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Americans Are More Skeptical About NSA Spying than Ever ... Despite Massive Propaganda Campaign
We’ve previously noted:
- The American public doesn’t believe the NSA … and thinks that the government has gone way too far in the name of terrorism
- A huge majority of Americans wants the director of intelligence – Clapper – prosecuted for perjury
- Only 11% of Americans trust Obama to actually do anything to rein in spying
- Snowden is considered to be a hero by the American public
Despite the massive propaganda push by the NSA and its lackeys in Congress, the people still aren’t buying it.
Bill Moyers notes:
A new poll finds that Americans are increasingly concerned about their online privacy — and it’s the result of increased media attention on NSA surveillance. The poll, USA Today’s Byron Acohido writes, is the “latest proof point of what could, at the end of the day, take hold as a tectonic societal shift: the return of privacy as a social norm. Call it the Edward Snowden effect.” The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by software company ESET, found that four out of five Americans have changed their social media security settings, and most of those people have made the changes in the last six months. Acohido writes:
…[T]he steady flow of revelations from the Snowden documents, detailing the pervasive nature of the National Security Agency’s anti-terrorism surveillance activities, has kept privacy top of mind for many consumers.
Of course the NSA can tap into online data to the extent it does largely because commercial companies, led by Google and Facebook, pursue business models that treat consumer privacy as a free profit-making resource.
It took a wild card, in the form of Edward Snowden, to get the masses focused on who is doing online tracking and profiling, and for what agendas.
Huffington Post notes:
A majority of Americans think that current oversight over data the NSA can collect about Americans is inadequate, and almost half think oversight of the data the NSA collects about foreigners is inadequate, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.
According to the new poll, 54 percent of Americans think federal courts and rules put in place by Congress do not provide adequate oversight over the phone and Internet data the NSA can collect about Americans, while only 17 percent said that the oversight is adequate.
And the Washington Post writes:
[A] poll of 1,000 people, conducted by YouGov from Oct. 5 to Oct. 7 … indicated, however, that the National Security Agency had not demonstrated that its phone and Internet data-collection programs were “necessary to combat terrorism” as it tried to deal with recent disclosures based on documents released to journalists by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Postscript: It probably doesn’t help that – instead of coming clean – the NSA and its supporters have been caught lying again and again, or that they are still so tone deaf that they are cheerfully trying to sell singing the glories of a surveillance state.
3 Senators with Top Secret Clearance “Have Reviewed This Surveillance Extensively and Have Seen No Evidence That The Bulk Collection of Americans’ Phone Records Has Provided Any Intelligence of Value That Could Not Have Been Gathered Through Less Intrusive Means”
Mass spying by the NSA has never stopped a single terrorist attack.
Mass surveillance actually interferes with our ability to stop terrorism.
Today, 3 current U.S. Senators (Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich) who are all on the Senate Intelligence Committee – with top security clearance and access to classified NSA briefings – filed a “friend of the court” brief pointing out that the NSA’s mass spying hasn’t stopped a single attack:
Now that the government’s bulk call-records program has been exposed, the government has defended it vigorously. Amici [i.e. friends of the court ... the 3 Senators, along with numerous security experts] submit this brief to respond to the government’s claim, which it is expected to repeat in this suit, that its collection of bulk call records is necessary to defend the nation against terrorist attacks. Amici make one central point: As members of the committee charged with overseeing the National Security Agency’s surveillance, Amici have reviewed this surveillance extensively and have seen no evidence that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of value that could not have been gathered through less intrusive means. The government has at its disposal a number of authorities that allow it to obtain the call records of suspected terrorists and those in contact with suspected terrorists. It appears to Amici that these more targeted authorities could have been used to obtain the information that the government has publicly claimed was crucial in a few important counterterrorism cases.
***
As Amici and others have made clear, the evidence shows that the executive branch’s claims about the effectiveness of the bulk phone-records program have been vastly overstated and, in some cases, utterly misleading….
For example, the executive branch has defended the program by claiming that it helped “thwart” or “disrupt” fifty-four specific terrorist plots…. But that claim conflates the bulk-collection program with other foreign-intelligence authorities. In fact, as Amici know from their regular oversight of the intelligence community as members of the SSCI, “it appears that the bulk phone records collection program under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act played little or no role in most of these disruptions.” …. Indeed, of the original fifty- four that the government pointed to, officials have only been able to describe two that involved materially useful information obtained through the bulk call-records program…. Even the two supposed success stories involved information that Amici believe—after repeated requests to the government for evidence to the contrary—could readily have been obtained without a database of all Americans’ call records….
In both public statements and in newly declassified submissions to the SSCI, intelligence officials have significantly exaggerated the phone-records program’s effectiveness. Based on the experience of Amici, the public—and this Court—should view the government’s claims regarding the effectiveness of its surveillance programs with searching skepticism and demand evidence rather than assurances before accepting them.
Indeed, NSA spying is not very focused on terrorism at all. And even if some mass surveillance program were somehow necessary, counter-terror experts say we can keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution … more cheaply and efficiently than the current system.
The NSA’s whole domestic spying program is a sham …
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Someone here once said that they need us more than we need them. They being the dirty parasites in power.
Don't forget where the real power lies. They are trying their best to divide us from unifying, but alas we will in the end. I really can't wait to see these fuckerz dangling by the necks from telephone poles. At least in my mind that's how I picture the end game.
"DoctorBeet tested his hunch by mocking up an .avi file that would be immediately distinguishable from any other "normal" traffic. Plugging in a USB stick with the bait (Midget_Porn_2013.avi) into his TV, DoctorBeet soon saw data on his faux porn headed to LG's servers in unencrypted plain text. DoctorBeet (and his shocked wife) also watched his children's names being harvested from the file name of a Christmas video located on another connected drive."
Worth reading:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131119/06503625288/lg-smart-tv-caught...If a Minority Group wanted to CONTROL the Majority Population it would need a Big Brother Spy Apparatus.
So when you consider the CPSU had 300,000 members in the USSR with its population of 237 million you can see how small a power base is needed; and of those 300,000 say maybe 20,000 were in the critical command structures you can see how easily the system can become entrenched.
If J Edgar Hoover could Blackmail For Budget and use the FBI for his personal power dreams how easy it is for the NSA feeding CIA and FBI and DIA to effect its goals.......Enemy of the State showed how Jon Voight could even go freelance using the infrastructure.
In a land of "Boston Brakes" and secret courts it is self-evident that the direction of travel in the Us is to unleash the Dark Force long latent inside the American Security State.
NSA isn't "feeding" CIA, FBI, DIA, the NSA is spying on those entities too. Petraeus ring a bell. So, the questio is what minority group or country are they spying "for"?
You don't need to know who they are spying for. The first action is to capture, try, and execute some of the spies for treason. The rest (or just some) will break and tell you who they work for. Then things start happening.
No progress on reasserting Constitutional limits on our Government will be meaningful unless we first reassert our rights to limit money in politics.
Movetoamend.org wants to limit systemic corruption in our politcs by passing a Constitutional Amendment to declare "Money is not speech" and "Corporations are not people".
Call your local chapter. The more moderate or mainstream you are the better likelihood we will have success.
Since I became a licensed scumbag, I have see our 4th Amendment rights shit on by police and courts at every level. The average American is so oblivious to this degradation of our rights that I fear we have crossed the point of no return. It makes me sad to think about it...
I'm currently an unlicensed scumbag? Where can I get my license?
"Where can I get my license?"
DC, if my olefactory receptors can still be trusted.
The US has become an oppresssive fascist state and the NSA is just a tool of oppression. The US government is now on course to start committing violent crimes against its own people, who it is supposed to be serving. It is time for the people to assert their power and stop this lunacy before it goes any further. Obama needs to be impeached and the system needs to be changed so that the American peoples interest has priority over that of oligarchs. Back to the Constitution.
Think about this idea "It is insane to build the working parts of a repressive police state and leave them lying around". - Jason Kuznicki
While this should be obvious I guess it still needs to be said.
Dear Mr SNOWDON
Any records there about corruption of the gold and sliver price by certain banks and central banks and particular individuals and particular regulators?
Look forward to your early response
Yours faithully
Citizen 3,238,764,223
NSA File No. HFR946302TT.7767
The Question becomes ? how do you overthrow a Government that Knows everything you do and Say..
and the answer is... you do it Quite openly with a lot of Consensus among the population
They suffer from Data Overload and Intelligence Shortcomings
The same way you catch a polar bear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ombh0hP1Ug
We Are Your Enemy
A great 15 minute speech summarizing the circumstances surrounding why the NSA has been doing such blatantly unconstitutional spying on the American people.
Great video! Lays things out pretty clearly. Chuck Smith 2016
Great speech. Lets shut em down.
Now that's what I'm talking about.
Awesome.
NSA ( Nosey Shitfaced Arseholes).
Think ashamed brown nosing for the enemies of the state against the citizens.
How fucking low can you go?
Wake up every morning, afternoon and evening and have the conviction to mind fuck your own, how sad, how bizarre.
America has grown ugly with age. Unlike wine, very distasteful. Full of shame, far beyond redemption. She's a sad old whore. But she's beautiful when she cries. I love her when she cries, I love her only when she cries.
We are sheep being led to the slaughter.
Where are all you techno hacksters out there? Why don't you get nuts man? Why don't you spy on the NSA, fight fire with fire? Why can't we turn tables, turn the tide? C'mon techies, get to work, get crazy, go fucking nuts on these assholes. Crash their system, infect it with viruses, do what you do. Go after anyone who works for them or contracts out with them. I have no idea what I'm talking about in detail but it's a good idea. Even if they hold the joker, at least we can go out with a laugh. HA HA.
I'm really sick of this shit. It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?
You can't spell slaughter without laughter.
"the government has gone way too far in the name of terrorism"
Don't you mean that the government has gone too far in the name of PREVENTING terrorism? I mean you make its seem that the government is a terrorist organization.
Oh wait.
Got you.
Never mind....
The juice in israel want all your personal data. And they got it, for free.
That should tell you whats going on.
Over.
Hey N.S.A., fuck you to HELL!
What a bunch of worms you are, completely raping the Fourth Amendment and your own fellow citizens.
May you rot in HELL after you get some painful disease that makes you pass on slowly with festering wounds, paralyzed limbs, agonizing tumors, inability to have orgasms, eat real food, or say a word.
Other than that and the ghosts of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and every other despotic murdering piece of shit sitting on your shoulders laughing and rubbing their tails together anxious to poke your everlasting souls into perpetual agony you're great people and stand up Americans.
I`m not going to do anything.......well thats what Im saying on here since its going into the NSA Data Center!!
Colonel Hogan, I know nothing.....nothing.....
Pussy.
OK, you're completely right GW. Now, what are we going to do about it?
Well, spinone, this is my point of view:
The cannabis community has been dealing with this for decades. Most of the laws against "ogranized crime" and "terrorism" are actually used more against marijuana than anything else, because there is no other group of "criminals" which has tens of millions of members.
As George Washington restated the situation in this article:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-11-04/stand-together-now-or-yo...…
Stand Together Now Or You Will End Up Facing the Police State Alone …The single simplest symbol, and the most extreme example of the general pattern that the government of the USA has become almost totally based on legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, was that hemp, the best plant on the planet for people, for food, fiber, fun and medicine, was rebranded as "marijuana, which is almost as bad as murder," and that Huge Lie has been enforced with violence for decade after decade.
The fact that, for the first time, this year the public opinion polls in the USA clearly show that more than half of Americans think that marijuana should be legalized may indicate the tide turning? However, a neoprohibitionist kind of fake "legalization" would be too little, too late, and too trivial to matter, unless it was understood that the biggest gangsters, the banksters, were behind controlling the political processes, and that they were the ones that benefited the most, all the way around, from promoting the "war on (some) drugs." After the banksters were able to take over the public money supply, and to get away with privatizing that, by corrupting Congress and the other branches of government, in order to achieve their legalized counterfeiting of the public money supply, then, in similar ways, they have almost totally transformed the USA into an integrated system of oligarchical fascist plutocracy.
Therefore, from my point of view, spinone, I have been doing whatever I could to resist the triumphs of deceits and force backed frauds taking over the civilization I was born into. However, mostly, the only real things that have changed were that those evil trends have automatically gotten worse, faster. Especially since about 2008, it has become more plainly obvious to more mainstream people that something was going profoundly wrong with the political system. However, I repeat, there was nothing else simpler, nor more symbolic, of this overall social sickness and insanity than when the best plant on the planet for people was able to be transformed into something that the government asserts is totally useless and evil, i.e., a Schedule 1 illegal drug.
Welcome to the Bizarro Mirror World, Folks! Everything has become proportionately backwards, with the almost completely corrupted and crazy government of the USA itself becoming almost totally useless and evil, because it has become around 99% based on legalized lies, backed by legalized violence.
"What are we going to do about it?" is an extremely difficult question to answer, however, I would suggest at least trying to do something, rather than nothing!
I'll tell you what I do about it.
I keep a close eye on my N-P-K levels and keep them on the light side.
Great post RadMj.
If we all fight in every little way, in every little corner that we find ourselves in this bizzaro world, perhaps we can start to chip away at the matrix. We are strong together. Together, we are an unstoppable force that will change the tide of this insanity.
It's insane behavior Ocean22, but it's not the permanently disabling, incurable condition of insanity. It's another manifestation of a curable - or at least manageable - infectious social disease: psychopathy.
I agree fully with your sentiment too, RadMj. Unfortuantely, the decriminalization of marijuana efforts (my observation) mostly involves useless efforts to convince a psychopath (elected officials, 'justice', cops, etc.) of doing something they are totally incapable of doing because they are psychopaths: understanding why anyone would want to get high in the first place. They are incapable of understanding another human being's emotions, especially any kind of suffering or pain, because they have perverted any awareness of their own emotions. They completely lack the ability to empathize with otherwise healthy people. Any kind of feelings normal people have are a weakness to be exploited for their own personal gain - nothing more.
Psychopaths are not comfortable around a lot of other healthy people (which generally frighten and confuse a psychopath) unless they control them. Marijuana? That's way up there on the dangerous 'slaves won't obey me' scale. The most threatening thing about it is there is no cheap, easy way to measure how high a person is at any moment. If they can't measure your legal level of 'likely to disobey', then they're paralized with fear. A normal person - one capable of human emotions - can usually tell how toasted someone else is. Psychopaths can't.
Society will be able to 'cure' itself of psychopathy some day. Until then, you're stuck trying to convince a psychopath to change their main control tool - the law - to give up a bit of something that is fundamental to their nature: control. It's not hopeless, but understand that they have the system pretty well peon-proofed. They don't care if twenty bazillion peons 'stand together' for something that's right. They took that into account when they rigged the system to deny the little people their voice.
Society has an immune system. It's not going to be triggered into action until enough people can recognize a psychopath and point their finger at them, calling them out. Fixing the system issue by issue is a waste of time. The broken part IS the psychopaths that have infested it. The system will never work right until it becomes and unsafe, unfriendly place for psychopaths because they will be called out. Today? Hell, their *rewarded* for their psycopathic values.
get really angry, map out a plan of action, get motivated, then drink too much and temporarily forget about it.