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NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

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Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#301

Post by baddox »

fexl wrote: post #268
baddox wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people cannot fund a military via taxation. That's unique to government.

Even governments cannot rely on taxation to fund armies or anything else they do. For centuries, they have relied instead on seizing monopoly control of money and then debasing it. This has the effect of stealing people's savings and the benefits they would otherwise obtain by increased productivity, and it is much harder to detect than blatant taxation. (By all means read "Creature from Jekyll Island" to learn the d…

Yes, that's very true, although I still think that a large part of the reason the USD is still trusted internationally is that a large group of wealthy people (Americans) have to pay their taxes in the USD. Another large part is the US military, of course.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#302

Post by sneak »

baddox wrote: post #212
sneak wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you, but to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Would not having planes invisible to radar (B-2), or those that could fly faster than missiles (SR-71) be nice secrets to keep from ever…

> Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Really? You or they must be using the term "anarcho-capitalism" in a non-standard way. In the standard usage of the term, the whole point is to be distinguished from pro-government libertarians and minarchists who believe that there are a few legitimate functions…

I think that the capitalist part of anarcho-capitalist implies minarchism, as how can you have capitalism without private property?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#303

Post by superuser2 »

aheilbut wrote: post #183
guelo wrote: post #104

We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to c…

If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things. All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets. It's not pretty, but that's how things are. It might well be that the current approach to domestic surveillance is out of balanc…

What freedom is being protected by U.S. involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#304

Post by jaegerpicker »

flyinRyan wrote: post #260
sans-serif wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel. They're under a constant threat of terrorism, but their intelligence has been relatively successful.

I was talking strictly about the US. I'm aware that there are actually places on this earth that have a problem with terrorism. The US isn't one of them.

Wow, after 9/11, after the boston marathon, after ricin and anthrax to the president, after the first world trade center bombing, after OKC bombing? These were actual events with actual deaths. These are actual problems in every definition of the word. I understand very well that Israel and other places have more frequent attacks (though few/none have had attacks on the scale that we have) but that does not exclude the US from having a problem.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#305

Post by jetti »

davidw wrote: post #261
ekianjo wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? I wonder where you conceived that strange idea. We never had as much security as we have now (compared to the hundreds of generations before us) yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed.

> Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not! People here seem to have awfully black and whit…

"If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom"."

But that happens now. All the examples that are being given on why we need security are examples of things that are happening now WITH security.

"I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not!"

My problem is that this security is just a false sense of security. With all of the restrictions and all of the money poured into the DHS and other counter-intelligence, we still get things like Boston. I wish people would realize that bad things happen, and giving your rights away isn't going to stop them from happening.

"Except for minorities (at least for some things, like, say, being able to vote in Alabama), gays, people who consume marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and various others who have gained rights recently. It's not black and white."

They haven't gained anything. Nothing is stopping the feds from swooping down and arresting these individuals. They are still breaking a federal law. Also, in reference to the gay marriage thing, I feel it is kind of low to say they are gaining rights as there was no real legal reason (that I could think of) to prevent them from being able to marry.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#306

Post by jetti »

aheilbut wrote: post #183
guelo wrote: post #104

We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to c…

If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things. All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets. It's not pretty, but that's how things are. It might well be that the current approach to domestic surveillance is out of balanc…

"All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets"

I'm going to single out the US in the "western democracies" and state that while this may be true, it certainly isn't true for just about anybody alive in this country today. The last time we actually fought for OUR freedoms, in my mind, is the War of 1812. Other than that, it was fighting for our interests, which are not the same. But, those in power need to keep up the idea that the war machine always needs to be at the ready because those darn communists/socialists/terrorists are after our freedoms and we need to be proactive.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#307

Post by bicknergseng »

tptacek wrote: post #132
bicknergseng wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why we need both a nuclear deterrent and a standing army of 1,127,801 people. Seems like more of an XOR.

So, when some large military power cuts off shipping lanes in the Pacific, we'd, what, threaten to nuke them? That's a better state affairs than what we have today? Conversely: what goes does a standing army of 1,127,801 people do you if your adversary has nuclear weapons?

I'm not a military strategist, and I know this isn't really an area where logic wins, but I like thinking of these scenarios at a top level anyway.

OK. Assume China cuts off shipping lanes in the Pacific. They position their naval fleets in some aggressive formation over major lines (likely blockading Taiwan or something). Assumedly, they have to sink a ship or at least fire shots and take one captive. The U.S. and Japan respond by moving their forces into aggressive positions threatening China. The situation either A. ends when China or the U.S. back down or B. accelerates into military conflict. The conflict is either small, likely involving only SEALs, drone/tactical strikes, or another group of special forces, or full scale, involving (initially) a Pacific strike group fleet. The only logical progression of a full scale military conflict between two nuclear powers is nuclear warfare, at which point it won't matter how big either standing army is. Again, some assumptions, but not unreasonable.

The same scenario without a large standing army has no "standoff." The "standoff" is MAD from nuclear weapons, and understanding on all sides that military action that threatens any nation's "security" will quickly go from tactical to nuclear.

I suppose I just see the massive standing army (special forces not included) like I see air superiority fighters. There's really no scenario where they are necessary for the defense of any modern nation.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#308

Post by sneak »

flyinRyan wrote: post #248
sneak wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. My guess would be that NSA guys probably take the fact that many Americans hold that view as a huge compliment. I'd be willing to be there's a whole book of "if only you knew". (FWIW, I still don't think that warrants the program.)

Life is not a Hollywood movie. Hollywood movies, comic books and so on use larger than life figures doing larger than life activities to stop larger than life villains. In reality, no one on earth is that competent. The villains are usually not very good (often blowing themselves up alone with their bombs) and the "good guys" are usually not that great either (often corrupt themselves). If the government actually wer…

> If the government actually were stopping constant terrorist activity (a) they wouldn't parade obvious entrapment cases as "wins", they'd pick something legit to make us feel safer and (b) someone would talk. One of the contractors, loud mouths, drunks, etc. would eventually leak something. A group as large as NSA wouldn't be able to keep their world-saving completely quiet forever, that's just unrealistic.

Consider for a moment how long they've kept the fact that THEY HAVE A REALTIME MIRROR OF GOOGLE a near-total secret. Consider the fact that private companies like Apple and Google have been able to keep their source trees secret with far lower penalties for accidental/intentional disclosure and much less attention and fewer resources devoted to OPSEC.

Also, I think you are confusing FBI/LEO with NSA/military intelligence. It's the former that does those silly things. NSA never parades anything, ever. It's like STFU is in their DNA.

As far as the rest of the military goes: the coolest plane we know that they've built is the SR-71, which was built in... 1964. It's fifty years old. Do you suppose they've sat on their hands since then, with all the advances in materials and computer/avionics technology since? To put the R&D in perspective, it is believed that the NSA's Utah datacenter is built to store a yottabyte of data. The mind reels. Where do you think all that classified budget defense money is GOING, building shit that gets press releases?!

Keeping secrets is pretty straightforward, actually, if you're willing to go to the (order of magnitude increase in) trouble and expense. USDoD is.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#309

Post by shpxnvz »

irishloop wrote: post #270
baddox wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doubly wrong. Security is not a precondition of freedom, and security does not have to come at a loss of freedom.

Not at all. The moment someone points a gun at you and tells you what to do, your freedom has been usurped. Without the security to make your own choices, you do not have freedom. Thus, it's important to restrict certain actions (i.e., your ability to point a gun at someone and make demands) in order to protect the freedom of others.

The first part is true; forcible coercion does usurp freedom - and even more so when done by the government.

The second part is fallacy; you obviously cannot remove the ability to point a gun (or knife) at someone and make demands, and any attempt to do so necessarily tramples other's rights. In reality there are two effective choices - the person being mugged can defend them-self and/or the government can attempt to find and punish the person after the fact. The second one does not do a bit of good for the current victim, of course.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#310

Post by JanezStupar »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #290
JanezStupar wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment someone points a gun at you, your freedoms are completely intact. Moreover, this is the moment when you can show whether you are really free. Free men do not mind dying when their time comes.

What the heck do you mean by "freedom"? When I say "freedom", I talk about choice. Options. Influence over one's light cone. All of which are drastically diminished whenever you're locked in a cell, or threatened by a madman with a gun.

As do I. If I am to find myself in an unenviable situation I would rather make it hard for the villains to go about their business than to bow down and beg for mercy.

I might be taken out. I might take my enemy out (shooting a person is not as trivial task as it seems). Or I might just cause enough trouble for the bad guys so their total cost goes up, hopefully beyond break even point.

It is no different attitude than the one US tries to project upon the world.

I only acknowledge that nobody will fight for me if I don't fight for myself.

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