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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

#331

Post by rtpg »

jetti wrote: post #321
davidw wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that happens now. Obviously. It's impossible to eliminate bad things completely. They would happen more without anyone providing security. > They haven't gained anything Ok, fine, whatever, the world is moving only in one direction, with no nuance, no complexities, and in a very simple, easy to understand way. Nothing has gotten better for anyone.

"Obviously. It's impossible to eliminate bad things completely. They would happen more without anyone providing security." To me, this argument is based on how one views human nature. Personally, I don't believe that the majority of people want to commit serious crimes but are only held back by the fact that if they did, they would be punished. Because of that belief, I don't believe that eliminating security would c…

>I don't believe that the majority of people want to commit serious crimes but are only held back by the fact that if they did, they would be punished.

What is your definition of serious? Sure, most people don't want to kill others, but what about non-violent crimes. What about fraud? Not paying taxes? Although you might argue that taxes are usurping our freedom somehow, I like having infrastructure.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#332

Post by pappyo »

flyinRyan wrote: post #240
pappyo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we don't live in a world of ideals. With complete transparency comes little ability for security. Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Crime becomes more rampant and life become more unstable. If you ask a typical American if they are willing to die for their freedom, very few would. They'd rather the security. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just true.

>Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Citation needed. We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. People who wanted to use terror against the US have either managed to or failed by their own incompetence. What we do know is that before we started getting insane about security there would be some attack about once every 10 years. Why do you imagine it's any higher frequency now?…

>>Terrorist attempts become more frequent

> Citation needed.

My insinuation that terrorist attempts would become more frequent was IF our intelligence agencies opens up all its data to the public. I was not defending the competence of the US government's intelligence agencies.

Please read the opening post.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#334

Post by likeclockwork »

rustydoorknobs wrote: post #158
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…

What? What about the location of strategic military operations? Well "too bad" if a categorically transparent gov't inhibits the NSA's ability to process intelligence without alerting extremist groups. "Too bad" if a few thousand people die because you believe there should be no government secrets. Wait, I forgot that running a country is like playing Civilization...

You've come a long way from 'Give me liberty, or give me death!'.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#335

Post by codygman »

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…

The last part of your argument reminds me of back home where rednecks with confederate flags would say "THEY HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN US! THOSE MINORITIES ARE TAKIN' OVER".

Perhaps (well, hopefully) I'm reading into your comment too much though.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#336

Post by varjag »

shpxnvz wrote: post #309
irishloop wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Some people are leagues better than others when it comes to fight. Handing out a .45 to everyone instead of policing does not put everyone on equal footing.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#337

Post by varjag »

jetti wrote: post #321
davidw wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that happens now. Obviously. It's impossible to eliminate bad things completely. They would happen more without anyone providing security. > They haven't gained anything Ok, fine, whatever, the world is moving only in one direction, with no nuance, no complexities, and in a very simple, easy to understand way. Nothing has gotten better for anyone.

"Obviously. It's impossible to eliminate bad things completely. They would happen more without anyone providing security." To me, this argument is based on how one views human nature. Personally, I don't believe that the majority of people want to commit serious crimes but are only held back by the fact that if they did, they would be punished. Because of that belief, I don't believe that eliminating security would c…

> Personally, I don't believe that the majority of people want to commit serious crimes but are only held back by the fact that if they did, they would be punished. Because of that belief, I don't believe that eliminating security would cause an increase of bad behavior.

You don't need "majority", you need just a handful of really really bad ones.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#338

Post by davidw »

tete wrote: post #313
aheilbut wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hmm, according to all kinds of measurements, indexes, etc. the most democratic, free, hight standard of living countries reside in northern Europe. Most of them don't have much military. So somehow this comment is pretty flawed. The US once was the most free countries and indeed helped and inspired others, but that was more than a hundred years ago. The problem is while other countries emerged (possibly because of mi…

> Most of them don't have much military.

But they do have some. And they have police, don't they? So they provide some security to their citizens, meaning that their people are free to live without someone bigger than them taking all their things.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#339

Post by varjag »

dctoedt wrote: post #311
bicknergseng wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 J…

> 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 ... It's not quite as black-and-white as that, as illustrated by the history of the second half of the 20th century: The U.…

> there have been reports that Russian pilots flew North Korean MIGs in air-to-air combat with U.S. planes

Stalin was careful enough to enlist pilots as "volunteers", suspending their official service in Soviet Army for the duration of mission.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#340

Post by flyinRyan »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #304
flyinRyan wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Do you realize these events are decades apart? We have a terrorist death count of something like 100 people a year. 100 deaths a year in a country of ~350 million people isn't worth thinking about for one second.
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