Nsa

chalupa

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So, basically, everything that was claimed about the NSA in the past on the nettertronz...they can take over your phone, they are recording everything, etc...has proven true.

Who do we blame for this? How do we fix it?

PS, Thank you, NSA, for keeping us safe from terrorists.
 

BigMattTheHobo

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Blame congress for letting it run wild and not demanding accountability. Blame the citizenry for the same. And blame the citizenry even more for not having a basic understanding of our constitution and how to uphold it.


I don't think it can be fixed anytime soon. They operate nearly as an organization completely independent of the three branches.
 

silberfuchs

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They operate nearly as an organization completely independent of the three branches.
We have three branches? And here I thought the executive has been amassing power in contradiction to the "checks and balances" that we were taught in school.

It isn't going to change. It is the perfect scam. Anyone that were to suggest it needs to be changed will be considered to be helping terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever else they want to throw in there. We already know that they had plans for discrediting anyone that disapproved of their ways, and we know that earlier this year they repealed the anti-propaganda law.

Make no mistake, it is no longer about protecting America or its people. It is a business with our information being their product. They aren't going to give up their revenue stream, nor will they admit they were wrong.

What really gets me is that everything we hated Russia for during the cold war era is exactly what our government is doing now, only on a much more massive scale. These politicians are old enough to remember that time, yet turn a blind eye to it, because it is only bad when they, the "enemy" does it. It is sickening.


The only way things could stand a chance at being fixed is if people get outside of the box they've worked themselves into. Stop voting for democrats and republicans. Stop voting for who you think is going to win so you feel a sense of pride for being on the winning side. Stop voting based on religion or personal attacks during elections. Stop voting for the same idiots that have been screwing you over all these years. And finally, stop watching "news" on TV. Start actually voting for things that mater. Of course, none of this will happen. Elections will continue to be nothing more than a popularity contest with only the illusion of choice.
 

FenderBender

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I would say that step one is make sure everyone knows about companies who have sold back doors in to their software to the NSA. Second, support the abolition of the NSA. And third, consequently, is be willing to live in a slightly riskier world. We've lived in a world where the we didn't have someone spying on all of us before, and we all did just fine. We need to stop accepting the fact that the safety these organizations provide is worth whatever price we're forced to pay.
 

brainkandy87

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What really gets me is that everything we hated Russia for during the cold war era is exactly what our government is doing now, only on a much more massive scale. These politicians are old enough to remember that time, yet turn a blind eye to it, because it is only bad when they, the "enemy" does it. It is sickening.
I always joke that history classes in college are to teach our future leaders what to do, because it seems like everyone that has any sort of power in this country ignores the perils of history and simply repeats it. The NSA intercepting laptops in the mail so they can modify it to spy is proof there's nothing we can do with the current system. Federal agencies working together, intercepting mail.. it's crazy. The Espionage Act basically ensures conviction and punishment for anyone caught trying to blow the whistle on the U.S. Government. Very few people have the stones to attempt it. Snowden knew he'd be put against a wall and shot or spend his life in prison, all for showing how corrupt the intelligence community is. It's always been a shady venture to be sure, but the U.S. always had the Cold War or the War on Terror to fall back on as its excuse. Now that we're starting to regain our sanity in a post-9/11 world, it wouldn't surprise me if some new excuse comes along for more snooping.
 

Nocturnal

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Hi guys, I'm totally looking for NSA fun. M/33/poontown




I actually don't know how we can fix this.
 

Fero

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Methinks America needs a president that will splinter the NSA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.

But we know what happens with that kind of presidents, don't we?
 

brainkandy87

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I'm not sure we are regaining our sanity.

Read the following, and tell me how the TSA (for example) makes any sense at all in that context:
Oh I'm well aware. However, look at the world we were living in for several years right after 9/11. It was cartoonish. We had a color coded terror alert system that never got to the two lower levels; we had a Patriot Act that infringed on so many rights, yet most people were ok with it because it was viewed as "necessary" to "stop the terrorists"; two wars, one totally unrelated to 9/11 but try telling that to a large chuck of the GOP; ridiculous security measures at the airport (which still exist, but are starting to be modified). Add on to all of that the constant stream of 24/7 news/opinion and the internet and it was, for a few years, a paranoia state. Much like the hyperpatriotic atmosphere of WWI, we had the hyperparanoid atmosphere where we begged for a police state.

(and wtf.. I had to delete that link because I don't have enough rep points?)
 

chalupa

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The only thing that has changed is the color coded system is gone. Iraq is a shambles, though we have withdrawn, but we are still dying in Afghanistan, and the TSA is getting more powerful, not less. Next they are talking about iris scanners.

I'm not sure we are regaining sanity so much as accepting this new, fucked up way of living.

The NSA is a beast that will just grow and grow unbridled. The intentions behind it are sound, they always are, but there literally is no system of checks and balances, and without snowden fucking everything up, we wouldn't even have that admission.
 

silberfuchs

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The intentions behind it are sound
I'm not even sure about that. The intentions that they state might seem reasonable, but are not the same as their actual intentions. They say they are doing it for our own good. What good? What is it doing us?

We pay taxes so that the NSA can spy on foreign companies to steal IP and hand it over to our own companies in exchange for them getting cheaper parts. That does not help the US citizen, and it certainly doesn't help foreign citizens. We lose so that they can grow in power.

They spy on, discredit, and blackmail, politicians (Politicians they consider "radicals." You know, like the ones that strongly believe in the constitution. Ron Paul was considered a "radical"). They manipulate the media (several journalists from well-known sources have refused to run anti-NSA stories out of fear of legal trouble). They manipulate facts. They blatantly lie to us, the people, and congress. They spread propaganda far and wide. Since when has an uninformed population been able to make informed decisions to lead their country in the right direction? You can't vote the right way if you aren't allowed to know what's going on.

Nearly everything they are doing has nothing to do with terrorists, yet they make the claim that they are protecting us from them. That's funny, because didn't they have to recently admit in court, with a 68-page document, that they have stopped 0 terrorist attacks? Gee, I wonder why that is.

Recently, the FBI has changed it's official primary objective from "Law enforcement" to "National security." Why? Because if you claim to fight those terrorists, then you get free money! The government has to increase your funding, otherwise that clearly means they want the terrorists to blow us all up, right? They aren't stupid; they want in on the free ride.

The NSA did get the hint that we're sick of hearing the same BS line that it is fighting terrorists, and so went on a short-lived binge of claiming it was to stop pedophiles. Except it wasn't doing that at all. And their only involvement with anything related to pedophiles is when the FBI took over the Freedom Hosting servers and routed information through NSA servers for a few days as they distributed malware. While Freedom Hosting might have had some CP sites on Tor, that was not the target. TorMail, and similar completely legal services, were. And anybody that visited any site on FH servers was infected with malware; not just the CP sites. And FH hosted tens of thousands of websites. This is similar to being arrested because you went to a restaurant that was on the same street as a drug dealer.

The NSA has undoubtedly put us all at risk; whether from writing and distributing their own malware, or forcing software/hardware vendors from fixing known vulnerabilities, or even paying them off to implement some backdoors.


What it all comes down to is that the NSA has done nothing but hurt this country (and others) while bolstering itself. It has not done a single thing to our benefit. Anything that they claim they've done to be good for you is a flat-out lie, so I hope you've got your bullshit detectors on. I really wish everything I've said here were nothing but nonsense, but we've come to learn that it is all true.
 

silberfuchs

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We are all silberfucked.
I don't know what that even means.


http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/politics/obama-nsa-changes/
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/01/17/1654229/obama-announces-surveillance-reforms

Translation:
Obama said:
We're not, at all, going to change any of the spying that you guys are so upset over. We are just going to move the location of where we store it. I mean, we were kind of planning on doing that anyways, so it's an easy out. Hopefully most of the US citizens (read: the mentally retarded half) will think we're making some real changes and start to like us again.

We also want you to know that we're going to have a secret court oversee this whole thing. Yeah, we already had FISA that was supposed to be doing that, and we all know how that turned out, but we're super serious this time, guys! I totally trust this honor system that we already had in place that has proven to have failed.

Oh, and before I forget, I want to reiterate that there has been no abuses and we're not spying on allied heads of state, despite the fact that these have already proven that to be the case and I'm lying to you about it again even today. James Clapper here says he totally approves of my message and we all know what a trustworthy guy he is, so you guys should be totally cool with our domestic spying program. Er, I mean, our totally-not-domestic spying program.
Thanks, Obama. I feel so much better now. :rolleyes:
 

whocares

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Can at least the NSA support the US and Mexico govt to finally squash the drug cartels here in Mexico and reduce violence and crime altogether? I mean, that would be quite helpful.
 

silberfuchs

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Can at least the NSA support the US and Mexico govt to finally squash the drug cartels here in Mexico and reduce violence and crime altogether? I mean, that would be quite helpful.
No. The CIA might not like that. A couple of former CIA directors have come forward and confirmed allegations that the CIA has been involved in drug trafficking as a means to fund itself.
 
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