The NSA Can Collect Everything You've Done On The Net

[Never was]

No no Ford they are totally like storm troopers you know they fire and fire never hit a damn thing. Every op has been a total failure. Toss in a repuke reference and a few exclamation points it will make it more true.

[Never was]

Sesh that's a great piece on Patriot, the most powerful tools in the law are on money laundering so it naturally fed into the fruitless and wasteful war on drugs. Even when fighting terrorist the fed govt just can't stop with that obsessive campaign known as the war on drugs. It really has been a waste.

[Seshmeister]

Of course there are assholes out there wanting to do some terrorism against the US but it is ridiculous to go to war against an emotion and give up everything for that. Who do you accept the surrender from on the war on drugs or terror? It has to go on forever. Obama may have changed the names but apart from that he appears to be just as bad and therefor worse than Bush because by continuing Bush's 'wars' he has reset the norm and so raised the bar permanently.

[Seshmeister]

There was a thread here a few years ago, I think it was the brilliant NYC terrorist that managed to lock himself out his car bomb where I suddenly realized that the definition under the Patriot Act of a Weapon of Mass Destruction included a hand grenade.

The whole thing really is a load of shit, a complete manipulation of reality and spin.

[Never was]

Patriot really was an opportunistic grab by justice to advance agendas on war on drugs.
X-Key actually is related to the terror war because the huge flaw of allowing human intelligence capability to decline since Reagan gutted it resulted in an intelligence community that failed to connect existing dots. NSA is charged with doing that. X-Key is a direct response by creating dynamic nodes to gather and detect rather than just record. It was valuable while human intel needed to catch up much in the same way it occurred in the begining of WW 2. That process of restoring human intel historically is like a 3 year pattern and that was consistent in this war. X-Key is a response to the demand to connect dots better. That is NSA job, whether good or bad.

Ironically a connection is often made between defense industry benefiting when in fact during the early 80's when big defense spending was at a peak it came at the expense of human intel and was a costly costly error. The two compete for the same budgetary pie. Human intel expense only creates ancillary defense contracts, big systems spending actually detracts from intel community. Not defending x-key but its context is not as evil as believed, now is it in opposition to civil liberties, yes. Intel activities going back to colonial times have always been in oppositon, if the balance is off then that is where the re-purpose needs to be done but again it will be trade off.

[Never was]

My fav stupid terrorist is the 93 world trade center bombing when on a hunch the FBI guessed the idiots would go back to get their deposit and sure enough they did. Jihad is great and all but fuck I don't want to lose my deposit.
There was also the bomber who on the 2 train had his bomb go off at the Fulton station. He survived but came out the tunnel on the Brooklyn side he was easy to spot and easy to tell where the bomb was since it blew his dick clean off, he looked like a cartoon he was covered in so much residue.

[FORD]

My fav stupid terrorist is the 93 world trade center bombing when on a hunch the FBI guessed the idiots would go back to get their deposit and sure enough they did. Jihad is great and all but fuck I don't want to lose my deposit.

How the Hell do you get a deposit back when you blow up the truck?

[Never was]

Insurance. FBI took over the rental facility and called em to sign the paperwork, idiots showed up and right after picked up the sheik. Sounds ridiculous but read some of the files and you see crap like a suicide bomber picking up their dry cleaning etc and other stupid everyday crap. The forensics folks found a clean vin on the bumper of the truck in the basement.


A little tip if you are a terrorist just write off the deposit mentally.

[kwame k]

Of course there are assholes out there wanting to do some terrorism against the US but it is ridiculous to go to war against an emotion and give up everything for that. Who do you accept the surrender from on the war on drugs or terror? It has to go on forever. Obama may have changed the names but apart from that he appears to be just as bad and therefor worse than Bush because by continuing Bush's 'wars' he has reset the norm and so raised the bar permanently.

You're exactly right! You can never win a war on terrorism because all it takes is one person pissed off enough or brainwashed enough to go to the local hardware store, farm supply store, or gun store to get everything they need to do a terrorist act! It can never be stopped and random acts of violence will continue until we ruin this planet beyond the point of habitation!

What strikes me as odd is.......when all the pseudo-patriotism was going on after 9/11 (like buying American flag pins, stickers, and those annoying flags people put in their car windows all made in China.....but that's another rant altogether) people were OK with the Patriot Act, which is the most unpatriotic act in the history of our country! The Founding Fathers rolled over in their collective graves when that was signed into law! Yet, we as country did nothing to protest it or put pressure on or elected officials to repeal it!

Now the NSA thing had a bill on the floor, with bipartisan support, to de-fund the program and basically kill it altogether!

What happened.....the first time in Obama's tenure that he and Boehner have ever agreed on anything and it was to kill that bill

This would be funny if it didn't effect us so deeply as a country! God given right to freedom? Fucking gone

[Nickdfresh]

Nope without executive order the congressional oversight can not peer into NSA budget due to grey ops and can not go beyond a category level as they can with the FBI or with subpoena the CIA.

That's not true. Individual members of Congress in the Intelligence Oversight Committee are "read on" yet are sworn to secrecy so they really can't say anything...

They can subpoena and ask but nope no ability to peer inside zippo. Don't like it then it must be re-purposed. Yes spies lie, its their job and yes it was need to know. Is that right I'm not saying it is however how and why it was created. Actually your civil liberties were violated way more back in the 70's just not as public, but what the hell lets pretend its new because now we "know".

Civil liberties were violated and that was the reason they created the FISA Court, not to be a rubber-stamping and serving as window dressing for the rule of law. Was Snowden really a "spy?" He was one of hundreds, thousands of "contractors" read on to this program so how 'need to know' was it?

[Nickdfresh]

Patriot really was an opportunistic grab by justice to advance agendas on war on drugs.
X-Key actually is related to the terror war because the huge flaw of allowing human intelligence capability to decline since Reagan gutted it resulted in an intelligence community that failed to connect existing dots. NSA is charged with doing that. X-Key is a direct response by creating dynamic nodes to gather and detect rather than just record. It was valuable while human intel needed to catch up much in the same way it occurred in the begining of WW 2. That process of restoring human intel historically is like a 3 year pattern and that was consistent in this war. X-Key is a response to the demand to connect dots better. That is NSA job, whether good or bad.

Ironically a connection is often made between defense industry benefiting when in fact during the early 80's when big defense spending was at a peak it came at the expense of human intel and was a costly costly error. The two compete for the same budgetary pie. Human intel expense only creates ancillary defense contracts, big systems spending actually detracts from intel community. Not defending x-key but its context is not as evil as believed, now is it in opposition to civil liberties, yes. Intel activities going back to colonial times have always been in oppositon, if the balance is off then that is where the re-purpose needs to be done but again it will be trade off.

Reagan hardly gutted HUMINT, he in fact celebrated it. The main problem was his DCI was Casey who was a complete idiot savant and believed some sort of revolutionary gibberish because he had a hard-on for the War of Independence. So HUMINT was redirected towards idiotic covert ops and funding our own terrorists like the Contras rather than actually getting enough high placed spies in the right places. The Reagan Admin certainly did bury the CIA investigation of the Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing because the agents were going placed the pols didn't like - as in Israeli cooperation with Christian Militias along with the Syrians and Iranians as they were all in bed together when they all wanted the U.S. out...

[Never was]

Actually he did cut budget and executive orders were directed to focus on satellite surveillance and navigation to feed the SDI program again all focused on a cold war threat. Entire divisions were eliminated as were language abilities and mass retirement of agents through out the 80's occurred with directive to funnel those funds into technology based nav based systems. It was a horrible illusion that was bought into and gutted human intel while making defense industry very very wealthy. It was a myth and a bluff that did work at scaring enemies because of the unprecedented steps Reagan took. Gorby's writtings about Reychavic summit and Reagan are extremely insightful if you are into that stuff. And Beirut was a direct result of the diminished view of human intel. More warnings internally about the Beirut base occurred and doctored than the neo-cons did w pre Iraq intel. Idea-logs are the worse problem for intel as witnessed w Reagan Casey and Bush2 Cheney.

The biggest mistake in aftermath of Beirut was the Israelis and US putting the PLO on boats with exiled IRA bomb makers. The result was the now famous suicide bomber and is why bomb sigs from the IRA 70's bombings and Palestinian bombs to this day are remarkably similar, same bomb maker design. Reagan was an unmitigated disaster for human intel and Bush 1 warned repeatedly about mistakes but he essentially had zero input to Reagans policies. The US retreated further into technology after Beirut and left human intel an after thought which would have dire consequences. Ironically most of the weapon systems funded by Reagan would be useless in wars just a decade later with what seemed to be old technology from Carter's admin being much more effective followed by new weapons that were developed for the actually threat we were faced with. To this day most of Reagan's follies failed to produce useful systems.

[Seshmeister]

It's kind of worrying to think about how do you get on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Basically you are only going to get on it if you can show yourself to be completely owned.

15 people looking after the freedom of 300 million and one of them was Harry fucking Reid...

[Never was]

Yeah all the committees are nothing but payback and favors etc..., it is a bi-product of a badly busted system regardless of POV. Unfortunately they ones who benefit are also the ones who would have to pass reform.

[Nickdfresh]

Actually he did cut budget and executive orders were directed to focus on satellite surveillance and navigation to feed the SDI program again all focused on a cold war threat. Entire divisions were eliminated as were language abilities and mass retirement of agents through out the 80's occurred with directive to funnel those funds into technology based nav based systems. It was a horrible illusion that was bought into and gutted human intel while making defense industry very very wealthy. It was a myth and a bluff that did work at scaring enemies because of the unprecedented steps Reagan took. Gorby's writtings about Reychavic summit and Reagan are extremely insightful if you are into that stuff. And Beirut was a direct result of the diminished view of human intel. More warnings internally about the Beirut base occurred and doctored than the neo-cons did w pre Iraq intel. Idea-logs are the worse problem for intel as witnessed w Reagan Casey and Bush2 Cheney.

The biggest mistake in aftermath of Beirut was the Israelis and US putting the PLO on boats with exiled IRA bomb makers. The result was the now famous suicide bomber and is why bomb sigs from the IRA 70's bombings and Palestinian bombs to this day are remarkably similar, same bomb maker design. Reagan was an unmitigated disaster for human intel and Bush 1 warned repeatedly about mistakes but he essentially had zero input to Reagans policies. The US retreated further into technology after Beirut and left human intel an after thought which would have dire consequences. Ironically most of the weapon systems funded by Reagan would be useless in wars just a decade later with what seemed to be old technology from Carter's admin being much more effective followed by new weapons that were developed for the actually threat we were faced with. To this day most of Reagan's follies failed to produce useful systems.

I'd like to see your sources on this. While I like to slag Reagan and think Carter was a much better president than he was given credit for, I think a lot of what you say applies to him. The cliche is that HUMINT was gutted in the mid-to-late 1970's due to the previous abuses such as COINTELPRO coming to light in various investigations such as The Church Commission. In a sense they went too far and convoluted HUMINT with "Covert Ops" and forgot there is a big difference between the two. The U.S. became more reliant on satellite and SIGINT and as a result the CIA simply believed everything the Shah's cunt police, SAVAK, said at face value and no one in Washington realized how volatile the situation in Iran was and how fragile the Shah's corrupt gov't had become because we didn't have agents in place to provide independent confirmation. The situation in 1983 Beirut was similar. We simply didn't have a proper intelligence network in place around the marines and we trusted our "allies" who were often double-dealing behind the scenes with our enemies as in fact the whole Middle East is an intricate system of collusion - often between bitter enemies...