I've been following his lectures, and have read his book, for a very long time now. I'm young, 27 years old at this point, so I think that I am allegedly in that class of people that think that the NSA is an abomination and should be dismantled. The truth is that I don't think that I fall into that class of people. Of all of the lectures that I've seen of his, the interviews, and after reading the book, I have a couple of things to say about him. One thing is that he's very obviously smart. If you can't tell that simply by his readily available and astonishingly large vocabulary then you can take a look at the context in which he uses his words and expresses his beliefs. For me, the NSA and bulk collection of data is necessary. Although I think that it is necessary, I also think that it should necessarily have oversight and follow the system of checks and balances by our elected officials. One question that was raised in an interview (or maybe it was a critique) was that despite all of these elections and all of the political officials that change in congress and in the parliament, the program goes on (as was said by an interviewer during a lecture in Germany). It doesn't matter who the president is or who has oversight over these areas of the government (NSA, GCHQ, etc.), and the reason that it doesn't matter (as was clearly stated in one video) is because they just don't know what's going on behind closed doors. In the age of technology, we need computers to do the oversight. They don't get bored, they don't need to be paid, they don't need benefits or vacation time, they just work 24/7. A problem here is that (maybe, I could be wrong), these surveillance capabilities are being pointed at our citizenry and NOT at the agencies themselves. What should happen is that this mass surveillance should be pointed at EVERYONE and EVERY AGENCY so that any indicators of threat can arise and be dealt with by not only the agencies, but also the people who oversee the agencies, and maybe even the computers themselves. I am not one to say "let's get rid of mass surveillance". I like the idea. I, unfortunately, cannot say that I haven't done anything wrong and therefor don't have anything to hide. Not only do I have the things that I want to hide, but I have very valuable programs that I've written that seem to be getting stolen due to economic espionage (and, in this case, it doesn't even have to be for economic advantage... it may just be for fame). It wasn't too long ago when I was watching a national news network (I think it was CNN) where the anchorman said that "[The governments controversial spying apparatus has once again stopped a terrorist plot]," and then went into the details of a person who was planning to harm our nation in one way or another. Still, I hear in these lectures (which I continuously visit) that THERE HASN'T BEEN A SINGLE ATTACK PREVENTED BY THESE PROGRAMS. Who am I supposed to believe? On top of this, the Tor network which is being paraded by Glenn and Snowden may, in fact, be a conspiracy itself. It may be some tool that the NSA or other data gathering agencies are using so that they can have DIRECT ACCESS to suspicious online activity. I could be wrong... in fact I hope that I am because I do use Tor and it seems to be legitimate, but the paranoia is, can, and will be there about this. Glenn very clearly alludes to this forum in particular when talking about his correspondence with Edward Snowder (whos username "cincinnatus" is also associated with this forum). I've found a post by Cincinnatus and even PMed him myself telling him about how I admire his bravery. The thing is that the words that he used in his post on "the elephant in the room" DO NOT reflect the words and ideas that he expresses over these televised conferences. He has not once brought up what he considered to be the elephant in the room- social security. Look, it's getting very hard these days for even a guy with my technical capabilities to get ahead. If I wanted, I could have an AI bot scrape a hundred thousand webpages in a matter of hours simply through using my own personal PC. I can take that data and manipulate it to provide us with predictions about the likely outcome of certain events depending on the variables that I was able to detect. I know several different programming languages and have built a database that consists of over 800,000 case records between 2 states alone (which is growing continuously). I have a hard enough time getting ahead even with these skills, and these skills are only a few of the technical skills that I have. If I were to count all of the articles and posts and blogs and replies and everything that I have ever written, my journalism skill is undeniably expert level. That doesn't even count all of the talents that I have with musical instruments (I can play trombone, baritone, tenor saxophone, the tube, piano, guitar, alto saxophone, and I can sing). With someone my age, even with a degree under their belt, at the very least in the place that I am located, it is extremely difficult to get ahead. To look at the NSA and wonder if they are/have been abusing their power, I think that it's a definite yes. There's a proposal in my state that I hope that everyone votes no for because the proposal itself is supposed to raise over $8 billion annually but does not mention that it would make life hard on people who are making $50,000 anually. People... I'm living on less than $20,000 annually and BARELY scraping by. To top it off, I just had to dish out my entire tax return to the government for blowing a .11 (I got a DUI). One of my dreams is to work for the government, but I think that because I have a DUI on my record now I can't get TOP SECRET access. Also, I can't turn to the military because I am on medication to treat my anxiety and depression. Glenn, you're a very smart guy and it's very obvious, but I have to admit that you and me do not agree on certain technicalities in this debate. You depict the NSA as an atrocity, whereas I think that the NSA could be something greater than crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and gofundme. Not only can the NSA prevent terrorist attacks, it can also identify crime, it can also account for 1 in 7 of the papers that make it to the presidents desk, but my vision is a leap forward from where it's at. I like to call it a Scientocracy. The NSA, with its data gathering powers, can use Natural Language Processing to identify significant issues, adjust laws in real time, calculate financial situations of "criminals" who may, in fact, just be "victims" (at the very least victims of cause and effect), calculate the seriousness of the offense, calculate (statistically) what the best treatment for their misgivings may be, or even just decide that it's best to send them to a different location where they can have the chance to get rid of all of the ties that they previously had and start a new life (that is, when they are ready of course). The forces are not forces of evil, but they are just the beginning of an extraordinary change in the way that the government works. Not only will we be able to predict and prevent, but we will also be able to focus our assets and time on the issues that ordinary people think are significant. Science really is the answer, and yes, it is outpacing law. Soon enough, probably within the next 10 years or so, machines will be making decisions far quicker than our human politicians can, and in 20 years the race of "Minotaurs" will rise. (I'm alluding to chess here, where humans can't beat computers, but humans that work with computers, aka the Minotaurs, are able to beat the computers. Thank you for your attention.
Just a tip: You need to condense your thoughts into no more than 2 or 3 paragraphs if you want people to read them. Follow them up with more points later in the discussion but very few people are going to read a chapter of a book for a post.
My thoughts: The NSA...awesome! Amazing abilities that have seriously degraded by the Snowden leaks. And although it might be possible to get by one one DUI with a waiver, the psychotropic meds make the chances of getting a TS clearance very slim.
You can't honestly believe that people didn't know that it was already happening though. I was well aware that I was under surveillance back in 2011 when I first introduced the theory of pattern recognition. On top of that I found the PRISM PowerPoint on the internet in 2011 as well.
I'm an author of 9 books by now, some of them dealing with politics and political science, so it comes naturally to spend 15 minutes writing something. I'll take your advice though. I forgot to mention the second point I had about Greenwald as well but by now I've forgotten what it was.
` I've been following Greenwald since Edward Snowden spilled the beans on the NSA and governments surveillance of innocent citizens. He also has his own web site now; The Intercept.
Yea, I used to keep track of the intercept while it was covering controversial issues. I don't know if this is true but I heard that Venezuela (I think) voted in a very popular president but did not mention who it was... which led me to believe that they desired to keep him/her anonymous. It said that they were under a Tyranny, and when I checked the Wikipedia about it they said that Chavez was replaced by his younger brother. It just doesn't make sense to me that a tyrannical figure (Chavez) would have a younger brother who is very popular. I, at the time, thought that my idea of Scientocracy might have been implemented. One of the features of a Scientocracy (as I have stated in my book on it) would be the option that the politicians could remain anonymous if they wanted. Power can be exercised effectively in the dark and, if the politician decides to remain anonymous, the politician could lead a somewhat normal life. The thing with a Scientocracy is that only the smartest people can get into these positions of power, and the way that they can be selected is by monitoring their communications to see how broad their vocabulary and ideology actually is and whether it relates to what the population is saying... which is another reason as to why we need something like the NSA.
Some things were already known. The phone metadata program was leaked in 2006, but when it came out with the Snowden leaks, people lost their minds. Why didn't they lose their minds in 2006?
I can only think of a few logical reasons why people would lose their minds in light of the recent leaks. One reason is because there was so many of them. The other reason is that just because you're at a corner and a crime happens at that corner does not mean that you committed the crime. Other than that I don't see why people are so outraged by this. I'm on the opposition, I wish they weren't leaked. The nature of indoctrination instills within us the notion that some things are better left unsaid. The patriot act was a wide open shout to the public that this was going to happen. As technology grows, so do our capabilities. Like I said, I know I was under surveillance. They may think that they're pretty crafty and that the person under surveillance won't know, but there has been plenty of calls, one in particular, that was very obviously a conference call. I bet they didn't anticipate that Facebook and Google would notify me that my email and Facebook accounts were accessed by 4 different countries overnight, but they did. Greenwald laughs at the idea that nothing has changed. A lot has changed. A good portion of people are now encrypting their communications and using Tor.
So how do you know that.? That would imply that you personally interviewed each and every PF poster to get a feel about their Likes & dislikes. I have a big problem with those who act like Geraldo when he used to say,quite regularly ... " My People ". Virtually every discussion Geraldo Rivera had when discussing Hispanics somewhere included him addressing concerns over " his People " meaning the Hispanic community.To this day I have this Feeling that Geraldo would like nothing more than to be some leader in this Country if a revolution where to break-out and he could be the United States version of Fidel Castro. I never cotton to those who seem intent on speaking for a group as a whole. Something very Fidel Castro about it.
There is really no way on Earth that a former Columnist for Salon.com and contributor for the New York Times and L.A. Times is anything but a radical.It just is not possible.There are ways a journalist can be employed at the New York Times and change their radicalness like a Judith Miller. I think Greenwald is up to something.His very Bio history suggests such. Probably a government plant no different than the way the FBI plants Informants or Agent Provocateurs. Baltimore is another classic example.If this current Government is hellbent on unrest or taking portions of it down,with a Divide & Conquer meme,then it's Baked into the cake.
If you think that this whole Edward Snowden affair is a conspiracy then I agree almost entirely. Like I mentioned earlier, having people funnel themselves through the Tor network is a great way to access all suspicious activity. As a computer scientist, I don't think that the internet was built for the government to control. I know that if there isn't some built in back end software in open source operating systems then there's nearly no way that one can access a relational database that I have set up for anonymous crowd funding. I use passwords like the following. AFbEb14tgD1!as{ I'm also aware that a lot of websites lock any activity for an account if you put in the wrong password enough times. Having "direct access to the servers of these tech giants" is nearly meaningless. We all have direct access. Google itself said that there is no back door. The only way that they can have the power that Glenn suggests that they have is through some very ingenious hacking and some incredible parsing. From what I've seen, there is no single answer to the parsing problem. You can use statistics but most parsers fail to categorize tabular data. The best method is to use brute force and tell it what to look for. I could go on and on about this.
