA have someone who's never, ever seen a porn site, which would be a feat beyond miraculous.

    10. Re:Porn browsing? by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      If you're a mullah, you wouldn't want people to know you like watching people do things you would have them killed for.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    11. Re:Porn browsing? by TWiTfan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Anything that even looks like deviant sexual behavior can cost someone their job, their wife and kids, etc. It's a powerful blackmail tool, no matter how common we all know it is.

      --
      The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    12. Re:Porn browsing? by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

      Right.

      I'm sure they have some interesting spreadsheets/presentations detailing the "current bad guys" porn preferences:
      "Wow, this imam in Hamburg is really into Shaved Headed Albino Milf Lesbians with "Eat at Joes" tattoos"

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    13. Re:Porn browsing? by donscarletti · · Score: 4, Insightful
      • * You can't get STDs from porn.
      • * Pornographic videos and literature are not human, so its distribution cannot be human trafficking.
      • * If your wife catches you watching a bunch of porn, she is unlikely to divorce you.
      • * Porn rarely gets beaten up by pimps and johns.
      • * Almost everyone openly or secretly loves porn, criminalising it would be too hard.
      --
      When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
    14. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmmmmmm covered in butter!!!!! mmmmmmmm!!!!!

    15. Re:Porn browsing? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Rule #34 is alive and well, I see.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    16. Re: Porn browsing? by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The don't need porn. They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do.

    17. Re:Porn browsing? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If anything, I'd mistrust the people who make a big deal about never looking at internet porn. Just look at the frequent revelations involving vocal evangelists.

      In general, I've come to the conclusion the louder someone screeches about the morality of other people, the higher the likelihood they'll get caught in a scandal.

      Which has more or less confirmed for me that people are lying douchebags, who mostly want to point the finger at everyone else.

      The more rigid and extreme the position, the more they're full of shit.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    18. Re:Porn browsing? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

      In this case the people being monitored are leaders of radical Islamic groups in Pakistan. We're not talking about the Weather Underground here; there are completely different cultural norms at play.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    19. Re:Porn browsing? by hawguy · · Score: 2

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?

      If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..

      And what possible "proof" could the NSA provide that anyone would believe?

      NSA: Hey, look everyone, Joe Radical watches donkey-porn!
      Joe: I do not.
      NSA: You do too - look at these report we created that shows every dokey-porn video you watched
      Joe: That's fake, you made it up
      NSA: It's true! We swear it and everyone knows we have no incentive to make it up just to look you look bad!

      How would the NSA prove that the "private" browsing activity that they are exposing is really their activity and not something they made up?

    20. Re:Porn browsing? by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can get STDs for free, and human trafficking occurs plenty regardless of prostitution laws. There would be lot less beating (and to a lesser degree, trafficking) if prostitution weren't illegal such that its practitioners are unable to report real crimes committed against them to the police.

      To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.

      --
      I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
    21. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they're outing Muslim radicals for interests in porn that presumably aren't cool according to the Koran. Considering that thing with Mohammed and a 10-year old girl, it probably takes a lot for your porn to not be halal. Camel porn, maybe?

    22. Re:Porn browsing? by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?

      Wouldn't that depend on the type of porn? Given much of the viewing is done in private & away from the public eye... I'm sure many would not be keen on their particular preferences being widely known.

    23. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Prostitution is completely different from pornography, that's not an angle that works really.

    24. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? Because AMURRICA. That is why.
      Nutjobs run the country.

      Only terrorists and child beaters watch porn.

    25. Re:Porn browsing? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In reality, you'll just be convincing the people who already don't like that person that he is a filthy disgusting bad person. And the people who approved of his ideas will claim it is a conspiracy by the NSA/FBI/CIA/whatever to discredit him and that those pictures were planted.

      And that's one of the (many) problems with this whole system. Here it wouldn't be a question of agents having to sneak into a guy's house and plant the material. They'll just claim that he browsed such sites and the rest of us will be expected to take their word for it. "Where's the evidence to support this claim?" "We can't tell you. National security."

    26. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      * If your wife catches you watching a bunch of porn, she is unlikely to divorce you.

      Have you asked a divorce lawyer about that? It may not be the cause, but it's often the catalyst.

    27. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol you think they would even need to prove it

    28. Re:Porn browsing? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 2

      How would the NSA prove that the "private" browsing activity that they are exposing is really their activity and not something they made up?

      We can't tell you. National security.

      Oh, by the way, your family might find your browsing history from last week interesting. You wouldn't want to change your publicly stated opinions on our programs would you?

    29. Re:Porn browsing? by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My greater fear is that the NSA might already possess, or be working toward, the ability to inject false records into a target's credit history. Create a situation where credit cards are revoked, assets are impounded, the target loses his house, his car, and any ability to ever use credit again. What better way to shut a dissident up than to so mess with his personal finances that he has to spend every waking moment trying to get it all straightened out.

      When will snooping on private data end, and manipulation of that data begin?

      --
      Will
    30. Re:Porn browsing? by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If that factors into it in anyway you married the wrong person.

    31. Re:Porn browsing? by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 4, Funny

      The lower calorie and healthier practice is to slather on olive oil. The "extra virgin" kind, of course.

      --
      Will
    32. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Strict muslims are not allowed pictures of people. Therefore, porn is out.

    33. Re:Porn browsing? by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Funny


      • * Porn rarely gets beaten up by pimps and johns.

      I had an amusing mental image of a pimp punching VHS tapes there.

    34. Re:Porn browsing? by hawguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Lol you think they would even need to prove it

      If the NSA said that an influential person that you follow watches some porn fetish site and that guy denies it and claims that the NSA is trying to discredit him, who are you going to believe? The guy that you already follow and believe, or the government agency that has a real incentive to try to discredit this person? This policy could backfire and make people more devoted to a person that they now believe is targeted by the government.

      It doesn't matter whether the information is true or not, it's a question of who you trust more.

    35. Re:Porn browsing? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      I would have to say that is their own fault then.

      Of course those folks are look at porn, this is like when people are surprised some baptist pray away the gay minister gets caught with a rentboy. The louder they object the more likely they are participating in that activity themselves.

    36. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like this: You've never molested children so it's impossible to prove you did...but just try taking that accusation on the chin gracefully.

    37. Re:Porn browsing? by Holi · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Porn is just prostitution on film.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    38. Re:Porn browsing? by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually it's not just the religious zealots who have issue with prostitution. The leftwing feminist groups have issue with it too. Basically the latter doesn't want men having easy access to sex without having to deal with privileged princesses. They label this as 'abuse' even though it's consensual all around (she wants his money, he wants her body for an hour). In many ways, prostitution is the most honest exchange that exists between the two genders, especially since the point of marriage and the nuclear family has been thoroughly destroyed.

    39. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      dammit, this is /. , get it right, it's hot grits on the statue of Natalie Portman and the Yoda doll is greased up.

    40. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

      In fairness, where I live in Nevada, prostitution is perfectly legal. The girls have to undergo medical examinations through the Sheriff's department, and the industry is taxed and regulated. Anon to preserve mods.

    41. Re:Porn browsing? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

      Whatever the reality, it's still extremely rude and immoral expose.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    42. Re: Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do."

          So if they're watching you 14 year old daughter banging her boyfriend isn't that kiddy porn? Burn the NSA and other agencies.

    43. Re:Porn browsing? by JLennox · · Score: 2

      Much of your list is valid only because prostitution is illegal.

    44. Re:Porn browsing? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?

      Because politics, that's why.

      You hear the talking heads squawk about a political entity getting "busted" for having a more-interesting-than-missionary sexual preference, and, regardless of how innocuous it may be, the next thing you know their career in politics is over.

      Sexual preference is ideal blackmail for politicians who spend the majority of their professional lives trying to convince the public that they're more moral than the next guy. Which is pretty much all of them.

      Seems to me the only real defense would be to campaign on a platform of "Porn is teh Shiznit!", although you might have a bit of trouble getting on the ballot here in the Bible Belt.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    45. Re:Porn browsing? by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      all the more reason not to get involved with modern marriage 2.0.

    46. Re:Porn browsing? by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      My greater fear is that the NSA might already possess, or be working toward, the ability to inject false records into a target's credit history. Create a situation where credit cards are revoked, assets are impounded, the target loses his house, his car, and any ability to ever use credit again. What better way to shut a dissident up than to so mess with his personal finances that he has to spend every waking moment trying to get it all straightened out.

      When will snooping on private data end, and manipulation of that data begin?

      that would be a advantage to moving to a bitcoin like distributed cryptographically signed ledger for transactions.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    47. Re:Porn browsing? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      * You can't get STDs from porn.

      Somewhere, somehow, someone either is or already has proven you wrong.

      * Pornographic videos and literature are not human, so its distribution cannot be human trafficking.

      There is little to no human trafficking in places with legal prostitution, especially compared to places where it is not legal. They say the same thing about drugs: "Dur, using drugs supports criminals!" completely ignoring the fact that if the drugs in question were legal, one would not have to deal with criminals in order to acquire them. Catch-22.

      * If your wife catches you watching a bunch of porn, she is unlikely to divorce you.

      1) You have never met my wife.
      2) That's not really a rationale for the criminalization of prostitution, especially when you consider the divorce rate.

      * Porn rarely gets beaten up by pimps and johns.

      Maybe not, but if you think there's not any physical, emotional, or mental abuse that occurs in the porn industry then you've succeeded in proving your ignorance on the topic.

      * Almost everyone openly or secretly loves porn, criminalising it would be too hard.

      Yup, far cheaper and easier to just make everyone feel like scum for enjoying an activity everyone else enjoys. Fucked up, is what that is.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    48. Re:Porn browsing? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."

      NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News.
      FOX reports on it.
      Joe denies it.
      CNN picks up the story.
      Joe still denies it.
      MSNBC does a story about the report from FOX News. ABC news does a story. The headline of every paper in the country starts asking What Was Joe Watching?
      Joe continues to deny it but by now his name has been inexorably linked to this scandal and he becomes a liability to his cause. Whether the initial report is true or not, he resigns and fades into oblivion.
      NSA Mission Accomplished.

      (20 years later, he is exonerated when it is revealed that, due to a typo, the NSA search picked up browsing habits for Joe Dadical, not Joe Radical, but nobody really cares at this point and everyone remembers him as that pervert.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    49. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      66 The lower calorie and healthier practice is to slather on olive oil. The "extra virgin" kind, of course. 99

      Extra virgin olive oil comes from extra ugly olive trees.

    50. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you should be modded up. I've had this belief for most of my life: when somebody does something there are always two interpretations. If you like them, you say "How cool, can you believe that Joe did that?". If you don't like them, you say "Ughh, ewww, can you believe that Joe did THAT?!?"

      Human beings can be pretty stupid and formulaic. Have fun.

    51. Re:Porn browsing? by killkillkill · · Score: 0

      prostitution is the most honest exchange that exists between the two genders

      Perhaps the landscape would be different if it were legal and regulated, but as it is today, no... It is one of the most disgusting parts of our culture. The average age of entrance into prostitution is 14. Young girls are psychologically manipulated or outright kidnapped and for forced to have sex with strangers. The money exchanged does not end up in the girls pocket.

    52. Re:Porn browsing? by hawguy · · Score: 2

      First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."

      NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News.

      If that's their goal, why would they need to collect any actual information at all? What's the difference between releasing private data that can't be verified and releasing made-up data that can't be verified?

    53. Re:Porn browsing? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Nah.. its a matter of mariage. If your girl looking at porn before shagging you doedn't bothrr you, you probably don't have the image of monogamy in a marriage that the vadt majority of people do.

      It is also often an emotional blow when she gets older and realizes you need to look at other women to satisfy yourself. It seems you have a different concept of marriage then most- or most in the US

    54. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's even stupider than that, as whoever accuses first would instantly become an incredibly juicy target for any magazine to publish the "true story behind the accuser".

      Unless the NSA have someone who's never, ever seen a porn site, which would be a feat beyond miraculous.

      When you wake up at 3am with your front door being kicked down by a SWAT team and the FBI, who subsequently "discover" the massive child porn collection on your computer... the newspaper isn't going to print "true story behind the police" they're going to print "Thanshin found with millions of images of children being abused on his computer."

    55. Re:Porn browsing? by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts" ...

      Or if you're going after Countrywide or one of our other esteemed and ever-so-honest financial institutions. Doubleplusbad if the bank was in the habit of giving sweetheart loans to other politicians. Cue Eliot Spitzer. The guy was an idiot and a hypocrite for using the "escort service" the way he did, but the case is still peculiar. Why was the case never prosecuted? How many other politicos could you catch this way, but somehow never are?

    56. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't really matter. You're making the mistake of thinking the average person will honestly and non-hypocritically evaluate the "exposure" based on the standards they apply to themselves.

      In reality, most people don't do this. If the group of people who could negatively impact your life watched 100 times as much porn as you did when your viewing was "exposed", most of them would immediately express shock and outrage that you watch porn and start angling for whatever gossip/political advantage they could get from it.

      With regard to your religious note, this is also a reason why the "we're all sinners" denominations are preferable to the "stop being a sinner" ones (Baptists, Evangelicals, I'm looking at you), and also more aligned with reality.

    57. Re:Porn browsing? by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      That is not porns primary use at all.
      Does it bother you if your wife touches herself?

    58. Re:Porn browsing? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of that? If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..

      Just make sure you trust them just because they're watching porn. It's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    59. Re:Porn browsing? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      * You can't get STDs from porn.

      Somewhere, somehow, someone either is or already has proven you wrong.

      Like this? :-)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    60. Re:Porn browsing? by NoKaOi · · Score: 1

      What about someone who just reads erotica ... while naked and covered in butter? Hypothetically, of course!

      I'd say you would be in big trouble, because the corn industry gives more campaign contributions than the dairy industry. Switch to margarine or canola oil and you should be okay.

    61. Re:Porn browsing? by iroll · · Score: 1

      If you're not pouring hot grits down your pants, you're doing it wrong.

      --
      Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
    62. Re:Porn browsing? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      * You can't get STDs from porn.

      Somewhere, somehow, someone either is or already has proven you wrong.

      Like this? :-)

      While I'm certain literary boffins would argue with referring to 50 Shades as porn.. yea, something exactly like that.

      I also would have accepted an article about porn-watchers sharing sex toys.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    63. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the landscape would be different if it were legal and regulated, but as it is today, no... It is one of the most disgusting parts of our culture. The average age of entrance into prostitution is 14. Young girls are psychologically manipulated or outright kidnapped and for forced to have sex with strangers. The money exchanged does not end up in the girls pocket.

      In some places it is legal and regulated and those problems don't exist. Elsewhere it's the government makes it illegal, hence it's the government that is the ultimate cause of that underage sex slavery.

    64. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."

      NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News.

      If that's their goal, why would they need to collect any actual information at all? What's the difference between releasing private data that can't be verified and releasing made-up data that can't be verified?

      All they need is a kernel of truth, something that IS true and not something too general that it could be anyone. That'd make enough of the rest of what they say SEEM true, far more easily than just making up everything. So, they need SOMETHING to gain a foothold.

    65. Re:Porn browsing? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      How can you pour hot grits down your pants when you're naked?

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    66. Re:Porn browsing? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Well, some you could catch the Larry Craig way. The best part of that story: when arrested after soliciting in a men's bathroom, he responded with an indignant "Don't you know who I am?" and showing his Senate ID. This of course caused the police to make a phone call to CNN, rather than letting him go.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    67. Re:Porn browsing? by iroll · · Score: 2

      Everybody is naked under their pants, my friend.

      --
      Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
    68. Re: Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK grandpa. Try having an amusing mental image of a DVD or computer getting beaten like the rest of us on your lawn

    69. Re:Porn browsing? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      About that capability: Anthony Weiner originally claimed his phone was hacked when pictures of his ding-dong were sent to the random young lady. That might have been Weiner's doing, or it might have been the NSA's doing, either way it ended his political career.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    70. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because that's completely unrelated to the job.

    71. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, that just sucks and is short sighted against people who happen to be asexual.

    72. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > You can get STDs for free

      How?

    73. Re:Porn browsing? by Obfuscant · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.

      Actually, when you consider that those who are selling it are often coerced into doing so, and those who give it away for free aren't, there is some sense to a law prohibiting sales. There is also the issue of "the rich" being able to afford something that regular mortals cannot, such as would happen with organ donation vs. organ sales. I mean "kidney" type organs, not "Hammond" or "Wurlitzer". We've kinda decided as a society that a rich person low on the list of need being able to get a kidney transplant because he can buy a kidney from someone while someone who is high on the list of need cannot get a free one is a bad thing, and thus selling kidneys is illegal.

      Dr. Carlin says a lot of goofy things, by the way. I last paid attention to anything he says the night I saw him launch into a rant about people who suffer from anorexia. His well-educated medical solution to their physical and mental problem: just eat. Thanks, Doc. If they could "just eat" they wouldn't have gotten to 89 pounds and near death.

      As you point out, human trafficking occurs despite prostitution laws, but I don't think the failure of the law to stop all bad things it tries to prevent is a reason to repeal the law.

    74. Re: Porn browsing? by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 2

      "They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do."

          So if they're watching you 14 year old daughter banging her boyfriend isn't that kiddy porn? Burn the NSA and other agencies.

      THIS, by a wide margin.

      Once we have evidence of the NSA in possession of underage porn it's the way to pull the plug... Because if we've learned anything in America, the best way to ram something through against the wishes of whomever opposes it is to say it is "for the children." In this case it would be a white-lie in so much as it isn't "for the children" in the "preventing kiddie porn" sense, but "for the children" in the "So those children can grow up in a world where they still get to have some freedom and privacy."

      In fact, it might be the first time in all of recorded history where something that was done "for the children" actually turned out to benefit actual children.

      --
      Who did what now?
    75. Re:Porn browsing? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      > You can get STDs for free

      How?

      By sitting on a public toilet seat. By using the free needles you can find under many highway overpasses. By simply looking at a hooker. If you're looking to find an STD for free, just use your imagination.

    76. Re:Porn browsing? by chihowa · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, the guy's image is now tainted and he's less likely to acquire new followers. It's a method for keeping the "wrong kind of people" from becoming too influential.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    77. Re:Porn browsing? by rakslice · · Score: 1

      In illustrating the educational aspects of web content, AC underscores the problem with trying to blackmail religious zealots with their browser logs: They can say they were merely educating themselves about the infidels.

    78. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I hope your wife finds your comments here. I think one could creatively say that you just said your wife is fucked up. Think she won't divorce you for that?

      * If your wife catches you watching a bunch of porn, she is unlikely to divorce you.

      1) You have never met my wife.

      Yup, far cheaper and easier to just make everyone feel like scum for enjoying an activity everyone else enjoys. Fucked up, is what that is.

    79. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

      Apparently you've never visited Washington, DC, where the "escort" business thrives due to its many politician and high-ranking government official client-base. Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts", assuming he can afford them, the police will have his name in the newspaper faster than a Gulf of Mexico Hurricane flattens a school.

      I don't see how legalizing prostitution would change the clientele of the prostitutes they use. The escorts could still decline clients and be VIP only, if it's better for business.

    80. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it's not that "nerds" don't understand stupid things "the public" does, maybe they are merely unwilling to participate in such a ridiculous system as the one you describe. I understand how whaling works, but I'm not interested in participating in any way whatsoever, nor to give credence to those who do.

    81. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the real world, it's a so well established fact that I remember reading career articles like "sleeping your way to the top" discussing the pros and pitfalls of doing so.

      Now, from a legal POV it's of course sexual harassment. However, your boss cannot tell you to wash his car either (unless you work for a car wash and that's your job and you get paid for it). You're performing a service for him personally and not the company and it is not part of your job description.

    82. Re: Porn browsing? by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

      The don't need porn. They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do.

      Hu? That's called "Amateur Porn". It's still porn.

    83. Re:Porn browsing? by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      If anything, I'd mistrust the people who make a big deal about never looking at internet porn. Just look at the frequent revelations involving vocal evangelists.

      In general, I've come to the conclusion the louder someone screeches about the morality of other people, the higher the likelihood they'll get caught in a scandal.

      Which has more or less confirmed for me that people are lying douchebags, who mostly want to point the finger at everyone else.

      The more rigid and extreme the position, the more they're full of shit.

      While I entirely agree with your position, something to consider is that there is a logically consistent stance embedded in there. If you believe that everyone is a sinner and should try to reduce the amount that they sin, then it's consistent to sin while being vocally opposed to sinning: the person may regret the behavior and pray for forgiveness and all those other weird things people to do try to make themselves feel better about natural impulses that their churches have told them are bad. I think that situation is practically universal among evangelical religious types of most religions. They're all trying to force themselves and everyone else to hold high standards of living, and while failures to do so are inevitable they're still bad.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    84. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What he said was a joke to make a point.

      However, claims of coercion never seem to be backed up with facts. Human trafficking from Eastern Europe went down when prostitution was legalized in Germany and most experts attribute it to coincidence since prostitution was not linked with human trafficking in the first place. Usually human trafficking means getting people (usually men) to perform what is practically slave labor since they fear for the safety of their families back home. Another source of prostitutes is college girls that want more fancy clothes and accessories than they can afford and realize that performing in porn would be a ticking time bomb that eventually catches up with them. Anybody that claims that those girls are "forced" into it because they need the money so badly should answer the question what college boys should do then? The biggest opponents seem to be those who are furthest from the entire issue; women that nobody would pay to sleep with and men who despite not getting laid also think it's a step down to go to a prostitute.

      I favor legalizing prostitution because it would reduce the harm to all parties involved. STDs would go down through regulation and escorts would get the assistance of the police, when needed. Furthermore, the criminal world that currently provides the service would lose a source of income. And what is ethically the difference between a legal marriage between a 20-year-old gold digger and a 75-year-old Viagra user vs. the same sex for money exchange on a shorter time scale?

      Personally, I don't see myself ever going to prostitutes since I'm already sleeping with women half my age because I bother to take care of my body. The only deal breaker for most women is if the guy is fat. Otherwise age just makes a confident man interesting and enough interest and an opportunity to do it usually results in sex. Because I'm not intent on getting married and doubt that I'll be able to physically perform by the time I'm over 80 I thus don't see myself ever getting too old for attractive girls. I draw the line at 30, any "girl" above that is just so fucked in the head that I can't stand the aftermath. As far as love is concerned, I've lost hope on that front so I resort to my hobbies (sailing and traveling) for intense emotions.

    85. Re:Porn browsing? by kqs · · Score: 1

      To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.

      Like your vote?

    86. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pay a woman to have sex, commit a crime. Have someone else pay that woman to have sex with you and film it, it's a career.

      Go figure.

    87. Re:Porn browsing? by Guest316 · · Score: 1

      Prostitution is just interactive porn.

    88. Re:Porn browsing? by msobkow · · Score: 1

      Different country, different laws.

      Prostitution is legal in Canada; pandering and solicitation are not. So you'll find ads for escort services in the local papers of every city in the country, but the police still bust the street walkers and "massage" parlours.

      Making prostitution legal has not really reduced the abuse of prostitutes working the streets. But realistically, most of the street workers are skanky drug addicts who can't get work through an escort agency, because even such bottom-feeding businesses have got some standards.

      As long as there are people who are desperate for drugs, there will be streetwalkers, regardless of the law. They may not be enslaved by a pimp, but they're enslaved by a dealer and their own "need".

      Still, I've more respect for an addicted street walker than I do for some punk kid who breaks into houses or mugs people to get money for a "hit".

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    89. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the next generation is different at least here in the "West." Oh wait, those last century revival movementists are here and there too, spreading the message how we all should lie to each other and ourselves.

    90. Re:Porn browsing? by phorm · · Score: 1

      You think porn actresses/ actors don't suffer from physical abuse and/or the risk of STD's?

    91. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As you point out, human trafficking occurs despite prostitution laws, but I don't think the failure of the law to stop all bad things it tries to prevent is a reason to repeal the law.

      I would much rather visit a legally licensed prosititute with up to date medical history etc etc then whatever streetside walking cesspool I could likely afford.
      As long as the rather benign forms of prostitution are legal, the fuzz can concentrate on cracking down on the bad stuff.

    92. Re: Porn browsing? by z0idberg · · Score: 2

      And who is going to be doing the prosecuting/burning of the NSA?

      Anyone that makes moves to do so will be burned by the NSA first with any and all the dirt they have on them.

    93. Re: Porn browsing? by z0idberg · · Score: 1

      It's not "Amateur Porn" if neither/none of the parties being watched/recorded don't know that they are being recorded.

    94. Re:Porn browsing? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Why would one lose ones credibility because of [porn]?

      What if it's cross-dressing one-legged under-aged S&M midgets using puppies?

    95. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Spot on. Have a look a this nice research result collection: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

      I am 70% through and authoritarians want strongly to force their views on others, just because, no moral or insight behind it, just psycho behavior.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    96. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Least insightful comment in this thread so far. Porn has very little in common with prostitution. Basically all they share is that they are a way to make a living.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    97. Re: Porn browsing? by ImprovOmega · · Score: 2

      And who is going to be doing the prosecuting/burning of the NSA?

      Anyone that makes moves to do so will be burned by the NSA first with any and all the dirt they have on them.

      Or that they can manufacture independent of whether you did it or not.

    98. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Indeed. A transparent strategy by neo-feminists to increase their power. These are typically also the type of feminist that are unaware of the original definition of the movement, namely to create equality. Neo-feminists do not mind inequality between the sexes, they actually want it, but with them on the top. Men taking charge of their own sexuality by removing female access control and substitution of porn are of course the enemy if these people.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    99. Re:Porn browsing? by kqs · · Score: 1

      Sure, some feminist groups are anti-sex-work, though not for the reasons you state, but it really doesn't matter. Those groups have no power, money, or lobbying groups. Religious groups have all three and are not afraid to use them.

      Jesus once refused to judge a sex worker. Too bad his followers refuse to follow his example. They seem to believe that they have more wisdom than he did.

    100. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Your numbers are patently wrong. And rather obvious so. Are you stupid or are you just regurgitating propaganda? If the "average age of entrance into prostitution is 14", then about half of the people working in there would have to start at below 10, as most actually do start at 18-22 (well documented in countries where it is legal). That is utter nonsense. Here in Switzerland, prostitution was legal from the age of 16 years on until very shortly (no specific law in place, from 16 years on you have sexual self-determination and are allowed to work). But there were almost none in the 16-17 years age-bracket. Brothel owners did not want them, as they do not have the maturity and only cause problems. There were almost none on the streets. Even 18 years is too young for many, typical entry age is 20-24. If your ridiculous "14 years of age" figure were correct, business with the 16-17 year olds would have been so good that they would have wanted them anyways. But what it is is a completely stupid mindless propaganda lie.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    101. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      As it is sex, it can only be given freely, not demanded. Any prostitute is free to reject any customer. Prostitution is mainly different in that it can only be done free-lance because of this limit, and that contractual agreements for service provision cannot be enforced (but money-back can be). But that applies to other work as well. For example, you cannot force a stunt-man to perform a dangerous stunt or a pilot to fly in what he/she believes to be unsafe conditions. Sure, you can fire them if they are under contract, but that is it. If they are freelancers, they can reject any contract offer they chose. And for people under contract, you cannot force people to do work not in their job profile. For example, if you force a banker to clean the toilets, he is perfectly within his contractual rights to refuse.

      Bottom line is that prostitution is a bit of a special case, but there are numerous others that are similarly special or even more so.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    102. Re:Porn browsing? by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      What he said was a joke to make a point.

      It wasn't just a joke, it was a full monologue. Lots of profanity, lots of "negative love" applied to the victims. The only point he was making is that he gets paid huge sums to rant about people who have valid medical problems.

      Usually human trafficking means getting people (usually men) to perform what is practically slave labor ...

      Usually, human trafficking means getting people of any sex to perform what is slave labor. Women and girls are included in that.

      However, claims of coercion never seem to be backed up with facts.

      You want facts? Okay. How about Ron Wyden, beloved by all progressive human beings for his widly held positions on freedom and government? "Now we have concrete proof that sex trafficking is not just going on in the dark corners of Asia," he said. "Sex trafficking is going on in our community." "The study showed that the average age of victims was 15.5 years when they were first referred to DHS and the Sexual Assault Resource Center. The youngest of them was 8 years old."

      Why yes, anonymous coward, making prostitution legal will certainly prevent gangs from putting 8 year old girls out onto the street to turn tricks. Sure.

      One more. You know how long it took to find these links? About 640,000 results (0.25 seconds)

    103. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not that this would be terribly easy, especially in the absence of proof they had done it. However imagine this public exchange:

      NSA: Citizen X is a bad person. Here's proof!
      Citizen X: The NSA set me up. If they know about this situation they can manipulate or fabricate the evidence. Their proof is tainted and unreliable!
      NSA: Uh, that's insane!
      Citizen X: The NSA has insufficient controls to prevent the contamination of data. As a secret judge and jury they in a perpetual conflict of interest. The fact that the NSA made this allegation... is sufficient evidence to dismiss the allegation!
      NSA: Wait, that's not the way the game is played.
      Citizen X: In fact, if the NSA knew about this situation they were in a position to correct it. Why did the NSA not act to protect the public? They are in violation of their mandate. I accuse the NSA of setting up a fiefdom of power and control, unaccountable either to the government or to the taxpayers.
      NSA: Oh damn.

    104. Re:Porn browsing? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Actually it's not just the religious zealots who have issue with prostitution

      I know the type - the sort that would bang the nails into Jesus themselves if they heard that he had washed the feet of a prostitute.

    105. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I understand that a certain brand of Terr'ist believes they are entitled to extra virgins!

    106. Re:Porn browsing? by Swampash · · Score: 1

      The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

      Welcome to America, you must be new here.

    107. Re:Porn browsing? by dala1 · · Score: 1

      For the same reason it's frowned upon for a teacher to have sex with a student. It's coercive.

    108. Re:Porn browsing? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      who are you going to believe

      Probably the people with a dozen PR types or similar working on it instead of the one angry guy trying to refute something that never happened. Probably whatever line Rupert Murdoch wants to take on the issue, even if the BBC or similar is reporting the truth he can shout them down so they are barely heard.
      We can't read minds so how do we tell the difference apart from reputation? It's not as if we are going to know it's the NSA putting up the information unless they are being totally incompetant about it.

    109. Re:Porn browsing? by BringsApples · · Score: 2
      Obligatory (from that email that circulated around a while back:

      Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

      *29 have been accused of spousal abuse
      *7 have been arrested for fraud
      *19 have been accused of writing bad checks
      *117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
      *3 have done time for assault
      *71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
      *14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
      *8 have been arrested for shoplifting
      *21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
      *84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year Can you guess which organization this is?

      GIVE UP YET?????

      IT IS THE 535 MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    110. Re:Porn browsing? by BringsApples · · Score: 1

      Hey, I've never thought of this before (and sorry it's off topic), but why is paying a lady to have sex with you legal if you film it (call it a porn-making), but paying her to have sex with you without filming it is illegal (call it prostitution)?

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    111. Re:Porn browsing? by BringsApples · · Score: 1

      The difference between prostitution and porn:

      Prostitution: Pay the girls, fuck them
      Porn: Pay the girls, fuck them, and film it

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    112. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These articles always bring out the dumbasses.....

    113. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't do what you claim. Any old Joe filming a crack whore is not a movie maker. You have to have business licenses, permits, the blessing of the other adult filmmakers, etc.

    114. Re: Porn browsing? by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      They already been doing a sort of it for years with soldiers private conversations (sharing between them the hottest ones) and it had no consequences for them. And you think they will respect you or your 14 yo daughter if they didn't respect US soldiers in Iraq?

    115. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While the low density lipids in the olive oil are more heart healthy, cocoa butter is simply more sensual, has divine aromatherapy qualities, and also softens and conditions "sensitive" skin.

      Since the OP clearly is doing this as a solo activity, and nobody is actually eating the product applied, the olive oil is simply inferior for the task at hand (ahem.)

      There are of course some caveats, in that depending on the type of erotica the OP is reading, hot fudge may be more appropriate, or perhaps whipped topping. If they really want to get into the literature, the white desert topping used on bread pudding can make an excellent analog to the real thing when trying to vicariously experience a bukake session, or so I am told. (It has the added naughtiness of being mildly alcoholic as well.)

      Any allergies to certain foods or products should also be observed, of course.

      It is also acceptable to flagellate one's self with twizzlers pull and peel, or other candy whips, if the literature is appropriate. (Self-flagellation is a well respected practice amongst many clergymen, afterall. The religious right should find no problems with such an activity!) I highly recommend using the prememinent songs of solomon and psalms from the bible while performing this specific activity! Very rewarding!

      Honestly, doesn't everyone do these things behind closed doors? I mean, it's been happening in monestaries and cloisters for centuries!

    116. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      those who are selling it are often coerced into doing so, and those who give it away for free aren't

      Citation needed.

    117. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I checked once. As long as the midget and puppy are at least 18 years old, you're good.

    118. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usually, human trafficking means getting people of any sex to perform what is slave labor. Women and girls are included in that.

      Have I said that it's exclusively men?

      Why yes, anonymous coward, making prostitution legal will certainly prevent gangs from putting 8 year old girls out onto the street to turn tricks. Sure.

      Have I suggested making statutory rape legal?

    119. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure it was hard.

    120. Re:Porn browsing? by DocHoncho · · Score: 1

      You're missing the point. The point isn't that legalizing prostitution would allow Joe Q. Public to visit high class escorts, rather that despite prostitution being illegal, politicians and high-ranking government officials frequent said escorts without repercussion. Joe Q. Public, on the other hand, would be publicly humiliated and subjected to the full weight of the anti-prostitution laws.

      The first reply brought up an equally valid point. These high-ranking officials need to fear prosecution if they act in a manner un-befitting a politician. That is, doing things the elite criminal overlords (Wall Street bankers) don't like.

      --
      Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
    121. Re:Porn browsing? by DocHoncho · · Score: 1

      > You can get STDs for free

      How?

      Hooking up with someone for casual sex, for instance.

      --
      Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
    122. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget craigslist.

    123. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      exactly. this strategy might be the only valid one, because it plays on the beliefs which are being misused for violence. ... the "terrorists" dont realize how scummy humans are, even those that "lead" them... if they did, they might question themselves.

      or not.. but as far as cost and human lives, this is a good strategy. name and shame only works if the person feels shame, and culturally, they will have to.

        brilliant.

    124. Re: Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try having an amusing mental image of a DVD or computer getting beaten like the rest of us on your lawn

      Why are we all getting beaten on his lawn?

    125. Re:Porn browsing? by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

      Some people.  Many people.  Not "people".

    126. Re:Porn browsing? by chameleon3 · · Score: 1

      .... followed by the obligatory snopes:

      http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/congress.asp

    127. Re: Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The don't need porn. They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do.

      Hu? That's called "Amateur Porn". It's still porn.

      Amateur Porn is recorded by the involved parties for consumption as pornography.

      The sort of pornography you're describing is called "voyeurism", that stuff is typically camera-on-shoe-up-dress or in-window-to-shower stuff. I'm not sure why people like that stuff; it's really lame as far as I'm aware, though I haven't bothered to research it thoroughly since it creeps me out.

    128. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with this theory is that either the pictures were *not* of his own anatomy (at which point he could prove the allegations weren't true), or that they *were* of his own anatomy but that he had some legitimate reason for having said pictures on his phone.

      I'm a libertarian, so I believe it's his decision about what he does. I also believe in Occam's Razor, and I'm not perceiving a smear conspiracy hack here.

      Especially after he imploded during the NYC mayoral run by admitting he didn't stop after the first scandal. The man lacks impulse control... a fairly significant fault in a candidate for leadership.

    129. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Feh your doing it wrong growing up i kept it on Betamax tapes to keep my folks from being able to play it.

    130. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The lower calorie and healthier practice is to slather on olive oil.

      Lower calorie? Hardly. Butter is about 80% fat, olive oil close to 100%.

    131. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As you point out, human trafficking occurs despite prostitution laws, but I don't think the failure of the law to stop all bad things it tries to prevent is a reason to repeal the law.

      Human trafficking being illegal regardless of whether prostitution is or isn't so why do you think the reason for outlawing prostitution is to reduce human trafficking? Besides, if prostitution were legalized, there are at least some reasons to think it would reduce human trafficking. Being a prostitute might very well be the world's oldest profession but that doesn't make it the most popular and thus if it's legalized it wouldn't suddenly mean that every unemployed woman decides to become one. However, if it is a legal means for earning a livelihood and there's a shortage of such labor it's a reason to give women from other countries who choose to do that a legitimate way to enter the country thus removing the human trafficking element from the "business". Furthermore, whilst wealth inequalities in the world are extreme and it can seem humiliating to sell one's body there are worse trades than that - a man doing the shittiest of shitty jobs for 12+ hours a day 7 days a week (which is how illegal workers often have to do) would happily switch places with a high class escort that can select her clients and earns more in 30 minutes than the man does in a week. Or do you disagree with that? There are also perfectly legal jobs that are far more dangerous than being a prostitute even when it's forced underground by outlawing it. For instance miners get injured and/or die much in worse ways than through HIV.

      Finally, why shouldn't e.g. a handicapped person that cannot even masturbate get to enjoy sex? IMO it's selfish when people who have normal relationships try to further restrict the lives of handicapped people when there nevertheless are willing sellers of sex. Some feminists argue that outlawing prostitution restricts women's rights because it takes away their control of their own bodies and of course there are male sex workers too. I'm genuinely convinced that some who choose to be sex workers do so because they feel powerful doing so and get a kick out of it. My reasoning behind that is simply that some human beings are wired that way - why would some guys e.g. to the discomfort of others choose to flash their genitals in public? Women that are wired like that are simply more easily able to benefit from it. Obviously I don't deny that many sex workers don't like their jobs and just do it because they need the money but most jobs that don't require a high education fall into that category. Few people enjoy cleaning toilets or dragging drunken morons out of clubs and getting puked on in the process. I say live and let live as long as society (laws) ensure that anybody that is doing what they want to do (1) is of sound mind, (2) has rights that are protected by law and (3) doesn't harm anyone else in the process (and obviously I don't count annoying as harming).

    132. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, have you heard the term "couples' porn"? Some couples watch porn together to get ideas what to try with each other and there are even those who use the services of a prostitute together because they want something new. There's not a fetish you can invent that someone doesn't already have. I don't know from personal experience but don't consider it impossible that your sexual preferences evolve as you age - especially if you love your partner but probably even if you don't. As proof I present GMILF porn. It would not be produced if some people out there wouldn't pay to watch it.

      Presumably people can also make their sexual preferences develop so that they start enjoying what they didn't enjoy before. I have e.g. "taught" many girls to enjoy swallowing because otherwise I just cannot enjoy the relationship at all. Since I'm curious to try stuff, I'll consider asking my next partner if I can urinate on her face. That idea obviously comes from porn but unless all women on relationship forums are liars, there are those who enjoy it.

    133. Re:Porn browsing? by aliquis · · Score: 1

      Yeah, maybe, see yelling rape after Assange. (Not saying that isn't true, I don't know the details or reality.)

    134. Re:Porn browsing? by geekymachoman · · Score: 1

      Porn ? Depends on the kind of porn.

      If you watch classic... stuff, then yeah.. everybody does/did it. If you watch some hc fetish gay interracial bsdm fart piss sh.t .. then yeah, it might be a problem.

    135. Re:Porn browsing? by aliquis · · Score: 1

      What if I watch /b/?

    136. Re: Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have been blasting NSA and their MIC chummies quite a few time. Same with their nasty terrorist pals in the Saudi Government. And how they made 9/11.

      BUT, any military must monitor their own personell for using improper communications procedures, giving away operational secrets ("honey I will be at the airport at 1400 on tuesday") and the like. Organisations which do not do that end up like the Wehrmacht and the SZ42 Cipher machine exploit.

      Read up on these issues and then think again.

    137. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, "Anonymous Coward" sounds perfectly US-American....

      Incidentally, the name is the miss-spelled "Lord of the Winds" from LotR, so you are wrong in your analysis.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    138. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It works differently. They will send out three guys to sit behind the target in the Bus/train and then have these three guys talk about his pornsurfing. That works to intimidate most sane and moderately smart persons.

    139. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can tell you that publicly calling out liars and hypocrites does indeed work. The Saudis and the Jews thought they could buy a war or two. But due to the work of some good people, it did not work out as planned.

      Just hit the internet message boards and call out their hypocrisy. The Saudis are 10x more nasty than essentially everybody else, including Iran. In Iran they have a small jewish minority and women aren't treated as shitty as in America's "ally" Saudi-Arabia.

      It's tough to work against Corporate Media, but it is untrue that you are helpless. Hit the keyboard every free minute you have and deconstruct the Official Lies and then I can tell you, it will make a difference.

      Work with FACTS against irrational hatred and propaganda. It works.

    140. Re:Porn browsing? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      You draw your conclusions, I'll draw mine.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    141. Re:Porn browsing? by jalopezp · · Score: 2

      To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.

      Like a kidney? Or a child?

    142. Re:Porn browsing? by jalopezp · · Score: 1

      In both porn and prostitution, people are having sex for money. But in porn, it's both the participants who are doing it.

    143. Re:Porn browsing? by jalopezp · · Score: 1

      I imagine that in places where prostitution is illegal, the average age of entrance would be lower. I also imagine that it would be very hard to find reliable data to back this up.

    144. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter what *I* believe. Even if I'm convinced Julain Assange didn't rape anyone, in the eyes of the public, he is an evil rapist and a dangerous terrorist who is on the run from US "justice".

      And let's not kid our selves, the NSA isn't going to come out with a press release about Joe Inconvenient watching horse porn. The are going to ensure the fact leaks and that said Joe gets chewed all over the media circus, until his reputation is completely demolished.

    145. Re:Porn browsing? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      And if they get one true thing and lump it in with a couple of made up things, the target can't deny it all without denying the true thing. Then, when the true item is proven to be true, everyone will just assume that the rest is true also.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    146. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.

      Apparently you've never visited Washington, DC, where the "escort" business thrives due to its many politician and high-ranking government official client-base. Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts", assuming he can afford them, the police will have his name in the newspaper faster than a Gulf of Mexico Hurricane flattens a school.

      Your tax dollars workin' it.

    147. Re:Porn browsing? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      If the boss is the owner of the company, he can tell you to wash the car. Whether you do it or not and have legal remedies if you are punished is another story.

      I guess the point I was looking for was that it is degrading to women. The thought of a woman having to use her body in order to get ahead in life or to just survive shouldn't even exist. It should have to exist in any work setting and it shouldn't exist outside of it either. I find prostitution to be little different then sexual harassment but different to some degree. Even when its to the benefit of the woman.

    148. Re:Porn browsing? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I would argue that the woman is free to decline the offer for promotion or job. They can leave at any time and work somewhere else. And if the sex is freely given, I can understand it being different just like if you marry the boss and get promoted to the vice president of being cute or something. What I see when I see prostitution though, is generally girls down on their luck with little ability to earn an income other then selling their bodies. A crack whore for instance will because of her/his addiction do all sorts of things they wouldn't normally do to get their next high or even put food on the table because they cannot function at a real job.

      That's the problem I have with prostitution. Not everyone is that way, but a sizable number of people have little to no other options. Selling their bodies might not even be because of addiction but lack of opportunity or something else that if it did not exist they wouldn't have done so. Sexual harassment in the work place is often the same where women feel they have no choice but to comply and at least most of us agree that it is wrong to put a person in that position. I just cannot separate it from prostitution where it appears a lot of people wouldn't be involved in it if they could satisfy their financial needs other ways. Then again, some may simply enjoy the sex but I think the real problem is discerning between the willing and the victims of circumstances.

    149. Re:Porn browsing? by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      My wife left me long ago because I was touching the neighbor when her husband was away. We met online and knew each other by online identities and the neck down for a while until we pieced things together enough and figured out who we were.

    150. Re:Porn browsing? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You imagine wrongly. If anything, it would be higher, because it gets more complicated to do it. And reliable data is available, just suppressed out of political and religious motives. The fact of the matter is that there are very, very few underage prostitutes in the western world and practically none below 16 years of age, which makes a statistic like "average starting age 14 years" a complete fabrication.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    151. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What part of 'legally' do you not get?

    152. Re:Porn browsing? by hackertourist · · Score: 1

      In some places it is legal and regulated and those problems don't exist.

      Incorrect. Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands years ago, but it's still rife with abuse and human trafficing.

    153. Re:Porn browsing? by sergueyz · · Score: 1

      It is so easy to get citation against your opinion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands#21st_century:_reducing_the_size_of_the_red_light_district

      Basically, even legalized prostitution is a fertile ground for many sorts of criminal activity.

    154. Re:Porn browsing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, when you consider that those who are selling it are often coerced into doing so, and those who give it away for free aren't, there is some sense to a law prohibiting sales.

      Then make pimping illegal, roadside prostitution illegal and regulate brothels. Prostitution is not the problem you're trying to solve.

  3. Good thing they only target "the bad guys" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vulnerabilities identified include: "publishes articles without checking facts"; "deceitful use of funds"; "charges exorbitant speaking fees"; "attracted to fame"; and "glamorous lifestyle".

    Donald Trump? This could be a lot of people.

    1. Re:Good thing they only target "the bad guys" by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 1

      any "superstar" CEO more as well.

    2. Re:Good thing they only target "the bad guys" by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

      Arrest Donald Trump in the name of national security? You're not an NSA shill trying to convince us of the value of this program are you?

    3. Re:Good thing they only target "the bad guys" by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 1

      The "publishes articles without checking facts" puzzled me for a minute. Until I realized it goes hand in hand with deliberately feeding news commentators false data so that they would publicly destroy their own credibility.

      Gee, I think we may have seen some of that recently.

      --
      Will
    4. Re:Good thing they only target "the bad guys" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well CBS "Benghazi" was one guy, they didn't even check with the FBI to see his actual statements on the record... The producer failed. Lara Logan took it on the nose given she's trying to look like an actual journalist, ouch.

      But overall I'd say you're right, given what we KNOW the FBI, CIA and NSA have done far exceeds what they'll publicly admit to. It's a fucking farce now.

  4. Cooperate Or ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cooperate or we'll tell everyone about <insert something here>. That's a nice reputation you've got there. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

    The NSA can get away with blackmail. Nothing shocking there.

  5. Abuse of Power by pitchpipe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So, they were going to abuse this power?! J. Edgar Hoover would be shocked I tell you: shocked that it took them this long.

    Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately we get to come along for the ride.

    --
    Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    1. Re:Abuse of Power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, they were going to abuse this power?! J. Edgar Hoover would be shocked I tell you: shocked that it took them this long.

      Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately we get to come along for the ride.

      The second part of that statement which no one really notices:

      Some who learn from history want to repeat it.

    2. Re:Abuse of Power by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

      What does it mean if the NSA is learning from our browsing history, then?

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    3. Re:Abuse of Power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you write "were" going to abuse the power?

  6. A Little Bit of Privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think the NSA's plan here is the reason that we'll always have some privacy protections.

    If everybody has a little bit of privacy (that the NSA can still break) there are always tactics like revealing 'embarassing' information available.

    In a situation where privacy protections are incredibly strong (i.e.: the NSA is defunded and disbanded for a privacy violation), or nonexistent (i.e. yeah I browse granny-with-midget porn, so does half of the state, and here's the URL to a list of all of us) these kind of embarassing reveals don't work so well.

    So, here's to our limited privacy protections! Just another weapon in the arsenal of sociopaths who are running the show.

  7. spirals by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Information imbalance creates a vast power imbalance. And we'd be fools to think that this power imbalance would not be exploited. Generally, in military terms you talk about capabilities, rather than intentions when making assessments. So when universal surveillance becomes a capability, we have to assume it's not just used, but used universally. And one doesn't have to go far in history to search for consequences of having such a system. While not nearly as sophisticated, East Germany during the Soviet era provides plenty of evidence for what WILL be done with the information obtained as a result of a vast surveillance network. In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc. It's happened before. We have to be fools to think it won't happen again.

    1. Re:spirals by bob_super · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You forgot to add that once the state is known to spy on everything, it can fabricate any "evidence" it wishes against specific individuals (as a state policy, or because the database operator has a grudge/political motivation), and people will believe it.

    2. Re:spirals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a fool to think it can be stopped from within the system which is creating such an existence.

    3. Re:spirals by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "No, really, I don't look at furry midget porn on the internet! It's a plot by the NSA to discredit me!" Riiiiiiiight...

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    4. Re:spirals by bob_super · · Score: 1

      I typed "midget BDSM panda cubs porn" before I deleted it because it would distract from the point.
      Geeks mindsets - unite!

    5. Re:spirals by pitchpipe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc.

      It's even worse than that. Because they have these systems they don't need any actual evidence. If they don't like you (or you're divorcing someone they care about) they can just accuse you of wrongdoing that they "discovered" through surveilling you. How are you going to prove that you didn't do what they accuse you of? Audit their systems? Mmm hmm, I'm sure they'll let a known pedophilistic-terrorist or his designee in to check everything out. Even when you can audit systems it's hard enough to prove a negative.

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    6. Re:spirals by Burz · · Score: 1

      In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc.

      It's even worse than that. Because they have these systems they don't need any actual evidence. If they don't like you (or you're divorcing someone they care about) they can just accuse you of wrongdoing that they "discovered" through surveilling you. How are you going to prove that you didn't do what they accuse you of? Audit their systems? Mmm hmm, I'm sure they'll let a known pedophilistic-terrorist or his designee in to check everything out. Even when you can audit systems it's hard enough to prove a negative.

      That's why democracy and freedom can't exist in relationship with a secret police, acting domestically on secret data and laws.

      My current thinking re: online privacy is an extension of what I long suspected, that its getting to be an all-or-nothing choice because the cult of power is going off the deep end. Orgs like the EFF are failing us here, because they keep suggesting we resort to using a laundry list of piecemeal privacy measures when much more comprehensive and effective tools are available.

    7. Re:spirals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GDR spent tons of money for intel gathering then. They were on par with NSA.

  8. Opportunities for fabricating evidence by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the shroud of secrecy the NSA has created, it would be impossible to tell what evidence was real and what was fabricated. So if the NSA wanted to frame one of these "radicals" -- or a sitting member of Congress -- who would be able to refute those charges?

    When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    1. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by onyxruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People have been gathering the sexual habits of people that they may need to discredit for thousands of years. In the Roman times the Christians accused the Pagan Roman's in charge of having orgy's and myth sticks around to this day. Mind you having relations with slaves that were children was considered perfectly acceptable by that society so nobody bothered to use it to slander anyone and the result was that people talked freely about it. What they didn't talk freely about was having orgies as they were simply a myth. In other words this story is as old as prostitutes, politicians and spies, only the names have changed.

    2. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?

      Never, given they just discovered that the NSA has a list of all the pr0n sites they've visited. Do you think there's any politician in DC who has no skeletons in the cupboard for the NSA to exploit?

      This is why you don't create a secret police agency. Once they have a file on everyone, no-one can stop them.

    3. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the shroud of secrecy the NSA has created, it would be impossible to tell what evidence was real and what was fabricated. So if the NSA wanted to frame one of these "radicals" -- or a sitting member of Congress -- who would be able to refute those charges?

      When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?

      When one of them gets fucked in the ass by the agency in question, that's when.

      Of course, that will happen right after all members of Congress are forced to sign up for Obamacare and eat their own fucking dog food.

    4. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

      Bingo.

      The NSA is merely a tool for whoever can manipulate their way into controlling how it is used.
      It is only a matter of time until a president or other powerful corporate interest uses the NSA to frame what they consider internal, American threats .

      The patriots at the NSA wouldn't think twice about using their omniscience to discredit or even bring the threat of physical violence to any American citizen if their overlords commanded them to.

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    5. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is why you don't create a secret police agency. Once they have a file on everyone, no-one can stop them.

      Not everyone lives in fear like you do.

    6. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?

      You just answered your own question:

      So if the NSA wanted to frame [...] a sitting member of Congress -- who would be able to refute those charges?

    7. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupid people, or people who never offend anyone, aren't afraid.

      As we all know, you have nothing to fear if you are innocent. It's not like it won't be trivial someday to manufacture guilt by tapping a few electrons here and there.

      What else can be said to people who think reality isn't going to happen to them?

    8. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's BobDoleCare, thank you very much, as he was the first proponent, or HeritageFoundationCare, as they invented it.

    9. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by jodido · · Score: 1

      Al Qaeda as threat to national security is a pretty low standard. In any case, Congress and the NSA, and the White House, and the rest of the political-legal systems, are all on the same side. And it's not yours.

    10. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not everyone lives in fear like you do.

      Some of us welcome our new NSA overlords? Is that what you are trying to say?

    11. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're not rogue, they're exactly what you should expect from a Statist system. True Libertarianism would never permit such abuses by the government.

    12. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by nytes · · Score: 1

      So now we know. Senator Feinstein must have terabytes of porn on her hard drive and the NSA has told her they know about it.

      --
      -- I have monkeys in my pants.
    13. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Is it still slander if only the entity making the accusation actually cares if they did it?

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    14. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Wookact · · Score: 1

      NewtCare is also an acceptable answer.

    15. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by onyxruby · · Score: 1

      It's still slander because the intent is to damage someone's reputation enough to cause harm through dishonest means. That being said, in today's society with some people if you accused them of something like an orgy they didn't participate in they would probably go ahead and claim credit anyways...

    16. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Well, it is true that people believe leading Romans had orgies not infrequently. This is in part because the preceding Etruscan culture was known to have orgies not infrequently, and the neighboring Hellenic culture in Magna Greceia was known to have orgies not infrequently. Oh, and Roman sources like Petronius, the various writings found in Pompeii, and the general fact that this was perfectly acceptable behavior in pagan society at the time.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    17. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 1

      True Libertarianism would never permit such abuses by the government.

      Of course, that only exists in the land of magic and make-believe, so...

      --
      Who did what now?
    18. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When politicians take the oath of office, they vow to defined the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. With this in mind, an enemy of the state is still an enemy no matter where they hail from. Unfortunately, some of the biggest enemies of the republic & Constitution seem to be our own elected officials.

    19. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by hey! · · Score: 1

      Well, there *was* Tiberius enjoying his teams little boys and girls in Capri while Sejanus ran his reign of terror for him. At least if you believe Suetonius, who lived a couple centuries before Constantine, so he's unlikely to have been a Christian.

      I think the idea that people didn't start having orgies until modern times strains credulity. They just weren't such a fixture of Roman life as people today imagine. That's why the behavior of Tiberius or Messilina were considered scandalous. Traditional Roman virtue emphasized self-discipline and service to the state, but in the imperial period and late Republic powerful people began to realize that if they had enough power, nobody could restrain them.

      Anyhow, it shows how little power scandal has to dislodge people in influential positions. It's only people in precarious positions that get topped by sex scandals.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    20. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by z0idberg · · Score: 1

      When* one of them gets fucked in the ass it will be a lesson to the rest of them not to make waves and to stick to the program.

      *assuming it hasn't happened already. There sure don't seem to be many waves being made despite all the shit that has come out so far, so perhaps it has.

    21. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by dbIII · · Score: 1

      At least if you believe Suetonius

      There's not much else to read on Tiberius so he's it, but I've been assured that some of the stuff he wrote about Julius for instance doesn't match up to other sources and was deliberate slander aligned with the views of Suetonius's patron. That's why some of the more extreme stuff he wrote about Julius didn't end up in the history that gets taught. So we can't entirely believe Suetonius - but we can use stuff in there as cautionary tales and examples either way since so many people (even me) have read "lives of the caesers" and so much other stuff is based on it.

    22. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?

      Maybe never if the NSA knows their browsing and other habits as well ;).

      That's why you should never let the NSA spy on your own people except in very very controlled and limited cases (e.g. court order for specific target for a specific issue).

    23. Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      um you know you could just sum up that whole statement with the word usenet.
      after browsing that place its a matter of what porn have you NOT seen.

  9. It just keeps getting worse by BigSlowTarget · · Score: 1

    Is there any bottom to this at all? Seriously, I expected them to be nasty, bureaucratic and invasive but it sounds like they were taking policy guidelines from conspiracy websites.

    1. Re:It just keeps getting worse by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Remember the article yesterday about US officials fearing another 2 years' worth of releases? It means there are people well aware of more things not yet released. This is just the beginning.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:It just keeps getting worse by TWiTfan · · Score: 2

      It's an age-old adage, if you give someone power they ARE going to use it. And agencies, like people, will usually push for as much power as they can get. The NSA and CIA (and to a lesser extent, the FBI) were basically given blank checks after 9-11. Anyone who ever believed they were going to voluntarily restrict their use of that kind of power to Muslim terrorists was a fool.

      --
      The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    3. Re:It just keeps getting worse by HereIAmJH · · Score: 0, Troll

      Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies? The revelation that the NSA has tapped Angela Merkel's cell has turned into a "who hasn't" as 4 other countries have been implicated as well. And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals". Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    4. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A pattern that I've noticed while growing up is that every time I feel like asking "Could things really be THAT bad?" the answer tends to be "Of course it is, you stupid child"

    5. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If their goal is to actually change things, I'd expect a huge flood of juicy stuff during the 2016 presidential election season, since the executive gets to set policy goals on such things, and congress can only cut funding, change laws, or charge people with crimes. I'd expect it to be possible to create a fair number of single-issue voters for whichever candidate promises to (and can be trusted to) end it.

      captcha: alerter

    6. Re:It just keeps getting worse by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      I feel the politicians and bureaucrats in NSA and other intelligence agencies violating our 4th amendment and other rights are the ones committing treason, not those blowing the whistle. But obviously YMMV.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    7. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies?

      The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.

      And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals".

      Two problems with this:

      1) The government has a history of pulling this against its own citizens when they threaten the status quo. See COINTELPRO and MLK.

      2) Hypocrisy is offensive, but doesn't invalidate a person's argument of how people should act, even if they can't live up to it. MLK would be a great example of this. He was a religious man who had a message of tolerance and justice. He also may or may not have had extramarital affairs. (He at the very least had straying eyes.) Would revealing this to the public negate the truth of his message? Maybe not, but it would be an excuse to shout that truth down and stifle it from spreading.

      Encouraging people to accept ad hominem attacks as legitimate, even when it's for people advocating beliefs you find abhorrent, is a dangerous game. It's short-sighted, amoral, and displays the "all that matters is the ends" mentality that has gotten our country into so many risky and stupid entanglements before. Pretty much all of modern politics can be traced back to "pragmatic" things done during the Cold War and the fallout from putting advantage over principle.

      Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.

      These two people are heroes, not traitors. They saw a great rot at the core of our nation, and rather than sit silently and watch as it ate deeper and deeper, they put their lives and freedom on the line to let people know so that we could act. If their actions have been ineffective, it has been more because of the nihilists like yourself than because of flaws in their motives.

      --
      If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
    8. Re:It just keeps getting worse by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You know what revelation would truly be devastating?

      That NSA has been collecting "online sexual preferences" of, say, members of certain Congressional committees. Or how about Supreme Court judges?

      And, frankly, at this point, I'm inclined to believe that they just did, unless there's evidence proving otherwise. 2+2=4, and we have already seen 2 and 2. But if there is a document released that would be a definite proof, well then, it's pitchfork time.

    9. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning

      The treason has been committed by the likes of James Clapper, Keith Alexander, Peter King, Dianne Feinstein, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    10. Re:It just keeps getting worse by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      I'm inclined to believe that they just did, unless there's evidence proving otherwise.

      Yeah, and that kind of thinking said Saddam Hussein had WMD. BTW, unless it's illegal, I don't care about the sexual preferences of my congress persons.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    11. Re:It just keeps getting worse by HereIAmJH · · Score: 0

      The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.

      We have different definitions of oppression. I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. I also don't accept TSA security as anything beyond Security Theatre. I knew that when all the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies got moved under the DHS umbrella that there would be a LOT of data gathering. And no one is capable of coordinating sufficient oversight for an organization that large. Bradley Manning's leaks have been long enough ago that some of the prophecies of doom should have happened. I don't recall anything significantly newsworthy. I don't expect any from Snowden's either. In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.

      As far as Manning and Snowden;

      A man is only as good as his word.

      Both men voluntarily swore an oath to the United States. Both men voluntarily violated that oath. They could have found other ways to address their concerns that didn't involve collaborating with people who have sworn an oath to attack the United States. They chose not to because the other path was difficult. They are not heroes, and I have no sympathy for any of the misfortunes that have come from their lack of principals. You can choose to worship them as heroes, but I won't.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    12. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      BTW, unless it's illegal, I don't care about the sexual preferences of my congress persons.

      And I guess that matters once you get to select who the members of congress are. However, right now the US is a democracy and most of the voters do care, so being able to control access to this information gives somebody the power to decide who gets elected.

    13. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Valdrax · · Score: 1

      I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. ... In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.

      Funny, for someone who supposedly doesn't accept high levels of data collection, you seem to mock anyone else who actually cares.

      Both men voluntarily swore an oath to the United States. Both men voluntarily violated that oath. They could have found other ways to address their concerns that didn't involve collaborating with people who have sworn an oath to attack the United States. They chose not to because the other path was difficult.

      And ineffectual.

      We have whistleblowing protections, but in both of their cases, those protections do not apply. Government protection for government whistleblowers really only extends to financial fraud and waste and to workplace safety and other regulations non-compliance. It doesn't apply to officially sanctioned policies that are in legal gray areas, and it does not provide any exceptions (that I am aware of) for the release of classified data to the parties you are blowing the whistle to. Telling Congress or their superiors about acts they had no business knowing would have simply landed them in jail without any positive effect.

      So what options do you speak of?

      They could have found other ways to address their concerns that didn't involve collaborating with people who have sworn an oath to attack the United States.

      To call them "collaborators" is somewhere between spin doctoring and malicious slander. They provided information to the public without any specific intent to collaborate with enemies. If such people also picked up on the information, then that's the breaks, but it should not make it illegal to tell the rest of us what is going on when the government is acting without accountability and in ways hostile to the public's interest.

      --
      If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
    14. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A different guy happened to say word-for-word exactly what you did.
      That other guy does heroin however.

      Since that guy did one wrong thing, as you said in another post that means everything he has said is wrong.
      Thusly, everything you just said is equally as wrong.

      As you said in your other post, you agree with that logic, so you too say you are wrong.

      Now that yourself and all of us are on the same page knowing how wrong you are, I ask why you keep posting lies to slashdot? Can't you go post lies else where? Or stop lying?

    15. Re:It just keeps getting worse by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I'd say that such stuff has been hoovered up for decades.

    16. Re:It just keeps getting worse by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      I don't accept the level of government's (or business's) collection of data on people and invading the privacy of individuals. ... In the end I expect the general public to yawn and go about their daily lives. And nothing will change. So any high and mighty principal of 'changing the world' has failed.

      Funny, for someone who supposedly doesn't accept high levels of data collection, you seem to mock anyone else who actually cares.

      I'm not mocking 'anyone who actually cares', only you. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

      You said "your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual". And my response is I don't accept these data collection policies. Business as usual or otherwise. I also don't accept that this is the only way to deal with unethical activities. The general public cares more about Kanye and Kim than it does this. Most of them don't even know what CALEA is. Or FISA. Or what an NSL is. And then you make the assumption that the only way government surveillance can be reformed is through things like the Manning/Snowden activities. The whole premise of my original post is that the NSA knows Snowden has nothing that will last more than a news cycle and won't be particularly damaging. But they're willing to wring their hands and ask Congress for more money to secure and compartmentalize their data.

      They provided information to the public without any specific intent to collaborate with enemies.

      Neither actually provided information to the 'public'. Snowden was the closest with the article in the Guardian. Then he proceeded to contact the Chinese government followed by the Russian government. While those governments aren't 'enemies', they aren't exactly friendly either. How will you feel if the classified information that he gave China encourages them to further escalate tensions in the East China Sea? You understand how treaties set the stage for WWI and WWII. What happens if China shoots down a Japanese plane in this new Defense Zone? Or maybe they send fighters to redirect our B52s to one of their bases. Manning gave information to Wikileaks, an organization whose leader had expressed a public agenda to damage the US government. Both Wikileaks and Snowden used 'unreleased' information to attempt to coerce a specific behavior. Not exactly 'releasing to the public'.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    17. Re:It just keeps getting worse by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

      We get it. Swear an oath to the oppressor, to hell with what's right and wrong, that oath is all that really matters. Even if when you swore it, in good faith, you were unaware just how much of an oppressor demanded that oath.

      The government betrayed a whistleblower, and he took the only realistic options he had. What I see in you is an apologist of the worst kind for tyranny.

      To whine about Wikileaks and Snowden trying to coerce a specific behaviour when the fucking President and his minions have already declared that you're a criminal to the nation is grievous bullshittery.

    18. Re:It just keeps getting worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also don't accept that this is the only way to deal with unethical activities.

      And what do you think was the better way? You've yet to actually propose a better way -- just to cynically say that the public doesn't care, and that should be expected.

      Snowden was the closest with the article in the Guardian. Then he proceeded to contact the Chinese government followed by the Russian government.

      It's unlikely Snowden gave info to China or Russia. Do you have any evidence that says otherwise, or are you going off of pure speculation?

      What happens if China shoots down a Japanese plane in this new Defense Zone? Or maybe they send fighters to redirect our B52s to one of their bases.

      Then what happens next will not likely be affected at all by Snowden's leaks. Snowden's leaks had nothing to do with military operational capabilities, and China would be a fool to think we weren't spying on them. As you yourself said, this was the kind of thing that everyone in power already knew about.

      Both Wikileaks and Snowden used 'unreleased' information to attempt to coerce a specific behavior. Not exactly 'releasing to the public'.

      Of course they wanted to force a change of behavior. What do you think the point of whistleblowing is? Just to tell people, "Ooh look, that's interesting, isnt it -- let's just file that under 'neat' and get back to our lives?" The point of shining a light on bad behavior is to get that behavior to stop.

      And releasing data to the press (including Wikileaks) IS releasing it to the public. That's what the press does (or is supposed to anyway).

  10. Were they doing anything illegal? by Draeven · · Score: 1

    There goes that argument.

    1. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is the beauty of the structured releases.

      GG: The NSA is spying on the Internet. Here is the proof.
      NSA: No, we're only spying on terrorist's use of the Internet.
      GG: The NSA is spying on everyone on the Internet. Here is the proof.
      NSA: Well OK, but we can't help that. Anyway, we don't look at it if you aren't a terrorist.
      GG: The NSA hands over unfiltered data on non-terrorists to Israel and the FBI. Here is the proof.
      NSA: Well OK, but if you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to hide.
      GG: The NSA blackmails political radicals. Here is the proof.

      I do hope this goes on for years.

    2. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      It's difficult to imagine how the NSA can possibly survive all of this.

      Difficult to imagine, but sadly that's just probably because of my own cognitive shortcomings. I'm sure they will survive and thrive. After all, with this kind of information at their disposal, the NSA can go far beyond the poisonous atmosphere that J. Edgar Hoover created around Washington in his day. The NSA will likely own almost everyone in Congress, if they don't already.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's difficult to imagine how the NSA can possibly survive all of this.

      Well Mr. Congressman, we understand your concerns. But before you vote to restructure the agency, we've some material you might like to see. Now, don't ask how we got our hands on your browsing records, records which will offend the religious sensibilities of your conservative voters and the racial sensitivities of your liberal voters, but we just wanted you to know that our agency is doing everything in its power to make sure such things don't become public record.

    4. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by east+coast · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why would congress or the president want to stop this? It's a serious question because I don't understand how any adult in the US today honestly thinks that any of the powers that be have any interest in stopping any of this.

      There may be a few well meaning members of the power elite here and there that believe in things like the constitution and the rights of the individual but they're few and far between and the mass media, both left and right leaning, go out of their way to portray these people as loons. Most voters eat it up and ask for seconds.

      The two party system has all the trappings of professional studio wrestling where we can divide the elements up into good guy/bad guy. 90% of the voters are little more than cheerleaders at the big high school football game. Those on the fringe are just that, the fringe and activities like this are meant to keep them in check. Who's going to stand in the way when all these elements come together in a surreal version of Survivor played with 300+ million contestants?

      So I ask again, why would anyone with the power to stop this want to stop this? They have nothing to lose. The same people on the left who wailed in agony when the PATRIOT Act passed are now tightlipped since that power is now theirs to wield. Even the cheerleaders have shut up about such triflings as human rights in lieu of finally getting what they want out of the system. "Doesn't it serve them nasty right-wingers to finally get a taste of their own medicine? After all, they did it first..." And that kind of finger pointing will allow this to go on for as long as the powers that be can maintain balance. For today it seems like that could be generations of power at their disposal with little effort.

      And left-wing/right-wing are an illusion in today's government meant to keep you asleep and fighting against your fellow man.

      We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. -1984.

      And no number of Facebook memes can stop this beast that we've allowed to come to life.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    5. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

      Why would congress or the president want to stop this? It's a serious question because I don't understand how any adult in the US today honestly thinks that any of the powers that be have any interest in stopping any of this.

      Because the people in power are self-interested and as much as they despise complaints from the plebs they don't want to be treated like them. They (the Congress more than the president) have a very good reason to want this stopped and that's so it won't be used against them.

      That is not to say they'll act to stop it, but you only asked why they might want to stop it. Whatever they might individually want, they won't do anything to stop it. They've the wolf by the ears.

    6. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 1

      Simple: The NSA can blackmail any member of congress. They can ruin the political careers of anyone who tries to rein them in.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    7. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Interesting

      One wonders if the beast is an inevitability of technically advanced civilizations. You look at what the people of North Korea or a Belarus tolerate, when all logic says that those regimes are so awful and incompetent that the people should rise up and cast down the tyrants.

      As much as I like to think humanity is on an upward course, I'm truly beginning to think the Enlightenment was a brief, anomalous period that, if its effects haven't ended, are on a continuing decline. Science has been brought into disrepute because it disagrees with the the money men. Liberties have been compromised at every turn with excuses that range from "Oh God, Terrorists" or "But what about the children!!!" to the more naked "We do it because we can." Our art has been dumbed down to the point where culture is defined by the latest Lady Gaga wig or some guy throwing his own excrement at at a wall is called art. Sure we have lots of technical advancements, but even there, the drive to fund basic research is dying in the West as short-sighted politicians try direct funding towards limited and specified goals; in no small part, I think, because the money men that own them don't like it when basic research turns up the error of their ways.

      I feel like the West is declining, even as Asia and Latin America, however haltingly and unsteadily, are literally shooting for the stars. Sure, they may be a half century behind us in some respects, but they're closing the gap rapidly and seem to have the drive that the West once had. Look at geopolitics. The West decolonized Africa, and now China is recolonizing it.

      Maybe that's the natural order. One civilization fades and another takes its place. The West has had its time in the sun, as the Song, Romans, Akkadians, Egyptians and Athenians did in their day, but those outside the walls are quick to learn and have the hunger to use it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 1

      Why, that's lunacy! That's nothing but a bunch of [right wing conspiracy theory/left wing agitation, depending upon which audience we're dealing with]! Such a thing would never happen.

      Oh. Wait.

      From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_edgar_hoover:

      According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him".

    9. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's nothing, bro. Congress is full of Type-As that would balk at such threats and use it as an excuse to forge ahead and become a partisan "hero"

      The real problem is when the NSA says "Remember when JFK wanted to dissolve the CIA? I'm sure you do. November 22, 1963."

    10. Re:Were they doing anything illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And since those records weren't scandalous enough we took the care to edit them a bit

  11. Porn and Trust by sahuxley · · Score: 0

    To be honest, I wouldn't trust a guy who told me he DIDN'T watch porn.

  12. Oh shit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ohhhh Nooooo NSA! You caught me watching hairy mature porn?!

    Oh God! People will realize that I'm a hetero-sexual who likes older women who don't shave their pussy because I like my women to look like .... women and not little girls?! Ohhhh Nooooo!

    The SHAME!

    What next NEXT NSA? What fucking next?!

    Read the Goddamn Constitution - assholes. And fucking read what our founding fathers had to say. Many of whom would be on your goddamn watch list if they were alive today!

    Jesus Fucking Christ! The NSA, the Enemy of America!

    1. Re:Oh shit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the Goddamn Constitution - assholes.

      I'm starting to wonder if the NSA doesn't have a drinking game for this sort of think. Drink every time someone demands you read the Constitution :^)

    2. Re:Oh shit! by benjfowler · · Score: 1

      I think foreigners could be forgiven for thinking that constitutional fetishism is some kind of strange cult. Like the tinfoil hatters and "sovereign citizens" could read the minds of men dead for 240 years...

  13. Dang, just used up my mod points by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 1, Interesting

    But I'd give you a bump if I could.

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
  14. Not news but great reminder by erroneus · · Score: 1

    The fact is, the 3-letter spy agencies have ALWAYS capitalized on blackmail. That these agencies even exist, in my opinion, is based on their blackmail powers. But these days, as politicians are actually standing up for their wayward ways (thank Rob Ford and Bill Clinton!) I think it's time we stop persecuting people for being people. (Crack smoking mayor? I have to draw a line there but the idea is good.) If someone gambles, weigh it in on how you feel about them. If someone is gay, SO WHAT?! If someone likes to dress up like a girl (and isn't one) who cares?! As long as these people aren't hurting anyone else, it's time we judge people based on the jobs they are doing. This blackmail crap has got to end.

    Should we have a government agency in charge of spying on politicians? MAYBE! But in charge of spying on EVERYONE? No.

    1. Re:Not news but great reminder by Megane · · Score: 1

      Meh. DC had a crack smoking mayor yeeeeears ago, and they still re-elected him.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    2. Re:Not news but great reminder by benjfowler · · Score: 1

      Probably for entertainment value.

    3. Re:Not news but great reminder by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Clinton is really sticking his neck out there, being 67 and a former president and all. Sigh...well, I suppose this is about as much as I can realistically hope for.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    4. Re:Not news but great reminder by Wookact · · Score: 1

      Shoot it was DC, I am willing to bet he wasn't the dirtiest politician in that city by a long shot.

    5. Re:Not news but great reminder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a real representative of the people I tell ya

    6. Re:Not news but great reminder by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      Crack smoking mayor? I have to draw a line there

      Oh, of course...

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  15. Appropriate and effective - they should do it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is actually an excellent strategy. Extreme views can be thought of as 'memes' - transmissible between minds just like viruses are between bodies.

    The fight against terrorism really should be a fight against contagious, harmful ideas, not a military campaign. If you tackle the root problem (memes) then you can address the sickness. If you merely target infected people (kill them using military force) you inevitably cause collateral damage, create martyrs, etc. which actually makes the bad memes more contagious. Counter productive!

    So how to fight bad memes? In this case, the bad memes are extreme forms of religion (most frequently Sunni Islam, but religion in general, as evidenced by crazy people in the US, Northern Ireland, Israel, etc.). One way to do that is to show that the people perpetrating the memes do not actually adhere to their own ideals. If someone claims to be a pure, faithful Muslim but spends hours a day surfing for on-line porn, clearly they cannot be held up as role models by other, faithful Muslims. Making this information public discredits the preacher -- makes him a less contagious source of these memes. Discredit many people who preach the ideology and you make the whole 'movement' look stupid - effectively defanging the memes themselves.

    The US should spend money on this kind of thing - privacy intrusion and all - instead of military adventures. Less bloody and more effective.

    Unfortunately, the US seems to prefer military adventures.

    1. Re:Appropriate and effective - they should do it by plover · · Score: 1

      There is certainly less collateral damage than there is with a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator. I agree that the killing of non-combatants is their biggest recruitment tool. But this is a Western viewpoint, and not a very practical approach in the crazy world of jihad, fundamental religions, and bronze-age existences.

      How to disseminate this info to the True Believers is the real problem. The targets are generally spiritual leaders who can tell their followers any old story about anything at all, and it will be accepted as Truth. "Lies and propaganda from the West are proof that they are evil" kinds of crap. These guys are the ultimate Spin Doctors, who can issue the death penalty to anyone not buying 100% of their bullshit.

      Evidence, logic, facts, questioning authority, and free-thought are actively suppressed by every fundamentalist religion. And the region is generally controlled by sympathizers, so it's not like you can just pop a video of Mullah bin-Wankin's private habits onto the 6:00 news and discredit him that way.

      So while they may have blackmail-quality evidence against these guys, nobody who would actually take him out back and stone him to death for his offense will believe it, if he tells them not to.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Appropriate and effective - they should do it by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      The US should spend money on this kind of thing - privacy intrusion and all - instead of military adventures. Less bloody and more effective.

      How about not spending money on either, and start valuing freedom?

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  16. COINTELPRO all over again! by swb · · Score: 2

    It really is, except this time there's no messy "black bag" B&E jobs to get into homes and find porno mags, read diaries and letters, etc. Just hack into their computers and it's all right there.

    1. Re:COINTELPRO all over again! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just request the content from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, it's all right there.

  17. And if all else fails, trump up some rape charges by TWiTfan · · Score: 1

    But I'm sure that they would NEVER go that far.

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  18. Freedom of speech? by Minupla · · Score: 2

    You know, it's funny but I don't believe I recall seeing "...until we don't agree with your speech, at which point we'll collect dirt on you and blackmail you with it" in the first amendment. Must be in the second edition.

    The Great Firewall of China begins to look like a useful protection for their citizens at this point.

    (Yes, I realize that the majority of these people were not on US soil, but it's purportedly a principle, and one the US criticizes any country who does not espouse, and as such should apply more broadly then just to people standing on US soil at the time).

    Min

    --
    On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    1. Re:Freedom of speech? by javajawa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure... you're free to speak, and they're free to listen... they are then free to repeat what they've heard. This is why the right to remain silent is pretty damned nifty... and why their attempts to outlaw encryption and other instruments of privacy are so appalling.

      --

      Meh

    2. Re:Freedom of speech? by Minupla · · Score: 1

      Hey JJ, long time :)

      Arguably when a state entity espouses such a principle in their founding documents, they would have an ethical obligation to not undermine those principles through use of state organs.

      I agree that the text says they will make no law abridging the right, however, I would expect an implied corollary to be "Since we believe that this right is so important we won't engage in actions which would have a chilling effect on it."

      Min

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    3. Re:Freedom of speech? by javajawa · · Score: 1

      Oh... I'm pretty sure that ethics were thrown out the window a long time ago; only fear remains. Anyway, this isn't a Freedom of Speech issue. The items being leveraged, were not spoken. Good to see you, old friend.

      --

      Meh

    4. Re:Freedom of speech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure... you're free to speak, and they're free to listen...

      Sure they are, if they have warrants. Want to wager on whether the NSA obtained warrants first for the US persons they spied on?

  19. Where will they stop? by cpghost · · Score: 3, Informative

    While most won't mind the NSA blackmailing (potential) terrorists using their web history, why stop there? Hasn't the NSA already blackmailed high ranking EU politicians, using the very same techniques, to ensure that SWIFT data will continue to be shared with the US, despite the European Parliament's motion to suspend this data sharing? See where all this leads to?

    --
    cpghost at Cordula's Web.
  20. Deniability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what if the NSA publishes that I enjoy watching amateur shemale amputee midget porn. Really.. Pics or it didn't happen. Oh, and my laptop's webcam is disconnected. Not taped over because that's ugly, I actually snipped the wires.

    1. Re:Deniability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The wires were put there to trick idiots into thinking it's not wireless.....

      It's still on.

  21. Stazi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Secretly monitoring innocent people, because they are political opponents, in order to persecute them for political reasons. Sounds exactly like the Stazi.

    This is scary stuff, because they already have a lot of this information stored down, probably permanently, from all of us - and they have demonstrated a willingness to abuse this information for political reasons against the population; this isn't just in the US either, but all around the world.

    This puts a lot of people in potential danger, not in the present, but in the future: How can anyone be confident what kind of government will be in control in their country in 10/20/30 years time? Will that government target you with violence for your political views, past/present?

    Now they have a lot of the information (and all of the means) they need to do it.

  22. Tamerlan Tsarnaev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What did the NSA know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev? That's what I want to know. If the mass surveillance is justified, how did they not know about his plot? How did they fail to prevent it?

    1. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by benjfowler · · Score: 0

      Explanation is simple. The surveillance isn't anywhere near as effective as the tinfoil-hatters that infest these boards think it is.

    2. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Explanation is simple. The surveillance isn't anywhere near as effective as the tinfoil-hatters that infest these boards think it is.

      Oh, I have no doubt it's effective. The problem with this kind of stuff is that they spend all their time on minutiae and strange statistics and they blow off anyone who who comes to the door and says "We think you should know that this guy spent a lot of time on is vacation over here consorting with known radicals". So Walter Mitty down the street has his toilet habits monitored to the millisecond while downtown Boston blows up.

      Because, at heart, they're the most terrifying thing on earth: bureaucrats.

      Congress may think they control the NSA. They're wrong.
      The military may think they control the NSA. They're wrong.
      The President may think he controls the NSA. He's wrong.

      Bureaucracies control themselves. They give nominal homage to the mayflies who claim to own and control them, but in the end, they answer only to themselves. And the only data that's real to them is the data that's in their ledgers.

    3. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Because actual terrorists aren't the real enemy of the national security state. In fact, the occasional actual terrorist attack is good for proving the need for increased surveillance, and because the bad guy could be anybody it justifies spying on everyone.

      Nope, the real enemies of the national security state are those that realize that we're spending giant piles of money chasing phantoms.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    4. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The primary use of dragnet surveillance is not about theoretically predicting future events, that's just the excuse they use. It's about using the information in retrospect.

      Even law enforcement doesn't bother using its dragnets to stop crime. It's used as a tool to help them find out who to prosecute - even though the data is flawed and full of false positives that can 'seem' logical to the average person. This leads to wrongful convictions based on tenuous connections and incorrectly compiled evidence.

    5. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by almechist · · Score: 1

      What did the NSA know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev? That's what I want to know. If the mass surveillance is justified, how did they not know about his plot? How did they fail to prevent it?

      I guess they were so busy tracking the various porn sites he visited they just missed all that other stuff. I mean, come on, you're a bored NSA analyst sitting at a desk sifting through reams of data, what's really gonna attract your interest the most, some obscure piece of paranoid Russian intel, or good old American porn? On the internet, pron is king, baby!

      So remember this, the next time you visit your own favorite online purveyor of wank-ware: in doing so, you just might be making some poor old NSA spook's day!

    6. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like that you are trying to make fun of "the tinfoil-hatters." It's almost as if they were just crazy and not actually correct, isn't it?

      The answer is that all of this surveillance isn't targeted at terrorists or suspected terrorists as we were originally told. It is blatantly obvious at this point that it is targeted at anyone and everyone that can or will speak out at anyone that is in power in the USA. Americans are expected to keep shelling out tax dollars to fund this monster and they can't have people going about mucking up the works.

      It is about control and it is about money and that's all it ever has been.

    7. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      Obviously, this only emphasises the need for more surveillance.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    8. Re:Tamerlan Tsarnaev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The surveillance isn't for find terrorists. It's for finding dirt on known subjects. Once they knew the Tsarnaev brothers were behind the Boston Marathon bombing, you can bet the NSA knew everything about them. Until then, the Tsarnaev data was just a part of the haystack.

      Being set up this way, the intelligence gathering is only useful for after-the-fact analysis or targeting political enemies or ex-girlfriends (yes, the NSA has been doing that too). Since we all know there haven't been many attacks since 9/11, someone has to have been using this system for something, and illegal abuses are the most likely scenario.

  23. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Jiro · · Score: 1

    If you're referring to Julian Assange, those rape charges were the fault of radical feminists getting their beliefs entrenched in European rape law, not the NSA.

  24. Backfire by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    Wow, that could backfire really nicely.

  25. The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    NSA spying on electronic sex talk of every overseas US serviceperson (and sharing lists of the 'juciest' 'phone sex' conversations they had recorded). Was this fact alone not the BIGGEST wake-up call to the actuality of NSA full surveillance abuse.

    Snowden has access to programs that are the TINIEST tip of the iceberg of full surveillance projects across the globe. Snowden was a VERY low level operative with knowledge of trivial and disposable side projects. The true heart of the NSA project is insanely more ambitious.

    1) Full surveillance projects exists to primarily create feedback loops between the current state of mind of the general populace, and the propaganda projects in the mainstream media that seek to change and manipulate the mindset of the people. The usual vile shills here tell you that even though your government spies on every private aspect of your life, you shouldn't care, because they have no interest in you as an individual. In a strictly technical sense, they are right, since most NSA spying is like endless real-time polling of the population (or sub groups) to find out how such groups are thinking or responding.

    However, the purpose of this spying is to give your masters MUCH better control over your lives, and THAT fact will effect you most certainly as an individual. For instance, Team Obama and Team Blair wanted to launch a genocidal bombing campaign against Syria, but YOU the people were so against this war, despite the most depraved anti-Syria propaganda campaign in every mainstream media outlet, that the monstrously evil plan was 'cancelled'. Billions are being spent researching why the propaganda failed, and NSA feedback on the subject is an essential part of the analysis.

    2) As this story proves, the NSA seeks to gather intelligence on the entire population, in order to create potential blackmail information against every citizen, should that person become a 'PERSON OF INTEREST' in the future. Use the N-word in your own home in front of the Xbox One as a naive youngster? You may find that fact impossible to explain years later when you are seeking political office- but ONLY if you are foolish enough to have political views that, for instance, don't serve the interests of Israel or Monsanto etc.

    3) Full surveillance operations by the NSA and others allows grass-roots social/political movements to be identified BEFORE they have wider significance, allowing rising leaders to be 'eliminated' or co-opted. The NSA maintains the status quo by identifying potential opposition at an early enough stage for that 'opposition' to be dealt with with near zero greater public awareness.

    Those that consider themselves as part of the elite, like the eugenicist Bill Gates, are happy to dedicate their lives to finding better ways to control YOU, the sheeple. And worse, when Gates PROVES that the sheeple are so weak-willed, servile, stupid, and pathetic, they raise ZERO complaint about his 'Common Core' project, his inBloom "every child tracked in every aspect of their life" universal database (which contains the best intelligence resources would-be child abusers could dream of), and his NSA spy device in every home Xbox One, the elite becomes even more certain of their god given right to exploit 'lesser' Humans in every way possible.

    1. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by benjfowler · · Score: 2

      I wish I had the time and inclination to do a proper rebuttal, but I doubt that you (AC) are worth my time.

      I'll just say this: you're fucking nuts and you're making shit up.

    2. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Holi · · Score: 1

      So just because someone says the world is over populated that makes them a eugenicist?

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    3. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'll just say that because that's all you have to say. There is no proper rebuttal waiting in the back of your mind, you don't like the taste of that food for thought and now you're making faces.

    4. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check his history. He's a shill. Don't bother.

    5. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

      What's sad is he's only a little bit nuts. What was once a lunatic conspiracy theorist rant is now a lunatic conspiracy nut rant based on widely acknowledged actual facts, not just theory. He's making shit up, but he's making up a lot less than he used to have to.

    6. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by benjfowler · · Score: 1

      And you're a moron.

    7. Re:The NSA has every Xbone crypto key by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the NSA itself says they did "word counting" in the past. Meaning they counted all the words in Russian media and then looked at the histograms of words and expressions. This gave them insight into the political issues and changes in political issues. Look it up if you are interested.

      Of course they can point this technology onto arbitrary populations.

      In short: The guy might be spot-on in his GuessWork.

  26. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by TWiTfan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, I was also referring to Dominique Strauss Kahn (seems to be a common tactic these days). Poor boy made the mistake of challenging the supremacy of the U.S. dollar as IMF chief. Within a few months he was in handcuffs, with the prosecutor announcing a "rock solid" rape case--forcing him to resign. Three days after his successor was sworn in as the new IMF chief, the prosecutor dropped all charges and announced the case had no merit.

    I guess the lesson here is, don't fuck with the U.S. government.

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  27. Internet is porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    d'uh

  28. Richelieu by Catbeller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Arms inspector Scott Ritter, who called Bush and company liars. Immediately monitored to hell and back, reputation ruined by mysterious surveillance forces within months of taking the fight to Bush's people. Being right was no excuse; he was never allowed on Oprah again, or anywhere else. We invaded Iran under false pretense. He's in prison after the second round of surveillance.

    As for the charges, which they ultimately nailed him with? Dunno. Why does everyone assume that computers can't lie? Once you set up the premise that we are catching lots of bad men, it's child's play to make you a bad man - just invent some logs, some chat, and boom goes the dynamite. I don't trust electrons when they are under the control of people who would bomb 60,000 people to death for oil and conflating brown people with other brown people.

    And talking to girls online is a crime they can hang on a lot of men, anyway. He didn't *do* anything. Except piss the right people off. On the other hand, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft and Rice are rich and free after stealing trillions in oil, starting two endless wars, and killing over a hundred thousand people.

    Assume that people are watching you, listening to you - retroactively - if you annoy the right people. They can indeed hang you with six lines. Hell, I do now christen this "Richelieuing".

    1. Re:Richelieu by Holi · · Score: 1

      Scott Ritter was the wrong man for the job. Granted the charges were brought up at a suspicious time but Ritter himself has admitted to a lot of the on line activity. He had way too much baggage to be a public figure.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  29. Re:#irc.t8ollt4lk.com by peppepz · · Score: 1

    I think that these unexplicable strings of characters that always contain the word "FreeBSD" and pop up under every slashdot article are actually used by the NSA/CIA as number stations to convey secret messages to their minions.

  30. Yeah, that'll work. by ggraham412 · · Score: 1

    NSA: Sheik Abdul Muhammad Hussein likes to look at boobies.

    Sheik: The NSA is lying.

    Follower #1: Yeah, the NSA is lying.

    Follower #2: Boobies? Where's the boobies?

  31. Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The FBI used similar tactics on the "most dangerous Negro" aka Martin Luther King -- they bugged his bedroom and then tried to blackmail him with an audiotape of him having sex with women who weren't his wife.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    1. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The FBI used similar tactics on the "most dangerous Negro" aka Martin Luther King -- they bugged his bedroom and then tried to blackmail him with an audiotape of him having sex with women who weren't his wife.

      On the one hand we are all glad that he persevered, on the other hand, he was the "Reverend" Martin Luther King Jr. and he was cheating on his wife with multiple women. Hypocritical scumbag, even though also a great man.

    2. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On the one hand we are all glad that he persevered, on the other hand, he was the "Reverend" Martin Luther King Jr. and he was cheating on his wife with multiple women. Hypocritical scumbag, even though also a great man.

      "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
      --Cardinal Richelieu

      Here's an article on the danger of wiretapping to the political process.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    3. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is he a "hypocritical scumbag" for getting some extra tame on the side? The bible is cool with it. Try reading it sometime, you might learn some new sex moves.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    4. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by rahvin112 · · Score: 2

      That was Hoover's FBI. Hoover kept files on everyone in congress so he could make sure he had the info to blackmail anyone that tried to cut the budget of the FBI or remove him from office.

    5. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Considering all the stoning and ragging on prostitutes and whatnot, I'd really like to see some references for that.

      Presumably the latter part of your post is referencing Song of Solomon, which pretty specifically deals with relations between a husband and wife.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    6. Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng by Burz · · Score: 1

      I think with today's ability to conduct retrospective fishing expeditions, and in light of how easily the government slipped into harassment of anti-Iraq-war groups and Occupy, that the danger of political spying is now inherent in all spying.

  32. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I guess the lesson here is, don't fuck with the U.S. government."

    Which also means don't ask questions about the Israeli government, by extension.

    "By the way, you don't want to go to work tomorrow." Sept 10, 2001
    -MOving SyStems IncorporAteD

  33. Anthony Weiner beta tester by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not quite ready to go to the final version, given that he still got back into politics somehow. But it would explain a lot.

  34. trolls, all the way down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    47th attempt to repeal it is the charm!

    1. Re:trolls, all the way down by Sentrion · · Score: 1, Troll

      Republicans get elected to outlaw abortion, but all they try to do is repeal Obamacare. Is this how representative democracy supposed to work?

    2. Re:trolls, all the way down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It just might be. People are starting to pay attention now that all of the predictions of doom are coming true.

    3. Re:trolls, all the way down by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1

      Yeah the sun is going nova and cats and dogs are living together. The whole world is falling apart because some shitty insurance plans got canceled by the insurance companies that issued them. So much doom.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    4. Re:trolls, all the way down by Sentrion · · Score: 1

      But hey - if I have a plan that costs $150 a month, only covers emergency room visits for immediate, life threatening injuries, does not cover pain medication or amputations, does not have any in-network providers, allows a maximum hospital visit of 24 hours (including the hours waiting in the ER waiting room), does not pay out-of-network benefits, has a $5,000.00 deductible, has a lifetime maximum benefit of $10,000.00, and audits show over 50% of valid claims are improperly denied .... I want to be able to keep my plan!

    5. Re:trolls, all the way down by s.petry · · Score: 1

      If you ignore the 30 million people that have had premiums double in addition to the 9 million cancelled,you would have a point. And those shitty policies that failed to cover items, like the mandatory birth control and pregnancy care forced onto every policy including the 55 year old woman with a hysterectomy!

      If you work for a big company, you already had some immunity. Yours is coming next year. When your rates double because you have to pay for prenatal care as a single guy with no girlfriend I'm sure you will hop on the band wagon with everyone else.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    6. Re:trolls, all the way down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, as a single man, with no health issues, my rate went down about 45%. posting anonymously due to modding here.

    7. Re:trolls, all the way down by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1

      Women have been forced to pay for viagra and prostate exams, why shouldn't we cover women's health care now? You're just a bitter old man looking for a reason to complain. No one really cares what you think.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    8. Re:trolls, all the way down by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Women have been forced to pay for viagra and prostate exams,

      It was never forced into a woman's insurance policy to pay for Viagra, so you are a liar. Compare prostate and breast exams and you would be unbiased, but you are biased.

      why shouldn't we cover women's health care now?

      Another lie, woman's health care was covered previously. A woman could be in the most beneficial plan for her, as my example about the 50 year old woman shows. Now her premium is doubled because she has to pay for prenatal care and birth control and she can't have kids.

      You're just a bitter old man looking for a reason to complain. No one really cares what you think.

      Typical idiocy, ad hominem does not trump truth and reason. Lie + Lie + Name Calling does not trump all. Of course when you are convinced that lies are truth, I don't expect much else.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  35. For Fsck's Sake RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Summary for the lazy:

    - "Radicalizers" in this case probably does not mean Alex Jones or people who refuse to wear deodorant.
    - For those saying porn is not a big deal, you are probably not muslim
    - The *6* muslim radicalizers targeted by the NSA just might be perceived as hypocrites by revelation of the information gathered

    Sorry folks, I don't think the the NSA has enough disk space (or interest) to collect the porn of the average American.

    1. Re:For Fsck's Sake RTFA by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Sounds like something the NSA would say.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:For Fsck's Sake RTFA by biek · · Score: 1

      I don't think the the NSA has enough disk space (or interest) to collect the porn of the average American.

      No, just the metadata about every session.

    3. Re:For Fsck's Sake RTFA by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      The problem here is not with exposing the information, but with how said information was obtained in the first place.

      In a similar vein, we can still be uneasy about unconstitutional searches leading to arrests of genuine criminals.

    4. Re:For Fsck's Sake RTFA by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Disk space is cheap with compressed files. The "average American" would only need to be the:
      "average political American been active online/letters to press"
      "average" protesting anti war American
      "average American" who worked for a contractor, mil, gov or political party.. and seems to be reading the "wrong" political sites later in life...
      average American with friends around the world or strange book buying habits...
      i.e. disk space for any files on any section of the US population of interest to the US gov is not limited. The digital notes just keep on getting added and reviewed by contractors until the file is passed on for other tasks as needed.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  36. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by ahodgson · · Score: 1

    See also: fraud charges against S&P after downgrade of US debt rating.

  37. Stop voting for Democrats and Republicans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They both have had years of opportunity to clean up these agencies. Instead, they support them. Why vote for your enemies?

  38. Minnesota "Nice" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Minnesota State legislature and governor's web traffic is not filtered, logged, or tracked. Just the rest of the minions.

  39. The whole point of the 4th Amendment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    "NSA was not only monitoring suspected radical sympathizers, but planned to discredit them based on their web-surfing habits."

    1) Preventing this (*EXACTLY THIS*) behavior by the government, is the purpose of the 4th Amendment.

    2) When government employees are sworn in, they swear to protect the people from "enemies foreign and domestic." Clearly, The NSA, the *entire* NSA, is a domestic enemy of the USA. See #1 above. So when is the Justice Department going to begin to live up to their sworn duty and bring the NSA to account for their treasonous behavior?

  40. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by jodido · · Score: 1

    Funny then how many Jews were killed. And how about, not just go to work but don't go near there? And how come I didn't get the message nor did any other Jewish person I know?

  41. Trust? by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    "Trust is good but control is better"

  42. Perception is truth by wcrowe · · Score: 2

    We know the NSA captures a lot of information on everyone. So now, whether you like them or not, you are likely to believe anything the say about anyone. Which means the NSA can discredit, blackmail, manipulate, or destroy anyone they want. It does not matter whether the information they have is real or fabricated. There is no way to successfully refute anything they say about anyone.

    What a monster we have created.

    --
    Proverbs 21:19
    1. Re:Perception is truth by wcrowe · · Score: 2

      Sorry to reply to my own post, but I just realized that the NSA has become the Ministry of Truth.

      --
      Proverbs 21:19
  43. Associated with Terrorism? by DarthVain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um what?

    If the idea is that this activity is being legitimized by fighting Terrorism, I don't quite buy it...

    NSA: "Stop being a terrorist, or we will blackmail you by showing all your terrorist buddies all the lewd websites you visit!"

    Terrorist: "I am going to stop being a lunatic and be rational for a second. A) Do you really think that is something that might dissuade a terrorist, or make a terrorist feel even more warm and fuzzy about the USA? B) Do you really think my terrorist buddies will believe the NSA (I mean come on we can get them to believe anything, but coming from you... lol)? C) Who exactly are you going to tell? Do you have lists of terrorist buddies? Because I think if you did, you might do something a bit more constructive with it. OK back to the crazy...

    This seems like something that is far more likely to be politically motivated than anything to do with terrorism.

    1. Re:Associated with Terrorism? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      Exactly. The people that the NSA claims to be targeting with programs like this believe that the US is a great evil. Do you think these people are going to believe a word that "an evil secret-spy organization within the great evil" says? This will do zero to reduce terrorism and is only a tool for political manipulation either foreign ("let us fly drones in your country or your people learn what websites you like looking at") or domestic ("stop opposing our agenda or we'll ruin your political career and/or life").

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    2. Re:Associated with Terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, I don't doubt that it's politically motivated. But you're missing the point, too. It's not "Stop being a terrorist" but rather "Look at the sick shit your leader is in to!" It's like if you leaked some sort of evidence showing that the pope was a pedophile. (Apologies to the current pope, so far he seems like a nice guy.) Break the respect for the person, break up any organization.

    3. Re:Associated with Terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TERRORIST!

    4. Re:Associated with Terrorism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US IS the great evil.

    5. Re:Associated with Terrorism? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      well, they took the stance that radical information (like having the opinion that you should disband nsa) is supporting enemies of the state.

      so the cat is out of the bag, the system was used and planned for being used as a tool for affecting outcomes of elections and public opinion(politics).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  44. Isn't this really rather redundant? by 3seas · · Score: 1

    I mean if the NSA in noseing in on people via the internet and what the people access on the internet...... I bet the NSA has the world largest porn and child porn collection and etc... in the world. So I have a question: How much discrediting might they do to the Catholic Church? Given the unsavory history of things the church has done?

  45. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by steelfood · · Score: 1

    You can also look at Saddam Hussein. Except he ended up losing his head because he was brown instead of French.

    --
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  46. very few were terrorists when it started by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "very few of the targeted contacts were associated with terrorism""

    After being blackmailed and harassed by the US government their views towards state target terrorism might change.

  47. This is treason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can imagine spying on some people may be justified, though NSA went too far at this as well.

    But blackmailing and discrediting some political options is simply a treason.
    They should hang. Together with current government.
    If this does not happen, then america is dead.

    1. Re:This is treason by jasper160 · · Score: 1

      It's to keep you safe! really.

      --
      No good deed goes unpunished.
  48. Every single one of those women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Every single one of those women were having sex with a married man. Adulterously against MLK's wife.

    And any of those women married? Don't care.

    But cheating on your wife? "Scumbag!".

  49. Smarter - consistency overtime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    give it up NSA you lost your out numbered 317 million to 7 billion - you can't possibly win

  50. Porn habits, really? by digitalmonkey2k1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ensuring that I'm not posting as AC to help drive this in...

    Just because sex and nudity is considered taboo and only for deviants by all of the repressed Mericans, doesn't mean that everyone will be embarrassed by making it visible. Some of the other stuff may help discredit, but not the porn.

    --
    My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
  51. keep in mind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Keep in mind that "radical" simply means "has different political opinions than those with the most political power". This was a direct suppression of everything democracy stands for and every value this country was founded to protect. The NSA has not only committed illegal acts, they have committed high treason.

  52. Who's radicalized? by mjblecha · · Score: 2

    I'm the same person I was 30 years ago, in that I would answer questions about morality, and what's right vs. what's wrong pretty much the same way as my 1983 self.

    It's the NSA that's become radicalized.

  53. Petraeus scandal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people don't take sex so lightly, probably wether its infidelity or or pr0n, as these guys (and to some extent women) may end up as a security risk.

    Read all about an infidelity scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal

  54. Okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's okay, because we sure as hell are discrediting the NSA based on their monitoring habits.

  55. I masturbate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    News at 11:00.

  56. Well Duh! by Greyfox · · Score: 1
    That's just the kind of dick move I'd make, if I had porn browsing habits of the entire USA (Including Congressmen, billionaires and foreign executives.) I'm sure it'd keep the reps in line if it were implied that voting to defund the agency might result in accidental leaking of that diaper/spanking fetish they're so fond of indulging from their smart phone while the house is in session (You know who you are!)

    It's not like you even have to be the NSA to gather this information. Just getting a glance over someone's shoulder on C-Span at the right time should be sufficient. We might even find out, if anyone ever watched C-Span.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  57. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What, next you're gonna say that Hussein was going to price his oil in Euros shortly before the US invaded? C'mon, that's crazy talk - what, was Gaddaffi going to organize a gold-backed African dinar before Libya was invaded? Oh...

    Don't mess with the Federal Reserve's petrodollar or its client government will go after you.

  58. Use Ixquick as Your Search Engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been using Ixquick since it launched and I will use nothing else. Its proxy function is awesome and I use it daily. I do not surf porn or other sites that could raise suspicion, but rather, I highly value my privacy and I suggest others begin to do the same if they don't already.

  59. Re:#irc.t8ollt4lk.com by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

    For awhile there, they all included "gay" in there somewhere, too. What does it mean? o.o

    --
    Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  60. Let's blow their mind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somebody should run for public office while admitting to enjoying tentacle porn, Chatroulette, /b/, a couple of "out there" anime or manga series, and other devious kinds of media. (What most people would consider as disturbing lolwtfbbq train wreck kind of stuff.) Somebody does that, I'll consider they're more honest than 90% of politicians out there and if running for my district they'll have my vote. With the weird fetishes up front and out of the way, it'd also be hard to blackmail that person for shit.

    Of course it's likely never going to happen, but it's fun to think about.

  61. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > See also: fraud charges against S&P

    Wrong. That happened while Obama was President so by definition that didn't happen for political reason. It is the Republicans that do that sort of thing.

    Besides, S&P admitted to wanting to hurt the US because that country has a leader with an African heritage. As usual with those CONservatives, it's always racially motivated.

  62. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What makes you think that you or any other average Jewish person is at all important to the powers that be? You're not. They consider you to be just as worthless as any other average American.

    That being said, it is no secret that our government is all too buddy-buddy with Israel. If there wasn't some reason behind it (to which I'm not going to speculate), then I'm sure any reasonable government (i.e. NOT ours) would not be looking the other way or otherwise supporting Israel when it fucks up.

  63. Great plan by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    And these radicals were just going to believe whatever the US government accuses. In fact, what's stopping them from making it up and just accusing them anyway?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  64. Who's a target? by gznork26 · · Score: 1

    The same tactics that are taught to intelligence workers for targeting political thought that threatens what are euphemistically called 'US interests' can be brought to bear on anyone spreading ideas that threaten the internal power structure as well. We've already seen the lengths that the security state will go to in order to protect itself, and that it even considers get-out-the-vote activists to be dangerous. What you espouse may seem innocuous, but any kind of change threatens someone's power, and now that unlimited funds can be spent to control what government does in the name of corporate personhood, you can easily be a target as well.

    I dramatized this situation back in 2007 as part of a series of short stories about a group exploring ways to improve the workings of government. Here's a link:

    http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/short-story-double-agent/

  65. The NSA is now completely worthless. by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

    Our logs show you visited site X, and talked to terrorist Y.
    Well, you could have fudged those logs.

    You can verify them with your ISP.
    Well, you probably fudge those on a regular basis.

    Your router logs! Your own router shows that--
    You mean the routers that you routinely deploy malware against via FOXACID? Sorry.

    When you get caught lying to congress, you lose your last gambling chip.

    We'll just have the CIA kill you then...
    Indeed, I always knew it would come to this.

    1. Re:The NSA is now completely worthless. by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      This what the GCHQ always warned the political leadership about. The GCHQ always just wanted to watch and be seen as just tracking the Russia/Soviet (or other distant bad country).
      The UK political leadership wanted winning results in open courts wrt to crypto, logs and web/cell tracking.
      Now even the "winning results" of logs and web/cell tracking will be seen as digital constructs.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  66. first extortion motive profit by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    what's funny is, even good intentions today can land you into an extortion scam...

    Law Enforcement has always had a 'scam' side to it, just think about speed traps...

    now with LE and Military using contractors, there is a financial incentive to generate new 'scam victims'

    because one contractor does work for law enforcement, military, AND corporate clients, the information becomes vulnerable to anyone willing to take the risk of using it

    taking that risk is much more likely due to the financial incentive I mentioned above

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  67. Only on the internet by Sentrion · · Score: 2

    At least it is only on the internet, and not with boots on the ground. I'm sure the NSA would never do anything crazy, like stage a sexual assault case against a foreign activist that was publishing state secrets.

  68. Most anorexia is psychological by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its an image thing, girls are pressured by the images they see around them in society to think they are supposed to be thin, rail thin. They pretty much starve themselves trying to conform to this near-impossible "ideal" appearance. (See "The Beauty Myth")

    "Just eat" is a perfectly reasonable solution when the problem is that they are just _refusing_ to eat healthy amounts of food. Yes they need psychological help; what those psychologists need to do in most cases is help them overcome the image problems and convince them to "just eat".

    1. Re:Most anorexia is psychological by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      "Just eat" is a perfectly reasonable solution when the problem is that they are just _refusing_ to eat healthy amounts of food.

      Anorexia isn't when someone just refuses to eat. It's when they have a psychological issue with eating. Were it as simple as "just refuses to eat", then yes, they could just as easily "choose to eat".

      If it takes a psychiatrist to convince someone to "eat", then it isn't a case of "just" anything. It's a serious issue, and Carlin was far far from being funny when he ranted on the problem. It was on the same level as making fun of cripples and gimps, and I put it that way to demonstrate the lack of "funny" he was.

  69. "Planned"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is this past-tense? The NSA isn't just 'planning' on collecting data for blackmail, they are actively putting this plot into practice.

    This is what is happening, not just what 'could have happened,' this is an ongoing reality, no 'planned' about it.

  70. Headline fail by MindStalker · · Score: 1

    The document said the people who were being followed, had very few contacts with terrorism and that they were speaking to non radicals in an attempt to get them to join them.

  71. Unconscionable by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    If true, heads should roll, period. (Career or jail-wise)

    I used to think of Snowden as 80% asshole and 20% hero. Perhaps that should be flipped.

  72. And to St. Peter I must say -- invite by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

    And to St. Peter I must say
    I learned my lesson well
    You see, I worked at NSA
    Now send me down to hell...

    I wonder what the old-school NSA people think of this era of No Adult Supervision. Perhaps some Anonymous Cowards would give us a hint.

    --
    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
    1. Re:And to St. Peter I must say -- invite by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      It depends on the era and section.
      Warning the US military about the start of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive in 1968 South Vietnam.
      Listening to Soviet manned space missions and missile tests.
      Tunnels under embassies and distant submarine missions.
      The idea presented now seems to be of a past 10 year flood of contractors with 'self written clearances', linguists, the cloud and political requests that have re shaped the domestic missions.
      Espionage exercise like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK showed reality - the US was always interested in 'everything' going back to the 1940's.
      The only trick was to keep US staff, contractors and telcos believing in some magical divide between protected domestic data and the wider world.
      The only real issue for US gov telco work was in the 1920-30's - how to hide needed funding and where/how to keep the skilled staff.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:And to St. Peter I must say -- invite by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

      Warning the US military about the start of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive in 1968 South Vietnam.
      Listening to Soviet manned space missions and missile tests.
      Tunnels under embassies and distant submarine missions.

      Yes, from their genesis as a Black Chamber there has been some amazing derring-do

      But I DO get the impression that something happened recently -- within in the past 20 years -- that has prepared the Agency to pull out all the stops and go whole-vacuum-cleaner on everyone.

      Look at what remains in plain sight of UNITED STATES SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE DIRECTIVE 18 [27 July 1993] I liken this document to a 'Posse Comitatus Act' of domestic SIGINT. While some may be inclined to vivisect its language into a series of loopholes, each redaction leading down some great rabbit hole of collateral permissiveness... I am grateful that it has existed in some form.

      Directive 18, and other post-Church apparatus is a clue that there were people within the Agency who were personally shocked to learn of the excesses of those SHAMROCK years. People who realized that if such things became hard-coded into the establishment, some day there may not be a 'home' worth coming home to. A paradise for future Stalins, a trove of cradle-to-grave intercepts. Where are those people today and what do they think?

      The idea presented now seems to be of a past 10 year flood of contractors with 'self written clearances', linguists, the cloud and political requests that have re shaped the domestic missions.

      The post-9/11 moron intelligentsia horde -- a flood of younger recruits who have signed away some of their own rights in the granting of Secret and above, what a rush that is, like taking the red pill -- may be privy to front ends like PRISM which sounds essentially like a value-added data portal.

      I am not interested in them. Those agents are the 'secret consumers' whose access is supposed to be compartmentalized. They are the boy scouts on their best behavior.

      I am interested in who started the program of backbone taps with dark-fiber shunts and assembl;ed the data for the back-end. The shadow-Google that had begun crawling fiber communications systematically and (in time) ever more completely, with complete and casual disregard to the almost wholly domestic nature of what was being tapped. I think alleged Level 3 compliance is the tip the iceberg, a few choice conduits of convenience. I also think there may be a few taps buried out there in the wind-swept American heartland, say where a road crew appeared one evening and did a mysteriously meticulous job of cleaning up afterward.

      Here's my completely hypothetical timeline, I wonder how close it is to reality.

      In the 1980s we have indications (Bamford, Puzzle Palace) that continental-yet border communications links were prime targets, just as they had always been out of country.

      The 1990s would have been the time this scaled up quickly with no adherence to Charter or Directive 18 intended. Perhaps the Principals were sold on the idea that all communications were to be parsed but (magically) only jurisdictional traffic was to be forwarded. The bandwidth of dark fiber leading from these intercept points would yield a clue as to whether the architects believed this convenient fiction.

      Post 9/11 all stops are removed, but a great deal of the back-end is already in place.

      And now the Fizzle-Zap-Utah facility and it's brethren whose primary purpose may not merely be to process but to store un-parsed data whose retention violates the spirit (and possibly letter) of Directive 18. A trove for future despots

      --
      <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
    3. Re:And to St. Peter I must say -- invite by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Hi ReaI Re: "I am interested in who started the program of backbone taps with dark-fiber shunts and assemble;ed the data for the back-end." My super short time line on POTS, fax, embassy junk encryption and national domestic database work.
      Tempest was early 1950's in the real world by ~CIA. NATO and ~EU and neutral embassies junk US/ UK crypto where all fair game.
      Grab Galactic Radiation and Background was the first elint sat (under a science cover story) was early 1960.
      http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-06-18/news/1998169123_1_spy-satellites-grab-naval-research
      The US COINS (Community On-line Intelligence System) as a database was late 1960's (vs paper files/cards).
      1964 was Intelsat and the total collection of all calls by US/UK.
      So a lot of data storing/searching ideas and the constant flow of calls and signals world wide by that time.
      All the NSA had to do was set US and the peering of telcos to the US as international standards - junk crypto by default and super cheap calls.
      The backbone taps with dark-fiber would have been some fancy, new expensive all 'digital exchange' upgrades back in the early 1980's.
      Telcos worldwide that had always been tight/happy with regional copper and layers, over priced data serves suddenly did expensive national upgrades to new tech....
      Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in 1994 was useful too. Trade deals to ensure the world would have to buy the same equipment vs recoding and upgrades for the US only. Other nations where not going to be allowed to keep selling old tech vs the price of new US tech.
      Its a bit like thanks to Snowden more people finally understanding that the US hardware, OS and brands are the way in by default over generations.
      The telco system was the same idea.
      I am interested what the crypto staff, mil and govs of other countries where thinking when they handed US/UK crypto to their mil/gov/banks/telcos/industry/legal systems. Did they not have the skills to test, know to look deeper, any understanding of what they where handing in bulk to other countries (UK?US and others)? Yet they seemed to be able to keep the Soviet Union out...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:And to St. Peter I must say -- invite by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

      The backbone taps with dark-fiber would have been some fancy, new expensive all 'digital exchange' upgrades back in the early 1980's. Telcos worldwide that had always been tight/happy with regional copper and layers, over priced data serves suddenly did expensive national upgrades to new tech....

      Yeah, the early 1980s was an exciting time. Subscriber line cards with chipsets that took over the rudiments of call placement such as accepting digits, maintaining virtual 'four-wire' connections over an address bus. Rollout of the #5ESS digital switch which became the world standard. Our local telephone company was the last (and only I think) wholly owned by ITT so we became guinea pigs for their prototype ITT/Alcatel 1210 switch. The 1210 was a sweet machine that was almost completely event-driven, one platform could handle class 3/4/5: operator positions, trunking and subscribers. Some several hundred tons of crossbar switches were taken out and all of a sudden we had dial tone in 0.5 second. From the Caribbean we could ring a phone in Brooklyn faster than someone could clickety-click crossbar a local call from Manhattan.

      But even in the 80s the NSA would be unable to even approach what is possible today. Although switching centers were going digital, the total number of interconnected continental mesh points was still large. This in a time where OC-3/12 were massive circuits, regional telcos were multiply connected, satellite was still handling the much-smaller bulk of calls between coasts, voice and data were separately provisioned and broken out in racks along the way. If you called across the country you always got your whole 64kbits for voice. Your fax machine would always work. Modem BBS calls were reliable and practical. This was guaranteed by Bell Standard Practices. May they Rest In Peace.

      In the 1990s it was that the massive packetization of voice began, and telcos began retiring those expensive regional connections in favor of fewer, larger pipes that handled exclusively digital traffic. Cell providers paved the way for gibblefart almost-good enough compression, but even they have retired their cross country terrestrial microwaves for leased fiber. Even today's landline connections are packetized at the source and streamed cell-like. Packets arrive on time most of the time -- but due to regional stresses and voice/internet sharing, not all the time.

      Which means that if they place a tap on these massive fiber conduits the NSA gets better voice quality than you do. They can hear a pin drop in Utah. How unfair is that??

      I am interested what the crypto staff, mil and govs of other countries where thinking when they handed US/UK crypto to their mil/gov/banks/telcos/industry/legal systems. Did they not have the skills to test, know to look deeper, any understanding of what they where handing in bulk to other countries (UK?US and others)? Yet they seemed to be able to keep the Soviet Union out...

      The former Soviet Union was broke. I believe that when all the Cold War memoranda are declassified a final picture will emerge of a Supreme Soviet posturing nervously with a relatively small number of viable missiles, against an American 'evil empire' whose build-out of aggressive capability could only be towards one goal: preemptive strike and invasion. You see, from a strictly Socialist viewpoint they could not commit entirely to the idea that spending money was the only purpose, there had to be some credible threat. Otherwise it could only be that the US was ape-shit crazy. We now know we were the crazy ones because a really aggravated and talkative Moscow cab driver is on record as saying so.

      NSA has evolved considerably from those years. Where they had been required to move personnel around the globe to locate themselves where the traffic was ... now with technology there are more US desk jobs and via shadow satellite and dark fiber, the traffic is brought home to them.

      --
      <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
  73. Hate to say I told you so. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't this the exact scenario that we need to protect ourselves from with the 4th amendment?

  74. Turning a Blind EYE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have stopped reading ALL leak data news reports to be m,ore of a patriot to my country. I would kick the shit out of snowden if he showed up on my doorstep.

  75. anti-NSA by Cloudy+Wheat+Beer · · Score: 0

    I want to say something that is critical of the NSA and what they are doing. But im too afraid to say so, even on slashdot...

  76. McCarthy would agree with you. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1
    --
    "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
  77. McCarthy? Is that you? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1
    --
    "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
  78. Thanks a lot Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The corruption goes right to the top. Too bad so many people are so blind to his lies and treason. It's like so many Germans who supported Adolf Hitler and wouldn't see the atrocities he was doing either.

  79. Get Radicalized by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    I almost can't hold back when I hear government people talking about individuals getting radicalized. They make it sound like some sort of ugly disease that one catches by talking to people who are radical. Exactly how does one become radicalized? The government takes it that any person who disagrees is a radical. It is as if we are supposed to recognize and respect many social and political positions. It does not dawn of them that people can study and read and that given information some citizens will be less friendly towards government. There are real problems that cause suffering and it i to be expected that some people speak up or act out due to their pain and stress. The nonsense of mass slaughter of school children by people who go over the edge is like a canary down in a coal mine. When we see these incidents we need to get pressure off of people in the areas in which the crimes took place.

  80. The proof of the evidence is in the prosecution by andhar · · Score: 1

    How much a digital evidence trail is worth is simply a function of how much the plaintiff or prosecutor wants to exploit it. Take the actions of the MAFIAA groups and their flimsy evidence surrounding file sharing and such -- they're suing and settling right and left not because of the quality or even accuracy of the digital evidence against the defendants, but rather, because of the vigour with which they pursue the cases.

    --
    Vaya con huevos, my darling.
  81. It would be nice if people actually rtfa by voss · · Score: 1

    Instead of posting based on summaries...

    The people targeted by the NSA were not innocent political activists they were hardcore radicals they were jihad and Al Queda supporters.

    This wasnt necessarily effective at directly stopping them from doing terrorism but I see nothing wrong with using that information to discredit them with their followers or blackmailing them for intelligence purposes or become informants.

    The constitution does not protect non-citizens outside the US who advocate violent acts against Americans and nice people(non-muslims and non radical muslims) from being embarassed or blackmailed or whatever other non-lethal dirty tricks we wish to do.

  82. Thanks a lot Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What sites do you visit Obama??How-to-screw-America-up.com? Marxists.com? Feminazis.com?? FU BO!!

  83. what was that plugin.... by niftymitch · · Score: 1

    What was that plugin that would randomly wander the net
    looking for odd, obscure, nice and nasty stuff to pollute
    any web browsing history and obfuscate true online habits?

    This seems to be the only way to confound these fools.

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  84. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (Score: +-5, Holy Shit)

  85. Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He was not talking about Jews at all. He was talking about the Israeli government, and the American government. These are concentration points of power, and have practically nothing to do with people (this statement has a tolerance of 99.99999999%)