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Two articles have been received regarding the NSA and its activities:
NSA chief knew of Snowden file destruction by Guardian in UK
Surprising absolutely no one, the Guardian reports that Keith Alexander was fully briefed and supportive of the GCHQ's plan to destroy Snowden-related computers at the Guardian's offices in London.
The revelation that Alexander and Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, were advised on the Guardian's destruction of several hard disks and laptops contrasts markedly with public White House statements that distanced the US from the decision.
White House and NSA emails obtained by Associated Press under freedom of information legislation demonstrate how pleased Alexander and his colleagues were with the developments. At times the correspondence takes a celebratory tone, with one official describing the anticipated destruction as "good news".
A Compromise with the NSA
"The NSA wants to know everything we do? Fine, but only if We the People see everything the NSA does. The real problem with the current mass surveillance is asymmetry."
Now we all know that the NSA is not going to open its doors and reveal its secrets - that would be foolhardy in the extreme and seriously endanger the US and its citizens. And despite the sincerely-held views of many of our members and others elsewhere, from the outside there doesn't appear to be anything like a groundswell of dissent in the US regarding Snowden's revelations about the NSA's activities.
However, perhaps by being a little more open it might begin to win back the trust of those who currently doubt that the NSA is working in their interests. What would it take for you to be convinced that the NSA was under control and acting in the best interests of every US citizen, and not just the interests of a small number who appear to use it to cling to power? What amount of spying on allies and partners would be acceptable while remembering that each time such activity is discovered it weakens the trust of the ally and can have serious repercussions for US business? Would clearly stating which terrorist plots had been thwarted by intelligence gathered, in part at least, by the NSA be enough? Or have we already passed the point of no return?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 12 2014, @11:07PM
Years ago, watching American news, you'd think America had an epidemic of Black kids beating up White kids because that's what briefly got a disproportionate share of airtime on American mainstream news.
The current state of mainstream American news is that of a politically-manipulated tabloid at best and entertainment at worst. American intelligence learned the hard way what difference honest news could make back in the Vietnam days. Almost exactly a year ago, the Pentagon admitted that they lost again their control of the media, this time to independent media (the Drudge Report was mentioned specifically, but Drudge is only an aggregator of independent media).
I know it's fun to make fun of Americans as being violent thugs (as an American I tend to agree with that sentiment, especially now), but gun ownership itself isn't a bad thing -- ask Switzerland. Gun violence is symptomatic of a larger problem, and unfortunately will probably increase as things get worse in America...and of course it will be blamed by scared plutocrats in government and their obedient lapdogs in the American media.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @02:29AM
> I know it's fun to make fun of Americans as being violent thugs but gun ownership itself isn't a bad thing -- ask Switzerland
The overwhelming majority of gun deaths in america involve handguns. Switzerland's deal is about rifles which also come with 18 weeks of training and seven 3-week re-training sessions over the next 10 years. Ammunition is kept in a government arsenal, not at home with the weapon.
Furthermore, half of american gun deaths are suicides. That's roughly 14,000 people. Gun suicides are predominately an issue of opportunity, some gets really worked up and impulsively kills themselves. The time it takes to find another means of suicide is more often then not enough time to reconsider. For every 1% decrease in household gun ownership there is a 0.5-0.9% net decrease in all forms of suicide. [slate.com] No matter your position on responsible gun ownership, those numbers pretty clearly indicate a bad thing is going on.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:20AM
Are you calling this Swiss government-issued small-arm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_P220
a rifle??!?!?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:32AM
Well, there's no need to follow that link, as it's clearly going to be bogus. "Cause" is a very strong word.
Imagine the scenario where those with a slightly unstable disposition, and who will be more likely suicide threats, feel a greater need to own guns. I.e. being suicidal *causes* higher gun ownership.
Such a scenario would be statistically indistinguishable from a "gun ownership actually causes higher suicide rates" scenario, and I'm pretty sure both conclusions are equally derivable from the statistics in that so-called study.
And note, I am *not* saying that gun ownership *doesn't* cause higher suicide rates by the above comment. I'm simply highlighting that oh-so-often "shows" should just read nothing stronger than "supports", and in the absence of both falsifiability and subsequent attempts at falsification provides no certainty at all.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Sunday July 13 2014, @02:47AM
no, its not, the lack of adequate training and responsibility is a very bad thing though. people who leave loaded weapons lying around in areas where their children play are especially bad, but my biggest pet peeve will always be muzzle control - do not point your weapon at anything you don't plan on shooting, it doesn't matter if you think its unloaded, i'm not willing to bet my life on your bad judgement; it also needs to be drilled into people that the first thing you should do any time you pick up a weapon is check the chamber, and thats just basic safety stuff.
this is why i choose to interpret the 2nd amendment to require militia participation (which is what it says), to ensure all firearms owners are adequately trained. speaking of the 2nd, i really want to propose amending it, changing it to remove the militia wording since thats the cause of so many disagreements. if militia participation has nothing to do with it, why is it mentioned? lets amend it and remove the awkward, unclear wording and make it clear. i have a feeling that the NRA and other groups dont want to do this though, because if the people didn't vote for the amendment to remove the unclear wording, militia participation would be a requirement for firearms ownership, and thats a gamble they don't want to make. and dont say "oh the supreme court already decided it" because thats just usurping authority from the people, where it belongs. it should've been decided by the people from the start; anybody who doesn't want the people deciding is scared that the result wont be what they want, and probably knows they're using a faulty interpretation and feel guilty about it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:06AM
It's what it weakly implies. The use of an ablative (others call it nominitive, but I learnt latin, so it's ablative to me) absolute construct is a rhetorical (poetic, even) device which has no place in modern day law-making.
Modern day American English does support your assertion more strongly - for example, this "authoritative" text from 1996:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080728061355/http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/001.html
But you'll notice that that is an authoritative text about *contemporary* English, and hence does not apply to #2.
For plenty of words of strong agreement with the rest of your post, see my reply to Ethanol-Fueled's.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 13 2014, @09:55AM
And yet despite that positivity in one context, I'm very anti second-amendment. Shock horror! I said it! It needs rewording, that's all. Nobody in their right mind can agree with a 100% literal interpretation of it. "Terrorists going about their dastardly plots" is a subset of "people", for a start. I disagree with almost all of the argumentation about it historically (OK, I'm only familiar with the stuff that's bubbled up to SCOTUS, and I've not yet caught up with the March changes yet, that will be some evening reading when I get some time), because everyone is too frightened to say "it needs rewording", and instead applies some twisted logic to squeeze their argument to fit the wording, or the interpretation of the wording to fit their argument. And this works both ways, both the pro-gun conclusions and the pro-control conclusions - all conclusions have been arrived at using, at least in part, flawed premises, and even if the conclusions are (morally) "right"[*], as a pure mathematician at heart I view the justification of the conclusion to be unsound. And that is why there's never-ending debate over this. Of course every step in one direction will be countered 10 years later by a step in the other direction - precisely because nothing is unassailable (apart from, apparently, the quirky not-modern-english wording of the amendment text itself). And before you (collectively) stew and steam and ask why do I, an outsider, think I have useful insights into this topic - it's *because* I am an outsider, I have *absolutely* no skin in the game.
(Oh, if anyone has a list of the dozen or so pre-signing revisions and rewordings, please post it. Someone posted it about a year ago, and I forgot to take a copy. It's a really enlightening insight into the worries, agendas, biases, and what-have-you of the signatories, as wordings were tweaked, and clauses were added and removed. It may have come up in the context of Heller (one of the *logically* sounder decisions, IMHO), but I can't find it at Cornell. Cheers.)
[* I am a staunch moral relativist, do not attempt to read any meaning into me making reference to something being morally right, I simply had to use those terms as those are the terms that others like to apply. Hence the quote marks, but I don't think the implications of that markup are clear enough, hence this disclaimer.]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves