Angry Jesus writes:
"German language magazine 'Bild am Sonntag' reports that, in response to Obama's recent order to stop spying on Angela Merkel and other heads of 'friendly' states, the NSA has instead ramped up spying on everybody Merkel communicates with. Cory Doctorow points out that this action demonstrates that the NSA is out of control and deliberately disobeying a presidential order with a level of duplicity worthy of a four year-old."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday February 25 2014, @06:26AM
With such friends, who needs enemies?
No wonder when other countries will start taking countermeasures to get around NSA and, unfortunately, the US as a whole will suffer some consequences.
It already started (submission still in the editorial queue. Don't worry, I'm not alluding war, it's about just a piece of business no longer transiting US).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by evilcam on Tuesday February 25 2014, @07:09AM
The really sad part, the really, truly depressing part of this story is not that it even happens but that the NSA Et Al. clearly don't even care. And best I can tell neither do most Americans.
Pretty well every story I read about the US just makes me shake my head :(
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:22AM
Quote: NSA Et Al. clearly don't even care. And best I can tell neither do most Americans.
You're dead wrong on that. I know several career Marine Corp officers who live by me who are pissed as hell.
Everybody I know is very cynical about the government in general. Any last remaining shred of trust is gone.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mrbluze on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:45AM
But the war machine rolls on regardless, be it the Middle East, or Eastern Europe, or the hidden wars on the African Continent. Will that stop?
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 1) by metamonkey on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:21PM
It's able to be slowed. Slightly. The MIC was all for dropping bombs on Syria, but public support was nil. I think polls showed only something like 9% support from the American public. Because of that level of opposition, the PTB stood down and let Russia solve the chemical weapons problem with diplomacy.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mcgrew on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:17PM
But the war machine rolls on regardless, be it the Middle East, or Eastern Europe, or the hidden wars on the African Continent. Will that stop?
The latest news is that the head of the defense department wants to cut the US military to pre-WWII levels. [washingtonpost.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Insightful) by evilcam on Tuesday February 25 2014, @12:17PM
I sincerely hope that is the case; we get the government we deserve and too much apathy only ever leads to people trying to baby everyone. When it happens at the super power level then you have a problem...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mojo chan on Tuesday February 25 2014, @12:42PM
Pissed as hell but still not doing much apparently. Where are the mass protests? Where are the political alternatives at the next election? You can make excuses about the powers that be crushing all dissent and maintaining the two party system, but that just means you failed to act when it would have been easier and are now required to take more extreme measures to protect your liberty.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Blackmoore on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:35PM
How can you protest? If you take a day off from work and show up to peacefully protest; you get tagged by the snoops, bagged from work (because the government told them you were up to no good), and end up homeless.
protesting won't get real until the majority of people are unemployed and starving.
until then they remain happy with bread and circuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:34AM
Corollary: If you remove the bread and circuses, the people will become unhappy.
Extension: If people are unhappy, they will protest meaningfully.
Extension #2: If people protest meaningfully, change can be effected.
(Score: 1) by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 25 2014, @05:51PM
That's a good sign then. The government will almost certainly try to use our troops against us and there needs to be significant doubt in the minds of US soldiers about the "rightness" of their leaders. When there is a ring of soldiers around the white house, we will need them to be facing inward, not outward.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 25 2014, @06:02PM
That very thing has been worrying me for quite a while.
Obama talks big while lecturing Ukraine, Venezuela, Egypt, and Tunisia about their treatment of protesters. Yet you know damn well if they start burning cars on Pennsylvanian avenue he will have snipers on the roof tops just like every despot.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Wednesday February 26 2014, @07:46AM
Doesn't seem a great stretch that such D/Rs can easily be convinced by their respective leaders to kill R/Ds "to save America" or whatever bullshit required.
Happens in other countries, just look at the news from time to time - part of the population starts going to war with the rest of the population, and all for no real good reason.
(Score: 2) by SMI on Wednesday February 26 2014, @10:22PM
"I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office."
- Milton Friedman
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nikker on Tuesday February 25 2014, @07:23AM
The public has always known about spy's. MI5 /007, Mission Impossible glamorized it and every nation has a similar agency. What we are seeing now is that the spy game in the USA is either falling apart as evidence of all their laundry being aired on a routine basis or this is all part of the plan. In the whole scheme of things can you ever effectively stop one person from trying to look over the shoulder of another? Not a chance. I think what you should really be worried about is that if all these leaks are legit then the US just has a really bad spy agency and should get it looked at quickly as possible.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by mcgrew on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:26PM
The public has always known about spy's.
Oh, no! Our first greengrocer! [wikipedia.org] On the vague hope that English is your second language, the internet is a terrible place to learn English. That apostrophe does not belong there. Why did you put it there?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jt on Tuesday February 25 2014, @07:24AM
Surely other nations are already attempting these countermeasures? I really hope our allies are already defending themselves; if we can attack our allies in this way, so can our enemies.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:31AM
That would be an utterly awful failure of imagination. Repeating one own's mistakes is bad enough, repeating others' mistakes is madness.
Yes, they constructively [soylentnews.org] are: making friends and good business partners makes for a better efficiency of effort expenditure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford