U.S. Lawmaker, Citing Snowden, Seeks Probe Into NSA Targeting of Congressional, Supreme Court Emails:
The acting intelligence community inspector general, Thomas Monheim, has been asked to investigate claims that Edward Snowden, while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency, was able to search a classified database for the private emails of a senior member of Congress.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, requested the investigation based on statements attributed to Snowden in a book by former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman released in May. Eshoo says that NSA Director Paul Nakasone dodged questions last month when asked whether NSA analysts have used a powerful surveillance tool to retrieve emails belonging to members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.
What's more, Nakasone did not address whether any technical safeguards exist to prevent analysts from accessing the emails of justices and officials without express legal permission.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @05:42PM (2 children)
From TFA:
It's a good thing I wore my Wellies today; that's a lot of horse manure.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday October 21 2020, @05:50PM (1 child)
I'm sure Mr. Snowden, and others before him who reported abuses and were "sidelined" would totally agree that the NSA has procedures for reporting abuses.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:38AM
Of course they have a procedure for reporting abuses. Of course no sane person would follow it. I imagine it goes something like this: You make a phone call, and a black van with guys in bellaclavas show up at your house a few minutes later.
Courts are for people who don't use black sites.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 21 2020, @05:48PM (84 children)
Doesn't the NSA have that authority in order to protect us from terrorists?
According to the PATRIOT Act, aren't there terrorists under every Bush ?!?!
The NSA may be properly investigating congressional and supreme court emails -- because OMG there could be terrorists in congress and the supreme court! OMG!!! We might need to torture some people!
I remember when the PATRIOT act was passed, as part of some evil Democratic, Satan-worshiping scheme, no doubt, how people argued that maybe we should not actually build the apparatus of a surveillance state. Because, while we (might) trust the people who are in power "today" (when PATRIOT was passed), we might not necessarily trust the people in charge of that apparatus tomorrow.
(CNN's completely one-sided government view of Snowden was why I quit watching CNN in 2013. CNN didn't even make a pretense at having any objectivity on this story.)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:10PM (76 children)
https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/patriot-act [history.com]
That statement grossly understates what the Patriot Act really was. The document altered hundreds of existing laws, explicitly editing laws to substitute verbiage more favorable to a surveillance state.
300 pages? It would take 3000 pages to begin to explain the reasons for despising the act, the people who voted for it, and the Homeland Security agency created by it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:24PM (75 children)
I'm curious what it is about your personal world view that makes you conservative. Mostly it sounds like FUD, and then you go around making posts like this.
What the hell? You should be supporting the "crazy leftists" like Sanders and AOC if you actually care about such issues, or you care about police brutality. Yet here you are, probably voting for Trump and definitely voting for conservatives who 100% will keep the Patriot Act going. Please, none of that "both sides" shit, any real progress attempted in the last 30 years has been stymied by Republican bullshit.
At least you vote for some libertarians, better than nothing I guess.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:40PM (43 children)
Oh, PLEASE. The Patriot Act was approved by both parties. I can't know how old you were at the time. For my part, I was a mature adult, and aware of all the controversy. I argued vehemently against the Patriot act, against the invasion of Iraq, against the detention camp at Gitmo, and more. I watched as closely as possible the insanity around Washington during the weeks and months after 9/11/01. Do you remember the Anthrax letters? The Beltway shooter? The overwhelming fear emanating from Washington? Rumor after unsubstantiated rumor of impending doomsday scenarios.
If you believe that the Patriot act was some kind of unilateral Republican thing - just please tell me that you DON'T believe that. The two years in Washington immediately after 9/11 should go a long way toward convincing you that the two parties are in collusion to advance the interests of The Ruling Class against the interests of all us peasants.
Hint: investigate, for yourself, how long it took for the act to be passed into law after 9/11. Don't take my word for it, do a few searches.
The act wasn't authored on the spur of the moment. It was prepared, then shelved, years prior, awaiting some convenient crisis that might justify it's passage. The authors, the House, the Senate, as well as the White House, were all prepared to move on the act, primed and ready, well in advance. All they needed was some kind of crisis to make the act more palatable to the public.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:56PM (6 children)
Yep, both the center-right to right Democrats and the right to far-right Republicans supported the Patriot Act. The only NO votes were the center to center-left Democrats which are a minority in the party, and the couple left Democrats. 100% of the Republican votes cast were pro authoritarianism.
Roll Number: 398
Yes: 357 No: 66
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/bill/votes/8289 [votesmart.org]
The right and far-right is still at it today, trying to take away your 4th amendment rights by attacking privacy protecting technologies like encryption.
Authoritarianism and right-wing ideology go hand in hand. "The research of Jost, Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) indicates that authoritarianism and right-wing authoritarianism are ideological constructs for social cognition, by which political conservatives view people who are the Other who is not the Self. That the authoritarian personality and the conservative personality share two, core traits: (i) resistance to change (social, political. economic), and (ii) justification for social inequality among the members of society. Conservatives have a psychological need to manage existential uncertainty and threats with situational motives (striving for dominance in social hierarchies) and with dispositional motives (self-esteem and the management of fear)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:12PM (3 children)
63 of those 66 NO votes were Democrats + Bernie Sanders (I).
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:27PM (2 children)
Hence "the center-right to right Democrats" in the original assessment.
It is true that 3 Republicans (Ron Paul being the most notable) voted against authoritarianism. They were far more a minority in their party than the left-wing opposition to authoritarianism was among the Democrats.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:08PM (1 child)
However, a few years later when Democrats controlled both houses and the Presidency they were happy to keep it going. I would venture that most of them were opposed to the Republicans having those powers, but when they are in charge it is fine.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:10PM
The "centrist" wing of the Democratic Party (led by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and now Barack Obama) has always been perfectly fine with the Patriot Act. And *all* of the Republican Party has been perfectly fine with it except for thinking it didn't go far enough.
The most significant opposition, by far, has consistently come from the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party (Bernie Sanders et al).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:35AM (1 child)
Counterpoint: Adam Schiff who somehow manages to be more dishonest than Clapper.
Also Antifa/BLM and left authoritarianism is a real thing. Authoritarianism knows no boundaries really -- it just needs people who feel superior and who cling uncritically and unquestioningly to an ideology, to spread its wings and fly,
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:17PM
Are we conflating ideocracy with idiocracy?
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:36PM (1 child)
Oh look, Runaway being a fucking tribal moron. Shocker!!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:44PM
You seem to be the tribal. Runaway seems to be rejecting membership in either tribe.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @12:42AM (32 children)
:-) Giving Afghanistan a pass?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @12:50AM (31 children)
For your benefit, my position on Afghanistan was, we were justified in a punitive expedition against them. They thumbed their noses at us when we were hurting, we should have gone in, kicked ass, got Osama, then got the fuck out. I believe that I've stated my position on Afghanistan a few times here on Soylent.
A quarter century occupation was unjustified. Blowing shit up for six months was justified.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:04AM (25 children)
Bullshit... If you really believe that, then everything else you say on the matter, Iraq, Gitmo, all of it, is bullshit also
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:24AM (19 children)
The Taliban was harboring Osama. Yes, I believe we were justified in going in to get Osama. No, that doesn't make bullshit of my other positions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:45AM (1 child)
s/going to get/thaw him out/
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:19PM
Pattern not found.
You'll have to reformulate the s command.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:46AM
You don't know where Osama was, or even what he did, or who hired him. Your whole take is based on one side's very biased hearsay. You have nothing else. And yes, if you try to justify Afghanistan, then your whole take is bullshit. It's the very root, a damn movie [wikipedia.org] about Tony Blair and Wendi Deng. More likely it was was an Opium War. Sad to see you carry on with this crap. Until that lie is dealt with, we will remain stagnant.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 22 2020, @02:06AM (15 children)
The Taliban were quite happy to hand Osama over. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @04:06AM (13 children)
That is correct. Osama's ass didn't belong to the Taliban, it belonged to us, the United States.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:07AM (10 children)
That's so stupid, drunken redneck bellowing. Bullshit made up lies for pure expediency. An official conspiracy theory. You don't know who paid the man, or even if it was him. Like your RussiaGate, where's the evidence? Why aren't we allowed to cross examine it? From the very beginning you questioned nothing, no, you wouldn't dare! Must stand behind the president no matter what... You just consumed spoon fed bullshit and spit it out
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:57AM (9 children)
Yeah, whatever. Except bin Laden took responsibility for the attack.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=osama+bin+laden+claim+responsibility+for+twin+tower+attack&atb=v233-1&ia=web [duckduckgo.com]
Pick your source, I'm not going to tell you which one to read. The claim is more than credible enough for me. It was never credible that Iraq had any part in the attack, but Osama claiming responsibility is credible. You may question that credibility if you like, but the harder you argue, the less credible you sound.
I'm amused by the hit that claims Osama was dead of renal failure before we even invaded Afghanistan. The same claim was made repeatedly at different times afterward as well. He must have died at least 12 different times of renal failure, but he kept coming back to make new videos mocking the US. We had to put a couple of bullets into him before his final renal failure stuck.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @02:53PM (8 children)
Yeah, yeah, your fuzzy home made videos (just like that movie, damn near word for word) confirm everything you want confirmed. Please, don't be a sucker!
Why? What utter nonsense, just more bullshit. You have absolutely nothing but tabloid press to print what you wanted to see. And here, you are doing what is called "appeal to authority". You base "truth" on the source.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:21PM (7 children)
Didn't I ask you above to pick your own source? FFS man, pick your own source. Do what you want to do. Deny all the evidence, or accept all the evidence, pick and choose.
I've stated that I am satisfied that Osama masterminded and/or facilitated the attack on the WTC. That leaves you free to subscribe to any conspiracy theory you care to subscribe to. You are even free to believe that the CIA bombed the towers after they failed to fall down for Osama's people.
I'll just go along with Occam. I witnessed the disaster on television. I read of the disaster in many newspaper articles. I witnessed in person that the towers were missing from the New York skyline late in the day, after it was announced that the towers had fallen. By way of many different channels, Osama claimed that the towers fell because he sent people to knock them down. That's good enough for me.
Now, go in peace, and believe whatever the hell you want to believe.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:31PM (6 children)
Until all the "evidence" can be publicly cross examined, you know nothing. The war in Afghanistan is a criminal act, where people should be punished, an act of war where the US/allies are the aggressor and tyrant and mass murderer, every bit bit as much as attacking Iraq. And that's a fact, Jack!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:06PM (5 children)
Alright, I'm officially bored.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:09PM (4 children)
Well, yeah, facts are boring. You prefer the theater and a hero to identify with
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:17PM (3 children)
More boredom. And, no, you can't claim that your speculation is some kind of "fact". If I allow that shit, I'll have to take that cuckold race theory more seriously.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:07PM (2 children)
Whatever, anybody who tries to justify the Afghan invasion is a war mongering asshole.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:43PM (1 child)
As opposed to a pacifist asshole?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @08:13PM
Whatever, anything you say about our wars is complete bullshit while you try to justify this one, absolutely bogus...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 22 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
If the US had really wanted revenge for 9/11 they would have invaded Saudi Arabia, not two countries that had nothing to do with it at all.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday October 23 2020, @05:05PM
That's right. They invaded Afghanistan to reopen a centuries old pipeline, before there was gas and oil... Nobody wants to acknowledge it was business
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:39AM
What makes any of it believable? Why is everything so easily accepted at face value? Is it for the source?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:37AM (4 children)
Something should have been done about the Taliban when they destroyed ancient artwork. The point where a political group is destroying art or burning books, is the point you know it is made up of ultimate assholes upon which ANYTHING should be fair game.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:39PM (2 children)
Hmm, BLM, Antifa, and other left-wing activists are tearing down statues, even those of abolitionists and people like Lincoln who emancipated the slaves. They are cancelling people whose opinions they don't like, which is a digital version of book burning.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @04:27PM
Statues aren't real people d00d.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:30PM
And burning actual books to boot: https://www.newsweek.com/warning-smoldering-bible-portland-opinion-1522533 [newsweek.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:03PM
All that needed to be done was cut off the financing. You know the routine. Find the source. Might be a bit too close for comfort.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:10AM
And furthermore...
Barbara Lee was the lone hero in all of congress to say "no" to that bullshit. One person... At least we had one...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:41PM (3 children)
So, just to be clear, because the Taliban thumbed their noses at the US, in your mind we were right to attack the very people the Taliban were oppressing. Butchering families at a wedding is fine by you because their government (who there's no evidence these civilians supported) said no to George W Bush.
As opposed to what the US could have done:
1. Send in / recruit more spies than were already there.
2. Find out, for certain, where Osama bin Laden was. For example, for most of the time we were fighting in Afghanistan, he wasn't even in Afghanistan.
3. Have a concentrated and absolutely overwhelming military strike on that location. If he's alone in a house somewhere, a small commando raid would do it. If he's surrounded by a few thousand guys, send in 15,000. Go in, take care of business, leave with any captured people.
4. Any captured individuals, including Osama bin Laden, get put in cells and interrogated, so you can learn as much as possible about what they know about Al Qaida's activities. Properly, which means you don't torture them, because that doesn't actually work to get useful intel.
Of course, that would assume that the purpose of the "War on Terror (tm)" was to prevent terrorism. If the actual goals involved control of Afghanistan's resources, approval of oil pipelines, war profiteering, killing people because they pray differently, or just plain killing people for the fun of it, then what we actually did makes some sense.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 22 2020, @06:05PM (1 child)
That's a helluva reach. At the point in time under discussion, droning wasn't a thing. That came later, after the US occupied two nations. Droning seems to be a result of having occupied those nations, and then learning that we can't act freely inside of those nations. Kinda like the English Empire, when a fleet of ships in a harbor could impose the queen's will, but a spy in the outback might be strung up and used for target practice.
A punitive expedition, executed in accordance with our rules of war and the Geneva conventions wouldn't have seen droning.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @09:05PM
You're right, they wouldn't have used drones. They would have used bombs, missiles, and artillery in addition to infantry, all of which also kill people who happen to be near the target, who may or may not have anything to do with the bad guys, completely without warning. And the US military members don't even have to do that on purpose.
That's what war does. Oh, and punitive expeditions are not in fact allowed under the Geneva Conventions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:19PM
There has been no questioning the War on Terror™. One single congress person said "NO!" from the very start. The entire thing is bogus power grabbing, and yes, it is for profit, an opium war as much as it is for other resources. When the Taliban cut off the supply, that is when we invaded and reopened the pipeline [bbc.co.uk] like nothing ever happened. All the blustering over Bin Laden was to cover up domestic/financial corruption and stop the whining about the "stolen" election. Worked like a charm. Any wonder how a guy like Trump can become president?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:43PM
The votes for the "Patriot Act" consisted of two groups, those who had long supported increased government surveillance, and those who, in the manipulated national mood in the aftermath of 9/11, realized that a no vote a) would not matter and b) would be used harshly against them in future elections. Witness the political ads successfully used against Russ Feingold, the lone senator to vote against the Patriot Act, in his next senatorial campaign.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:43PM (25 children)
Or crazy libertarians like say Rand Paul. I favor the libertarians because they oppose abuses of government without creating more such problems (such as the massive multi-trillion dollar programs proposed by both Sanders and AOC).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:06PM (22 children)
I'd like you to rank these 4 activities on the scale of most-to-least-infringing on liberty as you see it:
1. Spending 20 years and an unknown but probably large amount of public money setting up a system of spying on every single US citizen and foreigner they can get information on, along with lots of other illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of the activities of law-abiding citizens.
2. Grabbing citizens off the street and refusing to release them until they both allow a search of any electronics they have and sign away their freedom to take part in political protests, all with zero evidence that they have engaged in criminal activity.
3. Raising taxes and/or imposing a new tax on a transaction that is already a matter of effectively public record.
4. Having the faceless giant bureaucracy who controls some aspect of your life run by the government rather than by a private company who either has no competitors or has competitors that have what amount to the same policies as the one you chose.
Because my impression from a lot of self-professed libertarians is that they're a lot less uncomfortable with 1 and 2 than they are with 3 and 4. Especially if they believe 1 and 2 are directed at people other than themselves.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:32PM (7 children)
[...]
So I rank these four items, and if I don't agree with you that they are all exactly equally bad, then what? Sounds like you're insinuating that I'm somehow hypocritical.
So sounds to me like there's no point to the exercise.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @12:49AM (6 children)
The point of the exercise is: If you have to choose between politician A (who supports 1 and 2 but opposes 3 and 4), politician B (who supports 2 and 3 but opposes 1 and 4), and politician C (who supports 3 and 4 and opposes 1 and 2), who do you vote for as the least-bad option? Who is least-bad matters, because you probably aren't going to get "good" among the candidates.
And no, I don't think they're all equally bad. I think that's too simple an answer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:27AM
The republican takes "A", the democrat takes "B", to minimize the rioting...
That leaves less than 5% for "C"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 22 2020, @02:09AM (4 children)
What's the point of that scenario? If you have to choose, then you have to choose. But we don't have to so choose. Rand Paul has opposed every single one of those points, not just a pair of them. Meanwhile Sanders and AOC are notoriously weak on points 3 and 4. I'd rather go with someone who does it all.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:45PM (3 children)
The reason, which should be obvious, is that Rand Paul can run for exactly 1 office at a time. And Rand Paul might not even make recommendations or endorsements for all the offices you have to vote on. So even if you slavishly agree with absolutely everything Rand Paul has ever said or done, that still doesn't mean you know how to vote for all offices.
And that's true regardless of which politician you like the most.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:10PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @07:55PM (1 child)
The point is, you sometimes have to choose, as you've conceded, and you've refused to describe any criteria on how you do so other than "Rand Paul is awesome."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 23 2020, @01:01AM
I think you'll need to figure things out first: 1) You provided four such criteria, 2) then indicated that my relative weighting of these was far more important than the criteria themselves (protip: that is nonsense), 3) then reduced my observation, that Rand Paul satisfies all four of your criteria while your favored sons, Sanders and AOC do not, to "Rand Paul is awesome", and 4) you keep referring to some point behind all this and never get around to it. On that last item, I've repeatedly asked what the point of all this was. Your response has changed quite a bit over time.
That was where I noted that Rand Paul checked off all four of your criteria and one didn't have to choose between politicians who only back two out of four.
Because Rand Paul is unique and we can't possibly obtain a second politician who will back all four criteria? I presented Paul as a counterexample to the implicit assumption that we can't have it all.
And sometimes you don't have to choose, as Rand Paul demonstrated. I get that there are occasionally trade offs. I don't get that these trade offs are supposedly more important than the criteria you presented.
Finally, keep in mind that you started by impugning self-professed libertarians with an appeal to hypocrisy fallacy:
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:58PM (13 children)
Get fucked Antifa. You aren't political protestors, you are enemy combatants, and your "Antifa is just an idea" bullshit is third-grade logic used by a shit kid trying to hustle an extra cookie from mom and dad. If a protest turns violent and you are not running away from it or recording it as an independent journalist, then you are a rioter terrorist Jew Bolshevik scumbag. When Trump is re-elected, there could possibly be in hypotherical scenarios in the video game of Minecraft a lot of violent rabblerousers waging losing battles with virtual bullets and virtual moving vehicles, because the actual public hates Antifa more than the police do. And your Jewish "donors" are going to get their assholes gaped with RICO charges. And all the ones here have New Jersey plates and are filthy dingy Jews so that makes them even easier to identify.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @10:07PM (5 children)
Still haven't figured out the real reason you were fired from your defense contractor job? Oh, Ethanol! You poor racist sap!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 21 2020, @11:20PM (4 children)
The racism can't have helped, but I suspect whatever mental illness he suffers from was probably the last straw.
If someone won't get help they become very hard to live with.
(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday October 21 2020, @11:39PM (3 children)
That's the exact same thing the NSA's shrinks told the workers who submitted IG complaints about unlawful activity, before the complainants were stripped of their access and their desks moved to utility closets. Hence, Snowden and Binney. And I will relate that on-topic comment to my previous one stating that the M.O. of the Jew Bolshevik is abusing the mental health system to detain political opponents ("Take your meds, schizo!"). But then again, Jews are ridiculously predictable like that due to their arrogance.
Of course I don't say those kind of things at work, but then again I don't believe in bullshitting science for Jews and Chinese who think they own the monopoly on the word "science" because they stick those rainbow signs of text in their yard which say "science is real." Well, I'm not sure that believing in 50 different genders or saying that race and gender are imaginary constructs while fomenting racial violence, or solving climate change by overpopulating the planet so Jews can make a few more pennies, is "science," but hey -- let 'em have their 2 weeks of hope before they are destroyed in the next election. If I am not banned before then, I will be back to gloat.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:58AM (2 children)
OK, but what about the Mexicans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @02:54AM
I like tacos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @09:50AM
And the Jews in the IG's office, that had a thing against EF, since he is a self-admitted anti-semitic Nazi piece of shit? And he got fired over "international politics", for which he was just the fall guy? Ha! Good luck ever finding another job, you racist asshole. Soylentils get the word around. You, not being too smart, left way too wide of a trail of crumbs.
Probably, actually, fired for incompetence, given the mental acuity you display around here.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @12:54AM (6 children)
It doesn't matter what somebody's politics are: No crime either committed or planned for, no government action allowed by law. Period. Unless you're arguing that the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments should be repealed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:22AM (4 children)
One Could argue that wanton destruction of property and wholesale disturbance of the peace are not "not-crimes." Funny how progressives are starting to care about the constitution all of a sudden, I thought it was just an antiquated document written by obsolete privileged White men. The first amendment is boss as fuck but I'm really liking that second amendment as well. And both will be much more respected in the wake of the following election.
Gee, I wonder where "progressives" learned the concept of pilpul? Of accusing your enemy of your own misdeeds? Of inventing calamities-for-profit?
(Score: 1, Troll) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:51AM
You are mistaken. Democrats DO want to get rid of the Constitution. https://newrepublic.com/article/159823/constitution-crisis-supreme-court [newrepublic.com]
How can you ensure complete and total compliance with our pure and righteous betters? Remove all hope of protection for freedom of thought. That's frankly more terrifying than GWB was, and I once thought he was the pinnacle asshole -- before we had Obama of course -- Obama had a star chamber death squad where he selected people for death based on their youtube content, but nobody wants to remember that. Tarnishes the hagiography. Anyway, when totalitarianism comes to America it will ride an ass.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:12PM (1 child)
We know for a fact that the federal agents in question had absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the people they had grabbed off the street had committed either vandalism or any minor misdemeanor. We know that because if they had had that evidence, they would have arrested and jailed the people in question, instead of grabbing them off the street without giving any of the Miranda warnings or any explanation as to the charges against them, holding them without charging them with anything, and then letting them go.
But by your standards, the government was being lenient because they didn't just attack the protesters with machine guns, right?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @06:09PM
As someone who has been arrested many times, Miranda rights are never read or explained, and you'll be laughed out of court if you try to pull that shit.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:20PM
Um, cui bono?
Didn't know you were into the theatre. All this shit has "official" origins. Who else but the politburo can benefit from it? The punks that follow along are just stupid, but very useful
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:52AM
Well the patriot act pretty well took out the 4th. My guess is when congress told the feds they could tap 10% of all communications, they probably took that to mean circuits. Which is to say they probably don't distinguish between a phone line and an OC-192. Which means that 10% coverage of the right pipes, is probably 90% coverage of the country. Not that it matters since data isn't considered communications under wiretap laws, and is therefore free reign to all the pet fascists that are being cultivated in the intelligence sectors.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @10:09PM (1 child)
Rand Paul is libertarian like Scalia was a "textualist." Those are terms they used to justify their decisions, but they easily abandoned when convenient. Paul is perfectly happy blowing up the budget and deficit when a Republican is in office, as well as doing things like starting trade wars with protectionist policies. He's had 3.5 years of acting almost entirely un-libertarian supporting almost everything Trump wanted to do. Scalia, for example, invoked the equal protection clause when it suited him (invoking it with no precedent in case law or history, to stop the recount in Bush v. Gore), and ignored it when it didn't suit him (hey, the 14th Amendment didn't explicitly say equality for gays and women).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday October 21 2020, @11:58PM
For example for Rand Paul, I see multiple votes [ballotpedia.org] against spending in the last few years. There are 14 nay votes against various appropriation votes. He has repeatedly opposed renewal of the PATRIOT Act. He supports gun ownership and legalization of hemp as a recreational drug. Sounds like he walks the walk even in the era of Trump.
The equal protection clause in Bush v. Gore was valid. And you admit that the 14th Amendment doesn't support your interpretation of equality for gays and women. Not seeing actual evidence to support your claim here.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:32PM (2 children)
Runaway is not very smart. No cognitive dissonance in his head! He is pro-freedom, and anti-abortion (slavery of women); he is anti-survelliance, but also despises the whistle blower, Chelsea Manning; he is anti-antifa, but pro-militia violence. None of it has to make sense for him, because he is not intelligent enough to realize that his "opinions" contradict each other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:39PM (1 child)
Could just generalize Runaway Republican
Saves time
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @09:52AM
Noted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:57PM (1 child)
Not OP, but I can contribute.
I'm not conservative. I am pro-choice, pro-everything legalization, anti-war, think military spending should be cut in half, and willing to listen to options for collective healthcare and subsidized postsecondary education.
Why do I vote conservative? The democrats have pursued a continuous and relentless attack on gun rights for the last 8 decades, and I refuse to bow to it.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday October 22 2020, @08:07PM
Most of the "continuous and relentless attack on gun rights" has just been the right wing media pumping up hysteria about the issue. The few lone comments about it by politicians here and there get little support and have no chance in passing.
It amazes me the importance some now place on guns. Do they really fear that the US will become such a hyper violent place that carrying a gun becomes necessary for personal safety? Or that the government will become so oppressive that one will need a gun to revolt? Neither of those options represent a nation that is a acceptable place to live, but it seems to me that continually voting conservative seems to draw us closer to both of those extremes. I don't see any problem with owning guns for hunting or target shooting or even just collecting them, but when people start carrying rifles into stores while they shop it crosses over the line to a mental aberration. If you are carrying a gun around without a specific purpose, sooner or later you are going to mentally create a purpose to be carrying it, and most likely it will not end well.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 21 2020, @06:30PM (4 children)
The NSA has no legal authority at all to investigate domestic activities, e.g. they aren't supposed to be able to monitor communications between a US citizen in New York and a US citizen in Chicago. That is supposed to fall under the FBI's purview, and the FBI is supposed to have probable cause and a warrant when they conduct electronic surveillance on an American citizen.
Of course, there are ways around that: For instance, if you or the people you're communicating with are using GMail, and Google allows the FBI to read everybody's email (which they probably do), then the FBI can now read your emails without a warrant, although theoretically the NSA is still not supposed to be able to see it.
Of course, by the numbers, it wasn't the Democrats who did this, it was a bipartisan effort which made it way more dangerous. 1 Democratic senator, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against it. 66 House members opposed it, mostly Democrats (the Congressional Progressive Caucus led by Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers, and Elijah Cummings) but also 3 Republicans (Ron Paul being the most notable) and then-independent Bernie Sanders. And George W Bush and his administration were quite proud of it.
This wasn't *just* about the Patriot Act though: The real push came in 2003 when the Bush administration put John Poindexter (who a decade earlier had been tried and convicted of a bunch of crimes related to Iran-Contra) in charge of the "Total Information Awareness" project, which aimed to scoop up and analyze absolutely everybody's Internet activity. Congress defunded it in late 2003, so the three-letter agencies just changed its name and continued doing what they were doing, and there is now a giant data center in Utah storing significant information about every person on the planet with Internet access. Most likely including this comment you are currently reading.
Of course, if you know anything about the histories of the three-letter agencies, you know totalitarianism has been their goal pretty much since WW II.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:09PM (2 children)
Of course, Facebook, Twitter, Google and others are probably doing that too. And people volunteer to have their information stored.
No doubt the government is able to make use of this privately stored data either with or without the knowledge or permission of those private companies.
Google was shocked to learn, from Snowden revelations, that NSA tapped Google private lines between Google data centers for juicy info.
At an earlier point in history I would have thought they felt a duty to protect our way of life. Now it is much clearer that this insidious machinery can be politically co-opted. Imagine if we had someone smarter than Trump and Sons who understood some of the apparatus they could manipulate.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 21 2020, @08:25PM
Then you are ignorant as to their real history. Read up on J Edgar Hoover, the findings of the Church Committee, and the Nazi influence and membership in the CIA in particular. These agencies have never been politically neutral, nor have they been particularly concerned about "our way of life".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday October 21 2020, @09:15PM
I am having some personal difficulties and need to sell a bridge I own in Boston. It is in very good condition and is in a prime location. Would you like to buy it?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:47PM
I would like to point out, for no reason at all, that that giant data center in Utah was not able to become operational until they worked out a deal with the nearby town to supply it with enough water to cool their machinery. If that water plant stopped, the data center would not be able to operate.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 21 2020, @11:02PM
Oh, I see what you did there, very clever.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 22 2020, @01:56AM
That would be Joe Lieberman
CNN
Speaking of the NSA (which obviously has access to everything), we all remember James Clapper and the tall tales he told to Congress, right? Today he's CNN's go to guy on RussiaGate. I'm sure this time he's telling the truth.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday October 21 2020, @07:04PM
Sure, everything is okay, so long as it doesn't affect me. Suddenly, the NSA has access to Senators' e-mails, that's when it's Not Okay? Yeah, it was Not Okay, way before that.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2020, @10:14PM (4 children)
If senior members of Congress have nothing to hide? Why should they be bothered by this?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Username on Wednesday October 21 2020, @11:38PM (3 children)
All emails that my elected officials send should be public information.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 22 2020, @05:55AM
Agree.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 22 2020, @03:13PM (1 child)
No, because no. I freely admit that there is likely sensitive information being passed via e-mail. While I believe in transparency, I also believe in discretion.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2020, @06:12PM
We already have systems for dealing with sensitive information. Everything else should be public record.