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[AuthenticM]

"If they are saving lives, how can we say that's less important than civil liberties?"

Are you fucking shitting me ? What ?

 

[BattleMonkey]

I think it's weird that before, when we all assumed that the NSA and CIA could and did snoop around in our private data, it was all according to plan and we didn't think about it much. But now that the thing which we already thought was happening has been brought into the spotlight and proven factually, it's as if something's changed.

I'm not saying that its okay just because it was predictable, nor am I saying that there aren't people who honestly believed before all of this that the NSA's nose was clean. I just think its funny that a lot of people were surprised and outraged, where a day before they would have said "yeah they probably do that" with no objection or emotion.

Yea who didn't know this was already happening? What did people think spies were doing? We already knew they did this stuff in the past, were people naive to think that somehow spy agencies had stopped being... spies? But now that it was confirmed, OMG!

 

[JDSN]

From the thread title I assumed I was about to read some Sean Penn liberal bullshit, instead I read some big brother bullshit.

 

[Oersted]

Yea who didn't know this was already happening? What did people think spies were doing? We already knew they did this stuff in the past, were people naive to think that somehow spy agencies had stopped being... spies? But now that it was confirmed, OMG!

"Spies always spied on us, trollolol, didnt you know?"

Does attacking those who complain make you feel like you did something?

 

[Angry Fork]

Famous rich person doesn't care about changing the world since he's already covered. They have much more to lose so of course they're not interested in challenging authority. I'm sure there were ignorant actors spewing the same lines during the red scare, while their friends were risking their careers to defend freedom of ideas.

Now everyone is attacking freedom of information. Liberals of all people are saying the low class proles are too dumb to know what's in their best interest, the right wing president and his George Bush friends will decide for us. It is up to them to tell us who's the terrorist, what we should do to them, whether or not we're in danger, and what the appropriate response should be. There will be no direct democratic referendum, and anyone that attempts this will be put in prison or killed.

So many dumb posts in here that preface this debate as if it's only about terrorism, and therefore protecting lives from terrorism is the #1 goal with the NSA. They either don't know about or ignore the espionage on foreign companies and state oil industries (Brazil, China, Venezuela, etc.), or our history with suppressing legitimate peaceful dissent through blackmail and sabotage (black panthers/cointelpro, red scare).

People are just completely overlooking the fact that the state can now attach charges to you and bring up things you said in the past to justify it, anything, no matter the context. Or use it to blackmail you into submission. This technology is about keeping government power intact, and making sure the status quo for the 1% remains as it is. The internet was an anarchist, decentralized idea, and it could be used to liberate everyone but the strangling of it is already here. There is nothing those in power worry about more than the public finding out the spying is completely unnecessary and unjustified.

 

[jtb]

Life is never that simple and black and white.

It's very easy to say you'd rather have liberty than life if you aren't starring death right in the eyes. For every 1000 person who says they'd lay down their life to stop the government from stealing away their liberties, 999 of them are completely full of nonsense.

I know, and I agree. My point is that life/security is ultimately a pre-requisite for freedom, but not necessarily an equal.

 

[Bucket Mouse]

Cumberbatch would be a perfect cast for Gary McKinnon, the man who hacked into 97 military and NASA computers.

 

[rocketknight]

I don't really care whether people appreciate Chelsea's actions or not, but I'm really disappointed Cumberbatch misgendered her. I like him

 

[War Peaceman]

I don't really care whether people appreciate Chelsea's actions or not, but I'm really disappointed Cumberbatch misgendered her. I like him

It is probably just an accident, don't read anything into it. For most of the time she has been in the news she was referred to as Bradley, not Chelsea. It is easy to see why someone might reflexively(and accidentally) refer to her by their original gender when speaking off the cuff. There doesn't appear to be any malice to it.

 

[Cameron122]

The problem of trading liberty for security is that there have been and will always be plenty individuals who on the pretexts of providing you security, they would like more powers for themselves while in fact the result is both less liberty and security for yourself.

Such as for example when spy agencies wanting the power to spy on their own citizens or presidents needing extra authority to play the role of judge and jury such as some of the ones given to them by the patriot act. The fact is that very often someone in a position of power would like to have even more power and security and external threats if often a good rationalization for that. What one ought to do is not let themselves be fooled.

Where is Reinhard when you need him, eh?

 

[Zoc]

I'm having a little trouble remembering how much stuff on surveillance was actually leaked by Bradley Manning himself and what was leaked by Edward Snowden, they're running together in my mind now. I thought Bradley Manning only leaked foreign intelligence from diplomatic cables? Wasn't the outrage about the terrible things America did in secret in Iraq and other places?

As an aside about this thread, also, Bradley Manning hasn't changed his name, hasn't lived as a woman, and hasn't started any kind of hormone therapy. Doesn't it strike anyone else as disrespectful of people who have actually done those things to use a new name and pronoun for Bradley (Chelsea) Manning?

 

[War Peaceman]

As an aside about this thread, also, Bradley Manning hasn't changed his name, hasn't lived as a woman, and hasn't started any kind of hormone therapy. Doesn't it strike anyone else as disrespectful of people who have actually done those things to use a new name and pronoun for Bradley (Chelsea) Manning?

No it doesn't seem disrespectful. Not at all.

 

[Jenga]

manning made a public request to be acknowledged as she is now

 

[Jarmel]

But what does Ja Rule think?