"Why the fuck my fellow Americans are allowing this to happen ?"
What exactly should Americans be doing start a civil war? The surveillance programs are already out in the open for all to see and criticize. At this very moment there are people publically investigating the legality these programs and working towards modifying or totally shutting these intelligence gathering programs down.
"It is not easy to discover vulnerabilities through code examination."
This is blasphemy to all those who argue that if they just had the source code the "many eyes" approach could find and remove any security holes found.
What about Open Source developers who analyze the code looking for weaknesses to exploit? The malware creators of today need to understand their target systems to the nth degree to successfully exploit. Having all the source code for a program or sub-system seems to be a hackers dream come true. I am not saying there should not be open source software but today there is no program or subsystem that cannot be exploited using a combination of social engineering, sloppy server administration which lead to exploiting security holes on systems that have not been patched.
The US should stay out of Syria totally. No attacks, no aid of any kind, and no participation in what passes for diplomacy. Just disappear and make it harder for those in the region to blame the US for all it's troubles. The US government is totally incapable of dealing with that region of the world. Let Syria and the rest of the middle east just disappear off the active radar scope. And also warn the region that when one of the countries or armed groups in the region does something stupid like lobbing a couple of missiles at Israel on a semi-regular basis the US will not reign in the Israelis or force them into any premature ceasefire. And emphasize that the only thing the US will do in those circumstances is resupply the Israeli military if needed.
Why are you fixated on Soviet scientists? The soviet scientists were conscripted if they had anything that could help the war effort. All the other world powers did the exact same thing. After the war there was also a big race by the victors to find and collect every German scientist the could. Oppenheimer and his team were just one example of how non-military scientists can used to help the war effort. Do you think the advances in nuclear science at the time would have advanced as fast it did if we were not fighting a global war? They were working with a unlimited budget and resources and were able to move their ideas from the blackboard to the real world. As a side note remember that besides advancing nuclear science and weaponization at Los Alamos the punched-card machines were introduced thanks to IBM.
The borders of every country in the world has at one time or another been drawn in blood. Sometimes the same border disputes happen more the once. There are several examples of this going on right now all over the world. Israel, Turkey, Iraq, China, Japan, England, Argentina, and Spain all have border disputes or sovereignty conflicts. Every one of these disputes could lead to war under certain conditions. The human race has been fighting wars non-stop ever since there were enough people to pick sides and bash each other over the head with clubs fighting for control of the biggest cave and best looking women. War or the threat of war is not going to disappear any time soon.
As far the F-22 program goes I do have some direct knowledge of the program in general and specific knowledge in some areas. How did I possibly get this knowledge? Well it turns out that I have been a Software Engineer and HMI designer for over 25 years. You should be able to see the connection. The F-22 was basically in concept and design mode for 20 years before the started building the plane. When they started they had no where near the computing power needed to implement certain capabilities that were on the drawing board. They did not have the materials to implement the stealth capabilities. This one program was able to feed tons of money and raised the priority of the research into the advancements they needed. The various vendors did make advancements in sensors and control system technologies that they incorporated into some of their non-military projects way before the plane was built.
The US has nothing to lose by just stepping back and letting that entire region sort themselves out by themselves. The sad thing is I don't see anyone or anything that could bring peace to that region. The US have no interests in Syria, Lebanon, or Iran. The US does have some interests in Israel but Israel is more than capable of protecting themselves if necessary. The last thing any of the countries in the region want is a real shooting war with Israel.
"The US was the first for the sole reason of being mostly untouched by the war."
Yes, The US did greatly benefit and is still benefiting from being basically untouched after the war. No question of it.
"Anyway, the point is, war does not speed up scientific and technical advance"
No the point is you are wrong. You are arguing "might" and "could have" and I am arguing "did" and "was". WW2 is just one example where technology advancements were fast tracked and cost was not a limiting factor. However you can go back to the Roman Empire and follow the rapid advancements in technology they made as it expanded. Military and civilian technology went hand in hand in that time period. Unfortunately when Rome finally fell it ushered in the Dark Ages and a lot of their advancements and knowledge across all disciplines was lost. Today if you just look at the F-22 program you will see radical advancements in processor design, high speed data interfaces that dwarf anything available found outside of the military, advances in metallurgy and material sciences, and advancements in HMI design which will eventually be introduced into civilian uses. To make advances in these areas run up some serious R&D costs that inhibit and slow down private companies, privately sponsored research centers, and research university efforts.
Because of the way in which this whole conflict has been mismanaged if the US does nothing you will hear Iran, Syria, Russia, and Hezbollah claiming the US was scared. Since no one seems to care about the actual citizens being killed I will go the same route and say the US should at least destroy any airstrips being used by the Syrian air force, neutralize a section of their air defense systems, and destroy any jets or helicopters that happen to be in the air or sitting on the ground. This strike package would keep civilian deaths low. The strike won't actually help any civilians or end the conflict but since nobody seems to care about them it is really not a factor in making this decision. And last but not least give Putin a great big fuck you by loudly announcing how easy it was to render the Russian supplied air defense systems ineffective. The US did it in the first Iraq war and more recently in Libya. Israel has already hit targets inside of Syria 3 times in the past 6 months without losing a single plane. I find it hard to believe the Syrian radar officers just happened to be at lunch or in the bathroom every time Israel attacked. Russia and Iran have a lot to lose right now. If the US does strike despite Russia's warning Putin will look week and US-Russian relations would nosedive even further than they already are but who cares. If Iran or Hezbollah attempt to retaliate by shooting off a couple of missiles at Israel they would give Israel all the reason they need to finish off Hezbollah once and for all because the US will not step in and force any type of cease fire and Israel can finally take care of their problem. However, if the US does not attack then they should announce they are washing their hands of the entire matter. This includes no humanitarian aid or arms and refuse to participate in any worthless negotiations or summits that never accomplish a single thing. And finally announce the US will not help enforce UN declarations and international laws governing war behavior. Nobody else cares so why should the US?
Endless amounts of funding trumps Priority every time. During a war nobody worries about how much anything costs because trying to prosecute an all or nothing war on a budget just doesn't work. The US government nuclear weapons development program was estimated to have cost over 3 billion dollars in the 1940's. Can you imagine anyone arguing not to pursue the project because it's not in the budget?
The US was also doing nuclear research just like Russia, Japan, and Germany. The US was just the first to actually create and deploy a viable weapon. Unlike today back then people were willing to take risks to achieve their goals. The fact that the US was in the middle of a war allowed the US to justify raising the risk level that would have been unacceptable in peace time. Some of the scientist at Los Alamos didn't rule out the possibility of the nuclear reaction igniting the atmosphere. It is also widely documented knowledge that Russia stole the US nuclear research performed at Lo Alamos which enabled them to speed up their advancements. At Potsdam Truman told Stalin about the nuclear bomb development but Stalin already knew. That was back when foreign intelligence services had the gall to actually spy on their enemies and allies. Technology advancements in the USSR were brought to a virtual stop before the war started. Stalin had killed or imprisoned anyone that might challenge his authority. When Germany invaded Stalin had to send search parties to the various gulags to retrieve all the military officers, scientists, and engineers he had condemned for various reasons. The designer of their main battle tank was one such person.
War speeds up advances in both science and technology. For example had WW2 not happened the advances in electromagnetic field theory (radar),aviation technology, and nuclear technology would not have happened as quickly as it did. The technology advances to create ICBMs provided the technology needed to go to the moon. War or the threat of war has accelerated the advancements in satellite technology to provide things like GPS services. Even the early internet started out as a DARPA project focused on distributed network capabilities for military command and control applications. It's amazing how fast you can advance technology when someone is trying to kill you. And war is definitely a destructive force but that is the whole point. The winners get to determine what type of government will be used. The recent violence in Egypt was about determining what type of government the rule the state. You might get a government to change a little policy now and then by standing in the street and holding up signs but if you really want a whole sale change it will involve violence.
Since the beginning of time the only real changes have been won by violence of one kind or another. I don't give a shit whether the government US bombs the hell out of Syria or do anything else for that matter. Let Syria and the surrounding region deal with it anyway they wish. The only way this type of violence happens is because of the inability of the members of the UN security council to put petty politics ahead of security. Every country on the security council has condemned the gas attacks so why can't Russia accept even a UN non-binding resolution condemning the Syrian government. The resolution is just a piece of paper that doesn't authorize any military action and does not specifically blame anyone for the gas attack. It's basically a formal acknowledgement of the conflict in general. How does Russia and China justify their stance on this purely symbolic action?
Anti-American animosity is the primary cause for every evil in the world today. It is the easiest position to take in any geo-political argument. Its doesn't require any actual facts and is easy to understand by any idiot who can not understand any thing more complicated.
I hate to break the bad news but the government has been documenting you long before the Internet existed. Birth Certificates, SSN, school records at every level, marriage licenses, car registrations, insurance records, credit history, income taxes, employment history, and private property registrations are some of the more common. And now people are freaking out about the government getting your call meta data (basically your phone bill with no bill amounts) and possibly but unlikely reading the contents of your e-mail.
No. At the time nobody really made a fuss over the Shah taking over the government. It was remarkably free of the organized mayhem seen today when power is transferred from one person or group to another. The US did supply money and promises of profitable future economic relations. The British went a little further by sending a couple of warships in to block Iranian oil exports all in a bid to stop the nationalization of their oil company assets. In general what the Shah did was not technically illegal because Iran's governmental precepts and rules gave the ruling Monarch the power to replace the Prime Minister under certain conditions. In 1979 the Iranian people replaced an anti-Islamic autocrat with a hardcore religious dictator. The liberals and student progressives of the time who initially started the wave of protests to remove the Shah were more interested in holding US embassy staff members as hostages then actually organizing and running their country. While they were playing around with the hostages the Islamic party took control of everything and then proceeded to kill or imprison anyone who offered up a different opinion on how to organize and run a country. Sort of like the protesters in Egypt rallied against Mubarak while the MB stood in the background claiming how they supported the protest but were not going to put up any candidates for Mubarak's replacement and we have all seen how that worked out. To bad the Iranians of 1979 couldn't of engineered a do over revolution after just one year.
The US should just needs to add gas masks and chemical protective clothing to the next non-lethal assistance goody bag and let things play out. If the more civilized countries of the world can stomach indiscriminant killings than I guess the US shouldn't rock the boat. I am afraid it is going to take another WW2 era holocaust to once again remind the world just how petty and inconsequential their political stances and politicized morality really are.
How do you know the CIA is well funded? Do you have the yearly budget for all the other Foreign Intelligence organizations in the world to make a comparison? And it should be very clear by now that the US public and even some US governmental agencies do not give a shit about what those outside of the US think. It's also become a gigantic waste of time of money trying to play nice with others outside the US. People in the US continue to hear nothing but complaints, accusations, and personal insults that do not do anything except increase the level of animosity the average citizen feels to those outside their borders.
Their network wasn't hacked. The guy was a system admin with password lists, administrator level security rights, and physical access. The PRISM information came from a PowerPoint presentation and contained no technical details on how the system described was actually implemented. The PP presentation looked more like a presentation used to garner additional funding. Securing this type of funding always leads to promising a whole host of shit upfront but in reality the promises tend to come up short. The latest claims are based on a budget document that contained no technical or operational details. How much more data can be released about US foreign intelligence service activities is it going to take to move Snowden from a whistleblower hoping to enlighten US citizens to a full fledged traitor. If he keeps it up even Russia won't be able to protect him. If you believe the US should not have any foreign intelligence activities I am sure they will close down the shop as soon as every other country in the world does.
It would probably be wise to find out exactly where their 2.5 million seed money came from. However, now is the perfect time to invest in businesses trying to offer services that will keep your e-mail safe from government intrusion. It doesn't really matter if they can actually deliver the level of security they are advertising. Just by leveraging the publics bloated paranoia you can start making some real money. The first anti-virus tools where in response to the first widely published piece of malware and look at the number of companies milking that cash cow. Companies are making money hand over fist even though there is not a single anti-virus tool on the market today that can promise 100% protection.
"I... is this sarcasm? I can't tell. When has anyone, anyone outside of maybe those two countries said such a thing?"
A little sarcasm but for the most part it is an observation that can be easily verified.. Just look at any political forum, political blog, or newspaper and you will see people declaring the US the reincarnation of the 3rd Reich.
The Castro brothers are getting old and will not be around much longer. Once they are gone I believe you will see a different attitude from those in the US and Cuba who realize both countries gain nothing by continuing the same type of adversarial relationship and actually stand to gain quite a lot if relations can finally be normalized. This cannot be done until the Castro brothers are gone because Fidel has defined his entire life as being a fighter against US imperialism and to adopt any different strategy at this point in his life is impossible.
Since you were alive to see the Cold War you must have been alive in 1983 when the world came the closest to unrestricted nuclear war in it's history. The Russians interpreted a US-NATO Nuclear War Game as being a cover for a real attack. They misinterpreted some sketchy radar returns that could have indicated real launches and they started arming there missiles for launch. While the Russians have always had a lot of intelligence operatives their main weakness back then was integrating and analyzing all the different pieces of information gathered by their agents to really see the big picture. In this case a Russian spy working as a NATO military staffer told his Russian superiors that the war game was not real and used the fact that Reagan was on a foreign visit and had the war game been real he doubted the US President would be anywhere other than a deep bunker somewhere in the US. The real scary thing was a Russian military officer who was part of the process of arming and releasing their nuclear weapons refused to authorize the release. This officer was later arrested and charged with crimes against the Russian state but he had his sentence silently commuted several years after the incident. So saying no one would launch nuclear weapons is a weak foundation for your argument.
Slashdot Mirror
"Why the fuck my fellow Americans are allowing this to happen ?"
What exactly should Americans be doing start a civil war? The surveillance programs are already out in the open for all to see and criticize. At this very moment there are people publically investigating the legality these programs and working towards modifying or totally shutting these intelligence gathering programs down.
"It is not easy to discover vulnerabilities through code examination."
This is blasphemy to all those who argue that if they just had the source code the "many eyes" approach could find and remove any security holes found.
What about Open Source developers who analyze the code looking for weaknesses to exploit? The malware creators of today need to understand their target systems to the nth degree to successfully exploit. Having all the source code for a program or sub-system seems to be a hackers dream come true. I am not saying there should not be open source software but today there is no program or subsystem that cannot be exploited using a combination of social engineering, sloppy server administration which lead to exploiting security holes on systems that have not been patched.
The US should stay out of Syria totally. No attacks, no aid of any kind, and no participation in what passes for diplomacy. Just disappear and make it harder for those in the region to blame the US for all it's troubles. The US government is totally incapable of dealing with that region of the world. Let Syria and the rest of the middle east just disappear off the active radar scope. And also warn the region that when one of the countries or armed groups in the region does something stupid like lobbing a couple of missiles at Israel on a semi-regular basis the US will not reign in the Israelis or force them into any premature ceasefire. And emphasize that the only thing the US will do in those circumstances is resupply the Israeli military if needed.
Why are you fixated on Soviet scientists? The soviet scientists were conscripted if they had anything that could help the war effort. All the other world powers did the exact same thing. After the war there was also a big race by the victors to find and collect every German scientist the could. Oppenheimer and his team were just one example of how non-military scientists can used to help the war effort. Do you think the advances in nuclear science at the time would have advanced as fast it did if we were not fighting a global war? They were working with a unlimited budget and resources and were able to move their ideas from the blackboard to the real world. As a side note remember that besides advancing nuclear science and weaponization at Los Alamos the punched-card machines were introduced thanks to IBM.
The borders of every country in the world has at one time or another been drawn in blood. Sometimes the same border disputes happen more the once. There are several examples of this going on right now all over the world. Israel, Turkey, Iraq, China, Japan, England, Argentina, and Spain all have border disputes or sovereignty conflicts. Every one of these disputes could lead to war under certain conditions. The human race has been fighting wars non-stop ever since there were enough people to pick sides and bash each other over the head with clubs fighting for control of the biggest cave and best looking women. War or the threat of war is not going to disappear any time soon.
As far the F-22 program goes I do have some direct knowledge of the program in general and specific knowledge in some areas. How did I possibly get this knowledge? Well it turns out that I have been a Software Engineer and HMI designer for over 25 years. You should be able to see the connection. The F-22 was basically in concept and design mode for 20 years before the started building the plane. When they started they had no where near the computing power needed to implement certain capabilities that were on the drawing board. They did not have the materials to implement the stealth capabilities. This one program was able to feed tons of money and raised the priority of the research into the advancements they needed. The various vendors did make advancements in sensors and control system technologies that they incorporated into some of their non-military projects way before the plane was built.
The US has nothing to lose by just stepping back and letting that entire region sort themselves out by themselves. The sad thing is I don't see anyone or anything that could bring peace to that region. The US have no interests in Syria, Lebanon, or Iran. The US does have some interests in Israel but Israel is more than capable of protecting themselves if necessary. The last thing any of the countries in the region want is a real shooting war with Israel.
"The US was the first for the sole reason of being mostly untouched by the war."
Yes, The US did greatly benefit and is still benefiting from being basically untouched after the war. No question of it.
"Anyway, the point is, war does not speed up scientific and technical advance"
No the point is you are wrong. You are arguing "might" and "could have" and I am arguing "did" and "was". WW2 is just one example where technology advancements were fast tracked and cost was not a limiting factor. However you can go back to the Roman Empire and follow the rapid advancements in technology they made as it expanded. Military and civilian technology went hand in hand in that time period. Unfortunately when Rome finally fell it ushered in the Dark Ages and a lot of their advancements and knowledge across all disciplines was lost. Today if you just look at the F-22 program you will see radical advancements in processor design, high speed data interfaces that dwarf anything available found outside of the military, advances in metallurgy and material sciences, and advancements in HMI design which will eventually be introduced into civilian uses. To make advances in these areas run up some serious R&D costs that inhibit and slow down private companies, privately sponsored research centers, and research university efforts.
"simply not bomb Syria"
Because of the way in which this whole conflict has been mismanaged if the US does nothing you will hear Iran, Syria, Russia, and Hezbollah claiming the US was scared. Since no one seems to care about the actual citizens being killed I will go the same route and say the US should at least destroy any airstrips being used by the Syrian air force, neutralize a section of their air defense systems, and destroy any jets or helicopters that happen to be in the air or sitting on the ground. This strike package would keep civilian deaths low. The strike won't actually help any civilians or end the conflict but since nobody seems to care about them it is really not a factor in making this decision. And last but not least give Putin a great big fuck you by loudly announcing how easy it was to render the Russian supplied air defense systems ineffective. The US did it in the first Iraq war and more recently in Libya. Israel has already hit targets inside of Syria 3 times in the past 6 months without losing a single plane. I find it hard to believe the Syrian radar officers just happened to be at lunch or in the bathroom every time Israel attacked. Russia and Iran have a lot to lose right now. If the US does strike despite Russia's warning Putin will look week and US-Russian relations would nosedive even further than they already are but who cares. If Iran or Hezbollah attempt to retaliate by shooting off a couple of missiles at Israel they would give Israel all the reason they need to finish off Hezbollah once and for all because the US will not step in and force any type of cease fire and Israel can finally take care of their problem. However, if the US does not attack then they should announce they are washing their hands of the entire matter. This includes no humanitarian aid or arms and refuse to participate in any worthless negotiations or summits that never accomplish a single thing. And finally announce the US will not help enforce UN declarations and international laws governing war behavior. Nobody else cares so why should the US?
Endless amounts of funding trumps Priority every time. During a war nobody worries about how much anything costs because trying to prosecute an all or nothing war on a budget just doesn't work. The US government nuclear weapons development program was estimated to have cost over 3 billion dollars in the 1940's. Can you imagine anyone arguing not to pursue the project because it's not in the budget?
The US was also doing nuclear research just like Russia, Japan, and Germany. The US was just the first to actually create and deploy a viable weapon. Unlike today back then people were willing to take risks to achieve their goals. The fact that the US was in the middle of a war allowed the US to justify raising the risk level that would have been unacceptable in peace time. Some of the scientist at Los Alamos didn't rule out the possibility of the nuclear reaction igniting the atmosphere. It is also widely documented knowledge that Russia stole the US nuclear research performed at Lo Alamos which enabled them to speed up their advancements. At Potsdam Truman told Stalin about the nuclear bomb development but Stalin already knew. That was back when foreign intelligence services had the gall to actually spy on their enemies and allies. Technology advancements in the USSR were brought to a virtual stop before the war started. Stalin had killed or imprisoned anyone that might challenge his authority. When Germany invaded Stalin had to send search parties to the various gulags to retrieve all the military officers, scientists, and engineers he had condemned for various reasons. The designer of their main battle tank was one such person.
" science, education and exploration"
War speeds up advances in both science and technology. For example had WW2 not happened the advances in electromagnetic field theory (radar),aviation technology, and nuclear technology would not have happened as quickly as it did. The technology advances to create ICBMs provided the technology needed to go to the moon. War or the threat of war has accelerated the advancements in satellite technology to provide things like GPS services. Even the early internet started out as a DARPA project focused on distributed network capabilities for military command and control applications. It's amazing how fast you can advance technology when someone is trying to kill you. And war is definitely a destructive force but that is the whole point. The winners get to determine what type of government will be used. The recent violence in Egypt was about determining what type of government the rule the state. You might get a government to change a little policy now and then by standing in the street and holding up signs but if you really want a whole sale change it will involve violence.
Since the beginning of time the only real changes have been won by violence of one kind or another. I don't give a shit whether the government US bombs the hell out of Syria or do anything else for that matter. Let Syria and the surrounding region deal with it anyway they wish. The only way this type of violence happens is because of the inability of the members of the UN security council to put petty politics ahead of security. Every country on the security council has condemned the gas attacks so why can't Russia accept even a UN non-binding resolution condemning the Syrian government. The resolution is just a piece of paper that doesn't authorize any military action and does not specifically blame anyone for the gas attack. It's basically a formal acknowledgement of the conflict in general. How does Russia and China justify their stance on this purely symbolic action?
Anti-American animosity is the primary cause for every evil in the world today. It is the easiest position to take in any geo-political argument. Its doesn't require any actual facts and is easy to understand by any idiot who can not understand any thing more complicated.
I hate to break the bad news but the government has been documenting you long before the Internet existed. Birth Certificates, SSN, school records at every level, marriage licenses, car registrations, insurance records, credit history, income taxes, employment history, and private property registrations are some of the more common. And now people are freaking out about the government getting your call meta data (basically your phone bill with no bill amounts) and possibly but unlikely reading the contents of your e-mail.
No. At the time nobody really made a fuss over the Shah taking over the government. It was remarkably free of the organized mayhem seen today when power is transferred from one person or group to another. The US did supply money and promises of profitable future economic relations. The British went a little further by sending a couple of warships in to block Iranian oil exports all in a bid to stop the nationalization of their oil company assets. In general what the Shah did was not technically illegal because Iran's governmental precepts and rules gave the ruling Monarch the power to replace the Prime Minister under certain conditions. In 1979 the Iranian people replaced an anti-Islamic autocrat with a hardcore religious dictator. The liberals and student progressives of the time who initially started the wave of protests to remove the Shah were more interested in holding US embassy staff members as hostages then actually organizing and running their country. While they were playing around with the hostages the Islamic party took control of everything and then proceeded to kill or imprison anyone who offered up a different opinion on how to organize and run a country. Sort of like the protesters in Egypt rallied against Mubarak while the MB stood in the background claiming how they supported the protest but were not going to put up any candidates for Mubarak's replacement and we have all seen how that worked out. To bad the Iranians of 1979 couldn't of engineered a do over revolution after just one year.
The US should just needs to add gas masks and chemical protective clothing to the next non-lethal assistance goody bag and let things play out. If the more civilized countries of the world can stomach indiscriminant killings than I guess the US shouldn't rock the boat. I am afraid it is going to take another WW2 era holocaust to once again remind the world just how petty and inconsequential their political stances and politicized morality really are.
The US didn't make a fuss over Iraq using them against Iran because of the little disagreement the US had with Iran in 1979.
How do you know the CIA is well funded? Do you have the yearly budget for all the other Foreign Intelligence organizations in the world to make a comparison? And it should be very clear by now that the US public and even some US governmental agencies do not give a shit about what those outside of the US think. It's also become a gigantic waste of time of money trying to play nice with others outside the US. People in the US continue to hear nothing but complaints, accusations, and personal insults that do not do anything except increase the level of animosity the average citizen feels to those outside their borders.
Your Moroccan friend is definitely not alone. Add the US boogeyman into the mix and you can deflect any problem large or small.
Auto regenerated passwords every day on multiple machines. Write them down. There is your list.
Their network wasn't hacked. The guy was a system admin with password lists, administrator level security rights, and physical access. The PRISM information came from a PowerPoint presentation and contained no technical details on how the system described was actually implemented. The PP presentation looked more like a presentation used to garner additional funding. Securing this type of funding always leads to promising a whole host of shit upfront but in reality the promises tend to come up short. The latest claims are based on a budget document that contained no technical or operational details. How much more data can be released about US foreign intelligence service activities is it going to take to move Snowden from a whistleblower hoping to enlighten US citizens to a full fledged traitor. If he keeps it up even Russia won't be able to protect him. If you believe the US should not have any foreign intelligence activities I am sure they will close down the shop as soon as every other country in the world does.
It would probably be wise to find out exactly where their 2.5 million seed money came from. However, now is the perfect time to invest in businesses trying to offer services that will keep your e-mail safe from government intrusion. It doesn't really matter if they can actually deliver the level of security they are advertising. Just by leveraging the publics bloated paranoia you can start making some real money. The first anti-virus tools where in response to the first widely published piece of malware and look at the number of companies milking that cash cow. Companies are making money hand over fist even though there is not a single anti-virus tool on the market today that can promise 100% protection.
"I... is this sarcasm? I can't tell. When has anyone, anyone outside of maybe those two countries said such a thing?"
A little sarcasm but for the most part it is an observation that can be easily verified.. Just look at any political forum, political blog, or newspaper and you will see people declaring the US the reincarnation of the 3rd Reich.
The Castro brothers are getting old and will not be around much longer. Once they are gone I believe you will see a different attitude from those in the US and Cuba who realize both countries gain nothing by continuing the same type of adversarial relationship and actually stand to gain quite a lot if relations can finally be normalized. This cannot be done until the Castro brothers are gone because Fidel has defined his entire life as being a fighter against US imperialism and to adopt any different strategy at this point in his life is impossible.
Since you were alive to see the Cold War you must have been alive in 1983 when the world came the closest to unrestricted nuclear war in it's history. The Russians interpreted a US-NATO Nuclear War Game as being a cover for a real attack. They misinterpreted some sketchy radar returns that could have indicated real launches and they started arming there missiles for launch. While the Russians have always had a lot of intelligence operatives their main weakness back then was integrating and analyzing all the different pieces of information gathered by their agents to really see the big picture. In this case a Russian spy working as a NATO military staffer told his Russian superiors that the war game was not real and used the fact that Reagan was on a foreign visit and had the war game been real he doubted the US President would be anywhere other than a deep bunker somewhere in the US. The real scary thing was a Russian military officer who was part of the process of arming and releasing their nuclear weapons refused to authorize the release. This officer was later arrested and charged with crimes against the Russian state but he had his sentence silently commuted several years after the incident. So saying no one would launch nuclear weapons is a weak foundation for your argument.