The government spying thread

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Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor

Hero
6
75%
Traitor
2
25%
 
Total votes: 8

TheCatt
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The government spying thread

Post by TheCatt »

Pick one.
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

Can I pick something in between?
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Post by TheCatt »

Do you see a third option?

No. Black/White.
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Post by Malcolm »

Don't really consider him either at the moment.
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Post by GORDON »

He is a person who saw the government had done something he felt was morally wrong except they made it legal (or... "It's not illegal when the President does it?"), and he let the whole world know the planet's bastion of freedom and liberty was spying on them.

To my knowledge, he didn't get paid to sell secrets, be was just a whistle blower, and he had so little faith in the fairness of his government that he got the hell out of Dodge.

I appreciate the sacrifice he made.




Edited By GORDON on 1370897345
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

I'd have at least tried to drop the info anonymously. Being known for this shit is more trouble than it's worth.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
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Post by TheCatt »

I went with traitor. I see Gordon's point, and I 45% agree with Gordon. But FISA exists for a reason, we have courts reviewing the requests, it's only metadata, not calls or voice, etc.

If the NSA isn't out there to do these types of things, who is? Honestly, I already assumed they did far worse.
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Post by GORDON »

TheCatt wrote:I went with traitor. I see Gordon's point, and I 45% agree with Gordon. But FISA exists for a reason, we have courts reviewing the requests, it's only metadata, not calls or voice, etc.

If the NSA isn't out there to do these types of things, who is? Honestly, I already assumed they did far worse.
It all breaks down, in my mind, when the government who made the rules and laws we are supposed to follow has broken the trust of the people they supposedly serve.

Our system is rotten to its very core, in my opinion, and the more light we shine on it the better.
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Post by Malcolm »

Honestly, I already assumed they did far worse.

They are. This is what they've been caught doing.

when the government who made the rules and laws we are supposed to follow has broken the trust of the people they supposedly serve

That break happened a long time ago.

Our system is rotten to its very core, in my opinion, and the more light we shine on it the better.

Julian Assange get a free pass, too?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
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Post by GORDON »

GORDON wrote:Our system is rotten to its very core, in my opinion, and the more light we shine on it the better.

You commit 3 felonies a day.

The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior.

We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11. They contacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the customers. After he consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled a bunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the top bidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and put him in prison for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew of anticipated income from secret programs that QWest was planning for the government, while the public didn't because it was classified and he couldn't legally tell them, and then he bought or sold QWest stock knowing those things.


http://spectator.org/archive....nt

So contrast two guitar companies, one that contributes to Republicans and one that contributes to Democrats. Both use the same type of exotic wood for their guitars. And only one of them got raided by the DOJ and Department of the Interior wearing SWAT gear and seizing company assets and ended up having to pay a big fine. The other one hasn't had a problem with the government. In light of the IRS story, it makes you wonder, doesn't it?


We're fucked from every angle. The government can listen to our phone calls and read our emails whenever they want. The people we vote into power have given up anything beyond getting paid, and doing whatever it takes to win the next election. You can't trust major media outlets, where most of us get our news since it is impossible to hang out in DC all day, to even pretend to be impartial. If you support the incorrect party in an election, you are subject to vindictive and devestating action by the party who takes power.

We are so, so fucked.

The dude is a hero for taking that on.
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Post by GORDON »

Malcolm wrote:
Our system is rotten to its very core, in my opinion, and the more light we shine on it the better.
Julian Assange get a free pass, too?
He does from me.

And I have a dollar that says the rape charge is bullshit, too.
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Post by TheCatt »

I agree with most of what Gordon says. But my distinction is that I don't consider the entire government to be a singular evil entity. I agree wholeheartedly about the insane rise of those laws. The WSJ has been doing articles about them for years. All sorts of crimes people break, never knowing about, and the government can arbitrarily decide whether or not to prosecute.

Exposing that our country is trying to protect itself from terrorists, threats known and unknown. Yay. Now Iran and China can fuck with us even more. Meanwhile, people are still being prosecuted for picking up bird feathers. Win.
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Post by Leisher »

Chris Kluwe weighs in:
It's an interesting world when you can openly solicit money to craft policy, yet revealing a Constitutional violation is considered treason.


Based on that logic alone, I'd vote hero.

However, I'm still leaning more towards Catt's side.
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Post by GORDON »

I am trying to think of a pithy metaphor, but it is hard to think of a good one since the dude actually did (probably) break a law, no matter how shitty and unconstitutional that law is.

He informed Americans that their electronic communications are absolutely being recorded by the government. I already have known this for sure for over a year, and strongly suspected it for the last 10 years (when Carnivore showed up in the headlines.... but it was bad then, because that was Bush). Wired did an article about a year ago about the NSA's new data center in the Utah desert, designed to record everything recordable.

But then I dont want to support him too much, do I, since this is being recorded and who knows when they will start doing SQL queries for the big anti-government purge. Because isn't this their logic, lately? Someone tattled and revealed the president and government were doing unconstitutional things to the American public, and now they want to fix it by disappearing the tattle tale. So obviously their solution to quelling the ire of the people they are spying on will be to kill the people who are most angry about it. See, that fixes the problem because then you can illustrate that there are fewer angry people, so the situation must be getting better.
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Post by GORDON »

1. Warrantless wire taps.

2. Drones, killing terrorists, the civilians around them, and sometimes American citizens, always without a trial, coming soon to a federally DHS funded police station near you.

3. Everything you say electronically is being recorded, and sometimes it is being caught on camera outside.

And peeps say things aren't as bad as I think.... I think we are the frog in the pot, and the water is close to boiling.
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Post by TheCatt »

GORDON wrote:He informed Americans that their electronic communications are absolutely being recorded by the government.
No, he did not say this, and this has not been proven. He said information about your communications is being sent to the government (Verizon: phone numbers + length of calls). If you are specifically targeted, your communications could be requested, but only via a warrant. Only information captured by providers is sent, the government is not doing the recording. And, the detailed capturing applies to foreign nationals, not Americans.

Summary here. Whole bunch of wild accusations to begin with, truth later coming out.
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Post by TheCatt »

1. Overblown.
2. Not happening in the US. Tools of war.
3. Not true.
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Post by TPRJones »

TheCatt wrote:we have courts reviewing the requests
Considering that they've never once denied a request, it's not a review system it's a rubber stamp. Doesn't count.
But my distinction is that I don't consider the entire government to be a singular evil entity.

I concur. It's a collection of thousands of smaller evil entities, all working for their own ends which almost always end up screwing over the citizens they are sworn to "serve".

Exposing that our country is trying to protect itself from terrorists, threats known and unknown. Yay. Now Iran and China can fuck with us even more.
Bah, your average American is hundreds of times more likely to be gunned down by a cop then harmed by a terrorist.
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Post by TheCatt »

I'm not worried about anyone gunning me down, domestic or terrorist. I'm somewhat worried about China stealing all our technology, or people attacking our quite vulnerable infrastructure (electricity, water, etc)
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Post by GORDON »

TheCatt wrote:
GORDON wrote:He informed Americans that their electronic communications are absolutely being recorded by the government.
No, he did not say this, and this has not been proven. He said information about your communications is being sent to the government (Verizon: phone numbers + length of calls). If you are specifically targeted, your communications could be requested, but only via a warrant. Only information captured by providers is sent, the government is not doing the recording. And, the detailed capturing applies to foreign nationals, not Americans.

Summary here. Whole bunch of wild accusations to begin with, truth later coming out.
All I have left to say about it is that if the information he shared was no big deal, or already known, then there is no reason to punish him for it.
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