Had you cared to actually read it, you'd have realized, you say the same things about them the friends of your parents said about you.
If the roles were reversed, I'd have stopped pressing the issue of how important this chain of systems is, for one simple reason: even with the methods Snowden has revealed, and was then a real life 0-day exploit, no attacks have been prevented. After San Bernardino, the interest in membership of the particular gun range, that has trained the terrorist went up by 60%. No normal community would flock toward a place, where instructors can't even identify a dangerous person. Then the DOJ demanded from Apple to allow a backdoor so that they can know, what they should have already known, had they worked together with DHS, ICE and the FBI.
The protocols put in place after 9/11 were designed exactly for preventing lax approaches and complacency. The professional rivalry between the 17 different agencies exist as if 9/11 hasn't happened at all. The NSA managed to hack the phones of world leaders, but "conveniently" forgot to alert the Germans, that the guy carrying out the Christmas attack was on the no fly list. I also tell you, why they hasn't alerted them or the French with Paris and Nice: because we did not agree to let the intelligence agencies store our unrelated data uncontrollably and indefinitely. One of the guns used and purchased on the black market and used in the Paris attacks came from an American collector, despite the fact, that the mere intent of a sale of a firearm abroad needs the approval of the State Department. I hold my breath until he is caught (despite braking several federal laws). Similarly, the Americans buying priceless and irreplaceable artifacts from the Mesopotamian era (courtesy of ISIS)have also not been pursued despite having obvious terrorist ties.
None of it is being used to catch actual terrorists either domestic or foreign. From a human standpoint, it's virtually impossible, that the Dallas cop killers, Anders Breivik, Dylan Roof, the purger guy, school and workplace shooters just wake up one day and say I want to do this. They always leave a trail, the NSA knows that, but doesn't disclose it to the FBI, the same goes for the CIA, if they managed to get in, it's not their problem anymore.
Meanwhile radical terrorists want mere civilians to fight among each other, further eroding the social fabric, upon which every democracy is built on. The funny thing is, the Russians have taught Reagan (indirectly) to embrace the principle of trust but verify. That's not what the Bush and Obama administrations are doing, nor will it be what Trump will do or Clinton would have done. There's also the most recent chew toy from 2012, whose fault was the debacle in Libya. To quote Professor Farnsworth, good news, everyone, it was the fault of everyone. Despite all the supposed good mass surveillance does, neither the NSA, nor the GCHQ has reported in a joint or separate session to Washington, that both the British and the International Red Cross had pulled out due to increasing terror threat and general instability. In June of that year, the compound housing the murdered diplomat suffered a blast the size of which a truck could pull through. None of that was a red flag, nor how a diplomatic mission should be established, starting with the termination of private subcontractors, who have no experience with the area, and are a potential threat to antagonize locals. We could rightfully ask even Snowden, who still was working for them at the time, how come nobody sounded the alarm before it became obvious that their closest ally pulls out? Not after that, before that.
It's mostly because they're not detectives, they don't cross points together. The FBI does, but they have little access to it, and even they don't share intel with Interpol. This system knows who likes pumpkin spice lattes, who buys Jimmy Choo shoes, but it doesn't know, that the same person who buys a bunch of fertilizer, parts of a detonator, and a lot of guns might be a dangerous person, like Breivik. It's not the millennials who don't appreciate it (a lot of them voted, more, than years before), but the ones, who drop a needle on a haystack, but only search the haystack. Our generations and the ones before us are the ones voting populist, but not for social reasons, rather economical ones. The shot was promised at prosperity, and for many, globalization kicks that further away, that leads to frustration.
You should have read the redcoats part too, because the English law was changed centuries before to include a jury, so that nobody can be convicted on hearsay or coercion. In the colonies however, they had special rules, the inhabitants were loyal subjects, not citizens. They wrote the 4-6th Amendments on the experience, that the British said whatever they wanted, habeas corpus be damned. If you give that up, you give up the very democracy you talk about. In Jewel v. NSA and the congressional hearings the government constantly claimed they can't reveal their methods, but everything is approved in secret courts. None of it was true. You can get on the no fly list by a clerical error, and that puts you on the terrorist watch list, which bear in mind, they denied existing at first. That's not how Western democracies treat their citizens. Justify probable cause first, and get evidence. Skipping that is actually how the KGB did it, just saying.
I live in the Gordius Apartment Complex, my interior designer was M.C. Escher.
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filmklassik
7 years ago
Yes. All good points. Everything you said just now is relevant. By the same token, let's not forget that the first modern Olympics wasn't held until the late 19th century and Bram Stoker managed a theater in London while he was writing Dracula and John DeLorean sold cocaine in order to stave off bankruptcy and baking soda works just as well as toothpaste in most cases although it does lack fluoride and the elephant is the only land mammal that is unable to jump.
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debrecenisrac38
7 years ago
There are times I do appreciate sarcasm, that's not one of them.
The technology has changed, the intention has not. You fault millennials to be supposedly carefree, ignorant, and taking things for granted, when their generation isn't the first to do so. This very topic was started on the idea, that "they take these things for granted and don't see the dangers", except that ignores a couple of things. The Pledge of Allegiance specifies protecting the country from enemies both foreign and domestic. The 3 founding documents specify the rights in question as inalienable, which are being violated on a blanket warrant, that cannot be overseen.
That alone would just be a mass violation, if it were effective, but it's not even that. Ike was very concerned with the expansion of the military industrial complex (neither a millennial nor a liberal), and it's gotten to a point where the military serves private interests above national ones.
It's only made worse by arguing in its defense. Nobody is stupid, or naive enough to not know the difference between an ally and a friend, our countries are the former, not the latter. Spying on each other is part of it, its extent is in question. The claim has been made, that such systems and the military service exist to protect us from terrorist threats, without substantiating it. The cyber systems don't protect us from lone wolf operatives, may they be religious extremists, far left anti-globalists or far right extremists. The intelligence communities do not work together, as evidenced by the numerous attacks that were preventable, yet did happen. They don't have reliable local rings working for them either. The only thing that changed from the Cold War era is that we advanced technologically, and that's it.
Speaking of which, the Berlin Wall was justified by claiming it was built to keep foreign agents out, and not, in fact, to keep people from leaving. In a similar vein, you argue these systems are efficient to keep us safe from very real threats. Without revealing key information, any government at any point can publicize which attack they had prevented, yet that doesn't happen. It's a fact, that bin Laden was found and executed the old school way, and it's also a fact, that the doctor helping the US was left out to dry, and summarily executed by the very ISI that helped him to hide. Which is still the ally of the US, even though it's an open secret, that they do nothing to prevent the Taliban from occupying Northern Pakistan. These systems were not used to follow the power shift after the Arab Spring, that breathed life into ISIS, replacing Al-Qaeda. The Bush administration claimed in 2002, that they follow every havala transfer tied to terrorists, and yet it's alive and well (unfortunately). The systems weren't used to track former allies of the US in Iraq and Syria, who switched sides to ISIS, thereby allowing to identify key players. It's a shame compared to WWII, where they managed to do that without computers.
I'm a firm proponent of there being a checks and balances on liberty vs safety, and I've read Franklin's original letter, from which it's being misquoted from. After a long period of peaceful coexistence with natives, the French and the British went over the heads of colonists to expand a war they couldn't levy. Especially at the expense of the most vulnerable, the ones living on the frontier. Instead of establishing just why relations became more hostile, the Brits just demanded more money in taxes. You argue these things as they're now are necessary, because danger is everywhere, just take their word for it. Franklin hasn't and that was wise. It doesn't matter how much the three letter agencies eff up, we civilians die in them. To quote Franklin from the same letter, if one claims extraordinary nature, said extraordinary nature has to be proven.
I live in the Gordius Apartment Complex, my interior designer was M.C. Escher.
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