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Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

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Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#181

Post by accountswu »

Tloewald wrote: post #106
euroclydon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually surprising that US fell for it. Yep. Bush would have been a hero if he hadn't fallen for it. Compassionate conservatism, expressed in Medicare Part C. Tax cuts combined with modest military expansion would have held the deficit in check. But remember the pundits saying, "this one calles for boots on the ground"? Even Jon Stewart showed a clip of Bush or someone making a compassionate statement, and comme…

I think the invasion of Afghanistan was inevitable, but not Iraq. Afghanistan was a big mistake (even Rthe USSR, with a land border, couldnt handle it) but Iraq was worse and bizarre.

>I think the invasion of Afghanistan was inevitable

Inevitable as in "in response to 9/11"? I don't think so, it was planned months, if not years before September 2001. [edit, corrected typo to 2001]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n20.shtml

US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11 By Patrick Martin 20 November 2001

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm

Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK US 'planned attack on Taleban'

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26410.htm U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and recently posted on the website of the George Washington University National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including with regard to the repeated Taliban offers to hand over Osama bin Laden, and the role of Pakistan before and after the attacks.[1] ... It is already known that the U.S. had demanded in secret discussions with the Taliban that bin Laden be handed over for more than three years prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The talks continued “until just days before” the attacks, according to a Washington Post report the month following the attacks. But a compromise solution such as the above that would offer the Taliban a face-saving way out of the impasse was never seriously considered. Instead, “State Department officials refused to soften their demand that bin Laden face trial in the U.S. justice system.”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80482&page=...

U.S. Rejects New Taliban Offer Oct. 1 [2001]

The United States today rejected yet another offer by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if the U.S. presents evidence against bin Laden and stops air attacks. ... "There's no need to discuss it," Bush said. "We know he's guilty. Just turn him over. … There's nothing to negotiate about. They're harboring a terrorist and they need to turn him over."

Couldn't Osama claim that he knew there were criminals in those buildings that he attacked and that there is nothing to negotiate about?

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#182

Post by kbolino »

mchmch wrote: post #125
mindcrime wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I haven't personally checked into every one these guys, but every time I've seen a list like this, when anyone has bothered to actually check credentials on the people listed, it's turned out that they were either specialists in totally unrelated fields with little knowledge of building construction and collapse, or they were "professors" at Devry Institute or University of Phoenix, or they were total quacks, or…

Here is a list of all of Architects/Engineers. They each include credentials, license numbers, etc. The list if overwhelming. Graduates (and professors) from top schools in the country are included. http://www2.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php I am not an expert and I have no idea what actually happened on 9/11. It is up to each of us to form an opinion using the evidence that we have available.

"It is up to each of us to form an opinion using the evidence that we have available."

This sounds noble, but in fact it is the way of madness.

Information does not stand on its own. Without the right background knowledge and experience you cannot assign any level of certainty to a deduction you make from a piece of information.

Just because you are capable of interpreting some of the information and forming reasonable deductions from those pieces does not mean you have an accurate holistic assessment. Your ignorance of the entire picture, while unintentional, will invariably lead you to make incorrect assumptions about the pieces you have not considered or do not understand.

An informed populace is, on the whole, a good thing, but the adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" still rings true. You simply have to accept that you will not, in your lifetime, be able to understand absolutely everything that anybody knows (never mind all that there is to know), and that you must cede your opinions about such matters to those who do, and if there is reasonable dissent, then you will have to reserve judgment altogether.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#183

Post by accountswu »

ynniv wrote: post #154
accountswu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree for the most part, with a minor disagreement on the following statement: >The only confusing actor is Bin Laden, who attacked a superpower that had already expressed a desire to invade his people. The superpower was already occupying much of his people through puppet dictators; the Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni, Bahraini, Jordanian and Lebanese for example. Israel was created out as a "Jewish state" on 78% of Pales…

I understand his impetus, but not his actions. It would be foolish to expect his actions to promote the Islamist cause, and in hindsight they are the worst possible actions one could take to advance his cause. However, given his connections to western intelligence agencies I don't think that he was acting on the behalf of Islam.

Indeed, killing civilians is not an "Islamist" act, Islam prohibits the killing of non-combatants even during war, 9/11 was not even an official war. It didn't help the Palestinian cause nor did it help the Afghans or Iraqis who got killed after that (even though no Afghans nor Iraqis had anything to do with 9/11).

>I don't think that he was acting on the behalf of Islam.

His acts were as much about Islam as Vietnam war or any American President's mass-murders were about Christianity. The US was supporting Osama and buddies to kill USSR by proxy. The US was also supporting Iraq's Saddam in 1980s to get rid of Iranian regime (after 1979 when Iranians toppled the 1953 US-UK-installed puppet King), the US continues to support Saudi misogynists who present their fanatic views as Islamist, Obama supported Islamists in Libya (even supported some Al-CIAda terrorists who were on US terror list) and now they are supporting the so-called Islamists in Syria.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#184

Post by raintrees »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #151
mangala wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the narrative toed by the Bush administration and Fox News, but many Americans and the international community by and large did not agree.

I think that's largely a case of selective memory. People often have a rosy memory of what they believed. Bush said he had clear evidence of WMD's in Iraq, that he showed this to Blair and Blair confirmed. I think it would be fair to say that most people would agree that Hussein wanted WMD's. So I think it's fair to think that most Americans and most in the international community believed that Iraq had WMD's. The ar…

I remember recently seeing polls that showed a large group of Americans still think (were brainwashed into thinking) that Iraq was largely responsible for 9-11.

Of course a (different?) large majority also believe the Earth is only around 10K years old.

So maybe selective/programmed memory is a more accurate term?

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#185

Post by lubujackson »

keithpeter wrote: post #51

"Domestically, they're pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country and assembling that information, building communities that you have relationships with, and knowledge about you; what your activities are; what you're doing." A plot for a novel: NSA operative comes across an identity with no links to any other identity, no social network history. Just an isolated node... curious, s…

Surprise ending, it is a "Forever Alone" guy.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#186

Post by law »

fourmii wrote: post #162
law wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd even claim that the left wing has a greater propensity to engage in this conduct, albeit more subtly. For example, one side effect of the Affordable Care Act is the federal government knowing which Americans have health insurance. While this doesn't prove they have access to your health records, it's nevertheless troubling that they have direct evidence of whether you're insured (and whether it's ``Cadillac'' ins…

Sheesh, really? You're going to bring the Affordable Care Act into this? If wanting every citizen to have access to affordable health care and insurance and spreading the costs is some subtle way of intruding into their privacy, then I guess all they want to do is spy on you...

I spoke precisely, yet you managed to contort my statement into something that it's not: an expression of my opinion on universal health care. What I said was that other approaches exist that do not require marking tax returns in a way that reveals the existence of health insurance...

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#187

Post by lubujackson »

law wrote: post #144
dfischer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think this is the result of the right wing politicians you're kidding yourself.

I'd even claim that the left wing has a greater propensity to engage in this conduct, albeit more subtly. For example, one side effect of the Affordable Care Act is the federal government knowing which Americans have health insurance. While this doesn't prove they have access to your health records, it's nevertheless troubling that they have direct evidence of whether you're insured (and whether it's ``Cadillac'' ins…

They also know what car insurance I have and if it's a "Cadillac." Heaven forbid!

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#188

Post by nowarninglabel »

kamaal wrote: post #80
bobsy wrote: post #27

If this is true doesn't it mean that Bin Laden won the war on terror? Every time I go to the airport I think this. Those full body scanners? Thanks to Bin Laden, now you practically get strip searched for every flight. You have to take off your shoes. You cannot take drinks on a plane. You then have everyone on edge no matter where you go. You and a friend play CounterStrike. You get on the bus and start talking abou…

Muslim here. I never understood both sides and their actions. I mean I find both Islamic fundamentalism and American actions all round globe both equally dumb. I don't think OBL ever had it as an explicit aim to pull down US militarily or culturally transform US into a Islamic state. That is impossible, and I assume somebody like him already understood that. I guess his aim was to drag US into a war and then reduce t…

>I don't think OBL ever had it as an explicit aim to pull down US militarily or culturally transform US into a Islamic state

Actually, if you read his letters, he did state some of these as his goals, but more importantly, his advisor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had this goal in mind, as it was made explicit in "The Shade of the Quran" by Sayyid Qatb who was Zawahiri's mentor in Egypt after they spent time in prison together.

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#189

Post by AkThhhpppt »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #151
mangala wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the narrative toed by the Bush administration and Fox News, but many Americans and the international community by and large did not agree.

I think that's largely a case of selective memory. People often have a rosy memory of what they believed. Bush said he had clear evidence of WMD's in Iraq, that he showed this to Blair and Blair confirmed. I think it would be fair to say that most people would agree that Hussein wanted WMD's. So I think it's fair to think that most Americans and most in the international community believed that Iraq had WMD's. The ar…

Um... I was on anti Iraq war demos when I was 18, because it was obvious to me Saddam Hussein had no WMDs. And I was _not_ alone in this assumption:

"In London, at least 750,000 people demonstrated in what police called the city's largest demonstration ever." Source: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Protest-Iraq-War16feb03...

Re: Whistleblower Binney says the NSA has dossiers on nearly every US citizen

#190

Post by wes-exp »

spindritf wrote: post #147
CamperBob2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making extraordinary claims regarding the parallels with the Reichtag fire. I won't ask for extraordinary evidence, just reasonable evidence. The part I don't get is why it seems to matter so much whether 9/11 was an unexpected attack or a planned conspiracy, or whether it was anticipated but not orchestrated by the government. The effect is all that matters, and the effect was, in fact, exactly the same as th…

> the effect was, in fact, exactly the same as the Reichstag fire... Really? Exactly the same? Socialists taking over and dismantling democracy?

I'm not a historian, but my understanding is that within the context of the Nazi's rise to power, they were actually a right wing party.
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