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Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

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Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#241

Post by alanctgardner2 »

sigkill wrote: post #207
killerpopiller wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it is, fanfare.., Germany. I read this above report and can't believe it. When that this happen? Our data privacy laws are thorough and sometimes an obstacle, but many projects got stopped because of privacy issues: e.g. the digital stored medical records on ones health insurance card The stop of the data retention directive by our beloved Bundesverfassungsgericht (they are awesome) is another milestone. Core of…

Well to be honest, in retrospect the present Germans are lucky as compared to other countries that they already are educated either first, or second hand about the issue of government knowing everything. Another point could be made is that thank god it happened during the low tech era and not today because a Hitler-esque figure armed with a German equivalent of Google would positively fuck up the entire world with ev…

Germany occupied NL during that time frame, I'm sure the Dutch are familiar with it too. Most of Western Europe is, actually.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#242

Post by Ziomislaw »

benjamincburns wrote: post #227

I'm an American and a Verizon customer. Maybe I'm the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, but I'm not outraged. I'm not really even annoyed. I don't know why exactly, but I think it boils down (no pun intended) to two different things. First, I'm under no delusion that the US federal government has my personal best interest in mind with everything that it does. I think that usually the federal government as a…

it was not alarmist, it was just a convinient explanation to turn US into next China.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#244

Post by mindcrime »

rlx0x wrote: post #198
robomartin wrote: post #72

I hate to use this tone but, so be it. Maybe now you morons who continue to vote in the pieces of shit into our government who are bent on taking more and more power for themselves will wake up and figure it out? How much more proof do you need? Does this make you angry yet or is Obama still your diety? Oh, and Republicans don't get a pass either. The point is that all of you morons voting like robots along party lin…

Thats great, lets minimize government, lets privatize schools, police, prison, the fire department and everything else! "Ultra limited government" for the future! Lets deregulate everything, because you know you can trust Corporations! The part you need to realize is, there already are on their way to your utopia. The point is, that you need a strong military, police and surveillance state in order to make the transi…

Thats great, lets minimize government, lets privatize schools, police, prison, the fire department and everything else!

Since when did "private" become a bad word? F%!# that, "private" business is me, you, your neighborhood plumber, the dive bar on the corner, IBM, Microsoft, Google and a whole range of "in between" companies. Nothing about a firm being "private" makes it "bad". In fact, I'd argue that it's just the opposite... anything that can be provided by a private firm, participating in a free market, should be provided by such, or not at all. Note, however, that "private firm" does not necessarily equate to "corporation" OR to "for profit business". The range of "private" organizations also includes various non-profit cooperatives, communes and collectives.

Lets deregulate everything, because you know you can trust Corporations!

If we were really serious about minimizing government, there wouldn't be any Corporations, as Corporations are a legal fiction which depend on the State for their very existence.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#248

Post by znowi »

digitalengineer wrote: post #82

Dutch person here with a little insight what's to come for you guys. Some information about our tiny little country (in Wester Europe, very pro-US) with just 17 million people. Our government listens in on more calls every year than in the whole of the US combined. All our telecommunications providers are forced to have the capability to intercept all traffic (phone and internet). Encrypted data must be stored for an…

Oddly enough, reading this made me want to move my NL servers elsewhere :)

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#249

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ErikGelderblom wrote: post #164
killerpopiller wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it is, fanfare.., Germany. I read this above report and can't believe it. When that this happen? Our data privacy laws are thorough and sometimes an obstacle, but many projects got stopped because of privacy issues: e.g. the digital stored medical records on ones health insurance card The stop of the data retention directive by our beloved Bundesverfassungsgericht (they are awesome) is another milestone. Core of…

This might sound like a Godwin, but I guess we're slowly building our own Stasi and need to experience it first before we realize what happened. If it's not too late.

With right-extremist nutters like Wilders, economical decline, and the singling-out of a certain demographic (muslims), which happens internationally, it's more likely than you think. Yellow stars embroidened on coats have been replaced with profiles in large databases containing a billion times more profiling data though, instead of a simple yellow-starred label.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#250

Post by crusso »

jneal wrote: post #234
robomartin wrote: post #72

I hate to use this tone but, so be it. Maybe now you morons who continue to vote in the pieces of shit into our government who are bent on taking more and more power for themselves will wake up and figure it out? How much more proof do you need? Does this make you angry yet or is Obama still your diety? Oh, and Republicans don't get a pass either. The point is that all of you morons voting like robots along party lin…

Vote Republican: Patriot act created Vote Democratic: Patriot act abused I'm not sure where this leaves us, which is worse?

Get out of the Republican vs Democrat team mindset?

Choose individual candidates who believe in and you trust to legislate based upon some core principles. Examine voting records when possible since speeches can be useless.

Too many people get caught up in the complexity of noise issues that aren't that important. These noise issues are like the trade-in value of your used car when you go to buy a new one... or the infamous "under coating". They're just mixed in with the important issue (price of the car) in order to confuse you and maximize the power that the dealer has in the negotiation.

Government abuse comes from too much government power. Too much government power comes from too much legislation and too much money through taxation and money printing.

Vote for politicians who understand the beauty of the limitations created by our Constitution and who can push for following a more strict interpretation of it.

In the end, it's all about power. Power corrupts. We want the people in government to have only as much power as they absolutely need to do things that we cannot do (national defense, TRUE interstate commerce regulation, etc.) The rest of the power we grant them is just ripe for abuse.

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