Here we declare that any such actions against us are an act of war, right? If it's an act of war against us, isn't it an act of war against them? Are we behind this? If so, WTF?
Seriously? I feel sorry for you. You sound intelligent, which puts you at odds versus the average Internet user. Look over the shoulder of the jock in any particular school at what they are doing with this technology, particularly Facebook and try hard not to strangle them. Ironically, it's not produced brilliant minds like one would hope, but instead it's help stupid people concentrate their stupidity. The tech is intelligent, but the users aren't, nor are they ever going to change; it only gets worse from here.
Now stupidity gets to advance and multiply. Don't think so? Look at our political clime. Sara Palin, what can I say? She's the dead canary in the coal mine of intellect. Watch the movie Idiocracy, it's a horrible movie, but the message in it is disturbing. God save us from the stupid and those that control them. The stupid will hand over their freedoms, they always do. This experiment in overt freedom is doomed and coming to an end. It will have to go underground. It's just a matter of time. Like the poster above you said, they have to win just once, and we have to win every time.
That is unless we make horror story, cautionary tales out of politicians who betray us. If we are going to do that, we have a lot more to grind that ax over than just the Internet. I doubt we would have any left when we are done. Come to think of it, is that really a bad thing? I am sure "they" will tell you it isn't as they water-board you at Gitmo or some place like it. Enjoy these kinds of free thinking conversations while they last, I am sure they are soon to end.
Holy shit that was priceless and funny, but so damn true. Print that on a big T-shirt for me.
There are days I wish we would all just Zombie Mob Washington DC and eat them all. Cue the mad scientist with a hard on for old time patriotism, please. Is it just me? I feel like a revolution, but I am too lazy. I'm not ambitious enough to organize my video collection on my bookshelf, let alone wage a fucking civil war.
What can we do about these bastards in our SCOTUS? Can we impeach them? That requires them to do a "crime" and that isn't going to work, they can do what they want it seems and it's not a "crime". What they do is so fucking wrong it makes our heads spin, but some how it's not a crime and they aren't swinging from a rope in the town square with kids beating them.
I think we are safe from Muslim terrorists for a while at least. 40,000 Jews in one place and not even a bomb threat?
I have to wonder what we would be saying if it was 40,000 Muslims meeting there for the same topic? Flip through the variations of religions and apply that mental exercise of "what if?" Rastafarians make for an amusing mental image, as do several others. When I ponder which group would be the scariest in regards to tampering with our Internet freedoms, it boils down to Muslims and "Fundy Christians" with the later winning by a nose.
Religious perspectives of the Internet, they all vary, but frankly I like to remain suspicious of all of them. People inherently seem to get big wild ideas about the Internet, politicians and religious people especially and these groups tend to intermingle at a disgusting rate.
They say it's intelligent to leave some jam on the bottom shelf for the little guy. I think it's right.
I would venture it's poor people who have Internet access, yet can't afford pricey cable and HBO fees. They wouldn't be buying it anyway, so there is no real loss other than your poor get a bit of "culture" (yes, let's laugh together at that one) and entertainment for free. Is that such a bad thing? Let us consider what happens if that door gets slammed on their fingers.
First it really lets them know how much of a gap there is in their lives and what little there is to do about it. They are poor, and such things as "Game of Thrones" should be beyond them. How dare they peak into where their kind can't afford? Just another little "fuck you" waved in their faces. So, instead of looking the other way when they are peaking, lets slam the door in their faces and break their little fingers.
Let them get pissed and down load bomb making instructions instead, after all, if we are going to force them to dream, lets make them dream big. Instead of watching some damned TV show and going to sleep that night on their empty stomachs, with a dream in their heads to satisfy them, lets jar them out of their dream worlds and into the hard reality of just how pathetic and fucked their worthless lives are.
By all means, lets keep fucking with the poor until they have nothing left to lose and we have it all. That always works out so well, it helps everything run so damn smoothly and we get to run headlong into progress, impeded only by mass eruptions of anarchy. There is an old saying amongst the old draconian powers; "When wringing the blood from the peasants, make sure none of your own spills." Let's not defeat the wonderful purpose of our modern "bread and circuses", by pricing it out of the hands of those it was meant to placate nor break the mechanism for it's delivery. It's so wonderful, they actually feel like they are "stealing" something and it's actually less than air, it's all an illusion via the magic of 1s and 0s. They are satisfied and their knives aren't at our throats, lets take a solid win and let sleeping dogs lie.
This is a sign of weakness and corruption when they can't just compete, but cheat with crooked bureaucrats and filthy politicians. First it was Apple being whiny punks, now M$ follows suit. (pardon the pun) Personally for their pathetic actions, I am boycotting both companies the best that I can. I will go back to smoke signals and an abacus before giving these bastards one worn out penny.
Now that is something I can work with. At least it isn't "ha ha, you fucking hippy, fuck off".
Why hemp? I guess it's the outlaw in me that is attracted to it at first. After I seen all of the products it can produce, and the fiber is amazing, I am wondering why we aren't using it? Of course I smoked plenty in my youth, but I learned you can't smoke "hemp". Anyone with any knowledge knows this, so why present it in a bad light? Isn't that kind of lying?
Moving past the politics, this particular plant has lots uses. I am thinking that if you are going to use a plant for a "carbon sink" you need one that produces something that will hold the carbon. For example with trees, they hold on to the carbon in the form of lumber. This takes quite a while to develop but eventually we harvest the tree, and replace it with another. With hemp there is a faster turn around on the harvest, and there are lots products to be had from it.
The plant has brutal tenacity and is defined by farmers as a weed. One they aren't too happy to see around because it can eat up crop land nutrients. This is an aggression that should be harnessed by focusing it on processing waste. It also seems easily cross bred with other strains, which has its own merits.
Frankly, I am disappointed the cotton industry hasn't annexed the hemp fiber into their productions to create something far superior to current synthetics. I digress.
We need deeper greens on our planet surface it would seem. How much do we burn ourselves by chopping up thick vegetation to replace it with lawn grass? I think we need to look at all energy absorption and heat dissipation mechanics of our ecosystem. Ponder how we fight nature and all of it's plants when we conquer spaces, build on the area, mow it down and seed it with grass. Is grass going to carry the load as well as what it replaced? Think on a larger scale what we have effected and what effect will our changes make?
Now consider concentrated growths of hemp, monstrously big plants that grow to size in a single year, teaming with hydro carbon filled seeds, all powered by our waste, all the while scrubbing our air. Got a better solution? A better plant option?
I'm not saying it's a perfect world. If you have an axe to grind with them, run it through the system and our representatives. If that doesn't satisfy you, get someone elected in that you trust to take a gander at them via the oversight mechanisms. Poking around with a stick their operations isn't serving anyone. They do have a serious job and we do have a world hell bent on causing us trouble. We have to expect some percentage of shenanigans out of something like this, but it's nothing to go crazy over, it comes with the territory.
I can't imagine it not being a dirty, messy job, can you? All things considered, I think we are doing well. We pay for this illusion called the "American Dream", do you really want to peal back the curtain? Ignorance is bliss. I know that doesn't make for sexy idealism, but it's pragmatic.
Well, I imagine it's hard to run a secretive national security agency when any passerby who wants to know the company business can poke his or her head in and ask "what's cooking?" and by law get a response. If you feel like they have gone rogue, why not bust the balls of those who have direct oversight of them instead of trying to pry into day to day operations? Want an in depth investigation of and an accountability for their actions? There is a process for that I am sure. But it's not open for prying public eyes. This is why it's important to elect good trustworthy people.
You can't have public outings of these kinds of ops. Let's not kneecap our own intelligence agencies, please? You know who wants to "know what's going on" besides our own paranoid citizens? The bad guys do, and frankly it's more important that they don't know, than you do. It's not pretty, but that's the world we live in. Again, we have representatives that have oversight into this, right? Let's chose the intelligent avenue when it comes to intelligence.
We aren't going to stop using whatever kind of oil we find, obviously. So we need to clean up this carbon out of the air. Classically, nature does this for us but we seem to have overloaded that mechanism. Trees have been the acme of biological agents for scrubbing the air, but we need a new one.
We need a plant that grows fast, and by growing and producing it's seeds/fruit it consumes a lot of carbon. We have just such a perfect candidate, but leave it to politics to forbid it. I am talking about hemp. Hemp has the bulk and the seed production that will yank carbon out of the air by the scruff of it's neck. It grows small tree tall in a single season and it sucks so much carbon that the seeds are teaming with a hydrocarbon.
Historically, it's a weed that farmers hate because it leaches soil quickly of nutrients. To me this isn't a problem with modern hydroponics. We have plenty of recyclable products and our own sewer to feed a hydroponic system that would feed these hemp plants. It would process waste and carbon into a plant that has more uses than I can count.
With hydroponics, lots of real estate that is worthless to build on can be used for hemp patches, piping a rich slurry to feed them, processing our own waste. We don't need to cut into crop lands, hence the "leaching" effect can be controlled.
Of course there are roadblocks to this solution. The cotton industry has been an enemy of hemp, mostly out of fear that it will replace them. Of course we have the anti-drug crowd that will insist that hippies are going to smoke it. Counters to that are that is creates new industry and innovations from a very "green" resource that is not only renewable, but it helps scrub the air. Everyone wins. Except for the hippies who tried to smoke it, who are wreathing in agony from a "ditch weed" headache.
We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security. That means, they don't care about your torrent of that cam of some shitty movie you downloaded. Nor do they care how much music you pirate, or even what porn you watch. We have entrusted them with a shroud of secrecy in order to operate under the radar and find bad guys.
Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone. But until then, we have to remember why we gave them such a mandate to begin with. We also need to remember that ignorance is bliss.
Before I sound like a complete lackey, let me say this; shaking the mechanism that houses the safety on No Such Agency and making sure it still works is a wise idea. Somewhere in the machine there are safeties should they stray out of their mandate to correct themselves. They would have to, in order to remain off the radar and not make domestic enemies. You step on toes, people notice and start looking.
Are they working with Google? Who cares? If they did in light of recent events, then why would that be a bad thing? We should be happy about it. Again, stop being paranoid about your own shit and letting it paint your image of them. Yes, it's a monster, but it's our monster. Stop poking it with a damn stick to see if it will bite your goofy ass.
Look on the bright side, if they are overtly working with Google, (at least to Google) then there is a level of accountability even if it's from exposure. Bluntly put, if they do something fucked up and leave Google holding the bag, Google has enough money to at least punch someone from No Such Agency in the dick. Getting punched in said region isn't good for business and puts No Such Agency on the radar where it becomes vulnerable. Assured mutual destruction can be a wonderful diplomacy tool. Honesty is the best policy, if you start messing around, you shake loose "things" that turn up at the worse possible moment.
It's probably a nervous date between the two. They want to catch bad guys, Google wants to make money and not be sued shitless over privacy rights violations. There is probably an annoying amount of "cover your own ass" protocols that have to be followed that people are getting carpel tunnel signing forms. Anyway, that is how I see it. I don't envision dark evil plots being carried out by minions, that's a DC thing.
What a wonderfully proactive move! Yet another PR war attack if there ever was one. Follow the logic here; pick out a "trouble maker" in the crowd and make an example of him by means that go over the line and do it in a big public way. If you oversell it, you might not get the reaction you want. But this is "subtle" (don't laugh) and with a slight hint of obfuscation, making it palatable to the OWS slightly paranoid mindset. ("look..we are clever and see you")
It's a salvo round of uncertainty for one's privacy and social network. The election season is drawing nigh and we can feel the OWS crowds lurking for a go at it in our bones. Can we not? This has all of the makings of something big and violent. Think London riots of recent and multiply that by American savagery, anger and angst. This is a stew pot of boiling trouble.
Zuccati* Park was yet another clash point that the NYPD put some serious preventive troops on just recently. There was an anniversary recently and the NYPD was not going to allow another re-invasion of the park. We are talking shock troop armor ready for violent beat down time. These are pictures of America that we should never see. They don't have to hate us for our freedoms now, do they?
This fall will be a defining moment for the country and the world. Its a war of worlds condensed down to an election cycle. Nobody can afford to lose anymore. The tension fogs the air NOW, it promises to foam and boil as the moment draws near. Anxieties will mount fast and so will tempers and emotions.
One might argue that Booth considered himself a patriot, is what the sig is saying I think.
When does anyone wake up and consider themselves a proper villain? I doubt even Hitler thought of himself as a villain.
History determines who is the villain and who is the patriot. The victors write history. Some philosophers might are argue that there is no "right or wrong", just different points of view. The matter seems highly subjective, yet ironically, it's insisted upon being objective by everyone.
It's all one big pot of "Fascist Stew" that has been on the burner for quite a while. From your wording and "tone" I glean that you are a Con and are trying to put some reason to it all. You need far more objectivity.
Follow the money I say. This particular topic concerning this group interests me only in one aspect; who's funding them? My guess is, their backers wanted a low level background noise of decent, and instead got decent on "10" with an over the top message. This draws fire and attention, something they don't want.
One has to first free their own mind before they can have the objectivity to see how this fits into the big picture. I think you are starting to ask the right questions. But if you follow this down the rabbit hole, it gets really ugly. Be prepared to examine all of your instilled values as they are part of the issue of a deeply propagandized nation. Here is a barometer for you; The more sacred the cow, the more it should be tipped.
Enjoy that US Mail reference while we still have a US Post Office. Imagine that, with everything digital, it will be much easier for them to eavesdrop. Let's not say the tail wagged the dog, but it works out rather interestingly.
Concerning the OP, I don't think it's a very good idea to ask for this or broadcast it. For one thing, it will be hacked and cracked and abused like a red headed step child enough to make said agency cry a bucket of tears. Second, it's a conduit for counter intelligence, welcome to being played like a fiddle by everyone and their dog with an axe to grind. Third it's going to have a chilling effect on the markets you infest with this boondoggle and by the time the high money players get through on a political rampage, whomever came up with this bright idea will be sifting through moose droppings in Alaska for a rumored microchip once ate by a communist moose on a catnip rampage.
Let's get past all of the Constitutional chest thumping and onto a deeper look at this.
Let's not look at what they said as much as WHY they said it. First let's agree that what they asked for is nothing short of insane. For us in these current climes, that proposal is ludicrous. So why ask for them? What sort of mentality is at play here for that kind of boldness?
What is going on that we don't know about? What kind of clime are they operating in that they expect these "easy bake" implementations. What gross acts are being carried out that acclimate them enough to ask for something like this with a straight face.
Whatever their motivation, this is a blinking red warning light on the dashboard of liberty.
Slashdot Mirror
Here we declare that any such actions against us are an act of war, right? If it's an act of war against us, isn't it an act of war against them? Are we behind this? If so, WTF?
Seriously? I feel sorry for you. You sound intelligent, which puts you at odds versus the average Internet user. Look over the shoulder of the jock in any particular school at what they are doing with this technology, particularly Facebook and try hard not to strangle them. Ironically, it's not produced brilliant minds like one would hope, but instead it's help stupid people concentrate their stupidity. The tech is intelligent, but the users aren't, nor are they ever going to change; it only gets worse from here.
Now stupidity gets to advance and multiply. Don't think so? Look at our political clime. Sara Palin, what can I say? She's the dead canary in the coal mine of intellect. Watch the movie Idiocracy, it's a horrible movie, but the message in it is disturbing. God save us from the stupid and those that control them. The stupid will hand over their freedoms, they always do. This experiment in overt freedom is doomed and coming to an end. It will have to go underground. It's just a matter of time. Like the poster above you said, they have to win just once, and we have to win every time.
That is unless we make horror story, cautionary tales out of politicians who betray us. If we are going to do that, we have a lot more to grind that ax over than just the Internet. I doubt we would have any left when we are done. Come to think of it, is that really a bad thing? I am sure "they" will tell you it isn't as they water-board you at Gitmo or some place like it. Enjoy these kinds of free thinking conversations while they last, I am sure they are soon to end.
"Men with guns" have to sleep and eat somewhere. Implying more of the obvious is scary these days.
I am sure if whales and dolphins could talk they would say to the Japanese in a Samuel Jackson voice; "Karma mother fuckers, have some!"
These are important life lessons that normal people learn.
So, whiny people who have no social skills and get butthurt > freedom of speech on the Internet?
Jesus, seriously?
Speaking of a butthurt Mary Milktoast...
Holy shit that was priceless and funny, but so damn true. Print that on a big T-shirt for me.
There are days I wish we would all just Zombie Mob Washington DC and eat them all. Cue the mad scientist with a hard on for old time patriotism, please. Is it just me? I feel like a revolution, but I am too lazy. I'm not ambitious enough to organize my video collection on my bookshelf, let alone wage a fucking civil war.
What can we do about these bastards in our SCOTUS? Can we impeach them? That requires them to do a "crime" and that isn't going to work, they can do what they want it seems and it's not a "crime". What they do is so fucking wrong it makes our heads spin, but some how it's not a crime and they aren't swinging from a rope in the town square with kids beating them.
I think we are safe from Muslim terrorists for a while at least. 40,000 Jews in one place and not even a bomb threat?
I have to wonder what we would be saying if it was 40,000 Muslims meeting there for the same topic? Flip through the variations of religions and apply that mental exercise of "what if?" Rastafarians make for an amusing mental image, as do several others. When I ponder which group would be the scariest in regards to tampering with our Internet freedoms, it boils down to Muslims and "Fundy Christians" with the later winning by a nose.
Religious perspectives of the Internet, they all vary, but frankly I like to remain suspicious of all of them. People inherently seem to get big wild ideas about the Internet, politicians and religious people especially and these groups tend to intermingle at a disgusting rate.
They say it's intelligent to leave some jam on the bottom shelf for the little guy. I think it's right.
I would venture it's poor people who have Internet access, yet can't afford pricey cable and HBO fees. They wouldn't be buying it anyway, so there is no real loss other than your poor get a bit of "culture" (yes, let's laugh together at that one) and entertainment for free. Is that such a bad thing? Let us consider what happens if that door gets slammed on their fingers.
First it really lets them know how much of a gap there is in their lives and what little there is to do about it. They are poor, and such things as "Game of Thrones" should be beyond them. How dare they peak into where their kind can't afford? Just another little "fuck you" waved in their faces. So, instead of looking the other way when they are peaking, lets slam the door in their faces and break their little fingers.
Let them get pissed and down load bomb making instructions instead, after all, if we are going to force them to dream, lets make them dream big. Instead of watching some damned TV show and going to sleep that night on their empty stomachs, with a dream in their heads to satisfy them, lets jar them out of their dream worlds and into the hard reality of just how pathetic and fucked their worthless lives are.
By all means, lets keep fucking with the poor until they have nothing left to lose and we have it all. That always works out so well, it helps everything run so damn smoothly and we get to run headlong into progress, impeded only by mass eruptions of anarchy. There is an old saying amongst the old draconian powers; "When wringing the blood from the peasants, make sure none of your own spills." Let's not defeat the wonderful purpose of our modern "bread and circuses", by pricing it out of the hands of those it was meant to placate nor break the mechanism for it's delivery. It's so wonderful, they actually feel like they are "stealing" something and it's actually less than air, it's all an illusion via the magic of 1s and 0s. They are satisfied and their knives aren't at our throats, lets take a solid win and let sleeping dogs lie.
This is a sign of weakness and corruption when they can't just compete, but cheat with crooked bureaucrats and filthy politicians. First it was Apple being whiny punks, now M$ follows suit. (pardon the pun) Personally for their pathetic actions, I am boycotting both companies the best that I can. I will go back to smoke signals and an abacus before giving these bastards one worn out penny.
Now that is something I can work with. At least it isn't "ha ha, you fucking hippy, fuck off".
Why hemp? I guess it's the outlaw in me that is attracted to it at first. After I seen all of the products it can produce, and the fiber is amazing, I am wondering why we aren't using it? Of course I smoked plenty in my youth, but I learned you can't smoke "hemp". Anyone with any knowledge knows this, so why present it in a bad light? Isn't that kind of lying?
Moving past the politics, this particular plant has lots uses. I am thinking that if you are going to use a plant for a "carbon sink" you need one that produces something that will hold the carbon. For example with trees, they hold on to the carbon in the form of lumber. This takes quite a while to develop but eventually we harvest the tree, and replace it with another. With hemp there is a faster turn around on the harvest, and there are lots products to be had from it.
The plant has brutal tenacity and is defined by farmers as a weed. One they aren't too happy to see around because it can eat up crop land nutrients. This is an aggression that should be harnessed by focusing it on processing waste. It also seems easily cross bred with other strains, which has its own merits.
Frankly, I am disappointed the cotton industry hasn't annexed the hemp fiber into their productions to create something far superior to current synthetics. I digress.
We need deeper greens on our planet surface it would seem. How much do we burn ourselves by chopping up thick vegetation to replace it with lawn grass? I think we need to look at all energy absorption and heat dissipation mechanics of our ecosystem. Ponder how we fight nature and all of it's plants when we conquer spaces, build on the area, mow it down and seed it with grass. Is grass going to carry the load as well as what it replaced? Think on a larger scale what we have effected and what effect will our changes make?
Now consider concentrated growths of hemp, monstrously big plants that grow to size in a single year, teaming with hydro carbon filled seeds, all powered by our waste, all the while scrubbing our air. Got a better solution? A better plant option?
I'm thinking and you are trolling. Fuck off troll.
I'm not saying it's a perfect world. If you have an axe to grind with them, run it through the system and our representatives. If that doesn't satisfy you, get someone elected in that you trust to take a gander at them via the oversight mechanisms. Poking around with a stick their operations isn't serving anyone. They do have a serious job and we do have a world hell bent on causing us trouble. We have to expect some percentage of shenanigans out of something like this, but it's nothing to go crazy over, it comes with the territory.
I can't imagine it not being a dirty, messy job, can you? All things considered, I think we are doing well. We pay for this illusion called the "American Dream", do you really want to peal back the curtain? Ignorance is bliss. I know that doesn't make for sexy idealism, but it's pragmatic.
Well, I imagine it's hard to run a secretive national security agency when any passerby who wants to know the company business can poke his or her head in and ask "what's cooking?" and by law get a response. If you feel like they have gone rogue, why not bust the balls of those who have direct oversight of them instead of trying to pry into day to day operations? Want an in depth investigation of and an accountability for their actions? There is a process for that I am sure. But it's not open for prying public eyes. This is why it's important to elect good trustworthy people.
You can't have public outings of these kinds of ops. Let's not kneecap our own intelligence agencies, please? You know who wants to "know what's going on" besides our own paranoid citizens? The bad guys do, and frankly it's more important that they don't know, than you do. It's not pretty, but that's the world we live in. Again, we have representatives that have oversight into this, right? Let's chose the intelligent avenue when it comes to intelligence.
We aren't going to stop using whatever kind of oil we find, obviously. So we need to clean up this carbon out of the air. Classically, nature does this for us but we seem to have overloaded that mechanism. Trees have been the acme of biological agents for scrubbing the air, but we need a new one.
We need a plant that grows fast, and by growing and producing it's seeds/fruit it consumes a lot of carbon. We have just such a perfect candidate, but leave it to politics to forbid it. I am talking about hemp. Hemp has the bulk and the seed production that will yank carbon out of the air by the scruff of it's neck. It grows small tree tall in a single season and it sucks so much carbon that the seeds are teaming with a hydrocarbon.
Historically, it's a weed that farmers hate because it leaches soil quickly of nutrients. To me this isn't a problem with modern hydroponics. We have plenty of recyclable products and our own sewer to feed a hydroponic system that would feed these hemp plants. It would process waste and carbon into a plant that has more uses than I can count.
With hydroponics, lots of real estate that is worthless to build on can be used for hemp patches, piping a rich slurry to feed them, processing our own waste. We don't need to cut into crop lands, hence the "leaching" effect can be controlled.
Of course there are roadblocks to this solution. The cotton industry has been an enemy of hemp, mostly out of fear that it will replace them. Of course we have the anti-drug crowd that will insist that hippies are going to smoke it. Counters to that are that is creates new industry and innovations from a very "green" resource that is not only renewable, but it helps scrub the air. Everyone wins. Except for the hippies who tried to smoke it, who are wreathing in agony from a "ditch weed" headache.
It ended with we are all a bunch of retarded commies and the world is going socialist and the sky is falling.
Seriously people, settle down.
We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security. That means, they don't care about your torrent of that cam of some shitty movie you downloaded. Nor do they care how much music you pirate, or even what porn you watch. We have entrusted them with a shroud of secrecy in order to operate under the radar and find bad guys.
Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone. But until then, we have to remember why we gave them such a mandate to begin with. We also need to remember that ignorance is bliss.
Before I sound like a complete lackey, let me say this; shaking the mechanism that houses the safety on No Such Agency and making sure it still works is a wise idea. Somewhere in the machine there are safeties should they stray out of their mandate to correct themselves. They would have to, in order to remain off the radar and not make domestic enemies. You step on toes, people notice and start looking.
Are they working with Google? Who cares? If they did in light of recent events, then why would that be a bad thing? We should be happy about it. Again, stop being paranoid about your own shit and letting it paint your image of them. Yes, it's a monster, but it's our monster. Stop poking it with a damn stick to see if it will bite your goofy ass.
Look on the bright side, if they are overtly working with Google, (at least to Google) then there is a level of accountability even if it's from exposure. Bluntly put, if they do something fucked up and leave Google holding the bag, Google has enough money to at least punch someone from No Such Agency in the dick. Getting punched in said region isn't good for business and puts No Such Agency on the radar where it becomes vulnerable. Assured mutual destruction can be a wonderful diplomacy tool. Honesty is the best policy, if you start messing around, you shake loose "things" that turn up at the worse possible moment.
It's probably a nervous date between the two. They want to catch bad guys, Google wants to make money and not be sued shitless over privacy rights violations. There is probably an annoying amount of "cover your own ass" protocols that have to be followed that people are getting carpel tunnel signing forms. Anyway, that is how I see it. I don't envision dark evil plots being carried out by minions, that's a DC thing.
To that I must retort with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA
What a wonderfully proactive move! Yet another PR war attack if there ever was one. Follow the logic here; pick out a "trouble maker" in the crowd and make an example of him by means that go over the line and do it in a big public way. If you oversell it, you might not get the reaction you want. But this is "subtle" (don't laugh) and with a slight hint of obfuscation, making it palatable to the OWS slightly paranoid mindset. ("look..we are clever and see you")
It's a salvo round of uncertainty for one's privacy and social network. The election season is drawing nigh and we can feel the OWS crowds lurking for a go at it in our bones. Can we not? This has all of the makings of something big and violent. Think London riots of recent and multiply that by American savagery, anger and angst. This is a stew pot of boiling trouble.
Zuccati* Park was yet another clash point that the NYPD put some serious preventive troops on just recently. There was an anniversary recently and the NYPD was not going to allow another re-invasion of the park. We are talking shock troop armor ready for violent beat down time. These are pictures of America that we should never see. They don't have to hate us for our freedoms now, do they?
This fall will be a defining moment for the country and the world. Its a war of worlds condensed down to an election cycle. Nobody can afford to lose anymore. The tension fogs the air NOW, it promises to foam and boil as the moment draws near. Anxieties will mount fast and so will tempers and emotions.
When the smoke clears, there can be only one.
One might argue that Booth considered himself a patriot, is what the sig is saying I think.
When does anyone wake up and consider themselves a proper villain? I doubt even Hitler thought of himself as a villain.
History determines who is the villain and who is the patriot. The victors write history. Some philosophers might are argue that there is no "right or wrong", just different points of view. The matter seems highly subjective, yet ironically, it's insisted upon being objective by everyone.
It's all one big pot of "Fascist Stew" that has been on the burner for quite a while. From your wording and "tone" I glean that you are a Con and are trying to put some reason to it all. You need far more objectivity.
Follow the money I say. This particular topic concerning this group interests me only in one aspect; who's funding them? My guess is, their backers wanted a low level background noise of decent, and instead got decent on "10" with an over the top message. This draws fire and attention, something they don't want.
One has to first free their own mind before they can have the objectivity to see how this fits into the big picture. I think you are starting to ask the right questions. But if you follow this down the rabbit hole, it gets really ugly. Be prepared to examine all of your instilled values as they are part of the issue of a deeply propagandized nation. Here is a barometer for you; The more sacred the cow, the more it should be tipped.
Follow the money for the answers you seek.
Enjoy that US Mail reference while we still have a US Post Office. Imagine that, with everything digital, it will be much easier for them to eavesdrop. Let's not say the tail wagged the dog, but it works out rather interestingly.
Concerning the OP, I don't think it's a very good idea to ask for this or broadcast it. For one thing, it will be hacked and cracked and abused like a red headed step child enough to make said agency cry a bucket of tears. Second, it's a conduit for counter intelligence, welcome to being played like a fiddle by everyone and their dog with an axe to grind. Third it's going to have a chilling effect on the markets you infest with this boondoggle and by the time the high money players get through on a political rampage, whomever came up with this bright idea will be sifting through moose droppings in Alaska for a rumored microchip once ate by a communist moose on a catnip rampage.
Nice career move, geniuses.
Let's get past all of the Constitutional chest thumping and onto a deeper look at this.
Let's not look at what they said as much as WHY they said it. First let's agree that what they asked for is nothing short of insane. For us in these current climes, that proposal is ludicrous. So why ask for them? What sort of mentality is at play here for that kind of boldness?
What is going on that we don't know about? What kind of clime are they operating in that they expect these "easy bake" implementations. What gross acts are being carried out that acclimate them enough to ask for something like this with a straight face.
Whatever their motivation, this is a blinking red warning light on the dashboard of liberty.
Wrong.