If there's no one to vote for, run for office on that platform. You probably won't win, but you have that right and the capability.
Explain to me how that gets someone into office who is going to stop the secret spying crap. Under the current system in the US there is no way to change the system.
I didn't say everyone in Europe was a legitimate target, though it's massively unclear how many actual European citizens actually got spied on and by who.
It's not unclear thanks to Snowden. They're collecting everyone's data. Wait Wait...Just like the NSA you're gonna claim that just collecting the data isn't spying, aren't you?
It's about rule of law. It no longer exists in this country. There are far too many examples to start listing them here
but the fact that you don't acknowledge them indicates it would be pointless to list them anyway since your obviously blind to them.
There are aspects of so-called "victimless crime" about it, but not political crime. Drug use generates plenty of genuine crime, including crimes of violence.
That has to be one of the stupidest arguments of the prohibitionist crowd. As was proved by alcohol, prohibition generates much much more crime including much more violent crime.
Voting works perfectly well, it's just not simple. Voting and policy have a related relationship.
Ok. Tell me who I vote for to get this secret spying shit under control. Ehhh...I'm not hearing anything...
You, my friend, are living in a dream world.
For the most part this isn't surprising, the vast majority of the news time on the NSA scandal has been manufactured outrage about legitimate foreign targets
So what your saying is everyone in Europe is a legitimate target? Cause that's who they're collecting every single communication of. In more simple terms, bullshit.
Well, it's mostly imagined. Crime has been going steadily DOWN for 20 years. Even serious crimes are down to HALF of what they were 30 years ago.
Except of course Copyright Infringement. They still have a special department to act as a police force for the content industry...errr...I mean to stop those evil copy thiefs.
But what I want to know is this: since when does the FBI get to amend its own mission statement? Where did they get the authority to do that?
Are you kidding? You really still believe government agencies and police forces in the US still need authorization to do anything? They don't need no stinkin authorization.
Yeah, cause violence never solved anything (roles eyes). Right
What we have now are invasions of sovereign nations which happen to be chock full of resources and blind eyes turned to genocide elsewhere.
So your claim is the US invaded Afghanistan for the Poppies? Cause that's about the only resource there. And where's all that oil we invaded Iraq to steal? Seems there's a few holes in your little theory there.
The issue here is not that the NSA is trying to glean as much information about as many people it can. That's what it is meant to do, and anyone saying it shouldn't is welcome to bring forward detailed analysis of how the USA (or any other country) can afford to be without an intelligence organization.
This is a false dichotomy. Having an effective intelligence service is in no way predicated on collecting as much information as possible on as many people as possible. Given what should be and is claimed as the primary mission of the US intelligence services right now I contend this is detrimental to them being effective. Operational effectiveness requires focusing limited resources on the the most critical points. Read Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or any other of the greats on strategy and it's pretty clear what they're doing is exactly how to lose provided their goal is to contain terrorist type attacks. Note I said if that is their goal.
There are two point of real issue here. The first is that it spies on US citizens and residents. The theory goes that I can spy on other countries as far out as I can reach them, because their natural resistance to my spying attempts is limiting my ability to achieve total knowledge which, as you said, is dangerous.
No. You are missing the primary point. There is nothing wrong with traditional type spying on foreign powers when the goal is to protect US interest. Whether or how far this extends to commercial interest is arguable. I'd argue though, that what they are doing is not an effective means to accomplish that type of spying though. So either they are stupid and haven't read Sun Tzu and Clausewitz or else that's not the purpose behind this wholesale data collection.
The NSA's operations abroad are not against the organization charter, and are, therefor, not against the law.
It may not be against the law but secret wholesale collection of every persons communications is counter to the fundamentals of a free and open society. It gives pretty much unlimited power to the people who control that data. There is absolutely no way this power will not be abused. There is absolutely no justification for needed this power. Think about what type of government requires absolute power over others. It certainly isn't any type of free or open society.
The fact that it isn't against the law tells you what type of government is running the US today.
No. The traitors are the ones running this country without regards to either the Constitution or the best interests of the people being governed. The traitors are the ones who do what they're payed to do solely in the interest of personal gain.
It is much, much worse than that. Collecting unalyzed data that, in more nefarious hands, can be used for extortion and political manipulation,
Ummm...that's the whole point of collecting the data. It has nothing to do with national security. That's just the cover. It's about power and control.
Additionally, Ayn Rand is offering no useful solutions. It is in fact people with a very similar philosophy to objectivism who have dropped us right in it now.
I challenge you to point those out. In almost ever case where I see claims like these it's from people who don't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy. The world today is exactly what Ayn Rand railed against.
They need to put the full-press on congress to improve the patent process.
Rollback, my friend. Please say 'rollback' rather than improve. If they try to improve they'll only make it worse. They'll improve in a manner befitting to the interest they're beholden to rather than in a manner that's beneficial to the people and the economy.
I'm aware, however, that the best of laws have those pesky unintended consequences.
This, my friend, is the crux of the issue. We have some bad laws (patent laws in this case). We know we have some bad laws. How do we fix it? By passing more laws. Yeah, that should work out well.
Our government has risen to such a level of idiocy it's almost beyond comprehension. I keep having flashbacks to "Idiocracy". It's rather terrifying that that movie may become socially relevant in my lifetime.
And that's not even the scary part. Those idiots are the ones in charge of every morsel of data they're now collecting on everyone and the militarized police forces to enforce their Idiocracy should anyone actually have the temerity to tenaciously protest it.
Hey, those are all based on direct quotes from our illustrious leaders.
And I forgot to add that even in cases where they do "monitor" the data by actually intentionally looking at it they only look at data for 3 degrees of separation from the target. Never mind that it almost certainly includes literally tens of thousands of people when you consider that the target called to order pizza or the cable company or something.
the NSA was monitoring Americans as well as foreigners
They are not and were not intentionally monitoring US citizens under this program. They are simple collecting all their data and searching through it. This is not monitoring until they actually look at the data. And there are strictly enforced regulations on when they can look at data that has a less than 50% chance that it might be from a foreigner.
What're you stupid? That would be playing right into their hands. "We need more surveillance to stop the subversive terrorist inciting these riots." It would give them more ammunition to further usurp the constitution.
25,692 alcohol induced deaths per year in the US. 11,078 firearm homicides in the US.
Vehicle related deaths are greater than either despite car safety features greatly improving the survivability of collisions over the last 20 years. Although finding statistics (probably gathering accurate ones also) is very difficult I would be willing to bet the number of serious injuries and monetary costs of vehicle collisions dwarfs either alcohol or firearms. I think driving is more applicable to your argument than either guns or alcohol.
Change 'hobby' to 'social drinking'. How about we take this logic and apply it to alcohol (as it relates to deaths due to drunk driving)?
In 2010 there were 32,885 vehicle fatalities. 10,228 were listed as alcohol related. And those statistics are even skewed since if anyone involved, whether they were the cause of the collision or not, had any level of alcohol it's marked as alcohol related. The problem isn't drunk drivers. The problem is irresponsible drivers drunk or sober. If you're going to look at traffic fatalities address the real issue rather than the neo-prohibitionist agenda of certain groups. If you fix the maniacal driving problem and make people responsible for their actions when driving drunk driving won't be an issue.
But, if their viewpoint has no basis in fact, and is fed by ignorance, and is in every provable way either stupid or misinformed, do we not improve society in some way by preventing their speech?
If you've ever studied history, including scientific history, you'll find that "facts" change over time. What we think we know now will be considered foolish superstition as new "facts" are brought forth that discredit current "facts". Science doesn't deal in "facts". It deals in theories supported by reproducible demonstrations. Often the theories are in opposition and often the consensus is shown to be wrong. That's called progress.
Global warming deniers, do they not pose a threat to the entire earth?
Let's take this as an example. Do you have even a concept of how complex the climate system of this planet is? Do you know how much of it we truly understand? So what you're saying is everyone who questions current global warming "facts" should be silenced and/or thrown in jail. Of course this precludes any further work towards understanding our planet's climate should it in any way contrast with currently understood global warming "fact".
Yeah, that will work out well. Especially with closed minded sciolist such as yourself deciding what is indisputable fact.
Microsoft has many thousands of former employees who once had access to the source, with little to lose from anonymous whistleblowing. There are likely as many eyes on any important bit of MS code as open source code, given the size of the company. The backlash for getting caught lying is huge. That's why all the "big lie" companies are so pissed at the gag orders that accompanied their demands for information.
Lets see. So what you're claiming here is that every employee at Microsoft not only has access to every piece of code but that they've actually gone through that code detailed enough to spot any NSA Easter eggs.
First, have you ever worked on a large proprietary software project? From my experience it's lucky if three people even look at any given piece of code much less take the time to really understand what it does. Even in support mode they're typically only going to look close enough to fix the bug they're working on.
Second, an operating system (especially Windows) is a huge piece of work with 1000's of mostly unrelated modules. Very few people would know much outside of their area of work.
Third, you're typically not gonna let your GUI programmer even have access to network stack code.
And lastly, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They can't even figure out how to make there own software work worth a crap. You really think they'll be able to figure out what a highly complex and secret NSA module is doing. (yes that was sarcasm)
Let's not forget than open source vendors are just as vulnerable to this sort of arm twisting - and again I just hope for whistleblowers willing to take the risk. Other than Theo de Ranter, who I'm fairly confident would instantly disobey any gag order, if just to have something new to complain about, I'm not sure most open source software really has an advantage here.
Do you even understand how open source works? Redhat is an open source vendor. Do you realize that CentOS and Oracle (amongst others) both copy and distribute Redhat's software? So they're going to strong arm everyone? CentOS isn't really a vendor even. It's more a loose conglomeration of volunteers. How are you going to strong are them?
I think it's fair to say that the biggest threat to the world wasn't communism, it was the interplay of two superpowers struggling for dominance: everyone else is a target to them.
Yeah, ask the former communist client states how much of a threat the US was compared to the Soviet Union. Strange all those walls and minefields were needed to keep people in those nice benevolent Soviet client states. No matter how much you twist history trying to claim the US is and/or was just as oppressive and the former Soviet Union is just plain ignorant. Mind you in no way am I claiming the US is or was perfect. Far from it. As a nation the US has taken some pretty despicable actions. Any reading on the Vietnam War shows that. But at the same time the US has been fairly benevolent in wielding it's power when looked at from a historical perspective.
You were both a real threat to the rest of the world.
So what your claiming is Europe would have been no worse off had the US not spent decades and billions defending it and the Soviet Union had taken control? Again perhaps you should read a book or 2 about what it was like being a client state of the Soviet Union.
Land of the free my arse.
I'll agree with you here in that the US is heading down the wrong road in this particular area.
Slashdot Mirror
If there's no one to vote for, run for office on that platform. You probably won't win, but you have that right and the capability.
Explain to me how that gets someone into office who is going to stop the secret spying crap. Under the current system in the US there is no way to change the system.
I didn't say everyone in Europe was a legitimate target, though it's massively unclear how many actual European citizens actually got spied on and by who.
It's not unclear thanks to Snowden. They're collecting everyone's data. Wait Wait...Just like the NSA you're gonna claim that just collecting the data isn't spying, aren't you?
A "police state"? In what respect?
It's about rule of law. It no longer exists in this country. There are far too many examples to start listing them here but the fact that you don't acknowledge them indicates it would be pointless to list them anyway since your obviously blind to them.
There are aspects of so-called "victimless crime" about it, but not political crime. Drug use generates plenty of genuine crime, including crimes of violence.
That has to be one of the stupidest arguments of the prohibitionist crowd. As was proved by alcohol, prohibition generates much much more crime including much more violent crime.
Voting works perfectly well, it's just not simple. Voting and policy have a related relationship.
Ok. Tell me who I vote for to get this secret spying shit under control. Ehhh...I'm not hearing anything...
You, my friend, are living in a dream world.
For the most part this isn't surprising, the vast majority of the news time on the NSA scandal has been manufactured outrage about legitimate foreign targets
So what your saying is everyone in Europe is a legitimate target? Cause that's who they're collecting every single communication of. In more simple terms, bullshit.
My guess is they are going to start classifying various crimes as terrorist acts.
Well, they're already classifying peaceful protests as such so I'm thinking were just a little way past that.
Well, it's mostly imagined. Crime has been going steadily DOWN for 20 years. Even serious crimes are down to HALF of what they were 30 years ago.
Except of course Copyright Infringement. They still have a special department to act as a police force for the content industry...errr...I mean to stop those evil copy thiefs.
But what I want to know is this: since when does the FBI get to amend its own mission statement? Where did they get the authority to do that?
Are you kidding? You really still believe government agencies and police forces in the US still need authorization to do anything? They don't need no stinkin authorization.
There are no justifiable wars.
Yeah, cause violence never solved anything (roles eyes). Right
What we have now are invasions of sovereign nations which happen to be chock full of resources and blind eyes turned to genocide elsewhere.
So your claim is the US invaded Afghanistan for the Poppies? Cause that's about the only resource there. And where's all that oil we invaded Iraq to steal? Seems there's a few holes in your little theory there.
The issue here is not that the NSA is trying to glean as much information about as many people it can. That's what it is meant to do, and anyone saying it shouldn't is welcome to bring forward detailed analysis of how the USA (or any other country) can afford to be without an intelligence organization.
This is a false dichotomy. Having an effective intelligence service is in no way predicated on collecting as much information as possible on as many people as possible. Given what should be and is claimed as the primary mission of the US intelligence services right now I contend this is detrimental to them being effective. Operational effectiveness requires focusing limited resources on the the most critical points. Read Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or any other of the greats on strategy and it's pretty clear what they're doing is exactly how to lose provided their goal is to contain terrorist type attacks. Note I said if that is their goal.
There are two point of real issue here. The first is that it spies on US citizens and residents. The theory goes that I can spy on other countries as far out as I can reach them, because their natural resistance to my spying attempts is limiting my ability to achieve total knowledge which, as you said, is dangerous.
No. You are missing the primary point. There is nothing wrong with traditional type spying on foreign powers when the goal is to protect US interest. Whether or how far this extends to commercial interest is arguable. I'd argue though, that what they are doing is not an effective means to accomplish that type of spying though. So either they are stupid and haven't read Sun Tzu and Clausewitz or else that's not the purpose behind this wholesale data collection.
The NSA's operations abroad are not against the organization charter, and are, therefor, not against the law.
It may not be against the law but secret wholesale collection of every persons communications is counter to the fundamentals of a free and open society. It gives pretty much unlimited power to the people who control that data. There is absolutely no way this power will not be abused. There is absolutely no justification for needed this power. Think about what type of government requires absolute power over others. It certainly isn't any type of free or open society.
The fact that it isn't against the law tells you what type of government is running the US today.
He is a traitor.
No. The traitors are the ones running this country without regards to either the Constitution or the best interests of the people being governed. The traitors are the ones who do what they're payed to do solely in the interest of personal gain.
It is much, much worse than that. Collecting unalyzed data that, in more nefarious hands, can be used for extortion and political manipulation,
Ummm...that's the whole point of collecting the data. It has nothing to do with national security. That's just the cover. It's about power and control.
Additionally, Ayn Rand is offering no useful solutions. It is in fact people with a very similar philosophy to objectivism who have dropped us right in it now.
I challenge you to point those out. In almost ever case where I see claims like these it's from people who don't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy. The world today is exactly what Ayn Rand railed against.
They need to put the full-press on congress to improve the patent process.
Rollback, my friend. Please say 'rollback' rather than improve. If they try to improve they'll only make it worse. They'll improve in a manner befitting to the interest they're beholden to rather than in a manner that's beneficial to the people and the economy.
I'm aware, however, that the best of laws have those pesky unintended consequences.
This, my friend, is the crux of the issue. We have some bad laws (patent laws in this case). We know we have some bad laws. How do we fix it? By passing more laws. Yeah, that should work out well.
Our government has risen to such a level of idiocy it's almost beyond comprehension. I keep having flashbacks to "Idiocracy". It's rather terrifying that that movie may become socially relevant in my lifetime.
And that's not even the scary part. Those idiots are the ones in charge of every morsel of data they're now collecting on everyone and the militarized police forces to enforce their Idiocracy should anyone actually have the temerity to tenaciously protest it.
That would be fine, right?
If you're asking me that you might want to consider a sarcasm meter adjustment.
lol @ "under this program"
Hey, those are all based on direct quotes from our illustrious leaders.
And I forgot to add that even in cases where they do "monitor" the data by actually intentionally looking at it they only look at data for 3 degrees of separation from the target. Never mind that it almost certainly includes literally tens of thousands of people when you consider that the target called to order pizza or the cable company or something.
the NSA was monitoring Americans as well as foreigners
They are not and were not intentionally monitoring US citizens under this program. They are simple collecting all their data and searching through it. This is not monitoring until they actually look at the data. And there are strictly enforced regulations on when they can look at data that has a less than 50% chance that it might be from a foreigner.
See, in the USA, unlike most of the world, we have this concept of "rule of law".
Dude, you need to wake the fuck up. That country no longer exists.
Why are you not rioting then?
What're you stupid? That would be playing right into their hands. "We need more surveillance to stop the subversive terrorist inciting these riots." It would give them more ammunition to further usurp the constitution.
25,692 alcohol induced deaths per year in the US. 11,078 firearm homicides in the US.
Vehicle related deaths are greater than either despite car safety features greatly improving the survivability of collisions over the last 20 years. Although finding statistics (probably gathering accurate ones also) is very difficult I would be willing to bet the number of serious injuries and monetary costs of vehicle collisions dwarfs either alcohol or firearms. I think driving is more applicable to your argument than either guns or alcohol.
Change 'hobby' to 'social drinking'. How about we take this logic and apply it to alcohol (as it relates to deaths due to drunk driving)?
In 2010 there were 32,885 vehicle fatalities. 10,228 were listed as alcohol related. And those statistics are even skewed since if anyone involved, whether they were the cause of the collision or not, had any level of alcohol it's marked as alcohol related. The problem isn't drunk drivers. The problem is irresponsible drivers drunk or sober. If you're going to look at traffic fatalities address the real issue rather than the neo-prohibitionist agenda of certain groups. If you fix the maniacal driving problem and make people responsible for their actions when driving drunk driving won't be an issue.
But, if their viewpoint has no basis in fact, and is fed by ignorance, and is in every provable way either stupid or misinformed, do we not improve society in some way by preventing their speech?
If you've ever studied history, including scientific history, you'll find that "facts" change over time. What we think we know now will be considered foolish superstition as new "facts" are brought forth that discredit current "facts". Science doesn't deal in "facts". It deals in theories supported by reproducible demonstrations. Often the theories are in opposition and often the consensus is shown to be wrong. That's called progress.
Global warming deniers, do they not pose a threat to the entire earth?
Let's take this as an example. Do you have even a concept of how complex the climate system of this planet is? Do you know how much of it we truly understand? So what you're saying is everyone who questions current global warming "facts" should be silenced and/or thrown in jail. Of course this precludes any further work towards understanding our planet's climate should it in any way contrast with currently understood global warming "fact".
Yeah, that will work out well. Especially with closed minded sciolist such as yourself deciding what is indisputable fact.
Microsoft has many thousands of former employees who once had access to the source, with little to lose from anonymous whistleblowing. There are likely as many eyes on any important bit of MS code as open source code, given the size of the company. The backlash for getting caught lying is huge. That's why all the "big lie" companies are so pissed at the gag orders that accompanied their demands for information.
Lets see. So what you're claiming here is that every employee at Microsoft not only has access to every piece of code but that they've actually gone through that code detailed enough to spot any NSA Easter eggs.
First, have you ever worked on a large proprietary software project? From my experience it's lucky if three people even look at any given piece of code much less take the time to really understand what it does. Even in support mode they're typically only going to look close enough to fix the bug they're working on.
Second, an operating system (especially Windows) is a huge piece of work with 1000's of mostly unrelated modules. Very few people would know much outside of their area of work.
Third, you're typically not gonna let your GUI programmer even have access to network stack code. And lastly, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They can't even figure out how to make there own software work worth a crap. You really think they'll be able to figure out what a highly complex and secret NSA module is doing. (yes that was sarcasm)
Let's not forget than open source vendors are just as vulnerable to this sort of arm twisting - and again I just hope for whistleblowers willing to take the risk. Other than Theo de Ranter, who I'm fairly confident would instantly disobey any gag order, if just to have something new to complain about, I'm not sure most open source software really has an advantage here.
Do you even understand how open source works? Redhat is an open source vendor. Do you realize that CentOS and Oracle (amongst others) both copy and distribute Redhat's software? So they're going to strong arm everyone? CentOS isn't really a vendor even. It's more a loose conglomeration of volunteers. How are you going to strong are them?
I think his death in 2010 is probably a bit of a disincentive too.
Bullshit. Why do you think copyright extends for 70 years after the death of the author?
I think it's fair to say that the biggest threat to the world wasn't communism, it was the interplay of two superpowers struggling for dominance: everyone else is a target to them.
Yeah, ask the former communist client states how much of a threat the US was compared to the Soviet Union. Strange all those walls and minefields were needed to keep people in those nice benevolent Soviet client states. No matter how much you twist history trying to claim the US is and/or was just as oppressive and the former Soviet Union is just plain ignorant. Mind you in no way am I claiming the US is or was perfect. Far from it. As a nation the US has taken some pretty despicable actions. Any reading on the Vietnam War shows that. But at the same time the US has been fairly benevolent in wielding it's power when looked at from a historical perspective.
You were both a real threat to the rest of the world.
So what your claiming is Europe would have been no worse off had the US not spent decades and billions defending it and the Soviet Union had taken control? Again perhaps you should read a book or 2 about what it was like being a client state of the Soviet Union.
Land of the free my arse.
I'll agree with you here in that the US is heading down the wrong road in this particular area.