Reveal Illegal Surveillance? Run For Your Life; Conduct Illegal Surveillance & Lie About It? No Biggie
from the our-priorities-are-really-screwed-up dept
It really says a lot when you compare how Ed Snowden and James Clapper are being treated these days. Snowden, who revealed the NSA's illegal and unconstitutional surveillance efforts is finding that US pressure and various "technicalities" mean that his asylum requests are getting quickly rejected, leaving him with dwindling options. Meanwhile, James Clapper, who ran the actual program and then flat out lied to Congress about is, can apparently get away with a ridiculous, staged "apology" to Congress for "clearly erroneous" statements.In a sane world, the person who exposed an illegal surveillance program would be celebrated and congratulated, while the guy who ran the program and lied to Congress about it would be the one worried about his future. Instead, Snowden is being hunted, while no one seems even remotely concerned that Clapper has admitted to not just perjuring himself, but also running a highly questionable surveillance program that to this day is continuing to collect data on millions of Americans and their communications. Something is really screwed up with our priorities.
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Filed Under: ed snowden, james clapper, lying to congress, priorities
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Not a new pattern
Never forget -- it's better for your career to be wrong as part of the established power structure than it is to be correct and be in conflict with them.
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Re: Not a new pattern
or plamed and shamed...
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If you are the Director of National Intelligence and lie to Congress, it's no biggy.
It's obvious that baseball players on steroids is much more important to our (alleged) representatives than some NSA programs they don't understand or care about.
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It's the flip-side of a special deal they have with the US government: MLB has a special exemption from antitrust laws, and in exchange for that, they must submit to congressional oversight.
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Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
C'mon, I know you're a fanatic copier, Mimeograph Mike, but can't you give us just a LITTLE new? You're not even a hack writer! You just re-write what everyone else has with broad truisms sure to be popular with your fanboys.
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Re: OOTBing: daily spurts of short, trivial, and off topic rants to get attention
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Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
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Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
For some reason when I read it all I could see was the face of the forlorn workman complaining that "No one ever pays him in gum."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxmCdRkCEU0
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Re: Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
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Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
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Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
C'mon, I know you're a fantastic troll, never_out_of_the_stupid, but can't you give us just a LITTLE new? You're not even a hack 4channer! You just write nonsensical trolling comments to goad people into responding to you.
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Re: Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
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Titanium_dragon for instance is well known on ARS.
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Not that I disagree with what's said by OOTB's abusers, but I still think it's a waste of time.
Aren't there other sites for this kind of mutual abuse? Can't some of OOTB's attackers -- who are right of course, but it takes up space -- pile off of him and go somewhere else (some nasty spot on the net) to vent this kind of thing?
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People are allowed to be utterly wrong, and other people are allowed to rebuttal with citations, logic, what-have-you. I generally have learned more from rebuttals than I have from original comments.
Furthermore, the dissent (both uninformed and informed) prevents the comments section from becoming an endless echo chamber of "I agree with the article" that would negate the entire purpose of a comments section.
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Dissent is essential, yes. But what the regular trolls provide is not actually dissent in the sense of rebutting and providing a counterargument. In fact, I think the trolls have the opposite effect, albeit indirectly. I think they discourage dissent.
The trolling here is so mindless, insulting, and off-topic that many regular readers have become hypersensitive and begin to react to any counterargument as if it were trolling. I think we'd have better, more inclusive and productive discussions if they weren't here (or if everyone could just refrain from replying to them.)
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Wishful thinking.
I raised this problem a dozen times to no avail. Even sent a suggestion to Mike, and got no reply.
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"Our Priorities"
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