Or maybe the gov't genuinely believes these programs are necessary and the parties profiting from these programs are good snakes oil salesmen. After all, the gov't spends tens of billions each year, so you can bet whoever is at the receiving end of that will do whatever they can to keep the cash flowing. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.
"open source" refers to analysis of publicly available information such as news, social media, etc. (https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/analytical/open-source-officer-foreign-media-analyst.html)
There was a time, believe it or not, when profitable companies would generally not layoff people because the company was, uh, profitable. If a company did layoff people the stock market usually took it as an indication that something was wrong (which it generally was).
It already is happening. The amount of interest we pay as a % of total tax revenue collected has been steadily rising and is at a a 10 year high even though the interest rate on treasury bonds is at relatively low levels. In other words the money we're borrowing is really cheap, yet we're borrowing so much of it that we're still paying more in interest relative to total revenues collected than we have in the past decade and there's no reason to believe that we will be able to continue to borrow money cheaply especially if we increase our public debt too much.
We will never send real resources backwards in time in order to "repay" public debts.
Who said anything about sending resources back in time? We'll send our resources to our creditors and as the debt and interest increase future generations will have to send more of it to our creditors than we do now. You seem to think that increased spending leads to increased output but that's debatable and even if you do get an increase in output you can't guarantee that it will be domestic output.
Centrally controlled surveillance is dangerous, expensive, and inefficient. It must be limited in a democratic society. Decentralized, community based surveillance has great potential to improve overall quality of life, especially on public roads, where every idiot has a license to kill with their own stupidity.
Yeah let's outsource surveillance to the community so that neighbors spy and tell on each other. That doesn't sound like a police state at all.
His earlier thought returned to him; probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all.
authorized by and deemed legal by Congress and the court system
That's not entirely true. The court system has not ruled one way or another whether the secret programs are legal. The Supreme Court has so far refused to hear cases brought against the NSA's spying program because the defendands have not been able to prove that their constituional rights were violated by these programs (due to their secret nature) but with Snowden's leaks they can now easily prove that their communications have in fact been targeted and, as a Verizon customer, the ACLU has filed a case against the NSA in federal court.
Thanks to Snowden the Supreme Court will likely be forced to rule on the constitutionality of these programs and if they are found uncsontitutional it matters not what laws Congress passed or Executive Orders the President issued to authorize them because those all become null and void.
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it.....
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
The solution is to let the gov't know we won't stand for this. If a large enough number of people protest, the government will listen but yes the question is whether Brits & Americans have become too pussified for this to happen. But just because something doesn't seem possible today doesn't mean it isn't possible. Just look at the protests in Brazil:
Just a few weeks ago, Mayara Vivian felt pretty good when a few hundred people showed up for a protest she helped organize to deride the government over a proposed bus fare increase... But when tens of thousands of protesters thronged the streets this week, rattling cities across the country in a reckoning this nation had not experienced in decades, she was dumbfounded, at a loss to explain how it could have happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/americas/brazil-protests.html
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
Senator Wyden made quite a lot out of your exchange with him last March during the hearings. Can you explain what you meant when you said that there was not data collection on millions of Americans?
JAMES CLAPPER:
First-- as I said, I have great respect for Senator Wyden. I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked-- "When are you going to start-- stop beating your wife" kind of question, which is meaning not-- answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.
Even after getting caught lying under oath they still can not tell the truth. Yet they want us to believe they're being truthful and that Snowden is lying.
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” Mark Twain
If it's unconstitutional then what the NSA has been doing CERTAINLY is a crime regardless of any other laws that have been passed. The constitution is the supreme law of the land and trumps any other laws:
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it.....
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
Unlike Bradley Manning who just dumped all the info he had access to, Snowden only released documents that showed how the gov't was infringing on people's rights. Snowden had access to "the roster of all agents and operating stations". I wish people would stop comparing him to Manning.
Has it ever occurred to you that most people who are against this type of snooping do not doubt the program's effectiveness of stopping terrorists but are simply not willing to trade their liberty for safety? "Give me liberty or give me death" has turned into "Take my liberty for a little bit of safety".
Guess you didn't RTFA. He was going to blow the whistle but held off when Obama got elected because he hoped things would change, instead, they only got worse. Please understand that the "left vs right" thing is just a distraction. Both parties are happily taking our liberties away.
He wanted to go on the record to verify the authenticity of the leaked documents, that they were not altered in any way, and to confirm that what the documents state is actually happening. It was just a matter of time before the gov't figured out his identity, so at least now he has a chance to tell his side of the story in face of all the denials coming out of Washington.
People like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald are literally putting their lives on the line to fight for our freedoms. It's disturbing that you're willing to reap the benefit of their sacrifices while you wait it out in Canada.
Democratic senator Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
NSA Director James Clapper: "No sir, not Intentionally."
How do you reconcile Mr. Clapper's response with the Verizon court order?
"It is hereby ordered that [Verizon Business Network Services'] Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,"
A lot of pessimistic posters are saying how nothing will change and people don't care. I wonder if this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you're one of these people, have you done ALL of the following?
Donate to the ACLU and EFF
Stop supporting BOTH Democrats and Republicans and start supporting a third party
Write all of your representatives in Congress and the Senate
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
If you have a problem with this blatant invasion of our privacy and continue to vote for the same two parties that have always been in power then you have no right to complain. BOTH Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the destruction of our rights over the past two decades and it's time we remove them from office.
And if you talk yourself into "voting for the lesser evil" then you need to think hard if there's really much of any difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe the gov't genuinely believes these programs are necessary and the parties profiting from these programs are good snakes oil salesmen. After all, the gov't spends tens of billions each year, so you can bet whoever is at the receiving end of that will do whatever they can to keep the cash flowing. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.
It does line someone's pockets. Maintaining and enforcing a no-fly list costs money. Follow the money.
"open source" refers to analysis of publicly available information such as news, social media, etc. (https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/analytical/open-source-officer-foreign-media-analyst.html)
There was a time, believe it or not, when profitable companies would generally not layoff people because the company was, uh, profitable. If a company did layoff people the stock market usually took it as an indication that something was wrong (which it generally was).
Ah yes, I can remember those times as if they were a few hours ago - maybe because they were: Cisco to cut 4,000 jobs; stock falls 10%
It already is happening. The amount of interest we pay as a % of total tax revenue collected has been steadily rising and is at a a 10 year high even though the interest rate on treasury bonds is at relatively low levels. In other words the money we're borrowing is really cheap, yet we're borrowing so much of it that we're still paying more in interest relative to total revenues collected than we have in the past decade and there's no reason to believe that we will be able to continue to borrow money cheaply especially if we increase our public debt too much.
We will never send real resources backwards in time in order to "repay" public debts.
Who said anything about sending resources back in time? We'll send our resources to our creditors and as the debt and interest increase future generations will have to send more of it to our creditors than we do now. You seem to think that increased spending leads to increased output but that's debatable and even if you do get an increase in output you can't guarantee that it will be domestic output.
The NSA called an emergency private briefing to lobby the house against the amendment, so maybe it does matter: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/keith-alexander-justin-amash_n_3639329.html
Centrally controlled surveillance is dangerous, expensive, and inefficient. It must be limited in a democratic society. Decentralized, community based surveillance has great potential to improve overall quality of life, especially on public roads, where every idiot has a license to kill with their own stupidity.
Yeah let's outsource surveillance to the community so that neighbors spy and tell on each other. That doesn't sound like a police state at all.
His earlier thought returned to him; probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all.
I don't tend to use the internet (or my computer) in a way that would make me susceptible to most infections
Vast majority of malware attacks spawned from legit sites
Maybe people aren't concerned about Amazon getting a monopoly on ebooks because Apple and Google are viable competitors.
authorized by and deemed legal by Congress and the court system
That's not entirely true. The court system has not ruled one way or another whether the secret programs are legal. The Supreme Court has so far refused to hear cases brought against the NSA's spying program because the defendands have not been able to prove that their constituional rights were violated by these programs (due to their secret nature) but with Snowden's leaks they can now easily prove that their communications have in fact been targeted and, as a Verizon customer, the ACLU has filed a case against the NSA in federal court.
Thanks to Snowden the Supreme Court will likely be forced to rule on the constitutionality of these programs and if they are found uncsontitutional it matters not what laws Congress passed or Executive Orders the President issued to authorize them because those all become null and void.
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it.....
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
The solution is to let the gov't know we won't stand for this. If a large enough number of people protest, the government will listen but yes the question is whether Brits & Americans have become too pussified for this to happen. But just because something doesn't seem possible today doesn't mean it isn't possible. Just look at the protests in Brazil:
Just a few weeks ago, Mayara Vivian felt pretty good when a few hundred people showed up for a protest she helped organize to deride the government over a proposed bus fare increase ... But when tens of thousands of protesters thronged the streets this week, rattling cities across the country in a reckoning this nation had not experienced in decades, she was dumbfounded, at a loss to explain how it could have happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/americas/brazil-protests.html
Millions protest in Brazil
Brazilian girl calls to protest (english sub)
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
They're only asking to be allowed to release counts, not the content of the requests.
So they're only asking to release metadata, which according to Mr. Clapper isn't a type of data, so I don't see why the gov't would reject this.
ANDREA MITCHELL:
Senator Wyden made quite a lot out of your exchange with him last March during the hearings. Can you explain what you meant when you said that there was not data collection on millions of Americans?
JAMES CLAPPER:
First-- as I said, I have great respect for Senator Wyden. I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked-- "When are you going to start-- stop beating your wife" kind of question, which is meaning not-- answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.
Even after getting caught lying under oath they still can not tell the truth. Yet they want us to believe they're being truthful and that Snowden is lying.
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” Mark Twain
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it.....
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
Unlike Bradley Manning who just dumped all the info he had access to, Snowden only released documents that showed how the gov't was infringing on people's rights. Snowden had access to "the roster of all agents and operating stations". I wish people would stop comparing him to Manning.
Has it ever occurred to you that most people who are against this type of snooping do not doubt the program's effectiveness of stopping terrorists but are simply not willing to trade their liberty for safety? "Give me liberty or give me death" has turned into "Take my liberty for a little bit of safety".
Guess you didn't RTFA. He was going to blow the whistle but held off when Obama got elected because he hoped things would change, instead, they only got worse. Please understand that the "left vs right" thing is just a distraction. Both parties are happily taking our liberties away.
He wanted to go on the record to verify the authenticity of the leaked documents, that they were not altered in any way, and to confirm that what the documents state is actually happening. It was just a matter of time before the gov't figured out his identity, so at least now he has a chance to tell his side of the story in face of all the denials coming out of Washington.
People like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald are literally putting their lives on the line to fight for our freedoms. It's disturbing that you're willing to reap the benefit of their sacrifices while you wait it out in Canada.
Democratic senator Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
NSA Director James Clapper: "No sir, not Intentionally."
How do you reconcile Mr. Clapper's response with the Verizon court order?
"It is hereby ordered that [Verizon Business Network Services'] Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,"
Mr. Clapper LIED. There's no way around it.
A lot of pessimistic posters are saying how nothing will change and people don't care. I wonder if this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you're one of these people, have you done ALL of the following?
If the answer is no, then YOU are the problem.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
If you have a problem with this blatant invasion of our privacy and continue to vote for the same two parties that have always been in power then you have no right to complain. BOTH Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the destruction of our rights over the past two decades and it's time we remove them from office.
And if you talk yourself into "voting for the lesser evil" then you need to think hard if there's really much of any difference between Republicans and Democrats.