131–140 of 251 posts
No one should be surprised by this. This program was simply another extension of the US's march towards authoritarianism. Much like the patriot act and our secret warrants, founded on a dubious premise that over the last 20 years have largely borne no fruit in terms of protecting our freedoms and safety but have instead eroded them. This is a system designed to protect the larger system from any civs who may be getti…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "Patriot Act" is so maliciously named its more funny than sad. Reminds me of George Carlin's show about changing words to make them softer.[1] An good example he used to show this is the condition the fighters get from shock in combat. In WW1, it was called Shell Shock, a terrifying name. The same condition in WW1 was called Battle Fatigue, a nicer name. In the Korean War, the name changed to Operational Exhausti…
Government obfuscation by nomenclature is a useful and reliable tell.
Like when "School of the Americas" got renamed to, "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" which are both names for sniping civilians and throwing people out of helicopters.
I could see _eating a copper banana_ as a euphemism for assassinating a south american labor leader.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
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I would think the opposite: If the program was greatly effective, I would want a blog post just like this to capture the bad guys' attention. That way they might tend to be less careful and make it easier on me.
why? even if you are extremely confident in your ability to thwart terrorists, wouldn't it be better to discourage them to the point where they don't even try?
You'd think if it had stopped any attacks, the program's proponents would be shouting it from the rooftops. But no- nothing. Not even attempts to lie ("oh, we stopped several attacks, but we can't tell you anything about them...") PRISM is a phenomenal waste of trust and money.
Yeah, at least the CIA claimed that "enhanced interrogation techniques" was yielding actionable intelligence. I remember a story from years ago that some lab was working on a lens for a satellite for the NSA with a resolution that would be able to discern different coins on the ground from space. They were complaining that, after all their work, the job was cancelled, and they weren't going to get paid. What it meant…
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3448/was-hubble-re...
No one should be surprised by this. This program was simply another extension of the US's march towards authoritarianism. Much like the patriot act and our secret warrants, founded on a dubious premise that over the last 20 years have largely borne no fruit in terms of protecting our freedoms and safety but have instead eroded them. This is a system designed to protect the larger system from any civs who may be getti…
What examples do you have an authoritarian slide caused by PRISM? I see plenty of examples of authoritarianism in the current U.S. administration, none of which can be traced to PRISM.
You'd think if it had stopped any attacks, the program's proponents would be shouting it from the rooftops. But no- nothing. Not even attempts to lie ("oh, we stopped several attacks, but we can't tell you anything about them...") PRISM is a phenomenal waste of trust and money.
While I'm absolutely opposed to PRISM and similar programs, I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest that the only potential value was from stopping terrorist attacks. Look at this leaked powerpoint slide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism-week-in-life-straig... If you want to argue against PRISM-like programs, it would behoove you to tackle their actual purpose. We shouldn't just argue that PRISM isn't g…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point Carlin was trying to make is that the human experience is removed from a term such as "post-traumatic stress disorder". Yes, it might be more medically accurate, but fighting for the rights of people who experienced "shell shock" might have been more impactful. When your experienced is buried underneath medical terms, you bury the humanity of it.
A plausible counterpoint is that renaming can also remove a lot of the social stigma, leading to more people getting treatment. As an example, I believe many prefer using the term "post-traumatic stress/PTS" now because it removes the "disorder" stigma. I.e., it better communicates that it's a natural reaction to such stress and nothing to be ashamed of [1] https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/ptsd/relate…
It has been argued that PRISM was more about corporate espionage under the ruberic of counter-terrorism than anything else. In the book The Shadow Factory, James Bamford points out the ridiculously low prices that were available for overseas traffic to be routed into the US and then back to a neighboring country, sometimes even a different region of the same country... anything to get overseas telecoms to route traff…