Letter to "Extended Family" Assures That NSA Will "Weather This Storm" 286
An anonymous reader writes "The National Security Agency sent a letter to its employees, affiliates and contractors to reassure them that the NSA is not really an abusive and unchecked spying agency engaged in illegal activity." Whatever you think of the commentary, you can read the original, attached to the linked story.
And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, though, just because you say it doesn't make it true.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Insightful)
This sounds more like they're saying "Don't worry, everything is fine. The US people are too spineless to jeopardize and of our business arrangements."
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Interesting)
People have plenty of attention span, the media on the otherhand has none. Heard much of anything about the majority of the democrats walking out of the Benghazi hearings because they refused to listen to witness testimony?
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Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Interesting)
They also don't have the intelligence to realise that the NSA is just the tech guy. They do the hacking but they are not the ones issuing the instructions for what to go for or the ones doing the data storage and consolidation. They do not call it the 'Central' intelligence agency for nothing. Right now in the foreground exposed for what is was doing is the NSA but make no mistake this is all the CIA's doing and they were the ones doing the nasty with all the private data they go from the NSA, the tech guy.
Still not one political demand to uncover where the data went and what was done with it. The CIA has had deep control of the US government for decades and has been deeply political both within the US and overseas. Want to look at why the NSA went so far off the rails, look no further than the CIA.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea if what you suggest is true, that NSA is just the go-to bunch of nerds for CIA. Actually more likely there would be several puppet masters. Some military intelligence outfits, certainly. And FBI and DEA came up recently as well. Big US Corporations? It would seem so.
But regardless, I don't agree, if that is even what you were implying, that we should therefore not criticize said nerds for facilitating so willingly. Some of whom surely frequent /. ... Not cool, guys.
Of course every bit of understanding about who really calls the shots is welcome. But don't underestimate the extent to which a colossal bureaucracies can go off the rails by their own self sustained momentum.
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It's not clear that they ever throw ANYTHING away, no matter how illegal it is. For that matter, I don't know how a secret agency could even attempt to prove that, but that they can't prove it doesn't make it true.
If they claim to have been acting legally, I won't believe them. There's too much evidence to the contrary. If they claim to have been "just doing my job", then not only are they (unindicted) criminals, they are being directed by (unindicetd, probably) criminals.
If what they claim is that "we c
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Insightful)
What is all this attention that they are under now if not being checked upon?
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
And all it takes is a phone call from the NSA to leak some juicy blackmail on the President into the media.
This is all interconnected pretty nicely, I'm afraid.
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And what should he say on that phone call? "Don't be evil"?
This is not a binary issue. There's a whole lot of ground between the status quo and "DISBAND EVERYTHING!!!" What, exactly, should he say on that phone call? I guarantee, that whatever your answer, there will be a hundred million outraged people demanding that he do less, and another hundred million demanding he do more.
You can disagree with his policies, and voice your disagreement, and vote accordingly, and encourage others to do the same. Bu
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I don't know what he should say, but I'm pretty sure the reply would be something along the lines of "You want that, do you? Well, of course, you have the power to do that, but wouldn't it be a shame if $dirty_secret was leaked to the media because we cannot ensure security when you cut our freedom to do whatever we damn well want to do?"
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He could start with "immediately delete all metadata for calls inside the United States unless you have actual evidence that one party is not a U.S. Citizen".
Next step, "Do not share any information you gather with any other agency unless at least one party is a foreign national.
There are plenty who will argue that the above is not enough, but it is at least a move in the right direction while the less clear cases are weighed carefully.
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The prez, like any politician, first and foremost wants to stay in office. Something that's kinda hard to do if you try to control the entity that has the highest chance to have any and all kind of dirt on you.
Do the math...
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I picture Bart Simpson with pie all over his face saying " I didn't do it man".
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yeah but if you just sent a letter to some girl saying that you don't have a 3 foot penis she might just start believing that you have a 3 foot penis.. or the very least a 1.5 foot penis.*
their stance is that because they're not getting prosecuted they're legit. because fuck, that's all it's down to...
*)this does not constitute as legal advice on how to get laid.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
Hitler's minions thought they were okay because they were just doing their job, also.
That didn't help them much when it came time to hand out the war-crimes awards.
Just something the NSA folks might want to think about. They also might want to take a gander at the Constitution and, in particular, the Bill of Rights. Read them all, including Amendment X. Unless they are too stupid to live, comprehending the meaning isn't particularly difficult - assume the words mean what they say they mean, no matter how many corrupt and pompous judges and bureaucrats there are trying to "reinterpret" words to make all the criminality okay.
There may be an accounting, eventually. Eventually may come sooner than later.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Insightful)
Constitution? What's that? Oh you mean that banned document that you can't hand out on some university campuses anymore?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Insightful)
Many critiques of the war crimes tribunals after WWII, including the chief prosecutor who was a judge but never had a law degree, claim the prosecutions were ex post facto law (law after the fact) and the trials constituted a victors justice.
I'm not saying they didn't deserve what they got, but lets not pretend it was all on the up and up when comparing it to other things we find horrible too.
As for the reinterpretations of the US constitution, it is an artifact of the liberal agenda (Roosevelt fought for it to preserve a lot of his unconstitutional new deal programs). They first attempted to amend the US constitution by interpreting wordings out of context and extending government reach and powers by construing meaning beyond what was traditionally present in it. This is because there was no support for legitimately amending the constitution to their favor. Unfortunately, their short sightedness has missed the problem of "if they can do it, others can too" so now it is a common thing to do by any political ideology and it seems to have no bounds as long as it can advance someone's cause.
It is a sad day when the US constituion is reinterpreted in order to get around the limitations it imposes on government. This is true whether you like one, some or all of the reinterpretations or none of them at all.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
The constitution has several mechanism built into it to amend it. There are only two ways it could be unconstitutional to amend it and those were based on time spans that have long passed.
Now, if your bank decided that after 29 years, just one payment from your mortgage being paid in full and the house being yours, to reinterpret the contract so as you have another 30 years to pay or somehow have a balloon payment or they can repossess the house, you would be outraged. Even if it wasn't happening to you but others because the contract was a document of it's time and inevitably subject to subsequent reinterpretations, the vast majority of people would be outraged.
That is what the US constitution is- a contract between the states and the people within them that forgo certain amounts of sovereignty to a federal government and if something needs changed, then it needs to be amended and changed. It really is that simple.
I'm not against changing the US constitution, in fact, I would like to see several changes myself. I just think that we owe history the honesty of following the rules to do so. This means amending the constitution instead of all the sudden deciding the word "one" means two or three or something similar to make something constitutional that otherwise wouldn't be. Its a smoke and mirror game right now with what actually means something and what doesn't. When we ignore it, we have given license to ignore all of it. That does mean that when something you don't want ignored is, they can use the exact same justifications to ignore the search and seizure or due process clauses or free speech guarantees as they use to ignore the second amendment or rules to how legislation is made or war is waged.
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despite the Communist uprising in 1919
I'm sorry, but WTF does a minor political clash in Germany have to do with events in the US over a decade later?
The democrat congress
Ah. You're a Rush Limbaugh listener. Logic isn't really your strong point then.
The socialist (sic) of the time were not seen as being bad
They're still not seen as being bad. All of the most stable economies of today are run by socialist-leaning governments, who also tend to have the highest standard of living. I don't see either of
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Interesting)
Bear in mind that there are two different things NSA does/did, with very different implications.
1) They weakened cryptographic standards. This deserves all the criticism you're dishing out.
2) They researched how to break crypto. This is completely within their (and anyone else's) right to do. The alternative viewpoint - that merely trying to break crypto should be illegal - is exactly what the MPAA and RIAA have been trying to foist upon us with the draconian provisions in the DMCA prohibiting breaking DRM.
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You have completely missed the point.
This is an encoded message. The NSA are good at this.
What the message ACTUALLY says is:
MSG
Don't worry about this rubbish with the plebs - its business as usual.
EOM
Very simple really.
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Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, though, just because you say it doesn't make it true.
The simple fact that they felt it necessary, despite how self-incriminating it appears, for them to send out such a letter to their own people in essence, says many volumes about how much trust one should put in the NSA's "assurances".
The NSA is going to have to engage heavily in blackmailing politicians, because nearly everyone...(D), (R), conservatives, liberals, politicians, journalists, progressives, capitalists, socialists, and communists...have realized that the NSA doesn't make any distinctions whatsoever concerning whose data they slurp up and whether or not it might be used for blackmail or for setting them up for a lengthy prison sentence if it becomes expedient for the government to make someone "go away", short of outright State-ordered murder.
Pay no attention to anything the NSA or the politicians say. Watch what they do, instead.
Strat
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually a lot of what they do IS illegal, and not really debatable. When the Congress people who voted on the Patriot act and supported its renewal say what the NSA doing isn't allowed in the bill they passed that would be your first indication. The lying to judges to be allowed to continue should be your second clue. Then there is every time Obama or his people come out and say "what you are not seeing is abuse of power by the NSA" and the next day Snowden releases thousands of examples of illegal abueses should be the final nail in showing its illegal.
What you are attempting to do is spin it that this was all perfectly legal started under Bush, because for some reason we shouldn't hold a black man accountable for his actions. What appears to really have happened is the LARGE majority of what has been shown to be illegal has happened in the last 5 years, ignoring Congress and the written laws.
What the NSA letter SHOULD have said is:
The media outlets will continue to call anyone who holds us responsible racist or they will shift the blame to the previous administration to allow us to continune what we are doing uninterrupted. Hopefully we will be able to rig the election so that Hillary wins the next presidency so any calls of what we are doing is illegal will be met with a "War on Women". Because in reality we can't justify what we are doing, all we can do is attack the character of the people pointing it out and about half of our citizens are so fucking stupid they will jump in on our side.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:4, Insightful)
China's industry also doesn't violate any of their environmental standards. And as soon as they do, the standards get lowered.
Same with the NSA. They don't break the law. And if they do, it's not them, it's the laws that change.
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Why ask them? Just look at, for example, the list of people exonerated from death row [wikipedia.org].
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Just like how all the Jews and mentally Ill were gassed to stop their suffering in WW-II by Hitler.
And yes it IS the exact same thing.
These are just words. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actions speak much, much louder.
These are just woods. (Score:2)
Re: These are just words. (Score:4, Funny)
As a contractor with them I'd have more trust in their words if the letter hadn't been waiting for me on my favorite table at the coffee shop I frequent on my days off...
Extended Family? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Extended Family? (Score:5, Funny)
It's more like a Mafia Family, in the Tony Soprano sense of the word.
Actually, the tone of "Weather This Storm" letter sounds more like a radio broadcast, live, from the Führer's Bunker in Berlin, in late April 1945.
Maybe the NSA has some Wunderwaffen in their pockets, like V-3s and V-4s that will ensure their victory in their quest to destroy Americans' trust in their government, and rid the land of the yoke of that pesky Constitution and Bill of Rights.
. . . and they would have succeeded, if it wasn't for you meddling kids of Slashdot . . .
Re:Extended Family? (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that makes them Big Brother in law.
I prefer the term "Big Sister" -- Think about it: Who's more likely to keep a bunch of detailed records of all goings on, then get pissed off and throw a fit when someone leaks her diary?
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USS Pueblo?
USS Liberty?
Vietnam listening posts?
And many other places they have gathered intelligence...
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[How do I know this? Whenever their gear broke and they couldn't fix it, I was one of the few people on board with way more than enough clearance to repair it even though I didn't work for the NSA.]
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playing games with the definition to avoid technically having declared war by action on every nation on earth?
Why not? It's been pretty effective so far.
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This just in: military personnel work as NSA analysts.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds of my Alias series (Score:2)
Working for NSA is like working for SD6 :)
When you have to write a letter (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowjob (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> It was intended to reassure them that the NSA is not really the abusive and unchecked spying agency engaged in illegal activity that someone reading former NSA contractor Edward Snowdenâ(TM)s disclosures might think...
Uhh what? Snowden just released existing documents, he didn't create them.
It stands to reason that the NSA should be judged exactly by their actions, i.e. the content of the documents they themselves created.
Of course they're not illegal! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure that the NSA sees itself as the good guy, and I am sure it does serve some useful, protective services. However, if those services come at the expense of civil liberties then the price is too high. And if it comes at a small cost to civil liberty, then it won't be too much longer until the bureaucracy feeds on itself until the small infractions become large ones.
It's not the NSA who will pay the price (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the NSA will weather it, will continue to exist and will continue to spy. For them it's a (short) embarrassing time after which the news media will forget them and all will be the same for them again.
The ones who pay for this are the US IT companies which will be distrusted world wide and the US government (politicians, diplomats, secretary of state, etc) who will be distrusted even by their closest allies. US companies will notice it in the long term bottom line e.g. when big foreign companies won't outsource to a US company. The public will forget the scandal soon like they forgot Echelon, the big companies who have actual trade secrets however won't, and if they do they will probably regret it soon when their secrets aren't secret anymore and their US competitors magically know everything they do. These losses are however far in the future: more than a quarter away so they will be denied, at least publically and especially by the ones responsible: the politicians.
The politicians will have a lot less trust and goodwill from their foreign counterparts, even and especially from allied countries.
Re: It's not the NSA who will pay the price (Score:3)
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You are right that others will pay the cost of this and that is the advantage of their being a member
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it wastes their time and money and produces data that's more suited for internal political manipulation than for sensible foreign policy.
There's no such thing as 'wasting money' when you work for the government. The more money you spend, the more money you get next year, the more people you get to hire, and the more power you have.
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If the data are important to you, you host them in house. Hopefully the practical lesson that everybody learned from this isn't just, "US bad, everywhere else good". That's such a ridiculously superficial and overly specific interpretation of all of this.
There's no such thing as perfect security, but trusting crucial data with opaque third-parties is about as far from perfect security as you can get.
NSA/CSS - approved by W3C ? (Score:2)
I had not heard about this new style sheet standard [w3.org]. Do I need to start to use it on my web sites ? Does it protect my sensitive information from the commies/taliban/mafia/... ? Which browsers support it ?
NSA kills trees (Score:2)
Gee, I wonder why NSA employees are handing out printed copies of the letter instead of just emailing (or Facebook sharing) it to their family members?
(There might be a lesson there for the rest of us.....)
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I assumed they'd just send an encrypted copy from the PotUS to the head of the UN via a secured line with the presumption that everyone in the NSA along with any contractors would read it as a matter of course...
Obviously anyone who didn't get the memo just isn't doing their job.
Today is a good day to die (Score:3, Interesting)
"In the coming weeks and months more stories will appear"
In other words there's shit storm that's about to rain down on the NSA that will shake the organization to it's knees. And they know it.
Weather this storm indeed.
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"In the coming weeks and months more stories will appear"
In other words there's shit storm that's about to rain down on the NSA that will shake the organization to it's knees. And they know it.
Weather this storm indeed.
I hope.
To paraphrase... (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase the letter:
We're family, we love you, so you should love us. Everything said in the media (except for a few pundits who we are paying off) is lies, the leaks didn't really say what they said. Everything we do is legal because we have the power to define the meaning of legal as anything we do.
But is it genuine? (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anybody verified this letter is real? I smell a hoax.
Over 99.9% honest agents! (Score:2)
It's not about hundreds of honest agents and managers doing the right thing. It's about creating an apparatus where a rogue agent at the behest of some powerful politician can get lost among the many and spy on opponent politicians and their supporters.
With easy to defeat or ignore technological barriers and just "you should go get approval first before you listen in", i.e. relying on agent honesty to Do The Right Thing, we've already lost. I keep bringing up the Watergate people -- these thugs, most of w
Re:Over 99.9% honest agents! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'll tell you what it means ... (Score:2)
Re:I'll tell you what it means ... (Score:4, Informative)
"The NSA/CSS Memorial Wall lists the names of 171 cryptologists who have died in the line of duty since the Agency's inception in 1952," according to the letter.
This refers to members of the US military doing cryptographic duty who died in the line of duty. Here's the list. [nsa.gov] Most died during the Cold War or in Vietnam. In recent years, in Afghanistan or Iraq. Only one civilian, Alan M. Blue, who was on the USS Liberty when the Israelis attacked it.
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I sense desperation (Score:2)
Just admit that you're criminals (Score:2)
Just admit that you have no concern for civilian privacy (whether they're American or otherwise), that you have no trepidation when it comes to breaking the rules and inventing your own, that you think you can decide what is right for yourselves when you know very well that it's wrong (and if you don't, that you need to go back to grade school philosophy), that you have no respect for the sovereignty of other groups and nations (many of which want to have nothing to do with you), and that you are a lying, s
shiny object (Score:5, Insightful)
In 6 months we wont remember who the NSA is or what happened.
Humans today have the attention span of a turnip.
Spin control (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA denied the spying flat out, until they were caught.
The government claimed the court oversight was adequate, until FOI releases proved they're not.
They said they were only using the surveillance data to catch terrorists, until it was revealed that the DEA was getting a feed.
Why should anyone, even an NSA employee, believe anything these idiots have to say any more?
You can never quit "The Family" (Score:2)
If anyone was thinking of breaking up with the NSA family, the letter states, “We want to put the information you are reading and hearing about in the press into context and reassure you that this Agency and its workforce are deserving and appreciative of your support.”
Family == Mafia [*]
[*] or used to be until the National Stasi Agency sullied the term ...
Now is the time (Score:4, Funny)
I hope that there are lots more courageous NSA employees and contractors who will stand up and be whistleblowers.
They're probably our last best hope to turn back this police state.
Yeah, I'll believe all that (Score:5, Funny)
Just being legal doesn't make it right (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, Prime Minister (Score:2)
Yes, Prime Minister
watch it. learn something.
A family that violates the constitution together (Score:5, Funny)
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A few generations later the people doing the hiring and been re hired for contracting would have been more understanding of the role of global communications at a domestic level.
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Long term surveillance and infiltration would blunt the message.
Press can be fired, set up, distracted or ensured fame until stories about "eavesdropping" become a distant memory.
Academics can be ensured fame as they write about other safe topics or are questioned over every 'privacy' 'crypto' or 'rights' paper.
If all that fa
Really? (Score:2)
Really? A letter.
'Cause, you know, I always figured that people could pretty much see for themselves and make up their own minds...
More PR (Score:2)
Every word they've said After Snowden has been public relations. "Our extended family" "sensationalized the leaks" "wrongly cast doubt" "more of a rogue element than a national treasure"
"Denial, Anger, Acceptance" is the third episode of The Sopranos.
Thank god (Score:2)
I am so reassured now.
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We're already getting molested at airports, among other things. People might (temporarily, and in small numbers) complain about it, but it seems unlikely that much will change.
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Russia, China, and the US/UK are bickering empires that share a common enemy, their citizens. But they will always work as a team to protect authority.
Re:I don't see how prosecutions can be avoided (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, sure, in theory the people won't stand for this egregious violation of our rights, and come November, you can bet that... Omigawd, did you see what Miley did at the VMAs? And that new video of hers - That girl seems headed for trouble, mark my words! Hey, can you stop and McD's on the way over and get me two Big Macs, a large fry, and a large strawberry shake? No, wait... I need to lose a few pounds, make it a small fry. So, who do you think will win the big game tonight?
Re:I don't see how prosecutions can be avoided (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy.
The NSA have got files on everyone.
Which politician is going to take them on and see all their dirty laundry thrown to the media?
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worse everyone knows the NSA has a big file on everyone and is willing to display all the details, which means even if they don't have anything on the first politician to speak up they can make shit up and people will buy it.
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Someone recently told me that the "capture everything" was done because it's "technically" not a search of everyone's communications on the Internet in human readable form. That is until they use search algorithms to build an "instant dossier" on whoever they don't like from the huge pile of data they've collected.
That... is plausible. It's probably even correct.
--
BMO
Re:I don't see how prosecutions can be avoided (Score:5, Insightful)
Blackmail only works on criminals and sleazebags. If you're doing shit so bad that you're willing to sell out your entire country to keep it quiet you deserve to be strung up by an angry mob.
Ordinary people do stupid and embarrassing stuff, but most people don't have histories that they couldn't come clean about if forced to. Only sociopathic assholes whose lives are entirely built on deception (eg politicians) are susceptible to this sort of treatment.
Blackmail is like Danegeld. Only an idiot would choose to play that game and only a criminal would need to.
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Most under-rated post of the thread.
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To get enough money to get into politics means doing deals with people that are associated with criminals and sleazebags, if not the real deal. A scandal works with Kevin Bacon style weak connections so why not blackmail?
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Tell that to Hoover. Or his lieutenant, Mark Felt, Mr. Deep Throat himself.
Blackmail works. It's worked most of the 20th century. It's probably working even now.
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Are all the politicians being blackmailed? Every one? Don't you think they talk to each other on occasion? There are hundreds of them, they work together every day. They go out for drinks. They form friendships, just like any other coworkers. Surely one would mention "Hey Bill, I got this threatening phone call from the NSA..." They could disband the entire organization like flipping a light switch if they all wanted to, and if they all were being blackmailed, they'd certainly want to.
And what would
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Is that completely unrelated to this story, or do we expect the US government to prevent similar from happening here on American soil while the NSA and FBI dutifully obey all laws on the books?
The NSA didn't prevent the lunatic from perpetrating the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.
The NSA didn't stop those idiots from setting off an IED during the Boston Marathon.
The NSA & FBI didn't help with the apprehension of the snipers in the D.C. area a few years back either.
The skippers were caught because they were noticed acting suspiciously in a rest area.
The FBI and NSA didn't prevent the events of September 11, 2001.
I'm afraid you will need a few examples of actual successes in order to make
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You dont get to be on an oversight committee without getting a hint of the plain text wonders related to any area of political interest.
Mil, drugs, banking, trade, crime - just enough to keep the laws flexible and internal reviews been all the oversight ever needed.
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They are only exceptional in the number of their own people they have killed in their history. And with all his bluster about great Russian history, I do very much tie Putin into that part of their history. They’re not fooling anyone with their faux peace blabber. They just one to keep one more client madman on his throne. Unfortunately, as there are no good options in Syria that do not involve
a) killing the wrong side
b) staying home and watchi