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NSA: We Mulled Ending Phone Program Before Edward Snowden Leaks
Mark Wilson writes Edward Snowden is heralded as both a hero and villain. A privacy vigilante and a traitor. It just depends who you ask. The revelations he made about the NSA's surveillance programs have completely changed the face of online security, and changed the way everyone looks at the internet and privacy. But just before the whistle was blown, it seems that the NSA was considering bringing its telephone data collection program to an end. Intelligence officials were, behind the scenes, questioning whether the benefits of gathering counter-terrorism information justified the colossal costs involved. Then Snowden went public and essentially forced the agency's hand.
Yes, that's why they built their vast data center in the middle-of-nowhere Utah. Because they were shutting down the program.
Why is Snark Required?
How old are you? Because I learned about ECHELON 15 years ago (in computer magazines at the bookstore), and there were already talks about intercepting and accessing pretty much everything, large data stores, keyword analysis, etc. And I was just a slightly-geeky teen discovering the Internet 'underground' back then. From France. Even the EU was publicly investigating ECHELON around this time.
Wikipedia tells me there has been some amount of public discussion about it for the past 20 years, and the program dates back to 50 years ago, so it's very easy to imagine much progress has been made since then.
Even back then, I wouldn't have called them 'suspicions'... No need to be paranoid to understand how obvious it was, in a large part at least, and not just from the USA of course...
One of the main issues with all our problems, is that people often 'forget' for how long they knew about them (even when nothing was ever really done to try and solve them), media always repaint them as 'news' for business purpose (and, it is easy to think, for more global manipulation), and new generations think they are new problems they just discovered themselves... It's easier to consider accepting to do nothing about recent problems, than understanding how everything and everyone has been so thoroughly covered in shit for so long and try to do anything about it.
Forced their hand? Last time I checked, they are: 1) still operating the program, and 2) tenaciously defending it.
It's a bit like the Japanese and Whaling. Turns out that the whalers operate at a loss, nobody in Japan actually likes whale meat, etc... But as long as they're under outside pressure to end the program, it becomes a matter of face to defend it.
In short, they may have ended the program since then if Snowden hadn't leaked because the program wasn't justifying itself, but now they're having to defend their illegal and unconstitutional actions, thus they 'have' to continue and justify the program in order to avoid saying they made a mistake.
I don't read AC A human right
Who gives a crap about the phone shit. What it revealed was that US government executives routinely lie to the public and attack members of the public with slander and false arrest when members of the public try to expose the criminal activities of above the law government departments.
The US department of State, the CIA, the NSA, the Secret Service and even the FBI at the highest levels all routinely consider themselves above the law. This horrifically extends to the corporations that controls which politicians get elected and who will be selected to take the highest administrative positions in government not as agents of the public but as agents of the corporations who arranged for their appointment.
The US government has become an empty teleprompter reading mouthpiece for those corporations who pay to get their colluding and conspiring pet politicians elected. The Snowden leaks exposed the underlying reality of how far the Public Relations show of the US government differs from corporate controlled reality of government agencies.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Why else would they do something that produces no security benefit?
These programs are CIA-NSA-military's power : they can affect any political decisin anywhere on earth, their database tells them who to call and what delicate hints to drop into the conversation.
'Our' Congressional representatives stopped representing their constituents a while back, NSA has not been called to account. Neocons have taken over control of foreign policy.
NSA's database is part of the answer, I think.
...This horrifically extends to the corporations that controls which politicians get elected ....
Not that I would deny that corporations attempt to influence government policy and the laws that are made, but .... Could you explain how you think corporations "control" which politicians get elected? Corporations don't vote, it's illegal for them to try to control the votes of their employees, and they have limitations on how they spend money for political purposes. Do they do it through mind control? Mass hypnosis? Could you explain? It looks to me like you are exaggerating their influence, not to mention a few other things.
Since different corporations have different interests and goals, how is that reconciled if they control everything? How does that work if a very powerful corporation in one state disagrees with a weaker national corporation? What if different industries disagree on things? Is there a "congress of corporations" where this is all hammered out before they command the politicians to do their will? And who is it that gives the commands? What if they can't come to an agreement? Do you have any evidence of this sort of collusion?
How do you think the corporations control government agencies? Is it Sears, Walmart, or IBM that controls the FBI? Does Ford control the Social Security Administration, or is it Du Pont? Who controls the State Department? Ikea? AT&T? Go Daddy? I think there are a few holes in your theory.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell