Member of President Obama's NSA Panel Recommends Increased Data Collection 349
cold fjord writes "National Journal reports, 'Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA and a member of President Obama's task force on surveillance, said ... that a controversial telephone data-collection program conducted by the National Security Agency should be expanded to include emails. He also said the program, far from being unnecessary, could prevent the next 9/11. Morell, seeking to correct any misperception that the presidential panel had called for a radical curtailment of NSA programs, said he is in favor of restarting a program that the NSA discontinued in 2011 that involved the collection of "meta-data" for internet communications. ... "I would argue actually that the email data is probably more valuable than the telephony data," ... Morell also said that while he agreed with the report's conclusion that the telephone data program, conducted under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, made "only a modest contribution to the nation's security" so far, it should be continued under the new safeguards recommended by the panel. "I would argue that what effectiveness we have seen to date is totally irrelevant to how effective it might be in the future," he said. "This program, 215, has the ability to stop the next 9/11 and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened."' — More at Politico and National Review. Some members of Congress have a different view. Even Russian President Putin has weighed in with both a zing and a defense."
WTF?! (Score:5, Funny)
*speechless*
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as how I haven't really heard anything to the contrary, this is what I expect will happen. And even if I had heard something to the contrary, this is what I would expect.
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Seeing as how I haven't really heard anything to the contrary, this is what I expect will happen. And even if I had heard something to the contrary, this is what I would expect.
Well, there was an earlier report in which there were actually some remarks to the effect that "maybe this is a bit much". On the other hand there was also the impression that a lot of it was less about curtailing NSA and more about preventing future whistleblowers.
And now with this guy's statements.. Yeah, all is once again as I would have expected from a panel full of ex-intelligence types.
I'm still hoping some major campaign contributors will start bitching about how this nonsense is affecting their bott
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, there's somebody you'd give a job related to intelligence gathering to...
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Informative)
The double-down works because it's focused on denying anything was done wrong in the first place. To apologize means admitting guilt. To continue but more so is an active statement that no law was broken.
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You need huge fucking steel balls to double-down like that!
Actually, you only need need to compare the current loss to the new possible loss and the new possible win.
If, as I think happens in this case, current loss to new possible loss and current loss possible win, you need only commons sense to double-down.
Even when the argument of your double down is as stupid as "Terrorists!" or, the only slightly more infantile "pinky swear!".
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Well, let's just hope that those steel balls have a meeting with a roller mill before too long. Though I have a nagging fear that many (most?) of those in power are working overtime to find a way to spin things so that the double-down crazy can become the new reality.
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Hammer forge. Balls don't go into roller mills. They just roll on the intake.
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So is the Tea Party, the group that wants to severely cut the Federal Government, sill a bunch of idiots. Or have they been right the entire time and the rest of you are finally catching on.
The entire idea that by limiting the size (i.e. spending) of the federal government, you'll limit this sort of abuse, is nonsense. The budget for this program, or the entire NSA, is a tiny part of the federal budget. You could cut federal spending by a factor of 10, and there would still be plenty of money for this sort of thing.
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So is the Tea Party, the group that wants to severely cut the Federal Government, sill a bunch of idiots. Or have they been right the entire time and the rest of you are finally catching on.
Obama in his own words [youtube.com], worse even then Bush. Everyone try to see past their partisanship and their racial justice "payback". Obama is dangerous, to everybody.
The Tea Party like the rest of the Republicans doesn't give a flying fuck about curtailing the so-called surveillance society.
Concern about civil liberties is not a partisan matter. Statism is the enemy, not the RP, and the DP is at least as bad as the RP on civil liberties (not to be confused with civil license).
What they want is to eliminate people's rights by cutting any kind of economic support the government has for its citizens.
There is no "right" to use the govt to force one group of people to economically support another group. That's vote buying with tax dollars, not freedom. Besi
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"There is no "right" to use the govt to force one group of people to economically support another group."
"There is no "right" to use the govt to force one group of people to economically support another group. That's vote buying with tax dollars, not freedom."
But then you say:
"Weapons protect you and your lifestyle. "
But, I, as a taxpayer, am being forced to economically support wealthy weapons manufacturing CEO's and VP's.
I am being forced to economically support troops, 100% of their paycheck comes from t
Re:WTF?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Concern about civil liberties is not a partisan matter. Statism is the enemy, not the RP, and the DP is at least as bad as the RP on civil liberties (not to be confused with civil license).
Nice dodge. The patriot act was rammed down the throats of Americans, Republicans block any move to provide basic human decency to Guantanimo Bay detainees. Republicans and Tea Partiers only care about one civil right, the 2nd Amendment. Democrats don't care about any of them, but at least they don't wage huge campaigns against civil rights as campaign platforms.
There is no "right" to use the govt to force one group of people to economically support another group. That's vote buying with tax dollars, not freedom. Besides no one of any consequence is even talking about eliminating all govt charity programs.
Tell that to the corporate interests who get to write laws by buying votes, supported by conservative nominees to the Supreme Court. Corporations have more legal rights than real people and less possible penalties. They still get to legally purchase votes.
Weapons protect you and your lifestyle. If you don't understand that, then you are a child.
Ahh so there are no way to protect civil liberties other than weapons. Apparently someone had quite a few tantrums as a child. Nice strawman though.
No one of any consequence is even talking about expanding the military by trillions of dollars.
Guess you missed the Republican nominee for president campaigning for it?
The social safety net is not strained. Spending on govt handout programs is dramatically up across the board in the last 7 years. The govt runs adverts to try to get more people to sign up for the programs. Of course, every dollar spent on handouts is taken out of the private sector and taking money out of the private sector reduces job opportunities so the best way to keep from straining the safety net is to quite spending so damn much money on it. If govt spending is not reduced, then the country will soon be bankrupted, there will be widespread civil unrest and a police state will be instituted in order to restore order. It may be hard for some to accept, but that is exactly what Obama and his backers want. Obama isn't intent on releasing a bunch of convicted criminals from prison for nothing - every would-be dictator recruits a private army from low-level street criminals, people devoid of conscience, willing to brutalize the law-abiding and live off them like parasites.
No, you are so wrong. If austerity worked then you would see Europe rebounding, except you don't. What you see is that the GDP fell 2% because of less government spending based on a study that got the correlation wrong. Growth falls when government spending falls. Every reputable economist sees this because they can read the numbers in reports and can tell what a line on a graph means by reading the tabular data. You morons and your stupid ass trickle down theories have failed 6 ways from Sunday and yet you keep doubling down on your failed crap Randian fantasies. Obama isn't perfect, but to suggest that a civil rights, community organizer would have been worse than someone who spent time as an executive at a company that specialized in outsourcing jobs and tranferring wealth from the poor to the wealthy is naive at it's best and willfully stupid at it's most likely outcome.
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no "right" to use the govt to force one group of people to economically support another group.
That is a tricky hypothesis, because it implies that government force in an economic context equals one group supporting another group. Not always the case. When laissez-faire does not result in long-run GDP growth rate maximization relative to a well regulated market, it is the laissez-faire case that is more accurately described as one group economically supporting another.
An example of an unregulated market distortion resulting in one group economically supporting another is pharmaceuticals. Aggregate customer demand is highly inelastic (price tolerant), time sensitive, and poorly informed. The profit maximizing behavior for the pharmaceutical industry is to misrepresent the product and collude to raise prices. Government regulation forbidding such misrepresentation and price fixing increases market efficiency and hence increases long-run GDP growth. The relative increase in long-run GDP growth under the regulated market case is the measure of reduction in the incidence of sick people economically supporting pharmaceutical stockholders under the laissez-faire case.
That is just one example, there are many cases where a well regulated market results in faster sustainable GDP growth than does laissez-faire. In such instances, the long-run outcome for all market segments is greater in the long-run under the well-regulated case, and hence laissez-faire is nothing short of theft.
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, every dollar spent on handouts is taken out of the private sector and taking money out of the private sector reduces job opportunities so the best way to keep from straining the safety net is to quite spending so damn much money on it. If govt spending is not reduced, then the country will soon be bankrupted, there will be widespread civil unrest and a police state will be instituted in order to restore order. It may be hard for some to accept, but that is exactly what Obama and his backers want. Obama isn't intent on releasing a bunch of convicted criminals from prison for nothing - every would-be dictator recruits a private army from low-level street criminals, people devoid of conscience, willing to brutalize the law-abiding and live off them like parasites.
Bzzzt! Wrong. Thanks for playing. Economic analysis shows that government spending, especially on safety nets has a net positive effect (each dollar spent increases economic activity by more than a dollar) on the economy. I was looking around for a good example [google.com] of such an analysis, but there are so many, I'll let you pick the one you like best. :)
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds good in theory, like the free-market social Darwinist..
Until they realize that they are pudgy 40 year old 5 foot tall asthmatics who just had all their shit stolen and wife taken by force by a 7 foot tall thug with more muscle than brain.. Who just 'appropriated' their shit by pulling your dick out through your mouth. You know, survival of the fittest, and you my friend are NOT one of them. What? You expected POLICE to help you? You don't have the RIGHT to a government police force. Get off your lazy ass and grow a few feet and put on 100 pounds of muscle and protect your own damn self.
Armed support from the government doesn't protect anyone's rights, it just costs $$.
You see, there is what some kid in their basement thinks about the world, and then there is reality.
The reality is that it costs less than $3,000 a year for foodstamps. But prison costs between $35,000 and $65,000 per year.
In the real world, when there are 3 people for every 1 job, it is simply cheaper to help the poor than it is to punish them for having the fucking gall to be fired because someone with millions decided to move to commie china and get a tax break to do it.
In the real world, compassionate programs for things like drug treatment, food security, and basic housing is not just the christian thing to do ( and exactly what little baby Jesus would want). It is also the most cost effective to the taxpayer. And the reduction in thefts and increase in law and order is also very good if you are someone who wants to keep your shit without having to employ armed guards. Or sell shit and expect to get payed, or walk about without getting killed.
Or, you know hey, we could stop the economic support of rich fucks by raising minimum wage to a level that puts people above the poverty line and hence outside of the welfare system. If we adjusted minim wage to inflation it would be about $20.. There is the real issue.
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
What? You expected POLICE to help you?
Why would anybody expect that? That's not what they do.
They are there to mop up the mess after the fact, and to fill out the paperwork so you can make an insurance claim.
If you ever find yourself in immediate danger and expect protection from the police, I suspect that you will find their response time to be a rather rude awakening.
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This program, 215, has the ability to stop the next 9/11 and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened.
This is what the terrorists want.
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This program, 215, has the ability to stop the next 9/11 and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened.
This is what the terrorists want you to believe.
FTFY, for certain values of the word, "terrorists."
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This is what the terrorists want.
That's what a terrorist would say.
Or a traitor!
Are you a terrorist? Or are you a traitor. (Or are you dancer)
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Compare this to US involvement in WWII where 418 thousand Americans died and managed to free France, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, South Korea and some of South East Asia (just over 200 million people all up), with the rest being taken by equally-oppressive Communism and it sounds like incredibly good value for human life.
Weapons are great for the people who own them.
Using your WWII analogy, imagine Adolf Hitler have the powers of the NSA today!
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and that's really the problem.
let's set aside what everyone may think of the current or previous administrations.
do we know we can trust future administrations with these tools?
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If these systems were not in place in 2012 and 2013, 3,000 people would be dead and 317 million people would be free from government surveillance.
Sounds terrible.
You're begging the question of whether government surveillance is a bad thing. The Nazi genocidal regime and the Communist oppressive dictatorships were indeed enabled by surveillance, but they are separate issues.
Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
the question of whether government surveillance is a bad thing.
There is no question.
Government surveillance is more harmful than anything it might conceivably be used to prevent.
Re: WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the surveillance harming you. It's the driver of the black SUV, the corrupt arresting officer, or even the flag-raising system, none of which should ever have access to the database without judicial review.
Only a fool thinks that "having access" is something that can be properly enforced. I have personal experience of how relatively low-level people can use and abuse data that they "don't have access to". And if you don't believe me, then consider Edward Snowden.
Only a fool thinks that black SUVs are likely to go around randomly without some level of higher-level control or that there will never be a time when that higher-level control won't intersect with the set of people who do have access.
Only a fool thinks that you have nothing to hide if you are innocent, because "innocent" isn't an absolute. You can always be found guilty of something, even if it's only complaining about the weather. Someone else gets to determine whether complaining about the weather is legal, and someone else will make the determination of whether your comments about the heat and humidity make you guilty.
The surest way to prevent abuse of data is not to collect it at all.
The second-surest way is to put as many obstacles in the path of getting it as is possible, making clear audits and controls, checks and balances. This is what the FISA courts were supposed to be part of. They failed. This is why demanding real-time feeds of telephone and email meta-data is not as good as having it obtained from the telcos and ISPs on display of a specific warrant.
The third-surest way is to put a define set of bounds on the data. In particular, data should be destroyed after its immediate applicability, not retained forever "just in case". Just in case some statistical analysis happens to turn up that you were standing within 500 meters of a Socialist Workers rally (on the other side of a 10-foot brick wall) when you were in 5th grade and one of the rally participants turns out to be the next Osama bin Laden 15 years later.
If we have to destroy our way of life to "preserve" it, then manifestly the whole democracy experiment has been a failure and we should stop with the hypocrisy already.
Re: WTF?! (Score:4, Insightful)
In short: "If you want to monitor me, in any way, shape or form, GET A FUCKING WARRANT!"
If you want to just hoover ALL data, on the off chance that you might catch A. Random Badguy?
Fuck off and die.
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The moon example was probably semi-backwards. We developed a lot of rocket tech that's been reused there; it may have been reused for military applications during the development of space faring technology, rather than after. The point still stands, though: We built dangerous tools, we used them for other things than just what we said we wanted them for.
The big problem with surveillance as a tool is this same human nature: it will be abused, eventually. The slippery slope fallacy is an interesting one
Re:WTF?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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that's not right
I think it is telephony data . . .
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Re:WTF?! (Score:5, Informative)
Hope and Change, man. Fight the military industrial complex, stick it to the man, fight for the little guy, eat the rich!
Seriously though - you cannot be surprised about this. If you are, you either:
1. Have not been paying attention, or
2. Are not intellectually honest, or
3. Both 1 and 2.
No, I'm not saying that putting an (R) after a name instead of a (D) would make it any better. I'm sure that some of these spying programs were started under President Bush Jr., or perhaps Clinton, or Bush Sr., or maybe even earlier.
You see, nearly all of the politicians these days are big government advocates, and part of big government means they want to watch you so that they can control you. It's for your own good though, see. It's to keep you safe. Or something.
I am reminded of a woman who called Mike Trivisonno's radio show on WTAM a few years back. She was an old woman from Russia, back when it was part of the USSR. She was angry, screaming at us (the American people in general), "Don't you see what you are doing? Don't you know where this will lead? I left Russia to get away from this! What are you doing?"
Encrypt everything... (Score:2, Informative)
Nuff said.
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Need a crypto method that randomly inserts "FUCK YOU NSA" in cleartext.
Re:Encrypt everything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmm hmm. How exactly do you suggest I encrypt the routing information (metadata) of my emails, phone calls, and mail? And still have it reach it's destination I mean? The ISPs, phone companies, email providers, etc. could do such a thing if they chose - but under current law they're all in the back pocket of the NSA and their secret orders anyway, so it wouldn't defend against the elephant in the room (though it would still be a good defense against every *other* privacy-invading parasite monitoring internet traffic.
Sure, it's good advice to encrypt the contents and deny them the ability to dig deeper (though I don't see phone scramblers catching on any time soon), assuming of course you can find an encryption algorithm that hasn't been compromised by the NSA or other spooks, but it accomplishes exactly nothing in terms of the topic at hand.
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On its own, it doesn't. Though it can make their job a little harder. But when you've got many people communicating via encrypted channels to a single server, like a web forum or mailing list, it gets much harder to figure out who is talking to who.
Re:Encrypt everything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but that's the scary thing about this whole metadata thing. If they tapped every backboned and could archive every packet it would effectively not matter you encrypted it along the way. They'd still know who you're talking to, where you surf online, the whole bit. Also, given how much crap snowden found, the scary question is what is so classified he didn't find it?
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Thats why we all need to start using TOR Freenet I2P GNUnet Retroshare and other darknets I have been looking into seting up a freenet node on my personal server and trying to tell people about retroshare. While we also need to encrypt the data at the end points (your harddrive) and the message payloads(pgp encrypted and signed emails, texts, messages, etc) the origin and endpoint need to be run through these so they can't collect any metadata.
Think about the future, not now (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone pipes up with "oh, this doesn't affect me, I'm just a nobody", then try thinking further ahead than the next quarter.
You may be one among, say, millions of students, but what about 5-10 years from now when you do or invent something important and it's in conflict with what the government of the day wants you to do ?
That's the point at which your student past is dug up and it's explained to you that unless you play ball your past will be revealed.
Even if you are the most boring person in the world, then what about the people one or two steps removed from you, ie: members of your class. Guilt by association and all that.
I really dislike it when people think about where they are today instead of where they may be a few years from now. People like these will sleepwalk into this future without realising it until it's too late.
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Exactly. It's similar to when people of a political party back increased powers for the branch of government that they control but then act aghast when the opposing party gains control and uses those powers. If you think Government Agency/Branch X should have a certain power, ask yourself how you'd feel if someone completely opposite of you in politician orientation gained control of that agency/branch. How would they use the powers? How might they misuse them? What checks would there be on the power-u
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I really dislike it when people think about where they are today instead of where they may be a few years from now. People like these will sleepwalk into this future without realising it until it's too late.
A universal truth: people don't care about politics unless and until they believe that it either affects or will affect their daily lives.
Most people don't think in abstractions, beyond the particular, and most people are just too busy living their lives to constantly wring their hands about every potential threat from the govt. That's probably a good thing overall. The govt shouldn't be the center of people's lives. It's frustrating, though, when a real threat is building ...
Laugh (Score:3, Insightful)
"He also managed the staff that produced the Presidential Daily Briefings for President George W. Bush. Morell was Bush’s briefer during the September 11, 2001 attacks, and has been quoted as saying, "I would bet every dollar I have that it’s al Qaeda."
So this was one of the people, that ignored the 9/11 warnings, and then went even farther to lie about who did it.
Not what I heard on NPR (Score:3, Informative)
from Richard Clark (the one who warned Bush on possible Al-Qaida threats pre-911) who was also on the panel. His line was that many of the NSA's programs are useful, (phone meta data not so much) but the program need more judges (to handle all the requests properly and perhaps a civilian advocate.
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Well yes, but that's a rational response. We don't like those much here.
If the NSA's stopped this time, the CIA will be running the operation next time, and of course every other country is running their equivalent programs while chastising the US for getting caught. As Bruce Schneier so often has pointed out, modern technology presents incredible power, but we must be careful how that power is used. In my opinion, we should use this situation to establish a baseline procedure for modern surveillance of any
Change you can believe in! (Score:5, Interesting)
Obama is Bush 2.0, even though he led us to believe he was the anti-Bush. We all thought he was going to undo the draconian actions of the Patriot Act, to restore personal liberty and freedom, but that's sure not what we got, is it?
Re:Change you can believe in! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite.
There are certain semi-agreed 'debate issues' in US politics. Things that the parties have informally (Or possible, conspiratorially) decided are going to get a lot of attention, be a subject of intence R-v-D warfare and generally decide elections. A lot of these are things that won't actually have a great impact on most of society, like abortion or gay marriage.
There are also certain semi-agreed 'off the table' issues, where both sides have decided that drawing attention to them would be a bad thing for both sides. This includes defence spending and civil rights, along with such issues as corn subsidies and copyright reform. Rarely do you find a politician daring to even acknowledge these as issues, and any that do risk a backlash from their own party.
This is one of the 'off the table' issues. If Snowden's leaking hadn't forced it to public attention, it would never have been allowed to come up, and right now both parties are just hopeing it goes away again.
formal, written agreements for campaign debates (Score:4, Informative)
> parties have informally (Or possible, conspiratorially)
We know they formally agree to what questions will be asked in campaign debates. They are open about that. So at least it is "sometimes conspitatorially".
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Abortion and gay marriage ARE civil rights issues.
Aside from that, I agree.
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I managed even more spelling errors in that post than I usually do.
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I think the people who hate on Bush, but praise Obama, can point to the fact the Obama never ordered the invasion of a country that had done no harm to America, had no weapons of mass destruction, and was not supporting terrorism. We're talking about the blood of 100,000 civilians [wikipedia.org] give or take. When it comes to morality, George W. Bush's standard is an easy bar to get over.
All that said, Bush never ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. Obama has done it more than once.
I say, put them bot
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When Putin approves... (Score:5, Insightful)
... you know your doing something wrong.
I'm not american, but just to remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Will this "War on Terrorism" ever end . . . ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could understand that after 9/11, drastic measures were necessary to fight terrorism at the time. But now . . . ? We seem to be hunkering down, and assuming that we will need all of this surveillance and security . . . forever.
All this stuff is purely defensive in nature: trying to prevent terrorist attacks. Despite all these security measures, it is just a matter of time before another attack succeeds anyway . . . like in Boston.
I'd like to see a plan to reduce these threats forever . . . so we can go back to our normal ways, before the war. Now, it seems that we are preparing for an endless war on terrorism. A permanent state of war is not good for any society.
Has the "War On Drugs" ever ended? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd contend that after 9/11, no measures were necessary to fight terrorism. In fact, it would've been far better to shrug and move on.
Think about it: What better move to show the world that you won't budge to terrorism by showing you aren't intimidated, and what better way to do that than to just ignore the whole thing, except for mourning your dead and putting the building back together?
You can always get your own back later. But nooo, you had to fight. Right away. And give up scads of freedoms to do it. And everyone else's too. And wage two wars that have now destabilised the entire area. Destabilisation that is causing yet more people to die and more terrorism to leak back into the rest of the world. These drastic measures have compounded the problem several orders of magnitude. So really, you're reaping what you've sown.
Instead, what was necessary was to fire every last single intelligence agency in its entirety and rebuild from scratch. For they've been at it for sixty-odd years, had their feelers in every network, and... didn't see this one coming. And they still don't. But in the meantime they've grown that much more in size, power, budget, influence, access, hunger for data, you name it. The intelligence community is completely out of control. So the only fix is still, only much more so, to get rid of it entirely. That, or we'll have to get rid of the entire state of the USoA. Or we'll indeed end up with a permanent state of war.
Anthrax this! (Score:2)
Indeed. It's called TERRORism because it's intended to make people scared. The way to render it ineffective is to refuse to live in fear. One of the best anti-terrorism efforts was the "Anthrax this!" cover, a clear statement that we will not be terrorized.
Re:Will this "War on Terrorism" ever end . . . ? (Score:5, Insightful)
A permanent state of war is not good for any society.
It's good for the people in power. What makes you think that they care whether or not it's good for society.
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How do you 'win' against a concept?
Terrorism isn't a person, it isn't a nation, it isn't even a religion. There is nothing to win a war against, so you cannot ever have a traditional end to a war against terrorism. If those in power wish, it's a 'war' that can go on forever, quite easily.
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We've always been at war with Eastasia.
Re:Will this "War on Terrorism" ever end . . . ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the powers that be would like it to ever end. The expression "War is Peace" sums this up...as long as there is a constant threat of war(in this case, "terrorism"), the populace can be made to accept nearly any unreasonable demand in the name of that defending against that threat.
Imagine if you are the commander of a military force - would you rather a mediocre budget because of peacetime? Or would you rather have a "buy anything and everything no questions asked" mandate because of the imminent threat of war? This also appeals to the sense of power the government leaders have - it allows them a constant state of martial law, effectively letting them act with impunity while "defending us" from war(or in this case, imminent terrorism).
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Terrorism just isn't that serious a threat (outside of a few rather ghastly neighborhoods where things classi
Re:Will this "War on Terrorism" ever end . . . ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the "drastic measures" were largely a reaction to the events. As a country, we went into shock and some people took advantage of this to push security theater that would make them rich and/or would score them votes.
All that was really needed was three things beyond pre-911 security:
1) Lock and reinforce the cockpit doors so a terrorist couldn't burst in and take over.
2) Instruct pilots that, in the event of a terrorist trying to take over, they are to report it, fly to the nearest airport, and make an emergency landing. They are NOT to unlock the cockpit doors no matter how many people the terrorists kill. Pilots would be shielded from being sued for the loss of life while they tried to make an emergency landing. After all, if the terrorists get into the cockpit, everyone might as well be dead.
3) Passengers were not to simply "do as the terrorists say" as they did in pre-911 times. Back then "hijacking" meant you go to some other location, spend some tense hours being captive, and then more likely than not get returned home safe and sound. As long as you just cooperated. Now, "hijacking" means you are dead if you don't stop them. Passengers will now rise up and oppose the terrorists. Even if they die doing it. (See Flight 93.)
If we were to reduce airport security to pre-911 levels with the above exceptions, we'd be just as safe from terrorists as we are today and wouldn't be sacrificing as many freedoms.
Re: (Score:3)
and wouldn't be sacrificing as many freedoms.
What freedoms would we be sacrificing if we only implemented the things you suggested?
Re: (Score:2)
I could understand that after 9/11, drastic measures were necessary to fight terrorism at the time.
Then that is where you fail. I do not believe freedoms should be sacrificed in exchange for safety (real or otherwise), and certainly not so after something like the 9/11 attacks.
Re:Will this "War on Terrorism" ever end . . . ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to see a plan to reduce these threats forever . . . so we can go back to our normal ways, before the war. Now, it seems that we are preparing for an endless war on terrorism.
What if I told you the threat of terrorism was so low even lightning strikes or falling down in the bathtub are more serious threats to American lives?
9/11 killed one sixth the number of people who die from the flu every year! That means since 9/11 the flu has proven 60 times more dangerous than terrorists. Accidents and heart disease kill 400 times more people every year than a 9/11 scale attack. [cdc.gov] We need proportional protection from threats. 1/6th or 1/60th of what we spend on anti-flu vaccines should be spent on anti-terrorism. The threat is just a fear narrative to get the people to do whatever the government wants. You accept that life is dangerous when you drive to a fast food restaurant, and face a far greater risk than terrorism yet we demand no War on Cheeseburgers and Cars. The war on terror will end when the people stop being afraid of pathetic threats. Accept the risk of being free. It is minimal compared to every other threat you face.
We don't need the wiretapping spying at all. Omnivore, Carnivore [wikipedia.org], ECHELON, and PRISM's Room 641A existed BEFORE 9/11. [wikipedia.org] The NSA's spying apparatus has failed to prevent every terrorist attack since the 60's, including 9/11. We gave them more powers and they failed to prevent the Boston Marathon Bombing.
The spying programs are expensive and useless for the protection of American lives. It's too easy to track the tax funds so the CIA gets a large portion of its black-ops money through investments. The cold war machine lost its raison d'etre, and like any business or other cybernetic being it didn't want to die. So in order to keep itself fed with massive funds the spying apparatus must manufacture threats to deceive the public with. [youtube.com] There was never a suspicion of WMD's there was only the need for a threat narrative to fuel a war machine. Just like Vietnam, Just like McCarthyism, The Red Scare, etc. There is no threat to us anymore from countries defined by borders since we have mutually assured nuclear destruction.
The National Reconnaissance Office gifted NASA two Hubble Sized spy satellites because they're launching far more impressive spy satellites with the biggest rockets in the world. [youtube.com] Hubbles aimed at Earth! That's PLENTY of spying capability to be content with. No force on Earth can move against us without us knowing instantly, the wiretap spying isn't needed at all. If the flu, cars, and cheeseburgers are a more serious threat than terrorism, but domestic spying can yield information that can be used for insider trading, and that's how black-ops are funded...
Occam's Razor says Snowden is right: [washingtonpost.com] "These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power."
Citizens have changed from collateral damage into the prime targets themselves in the new age cold war. Borders are largely safe now. The developing world is used as the outlet to expend the war machines output. Great stockpiles of the machines of war are burned to make room for new spending. [rt.com] Black-ops instigates new proxy wars. [wikipedia.org] The CIA carries out economic warfare at the behest of Corpora [youtube.com]
Why? (Score:2)
What could possibly be of such interest to go to such lengths? Power? Political corruption? Racial/Religious superiority? The lengths to which they are going bear similarity to some very historic, oppressive regimes.
Improving security (Score:5, Funny)
Also were suggested to put all americans in maximum security prisons, to avoid to be attacked by foreigners. They could keep working from jail for their safety, but their salaries will have a cut to maintain the jail system safe for them.
Other options like killing all the americans to avoid them to be killed by terrorists, and killing everyone with a doomsday device to avoid the same, if well would be effective for the security of american goals, were discarded as, for now, excessive.
refresher needed? (Score:3, Insightful)
For those with the short memory a reminder is needed: currently email headers and selected contents is collected. Please review once again NSA slides if you need refresher.
So this basically represents parallel construction of justification: ahem.... we, NSA, should consider collecting emails (even though we already do).
Somehow they magically think that the public will forget that that collection of emails has been going for the decades and will believe that somehow in 2011 collection stopped.
Snail mail (Score:3)
So terrorists will simply use snail mail. I don't think they're in that much of a hurry.
Why stop there? (Score:4, Informative)
> "He also said the program, far from being unnecessary, could prevent the next 9/11."
Why stop there? If you put everyone in jail you'll prevent attacks too.
And give us all tracking collars and big bonuses for yourself and your crony pals for the contracts to fulfill all the work.
As long as we don't consider unintended consequences, history, or conflicting interests like the Constitution and public opinion, expanding surveillance makes a lot of sense.
Then again, the slightest thought to any of these things makes him sound like a total idiot, if not a traitor.
This just in... (Score:3)
Snowden's response... (Score:5, Informative)
According to the Globo report, Mr. Snowden said the NSA hasn’t produced evidence to suggest the disclosures have caused harm. He said U.S. law doesn’t distinguish between a whistleblower revealing illegal programs “and a spy secretly selling documents to terrorists.”
The biggest offense one can commit in the U.S. isn’t to damage the government, but rather to “embarrass it. It’s clear that I could not possibly get a fair trial in my country,” he said, according to the report.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/12/22/snowden-criticizes-u-s-panel-overseeing-surveillance/ [wsj.com]
In Other News (Score:4, Insightful)
Chief of Security Wolf vows his pack will personally guard the Hen house
Private prison owners: "The country needs stiffer drug penalties"
FBI: We need surveillance to help keep you safe from the people we keep radicalising and arming!
Inadequate justification (Score:5, Insightful)
Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened.
Because "YOU THINK"? That is a good enough reason to rape Americans' of their privacy?
And if we station armed soldiers at every interstate entrance and exit, every state border, every entrance and exit to every major cvity, to interrogate all travelers, strip search everyone driving -- demand to see and record the "metadata" (identification of all vehicle passengers, and their reported origin and destination) --- just maybe we stop the next 9/11 or carbombing too.
The terrorists will just have to use a different technique...
Re: (Score:3)
Uh... right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me see if I get this right: Three letter agencies refuse to work in compliance with the Constitution and pre-Bush era FISA law... where few people can remember why the original FISA was passed (look it up, it has everything to do with illegal three letter agency data collection on US citizens during the early to mid-20th century, very much like what we're facing now)... where people forget that NSA lawyers were directed by Darth Cheney to find every means of justifying to the secret court (what? a secret court in America? really???) four (that we know so far), count 'um, four illegal spying programs... which the aforementioned secret court accepted with few, if any limits!... so Baby Bush could wave a court signed piece of paper that granted his illegal spy programs legitimacy... and that anti-American "socialist" Obama continually supports... where citizens of the Formerly Great Country of the USA demand safety in nearly gleeful exchange for freedoms... and not one single person involved in these clearly illegal activities has been put on trial... while the US Government hunts those who might reveal aforementioned illegal activities...
Problem? What problem? Oh. Right. Ice cold Busch and NASCAR await. Gotta go...
Dunno what this guy looks like... (Score:2)
.
Not only invasive, but pointless. (Score:2)
Erich Honecker's Stasi is alive & well (Score:2)
Our wonderful government has learned from tyrants very well indeed. Make your citizens afraid, very afraid.
Who would.... (Score:3)
TSA-quality thinking (Score:2)
Meanwhile, terrorists move ahead to different protocols, different targets. Such as (as has been written), using Google Mail and cross-editing mail drafts to pass information. The drafts are never sent. They are an ongoing, live document. Let me repeat, the drafts are never sent. No emails are generated.
So al
Re: (Score:3)
Does it matter if it is sent to another gmail address? I wouldn't expect gmail-gmail correspondence to ever leave the server farm.
There will be no next 9/11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does the public let go unchallenged the claim that there will be a "next 9/11" to prevent?
The 9/11 attacks were the most ambitious terrorist attacks in history. They certainly terrorized the United States, and government officials obviously remain terrorized to this day. So in that sense, they were kind of a success. They also had massive blowback that Al Quaeda might not be keen to repeat.
Before 9/11, bin Laden was a folk hero in some parts of the Muslim world because he fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the atrocity he masterminded, most of his financiers and sympathizers dropped him like he was radioactive. Middle Eastern governments that had formerly turned a blind eye to Al Quaeda started shutting down its finance network and jailing its contributors, raiding training camps and arresting radical clerics. Then there is the US armed response, which was deeply misguided in important ways but which undeniably brought ruin on Al Queada and the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Since at least the battle of Tora Bora, Al Quaeda has been struggling to survive. It's hard to see how redoubling American resolve, just now when the public is war-weary, cynical, and worried about the war debt, would advance the aim of a global Caliphate.
It has also been said that the 9/11 attacks were self defeating in the sense that exactly because they were so devastating and well-planned, they are nigh impossible to surpass. Next to them, just bombing an embassy looks like small time. So the effectiveness of typical terror attacks may actually have been diminished because the public's expectations have been raised.
So, even if any organization could pull off "another 9/11", I seriously question whether they would want to. I believe the radicals' current objective is to get the US out of Afghanistan so they can rebuild their safe haven there. In other words, to pick up the pieces from the blowback from 9/11 and get back to where they were on Sept. 10, 2001. There is considerable doubt whether this is possible: the US will definitely pull out, but its drones will still rain Hellfire missiles from the sky day or night, and the US-backed Afghan army is in a position to keep the pressure on for a good long while.
Which brings me back to why preventing the "next 9/11" is something we should be worried about. If bin Laden had 9/11 to do over again, knowing the consequences for his organization and his agenda, would he go for it? I have to go with "no." Why can't any politician stand up and say that? Claim some credit for the progress in the "war on terror" instead of jumping at shadows?
Of course, I can answer my own question. The bogeyman of terrorism serves the authoritarian purposes of the government, so they refuse to abandon it. But please, let's start calling them on it.
Dear Mr. Morell, (Score:2)
No, no, and just in case you're having trouble keepin up, NO!
Madness (Score:2)
They do realize they won't get away with it right?
Best case everyone upgrades their security until they're pretty sure the NSA is not able to read it.
Worst case... big backlashes against the US and NSA...
and BIG defense contrators (Score:2)
beer brewers say drink more beer
of course they are going to peddle their wares
what would you do for a klondike bar?
Dangerous self-licking ice cream cone (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole NSA spying debacle is nothing more than a self-licking ice cream cone if there ever was one, albeit a rather dangerous one for any democracy to be involved in.
In at least two court cases now the government has had to admit that its massive dragnet operation has, over the years, not prevented a single terrorist incident; the ones we did catch on time were thanks to tip-offs and good old fashioned detective work. Yet, why does the establishment seem to double down on this issue, even though it's clearly unconstitutional and public sentiment is against it?
Because of the money involved.
80% of the NSA consists of private companies that do almost all of the work and it's these companies that have such a massive stake in this gigantic data collecting operation. Normally the government should be able to simply tell them to stop, but the problem is that the tail is now wagging the dog: these companies don't want to see any drop in their profits, which is only their main interest and whole reason for being. So, they're fighting back using mainly legal methods, which these days includes the option to make donations to key politicians. Remember: money equals free speech these days.
The politicians involved, especially the members of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Feinstein, Chambliss, et al.), are the most obvious targets for these donations. Like all other members of Congress, they know that 94-95% of the time the candidate with the most money will win the next election, so they actually spend most of their time raising money while in return doing and saying most anything that their most important donors want. Our representatives don't work for us anymore: they work for their donors. Consequently, the government squanders untold billions on so many unnecessary "employment projects" every year, but this NSA mega-project to spy on everyone and everything is a particularly dangerous one.
That's why we must put a stop to it ASAP: by getting big money out of politics.
Lucky for us, this is actually easier than you might think. It would be very difficult in any other country, but the United States Constitution happens to include Article Five [wikipedia.org], which describes an alternative process through which the Constitution can be altered: by holding a national convention at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds (34) of the country's 50 States. Any proposed amendments must then be ratified by at least three-quarters (38 States).
Is anybody doing this yet? Yes indeed, and you too can get involved! WOLF-PAC [wolf-pac.com] was launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood* and publicly finance all elections**. Since then, many volunteers have approached their State Legislators about this idea and their efforts have often been met with unexpected bi-partisan enthusiasm. So far, 50 State Legislators [youtube.com] have authored or co-sponsored resolutions to call for a Constitutional Convention to get money out of politics! Notable successes have been in Texas, Idaho and Kentucky.
However, if the State Legislators are also corrupt, why are they helping us? Well, maybe they aren't as corrupt as you think. And even if they are, the important thing is that they seem to be just as fed up with the Federal government as we are -- so much so that they seem quite happy to help out with this effort. After all, it's a pretty simple proposal that speaks to both Democrats and Republicans.
It looks to me like this is going to happen. The only question is whether it will be sooner or later. As an ex-pat I can only donate, but if you live in the US you can also contact your favorite State Legislator and ask for a meeting. It's easier than you might think and as a result maybe we can change t
Don't you think .... (Score:3)
...the taxpayers should be asked if they are willing to fund this? Or do we assume a Tyranny is in effect?
Do The Math - Still Worth It (Score:5, Informative)
"I would argue that what effectiveness we have seen to date is totally irrelevant to how effective it might be in the future," he said. "This program, 215, has the ability to stop the next 9/11 and if you added emails in there it would make it even more effective. Had it been in place in 2000 and 2001, I think that probably 9/11 would not have happened."'
OK, let's take your utterly preposterous claim at face value. Let's say that this program would have prevented 9/11, and would prevent another 9/11 tomorrow, and has done fuck-all in between. That means we'd save 3,000 American lives every 12 years. Call it 3,600 to make the math easy. That's 300 lives per year. Against the 4th amendment. How does that price measure up against some of our other freedoms?
To retain the right to drive automobiles, we spend 34,000 lives per year [wikipedia.org].
To retain the right to drink alcohol, we spend 34,000 to 75,000 lives per year [nbcnews.com] (depending on how you count alcohol-related accidents).
To retain the right to use tobacco, we spend 440,000 lives per year [cdc.gov].
To retain the second amendment, we spend 30,000 lives per year [wikipedia.org].
To retain the right to be obese, we spend 300,000 lives per year [wvdhhr.org].
With the possible exception of tobacco, I support the retention of all those rights. Three hundred per year for The Fourth Amendment (and the chilling effect on The First)? Even if his preposterous supposition were true, it would be a bargain at ten times the price compared to some of the other rights we hold dear.
Re: (Score:3)
A great list. To add, there ain't nothing wrong with tobacco that ain't also wrong with alcohol. Just like any other toxic and extremely addictive drug, it should be 100% legal, but regulated tightly: tax it as much as the market will bear, forbid all ads, mandate plain brandless packaging.
Re: (Score:3)
We Gathered Enough Information Pre-9/11.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There were numerous reports about the 9/11 hijackers doing things like learning to fly jets and many of them were already on terrorist watch lists.
The issue wasn't a lack of information, it was apathy and incompetence. Gathering *even more* information about innocent people won't help stop anything. Having competent people who do their jobs can.
All that said, freedom isn't safe. If we want to be free, we have to understand that there are those who are unbalanced, criminal, or just downright nasty out there. We need balanced laws and competent people to address this, but spying on everyone isn't the answer. That is all.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well... to be fair the "terrorist" that the FBI groomed, armed then arrested are that stupid.
Re:That was unexpected (Score:4, Insightful)
Great. We now have a ringing endorsement of our current intel policy from a KGB man.
Of course, there's no telling how many former KGB and FSB are actually advising Clapper and Alexander.
As V.V.P. is fond of saying, there is no such thing as a former Chekist.
No. More than expected. (Score:2, Informative)
Remember that the crooks on both sides have always been allies.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There's no such thing as "US" tech companies.. They're all multi-national. In fact, for them "nations" don't exist at all. It's just banks and factories, located wherever they find the most benefit to the portfolio.