UK Government Admits Intelligence Services Allowed To Break Into Any System, Anywhere, For Any Reason
from the confession-time dept
Recently, Techdirt noted that the FBI may soon have permission to break into computers anywhere on the planet. It will come as no surprise to learn that the US's partner in crime, the UK, granted similar powers to its own intelligence services some time back. What's more unexpected is that it has now publicly said as much, as Privacy International explains:The British Government has admitted its intelligence services have the broad power to hack into personal phones, computers, and communications networks, and claims they are legally justifed to hack anyone, anywhere in the world, even if the target is not a threat to national security nor suspected of any crime.That important admission was made in what the UK government calls its "Open Response" to court cases started last year against GCHQ. Here's what it reveals, according to Privacy International:
Buried deep within the document, Government lawyers claim that while the intelligence services require authorisation to hack into the computer and mobile phones of "intelligence targets", GCHQ is equally permitted to break into computers anywhere in the world even if they are not connected to a crime or a threat to national security.Moreover:
The intelligence services assert the right to exploit communications networks in covert manoeuvres that severely undermine the security of the entire internet. The deployment of such powers is confirmed by recent news stories detailing how GCHQ hacked into Belgacom using the malware Regin, and targeted Gemalto, the world's largest maker of SIM cards used in countries around the world.What's important about this revelation is not just the information itself -- many people had assumed this was the case -- but the fact that once more, bringing court cases against the UK's GCHQ has ferreted out numerous details that were previously secret. This shows the value of the strategy, and suggests it should be used again where possible.
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Filed Under: gchq, surveillance, uk
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Limits and laws are for the peasants
...
'Buried deep within the document, Government lawyers claim that while the intelligence services require authorisation to hack into the computer and mobile phones of "intelligence targets", GCHQ is equally permitted to break into computers anywhere in the world even if they are not connected to a crime or a threat to national security.'
So in other words, they can hack anyone, at any time, for any reason, and that's supposed to be okay. Given their utter hatred of the press and those that expose their actions, anyone want to take a wild guess as to one of their primary targets for that 'anyone at any time' hacking?
Yet again one of the spying agencies has shown that there are no limits to what they are willing and 'authorized' to do(blatant lies to the contrary), and likewise, no limits as to what the law says that they can do, exactly as intended I'm sure. What better way to intimidate potential whistleblowers or reporters after all than ever so bluntly admitting that you can gain access to all of their communications and files, with no more justification needed than a whim or a hunch?
I can only wonder if the politicians involved realize just how nasty a monster they have created, or if they foolishly still think that it remains under their control? To be sure, a spy agency without limits may be great for intimidation purposes, or digging up dirt on those that oppose you, but what do they think will happen when things change, and they're no longer the ones running the agency? Or, more likely, when those running the agency realize just how much power they have, and decide that they'd much rather do without what few restrictions they have to deal with?
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The only thing to watch out for is evidence linking agencies and individuals to the hacking crimes. So long as Belgacom can't link GCHQ to Regin through solid evidence, then GCHQ and the UK Gov don't need to worry about lawsuits and sanctions against them.
Then again, America had no hard evidence linking N. Korea to the Sony hack. Yet they proceeded to sanction the N. Korean government anyways.
Moral of the story. The digital world is a lawless free for all with only one rule. Don't get caught hacking and always have plausible deny-ability on your side. Everything else is fair game.
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What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
There is bound to be some unbalanced Timothy McVeighs out there that are making plans.
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Re: What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
Some of this attitude has already surfaced in Ferguson where people believe they are not getting a fair shake from the local government. Unhinged or not, it's resulted in two wounded cops and in NYC it's resulted in two dead cops.
Right now the NSA is not on the front page as much as legal murder is by the cops. All it will take is one or two times being caught in some little nasty to change all that.
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Re: Re: What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
Also on an even luzier note:
How else would they keep tabs on their exes, potential love interests, spouses, (girl/boy)friends and kids?
And as far as news reports go Ferguson seems like a really special place as far as interactions with the boys in blue go.
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Re: What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
It is only a small step from being able to spy on who ever for what ever reason, to being able to detain you for any reason.
When will they be allowed to kill for what ever reason they want as long as they say "National Security"
These are scary developments.
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Re: Re: What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
I, for one, welcome our new police-state overlords. They will keep us nice and safe, sheltered under their boots!
"...the Timothy McVeighs will be our new Paul Revere."
Paul Revere was a traitor to The Crown!
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Re: What happens when people no longer see the courts as a way to stop this?
They want to test their newest crowd control toys and are itching for someone to start something big enough to "justify" the use of massive control.
I think Ferguson was a failed attempt at exactly that sort of instigated riot.
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I realize they already do this but its an open secret.
On the bright side if this leads to nuclear war (worst case of course) most of us will not survive the initial missile attacks and won't have to worry about surviving in the rubble of society.
It is a sad day when I hope for China and Russia to check the growing fascist powers that control the US and UK. Maybe the communists and fascists will focus on each other and ignore their citizens enough to let them live their lives
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Re:
Nope. Cannot lead to Nuclear War.
Why?
Because:
You cannot spend radioactive gold.
You cannot rape radioactive women.
You cannot steal radioactive resources.
You cannot occupy radioactive nations.
You cannot enslave radioactive conquered enemies.
Nukes made normal war obsolete.
Normal War makes nukes unusable.
The wealthy - all members of all governments come from the wealthiest families in any nation - do not wage war for moral or religious, or antagonistic reasons.
They wage war for money.
No enterprise is as profitable as war.
Nuclear War would remove the profit factor.
Thus, no government composed of wealthy members - ie. all governments on earth - will ever wage nuclear war.
There is simply no money in it.
As for Russia, France, China, Germany and all of the other Non-White, Non-English speaking nations on earth, methinks you will soon be seeing them all follow the lead of the Five Eyes nations and start to beg for membership status.
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Re: Re:
What about the insane rich people?
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Re: Re: Re:
You must be referring to the children of the wealthy, because its damned difficult to become rich, or remain rich, if you're not actually playing with a full deck, or think martians are out to get you.
A man named Hunt comes to mind.
The children of the rich are often wacked out by the time they reach the age of Ownership - due to unimpeded hard drug use, alcohol abuse, legal immunity-based megalomania etc. - but you have to remember that the wealthy have implemented a vast and costly system of surveillance through which they hope to catch the poor and middle classes of the entire world who may be conspiring to overthrow them.
Imagine how much more closely they watch those of their own order who actually have the wealth and power at their disposal needed to truly cause some serious disruption to the dream of godhood that the rich hold dear.
You also have to remember human history - the children of the rich and powerful have always been seen as a threat to the current rulers and have repeatedly proven themselves to be willing to poison or otherwise assassinate their elders for a chance at the throne and that extra cash.
No. When it comes to the idea of losing their wealth, the rich become downright reptilian, and are more than willing to cull any of their errant children who show signs of incorrect thinking. Inhumane rationalism is one of the first signs of Wealth Addiction.
Besides, children are easily replaced.
And in truth, even the craziest rich person, simply because they have already become addicted to wealth, will always do what they do in order to gain more wealth. They are taught from day one, to exclusively think in terms of turning One Dollar Into Three Dollars Repeatedly.
Nuclear war is simply an overly expensive and totally profitless business venture and will thus never even enter the mind of a rich person - child or adult.
A nuclear accident is by far much more likely to occur, than any sort of Hollywood Evil Rich Guy Rules the World by Nuking Nations scenario.
In fact, the tendency to horde large stockpiles of nukes in one's own backyard as a deterrent to their use, is a far greater threat, over time, than any number of crazy rich people, whose only dream is that of unlimited wealth, control and power over others.
Of course, when this sort of accident happens, the rich are actually nuking themselves and their cash cow, so this will soon become obvious to them as well and nukes will start secretly disappearing form their hidey holes to be replaced with dummies.
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This is getting to be too much
All my life I have seen this deterioration between nations. You can't control what happens next, get off the pot.
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Yawn...
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Re: Yawn...
The problem is what you have to risk to fight the system. That has been and always will be the problem.
Take myself for example. I hate a lot of things, but due to the interferences of my day job, I cannot risk the negative publicity of joining any form of protest and losing my job over it. And if I were arrested regardless of whether I was obeying the law or not is never a winning scenario regardless of the outcome.
We will not see a rebellion until enough of the 'productive' types of the workforce are out of a job to form a serious resistant. There is a good reason why the middle class is treated differently than the rest. The poor and the rich are usually filled with higher majorities of the lazy, inadequate and worthless. And before you got on your high horses, this does not mean the middle class is missing their village idiots either. It is just the ratios that matter most. We are all just a bunch of numbers, not a single one of us are humans in the eyes of government.
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Re: Re: Yawn...
If you did not support the party you lost your job, your home, your social standing etc. You could serve jail time or be executed for not being 100% Nazi supporter.
They felt making a single person stand wouldn't do anything so no one did. Instead they waited for some mass movement that never came because people focused on keeping themselves safe which ended up not working for anyone in the long run.
Yes I realize using the Nazi stereotype gets old. But its a tried and true method to get a point across
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Re: Yawn...
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Re: Re: Yawn...
In the US of A you COULD always start filing criminal complaints/lawsuits but most people have the issue like https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150320/04052830372/uk-government-admits-intelligence-services-al lowed-to-break-into-any-system-anywhere-any-reason.shtml#c170 and the risk isn't worth it for them.
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The Chinese, of course, would call this kidnapping of Chinese citizens from the hart of China and sequentially place the appropriate US authorities on the Chinese Most Wanted List with equal big rewards for their capture and surrender to Chinese authorities in China.
That action would then put the ball back in the US court who would likewise be expected to continue the match never recognizing that the US, UK, China, Russia, et. never has had and never will have the right to determine laws in a foreign country or the foreign country's actions to foreigners attempting to enforce foreign laws on foreign citizens.
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the only hope is for groups to bring them to court to get info on spying surveillamce practises or to use Eu
law against them re mass retention of data .
Spys have no interest in terms like morality or public interest ,human right s ,
A whole new system of public oversight of surveillance
practices by the gchq needs to
be brought in to the uk,
And not one like the present system where 1 or 2 persons work part time
on some commitee.
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The ultimate computer crime defense
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Re: The ultimate computer crime defense
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killing anyone anywhere for any reason
wait a minute! wasn't Obama joking about that?
(jonas brothers)
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Re: killing anyone anywhere for any reason
https://youtu.be/K4NRJoCNHIs?t=6m35s
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Drones (HBO)
Who was it? - Ehm....we don't know but we are sure it was someone we should have killed because they had the same height as Bin Laden.
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Re: Re: killing anyone anywhere for any reason
You might also want to check the 12 min mark in the video. When they use your words to describe the current situation in an official manor.
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Re: Re: Re: killing anyone anywhere for any reason
Almost.
Constantly living in fear of having bombs dropped on you by a country/government who doesn't even care enough about who it kills to make sure they know who's under the crosshairs before pulling the trigger. Yeah, seems like a great way to make people love the US to me, can't see how that could in any way backfire. /s
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If it's ok for the British to do it, why shouldn't they?
And is the British government giving the ok to gain all information for free, so does that include copyrighted information, whether it be mass media or technology, even not in the interest of national securities?
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Re:
Because they aren't British!
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Re: Re:
Read: Because they aren't the good guys.
Funny if you take a look at the past and think that those people thought they are the good guys too. Let's hope we win this sh** otherwise we might be the bad guys in the books.
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Re: Re: Re:
lol - the winners write the history books.
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Lifting the veil.
Because that was the loudest "Fuck You Peasants", I've ever heard.
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Re: Lifting the veil.
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Re: Re: Lifting the veil.
If you will note however, that every time you see the Brits "roll over and show their tummies to the US", the results of the US demand just happens to benefit the Brits as well, often more than the USA.
It is also usually over something that the Brits would have had more difficulty in advancing to their own people without the "demand" by the US, adding the "national security necessity" level to the situation.
Its generally called "Smoke and Mirrors", or "Sleight of Hand".
The very last thing the Five Eyes want is to let the US public become aware that the US fascists take their orders from Britain. It would be intensely counter productive to profits and control. Britain however, has always ruled over the Five Eyes members.
I take it you are not a student of political science, or of the process called the Confidence Game - two names for the same process actually.
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http://www.tweaktown.com/news/44156/auxiliary-nypd-officer-accused-hacking-police-fbi-networks/ index.html
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Rant #23
When a national government declares war on another country, prior to invasion, its plain to all, exactly who has been selected as the enemy, but declaring war on terrorism does not automatically identify a particular nationality, race or sect of persons as the selected enemy - although it appears at first glance that it was a declaration of war against muslims and other non-white people of non-christian faiths.
This is because terrorism, as it was defined at the time the declaration was made by the Five Eyes nations, was guerilla warfare, waged by the survivors of empire invasions, who, having little in the way of military ordinances, simply strapped a home-made bomb to their chests and blew something up that belonged to the member nation of the Five Eyes Cabal that had invaded and destroyed their country.
Terrorism was once called Rebellion, and the Terrorists, were once called Rebels, and the Rebels were primarily the surviving civilians of a nation whose military aged men and women had been executed during the Empire's invasion.
The Rebels are not an army, and in fact, not even militarily trained, although they adopt military strategy to carry out sabotage of the Empire's holdings.
They are, simply put, angry civilians looking for some pay-back.
Thus, while not explicitly stated by any of the member nations of the Five Eyes Cabal, the War on Terrorism, is actually a war on civilians - ostensibly those civilians from nations that were destroyed by one of the members of the Five Eyes, but in reality, any civilians, anywhere, who might someday try to use force, assassination or fear-of-death to change any of the Five Eyes member nations' political regimes or take revenge upon any of the Five Eyes nations that had invaded their country and slaughtered their countrymen.
Once you understand this, you will begin to understand why the member nations of the Five Eyes Cabal, have reclassified their own populations as The Adversary, and why they are all spying on all communications of their own populations - because any civilian, anywhere, could, at any time, decide to become a Rebel/Terrorist and attempt to change the regime through sabotage or assassination.
The War on Terrorism, is actually a war on regime change, a war on dissent, and a war on disobedience to authority.
More to the point, it is a war on public freedom and civil/human rights.
It is a war on civilians, meant to prevent civilians from rebelling against the Five Eyes Fascist Cabal by knowing in advance what all the people are saying, all the time, to each other.
The 99% outnumber the 1% by a huge margin and the 1% fear the 99% will eventually rebel against their planned exploitation of the entire global economy and thus they need to put in place the sort of controls that will let them quell any possible rebellion and prevent, as much as possible, the ability of the public to manufacture such a rebellion.
The War on Terrorism allows the 1% - those people that make up the leadership of earth - to change the laws in exactly the ways needed to legally allow the controls necessary for a fasict take-over of the world's economy, under the auspices of protecting the world from terrorism.
The creation of ISIL by the Five Eyes nations is a ploy designed to put a more military face upon Terrorism in an attempt to delay the realization that the War on Terrorism is actually a war on civilians world-wide.
The secret Five Eyes Cabal was in fact formed so that the wealthy members of the white, english speaking nations, could better protect their holdings and escalate their exploitation and profiteering, without fear of rebellion by the people they plan to enslave.
Their banner motto is very likely the Bushism: "If you're not with us, you're against us.", so if your not rich, you're the Adversary and a threat to their well being.
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Re: Rant #23
And yes, this means armies can (and do) conduct terrorist attacks, but actions taken by civilians against armed forces are never terrorism.
And this is precisely what separates rebels, freedom fighters and guerillas from terrorists. Yes, all of those can become terrorists too, but only if they target civilians (or intentionally tolerate collateral civilian casualties).
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Re: Re: Rant #23
I disagree.
When a Rebel/"terrorist"/guerilla group attacks a military base, or fires rockets at troops, the media refers to the action as a military assault.
When a military force attacks a civilian population, the media refers to that action as a military assault.
Media only refers to an assault by civilians upon other civilians as a terrorist attack.
The distinction between Rebel and Terrorist that you posted above is merely a media-based perception trick, as the Rebels and Guerillas of every human conflict have used the exact same tactics, for very simple reasons.
A Rebel/Guerilla/Terrorist Force will almost always attack military troops from a distance to prevent massive retaliation by the well-armed and highly disciplined military survivors, against which the minimally armed and usually untrained Rebels have no defense.
It does not mean that Guerillas/Rebels/Terrorists cannot and do not attack military personnel - only that such attacks upon military personnel are rare and are perceived differently by the public because they are reported differently by the media.
Traditional Terrorists primarily attack civilian targets because there is minimal security, if any, and almost no retaliation possible.
Terrorists/Rebels/Guerillas generally do not possess the kind of weapons necessary to confront an armed military force - especially one as well equipped as would be found in any Five Eyes Nation.
ISIL is the first real exception to this rule because ISIL was recruited, financed and trained by the Fascist Five Eyes BOD, in order to further their own agenda and maintain the public fear of Terrorism, that diverts billions into their pockets from tax-payers every year.
The entire purpose of Basic Empire Purge and Infrastructure Destruction is to eliminate military aged persons from the invaded and conquered nation, leaving only the very young and the very old, with nothing they can use as weapons - who are naturally forced to spend most of their effort in pure survival in the ruins of their cities, left devoid of food, clean water and power.
The original premise of rebellion/terrorism was that, in order to affect Regime Change in the conquering Empire nation, it was necessary to affect the people of that nation, because only the people of a nation can affect regime change in their nation.
Regardless, the "definition" of Terrorism, as it was, or as it is, has no bearing on the meaning of the Declaration of war AGAINST Terrorism, or the fact that it is in effect, a declaration of war against all civilians, including the civilians living in the nations that have made the declaration.
In fact, the reason that the news has carried repeated disclosures of white mercenaries from Britain, Canada, and the USA - all 5i member nations - among the ranks of ISIL, is to prove to the public at large, the necessity of massive surveillance of the home population, because your own civilians can also easily become "terrorists" at will, without warning.
The simple truth remains, that the declaration of the War against Terrorism by the member nations of the Five Eyes, is a declaration of war against civilians, worldwide.
Do you disagree with that last statement?
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Re: Re: Re: Rant #23
Well, its been three days, so I will accept your lack of response to my question as a note of agreement then - or at least an admission that you have no come-back - or, as is more likely, that you simply never read that far. :)
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Any computer anywhere
Sound far fetched? Not if they think one of our patients is a 'terrorist.'
I also pen test our network regularly using Metasploit and read the Linux Journal (a 'selector' for NSA). Does that invite intrusion into our HIPAA network because my computer use is probably classified as 'suspicious'?
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The only limit to the Scoop, is the current level of technology available to the Snoop.
Methinks ye missed the point.
It is not necessary that the Snoop and Scoop Network of the Five Eyes "think one of our patients is a 'terrorist'.
In fact, it is not even necessary that the S&S Net think that there might be some connection to a crime or some three times removed connection to some dissenting group or person.
That your network exists, and contains information, is the only prerequisite needed for it to be listed for intrusion.
If there is data that the S&S Net thinks it might some day find useful for whatever purpose might someday be possible, it is automatically listed as a source of interest and will be scanned at the earliest opportunity, regardless of the type of data, or for that matter, whether the data might actually be of any use or not, now or in the future.
Since there is no one who can physically stop this global surveillance by the Five Eyes S&S Net, and no legal precedents to use against these power-mad eavesdroppers, the perpetual escalation of the surveillance of ALL, is absolutely assured.
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Re:
Not quite.
They declared war on the dissenting poor and middle class populations of earth some time ago actually - just prior to 9/11 to be specific - but the wealthy of all nations are invited to participate in the revelry of the Five Eyes, as long as they understand who is the boss and pay their membership dues, diligently and on time.
Much like the MAFIA, the Five Eyes are a truly multi-racial employer, and similarly, to belong to the upper echelon of the Five Eyes one must possess a special racial heritage and social standing - in this case, white, English-Speaking billionaire.
There is of course always room for those of us who simply want to be on the winning side, who are willing to do whatever it takes to be on the payroll of the perceived winners-2B, so the recruitment of minions for money is always in full swing, especially since minions tend to get used up rather quickly doing all the dirty work.
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Re: Re:
Yup, those that do make it home from war are not provided what was promised, the VA for example. Apparently, the phrase "Support the Troops" is just campaign rhetoric.
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Re: Re: Re:
That's why they implemented the Cheney War Plan, actually.
You see, even the miniscule support that vets received after returning damaged from a war was simply too much for people like the Ownership Society members, George Bush and Dick Cheney to stomach, because vets tended to live for many years regardless of the severity of their wounds.
To the members of the war-biz-loving Ownership Society, a good soldier was one who went to war and died there.
So they started giving the troops, so-called "depleted" uranium bullets, which being brittle, shattered on impact into dust - radioactive dust - thus insuring that those troops who made it home alive, would not live for very long due to radiation poisoning, making their "support" period far shorter and far less expensive.
A truly brilliant military-business strategy.
Of course, now they just give all returning vets a supply of those awesome stress/depression/sleep/hypnotic drugs that makes up to 4 vets kill themselves every day.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Even though the public cheered them on during the conflict, they can never really get past the knowledge that Military Personnel have been trained relentlessly and systematically, to kill people, including civilians.
There is no soft and squishy manner to say this.
When the troops come home, the civilians often see this as a flood of people-killers entering their neighborhoods.
Worse still, most vets suffer the inevitable mental repercussions of killing large numbers of other people and having those other people trying their level best to kill the vets, making them even more "risky" in the minds of those who remained behind during the conflict.
Generally speaking, this is why their is never any real massive grassroots outcry against the pathetic treatment by government, when it comes to returning veterans.
Certainly there are complaints - usually forwarded by the families of vets and vets themselves, but there is never any real solutions offered by government in response.
In almost every conflict in human history, the soldier survivor is discarded and ignored by society upon termination of the conflict that created him or her.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Volunteers, on the other hand, cannot make that claim and are stuck with defending their "choice" to a public that is less than friendly when they are unhappy with either the way the war went (bad P.R.), or if the war was perceived as being lost.
Volunteers however, make the politicians look good because a volunteer army is seen publically as a war of the people, rather than a war of the government.
War-Biz folks know well, that offering criminals amnesty and foreigners citizenship is an excellent way to recruit an army that appears to be voluntary, and which can be held up by politicians as proof of the need for that war - volunteers appear to prove that The People want to fight that war.
It helps also if you can have the banks punch a hole in your national economy, so the majority of people living on the edge of poverty are suddenly thrust into desperation and thus forced to also "volunteer" to join the war effort.
It is truly amazing how many methods have been tried and proven effective by the wealthy elites of nations around the world throughout history, to make a population drop their plows and pick up swords.
There is no business like war business.
I wonder if there was ever a war that was actually demanded by the public who fought in it.
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People Rule US
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Re: People Rule US
From my experience, approximately 5 years after its too late.... which, I think, was about a year ago.
The silly part of this is, of course, the simple fact that the US public no longer has anyone that they can demand anything from.
But don't feel special.
None of the civilian populations of the Five Eyes Nations have any responsive authorities to whom they can air grievances.
Fascism is not a government type - its a business model - and it does not include any sort of 2 way dialogue with its subjects.
As the Ownership Society Slogan goes:
"All your authority are belong to us."
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Re: Re: People Rule US
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Re: Re: Re: People Rule US
Then I'm sure we all sincerely hope that you will do whatever you can to insure that you do NOT side with them in future. :)
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086791111
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