This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
If You're Not Outraged By NSA Surveillance, Here's Why You Should Be
Authored by James Bamford, originally posted Op-Ed at Reuters,
Last summer, after months of encrypted emails, I spent three days in Moscow hanging out with Edward Snowden for a Wired cover story. Over pepperoni pizza, he told me that what finally drove him to leave his country and become a whistleblower was his conviction that the National Security Agency was conducting illegal surveillance on every American. Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with him.
In a long-awaited opinion, the three-judge panel ruled that the NSA program that secretly intercepts the telephone metadata of every American — who calls whom and when — was illegal. As a plaintiff with Christopher Hitchens and several others in the original ACLU lawsuit against the NSA, dismissed by another appeals court on a technicality, I had a great deal of personal satisfaction.
It’s now up to Congress to vote on whether or not to modify the law and continue the program, or let it die once and for all. Lawmakers must vote on this matter by June 1, when they need to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
A key factor in that decision is the American public’s attitude toward surveillance. Snowden’s revelations have clearly made a change in that attitude. In a PEW 2006 survey, for example, after the New York Times’ James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping activities, 51 percent of the public still viewed the NSA’s surveillance programs as acceptable, while 47 percent found them unacceptable.
After Snowden’s revelations, those numbers reversed. A PEW survey in March revealed that 52 percent of the public is now concerned about government surveillance, while 46 percent is not.
Given the vast amount of revelations about NSA abuses, it is somewhat surprising that just slightly more than a majority of Americans seem concerned about government surveillance. Which leads to the question of why? Is there any kind of revelation that might push the poll numbers heavily against the NSA’s spying programs? Has security fully trumped privacy as far as the American public is concerned? Or is there some program that would spark genuine public outrage?
Few people, for example, are aware that a NSA program known as TREASUREMAP is being developed to continuously map every Internet connection — cellphones, laptops, tablets — of everyone on the planet, including Americans.
“Map the entire Internet,” says the top secret NSA slide. “Any device, anywhere, all the time.” It adds that the program will allow “Computer Attack/Exploit Planning” as well as “Network Reconnaissance.”
One reason for the public’s lukewarm concern is what might be called NSA fatigue. There is now a sort of acceptance of highly intrusive surveillance as the new normal, the result of a bombardment of news stories on the topic.
I asked Snowden about this. “It does become the problem of one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic,” he replied, “where today we have the violation of one person’s rights is a tragedy and the violation of a million is a statistic. The NSA is violating the rights of every American citizen every day on a comprehensive and ongoing basis. And that can numb us. That can leave us feeling disempowered, disenfranchised.”
In the same way, at the start of a war, the numbers of Americans killed are front-page stories, no matter how small. But two years into the conflict, the numbers, even if far greater, are usually buried deep inside a paper or far down a news site’s home page.
In addition, stories about NSA surveillance face the added burden of being technically complex, involving eye-glazing descriptions of sophisticated interception techniques and analytical capabilities. Though they may affect virtually every American, such as the telephone metadata program, because of the enormous secrecy involved, it is difficult to identify specific victims.
The way the surveillance story appeared also decreased its potential impact. Those given custody of the documents decided to spread the wealth for a more democratic assessment of the revelations. They distributed them through a wide variety of media — from start-up Web publications to leading foreign newspapers.
One document from the NSA director, for example, indicates that the agency was spying on visits to porn sites by people, making no distinction between foreigners and “U.S. persons,” U.S. citizens or permanent residents. He then recommended using that information to secretly discredit them, whom he labeled as “radicalizers.” But because this was revealed by The Huffington Post, an online publication viewed as progressive, and was never reported by mainstream papers such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, the revelation never received the attention it deserved.
Another major revelation, a top-secret NSA map showing that the agency had planted malware — computer viruses — in more than 50,000 locations around the world, including many friendly countries such as Brazil, was reported in a relatively small Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, and likely never seen by much of the American public.
Thus, despite the volume of revelations, much of the public remains largely unaware of the true extent of the NSA’s vast, highly aggressive and legally questionable surveillance activities. With only a slim majority of Americans expressing concern, the chances of truly reforming the system become greatly decreased.
While the metadata program has become widely known because of the numerous court cases and litigation surrounding it, there are other NSA surveillance programs that may have far greater impact on Americans, but have attracted far less public attention.
In my interview with Snowden, for example, he said one of his most shocking discoveries was the NSA’s policy of secretly and routinely passing to Israel’s Unit 8200 — that country’s NSA — and possibly other countries not just metadata but the actual contents of emails involving Americans. This even included the names of U.S. citizens, some of whom were likely Palestinian-Americans communicating with relatives in Israel and Palestine.
An illustration of the dangers posed by such an operation comes from the sudden resignation last year of 43 veterans of Unit 8200, many of whom are still serving in the military reserves. The veterans accused the organization of using intercepted communication against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” This included information gathered from the emails about Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters to coerce people into becoming collaborators or to create divisions in their society.
Another issue few Americans are aware of is the NSA’s secret email metadata collection program that took place for a decade or so until it ended several years ago. Every time an American sent or received an email, a record was secretly kept by the NSA, just as the agency continues to do with the telephone metadata program. Though the email program ended, all that private information is still stored at the NSA, with no end in sight.
With NSA fatigue setting in, and the American public unaware of many of the agency’s long list of abuses, it is little wonder that only slightly more than half the public is concerned about losing their privacy. For that reason, I agree with Frederick A. O. Schwartz Jr., the former chief counsel of the Church Committee, which conducted a yearlong probe into intelligence abuses in the mid-1970s, that we need a similarly thorough, hard-hitting investigation today.
“Now it is time for a new committee to examine our secret government closely again,” he wrote in a recent Nation magazine article, “particularly for its actions in the post-9/11 period.”
Until the public fully grasps and understands how far over the line the NSA has gone in the past — legally, morally and ethically — there should be no renewal or continuation of NSA’s telephone metadata program in the future.
»
- 24570 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Don't type a response, you are being monitored!
Why should I be outraged at the notion that the mafia spies on me? Shouldn't this behavior be expected?
Oh I'm already outraged Tyler, the question is what the F are we suppose to do about it.
Whatever you do, do not threaten to firebomb NSA headquarters nor hunt and kill their employees. Tora Tora Tora. Repeat, the chicken lands at midnight. The traitors at the NSA do not deserve to die by hanging. The salad is red. You shall not give them the ISIS beheading treatment. Cut the tall trees. You don't want to poison them. The chicken lands at midnight.
But you can type lots of nonsense to muddy the waters and make the system less effective for spying on law abiding American citizens. A simple example is to pick the some keywords and add a few to every post.
NSA attack CIA dirty bomb DC terror tunnel train plane in spain (duh) ISIS jihad water supply (the missing rain) suicide blah blah blah
If you really want to get their attention mention things like heroin or cocaine. The CIA hates competition.
The rest of the populaton will only care when the Khardashians tell them that it is a problem.
The NSA and their ilk are no more afraid of congress than they are of the world's smartest termite.
Being Skynet for the NWO elite scumbags does make strange bedfellows
Snowden Documentarian Laura Poitras, Like The NSA, Claims TOR Protects Citizen’s Privacy
"Which leads to the question of why?"
Because so many are only too happy to take a paycheck from the Fourth Reich, Back-stabbing, Treasonist, Police state, DUH!!!!!!!
60% of all employment is either directly or indirectly dependent on goverment expeditures.
The MIC is the biggest chunk (yes, Neo-Cons, not welfare)...its you and your anti-American, sell out for a buck, butt buddies!
That includes all fake "Democrats" and other elite-sucking top 20%!
It's time to clean up this town....
"Welcome my son
Welcome....to the Machine
Where have you been?
It's alright, we know where you've beeeeen..."
Pink Floyd 1975
a "poll" by pew, is like a poll done by a habitual liar.
we are allowed to complain about this or that, because no one will discuss what they really can do.
You can win, but you can't tell a fooking soul about it.... (Wise advice)
there was a documentary I unfortunately dont remember the name, but a the end the guy stands close to a man in a cafe and is filming him as he phones. they dont know each other and the phoning guy gets more and more upset, untill he yells at the filmer to f*** off.
I suggest flashmobs, big action, filming penetratingly strangers while they make a phonecall...
and when they get upset, giving them a flyer about the reality of the scene..........................................
this should wake them up.
or flashmob standing in the gardens of strangers and filming, for the rest see above.........
"Content removed by the NSA for your security", carry on.
"If you have nothing to hide, ypu have nothing to fear."
-Joeseph Goebells
ok - then mind posting the passwords to your email account(s)?
But his pre adolescent daughters like being gang banged raped by old men holding up bill and Hillary's casting couch of opportunity!
He has nothing to hide!
Knock knock
Who is it?
An American citizen.
What do you want?
I want to come inside your NSA spying facility.
You can't.
Why not?
It is top secret.
"If you have nothing to hide..."
"Knock knock, Who is it? An American citizen."
You forgot to add...
"If you have nothing to hide..." [BANG! gunshot to the forehead, American citizen slumps to ground]
U mean truths denied by the powers that be
who know truths r too evil to be spoken by victims of lies
not evil enough to dare be spoken as reality
by the unneeded competition
who ain't dead enough already
in Kiki's evil voodoo dollhouse where dolls dare not speak back!
nothing like truths being too ugly to bear or too crazy to believe until it is too late for anything to be done about deciet by those preaching truths under hypocritical laws held against those who were never protected in the first place.
After all the good shit is stolen then lover pâténted can commence the witch hunt on hypocritical judgement day against those who are to blame for all which is done to them by authority.
To say the least...
So when do we see Snowdon visiting the US as a free man and a hero.
Once we have got all the spineless political jackals behind bars.
never!
Fuck the monitors.
But I'm so scared of terrorists, I can't imgaine not authorizing them to continue doing this. I know this program has never stopped a single terrorist act in the US, not even when other governments were telling us "Hey, these guys are bad news. You should keep an eye on them" but it just feels so WRONG not to give a government agency every power it requests. I'm REALLY scared that if we don't they might not even WANT to protect us any more. They might throw their hands in the air and say its impossible. And then where would we be?
What to do? What to do?
Sucks sleeping with the lights on doesn't it?
I wouldn't know. I sleep UNDER my bed.
You guys sleep?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92T6cVlXcyg
Conveniently forgot the worst offense. With all the monitoring and surveillance done by .gov, it is inevitable that they are fully aware of the corruption and disgusting behavior from our would be masters. As more and more truth comes out, it is becoming more and more likely that all top level politicians, 'public servants', corporate media directors, and elite business men are legitimately evil.
New word for the day:
Kakistocracy: Rule by the worst society has to offer.
Good post.
But "it is becoming more and more likely" made me laugh!
Likely?
There have been so many articles on the internet exposing the fact that ALL of the figureheads are compromised, blackmailed and bribed.
They are evil, and they will do what they are told by TPTB- no questions asked.
Usually absolute statements like that are not true. This may be an exception though.
who is edward snowden?
Nicely played, assuming you are referring to Galt.
He used to play fullback for the Bears...but the glasses thing & all....
Wait. I thought he was center fielder for the Philadelphia A's..Good stick, no field, average speed
THe Huffington Post IS THE NYTIMES. It's all the same people. Claiming the news didn't spread because Huffpo was progressive is a really pathetic lie.
the more important point is that the mainstream media has really not covered this issue with the same fervor they would, for say, Justin Bieber getting arrested or some such other celebrity news. Look at yesterday's headlines about deflate-gate.
unfortunately, the loss of our privacy won't be an issue until it's too late (and it probably already is). I am both surprised and disgusted by how many people DO NOT (WANT TO) understand what's happening.
Because, you know, football is so important. Way more important than civil liberties or where your food was produced! I'm shocked that you didn't know this! If football ended, so would the world!
(Ironically, football ending would look like the end of the world. No more Panem et Circenses. Baltimore x 10,000.)
Ironically, Justin Beiber sells records.
The media is enemy number 1 and it wouldn'\t require a bloody revolution to eliminate them, but the fat and ignorant electorate just continue handing over their money to the media corps freely and gladly for every new Spiderman reboot and glimps of Kardashian's fat disgusting ass.
SHOOT THE ANTENNA!
It doesn't matter if people understand, or get outraged or call their congressman. This thing is a lock. They are NEVER giving up this power, short of having a gun to all their heads.
Yet they are eroding the basis of their power, and likely only know it subconsciously. If they truly understood, well, they'd be understanding something that they're paid to not understand.
Next they are gonna be Verizon.
"Can you hear me now?"
NEXT
(Psycho laugh)
"Huffpo was progressive is a really pathetic lie."
You just now figured that out?
It was "progressive" for 5 minutes...then AOL snapped it up and voila! Instant Info-Establishment-Deviant Circus-Advertisement Catalogue....except, "really edgy"....
This:
Plus this:
Plus the fact that it's from Reuters tells you that, at best, the MSM still thinks this system can be saved. We've crossed the Rubicon. Let it burn. Quit saving it. Let us pick up the peices, a lot more humble than before.
Legally questionable my ass, it's downright Unconstitutional.
Oh, and FUCK YOU, NSA.
~From someone who has actually read the constitution.
Did you read the disclaimer?
Power bases in America have consolidated into a mutually supporting web of control. We don't get hard-hitting investigations anymore. Look at the manipulated, insipid, controlled and limited 9/11 investigation for an example of the best we can hope for.
People don't care. There are selfies to take and topics to "like". You know, the important things in life, lol!
"It's just the tip."
"It's just the tip."
That's what I told my girlfriend...now wife...5 kids later....I think she's on to me...
"highly aggressive and legally questionable surveillance activities."
"Legally questionable"??? Seriously? We are talking here about the Fourth Amendment in shreds on the floor. There is no question about it. This is one of the issues that the founders placed front and center for why they were willing to lead a rebellion against the king in 1776. The technology has changed, but the concept of individuals' right to secure communications was the whole point. There is no gray here. Our "elite" have fully stepped over the line. They are now doing exactly what the elite under the king were doing in the colonies. Not as remote from the center, though, so not as easy to separate from this tyranny. The founders of the US were able to use their geographical position to separate themselves from the power of their day. The power now is in our midst. It would be like the British trying to rebel against the British crown back then. A very different kettle of fish. Nothing is going to change now without serious social upheaval. So far, very few indeed are willing to face that kind of upheaval to correct the current injustice. Cost/benefit: it's a high bar to overcome in political change.
"Nothing is going to change now without serious social upheaval. So far, very few indeed are willing to face that kind of upheaval to correct the current injustice."
That's because the upheaval is going to be mind boggling. It's coming, one way or another, and even those of us who see what is coming have no real world experience to compare it to. Most of us here are probably going to see a once in a mellenia event, and it won't be pretty. But I will say, the sooner the day or rekoning comes, the better. The further we push the current paradigm, the worse the upheaval will be.
Anything that breaks the supply chains will likely see tens of millions of Americans starve to death. Just think about that for a moment.
Agreed.
There has never been a despotic system so entrenched with fully "industrialized" populations. In most prior iterations of this phenomenon, the majority of the population in the end could fall back (to one extent or another) to the agriculture they practiced to literally survive (not pretty, but in the literal sense of the word). When so many people now depend on complex systems to feed themselves, the dislocation has the potential to be extreme, and I for one am scared to death of it.
The closest analog we have witnessed to the required change in a mostly industrialized population, however, was in the former Soviet Union. A centralized power was largely dissolved, and it was managed without the massive population loss we might have expected. So maybe it can happen again. No future is certain, positive or negative.
On we go...
The Soviets had supply chain issues before their fall, and a lot of the poeple grew a lot of their own food as a consequence, so that's only partially applicable. I'm building up a seed and knowledge base, and a lot of people are picking up gardening, though many are probably doing so because they want real food or don't like GMO or whatever. Even if they're doing it for a different reason than what we're discussing, it is good that they are gaining the knowledge. It's probably too late to really stop things from going under, but it's better than nothing.
If we're going to have a public school system, gardening would be a good thing to teach the youngsters. Without corporate interference. Everybody should know a little something about open pollinated seed and healthy soil.
By the time they complete high school, kids are smart enough to gradually learn how to build an entire house from the bottom up.
1st grade: creative design
2nd grade: foundation, repair
3rd grade: drainage, intro to plumbing
4th grade: framing
5th grade: advanced framing, intro to roofing
6th grade: roofing and siding
7th grade: plumbing
8th grade: electrical
9th grade: intro to architecture
10th grade: designing for different climates
11th grade: advanced self-sufficient plumbing
12th grade: advanced self-sufficient electrical
I'm outraged. No one cares.......
But they're outraged at your "outrage", or "mental illness"...careful where you step...
http://www.cchrflorida.org/blog/dsm-5-outrages-mental-health-professionals/
Yea that's why theater move in so they can have the right to torture those who don't like it and not like what one has to say..... legally!
Not like they're there to actually find OBLnor any murderer etc for that fact!
They already know how to lie cheat and steal what they need is a way to lace it with only the best things in life the little peeps ain't suppose to represent as they are to blame for all the shit done on their dime and name!
Those with God complexes need their antichrist manufacturing machines salves for the feast of lore pâténted and warlord passion assassins who will never feed their endless bloody appetite of greed and jealousy!
The blood of which started as bloody hands left bloody footprints which turned to trails then rivers then lakes now oceans of blood left behind of the innocence lives better than what couldn't e afforded as the competition not dead enough yet by the endless mocking hole to hell on earth.
Why do I refer to it as an antichrist manufacturing machine?
Is that when ones life, passions, faith, ambitions, loves, incomes, etc.... Are held hostage by passion assassins who demand ur eyeballs at all times while hypocritically mocking u in the endless hole to hell so that nothing good can ever get done...
One becomes the anti of themselves due to the torture. Thus all I could think for the words to describe it. My words might seem complex but their plain as day simple when u see what it is I'm explaining .....
I have been talking about this since before we had internet access in our homes as lover moved in with me and my x long before that..... And since the internet came into our homes this is all I have talked about as lover & Kiki Hillary etc ... will leave my side ....
Just saying all those who heard me freaking decades ago are themselves freaking now. Some are part of it but not all. Not all joined in lovers gang bang along with way of me begging (long time ago) for this to stop.
Amd even those in on it are terrified at what's been done in the process and the monsters created and what it going to happen next and want is happening to me... A few...
Like I said a long time ago... One might not be able to stop this hell forced upon me but they can't hide from the disasters left behind of all which had to be destroyed because the competition couldn't be afforded as the gnashing teethers all know...
I wasn't abandoned by all during the sick life forced upon me.
But yea those who way back decades ago might have thought I was crazy back then sure as hell know I wasn't.... Though I wish this was just crazy and then I could take a pill to make it go away.
I remember the day decades ago when I said fine lover if all I have to analyze is u and this then fine... That is what it will be...
I NEVER wanted to analyze people as that was what I always avoided....UNCOOL! But lover took me to all the places I never wanted to go but of course as that is the torture with the middleman of jealousy between one and inaccessible their life!
Course Kiki Moore McLean is in in it as time going by has shown me as she has been wacko about me since sixth grade!
It also works as the antichrist manufacturing machine with lover pâténted gets to steal all ur passions with the warlord passion assassins 24/7/365. Ur antichristed out all ur innocense past among thieves empty words as u see ur life echo away sarcastically as anything is better than the competition of being alive in Kiki's voodoo dollhouse.
For a long time I tried to visualize the beast. And have in many ways but these days it is like always having a hurricane above ones head.
Lover... Not sure who lover is exactly... But that was back in the days of music & radio and me not wanting to get ganged banged for a radio job in which the girl who did had to clone me. That was long before any 9/11. Lover likes to remain invisible.. Behind the scenes of lovers warlord passion assassins. Kiki Hillary and Bill also have tried to clone lover... Think lover is miliatary which the radio has always reminded me of military.... Probably NSA. Lover is called lover because of how lover acted and crawled into my bed.... Before and after Kiki etc joined him...
That right there could be told in more detail. Horror movie detail.
. . somewhat surprising that 48% of Americans couldn't give a rat's arse . . . surprising to whom?
". . somewhat surprising that 48% of Americans couldn't give a rat's arse . . . surprising to whom?"
25% are illiterate, less than 18% have a "college" level education (from 1 semester at CC to PhDs), and the rest have a 6th-grade education level....
Doesn't surprise me in the least....
As long as the "ruling class" hides behind legalistic obfuscation, diversion, propaganda and distraction, the "people" will never "see" a thing, or give a fuck.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/china-defaults-mount-a...
When the red team gets their turn in the white house the other 50% of Merikuns will be concerned. Merikuns don't care about abuses as long as it's "their guy"doing it.
I simply don't get this. I never cease to be amazed by people's short memories. Have they really forgotten Bush and how hated he was (and remains, actually) at the end of his moment of power, and that the people running the red team now are the exact same people who put him into power in 2000? Same people = same results? Have people really forgotten this? Do they not see that Obama is acting just like Bush, with window dressing adjusted? I stare slack-jawed at what passes for "political discourse" in this country...
Diebold is the answer to your question.
That, and a captured media.
Once anyone has read and digested the following articles/reports, there is nothing to be baffled about:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/
https://securelist.com/files/2015/02/Equation_group_questions_and_answers.pdf
http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/2006296~552b409fd96380bee2d2ac53b7e465bd/Silicon_scan_draft.pdf
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/
http://defensetech.org/2012/05/30/smoking-gun-proof-that-military-chips-from-china-are-infected/
(And this last link below is just for the lulz)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ST_suvc9I&authuser=0
Nice little compilation. Had a client ask me a couple weeks ago about what we can do to make sure they are secure. My answer was that we can't really do that beyond blocking the amateurs as, no matter how much you trust government, they have essentially built backdoors into everything and those backdoors are just waiting to be found and exploited by hackers and the hackers know they are there so they are looking. He was not pleased with cold hard reality.
Oh and that youtube chick is a moron. Hot, but a moron.
Actually, it's more like the other 29% of Merikuns - 2012 voter turnout nationwide was 57.5 percent of the eligible voters.
Otherwise- sadly true.
Honey ~ tell it to ur sex bot
Like it means something......
Was Timothy McVeigh right? Are the 'Terrorists' actually Freedom fighters? I'm confused....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Los_Angeles_International_Airport_shoo...
It's like, every night the national news has all wonderful stories about black people. Then the local news comes on and every story involves a black person robbing, killing, destroying....
I'm CONfused.
"Terrorist" or "Freedom Fighter?"
It's just a matter of which side you're on.
"A nation divided against itself cannot stand."
"And I submit to you ZH reader that this governments biggest fear is a civil war, The People vs the Tyrants" --Perseus has Spoken
Most Americans could not give a rat's ass about NSA surveillance.
They have been brainwashed into believing that "terrorism" is everywhere and that fear of terrorism justifies any level of militarism and security.
And they already put every aspect of their lives up for public display on Facebook and other social media websites to the point that most people don't even seem to understand the basic concept of personal privacy.
People who are thinking about these issues in any sort of reasoned manner probably make up less than 1% of the public.
My attitude: The corrupt, and Zionist controlled, institution that authorized the treason is supposed to not reauthorize that treason. Treason the treasonous are going to continue to do regardless of what the corrupt, and Zionist controlled, institution does anyways. Whatever.
I'll just stick to maintaining my preventative maintenance schedule, stacking, and "gardening."
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
As my father has been known to say: "Just perfume scented shit."
the outrage button is worn out,
that is why.
Why should people care? They freely give up their life story on facebook, how can they get angry about someone looking? "oh but I clicked private"
Yea nothing like privacy being the torture!
(Long story)
The reason for little outrage is simple: more than half the populace is heavily or entirely dependent on government handouts. Seen one way, putting up with tyranny can be considered the price of a "free" lunch. A Faustian bargain.
Published on Apr 30, 2015William Binney, a legendary NSA mathematician developed the revolutionary logic and architecture that is now used to spy on everybody in the world. When the NSA decided to use his programs on US citizens he became one of the biggest whistleblowers in the history of the NSA. He started the debate and the avalanche of understanding in regards to illegal surveillance, and is revealing inside knowledge on some of the biggest government secrets to date.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WgbJqFrwhbw
Can we get back to Deflategate already.
I'm personally mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore. Why should public perception of an agency of the government trampling all over our Constitutional rights even be in the equation? Don't we elect and pay representatives to do the "people's business" in Washington, D.C. and is it not incumbent upon them to uphold their oath of office to protect our Constitutional rights? Am I wrong or are these members of CON-gress all traitors?
I have nothing to hide. I watch a lot of football, work very long hours, my favorite past time is playing with my kids and and I am a foodie. My life is hectic but mostly boring, .Again, I have nothing to hide..who cares if they listen right?. WRONG. This is a blatant overreach of power and it should be alarming to all Americans. If one cannot have a private conversation in their bed with their partner without operatives watching me on my via my Samsung tv, or listening from my turned off cell, or from my notebook that it is supposed to be in sleep mode, what shred of privacy is left? I am 38 and I feel like my age bracket mostly say Whoa now.... this is too much surveillance. However, the younger crowd seems oblivious to what is happening or they simply do not care. They do not respect what this country was founded on. Without the millennial demo getting upset, this topic will remain in the background.
I was surprised that even 52% thought it was bad. Think about it. Large numbers of people either A) don't even know about this story, period, or B) know about it but it's OK because they have been all cuddly in their soft, warm government blankie, suckling off the teat of government so it just doesn't register to them that Mommy Government would do anything but provide and care for it's children, so the NSA thing is to protect them.
Amerikans are Organization Men.
The stamp of mechanical regularity lies on the face of every human unit.
This" bureaucratic personality" heeds no human considerations and is a virtual automaton within a collective system of automation.
To follow through every command,however irrational,to obey instructions,to eliminate rational moral misgivings these are the conditions under which Organization Man flourishes.
We have become a nation od Eichmanns, and some are even good family men like Himmler.
Yes.
For this reason, the more laws we pass, the less just our society becomes. We daily allow further degradations to our innate humanity. Allow ourselves to be managed like cattle, and we become... cattle.
Sally Was A Cop | Alejandro Escovedo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTLu-wh5TIU
This is why American are called Sheeple, brainwashed and conditioned for for slauter.
I suspect that Americans have become resigned to the fact that the NSA has a private collection of images of their body parts. Somewhere there is a vast US computer archive with penises, boobs and vaginas of all shapes and sizes!! Other than that, what can the NSA possibly know about us? That everyone has credit card debts, that most of us have auto loans? Whooopeee doo!!
One of the things that is actually more disturbing - is that the NSA has been collecting data on foreign companies. THAT is a problem. Since when do Government agencies do the bidding of private companies within the USA? When did the barrier between the "public interest" and the "private interest" come down? THAT is a significant problem. We entrust the NSA to keep the country safe, not to find out if someone in China makes French fries and chicken strips that are two inches longer.
Although MUCH attention is on the NSA, people should be focusing their anger on GOOGLE!! Why exactly does Google have the right to archive the "spending habits" of every American??? They are obviously doing it. BUT who approved it???? This is also an invasion of privacy.
It is HOPELESS to entrust the Protection of Privacy to the US Congress. These people couldn't identify an invasion of 'personal space', UNLESS you shoved an extra drinking straw in their wine glass and sucked away all of their expensive Merlot!!
Completely true.
Our complacency regarding the data which private companies collect - i.e. "this call may be monitored for quality assurance" - is a travesty. We have no idea any more what it means to act as humans, only as recordable, archivable economic units.
Government surveillance is criminal, but we must acknowledge that corporate surveillance is equally heinous. And the corporate branch is a concentration of power (not just money, but power) that is only beginning to come into focus for far too many.
Seeking evidence on all CIA, NSA, DEA types who are breaking the law domestically or internationally, stealing, impersonating, drug running, gun running, laundering money, murder, torture, all the big stuff.
Let's get the evidence, get a couple of honest, capable (I know, that is a tough one) attorneys and start throwing them in jail.
That's it. Oh, by the way their bosses are probably complicit in organized crime of their own doing or are eligible to be charged with RICO laws, which includes the droner in chief and his predecessors and maybe his successor.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. ~Winston Churchill
The brain itself has been shrunken to meet the requirements of the machine.
One word:
APATHY
For example, my wife isn't keen on NSA's phone tracking, but what does it matter? The NSA will either do it out in the open, or behind closed doors. Either way, her opinion matters not.
I am Barack Obama, and I have nothing to hide except TPP, my signing the legislation granting legal immunity from prosecution for Monsanto GMOs, and those pesky bankster swine.
I have nothing to hide . . .
So many things to be outraged by, eg
45% federal income tax + state income tax + state/county/city property + sales taxes
unlimited invasion by the poverty of latin america and enrollment into entitlement programs
unlimited and growing entitlement programs
hyper-militarized self-serving ruthless brutal unaccountable police
etc
etc
NSA snooping seems like a gnat's buzz by comparison
NSA SPYING IS A BIG DEAL.
Suppose you want to organize a peaceful protest agianst taxes. Let's say you visited some porn sites last week. The NSA sees you are trying to get others to join you and lets you know they will contact your church or your wife about the number and frequency of those visits.
The NSA probably already has gotten people to self censor and that is not freedom, that's coercion. The porn example may not be perfect- but you get the idea.
you hafen nozink to vear if you hafen nozink to hide
Don't you just love it when some lazy douche announces that to you..
"Well I don't mind being spied on, I've got nothing to hide".
To which I promptly respond....
"Well then, why don't you give me your passwords, logins, porn collection and personal photos? What, YOU WON'T?? But you'll trust .gov and .mil with them?"
Signed in to say hello and a big F*ck You to all the NSA trolls reading this!