NSA Planned To Discredit Radicals Based On Web-Browsing Habits 415
wired_parrot writes "New leaked documents show that the NSA was not only monitoring suspected radical sympathizers, but planned to discredit them based on their web-surfing habits. This includes not only evidence of porn browsing and online sexual activity, but also extortion and blackmail based on inappropriate use of funds. At the same time, the leaked document notes that very few of the targeted contacts were associated with terrorism."
FP (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FP (Score:5, Interesting)
first "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've nothing to hide" post!
well, they're just redefining(or thats the way it's always been in usa seemingly) trying to achieve change of system as being radically wrong.
reminds me of this airhead minister we had for a while in finland who remarked that it's preposterous that some people were trying to change the law... which was funny because she worked in the parliament - and the main function for the parliament is to change the laws.
Re:FP (Score:5, Insightful)
Radical sympathiser (Governmentish)
Noun
A person that disagrees with our right to absolute power over everything.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
well, they're just redefining(or thats the way it's always been in usa seemingly) trying to achieve change of system as being radically wrong.
And then the next moment deciding to create and use a Kompromat database to prevent any undesired changes to the system. A revelation like this leads me to these sorts of philosophical and ethical ponderings- Would the sorts of NSA employees that decided to engage in these sorts of 'political ratfucking campaigns' also have thought that it would have been ethical to- e.g. pay a million dollars to a monica lewinski to seduce a president, in order to discredit him? I mean, after all, it's just a little victi
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that all the corporations that care about the NSA scandal are quite unhappy wit the NSA says: maybe there's less corporate control than you imagine. Of course, if your point was "we have two big-government, pro-corporate" parties, then I agree completely.
Re: (Score:3)
Why do you imagine that Google is happy that it gave data to the NSA, and is now losing business as the result? Google definitely isn't happy that the NSA was tapping their inter-data-center links.
No, the NSA was not some creation of Goole et al.
Now, if you want to assert that "there are some powerful people who both own shares in large corporations and have lots of influence over the government", then sure, that seems obvious. But there's not some nefarious conspiracy of random corporations to control th
Re:FP (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone posting your quote should be required to post their real name.
Re: (Score:3)
What I want to hide depends entirely on who's looking for it.
The government already knows my real name, and knows I use "Sarten-X" as an alias, too. The government also already knows my address, and if agents want to come visit, they're welcome to.
On the other hand, I don't trust the Internet fuckwads nearly so much, so "Sarten-X" is all you get.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually this is one case where I might accept that argument.
I look at porn and we can basically say every other human with internet access has as well.
I also have intoxicating liquors in my home!
The only way this impacts anyone is if they are in the closet or something. Just having looked at porn is not something anyone in 2013 should be concerned about, at least not anyone I hang out with.
Re: (Score:3)
Damn, dude. Tentacles and eggs together... that's just gross.
Re:FP (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is you are not a politician running for office on a conservative family ticket. So the NSA/CIA/Corporate Contractors are targeting protesters by blackmailing politicians into writing laws allowing undesirable to be charged and tried for meaningless crimes, where the court case and associated imprisonment are the penalty, as the whoops tee hee let you go after some number of years in prison and on trial, lost job, lost house etc. So it is all about extortion upon a plantery scale targeting anyone and everyone.
Catch, once you become bogged in lies and bullshit and the whole world also knows you have the technical capability of creating digital illusion, actually making up evidence rather than gathering real evidence, everyone just stops believing you. That is the real problem with the illusion of digital evidence, it all can just straight up be made up and no one can tell the difference. Once they have shifted to the dark side with extortion, then they are on the dark side and with that it means that truth and lies have the same value and they use which ever is the most convenient, hence nothing they say can be believed.
I mean gees, Uncle Tom Obama the Choom Gang Coward, how much more obsequious can he be to US intelligence agencies without the American public finally waking up to the idea that the NSA/CIA are blackmailing him into it. Some of the ludicrous crap that has been coming out of that guys mouth recently, surely it must be noticeable that it is a script written by others as it bears little or no relationship to his original speaking style or content during his first years in office. It is pretty bloody obvious that even he doesn't believe half of the stuff that is coming out of his mouth nowadays.
Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?
If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Informative)
Amen to that... Why is prostitution illegal while porn is not? The whole thing smacks of religious nut jobs who want to regulate your private life.
Apparently you've never visited Washington, DC, where the "escort" business thrives due to its many politician and high-ranking government official client-base. Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts", assuming he can afford them, the police will have his name in the newspaper faster than a Gulf of Mexico Hurricane flattens a school.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course if working class Joe Q. Public is in the company of these "escorts" ...
Or if you're going after Countrywide or one of our other esteemed and ever-so-honest financial institutions. Doubleplusbad if the bank was in the habit of giving sweetheart loans to other politicians [cnn.com]. Cue Eliot Spitzer. The guy was an idiot and a hypocrite for using the "escort service" the way he did, but the case is still peculiar. Why was the case never prosecuted? How many other politicos could you catch this way, but somehow never are?
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.
Actually, when you consider that those who are selling it are often coerced into doing so, and those who give it away for free aren't, there is some sense to a law prohibiting sales. There is also the issue of "the rich" being able to afford something that regular mortals cannot, such as would happen with organ donation vs. organ sales. I mean "kidney" type organs, not "Hammond" or "Wurlitzer". We've kinda decided as a society that a rich person low on the list of need being able to get a kidney transplant
Re: (Score:3)
What he said was a joke to make a point.
It wasn't just a joke, it was a full monologue. Lots of profanity, lots of "negative love" applied to the victims. The only point he was making is that he gets paid huge sums to rant about people who have valid medical problems.
Usually human trafficking means getting people (usually men) to perform what is practically slave labor ...
Usually, human trafficking means getting people of any sex to perform what is slave labor. Women and girls are included in that.
However, claims of coercion never seem to be backed up with facts.
You [portlandonline.com] want [hubpages.com] facts? [youthendingslavery.org] Okay. [theforecaster.net] How about Ron Wyden, beloved by all progressive human beings for his widly held positions on freedom and government? "Now we have [oregonlive.com]
Re: (Score:3)
To paraphrase George Carlin, it's nonsense that something is illegal to sell that you can legally give away for free.
Like a kidney? Or a child?
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Funny)
* Porn rarely gets beaten up by pimps and johns.
I had an amusing mental image of a pimp punching VHS tapes there.
Re: (Score:3)
Much of your list is valid only because prostitution is illegal.
Re: (Score:3)
* You can't get STDs from porn.
Somewhere, somehow, someone either is or already has proven you wrong.
* Pornographic videos and literature are not human, so its distribution cannot be human trafficking.
There is little to no human trafficking in places with legal prostitution, especially compared to places where it is not legal. They say the same thing about drugs: "Dur, using drugs supports criminals!" completely ignoring the fact that if the drugs in question were legal, one would not have to deal with criminals in order to acquire them. Catch-22.
* If your wife catches you watching a bunch of porn, she is unlikely to divorce you.
1) You have never met my wife.
2) That's not really a rationale for the criminalization of
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that factors into it in anyway you married the wrong person.
Re: (Score:3)
That is not porns primary use at all.
Does it bother you if your wife touches herself?
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it's not just the religious zealots who have issue with prostitution. The leftwing feminist groups have issue with it too. Basically the latter doesn't want men having easy access to sex without having to deal with privileged princesses. They label this as 'abuse' even though it's consensual all around (she wants his money, he wants her body for an hour). In many ways, prostitution is the most honest exchange that exists between the two genders, especially since the point of marriage and the nuclear family has been thoroughly destroyed.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. A transparent strategy by neo-feminists to increase their power. These are typically also the type of feminist that are unaware of the original definition of the movement, namely to create equality. Neo-feminists do not mind inequality between the sexes, they actually want it, but with them on the top. Men taking charge of their own sexuality by removing female access control and substitution of porn are of course the enemy if these people.
Re: (Score:3)
Your numbers are patently wrong. And rather obvious so. Are you stupid or are you just regurgitating propaganda? If the "average age of entrance into prostitution is 14", then about half of the people working in there would have to start at below 10, as most actually do start at 18-22 (well documented in countries where it is legal). That is utter nonsense. Here in Switzerland, prostitution was legal from the age of 16 years on until very shortly (no specific law in place, from 16 years on you have sexual s
spirals (Score:5, Insightful)
Information imbalance creates a vast power imbalance. And we'd be fools to think that this power imbalance would not be exploited. Generally, in military terms you talk about capabilities, rather than intentions when making assessments. So when universal surveillance becomes a capability, we have to assume it's not just used, but used universally. And one doesn't have to go far in history to search for consequences of having such a system. While not nearly as sophisticated, East Germany during the Soviet era provides plenty of evidence for what WILL be done with the information obtained as a result of a vast surveillance network. In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc. It's happened before. We have to be fools to think it won't happen again.
Dang, just used up my mod points (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:spirals (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to add that once the state is known to spy on everything, it can fabricate any "evidence" it wishes against specific individuals (as a state policy, or because the database operator has a grudge/political motivation), and people will believe it.
Re:spirals (Score:4, Insightful)
"No, really, I don't look at furry midget porn on the internet! It's a plot by the NSA to discredit me!" Riiiiiiiight...
Re:spirals (Score:4, Insightful)
In a few words, mainly ammunition for the government to persecute and discredit critics (which isn't new), but also alarmingly but unsurprisingly, a way for those with access to this information (specific individuals within law enforcement and government) to exert this power over other private individuals for spite, profit, blackmail, coverup, etc.
It's even worse than that. Because they have these systems they don't need any actual evidence. If they don't like you (or you're divorcing someone they care about) they can just accuse you of wrongdoing that they "discovered" through surveilling you. How are you going to prove that you didn't do what they accuse you of? Audit their systems? Mmm hmm, I'm sure they'll let a known pedophilistic-terrorist or his designee in to check everything out. Even when you can audit systems it's hard enough to prove a negative.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure they have some interesting spreadsheets/presentations detailing the "current bad guys" porn preferences:
"Wow, this imam in Hamburg is really into Shaved Headed Albino Milf Lesbians with "Eat at Joes" tattoos"
Re: (Score:2)
Rule #34 is alive and well, I see.
Re: Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The don't need porn. They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do.
Hu? That's called "Amateur Porn". It's still porn.
Re: (Score:3)
"They have more than enough watching what real people, of all ages, do."
So if they're watching you 14 year old daughter banging her boyfriend isn't that kiddy porn? Burn the NSA and other agencies.
THIS, by a wide margin.
Once we have evidence of the NSA in possession of underage porn it's the way to pull the plug... Because if we've learned anything in America, the best way to ram something through against the wishes of whomever opposes it is to say it is "for the children." In this case it would be a white-lie in so much as it isn't "for the children" in the "preventing kiddie porn" sense, but "for the children" in the "So those children can grow up in a world where they still get to have some freedo
Re: (Score:3)
And who is going to be doing the prosecuting/burning of the NSA?
Anyone that makes moves to do so will be burned by the NSA first with any and all the dirt they have on them.
Re: (Score:3)
And who is going to be doing the prosecuting/burning of the NSA?
Anyone that makes moves to do so will be burned by the NSA first with any and all the dirt they have on them.
Or that they can manufacture independent of whether you did it or not.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, I'd mistrust the people who make a big deal about never looking at internet porn. Just look at the frequent revelations involving vocal evangelists.
Trying to lean on people based on their internet browsing habits? It seems that someone's trying to quell any public dissent on NSA snooping on Americans. "Listen buddy... icksnay on the oopingsnay or we'll let everyone in your church know about those web sites you visited last Wednesday evening between the hours of 9:00PM and 10:30PM."
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, I've come to the conclusion the louder someone screeches about the morality of other people, the higher the likelihood they'll get caught in a scandal.
Which has more or less confirmed for me that people are lying douchebags, who mostly want to point the finger at everyone else.
The more rigid and extreme the position, the more they're full of shit.
Re: (Score:3)
So porn today is like drinking back in the wild west, with regards to trusting people?
Re: (Score:2)
In theory it is not that they watch it but what they watch.
Suppose the NSA loads up the computer of some "radical" with 100's of gigs of interracial gay enema porn and then "reveals" the dirty sex browsing history to the world.
In reality, you'll just be convincing the people who already don't like that person that he is a filthy disgusting bad person. And the people who approved of his ideas will claim it is a conspiracy by the NSA/FBI/CIA/whatever to discredit him and that those pictures were planted.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's one of the (many) problems with this whole system. Here it wouldn't be a question of agents having to sneak into a guy's house and plant the material. They'll just claim that he browsed such sites and the rest of us will be expected to take their word for it. "Where's the evidence to support this claim?" "We can't tell you. National security."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My greater fear is that the NSA might already possess, or be working toward, the ability to inject false records into a target's credit history. Create a situation where credit cards are revoked, assets are impounded, the target loses his house, his car, and any ability to ever use credit again. What better way to shut a dissident up than to so mess with his personal finances that he has to spend every waking moment trying to get it all straightened out.
When will snooping on private data end, and manipulat
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Funny)
What about someone who just reads erotica ... while naked and covered in butter? Hypothetically, of course!
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:5, Funny)
The lower calorie and healthier practice is to slather on olive oil. The "extra virgin" kind, of course.
Re: (Score:3)
Everybody is naked under their pants, my friend.
Re: (Score:3)
It's even stupider than that, as whoever accuses first would instantly become an incredibly juicy target for any magazine to publish the "true story behind the accuser".
Unless the NSA have someone who's never, ever seen a porn site, which would be a feat beyond miraculous.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're a mullah, you wouldn't want people to know you like watching people do things you would have them killed for.
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything that even looks like deviant sexual behavior can cost someone their job, their wife and kids, etc. It's a powerful blackmail tool, no matter how common we all know it is.
Re: (Score:3)
Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?
If anything I wouldn't trust someone who doesn't watch porn..
And what possible "proof" could the NSA provide that anyone would believe?
NSA: Hey, look everyone, Joe Radical watches donkey-porn!
Joe: I do not.
NSA: You do too - look at these report we created that shows every dokey-porn video you watched
Joe: That's fake, you made it up
NSA: It's true! We swear it and everyone knows we have no incentive to make it up just to look you look bad!
How would the NSA prove that the "private" browsing activity that they are exposing is really their activity and not something they
Re: (Score:3)
We can't tell you. National security.
Oh, by the way, your family might find your browsing history from last week interesting. You wouldn't want to change your publicly stated opinions on our programs would you?
Re:Porn browsing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lol you think they would even need to prove it
If the NSA said that an influential person that you follow watches some porn fetish site and that guy denies it and claims that the NSA is trying to discredit him, who are you going to believe? The guy that you already follow and believe, or the government agency that has a real incentive to try to discredit this person? This policy could backfire and make people more devoted to a person that they now believe is targeted by the government.
It doesn't matter whether the information is true or not, it's a question of who you trust more.
Re: (Score:3)
First off: Why would they need to prove it? Not in a sense of "proving it's true", but in a sense of "accomplishing their goal of discrediting the target."
NSA leaks Joe Radical's porn habits to FOX News.
If that's their goal, why would they need to collect any actual information at all? What's the difference between releasing private data that can't be verified and releasing made-up data that can't be verified?
Re: (Score:3)
Why would one lose ones credibility because of that?
Because politics, that's why.
You hear the talking heads squawk about a political entity getting "busted" for having a more-interesting-than-missionary sexual preference, and, regardless of how innocuous it may be, the next thing you know their career in politics is over.
Sexual preference is ideal blackmail for politicians who spend the majority of their professional lives trying to convince the public that they're more moral than the next guy. Which is pretty much all of them.
Seems to me the only real defen
Re: (Score:3)
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
*29 have been accused of spousal abuse
*7 have been arrested for fraud
*19 have been accused of writing bad checks
*117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
*3 have done time for assault
*71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
*14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
*8 have been arrested for shoplifting
*21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
*84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year Can you guess which organization this is?
GIVE UP YET?????
IT IS THE 535 MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS.
Abuse of Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately we get to come along for the ride.
Opportunities for fabricating evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the shroud of secrecy the NSA has created, it would be impossible to tell what evidence was real and what was fabricated. So if the NSA wanted to frame one of these "radicals" -- or a sitting member of Congress -- who would be able to refute those charges?
When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?
Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
People have been gathering the sexual habits of people that they may need to discredit for thousands of years. In the Roman times the Christians accused the Pagan Roman's in charge of having orgy's [cracked.com] and myth sticks around to this day. Mind you having relations with slaves that were children was considered perfectly acceptable by that society so nobody bothered to use it to slander anyone and the result was that people talked freely about it. What they didn't talk freely about was having orgies as they were simply a myth [sydney.edu.au]. In other words this story is as old as prostitutes, politicians and spies, only the names have changed.
Re:Opportunities for fabricating evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
When are Congressmen going to publicly admit that this rogue agency is a greater danger to national security, in any meaningful sense of the term, than Al Quaeda ever was?
Never, given they just discovered that the NSA has a list of all the pr0n sites they've visited. Do you think there's any politician in DC who has no skeletons in the cupboard for the NSA to exploit?
This is why you don't create a secret police agency. Once they have a file on everyone, no-one can stop them.
Re: (Score:2)
The NSA is merely a tool for whoever can manipulate their way into controlling how it is used.
It is only a matter of time until a president or other powerful corporate interest uses the NSA to frame what they consider internal, American threats .
The patriots at the NSA wouldn't think twice about using their omniscience to discredit or even bring the threat of physical violence to any American citizen if their overlords commanded them to.
It just keeps getting worse (Score:2)
Re:It just keeps getting worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It just keeps getting worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it's all just a game. Really, what devastating info has come to light so far? Nothing that any country with their own intelligence agency didn't already know about and likely do as well. It has set up a soap box for political grandstanding, but has it really changed any relationships or policies?
The fact that you aren't horrified isn't so much a measure of how unimportant the revelations are so much as your own cynicism and willingness to accept a terrible situation as just "business as usual." Democracies can only die when the people accept oppression as natural and proper.
And this article would be more appropriately titled "NSA prepared to expose hypocrisy of porn browsing religious radicals".
Two problems with this:
1) The government has a history of pulling this against its own citizens when they threaten the status quo. See COINTELPRO and MLK.
2) Hypocrisy is offensive, but doesn't invalidate a person's argument of how people should act, even if they can't live up to it. MLK would be a great example of this. He was a religious man who had a message of tolerance and justice. He also may or may not have had extramarital affairs. (He at the very least had straying eyes.) Would revealing this to the public negate the truth of his message? Maybe not, but it would be an excuse to shout that truth down and stifle it from spreading.
Encouraging people to accept ad hominem attacks as legitimate, even when it's for people advocating beliefs you find abhorrent, is a dangerous game. It's short-sighted, amoral, and displays the "all that matters is the ends" mentality that has gotten our country into so many risky and stupid entanglements before. Pretty much all of modern politics can be traced back to "pragmatic" things done during the Cold War and the fallout from putting advantage over principle.
Not to downplay the treason of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but it hasn't exactly been the end of the world.
These two people are heroes, not traitors. They saw a great rot at the core of our nation, and rather than sit silently and watch as it ate deeper and deeper, they put their lives and freedom on the line to let people know so that we could act. If their actions have been ineffective, it has been more because of the nihilists like yourself than because of flaws in their motives.
Re: (Score:3)
It's an age-old adage, if you give someone power they ARE going to use it. And agencies, like people, will usually push for as much power as they can get. The NSA and CIA (and to a lesser extent, the FBI) were basically given blank checks after 9-11. Anyone who ever believed they were going to voluntarily restrict their use of that kind of power to Muslim terrorists was a fool.
Not news but great reminder (Score:2)
The fact is, the 3-letter spy agencies have ALWAYS capitalized on blackmail. That these agencies even exist, in my opinion, is based on their blackmail powers. But these days, as politicians are actually standing up for their wayward ways (thank Rob Ford and Bill Clinton!) I think it's time we stop persecuting people for being people. (Crack smoking mayor? I have to draw a line there but the idea is good.) If someone gambles, weigh it in on how you feel about them. If someone is gay, SO WHAT?! If som
COINTELPRO all over again! (Score:3)
It really is, except this time there's no messy "black bag" B&E jobs to get into homes and find porno mags, read diaries and letters, etc. Just hack into their computers and it's all right there.
And if all else fails, trump up some rape charges (Score:2)
But I'm sure that they would NEVER go that far.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're referring to Julian Assange, those rape charges were the fault of radical feminists getting their beliefs entrenched in European rape law, not the NSA.
Re:And if all else fails, trump up some rape charg (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I was also referring to Dominique Strauss Kahn (seems to be a common tactic these days). Poor boy made the mistake of challenging the supremacy of the U.S. dollar [guardian.co.uk] as IMF chief. Within a few months he was in handcuffs, with the prosecutor announcing a "rock solid" rape case--forcing him to resign. Three days after his successor was sworn in as the new IMF chief, the prosecutor dropped all charges and announced the case had no merit.
I guess the lesson here is, don't fuck with the U.S. government.
Freedom of speech? (Score:3)
You know, it's funny but I don't believe I recall seeing "...until we don't agree with your speech, at which point we'll collect dirt on you and blackmail you with it" in the first amendment. Must be in the second edition.
The Great Firewall of China begins to look like a useful protection for their citizens at this point.
(Yes, I realize that the majority of these people were not on US soil, but it's purportedly a principle, and one the US criticizes any country who does not espouse, and as such should apply more broadly then just to people standing on US soil at the time).
Min
Re:Freedom of speech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where will they stop? (Score:4, Informative)
Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Score:5, Insightful)
What did the NSA know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev? That's what I want to know. If the mass surveillance is justified, how did they not know about his plot? How did they fail to prevent it?
Richelieu (Score:5, Interesting)
Arms inspector Scott Ritter, who called Bush and company liars. Immediately monitored to hell and back, reputation ruined by mysterious surveillance forces within months of taking the fight to Bush's people. Being right was no excuse; he was never allowed on Oprah again, or anywhere else. We invaded Iran under false pretense. He's in prison after the second round of surveillance.
As for the charges, which they ultimately nailed him with? Dunno. Why does everyone assume that computers can't lie? Once you set up the premise that we are catching lots of bad men, it's child's play to make you a bad man - just invent some logs, some chat, and boom goes the dynamite. I don't trust electrons when they are under the control of people who would bomb 60,000 people to death for oil and conflating brown people with other brown people.
And talking to girls online is a crime they can hang on a lot of men, anyway. He didn't *do* anything. Except piss the right people off. On the other hand, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft and Rice are rich and free after stealing trillions in oil, starting two endless wars, and killing over a hundred thousand people.
Assume that people are watching you, listening to you - retroactively - if you annoy the right people. They can indeed hang you with six lines. Hell, I do now christen this "Richelieuing".
Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng (Score:5, Interesting)
The FBI used similar tactics [rawstory.com] on the "most dangerous Negro" aka Martin Luther King -- they bugged his bedroom and then tried to blackmail him with an audiotape of him having sex with women who weren't his wife.
Re: (Score:3)
That was Hoover's FBI. Hoover kept files on everyone in congress so he could make sure he had the info to blackmail anyone that tried to cut the budget of the FBI or remove him from office.
Re:Tried to do this to Martin Luther KIng (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand we are all glad that he persevered, on the other hand, he was the "Reverend" Martin Luther King Jr. and he was cheating on his wife with multiple women. Hypocritical scumbag, even though also a great man.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
--Cardinal Richelieu
Here's an article on the danger of wiretapping to the political process. [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Every single one of those women (Score:3, Interesting)
Every single one of those women were having sex with a married man. Adulterously against MLK's wife.
And any of those women married? Don't care.
But cheating on your wife? "Scumbag!".
Trust? (Score:3)
"Trust is good but control is better"
Perception is truth (Score:3)
We know the NSA captures a lot of information on everyone. So now, whether you like them or not, you are likely to believe anything the say about anyone. Which means the NSA can discredit, blackmail, manipulate, or destroy anyone they want. It does not matter whether the information they have is real or fabricated. There is no way to successfully refute anything they say about anyone.
What a monster we have created.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I just realized that the NSA has become the Ministry of Truth.
Associated with Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um what?
If the idea is that this activity is being legitimized by fighting Terrorism, I don't quite buy it...
NSA: "Stop being a terrorist, or we will blackmail you by showing all your terrorist buddies all the lewd websites you visit!"
Terrorist: "I am going to stop being a lunatic and be rational for a second. A) Do you really think that is something that might dissuade a terrorist, or make a terrorist feel even more warm and fuzzy about the USA? B) Do you really think my terrorist buddies will believe the NSA (I mean come on we can get them to believe anything, but coming from you... lol)? C) Who exactly are you going to tell? Do you have lists of terrorist buddies? Because I think if you did, you might do something a bit more constructive with it. OK back to the crazy...
This seems like something that is far more likely to be politically motivated than anything to do with terrorism.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. The people that the NSA claims to be targeting with programs like this believe that the US is a great evil. Do you think these people are going to believe a word that "an evil secret-spy organization within the great evil" says? This will do zero to reduce terrorism and is only a tool for political manipulation either foreign ("let us fly drones in your country or your people learn what websites you like looking at") or domestic ("stop opposing our agenda or we'll ruin your political career and/
Porn habits, really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ensuring that I'm not posting as AC to help drive this in...
Just because sex and nudity is considered taboo and only for deviants by all of the repressed Mericans, doesn't mean that everyone will be embarrassed by making it visible. Some of the other stuff may help discredit, but not the porn.
keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that "radical" simply means "has different political opinions than those with the most political power". This was a direct suppression of everything democracy stands for and every value this country was founded to protect. The NSA has not only committed illegal acts, they have committed high treason.
Only on the internet (Score:3)
At least it is only on the internet, and not with boots on the ground. I'm sure the NSA would never do anything crazy, like stage a sexual assault case against a foreign activist that was publishing state secrets.
Re: (Score:2)
any "superstar" CEO more as well.
Re:Were they doing anything illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the beauty of the structured releases.
GG: The NSA is spying on the Internet. Here is the proof.
NSA: No, we're only spying on terrorist's use of the Internet.
GG: The NSA is spying on everyone on the Internet. Here is the proof.
NSA: Well OK, but we can't help that. Anyway, we don't look at it if you aren't a terrorist.
GG: The NSA hands over unfiltered data on non-terrorists to Israel and the FBI. Here is the proof.
NSA: Well OK, but if you aren't doing anything illegal, you have nothing to hide.
GG: The NSA blackmails political radicals. Here is the proof.
I do hope this goes on for years.
Re:Were they doing anything illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well Mr. Congressman, we understand your concerns. But before you vote to restructure the agency, we've some material you might like to see. Now, don't ask how we got our hands on your browsing records, records which will offend the religious sensibilities of your conservative voters and the racial sensitivities of your liberal voters, but we just wanted you to know that our agency is doing everything in its power to make sure such things don't become public record.
Re:Were they doing anything illegal? (Score:5, Interesting)
There may be a few well meaning members of the power elite here and there that believe in things like the constitution and the rights of the individual but they're few and far between and the mass media, both left and right leaning, go out of their way to portray these people as loons. Most voters eat it up and ask for seconds.
The two party system has all the trappings of professional studio wrestling where we can divide the elements up into good guy/bad guy. 90% of the voters are little more than cheerleaders at the big high school football game. Those on the fringe are just that, the fringe and activities like this are meant to keep them in check. Who's going to stand in the way when all these elements come together in a surreal version of Survivor played with 300+ million contestants?
So I ask again, why would anyone with the power to stop this want to stop this? They have nothing to lose. The same people on the left who wailed in agony when the PATRIOT Act passed are now tightlipped since that power is now theirs to wield. Even the cheerleaders have shut up about such triflings as human rights in lieu of finally getting what they want out of the system. "Doesn't it serve them nasty right-wingers to finally get a taste of their own medicine? After all, they did it first..." And that kind of finger pointing will allow this to go on for as long as the powers that be can maintain balance. For today it seems like that could be generations of power at their disposal with little effort.
And left-wing/right-wing are an illusion in today's government meant to keep you asleep and fighting against your fellow man.
We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. -1984.
And no number of Facebook memes can stop this beast that we've allowed to come to life.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One wonders if the beast is an inevitability of technically advanced civilizations. You look at what the people of North Korea or a Belarus tolerate, when all logic says that those regimes are so awful and incompetent that the people should rise up and cast down the tyrants.
As much as I like to think humanity is on an upward course, I'm truly beginning to think the Enlightenment was a brief, anomalous period that, if its effects haven't ended, are on a continuing decline. Science has been brought into disre
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
What's sad is he's only a little bit nuts. What was once a lunatic conspiracy theorist rant is now a lunatic conspiracy nut rant based on widely acknowledged actual facts, not just theory. He's making shit up, but he's making up a lot less than he used to have to.
Re: (Score:3)
The UK political leadership wanted winning results in open courts wrt to crypto, logs and web/cell tracking.
Now even the "winning results" of logs and web/cell tracking will be seen as digital constructs.