Slashdot Mirror
Unintended Consequences: How NSA Revelations May Lead To Even More Surveillance
Lauren Weinstein writes with a slightly depressing end-of-year prediction. An excerpt: "This then may be the ultimate irony in this surveillance saga. Despite the current flood of protests, recriminations, and embarrassments — and even a bit of legal jeopardy — intelligence services around the world (including especially NSA) may come to find that Edward Snowden's actions, by pushing into the sunlight the programs whose very existence had long been dim, dark, or denied — may turn out over time to be the greatest boost to domestic surveillance since the invention of the transistor."
Nobody will want to have anything to do with USA. Have fun on your own. Just stay where you are and don't come here, ok?
Yes this is true, But now those that wish to deploy countermeasures can now do so. I am not an American Citizen, the USA is collecting metadata on me and others and has no desire for my well being, so Encrypt and mask is the way to go. I'm not intending to do anything illegal, but I will do my damnedest to make it harder for them and their illegal spying game.
there's so much whimsical fluff I couldn't even skim it
Nonsense. Surveillance is already growing exponentially - every organization that can is doing it already. What it may instead herald is a hot war between everybody and the three letter agencies. Everybody is beginning to care about privacy, not only the few who were awake before.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
no need to pretend to be hiding anything
Nobody will want to have anything to do with USA
It's not about USA per se.
The entire thing is actually a reflection of the arrogance of those so-called "UNTOUCHABLES"
They do not need to face the voters once every x-number of years, nor they need to answer to anyone.
They are the bureaucrats, the non-elected bureaucrats that have grabbed hold of power through the back door method.
Even the TFA itself is full of shit.
If the net-surveillance scheme that has been exposed by Snowden is like giving the NSA (or any other spook organization) a blank check on what they do, we might as well stop catching murderers/rapers, and let them go on raping / murdering even more people, at will.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The message this all carries is that Americans are bunch of idiots with whom I do not want to do any kind of business.
Snowden's job was to incite outrage, soon after which the public would grow tired of outrage, settle down, and learn to get used to business as usual.
If you want to bend over and getting the shaft, hey, please do it privately.
I'd wager that there won't be too many people like you, happy to be "shagged" by NSA (or any other spooks)
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In what way? They gonna go to 110%?
i mean don't ask don't tell?
Coming up on Slashdot, a link to my poorly-written ramblings on my obscure blog of someone you have never heard of.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
a 'slashdot classic' choice is on the lower menu
While this is true, it's a dumb example to bring up, since it turned out those concerns were misplaced. The serious concerns were that the NSA's choice of S-box values had somehow introduced a backdoor, but since the early 1990s we've known that the NSA's S-box values actualy *strengthened* DES against differential cryptanalysis (an attack which was not publicly known at the time).
NSA is a blueprint company. Even though we all know they are doing it, there's not much you can do about it. Huge multinationals will participate in schemes to monitor traffic and snoop in one country but they are regarded as being high and mighty privacy advocates in another? That's a load of crap. They are all dirty and have been since the 80s. Tracking and monitoring is what any big business does. If you do business with them, you have to accept that they are watching what you're doing. They are sharing it with all the governments. The fact NSA is being held up as an example is just another cold war move by Russia and probably China. You think Russia isn't watching everything their citizens are doing? China?
There are no private states.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The electoral anger should be directed straight at the politicians. They control the budget and appoint judges. If they do not end all domestic spying they will be removed.
Since I'm a foreigner and my rights are consistently disrespected (as are my country's laws and constitution and sovereignty), I think it's only fair that Americans suffer a little of their own wrongdoing.
Boeing lost a $4.5 billion fighter aircraft contract to Saab in Brazil because of the revelations about spying. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-19/nsa-spying-blowback-continues-boeing-loses-brazil-jet-order
Cisco has also seen major losses, and lots of other companies big and small are hurting as well.
The US Constitution may have been put in the shredder, the courts may be rubber stamps for the US version of the STASI, and the Congress may be brain dead along with the DOJ, but now it turns out that all this useless spying has hurt the bottom line of Big Corporate American. You screw these people over, and your government funding is going to be severely impacted.
The NSA and the other alphabet soup spying agencies have hurt the only group in the US with the clout to shut them down. The are going to be backing off big time.
On the individual level, government intelligence insiders are going to discover that they will have a much harder time finding those cushy high paying civilian jobs that they expect to be handed when they leave the government. That's what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you. This could have the biggest impact of all, because the revolving door is a major motivation for the entire system in the first place.
Why is Snark Required?
Do you have a down syndrome?
A big issue next election will be privacy.
No it won't.
The next election is going to be the same old bullshit issues: gay marriage, abortion, "when life begins", taxes, guns, Israel and a couple of other distraction issues that Rush and Fox News create.
The nutty conservative fringe - I'm not talking about rational conservatives who want to put checks on government power and spending - I'm talking mostly about social conservatives who want government to regulate what one does behind closed doors. They seem to be driving the talking points in elections because they are the most shrill and irrational.
Acid test: if a minister (Warren or whoever) gets quoted about an issue, then it's a distraction issue.
President Obama will never let this happen.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
WMDs on credit, deception, healthcare.shove, all obsoletely fatal. free the innocent stem cells & use POT )Personal Open Terminal( to keep it clean
Wtf are you on about...!?
The freedom-loving libertarians have never explained why freedom is a good thing.
I'll give you one good reason for freedom: you have the right to post what you just posted without fear of reprisal from the government.
On the contrary, historically, it has happened about once every couple of centuries, and usually begins and ends with a bunch of particularly egregious statists' severed heads stuck on the fence outside the palace. Then, inevitably, a new batch of statists claws their way to power, until eventually it gets so bad that the public does it all over again.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
... says the fool who hasn't suffered reprisal from government, because that sort of thing only happens to terrorists, and the fool is not a terrorist. Yet.
Absolutely! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power:_A_New_Social_Analysis He's been pretty much right so far.
...and the freedom to be ransacked by the next hillbilly lynchmob / group of angry Dansk raiders etc... y'know... the reason we don't drive pickups with mounted anti-tank weapons like in Somalia.
And this is an argument against freedom? Freedom to let others know what the government is doing is essential.
Your freedom to be against freedom is also contained in freedom, so you seem to be stuck between freedom and the truth.
Let me tell you how this may really backfire on the US.
All those greedy leaders of multi-national companies that have spent hundreds of millions on armies of lobbyists to manipulate Congress and lawmakers to make hundreds of billions in revenue are now going to start feeling the sting as they start losing business.
You think this has to do with the average citizen dealing with privacy issues as the NSA snoops in? Like Boeing could give a shit right now about you as they've lost a multi-billion dollar contract. This has to do with greed. Always has. And to ensure those greedy leaders maintain their revenue streams, they WILL start putting pressure on Congress and lawmakers to stop the bleeding and contain this as best as possible. If that means re-gaining the trust of other countries by dismantling surveillance programs, then that may be what happens. If it means impeaching a President, then that may be what happens.
Congress has not been under the control of the American voter for a very long time. Lobbyists control our government and laws, driven by greed, which is all-powerful. When business losses start climbing up into the hundreds of billions and unemployment rockets to 15% due to all of this, change will happen. Greed will ensure it.
NSA = Not So Awesome
My sig has no nature
I think history will view this as a blessing for surveillance. Once it was thrust into the light and put out into the open, all that remained was a choice - are you for or against it. If you're still using a smartphone or social media, you've made that choice.
In order to maintain its power structure amid historic levels of unemployment and wealth inequality, the United States will certainly increase its domestic surveillance capabilities. in the past the media was complicit in ensuring economic and social policies of the united states were well supported by ignoring subversive or argumentative positions against them. safety nets were redacted in pursuit of the welfare queens cadillac, unions dismantled as they hindered economic growth (Reagans epic levels of spending for example were never challenged as a cause of economic stagnation.) the Savings and Loan scandals melted away amongst media platitudes and political talking points.
with the advent of "netizens" and the internet, power systems are being directly challenged. If for example the general public had access to unfettered knowledge of the Iran Contra scandal as it has knowledge of the foreign surveillance practices currently in place, the outcome for Reagan may not have been so clear. The internet makes it impossible to ignore the demands of the public through talking point, as the counterintuitive opinions and critical examination of government policy is now freely availably for anyone to review. People can collude, talk amongst eachother, and god forbid form the elusive third party much more readily if we dont keep close watch on them.
many would argue the surveillance net crafted by the state works so closely in conjunction with the capitalist class that popular uprising is still impossible, but Occupy has proven that despite their machinations the population can still adopt nasty campaigns to raise awareness of wealth inequality and poverty.
as the concerns of subversive groups like occupy are easily researched and understood by Americans. the problem is exacerbated and the natural solution is to increase surveillance. arresting dissonants prevents street protests, but identifying them and their followers ensures the much more coveted chilling effect can be used to crush opposition. The courts of course will look the other way as the fourth amendment falls to the wayside just as the 14th amendment did in the purusit of mass incarceration.
Good people go to bed earlier.
My only real question is the state of the supreme court judge panel. What are the views of those that are on it? Ultimately its the supreme court that will decide the fate of the USA.
Will they call it unconstitutional or not?
Trying to get an amendment against it put into the constitution will only result in having it turned down by elected officials(am I right the house and senate are the ones who vote on a constitutional amendment?) We have seen that the NSA's surveillance reaches to spying on all folks in our own government. Once you get dirt on someone you can get them to vote for or against anything including a constitutional amendment but it's worth a try.
Anyone know how we get this started?
Talk is cheap, lets do something!
Slave SLAVE I'm talking to you. Either you accept the lash or the punishment will be much MUCH worse.
The article is filled with inaccuracies which all support this person's conclusion that, essentially "ho hum, nothing can be done and nothing will be done".
It's in the scope of domestic intelligence that we can see the most likelihood of change. Unfortunately, much smart money is now going on the bet that in the long run the result of all these revelations will actually be more domestic surveillance (under various changing names and labels) not less!
First he cites that bastion of liberal liberty, equality and fraternity, France, explicit legalization of their spy agency's domestic surveillance as evidence that the EU is "going there" en masse, with the spy agencies chortling all the way.:
For example, just weeks ago, and shortly after a high level French ex-intelligence official was quoted as saying essentially that "we don't resent NSA, we simply envy them!" France passed legislation legalizing a vast range of repressive domestic surveillance practices.
News stories immediately proclaimed this to be an enormous expansion of French spying. But observers in the know noted that in reality this kind of surveillance had been going on by the French government for a very long time -- the new legislation simply made it explicitly legal.
The reality is much more nuanced in a number of important ways.
First note that the EU directive that mandates private carriers retain IP and telephony metadata , the EU Data Retention Directive, stipulates a much shorter time frame- just two years- than the "forever and a day" time frame the NSA allows itself.
This is not nothing. It's harder to blackmail politicians for what they did in their youths if you don't happen to have that data laying around to mine at the time they become politicians later in life.
In general it limits the time frame at which abuse could be aided by super-god-knowledge of the target's most intimate details.
Neither does the fact of the DRD in EU support this statement:
So, the handwriting appears increasingly clear. Pressure will rise to move the responsibility for holding this data corpus from NSA per se, back to the carriers or perhaps some ersatz independent org, but the data will still be collected. And despite calls for more limited access by NSA and other agencies , one can safely assume that whatever access they say they really, truly need for national security, they're going to get -- one way or another. There's simply no obvious way that there will be a real return to any actual, meaningful, truly individualized search warrant requirement (no matter how any changes are ostensibly framed to the public).
The reason it doesn't support it is because, under the DRD, a *court order* is needed by the intelligence agencies before they can access the metadata held by the telcos. That is a significant barrier, and in fact more in line with what has traditionally been the case in the US and which falls within societal comfort levels - a search warrant being issued to the police upon presentation of probably cause to a court.
Secondly, and in contrast to the tone of this blog entry, there is significant political resistance within the EU by a number of nations which has resulted in the rejection of the DRD by the highest courts of the respective nations.
https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention/eu
Nations now fighting the Directive include Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, and Romania. The DRD was adopted in Romania, but declared unconstitutional in 2009. In February 2011, Cyprus declared their national data retention law unconstitutional. The Courts in Bulgaria declared their mandatory data retention laws unconstitutional and the German law adopting the Directive was declared unconstitutional in March 2010. In March 2011, the law tra
The truth is your freedom is an illusion, and the government is doing what all governments always do: arbitrarily deciding when to remove your freedom.
Don't read it, not worth it. Long winded rant about how secret services should act in secret because as long as they fear discovery they will respect people's privacy more. He forgot to add that ignorance is bliss or something.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions while expecting different results.
I wonder if the lone nut job is not more of a menace that organized terrorists. People like the Unabomber are notoriously disconnected from the system. And people that just run in a building and start blasting are usually isolated souls as well. We are already at the point at which we can no longer afford to catch criminals. The isolated psycopath or sociopath may be the ultimate threat to national security. And these folks are probably not swept up with intensive data gathering. Being able to catch them after the fact is not winning the game at all. And what is worse is that snagging them before the act still costs us all a fortune. As far as economic survival goes we would probably be better off to allow terrorists to wipe out a huge building or two every year and a couple of planes as well as opposed to the expense of trying to prevent such idiotic acts. Even trivial crime when considered in total as to its effect is enough to destroy a nation in time. So now we have the paradox of being able to ctach the more socially active terrorists but dread the expenses of catching and keeping them in the system. It is a no win in every direction.
http://beta.congress.gov/amendment/113th-congress/house-amendment/412?q={
When it comes to the Surveillance State, the fundamental difference between the Western "democracies" and the post-Marxist Russian/Chinese model is simply one of honesty.
The Russians and the Chinese do not, and have never, made any bones about the fact that the state is everywhere, and everyone is being watched. Brutal, demeaning, and unfair? Sure. But at least they're not lying to you.
Only in the West is there this carnival show of individuals right to privacy, government under public scrutiny/consent, and personal freedom. Respect for the individual is a sham, but a brilliantly-marketed one.
Foreign surveillance ops have never been hidden from view. The embassies are filled with antennas, the satellites and spy ships can be tracked. Any regional effort by other nations can be understood by their lack of global scale. Only the NSA, GCHQ have the ability to reach down into South America, surround Africa, Russia, Asia and the Pacific with vast help in the EU. Aircraft, satellite or a vast network of optical tap needs regional support - very few nations have that.
The US "domestic context" is unique given the 1970's Church Committee reforms, the Fourth amendment and constant political and legal reassurance about role of the rule of law. Thats the interesting aspect of "one way or another" - can the surveillance program data collected be used in an open US court without the need for the "parallel construction"? Will an entire digital US lifetime be held in a digital lock box removing all freedom of speech, association, contact with the press, public expression of faith, political support, protest, charity work, travel, reading of books/web use... open courts, warrants under oath and cross examination of witnesses...?
Re the "negative dealings with NSA" - the world can see the desire for a court friendly "lock box" call logs and 3 or more hop tracking.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/28/nsa-files-decoded-hops
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2013/06/surveillance_lockbox_why_can_the_nsa_search_your_phone_records_without_a.html
The NSA just seems to be following the UK GCHQ down the "National Criminal Intelligence Service", "Government Telecommunications Advisory Centre" and "Government Technical Assistance Centre" efforts.
Where could the US end up vs UK attempts at legal telco law reform?
If the US gov uses color of law to get around the Fourth amendment and everything done becomes not illegal - its a bit like a legal digital Berlin Wall - kind of hard to hide.
Make it all legal and find a way into open US courts with gov experts/contractors to offer expert decryption, domestic US or global tracking, logs to the courts...a lifetime of phone calls in open court.
The UK could have told the US where it all ends up in the 1990's - everything interesting goes dark and all the people of interest are warned by 'contacts' in the police, legal system and press.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Politicians don't stay in politics unless they believe their country has the potential to be great.
You seriously believe politicians don't stay in politics because of a desire for power, influence and financial gain? Wow. Don't know where you live but your description doesn't sound like many politicians I've ever run across.
Who cares how I get my things, whether it be through the state or myself, as long as I get everything I want out of life. I am not interested in the theory of loving freedom, I am only interested in practice of getting the things I want.
So you still live with your parents. If not, why did you ever move out?
The two scenarios where I see this being a benefit for the surveillance and intelligence-gathering community is that:
(a) Other alphabet soup agencies in the US and abroad will get an even better idea of what the NSA are gathering, and they will then push even harder for similar capabilities within their domestic spheres to give them more trading options with NSA and others, "because if the NSA needs this information, then so do we" and
(b) The scrambling by pro-surveillance lobbyists and lawmakers to say that this is legal, followed by the judicial branch issuing judgements on this "grey area" of the law in conflicting and contradictory rulings, to the point where the lawmakers again need to step in with a new law that "clarifies" the current situation.
Although the fact that I can even call this a "grey area" is frankly laughable. While I am sure the collective efforts of the judiciary ruling on cases which impinge on Constitutional issues of the last 100 years have not been a co-ordinated campaign to weaken and obviate the Consitution, the end result is that the Constitution is no longer a shield for the people protecting them from Federal Government and limiting the reach of those in power. It now has so many holes in it that it is barely a safety net" between the two groups - it stops most of the baseballs thrown at it, but bullets will easily find the holes.
Note: The previous comment is not intended to be a suggestion that the people of the United States of America should round up the politicians, lobbyists, lawyers and judges and shoot them.
Having said that, as bad as the USofA has become, it is still possible to criticize the US Government in this way without being dragged away to re-education classes or prison camps. Mostly... so far.
What's all this crap about Librarians????
Every story on Slashdot about the NSA revelations has been followed by a deluge of comments who for the most part been extremely pessimistic, sprinkled with doses of paranoia that almost border on hysteria. All I seem to read now is that it won't make any difference, we're stuck in this forever, "they" won't let us have our liberty back, &c. &c. ad nauseum.
Whether the leaks are 100% accurate or not (and I can't tell either way), something monumental has happened this year. I would tentatively suggest that we're finally seeing the edifice fall, not just of surveillance, but of our entire socio-economic system. These are the sort of paper cuts that can eventually topple an entire way of thinking.
The two are linked. The NSA does not live in a vacuum, but as a result of economic and social policies that have consolidated power and influence in the hands of a few people.
A panopticon cannot survive in the same way our winner-takes-all-and-debt-for-the-rest neoliberal economic system cannot survive. Both rely on holding all the cards, forever. It took one contractor to snatch the deck with Snowden, and whether other /. posters believe it or not, it will change things. In the last five years, we've seen the inevitable failure of our lunatic economic decisions. Things are actually changing, and changing quickly.
The only question is what do we look to do next?
We aren't beholden to continue the way things are forever. There is no obligation to constantly think within the same ridiculous boxes, to grant power to the same shitty people. We can look to the future and actually try and level the playing field. A society where power and money are not amassed in such obscene quantities would scarcely be able to enable the sort of panopticon people are now afraid of.
It is evident that agencies that have access to so many resources cannot help but abuse them. Perhaps now is the time to think of something new, not communism or capitalism or even anarchism, but a way of preserving the pieces of our society that we want and discarding the abuses.
This is *not* the only way things can be, no more than absolute monarchy, slavery or feudalism were in the past.
Rather than simply being afraid, I'd rather put my energy into believing, rightly or wrongly, that we can have something better in the future.
In order to protect against terrorism, each person within the US borders except politicians and the extremely wealthy will be required to have a brain implant which monitors their thoughts and immediately dole out the proper punishment if the wrong thought is detected. For example, not thinking that the USA the greatest most prosperous nation on earth where everyone is free, paid what they are worth and every poor person has the ability to become mega rich if they only worked hard enough is punishable by a day long migraine headache induced by the device. If a person were to go further and were to think about doing something that might change their conditions, like forming a union, protesting, or creating a third political party, the device will automatically brand the person a terrorist and activate a small pyrotechnic charge within it, blowing the head apart instantly killing them.
Of course some people might have a problem with this extrajudicial brain monitoring, punishment, and murder. However the Supreme Court will rule...
"In sum, the balance of the State's interest in preventing terrorism, the extent to which this system can reasonably be said to advance that interest, and the degree of intrusion upon individual citizens who are briefly or permanently punished, weighs in favor of the state program. We therefore hold that it is consistent with the Fourth and Sixth Amendments."
Remember the slippery slope began when the Supreme Court ruled that sobriety checkpoints were constitutional. The Fourth Amendment can be completely overruled when it is in the State's interest. This is also why all NSA monitoring will be found constitutional.
Seems to depend where you live. Here in England we have only had one revolution in the best 947 years, and it lasted less than 12 years before we invited the lot we had thrown out back.
Republicans voted for the patriot act, Democrats voted to keep it. If you're against big brother watching your every move, you must therefore be a Libertarian.
This also applies to nominally-elected legislators who gerrymander their district boundaries to create lots of "safe" districts for one party or another. That makes them hard to defeat, and in return they help the opposing party gerrymander their district boundaries.
This is bad for the voters, of course: they want the choice of two candidates, and the option to throw the incumbent out if he or she gets too corrupt.
davecb@spamcop.net
Umm... no. We were never invited back, and we wouldn't have come back anyway. There's too much of a fundamental difference in our attitudes toward authority, and it shows in how laws have been structured, how the public reacts to automated surveillance, and just in general reactions to personal rights abuses.
The NSA got caught outright. The GCHQ only got caught by associating with the NSA.
Obama nor the next President, the current members of Congress and the Federal Court System and not the remainder of the Unelected Government of the USA will willing give up or abandon NSA.
The only way to combat Obama, his next, Congress, the Courts, the Unelected Government is to do to them what NSA does to the other citizens of the USA and sell their dirt to the highest bedder.
Giving the Telecom impunity was a move by President Bush to hid the fact that what NSA does IS legal and anybody else can do the same.
The bigger problem is, "Is the NSA effective in stopping acts of terror?" Answer: NO. Question: is NSA in the "Terror Detecting or Terror Stopping" business? Answer: NO. NSA's business model is Domestic Espionage (use to he Foreign Espionage but business in dying in that market) against US citizens who are not Federal employees. Ever see Dianne Feinstein hauled into an interrogation about her and her husband's financial dealings with companies in Iran? Never will because she and hubby are designated OFF LIMITS. Why? They are among the "Trusted."
Now isn't that just so sweet.
Perhaps that's because the other revolutions have been against England.
no, they don't want the choice of two candidates, particularly when it is a choice between 1 of the 2 subgroups of the ruling party.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Unintended consequences my barbarously hard butt!
......
Full spectrume domination of surveillance is their endgame, douchetard!
Never trust anyone who suggests "nobody could have foreseen" and "unintended consequences" --- that is like suggesting that the Rockefellers (David and Nelson) never foresaw the enormous hurt they would be putting on American workers when Nelson, in his appointments during the Eisenhower administration, compromised the organization forms of Ex-Im Bank, AID, etc., to allow them to be circumvented and foreign aid used to build foreign factories and processing facilities which American jobs could then be offshored to (this was changed during President Kennedy's administration, but again flipped back when Johnson took office after JFK's assassination). Next, the Rockefellers had that corporate tax break instituted everytime an American job was offshored, still in effect to this very day!
Next, David Rockefeller founded Council of the Americas, lobbying on behalf of the passage of NAFTA.
David Rockefeller and his stooge, Peter G. Peterson, founded the Peterson Institute for International Economics (usually just referred to as the "Peterson Institute") one of whose main objectives was the offshoring of as many American jobs as possible.
Etc., etc., etc.
Only if you dumb cocksuckers let them - but humanity has a long rich history of letting those in power fuck them in the ass oh so passively - so we'll see
Why are they tapping our phones, e-mails, and monitoring our web behavior? All they are getting is overloaded with useless chatter. In the mean time they missed warnings about 9/11:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/us/traces-of-terrorism-the-warnings-fbi-knew-for-years-about-terror-pilot-training.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
They also missed warnings about the Boston Bombers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/russia-told-us-bomb-suspect-was-radical-islamist.html?_r=0
They even ignored a warning about the underwear bomber who failed over Detroit:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/26/airline.attack/
Seems to me that they need to turn their computers off, get off of their asses, and do some real work.
Why are they tapping our phones, e-mails, and monitoring our web behavior? All they are getting is overloaded with useless chatter. In the mean time they missed warnings about 9/11:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/us/traces-of-terrorism-the-warnings-fbi-knew-for-years-about-terror-pilot-training.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
They also missed warnings about the Boston Bombers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/russia-told-us-bomb-suspect-was-radical-islamist.html?_r=0
They even ignored a warning about the underwear bomber who failed over Detroit:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/26/airline.attack/
Seems to me that they need to turn their computers off, get off of their asses, and do some real detective work.
As far as I can tell this is just someone's blog, with a self-inflated resume. When I got to the part about repressive regimes executing "their Snowdens" with no publicity, I became certain that he's not very smart, since Snowden fled the U.S. before publishing (and we're all pretty sure he would have met with an accident if he had stayed here). This guy is very wordy to try and sound like he has important things to say, but if you read between the lines he doesn't. Every couple of paragraphs I'd stop and think "what did I just read... oh, nothing."
You're only interested in getting things you want no matter how and you call others narcissists?
Parents don't always give one what one wants, especially if parents are unwilling to move closer to any of the cities that demand the sort of labor for which one has been trained. For example, it's hard to act on Broadway and live with one's parents if one's parents refuse to move to New York.