Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it.
Yes, and there is a reason for that. The Federal government keeps arresting people like this:
They aren't arresting political dissidents, they're arresting would-be or actual terrorists. They've arrested and convicted hundreds of them. For some reason many people on Slashdot keep waving their hands and speaking the incantations to banish them from discussion. "There are no terrorists. There is no reason for that sort of investigation."
What makes this even more ridiculous is that there appears to be no small overlap in the people objecting to the US government engaging in anti-terrorism investigations by saying the US government can't be trusted while also condemning the US for not having government run healthcare. Apparently you're not supposed to trust the government to keep you alive by preventing you from being blown up or poisoned by terrorists, but you can trust the government with all your medical records, and to keep you alive by cutting open your body to move things around and take things out, or saw off limbs, or pump you full of chemicals and irradiate you, all subject to this years healthcare budget, all the while having access to your financial records through the tax system, and inspecting the food supply to keep you from being poisoned. Anyone that thinks that the medical system can't be used as a tool of oppression clearly has no idea about what various communist regimes have done.
WITHOUT QUESTION, the most devious, the most dishonest and -- in this hour of his nation’s grave crisis – the most treacherous intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky. On the 150 campuses that have mounted "teach-ins" and rallies against America’s right to defend herself; on the streets of Genoa and Seattle where "anti-globalist" anarchists have attacked the symbols of markets and world trade; among the demonstrators at Vieques who wish to deny our military its training grounds; and wherever young people manifest an otherwise incomprehensible rage against their country, the inspirer of their loathing and the instructor of their hate is most likely this man.
There are many who ask how it is possible that our most privileged and educated youth should come to despise their own nation – a free, open, democratic society – and to do so with such ferocious passion. They ask how it is possible for American youth to even consider lending comfort and aid to the Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins (and the Communists before them). A full answer would involve a search of the deep structures of the human psyche, and its irrepressible longings for a redemptive illusion. But the short answer is to be found in the speeches and writings of an embittered academic and his intellectual supporters.
For forty years, Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone: America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In Chomsky’s demented universe, America is responsible not only for its own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In this attitude he is the medium for all those who now search the ruins of Manhattan not for the victims and the American dead, but for the "root causes" of the catastrophe that befell them. -- more
In Chomsky’s telling, the bipolar world of the Cold War is viewed as though there were only one pole. In the real world, the Cold War was about America’s effort to organize a democratic coalition against an expansionist empire that conquered and enslaved more than a billion people. It ended when the empire gave up and the walls that kept its subjects locked in came tumbling down. In Chomsky’s world, the Soviet empire hardly exists, not a single American action is seen as a response to a Soviet initiative, and the Cold War is “analyzed” as though it had only one side.
This is like writing a history of the Second World War without mentioning Hitler or noticing that the actions of the Axis powers influenced its events. But in Chomsky’s malevolent hands, matters get even worse. If one were to follow the Chomsky method, for example, one would list every problematic act committed by any part or element in the vast coalition attempting to stop Hitler, and would attribute them all to a calculating policy of the United States. One would then provide a report card of these “crimes” as the historical record itself. The list of crimes — the worst acts of which the Allies could be accused and the most dishonorable motives they may be said to have acted upon — would then become the database from which America’s portrait would be drawn. The result inevitably would be the Great Satan of Chomsky’s deranged fantasy life....more
Yes, the Soviet Union was worse than Czarist Russia. Some of the old revolutionaries that had been imprisoned under the Czar, and who inevitably ran afoul of the Bolsheviks said that the Czar's secret police beat them with wooden sticks, but the Bolsheviks, the communists, beat them with bars of Iron. Stalin was a criminal for all time, but Lenin was blood thirsty as well.
Maduro said several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity."
Chavez, who hand-picked Maduro as his successor, often engaged in similar defiance, criticizing U.S.-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the U.N. General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W. Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the U.S. president's address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the U.S.
Maduro made the asylum offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela's independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela's offer.
But his critics said Maduro's decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world's highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products such as toilet paper.
"The asylum doesn't fix the economic disaster, the record inflation, an upcoming devaluation (of the currency), and the rising crime rate," Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said in his Twitter account. Maduro beat Capriles in April's presidential election, but Capriles has not recognized defeat and has called it an electoral fraud.
Doing it for the "dignity" of the country isn't doing it out of concern for the human rights of Snowden. It is to enhance their national self-esteem while hurting the US.
...one of the most powerful, evil, and corrupt governments in the world.... The US does not have any sort of ethical limits to its actions...
Really? Really? I think you're overdue for calibration. I strongly urge you to watch at least the first, if not both.
That is why when we tell Europe to jump their only response is a polite, "How high?"
That is clearly nonsense. It is easy to see when you look at things like defense spending compared to NATO treaty obligations, diplomatic relations, trade, national laws, and many other things.
Whether Snowden simply pulled their chain or they are so bumbling incompetent that with their $50B/year budget the NSA can't figure out if a guy has boarded a plane in the Moscow airport - it sure makes them look massively incompetent.
Wait a minute, are you suggesting that intelligence agencies could be incompetent? That they could actually make a mistake? That goes against 10 years of reveled wisdom on Slashdot. You know, "Bush lied..." Are you sure you want to open that can of worms? If intelligence agencies could possibly be wrong, and people understand that, that might result in a lot more nuance in discussions on Slashdot. We might have to revisit some of the arguments on Iraq sometime.
I to have to wonder if Snowden pulled a counter-intel move, knowing that the NSA was listening in on some conversations and deliberately fed them misinformation to provoke a reaction.
Maybe he did. If that is what happened it is very possible that he had help. After all, the country he is in has more than one first rate intelligence agency (with a history) well schooled and highly capable in implementing maskirovka, i.e. deception. It is kind of their calling card.
If he did deceive the US, he wouldn't be the first.
I don't think that the Temperance movement believed that it would stop all alcohol consumption, but that it would significantly decrease it. And they were right. Not only that, once prohibition was lifted, per-capita alcohol consumption took about 40 years to reach its previous level. The decrease in alcohol consumption had a number of impacts on other public health issues.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime.
There are certain words that seem to invite trouble, whether you are dealing with science or people. Among them are: impossible, always, never, and I'll include "anything" for the post. (I kind of wish I had never heard the news story on this...)
Slightly dated now that el Presedente Chávez has passed on, but I doubt much has changed since. I'm sure Snowden will be happy if he makes it there, although he should probably bring toilet paper with him.
Like an old-style dictator, he treated the state as his personal plaything but, unlike one, his power rested not on violence but on genuine popular affection. Venezuela's history since 1999 has been the story of that contradiction playing itself out across the lives of 29 million people.
Chávez's insistence on absolute submission from his supporters paved the way for the rise of an over-the-top cult of personality. As questioning any presidential directive was a sure career-ender for his followers, the upper reaches of his government came to be dominated by yes-men. Further down the food chain, too, extravagant displays of personal loyalty were required from every person in every nook and cranny of Venezuela's massive and fast-growing state apparatus, with state-owned factory workers required to attend rallies and clerical personnel fully expected to donate part of their salaries to the ruling party.
Instead of a police state, Chávez built a propaganda state, one that churned out slogan after slogan stressing the intense, personal, near-mystical bond between him and his followers. . .
Finding no resistance, Chávez gave free rein to his creative streak. He changed the country's official name, shifted its time zone by half-an-hour on a whim and added an extra star to the flag. At one point, he ordered the National Coat of Arms changed on his then 9-year-old daughter's suggestion. When an opposition satirist responded by publishing an Open Letter to the First Daughter -- reasoning that if she was now making public policy, people had a right to address her -- Chávez had the paper that printed the letter fined for violating a child's privacy.
In 1999, Hugo Chávez won the presidency, vanquished the traditional party system, and launched his Bolivarian Revolution aimed at “Socialism for the 21st Century.” Chávez styles himself the leader of Latin America’s anti–free market forces and has made alliances with China, Cuba, Russia, and rogue states like Iran. He has persecuted his political adversaries and critics, restricted media freedom, undermined the rule of law and property rights, militarized the government, and tried to destabilize neighboring Colombia. The national assembly, which he controls, passed a 2009 constitutional amendment allowing him to seek yet another presidential term, and he won re-election in October 2012. Venezuela has Latin America’s highest inflation rate (currently nearly 30 percent); chronic electricity, food, and housing shortages; and skyrocketing crime rates.
The judiciary is dysfunctional and completely controlled by the executive. Politically inconvenient contracts are abrogated, and the legal system discriminates against or in favor of investors from certain foreign countries. The government expropriates land and other private holdings across the economy arbitrarily and without compensation. Corruption, exacerbated by cronyism and
I expect they would continue with choir practice instead of discussion. Debates or discussions tend to be more interesting with two sides, neither of which are straw men.
The U.S. got caught because they were greedy for data and careless with it" still stands.
That is nonsense. The NSA wasn't careless or "greedy," any organization can be betrayed by a spy. Snowden took the job with the intent of stealing secret information. He has made only part of it public. The question remains - what will he do with the rest? Sell it to the highest bidder? Use it to exchange for a new life in another country?
EU countries are very active in the spy business, and some of them have global reach. Others, mainly regional.
That's fine as far as it goes, but intelligence agencies aren't businesses. There are going to be strict limits on what they can and will divulge as part of the recruiting process regarding what countries or organizations they target. I would think that anyone seriously contemplating such employment would have a reasonable idea of what that is list going to look like ahead of time. The thing most likely to be missed by recruits would be intelligence operations involving friendly countries. But if you keep track of the news you should have some idea of that being of interest as well.
Recruiters are only one part of the process. Interviews are another. You should also be doing your own research.
Sales clerks are there to sell and answer questions from customers. One could argue the same of recruiters. Neither of them are unbounded in the issues they deal with.
So we have government agency working to prevent surprise attacks by enemy nations and terrorism against the US versus racist intimidation and lynching? And you think they are both bad for society? I'm not buying that. Debating individual NSA activities might be useful, but not blanket condemnation.
That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Of course you ask questions. The issue is, when and who do you ask them of? A recruiter is generally going to have limited scope. For in-depth questions you're generally going to have to ask those at an interview which generally involves multiple specialists, including prospective managers. I would expect that you would have done some research in preparation for the interview.
Obama is "fully responsible" for a program Dubya put in place [theregister.co.uk]? Partisan much?
The President is responsible for what goes on in his government. How do you not understand that? If "Bush" put it in place, then Obama could remove it. Simple enough? Or should I be asking, "Partisan much?"
So you are comparing a private hate group opposed to blacks, Jews, gays, Catholics, immigrants, and who knows what else to an agency of the US government that no doubt celebrates all the usual diversity related holidays and recruits people with diverse backgrounds?
That is ridiculous, nonsense, bordering on unhinged.
A recent article in CNN outlines why there is little in the US Media regarding Eric Snowden and the NSA Prism program
You must be one of those types that won't look out his window to see that it is raining because a TV weatherman said that it was sunny.
Little coverage in the US media about Snowden and the NSA? That is ridiculous. You couldn't event try Google News?
A near-complete lack of articles in main-stream media about the Prism program and Snowden is all the evidence I need to come to that conclusion.
That isn't simply false, it is a lie.
NSA is literally threatening journalists with prosecution for espionage for doing their jobs
NSA isn't threatening journalists. To the extent that anything like that is happening it is coming from the Justice department over older leak investigations and isn't close to being a blanket, although it is very troubling as far as it goes. Slashdot has covered this before.
They didn't release pictures of Bin Laden's corpse, so wrong.
The reason that they could tell about Bin Laden was that the operation was over, and even then it was undesirable from a military perspective even if it was politically advantageous. The NSA's missions are on-going. News about them reveals on-going missions, not missions that are over and not to be repeated. Revealing NSA activities like Snowden has done damages US security, and is likely to damage European security as well.
The color associated with the Republican party in the 80s was blue and the Democrats were red. It was apparently switched in a piece of political jujitsu.
But either way, that doesn't change the fact that communism has pretty much always been associated with red.
That's right - you would expect the hospital to get pointed questions - the leadership. I'm willing to bet you would swear, bitch, and complain loudly if instead of asking the hospital leadership everybody came to you for answers. "It's not my job to answer for them!" is probably what we would hear. Guess what, it isn't the job of recruiters to answer for every policy of the organization either.
The recruiters were there to offer jobs to people, not to answer for every controversy involving the agency. It isn't their job, and it isn't especially reasonable. Do you harass sales clerks about sweat shop labor used to manufacture some particular good in their store? This isn't much different.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it.
Yes, and there is a reason for that. The Federal government keeps arresting people like this:
With Nidal Hasan bombshell, time to call Fort Hood shooting a terror attack?
Maryland man sentenced to 25 years for plot to bomb military recruiting center
Feds Arrest Somali Teen in Oregon Bomb Plot
Times Square car bomb: Pakistani Taliban 'claims responsibility'
They aren't arresting political dissidents, they're arresting would-be or actual terrorists. They've arrested and convicted hundreds of them. For some reason many people on Slashdot keep waving their hands and speaking the incantations to banish them from discussion. "There are no terrorists. There is no reason for that sort of investigation."
What makes this even more ridiculous is that there appears to be no small overlap in the people objecting to the US government engaging in anti-terrorism investigations by saying the US government can't be trusted while also condemning the US for not having government run healthcare. Apparently you're not supposed to trust the government to keep you alive by preventing you from being blown up or poisoned by terrorists, but you can trust the government with all your medical records, and to keep you alive by cutting open your body to move things around and take things out, or saw off limbs, or pump you full of chemicals and irradiate you, all subject to this years healthcare budget, all the while having access to your financial records through the tax system, and inspecting the food supply to keep you from being poisoned. Anyone that thinks that the medical system can't be used as a tool of oppression clearly has no idea about what various communist regimes have done.
There is your mistake - giving credence to Chomsky.
The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky - September 26, 2001
WITHOUT QUESTION, the most devious, the most dishonest and -- in this hour of his nation’s grave crisis – the most treacherous intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky. On the 150 campuses that have mounted "teach-ins" and rallies against America’s right to defend herself; on the streets of Genoa and Seattle where "anti-globalist" anarchists have attacked the symbols of markets and world trade; among the demonstrators at Vieques who wish to deny our military its training grounds; and wherever young people manifest an otherwise incomprehensible rage against their country, the inspirer of their loathing and the instructor of their hate is most likely this man.
There are many who ask how it is possible that our most privileged and educated youth should come to despise their own nation – a free, open, democratic society – and to do so with such ferocious passion. They ask how it is possible for American youth to even consider lending comfort and aid to the Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins (and the Communists before them). A full answer would involve a search of the deep structures of the human psyche, and its irrepressible longings for a redemptive illusion. But the short answer is to be found in the speeches and writings of an embittered academic and his intellectual supporters.
For forty years, Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone: America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In Chomsky’s demented universe, America is responsible not only for its own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In this attitude he is the medium for all those who now search the ruins of Manhattan not for the victims and the American dead, but for the "root causes" of the catastrophe that befell them. -- more
Refuting Chomsky
In Chomsky’s telling, the bipolar world of the Cold War is viewed as though there were only one pole. In the real world, the Cold War was about America’s effort to organize a democratic coalition against an expansionist empire that conquered and enslaved more than a billion people. It ended when the empire gave up and the walls that kept its subjects locked in came tumbling down. In Chomsky’s world, the Soviet empire hardly exists, not a single American action is seen as a response to a Soviet initiative, and the Cold War is “analyzed” as though it had only one side.
This is like writing a history of the Second World War without mentioning Hitler or noticing that the actions of the Axis powers influenced its events. But in Chomsky’s malevolent hands, matters get even worse. If one were to follow the Chomsky method, for example, one would list every problematic act committed by any part or element in the vast coalition attempting to stop Hitler, and would attribute them all to a calculating policy of the United States. One would then provide a report card of these “crimes” as the historical record itself. The list of crimes — the worst acts of which the Allies could be accused and the most dishonorable motives they may be said to have acted upon — would then become the database from which America’s portrait would be drawn. The result inevitably would be the Great Satan of Chomsky’s deranged fantasy life. ...more
The Soviet Story (2008)
Yes, the Soviet Union was worse than Czarist Russia. Some of the old revolutionaries that had been imprisoned under the Czar, and who inevitably ran afoul of the Bolsheviks said that the Czar's secret police beat them with wooden sticks, but the Bolsheviks, the communists, beat them with bars of Iron. Stalin was a criminal for all time, but Lenin was blood thirsty as well.
This is eye opening.
The Soviet Story (2008)
Why Doesn't Communism Have as Bad a Name as Nazism?
The Black Book of Communism
The Black Book of Communism - (book review) by Daniel J. Mahoney
The very nature of the communist system predisposes it toward bloody totalitarianism.
Define "best society." American and Europe have generally held different visions.
Europe has tended to believe it is more important to be equal.
American has tended to believe it is more to be free.
Have any proof of that? That is pure 100% speculation.
I don't think anyone will be able to fault you for fair mindedly ignoring the obvious regarding the behavior of leftist anti-American regimes.
Nicaragua, Venezuela offer NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum
Maduro said several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity."
Chavez, who hand-picked Maduro as his successor, often engaged in similar defiance, criticizing U.S.-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the U.N. General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W. Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the U.S. president's address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the U.S.
Maduro made the asylum offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela's independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela's offer.
But his critics said Maduro's decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world's highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products such as toilet paper.
"The asylum doesn't fix the economic disaster, the record inflation, an upcoming devaluation (of the currency), and the rising crime rate," Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said in his Twitter account. Maduro beat Capriles in April's presidential election, but Capriles has not recognized defeat and has called it an electoral fraud.
Doing it for the "dignity" of the country isn't doing it out of concern for the human rights of Snowden. It is to enhance their national self-esteem while hurting the US.
...one of the most powerful, evil, and corrupt governments in the world. ... The US does not have any sort of ethical limits to its actions ...
Really? Really? I think you're overdue for calibration. I strongly urge you to watch at least the first, if not both.
The Soviet Story (2008)
A Portrait of Stalin: Secret Police
As to the following, these are hardly the only examples of this sort of thing.
U.S. Aircraft Carrier Leaving Disaster Zone After Tsunami
The Marshall Plan
The Berlin Airlift
That is why when we tell Europe to jump their only response is a polite, "How high?"
That is clearly nonsense. It is easy to see when you look at things like defense spending compared to NATO treaty obligations, diplomatic relations, trade, national laws, and many other things.
Whether Snowden simply pulled their chain or they are so bumbling incompetent that with their $50B/year budget the NSA can't figure out if a guy has boarded a plane in the Moscow airport - it sure makes them look massively incompetent.
Wait a minute, are you suggesting that intelligence agencies could be incompetent? That they could actually make a mistake? That goes against 10 years of reveled wisdom on Slashdot. You know, "Bush lied..." Are you sure you want to open that can of worms? If intelligence agencies could possibly be wrong, and people understand that, that might result in a lot more nuance in discussions on Slashdot. We might have to revisit some of the arguments on Iraq sometime.
I to have to wonder if Snowden pulled a counter-intel move, knowing that the NSA was listening in on some conversations and deliberately fed them misinformation to provoke a reaction.
Maybe he did. If that is what happened it is very possible that he had help. After all, the country he is in has more than one first rate intelligence agency (with a history) well schooled and highly capable in implementing maskirovka, i.e. deception. It is kind of their calling card.
If he did deceive the US, he wouldn't be the first.
Saddam Hussein 'lied about WMDs to protect Iraq from Iran'
More than likely there is no need to move to "indulge" in cannibalism.
Victim of cannibal agreed to be eaten
I don't think that the Temperance movement believed that it would stop all alcohol consumption, but that it would significantly decrease it. And they were right. Not only that, once prohibition was lifted, per-capita alcohol consumption took about 40 years to reach its previous level. The decrease in alcohol consumption had a number of impacts on other public health issues.
Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime.
There are certain words that seem to invite trouble, whether you are dealing with science or people. Among them are: impossible, always, never, and I'll include "anything" for the post. (I kind of wish I had never heard the news story on this ...)
The Castration Dungeon
Slightly dated now that el Presedente Chávez has passed on, but I doubt much has changed since. I'm sure Snowden will be happy if he makes it there, although he should probably bring toilet paper with him.
Venezuela toilet paper shortage sends ordinary lives around the bend - 23 May 2013
Scarcity of toilet rolls seen as part of 'general malaise' in which Venezuelans have to use guile during shortage in many staples
Venezuela crackdown deemed worst in years
Chavez Wasn't Just a Zany Buffoon, He Was an Oppressive Autocrat - Mar 5 2013
Like an old-style dictator, he treated the state as his personal plaything but, unlike one, his power rested not on violence but on genuine popular affection. Venezuela's history since 1999 has been the story of that contradiction playing itself out across the lives of 29 million people.
Chávez's insistence on absolute submission from his supporters paved the way for the rise of an over-the-top cult of personality. As questioning any presidential directive was a sure career-ender for his followers, the upper reaches of his government came to be dominated by yes-men. Further down the food chain, too, extravagant displays of personal loyalty were required from every person in every nook and cranny of Venezuela's massive and fast-growing state apparatus, with state-owned factory workers required to attend rallies and clerical personnel fully expected to donate part of their salaries to the ruling party.
Instead of a police state, Chávez built a propaganda state, one that churned out slogan after slogan stressing the intense, personal, near-mystical bond between him and his followers. . .
Finding no resistance, Chávez gave free rein to his creative streak. He changed the country's official name, shifted its time zone by half-an-hour on a whim and added an extra star to the flag. At one point, he ordered the National Coat of Arms changed on his then 9-year-old daughter's suggestion. When an opposition satirist responded by publishing an Open Letter to the First Daughter -- reasoning that if she was now making public policy, people had a right to address her -- Chávez had the paper that printed the letter fined for violating a child's privacy.
Venezuela - 2013 Index of Economic Freedom
In 1999, Hugo Chávez won the presidency, vanquished the traditional party system, and launched his Bolivarian Revolution aimed at “Socialism for the 21st Century.” Chávez styles himself the leader of Latin America’s anti–free market forces and has made alliances with China, Cuba, Russia, and rogue states like Iran. He has persecuted his political adversaries and critics, restricted media freedom, undermined the rule of law and property rights, militarized the government, and tried to destabilize neighboring Colombia. The national assembly, which he controls, passed a 2009 constitutional amendment allowing him to seek yet another presidential term, and he won re-election in October 2012. Venezuela has Latin America’s highest inflation rate (currently nearly 30 percent); chronic electricity, food, and housing shortages; and skyrocketing crime rates.
The judiciary is dysfunctional and completely controlled by the executive. Politically inconvenient contracts are abrogated, and the legal system discriminates against or in favor of investors from certain foreign countries. The government expropriates land and other private holdings across the economy arbitrarily and without compensation. Corruption, exacerbated by cronyism and
That is a great post, very informative.
For anyone that's interested, here are a few links about medical advances linked to armed conflict.
Medical legacy forged by war
Medical Advances Save Lives in Combat
Medical Treatment Advances Help Injured Soldiers
I expect they would continue with choir practice instead of discussion. Debates or discussions tend to be more interesting with two sides, neither of which are straw men.
Do you have proof to back up that claim or just conjecture?
Why yes, yes I do.
Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence
The U.S. got caught because they were greedy for data and careless with it" still stands.
That is nonsense. The NSA wasn't careless or "greedy," any organization can be betrayed by a spy. Snowden took the job with the intent of stealing secret information. He has made only part of it public. The question remains - what will he do with the rest? Sell it to the highest bidder? Use it to exchange for a new life in another country?
EU countries are very active in the spy business, and some of them have global reach. Others, mainly regional.
That's fine as far as it goes, but intelligence agencies aren't businesses. There are going to be strict limits on what they can and will divulge as part of the recruiting process regarding what countries or organizations they target. I would think that anyone seriously contemplating such employment would have a reasonable idea of what that is list going to look like ahead of time. The thing most likely to be missed by recruits would be intelligence operations involving friendly countries. But if you keep track of the news you should have some idea of that being of interest as well.
At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
Boeing Called A Target Of French Spy Effort
The Stasi's "job" was political oppression. That isn't the job of the NSA.
Recruiters are only one part of the process. Interviews are another. You should also be doing your own research.
Sales clerks are there to sell and answer questions from customers. One could argue the same of recruiters. Neither of them are unbounded in the issues they deal with.
So we have government agency working to prevent surprise attacks by enemy nations and terrorism against the US versus racist intimidation and lynching? And you think they are both bad for society? I'm not buying that. Debating individual NSA activities might be useful, but not blanket condemnation.
That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Of course you ask questions. The issue is, when and who do you ask them of? A recruiter is generally going to have limited scope. For in-depth questions you're generally going to have to ask those at an interview which generally involves multiple specialists, including prospective managers. I would expect that you would have done some research in preparation for the interview.
Obama is "fully responsible" for a program Dubya put in place [theregister.co.uk]? Partisan much?
The President is responsible for what goes on in his government. How do you not understand that? If "Bush" put it in place, then Obama could remove it. Simple enough? Or should I be asking, "Partisan much?"
So you are comparing a private hate group opposed to blacks, Jews, gays, Catholics, immigrants, and who knows what else to an agency of the US government that no doubt celebrates all the usual diversity related holidays and recruits people with diverse backgrounds?
That is ridiculous, nonsense, bordering on unhinged.
That is a question to ask NSA public affairs, not HR recruiters. If you expect that answer from them your expectations should probably be adjusted.
A recent article in CNN outlines why there is little in the US Media regarding Eric Snowden and the NSA Prism program
You must be one of those types that won't look out his window to see that it is raining because a TV weatherman said that it was sunny.
Little coverage in the US media about Snowden and the NSA? That is ridiculous. You couldn't event try Google News?
A near-complete lack of articles in main-stream media about the Prism program and Snowden is all the evidence I need to come to that conclusion.
That isn't simply false, it is a lie.
NSA is literally threatening journalists with prosecution for espionage for doing their jobs
NSA isn't threatening journalists. To the extent that anything like that is happening it is coming from the Justice department over older leak investigations and isn't close to being a blanket, although it is very troubling as far as it goes. Slashdot has covered this before.
They didn't release pictures of Bin Laden's corpse, so wrong.
The reason that they could tell about Bin Laden was that the operation was over, and even then it was undesirable from a military perspective even if it was politically advantageous. The NSA's missions are on-going. News about them reveals on-going missions, not missions that are over and not to be repeated. Revealing NSA activities like Snowden has done damages US security, and is likely to damage European security as well.
The color associated with the Republican party in the 80s was blue and the Democrats were red. It was apparently switched in a piece of political jujitsu.
But either way, that doesn't change the fact that communism has pretty much always been associated with red.
That's right - you would expect the hospital to get pointed questions - the leadership. I'm willing to bet you would swear, bitch, and complain loudly if instead of asking the hospital leadership everybody came to you for answers. "It's not my job to answer for them!" is probably what we would hear. Guess what, it isn't the job of recruiters to answer for every policy of the organization either.
It was a stunt, nothing more.
The recruiters were there to offer jobs to people, not to answer for every controversy involving the agency. It isn't their job, and it isn't especially reasonable. Do you harass sales clerks about sweat shop labor used to manufacture some particular good in their store? This isn't much different.