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from the government-overreach-at-its-finest dept.
The National Security Agency, while primarily occupied by sweeping up billions of phone calls, emails, texts and social media messages each day, wants better visual information about the earth and its residents, too, Admiral Michael Rogers said Wednesday.
"Signals intelligence ... ain't enough, you guys," the NSA chief told a gathering of contractors in the geospatial intelligence business. "We gotta create a much broader picture."
We need "the ability to visualize," he explained, because "man is fundamentally a visual creature."
Rogers, who also heads the Pentagon's United States Cyber Command, spent much of his keynote speech at the GEOINT 2015 conference pitching the technology, intelligence and defense companies in the audience on the importance of working together. The conference's slogan — appropriate, given the government's ever-growing demands — is "open the aperture."
"It's all about partnerships," Rogers told the audience. "How can we harness the power of the commercial sector?"
In how many other ways could the Director of the NSA gain a new perspective on the world?
Original Submission
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @04:30PM
Every fucking one of you is the reason this is happening, the NSA is a construct of your xenophobia and apathy.
This fake internet outrage whenever its brought up by people contributing to the problem disgusts me. Every single one of you is the god damn cause of it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @06:05PM
Every fucking one of you is the reason this is happening, the NSA is a construct of your xenophobia and apathy.
This fake internet outrage whenever its brought up by people contributing to the problem disgusts me. Every single one of you is the god damn cause of it.
I don't disagree with you, but I am curious what you suggest we do.
There is no political opposition with anything resembling influence. In California, the two wings (right-wing and far-right-wing) of the bought and payed for, pro-surveillance, pro-police state, corporate party passed a law that third parties and independents would not show up on the ballot. Voting Democrat or Republican will never change anything, and it isn't even possible to vote for anything else in California state races (maybe other states too). The far-right wing of the corporate party has engaged in a nation-wide campaign of disenfranchisement of the poor, so millions of poor people cannot vote or when they do, their votes are not counted. So, political change by itself is ruled out.
There is not critical mass for a revolution.
Small scale opposition just brings the hammer down on those individuals who act in any kind of opposition.
Every peace, civil rights, etc. organization in the US is infiltrated by government spys (Really. Sadly not tin foil hat stuff).
"Protests" in the form of non-confrontational marches and twitter campaigns are about as effective as wanking off.
Every time criminality at the top is exposed, it is swept under the rug, or made retroactively legal. While the smallest protest, can lead to life in prison under a terrorism enhancement-- e.g., a man burned two SUVs on a car lot. The charge for arson carried a maximum 2yr. sentence. But, because he said he was doing it to call attention to ecological issues, he was charged with terrorism. He was sentenced to life, and most of that (many years so far) has been spent in solitary.
The US has more people imprisoned than any other nation in the history of the planet (both in absolute numbers, and per-capita). The extent of our prison system makes the Soviet Gulag look insignificant. We have never hesitated to imprison political prisoners.
The US has a massive military machine that has on several occasions, over the last hundred and fifty years, been called out against the population when the rulers were afraid that critical mass was close to being achieved. Sadly, those military men have always been willing to commit the worst treachery and fire against their brothers because they are "following orders". And, no those NRA idiots are not even a tiny bit of friction to this, even if the NRA was about protecting citizens from government rather than protecting white racists from armed blacks their little guns are no match to the weaponry our military can bring to bear against Americans (yeah NRA has, historically, been pro gun control, as long as it disarms blacks and not whites-- really.).
Hell, our current president ordered the summary execution of an American citizen and his son because of the speech of the father. There were no repercussions to the president (of course, our rich parasite class is responsible for the murders of millions around the globe without any accountability it is not my intent to minimize this horror by pointing out the summary execution of American citizens)
So, what are your concrete suggestions?
Personally I think we are close to a guerrilla war being the only option, but I doubt there would be enough support today for even that to be viable/sustainable.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @07:00PM
Voters are getting what they want. Democracy at work.
Meanwhile the rest are getting what they want too. TPP, more spying on everyone, more monopolies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @07:19PM
Every fucking one of you is the reason this is happening, the NSA is a construct of your xenophobia and apathy.
Xenophobia? Mass surveillance is being conducted domestically as well. Apathy? For most people that is true, not everyone.
You're using a hasty generalization. Maybe you should rely less on logical fallacies. Some people protest, vote accordingly, and donate to organizations that will fight mass surveillance (EFF, ACLU, etc.). It's like you're blaming individual people for not being able to single-handedly change everyone else's minds, but that same logic would apply to you and whatever horrendous nonsense is happening in your country.
This fake internet outrage
In what way is it fake?
Every single one of you is the god damn cause of it.
Then you are also responsible for whatever mass surveillance or unethical spying is happening in your country, if it exists (and it likely does). France, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, and others all have all sorts of issues that need to be fixed relating to the security state. It doesn't matter which country's spying is the most bad; your logical applies to all. Therefore, no matter how much you protest or oppose some policy and no matter how much you vote for candidates who oppose bad policies, you're still responsible somehow. Amazing logic, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2015, @09:14PM
How can racism and bigotry continually be upmodded here? Seriously, if this was said about any other large heterogeneous group it would be blasted as hate speech but since it is against the US it is applauded without a first rational thought let alone a second. This is really one of the reasons why people come here from other news aggregators, get one look then back away to never return.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 28 2015, @10:45PM
This is really one of the reasons why people come here from other news aggregators, get one look then back away to never return.
Because you never see irrational nonsense elsewhere?
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday June 29 2015, @12:42AM
No, but the smell of feet sticks out a lot more here than most other places, if you catch my drift.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @02:39AM
To what bigotry and racism are you referring? And racism and bigotry are aimed at homogenous groups (blacks, jews, Muslims, etc) by definition. Are you really saying that Americans are to blame for the problems in America is the same as somebody saying that all niggers should be shipped back to Africa, or that all Muslims should be executed, or that all women belong in the kitchen?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @07:10AM
No I am saying all Americans are at fault for something is like saying all Jews are greedy-note that they are not homogenous, nor are Africans, nor are Muslims. Defend it all you want but you are a bigot, hell just continuing to defend this filth is what defines you as a bigot.