Obama’s Changes to Government Surveillance
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
And remember, these are only executive changes, which means if the next president is worse, well then the changes can be undone with the stroke of a single pen by a single person (and they might even decide not to tell the public).
The permanent bulk collection of data continues for future use by any president or agency when the laws don't hinder them. It's a library they can peruse now or 50 years from now.
ps. someone needs to do a mashup of his first campaign speech to end abuses, arguing against this other person
But considering the state of our congress, we're screwed.
He could ask congress to pass laws, but he's the executive, and considering the executive's contempt for all things from congress, down to the right of congress to check the executive's use of the military (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Questions...), one can't hope for too much. At the very least, these executive orders being put into place means that he's signaling Congress that he wouldn't necessarily be against rollbacks of certain points.
If you want a law passed, ask Congress.
Lundin Crast said, "And where is the analysis?"
"That," replied Hardin, "is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications in short, all the goo and dribble he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out."
"Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire."
Here you go. It's rather painful to watch, as you might expect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8
(FYI, I did not make this video)
Until no politician/President can guarantee himself a second term will they ever feel accountable to the public.
Yet the one thing they will count on is the ability to play on voters irrational fears/views of the other guy.
Plus, campaign promises have a tendency toward melting away when facing hard reality. Even if a Green or Libertarian candidate had won (absolutely 0% chance), there's no reason to think they'd have followed through on their promises. They might want to, but so does Obama, presumably. It's just the structure of government that someone in the executive branch isn't going to be willing to use all of their political capital in a battle that weakens their own authority.
In other words, once you give government power, there's essentially no chance that they will relinquish it.
C'mon. Doesn't everything Obama has said on surveillance sound exactly like what Bush would have said? They're the same, they just use different dog whistles.
I have a hard time believing that campaign promises are anything other than lies, told bald-facedly in order to satisfy an image being portrayed by the campaign. It's all an act, just like this NSA speech is likely just an act designed not to change anything. Reality is that they're going to do whatever they want to do.
Why are we voting for second terms, then? Call for single-term presidencies.
Plurality voting systems generally result in two dominant parties.
I hate these cholera-vs-the-plague choices.
I forget the source of that quote.
Did you read Daniel Ellsberg's AMA interview on Reddit the other day?
In it he was actually supportive of those who had voted for Obama based on the principle of the lesser evil, explicitly invoking the Duverger's Law mentioned in a sibling comment.
Either way let's face it, the natural area a third-party split could occur at this point is within the GOP, not the Democrats, so a national concerted effort to vote outside the two-party bloc will do to the Republican candidate what Ross Perot did to Bush Sr., and what Ralph Nader did to Gore.
To fix the "lesser of two evils" problem you have to fix how the voting process itself is done first.
And this is going to be done by voting for the lesser of two evils? Interesting.
But hey, please feel free to do what you want, a real libertarian third party is the progressives' wet dream right now.
No, until they learn that they can't get in at all without being accountable to the public, no politician will feel accountable to the public.
I don't know how to look at a politician pre-election and know that they'll be honest and keep citizens' rights foremost. Certainly not by listening to them, because I've noticed whenever they make sounds their lips are moving, and when their lips are moving they lie.
So it would have to depend in part on their not being able to hide anything. Which would mean something like absolutely fucking open books, on everything, almost up to having a camera in the president's bathroom. Citizens would have to be able to inspect just about anything at all at a moment's notice. 'cause Congress won't.
And if not the absolutes of the previous paragraph, then as close as we can get, and closer all the time.
They lie, they have money and weapons, they have to be watched 24/7. Just like us.
First rule of politics: never make a promise you can't keep. Second rule of politics: never keep a promise you don't have to.
Then every politician I know is a glaring exception to this rule.
Most of all because as I read the body language, Candidate Obama passionately believed in what he was saying. The words march out proud and true, like soldiers.
President Obama seems barely shadow of the man in the earlier clips. He stumbles over the most important parts of his delivery and seems at one stage to hesitate as he asks himself if he can actually say what he is about to say.
Something is wrong with the man in the more recent clips. Emotionally he seems unwell.
Surely the military, the CIA, the NSA, the NRO, and the President must have secret information they cannot share with the public to justify the horrors of war.
Turns out I was wrong. It was a pack of lies, half-truths and poorly-substantiated rumors to justify a predetermined agenda.
After the 2007-2008 financial meltdown, when the President and the Secretary of the Treasury threatened the end of the world as we know it if the richest corporations aren't given direct cash infusions [2], I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
Surely our elected officials would never directly transfer hundreds of billions of dollars to the richest of the rich unless the alternative was truly grave.
Turns out I was wrong. It was a pack of lies, half-truths and poorly-substantiated rumors to transfer wealth from working people to the ownership class on an unprecedented scale.
So when the President stands before us today and speaks for 45 minutes without saying anything of consequence, without providing any evidence that the threat is so dire, so imminent, so cataclysmic that we must relinquish our freedoms to preserve our freedoms, I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt.
No more vague threats. No more fear. No more intimidation. No more secrecy. These are fatal to a political system that relies on an informed citizenry.
[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw9BJ_Kh7mE
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_weapons_laboratory
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/26bailout.html?pa...
This is why I'll never vote libertarian.
The FEd had full powers to ask that any bail out remove current bank leadership from power due to the threat of full Gov receivership of those banks by Fed..we were sold the idea of giving a free get out of jail card to banks based on lies
So... even with the massive bailout, the majority of average people got hit pretty hard, and many are still recovering as their regions try to fight back from the economic collapse, while we read about bankers bitching that their bonuses were only in the single digit millions for so many years.
And is not about moral ideology, it is pragmatic to take the view that declaring organisations as too big to fail, bailing them and then letting them carry on as before is pretty stupid. That's not running an economy, that's making excuses for an abusive relationship.
The basic Liberal theory says that when a big player goes down, it's good for the market, because many smaller players will fill that gap. What is happening the last years throughout US and Europe is that when a bank goes down, the state turns communist and we share the losses.
If the bank has huge earning, it's capitalism, so they can keep it because hey they worth it!.
Joseph Stiglitz has an entire book on the subject. As Krugman said - and the economist also... go figure! - Obama should have put at least some rules to Wall Street giants when they were on their knees, not after he made them twice as big.
Blah, I am not sure if the Congress or Obama CAN actually do anything to regulate WS giants at all.
"But we don't have dragons in Idaho", they'd say.
To which of course I replied: "See how effective I have been?".
Plus, besides the disregard for the burden-of-proof in your argument, wasn't the economic crisis caused "as a result of the FED's actions" in the first place (deregulation etc)?
Deregulation was Congressional action, not action of the Federal Reserve (usually referred to by the shortened form, "the Fed").
That's the "law passing" part. But the advisory part has Fed written on it:
"In Congressional testimony on October 23, 2008, Greenspan finally conceded error on regulation. The New York Times wrote, "a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. ... Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken."
"By dialing rates to near zero, Mr. Greenspan made it cheap to lend. It was natural for the banks, a greedy lot to see that they could borrow money at low rates and lend it out to customers at higher rates."
"As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time."
> America we are under constant, vague, terrifying attack. There is no end. There will never be an end.
It gets worse: people who do such things, can also manufacture concrete evidence of "dire and imminent" stuff.
For example by letting the stock market crumble to some predetermined stop point, when they come with measures to save the day. Or by provoking for some attack and seeing it happen -- which is mostly what was done in Pearl Harbor to convince people to get in WWII (E.g: http://mises.org/daily/6312/FDRs-Pacific-War-Before-Pearl-Ha... -- Can't vouch for the validity of the linked website in general, just found a quick link to the issue. The facts are available in tons of historical books).
"My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and estabish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/open
Believing anything Obama SAYS, particularly concerning this issue, is foolish.
Look at what he's DONE. Nothing is changing.
Obama is a disappointment on this issue, and other things too. But there are differences between politicians, and all this blah blah about how they are all the same is a great way to get apathetic and do nothing to improve things. It can be hard work trying to pick out the good ones from the bad ones, and maybe sometimes none of them are that good. And you may feel let down when you misjudge one. But that doesn't mean you just give up and spout platitudes about woe-is-us as an excuse for not doing anything, or no longer attempting to vote for good people.
Two politicians: Nelson Mandela and Joe McCarthy. No difference?
For example: Obama versus Paul. Hell, for the sake of a well-rounded argument, let's throw in Romney.
Look back at the campaign speeches. Regardless of what you think about either Obama or Romney or Paul, Paul's arguments follow logically. They're consistent with history. The other guys' arguments just don't. It's simple.
You could see RIGHT THROUGH Obama and Romney, even back then.
I find it particularly unsettling when people off the street justify Obama in their own words.
They've truly been brainwashed--no other way to put it. Scary.
Otherwise, everyone can accuse everyone of being brainwashed any time an opinion they don't like is expressed
I didn't intend my comment to apply to politics at-large, just the privacy and civil liberties topics currently at hand.
I think it's possible to make a case for the broader political spectrum, but I won't attempt that here.
OGI has nothing to do with the NSA and never has.
As for the notion of requiring private telecomm companies to store data and provide access to the gov't, although still just a hypothetical situation and not yet policy, would this not simply shift the burden from the NSA to private companies?
Obviously, they're already handing over the data, but making it all official and open seems like a retrogressive policy that would in the long run backfire as Americans turn to overseas hosted services not beholden to the NSA. Perhaps even the domestic telecomm firms could get around it by offshoring their data storage and transmission services, such that the only domestic components would be the towers and switches, while the repositories of customer data would be safely overseas under some other entity's control (also not ideal, argh).
"The fact is, is that Mr. Snowden's been charged with 3 felonies. If in fact he believes that what he did was right, then, like every American citizen, he can come here, appear before the court with a lawyer and make his case."
What Obama thinks Snowden "deserves" is irrelevant. Snowden's status as a "traitor" is as yet undetermined, and until he stands trial for the crimes he's being charged with, we won't know.
Sort of. Obama has the ability to pardon Snowden, if he felt strongly about it.
EDIT: my meaning is that if the Justice Dept. wants to nail him, they will have options regardless.
I can't think of a way to pardon Snowden without sending that kind of message - you can't say, "Only do this if you're really sure what's happening is super bad."
So yeah, he could pardon Snowden, but the consequences could be ruinous to the US, even if it is "The Right Thing" to do.
/sarcasm
Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers led to charges, that were later dropped, and we didn't see some huge number of whistleblowers.
So I assert your claim is a poor one. History has not shown that granting a pardon to a whistleblower has led to inappropriate leaking, and the chilling effect of not doing it when appropriate (or deciding it's not appropriate when it clearly was, such as now), is not worth the trade off.
They are still in the Snowden case as well.
Also, to declare that history cannot help in the analysis of a problem in the present is to admit defeat. To fully understand the present, the only real tool you have is history.
No, a pardon received by one person is not a promise of pardons to anyone else. A pardon is an exception, not a rule.
Lynching of black people in the Jim Crow South were often attributed officially to "unknown parties of a mob" even when there was clear photographic evidence of white ringleaders. White murderers knew that the fiction of official non-recognition was not a rule, yet the reality of the precedent thus set led to many other mob lynchings.
All of this is to say that even though a pardon is not a rule and should be recognized as such, that only helps matters if every potential future leaker sees it as an exception and not a new precedent.
Some types of classified data leaks are more equal than others. The same is true of violations of any criminal law. That's why the pardon power exists (and, in part, why jury nullification is important) -- because no law can ever perfectly account for all edge cases.
> Lynching of black people in the Jim Crow South were often attributed officially to "unknown parties of a mob" even when there was clear photographic evidence of white ringleaders.
That repeated pattern of false portrayals to put a public face on a decision not to prosecute is very different than a pardon that does not deny that a crime was committed, and does not falsely assert ambiguity in the identity of the responsible party, etc.
A pardon sends a very mixed message here, precisely because Snowden has crafted a very mixed message.
The US gov. is applying double standards.
Seems to be widespread today in so called "free western countries".
The thing that government can do to prevent that from occurring is to demonstrate actual whistleblower protection schemes, and correct flaws when exposed.
edited grammar
We'd be relying on a legal system that has already been completely compromised to render political outcomes rather than legal ones, and there's too many "powerful" people who have been shown to be terrible liars and dishonest by Snowden's revelations for him to get a fair shake.
The only question during this trial would be related to the jury and the judge. Those are the two sets of people who would be able to realistically intervene on Snowden's behalf without risking the federal government's endorsement of leaking privileged information to the public, and even then the judge would be setting an alarming precedent for future cases involving the leak of privileged info.
Those who want to "get" Snowden have already shown that they have no compunction about lying under oath, so that is where my fear originates.
But again: US gov. has double standards. When Snowden breaks a law, he will most likely be hung (or worse), but if members of Us agencies breaks hundred, thousands, even million times laws of human rights and the US constitution, they will be either promoted or get an automatic pardon from the president (as Obama did directly after election).
That stinks and is a SHAME for the whole "western world".
The U.S. has already declared that the death penalty is off the table...
And I support most of what Snowden has done for the reason that a true patriot upholds the letter of the Constitution, which does not hold true for a majority of the people in power. I would instead appeal to you that they should therefore be considered false patriots.
The world is often times more complex than "left" and "right".
It's fairly easy to condense simple matters into left or right biases but easier still when the purpose is to appease our tribal nature as a species (us versus them). Of course, the latter serves political interests quite nicely and in a manner that helps keep the coffers overflowing.
That's not to say that I don't treat some matters as black or white (I do because of my own biases--and when I do, I think I'm right :) ) but it bugs me more than it probably should whenever I see this notion repeated that anyone who shares my political persuasions must, by virtue of our "patriotism," secretly desire a police state. It seems to me that the police state and the true patriot ought to be at odds with each other. Perhaps my understanding is skewed, but I can't think of a patriot who would wish for fewer freedoms, excluding for a moment Orwellian-esque double-speak like the PATRIOT Act...
The problem isn't necessarily any one political group as much as it is to do with politicians. The majority of which have been so insulated inside the echo chamber that is Washington DC and so far detached from their constituency for so long that it seems they (and any agency you can imagine that they interact with) feel separate from--and probably above--oversight.
If I were in a real conspiratorial mood, I might suggest that the divisive nature of US politics is entirely intentional and serves to keep us apart so that we may not work together to toss the bums in power out onto the street.
Sadly, though, I think I've already said enough to invite trollish remarks so I ought to stop while I'm ahead. ;)
I think, names like "patriotism", "freedom", "homeland" or even "solidarity" are grandly misused by politicians today. I think, today politicians are just show-men of the real class in power. What should be decided, is not discussed openly, but by people that are not shown on cover pages. The task of the show-men is, to put the decisions (how bad they might be!) in some sound sounding words (like "Patriot Act") so that the masses will agree or at least don't disagree with the things that shall take their freedom, their work-power, their money, their land ... and give it to the new lords, which are no nobles.
And of course, left and right are also instrumented a lot. Because giving a clear "foe" is good to mobilize the own side (even for the wrong things).
I feel you hit the nail on the head right here.
While you state you're not from the United States, you have a clear understanding that a ridiculously large (and embarrassingly so) percent of our population doesn't possess. Not that it surprises me: My mum isn't from here, though she's now a naturalized citizen, and she has a far greater understanding of US politics than the natives!
But then, I also think there's a certain amount of similarity among politicians the world over, or as you stated "the real class in power."
To illustrate one particular sore point that meshes well with your description, many bills drafted by the US Congress are seldom these days drafted by politicians and are instead written by their staffers or, through lobbyists, by other entities that have a keen interest on influencing the bill's content. When former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated regarding the ACA that "We have to pass it before we can know what's in it," she wasn't joking. Many of us laughed, more still called her stupid, but she--perhaps unwittingly--provided an insight into Congress few of us are fortunate enough to experience. After all, of those who do read the bills or are instrumental in their construction, they effectively have free reign to inject what they wish. With partisan politics being such as it is, mobilizing your compatriots to vote on a bill isn't especially difficult.
I don't know what the solution is, because when you have laws fabricated by organizations with deep pockets who, by virtue of their expenditure can effectively select those who win elections, any attempt to effect change will be toothless.
Anyway, I deeply appreciate this conversation and would like to thank you for the exchange we've had. It certainly made my morning. :)
At least one law was brought to a downfall later by judges, because it was extremely unconstitutional -- and it came out, that it was pressed threw the parliament, so the politicians just did not know, what they did (or even don't wanted to).
Thanks, it was also a pleasure for me!
We've been seeing a frightening trend toward impenetrable, multi-thousand page bills pushed through Congress whose length is so intimidating and the time schedule so short that almost no one reads them. Then, once passed, everyone (including those who voted for it) get up in arms about the evils of special interests or how they simply didn't know some really bad part was in the very bill they passed. It's absurd. Hell, it'd almost make for good comedy if it didn't have real consequences.
There's a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes something to the effect (in regards to US politics) "We have the best politicians money can buy."
I can only hope that it's bad behavior we haven't exported to Europe since I suspect it's the nature of the beast (special interest, lobbyists, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours). But I wouldn't be surprised if corrupt politicians in other countries looked at what we're doing here and decided to one-up us. ;)
Joking aside, though, there's something terribly, terribly wrong when it costs nearly a billion USD to run a successful campaign for president...
If I keep up with this line of thought, I'm liable to feel depressed! :D
I think, it's in best interest of the people in power, that the campaign is so costly. When you look at the presidents of the last decades (I don't know to much US history, to go back to far), they all where already millionaires when they where elected.
But you should better watch this one, I don't know if you know Lessig (I think, he is a real patriot): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
In our country, the campaigns are less costly, but until anybody comes to the top of any major party, he must be inwardly corrupted already. I see it this way, that nearly no current leading politician in our country is not already totally corrupted by money and power. I think, Mark Twain had this one right, but I don't think, that it had to be exported, it seems to lay inside the human kind. I think it was already visible in the first republics like Rome. Maybe we are in a similar position today as in Caesars or even Neros time.
You should know, that some years ago, even in Europe, rich people started building places to live for millionaires -- apart and secure from the "plebs". They provide for times, when the 99% will no longer hold still. Of course, millionaires are only third class "rich" people in our world. Second class are billionaires.
But I believe you aren't talking about rednecks, but about Washington contractors and possibly a rather limited set of military/civilian special ops people.
As usual, one should be careful what one suggests to the media. For every fantasy Snowden shooter there are likely _scores_ of citizens who fantasize about doing the same thing or worse to those who put monitoring systems into place.
There is some possibility that pitchforks and torches might become de rigeur political dress in the near future. A true redneck would likely be in the crowd, torch in hand.
How courteous they are!
Thomas Drake had most of the charges against him dropped and he plead to 1 year probation. A summary of espionage charges under Obama shows that the DOJ has faced an uphill battle in court.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/50459/8-whistleblowers-cha...
What you see here is Obama conflating (intentionally, of course) the notion of "right" and "legal".
Snowden thinks what he did was right. He does not believe that will save him in a court room, which in theory determines legality. That is why he fled the country; not because he does not really believe that what he did was right.
The law has always been reflecting the power balance and nothing more. It reflects morality only as a consequence of and to the extent to which moral people have power.
If we mistake the law for a definition of morality, then it becomes impossible by definition for the law to be wrong.
The President must realize that the law does not define morality. And of course he does; born in 1961 he is beyond doubt keenly aware that US laws do not define morality. He is conflating the concepts for political reasons.
By the same token, this is why it's always idiotic to talk about "the people". It is always wrong to say "the people chose" or "the people believe" or "the will of the people". Real life isn't a musical set in Paris starring Jean Valjean.
NSLs remain nearly untouched. "Warrants" will continue to be issued with negligible oversight.
> Create a panel of advocates to represent privacy concerns in significant cases.
Because the process remains secretive with no constant public advocate presence, there's no reasonable way to initiate the process to determine what is a "significant case". Just as before, we cannot contest breaches of privacy if we are not aware of them.
this is the single most dangerous thing about current law enforcement. NSLs completely subvert any recourse to the judiciary without immense risk to yourself. Luckily most judges seem to agree on the ridiculousness of NSLs , and are trying to whittle down the power they have.
> Third, the legal safeguards that restrict surveillance against U.S. persons
> without a warrant do not apply to foreign persons overseas. This is not
> unique to America; few, if any, spy agencies around the world constrain their
> activities beyond their own borders. And the whole point of intelligence is to
> obtain information that is not publicly available. But America’s capabilities
> are unique. And the power of new technologies means that there are fewer and
> fewer technical constraints on what we can do. That places a special
> obligation on us to ask tough questions about what we should do.
Europe unite.
"old Europe die hard" http://i.imgur.com/srtDWIX.jpg
Seen nearly 10 years ago in Cologne, sadly I don't know the name of the artist (it was in a museum, he filled huge walls with such drawings). I know HN frowns on images, but I don't have the eloquence to express what this picture is saying anyway, so I'd rather post that instead of nothing. At least it's not a meme - not yet, anyway. Here's hoping :P
Managed to find it out, it's Dan Perjovschi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Perjovschi )
Civil rights have definitely gotten worse in the past 15 years, but I'd say they're still better than before 1978 (when FISA was written). Before things like the FISA, the executive was pretty free to do almost anything (and did, see Hoover). As a long term trend, civil rights have been increasing, not decreasing. We've made mistakes that we need to roll back, but acting like this is the fall of the United States as we know it is pretty myopic (people have been predicting the fall of the United State since the 1800s), and not putting much faith into our institutions (which aren't the worst).
There's just really no way that future textbooks will have anything good to say about this era of American politics. (Unless they're biased or propaganda.)
But I doubt very much the context will be the fall of the U.S., because--can you name a nation that is not struggling with these issues? Both in government and in private life?
I think it remains to be seen where it all nets out for each nation. Human society in general is being changed by digital data. I would not bet against the U.S. because we have a history of being pretty good at adapting to social change.
Aside from the lack of historical perspective rtpg comments on, I think you (And rtpg, too) are confusing "civil rights" and "civil liberties".
Obama has basically said that he knew about all of this, and he was ok with everything the government was doing. However, now that it's all public knowledge, he thinks that we need changes. Have some testicular fortitude, Mr. President. Either you are ok with what NSA does, or you are not. Don't make a speech where you tell me that you were cool with what NSA was doing all the way up to the point when it became public knowledge. And don't tell me in one sentence that this is an important public debate, and in another condemn the man who brought about this debate, Mr. Snowden.
Obama promised change, but Snowden just might actually deliver on that promise.
Only fools. James Clapper lied about what the NSA was up to, to Ron Wyden, a member of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Clapper has still not been charged with anything.
There is no way to oversee an organization that only has to tell you whatever it wants to. Do people really not understand such a basic concept as this? Congress does not have special insight into what the NSA is doing. Everything Congress knows is whatever the NSA wants to tell Congress. It's all a sham. Kangaroo courts and pretend justice. As fake as all that crap North Korea shows tourists. As fake as Saddam's elections in Iraq.
Am I the only one who sees shades of: -Nazi Germany -The USSR -(Cultural Revolution) China -Insert random eastern European cold war regime
To the people who make those newspapers.
I wish so bad that there was at least some kind of address for this. I highly doubt it will hit mainstream attention anytime soon again unless some kind of publicly accessible (read: marketable) scandal occurs to bring the news media around again.
If JFK could say, "We're gonna go to the moon, I have no idea how," then Obama can say, "The NSA will not undermine cryptography standards."
You don't see the difference between those two statements?
Every American can dream about traveling to the moon and the ambition that represents. There's probably not 1% of the country that even understands what cryptography is, let alone how it might be undermined.
A party that upholds the desires of its supporters, even giving thema voice and instituting some form of liquid democracy.
Step 1: We are not listening http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/politics/nsa-data-mining Step 2: We will not listen: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/nsa-phone-program-1023...
Am I doing this right?
These government people move way to slowly, how long does it take with todays technology to communicate and figure out what needs to change? The longer we just keep 'talking', the longer they can continue with their scraping of data and secrets.
Someone or something is going to have the data; there's nothing that can be done about that. Marketers have been doing for a long time, the NSA just got CAUGHT. Marketers use it to make money by making sure you see the best ad for you, the NSA uses it to make money by 'stopping terrorists'. But what if all the data was free and the programs turing it into useful information were open-sourced? That would change the market entirely. Anyone could see the most important scraped news of the day, whether its a terrorist threat or just thrending news. It could be like a social network that everybody has already joined. Privacy would be interesting. Maybe you could only see from others what you choose to share yourself. But thats too long to get into here...
Clearly what needs to be done is this: the data that the NSA collects should only be accessible by the program. It needs to be fully autonomous. The biggest concern with the vast collection of data and secrets is the human element. So we should simply take the human element out of it. Make an open-sourced program and algorithm that reads the data when it needs to and automatically gets the results to those who need to see it. The code could be posted on github and master pulls can be voted on by the whole world, but we can start with just America maybe at first.
All of America shuts down for simple things such as football and the superbowl, dead peoples birthdays, religious holidays. I think we could dedicate a day or two to a simultaneous conversion about important things happening in our country moderated by artificial intelligence and by the end of the day take action on what we agreed upon. Gallup releases 'polls' so quickly, how come nothing comes from those?
But if we don't trust an artificial intelligence then WHO can we trust? Obama? Clapper? The Pope?
We could physically implement this system ourselves if we needed to, after we figure out what we as a nation/world want. There's a data center in Utah. We could literally go there and take control. but how many people would a 'protest' like that require? and if we come to the conclusion that thats the only other option, we should hurry before the military and Google finalize the perfect humanoid robot. Or else all hope might be lost. The people vs armies of drones and robots. Elysium here we come.
you are fucked. we are fucked. we'll get fucked forever if we go on like that.
but i guess it's too hard for us tech people, supposedly highly educated with great intellect, to wrap our head around this. code, business and money are more important.
better go back to sleep, sheep!
In other words, nothing is changing, and bad luck if you have an issue with it.
I can honestly say I'm looking forward to China rising.
How is China going to help? You think they are going to stick up for privacy and other human rights? Jeeze.
I get the sense a lot of westerns don't know how good they have it even though there system isn't perfect.