Prism

As big of a company that google is, I'm glad to hear they are doing the bare minimum to their legal obligation.

This is just feeding my paranoia. But like Sardines said, this has been going on for a while. I would expect conservative media to go after the whole IRS thing and the so-called Benghazi "incident". I don't know the validity of the things I just listed, though.

This is just feeding my paranoia. But like Sardines said, this has been going on for a while. I would expect conservative media to go after the whole IRS thing and the so-called Benghazi "incident". I don't know the validity of the things I just listed, though.

It depends how jaded you are about the entire process. It's only logical that the NSA scaled up from telephones to internet communication and the court being compliant with the NSA is also not a big surprise. I mean why would they block an undergoing investigation of a potential crime target? The only 'bad thing' is that touting virtues like national security and protection from terrorism are fundamentally b.s.-itty value judgments since there is often no rational gauge to mete out when the fear of terrorism and invasion of national security will ever end. The lack of developing a public strategy with details on how Prism is going to operate is the main culprit behind the government's ability to consistently get away with it. What's even more important than the invasion of privacy that people reflexively feel when their own data mining on their harddrive gets data mined, is that when you don't have clear and concise guidelines for utilizing these resources you end up with an over abundance of information that can't be usefully processed. Likely the government is using automated software to expedite the immense amount of information they pull, but really the effectiveness is questionable unless there is an effective team in place to piece together the greater picture from all these data fragments that you can bet won't be gathered on one site like jihadenthusiast.com.

The biggest irony to this debate is that this is not actually a debate about information as it is about the pretense of having information. We presume that the government has a greater collective source of information due to these NSA data-pulling operatins that go on in the shadows. Whether or not that data is actually relevant to application on a threat to America is questionable, but the American people will defer to the government as they have authority and cite secret sources point out to other countries possessing weapons of mass destruction. It is true that questions were posed at the government during the conjecture that Saddam possessed WMDs, however this did little to abate the war. Documents leaked two months ago show a strategy report from Donald Rumself pondering whether it would be better to lead the war into Iraq on linking either the anthrax scandal or WMDs to Saddam, insinuating that neither conjecture was wholly sincere. Data won't nearly be effective as the insinuated existence of it when push comes to shove and realizing this materializes the inconsequences of the threat posed by actual data mining to civil liberties, when a civilian doesn't have to pose an actual threat or possess intimidating data in order to be seen as a threat to national security. I'm not defecting to the tin foil hats who are afraid of drone strikes flying from the skies on innocent civilians, but I don't believe that data needs to be used to incriminate someone on the stipulation of the government.

I don't really care about Benghazi and the IRS, but I think that how it was handled was very poor and indicative of an on going trend in pleading ignorance. Obama stating that it was his first time learning about some of the IRS situation is classic of the Senate Hearing with respect to the London Whale and also the lying by the IRS official who ultimately ended up pleading the fifth. The IRS would be justified in showing discretion on conservative groups like Crossroads GPS which has nothing to do with mapping or road networking like you would think the name implies, but is a donation front set up by Karl Rove to support Republicans. I mean really, which party did you think it would support? The name Karl Rove might as well be synonymous with Republican party. As for changing the talking points on Benghazi that's something we will never know probably until a decade or two from now. Maybe even more if that's going to be the pretense for another war.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Obama did anything wrong. I was saying the points republicans will probably go after. I've talked to conservatives and they think they have found a smoking gun with these two events. :/

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Obama did anything wrong. I was saying the points republicans will probably go after. I've talked to conservatives and they think they have found a smoking gun with these two events. :/

It's not a smoking gun because the vast majority of the public don't care, and won't care no matter what happens, unless it directly involves them. Not just "data mining", not even just getting questioned by government officials, the only way most people will ever care is if the are severely, SEVERELY inconvenienced due to it. Like, concentration camp level "inconvenienced". And I don't think that will be happening, that's not in the current control model our government is using.

It would be a smoking gun if everyone cared to the same extent that those small groups do, but people these days seem to have the built-in defense mechanism of "roll over and eventually it will go away".

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Obama did anything wrong. I was saying the points republicans will probably go after. I've talked to conservatives and they think they have found a smoking gun with these two events. :/

The bigger smoking gun came out earlier in 2013 when Rumsfeld's memo was leaked on the situation regarding the Iraq War. This is the crutch on my second paragraph, I don't believe people are responding because they aren't aware about the actual nature of the source material I am referring to, so I have linked it below. At this point though, the Republican party is a political party that is branded for a bygone generation. Their most overt supporters are intolerant fundamentalist Christians, the rich and wealthy who are looking out for their private interest in getting favorable tax cuts, and hobbyists of lobbyists groups i.e. national rifle association that have soiled the pockets of any politician whose willing to shell out for a willing sell out: palin, perry come to mind given the recent convention. In terms of presidential elections, the recent candidates were a joke. Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman were all delicious comedy gold. Even Mitt Romney couldn't be taken seriously after the video leak. What I find surprising is why there is this partisanship when we've become a society that should find such division to be foreign, stupid, and downright unnecessary. The world of politics hardly represents the world where most Americans live in which involves taking responsibility for actions and trying to be a decent human being. The only rational reason for absurdity in politicians defending automatic weapons and provisions for genetically modified food to cross-propagate on non-permissable farmland is due to graft, bribery, and politics being a means to an end rather than the end to itself. In my mind, being a conservative shouldn't be tied towards any political affiliation and therefore people who brand themselves as such shouldn't water their mouths at Benghazi or the IRS. Bipartisanship is stupid and mars more important underlying political issues that need to be addressed. So **** them, the gun has always been smoking.

 Spoiler

That memo can't be real, it looks way too unprofessional...I googled it and all I got were a bunch of tumblr pages and pomegranate, do you have a real source on that? A government document with grammar that terrible would be comical if it wasn't so seriously fucked up.

That memo can't be real, it looks way too unprofessional...I googled it and all I got were a bunch of tumblr pages and pomegranate, do you have a real source on that? A government document with grammar that terrible would be comical if it wasn't so seriously fucked up.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/

I've never seen that before, that's really just sad. The least they can do is be evil supergeniuses, this portrays them as a gang of unorganized idiots, which is arguably even more dangerous because they won't think about the repercussions of anything they do.

I've never seen that before, that's really just sad. The least they can do is be evil supergeniuses, this portrays them as a gang of unorganized idiots, which is arguably even more dangerous because they won't think about the repercussions of anything they do.

I refer you to my .sig.


Also, still waiting for the tinfoil folk to decide this "leak" of PRISM was ordered by the CIA in order to scare the USA's enemies into thinking all their plans are known.

The politics of the US are stuck in how they were when Britain founded colonies on American soil anyway.
Pretty much every major shift European politics have gone though since then hasn't applied to the USA.

The politics of the US are stuck in how they were when Britain founded colonies on American soil anyway.
Pretty much every major shift European politics have gone though since then hasn't applied to the USA.

Europe is currently in heaps of trouble, so that may be a good thing.

The politics of the US are stuck in how they were when Britain founded colonies on American soil anyway.
Pretty much every major shift European politics have gone though since then hasn't applied to the USA.

I wouldn't say that's much of anything relevant since so many European countries went through so many changes to get to their liberal democracies. Hell, take Germany as an example. Loose collection of largely independent states, unified under an authoritarian ruler, a democracy, a totalitarian state, two separate ideologically countries (one liberal democracy, one "communist") finally unified as one liberal democracy. Britain's also been a constitutional monarchy for a good while.

The political parties' ideologies have changed a considerable amount as well.

[MENTION=2088]Flonne[/MENTION]; Europe is in heaps of trouble for completely different reasons.

I wouldn't say that's much of anything relevant since so many European countries went through so many changes to get to their liberal democracies. Hell, take Germany as an example. Loose collection of largely independent states, unified under an authoritarian ruler, a democracy, a totalitarian state, two separate ideologically countries (one liberal democracy, one "communist") finally unified as one liberal democracy. Britain's also been a constitutional monarchy for a good while.

The political parties' ideologies have changed a considerable amount as well.

[MENTION=2088]Flonne[/MENTION]; Europe is in heaps of trouble for completely different reasons.

Everything is connected to politics. Everything.

Everything is can be connected to politics. Everything.

ftfy. Because it isn't a definitive (although I would agree that there are more ties than we'd like).

Hadriel

[MENTION=9802]Jamesie[/MENTION]; [MENTION=2088]Flonne[/MENTION];
If you're referring to the current crisis, I'm pretty sure the USA isn't that much better off.

Also, I didn't mean the monarchy. The Netherlands are a constitutional monarchy as well, why would I care? The king barely holds any real political power and his foremost function is promoting the Netherlands abroad.

That's not the only point, but it is the main point I was focusing on. Yet again, when comparing the politics in the USA today to the politics in Britain (or anywhere else in Europe) 100 years ago, you find a lot of similarities, more than you'll find when you'll compare it to the current-day European politics.
Something that might be interesting to read to learn more about European politics is this: http://www.quirksmode.org/politics/
An explaination of the Dutch political system and how it has evolved.


My main point here was the major shift to the left Europe has made compared to the USA.
If you look at the current Dutch political spectrum, Obama would be placed centre-right while Romney (Or any other fairly moderate republican) would be pretty far into the right wing. The term liberal is actually a right-wing term here, since they were forced to coorporate with the conservatives when the socialists (No, they're not all communists) came up in the left. The measures they want to take (And have taken, since they've been in government pretty often) would be instantly rejected by pretty much every American.

That's not the only point, but it is the main point I was focusing on. Yet again, when comparing the politics in the USA today to the politics in Britain (or anywhere else in Europe) 100 years ago, you find a lot of similarities, more than you'll find when you'll compare it to the current-day European politics.
Something that might be interesting to read to learn more about European politics is this: http://www.quirksmode.org/politics/
An explaination of the Dutch political system and how it has evolved.


Please excuse my messy style of writing and lack of a central point, what I write follows the ways my mind takes and well.... those can be quite windy.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro...08614.html

Okay that's the last straw. If this world was fair, US officials would've long been in International Court of Justice for not just spying but torture (eg. quantanamo & abu ghraib) and jailing nonconformists+whistleblowers.

When stuff like this comes out, it really makes you question what kind of hypocrites the people in US goverment are, to go on war for democracy and constitutional state, when the USA itself is the very travesty of all that.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro...08614.html

Okay that's the last straw. If this world was fair, US officials would've long been in International Court of Justice for not just spying but torture (eg. quantanamo & abu ghraib) and jailing nonconformists+whistleblowers.

When stuff like this comes out, it really makes you question what kind of hypocrites the people in US goverment are, to go on war for democracy and constitutional state, when the USA itself is the very travesty of all that.

I'm sure everyone spies on everyone, and only get in trouble when they get caught. Still, I don't think it's right.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro...08614.html

Okay that's the last straw. If this world was fair, US officials would've long been in International Court of Justice for not just spying but torture (eg. quantanamo & abu ghraib) and jailing nonconformists+whistleblowers.

When stuff like this comes out, it really makes you question what kind of hypocrites the people in US goverment are, to go on war for democracy and constitutional state, when the USA itself is the very travesty of all that.

If the ICJ is anything like the ICC, if the country is investigating it or prosecuting it already, the ICC (or ICJ in this case) cannot persecute them further. Of course, that is predicated on whether or not the ICJ's jurisdiction is complementary.

Spoke with my mother today (background: she works cyber communications and security for the Navy and is usually first or second in command where she's stationed) and she sees Snowden as a traitor (and also called him a slurry of other things). She's worked with NSA frequently and has first-hand account of the information used and how it has been used. She commented that what happens with the information frequently doesn't make the news because it catches things before they're too late (she elaborated by saying "unless you have clearance you wouldn't know it had happened or was going to happen at all"). She did say that many of these firms collect information anyways, regardless of whether or not the government asks, and then sells the information for marketing purposes, which she doesn't care for and would rather not have happening.

Yes, there are private companies like Acxiom that collect private information and then sell it to Torch Concepts, a front company hired by the United States Army to purchase illicit information from companies like Acxiom in order to collect as much information as possible on its own citizens. Yes, there is a judicial process to obtaining data. A process in which the FISA court pressured companies like Yahoo to provide information to PRISM despite initial protest. Or the other process that resulted in the Federal Trade Commission to not press charges against Acxiom because it was assisting law enforcement by providing personal user information to the government despite the company's own policy, "Acxiom has publicly represented its belief that individuals should have notice about how information about them is used and have choices about that dissemination, and has stated that it does not permit clients to make non-public information available to individuals."

The information doesn't catch the news because it is supposed to be private information that no one is supposed to know about. The only reason such information is on the news is because Snowden revealed that the government was mining our personal information, although this was far from surprising:

With the provisions of the Patriot Act being amended to scale up operations from the past administration it is hardly a surprise to see a continuation of increased surveillance between private sectors of the economy and their involvement with the federal government. Although China's infiltration of American news agencies was well known, it was also revealed in May that the Department of Justice was running a secret investigation of their own on the New York Times supposedly following a publication by reporter David Sanger.

Your mother's stance is clear how she feels about government information mining given her position to remain in government service and also to disagree with Snowden. Keep in mind that any opinion on Snowden, other than him being an American hero is complete nonsense regardless of her authority or work experience. Because she finds nothing wrong with the government's espionage on their own citizens, but agrees with the duplicitous accusation of the government to file criminal charges against Snowden for espionage of the United States it is clear that her dedication and service lie with the government who employs her and not with the citizens of the country.

Given the context of what Snowden sacrificed to offer a dialogue for Americans, he is representative of the very concept of free speech and freedom that President Obama preached when he stated that American security and privacy were not exclusive concepts that needed to sacrificed, one for the other. Despite the fact that he disseminated the United States government's actions of hacking other countries including tense economic and political rivals such as China, there needs to be a level of acceptance that it is not Snowden who came short of a long list of principles that are endlessly preached about and spoken in class on a daily basis. And while I do not condone breaking a job contract that stipulates you shouldn't disclose corporate secrets to rivals or other companies, I do not believe that Snowden deserves to be framed as a criminal. At worst, he should be fined for breaking his non-disclosure agreement in a legal proceeding that would occur with anyone in a court of law as an American citizen. For me personally, I don't have any reason to drink from the government Kool-Aid simply because of a relative in information related government service.