I think that's the problem with the notion that "our rights are being taken away to defend them."
How so, PROVABLY? By that I mean, not things one THINKS the government is doing, or things one THINKS are "illegal" — but actual, provable, demonstrable ways that rights are being taken away.
What, substantively, less can you do today that you could do "before 9/11"? Twenty years ago? Fifty? How have YOUR rights been curtailed in an actual meaningful, specific, describable way?
What can you, in real terms, NOT do now that you could do in, say, 1992?
The trouble is that there is a lot of vague talk about, "Papers, please!", 1984, fascism, a police state, and so on, but the reality is simply that we find out more about government faster than ever before.
But what about...[insert ANYTHING here: The PATRIOT Act, the TSA, "warrantless wiretapping", wars, perceived government abuse]? None of this — NONE — is anything new to the United States before or after 9/11. Yes the names and controversies are new, but the fact that controversy exists, the fact that abuses, real or perceived, exist — none of this is anything new. We just hear about it, faster, and in greater detail than ever before, and it enters an echo-chamber where people believe that our nation is really at a magical turning point and that we're teetering on the edge of becoming a "fascist" police state, if it hasn't already occurred. (I hope those people never have to experience actual fascism or police states.)
I'm not saying we're perfect, I'm not saying mistakes aren't made, and I'm not saying we as a people can't always be vigilant and strive to make our nation better. What I am saying is that the ideals we stand for don't protect and preserve themselves. How you interpret that statement is up to you — but I hope people realize that there are very real threats that don't come from within, and that we didn't create, and we need to have some level of effectiveness to counter them.
To you and the other commenters bringing up labor, yes, I am quite aware. But Marxists believe this is a constant, something that is tied almost exclusively to manpower alone, and that workers in a Capitalist system are always "exploited", by design, because they do not own the means of production. Except that under Marxism, almost all of the value is put on labor-power, not on innovation, special skills, new technologies, and similar — and there is no incentive to create anything.
Do you think the internet or anything even remotely resembling a free global flow of information would exist in a Marxist utopia (aside for a moment the fact that die hard Marxists probably believe the world would be so wonderful a place that we wouldn't need free flows of information between and among people)? Do you really believe the world would be a better place? Please educate all of us on why Marxism is such a great system and worthy of any sort of respect or admiration.
Capitalism generally espouses the view that wealth can be created.
Communism generally espouses the view that wealth can only be transferred.
Some may say, "But Communism is not an economic system!" or "Capitalism is not a political system!" But Communism absolutely informs the economic system and governmental philosophies, and that is the difference.
That's not to say some in the West also don't view it as zero-sum, or that those in China who support the notion of "Capitalism with Chinese characteristics", as it's called, don't believe wealth can be created, or that wealth isn't indeed being transferred in part from West to East.
But still, this dichotomy in philosophies between the political and/or economic systems associated with each is the fundamental difference.
Your last comment comment about China is interesting:
The villain in the remake of Red Dawn was actually switched from China (realistic) to North Korea (ridiculous) in order to not upset China (and its movie audiences). I guess the producers figured that "vaguely Asian-looking" actors could just as easily be viewed by American audiences as Korean.
There is "sand" involved here, though: heads are nestled deeply in it.
It's interesting that you and the parent AC believe this is somehow a "war on the academic sector". There is indeed a war, but it's not coming from within. First, a backdrop, beginning with the fact that China is on track to exceed US military spending by 2025:
"The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst. China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country."
"NO MATTER how often China has emphasised the idea of a peaceful rise, the pace and nature of its military modernisation inevitably cause alarm. As America and the big European powers reduce their defence spending, China looks likely to maintain the past decade’s increases of about 12% a year. Even though its defence budget is less than a quarter the size of America’s today, China’s generals are ambitious. The country is on course to become the world’s largest military spender in just 20 years or so."
Wow...thinly veiled ad hominem, attacking the messenger, fallacious descriptions — everything but addressing the actual content of my comments. Bravo!
Do you realize that foreign intelligence actually has a purpose, and that the US does have actual adversaries, not just of our own creation, and that there are governments which seek to project ideals and principles counter to ours?
Just because abuse exists — and history tells us it does — doesn't mean ALL activities are exclusively abuse. Indeed, our extremely free flow of information and lack of censorship reveals actual wrongdoing, or what people may perceive to be as "wrongdoing", far more easily than at any time in history. This creates an echo chamber where people believe things are worse than ever.
What's actually true is that we learn more, in more detail, and more quickly about the workings of our government than at any time in the history of our nation, or indeed, human history. Meanwhile, China is arresting people for "spreading rumors", locking down comments on state-controlled social media, forcing real-name registration on the internet, compelling lawyers to swear oath to the Communist Party, and similar.
Speaking of China...they're on pace to exceed US military spending in real dollars by 2025. I'm sure that is all for "peaceful regional defense".
You know, if the US didn't exist after, say, World War II, what do you think the world would look like? A happy, peaceful place? What about Western Europe? Would we even have the precious Internet that is part of the echo chamber where like-minded individuals convince themselves that the US is the source of everything wrong in the world, while in other places, people are, you know, actually oppressed?
Actually, the US cannot use allies' intelligence capabilities as a vehicle to sidestep its own laws and directives prohibiting surveillance of US Persons without a warrant. I know some people believe that this is what is happening, but that is neither the purpose nor intent of intelligence sharing between the US and its allies.
"Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity."
Surveillance of non-US Persons has never required a warrant, and never will. It has nothing to do with whether it's a group someone "hates" or "likes".
An intelligence service cannot be effective if its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques are known to the adversary. Intelligence processes must be kept secret, even in an open society. This has been true for the history of our nation.
NSA is authorized to monitor foreign communications WITHIN THE US, and must be able to identify, discern, and target such communications within the sea of digital communications.
NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens without an individualized warrant. And the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 actually is more strict with respect to US Persons than previous law: a warrant is required to monitor the communications of a US Person anywhere on the globe. But what the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 also does is allow NSA to target and monitor FOREIGN communications within the US, without a warrant.
I know some people might be stunned to learn this, but the primary mission of the foreign intelligence agencies is FOREIGN intelligence. But what about "warrantless wiretapping", you ask?
In the immediate wake of 9/11, the administration claimed the the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowed them to target American citizens identified as having contact with the enemy and/or were active combatants. The current Attorney General also argues that the President has this intrinsic authority under Article II of the Constitution. This was the same justification used in the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.
Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity. And then we have the court cases — all of which involved people or groups who were thought to be linked to terror groups, not just ordinary, everyday citizens.
Even the most egregious examples of "warrantless wiretapping" (as alleged in the leaks to the press, or documented in various court proceedings) in the wake of 9/11 targeted very specific people — and were justified by the Justice Department, secretly reported to Congress, and reauthorized every 45 days. And that program had long ended by the time the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 fixed the dismal state of foreign intelligence collection.
This excerpt (An 'Intel Gap': What We're Missing, Newsweek, Aug 6, 2007) sums up the issue:
The intel gap results partly from rapid changes in the technology carrying much of the world's message traffic (principally telephone calls and e-mails). The National Security Agency is falling so far behind in upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the digital age that the agency has had problems with its electricity supply, forcing some offices to temporarily shut down. The gap is also partly a result of administration fumbling over legal authorization for eavesdropping by U.S. agencies.
The post-Watergate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required a warrant for eavesdropping on people in the U.S. But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving suspected terrorists even inside the U.S. The controversy over "warrantless wiretapping" made intel officials gun-shy about eavesdropping even on messages they would have regarded as fair game before 9/11.
According to both administration and congressional officials (anonymous when discussing such issues), the White House and intelligence czar's office are now urgently trying to negotiate a legal fix with Congress that would make it easier for NSA to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls where all parties are located outside the U.S., even if at some point the message signal crosses into U.S. territory.
Much of the electronic communications NSA once pored over, between two parties communicating with each other outside the U.S.
for each, you are not infected. Also, if you run nearly any AV software or other tools like Little Snitch, you are not infected as it checks for these and deletes itself if found.
Also, no sensible person ever said "Macs don't get [infected/hacked/whatever]." It just a lot less likely, and has historically been, even accounting for differences in marketshare. As Mac share increases, it only makes sense they'll be targeted more with malware. But Macs, as a whole, are indeed "more secure", in that still, to this day, you are far less likely — even with the complacency or, if you prefer, ignorance, of Mac users — to become impacted with any malware than with Windows. Maybe someday this will change. But it's never been true to date, and isn't true now. The fact that single instances of Mac malware get so blown out of proportion, STILL, is ridiculous. (Though, Apple could do better with patching known vulnerabilities in Java on Mac OS X...)
The same advice and best practices for avoiding malware apply to Macs as well as any other desktop platform, and Mac users would do well to run current AV software. The Sophos free edition is nice.
I read the comments on this post wondering if someone would somehow turn China's behavior into some kind of commentary on the US, acting as if the things the US does are somehow even REMOTELY NEAR China on some imaginary moral scale.
I got through all the comments, surprised that the discussion was squarely focused on China's utterly dismal record on human rights, dissent, freedom of information, internet censorship, etc...until yours.
Actually, your post is more correct in its irony than you can ever know:
Censoring the internet — let me guess: takedowns of sites devoted exclusively to piracy? Yeah, not anywhere NEAR the same as censoring the entire internet for thoughts and requiring real name registration on the internet.
Dependence on fossil fuels — China's new vehicle sales will exceed the US by 2015. China's greenhouse emissions will exceed the US by 50% by 2015. They are expected to double ours by 2020. It will exceed our fossil fuel consumption somewhere in that same timeframe.
Dysfunctional systems of government — "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947
Invading other nations — I'm sure the fact that China increased its military budget by 11% this year alone, will exceed the US in real military spending by 2025, development of an anti-carrier anti-ship ballistic missile, and its massive buildout of a blue water Navy are for "peaceful regional defense".
But if you really believe that this is the pot calling the kettle black, be happy in your little world of moral relativism, and I hope you get the world you wish for — you know, the one where you think the interests and ideals of China and the Communist Party system are somehow not any better or worse than that of the US and West, just "different".
"The updated Guidelines do not provide any new authorities for the U.S. Government to collect information, nor do they authorize acquisition of data from entities outside the federal government. All information that would be accessed by NCTC under the Guidelines is already in the lawful custody and control of other federal agencies. The Guidelines merely provide the NCTC with a more effective means of accessing and analyzing datasets in the government’s possession that are likely to contain significant terrorism information. They permit NCTC to consolidate disparate federal datasets that contain information of value to NCTC’s critical counterterrorism mission. Furthermore, the updated Guidelines do not supersede or replace any legal restrictions on information sharing (existing by statute, Executive Order, regulation, or international agreement). Thus, the updated Guidelines do not give NCTC authority to require another agency to share any dataset where such sharing would contravene U.S. law or an international agreement.
One of the issues identified by Congress and the Intelligence Community after the 2009 Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt was the government’s limited ability to query multiple federal datasets and to correlate information from many sources that might relate to a potential attack. A review of government actions taken before these attacks recommended that the Intelligence Community push for the completion of state-of-the-art search and correlation capabilities, including techniques that would provide a single point of entry to various government databases."
So who here complained that we couldn't connect the dots with Abdulmutallab, given that we already had an severe adverse report on him, but that report didn't get fused or connected to anything else? Now the government tries to link databases containing information it lawfully has without any new authority, and it's automatically evil?
The NSA did not exist before the 1950s. The CIA did not exist before the 1940s. The idea of "classified information" did not exist before the early 1900s. The Espionage Act did not exist before 1917. The Computer Espionage law did not exist before 1986. The Espionage Act was not used against people for talking to reporters until the 1980s, and it was not used 6+ times by one president until Obama.
Totally irrelevant. "Intelligence" by any name, no matter who performs it, requires secrecy to be effective. This is a general statement, but is a truism. This was true long before the United States existed. The names of the agencies, acronyms, the formal construct of "classified information" — all irrelevant. Over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu said, "Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move," and "O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands."
The existence of the AT&T monitoring is known because of a guy inside of AT&T who spilled the beans. The larger monitoring program, whose real name we don't even know, was revealed by the New York Times. This revelation caused the Bush administration to start an FBI manhunt for the 'leaker' that used dozens of agents and spent untold amounts of money looking for the 'leak' for years on end. They never arrested anyone related to the leak, but they did find Thomas Drake, a scapegoat, who talked with a reporter about a boondoggle IT system that was failing to do it's job (something that Congress agreed with). He was not 'anti-war', he was 'anti boondoggle'. But he was also against the idea of spying on American citizens - and he clearly states that his involvement in whistleblowing was directly related to this activity at NSA. The government then had FBI agents raid his house and the house of his friends (almost all conservative republicans by the way), who they tracked down because they had filed an Inspector General complaint internally with the DoD several years prior (something, which by the way, is supposed to remain confidential so that the internal complaint process will not be hindered by anonymous tipsters fearing retaliation). His friends have stated that the technology they built was having its privacy controls stripped out and that they felt it was being used to spy on Americans. This is one of the fundamental reasons some of them told their stories.
I can't even count the ways this is wrong, but I'll try:
We know exactly who the leaker was: Mark Klein, who had an open and personal anti-war and anti-Bush agenda.
The program of which you speak was called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (TSP).
Thomas Drake had ZERO to do with anything related to this program. Drake's alleged leak was unclassified information related to alleged government waste on a software contract, which also had nothing to do with Klein's allegations, or "spying on Americans". It had to do with waste, because the project was allegedly ineffective and going nowhere.
Then, of course, there is James Bamford's book "The Shadow Factory", in which he interviewed people who worked at the Georgia NSA building - one specifically mentions listening on on conversations of US citizens overseas talking to loved ones back home, and the other person he interviewed wouldn't comment on it. I know you claim this is 'just journalists embedded with soldiers'. OK, so they are spying on soldiers then? Who is in charge of the military, the NSA? Because I thought that it was supposed to work the other way around.
Look up "Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity". Not a new thing, and not unconstitutional.
Your entire argument is based on the presumption that the federal government obeys the law. That has not been true since at least 2002, when the Office of Legal Counsel began drafting all sorts of bizarre memos that took the concept of 'spirit and letter of the law' and put it through a me
It's not a threat to say the NSA doesn't spy on Americans unless it has a warrant (or, in the case of things like TSP, has otherwise been authorized) — but GEN Alexander already said as much before Congress. You just choose to not believe it.
What won't happen is a completely transparent accounting of all of NSA's capabilities and techniques. NSA can't "prove" it isn't spying on American citizens, and it does have the capability to do so. What prevents it from doing so is the law and oversight.
Intelligence agencies exist to act as instruments of policy and to serve policy makers. Intelligence agencies don't randomly decide what to do on their own; they do what they are DIRECTED and AUTHORIZED to do by law and the civilian leadership of our nation.
1. An intelligence service cannot be effective if its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques are known to the adversary. Intelligence processes must be kept secret, even in an open society. This has been true for the history of our nation.
2. Inasmuch as "monitoring rooms" are alleged — because their existence, capabilities, and numbers are NOT KNOWN beyond the assertions of a whistleblower with an admitted anti-war agenda — NSA is authorized to monitor foreign communications WITHIN THE US, and must be able to identify, discern, and target such communications within the sea of digital communications.
3. See 1.
4. How is what you assume NSA to be doing "vital to the interest of a dying empire"? Do you think the world would be a better place without the US, the West, and the ability to project and protect principles of freedom and liberal democracy, even if imperfectly? Would China, Russia, or a chaotic mix of Mideast states and transnational radials really be a better global steward?
I find the inaccuracy of the summary particularly amusing:
"Alexander even went so far as to claim the NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens. It's an authority that was given to the NSA through the FISA Amendments Act signed into law by Bush and still supported today by Obama."
NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens without an individualized warrant. And the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 actually is more strict with respect to US Persons than previous law: a warrant is required to monitor the communications of a US Person anywhere on the globe. But what the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 also does is allow NSA to target and monitor FOREIGN communications within the US, without a warrant.
I know some people might be stunned to learn this, but the primary mission of the foreign intelligence agencies is FOREIGN intelligence. But what about "warrantless wiretapping", you ask?
In the immediate wake of 9/11, the administration claimed the the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowed them to target American citizens identified as having contact with the enemy and/or were active combatants. The current Attorney General also argues that the President has this intrinsic authority under Article II of the Constitution. This was the same justification used in the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki.
Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity. And then we have the court cases — all of which involved people or groups who were thought to be linked to terror groups, not just ordinary, everyday citizens.
Even the most egregious examples of "warrantless wiretapping" (as alleged in the leaks to the press, or documented in various court proceedings) in the wake of 9/11 targeted very specific people — and were justified by the Justice Department, secretly reported to Congress, and reauthorized every 45 days. And that program had long ended by the time the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 fixed the dismal state of foreign intelligence collection.
This excerpt (An 'Intel Gap': What We're Missing, Newsweek, Aug 6, 2007) sums up the issue:
The intel gap results partly from rapid changes in the technology carrying much of the world's message traffic (principally telephone calls and e-mails). The National Security Agency is falling so far behind in upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the digital age that the agency has had problems with its electricity supply, forcing some offices to temporarily shut down. The gap is also partly a result of administration fumbling over legal authorization for eavesdropping by U.S. agencies.
The post-Watergate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required a warrant for eavesdropping on people in the U.S. But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving
Funny, but if you actually think the world would be a better place for humanity at large if nations throughout the last couple of centuries which have stood for principles of freedom over the alternatives did nothing, I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised at the result.
And if you think that nations which are manifestly NOT free are isolating themselves and standing still, you'd be sadly mistaken. I'm always amused at the effects of the lens through which many view their own country, and how ignorant people are of threats in the world.
Well, I'd say this: I'm not really "citing" anything; I could have said that comment without any links at all, but included them for background. That said:
— The usatoday.com link is an Associated Press story, and one that has been heavily covered by other wire services. — The wikipedia article is merely a handy list of easily-referenced UN Security Council resolutions — need I link them? — I didn't "cite" myself, and that post includes its own references; I included it because if I didn't there would be a flood of, "But what about all the Iraqi WMD lies????!!!1111lulz" posts, and though it would be better to at least preempt them by way of explanation. Now, one might not agree with the reasoning, but it's a factual explanation of how the intelligence process works and how it applied to Iraqi WMD. If someone thinks it isn't referenced well enough or doesn't agree with it — well, what can I say: it's a slashdot comment, not a scholarly paper that is aligned with every reader's ideological viewpoint.
That said, of course we're "preparing for trouble with Iran" — but it's not because we're manufacturing the threat. Do you understand that it's possible for other players in the world to do things that we and our allies view as "bad things" for whatever reason, and thus want to stop them? You'd like to be treated like an adult, but at the same time it's not possible for the BBC to report that its Persian service was a victim of a cyberattack without it being "propaganda", when meanwhile Iranian state media (which actually IS propaganda in the negative connotation) is continually "demonizing the enemy," often with no factual basis?
Your Voltaire quote is ironic because the subject of "truth" is exactly what I was discussing in my other post.
Is there a world where you can imagine that the US would actually do something right (including exercise force), or that Iran might actually be doing something wrong?
Or is this just all an intellectual exercise in moral relativism, where the US is always "in the wrong" or that any other nation has a "right" to do whatever they wish?
Why must this be obviously NOT an Iranian cyber attack (and attribution is admittedly anything but certain), and must instead be some kind of subterfuge?
When the US entered World War II, did we do the "right thing", or was that also wrong? Who should have won? When is it okay to protect our interests?
It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)
If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.
No, I didn't make a mistake — the way slashdot processed my login and redirect to post the comment made a mistake all on its own, none of which changes the validity of the rest of my comment, nor the fact that my comment is actually completely reasonable and on-topic as a direct reply to the article as well.
But thanks: your reply tells me exactly what kind of person you are, and you need look no further than the mirror to figure out why Slashdot sucks.
"[...] the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, is to be retired after fifty years of active service — the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history."
The phrase "the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history" is referential to "is to be retired after fifty years of active service", not anything to do with the nuclear aspect.
...ahh, you're one of those who buys into the "Enterprise false flag" conspiracy theories? That Enterprise will be sunk, and that Iran will be blamed as an "excuse" to attack it?
Figured some loons would post on this article, but didn't expect it to be the FIRST post. Bravo.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, and the launch failed.
Of course, even a failed launch is still valuable information for North Korea, as that is part of the whole point of such tests.
I think that's the problem with the notion that "our rights are being taken away to defend them."
How so, PROVABLY? By that I mean, not things one THINKS the government is doing, or things one THINKS are "illegal" — but actual, provable, demonstrable ways that rights are being taken away.
What, substantively, less can you do today that you could do "before 9/11"? Twenty years ago? Fifty? How have YOUR rights been curtailed in an actual meaningful, specific, describable way?
What can you, in real terms, NOT do now that you could do in, say, 1992?
The trouble is that there is a lot of vague talk about, "Papers, please!", 1984, fascism, a police state, and so on, but the reality is simply that we find out more about government faster than ever before.
But what about...[insert ANYTHING here: The PATRIOT Act, the TSA, "warrantless wiretapping", wars, perceived government abuse]? None of this — NONE — is anything new to the United States before or after 9/11. Yes the names and controversies are new, but the fact that controversy exists, the fact that abuses, real or perceived, exist — none of this is anything new. We just hear about it, faster, and in greater detail than ever before, and it enters an echo-chamber where people believe that our nation is really at a magical turning point and that we're teetering on the edge of becoming a "fascist" police state, if it hasn't already occurred. (I hope those people never have to experience actual fascism or police states.)
I'm not saying we're perfect, I'm not saying mistakes aren't made, and I'm not saying we as a people can't always be vigilant and strive to make our nation better. What I am saying is that the ideals we stand for don't protect and preserve themselves. How you interpret that statement is up to you — but I hope people realize that there are very real threats that don't come from within, and that we didn't create, and we need to have some level of effectiveness to counter them.
*Sigh*
To you and the other commenters bringing up labor, yes, I am quite aware. But Marxists believe this is a constant, something that is tied almost exclusively to manpower alone, and that workers in a Capitalist system are always "exploited", by design, because they do not own the means of production. Except that under Marxism, almost all of the value is put on labor-power, not on innovation, special skills, new technologies, and similar — and there is no incentive to create anything.
Do you think the internet or anything even remotely resembling a free global flow of information would exist in a Marxist utopia (aside for a moment the fact that die hard Marxists probably believe the world would be so wonderful a place that we wouldn't need free flows of information between and among people)? Do you really believe the world would be a better place? Please educate all of us on why Marxism is such a great system and worthy of any sort of respect or admiration.
Capitalism generally espouses the view that wealth can be created.
Communism generally espouses the view that wealth can only be transferred.
Some may say, "But Communism is not an economic system!" or "Capitalism is not a political system!" But Communism absolutely informs the economic system and governmental philosophies, and that is the difference.
That's not to say some in the West also don't view it as zero-sum, or that those in China who support the notion of "Capitalism with Chinese characteristics", as it's called, don't believe wealth can be created, or that wealth isn't indeed being transferred in part from West to East.
But still, this dichotomy in philosophies between the political and/or economic systems associated with each is the fundamental difference.
That said, Schrodinger's Cat: Wanted Dead AND Alive. :-)
That's true. And wealth is inexorably moving from the West to the East for a variety of reasons.
But it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game, as China believes it to be.
Your last comment comment about China is interesting:
The villain in the remake of Red Dawn was actually switched from China (realistic) to North Korea (ridiculous) in order to not upset China (and its movie audiences). I guess the producers figured that "vaguely Asian-looking" actors could just as easily be viewed by American audiences as Korean.
There is "sand" involved here, though: heads are nestled deeply in it.
It's interesting that you and the parent AC believe this is somehow a "war on the academic sector". There is indeed a war, but it's not coming from within. First, a backdrop, beginning with the fact that China is on track to exceed US military spending by 2025:
Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/asia/chinese-insider-offers-rare-glimpse-of-us-china-frictions.html
"The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst. China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country."
Asia's balance of power: China’s military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212
"NO MATTER how often China has emphasised the idea of a peaceful rise, the pace and nature of its military modernisation inevitably cause alarm. As America and the big European powers reduce their defence spending, China looks likely to maintain the past decade’s increases of about 12% a year. Even though its defence budget is less than a quarter the size of America’s today, China’s generals are ambitious. The country is on course to become the world’s largest military spender in just 20 years or so."
China’s military rise: The dragon’s new teeth
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193
And now on to what's happening every day in US academic and business environments:
How China Steals Our Secrets
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/opinion/how-china-steals-our-secrets.html
China's Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203718504577178832338032176-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html
FBI Traces Trail of Spy Ring to China
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203961204577266892884130620-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwNzEwNDcyWj.html
NSA: China is Destroying U.S. Economy Via Security Hacks
http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+China+is+Destroying+US+Economy+Via+Security+Hacks/article24328.htm
Former cybersecurity czar: Every major U.S. company has been hacked by China
http://www.itworld.com/security/262616/former-cybersecurity-czar-every-major-us-company-has-been-hacked-china
China Att
Wow...thinly veiled ad hominem, attacking the messenger, fallacious descriptions — everything but addressing the actual content of my comments. Bravo!
Do you realize that foreign intelligence actually has a purpose, and that the US does have actual adversaries, not just of our own creation, and that there are governments which seek to project ideals and principles counter to ours?
Just because abuse exists — and history tells us it does — doesn't mean ALL activities are exclusively abuse. Indeed, our extremely free flow of information and lack of censorship reveals actual wrongdoing, or what people may perceive to be as "wrongdoing", far more easily than at any time in history. This creates an echo chamber where people believe things are worse than ever.
What's actually true is that we learn more, in more detail, and more quickly about the workings of our government than at any time in the history of our nation, or indeed, human history. Meanwhile, China is arresting people for "spreading rumors", locking down comments on state-controlled social media, forcing real-name registration on the internet, compelling lawyers to swear oath to the Communist Party, and similar.
Speaking of China...they're on pace to exceed US military spending in real dollars by 2025. I'm sure that is all for "peaceful regional defense".
You know, if the US didn't exist after, say, World War II, what do you think the world would look like? A happy, peaceful place? What about Western Europe? Would we even have the precious Internet that is part of the echo chamber where like-minded individuals convince themselves that the US is the source of everything wrong in the world, while in other places, people are, you know, actually oppressed?
Actually, the US cannot use allies' intelligence capabilities as a vehicle to sidestep its own laws and directives prohibiting surveillance of US Persons without a warrant. I know some people believe that this is what is happening, but that is neither the purpose nor intent of intelligence sharing between the US and its allies.
"Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity."
Surveillance of non-US Persons has never required a warrant, and never will. It has nothing to do with whether it's a group someone "hates" or "likes".
An intelligence service cannot be effective if its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques are known to the adversary. Intelligence processes must be kept secret, even in an open society. This has been true for the history of our nation.
NSA is authorized to monitor foreign communications WITHIN THE US, and must be able to identify, discern, and target such communications within the sea of digital communications.
NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens without an individualized warrant. And the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 actually is more strict with respect to US Persons than previous law: a warrant is required to monitor the communications of a US Person anywhere on the globe. But what the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 also does is allow NSA to target and monitor FOREIGN communications within the US, without a warrant.
I know some people might be stunned to learn this, but the primary mission of the foreign intelligence agencies is FOREIGN intelligence. But what about "warrantless wiretapping", you ask?
In the immediate wake of 9/11, the administration claimed the the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowed them to target American citizens identified as having contact with the enemy and/or were active combatants. The current Attorney General also argues that the President has this intrinsic authority under Article II of the Constitution. This was the same justification used in the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.
Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity. And then we have the court cases — all of which involved people or groups who were thought to be linked to terror groups, not just ordinary, everyday citizens.
Even the most egregious examples of "warrantless wiretapping" (as alleged in the leaks to the press, or documented in various court proceedings) in the wake of 9/11 targeted very specific people — and were justified by the Justice Department, secretly reported to Congress, and reauthorized every 45 days. And that program had long ended by the time the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 fixed the dismal state of foreign intelligence collection.
This excerpt (An 'Intel Gap': What We're Missing, Newsweek, Aug 6, 2007) sums up the issue:
See here: http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan-downloader_osx_flashback_i.shtml
Summary:
If you open Terminal and run
defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment
and
defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
and see:
The domain/default pair of [...] does not exist
for each, you are not infected. Also, if you run nearly any AV software or other tools like Little Snitch, you are not infected as it checks for these and deletes itself if found.
Also, no sensible person ever said "Macs don't get [infected/hacked/whatever]." It just a lot less likely, and has historically been, even accounting for differences in marketshare. As Mac share increases, it only makes sense they'll be targeted more with malware. But Macs, as a whole, are indeed "more secure", in that still, to this day, you are far less likely — even with the complacency or, if you prefer, ignorance, of Mac users — to become impacted with any malware than with Windows. Maybe someday this will change. But it's never been true to date, and isn't true now. The fact that single instances of Mac malware get so blown out of proportion, STILL, is ridiculous. (Though, Apple could do better with patching known vulnerabilities in Java on Mac OS X...)
The same advice and best practices for avoiding malware apply to Macs as well as any other desktop platform, and Mac users would do well to run current AV software. The Sophos free edition is nice.
I read the comments on this post wondering if someone would somehow turn China's behavior into some kind of commentary on the US, acting as if the things the US does are somehow even REMOTELY NEAR China on some imaginary moral scale.
I got through all the comments, surprised that the discussion was squarely focused on China's utterly dismal record on human rights, dissent, freedom of information, internet censorship, etc...until yours.
Actually, your post is more correct in its irony than you can ever know:
Censoring the internet — let me guess: takedowns of sites devoted exclusively to piracy? Yeah, not anywhere NEAR the same as censoring the entire internet for thoughts and requiring real name registration on the internet.
Dependence on fossil fuels — China's new vehicle sales will exceed the US by 2015. China's greenhouse emissions will exceed the US by 50% by 2015. They are expected to double ours by 2020. It will exceed our fossil fuel consumption somewhere in that same timeframe.
Dysfunctional systems of government — "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947
Invading other nations — I'm sure the fact that China increased its military budget by 11% this year alone, will exceed the US in real military spending by 2025, development of an anti-carrier anti-ship ballistic missile, and its massive buildout of a blue water Navy are for "peaceful regional defense".
But if you really believe that this is the pot calling the kettle black, be happy in your little world of moral relativism, and I hope you get the world you wish for — you know, the one where you think the interests and ideals of China and the Communist Party system are somehow not any better or worse than that of the US and West, just "different".
They'll just spam public internet services to suppress what they view as dissent, ramp up coordinated cyber attacks, make their lawyers swear oath to the Communist Party, force real name registration on internet services, continue censorship of social networks when deemed necessary, and continue to massively build out CNO and espionage capabilities, all while on track to exceed even the United States' defense spending by 2025.
But yeah, no big deal.
From the joint DNI/DOJ statement:
"The updated Guidelines do not provide any new authorities for the U.S. Government to collect information, nor do they authorize acquisition of data from entities outside the federal government. All information that would be accessed by NCTC under the Guidelines is already in the lawful custody and control of other federal agencies. The Guidelines merely provide the NCTC with a more effective means of accessing and analyzing datasets in the government’s possession that are likely to contain significant terrorism information. They permit NCTC to consolidate disparate federal datasets that contain information of value to NCTC’s critical counterterrorism mission. Furthermore, the updated Guidelines do not supersede or replace any legal restrictions on information sharing (existing by statute, Executive Order, regulation, or international agreement). Thus, the updated Guidelines do not give NCTC authority to require another agency to share any dataset where such sharing would contravene U.S. law or an international agreement.
One of the issues identified by Congress and the Intelligence Community after the 2009 Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt was the government’s limited ability to query multiple federal datasets and to correlate information from many sources that might relate to a potential attack. A review of government actions taken before these attacks recommended that the Intelligence Community push for the completion of state-of-the-art search and correlation capabilities, including techniques that would provide a single point of entry to various government databases."
So who here complained that we couldn't connect the dots with Abdulmutallab, given that we already had an severe adverse report on him, but that report didn't get fused or connected to anything else? Now the government tries to link databases containing information it lawfully has without any new authority, and it's automatically evil?
Sorry, I don't get the connection.
The NSA did not exist before the 1950s. The CIA did not exist before the 1940s. The idea of "classified information" did not exist before the early 1900s. The Espionage Act did not exist before 1917. The Computer Espionage law did not exist before 1986. The Espionage Act was not used against people for talking to reporters until the 1980s, and it was not used 6+ times by one president until Obama.
Totally irrelevant. "Intelligence" by any name, no matter who performs it, requires secrecy to be effective. This is a general statement, but is a truism. This was true long before the United States existed. The names of the agencies, acronyms, the formal construct of "classified information" — all irrelevant. Over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu said, "Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move," and "O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands."
The existence of the AT&T monitoring is known because of a guy inside of AT&T who spilled the beans. The larger monitoring program, whose real name we don't even know, was revealed by the New York Times. This revelation caused the Bush administration to start an FBI manhunt for the 'leaker' that used dozens of agents and spent untold amounts of money looking for the 'leak' for years on end. They never arrested anyone related to the leak, but they did find Thomas Drake, a scapegoat, who talked with a reporter about a boondoggle IT system that was failing to do it's job (something that Congress agreed with). He was not 'anti-war', he was 'anti boondoggle'. But he was also against the idea of spying on American citizens - and he clearly states that his involvement in whistleblowing was directly related to this activity at NSA. The government then had FBI agents raid his house and the house of his friends (almost all conservative republicans by the way), who they tracked down because they had filed an Inspector General complaint internally with the DoD several years prior (something, which by the way, is supposed to remain confidential so that the internal complaint process will not be hindered by anonymous tipsters fearing retaliation). His friends have stated that the technology they built was having its privacy controls stripped out and that they felt it was being used to spy on Americans. This is one of the fundamental reasons some of them told their stories.
I can't even count the ways this is wrong, but I'll try:
We know exactly who the leaker was: Mark Klein, who had an open and personal anti-war and anti-Bush agenda.
The program of which you speak was called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (TSP).
Thomas Drake had ZERO to do with anything related to this program. Drake's alleged leak was unclassified information related to alleged government waste on a software contract, which also had nothing to do with Klein's allegations, or "spying on Americans". It had to do with waste, because the project was allegedly ineffective and going nowhere.
Then, of course, there is James Bamford's book "The Shadow Factory", in which he interviewed people who worked at the Georgia NSA building - one specifically mentions listening on on conversations of US citizens overseas talking to loved ones back home, and the other person he interviewed wouldn't comment on it. I know you claim this is 'just journalists embedded with soldiers'. OK, so they are spying on soldiers then? Who is in charge of the military, the NSA? Because I thought that it was supposed to work the other way around.
Look up "Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity". Not a new thing, and not unconstitutional.
Your entire argument is based on the presumption that the federal government obeys the law. That has not been true since at least 2002, when the Office of Legal Counsel began drafting all sorts of bizarre memos that took the concept of 'spirit and letter of the law' and put it through a me
It's not a threat to say the NSA doesn't spy on Americans unless it has a warrant (or, in the case of things like TSP, has otherwise been authorized) — but GEN Alexander already said as much before Congress. You just choose to not believe it.
What won't happen is a completely transparent accounting of all of NSA's capabilities and techniques. NSA can't "prove" it isn't spying on American citizens, and it does have the capability to do so. What prevents it from doing so is the law and oversight.
Intelligence agencies exist to act as instruments of policy and to serve policy makers. Intelligence agencies don't randomly decide what to do on their own; they do what they are DIRECTED and AUTHORIZED to do by law and the civilian leadership of our nation.
Has it occurred to you that large volumes of foreign traffic also travels through US equipment and networks?
Or that having a capability doesn't automatically translate into using it, and it's the law and oversight that prevents this?
And that with intelligence, that oversight is is entrusted to our elected officials by proxy, is not public, and never will be?
1. An intelligence service cannot be effective if its sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques are known to the adversary. Intelligence processes must be kept secret, even in an open society. This has been true for the history of our nation.
2. Inasmuch as "monitoring rooms" are alleged — because their existence, capabilities, and numbers are NOT KNOWN beyond the assertions of a whistleblower with an admitted anti-war agenda — NSA is authorized to monitor foreign communications WITHIN THE US, and must be able to identify, discern, and target such communications within the sea of digital communications.
3. See 1.
4. How is what you assume NSA to be doing "vital to the interest of a dying empire"? Do you think the world would be a better place without the US, the West, and the ability to project and protect principles of freedom and liberal democracy, even if imperfectly? Would China, Russia, or a chaotic mix of Mideast states and transnational radials really be a better global steward?
I find the inaccuracy of the summary particularly amusing:
"Alexander even went so far as to claim the NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens. It's an authority that was given to the NSA through the FISA Amendments Act signed into law by Bush and still supported today by Obama."
NSA lacks the authority to monitor American citizens without an individualized warrant. And the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 actually is more strict with respect to US Persons than previous law: a warrant is required to monitor the communications of a US Person anywhere on the globe. But what the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 also does is allow NSA to target and monitor FOREIGN communications within the US, without a warrant.
I know some people might be stunned to learn this, but the primary mission of the foreign intelligence agencies is FOREIGN intelligence. But what about "warrantless wiretapping", you ask?
In the immediate wake of 9/11, the administration claimed the the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allowed them to target American citizens identified as having contact with the enemy and/or were active combatants. The current Attorney General also argues that the President has this intrinsic authority under Article II of the Constitution. This was the same justification used in the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki.
Other examples are things like journalists embedded with military units having the communications allegedly monitored, which would happen under the guise of the Joint COMSEC Monitoring Activity. And then we have the court cases — all of which involved people or groups who were thought to be linked to terror groups, not just ordinary, everyday citizens.
Even the most egregious examples of "warrantless wiretapping" (as alleged in the leaks to the press, or documented in various court proceedings) in the wake of 9/11 targeted very specific people — and were justified by the Justice Department, secretly reported to Congress, and reauthorized every 45 days. And that program had long ended by the time the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 fixed the dismal state of foreign intelligence collection.
This excerpt (An 'Intel Gap': What We're Missing, Newsweek, Aug 6, 2007) sums up the issue:
Funny, but if you actually think the world would be a better place for humanity at large if nations throughout the last couple of centuries which have stood for principles of freedom over the alternatives did nothing, I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised at the result.
And if you think that nations which are manifestly NOT free are isolating themselves and standing still, you'd be sadly mistaken. I'm always amused at the effects of the lens through which many view their own country, and how ignorant people are of threats in the world.
Well, I'd say this: I'm not really "citing" anything; I could have said that comment without any links at all, but included them for background. That said:
— The usatoday.com link is an Associated Press story, and one that has been heavily covered by other wire services.
— The wikipedia article is merely a handy list of easily-referenced UN Security Council resolutions — need I link them?
— I didn't "cite" myself, and that post includes its own references; I included it because if I didn't there would be a flood of, "But what about all the Iraqi WMD lies????!!!1111lulz" posts, and though it would be better to at least preempt them by way of explanation. Now, one might not agree with the reasoning, but it's a factual explanation of how the intelligence process works and how it applied to Iraqi WMD. If someone thinks it isn't referenced well enough or doesn't agree with it — well, what can I say: it's a slashdot comment, not a scholarly paper that is aligned with every reader's ideological viewpoint.
That said, of course we're "preparing for trouble with Iran" — but it's not because we're manufacturing the threat. Do you understand that it's possible for other players in the world to do things that we and our allies view as "bad things" for whatever reason, and thus want to stop them? You'd like to be treated like an adult, but at the same time it's not possible for the BBC to report that its Persian service was a victim of a cyberattack without it being "propaganda", when meanwhile Iranian state media (which actually IS propaganda in the negative connotation) is continually "demonizing the enemy," often with no factual basis?
Your Voltaire quote is ironic because the subject of "truth" is exactly what I was discussing in my other post.
Is there a world where you can imagine that the US would actually do something right (including exercise force), or that Iran might actually be doing something wrong?
Or is this just all an intellectual exercise in moral relativism, where the US is always "in the wrong" or that any other nation has a "right" to do whatever they wish?
Why must this be obviously NOT an Iranian cyber attack (and attribution is admittedly anything but certain), and must instead be some kind of subterfuge?
When the US entered World War II, did we do the "right thing", or was that also wrong? Who should have won? When is it okay to protect our interests?
Yeah, it's not like the IAEA "declared its latest inspection visit to Iran a failure, with the regime blocking access to a key site suspected of hosting covert nuclear weapon research", or that "satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger", or that there are six binding and currently in-force UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, five of which invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes force to compel compliance.
It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)
If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.
No, I didn't make a mistake — the way slashdot processed my login and redirect to post the comment made a mistake all on its own, none of which changes the validity of the rest of my comment, nor the fact that my comment is actually completely reasonable and on-topic as a direct reply to the article as well.
But thanks: your reply tells me exactly what kind of person you are, and you need look no further than the mirror to figure out why Slashdot sucks.
No, the summary says:
"[...] the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, is to be retired after fifty years of active service — the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history."
The phrase "the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history" is referential to "is to be retired after fifty years of active service", not anything to do with the nuclear aspect.
...ahh, you're one of those who buys into the "Enterprise false flag" conspiracy theories? That Enterprise will be sunk, and that Iran will be blamed as an "excuse" to attack it?
Figured some loons would post on this article, but didn't expect it to be the FIRST post. Bravo.