The trouble is the mistaken and misguided belief that if there has ever been an example of abuse, or a mistake, then ALL activity MUST be abuse.
When you see one cockroach, there are a lot more you don't see. This is a secretive organization that is able to hide its activities. Considering what we know of power and secrecy, assuming the worst is the most sensible course of action.
The ridiculousness here is that anyone believes that NSA actually has a "dossier" on all Americans — or even cares about Americans at all, given that its sole purpose for existence is foreign signals intelligence as exponentially increasing amounts of foreign traffic travel through networks, systems, and infrastructure on US soil. All of those foreign linguists must be for illegally spying on Americans!
You already posted this. You are trying too hard and protesting too much. If you really belive this, get your head out of your ass and the red-white-and-blue dick out of your mouth. I'm not buying it.
This is a good comment. No, I don't think anyone is asking you to blindly trust NSA or any other element of government. But as government is ultimately here to serve the people, you can't exclusively have distrust of every single action government takes.
In theory or in practice? In theory, the government is here to serve the people. In modern America however, the government has been taken over by powerful private interests, through campaign contributions and other means, to use for their own purposes. This has been made clear by the fact that there are multiple cases of criminality that have been reported, and no one has been prosecuted for them
This is an excellent question, and one that has always been relevant to the Intelligence Community. Oversight of the IC has always been institutional oversight, not direct oversight by the public. But intelligence operations require secrecy to be effective — and that secrecy, especially in an open society, invites confusion, suspicion, misunderstanding, and distrust. So don't blindly "trust" NSA, but have the fortitude to thoroughly examine its purpose, missions, and history, and the challenges associated with executing its missions.
I think it's pretty easy to understand that an agency built on secrecy cannot be overseen effectively. How are we to examine the purpose, mission and history of an agency that is by definition, secret? You or I cannot find out what the NSA is up to. As we have seen, the Congress cannot either. The same goes for the CIA, NRO, and the other one that is so secret the fact that it exists is secret.
4. Ask yourself if it really makes sense that hundreds, if not thousands, of professional civilian and military members of our government have so little regard for their fellow citizens that they are systematically violating both the letter and spirit of law and the Constitution, not just once or twice or a handful of times, but every single day, with respect to every single American — when NSA's primary purpose and reason for being is FOREIGN signals intelligence — while utterly ignoring the legitimate complexity and challenges of targeting foreign traffic, in real time, on equipment and networks within the United States.
Yes, it makes perfect sense. Those hundreds or thousands of people are doing their jobs and following orders. Deciding whether their actions are within the spirit and letter of the law is quite beyond their pay grade. They simply don't consider whether their actions are legal or not. That's for their superiors to decide.
We might ask the same question of the CIA. They are bound by law to not operate in the US. Anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention knows that they operate inside the US all the time. How can it be that all those agents don't consider whether what they are doing is legal or not? Because that's not their job. And if they start doing jobs that aren't theirs, they will lose the one that is, or worse.
It is unfortunate that we have reached a point where we expect and accept that our government officials lie to us. We accept it as a necessary evil in a dangerous world. And yet, it is the very people who lie to us who tell us what a dangerous world it is. The American people have lost control of their government.
Hey genius, why don't you think about that for a short time. Logic man, use it.
Who in the country actually works for minimum wage? A small number indeed, 1 to 2%. Mostly high school and low skilled workers who do not support themselves.
What does raising the minimum wage do? Reduce the number of jobs for low skilled workers. You see how this works? I know it's difficult for some of you.
First of all, simmer down. I just asked a question. If people can make more money by getting a job, why don't they do it? The AC I replied to indicated that people were staying on GA because they would get less money if they got a job. Therefore it seems the jobs don't pay enough, or the benefit is too generous. Could be either way, probably depends on the cost of living in a given area.
Who are you to say to a man 'even if you want to you cannot work for less that XYZ$$ per hour'? Who died and put you in charge?
Actually you're the idiot. I know several people on the gov't dole. And the ONLY reason they say do NOT get a job is that they would need to get a job pay X amount so it would be worth getting off the dole. They say why get off the gov't teat IF they(and their family) would be worse off.
Would you support raising the minimum wage so that all jobs pay more than gov't assistance?
That's classy.
Why can't more companies act this way towards one another?
It's not profitable (or at least it is not immediately obvious why doing so would be profitable).
Not profitable? Do you know how many "That's so classy I'm going to buy a bottle just to support them" messages I've read on various blogs? It's not just a cease and desist letter; it is an advertising coup.
Indeed, this is a great example of garnering a positive public image by actually being positive. It's too bad I don't really like their whiskey, or I'd be sure to buy a bottle myself.
Personally, I think that any and all national security functions, whether physical or cyber, shouldn't be provided by anybody whose managers I cannot vote out of office.
This highlights the problem with the "small government" argument. In Australia we've seen private companies run rail, road, telecommunications, electricity & water infrastructure into the ground because of conservative "small government" agendas. All that seems to happen is the companies stick their hands out for "aid" or the like to help them make bigger profits while neglecting what they are responsible for.
I find it interesting that this "shrink government and privatize" trope is being expressed around the world. It makes the tinfoil hatter in me think there might be some coordination going on.
The "little guys" like to hear about how they're being oppressed, and the evil bad nasty Big Corporation is persecuting them. It forms solidarity, and brings warm fuzzy feelings of community to those "little guys", while the people in the Big Corporation get a good laugh at how unrealistic the story is.
Disclaimer: I currently work with one of those Big Corporations, with an office right down the hall from the lunchroom, where I get to hear all the laughter, often interrupting some mentally-intensive work.
You don't see that the little guy is indeed being screwed by outfits like Goldman Sachs? Must be the view from your office...
More power to them. I don't know much in the area of finance and the like, but stories like this continue to give me the impression large financial institutions like to play fast and loose with other people's (read: little guy's) money. Too big to fail? More like too big to be allowed continued operation.
I'm glad that Matt Taibbi's description of them as a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity has stuck.
If you want gold so badly, just buy goddamn gold already, and stop bothering the rest of us who understand that there is way too much money circulating (or way too little gold) to move away from fiat money. There's absolutely no reason to back things with gold. If you're so set on a fixed amount of currency, just argue for a fixed amount of currency. There's no need to get some metal involved who's only real values are 1. Shiny and 2. Doesn't corrode.
This is a good point. Fiat money is here to stay. The real problems are a lack of transparency at the Fed, and debt-backed money. If the Treasury would re-take its proper role as the issuer of currency, and spend it into the economy instead of lending it, it would make for a more equitable monetary system. It would not require perpetual growth to pay the interest, and we could eliminate the income tax. That a country should borrow all of its money from a bank is ridiculous.
The LIBOR scandal doesn't implicate "all big banks".
It implicates a lot of them.
By making sweeping statements like that, you're basically destroying whatever incentive there is in the banking industry for anyone to act honestly. If they're all going to be covered with the same taint anyway when something bad goes down, why would anyone bother keeping themselves clean?
Good point. And furthermore, why would anyone keep doing business in an industry now known primarily for fraud and deception? Seems to me that all of the players in the industry have an incentive to weed out the bad actors so that their shenanigans don't cloud the entire industry. And yet they generally do not.
Your insistence that every worker have a high paying job is precisely why there is so much unemployment in the US today. If high school kids or college students or out of work CPAs can earn a few bucks doing this work, where is the down side of that.
Out of work CPA's doing stock picking jobs. And you ask where the downside is?
In order to meet a Same Day Delivery promise Amazon will have to be LOCAL. So there went your major point. Poof.
Not so fast. The employees are local. But the owners are not. The corporate headquarters is not. With Walmart, the stores are local too. Yet they still manage to drive local shops out of business and pay the workers as little as possible. Most of the profit goes out of state, never to be seen again in the community. These Amazon stores would be the same way.
Why do people not understand that many of the freedoms in this country, are freedoms that protect us from our government ONLY, not each other?
I'm guessing it's that people expect to have their rights regardless of the context. I agree with your distinction. But as the influence and capabilities of private corporations rise, and we become ever more dependent on them, the idea that our rights only protect us from the government becomes inadequate. I'm not sure what the solution is, but rights are there to protect people. These days we need protection from corporations as well as government.
With the tone you're using, I'm surprised you're not changing more minds. Do you want to speak, or do you want to be heard? If you want to be heard, insulting people will not work. Calling people drones is insulting.
Slashdot Mirror
Did someone forget to tell Bernie Madoff about his immunity?
Bernie Madoff turned himself in!
To repeat myself:
The trouble is the mistaken and misguided belief that if there has ever been an example of abuse, or a mistake, then ALL activity MUST be abuse.
When you see one cockroach, there are a lot more you don't see. This is a secretive organization that is able to hide its activities. Considering what we know of power and secrecy, assuming the worst is the most sensible course of action.
The ridiculousness here is that anyone believes that NSA actually has a "dossier" on all Americans — or even cares about Americans at all, given that its sole purpose for existence is foreign signals intelligence as exponentially increasing amounts of foreign traffic travel through networks, systems, and infrastructure on US soil. All of those foreign linguists must be for illegally spying on Americans!
You already posted this. You are trying too hard and protesting too much. If you really belive this, get your head out of your ass and the red-white-and-blue dick out of your mouth. I'm not buying it.
This is a good comment. No, I don't think anyone is asking you to blindly trust NSA or any other element of government. But as government is ultimately here to serve the people, you can't exclusively have distrust of every single action government takes.
In theory or in practice? In theory, the government is here to serve the people. In modern America however, the government has been taken over by powerful private interests, through campaign contributions and other means, to use for their own purposes. This has been made clear by the fact that there are multiple cases of criminality that have been reported, and no one has been prosecuted for them
This is an excellent question, and one that has always been relevant to the Intelligence Community. Oversight of the IC has always been institutional oversight, not direct oversight by the public. But intelligence operations require secrecy to be effective — and that secrecy, especially in an open society, invites confusion, suspicion, misunderstanding, and distrust. So don't blindly "trust" NSA, but have the fortitude to thoroughly examine its purpose, missions, and history, and the challenges associated with executing its missions.
I think it's pretty easy to understand that an agency built on secrecy cannot be overseen effectively. How are we to examine the purpose, mission and history of an agency that is by definition, secret? You or I cannot find out what the NSA is up to. As we have seen, the Congress cannot either. The same goes for the CIA, NRO, and the other one that is so secret the fact that it exists is secret.
4. Ask yourself if it really makes sense that hundreds, if not thousands, of professional civilian and military members of our government have so little regard for their fellow citizens that they are systematically violating both the letter and spirit of law and the Constitution, not just once or twice or a handful of times, but every single day, with respect to every single American — when NSA's primary purpose and reason for being is FOREIGN signals intelligence — while utterly ignoring the legitimate complexity and challenges of targeting foreign traffic, in real time, on equipment and networks within the United States.
Yes, it makes perfect sense. Those hundreds or thousands of people are doing their jobs and following orders. Deciding whether their actions are within the spirit and letter of the law is quite beyond their pay grade. They simply don't consider whether their actions are legal or not. That's for their superiors to decide.
We might ask the same question of the CIA. They are bound by law to not operate in the US. Anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention knows that they operate inside the US all the time. How can it be that all those agents don't consider whether what they are doing is legal or not? Because that's not their job. And if they start doing jobs that aren't theirs, they will lose the one that is, or worse.
Google isn't run by the Government...
Perhaps not, but if you don't think the intelligence community is keenly interested in the data Google collects, you need to adjust your paradigm.
It is unfortunate that we have reached a point where we expect and accept that our government officials lie to us. We accept it as a necessary evil in a dangerous world. And yet, it is the very people who lie to us who tell us what a dangerous world it is. The American people have lost control of their government.
Hey genius, why don't you think about that for a short time. Logic man, use it.
Who in the country actually works for minimum wage? A small number indeed, 1 to 2%. Mostly high school and low skilled workers who do not support themselves.
What does raising the minimum wage do? Reduce the number of jobs for low skilled workers. You see how this works? I know it's difficult for some of you.
First of all, simmer down. I just asked a question. If people can make more money by getting a job, why don't they do it? The AC I replied to indicated that people were staying on GA because they would get less money if they got a job. Therefore it seems the jobs don't pay enough, or the benefit is too generous. Could be either way, probably depends on the cost of living in a given area.
Who are you to say to a man 'even if you want to you cannot work for less that XYZ$$ per hour'? Who died and put you in charge?
Want to work for less? Seriously, who does that?
You, sir, are an idiot.
Actually you're the idiot. I know several people on the gov't dole. And the ONLY reason they say do NOT get a job is that they would need to get a job pay X amount so it would be worth getting off the dole. They say why get off the gov't teat IF they(and their family) would be worse off.
Would you support raising the minimum wage so that all jobs pay more than gov't assistance?
That's classy. Why can't more companies act this way towards one another?
It's not profitable (or at least it is not immediately obvious why doing so would be profitable).
Not profitable? Do you know how many "That's so classy I'm going to buy a bottle just to support them" messages I've read on various blogs? It's not just a cease and desist letter; it is an advertising coup.
Indeed, this is a great example of garnering a positive public image by actually being positive. It's too bad I don't really like their whiskey, or I'd be sure to buy a bottle myself.
Personally, I think that any and all national security functions, whether physical or cyber, shouldn't be provided by anybody whose managers I cannot vote out of office.
This highlights the problem with the "small government" argument. In Australia we've seen private companies run rail, road, telecommunications, electricity & water infrastructure into the ground because of conservative "small government" agendas. All that seems to happen is the companies stick their hands out for "aid" or the like to help them make bigger profits while neglecting what they are responsible for.
I find it interesting that this "shrink government and privatize" trope is being expressed around the world. It makes the tinfoil hatter in me think there might be some coordination going on.
The "little guys" like to hear about how they're being oppressed, and the evil bad nasty Big Corporation is persecuting them. It forms solidarity, and brings warm fuzzy feelings of community to those "little guys", while the people in the Big Corporation get a good laugh at how unrealistic the story is.
Disclaimer: I currently work with one of those Big Corporations, with an office right down the hall from the lunchroom, where I get to hear all the laughter, often interrupting some mentally-intensive work.
You don't see that the little guy is indeed being screwed by outfits like Goldman Sachs? Must be the view from your office...
More power to them. I don't know much in the area of finance and the like, but stories like this continue to give me the impression large financial institutions like to play fast and loose with other people's (read: little guy's) money. Too big to fail? More like too big to be allowed continued operation.
I'm glad that Matt Taibbi's description of them as a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity has stuck.
Actually, I hope they don't.
Man, you gold-standard people piss me off.
If you want gold so badly, just buy goddamn gold already, and stop bothering the rest of us who understand that there is way too much money circulating (or way too little gold) to move away from fiat money. There's absolutely no reason to back things with gold. If you're so set on a fixed amount of currency, just argue for a fixed amount of currency. There's no need to get some metal involved who's only real values are 1. Shiny and 2. Doesn't corrode.
This is a good point. Fiat money is here to stay. The real problems are a lack of transparency at the Fed, and debt-backed money. If the Treasury would re-take its proper role as the issuer of currency, and spend it into the economy instead of lending it, it would make for a more equitable monetary system. It would not require perpetual growth to pay the interest, and we could eliminate the income tax. That a country should borrow all of its money from a bank is ridiculous.
The LIBOR scandal doesn't implicate "all big banks".
It implicates a lot of them.
By making sweeping statements like that, you're basically destroying whatever incentive there is in the banking industry for anyone to act honestly. If they're all going to be covered with the same taint anyway when something bad goes down, why would anyone bother keeping themselves clean?
Good point. And furthermore, why would anyone keep doing business in an industry now known primarily for fraud and deception? Seems to me that all of the players in the industry have an incentive to weed out the bad actors so that their shenanigans don't cloud the entire industry. And yet they generally do not.
Don't forget Joseph Smith!
Gotta love that firedoglake citation. One of the most wacko sites on the internet, not an easy accomplishment.
Firedog Lake is one of the wacko sites on the Internet? You need to look around more...
It's still not stealing. Corruption, graft, yes, but theft no. They legally obtained the money.
Correct, but that's easy when you and your buddies write the laws.
The FDIC is not part of the Fed. Jesus, know what the fuck you are talking about before commenting.
Good thing you posted AC, because you need to take your own advice.
Your insistence that every worker have a high paying job is precisely why there is so much unemployment in the US today. If high school kids or college students or out of work CPAs can earn a few bucks doing this work, where is the down side of that.
Out of work CPA's doing stock picking jobs. And you ask where the downside is?
In order to meet a Same Day Delivery promise Amazon will have to be LOCAL. So there went your major point. Poof.
Not so fast. The employees are local. But the owners are not. The corporate headquarters is not. With Walmart, the stores are local too. Yet they still manage to drive local shops out of business and pay the workers as little as possible. Most of the profit goes out of state, never to be seen again in the community. These Amazon stores would be the same way.
Why do people not understand that many of the freedoms in this country, are freedoms that protect us from our government ONLY, not each other?
I'm guessing it's that people expect to have their rights regardless of the context. I agree with your distinction. But as the influence and capabilities of private corporations rise, and we become ever more dependent on them, the idea that our rights only protect us from the government becomes inadequate. I'm not sure what the solution is, but rights are there to protect people. These days we need protection from corporations as well as government.
With the tone you're using, I'm surprised you're not changing more minds. Do you want to speak, or do you want to be heard? If you want to be heard, insulting people will not work. Calling people drones is insulting.
You think this all started with Obama? You have some catching up to do...