All 12 of us would be fired up! More seriously, did you see the bit on John Oliver about Snowden? The majority of the US population have no idea who Snowden is. Be careful not to get caught up in our tech news bubble.
1. http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-s...
2. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/06/john-oliver-in...
I hear people citing this specific stat all the time as a proof about how stupid or uninformed americans are, and every time I hear it it bothers me. Knowing the vice president's name is something that is neither useful nor relevant to most americans, and therefore not knowing it makes sense entirely. I honestly don't see how that makes them uninformed at all.
But then, there's that "basically educated" thing, isn't it? Our aggressive willingness, as a society, to not know things about how it actually works, and then excuse ourselves for it, troubles me pretty deeply.
This would be like me saying that due to X's long and distinguished career in tennis, most americans should know who they are. The problem is that most americans don't follow tennis at all, especially not to the extent that they are familiar with particular players, unless they are superstars that always have their name all over the news (I can think of two for which this might be the case). And senators seem to have their name in the prominent news less frequently than tennis stars, honestly.
Joe Biden was a very well known senator before he became Vice President, any criteria you use to call yourself relatively informed about US politics when you had never heard of Joe Biden is flawed.
I had to struggle to recall the name. The man is utterly unimportant to me, though I do hope he is eventually punished for the crimes of his administration.
I'm not going to google the quote right now but the heart of it is that when they care about an issue, their celebrity can bring more attention than the righteousness of the cause.
We have an abstract understanding of the fact that, in different parts of the world, people are facing hardship but a celebrity can get television cameras to show us what is happening.
Why?
I can understand disliking some of the particular causes, or disliking the disproportionate attention given to celebrities, but why would you hate the fact that people who happen to be famous also advocate for causes they care about?
Because most of the time it's celebrity endoresment - appeal to authority, without having authority. Why should I trust George Clooney's opinion on coffee let alone what he thinks about Darfur?
I imagine Clooney's also had more access to finer coffee than myself, but I can safely assume that adverts aren't expressing personal opinions in the slightest. :)
I saw an interview where he mentioned this (probably Inside the Actor's Studio). Words to the effect of: "realistically the studios are not going to fund a biopic about Edward R. Murrow. So if I can fund it by doing coffee ads, that's something I can live with".
Not sure about that. Great coffee isn't that expensive.
Speaking of celebrity endoresment and coffee - Al Pacino did an ad for Vittoria (Australian coffee brand) which is IMHO burned-tasting, low quality coffee. There was an interview with the marketing people who made the commercial, and the reason why they chose him was purely because he was a well known Italian... making him a perceived authority on good coffee. Spoiler alert - he isn't.
It doesn't help that he's been probably the most invisible Vice President in god knows how many years. I bet you if you asked the same question during the G.W. Bush years a lot more people would be able to answer.
It isn't until you meet people on both sides of such a dividing line that you realize: propaganda is never aimed at "converting" people who know even the slightest thing about an issue, people who already have any stance at all. Instead, it's aimed at the mass of people who care little enough about an issue, people who are far enough away from the issue, that they'll trust the first source of "facts" about it they see, and then lose interest in finding out more.
Maybe there's a Venn Diagram of information bubble in there somewhere.
The Chinese government doesn't care to attempt to change what Americans think about China; they know they won't be able to convince them of anything after so many other sources have already told them this or that thing to believe. So, to Americans, China is a propaganda machine, and China is fine with that. On the other hand, this means Americans never really get to hear what China is telling the Chinese about America, because they don't bother to publish that outside of their borders.
I guess there are three layers to any information bubble, then: at the core, there are informed citizens who both know the propaganda and have facts to reject it; surrounding that, there is a larger group of uninformed propaganda-influenced citizens; and on the outside, there are foreigners, who don't even know what a given country's propaganda says, only that it exists.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/china/09_04_30_infl_ops....
America propagandizes China, China propagandizes America, China propagandizes China and America propagandizes America. Or, if you perfer, each country performs "Influence Operations", "Strategic Communications", "Psychological Operations".
Propaganda is merely the focused government effort to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products.
Different audiences are going to require different messaging.
The US's propaganda is quite different than China's propaganda when it comes to the exact physical end product, although the countries are starting to share more and more common tactical forms and procedures.
Of course what the US wants US civilians to think is different than was the US wants China to think is different from what US wants Chinese civilians to think is different from what China wants USG to think is different from what China was US civilians to think.
Propaganda is not a blunt instrument. It has to be and is targeted to specific audiences.
Or, to put it another way, domestic propaganda is strategic and continuous (and therefore easily observed, by meeting a citizen of the country who "grew up with the propaganda"); foreign-targeted propaganda is tactical and one-off, and won't usually leak out of whatever domain it was focused on (government, military, investors, entrepreneurs, etc.)
For example the United States government is currently engaged in a blanket of propaganda covering communications, social media and news outfit over the Middle East - they go so far as to create video games for the children there to play. The goal is a deradicalization of the Middle East - the vast majority of which now have turned against or are deeply suspicious of the United States (even NATO member Turkey).
How episodic propaganda operations are depends on the goal of the propaganda. Sometimes there is a specific ephemeral purpose (e.g. military deception), other times it is a short term goal (e.g. increase trust in gov't bonds) and other times it intends to be permanent or long lasting (e.g. America and Western culture is friendly to you and you would like to be a part of it).
But there is potential for bias. VPN exits and VPS are arguably hosted in facilities that serve foreigners. So perhaps their access to domestic Chinese sites is censored.
Me either, can you give a recent example or two?
- NGOs and CSOs the US has in China and their support of Civil Society; Civil Society is a comprehensive word that means signon to US standards, expectations, culture, economic norms, etc
- Source code (hosted on GitHub) that supports civil dissidents and websites (greatfirewall) that align with US narrative work that have US support or funding
- DoD MINERVA's study of housing crises in China and the possibility to use home ownership (surveillance of) for prediction or (propaganda of) nudging into unrest
- Broadcasting by the Board of Broadcasting Governors, such as VOA into China
- Anything you can find via FOIA requests from the Bureau of International Information Programs (this was born to take up responsibilities formerly in charge of by the late USIA)
If you want to get hypothetical there are number of suspicious events and coincidences - but these have no definitive link (smoking gun) pointing to the United States so they are excluded here.
It's important to note that NGOs do not mean that they are not related to government or the USG's national security objectives. ZunZuneo for example was set up through a series of NGOs that were ultimately CIA fronts.
There are people who spend 100% of their time focused on any particular country or issue you are interested in. Find professors of foreign policy or cultural studies and security advisors for the country or area. There are similarly task forces that try to provide insight into the whatever issue - many of these are public.
The short answer here is that no, there isn't any easy place. But the great thing is that, if you care enough about it, some reasonable representation of 'what's going on' is available to you.
:(
Iran does not have nuclear weapons but they are extremely close to having nuclear weapons. They have the knowledge, the material, etc such that if the sustained cooperation of other nations to sabotage their nuclear operations were to discontinue they would be nuclear capable very quickly. This is probably what the author intended - though it is dishonest to round it up the way he did.
When the recent Iran deals were being announced, I read material that said something along the lines of "Iran is 3 months from having a nuke" (breakout). It seemed to be saying, "Iran is holding steady, but could pull the trigger (so to speak) and begin the final 3 months of preparation at any moment". The goal of the nuclear agreement was to keep them perpetually some certain number of months away (or increase it) from having enough material for a bomb.
> The IR-1s installed in the Natanz and Fordow facilities have been performing at an average per unit rate of 0.75 to 1 SWU per year. Using the 1 SWU/year performance of the latest IR-1 model, the breakout time with 9,000 machines using a natural uranium feed would be six to seven months. However, Iran also has substantial stocks of 3.5 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that can be used as an alternative feed, shrinking the breakout time to three months.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/iran...
> Mr. Kerry was joined at the talks by Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, who will have to certify to Congress that the deal ensures that Iran will remain at least a year away from being able to produce a weapon’s worth of bomb fuel over the next decade, a complex calculation in which the size of Iran’s stockpile is a major factor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/middleeast/irans-nuc...
Now maybe there's far more sabotage than we know about going on, but it sounds like Iran has the ability to accumulate enough material, and is choosing not to. The way this is phrased implies that Iran is halting work toward a bomb.
> The [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.
I am certain that sabotage efforts are sustained and a critical part of the US-Israel alliance. Beyond the Stuxnet episode and the subsequent Mossad/CIA assassination the history here is dense.
For countries who want to use nuclear readiness as a strategic deterrent, it does make sense to have a short breakout period but not necessarily be already stockpiled.
It's an interesting proposal. My presumption would be that the ideal scenario for Iran would be what was suggested above: that Iran acquire a stockpile, let other countries know that they have them, but not have them in a truly official capacity. It seems like keeping a short breakout period would be less ideal than having a semi-secret, well protected stockpile.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-most-think-edward-snowden-s...
My experience (Seattle) is quite different. Also colored.
Deleted comment
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/29/last-week-t...
Domestic Spying is NOT OK.
International Spying IS OK.
He released dozens of files regarding international spying. Setting US efforts back dozens of years, endangering lives of US assets.
Sorry to say but that is treason.
Treason has a price.
What are you feelings about spying that is ostensibly international but nonetheless collects a potentially large, though unknowable, amount of intimate domestic communication? I ask because that is exactly the kind of thing that happens with the "Foreign Intelligence" programs Snowden leaked.
> [...] Section 702 of FISA Amendments Act of 2008, is labeled "Procedures For Targeting Certain Persons Outside The United States Other Than United States Persons." Going on name alone, that sounds like the opposite of a license for the NSA to collect private messages between Americans.
> Not necessarily.
> [...]
> Through those spying programs, it is possible that American-to-American email could hit an overseas server and be pulled into NSA databases even though those emails are not the target of NSA searches. The law does not prohibit this kind of "incidental" collection of Americans’ communications, as long as it was part of an otherwise valid collection of non-Americans’ information, said Stephen Vladeck, American University national security law professor.
> Government reports, leaks and a scathing 2011 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion offer more proof that the NSA cannot separate out communications between Americans from the emails involving a foreigner. "NSA’s knowing acquisition of tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications through its Upstream collection is a cause of concern for the court," wrote FISC Judge John D. Bates in the declassified opinion.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/apr/09/...
If you are upset with the leak of international material you must be upset with Greenwald.
That said, whistleblowers are in for a rough time and usually get acknowledged for what they did when they're either too old or dead.
Think about it this way, would you be mad if Russia FSB agents were constantly trying to get access to classified military networks of the US? Well no, that's part of their stated functions and one of the mildest at that. If those networks get hacked it is the U.S. fault! Same with the NSA hacking Russian govt networks (substitute countries as you will, it doesn't matter). But if it turned out that the FSB was intercepting every phone communication in the U.S. 100% of the time between random civilians (which btw might or might not be the case...), that would be a different situation. Mass surveillance is different from targeted espionage and is not any more righteous when you do it to civilians abroad than when you impose it on your own citizens.
Besides, there is the whole lot of evidence of decisions where the NSA intentionally weakened U.S. cyber-security in order to make sure it could spy on foreign civilians using those weaknesses. Making yourself more vulnerable to attack while pissing off as many people abroad as possible is the opposite of what you want your government to be doing, it would seem to me...
Most of what he leaked has nothing to do with the government spying on its citizens. Most of the documents relate to how the US deals with its own international interests and how it protects those interests - right or wrong.
For this reason, he's not a patriot or a whistle blower. He's just another government employee who stole and released a ton of classified documents that did more damage to his own country than what he's been telling people about the NSA spying programs. And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways. His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected. The only difference was his documents showed how deep the rabbit hole went.
In a few more years, nobody will care - let him rot in Siberia for all I care. All he did was weaken a country by his actions.
Many officials from the CIA and NSA (and FBI) have distorted the truth or outright lied to public. Snowden's actions have pushed back on that somewhat, rekindling a strong interest in what the watchers are doing. Stingrays, parallel construction, surveillance airplanes over urban areas, etc. You've got to keep that kind of power under strict control and keep the watchers accountable.
Can you be a little more specific in your armchair whistleblowing? Because we've seen other whistleblowers try to do it other ways -- on many of the same issues -- and fail.
> And let's be honest, it was something most people already knew about anyways.
It was something many people inside and outside of government, some of whom are now advocating -- or actually, in the case of members of Congress, taking -- action to rein it in, were directly dismissing previous reports of. It is not something everybody knew (the "everybody knew it already" line is something that defenders trotted out once enough details had come out that the "you're paranoid, there's no evidence anything like that is happening" line they'd been using with previous reports couldn't be maintained with even a shred of credibility.)
I think there's a difference between hearing some unsubstantiated claims from a disgruntled employee (Binney) versus getting a legitimate-looking document that the government made no effort to deny. Once that failed to happen, we knew it was real.
Soon after, government officials acknowledged the mass collection renewal under §215, demonstrating the document's authenticity. So I dispute that it was something people knew about prior to the disclosure.
If you understand anything about what has actually happened, you'll know that Snowden provided (a) an exhaustive list of all the "other ways" that exist in theory and (b) point-by-point demonstration that none of them are real. But if you're aware of an avenue that has not already been widely and properly dismissed as useless then please, provide the details here.
And while you're at it, maybe you can explain how something can be both a genuine secret and common knowledge. Remember, that unproven suspicions are not the same as definite knowledge - not by a long shot. There's also a huge difference between knowing that something is technically possible and discovering that government officials have became lawless enough to actually do it.
Honestly, if we were to deal with crimes in the order they were committed, Snowden would be the last person going to trial.
No it was not. His stated intent was to expose government surveillance in order to spark public discussion. His unstated intent, derived from his actions, was exactly the same.
Had he aimed at damaging the government, there were much more efficient -- for that effect -- ways of revealing the information.
If I'm not mistaken, there were whistle-blowers before Snowden that were "responsible", following legal means to raise these issues, and completely ignored.
http://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-w...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
Since we know they were blowing the whistle on issues the public cared about, and we know they were ignored, is that not proof that the legal channels for this are ineffective? Perhaps if these channels actually had lead to actual changes, then the harm Snowden has brought to your country would not have been necessary.
Ah, the irony of mimicking the villain's final moments in A Few Good Men. The villain claims to protect the country's high ideals, yet does so by flagrantly violating them, and in the process utters your line, almost verbatim.
> His documents only confirmed a lot of what people already suspected.
Then how could he have weakened the country? This is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too argument.
While this may sound like conspirilogic, I can site many similar instances of deaths of journalists and other instigators under mysterious circumstances in this country if necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#...
EDIT: and since I can no longer edit my original comment: *cite
Why wouldn't that be just as likely to happen to him while in exile once public attention has waned?
People dying in car accidents are a thing that happen with a much higher probability than winning the lottery, so maybe this is nature imitating art more than anything else.
Burn it all and start over, I say :)