A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.
This is not PRISM – but a different system. The slides are damning, as always.
It validates claims made by Edward Snowden, and makes it clear that US government officials have been lying all along. There’s no court order required for any of this – in a supposedly modern democracy. Crazy.
Where are the gun nuts and their promised retribution against an oppressive government?
If they were actually “nuts” they’d already be shooting.
I think it’s more that they traded their nuts for guns, and now when the government is attacking them in a non-physical way, they don’t have the balls for it.
They’re probably on the side of the NSA, actually, which means the US has well armed militia potentially fighting on the side of the government.
thats stupid. and gun nuts aren’t stupid. we’re waiting to see if congress actually has the balls and the sense to do their jobs and start heavily defunding the non military part of the government. if they don’t do their job we find one of more states with the courage to declare that the federal government has broken and trampled the contract and reissue the declaration of independence with a couple of small changes. then we flock there and get ready for the SHTF. what else can anyone do?
Edited 2013-08-01 05:00 UTC
You seem to have proven him right.
And how will you plan such a coordinated movement?
By email?
By phone?
By post?
By tweet?
And you say gun nuts aren’t stupid. The most important part of any conflict is intelligence. The government will know your plan, if you even have one.
And how do you know your fellow gun nuts are actually on your side? Polls seem to show most Americans support the NSA.
This is just another penis waving you gun nuts are so fond of. You guys will fold faster than the Taliban.
If you think the gun nuts are on the side of the NSA, then you woefully misunderstand either the gun nuts, or the NSA.
Sorry, but the polls suggest that most Americans support the NSA. There is no reason to think the wider political spectrum is not reflected in the gun-toting demographic. Sure, they may be skewed more towards libertarianism, but that still a sizeable chunk of gun-toting pro-fascist nuts.
Furthermore, many gun nuts are Christian conservatives more concerned about Muslims and Atheists than they are about the government. In fact, they wish to be the government and impose their brand of religion as law.
You keep saying that, but you don’t cite anything to back it up. A quick search for “NSA spying poll” on startpage.com (anonymizes the search so it’s not affected by what I’ve searched for before) shows polls with mostly anti-spying sentiment. A few examples:
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/25-12
http://www.policymic.com/articles/53767/nsa-surveillance-scandal-th…
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/multiple-new-polls-show-americ…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/12/poll-rep…
The one poll that lines up with your statement was done by MSNBC and was immediately and widely panned.
Sure, I accept that.
Doesn’t override my point that you can’t assume that the allegiance of most gun owners will be against the NSA though.
Conservative Christians make up a large proportion of gun owners, and they think the NSA is only used to spy in terrorists/Muslims.
Again, maybe I’m pulling the numbers out of my arse.
The question is, how do you know that most gun nuts are anti-government or anti-snooping?
If you really think that it’s reasonable to assume that all gun owners will somehow move in a coordinated way and you’ll be able to take down the government, you must realize how stupid you are.
Edited 2013-08-02 04:21 UTC
When did I ever say any of that?? You’re putting a hell of a lot of words in my mouth, then calling me stupid for it. That’s a very strange thing to do.
I don’t know if you’ve ever done programming, but statements that follow an “if” apply conditionally. If you DON’T agree with the “if”, then it did not apply to you.
Nice attempt at back pedaling, but this isn’t programming. It’s a conversation in casual English. If you had just responded to what I said and not (mistakenly, I presume) attributed other people’s sentiments to me, you wouldn’t look so foolish right now.
It is programming to me.
And curiously, what kind of English did you learn if “if” isn’t a conditional statement, regardless of whether it’s programming or not?
When I respond, if I think other people are going to make a similar point (which it turns out they did, by the way), I’m going to address those potential responses too.
By the way, I hope you understand that your conditional statement means I don’t look foolish.
The polls that are just as rigged as the elections, you mean? That’s just manufactured consent. The US corporate media puts Soviet-era Pravda to shame.
I grant that. But that just proves you don’t have the correct estimate of the numbers either.
As Morgan pointed out, kwan_e’s claim is not supported by actual poll results.
Which means that if you are right and the poll results are faked, assuming that they come from corporate media (so Washington Post, yes, EFF, no), then the gun nuts do support the NSA based on the fact that kwan_e’s claim is bogus.
Does your head hurt yet? 😉
What do you suppose it means that the EFF poll agrees with the Washington Post? Are the independent sources and big media both wrong because they agree with each other? Then what conclusion would that imply?
Can this be twisted a just little bit harder to reverse the logical outcome of it one more time?
Give it a shot.
The nut part is what explains why they aren’t shooting already considering they already got the guns and all
Oh but they are shooting, just at the sides of barns, at rabbits, at imaginary black UN helicopters, at drones in Colorado, probably jugs off the porch, and, when feudin’, at each other.
They’re just not shooting at government troops like they said they would if Obama got re-elected (Mississippi) or like they’re always threatening at Tea Party rallies.
you mean the liberal plants at the tea party rallies. there are bounties out there rewarding people money for actually videoing the activities you claim are happening. the bounties are still outstanding.
You mean something like this:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/03/20/87743/code-red-gun/
Liberal plants, huh? Stay paranoid.
You should realise that in 21st century, guns are only effective to civilians. They are quite primitive compared to those modern weapons that governments hold.
They still are efficient at killing people. So unless your government is ran by machines ..
They are effective at killing people. In theatres and at dark skinned people.
However, the gubmint can snoop at their emails and phone calls. If they really try to start that revolution they so promised us many times, guess who has the intelligence advantage?
Intelligence, in all senses of the word, is a better defence than cowardly gun bravado.
Edited 2013-08-01 00:41 UTC
the theatre clearly posted that guns weren’t allowed in their theatre. the gunman specifically went out of his way to go to that theatre instead of several closer to his house because of the sign. how long do you need to tolerate someone jumping you, beating you in the face and slamming your head in the concrete before you defend yourself. about the same time as the zimmerman shooting a black neighborhood watch guy gunned down a white kid without ever being touched and he got off with self defense.
Ah, the forever gun nut fantasy. Imagine if all those people in the theatre had a gun, they’d be able to defend themselves against the gunman! (Or maybe they’d end up killing more people by panic shooting in the dark).
If people are constantly jumping you and beating you, maybe your town should be investing in better police forces. Police presence is a better deterrent than a gun, but then, your types tend to vote against any kind of necessary taxes for the upkeep of a police force don’t you?
Please name that incident that happened at the same time as Martin/Zimmerman.
Isn’t that exactly what happens in other situations where guns are allowed? Why do you think self-preservation does not work in those cases? note, I do not own a gun nor do I plan to own one but I would do enjoy freedoms to have one – not realistic in my country unfortunately.
Black Neighborhood Watchman Shoots and Kills White Teen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1NoQgCNNJE
Published on Jul 22, 2013
The race dividing mainstream media never covered the story of a black neighborhood watchman Roderick Scott was found not guilty of shooting and killing a unarmed white teen.
Snopes has more details:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/roderickscott.asp
dude are you defending the actions and intelligence of someone who killed people in a movie theater?
have your secession in some other state than mine. us liberal “plants” are everywhere in my neighborhood.
there are many parts of the US that look up to holland, germany, and northern europe for their progressive ways. america is not all rednecks and jesus freaks.
Look for “helicopter gunship” videos on YouTube or other video source. Your house/apartment would be reduced to splinters in a few minutes, at most.
Ok, we know the government isn’t run by machines. Other than political or economic machines anyway.
But what if the all too human government just uses machines? Would the gun nuts just wipe out any forces that they encounter because they have the ‘advantage’ of owning some guns? And maybe a few boxes of shells too?
Could body armor be considered a machine?
What about a helmet?
How about a machine gun?
Night vision goggles, drones, armored personnel carriers, satellites and cluster bombs can just be ignored by the gun nuts but that might not keep them out of harm’s way.
Which is my point. They like to talk big about how they’re the ones to save us from the gubmint, but time and time again show themselves to be cowardly, unless shooting at black teenagers.
Fixed.
Yes, of course.
Because being a hoodlum, unarmed though you may be, means you are deserving to get shot.
Murdering prostitutes is also fine.
In other news, you are now also guilty until proven innocent, because why else would you be a suspect unless you were guilty?
You deserve to get shot if you’re stupid enough to jump an armed security guard.
Like fine wine?
Society usually frowns upon harmless little things like murder – even when it’s done to a prostitute.
“Nobody’s innocent, citizen. We’re just here to determine the level of your guilt.” – Judge Dre.. I mean.. The NSA
Except you don’t seem to frown upon the murder of Trayvon Martin, because he deserved it as a “hoodlum”.
was it now
According to you, no. Because you claimed he deserved it.
Puh-lease, the dumb kid didn’t deserve to be killed by an overzealous rent-a-cop. Two fucking idiots there.
But this whole thing would’ve been a footnote in your local paper if not for the oh-so-juicy racial angle. And we are all taking the bait.
Shot. Not killed.
So it’s white hoodlums shooting black hoodlums?
“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way!”
Primitive by comparison, yes. Ineffective, I doubt.
If we’re talking machine-gun vs. semi-auto, then machine-guns are really only more-effective at two things: keeping heads down, and chewing through ammunition.
As for jeeps, tanks, helicopters and the like. All could be stolen if you’ve got firearms.
Missiles and bombs? If you think the government is unpopular now, wait until they start dropping munitions on the homeland. That assumes enough of the military sides with the government to actually man those jets and bombers, and that those left will actually comply with orders to bomb their countrymen.
This is somewhat hypothetical, but every time someone says “Herp. Derp. Don’t bring a gun to a tank fight!” — well, I’d like to remind then that a loose collective guys in caves with AKs and cold-war-era RPGs have been resisting the entire, unbridled might of the American military for… 12 years now.
Now add to that the fact that if even 10 percent of American gun owners actually felt strongly enough to start shooting over it, that’s still an army of over 3 million — literally larger than any standing army in the world today.
Given that the government’s response would be with tied hands, defection of military and civilian security forces, and facing an overwhelming, distributed force, I bet Washington would fall faster than Baghdad did.
Scenario: They disable your electricity supply. They blockade all interstate highways to your state. They instigate a no fly zone above your state.
Your army of 3 million. Untrained. Overweight. Believes in Biblical miracles to do some of its fighting. Accustomed to creature comforts.
Can you stop your army of 3 million from looting and raping? Can you stop your army of 3 million from turning on each other due to ideological differences?
These are the things that are going to turn the American people against you. Because it’s a civil war situation, former anti-gun people would see no problem taking up arms to defend themselves against your undisciplined vigilante mercenary army.
And this is the reason why you retards will never win. No successful military general assumes their enemy will behave exactly as they IMAGINE. Nothing is a GIVEN.
Have you even read anything about world history and military operations?
My favorite line is that they arrested 300 terrorists. So take the cost of development, cost to maintain and divide it by the 300 terrorists. I’d be willing to be that those are some pretty expensive arrests.
Then take the cost of the 9/11 terrorist attack and divide it with the amount of terrorists that performed it….
Touche
I think you’d be hard pressed to prove that the NSA has stopped an attack of 9/11 scale.
Perhaps if there were the slightest bit of transparency in that organization then we could actually say that they have.
Recount of the statements by the NSA (regardless of being under oath):
1. Lie
2. Lie
3. Lie
4. Lie
…
9953. We stopped 300 attacks.
Sure. Ok. Whatever.
Those “attacks” are probably some kids that got arrested for joking around in a chat room.
Or people that searched for pressure cookers or backpacks on their work computers.
To suppose that it wasn’t only rocket scientists that the US Government lifted out of the ruins of Germany circa 1945.
Read Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle”: the trappings of democracy itself are the surest cover for a totalitarianism that will never give the occasion for utter subversion.
Orf
Obama wants a Russian Revolution blood bath of the rich, but he’s got this police state. Berp.
So, have we finally realised the extent to which “good ol’ capitalist-democracy” and “bad evil comunist-totalitarianism” have come full circle yet???
The US can’t fix itself:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/money-nsa-vote/
Yep. We have to find a new way to do campaigns that don’t involve bribes (ie. donations). It’s scary. When Al Capone bought Big Bill Thompson, it was organized crime. When every elected official of the executive and legislative branches allow themselves to be bought, it’s government.
wrong angle. politicians are too heavily invested in the system as is. they have their own special health care system, amazing benefits, they are a special class of nobility via “the vote”. Why rock the boat and loose their special status? They just need to keep on attracting votes no matter what.
Reporting here from the usa. i’ve been online for over 25 years so I know “they” have plenty of info on me.
But i have to say, the thing that makes this threat to our lazy democracy unbelievable (or perhaps inert) is the amount of day to day crime that goes on in america – emailing about stolen goods, texting drug deals, scalping tickets, sex, guns, gambling, unlicensed everything, general tax evasion and business scams – so much badness!
If uncle sam really is listening to and reading everything we do, he doesn’t seem to care much about our illegal activities. the number of crimes hinted at or outright admitted through texting, email, message boards, even facebook would lead me to think we’d hear about more people busted this way. i’ve never heard of anyone having seemingly private data thrown at them without their knowledge of even being investigated. conjecture i know.
I am not happy about this and will do whatever i can as a US citizen to get this shut down, but at the same time you have adjust for scale and general human incompetence. perhaps they are just looking for terrorist activities and ignoring other crime?
I know this can always change, just sayin. when i first heard about prism or whatever it was called in the 90’s (from a buddy who ran a few regional ISP’s) we would put a threatening string of text in our email sigs to try to expose the system. for a couple of years i put something like “it’s not like I want to kill the president ” in my email sig, and I have yet to be questioned by the men in black.
Why would anyone question you over that? Also, there’s no gain in chasing down common criminals. To be clear, by “gain” I mean financial or political gain.
Clearly the biggest concern people have is privacy. They simply don’t like the idea of absolutely everything they do being recorded/documented. Nobody likes their secrets revealed even if their secrets are lame or cause no harm. Nobody likes feeling like they’re being spied on, which IS what’s happening by definition. Nobody likes being lied to. Nobody likes the idea that the biggest enemy to freedom, rights, and the constitution, is the government itself. What’s actually done with all this information, documentation, records, logs, etc. is secondary and can only make an already horrible situation worse. And the most scary thing about all this is that neither you, I, nor any other citizen can do anything to stop it.
yeah i agree with you. i’m not on facebook and because of this very reason and it is a bit of a pain in the azz to not play along with the digital revolution. but i know facebook, beyond profit, cannot be trusted with my personal info.
i’m not as concerned that they are ‘watching’ us, because since the moment we invented electronic communication there has been a way to view and soon after record it for nefarious uses. it’s the searchable scalable database of our lives that we don’t know exists that is worrisome.
i’m more concerned about it being a top-secret, who knows what’s going on sort of thing. snowden did good i think. because this is a long-overdue discussion all societies need to have about privacy, since the machines are to the point of tracking us nearly everywhere doing nearly everything.
i’d like to see some of you hackers get to work showing us citizens exactly what they have on us. i’m a database programmer so i know what they can do with that data, but i don’t know what they have, or from what sources, in the first place.
Mod parent up.
You listening NSA? I’d like to have a peek at just what you have on *me*.
Inquiring minds want to know.
You would not see much even if you got to look at it. My guess is that 90% would be redacted.
Yes folks, you won’t be allowed to see information about yourself. The simple reason is that they are afraid that so much is wrong that you will shout that fact to everyone who will listen.
Actually you can! There’s a part of the Privacy Act of 1974, sec. (d)(1) that basically says you’re allowed to know what the government has on you:
So interestingly, not only can you go take a look at your records that they have on you, but you can even bring a laywer with you. I’ve actually filed this sort of request a few different times with a few different agencies and it’s legit. It may take a month or 2 but you’ll get it. It’s quite interesting what you get back.
They’d probably act only if the person would try to do something like start a revolution, or if he becomes an important politician or wealthy business man. It’s nice to be able to blackmail everybody … “remember that time when you bragged to your friends on facebook tha you smoked weed 20 years ago? now please contribute to our campaign, or vote a certain way, or stay quiet, etc”.
The sociopaths in power are not interested in our well beeing or in real crime prevention. They only want to control everything so they can hold on to their power and add another meaningless zero to their bank accounts.
Edited 2013-08-01 05:02 UTC
uhhhh ever hear of the IRS scandals going on? the NSA very very likely has been redirected as a tool of political repression and and intimidation. The “terrorist” threat is just an excuse and a cover.
fascist is right more than you know. My grandfather got shipped off to the russian front with zero training by a very similar regime.
Ahhh, the virtue of patriotism that makes US citizens accept even the most inane laws against themselves (“patriot” act, prism and so on) in the name of fight against the 7 diseases (terrorism, pedophiles, pornography, …)
Like general US citizens’ scrutiny would do a better job than “specifically targeted surgical strikes” of threats, that just proves NSA are amateurs in their own country.
Good democracy you have there. Russian and Chinese citizens don’t envy you.
Kochise
Hmm. I wonder why we have such a problem with people overstaying visas. And we don’t even have a serious soccer team…
I have. An acquaintance of mine is a US citizen living in Nicaragua. A few years ago a woman and her daughter were running away from a child-custody decree made by a US court. He helped them in some way; I think it was finding plane tickets to fly from Canada to Nicaragua without going through the US.
Next time he came to the US, the FBI met him at the plane and arrested him. He had no idea that he was a wanted man. Their main evidence was emails and credit-card records. (Eventually they dropped the charges against him.)
I doubt these NSA programs were involved in this case; the FBI probably used old-fashioned warrants and subpoenas. But there is no doubt that the feds sometimes read people’s emails without telling them.
Many of the emails involved were from one Nicaragua resident to another. But they apparently used a US email provider like Gmail, so the US government had access to the messages.
I’m more worried about the government starting to shoot. They have to protect their phony baloney jobs.
extend the scope of Freedom of Information act (both in the UK and the US)
It was the 70’s when a group of Republicans became so fed up with Nixon’s non-understanding of Democratic principle – that they broke off to form the Libertarian party.
I didn’t join until the 80’s – since that time for 3 decades I’ve been complaining about the ineffectiveness of the two-party flip-flop system.
Over and over again, in forum after forum, you have the two party flip flopper advocating, if we only throw out the party in power – and go back to the party out of power – that would solve everything.
It solves nothing. I’ve had to listen to countless people tell me I’m wasting my vote year after year – but I feel like the only wasted vote is when you cast one to continue the problem. I cast my vote third party – to help end the problem.
I don’t really appreciate the joke about gun nuts and why didn’t they do anything. It’s almost like saying who cares. I care.
I’m a pacificist, I’m not going to grab a gun, but I exercise my sovereignty by not voting for these people but voting for people in third parties that I trust are not part of the problem.
I exercise my right to free speech. I think the best thing tech people can do, is explain to people that don’t think monitoring has any impact – that it most assuredly does. And also – don’t get caught up in promises from one party or the other.
I didn’t care if Obama won the election versus John McCain – I didn’t care if it was Romney or Obama.
People were sure I was a closet Republican, but one can come to an understanding that no matter what their rhetoric, both parties continue the same general policies on most issues. Don’t vote for the lessor of two evils – stop voting for evil!
Edited 2013-08-01 18:59 UTC
Ralph Nader ? Wreck it, Ralph !
Kochise