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Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public
New submitter autonomous_reader writes: Ars Technica has a story on this week's Intelligence & National Security Summit, where CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey had a lot to say about the resistance of the American public to government cyber spying and anti-encryption efforts. Blaming resistance on "people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission of the NSA, CIA, and FBI, John Brennan explained it was all a "misunderstanding." Comey explained that "venom and deep cynicism" prevented rational debate of his campaign for cryptographic backdoors.
...that these men are just acting. They cant be that naive that they dont understand the resistance to their designs.
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
Posting AC just because I am going to mention a very unpopular angle:
The one thing the CIA and FBI directors are missing is how foreign propaganda can quickly become US memes. I have seen pictures and memes from Syria wind up as daily fodder on Occupy and other FB based groups. Same with Daesh memes like "Straight outta Kabul". They may lose militarily, but they can easily get their propaganda videos onto YouTube or FB for consumption.
Back in the '80s, a company distributing Russian or East German propaganda videos would be shut down and everyone involved arrested for providing aid and comfort to the enemy, to even treason by showing enemy propaganda. Now, showing an ISIS video is "hip" or a snide thing to do, especially today.
Hearts and minds... stop the influx of propaganda, and you will win back the US populace. Let the propaganda continue constantly on how the US is the evilest entity to ever take part on history's stage, and you only will get more government distrust and hatred, when in reality, those are the people keeping US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped.
That is what they don't understand... stop the influx of propaganda, and you will get your citizens back. Let the memes flow, and every single military engagement will end just like Viet Nam, no matter how good the generals are.
So, be more like North Korea and stop incoming messages you don't like? Great strategy!
Seems to me that many of the problems organizations like the FBI think they face stem more from the change from law enforcement to crime prevention. Crime prevention requires massive amounts of data to be collected and ultimately freedoms curtailed for specific individuals who evince a pattern of behavior demonstrated to lead to crime. With organizations like the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc. all tasked with preventing another 9/11/2001, they understandably want the data to be able to proactively root out those individuals who might be likely to pull something like that off.
I'm not saying I agree with what guys like Brennan are asking for, but I am saying that they realize their responsibilities have changed and they are demanding the tools to do so. From their perspective, they probably don't understand how the people can say over and over "you'd better not ever let anything like that happen again but you can't infringe on any of my rights in order to make that happen". To a professional law enforcement officer, even a bureaucrat, that is a contradictory statement. Worsening matters is the ham handed way in which they've chosen to implement everything and how the American people have come to know how these things are being done.
You can't have the kind of safety people seem to expect today without a significant infringement of your rights.
You left out Noriega, and internal meddling in Vietnam and Iran, propping up dictators to prevent elections in many places in the world.
The cause of the Vietnam war? Eisenhower ordered US forces to invade Vietnam and block the democratic elections, because there was a fear that fair democracy would lead to the election of a an unfriendly government. Millions dead, and the worst case election of Ho Chi Minh didn't happen. He died of old age before the US abandoned that war.
Nothing destabilizes an area like the US trying to stabilize it.
Learn to love Alaska
The, where is the American Dictatorship?
Where are the death squads and ditches full of dead bodies?
Where are the crying survivors hoping to find their disappeared loved ones?
The problem is that the gas chambers didn't start claiming bodies on January 5, 1919, when the German Worker's Party was founded. No genocide occurred on July 28, 1921, when Adolf Hitler was elected party chairman. On November 8th, 1923, the rest of the world shrugged at (even if they were aware of) the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. No Jews fled the country on December 20th, 1924 when Hitler was released from the prison where he wrote Mein Kampf. The government of Germany showed no real concern in 1925, when Hitler re-founded the previously banned Nazi party. No death squads suddenly started roaming the streets after September 14, 1930 when the Nazis gained a significant representation in the legislature. No crying survivors searched for their loved ones on January 30, 1933, as Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor. Perhaps some concern was raised in February 28th, 1933 when government suspended civil liberties, but, hey, the main government building had been the victim of arson - the country was under attack, so suspension of civil liberties seems reasonable, no? And besides, where was the evidence of death squads and ditches full of dead bodies? And on March 23, 1933 when the parliament gave the Chancellor sweeping powers, it was passed by a large margin. "No, Hitler's not a dictator, he just has emergency powers, granted to him by the legislature. You Communists, complaining about it and weakening the ability of our government to exercise their duly appointed capabilities. Besides, they're just *emergency* powers, and will expire in four years ..."
The problem is that gross infringement of rights probably isn't going to happen with you waking up one morning with some oppressive regime goose-stepping through the streets. It's much more likely that it will creep up slowly. Germans in the '20s and early '30s all could have argued "Where is the German Dictatorship? Where are the death squads and ditches full of dead bodies? Where are the crying survivors hoping to find their disappeared loved ones?" The big atrocities didn't happen overnight, they only occurred once the Nazis has cemented their power and it was hopeless for anyone in Germany to resist them.
There were plenty of warning signs *in retrospect* that Hitler and the Nazis were bad apples - hell, as mentioned, the Nazi party was even banned at one point in time. The problem was that *at the time* no one took the red flags seriously. "Well, the Nazis haven't genocided anyone yet .. I guess they're okay." "Well, theoretically he *can* commit gross atrocities, but that would be crazy, so we don't need to worry about it."
I'm certainly not saying that any current government - American or otherwise - is as bad as the Nazis. I'm not even saying that they are definitely, probably, possibly, or even vaguely on the road in that direction. What I am saying is that "they haven't instituted a brutal, oppressive regime" isn't a ringing endorsement. If you *were* going to flagrantly violate someone's rights, you'd make sure to hide that fact until you know no one could oppose you. If an American Dictatorship ever does come about, at the point in time that there are death squads, ditches and crying survivors, it's likely going to be too late for anyone to do anything. The time to act is not when the megalomaniacs are in charge of the military and all the government and can deport your to an interment camp for disagreeing with them. The time to act is when they're a fringe group in a remote province, or minor players in the government, trying to extend their power by questionable means. An ounce of prevention, and all that.
"Besides, he looks like such a sweet young man. Who would he ever harm?"
When I was in the 4th grade, I learned that "Russia" (meaning the USSR) was evil because they tracked where you went and who you talked to even if you weren't a criminal and because the police just did what they wanted when they wanted and the U.S. was great because none of that happened here.
In other words, the USSR was evil because it did what these assclowns want to do here. How can I possibly see them as anything but a domestic enemy that must be rooted out? They want to turn us into the USSR.