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Former NSA Director: 'We Kill People Based On Metadata'
An anonymous reader writes "An article by David Cole at the NY Review of Books lays out why we should care as much about the collection of metadata as we do about the collection of the data itself. At a recent debate, General Michael Hayden, who formerly led both the NSA and the CIA, told Cole, 'we kill people based on metadata.' The statement is stark and descriptive: metadata isn't just part of the investigation. Sometimes it's the entire investigation. Cole talks about the USA Freedom Act, legislation that would limit the NSA's data collection powers if it passes. The bill contains several good steps in securing the privacy of citizens and restoring due process. But Cole says it 'only skims the surface.' He writes, 'It does not address, for example, the NSA's guerilla-like tactics of inserting vulnerabilities into computer software and drivers, to be exploited later to surreptitiously intercept private communications. It also focuses exclusively on reining in the NSA's direct spying on Americans. ... In the Internet era, it is increasingly common that everyone's communications cross national boundaries. That makes all of us vulnerable, for when the government collects data in bulk from people it believes are foreign nationals, it is almost certain to sweep up lots of communications in which Americans are involved.' He concludes, '[T]he biggest mistake any of us could make would be to conclude that this bill solves the problem.'"
Maybe it seems like it failed because it has been actively undermined by the pre WWI Old World Order nobility, to show that only monarchies function properly, and they want to bring back the New World Order with privileges, and aristocracy. During the formation of the US the Federalists were pro-aristocracy, but they've been relegated only to the Supreme Court from the beginning when Jefferson and his utopian yeoman farmer democracy took over Congress and the House of Representatives. Going back to aristocracy will happen regardless of what the law says, as it does not have to be erected into law, all you need is a secret society that agrees on rules of treatment amongst its members, and everybody else does not get consulted on these private agreements, or even a non secret society, or not even a society at all, just a buddy system and connections, and the rest of the world can be in disarray, anarchy. The greater the economic demise and harsher the life, the greater the disarray and anarchy, the easier nobility with skill to manufacture, talent to create, mercenary bodyguards and castlelike villas to defend, will thrive. Even if politicians want to enforce things like nondiscrimination based on birthrights or whatnot, saying there are all these valuable talented people who're external to the buddy system, and they should be internalized, or employed, what can they do? Like stipulate discrimination charges and take over a business, whose customers, part of the whole secret society or just the buddy system, just disappear, so the business goes out of business anyway, while the guy just forced out of business or someone similar restarts the same thing somewhere else, and his old buddies and customers go buy from him anyway, under a different name, and the whole show goes on as before anyway? Politicians are subject to the rules of the real world, they have to eat, they have to feed their kids, they have to earn money, and if only the nobility has money, then politicians have to bow and submit to the nobility. Even if nobility is not codified, or formally agreed on amongst its members, there can be a de facto nobility, or upper class, and a de facto slavery, or serfdom, or capitalist bourgeoisie exploited proletariat working lower class, an it's a matter of degree, the gap between the rich and the poor, the degree of stratification of society is a measure of how nondemocratic things are. Jefferson created a tax system with a mild redistribution of wealth, and we're still living with it, we call it Social Security, and it's about to collapse under the weight of the "tragedy of the commons". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... Social Security was created after the great depression proved that Americans are not rugged and regardless of the circumstances they cannot stand on their own to feet and create a better tomorrow out of raw dirt. Especially when they are not free like in an anarchy, but have to sink or swim with a stone tied in their necks dragging them underwater, in the form of income taxes, property taxes irregardless of any income, mandatory insurance to ensure economic safety, mandatory building codes to ensure physical safety, etc. It's sad to see that such a rich country as this, with lush vegetation, plenty of game, a sort of paradise, is not able to make it, because of some stupid rules we tell ourselves to live by, with the consequences, with the mental conclusion, that we're unable, that we can't. It proves that what we lack is a nobility, a people who can, we lack some good masters that we can be slaves to, because our self elected masters have been sabotaged gradually into the mess we're in. At least that's the intention of the nobility, but for now, we still are more on top of the World than say, Great Britain, who has maintained a milder style of monarchy, but which is going to a full police state as we speak. The reign has begun, and the social experiments of communism failed miserably, because nobody cared about the collective as much a