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Comment by deveac | Hacker News Reader

While I feel that the programs the NSA employs are profound existential threats to our liberty and rights, I do agree with you on the balance that the human parts that make up the whole of these organizations fundamentally see themselves as benign and beneficial on the balance. I think it bears mentioning, and its worthwhile to keep this in mind while we do the necessary work of attempting to dismantle and remove a lot of their power and tools, -the ones that have gone far past the line.

Demonizing people and falsely assigning ill-intent doesn't help us address and correct the problem, even if it feels good to do so. I personally have to fight the urge constantly myself because I feel so strongly in the immorality of the net output of the programs themselves.

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The issue is that we need to demonize the people who are in fact evil and deliberately built this out and got it going. That list is surprisingly short:

GHW Bush

GW Bush

D Cheney

D Rumsfeld

C Rice

G Clapper

G Alexander

P Wolfowitz

These are the guys that created the orders that the soldiers are following, and the war they are dying in for these criminal's profits.

Naive and unnecessary. The Patriot Act was overwhelmingly supported across the aisle. And it should be obvious by now that Obama is an enthusiastic supporter, based on his treatment of Snowden. Not to mention Pelosi and Feinstein aggressively defending the government's right to suppress information. This has nothing to do with party affiliation. If you believe in Republican Vs Democrat, you're still in the Matrix, and, sadly, sipping the koolaid.

Blue pill for me! What a lovely color; it matches this donkey on my t-shirt!

I think you're missing what I am saying, which firstly, is in no way party related.

The people I listed have a decades long history which brought them to the US Coup of 9/11: Cheney in particular.

The above are at the core of PNAC, the CIAs takeover of the executive branch (both Clinton and Obama are their puppets here)

GHW Bush has been running shit since the 70s.

Cheney setup the framework for the current MIC exploitation of the world when he was in Sec. Defense position in the early 90s - then setup Halliburton to be in the position to receive all the mandated private-sector contracts so the military could focus on its "core" -- the same with the Carlyle group.

(Carlyle owned CRG West (MAE WEST) and other fiber infra and DCs)

These guys worked diligently to put all this into place. Obama is just a puppet who was meant to quell the outrage that the Bush regime was bringing.

I posted a list of the key players in this, I did not post any party affiliation....

I can provide a hell of a lot more detail than this too - going back to 1920 with these guys...

It is excessively naive and completely discredits your otherwise potentially salient points to suggest President Obama is a puppet.

You're wading far too deeply into conspiracy territory to suggest that this puppet 'was meant to quell' anything. He is a leader whose administration stands and falls on its own merits.

I think it is naive to believe that each and every administration "stands and falls on its own merits" -- and then in the same breath talk about partisanship.

There is no party but the MIC party - and clearly, the NSA owns that party.

America has died, completely, 100%. There is no such thing as "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave"

This is tin-foil hat territory. The CIA was practically dismantled under Bush 43, and the intelligence agencies fight amongst one another like boisterous stepbrothers. To think the intelligence agencies control the government is vastly overestimating their internal political cohesion and capability.

The IC isn't running the government. They've got their hands full just running themselves.

The idea that we are not free is absurd. If I want to hold a rally for the Ku Klux Klan, that activity will be protected by the full force and power of the United States government. I can worship as I wish, read the books I choose, and write whatever I want (excepting direct threats of violence) with little fear, knowing that laws and courts stand ready to vindicate my rights.

I would take our extensive package of rights over single party political control, strongman leadership, civil law jurisdictions, and common law libel standards any day.

We are certainly no longer the most free nation on the planet, which saddens me deeply. But we are certainly amongst the best on that metric.

You forgot to add President Obama and other current leaders to the list. Expansion and utilization of these programs has also occurred during his administration.

You're clearly being partisan.

I was talking specifically about the ones who setup the current situation. Clearly there is no argument that its been embraced and extended by the current puppet regime.

That's way too simple. Many people on that list belong on that list, but...

The American people overwhelmingly approved the Patriot Act, and the idea of surveillance, and the war on terror, and the actual wars on place.

The Obama administration resumed surveillance programs which had been previously shut down.

The military industrial complex has been growing steadily larger since the 1950s.

Congress people from both parties repeatedly approve the growth of the defense budget, and especially parts which gain them money and jobs for their own states and districts.

There are certainly people to demonize, but sorting them out from the well intentioned would be incredibly complicated.

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