I think that it's important for me to clarify myself from my earlier essay...
The one entitled, "Maybe it's because I've held a Top Secret security clearance once..." http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022989858#op
Now, first off, I am standing by everything that I said in it. I'm merely going to elaborate on why I wrote it in as straightforward a way as possible.
My first point is that I did not defend the actions, or even the existence of this overly intrusive National Security State data collection apparatus. Quite the contrary, I clearly said that there is NO defending it.
Another thing that I tried to point out, and perhaps I should have explained this more, is that no person who claims that they have been paying attention to how things operate in Washington could realistically claim that they were taken by surprise by recent "revelations." This information about the size, scope, capability and targets of the surveillance apparatus is old news. That has been elaborated by others here time and time again.
Anyone acting surprised about any of this at this point might as well dress up like Claude Rains in "Casablanca" and stand around with a contrived look of exasperation on their face, while decrying the existence of gambling in Rick's Cafe.
"Your winnings, Captain."
The simple truth is that anyone who claims to be a thinking person, aware of how things work, must in every case of how anything operates, assume that something is terribly wrong. The naiveté that I excoriated, about this fairy-tale like belief that something as big, as invasive, as unsupervised and as totally motivated by profit and politics as the Intel Community could actually NOT be doing something wrong, is mind-blowingly obvious. The naiveté that I talked about was assuming that it could be used against our "adversaries" and would never be used internally without problems.
Of course, these people are in the process of crossing barriers of law and propriety. They are also responsible for administrating the rules and the very first thing that they came up with is a mechanism to allow them to operate without impunity. The mere fact that existing laws covering whistle-blowing totally exempts the Intel Community from being covered should have been a totally obvious clue about what's going on.
Next, I don't know how clearly I can state this, but I will try. We will never elect purified saints to run our government. That will never happen. The only choice that your will ever be allowed to have govern you, will forever be limited to choosing from one potentially underhanded sumbitch or another potentially underhanded sumbitch. Once any potentially underhanded sumbitch realizes what's at stake by having the responsibility of vast power and scope of government, it's too late to redeem that individual. Instead, you must do everything within your power to limit the damage that that person could possibly do. Which is why precedent is EVERYTHING.
Everything.
You must choose well from your array of potentially underhanded sumbitches when you vote and even if you support them, do not make the grave mistake of ever trusting them.
The power of having such a massively invasive signals collection and interpretation apparatus, as we have built in this country, creates it's own problems. It's much like creating a military power that dwarfs every other military power on the face of the Earth, or the creation of nuclear weapons... Once you do create it, you can't put the genie back inside of the bottle. We give our potentially underhanded sumbitches this power and then we assume that they'd use it wisely or even morally?
Just who the fuck do we think we're fooling?
Which brings me to the next subject, MOTIVE.
Now perhaps, a long time ago, someone or some individuals had thought that massively invasive signals collection and interpretation could be controlled and properly directed only against proper and legally authorized targets. That it should only be done under the supervision of dedicated public servants, conducting that business with the intent of purely protecting our vital interests and for the safety of the American people.
Those people were either writing outright fiction or propaganda to be used against their own citizens.
The truth is that in this world of massively invasive signals collection and interpretation, there are NO borders. None. And when private industry was included in this scheme, the potential for crossing all borders exploded exponentially. It was something that everyone just had to get into or risk being left behind. It was no longer about what the government did or did not do, it also became what the corporations could do to seek profit, even outside of the realm of massively invasive signals collection and interpretation by the government.
You never want to be left behind, you never want to be left out of the loop, you never want to unable to seek profit or not have the power to control access and the purse strings. If you convince yourself that you're doing a good and profitable thing, the first thing that you will exclude are any limitations to your own goals.
No matter who you are, someone is spying on you. It doesn't even have to be about politics or security, it could even be because someone has the intent of making a buck out of you.
This brings me to my next subject, one Edward Snowden. There was some objection to my classification of calling this man an "idiot", a "doofus" or a "dumbass". I would stipulate that, outwardly in that interview, he seemed eloquent and whatnot. However, I wasn't talking about his appearance when I described him the way that I did, I was talking about his actions.
Clearly, to me what he did were not the actions of a smart man and when I mean "smart" I mean self-aware. Self-awareness is everything. If you don't have self-awareness, it really doesn't matter how much code you can write. Lack of self-awareness is the lack of wisdom. From my perspective, Edward Snowden was unaware of his pitiful role as a life-long pawn.
Either being a pawn of the National Security State, or of opportunistic reporters, and now apparently, a pawn of the Chinese government.
The fact that this person could have access to the realm of massively invasive signals collection and interpretation by the government and by private enterprise is not just a demonstration of his own problematic status as it is a demonstration that the National Security State is hopelessly flawed by hiring his utterly un-self-aware ass.
It's quite clear to anyone that he has no idea what he's doing. He thought that he was doing a good thing by exposing information that's already been exposed, but these are the things that really stuck out to me:
- One, he kept doing that job and kept getting paid, even though he objected to what his employers were up to.
- Two, he trusted Glenn Greenwald.
- Three, he did not fathom that the system itself was flawed and in-spite of those flaws, there would be people who would do everything in their power to protect their own interests.
- Four, he was under the mistaken impression that any of these people who have ever exploited him in one way or the other would ever regard his own wellbeing as important.
- And five, he actually thinks that his actions will solve anything.
Who the hell does he think he's fooling?
He's trying to skate uphill. He'll be lucky if he doesn't eventually end up dead in some vomit filled gutter. Others have been sanctioned before for far less.
Enough of this fool.
Lastly, I've told you time and time again, the best solution can only be achieved when people no longer accept the status quo. You can't depend on shortcuts, you can only depend on getting as many people together as possible to concentrate on an achievable goal. People like Snowden are only going to let you down. You have to depend on yourselves.
If you're not aware of what you're dealing with and what you are capable of achieving, you too will be guilty of entertaining your own lack of self-awarness.
Do research, find out how the system works... much of it is publicly available, draw intelligent conclusions, don't give in to hyperbolic meanderings, think realistically, make accurate connections, organize, co-operate, don't depend on short-cuts or follow cults of personality, be persistent, be patient enough to act incrementally, think beyond what's apparent, resolve to engage in trial and error, learn from your mistakes and most of all...
Above everyone else, believe in yourselves.
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Thanks for contributing your time and experience to this debate, MrScorpio
I suspect they'd string him up even if he was to suggest that. He never had a democratic senate. Remember the rules when the pukes are in the minority it takes 60 votes to pass anything. Sounds to me like you just want to put the bad on Obama no matter what. 
The filibuster has a purpose. Remember when catkiller Frist was in control and he threatened the nuclear option which was doing away with the filibuster completely. Had that happened we dems would have been royally fucked by the dick and w crew. democrats will not always be in control of the senate and if we give up the filibuster we'll be, again I say, fucked. Republicons don't give a shit about the people out here where the democratic congress critters do and I'm glad I've got them on my side. Big difference between the two parties in that 'give a shit' department. Sounds to me like you only want to put the bad on the president and democrats in general. I've said it before and I'm saying it again. You seem to come up with an excuse for why you are down on both of them at ever turn. Sorry I don't buy what you're selling.
I'm not so sure that what the NSA is doing isn't any different that what the tele companies do with our billing so I fail to get all outraged about it at all. When I look at our bill it has a list of numbers we've called and numbers who've called us and this has been true for as long as I've been on my own. I'm 65 years old to give you some idea as to how long thats been
