Live data from Hacker News

Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

nytimes.com

61–70 of 146 posts

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#61
post #56

Israel's Arab civilian's regularly attempt to blow themselves up in public places (believe me, I've stopped a few on them myself). Meanwhile the Palestinians gleefully lob rockets at populated cities in Israel. Of course Israel would want to monitor them as much as possible, and corroborate with the NSA to get as much data as possible. If that monitoring saved YOUR child from getting blown up on a bus, wouldn't you s…

So if you object to this type of surveillance then you prefer your children to be blown up by suicide bombers?

Unfortunately, yes. I'm a commander in the Israeli Defense Forces, and I've made 10's of arrests of terrorists. Most of them were attempting to hit populated centers with no military connection. If we didn't have the intel on them, we never would have been able to stop them. There is a big difference between that type of domestic surveillance and what the NSA carries out on the citizens of its own country - namely that things aren't blowing up in the USA every single day.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#62
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're just being cheeky, but I don't believe that "knowing latin" == "educated", same for its corollary.

It's the other way; si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes .

Siue, nimium linguam latinam diligis. Eruditio nunc mera charta est.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#63
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you object to this type of surveillance then you prefer your children to be blown up by suicide bombers?

Most every democracy with serious and continuing problems with terrorism throw out the law book and human rights. Afaik, this goes for USA, Britain, Israel, Germany, Spain and Italy. And probably more cases. (Note " continuing problems ". e.g. Breivik was a lone crazy.) The reason is shown by the grandparent comment; terrorism is optimized to scare voters. And politicians are scared of hysterical voters, they need to…

I've went through 9 terrorist attacks in Israel before I joined the military - I lived in downtown Jerusalem during the Second Intifada. In the other countries, you're right - there is no excuse for getting rid of personal rights and freedoms, but in Israel the sheer number of terrorist attacks cause the reality to be different. If we didn't have the intel, we could never stop the terrorists, and that is simply unacceptable.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#64

Israel's Arab civilian's regularly attempt to blow themselves up in public places (believe me, I've stopped a few on them myself). Meanwhile the Palestinians gleefully lob rockets at populated cities in Israel. Of course Israel would want to monitor them as much as possible, and corroborate with the NSA to get as much data as possible. If that monitoring saved YOUR child from getting blown up on a bus, wouldn't you s…

Don't think the solution to people who is to monitor these people or atleast not entirely. You make it sound like the just out of nowhere choose to blow themselves ,like it's in the DNA . There's an atmosphere of hate and oppression ,as long as that exists ,there will always be terrorist.

No amount of spying will solve that ,9/11 was planned by a bunch of guys in a basement . Data mining my porno history won't stop groups like ISIS from forming.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#65
post #17
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, if not fixing it by working within the system, then what is the next step?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_G...

On the eve of the second American invasion in Iraq, the world's largest nonviolent demonstration occurred (to date) in New York City protesting the war. The war went ahead as scheduled.

Protest is totally irrelevant in the modern world. It is shuffled into free speech zones or tear gassed, LRAD'd, and pepper sprayed out of the way. "Less-lethal" armaments and massive police militarization means that there will never be another Kent State to shock us into action; instead, the state can play an indefinite game of divide-and-conquer by marginalizing anyone more radical than Ralph Nader, helped by centrist opportunists.

I lived in Washington, DC most of my life. There were always protests. When the police decided the protests would stop, they would roll in the APCs and the LRADs and flex-cuffs and stop them. Most of the time there was no need, since the protesters did the police's job for them, herding themselves into cages and keeping their voices down.

You could say that more people need to be there, or that the demand needs to be clearer, or that the movement needs to be more cohesive, but you can literally always say those things, so they aren't really useful criticisms. Rather, they betray a sort of Boxer-esque "we must work harder" mindset where it's always the fault of the protesters for not trying hard enough in their use of a wholly ineffective tool.

Combine this with state and corporate control of virtually all news media, and a surveillance and police system that is able to destabilize any social justice movement before it even begins (Occupy was a great example of this), you have an unshakable state that can enact whatever policies it wishes.

Ironically, pleading to Google is probably more successful than pleading to your congressman. The plutocrats at Google actually fear your use of alternative services and aren't fattened on incumbency, so they'll respond (as they have in the past) and use their actual power to attempt, at least, to effect real change. Though we've seen how that works so far.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#66
post #37

I think this is the most damning leak to date. There is no justification for freely giving information to Israel. And the part about people's porn habits being tracked is even scarier. That could be used to discredit virtually anyone (well, any male at least). Who hasn't visited an embarrassing porn website at least once in their life ? Now imagine your name being publicly associated with that website.

There is justification, it's a co-operation between Israel and the U.S. Just like the US helps Israel, Israel helps the US.

My guess would be Israel is more likely to handle sensitive and controversial data more strictly with unofficially "defected" US employee's. Domestic surveillance of any questionable kind can be kept very secret and they can apply very strict control over who has access to the data and how they can handle it - as well as bypassing any laws/legislation already in place.

Plus if you pissed off Israel whilst you're still there, you're in trouble..

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#67
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you object to this type of surveillance then you prefer your children to be blown up by suicide bombers?

Most every democracy with serious and continuing problems with terrorism throw out the law book and human rights. Afaik, this goes for USA, Britain, Israel, Germany, Spain and Italy. And probably more cases. (Note " continuing problems ". e.g. Breivik was a lone crazy.) The reason is shown by the grandparent comment; terrorism is optimized to scare voters. And politicians are scared of hysterical voters, they need to…

> Most every democracy with serious and continuing problems with terrorism throw out the law book and human rights.

Most every government (whether or not it is a democracy, and whether or not it actually has serious and continuing problems with terrorism) latches on to terrorism as an excuse (though rarely the only excuse) to throw off legal (and/or traditional, depending on the nature of the--note the small "c"--constitution) constraints on the powers and activities of government.

> The reason is that terrorism is optimized to scare voters.

True.

> And politicians are scared of hysterical voters, they need to fix that.

Less true; politicians have a often want hysterical voters -- hysterical voters that can have a prepackaged solution (even if the conception has little to do with the problem that has made the voters hysterical) are very popular with politicians, because its how they get approval to do things that they want to do that would, aside from the hysteria, never be acceptable. Note how many of the measures adopted in the US in response to terrorism were things which had either been tried previously under other pretexts (most recently, in many cases, in the Drug War) -- either proposed as legislation and failed, attempted without legislation but ruled illegal without supporting legislation, or had legislation passed but ruled unconstitutional when adopted for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#68
post #56

Israel's Arab civilian's regularly attempt to blow themselves up in public places (believe me, I've stopped a few on them myself). Meanwhile the Palestinians gleefully lob rockets at populated cities in Israel. Of course Israel would want to monitor them as much as possible, and corroborate with the NSA to get as much data as possible. If that monitoring saved YOUR child from getting blown up on a bus, wouldn't you s…

So if you object to this type of surveillance then you prefer your children to be blown up by suicide bombers?

Wait - how many suicide bombers have there been in the USA over the weekend? I've not read the papers or watched tee vee since last Friday. Geez, what pests those suicide bombers are!

Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most every democracy with serious and continuing problems with terrorism throw out the law book and human rights. Afaik, this goes for USA, Britain, Israel, Germany, Spain and Italy. And probably more cases. (Note " continuing problems ". e.g. Breivik was a lone crazy.) The reason is shown by the grandparent comment; terrorism is optimized to scare voters. And politicians are scared of hysterical voters, they need to…

> Most every democracy with serious and continuing problems with terrorism throw out the law book and human rights. Most every government (whether or not it is a democracy, and whether or not it actually has serious and continuing problems with terrorism) latches on to terrorism as an excuse (though rarely the only excuse) to throw off legal (and/or traditional, depending on the nature of the--note the small "c"--con…

Yes, it is a common excuse in e.g. non-democracies to call democracy activists for terrorists (often combined with claims that all the democratic countries are in a conspiracy against them, because we hate Russia/Pakistan/Iran/etc.)

And no, if there is a terrorism problem scaring voters the politicians are empirically motivated to fix it -- see my examples of throwing out the law book -- or it isn't a democracy. [Edit: To be clear, I think the Drug War etc are different; propaganda -- not really about scared voters.]

Post reply on HN