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.
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.
Re:I don't see how prosecutions can be avoided (Score:1, Interesting)
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?
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, 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)
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.
Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope you realize how true the term "liberal agenda" actually is. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation was a liberal agenda supported and created by most of the liberal groups of the time. Most of it was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. The democrat congress threatened to increase the number of justices on the supreme court and stack it with liberal judges while Roosevelt more or less said make me stop knowing they controlled the executive powers and any means of enforcing the ruling. The Supreme court then ruled some of the New Deal legislation constitutional by expanding the interstate commerce clause to include anything that could possibly influence interstate commerce even if it wasn't interstate commerce itself.
I would say the "utter imbecile" in this picture would be the ones who attempt to use modern politics to define an era of the past. Roosevelt worked well with the socialist and their liberal agenda despite the Communist uprising in 1919 and most of the remaining communist joining the socialist in the US after they refused to cooperate. The socialist of the time were not seen as being bad because they actually abstained from the revolt and left the communist hanging. The communist after WWII changed into socialist after WWII when communism got a bad name and was largely shunned by western cultures. That creates a different look on liberal and socialist in today's politics that weren't part of the past politics. It is entirely accurate and competent to say liberal agenda as used in my post.
I strongly suggest opening a couple of history books, perhaps an encyclopedia and maybe learn something before trying to "paint" something you obviously know nothing about. Then perhaps you won't appear so "mentally insufficient". I can see why you posted AC.
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.