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Snowden Says No One Listened To 10 Attempts To Raise Concerns At NSA
As reported by the Washington Post, Edward Snowden denies in no uncertain terms the idea that he failed to go through proper channels to expose what he thought were troubling privacy violations being committed by the NSA, and that he observed as a contractor employed by the agency. The article begins: "[Snowden] said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing." Further, "Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. 'The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to "rock the boat," for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake.' All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution."
Broken link is broken.
Broken link is broken
Your story is missing a href.
There was no second group.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
...the more star systems will slip through your fingers!
Seriously, if this is true, it's a pretty good illustration of why tin-pot dictators throwing the book and the kitchen sink at whistleblowers are a far more serious security threat than the whistleblowers themselves.
He exposed a situation that HAD TO BE ignored "for the good of the surveillance effort and thus, the country" - had they admitted it, it would have to be shut down.
Instead they've managed to kind of slide on the issue of legality, nobody is taking it up with the SCOTUS successfully because "nobody has grounds" to sue without being able to prove damages (due to the secrecy, catch 22 et al) so basically, the NSA strategy of "ignore it until the next war or administration" seems to be successful at least in keeping the sword of judicial damocles off their heads.
What use is whistleblowing if they're able to ignore the law and the 9 robed wizards don't wish to enforce the law? None. "Checks and balances" is now "blank checks"
sounds like challenger where it takes a big event to get the PHB's to under stand what the issues really are.
Why would he wait this long to say that he went through all the right channels to voice his concerns? I think he might have had a few more people on his side if he would have said this from day one.
You know those filters used to remove American's data from surveillance? Those were there to PROTECT our privacy.
So what exactly is Snowden complaining about? Why would the US government have classified filters if their objective was privacy violations?
He really didn't think his cunning plan all the way through. That's the problem you get with mouth-breathing libertarians, like the kind that infest white-male nerd sites.
First of all, I may be a nerd but I ain't a "White Male".
Second of all, Slashdot never advertises itself as a "White Male Site".
Thirdly, I got a bridge to sell, wanna buy it ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Being a sysadmin often involves doing more involved work than just maintaining a file host for other people to put their bits on.
Basically he says that he told his supervisors that, in his opinion, a spy agency shouldn't be spying. To back up that opinion he states that he doesn't know of any good that has come from the intelligence collection. And now he wonders why people at the spy agency where he worked told him to go back to his desk and do his job.
From the article: "Both Obama and his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, have said that Snowden should return to the United States and face criminal sanctions for his actions."
Perhaps the Obama administration could set an example of following US law by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the legality of the recent revelations? It's always good to practice what you preach!
And where's the justice for the people who ARE the problem?
Before we can get justice we need to look for the root of the problem ...
Who are the one keep electing those assholes into Washington D.C. ?
We, the people.
Who are the one letting the government destroying the liberty of the country ?
We, the people.
What kind of justice you are after ?
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
and heard. HURA.
Perhaps the criticsm of the NSA should focus on the very poor use of resources. Billions of dollars are used to spy on US citizens with no benefits, while the administration appears to have been caught completely unprepared for the events in Crimea.
Perhaps a re-allocation of those resources would be beneficial to US interests.
Unless, of course, the real reason for the spying on US citizens has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with suppressing free speech and legal dissent.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
is BLAH ... BLAH ... BLAH ...
>After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
Only if there's a viable alternative. At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections. Given the realities on the ground it's no wonder that the third party candidates tend to be extremists and nutters that don't actually expect to get elected - no responsible individual would choose "third-party politician" as a career path unless they had a size large ace up their sleeve.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Satellite and radar warfare. Used against the American people and non-terrorists populations globally.
http://www.wikileaks-forum.com...
Nice try, NSA.
I don't vote you insensitive clod...and I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
If you don't vote Republican, those darned Libruhls are dun gonna make yer kids gay!
If you don't vote Democrat, you're a fucking bigoted idiot!
And if you vote Libertarian, you're some kind of anarchist lunatic!
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
No, no, it's the fault of those people, don't you see? If only we didn't have to deal with that other party!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who are the one keep electing those assholes into Washington D.C. ?
We, the people.
You're right, of course, but on the other hand any process that involves collective decision-making by 130 million people is bound to act more like a one-move-per-year version of Twitch Plays Pokemon than any kind of particularly rational decision-making.
Add to that the amount of money and effort that is regularly channeled towards manipulating the voting public towards the ends desired by those with resources to do so, and it's impressive that the system works even as well as it does.
But I wouldn't blame the system's deficiencies on individual voters -- the fact is that any individual or like-minded community of voters could in fact do a better job for their particular needs, but at the national level, at least, coherent communities of voters tend to largely cancel each other out, leading to unpredictable results. Which I suppose leads us to the argument that more power should be delegated to lower levels of government rather than the Federal level...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Before we can get justice we need to look for the root of the problem ...
As a cyberneticist I have analyzed the problem using Information Theory as applied to the flow of information between multi-scale complexity information pools (of which everything from atoms to brains to agencies to governments can be classified).
The root of the problem is information disparity. Secrets themselves. The larger and more complex the information pool the more important it is for other pools to be fully aware of its internal state in order to maintain autonomy.
must b tru...i saw it on good wife 2nite;-)
I can't help but hearing a very loud " Whoooosh !! " noise.
Wonder why ?
You can have all the information available, but if folks have no problem with what the NSA is doing and have no problem being spied upon because they think it keeps them safe and they think "if you do nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about", then what?
The majority of the people believe the TSA is necessary because that is what they have been told.
The problem is that we keep getting a 'choice' between death or bungee. Quit blaming the victim and look in to that problem.
I would say those that dreamed up the spy program, implemented it, got it sanctioned and enshrined in law and defend it made our nation look bad in the eyes of the world. All Snowden did was leak it's existence. If you don't want the US made to look bad, then maybe the US shouldn't be doing things that make them look bad.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
At present we have two parties that are both owned, for the most part, by the same people, and kept in power by gerrymandering and the systemic weakness of first-past-the-post elections.
Further, the people in control of the major parties themselves cheat when someone not of their faction tries to go the primary/caucus root. They change rules in midstream, miscount, break meeting rules, physically attack supporters of opponents, pass out bogus delegate slates, and a host of other dirty tricks.
For a list of the things the Republican have done to just one challenger in the last two cycles, check out the archives of any of the several sites where Ron Paul supporters congregate. (For example, The Daily Paul.)
The Democrats do this as well. (The riots in Chicago in 1968 were largely a public reaction to the party machine repelling a primary effort by Gene McCarthy, popular with the antiwar movement, in favor of Hubert Humphrey. The Paul/Romney nomination battle was eeriely similar.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That's our fault too. Try getting people to vote for a third party, even here on Slashdot, and they'll start giving you arguments that amount to, "the wrong lizard might get in."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
People who don't dig more deeply into the issues than "that's what we were told" deserve the worst of all governments. We are very lucky, presuming your assertion is correct.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What a bunch of victim blaming bullshit. Please continue spreading your cheeks for the prison-industrial complex. You may feel responsible as a voter too stupid to make a difference. Personally I've gone above and beyond my call of duty during the Ron Paul Revolution only to watch those efforts fail under the weight of the "Get out the (uninformed) Vote!!!11" campaign of the federal political machine.
What is it with the constant disbelieving of Snowden?
One of the things Snowden exposed was systematic disinformation campaigns by the spooks to achieve various political goals, including the discrediting of their own critics.
Perhaps these comments are examples of such a program in action?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Umm... No they aren't or they would pay attention to the polls that rate Congress in the single digits to lower teens.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
"We," the slashdot audience are a bit different than "we, the people." We represent a small subset of the voting populace.
So, "we" get the government "they" deserve.
Yes, we can get even more involved. And yes, that will do some good. But we simply cannot control the minds of the other voters, as that isn't how it works. If "they" aren't buying what "we" are selling, there is only so much "we" can do.
That's of course assuming that we can even elect a government official who both isn't corrupted into being another member of the existing system, and can actually have a voice without being a part of that apparatus.
It's not "we the people" who are the problem, it's the political wing of the country. They don't represent us, they represent themselves. The more you study it, the more obvious that becomes. Many of them even think they're doing good for many people when they're really just supporting the infrastructure they were voted in to "fix".
No, it's not a problem that simply voting in someone else can solve. And it's not something that even a large number of people can change easily. The Tea Party, for all their frustratingly incoherent and impractical principles, are the only evidence you need. They were quickly co-opted and become just another arm of the machine they wanted to fix.
What's the argument for treason? I say this because I'm worried that the arguments for treason that people use are so weak as to include both Snowden and Manning.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
> Before we can get justice we need to look for the root of the problem ...
No. We. Don't. This "go after the big fish" is exactly how street gangs manipulate police, and prosecutors, to leave them alone while terrorizing their neighborhoods. And it's exactly how small-scale con artists, industrial polluters, abusive bureaucrats, and spammers stay in business. They're not deemed "big enough" to prosecute, and are instead left in place as an endemic problem. Expose them directly, which is easy to do if you simply bother to verify the many reports, and you can strip the funding collected for their activities and the power garnered by their leaders.
Well, go out and tell them differently.
Sitting at home complaining about what the people "have been told" is unproductive. You have to actively argue that what they were told is wrong, not just point out that it was told to them.
If you can convince people with influence -- even if that influence is on a small scale -- that you have the better argument, you get a lot of leverage.
I think you give too much credit to the security scrutiny that goverment agencies perform. They are run by regular people that take shortcuts, use global passwords, etc. It's not suprising to me that someone with knowledge of how the IT infrastructure is structured could manage to reap information from it. The need to know thing is something that sounds great in movies. Not everything you see on TV is true.
...are those connected directly to /dev/null. There was no "right way" (in the eyes of the US Government) for Snowden to do anything about these programs, because (again in the eyes of the US Government) these programs are perfectly fine.
To object to the way Snowden did things, suggesting there was a better, effective, way of doing it that he somehow overlooked, is pure disingenuousness on the part of President Obama.
Personally I think not enough of you people are getting off your arses to vote - hence more arseholes get in. If US politics had more of a level playing field instead of being a game for the rich and obsessed there may be a bit less foul play.
I would say those that dreamed up the spy program, implemented it, got it sanctioned and enshrined in law and defend it made our nation look bad in the eyes of the world. All Snowden did was leak it's existence. If you don't want the US made to look bad, then maybe the US shouldn't be doing things that make them look bad.
I'd mod this comment up as much as I could if I wasn't an AC.
He had no legal avenue? Huh? That is a lie. Every U.S. citizen has a legal avenue -- regardless of who you are.
You're wrong! Time to rethink your distorted view on reality:
"Under the Espionage Act, you're not allowed to come into court and say ‘I was justified in disclosing this information’," Greenwald said on CNN’s The Lead. "There is no whistleblower exception in the Espionage Act."
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/07/glenn-greenwald/greenwald-nsa-leaker-snowden-has-no-whistleblower-/
Not entirely - a great deal of the problem is our parents, and their parents (,and ..., but you get the idea). Once duopoly seizes control of a first past the post system it becomes increasingly difficult to oust them. Especially when the lizards are busy demonizing each other as hard as they can and adopting positions so extreme that their "opponent" need not worry about losing votes to a non-lizard.
The one ray of hope I see is that over half the population doesn't vote at all in any given election, properly leveraged even half of them could throw an election to a dark horse, the question is how to do so. I have a couple ideas -
- Organize festivals near polling places to encourage non-voters to come out for the food/music/etc, then encourage them to "Vote out the Sock Puppets" as long as they're in the right place anyway.
- Start a truly new party, something different enough to actually catch people's imagination. Perhaps a direct-democracy party with serious penalties for candidates that don't do as their constituency tells them. After all we've got plenty of different "proof of concept" direct democracies in the world - there's no reason we have to overthrow the government to institute them for real, we could instead implement it as a new faction within the existing system.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I remember the Drake story. The US Government basically ignored its own constitution, the District Attorney changed from prosecutor to persecutor, and he was told to either shut up or face 40 years in jail. Similarly, his home phone was bugged, people followed him, the IRS was knocking on his door every day, his family faced challenges (one was at college, had to meet with the dean on trumped up charges). The government went *WAY* over the line, and did not seem to mind (and he was only interested in keeping the 'guaranteed constitutional' parts of 'THIN THREAD' within the program). His boss and several others insisted that they ignore the 'spy on Americans without judicial oversight' part and it went well beyond 'you are fired'.
The responses, he said, fell into two camps. 'The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to "rock the boat," for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake.' All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution.
And WTF was the 2nd camp?
That would carry a lot more weight if he hadn't lied on his applications, by his own admission, specifically to gain access to protected information, the contents of which he could not have known, only to immediately sell that information to America's frenemies. I had a lot more respect for this guy before he started talking.
All you need to do is write and call your congressmen regularly. They're self-interested enough to defend their reelection chances if they're getting enough flak for their votes. But, since Americans don't give a fuck (and the polls prove it), most bureaucrats have made the prudent and pragmatic decision to push domestic spying rather than risk an unseen breach and be the fall guy.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Well, to be fair, he had a legal avenue. But it was called "Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200".
The whole idea of going to superiors in this case is ridiculous on its face. The NSA and CIA have been actively obstructing Congressional intelligence committees, and as has been recently disclosed, actually spying on them. Presumably to figure out how much information Congressmen possess, so the agencies won't be caught in too many more barefaced lies.
Quit blaming the victim and look in to that problem.
Dear Sir,
If those asshole has fooled us, the People, once , yes, I agree with you, that We the People are the victims.
But how many times the assholes have fooled us, and how many times We, the People keep on electing them back into Washington, D.C. ?
Already how many times, Sir ? And how many ***MORE*** times are We, the People, willingly to be fooled ?
Does this come to mind, Sir?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This is a Snowden video interview:
http://www.isidewith.com/news/...
I don't know if that has been posted here before nor if the claim that NONE of US media have published this or if it was removed from YouTube shortly after publishing.
For what it's worth. Informative for sure, seen as it stands.
Start a truly new party, something different enough to actually catch people's imagination. Perhaps a direct-democracy party with serious penalties for candidates that don't do as their constituency tells them.
I gave this some thought a few years ago. I could build a simple application that would allow constituents to vote on any random congressional bill. I would then use this as my primary campaign strategy. "Don't vote for me, vote for you." I would vow to vote the way my constituents wanted me to. Pretty damn simple, really.
I started to think further, and that it's kind of a problem I don't have the perfect political background. People would dig up dirt on me and that's not too fun. Then I thought, why would it matter? They're not voting for me, they're voting for themselves!
I think there are definitely some congressional districts that would like this type of approach, but probably not many. I think it would be an interesting thing to do, though, simply for the potential advancements to democracy thanks to the digital age. Hell, the number of signatures needed to run is not really that many. Maybe I'll do it, but probably better for someone with more financial freedom than myself to give it a shot.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Lay off the boot licking, sunshine. The heavy metals aren't good for your central nervous system.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sensitive to opinion polls. Seriously after the Ukraine crap and the "Fuck the EU" statement, when the truth has been exposed, the US government just stands right up and waffles the bullshit they planned regardless of the truth of a conspiracy to overthrow a foreign government already having being exposed and US mainstream media carries the exact same bullshit as if it was the truth (even when the last few remaining US politicians question it and have a government official spout more bullshit right in their faces).
The US government doesn't care about anything other than campaign dollars, the NSA keeping politicians own personal dark secrets so they can get elected and their offshore bank accounts in tax havens. Opinion polls only have meaning when you have a political landscape of truth and lies will stand out, when you have a political landscape of complete and utter bullshit lies are the norm and the truth stands out for rarity. Obama, Kerry and crew just blatantly and hypocritically standing up and shamelessly publicly lying when the truth was all out there to see, the only measure of truth in their statements being all those 'er's and 'um's in the public statements as their minds had extreme difficulty reconciling what was coming out of their mouths at the direction of totally corrupt US three letter agencies with the truth hidden in their own minds.
It has become pointless for people like Snowden and Manning to challenge their government with the truth because it is well and truly apparent everything coming out of the US government is bullshit, mass marketed corporate inspired public relations bullshit and is becoming universally accepted as such. The only saving grace is they have been such a bunch of fuckups they screw up the results of all their wild schemes, plots and conspiracies. The only real problem for the rest of the world is how to create some distance between themselves and the US, as the US slowly but inexorably self destructs under all that corporate driven bullshit, pulled in too many directions at once and torn apart, psychopathic capitalism at it's finest.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I vas just followink orders!
Brilliant idea! Maybe you can leverage the book and movie rights?
"
this "protect the quo, for the nation" attitude has supplanted the checks and balances *and truth* that USED to run our country prior to the cold wars of monkey business...
how do you hold your head up and wave the flag, knowing all that? An honest man can't.
"
If you want a real answer in one word- slavery. It didn't used to be all roses. Oh, and women not being able to vote without being technical 'criminals' in the eyes of U.S. legal code proper. ... Do remind people of past abuses, but don't numb them in a sea of futility. Focus the pressure on the ones in the room with cookie crumbs all over their hands.
and the whistleblower candidate will be properly flagged, monitored, caught in action, and silently jailed before he/she manages to release anything to the public.
The problem is that in order for democracy to work, the public has to be educated, informed and act rationally. The current system does not really make an educated society a high priority goal and it absolutely works hard against informed and rational decision making at poll booth.
And if they're worthless and idiotic enough to believe whatever they're told, what hope do we have that things will change for the better and stay that way?
Thank you Dave Raggett
'Victims' aren't people who keep voting for the same two parties over and over. How do people live with themselves when they vote for evil, even if it's a 'lesser evil'? It would make me want to vomit.
Thank you Dave Raggett
What a bunch of victim blaming bullshit.
The real victims here are those like me who don't vote for republicans or democrats. Want to know who's not a victim? People who vote for evil. They're getting exactly what they deserve, and the rest of us are getting something abominable.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm pretty sure they listened, just not in the way Snowden would have been comfortable with. They likely began researching Snowden's contacts and potential exit points, along with entire distant family. With understanding of today's technologies, it is unlikely that Snowden even today is 'alone', and if they truly wanted him turned off, it would have already happened.
In order for a democracy to work, the public has to have a choice.
The US two-party system pretty much guarantees the public has very little choice.
Similar like having an economy with only two competitors pretty much guarantees consumers get shafted.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
So you recommend voting for the greater evil? Or not voting (and getting chewed out for being 'lazy')?
There's those who choose to go a bit more extreme, but they tend to end up surrounded by FBI and SWAT, often on trumped up charges.
I guess he is the only person they weren't listening to.
Come on now. We do not know the scope of his work so please do not pretend otherwise, especially by misdirecting with irrelevant links.
Who are the one keep electing those assholes into Washington D.C. ?
We, the people.
So your solution is to stop voting? Any one that pose a threat to the system will be weeded out before they become serious candidate. You been fucked by both party before. There is no solution.
Your only way out is to become seditionist. Stop caring about patriotism, national security or the children; cheer for the terrorists, the murderer, the paedophiles. Because when the state is your enemy, enemies of the state are the closest things you have to allies.
. If you don't want the US made to look bad, then maybe the US shouldn't be doing things that make them look bad.
Yeah, because you ain't doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to hide.
Except that the peoples running the NSA are not peasants; they are sovereign and unlike us, they have rights. These peoples can only lose their powers if you stop to be afraid of the terrorists. Your only way out is to become seditionist. Cheer for the terrorists, mock the victims. And more importantly, ignore the idiots that tell you it is disrespectful, immoral or un-american to do so. Because when the state is your enemy, enemies of the state are the closest thing you have to allies.
I your nation did not want to look completely idiotic, maybe it should have decided not to act completely idiotic. Blaming the messenger solves nothing.
So you recommend voting for the greater evil? Or not voting (and getting chewed out for being 'lazy')?
*sigh* Really? While you were listing all the things I could possibly recommend, you seem to have neglected the possibility of voting for third parties, as 'useless' as people think that is. Still, it's more worthwhile than voting for known evils, it's more rational (if you want to increase the probability that things will change), it's more principled, and it sends a message to the two major evils if enough people do it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Well how can you believe such statements from snowden anymore... a while ago he said he was taking the job with the contractor so he could have access to the NSA servers for trying to get information out.. Now he suggests he saw the violations only when he was working at the contractor.. Also he told people he didn't use login's from other co-workers even though it was proven he did.. So how can you believe someone like him anymore, the man willingly signed a NDA-contract knowing he wouldn't abide it anyway, there is IMHO a big difference between him and someone who went into the job not knowing about the problems but found them out and went through the proper channels to try to get some attention..
Personally I really don't believe Snowden even tried the proper channels, and all he wanted was some fame, but in hindsight he didn't saw this coming where he might even be tried for treason..
While I agree with you that we must find a way to get the ass-hats out of here, I do not agree with direct-democracy. In fact, direct-democracy is absolute evil.
Direct-democracy is a system designed for a small majority to crush the basic rights of a minority. Direct-democracy is mob-rule by a fancier name.
I also do not really agree with big punishments for not doing what their constituencies tell them. Why? Because voters are stupid greedy animals. Think about it, voters are why we are in the situation we are in now! They cannot be trusted to serve the best interest of society.
A better idea, in my opinion at least, would be punishments for not serving the best interest of society they are elected to govern. Corruption should carry massive punishments. Depending on the scope, as far as life in prison or a firing squad.
First off, I get what you are saying and it seems pretty obvious to me.
But now for the hard and funny until you think about it, then you have to laugh so you don't cry.
Here it is:
And is your post part of such a program?
Where does the dis-information begin/end?
No I don't think you are, the shill accounts are rather obvious to stop, no real posting history, no jokes, no human observations, just shill posts. But when the lying has spread so far, how does a normal person know what is true and what isn't anymore.
And if you ask, why would they do that? So ordinary people give up because they just can't deal with it anymore. The feeling I am having for the last year.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
"The people get the government they deserve." Retards get a government full of retards to represent them no less.
People who don't dig more deeply into the issues than "that's what we were told" deserve the worst of all governments. We are very lucky, presuming your assertion is correct.
Huh. Your government representatives are having a substantial part of their paychecks paid by the entertainment/military/industrial complex. While the rest is provided by tax money, tax payers don't get to tell the representatives what to do. Access to the tax payer meatpots depends on successful election campaigns, those are usually paid by the entertainment/military/industrial complex. So even while the bulk of the payments for the government comes from tax payers, control over it is granted almost exclusively by the entertainment/military/industrial complex. The entertainment complex has a larger influence on voting than voter-friendly policies would have. So voters are not really an overly interesting demographic.
Now let's take a look at what kind of a government we have. An effective legal defense is expensive, and expenses are not paid back. There is a purportive right to a jury trial, but unless you are in the upper ten percent of income in the country, you won't be able to afford one. Instead, the prosecutor rather than judge and jury puts out a verdict compatible with his career (which depends on "guilty" verdicts) and gives it to you under the vise of a "plea deal", meaning that either you get what he wants, or he'll make sure to ruin your life. And he is in a position to do so.
Police can (and will) break your bones at a whim and put you in the slammer for five years for "resisting arrest" or similar charges. There is no country in the world that has either a larger number of prison inmates or a larger ratio of its population in prison than the U.S. has.
Even though "due process" is a money-based corrupted mockery of justice, the U.S. still entertains torture and internment camps where people are detained without what the U.S. calls "due process" for decades. The U.S. also casts death penalties via a "kill list", again without due process, and executes people and any bystanders (or only bystanders, depending on how bad the intelligence was) on foreign ground via drones.
The U.S. leads war on multiple continents against multiple opponents. It's one of the few countries refusing to join weapon bans against booby traps, splinter bombs, landmines and other niceties. It boycotts and sabotages attempts of limiting terminal climate changes, partly employing its secret services for that.
So I contest the "very lucky" part of your claim. It is clear that you are on a solid downward spiral to get what you deserve.
Let's get rid of the papers, they create this feedback loop that just further amplifies the problem 100x everytime.
After all, we do deserve the very kind of government that we keep on electing.
"The people get the government they deserve." Retards get a government full of retards to represent them no less.
In other words ...
Blind leading the blinds
Yep, that sounds pretty much like the United States of America alright !
Dems. and Reps. *both* are very sensitive to opinion polls.
Horseshit.
Universal background checks: 90% approval (85% of Republicans; 80% of NRA members) = VOTED DOWN
"Public Option" healthcare: 75% approval (over 60% of Republicans) = DOESN'T EVEN GET A VOTE
Minimum wage increase: 70~80% approval (over 50% of Republicans) = DEAD IN THE WATER
(The list goes on and on...)
Dems and Reps *both* are very sensitive to MONEY.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Obama knows Snowden made an effort to use official channels. But even if Snowden didn't, that's only a small debate about Snowden's methods. The central issue is the behavior of the NSA and that of the government around it. *How* the public learned about the NSA crimes is irrelevant to the big picture.
(||) Nehmo (||)
Agreed, and for those that say "both parties are as bad as each other", I'd say "tell them to invest in schools and education". The US isn't known for it's great education system, and as a result, you've had generations of dumb-ass rednecks that know nothing and defend it blindly. If they were a tinsy bit better educated, they could at least question what it is they're defending. The clever ones might then propose alternatives.
The US has declined over generations. It could recover, over generations, if there was some effort to do so. If you're too lazy to take the long road, then it's time to take up your much cherished arms and shoot a few politicians until you get your particular militia in charge. The thing is, that's all too scary, so you'll probably end up voting for the worst idiot you can find on the ballot sheet and then whinge about it on slashdot.
Sort of. But - how do you ensure that only voters in your district can vote? How do you ensure that people aren't coerced into voting in certain ways? How do you convince your constituents that their votes remain absolutely secret?
I could build a simple application that would allow constituents to vote on any random congressional bill.
If it were simple it would be vulnerable to all kinds of ballot stuffing, under-age people voting and other issues that would discredit any results. As the US has discovered running a credible, secure ballot is not trivial or cheap.
In any case, do you really want to be forced to vote for the death penalty as punishment for not believing in angels because some bunch of inbred Fox News watching morons organized through their church and voted for it? Direct democracy doesn't work which is why most countries only have a limited form of it. Switzerland just voted to completely fuck themselves over by that route, because basically the majority of people are too dumb to rule themselves.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It doesn't look like you need Snowden's help to look completely idiotic.
Also, uppercasing the "NO" in his name, is that actually a thing? Like "haha, I found 2 letters in his name that mean something somewhat negative, I'm so cunning!"...
It's been done in Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator_Online
They got 0.06% of the vote.
For a list of the things the Republican have done to just one challenger in the last two cycles, check out the archives of any of the several sites where Ron Paul supporters congregate. (For example, The Daily Paul.)
Yes, by all means ask Ron Paul supporters, who see conspiracy everywhere, if there has been a conspiracy against their boy.
>how do you ensure that only voters in your district can vote?
Dongles, challenge response keys, or one-time pads could all be options. One vote per dongle per issue, and they could be traded regularly at "democracy parties" if non-technological anonymity is desired. Of course there's a financial burden there, but there's no reason you couldn't charge modest membership fees to cover the necessary supplies and technological infrastructure, especially if you can keep it below a few beers a year, and you can verify districts when folks sign up/renew.
> How do you convince your constituents that their votes remain absolutely secret?
*Lot's* of different techniques that have been proposed and tested for this one, though mostly geared more for elections. In a direct democracy it may also be less of an issue. After all you're not handing power to somebody, you're telling them specifically what to do. Of course there may still be repercussions for getting found out voting for higher tax rates for your boss or for voting "wrong" on issues that are highly contentious for your community, so it would probably still be a good idea.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Of course, the fact that if nobody buys what you are selling, there isn't much you can do does not mean you should stop trying. Even if it isn't much, something will get through. Somebody will change their mind. Maybe that somebody will be able to reach further than what the /. crowd would have reached. If you don't try and get more involved, however... well..
Note: I am not in USA
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
There are lots of problems with a simple Majority Rule. We need lawmakers to write laws that are constitutional, so there are less ridiculous laws that get dismissed by the courts. We need laws that protect the rights of all of us, so minorities aren't persecuted. Etc etc, a simple majority vote isn't enough - you have to put some thought into which positions you support and stand by those principles.
Here are the candidates on most national ballots:
Given those choices, it's unsurprising that an Asshole gets elected.
Is it only me that see the parallels between what the NSA is doing in the USA and what the KGB did in the Soviet Union? Remember in the post Mikhail Gorbachev Soviet Union, all the leadership were from the KGB. Essentially the Soviet Communist party was denigrated sock puppet status. The KGB ruled the Soviet Union. And of course the KGB security aristocracy couldn't rule effectively. Am I the only one seeing the NSA doing the same thing? That is what Edward Snowdon told us. That is why the NSA administration didn't listen to E.S. concerns. The NSA leadership knows what their goal is.
The problem has nothing to do with whom we have elected. There are no real choices there (seriously, how different do you think things would have been if you had voted for a different president?)
The people who are causing these problems are *not* elected - they are *appointed* and hence their selection is not under direct voter control.
So why were these people appointed? Why have they been given so much leeway? It is because we the people ran around like frightened children at the first mention of "terrorism". Its because all of you stood up after 9/11 and said "WAR"! Its because all of you go hide under your beds at the first mention of the idea that there is risk in life. This is what gave the black hats in our country the license to take away your liberties and destroy the principles of this country.
Learn some history - this is the McCarthy Era all over again. Now the 'communists' that are on the verge of destroying us are 'terrorists'. But it is all the same drill. Accuse someone of being a 'communist', er, I mean, 'terrorist' and suddenly they have no civil rights/liberties. Suddenly we can tell people that they cannot fly on an airplane because someone put them on a list. Suddenly people are snooping into every aspect of your private lives because "there might be a terrorist" somewhere. It's McCarthism all over again and what is sad is that people don't see it because they don't bother to learn even recent history.
So the issue is not who you are voting for - it is what your fear is giving them license to do.
I've tried voting for Nader (whenever the option was available in my local elections ballot), doesn't seem to work. But I'll keep trying, maybe :)
"In order for a democracy to work, the public has to have a choice."
Democracy is a mob rules scenario. It isn't about choice, and never has been. The Constitutional Republic I live in was designed to prevent the problems of Democracy. Laws and the Constitution were to prevent parties from over influence and were kept in check by laws first, and to prevent the ignorant masses from ushering away those rights at the behest of some corrupted party.
When did American become a Democracy in your eyes? When I was a child the pledge of Allegiance was to the Republic. There was never a mention of Democracy and or this two party system we have ill conceived today.
One might have thought voting for a ficus or a dead candidate would have sent a message. The fact that fictional characters routinely get 10% or the vote should be a message.
Sure, they can vote 3rd party. They probably should. Then one of the big two will win and Taco Cowboy et al will claim that they got the government they deserved because they voted the clowns in.
The fact that fictional characters routinely get 10% or the vote should be a message.
Fictional characters usually don't stand for much of anything, and it's probably not a single fictional character getting the votes, either.
Thank you Dave Raggett
They were quickly co-opted and become just another arm of the machine they wanted to fix.
No, we weren't. Evidence: If we had been the Lamestream Propaganda Media wouldn't be spewing hate at us 24/7.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Currently treason is defined as: "Not supporting Obama". The irony is rich.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
They send one message loud and clear. "I would prefer Donald Duck to any of you bozos".
While I ponder why the parent got modded down, here are some citations to support those claims...
Universal background checks
"Public Option" healthcare
Minimum wage increase
Admittedly, I was just "guesstimating" the numbers above from vague memory, but as the links here show, I'm right in the ballpark on all of them.
It would be nice to see a lucid argument, rather than just getting down-modded reflexively.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
The upper members of both chambers of Congress APPROVE of what the NSA is doing. They have ACTIVELY BLOCKED the president from cleaning up any of this mess even though these are "executive" agents. Remember, the GOP allowed Bush to unilaterally expand the spying operations under Executive Orders (more than Obama) even when the VP was writing every passing Congress bill for six years straight. That wouldn't have happened without BOTH SIDES agreeing not to interfere.
Your comment is utter bullshit.
Electing means something if we are given a real choice, which we are not.
Pfffff
One intelligent person in a crowd of idiots is like a pebble trying to block a river. The one can have the greatest ideas the world has ever seen but is vastly outnumbered by those whose only care in the world is their current Facebook status, or what time ( insert some god-awful reality show here ) comes on. These are the people politicians love. Remember kids, the dumber the population, the easier they are to control.
Some crazy political issue pops up ? Just flood the news with celebrity scandal or, since they practically own the news anyway, just quit mentioning it until it goes away. ( Not all that long since most have short term memory anyway )
I wish the NSA documents were still coming out on a weekly basis. They seem to be tapering off and the entire thing will be a long forgotten memory within a year at the current pace. . . . .
Is why we would have to replace all of Congress to have any hopes of improving it. One person vs the corrupted mass that sits there now is a pointless endeavor.
sNOwden ...
Good job making yourself look completely idiotic.
RE: http://lissakr11humane.com/201... The United States of America is on a global murder spree headed by fbi/cia/dod/nsa icluding threatening and overthrowing governments and assassinations all in favor of USA's plan for world inhumane domination. http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/part... fbi's Cointelpro operative seeks to discredit this combat war vet (& fbi whistleblower) by claiming that vet's service makes him a murderer and possibly a mass murderer. http://sosbeevfbi.ning.com/pro... ELF: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/high... Synthetic Kidney Stone: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/part... http://online.liebertpub.com/d... Dilemma http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/dile... Cointelpro: http://neworleans.indymedia.or... http://www.indymedia.org.nz/ar... Ad: http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/Reso... http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/holl... http://neworleans.indymedia.or... http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/fbic...
I wish I had mod points for this.
Quit giving this loser press.
Those two parties are inside a box. Even the whole govenement system is inside the box. Perhaps people need to start thinking outside the box. If you do that every 200-250 years, you are still way below average.
If the type of governement you have does not work, perhaps the type of governement doesn't work for you and it needs to be changed.
Perhaps a system where the majprity has all the power is not a good enough system as it lays too much importance on the power.
To me politics is not just doing what the one majoority wants, but try to find what the REAL majority wants.
Instead of doing something where it is 50% is happy (e.g one part memmbers) you can get to something where 60% or even 70% is happy. Perhaos not all of your party, but still some of the other party.
Once you are in governement, you should govern ALL the people, not just those from your party
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The tell tell sign is he ran to russia.
The fact is that Dems. and Reps. *both* are very sensitive to opinion polls.
Except Republicans only care about opinion polls coming from conservative christians and faux news viewers, and Democrats only care about opinion polls from everyone else. You have to influence two very different groups of people (and a bunch of really crazy idiots) to realistically have any impact.
And actually, it is extremely easy (and truthful) to blame "the other guys", when "the other guys" advocate a broken worldview and policies that have been proven not to work. Giving tax cuts to the rich, for example, has been proven to damage the economy, while raising taxes correlates to a stronger economy and more jobs. Some conservative policies actually do make sense, and would be better than liberal policies in some situations, but when the "conservatives" are realistically "regressives" and the image they present to the public is that they're a bunch of selfish, self-centered, money-is-all-that-matters, reality-has-a-liberal-bias loonies, its impossible to take anything they say seriously.
How about on the second election in which they back candidates? The tenth? Every new movement tends to fall on its face repeatedly before someone gets it right enough to have a chance.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
So do something about it.
Join one of those parties - whichever one you think has more potential to go 'your' way. Turn up to meetings. Make friends. Get yourself known. Talk to legislators, lobbyists, visiting bigwigs. Learn something.
Sure, money speaks in politics. But you know what speaks even louder? People who are willing to turn up, week in and week out, to do the legwork/phonework/mailing/tracking that their party wants done. That's what wins elections - 'money' is, largely, a way of paying people to do that, but if you contribute your time and expertise for 'free', you can command leverage over and above your own market value.
Don't discard "the system" until you've at least tried to use it. It is the way it is for a reason, and a lot of people have got a lot of use out of it.
Direct voting like we mean you'd likely only get the the most radical people involved. And what is allowed to be brought to a vote is an even bigger issue. 99% of your constituents might want single-payer healthcare, but they'll never get a chance to vote for it with the current political climate in Washington.
Only as a whole. All congressmen suck except for mine* - he's the only one who is fighting for the little guy.
*regardless of who I am or who my congressman is
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I would like to see any new law have to be vetted by the supreme court - with explanations as to *exactly* why it was ruled unconstitutional if it's blocked of course, and a full discussion of potential problem issues that they can't quite justify blocking it over - let them paint a road map for future challenges. Too many laws make if difficult if not impossible for someone to claim proper standing to challenge them - and why should some poor sap have to chase his cause for decades through successively higher courts to have the potential for change?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There are alternatives - one I'm playing with is a form of fluid representational democracy based on the ability to transfer your vote in cases where you don't choose to participate - though it does seem to require weakening anonymity at least slightly.
Say you transfer your vote to your pastor, a politically active professor, or that guy at the bar who always seems to have a really insightful comment to make on political issues. There's no reason they need to know *who* the votes came from, just that they have a pool of votes they can cast in addition to their own.
Then any time you don't don't vote on an issue your vote transfers to them, and they can choose to cast it in your stead so long as they're willing to do so publicly (to dissuade the cynical "say one thing, vote another" types). Let someone accumulate a few hundred or thousand "default votes" and they start becoming a political force to be listened to and courted. Let some of them form an alliance and you get powerful voting blocks in the hands of a few personally-selected individuals. Potentially you could even allow multi-level representation where your selected "spokesman" default-transfers their "voting pool" to yet another individual (again, fully in the public eye). And they are kept honest by the fact that the rug can be pulled out from under any of them at any moment by their "constituency" anonymously transferring their votes to someone more deserving. Or simply broadly overruling their vote on specific issues.
And yes, you'd have issues with political climate for bill proposals, at least at first - though if the movement caught on I suspect DD representatives would have enough backing amongst each other to bring things to a vote, at least on issues that are truly popular. Of course there's no guarantee that any non-DD representatives would vote for it - but with a truly popular issue and an increasingly popular DD party they could be putting their careers on the line not to.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
50.000000001% is a "real majority". The word you're looking for is supermajority.
Other than that, a fine sentiment.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Maybe. If you voted for Obama in the last election then I hold you personally responsible.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What filters? The only one I know of is the 4th amendment, and it doesn't seem to be working. I believe that was part of his complaint, and it appears they classified what was going on at the NSA because it's illegal to search my papers and effects (e.g. call history) without probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. If you're into government spying and control, I'm sure we can get together a fund to send to you North Korea. I hear the have quite the police state.