Someone in the last thread wanted more Snowden, so here’s the latest:
Top secret documents retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government allowed the largest American spy agency to conduct widespread surveillance in Canada during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits.
The documents are being reported exclusively by CBC News.
The briefing notes, stamped “Top Secret,” show the U.S. turned its Ottawa embassy into a security command post during a six-day spying operation by the National Security Agency while U.S. President Barack Obama and 25 other foreign heads of government were on Canadian soil in June of 2010.
The covert U.S. operation was no secret to Canadian authorities.
The reason this is a big deal is that the Canadian version of the NSA, the CSEC, is prohibited by law from spying on Canadians without a warrant, and also prohibited from tasking the NSA to do it. So it looks like some laws may have been broken Here’s the Globe and Mail’s piece on the CSEC.
The leaks came from Greenwald. I’ll save the haters some typing by linking to this:
“Greenwald is a Brazilian-based former porn industry executive, now assisting Edward Snowden leak national security information.”
Before turning his attention to writing books targeting the U.S. George Bush administration and Republican politicians, Greenwald owned sites such as Hairy Jocks and Hairy Studs. Greenwald is now the sole journalist with full access to Snowden’s document trove.
That’s from Canada’s answer to the NY Post, the Toronto Sun. The Sun is making hay over the fact that the CBC paid Greenwald $1,500 as a freelancer for access to Snowden’s story.
Keith G
Ahhh….this is old news. Nuttin to see here, so just move along little doggie. Bush did it too. They all do, also too. Greenwald is an obnoxious punk and Snowdon is a megalomaniacal stooge (Or is it the other way around?).
Omnes Omnibus
I can why Canadians would be upset with this.
wmd
why didn’t they say gay porn industry?
FlipYrWhig
Apropos of your reason why this is a big deal, was the NSA spying on Canadians, or spying on foreign leaders?
rda909
We must trust the Snowdenwald implicitly. They both have a long history of being responsible, honest brokers of truth, so there’s no way they could ever being doing all this for ulterior motives, other than for the love of the country they’ve chosen to live outside of. Makes perfect sense.
doug r
LEAKER, not whistleblower.
Bargal20
Didn’t some guy called Rupert Murdoch once in the deep, dark past own a daily newspaper that featured buxom topless ladies on page three? I wonder if anyone ever wanked off to them…
A Humble Lurker
@Keith G:
Is it state the obvious day?
beer time somewhere
Greenwald said this morning on CBC Radio “The House” that are more documents to come. Just like with the NSA docs, they wait for the denial/waffling and then produce the gotcha(s).
Bargal20
@rda909: You’re right! I also demand that my whistleblowers be pure of heart and accept the torture that rightfully awaits them at the hands of the US authorities. It ain’t whistleblowing unless the whistleblower goes insane while stripped naked in solitary confinement. For shame, Snowden, for shame!
This is why I close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and sing “la la la la” whenever there’s another shocking revelation that exposes the hypocrisy and deviousness of our betters. That information is morally tainted, and I refuse to use it to my advantage.
FlipYrWhig
@beer time somewhere: documents about how the NSA spies on foreigners? What the hell happened to this story? Wasn’t it supposed to be that the NSA was doing mass, dragnet-style surveillance on all of us? What is it now? That the spy agency is full of spies who spy?
ruemara
half a minute. Was this done to “spy on canadians” or was this done as part of the security for the president at an international conference. It doesn’t really address the reasons why, although based on the data provided, it seems it was specific to a G*8-ish event. Do you acknowledge that there may be a level of difference in what happened, based on circumstance? Also, I think you should add links to GG defending the rights of terrorist recruiters to not be blackmailed by the NSA to stop recruiting or risk the release of their porn history. Because, ya know, freedumb of porn.
@FlipYrWhig: Yes. Spying is bad, war is bad, everything that is US government is bad. We should be peaceful and end all wars/spying and being mean and that would create utopia. Plus more weed.
FlipYrWhig
@ruemara: That was one of the lamest clickbait stories of this whole saga.
beer time somewhere
@FlipYrWhig: I suspect as Canada is part of the Five Eyes group when the NSA phoned and asked them to eavesdrop on the G8, Canada replied “Nope, no can do. Against the law. However, what goes on in the US Embassy stays in the Embassy.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink
Yatsuno
This is only worth it if it brings down the Harper government and a snap election results in a Liberal/NP coalition government. Otherwise this affects the neighbours to the North more than the US.
Keith G
@rda909:
.
Sorry, but this is just nuts.
It’s not about trusting Snowden or agreeing with his motives. It’s all about the documents and the history that they record. Is that history accurate? Thus far, I have heard of no one in the administration pressing a claim that Snowden is a forger.
If you know he is, I am open to persuasion.
I get that you do not like these two, but your personal opinion about them as fellow humans is not all that relevant to the issue of analysing the historical record that they are providing to the public.
dpm (dread pirate mistermix)
@ruemara: It’s not clear who was spied on from this document dump. We’ll see if there’s more to come. I wonder how the NSA could cover the G20 in Toronto without doing some interception of Canadians’ communications, though, so it’s likely that some laws were broken.
Keith G
@A Humble Lurker: I was just trying to get out in front of many of the fallacious argument that usually crop up in such threads.
FlipYrWhig
@beer time somewhere: Eavesdropping on summit attendees seems like run of the mill espionage. Eavesdropping on protesters would be a different story, although non-Five Eyes targets would seem like business as usual too, no? (Hypothetically, a suspected militant from Nigeria or somewhere, already under surveillance, comes to hobnob at the event, and the surveillance continues.)
dpm (dread pirate mistermix)
@Yatsuno: We can live in hope, eh?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Keith G: Oh, that’s not going to help, he’s just looking for an excuse to lick those boots. The truth is the plutocratic party is fully in charge of the entire anglosphere right now (with the possible exception of NZ; don’t know enough about their politics to really know), and they’re working really hard to keep it that way.
MikeJ
Not only does the NSA spy, some people will be shocked to learn that the US military practices shooting at people every day of the year.
piratedan
@Keith G: from what I’ve read, it appears that they’ve managed to inform the public that the NSA spies on folks, I’ve yet to see from the documents that they’ve produced that what is being done is illegal, at least as currently outlined within the Patriot Act. Sure they’ve cited that there’s possibility of abuse, but without indicating that abuse has actually taken place.
Does this mean that the Patriot can’t be/shouldn’t be discussed/revised/approved/scrapped… no and I don’t have a problem with grinding into the details that are involved with personal privacy of one’s information and who is storing it (why is it acceptable for Google to have it versus the Feds or vice versa), which is why the focus should be on what Wyden and Udall are doing instead of the “press releases” issued by Greenwald imho.
There really are channels for government employees to use when reporting that law breaking is going on and even a jump the queue protocol in taking one’s concerns and proofs to a sitting lawmaker if you feel that the people above you “are in on it”.
BGinCHI
If you have a site called Hairy Jocks, isn’t Hairy Studs kind of redundant?
Probably just my lack of experience.
Yatsuno
@polyorchnid octopunch: Coalition with the conservatives at the head.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yatsuno: So the reactionary bootlickers are running the whole show. Just love all the people here that seem to like them. Lots of derp going on.
Splitting Image
If the Canadian government was aware of the surveillance, then it is unlikely that the NSA is the bad guy here. The responsibility for any laws they broke is entirely on Harper.
I predict that Canadians will begin caring about this shortly after they start being bothered about the 50,000 cops imported into Toronto to push people around during the summit, the thousand or so people who were arrested in the “free speech zones”, with or without concussions, and the billion dollars the city lost because its entire downtown core was shut down so that the VIPs could watch the World Cup undisturbed.
Bort
Some people are shocked, SHOCKED, that those little radios we call cell phones can be heard by anyone with an antenna nearby. It doesn’t require black bag wiretapping. Also, if you use a cordless phone you can be heard by anyone with a radio shack scanner from a block away. I’m not saying it’s right to do it (and I don’t, but used to be a shortwave radio/scanner geek).
rikyrah
Keep on this path with Greenwald and the traitor if you wish.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Bort: Takes more than that to listen to a cell phone: encryption is part of the GSM standard. That’s not to say that it’s hard… but it’s not trivial either. It also means you’re really trying.
And @Splitting Image: People here do care. However, the last federal election was marked by widespread fraud, and the federal police (the RCMP) have, to all intents and purposes, become a partisan organisation for the CPC. Zaccardelli, former head of the RCMP, and who was rewarded for this by an appointment to a senior position in Interpol, is a traitor to the Canadian people for turning the RCMP into the CPC’s police force. This has meant that there’s been no meaningful investigation into the fraud, and it will probably be years before we really know the scale of the right wing coup here.
Bargal20
@polyorchnid octopunch: New Zealand is one of the “Five Eyes”. The USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have an agreement to share intelligence capability. If you think the Kiwis are innocent little hobbits who aren’t nose-deep in intelligence gathering for the NSA, then you probably think Trayvon Martin should have worn a mithril hoodie.
polyorchnid octopunch
@rikyrah: Traitor to who? I’m not an American. He’s not a traitor to me. I bleed for the powerful’s offended sensibilities. I won’t say from where.
? Martin
@Keith G:
Nobody is really questioning Snowden’s documents. We’re questioning Greenwalds interpretation of what those documents mean, something he’s gotten wrong quite a few times. Does the NSA have unfettered access to the internals of all of the social media sites? No. But he claimed they did based on these documents.
And what wrongdoing has Snowden uncovered? Whistleblowing doesn’t mean ‘revealing unpleasant truths’, it means ‘revealing illegal activity’. Just as nothing Snowden has released has gotten a response from the administration that it’s a forgery, nothing Snowden has released has indicated that any laws were broken. Pushed to their very limit, sure. But that’s how the law works. If Congress wants a more restrained intelligence community, it’s well within their capacity to write laws that will yield that.
This isn’t a defense of those acts, more of a condemnation that Congress isn’t really interested in solving the problem. This is the behavior they wanted.
Keith G
@piratedan:
,
Without the press releases, the charismatic duo of Wyden and Udall would be getting even less notice then they are now.The notion that GG and Snowden need “shut up” so that the real conversion can begin is beyond fantastical.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Bargal20: Yes, I’m fully aware of that. You should take a look again at what I wrote, this time reading for comprehension.
Cassidy
Yawn.
Honestly, if we could get Mix and Cole to keep churning out the firebagger bait and somehow manage to collect the stupidity, suburban outrage, and false equivalence and convert it into energy, we’d never need oil again. And, the Derpalicious Duo would find something useful to do with their time. It’s a win-win for everyone.
A Humble Lurker
@Keith G:
It really isn’t like anything you said wasn’t true…
muricafukyea
muckymux and his constant Snowden horseshit is just a glorified Reddit poster looking for upvotes.
Quoting Greewald is the icing on the cake. As if anything that book selling attention whore writes give it more creditiblity. Only a Redditor or someone like wr0ng way Cole would think so.
hildebrand
The steady drip-drip-drip is fascinating and all, but I am now trying to figure out the end game. What do we want from all of this? How do we want the NSA reformed due to all of this?
We need to move to the last chapter of this drama. Any new piece in the puzzle is going to garner the same response from everyone who is engaged, so we need to start to figure out what we want from all of this. This would also have the salutary effect of removing Snowden and Greenwald from the story – they are too polarizing to do anything with this anymore.
So, how do we fix this in a way that actually makes a difference?
Svensker
@polyorchnid octopunch:
And now there’s the fact that US Border Police apparently have access to Canadians’ private health records. Not real reassuring.
doug r
@Yatsuno: Hopefully this, along with Senator Mike Duffy’s “Wrecking Ball” impersonation will help usher Harper out. We can hope.
Botsplainer
Snowden, Poitras, Griftwald, Assange and Harrison all need to die, preferably in a televised event. Not so much as capital punishment for their crimes, but as a lesson to all potential self-aggrandizing shitbags with inflated senses of self-worth and no sense of proportion or context.
It isn’t like any of them actually matter or make the world better.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Svensker: I’m not sure that’s the case. The border police google and facebook people; I’ve heard of a few bands that have been caught trying to sneak over to play gigs that way (pro musician being one of my two jobs). Googling her got me to the whole description in two clicks, and the google listing included a photo of her, so there’d’ve been no doubt it was the person trying to cross the border.
Occam’s razor says it was a border guard deciding to be an asshole to the fat chick in the wheelchair. I mean, it’s not like that job doesn’t exert a siren’s pull to the assholes among us, now doesn’t it?
Jeremy
The problem I have with Greenwald is that the guy pretends to be a liberal when he is a right wing libertarian. He only went after Bush when the Iraq war and his foreign policy was falling apart but before that he was supportive of a number of Bush policies.
The man has hated Obama since he decided to run for president, and last week he said that the someone should look into and leak the secret diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran. The man is a hypocrite.
piratedan
@Keith G:and yet here we are talking about Snowden and Greenwald instead of Wyden and Udall, tragic ain’t it?
it comes down to this… when the initial Patriot Act was passed, there was virtually no oversight and while some folks cared, the country was panicked into passing legislation that would give “Americans” some sense of safety that indicating that our intelligence agencies would be able to prevent another 9/11 from happening again. Completely disregarding the fact that the intelligence services were in fact doing their jobs already and that the Administration at the time had their own agenda.. but hey IOKIYAR is always in play. So instead of the focus being on their failures, it got spun as we have to protect the homeland and all you traitors pipe down while we get busy compounding our errors by using this as an excuse to invade Iraq.
It wasn’t until Obama’s election that the law was even reviewed and amended to add oversight and with the President himself being on the record as not being comfortable with having as much power as the law provides him. Despite the tweaking, they still left a shitpotfull of power with the executive because Congress is, well Congress. Hell they couldn’t even close Gitmo despite the fact that it’s continued existence is a blight on our national reputation and an affront to our laws.
So please tell how much these two have added to the conversation? One flees the country, allegedly in fear of his life, and takes his information to our two biggest rivals in the world, who have an even less laudible reputation regarding personal freedom and civil rights than the US… which sounds incredibly patriotic at face value… The other who has been a strident opponent of the US Government, no matter who is in charge and no matter their record. I am typically not in favor of asking an arsonist about the merits of the fire department. Despite this, neither has been taken out in the fashion that UBL was handled and the DOJ states that they have no plans to persecute GG whereas Snowden has violated his oath and broken provisions of the Espionage Act, for which the US would like to speak to him about. We’re not even talking about the timing of this whole circus, which just happened to coincide when the scandalarama was winding down over the summer.
So yeah, lets talk about the Patriot Act and possible revisions and additional oversight. Would also like to have a discussion why we continue to think that the private sector is some benevolent entity is having this data and how long they retain it and how they use it as well. Naturally, our media isn’t interested in this discussion as much as they are about horse races because this actually involves becoming acquainted with policy and laws and how it all is supposed to work and understanding where the failure points are. Shit the MSM has no other motivation atm other than as whatever will garner them revenue and public education or reporting sans spin be damned.
Aji
Wait, the CBC paid Greenwald $1,500 for access to Snowden’s story? Why not, you know, pay Snowden $1,500 for access to Snowden’s story?
I think that’s what’s known in other circles as a tell.
doug r
@piratedan: THAT would be a whistleblower.
Napoleon
@rikyrah: @muricafukyea: @rda909:
Glad to see assholes like you 3 posting in this thread.
Separately, was GG really a “porn executive”?
Botsplainer
@muricafukyea:
Griftwald might impress me more if he moved from his gated house in his gated Brazilian community free from Brazilian street urchins.
Napoleon
@Botsplainer:
A the biggest asshole of them all makes an appearance. How is it going today, you fascist?
Ahh says fywp
Thanks for making my point for me, dpm.
The lumpenproles can never understand the deep pain and woes of tge pea princess elites.
Shed a tear for the spied upon spies, spied upon while spying upon.
Those ‘boys’ shoulda known better than to invade a sidewalk with teir ghetto jive outside of the ghetto.
Napoleon
@Jeremy:
1) He has never called himself a liberal,
2) what does any of that have to do with all the illegal operations he has exposed?
Botsplainer
@Jeremy:
You were never supposed to notice that Griftwald is winger fascist curious.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Aji: In other circles, it’s known as paying for work. He’s on the byline. I wasn’t aware that freelance journalists were expected to work for free.
In other words, your objection to this (which dovetails nicely with the Toronto
BootlickersSun’s and Paul Calandra’s (otherwise known as the person who reads Harper’s talking points in Question Period when even that light duty is too much for Der Harper) is what is known in other circles as a tell.MikeJ
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Can you bring that sentence in for a landing?
Comrade Dread
As with all Snowden/Greenwald ‘revelations’, I will apply the rule to wait 24 hours to see if this is something serious or if something exculpatory is buried 12 paragraphs into the story.
Botsplainer
@Napoleon:
True. He likes spending time with white supremacists and anti-Semites.
Comrade Dread
@Jeremy: The problem I have with Greenwald is that the guy obviously views the US government as uniquely evil in the world, even if it is merely doing exactly what all other governments do.
agrippa
I see.
The CBC paid Greenwald $1500 ( is that all?) for documents that Greenwald edited before he sold them to CBC.
Very interesting.
Botsplainer
@Napoleon:
Great!
Still worried that some faceless bureaucrat might someday brush up against and promptly ignore your midget coprophilic porn collection?
Cassidy
This word has lost its meaning due to overuse by the suburban left. White people problems is not the same as persecution.
Lynn Dee
“Hairy jocks” and “hairy studs”, eh? So he’s been an impassioned advocate of First Amendment activity from the outset.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: I’m making popcorn now. This thread is about to get silly.
Aji
@polyorchnid octopunch: Yeah, no, but nice try.
DPS
Well, that does it. I’m canceling my subscription to Hairy Jocks, and if anything like this ever happens again, I will also consider canceling my subscription to Hairy Studs.
Jeremy
@Comrade Dread: Exactly ! I think we need to reform the NSA but I don’t think spying on other countries is wrong. Greenwald hates the government and wants to create a libertarian paradise. He even wants to undermine talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Keith G
@piratedan:
1. We can’t do both?
2. Maybe W & U need to get out in front. Communicate what’s wrong and why it is…then how they hope to fix it. Their mouths are not ball gagged. You act as if a US Senator has no way to take the public’s attention and imagination on an important topic.
News flash…It is most unfortunate, but without GG and Snowden this topic would not even be a blip on the news cycle.
We are having repeated conversations because of these leaks – not because our current leadership wants this boat to be rocked.
And then you go on to type about just how terrible GG&S are.
When you do that, you sound like Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol in the way they attacked the personal lives and motives of those people to had the temerity to argue against war in Iraq : They hated the President, they hated this country, they sided with terrorists, they were liberals, they were pedophiles….and etc.
Hogwash.
If it turns out that the documents they are providing are not accurate accounts of how our government has acted, then I will reassess their value as individuals who are providing an important service.
polyorchnid octopunch
@MikeJ: Sure. He’s repeating exactly the same talking point that the conservative mouthpiece press in Canada (that would be the Sun chain of newspapers) and the Conservative Party of Canada’s using to deflect people from reflecting on what the story says about the Conservatives and how they view the rights of Canadian citizens.
Yatsuno
:: munch munch munch ::
polyorchnid octopunch
@agrippa: No. They paid him to write an article. He is a journalist, after all, even if you don’t like him.
AxelFoley
@doug r:
This bears repeating every time someone calls this schmuck a whistleblower.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Aji: So then what are you saying? I’m sure it’s strictly coincidence you’re repeating Colandra and Lilley’s take on the whole thing, right?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yatsuno: :)
LT
That’s not “from the Sun” – those are the words of Paul Calandra – a conservative MP.
Jeremy
Greenwald never said outright that he is a liberal but he pretended to be one just like Arianna Huffington, Cenk Uygur, and others who supported right wing causes and President Bush. They only pretended to be liberal in order to make money after the numerous Bush failures.
gwangung
Sorry, that’s not very impressive.
Greenwald is EXTREMELY weak, like fire baggers and other ideologues, on the nuts and bolts of making their ideals into concrete political reality. Like neocons, he subscribes to the Green Lantern theory–if you will it hard enough, it will come into being.
More concrete proposals. More vote counting. More realism and understanding that intelligence gathering and secrecy DO have a point in international affairs.
polyorchnid octopunch
@LT: It’s also from a column penned by Brian Lilley for the Toronto Sun. The talking points have been distributed.
Yatsuno
@polyorchnid octopunch: Honestly this affects your country more than mine, and if it undercuts the Harper government to the point of a no-confidence vote I’m all for that. He also needs to get his ass under oath and start talking about the McKay affair. Is it too evil of me to hope he loses his riding?
LT
@FlipYrWhig: ‘Eavesdropping on summit attendees seems like run of the mill espionage.”
A nation of wankers.
Also: “All ethical and legal problems aside, spending millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to spy on stuff for no reason whatsoever except because they can = AWESOME.”
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan:
Just this.
And Greenwald knows it, and takes advantage of it for his own gain.
LT
@polyorchnid octopunch: ?? I know his words are in the Sun, but pretty weird to say it’s simply from the Sun. A conservative MP said that in the Canadian parliament. That’s just nuts.
And it’s in quote marks in the Sun.
Bobby Thomson
Way to both miss the fucking point and prove it, mister mix.
rikyrah
@polyorchnid octopunch:
When one gets a job with intelligence for the express purpose of revealing said intelligence, one is a TRAITOR to that country.
AxelFoley
@piratedan:
This. So very much this.
piratedan
@Keith G: oh bull and shit….
the reason that this isn’t a topic of “reasonable” discussion is because of the state of our media…
The ACA, how many cycles were devoted to what the Law actually does versus the Republican reaction and the astroturfed Tea Party ad nauseum attacks? Rinse and repeat with Shirley Sherrod, the AP scandal, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS flap…
and don’t you motherfucking dare lump me in with Dick fucking Cheney… as a point of order, those two (Greenwald and Snowden) don’t even LIVE in the US due to their own choices. Greenwald has a history of punditry sockpuppetry that goes back damn near a decade and the other guy fled the country with national secrets. That isn’t an attack on them, that’s documenting what they’ve fucking done. With the release of all of these documents indicating the alleged malfeasance of the government, where is the law breaking, where are the arrests? In this current climate of presedenting while being blah and taking into consideration that the opponents of this Administration are STILL referencing Benghazi, why isn’t this front page everyday ad infinitum if the NSA under Obama’s watch isn’t guilty of something, anything? After all, the R’s have proven fully capable of ignoring everything they support if it leads to the possibility of embarrassing this Administration, so why the hell aren’t they on this bandwagon too?
I’m thinking because it’s bullshit.
MomSense
@Bort:
My neighbor and I unintentionally spied on each other with our baby monitors. There were a few really embarrassing episodes until we figured out what was happening. Let’s just say that sounds an infant would not make were coming out of the monitor.
fuckwit
@doug r: True that. There’s a big difference between blowing the whistle– going through channels (even if skipping some steps in chain of command) and getting smacked down or persecuted for it– and just leaking classified data. One could argue that the scale of the problem is so huge that there’s no way to pick and choose any one offense to blow the whistle on, but that doesn’t work, you can always pick one or two.
Still, this shit is IMPORTANT, and it annoys me that the task of bringing this to our attention has fallen to such tools. Such as it is.
We need laws passed in Congress to close loopholes and tighten oversight. Oh, Congress? Well let me restate: we need a new Congress, which is capable of passing laws to close loopholes and tighten oversight. We need it now too.
LT
@Aji:
The tell is that nobody – nobody – mentions that Greenwald *and Ryan Gallagher* were paid, together, a standard freelance fee of $1,500 for doing the story for the CBC. Nobody mentions Gallagher – because it destroys the idiotic narrative.
By the way, wankers saying this here: even the WSJ hack is better than you on this:
fuckwit
@ruemara: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZqYV9KKOZQ
different-church-lady
I don’t care if the leaked information “came from” Greenwald, as long as he is not the one controlling the interpretation of the information. Because as we’ve seen repeatedly he is neither a reliable narrator nor an honest actor.
As for the specific info here, we seem to be back to “spying agencies spy,” with the additional info that sometimes they conspire with allies to do so.
doug r
@polyorchnid octopunch: Blogger, yes. Journalist? Well, maybe he could work for 60 minutes:
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Writing an article and getting a byline are not necessarily bound together. He could quite possibly have got the byline and money for supplying the documents- acting as a conduit.
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: That conspiracy may also have been illegal in Canada. That’s a big thing, for the Canadians. Regardless of the Five Eyes compact, the Canadian spy agency went outside their legal compact. That should have consequences. But the NSA acted like the NSA has here, and there is no detail of any American law being broken. Hurt feelings of our northern neighbours is another matter.
different-church-lady
@Aji:
Couldn’t find a bank to convert Loonies into Rubles on a weekend.
Ash Can
A Canadian commenter at LGF speculated that this report by CBC (and the fact that CBC paid Greenwald for it) could be an act of CBC hitting back at Harper and his henchmen for crapping on CBC so much and for so long. I thought that was an interesting take.
Unlike some other people here, I don’t think the linked article proves that any Canadian laws were broken. The CBC writer says that laws were broken, but it appears to be on the basis of this:
That’s the issue in a nutshell, and it indicates that an investigation should take place to find out whether the NSA 1) was spying on Canadians, and 2) whether the CSEC was receiving that information in an effort to get around Canadian laws requiring the CSEC to obtain warrants first. It’s not proof, however, and it’s an unpleasant surprise to see a CBC reporter acting as though it is.
Apart from that, however, the issue of spying during an economic summit is a no-brainer. Of course there will be spying during summits. There always has been. By everybody. On everyone else. With the added issue of guaranteeing security for a whole group of world leaders crowded into one place at one time. Nevertheless, if it can be shown that the CSEC really did illegally circumvent warrant requirements, then the Canucks do have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
Keith G
@gwangung: All I care about is that in this affair that there is a conduit of information which is allowing the public a look at how it’s government has been behaving. If the citizens then have no issue with that behavior, then so be it.
The personalities of those very few individuals who are part of this conduit is not important to me.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Yes, I missed that at first go. Additionally, the idea that we’re willing to be outsourced to the Canadians is concerning.
Jasmine Bleach
@hildebrand:
Well, as an evil librul chiming in here, hows about the following?
1) NSA (and CIA/FBI/etc.) does not spy on Americans unless there is
a) probable cause
b) a warrant issued by a non-secret, non-shadow government court system that the public has no visibility to
(I know . . . how quaint!)
This means no collection of metadata, no collection of actual content, no direct tapping of network lines to Google, Microsoft, Apple, AOL, etc. If they need something, get a frickin’ real warrant. Not a blanket, year-long warrant that’s not specific to a particular person (or organization) of suspicion. No 3 degrees of separation collection. Only 1 degree unless a warrant is obtained against another individual from that 1st degree.
2) An immediate purging of all stored records (metadata, content, etc.) for anything collected without a for-cause warrant. This, along with number 1 above, would go a long way to protect people’s privacy and bring things in-line with the 4th Amendment.
3) Only focus on foreign people who are suspected of wrongdoing against the United States (probable cause, again). If someone is attacking/hacking US computer networks, yes, please go after them (there’s your probable cause right there!). For countries making threats against the United States, sure, spy on them extensively (North Korea, Iran, etc.). That makes perfect sense.
4) Probably halve the budget of the NSA. What was the figure bandied about recently about how much we’re spending on all the spy agencies together? Something like $60 billion or more? And they’ve by their own admission stated that only 2 people in the past few years were stopped from doing something (the previous claim of 52 plots stopped was later admitted to be an exageration by the NSA to Congress). I don’t know what the NSA budget is, but if that’s their track record, and they couldn’t even stop the Boston Bombers, then that’s a whole lot of wasted money. Let’s say the NSA budget is $20 billion. That’d be $10 billion back to the people right there. Hell, halve every spy agency and return $30 billion plus for other uses (whatever you’d like–infrastructure projects, global warming fight, deficit reduction, jobs programs, whatever).
I mean, good luck achieving it though, especially with all the NeoLibs around here seemingly focused on personalities rather than good policies.
LT
Who is moderating this? And why is my *fourth* comment over several minutes in moderation?
Yatsuno
@Svensker: Does Canada have a law like HIPAA? I would think so, but I’m not certain.
@LT: FYWP was having problems with the mod filter earlier this week. Maybe it’s still lingering around.
hildebrand
I will ask again – what is the end game? The leaks are going to hit (or have already) the point of diminishing returns. The two sides will not move. So, let us skip to the last chapter – how is this resolved? What do we want from all of this?
LT
@hildebrand: Nothing gets solved outright. The battle between citizens and government goes on into infinity, pretty sure. For now – exposing the NSA, which has grown into a dangerously huge and secretive quasi-government in and of itself is good. This could be prequel to today’s Church report, and hopefull legilsation that, among other things, takes billions away from spooks that do nothing good for us.
LT
@Yatsuno: Thank you. Weird that just one comment is stuck.
different-church-lady
@Botsplainer: Well thanks for that: you’ve provided all the fan-dudes a nice broad brush with which to paint anyone and everyone who doesn’t worship at the anti-authoritarian quasi-anarchist alter.
piratedan
@hildebrand: we want to see what Wyden and Udall propose in regards to adding additional oversight and transparency to the warrant process and the criteria for which those warrants are granted by the courts that issue them. Then procedural oversight within the NSA organization regarding how long that data is stored and who has access to it, guidelines for sharing that data across agencies if applicable.
Then perhaps a discussion on whether there should be any public oversight on how private companies use and share that data themselves, perhaps under the auspices of the Consumer Protection Agency, because I would sure like to have the practice of selling my buying history between private vendors stopped and my buying and spending being available to any potential employers.
Yatsuno
@Jasmine Bleach: Go get a Congress to make it happen. Until then (November 2014) all else is commentary.
Ash Can
@hildebrand: Greenwald’s end game is to undermine the US government. The more positive and practical endgame, for the rest of us, is passage of the USA Freedom Act, which hopefully will install more transparency into the warrant system. Now if the legislature would just put down the glass of scotch and plate of Christmas cookies and get cracking on it, that would be great.
Jasmine Bleach
@hildebrand:
As to how to accomplish what I outline in #97 above, introduce legislation repeatedly (to gain visibility) to make:
1) Collection of metadata and content illegal without a for-cause warrant (both within and outside the country)
2) Abolish the FISA courts
3) Halve the budgets of the spy agencies with proposals for redistribution to other areas
You won’t do it with this Congress (for sure), but make efforts to vote in more liberals nationwide to eventually make it happen. Take whatever small gains you can get passed toward those goals in the meanwhile.
different-church-lady
Someone in this thread (me) wants more ice cream. RENDER UNTO!
different-church-lady
@Ash Can:
To be fair, that’s his middle game and start game too.
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: I WANT A ROOT BEER FLOAT OR ELSE I’M NOT VOTING FOR NOBUMMER AGAIN!!!
(Is it bad I want him on the Supreme Court just to make Fat Tony and Uncle Clarence stroke out simultaneously?)
Jasmine Bleach
@Yatsuno:
True, but in the meantime, make a damn show of it. Introduce legislation and publicize it widely. Tell people how much money these useless organizations are wasting. Someone buy Grayson some airtime! Whatever.
Yes, it’ll take a long time to change, but people have to hear about the other options a lot before it’ll even register with most of them. Once you get it in the public narrative, that helps a lot. Politicians will pick it up and use it for their advantage.
(Not to say the NSA is the greatest problem we face, of course. We should be doing the same against global warming, the drug war, prison expansions, police militarization, etc.)
Comrade Dread
@different-church-lady: I still want my magic pony that poops single payer health care.
MomSense
@Yatsuno:
Oh I have been dreaming this little dream myself. I want to see Alito so mad he sputters.
Ash Can
@Jasmine Bleach:
Given the extent of the Freedom Act’s support across the political spectrum — meaning on the right as well as the left — it may have a chance. James Sensenbrenner (one of the bill’s authors) seems confident that the Act would be able to pass in the House in an up-or-down vote. The only question is whether Boehner has the gumption and/or inclination to do his fucking job once the bill’s ready to go.
Harold Samson
The worst sin in the world is to try to tell someone the truth before they’re ready for it. The punishment is swift and angry.
So much to learn reading the BJ commentariat, a thousand ways to say you’re just too sophisticated and world-weary to give a shit.
Bobby Thomson
@different-church-lady: It takes an especially obtuse person to read this comment as requesting moar of teh Snowden.
different-church-lady
@Harold Samson: So in a better world we just accept what someone tells us is the truth, eh?
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: I don’t care as long as I get my ice cream.
PIGL
@rikyrah: As a Canadian concerned about my authoritarian government, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to fuck off and die.
What is it with all the bootlickers here?
Keith G
@piratedan:
When you can show that this has any impact on the truthfulness of the history in the documents that they are helping to reveal, I will be very interested. Again, I get that you feel a good deal of animosity toward them. It’s your life…feel free. If they are not engaged in fraudulent behavior in this NSA affair, I have little care about the rest.
Please recall how many years it has taken to begin the process of initiating criminal charges due to the mortgage meltdown.
More to my interest…not everything that is bad is illegal. That is especially the case if what is being done is kept as deeply held secrets. Therefore any discussion for the need of legal limits to behavior is prevented.
Benghazi? Really?
The press is bad.. and has almost always been in the establishment camp. That has always been the case. I bet I am a good deal older than you. I remember when the press was not a fan of Dr Martin Luther King. I remember when the press thought that fighting Commies in Vietnam was a good idea. The press is more likely to follow than to lead. There are exceptions, but not that many.
Jasmine Bleach
@Ash Can:
It’s a start, I guess. Don’t really know the details of the bill.
Harold Samson
@different-church-lady:
No. Blind trust is not a solution to the problem of powerful liars.
LT
@Keith G:
Since we know of I don’t know how many “law breaking” events (hello James Clapper!; hello FISA court reports!; hello NSA itself!), it’s hardly worth talking to these folks. Let them have their circle jerk at LGF.
rikyrah
@PIGL:
You Canadians have to deal with your own mess…
As an American, I consider Snowden to be a TRAITOR to this country
and it amazes me the number of people who actually give credibility to the libertarian Greenwald, who doesn’t give two shyts about this country.
A man who defends White Supremacists, but has nothing to say about the injustices suffered by non-Whites because of the ‘ Justice’ system every fucking day..
Just keep on believing in him. I know exactly who Greenwald is…
fuck him. fuck that traitor Snowden.
You wanna die on the hill defending these two clowns….go for it.
rikyrah
Can we get another Open Thread…….
LT
@rikyrah:
John Cole – this does not have to be this way:
So tiring.
Harold Samson
@PIGL:
It’s a pretty good bet that a few regulars here are actual employees of the United States security colossus charged with turning clear waters into mud.
Others are entirely too convinced of their own savvy, in a Dunning Krueger kind of way.
And then there’s your standard issue cool kids who love to find things they can understand like porn or rape and make snarky jokes about it. That’s why smearing whistleblowers is so effective; it gets these pudwhackers all worked up.
BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Yup, this one seems to be broken. Good popcorn Yutsy. Munch. Munch.
different-church-lady
@Harold Samson: Yeah. Well how do you suggest we go about figuring out who’s lying to us from what angle?
Because outside of confirmation bias I’m really at a loss to understand how people decide that one side is lying and the other side is telling the truth.
Botsplainer
@Bobby Thomson:
And Mix is just the obtuse person to do it!
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: …that has more ice cream?
Botsplainer
@PIGL:
*guffaw*
That word you are using, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Harold Samson
@different-church-lady:
That’s a really old problem, how do you tell when someone is telling you the truth.
I could tell you there’s no answer, but I could be lying.
If the whole issue makes you angry, it’s probably best to avoid it, because anger clouds the mind something fierce.
Cassidy
@different-church-lady: Meh, they do that anyway.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: And I’m about out of popcorn. But I have ginger beer!
New thread naow plz? Kthxbai!
Jeremy
@Harold Samson: Dude you are paranoid. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean that someone is working for the other side or some group. It really is annoying how some people take things to an extreme level.
different-church-lady
@Cassidy: Yeah, but I like it better when it’s bullshit.
different-church-lady
@Harold Samson: I’m having a hard time figuring out if you’re being cute or if you’re just too sophisticated and world-weary to give a shit.
Cassidy
@different-church-lady: Only if it validates their suburban liberal bona fides; they don’t really care about anything.
@Harold Samson: First we have to be talking about an actual whistleblower.
Jasmine Bleach
@rikyrah:
Funny how you almost never mention WHY these folks are traitors in your opinion.
Here’s my take. These two (for all their faults, I guess) revealed to us slides from the NSA, that are not disputed by the NSA mind you, revealing practices that go against the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Part of the Bill of Rights that defines the goals and character of our nation. The part that defines the right to be secure in one’s papers, that doesn’t allow for warrantless searches by government officials, and lends a great deal of support to a right to privacy (with regard to the government).
Going against the Bill of Rights, by definition, makes you traitorous to the ideals of the country. If you’re not WITH the Constitution of the United States, you’re AGAINST the United States. Period. No discussion. Feel free to try to amend the Constitution if you think that’s the right thing to do.
However, don’t shove your BS “These clowns are TRAITORS” at me. You can say that all you want, of course (free speech and all that), but by doing it, you’re supporting a country doing things that the founders would not intend or support (in my opinion).
Harold Samson
I know this; most all the spying being excused by the BJ Chorus of The Savvy is the kind of thing that repressive governments do, and the kind of stuff that our ideals are opposed to.
I can also see our country recently changing in the direction of repression.
So I would spend no energy worrying about Greenwald’s bedroom hobbies, or Snowden’s choice of hiding places, and much more on the spying revelations themselves and whether or not the nation is ready to change course.
But that’s just me.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yatsuno: It was good popcorn.
Keith G
@different-church-lady:
I’ll bite
Seems to me that a first step might be to see who is calling whom a liar…and on what grounds.
For example: In the Snowden case, the White House has been saying a lot of things about Snowden, but I have yet to read that they have called him a liar (in regards to the specifics in the leaked data).
Maybe I just missed it.
Harold Samson
@different-church-lady:
I’m “Cute” hmm. That’s not what the mirror says.
Does this mean you actually do think there’s a dependable lie-detector? And that I’m dodging your question, which is so darn naive as to beg for a snarky response?
I really wasn’t being snarky; there is no dependable way to tell if someone is telling you the truth or not.
But here’s a good rule-of-thumb, not always accurate but much better then a coin toss; on issues of power, powerful people generally lie a lot more then powerless people.
Aji
@different-church-lady: LOL. Yeah, but I’ll bet Snowden needs that $1,500 a lot more right now, whether it comes as rubles or whatever. Just sayin’.
Fair Economist
@hildebrand:
*I* want the NSA retasked from wiretapping Angela Merkel to coding the Obamacare websites. That would actually do the country some good.
different-church-lady
@Harold Samson: Yeah, that’s what I thought. We’ve done this already. It was a fun dance, but nobody was any smarter for it.
Harold Samson
@Jeremy:
Heh. You remind me of that Bill Frist guy, who could diagnose Terry Schavio’s condition from a thousand miles.
I guess you don’t do logic much, but can you spend the energy to do a rough estimate of just how many 100K/yr employees could be hired with the 100 billion / year black budget?
And if you’re really feeling like giving the old bean a workout, read up on the profession of marketing, find out how many people make a living trying to figure out how to get you to think a certain way, or not even think at all.
Obviously, they’re doing their job quite well.
Harold Samson
@different-church-lady:
Oh speak for yourself. I get smarter every day :)
polyorchnid octopunch
@rikyrah: Sucks to be you guys, I guess.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I believe that falls into the “really reaching” territory there.
@Ash Can: There was a tremendous amount of spying going on on the various activists that were going to the summit. That’s part of the background of it up here. Neither CSEC nor the police are supposed to be doing that, not without warrants. However, if the NSA happened to pick up on stuff and pass it on, well….
Bobby Thomson
@LT: and a call for censorship from the “anti-fascists.” Classic. Firedoglake down or something?
polyorchnid octopunch
@rikyrah: Sure. And you keep on defending the police state. Suits you right down to the ground.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Botsplainer does a great job showing his ignorance of happenings outside of America. Mebbe try asking the NB miqmaq who are having their treaty rights violated by US fracking firms supported by the RCMP whether we’ve got an authoritarianism problem happening up here.
polyorchnid octopunch
@efgoldman: I’d pretty much agree with that.
? Martin
@Harold Samson:
There’s only one person here who can say anything he wants without getting arrested, and that’s Greenwald. And there’s only one person who gets paid every time they speak, and that’s Greenwald.
He’s much more powerful than you give credit.
Harold Samson
@? Martin:
Neither of those things are true.
And you confuse influence with power.
MomSense
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Holy sh&t batman but that could be the dumbest comment ever. You must only show up here for the NSA/Greenwald/Snowden posts.
There is a whole world of police state out that has nothing to do with the NSA.
Yatsuno
@MomSense: And like the rising of the tides, another Greenwald thread loses the plot. And folks wonder why I don’t take these seriously.
I’m not blaming you for this BTW.
Cassidy
@MomSense: Yeah, but to these suburban liberals, those problems don’t matter; that happens to “those” people. We have more important persecutions to talk about in suburbia.
Harold Samson
@Yatsuno: *I* know why you don’t take these threads seriously.
You like popcorn too much.
You have fed well.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: Doesn’t affect duebros directly and Glenn finds that uninteresting. Also doesn’t have the benefit of weakening the state.
@shelly: Betty is in mourning for the state of the Gators plus Mixie shat this out with the intention of running off. So until Steve lets JC out for air we’re kinda stuck.
shelly
No new thread since 2 PM? Jeebus, everybody must be away this weekend.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Bullshit. Not every reporter in a typical team situation writes the story. In most cases only one does the writing, while the others research, talk to sources, etc.. Greenwald is in a unique position, because he’s got something very close to an exclusive on the source, and he- Greenwald, that is- can set terms in releasing the material which he’s obtained from the source. He’s straddling the line between journalist and press agent- at best.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Why don’t the one-note jackaroyds like “octopunch” put their former nyms in () like civilized people do? It’s almost as if they’re trying to hide something. Lucky we have the NSA to keep everything straight.
divF
@Harold Samson:
Actually, the going rate for these kinds of people, including benefits, is $200K-$300K. That doesn’t include indirect costs -space, utilities, administrative functions (we got regaled with stories last night from a family member about what kind of legal trouble you can get into these days if you don’t have a well-functioning HR department) – so let’s call it $400K / person, on average.
But, otherwise, your point is well-taken.
A Humble Lurker
@Keith G:
Or at least they were until roughly four years ago.
polyorchnid octopunch
@MomSense: Hey, he’s defending part of the police state. If the shoe fits, etc etc. Just because he likes only some but not all of it doesn’t mean he’s not doing it.
different-church-lady
@MomSense: Police state, surveillance state, who cares what the difference is as long as you refuse to get put down by the man!
polyorchnid octopunch
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): I’ve been commenting under this nym here for a few years. Not my fault if you’re not paying attention.
polyorchnid octopunch
@different-church-lady: Split some more hairs, willya?
MomSense
@Yatsuno: @Cassidy:
These threads lose the plot every damned time.
Judging by Cole’s pictures of late Steve is too stoned on catnip to care about our thread crisis.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): So? You mean everybody who does the research/sourcing for multiple-bylined news stories aren’t real journalists, or only when you don’t like them?
Bill Arnold
@Harold Samson:
This may be true, however it is often possible to identify falsehoods, and cherry picking. I’ve seen some of the later over time with GG; the Snowden doc-dump releases so far seem to ring true but one wonders what selection criteria are being applied.
polyorchnid octopunch
Seriously, most of the people here who are getting all bent out of shape about Snowden etc are all whining because he’s making America look bad. Guess what? Those of us out in The Rest Of The World don’t really care.
Turns out that NSA spying on Canadians doesn’t violate US law. This is not a big surprise, nor unexpected. However, it sure seems a lot of you think that means that those of us who aren’t Americans should therefore think “oh, that’s okay then.” Well, doesn’t really work that way.
The fact that they’re working the refs to basically spy on you by being selective about the means by which they do so doesn’t really impress me either.
ETA: here’s a great example of what I mean: http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
Eric U.
I am so confused by Canadians showing up here telling me I should be outraged about my government spying on them like Snowden and Greenwald said they did! Of course, Snowden and Greenwald said they spied on Americans, which hasn’t been shown to be true. So now all these leaks about (perfectly legal under U.S. law) spying on citizens of other countries are being leaked as a kind of rear-guard action to confuse the issue. Canadians can clean up their own damn house.
I would be upset with Obama over the Patriot Act if I thought it would help, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing he could do about it. What is the function of being upset with Obama over this? It seems like the provence of concern trolls that pretty much have the goal of damaging democrats. Because to the degree that it damages democrats, it is likely to increase the power of the police state in Republican hands. But the purity squad doesn’t have any problem with that, it seems
Harold Samson
@MomSense:
Yeah, that’s how it works. Get the “little people” bickering about trivialities, they soon lose interest and return to their televisions.
It’s almost becoming amusing. Maybe that’s why yutsano likes the popcorn so much
Bill Arnold
@Harold Samson:
I’ve yet to see any evidence of this being done by the national security establishment. Do you know of any? (Serious question) Otherwise this is just an inverted existence proof – if it’s possible, it must happen. Tempting when applied to the national security apparatus because it’s often true, but weak.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@beer time somewhere:
Oh come on – it’s rationing information for personal advantage the very thing the are claiming to be outraged over. Seriously, why can’t they just dump everything in one go like the Pentagon Papers, beyond this let’s Greenwald make more money off of it?
Patricia Kayden
I suppose if the Greenwald/Snowden revelations lead to a change in the way NSA operates and/or amendments to the Patriot Act, they will have done some good. I can wish for some good from their revelations without pretending that either of them are heroes.
Harold Samson
@Bill Arnold:
I wonder how much of the anger at Greenwald is because he is playing these documents for maximum outrage.
No one likes having their chain pulled, which is why marketing is such a deep psychological profession. In that company Greenwald would be a clumsy oaf indeed.
FlipYrWhig
How is it a sign of a “police state” when a US spy agency spies on foreigners? That makes no sense. Spying on Americans, at least you’re in the ballpark. Spying on dissidents, now you’re getting warmer. Is that what’s happening? Ah, there’s the rub.
polyorchnid octopunch
@FlipYrWhig: Go read the article I posted, and think about the collection of metadata, and then tell me again that they’re not spying on you folks.
FlipYrWhig
@polyorchnid octopunch: That was the former story. I have issues with it because I think in the telling there was a lot of obfuscation that minimized how, apparently, the metadata analysis led to warrants before any actual communications could be scrutinized. But, OK, let’s stipulate that that story in its worst form is concerning. How does this story have anything to do with that one?
mclaren
@rda909:
Aaaand we have a winner in the Senator Joseph McCarthy sweepstakes!
Remember: when someone leaks info of a government breaking the law, it’s crucial to hurl as much shit as possible at the person who leaked the info, rather than indicting the elected criminals who committed the crimes.
Congratulations, rda — you’re well qualified to take your place as a Commissar of Approved Truths in the grand New America being created by Bush/Obama/conressional atrocities like the USA Treason Act (excuse me, the USA Patriot Act), the unconstitutional AUMF, and the unconstitutional and treasonous NDAA.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
No, what I mean is that Greenwald is much more akin to the host of an infomercial than an actual journalist, that he’s working for or as a partner with the source rather than as an objective reporter for the reader. That he can demand a byline- and the air of legitimacy that goes with the byline- from a media outlet in exchange for his client’s/partner’s/source’s information is absurd.
Harold Samson
@Bill Arnold:
There’s all sorts of evidence, but any reasonably skilled operator knows the rule of plausible deniability. Any evidence I could present would be easily brushed aside.
If you’ve read even a modicum of the history of government, you will consider it a given that manipulation of public opinion is standard practice.
For an idea of how deep it can go; a good place to start is to read up on the father of modern marketing; Edward Bernays. He had quite the fascinating career, not all of it concerned with selling soap.
FlipYrWhig
@Harold Samson: in other words, if someone doesn’t agree with you, he must be brainwashed. Cool story bro.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And another fraking thing – if poor Greenwald and Snowden were under such a threat of being disappeared by the almighty Obummer-as-bad-as-Bush we’re-above the-law Security State that has back doors in ALL encryption then why they didn’t dump everywhere and run for cover before the NSA had them killed? None of this thing is making any sense.
A Humble Lurker
@Harold Samson:
FTFY.
mclaren
@Yatsuno:
That’s the entire point of the McCarthy-style smear tactics used against Greenwald. Haven’t you realized that?
The entire function of these astroturfing comments (probably from paid personnel deep in the Pentagon or NSA basement) is to divert attention away from Snowden’s latest revelations and Greenwald’s latest article, and onto useless name-calling like “[Greenwald] is neither a reliable narrator nor a reliable actor” and “we’re back to `spy agencies spy.'”
And when U.S. troops start lining American citizens up and shooting ’em in the head in front of slit trenches, what will the astroturfers offer us then?
“Ho-hum, we’re back to `troops shoot the enemy’ again, nothing to see here folks, move along.”
The breathtaking rapidity with which you people have accustomed yourself to a Mao-style police state would be astounding…if I hadn’t seen first-hand the craven bully-worship that characterizes the Balloon Juice commentariat for the last 8 years. You people are born serfs begging for a master to put a chain around your neck and whip you.
A Humble Lurker
@mclaren:
Is someone volunteering? I’m partial to the other way round, myself. When you’re offering that come back to me.
mclaren
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
How much is the DHS and the NSA paying you to spew out this kind of horseshit?
Do they give you the money in cash? Or is it a regular paycheck in the form of a salary?
“Are online comments full of paid lies?”Computerworld, 26 October 2013.
Welllllllllllllll we know the answer in the case of Balloon Juice, don’t we?
And by the way — just in case these paid astroturfers have succeeded in getting everyone to lose track of the narrative:
The government of the united states of America is now systematically violating the fourth amendment of the constitution, the fifth amendment of the constitution, the sixth amendment of the constitution, the eighth amendment of the constitution, and the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, and it’s using NSA spying to help systematically violate these basic amendments of the constitution.
That’s what’s at stake here. Not whether Glenn Greenwald received $1500, not whether Ed Snowden is holed up in Moscow, not whether you like the people who leak the American government’s violation of the law, not how you feel about the press, not nebulous smears about the alleged “reliability” of this or that person.
mclaren
@AxelFoley:
Getting paid to vomit out these kinds of smears under a fake astroturfing username is a crappy way of make a living, kiddo. You should get some self-respect and go back to peddling your ass as a street whore. It would be a real step up.
mclaren
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Not very clever, are we?
Snowden has said (repeatedly) that he has a huge trove of information he’s holding back that will get dumped by people he trusts if anything happens to him.
Tell your CIA handler that you need better talking points for your astroturfing anti-constitution propaganda.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mclaren:
Jesus, I don’t know what’s worse: Your paranoia, your hypocrisy or your long-windedness.
You keep toeing that line, buddy. When you’ve done the job for Greenwald and his neo-Gilded-Age buddies, it’ll be you kneeling at the edge of that slit trench, some Pinkerton’s .45 behind your ear. I’m glad you’ll be thrilled at that point, thinking that it wasn’t, at least, someone whose salary you didn’t pay through your taxes.
Keith G
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Really?
When folks (read government officials and litigants) want to hide something in plain sight – or hope that it gets overlooked, they dump as much info as they can at once.
If an adequate examination of detailed technical information is a goal, a gradual release is the best choice.
I guess you could blame this on GG’s ego, but that would just be myopically silly.
And then there is that whole thing about this being a much bigger trove of information that the Pentagon Papers.
Keith G
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Oh, I neglected to add that another reason for the delays is for national security and harm reduction. Each release is vetted – run by the US government so they can suggest redactions.
chopper
@MomSense:
eh, when you’re a privileged liberal, where ‘jobs’ and ‘money’ aren’t an issue, the idea that some chump might be able to look at your metadata when you place a call overseas is the worst thing ever. and it’s totes a ‘police state’ too, which shows you’ve never been within 10000 miles of an actual police state.
mclaren
@polyorchnid octopunch:
You’re talking to an E-5 corporal who’s getting paid to piss out these astroturfing comments from the basement of the Pentagon. You’re wasting your time. The people offering these outlandish arguments against the basic framework of the constitution aren’t serious, they’re just paid whores. Their usernames have never appeared before on this forum, for the most part, and will never be heard from again after they’ve completed their disinformation assignment.
See this job listing from 2010:
Pentagon looking for disinformation specialists
20 11 2010
D ‘ USSOCOM Trans Regional Web Initiative
Solicitation Number: Reference-Number-SSN01172008
Solicitation Number:
Reference-Number-SSN01172008
Synopsis:
Added: January 17, 2008
The purpose of this sources sought notice is to identify potential/possible sources throughout industry to fulfill the requirement described below. This notice is published for market research purposes only to identify interested parties. Responses to this sources sought notice will be used by the Government to determine how the solicitation will be issued (i.e. full and open competition or a set-aside). This notice invites all interested parties to submit the data listed below indicating their interest in supporting this requirement. Responses to this notice will NOT be considered as offers and will NOT be used by the Government to form a binding contract. Interested parties should submit their data as a pdf attachment to an email by 1:00 PM EST on 4 February 2008 to [email protected]. Responses shall include the complete name and address of the interested party, CAGE Code, DUNS Number, and the name, phone number and email address of at least one POC. Responses shall be no longer than one page.
The Government has a requirement for a range of web site products and services to support the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The contractor shall:
Develop, operate and maintain a minimum of six websites, in the directed languages and conceptual approaches approved by the Government;
Develop, operate and maintain websites tailored to influence foreign audiences per Government-approved Concepts of Operations (CONOPs), conceptual approaches and previously approved prototypes;
Provide full-service cultural knowledge, political, editorial, media, and information technology capabilities;
Identify, develop, obtain and maintain a network of native/indigenous content contributors with backgrounds in politics, academics, security, culture, entertainment, and other aspects of the GWOT, which appeal to identified foreign target audiences. This network of contributors must provide regular scheduled content and respond as required to emerging opportunities;
Develop obtain and maintain content for use on the websites;
Develop a plan that measures both performance and effectiveness to determine the market penetration, traffic to, and success of, each website;
Conduct continuous security monitoring of the websites;
Comply with all Department of Defense Information Assurance requirements, including response to event timeliness;
Continuously recommend and conduct, with Government approval, mass marketing efforts to establish brand name recognition, market presence, and capitalize on opportunities to promote the websites and to significantly increase penetration to the intended audience; and,
Establish, operate and maintain a password protected virtual collaboration system, or similar capability, that allows for 24 hours per day, seven days per week content sharing, review, modification, approval, and potential synchronization.
All contractor personnel shall hold a U.S. SECRET security clearance and be able to obtain a U.S.TOP SECRET clearance. Contractor will require access to both classified and unclassified government computer systems facilities. Contractor will be authorized to courier classified information up to the SECRET level in performance of official duties upon approval of and designation by the Government.
Contracting Office Address:
Other Defense Agencies, U.S. Special Operations Command, Headquarters Procurement Division, 7701 Tampa Point Blvd, MacDill AFB, FL, 33621-5323, UNITED STATES
Place of Performance:
7701 Tampa Point BlvdMacDill AFB
33621
Point of Contact(s):
Amy Chauvin, (CTR) Contract Specialist, Phone 813-826-1145 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 813-826-1145 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, Fax 813-826-7504, Email [email protected] ‘ Julia DeLoach, Contracting Officer, Phone 813-282-8795 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 813-282-8795 end_of_the_skype_highlighting X6103 , Fax 813-286-2264, Email [email protected]
============
Also see “Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media — Military’s ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda,” The Guardian, 17 March 2011.
And you really think these same disinformation techniques aren’t being used against Americans, on American forums?
If there’s one thing history shows: if the U.S. military and intelligence community is using some technique against foreign government, sooner or later they start using it against American citizens.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
All you fourth amendment bleaters need to STFU.
Seriously. Check the dissenters. Very interesting who appointed them, no?
ETA: The dissenters were Ginsburrg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Though the ruling says we have no standing in pursuing court cases Re. FISA, which increases executive power, two of three dissenters were appointed by the Blah in Chief.
Harold Samson
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s probably enough of an understanding for you, “bro.”
slippy
My goodness I didn’t think it was possible for me to have a lower opinion of Greenwald. Yes this news all sounds very alarming, but more and more I’m finding myself having to consider the source.
mclaren
@chopper:
Shorter Chopper: The U.S. government is violating its citizens’ rights a little less severely than the Stalinist Terror (right now), so no reason to worry!
On the other hand, the U.S. government has arrogated to itself the illegal and uncostutional right to:
Kidnap any U.S. citizen and hold hi/r in a dungeon forever, without charges or a trial;
Torture any U.S. citizen without charges or a trial;
Assassinate any U.S. citizen without charges or a trial;
Gin up bogus kangaroo court charges against any U.S. citizen resulting in prison terms of 35 years and up for trivial minor infractions of the Terms of Use of public computer systems like the ones at MIT.
…But no worries. It’s not quite as bad as Stalin’s purges. Yet!
Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!
Harold Samson
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
To really get the “little people” bickering and exhausted, send in someone like mclaren to say sensible things in such an insulting and angry way that people are turned off to any sensible points.
Call it “truth trolling.”
chopper
@mclaren:
Yes, it’s only a little bit less than Stalinism. Given that half my family was killed by that government, I’d say you’re right on the money. So far Obama has killed only 45% of my family here in the US.
Bloix
Greenwald was not “a porn industry executive.” He was an investor in a limited liability company that had, among other interests, an investment in pornography. This puts him on a par with, say, JW “Bill” Marriott, Jr., CEO of the Marriott hotel company, Mormon bishop, and purveyor of pornography into every hotel room his company manages.
see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/26/nsa-revelations-response-to-smears
FlipYrWhig
@Harold Samson: how about sending a condescending, superior doucheweasel into the end of a long thread to try to win arguments through the arcane art of Smug-fu? Or do you just provide that service for free?
Harold Samson
@FlipYrWhig:
You win.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Harold Samson:
No, call it half-truth trolling. That’s the problem.
I have pointed this out before: Neuter the NSA and, while you might stop the some snooping on your average Joe, you’ll also stop that agency from keeping an eye on banks in the Cayman Islands. Who benefits more, Joe or those who want to hide their banking activities? Is it Joe, or is it someone who wants to launder money from the US, through an offshore bank into the hands of some paramilitaries in order to quash strikes in the oil and natural gas fields of Central Asia- or back into the US to quash strikes here?
Until you start talking truth about both edges of the sword, it ain’t truth trolling.
different-church-lady
I’m not seeing my fuckin’ ice cream in the next thread…
different-church-lady
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Next time, bet on the trifecta.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bloix:
Yeah…I’m not getting that sense of distance from Greenwald’s partner in the venture, who was directing some of the films himself.
doofus
@different-church-lady: I was rooting for you too.
Harold Samson
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
No one without a clearance really knows how much NSA spying helps the “good guys” catch the “bad criminals.”
Perhaps Greenwald has some docs from Snowden revealing those cases. Would you trust him to release info that casts the NSA in a good light?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Harold Samson:
Trust him? Moot point: He’d never do it. Greenwald’s feverishly Manichean.
mclaren
@chopper:
And once again we get an astroturfing Pentagon troll dredging up the old “Obama must be Stalin LOL!” smear.
Show me where I or anyone else, like John Cole or Corner Stone, who objects to the gross violations of the constitution by the U.S. government, has ever accused Obama of murdering millions of people.
Show me where I have called Obama “another Stalin.”
Clearly, Obama or the even worse authoritarian Joe Biden (author of the 1995 Omnibus Counterterrorism Act which served as the basis of the illegal unconstitutional USA Patriot Act), are not dictators. These people are not ordering the murder of millions of U.S. citizens. These people have not built concentration camps, nor have they set up internal passports, nor have they deported U.S. citizens to gulags, nor have they set up mass public torture festivals, or anything else closely similar.
You don’t seem to grasp what’s going on in the New America.
The rule of law has been largely erased. Basic foundations of civilized society going al lthe way back to the Magna Carta, like habeas corpus or the right to be charged with a crime before the government murders you, have been eliminated.
But that does not mean that the U.S. government is now another Stalinist Terror, murdering tens of millions of its own citizens.
Yet.
The point that I and John Cole and many others make is not the absurd straw man you’re vomiting out, to wit, that the U.S. govenrment is some kind of maniacal genocidal dictatorship. It is not. Yet.
The point that I and John Cole and man others are making is that Barack Obama and George W. Bush have set up the preconditions for a genocidal dictatorship, should some future president or congress decide to enact one.
America is not currently a fascist regime.
America right now is in a pre-fascist condition.. The necessary laws have been passed abrogating the constitution. The basic rule of law has been wiped out. The essential protections granted by the constitution to prevent a tyrrany have been deleted from our lawbooks — essential protections like the unconditional right to confront your accuser, the unconditional right not to have your person or your possessions or your premises subjected to unreasonable search and seizure without a court order. Essential protections like the right to be charged with a crime before being executed. Essential protections like the right not to be tortured by your own government. Essential protections like the right to peaceably assemble in petittion of your grievances against your elected govenrment.
All these essential protections against tyranny are now gone.
They have been torn out of our lawbooks. What happens next, I fear to contemplate. History does not bode well for societies which strip out these basic protections against tyranny. History shows that what usually follows is some form of authoritarian government.
Follow the progression:
During Watergate, defenders of Nixon said “At least he isn’t going around congress to do somethinjg grossly illegal like selling weapons to our enemies!”
After Iran-Contra, defenders of Reagan said “At least he isn’t torturing U.S. citizens! So it’s not so bad!”
After 9/11, defender of Bush said “At least he isn’t assassinating U.S. citizens! So don’t worry!”
After Obama started assassinating .US. citizens, Obama’s defenders said, “At least he isn’t murdering millions of U.S. citizens! Nothing to see here, move along!”
…Does anyone see a problem with that way of thinking?
Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
A Humble Lurker
*shrieks with laughter*
BobS
@mclaren: I have to disagree with your representation of Axel Foley as a paid shill. While he has pretty terrific copy and paste skills (see comment 84 if you need convincing), his next comment that doesn’t simply parrot what someone else wrote will be the first- I’m fairly certain that the distance between the top of his eyebrows and his hairline can’t be more than two fingers.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Have you ever thought about decaf?
different-church-lady
@BobS:
Guy ain’t worth a damn since Slash left.
DLC, +2
Yatsuno
@BobS:
Wow. Just…wow. I know folks on here can be obtuse but…yikes. That’s practically Klan-worthy.
Thlayli
So, a typical Snowwald thread, then:
Insults flying — but only in one direction (“bootlickers”)
People insisting that this shows the NSA did something REALLY REALLY BAD, without much in the way of specifics.
Whines that other people are focusing on the wrong issue.
And, of course, Mclaren spewing off-his-meds gibberish (or so I assume, I don’t read it).
Yatsuno
@Thlayli:
The NSA actually kept in their mandate here. It’s the Canadians who may have gone way out of bounds this time. I can deal with this if it means Harper has more shit he needs to answer for.
mclaren
@Harold Samson:
And right on schedule, the usual substance-free complaints about the “tone” of my comments.
The NSA-funded sock puppet named “Harold Samson” has now descended to one of the lowest levels of Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement: attacking the “tone” of your opponent, rather than offering any substantive objections to what he’s saying.
No facts. No logic. No argument. Just “You’re shrill!!!!”
different-church-lady
@mclaren: I love it when you get so wound up and confused you start attacking people on your own side.
Yatsuno
Okay this thread just entered the absurd. ¿Quien es mas pura?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mclaren:
Sort of like attacking, out-of-hand, someone who disagrees with you (even if they really do agree with you) by labeling them as something for which you don’t and never will have proof. Because, of course, anyone who disagrees with YOU (even if, uhm, they don’t) in the slightest must be that which you despise the most.
Harold, if you didn’t know what “feverishly Manichean” meant before I dropped it earlier, you should now.
mclaren
@Thlayli:
Congratulations! You’ve now descended to the very lowest level of Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement, the ad hominem insult.
Notice, ladies and gentlemen, that not one single person who has feebly tried to defend the NSA and Obama has provided one single refutation to any of the points I’ve made. Not one. Not. A. Single. One.
As usual, Glenn Greenwald is a prophet:
“How Noam Chomsky Is Discussed: The more one dissents from political orthodoxies, the more the attacks focus on personality, style and character,” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, 23 March 2013.
And as for describing someone who states the truth as “truth trolling”?
George Orwell had something to say about that:
“Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell, 1946.
Consider that America is now bombarding defenseless villages from the air (in Pakistan), America has just recently robbed millions of peasants of their farms and sent them trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry (in Iraq), America is now imprisoning people for years without trial, America is now shooting its own citizens in the back of the neck (with Hellfire missiles).
Every single evil Orwell described in 1946 and attributed to totalitarian dictatorships like the Stalinist regime is now being perpetrated by the government of the United States — and in many cases against our own citizens.
Little wonder, then, that characters like Thlayli have resorted to what Orwell called “the defense of the indefensible,” using innuendo, smears, and character assassination in place of genuine arguments and actual facts.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Knife or pineapple?
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
Not even two. Which is less than not even one.
doofus
@different-church-lady: No ice cream yet, but there is a funny mashed potato story 2 threads up.
LAC
@? Martin: stop making sense…you will give miserablemix a sad.
mclaren
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Oh, so now you find it so terribly important to have actual proof of what people say?
Wait.
Various commenters at various times have called Glenn Greenwald:
* A grifter;
* A paid Chinese agent;
* A hi-tech terrorist;
* A malcontent trying to subvert the government of the United States;
* an unreliable egotist who cares nothing for the facts and only wants publicity for himself;
* a former porn producer.
And what proof did you demand of them? None. When someone hurls a wild accusation at Glenn Greenwald or at Ed Snowden, who needs proof? Proof is for wimps when we’re talking about Snowden or Greenwald! Into the steel cage at Gitmo with ’em both! Who needs proof?
…But the moment someone actually fights back against the tidal wave of innuendo and lies and smears and character assassination by suggesting that the people who are hurling these smears are very likely in the pay of the U.S. military and intelligence services…
Then you demand PROOF!
Reams and reams of evidence!
A ten-foot-tall pile of affadavits! Sworn testimony! Videotapes! Forensic evidence!
Sorry, folks, but what goes around comes around. When you smear artists feel free to hurl shit at Glenn Greenwald and Ed Snowden without offering a shred of evidence, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
You’re CIA-funded sock puppets, paid to spew disinformation.
You want to hurl accusations without evidence?
Turnabout is fair play. Get used to it.
The main difference is that my accusations are one hell of a lot more plausible than yours.
LAC
@mclaren: let me help you. The gun barrel goes in your mouth before you shoot. WHAAAAAAAA…….
mclaren
@different-church-lady:
So someone who describes telling the truth as “truth trolling” is on my side?
You may want to lay off the hard liquor. Lie down and sleep it off, you’re not coherent right now.
doofus
@mclaren: You aren’t paid by the NSA, are you? I ain’t saying you are. Just checking.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
Well, you ought to know.
different-church-lady
Wait… did somebody say “funny mashed potato story”?
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: Now I’m just laughing. This is some great comedy.
doofus
@different-church-lady: Not so much funny “ha ha” as funny “chuckle quietly to oneself”, but seems the only thing food related around this blog right now.
different-church-lady
@doofus: You kidding? I just read it out loud to my foodie friends!
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: I’m just happy McL is in on the joke.
The Art of Compromise
@piratedan: righteous. Wow. Great post. I can skip dessert now. Thank
mclaren
@LAC:
You have helped me. You have helped prove my point that not
one single commenter who has attacked me has tried to dispute:
[1] That Obama has ordered the assassination of American citizens
without charges or a trial;
[2] That Bush tortured U.S. citizens and kidnapped them without
charges or a trial, and that Obama has continued to insist on the
alleged authority claimed by Bush to kidnap U.S. citizens without
charges or a trial (by signing the NDAA);
[3] That Bush and now Obama have arrogated to themselves the unlawful
authority to spy on every single aspect of American citizens’ lives;
[4] That ordering the kidnapping, murder, torture and universal
surveillance of your own citizens without charging them with a crime,
without obtaining a warrant, and without getting a court order, is the
hallmark of a tyranny, not a free society;
[5] And lastly that these kinds of illegal and unconstitutional powers
represent a violation of the basic rule of law going back 900 years to
the Magna Carta, and clear the path for the worst kind of dictatorship
— and while America is not yet a dictatorship in the manner of the
Stalinist regime or Pol Pot’s regime, history shows that once the rule
of law has been wiped out and these kinds of grotesquely illegal
atrocities become permissible by the government, it is only a matter
of time before the tyranny emerges, before the mass arrests begin,
before the show trials become commonplace, before the gulags fill,
before the death squads “disappear” citizens in the middle of the
night and leave their mutilated bodies in a ditch in the morning.
mclaren
@different-church-lady:
You may want to stop boasting about molesting underaged children. It’s not only impolite, it’s admitting a felony in public. Plus, it’s disgusting.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Sorry, I had no idea you were under age.
Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t taunt you over state lines.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mclaren:
I think you need help. This isn’t meant to tease you, to make fun of you- I’m serious. This paranoia of yours is out of control.
lawguy
@Jeremy: He supported Obama in 2008. He put a lot of energy into that support. So you are wrong right there. The rest you say is just as wrong.
lawguy
@Jeremy: When did he support Bush? He has said that he bought what Bush said about Iraq and therefore supported the invasion at first. But other than that?
different-church-lady
Just noting one-half of a TBogg unit.
chopper
@mclaren:
Right, so when you offer up
…there’s no comparison at all to Stalinism. look, we all know you’re crazy. I don’t mean ‘oh I disagree with this dude’ crazy, I mean head-on-pants ‘the us gubbermint is just shy of Stalinism’ crazy.
That’s fine. Just do us a favor and own up to it, rather than making the argument and then pussing out when you’re called on it. At least have the courage to stand behind the bullshit you cough up instead of running away like a coward.
chopper
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I’d agree, but I’m clearly a paid pentagon troll.
A Humble Lurker
@lawguy:
Greenwald did support the Iraq war and never took that back. In fact, he denies it. But it’s right there in the preface of his book ‘How Would a Patriot Act?’
mclaren
@piratedan:
Now follows a detailed debunking of your false equivalences, specious logic, transparent sophistry, and dishonest logic-chopping:
Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald added to the conversation by revealing crimes the United States Government has been committing against the constitution.
The U.S. government is designed with three branches to afford a system of checks and balances. It cannot have escaped your attention that checks and balances cannot work if the military and intelligence services lie about and systematically conceal their violations of the constitution.
What information? The information that the U.S. government is violating the constitution? How is that useful to Russia? Or China? What will Russia and China do with that information, aside from humiliating the president and congress for their gross lack of oversight and their shameful disregard for the constitution? Why is humiliating the president and congress by telling the truth bad? The congress and the president should feel humiliated. They should feel ashamed of themselves for allowing these travesties to occur.
And since when is China or Russia our ‘two biggest rivals”? China is one of our biggest trading partners — China is linked with America at the hip, it’s as dependent on us as we are on them. And as for Russia, that’s now a pissant third-world tinpot dictatorship, of no consequence to America at all. Unless, of couse, you’re one of those far-right nutjobs who keeps re-watching Red Dawn (1984) on your DVD player and screaming “The Russians are about to invade us! Our Kenyan so-shul-ist preznit must be IMPEACHED!” Which, frankly, is what you sound like at this piont.
How does the fact that Russia and China violate their own citizens’ basic human rights give the U.S. government the right to throw the constitution out? Is that what you’re trying to argue — it’s okay for the U.S. to torture and murder its own citizens because Russia and China do it? Really?? You’re seriously trying to make that argument fly…?
Yes, it does sound incredibly patriotic, despite your grotesque efforts at sarcasm. Snowden gave up his entire life to let the American people know that the U.S. government is grossly violating the constitution. He gave up his job, his girlfriend, his possessions, everything. A lot like Thomas Paine. Snowden will probably die alone, impoverished, in some hovel far from his home country, the same way Thomas Paine did.
This is an outright lie.
Shame on you.
You have descended to level of Joe McCarthy with this smear.
Let’s be clear: Glenn Greenwald has criticized some aspects of U.S. policy. That is not even remotely in the same category as being “a strident opponent of the U.S. government.” According to this astoundingly un-American twist of distorted logic, any citizen who speaks out against some policy of their government instantly becomes “a strident opponent of the U.S. government.” In other words, a traitor.
So you are now equating principled dissent to treason.
That’s the goddamn lowest smear I’ve ever heard. You’ve now reached the level of Ann Coulter, where dissent = treason and disagreement with a policy of the American government = anti-Americanism.
For shame. At long last, have you now shame, sir?
Another low-down smear. How is revealing the truth about how the U.S. government violates the constitution equivalent to “arson”? And how is the U.S. government any kind of “fire department” if our government is perverting and traducing and grossly violating the constitution of the united states?
You’re really channeling Senator Joe McCarthy. Why don’t you tell us you have a list in your pocket with the names of twenty-seven known terrorists on it that Ed Snowed and Glenn Greenwald are protecting?
You disgusting little punk, you’re just another Joe McCarthy wannabe.
And we all know how completely reliable the United States Government has become when it makes public statements. Yes, the head of the NSA swore under oath before congress that he wasn’t conducting large-scale spying against the American people — he swore under oath, and he lied.
If the United States government makes a promise nowadays, the best assumption any sensible person can make is that the government of the United States is lying and will do the exact opposite.
And the fact that Obama has violated his oath of office to protect, preserve and defend the constituiton of the united states? That means nothing to you? The fact that the head of the NSA violated his oat by lying to congress multiple time? The fact that Joe Biden violated his oath of office by authoring that travesty the 1995 Omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act, which served as the basis of the illegal and unconstitutional USA Patriot Act? The fact that congress collectively violated its oath of office by passing that atrocity the AUMF and then the even worse atrocity the NDAA, which unconstitutionally gives the president the power to kindap U. S. citiznes without trial and hold them forever in a dungeon?
When all the branches of the government have violated their oaths of office, a person who violates his oath of office to reveal that fact is a patriot. Not a traitor, as you shamefully and scurrilously suggest.
More lies. You’re a real reincarnation of Senator Joe McCarthy, aren’t you? Everyone knows damn well that if American authorities get their hands on Snowden, they’ll treat him exactly the way they treated the other whistleblowers like John Kiriakou — illegal unconstitutional detention in supermax solitary, drugs to addle his brain, a kangaroo court military tribunal, and then off to some black hole for the rest of his life.
All because Ed Snowden chose to reveal the crimes of the United States government to its own people.
More smears. Now the implication that Greenwald somehow timed everything to get publicity. You just have no shame at all, do you?
So why don’t you?
I’m waiting?
Where’s the discussion fo the patriot Act on this thead?
No, every one of your crawling craven bully-worshiping authoritarians have nothing at all to say about the Patriot Act, your own statements are smears hurled at Glenn Greenwald smears hurled at Ed Snowden, and smears hurled at me.
Where are your oh-so-deep discussion of the Patriot Act?
Nowhere. You’re bullshitting us. You don’t give a damn about the Patriot Act, you just want to cover up the fact that you’re a bully–worshiping toady who kisses the boot the government stamps in your face and loudly applauds every unconstitutional atrocity committed by people in power, as long as they’re really really powerful. Because with wannabe blackshirts like you, all that matters is sucking up to people in power.
Okay, let’s have that discussion. Here’s why the private sector having all your personal information is not a big fucking deal:
[1] Microsoft cannot fire a drone missile at you and kill you because they decide they don’t like the speeches you give. The U.S. government can, and has done so.
[2] Yahoo cannot drag you out off the street into a secret military black prison site and torture you until the confess to imaginary crimes. The U.S. government can, and has done so with a U.S. citizen (Jose Padilla).
[3] Google cannot freeze your assets and suspend your passport and have you hunted down like a dog by assassination teams acting outside the law. The U.S. government can do this, and has done it.
Are we clear now?
Is your confusion cleared up?
At last, amid all your lies and smears and Swift-Boating, you broke stride by speaking the truth. Probably to catch the unwary reader off guard.
Cassidy
@mclaren: I think you’re probably a nice person in real life. I wish you would try to be nicer here.
Bill Arnold
@mclaren:
Any evidence? Aren’t there legal and procedural walls blocking this sort of domestic activity? (Also, I can imagine a lot of anger in congress if this sort of activity were exposed; the NSA took a lot of heat in the 80s as I recall from Bamford’s NSA books.)
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: This is getting more and more into trainwreck territory. Better get a Tbogg out of this puppy at least.
I miss recent comments. They facilitated Tboggs on here.
different-church-lady
@chopper: It’s a parody troll. Shrug it off.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: 1540 words. The ghost of Christopher Hitchens approves. But you might consider laying off the nicotine.
chopper
@Bill Arnold:
Take it from a paid pentagon troll, it’s all true. I’m also a Freemason and a Rothschild.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mclaren:
Except that every Team Snowden revelation that has purportedly shown criminally unconstitutional behavior has had to be walked back shortly after publication.
Do you think that Erik Prince and his ilk provide services solely for the United States’ government? Hell, let’s leave “his ilk” out of it: Do you know who that guy is, who his father was, who is sister is, who is brother-in-law is? Do you know what their beliefs are?
All it takes is laissez-faire government- or a government that has been so handicapped as to function against its will as a laissez-faire government (“drowned in the bathtub” is how one of Hamsher’s odd bedfellows has been known to put it)- to allow the private sector to do all of these things and more.
fuckwit
Are we absolutely sure that mclaren is not T&H?
chopper
@fuckwit:
mclaren is a paid troll. it’s a huge CIA psyop. us DoD trolls are in competition.
mclaren
@Bill Arnold:
Suddenly your’re passionately concerned about evidence. Where was your concern for evidence when the Swift Boaters smeared Snowden as a “paid Chinese agent” and “a traitor”? Where was your deep passion for evidence when the paid Pentagon astroturfers smeared Greenwald as a “grifter” and “unreliable” and “an egotist” who is an “opponent of his govenrment”?
Obviously no one can take you seriously, since you only call for evidence when someone makes an accusation you’re uncomfortable with. You’d fit in well at the Salem Witch Trials, not to mention the House Un-American Activities Committee chaired by Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
Now you’re really kidding. Okay, we know you’re a troll now. “Legal and procedural walls blocking this sort of domestic activity”? Those are the same legal and procedural walls that blocked the U.S. immigration authorities from picking up Jose Padilla at his jet the instant he got off the plane and delivering him to a U.S. military prison? You know, that pesky little legal and procedural wall called the fifth amendment requirement of due process? Or how about the legal and procedural walls blocking the military from torturing Padilla until his brain turned to pudding? Those kinds of legal and procedural walls? Or the legal and procedural walls blocking the NSA from wiretapping everyone’s phone and siphoning down the bank records and storing it all on a giant data storage facility in the Utah desert? You mean those kinds of fourth amendment legal and procedural walls? Or maybe you refer to the legal and procedural walls that supposedly prevent a president from ordering the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen so he or she can be delivered to a foreign government to be tortured? You mean those legal and procedural walls that disappeared during the Clinton administration (because Bill Clinton is the president you started “extraordinary rendition”)?
Surely you jest. There are no longer any legal or procedural walls against anything in America. The president can order any American citizen kidnapped, tortured, shot, held in a dungeon forever without charges, and no court can intervene. A federal circuit court has even upheld the Obama administration extralegal assassination by claiming that the victim’s father does not have legal standing to even take the case to court.
So not only can you be targeted for assassination as a U.S. citizen without charges or a trial, a federal court has said you can’t even apply for an injunction to stop your own assassination. Truly Kafkaesque territory we’re in, legally speaking.
You mean those legal and procedural blocks, right?
Get real. The government of the united states now exists beyond the rule of law. They can do anything to anyone anywhere at any time, U.S. citizen or not, and no court can stop them and no law can prevent it. Ever since the Yoo memo, America has existed in an extralegal state of “anything goes.”
If you haven’t realized that yet, you haven’t been paying attention.
You may want to read Tom Englehardt’s article “Welcome to Post-Legal America.” It’s a short sharp dose of truth about the reality of life in these United States after the Yoo memo and Obama’s unconstitutional “secret kill list” and the NDAA.
mclaren
@fuckwit:
Are we absolutely sure that commenters like fuckwit aren’t paid sock puppets working out of a Pentagon basement?
mclaren
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
We have copious evidence that the United States government has assassinated and kidnapped U.S. citizens without charges and without a trial. In fact, the government boasts about it. They’ve written memos defending it.
Do you have any evidence at all that Microsoft or Yahoo or Citibank or any other private American corporation has assassinated or kidnapped U.S. citizens?
mclaren
@chopper:
Coming from a classic Karl Rove astroturfer, you can’t possibly expect anything you say to be taken seriously. Go back to your CIA handler and tell him to give you a better set of talking points. This one ain’t working.
mclaren
@Cassidy:
I should be nice to paid astroturfers who accuse me of being mentally ill and a “truth troll” because they can’t dispute my facts and can’t come up with any weakness in my basic argument that without the rule of law, a society always eventually descends into tyranny?
Why?
Why should I be nice to these paid shills and liars?
This, my friends, is the fundamental weakness of Democrats, right here. “Be nice!” John Kerry followed that advice when Karl Rove swift-boated him. You saw what happened. “Be nice!” Barack Obama followed that advice when he tried to negotiate a reform to America’s broken health care system. How many Republican votes did Barack pick up by being nice?
Fuck nice.
Tell the truth. Hit ’em hard.
Don’t let the other motherfucker get in a swing, use a nail-studden baseball bat first and hit so hard the bastards stay down. Until progressive Democrats learn that lesson, they’re going to keep getting slammed by the Karl Roves of the world.
mclaren
@different-church-lady:
Are we absolutely sure that different-truth-lady isn’t a wanted child molester?
LAC
@mclaren: you are a fucking paranoid bore. Maybe that is why no one is interested in refuting your conspiracy theories.
mclaren
@Yatsuno:
Are we absolutely sure that Yatsuno isn’t sodomozing the corpses of his parents after he murdered them?
See, the problem with these kinds of innuendos and smears is that…anyone can use them.
A word to the wise, motherfuckers. Reach out your hand to slap me with a smear and you will draw back a bloody stump.
Rhetorically speaking, I will rip your heads off and shit down your necks.
mclaren
@LAC:
And you’re a foul-mouthed ignorant sociopath who’s being paid to smear progressives that speak out against gross violations of the constitution. Crawl back into your hole and beg for more cash from your CIA handler, you’re done here. You have been outed. You’re history.
chopper
@mclaren:
You know it, we’re all in on the conspiracy. we woulda got away with it too if it wasn’t for you brain-dead hacks on the Internet with delusions of grandeur.
chopper
@mclaren:
you’re like the Bruce Lee of accusing everyone of being part of a CIA conspiracy.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: I don’t know. Why don’t you write a 1500 word essay about it and we can make up our minds.
And don’t call me Shirley.
mclaren
Still waiting for one person to explain why it’s constitutional for Obama to order the murder of U.S. citizens without charges or a trial.
Still waiting for one person to explain why it’s constitutional for the NSA to spy on every aspects of U.S. citizens’ lives without a warrant.
Still waiting for one person to explain why it’s constitutional for the congress to pass the NDAA authorizing the extralegal kidnapping of any American without a warrant or a court order.
Still waiting for one person to explain why it’s treasonous for Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald to release information detailing the NSA’s unconstitutional spying.
Anyone?
All you’ve got is smears and lies and ridicule, right?
No arguments, no facts.
Just the usual Karl Rove-Senator Joseph McCarthy smears.
mclaren
@chopper:
Still waiting for you to explain why throwing out the rule of law won’t lead to a tyranny instead of a democracy.
But you can’t, can you?
So you can do is hurl lies and smears. Keep it up, astroturfer, your credibility is dropping faster than your IQ.
mclaren
@different-church-lady:
That will be 1500 more words about the importance of the rule of law and the basic fundamentals of civilized society that has underpinned every Western nation since the Magna Carta than you’ve ever uttered.
You’re the perfect embodiment of our 144-character twitter society — ridicule any argument takes more than a single phone screen, shower with acid contempt the constitution because:
;tldr
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@different-church-lady:
Aww, fuck, it just hit me that you’re right- and I know who it is!
Rearrange the letters in “mclaren” and you get “clear mn”.
It’s Mrs. Yatsuno.
mclaren
AMENDMENT IV
This makes the NSA’s activities wholly unconstitutional.
If you don’t like that, emirgate to North Korea, where they don’t have fourth amendment protections.
The constitution of the united states, punks: love it or leave it.
mclaren
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Rearrange the letters of “Temporarily Max McGee” and you get “A clammier exempt orgy.”
Obvious troll.
Yatsuno
@mclaren:
You really are an angry violent person aren’t you?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@mclaren:
Except that you left out the parenthetical, and didn’t figure in the math. When decoded, it reads “Joe Hill’s Ghost”.
mclaren
@Yatsuno:
He who lives by the verbal sword, dies by the verbal sword. Come after me with a meat hook and you had better step into the arena and be prepared to watch your intestines spill onto the sand.
The moment you people stop hurling smears and character assassinations like “off your meds” and start actually providing facts and arguments to counter my facts and arguments, you will find my responses perfectly civil.
chopper
@mclaren:
seriously, the great purges are set to start next June. My CIA handler told me.
mclaren
@Yatsuno:
And by the way — gay marriage, the right to have an abortion, the right not to have homosexual activity banned by the state, and the right not to have a school board prevent a school from teaching evolution, all depend on the right to privacy as determined by various supreme court decisions.
Let the NSA’s rampant spying stand, and the right to privacy is null and void.
In that case, prepare to have gay marriage and abortions and homosexuality and evolution taught in schools all declared illegal, because the supreme court will find that you have consented to abandon your rights to privacy.
chopper
@mclaren:
you truly are the mall ninja of balloon-juice.
chopper
@Yatsuno:
mclaren’s posts certainly have been more violent and paranoid than usual.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Naw. I’m just screwing with you.
Yatsuno
@mclaren:
And off into lolwut territory he goes!
@different-church-lady: It was kinda fun, but I bring out his more base vile impulses. We should at least try to act like a family blog here.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Q: In modern times what’s the difference between a hard left looney and a hard right looney?
A: two amendments.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: nicotine is a hell of a drug.
PIGL
@Botsplainer: What dictionary are you consulting? Censorship and muzzling of traditionally open federal research, draconian criminal laws, building prisons, spying on and subverting legitimate political activity, actively expanding the security apparatus in the absence of any credible threat….what part of authoritarian are we missing here?
Is it El Salador in the 70s? No, but that bar is pretty low, even for you.
different-church-lady
@PIGL: Wow, Canada sounds like a hellhole.
lawguy
@A Humble Lurker: How does he deny it if your quote comes from his book? Hell he admits he was wrong. Good lord look at yourself. It is so important that Greenwald be a bad man in your eyes that you can’t read the simple words he writes and understand them.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
Except that it isn’t, as linked above, ass.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/scotus-surveillance-challenge/
LAC
@mclaren: I am joining the growing chorus of folks here that seriously beg for you to get help and fast. You are beyond psychotic. I really feel sorry for you – this is it for you, ranting on a site?
Bill Arnold
@mclaren:
You’re conflating some things here. There is an arguable case to be made that Snowden committed treason, but that would need to be determined in court with a solid legal defense team working on his behalf. The rest is smear, though one can read (or sample, given it’s volume) GG’s material and decide whether or not he is an egotist or opponent of the US government. As far as what I’ve said or not said, I”m not a loquacious commenter (note you’re responding to a three sentence comment). “Paid astroturfers” is as far as I know without evidence. My rule is to not believe without evidence; believing stuff because it fits neatly into a worldview is a recipe for mistakes, e.g. mistaken decision making.
Like many, I’ve thought about this a lot since being a child. It’s frankly hard to know. The best defense is a mental style that insists on evidence, and is suspicious if there is no counter evidence presented. That mental style was not mainstream around the Salem Witch Trials.
So, you didn’t really answer the question, Would have been less typing to call me on the “procedural and legal barriers” bit directly; I don’t know what they are beyond vague recollection, and a vague unjustified certainty that Congress would hate hate hate it, especially if they started getting lots of calls from irate constituents.
I’d like some evidence, flimsy and circumstantial is fine if that’s all there is, related to government-paid trolling and government-operated domestic propaganda in support of intelligence agencies. Been looking for it on the internet since a reading of Ken MacLeod’s “The Execution Channel” (2008) crystallized disinformation warfare in plausible near-future story form. (Capsule review: A bit of a downer story. Included musings on amoralities associated with the “war on terror”; felt like a readout from a world sim operated primarily as a torture-porn generator by a bored amoral transhuman entity.)
Joey Giraud
Without agreeing or disagreeing with anyone ( especially mclaren, ) I have to say that people like you who proclaim their independence of thought and critical facilities with pronouncements on the importance of evidence and such are, almost exclusively, lazy asses who can’t be bothered to read, remember and comprehend. Rather then investigate, you wish to have a neat story presented with no loose strings and backed by solemn authority. And that never happens, because authority has no interest in that.
There is a mountain of public domain evidence indicating manipulation of media content, if you can be bothered to look into it.
SebastianDangerfield
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
A 5-4 Supreme Court decision saying that particular plaintiffs do not have standing to mount a challenge to a set of practices does not mean that the practices are constitutional. So leaving aside the fact that people can have reasonable views on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of certain practices that differ from the views of a bare majority of the Supreme Court at any given point in time, the Clapper v. Amnesty International decision most assuredly does not establish the constitutionality of anything, even considered on its own terms.
(This is not to mention the fact that the surveillance practices that the plaintiffs in Clapper v. Amnesty International are not coextensive with the congeries of surveillance practices uncovered by Snowden’s revelations.)
chopper
@Bill Arnold:
As to ‘gummint trolling’, don’t bother. all this ‘it’s a CIA Internet psyop’ is just a defense mechanism aimed at dealing with her own pro-fascist tendencies.
in short, she is so formal and orthodox that she equates disagreement with being ‘subhuman’. of course, that’s fascist talk, which is a problem for someone who boasts up and down about being anti-authoritarian. so her subconscious has invented this complicated paranoid cover that says that people who disagree are part of a deliberate government movement to discredit her. it’s better than rationalizing
genocide, which deep down is where she really stands.
it’s much like the hardcore anti-gay Christian who is actually closeted and gay as all hell. she’s a closeted fascist.
Mclaren's mom
You know, son, you really are an unspeakably boring and self-obsessed wanker.
Cervantes
@Bargal20: It’s “LA la LA la LA,” actually.
Cervantes
@Harold Samson: A thousand ways? That’s generous. I counted three ways, albeit used a thousand times.