Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 186 posts

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#131

Post by betterunix »

rst wrote: post #93
weland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government that no longer represents the people, but corporations and those that benefit by it, will threaten those that question its legitimacy as that is only obvious. A government elected with a reasonable majority arguably represents the people who elected them. Not represents as in "represents their interests", implying that they act on their behalf in their best interest. No, represents as in "they are the…

I did vote for a candidate in 2008 who opposed the Bush administration's massive build-up of surveillance infrastructure: Obama. By 2012, it was clear he wasn't following through, but the other candidate on offer would almost certainly have been, on balance, a whole lot worse --- and a bad choice is still a choice. When, in office, has Obama been representing what I want, in this regard, and when do you think I had a…

"I did vote for a candidate in 2008 who opposed the Bush administration's massive build-up of surveillance infrastructure: Obama"

Did you have any reason to think that was true, other than what Obama was saying at the time?

"the other candidate"

Which other candidate? Here are some of the people who were running in the 2008 election:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_...

You had a lot of choices then. You also had a lot of choices in 2012:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_third_party_and_...

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#132

Post by TDL »

Shish2k wrote: post #30
weland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government that no longer represents the people, but corporations and those that benefit by it, will threaten those that question its legitimacy as that is only obvious. A government elected with a reasonable majority arguably represents the people who elected them. Not represents as in "represents their interests", implying that they act on their behalf in their best interest. No, represents as in "they are the…

> represents as in "they are the image of what those who elected them want" I don't vote for who I want, I look at who has a chance of winning and vote for the lesser evil, because any other vote is practically meaningless. (Our voting system is stupid)

Voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil. You can always choose not to vote or vote for a candidate that does not have a chance of winning.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#133

Post by duaneb »

wtvanhest wrote: post #47

Look, I'm not comfortable with the NSA program but... This is the second Salon article in 2 days that is way over sensationalized. I get that this is interesting to people on HN, but I think we could wait for better articles to upvote.

The interesting parts are quoted anyway.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#134

Post by betterunix »

Shish2k wrote: post #30
weland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government that no longer represents the people, but corporations and those that benefit by it, will threaten those that question its legitimacy as that is only obvious. A government elected with a reasonable majority arguably represents the people who elected them. Not represents as in "represents their interests", implying that they act on their behalf in their best interest. No, represents as in "they are the…

> represents as in "they are the image of what those who elected them want" I don't vote for who I want, I look at who has a chance of winning and vote for the lesser evil, because any other vote is practically meaningless. (Our voting system is stupid)

Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. I am also skeptical about the claim that Obama is a better president than McCain or Romney would have been. We still have soldiers doing police work. We still have suspensions of civil rights. We still have powerful corporations running the show. We still have the military industrial complex. We also have some new twists, like the crack-downs on whistleblowers, the assassination of US citizens, etc.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#135

Post by TDL »

kshatrea wrote: post #23
weland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government that no longer represents the people, but corporations and those that benefit by it, will threaten those that question its legitimacy as that is only obvious. A government elected with a reasonable majority arguably represents the people who elected them. Not represents as in "represents their interests", implying that they act on their behalf in their best interest. No, represents as in "they are the…

I am an Indian so I wasn't referring to the US in particular although my bad that I didn't make it clear. Well, the voting system is not necessarily perfect, at least not here. In my country there are sects where people sell their votes for alcohol. I stand by my assertion that government != country on a philosophical level if not a practical one.

The principles are the same whether in India or the U.S. I'm in agreement with you, however, "government != country".

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#136

Post by duaneb »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #117

McCarthy again. Here's the thing about McCarthy, Communists were fucking everywhere. I don't mean ideological communists, I mean Soviet secret agents. They were in every level of government. They helped funnel the most secret of information to the USSR. And that's not all, the Soviets were erecting a police state to control hundreds of millions of people in Eastern Europe. They had a tremendous military force with mi…

I frankly don't believe for an instance "terrorists" pose any substantial threat to the US. Even 911 is chump change on the scale of how much terror our own government had brought down on foreigners, and the idea that they used 3000 dead to justify a seize of power is just disgusting.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#137

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

alan_cx wrote: post #73
dbond wrote: post #7

witches -> communists -> terrorists -> hackers...

You forgot file sharers, drugs and pedophiles. All of which have been since been said to fund the terrorism. Which in the case of drugs, IIRC, is true. Didn't the CIA use cocaine trafficking to fund some black type ops?

Didn't the CIA use cocaine trafficking to fund some black type ops?

Yes, and if the number of bankers recently convicted of widely exposed and very large money laundering operations (Wachovia, HSBC, etc) is any indication, they continue to do so. See also:

# Air America

# The Iran Contra affair.

# Mena Arkansas (CIA investigated itself and found no wrongdoing)

# BCCI (CIA money laundering)

# The Politics of Heroin - McCoy (book with lots of source citations)

# Crop spraying in Central America[1], (the policy efforts have directly[2] and indirectly[3] increases cocaine production, yet they continue.)

# Etc. etc. ad nauseam

[1] With bullet-resistant crop-dusters! (look for "Air Tractor") http://www.economist.com/node/17647585

[2] Search for "Roundup Ready Cocaine"

[3] By killing subsistence farmers' food crops, incentivizing the cultivation of higher profit crops like coca.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#138

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

X4 wrote: post #122
digitalengineer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird thing is: "Terrorism" originally referred to acts committed by a government . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

wow, that's irony at it's best form! beware of: the reality distortion fields..

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

edit: I guess everyone here has already read 1984, Or at least is tired of Doublespeak.

Re: Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists

#139

Post by duaneb »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #67

The thing is, Hayden has a point. Geesh, never thought I'd be saying that! Terrorism is an act of politics , not warfare. It's the use of stealth to deliberately attack civilian targets in order to affect political change . (My working definition only). The goal of terrorism isn't dead people, and you don't weigh a terrorist campaign by how many bodies it creates. Terrorism is all about striking fear into the heart o…

Terrorism has not been used in any well-defined way for years and is a demagoguery technique. The government has been throwing fuel on the "let's exploit our ability to terrify our citizens" since 9/11.
Post reply on HN