NSA Data Mining Much Larger Than Reported || RR is Rancid not Righteous
NSA Data Mining Much Larger Than Reported: "Re:For the security of the many..
(Score:5, Insightful)
by hey! (33014) Alter Relationship on Saturday December 24, @09:51PM (#14334537)
(http://kamthaka.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 30, @02:18PM)
'Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice'
- Proverbs 16:8
I have been told that the Hebrew word that is usually translated as 'righteousness' has another, overlooked sense: 'objectivity'. It is one thing to say, for example, that giving alms to the poor is righteous. However what makes charity righteous is that objectively the needs of others sometimes exceeds their resources, while at the same time our resources may exceed our needs. The 'unrighteous' handles the misfortunes of the needy through wishful thinking: they must be unlucky because they are bad. Indeed, it would be a wonderful world where the good are rich and the wicked are poor. However, a righteous person lives in the world as it is not as he wishes it to be.
When I was young, we were taught that as part of our baptismal vows we had to 'reject the glamour of evil.' This is a curious choice of words. 'Glamour' is an archaic English word which means a kind of magical illusion. It's saying the same thing: to live righteously, we must reject illusion that the world is place where good served by our indulging our infantile and selfish impulses.
We most commonly act unrighteously out of unjustified fear. Fear of death and misfortune. What makes the fear unjustified is that objectively speaking these things inevitably must come to us. It is not our choice. But objectively it is our choice to live in freedom. Therefore what we should fear most is the loss of liberty.
It's not that what the Bush adminstration is doing is wrong. Indeed the kind of analysis described in this article is very important in detecting an imminent terrorist attack. No, the"
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Re:Some credit is due
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by morcego (260031) * Alter Relationship on Saturday December 24, @10:06PM (#14334588)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Humm, we didn't have any terrorists attack in Brazil since 9/11 either, but that doesn't mean it is because of the NSA actions.
Do you know of any attack attempt that was stopped by NSA, Homeland Security or any of the other agencies ? Isn't it just as possible that the terrorists are not trying to attack the USA, maybe because the current state of terror is just what they wanted ?
I mean, considering how important popular support is for a government, it is to be expected the moment they actually stopped an attack, they would brag about it, so I don't buy the "oh, they did stop, but it is a big secret" talk.
--
morcego
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Re:Use what?
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by laughingcoyote (762272) Alter Relationship
o
.../... Same applies to your communications. Would you be entirely comfortable with your speech over the phone if you knew someone was always listening? I don't want someone tapping into my phones. Once again, if they'd like to go get a warrant, tap away-and until then, stay out.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" has been used by totalitarian regimes to justify their actions this world over. And yet, it keeps on getting said, by people just like you.
How about we turn that around? The US government is supposed to work in a means that is as transparent as possible to the American people, as it should be. If they've got nothing to hide, they can quit taking so damn many of their actions in secret. They can tell us why hundreds of people are detained without a trial at one of our military bases. They can tell us why they're intercepting communications without telling us-and surely, they can tell us what good that's done so far.
After all, if they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear from us having a look.
--
When a piece of the PATRIOT Act goes down in flames, a piece of the Constitution returns from the ash.
==========
The people over at Ars Technica have a great little article about this whole fiasco concerning the wiretapping of US citizens without a warrent...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051220-5808 .html [arstechnica.com]
From the article:
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http://www.correntewire.com/the_network_architecture_of_treason
The network architecture of treason
Submitted by lambert on Sat, 2005-12-24 23:14. [it’s nice to be right.] By carefully examining how Republicans parse
their statements about Bush’s warrantless, openly felonious, and treasonous[1] domestic surveillance program, and combining that with network engineering knowledge available through open sources, alert reader philosophicus has advanced our understanding of the NSA surveillance system Bush set up.
Long story short: (1) Internet surveillance is Bush’s goal, not voice calls; (2) the Republican “wiretap” talking point is a diversion, to voice, away from from Internet surveillance; (3) Bush’s domestic surveillance system would pose no engineering challenges whatever to NSA. No rocket science—or tinfoil hats—required.
In a future installment of this series, we’ll look at the text mining component of this program, assess its impact, and see whether it’s going to work (no). Read on:
[Portions of part 1 were originally published on Talk Left (with many good comments), and mentioned here, and implicitly here; links have been added here. Parts 2 and 3 are new. The indented portions of what follows are from philosphicus; the unindented framing is from Corrente. We solicit your feedback.]
==================How to cope?
(Score:4, Insightful)Of course, this President speaks [whitehouse.gov] about 'freedom [wikipedia.org]', but does 'freedom' include not being able to openly discuss laws and policies [cnn.com]?
Oh, and the 'fanboy' contingent that believes that civil liberties must be curtailed in a time of conflict need not reply, because I'm not listening, and I doubt [blueoregon.com] Thomas Jefferson would listen to it either.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
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Liberty in Our Lifetime [freestateproject.org]
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Yes, you, the voter. You've allowed this to happen in every vote you made for an authoritarian politician -- I can name ONE that has followed their oath (Dr. Ron Paul of Texas http://house.gov/paul [house.gov] )----
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Modern USA
(Score:5, Funny)Torture, lying, spying on citizens, the list of crimes Bush is responsible for goes on and on. Would someone give this guy a blowjob already so we can impeach him?
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War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
===============
Liberty in Our Lifetime [freestateproject.org]
----------------------
Yes, you, the voter. You've allowed this to happen in every vote you made for an authoritarian politician -- I can name ONE that has followed their oath (Dr. Ron Paul of Texas http://house.gov/paul [house.gov] )----
------------
Modern USA
(Score:5, Funny)Torture, lying, spying on citizens, the list of crimes Bush is responsible for goes on and on. Would someone give this guy a blowjob already so we can impeach him?
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War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
===============
Liberty in Our Lifetime [freestateproject.org]
----------------------
Yes, you, the voter. You've allowed this to happen in every vote you made for an authoritarian politician -- I can name ONE that has followed their oath (Dr. Ron Paul of Texas http://house.gov/paul [house.gov] )----
------------
Modern USA
(Score:5, Funny)Torture, lying, spying on citizens, the list of crimes Bush is responsible for goes on and on. Would someone give this guy a blowjob already so we can impeach him?
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When fourth estate fails to hold liars accountable
(Score:4, Interesting)
on Saturday December 24, @09:34PM (#14334479) (Last Journal: Tuesday April 27, @11:06PM)
The mainstream media has failed to hold either side accountable for claims that diverge widely from the known facts [blogspot.com]. The inevitable result is a current administration that, like Nixon, believes it is above the law.The term fourth estate is frequently attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, though he himself seems to have attributed it to Edmund Burke:Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact,.... Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite.
Here are a couple of links about it. Hell, one of them is from Wikipedia...
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [wikipedia.org]
- http://www.echelonwatch.org/ [echelonwatch.org]
It's dead Jim, but it has been for a while.
(Score:5, Interesting)I know that it is typical for the Slashdot libertarian crowd to have an aversion, almost knee-jerk reaction, to any privacy related issue, we Slashdot liberals feel the same. Bush has once again crossed the line, but as a neo-pinko liberal I am not surprised, I am not even particularly annoyed. My disgust with the United States and its inability to provide an open inclusive society runs far deeper than this single incident. I am annoyed with Missle Defense, drilling in ANWR, Intelligent Design, pro-life, pro-death penalty, secret prisons, prisoner abuse, tying iraq to terror, no child left behind, get tough on immigration, get tough on crime, christian coalition, anti-welfare, anti-healthcare, anti-gun control, pro-business, anti-environment, crap. Really the entire political dialogue of the so-called United States has been broken for years, and Bush certainly doesn't see anything less than absolute god-granted carte blanche on the war on terror. Remember this guy doesn't answer to the voter, he answers to god. So my question is when can we vote on the new constitution, because I feel that I am the one living in Iraq, but I don't have the excuse of invasion?
CameronPalmer.com [cameronpalmer.com]
Boiling this down.
(Score:5, Insightful) on Saturday December 24, @10:20PM (#14334634) (Last Journal: Thursday October 17, @09:28AM)
They invaded the privacy of EVERY person in the country.
Rather than provide leadership and encourage us to cooperate with each other as a society, they've chosen the route of paranoia, secrecy, and tyranny.
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Re:Why I hate my country
(Score:4, Informative)On the off chance you actually mean what you say, I will respond.You can bitch and whine all you want, but I sleep more comfortably at night knowing that our military machine is actively trying to kill everyone who beheads westerners for the glory of their god.
The execution of westerners in Iraq started only after the USA invaded Iraq for no good reason. Confirmed counts of Iraqi civilian deaths due the invasion range from 27,000 to over 30,000 [iraqbodycount.org]. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi civilians killed are over 100,000.
If foreigners invaded the USA for no good reason and kept the USA under military occupation and killed tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent US civilians, don't you think there would be some reprisals against the invaders?
I am not saying that the executions in Iraq are justified. All deliberate killing is terrible. But are the executions of westerners any worse than the killing of Iraqi civilians?
And your answer to all this killing that makes you sleep more comfortably at night is to kill more Iraqis? Thank goodness only a few Iraqis (the ones committing the executions) think like you do and feel more comfortable knowing people are trying to kill Americans.
Here is a radical idea. The USA has undisputed military dominance over the rest of the world. We spend way more, we have way more nukes, we are better at killing than any other country on Earth. This means we are in a better position to stop killing. So let's just stop killing. Today, or more fitting (depending on your timezone), tomorrow.
Let's pull out of the countries we are occupying as quickly as we can without being foolish about it. Let's remove our military bases from the Middle East. Let's divert some of our military budget (say 10% for starters) to helping provide basic necessities to the poorer parts of the world. While we're at it, let's stop torturing people and stop jailing people indefinitely without charge or recourse to the court system.
If people getting killed is the problem then killing people is not the solution. Killing people is never the solution.
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
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Perhaps its time to remember this quote, which speaks a timeless truth:
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done, and I am Caesar."
-Julius Caesar
posted by USSSlavebation @ 12/27/2005 02:25:00 pm
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