481–490 of 614 posts
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Every state privileges its own citizens. There are good reasons for doing so that have nothing to do with bigotry or exceptionalism.
Some of us don't consider human rights a "privilege".
It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. That aside, let me re-make a point I keep making: Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. But still, they pushed harder than anyone…
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I would just cut all cables to the US, ... deny US citizens to enter any foreign country and then just do your shit over there and get happy with it. Whoah, there. Your grievances are well-placed. But keep in mind that it's a certain subset of agencies in the US government that are responsible for the problems you're upset about, not all US citizens. As for fixing things, the government has become literally unmanagea…
Unfortunately, not only do a lot of US citizens still support such practices (I think around 40 percent - as long as they mention "to protect you from terrorists"), but most of the rest who don't agree with the practices, can't be bothered to do much about it, like even calling their representative, let alone going out and protesting. I do believe this is very true: > All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for…
That's b/c most Americans are caught up in an endless cycle of work-aholism to either support their consumer-addiction and/or to climb out of debt and just pay the bills.
Related to that, I know this is somewhat menial, but I have found the site http://popvox.com to be fairly useful in this regard. Create an account, and you can track all current legislation -- a couple clicks will fire a stock letter to your rep either supporting or protesting a bill -- or you can edit the letter with a custom message (better). It is certainly a step above doing nothing and makes the task much easier.
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but spying at non-US citizens and breaking foreign law in peacetime is deemed acceptable. First let me say that I agree with your sentiment -- it's hypocritical for people in the US to be upset about the US government's spying on its own citizens, but not upset when the people are in other countries. Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in…
> Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another. Simply not true. There may be a few large countries trying, but at nowhere near the global capability to lay bare all details of just about any person on the planet, like the US. And that's just comparing to the larger countries. The UK hacked Belgian telecoms, you…
As for the US being allowed to get away with it, I do not have any simple prescriptions to offer the US government for replacing it with something better, although I too wish it did not engage in it.
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It wasn't too long ago that Obama himself said Ed Snowden was not a patriot. Said it then, will say it again. The hypocrisy just reeks.
Snowden isn't a patriot though. Certainly he has revealed a lot of scary information about the government that the people needed to know about, but opposing the state (which is what Snowden seems to do) does not always equate to supporting the nation. Some of Snowden's disclosures have been directly harmful to American interests without a corresponding harm being done to the American people that would have warranted…
Yes it can. I'll say it right now: It has helped the American people. It has helped us, by giving us knowledge we need if we are going to hold our government accountable. Lest people forget, government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. This ain't a monarchy, pal. Here we can, and should, hold our elected officials' feet to the fire when our government screws up or does things we don't approve of.
Now, in the end, the American people might decide to keep "Baaaaah"ing like mindless sheep and let our government off the hook, which is, I suppose, their right. But what Snowden did was absolutely the right thing, as you can't even think about having accountability unless you have transparency.
Any network connected computer will be running an OS+Applications which are typically a gigabyte or more. This is produced by companies which are beholden to a nation state, and the companies can be coerced[2] or compelled[3] to use the software against the user. The software is also constantly being probed for vulnerabilities, which can also be exploited by law-enforcement / military [4][5].
So, if you turn on auto-update you have to trust the software maker is not being coerced by someone, or being compelled by a secret court to trojan you. If you don't turn on auto-update you can still get trojaned by any vulnerability. Lose-Lose.
[1] Sony Rootkit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...
[2] Qwest CEO Nacchio's claims: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...
[3] FISA court
[4] German Govt. Trojan from 2011: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-b...
[5] FBI's TOR trojan injection: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi...
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But that's the thing, the government has strayed so far from the people that a) it's obvious they aren't going to seriously consider the people's will other than window dressing, and therefore b) the only way this kind of thing will change is through revolution. And we're far from revolution, if ever. The gap is there.
Replying to jsmeaton Indeed! They should be on the streets!
And I've communicated with my representatives. Udall is one of my Senators, and his staff got an email and an earful on the phone.
And these days I vote third party, which to me is "None of the above." I'm done playing into their hands by voting for one because at least he's not the other. They're the same.
I do think we're far from revolution, I hope never, but I wouldn't say it won't ever happen. The thing is, a few people are pissed and aware, and most don't care. But once the government realizes that they're getting away with whatever they're doing now, they'll do more. Eventually they'll grab so much power that we'll get sick of it and revolt.
Or maybe they'll go against history and stop grabbing ever more power.
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But that's the thing, the government has strayed so far from the people that a) it's obvious they aren't going to seriously consider the people's will other than window dressing, and therefore b) the only way this kind of thing will change is through revolution. And we're far from revolution, if ever. The gap is there.
Replying to jsmeaton Indeed! They should be on the streets!
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I'm a US citizen. Born and bred. And, at this point, I can't in good faith say that I would blame you. I think it's pretty safe to say that getting rid of a President is no longer enough. My sense is that the people who make these policies really are "Beyond Elections". They are constants in our government. And appear unassailable. I doubt very much that we, the American People, could even IDENTIFY the people setting…
No. Sorry. The President does bear full responsibility. That's the nature of the job. If he wants to claim he wasn't aware, OK. But he is now and it's his responsibility to fix it. Again, that's the nature of the job. If the President wanted to eliminate these programs, they'd get eliminated. It would require the exercise of political will, but it absolutely could be done. The problem, actually, is right here, when p…
Just so we're clear - how exactly does the average citizen "hold them responsible", other than our legal right to simply not vote for them next time?
It's so easy to say we should "hold them responsible" - but so incredibly vague to do.
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Consider Sally Smith, our hypothetical employee. She worked for several government and military agencies for years with a concentration in data center security. She has top-secret clearance. Before the Snowden revelations came out, I'd have strongly considered Sally Smith to be a good fit for a position dealing with data center security. Who wouldn't have?! Years of experience at high levels securing data centers? Le…
The Google hiring process seems to be very focused on discerning a candidate's practical knowledge not their on paper experience or recommendations. It would be silly to think that a general or senior government official would even have the technical knowledge to make a well informed recommendation of someone for a technical position.