Re: Re: Re: So... another piece of the Asset Seizure Puzzle appears?
I have to admit, the Bread and Circus, A-Team VS B-Team syndrome does indeed have a far reaching secondary effect - one you have aptly named Partisan Nitwit Disease, hereafter referred to as PND.
PND is, I believe, a direct side effect of our national habit of armchair warfare participation.
We have learned to always pick one side or another - "What Side Are You On" - in so many areas of life that we can only judge side A by comparing it to side B.
Things that do not have an obvious duality for comparison simply leave us baffled.
OK, but the Brownies will have to be made with massive quantities of that nasty Canadian Weed they call Skunk, or top quality Hawaiian Indica, to insure that the LEOs are seriously impeded in their ability to shoot straight, think bent or find their feet.
And I want a second half ton Truck load of same for the experimenters and home owners........ cuz.... Brownies!! :)
I agree completely that the police have almost always behaved badly and are only slightly more belligerent today than in the past towards civilians. In many ways I think the laws that pertain to police activity have even been made stronger in certain areas. Not that laws pertaining to police have ever actually done much to stop the brutal actions of police against the population, since those laws are seldom invoked after the fact, by those "authorities" who are supposed to handle such things.
However, I'm not actually talking about a few "pistol-postal" Wannabe Rambo Types being responsible for all of the crimes we now read about every day, of police treating the public as an enemy force.
I'm thinking more along the lines of them becoming role-models among the civilian police forces, primarily because of their cock-sure, gung ho attitude and tactical warfare know-how - especially now that the whole notion of civilian policing has become extremely militant because of the Pseudo-Wars against Drugs and Terror and the generosity of the Federal Government in making nukes available to uniformed children.
I'm also assuming that of the veterans who return from combat, becoming a police officer would appeal more to the Rambo Type than to those who returned basically still sane.
And considering the recent exposures of police hiring practices, it would seem that such Rambo Types would be precisely the kind of new recruits the police administration would want in their ranks.
I'm a military brat myself and have a shitload of respect for any man or woman who willingly puts their life on the line for their country, whether s/he is really being used by corporate assholes to secure them new wealth or not, and I'd like to think that ex-military personnel are not the problem also, but rather than simply assume as much, I'd like to see some statistics on numbers currently serving as LEOs, before I dismiss the notion as implausible.
I'm simply not all that good at starting this sort of statistical investigation and was hoping for a link to some sort of sources that might give me a head-start.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Lawful Use of Deadly Force
"The only Man who was perfect got nailed to a tree."
Nah, that was Simon they nailed to the tree on Pontius's estate and while Simon was pretty damn cool, he was way less than perfect.
He did volunteer for the role of sacrificial lamb though, for the "cause".
The heir apparent to the Judean throne walked. The man known as Jesus had a rebellion that needed his attention.
Simon's sacrifice gave him a new lease on sabotage.
Judas was a good guy, who sold Simon to the Romans, instead of Jesus, so that the leader of the rebellion could carry on the Rebel/Terrorist campaign against the occupying Roman Army.
The Romans had no idea what Jesus looked like - he was the rebellion leader - and they needed someone - a rebel - to point him out to the occupying Roman forces and collect the reward.
But at least (and surprisingly), you got the tree part right. :)
Did you learn where they really stuck the nails too?
Actually I think they would hold the woman in a cell until they had the brownies analyzed for illegal drugs, poisons, and controlled substances and then, just to be sure, they'd raid the woman's house and tear it apart to insure that she was not setting up some kind of trap for LEO's who might come seeking additional brownies later.
By "Nah", I assume you mean no - there are few or no ex-military personnel serving as LEOs.
I would prefer a better statistical set than a simple "nah" and your personal reassurances, if possible.
I agree that the cops are not as well trained as the military and that the cops are better equipped than the military, but its the number, or rather percentage of current police officers who have done military service in the field that concerns me.
Its not so much military training, as actual combat experience that I'm worried about.
Those veterans who speak out against police brutality and their clumsy urban-warfare pseudo-tactics, are, I assume, not active police officers themselves.
And while I am not trying to say that ALL ex-military personnel who experience combat, come home bent and twisted, I am saying that many do and I would also assume it would be those particular men and women who would seek employment in an occupation similar to military service where they can "kill bad guys".
Very few occupations "back home" offer this particular "perk", except Law Enforcement, in their Wars on Drugs and Terroists.
If enough of these people were present in the ranks of Law Enforcement, it would certainly go a distance to explaining some of the changes in police mentality and attitudes.
The USG's reclassification of the general American Public as the "Adversary" has not been broadcast on TV by the President or by any spokesperson from any federal agency, yet.
I think the information became public only through the public services of Snowden and the Guardian.
Thus, unofficial, technically.
However, the general attitude of all federal agencies and in fact most state and city governments, has certainly expressed plainly that the reclassification is nearly universally understood to be in effect, by all authorities, nationally.
I assume this is true for all Five Eyes Nations.
Personally, I think the billionaires and career criminals that make up the membership of the current federal governments of the 5 Eyes Nations are simply too cowardly to admit to the public that they have reclassified them as the "adversary", because then the public would know who public enemy number one really was.
The kind of "fight" these cowards like, is the kind where they get to use HE bombs, jets, tanks, and assault weapons and the opponent gets to use only sharpened sticks.
The only kind of fight they like better, is the kind where their victim has no idea who is attacking them and thus cannot fight back at all. Which is pretty much the current situation on earth.
... repeated ad infinitum by even the wisest of men...
Odd then how they are always smart enough to fool the public year after year after year into electing them to office, often repeatedly...
Almost as odd as the fact that every one of them for centuries has been exactly as "stupid" as the one before, with nary a single smart one ever showing up in all those years.
Looks like the ploy works perfectly, if you're representative of the general public.
Re: Re: A simple question for the European Counter-Terrorism Commission:
"The Nazis lost. Fascism won."
Umm, you probably already know this, but your statement makes it look like you have differentiated between Nazi and Fascist.
NAZI is a short form, in German, of National Socialist.
As you probably can tell from history, the Nazis were not socialists. They were 100% businessmen - fascists.
Nazi was a political label mask, behind which the fascists could infiltrate the German political arena safely. Nazi is a facade of fascism. There are many.
Thus, your statement should read:
"The Nazis won. Fascism won."
Because they did.
Fascism, or Naziism, is simply what happens when very rich men hang out together and discuss ways and means of expanding their profit potential via legal means.
Eventually, it always occurs to them that the easiest way to do this is to control the law itself and then rewrite the laws so that they can legally expand their profit potential eternally.
This is called fascism.
Naziism was simply the German version of the game.
The reason that the German Businessmen of the WW2 era decided to go with National Socialist as their political mask, is identical to the reason that today's modern American Businessmen decided to run their facsist gambit under the Republican political mask - popularity and familiarity.
Mind you, the potential for profit under fascism is so outstanding for the already rich, that the wealthy Democrats did not take long to join the game.
Fascists cannot run under the political handle of fascist because the public never wants a fascist society - only businessmen and the very, very wealthy consider the Corporate Government structure as a desired social structure, because such a system is designed to let the wealthy profit unfettered, and the rich are by definition, above the laws they helped write and need not suffer any of the consequences the public faces under that sort of police state regime.
So Nazi = German Fascist.
... but you probably already knew all that anyways right. :)
In other words, a no-knock raid is nearly identical to a battle between two rival drug gangs, except that one gang wears a blue uniform and $23,000 worth of military gear and suffers no legal consequences for any of their actions during the battle because they are designated the Good Guys, even though they initiated the battle.
It might be interesting to determine how many American police officers are ex-military personnel.
I think that if it turns out that a large portion of the current police roster across America happens to be drawn from the ranks of ex-service men and women, that a great deal of the brutality and hatred of civilians might be better understood.
After all, such people did learn their hatred of civilians and their methods of brutality in a foreign land dealing with those they designated as the Adversary.
While in the field, it is a very real fact that those civilians the military brutalizes would, in an instant, kill those soldiers, if the opportunity arose.
This would be the very same training and experience that these ex-service personnel would bring to the table when employed as Law Enforcement Officers.
Of course, such information is likely classified as Top Secret, as it "might give criminals an advantage" of some sort.
"Criminals" in this case, referring to the general public.
The truly wonderful aspect of a police state - for police - is that the police get to pick and choose what laws they will and will not obey, on the fly.
And because they ARE the police, there is nobody that can take them to the carpet for their crimes when they choose to disobey the laws.
"...fear and loathing that many leading politicians display towards digital technologies"
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
In order for this mantra to be repeated ad infinitum by even the wisest of men, it is necessary that those in leadership positions appear always to be ignorant fools.
By appearing to know nothing about the things they have been charged with repairing, those in power can never be blamed for purposely screwing the public over.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Law Enforcment Required to Obey Laws not Policy
"This would likely result in widespread changes in how police departments operate."
I sincerely hope you're not holding your breathe in anticipation of this change to occur.
In today's Do or Die Employment world, the job/income is far more important than any sense of right and wrong.
Feeding the kids and wife, buying the latest greatest toys and paying the bills is priority one, while being a good cop and hoping that the public/system will help you keep your job after you cross the Blue Line, is not even a choice on the table.
And since any good cop would want to keep as low a profile as possible, there is no way for one good cop to know another good cop, by sight or reputation, so the idea of "gathering" is not even possible.
But the reality of this situation is far worse, because a bad police force attracts bad people and repels good people and it is highly unlikely that any good people would remain an employee of any American Police Force for very long, and I assume there will always be some good people who are foolish or idealistic enough to join anyways.
But the bad cops will feel unsafe around any good cop and find ways of ridding themselves of such an annoyance quickly, and since the entire system is corrupt, it would be easy for the bad cops to do this because the administration would want the same thing and willingly aid the bad cops in the process of rooting out and eliminating any such threats.
I think police states have to run their full course, and self destruct as they destroy the civilization in which they exist, before things can be fixed, since the police are directly between the people and the social problems that need to be fixed and the police are themselves one of the biggest of these social problems and they have no desire to be fixed as long as they can make extra cash through corruption.
"And then they would just keep right on doing whatever they want to."
Absolutely correct.
It takes no effort at all to say:
"Yes sir." "Of course sir." "We will stop doing that right away sir."
And then do absolutely nothing that was "suggested" and carry on as if the suggestions were never made.
Each time they do this, they get a free period where nobody is looking over their shoulder.
It has become Standard Operating Procedure.
Like politicians, if the members of the administration of a Spy Agency speak, you can bet any money, they just lied.
And it no longer matters who they are speaking to.
I still think the Bush Administration (secretly) declared war on a (secret) enemy, during a (secret) war-council session, held right after they pulled off 9/11.
I think 9/11 itself was carried out specifically to provide the legal rationale needed to hold such a secret session.
Its the only thing that I can see that would give the Feds and all their little armies of secret minions the legal ability to simply blow off any demands, commands and reprimands, break any law at will with impunity, secretly incarcerate and kill American citizens without due process, lie to the courts, the public and anyone else who might ask embarrassing questions, weaken electronic communications on a global scale, intercept and alter electronic hardware to facilitate hard-wired public surveillance, secretly spy on the whole world by tapping into undersea and underground cables, manufacture and capture fake terrorists, and generally act as if they were a power unto themselves and completely above all laws on earth.
That is exactly how a government and its agencies act when they're participating in a declared war.
The only reason I can fathom, to keep the declaration of war a secret from the American Public, is that the American Public are, or are among, the declared (secret) enemy.
Note that the NSA has un-officially declared the American Public as "The Adversary".
By assuming this to be the case, nothing that the Feds or their Agents have done for the last decade, is out of the ordinary, or in any way strange.
"At JFK, TSA did not have visitor logs in any of its communication rooms to document the entry and exit of visitors to these rooms that contain sensitive IT equipment."
Now that is damned funny.
When was the last time anyone can remember that a thief, terrorist, or lost wanderer, stopped to sign his name in a visitor log book before entering an area filled with sensitive government equipment.
And if were talking about a TSA employee being in the room and handing a visitor a log book to sign upon entrance to the room, then where is the problem of security - the logbook handler is in the room already!
Does TSA not know who can and cannot enter such rooms??
Amazing how absolutely every aspect of the TSA is riddled with absurdity, silliness and an apparent complete lack of common sense. Do they have a "Morons Only" limitation on their employment applications?
"...March 17, 2009 notices and the ultimate takedown on March 23, 2009, a full fortyeight hours after..."
OK - my math aint all that good, but are we talking working hours - 8 hour days - here. Does the DMCA notice only cover working hours??
That's 6 full days between the 17th and 23rd, so in order to get 48 hours, one has to see each day as only eight hours long, or assume that we're talking about working hours, like 9AM to 5PM.
When did anything on the "Internet" have working hours??
Whole thing sounds a lot like a public relations rationalization to me.
Like somebody said "Look, we need some convincing reasons why were doing all this automobile surveillance stuff that the public will swallow, and we need them fast."
And this was all that their think-tank could come up with.
On the post: DEA Collecting Massive Database Of Your Driving Habits In Secret, Using License Plate Readers
Re: Re: Re: So... another piece of the Asset Seizure Puzzle appears?
PND is, I believe, a direct side effect of our national habit of armchair warfare participation.
We have learned to always pick one side or another - "What Side Are You On" - in so many areas of life that we can only judge side A by comparing it to side B.
Things that do not have an obvious duality for comparison simply leave us baffled.
Social engineering at its best I guess.
---
On the post: Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both
Re: Re: I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but
It is called death.
On the post: Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both
Re:
The only lesson that one can safely take away from television, is that, if it says it is so on TV, then its not so.
This same rule can also be applied to government.
---
On the post: Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both
Re: Brownies >>> Raid
And I want a second half ton Truck load of same for the experimenters and home owners........ cuz.... Brownies!! :)
---
On the post: Teen Arrested For Emoji-Laden 'Terroristic Threats'
Re: I don't think these are changes.
However, I'm not actually talking about a few "pistol-postal" Wannabe Rambo Types being responsible for all of the crimes we now read about every day, of police treating the public as an enemy force.
I'm thinking more along the lines of them becoming role-models among the civilian police forces, primarily because of their cock-sure, gung ho attitude and tactical warfare know-how - especially now that the whole notion of civilian policing has become extremely militant because of the Pseudo-Wars against Drugs and Terror and the generosity of the Federal Government in making nukes available to uniformed children.
I'm also assuming that of the veterans who return from combat, becoming a police officer would appeal more to the Rambo Type than to those who returned basically still sane.
And considering the recent exposures of police hiring practices, it would seem that such Rambo Types would be precisely the kind of new recruits the police administration would want in their ranks.
I'm a military brat myself and have a shitload of respect for any man or woman who willingly puts their life on the line for their country, whether s/he is really being used by corporate assholes to secure them new wealth or not, and I'd like to think that ex-military personnel are not the problem also, but rather than simply assume as much, I'd like to see some statistics on numbers currently serving as LEOs, before I dismiss the notion as implausible.
I'm simply not all that good at starting this sort of statistical investigation and was hoping for a link to some sort of sources that might give me a head-start.
---
On the post: Wichita Police Respond To Request For Shooting Incident Details With A Handful Of Fully-Redacted Pages
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Lawful Use of Deadly Force
Nah, that was Simon they nailed to the tree on Pontius's estate and while Simon was pretty damn cool, he was way less than perfect.
He did volunteer for the role of sacrificial lamb though, for the "cause".
The heir apparent to the Judean throne walked. The man known as Jesus had a rebellion that needed his attention.
Simon's sacrifice gave him a new lease on sabotage.
Judas was a good guy, who sold Simon to the Romans, instead of Jesus, so that the leader of the rebellion could carry on the Rebel/Terrorist campaign against the occupying Roman Army.
The Romans had no idea what Jesus looked like - he was the rebellion leader - and they needed someone - a rebel - to point him out to the occupying Roman forces and collect the reward.
But at least (and surprisingly), you got the tree part right. :)
Did you learn where they really stuck the nails too?
---
On the post: Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both
Re: Brownies for the precinct.
Siege mentality.
On the post: Teen Arrested For Emoji-Laden 'Terroristic Threats'
Re: Re: Old Dog - New Tricks - Unlikely
I would prefer a better statistical set than a simple "nah" and your personal reassurances, if possible.
I agree that the cops are not as well trained as the military and that the cops are better equipped than the military, but its the number, or rather percentage of current police officers who have done military service in the field that concerns me.
Its not so much military training, as actual combat experience that I'm worried about.
Those veterans who speak out against police brutality and their clumsy urban-warfare pseudo-tactics, are, I assume, not active police officers themselves.
And while I am not trying to say that ALL ex-military personnel who experience combat, come home bent and twisted, I am saying that many do and I would also assume it would be those particular men and women who would seek employment in an occupation similar to military service where they can "kill bad guys".
Very few occupations "back home" offer this particular "perk", except Law Enforcement, in their Wars on Drugs and Terroists.
If enough of these people were present in the ranks of Law Enforcement, it would certainly go a distance to explaining some of the changes in police mentality and attitudes.
---
On the post: Privacy Board Says NSA Doesn't Know How Effective Its Collection Programs Are, Doesn't Much Care Either
Re: Re: Re: NSA cooperation
The USG's reclassification of the general American Public as the "Adversary" has not been broadcast on TV by the President or by any spokesperson from any federal agency, yet.
I think the information became public only through the public services of Snowden and the Guardian.
Thus, unofficial, technically.
However, the general attitude of all federal agencies and in fact most state and city governments, has certainly expressed plainly that the reclassification is nearly universally understood to be in effect, by all authorities, nationally.
I assume this is true for all Five Eyes Nations.
Personally, I think the billionaires and career criminals that make up the membership of the current federal governments of the 5 Eyes Nations are simply too cowardly to admit to the public that they have reclassified them as the "adversary", because then the public would know who public enemy number one really was.
The kind of "fight" these cowards like, is the kind where they get to use HE bombs, jets, tanks, and assault weapons and the opponent gets to use only sharpened sticks.
The only kind of fight they like better, is the kind where their victim has no idea who is attacking them and thus cannot fight back at all. Which is pretty much the current situation on earth.
---
On the post: Australian Prime Minister: Social Media Is Like Electronic Graffiti
Re: Re: You are being managed
... repeated ad infinitum by even the wisest of men...
Odd then how they are always smart enough to fool the public year after year after year into electing them to office, often repeatedly...
Almost as odd as the fact that every one of them for centuries has been exactly as "stupid" as the one before, with nary a single smart one ever showing up in all those years.
Looks like the ploy works perfectly, if you're representative of the general public.
---
On the post: EU's 'Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator' Finally Says It: Force Internet Companies To Hand Over Their Crypto Keys
Re: Re: A simple question for the European Counter-Terrorism Commission:
Umm, you probably already know this, but your statement makes it look like you have differentiated between Nazi and Fascist.
NAZI is a short form, in German, of National Socialist.
As you probably can tell from history, the Nazis were not socialists. They were 100% businessmen - fascists.
Nazi was a political label mask, behind which the fascists could infiltrate the German political arena safely. Nazi is a facade of fascism. There are many.
Thus, your statement should read:
"The Nazis won. Fascism won."
Because they did.
Fascism, or Naziism, is simply what happens when very rich men hang out together and discuss ways and means of expanding their profit potential via legal means.
Eventually, it always occurs to them that the easiest way to do this is to control the law itself and then rewrite the laws so that they can legally expand their profit potential eternally.
This is called fascism.
Naziism was simply the German version of the game.
The reason that the German Businessmen of the WW2 era decided to go with National Socialist as their political mask, is identical to the reason that today's modern American Businessmen decided to run their facsist gambit under the Republican political mask - popularity and familiarity.
Mind you, the potential for profit under fascism is so outstanding for the already rich, that the wealthy Democrats did not take long to join the game.
Fascists cannot run under the political handle of fascist because the public never wants a fascist society - only businessmen and the very, very wealthy consider the Corporate Government structure as a desired social structure, because such a system is designed to let the wealthy profit unfettered, and the rich are by definition, above the laws they helped write and need not suffer any of the consequences the public faces under that sort of police state regime.
So Nazi = German Fascist.
... but you probably already knew all that anyways right. :)
---
On the post: Police Union: You Can Have Safe Neighborhoods Or Be Free Of Flashbang-Burned Toddlers, But Not Both
Re: What's the point of a no-knock raid anyway?
Interesting.
On the post: Teen Arrested For Emoji-Laden 'Terroristic Threats'
Old Dog - New Tricks - Unlikely
I think that if it turns out that a large portion of the current police roster across America happens to be drawn from the ranks of ex-service men and women, that a great deal of the brutality and hatred of civilians might be better understood.
After all, such people did learn their hatred of civilians and their methods of brutality in a foreign land dealing with those they designated as the Adversary.
While in the field, it is a very real fact that those civilians the military brutalizes would, in an instant, kill those soldiers, if the opportunity arose.
This would be the very same training and experience that these ex-service personnel would bring to the table when employed as Law Enforcement Officers.
Of course, such information is likely classified as Top Secret, as it "might give criminals an advantage" of some sort.
"Criminals" in this case, referring to the general public.
---
On the post: Wichita Police Respond To Request For Shooting Incident Details With A Handful Of Fully-Redacted Pages
Bad Blue
And because they ARE the police, there is nobody that can take them to the carpet for their crimes when they choose to disobey the laws.
---
On the post: Australian Prime Minister: Social Media Is Like Electronic Graffiti
You are being managed
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
In order for this mantra to be repeated ad infinitum by even the wisest of men, it is necessary that those in leadership positions appear always to be ignorant fools.
By appearing to know nothing about the things they have been charged with repairing, those in power can never be blamed for purposely screwing the public over.
---
On the post: Police Department Refuses To Release Use Of Force Policies Because 'Criminals Might Gain An Advantage'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Law Enforcment Required to Obey Laws not Policy
I sincerely hope you're not holding your breathe in anticipation of this change to occur.
In today's Do or Die Employment world, the job/income is far more important than any sense of right and wrong.
Feeding the kids and wife, buying the latest greatest toys and paying the bills is priority one, while being a good cop and hoping that the public/system will help you keep your job after you cross the Blue Line, is not even a choice on the table.
And since any good cop would want to keep as low a profile as possible, there is no way for one good cop to know another good cop, by sight or reputation, so the idea of "gathering" is not even possible.
But the reality of this situation is far worse, because a bad police force attracts bad people and repels good people and it is highly unlikely that any good people would remain an employee of any American Police Force for very long, and I assume there will always be some good people who are foolish or idealistic enough to join anyways.
But the bad cops will feel unsafe around any good cop and find ways of ridding themselves of such an annoyance quickly, and since the entire system is corrupt, it would be easy for the bad cops to do this because the administration would want the same thing and willingly aid the bad cops in the process of rooting out and eliminating any such threats.
I think police states have to run their full course, and self destruct as they destroy the civilization in which they exist, before things can be fixed, since the police are directly between the people and the social problems that need to be fixed and the police are themselves one of the biggest of these social problems and they have no desire to be fixed as long as they can make extra cash through corruption.
As always, I hope I am wrong.
---
On the post: Privacy Board Says NSA Doesn't Know How Effective Its Collection Programs Are, Doesn't Much Care Either
Re: NSA cooperation
Absolutely correct.
It takes no effort at all to say:
"Yes sir."
"Of course sir."
"We will stop doing that right away sir."
And then do absolutely nothing that was "suggested" and carry on as if the suggestions were never made.
Each time they do this, they get a free period where nobody is looking over their shoulder.
It has become Standard Operating Procedure.
Like politicians, if the members of the administration of a Spy Agency speak, you can bet any money, they just lied.
And it no longer matters who they are speaking to.
I still think the Bush Administration (secretly) declared war on a (secret) enemy, during a (secret) war-council session, held right after they pulled off 9/11.
I think 9/11 itself was carried out specifically to provide the legal rationale needed to hold such a secret session.
Its the only thing that I can see that would give the Feds and all their little armies of secret minions the legal ability to simply blow off any demands, commands and reprimands, break any law at will with impunity, secretly incarcerate and kill American citizens without due process, lie to the courts, the public and anyone else who might ask embarrassing questions, weaken electronic communications on a global scale, intercept and alter electronic hardware to facilitate hard-wired public surveillance, secretly spy on the whole world by tapping into undersea and underground cables, manufacture and capture fake terrorists, and generally act as if they were a power unto themselves and completely above all laws on earth.
That is exactly how a government and its agencies act when they're participating in a declared war.
The only reason I can fathom, to keep the declaration of war a secret from the American Public, is that the American Public are, or are among, the declared (secret) enemy.
Note that the NSA has un-officially declared the American Public as "The Adversary".
By assuming this to be the case, nothing that the Feds or their Agents have done for the last decade, is out of the ordinary, or in any way strange.
---
On the post: Redactions To Report On TSA's Internal Security Failures Prompts Angry Response From Inspector General
TSA - Terribly Stupid Assholes
Now that is damned funny.
When was the last time anyone can remember that a thief, terrorist, or lost wanderer, stopped to sign his name in a visitor log book before entering an area filled with sensitive government equipment.
And if were talking about a TSA employee being in the room and handing a visitor a log book to sign upon entrance to the room, then where is the problem of security - the logbook handler is in the room already!
Does TSA not know who can and cannot enter such rooms??
Amazing how absolutely every aspect of the TSA is riddled with absurdity, silliness and an apparent complete lack of common sense. Do they have a "Morons Only" limitation on their employment applications?
---
On the post: How Quickly Do Internet Companies Need To Take Content Down Following A DMCA Notice?
Confused
OK - my math aint all that good, but are we talking working hours - 8 hour days - here. Does the DMCA notice only cover working hours??
That's 6 full days between the 17th and 23rd, so in order to get 48 hours, one has to see each day as only eight hours long, or assume that we're talking about working hours, like 9AM to 5PM.
When did anything on the "Internet" have working hours??
S'up?
---
On the post: To Enforce Emissions Standards, State Governments Are Looking To Ride Shotgun In Constituents' Vehicles
Because - Pollution!!
Like somebody said "Look, we need some convincing reasons why were doing all this automobile surveillance stuff that the public will swallow, and we need them fast."
And this was all that their think-tank could come up with.
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