A lot of complaints against three letter agencies, who have elected officials with oversight and only hire from American citizens. Few complaints against Microgoogfacebook to whom we give all our most private electronic correspondence, have no oversight, and hire many foreign nationals who have little stake in whether the companies abuse the info they've been given. This strikes me as a bit odd.
You choose to give your data to Microsoft/Google/Facebook/whatever other private company you're complaining about. There is no agreement to give things to the NSA.
NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
131–140 of 160 posts
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this doesn't change the fact that the Snowden revelations were just as shocking to many members of Congress. Although who knows, they might also be feigning surprise. But after a certain point, if you think everyone is lying about everything, then what kind of existence is that?
That is called existence in the world of espionage / counter-espionage. It doesn't really track with the existence of everyday people, or legislative bodies.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#133Notably they also added this line, to join in on the 'inclusive' and 'diversity' corporatespeak trend: > Respect for People - We are committed to ensuring that all NSA personnel are respected, included and valued for their diverse backgrounds, experiences, skills and contributions to our mission and culture.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how many PR bots the NSA has on sites like Hacker News.
They are a government agency with a nearly endless supply of money granted to them by Congress every year without fail . They don't need to do PR for anyone except to gain more employees.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how many PR bots the NSA has on sites like Hacker News.
They are a government agency with a nearly endless supply of money granted to them by Congress every year without fail . They don't need to do PR for anyone except to gain more employees.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this doesn't change the fact that the Snowden revelations were just as shocking to many members of Congress. Although who knows, they might also be feigning surprise. But after a certain point, if you think everyone is lying about everything, then what kind of existence is that?
It's unlikely they were feigning. Even the members of the house & senate intelligence committees do not get thorough and uniform access to intel. In the past, those members of the political party that is out of power have been routinely excluded from agency briefings and documents. In practice, the fraction of these two committees that is well informed about the agency's current activities is likely to be very small.…
The DNI takes an oath to keep state secrets a secret. He then takes an oath to tell the truth to Congress in an open session, which is itself an oxymoron when discussing a huge bulk of the national intelligence apparatus because we demand so much secrecy around every damn thing. How do you have an open session and not pretty much immediately invite some sort oath violation? It's the dumbest fucking thing in the first place but we like to play pretend to be open while simultaneously having metric f tons of state secrets.
There's a very long list of people who have appeared before Congress and lied under oath, and not referred for undeniable perjury charges. And they do not have the president of the United States giving them a defacto pass by saying Clapper was caught between a rock and a hard place. There is no f'n goddamn way Clapper was ever going to be charged with perjury. It's the dumbest line of logic, you need to go backwards in time to have this argument. It has nothing to do with Clapper. Go point a finger at people like Cheney and Feinstein if you want to whine about the massively neurotic security state.
And the idea you're going to find out jack shit about what's going on at CIA or NSA by charging Clapper with perjury is pure stupidity. If you want to know what happens at NSA and CIA, you need a society, in large numbers, who aren't paranoid and servile, and won't elect paranoid and servile representatives, who then accept the creation of a paranoid control freak surveillance state. We have what we have as a reflection of who we are, in particular those who do not participate. That's exactly how you get this kind of result.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
You choose to give your data to Microsoft/Google/Facebook/whatever other private company you're complaining about. There is no agreement to give things to the NSA.
Just because it is voluntary does not mean the possibility of abuse is lower. It is higher since people consider the implications less.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#138Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Luckily, we have more than two parties to vote for Not to most americans--especially when it comes time to vote.
There's a real catch-22: the multiple other parties we (in the US) are capable of voting for will never have a chance at winning if we don't treat them as real alternatives to the entrenched two. There's a reason both D's and R's repeat the lines "voting for a third party is a wasted vote" and play the polarizing "if you vote third party, you're voting for " card each election season. It may be partially true at the…
Voting third party for congress is mostly a waste of time for now, and it doesn't seem likely that we're going to see a massive enough shift in voter participation to change that all in one go, but I think with enough effort to build up non-D/R party support at the local level that could change a lot faster than most people think.
I'm less optimistic about the presidency, really. I doubt the reigning parties will let that slip out of their hands.
Re: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” from Core Values
#140I, as a taxpayer, pay the NSA to be effective in defending national interests, to act with integrity, and to submit themselves to the oversight of my representatives in Congress. I have no expectation that they will be honest or open with me. Being closed is integral to their work. However they damn well better submit to oversight and respect my constitutional rights as a citizen.
How do you know they are acting with integrity without them being honest or open? It looks like a free ticket to do whatever they like and play the "trust us to be defending national interests" card whenever they see fit.
Now, it is our representatives jobs to protect whistle blowers like Snowden, and unfortunately the general public either doesn't care, or doesn't want to take the time to truly understand what it means to have our privacy violated.