It appears to me that a good bit of what's happening now is Federal govt. paying private contractors to build some of these spying tools and to actually DO the spying for them. That way, government is able to claim it is following the Constitution and doing nothing wrong.
If I pay a hit man to murder someone for me, and he follows through, who is guilty of murder? Both of us. Paying contractors to violate the Constitution does not absolve the government of its responsibility to abide by it.
So if a foreign allied government does the spying for the US government on US soil and gives the information to the US government then what?
Kids are always curious about things their parents forbid. Adults are always curious about things their government forbid.
The Streisand effect on BitCoin is going to be huge.
A government can make it illegal by proving it's only used by criminals, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members. A government can prove this by entrapment, and other corrupt practices, to make anyone they want look like that.
So a few big stings of pedophiles and child pornographers using Bitcoin and that is all it would take to kill Bitcoin. The reason being is when you have the words pedophile and Bitcoin in the same new story over and over again whether it's true or not it forms a subconscious association in the viewers mind. It's classical conditioning.
Dignity is usually considered a human right. Having people watch someone's murder or rape online would probably be considered to have stripped away that dignity.
Of course it is almost impossible to remove material from the internet, but would you argue that once an image is "out there" that person's dignity is gone and we should do nothing further to try and protect it? I don't think it's a binary thing like that.
That is the argument. Once something is on the net it's out there forever. The concept of dignity has to adapt to technological progress. We can't act like there will be ways to delete stuff in the future when that wont be possible. And we cannot blame people for viewing it as if viewing anything is equal to the original crime.
There are some things simply beyond the pale in any decent society. Entertaining people through showing a grisly, cruel murder can do nothing but harm the family, friends, and love ones of the victim. It has absolutely no political, educational, moral effect, nor any deterrent to any crime. It has no value whatsoever to shock and delight those deranged enough to view a heinous act.
The Framers had clear reasons for promoting freedom of speech, primarily to serve the political health of the nation by fostering free debate. And yes, they came from a society that still had public executions, some of which were (in England at least) just as brutal as this crime as more. But they did not create freedom of speech to promote sheer depravity. Laws exist in the context of their society, even what we consider natural law, and there are some things that a society has every damn right to ban - child pornography, and yes, showing a murder for fun.
What must be going through the minds of this poor woman's parents? Is that pain worth a shock to an increasingly cynical population? This was beyond the pale, and does corrupt public morals by desensitizing people to murder. The owner of the site deserves these charges.
Fuck censorshp. A lot of stuff on the Internet can torment people for years. It's not like anything else gets deleted from the Internet. This is about one group of people how another group of people can be allowed to think. If you don't like Gore then don't go to the site.
The CIA did practically never have any one inside the USSR at all during the cold war. The first real insight into KGB was given to them by the French when they got hold of "Farewell" due to him needing western cash since he had spent his KGB money.
I highly doubt the CIA had no one inside the USSR. They probably did, but whether or not it was helpful is another matter. It probably didn't help that Robert Hanssen outed everyone, along with Aldrich Ames.
Yeah that have worked wonders for the KGB, don't think it would work that good for the CIA et al in order coerce a KGB agent inside the USSR since getting into the USSR undetected would be quite a hassle and the KGB agents that operated inside the USSR seldom if ever left the country.
Coercion worked for either side. Blackmail worked for either side. Usually KGB / CIA agents aren't the target. Innocent civilians were usually the target, or young naive military officers.
Well, the current depression is not accidental in the sense that all the policies and all the political winds, movements, the mob and the politicians agreed to take the path of least resistance, to avoid working, to shift responsibility and blame and the payments to somebody else. I absolutely agree that creating a welfare society is good for the political system to remain in power, the poor, the stupid, the uneducated always want somebody else to do it all for them at the expense of anybody, doesn't matter who becomes the sacrificial lamb. Here is a great piece of satire explaining some of this in simplest terms.
However when it comes to the three letter agencies, I think from their perspective there is no push to worsen the economic situation on purpose to push people into totalitarianism. They (3LAs) are certainly part of the problem from the POV that they are a huge cost centre (and also they are helping the uncompetitive monopolies to have an upper hand in negotiations, which is really what this spying is ALL about - money that can be made by spying on people).
But while I don't think 3LAs are pushing for a worse economic situation, they are part of the problem that causes it and they certainly wouldn't let a crisis to go to waste.
The NSA has to protect certain monopolies because they get funded by tax dollars. The enemy that can cut off their funding can stop them. So they have ever right to spy in that context.
I think all governments benefit when people are desperate for work and the only place that is hiring is the police dept or the three letter agencies. They now get the best minds/labor for the cheapest price.
If you want terrorism to stop, then just don't participate in it.
The same exact thing applies to NSA and all other government terrorist organisations.
The NSA seems like a horrible place to work. The amount of scrutiny and surveillance you'd have to go through just to get the job so that you can then put that scrutiny and surveillance on the world? What is the point?
Oh yeah, the economy sucks and people are desperate for money.
Money has always worked best, but of course ideology is another drive which is evident from the one of the few KGB agents that the west managed to turn (Farewell). Ideology would however be quite difficult in the USSR since they like North Korea today was subjects to massive propaganda about the "Evil and corrupt West".
Fuck them. Their profits don't outweigh our rights. You should be able to buy what you want and if they have to resort to this bs to try to protect a copyright cartel then that cartel is corrupting the system and taking away our rights for its own economic benefit.
Agreed. I think that Snowden hurts his own credibility and his self-professed cause by spilling out all the details of United States espionage activities overseas. Had Snowden had a compelling whistleblower case by simply reporting on US domestic spying; many would view him as a patriot (as he self-proclaimed) for reporting on these abuses. However, muddies the water tremendously, I would even argue crosses the line, by providing details of US intelligence activities overseas, not just to the European Union but also to the Chinese and the Russians. Those actions directly harming his home country, undermining American intelligence activities against nations that have comprehensive espionage programs targeted at the United States (this includes European nations).
Did you expect anything different when he arrived in Russia?
For decades the CIA and NSA were put down for not being as good as the Russian KGB. Reason was the KGB bugged everyone and everything. It'd be shocked too if the NSA weren't somewhat good at broad surveillance.
I thought the reason was supposed to be that the KGB tortured people and we didn't.
The reason was the KGB had more experience with it and better people doing it at that time. Now the people aren't as important, the technology does it. There is no country with the technology of the US government and that is the advantage of the NSA.
The main reason why KGB was way better was primarily the fact that a western agent could be bought with money, something that was more or less impossible in the east. Utilizing capital in the USSR was not the easies of things.
Don't be foolish. Any agent of any agency can be corrupted if they are human. To think they cannot is a flaw in your calculation. Money is only one mechanism of corrupting a person. Ideology works just as easily.
Quoting the PP in full because I hate moderators turning into political censors. -1 is for trolls and flamebait, not posters whose opinions you disagree with. FWIW I completely disagree w/ the PP, but their comment is a legitimate part of this debate.
Those countries are probably spying on us as well. And our government has a responsibility to know what other governments are doing, to the best of our abilities.
That said, it shows how much damage Snowden has done to publicly reveal this undoubtedly top secret information. He's a traitor.
P.S. The ultimate irony is if this comment gets modded down from its original +2, but it wouldn't be the first time a comment like this has been. Not only do some mods like to act as political censors, they don't like being called on it.
That is because Snowden is politically popular with uninformed US citizens and foreign citizens. But that does not mean that what Snowden has done is a good thing. It has consequences if it helps any government in any way.
Cloning smart people or beautiful people or athletic people is NOT the problem. The problem is when they decide to clone stupid people as servants & laborers. when the creation of slave classes of low-intelligence clones becomes economically viable, it will become a commercial, not social activity.
Why bother? Machines make better servants and smart people can build them.
$5000 might be reasonable for a bit of work copying some data to some disks, but it is not nearly enough to cover being known as an evil traitor everyone in the world. His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
The real question is how did he get outed? I thought the FBI didn't out their informants. You're right, it's dumb to be an informant for precisely the reason you mention. No one wants to be labeled the snitch, it's equal to being blacklisted.
Robots should replace the human workforce until a day where there is no work left for human beings to do. At that point human beings can play for a living.
Unlike the good guys in America, which spies on its citizens and charges them with espionage for speaking out against the government.
When it comes to curtalizing citizen activity, at least the Chinese are honest about it. The shameless hypocrisy coming from the US government is insulting.
China does the exact same thing. Don't you live in China?
If you were an American you would understand why this is bad.
And if you were Chinese you would understand why this is good. Guess what? This is not a battle of good and evil.
I never said it was. But since I don't have a job working in IT in China and Chinese citizenship it's not in my self interest to want to promote the Chinese economy. Do I want to be ruled by the Chinese? Do you?
Slashdot Mirror
It is every citizen's duty to report crimes they know about, ESPECIALLY if the authorities are the criminals.
Report to who?
If I pay a hit man to murder someone for me, and he follows through, who is guilty of murder? Both of us. Paying contractors to violate the Constitution does not absolve the government of its responsibility to abide by it.
So if a foreign allied government does the spying for the US government on US soil and gives the information to the US government then what?
I don't understand why that information would ever be released. Are they trying to provoke the US government? I think so.
Kids are always curious about things their parents forbid. Adults are always curious about things their government forbid.
The Streisand effect on BitCoin is going to be huge.
A government can make it illegal by proving it's only used by criminals, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members. A government can prove this by entrapment, and other corrupt practices, to make anyone they want look like that.
So a few big stings of pedophiles and child pornographers using Bitcoin and that is all it would take to kill Bitcoin. The reason being is when you have the words pedophile and Bitcoin in the same new story over and over again whether it's true or not it forms a subconscious association in the viewers mind. It's classical conditioning.
Kids are always curious about things their parents forbid. Adults are always curious about things their government forbid.
The Streisand effect on BitCoin is going to be huge.
Easily.
Dignity is usually considered a human right. Having people watch someone's murder or rape online would probably be considered to have stripped away that dignity.
Of course it is almost impossible to remove material from the internet, but would you argue that once an image is "out there" that person's dignity is gone and we should do nothing further to try and protect it? I don't think it's a binary thing like that.
That is the argument. Once something is on the net it's out there forever. The concept of dignity has to adapt to technological progress. We can't act like there will be ways to delete stuff in the future when that wont be possible. And we cannot blame people for viewing it as if viewing anything is equal to the original crime.
There are some things simply beyond the pale in any decent society. Entertaining people through showing a grisly, cruel murder can do nothing but harm the family, friends, and love ones of the victim. It has absolutely no political, educational, moral effect, nor any deterrent to any crime. It has no value whatsoever to shock and delight those deranged enough to view a heinous act.
The Framers had clear reasons for promoting freedom of speech, primarily to serve the political health of the nation by fostering free debate. And yes, they came from a society that still had public executions, some of which were (in England at least) just as brutal as this crime as more. But they did not create freedom of speech to promote sheer depravity. Laws exist in the context of their society, even what we consider natural law, and there are some things that a society has every damn right to ban - child pornography, and yes, showing a murder for fun.
What must be going through the minds of this poor woman's parents? Is that pain worth a shock to an increasingly cynical population? This was beyond the pale, and does corrupt public morals by desensitizing people to murder. The owner of the site deserves these charges.
Fuck censorshp. A lot of stuff on the Internet can torment people for years. It's not like anything else gets deleted from the Internet.
This is about one group of people how another group of people can be allowed to think. If you don't like Gore then don't go to the site.
The CIA did practically never have any one inside the USSR at all during the cold war. The first real insight into KGB was given to them by the French when they got hold of "Farewell" due to him needing western cash since he had spent his KGB money.
I highly doubt the CIA had no one inside the USSR. They probably did, but whether or not it was helpful is another matter. It probably didn't help that Robert Hanssen outed everyone, along with Aldrich Ames.
Yeah that have worked wonders for the KGB, don't think it would work that good for the CIA et al in order coerce a KGB agent inside the USSR since getting into the USSR undetected would be quite a hassle and the KGB agents that operated inside the USSR seldom if ever left the country.
Coercion worked for either side. Blackmail worked for either side. Usually KGB / CIA agents aren't the target. Innocent civilians were usually the target, or young naive military officers.
Well, the current depression is not accidental in the sense that all the policies and all the political winds, movements, the mob and the politicians agreed to take the path of least resistance, to avoid working, to shift responsibility and blame and the payments to somebody else. I absolutely agree that creating a welfare society is good for the political system to remain in power, the poor, the stupid, the uneducated always want somebody else to do it all for them at the expense of anybody, doesn't matter who becomes the sacrificial lamb. Here is a great piece of satire explaining some of this in simplest terms.
However when it comes to the three letter agencies, I think from their perspective there is no push to worsen the economic situation on purpose to push people into totalitarianism. They (3LAs) are certainly part of the problem from the POV that they are a huge cost centre (and also they are helping the uncompetitive monopolies to have an upper hand in negotiations, which is really what this spying is ALL about - money that can be made by spying on people).
But while I don't think 3LAs are pushing for a worse economic situation, they are part of the problem that causes it and they certainly wouldn't let a crisis to go to waste.
The NSA has to protect certain monopolies because they get funded by tax dollars. The enemy that can cut off their funding can stop them. So they have ever right to spy in that context.
I think all governments benefit when people are desperate for work and the only place that is hiring is the police dept or the three letter agencies. They now get the best minds/labor for the cheapest price.
If you want terrorism to stop, then just don't participate in it.
The same exact thing applies to NSA and all other government terrorist organisations.
The NSA seems like a horrible place to work. The amount of scrutiny and surveillance you'd have to go through just to get the job so that you can then put that scrutiny and surveillance on the world? What is the point?
Oh yeah, the economy sucks and people are desperate for money.
Money has always worked best, but of course ideology is another drive which is evident from the one of the few KGB agents that the west managed to turn (Farewell). Ideology would however be quite difficult in the USSR since they like North Korea today was subjects to massive propaganda about the "Evil and corrupt West".
You forgot coercion/blackmail.
Fuck them. Their profits don't outweigh our rights.
You should be able to buy what you want and if they have to resort to this bs to try to protect a copyright cartel then that cartel is corrupting the system and taking away our rights for its own economic benefit.
Agreed. I think that Snowden hurts his own credibility and his self-professed cause by spilling out all the details of United States espionage activities overseas. Had Snowden had a compelling whistleblower case by simply reporting on US domestic spying; many would view him as a patriot (as he self-proclaimed) for reporting on these abuses. However, muddies the water tremendously, I would even argue crosses the line, by providing details of US intelligence activities overseas, not just to the European Union but also to the Chinese and the Russians. Those actions directly harming his home country, undermining American intelligence activities against nations that have comprehensive espionage programs targeted at the United States (this includes European nations).
Did you expect anything different when he arrived in Russia?
For decades the CIA and NSA were put down for not being as good as the Russian KGB. Reason was the KGB bugged everyone and everything. It'd be shocked too if the NSA weren't somewhat good at broad surveillance.
I thought the reason was supposed to be that the KGB tortured people and we didn't.
The reason was the KGB had more experience with it and better people doing it at that time. Now the people aren't as important, the technology does it. There is no country with the technology of the US government and that is the advantage of the NSA.
The main reason why KGB was way better was primarily the fact that a western agent could be bought with money, something that was more or less impossible in the east. Utilizing capital in the USSR was not the easies of things.
Don't be foolish. Any agent of any agency can be corrupted if they are human. To think they cannot is a flaw in your calculation. Money is only one mechanism of corrupting a person. Ideology works just as easily.
The resulting outrage will be highly amusing. Even more so when other agencies like the CIA find *they're* being monitored.
If the US is bugged by foreign governments the same way does that make news? Or is it only news if the US government does it?
Quoting the PP in full because I hate moderators turning into political censors. -1 is for trolls and flamebait, not posters whose opinions you disagree with. FWIW I completely disagree w/ the PP, but their comment is a legitimate part of this debate.
Those countries are probably spying on us as well. And our government has a responsibility to know what other governments are doing, to the best of our abilities.
That said, it shows how much damage Snowden has done to publicly reveal this undoubtedly top secret information. He's a traitor.
P.S. The ultimate irony is if this comment gets modded down from its original +2, but it wouldn't be the first time a comment like this has been. Not only do some mods like to act as political censors, they don't like being called on it.
That is because Snowden is politically popular with uninformed US citizens and foreign citizens. But that does not mean that what Snowden has done is a good thing. It has consequences if it helps any government in any way.
Because where are the leaks detailing how foreign governments spy on the US and influence US elections?
Cloning smart people or beautiful people or athletic people is NOT the problem. The problem is when they decide to clone stupid people as servants & laborers. when the creation of slave classes of low-intelligence clones becomes economically viable, it will become a commercial, not social activity.
Why bother? Machines make better servants and smart people can build them.
Governments can now take a drop of the blood of any high IQ genius and clone them. Expect it.
$5000 might be reasonable for a bit of work copying some data to some disks, but it is not nearly enough to cover being known as an evil traitor everyone in the world. His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
The real question is how did he get outed? I thought the FBI didn't out their informants. You're right, it's dumb to be an informant for precisely the reason you mention. No one wants to be labeled the snitch, it's equal to being blacklisted.
Robots should replace the human workforce until a day where there is no work left for human beings to do.
At that point human beings can play for a living.
Unlike the good guys in America, which spies on its citizens and charges them with espionage for speaking out against the government.
When it comes to curtalizing citizen activity, at least the Chinese are honest about it. The shameless hypocrisy coming from the US government is insulting.
China does the exact same thing. Don't you live in China?
If you were an American you would understand why this is bad.
And if you were Chinese you would understand why this is good. Guess what? This is not a battle of good and evil.
I never said it was. But since I don't have a job working in IT in China and Chinese citizenship it's not in my self interest to want to promote the Chinese economy.
Do I want to be ruled by the Chinese? Do you?