NSA whistle-blower

[mikechamp]

IMADreamer:

It goes back farther than Bush. I remember Mancow Muller (the old shock jock radio host) talking about Echelon back in the mid-to-late '90s.

I'm not getting into the debate about whether one should be enraged or not. I'm just saying this has been going on for a lot longer than 12 months or even 12 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm

[IMADreamer]

I'm not at all surprised. It would be nice if a certain media/political organization would recognize that. it might legitimize them a bit.

[IMADreamer]

So let's say the govt is listening to your phone calls, wouldn't you not have anything to worry about unless you were actually saying radical crap about over throwing the govt? So the people outraged, are they outraged because they are a threat to the rest of us?

The "you shouldn't care about it unless you're doing something illegal" type argument is a treacherous path to take. Otherwise, why not throw away the 4th amendment altogether? While I don't think the government cares enough to pry into the phone/email conversations about random [expletive], the problem is any oversight of the program is going to be under wraps (though for good reason). How confident are we that this power won't be abused? The recent IRS audit scandal isn't helping assuage fears in that regard.

But the IRS scandal isn't a scandal. It's just a fabricated piece of crap by one political party to attack another. Tea party groups should not get IRS exemption for what amounts to [expletive]. Neither should liberal groups. In fact, I don't think anyone should, churches, charity, home owners, etc. But that's a whole different argument.

I don't see the NSA thing as a scandal either. We all know it's been happening and no one has been outraged about it until now. Why now? Oh yeah the black democrat is in office.

[Felix The Cat]

So let's say the govt is listening to your phone calls, wouldn't you not have anything to worry about unless you were actually saying radical crap about over throwing the govt? So the people outraged, are they outraged because they are a threat to the rest of us?

The "you shouldn't care about it unless you're doing something illegal" type argument is a treacherous path to take. Otherwise, why not throw away the 4th amendment altogether? While I don't think the government cares enough to pry into the phone/email conversations about random [expletive], the problem is any oversight of the program is going to be under wraps (though for good reason). How confident are we that this power won't be abused? The recent IRS audit scandal isn't helping assuage fears in that regard.

But the IRS scandal isn't a scandal. It's just a fabricated piece of crap by one political party to attack another. Tea party groups should not get IRS exemption for what amounts to [expletive]. Neither should liberal groups. In fact, I don't think anyone should, churches, charity, home owners, etc. But that's a whole different argument.

I don't see the NSA thing as a scandal either. We all know it's been happening and no one has been outraged about it until now. Why now? Oh yeah the black democrat is in office.

The allegations were that a disproportionate number of conservative groups applying for tax exemption were being denied compared to liberal groups doing the same. A fabricated scandal doesn't result in resignations by IRS officials or a statement from Obama himself that the IRS [expletive] up. Compare that to the Benghazi [expletive] and there's a difference in how the administration responded.

And the idea that an CIA employee threw away his job, his home, and possibly his life because Obama is black is ludicrous. I guess the reason why it's a big deal compared to things like ECHELON is due to larger scope and the potential cooperation by corporations. I also don't think ECHELON was ever exposed in such a manner - the public probably knows less about it than PRISM thanks to the whistleblower.

[IMADreamer]

The whistle blower is set for life. Book deals maybe a movie or two. He certainly is hitting up the political talk show circle. He's not going to get whacked by the government.

edit: I don't want to minimalism your concerns. I get it, rights trampled, etc, etc. I just don't get why this wasn't an outrage 10 years ago with warrantless wire tapping, Gitmo, illegal search and seizure, etc. Many of these are the same thing we are suddenly outraged about this week.

All of which come from a nation who willingly posts every damn detail of their life on Facebook, yet we are suddenly outraged by the govt listening in?

I wish the media would get up in arms over the real big issues like corporate corruption, our [expletive] health care system, and endless war, but I guess I'm in the minority.

[Felix The Cat]

Maybe, maybe not. But if you were in his shoes right now, you wouldn't fear for your life? The CIA/NSA are probably last group of people in the world you'd want to piss off and embarrass. And we may call him a whistleblower but if he were to give himself up to the U.S. government, I seriously doubt he'd be treated as a whistleblower. If getting w/e he'd get in a hypothetical book/movie deal is worth not setting foot in most countries of the developed world and possibly looking over his shoulder the rest of his life, then yeah, he's set for life.

As for the attention this is getting, I think it's mostly a result of a 24-hr news cycle. It'll die down in a few weeks and people in general will stop caring. Like the gun control debate. Like SOPA (even though newer bills like CISPA will threaten similar things and won't get the same type of public awareness).

[IMADreamer]

Oh let's be clear, if I'm in his shoes I'm keeping my 200k a year job and keeping my mouth shut. I don't have the balls to do what he did, but I'm not real sure it's heroic either. I'm a bit all over the place I know, but I just feel like we've learned nothing new here.

[ghostrunner]

I can't decide how worked up I am or even should be about this, but I've always liked Feingold even when I was voting the other way:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201306 ... true.shtml

[pioneer98]

Either somebody royally messed up, or Snowden broke into stuff he wasn't supposed to. I'm guessing somebody royally messed up.

Investigators looking at how Snowden gained access at NSA

Among the questions is how a contract employee at a distant NSA satellite office was able to obtain a copy of an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a highly classified document that would presumably be sealed from most employees and of little use to someone in his position.

[pioneer98]

IMADreamer:

It goes back farther than Bush. I remember Mancow Muller (the old shock jock radio host) talking about Echelon back in the mid-to-late '90s.

I'm not getting into the debate about whether one should be enraged or not. I'm just saying this has been going on for a lot longer than 12 months or even 12 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm

If you go back and read the David Simon article I posted when I started this thread, the Baltimore police were listening to all phone calls on many public pay phones in Baltimore in the 1980s. All calls, by everyone. They just screened out the ones they were interested in and got the info they were looking for (other phone numbers, pager numbers, etc), and deepened their investigation. This NSA thing is really only different in scale from that.

Personally, I think the government should be able to do these things to track down criminals. However, where it gets scary is if someone gets in office and starts using these things in a political manner, to spy on their political opponents, or people protesting them. So somehow or other we need to watchdog these agencies and make sure they are non-partisan and only tracking the really bad guys. This is why I don't have a problem with all this outrage going on right now. It will serve to keep these guys honest.