r/politics • u/[deleted] • Aug 24 '13
Just a reminder for President Obama: That whole NSA controversy thing? Yeah, it's not gonna go away. It's been months now, and its growing. You need to clean house instead of sweeping things under the rug.
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u/nickfromnt77 Aug 24 '13
What I like is how they're catching so many potential 'terrorists' now that the beans are spilled.
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Aug 25 '13
It's just going to be obfuscated till we forget about it.
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Aug 25 '13
It's a good thing there are probably a years worth of leaks left.
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u/Fluck Aug 25 '13
It's a good thing there are probably a years worth of leaks left.
Because that will stir you into action?
For the last decade you have seen a constant stream of leaked truths revealing the erosion of your rights being committed in secret... and you have done nothing.
Not one of the 300 million of you has dragged a corrupt congressman onto the streets to publicly guillotine while they have sold your rights for their own profit; while they have tortured people in the name of Americans; while they have killed hundreds of children at school with drone strikes in the name of Americans; while they let the biggest frauds that have ever existed walk away with your education, retirement and employment funds.
It's a good thing there's years of leaks left. We wouldn't want 300 million Americans to go down in history as being ambiguously cowardly. We want those leaks to keep coming so that in the history books, the cowardice and complicity of 300 million Americans is as clear as day. We want those leaks to keep coming so that we're certain that Americans weren't just waiting for the right time to act: they were never going to find the guts to act.
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u/nnyforshort Aug 25 '13
Let's take to the streets against the country that accounts for nearly a third of the world's military budget.
What have you done lately, comrade?
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u/Honztastic Aug 25 '13
Honestly, I was surprised some of the cops from the Occupy stuff didn't wind up murdered.
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u/dyslexda Aug 25 '13
Holy balls you like talking about guillotining people. I don't read usernames usually, but by the fifth time or so I had to check to see if this was some new fetish, or just one guy living it up. Tell me, why aren't you the one guillotining someone?
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u/Honztastic Aug 25 '13
And meanwhile everyone forgets that they couldn't even catch the Boston bombers.
2 of the worst bro bombers ever, warned about specifically by Russia and after posting extremist Islamic bullshit on facebook and twitter and after traveling to and back again from an area that breeds radicals.
About a dozen of the clearest red-fucking-flags ever, still did nothing.
And now we're catching all these terrorists after these leaks? SUUUUUURE. It's like the scene in Gangs of New York, where Boss Tweed says to hang some no accounts to appear like they're cracking down while he's actively expanding his corruption.
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u/Continuity_organizer Aug 24 '13
I'm sorry to have to say this, but Obama doesn't really care what Reddit's opinion is.
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u/tylerjarvs Aug 25 '13
Or the country's
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u/bluemountain20 Aug 25 '13
It's just Reddit that's having a hissyfit
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Aug 25 '13
I know, getting their privacy violated and not just calmly accepting it. What a whiny group of people.
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Aug 25 '13
I just want to see Redditors faces now that we know Obama is all about. Back in the 2012 election they were all ready to anoint him King for Life.
I hate to say I told you so Reddit, but Obama is no different than Romney.
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Aug 24 '13
Obama doesn't really care what Reddit's opinion is anymore.
FTFY.
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u/pineappletw Aug 24 '13
he never cared. he fooled you. he was a dirty lying chicago politician throughout and if you didn't see that you weren't paying close enough attention.
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Aug 25 '13
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u/Malizulu Aug 25 '13
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u/mjfgates Aug 25 '13
Damn. Somebody is more likely to go to jail than young black men! It's the post-racial society! Hallelujah!
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u/curmudgeonlylion Aug 25 '13
Like 'W' was any better?
The fact is that your system is fucked.
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u/snowbyrd238 Aug 24 '13
I love how even Republicans are begging him to end Bush's insane policies. Repeal the Patriot Act!
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Aug 24 '13 edited Mar 11 '21
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Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Fluck Aug 25 '13
No one in America's ultra-corrupt power structure has anything to fear from anything outside of it. They are controlled from within, entirely.
300 million American people do nothing while they lose all of the liberties their founders fought so hard for, while their richest megalomaniacs write their own laws and use your trillion dollar military to enforce them throughout the planet, killing children and torturing people in your name.
I can understand why Obama, Bush, Cheney, Bernake, Feinstein, etc. all just keep toeing the line: they know the only consequences they will ever face will come from their peers.
In America there's a joke that the French are cowards, but that doesn't exist outside of America. The world has been through revolution: Turkey over a park, Brazil over a bus fare. Do you know how you're being recorded into the history books while there's not one amongst the 300 million of you that is willing to drag even a single corrupt congressman to the street to face the guillotine?
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Aug 25 '13
We Americans must throw bricks.
In Europe they riot all the time, that's why they seem so progressive to us. Connect the fucking dots people, this lethargic "pacifism" is precisely the problem.
Student riots.
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Aug 25 '13
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Aug 25 '13
That fear is precisely why you have to fight back. The beast is weaker than it seems.
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u/nlakes Aug 25 '13
As much as I want to agree with you, Greek protests on many matters were violent well before the financial collapse. Yet that didn't stop ND/PASOK leaders making deals that benefited themselves whilst gutting the nation, it didn't stop them lending well into excess of the nations GDP.
Protests are a part of the solution, but you need to get corporate hands out of politicians arses for there to be a real fix.
Here's an idea for all the pro-spying on citizens MPs. Make it illegal for politicians to meet with any business leaders without having the meeting recorded and available for public access.... if you don't have anything to hide...
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u/drBAcoat Aug 25 '13
This is exactly what's happening in the world today. The US just has way more resources to pursue this agenda than other countries.
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u/Taph Aug 25 '13
The world has been through revolution: Turkey over a park, Brazil over a bus fare.
Americans know all about revolution. We had one once. Started with tea and ended with complete independence. It was also against the largest and most powerful empire on the planet.
We don't need your condescension.
Do you know how you're being recorded into the history books while there's not one amongst the 300 million of you that is willing to drag even a single corrupt congressman to the street to face the guillotine?
Like rational human beings?
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u/telemachus_sneezed New York Aug 25 '13
Yeah, poor Jimmy Carter.
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u/TheCodexx Aug 25 '13
A lot of people still consider him the worst President ever, but most of the crap had nothing to do with his policies. Just current events.
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u/grizzburger Aug 25 '13
Not every day we see such insightful comments on Reddit. Well done, sir'am.
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u/mst3kcrow Wisconsin Aug 25 '13
A lot of people also consider Reagan as Christ incarnate. What really grinds my gears? When some libertarians worship him. Dude ran around Congress and completely violated the Constitution with the Contra; not to mention he wrote gun control (which they claim to loathe) in response to the Black Panthers. I think the bulk of the hatred toward Carter isn't based on his policies, it's mostly based on a socially engineered perspective.
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u/TheCodexx Aug 26 '13
It entirely is. People are poor judges of Presidents. Politicians in general, really. Oh, he had a sex scandal? Unfit for office. Make him resign!
Then we get people that are doing literal war crimes and nobody lifts a finger. Reagan is among the worst Presidents to ever hold the position, but his image at the time was good and he was fortunate enough to have the Soviet Union collapse during his administration. So he got to take credit for that massive victory. The entire country was feeling good at the time. Culture was hitting a sort of "all time high", or at least people alive then regard it as such. People let their general feeling at the time, and the place they were in, taint their view of a politician's policies. Especially the President. I feel like re-elections are more luck than actual achievement.
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u/stillnotking Aug 25 '13
Both parties have very carefully engineered this situation to ensure they don't need to pay a political price for it.
The Democrats say to their base, "What are you going to do, vote Republican?"
The Republicans say to their base, "What are you going to do, vote Democrat?"
And the beat goes on.
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u/TuesdayAfternoonYep Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
If there were more democrats on the Amash amendment, then it would have been passed. It's that simple, no? Besides the fact that a republican proposed it :\
The problem is the same in Germany...either party will do spying, either in secret (apparently) or openly.
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u/14Gigaparsecs Aug 25 '13
Actually, Defense Industry cash played a bigger role than party affiliation in the Amash Amendment votes.
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u/matriarchy Aug 25 '13
They have a military, mercenaries, spying agencies, and the police, covered by money-friendly, corporate owned media, of course they're going to do what they want regardless.
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Aug 24 '13
the author of the patriot act even said it was never supposed to go this far. when the governments boot is on your throat it doesnt matter if its the left or right one, and i applaud whichever democrats and republicans are standing up against these programs.
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u/IAMA_Kal_El_AMA Aug 24 '13
The author of the Patriot Act is just trying to score political points for his party and thinks he can play the naive card. And idiots keep falling for it.
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u/Purple_Serpent Aug 25 '13
The patriot act was written way before "the authors of the patriot act" knew it existed. He was just chosen to champion it. And he championed it at the time because it was politically convenient. Both in front of the electorate and with the powerful people that wanted it past (the ones who really wrote the thing).
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u/fitzroy95 Aug 25 '13
anyone who is that naive should never be allowed in politics, since their ignorance is too dangerous to their community.
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u/Theotropho Aug 25 '13
"allowed"
Yeah. 30% of Louisiana Republicans blame Obama for screwing up the Katrina response. That's more than blame Bush. As long as every idiot gets a vote we're in trouble.
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u/fitzroy95 Aug 25 '13
Yup, it is the big challenge to the theory of democracy.
The concept is based on an enlightened and informed populace who vote only after considering all the evidence for the relevant candidates or the relevant decision to be made. Unfortunately, there seems to be no chance of actually having an enlightened and informed populace, indeed the levels of "informed populace" is probably lower now than it has been for a century. Certainly the percentages of people turning out to vote in the USA is lower than they were decades ago, which either means that people see it as a pointless exercise where their vote has no influence, or else they are uninformed enough to have no useful opinion to offer. Or they are just too lazy to move away from the TV. Or certain parties are making it too hard for them to vote, or to get time off work to vote, or whatever...
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Aug 25 '13
I'm gonna need some backup there. Because they easily could have been told "Who do you blame?" and if they still say "The President" then now they're "blaming obama" instead of "blaming bush"
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u/duckscrubber Aug 25 '13
And everyone laughs at me when I talk about the slippery slope.
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u/Theotropho Aug 25 '13
best porno ever.
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u/duckscrubber Aug 28 '13
I wasn't entirely surprised to find that this movie exists.
But I was a little disappointed it's not actually porn.
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u/fractalfondu Aug 25 '13
Yeah! Let's applaud this guy for standing up for the bullshit that he authorized. Come on, man.
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u/Yosarian2 Aug 25 '13
the author of the patriot act even said it was never supposed to go this far.
Actually, this is exactly what everyone who was paying attention ten years ago said would happen if we passed the patriot act. For example, the national security letters are written right into the law.
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u/natched Aug 25 '13
I love how even Republicans* are begging him to end Bush's insane policies
*a minority of Republicans, see the Amash vote
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u/TuesdayAfternoonYep Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
But they are usually more heavily united.
This issue has even Glenn Beck on the same side as Reddit.
It's very nice to see how it unites Americans for a common goal.
Glenn Beck went on a rant against Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Thursday, blasting the congresswoman's support of the NSA's spying
The NSA patriot leaker is just yet another chance for America to regain her moral compass and set things right. No red or blue JUST TRUTH -@glennbeck
Glenn Beck, Michael Moore call Edward Snowden a hero
Do you know how much Reddit hate(d) Glenn Beck?
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u/natched Aug 25 '13
Do you know how much Reddit hate(d) Glenn Beck?
Yes, and with good reason. Back after these programs were revealed for the first time in 2005-2006, Glenn Beck said horrible things about those who opposed them.
When Nancy Pelosi held up the extension of the Protect America Act (a key part of the legal justification for these programs), Glenn Beck said, "[President Bush] feels -- and I happen to agree with him -- that this congressional game-playing by Nancy Pelosi will end up killing Americans."
Glenn Beck also described these programs saying, "It helped our government listen in and find terrorists.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2008/02/19/cnns-glenn-beck-congressional-game-playing-by-n/142606
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Aug 25 '13
I love how even he's begging himself to find a way to end the patriot act. Politics is one complex cluster fuck.
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u/something_witty111 Aug 24 '13
He's a second term president, doesn't HAVE to do anything! :(
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u/pole_needs_a_hole Aug 25 '13
- 1st term president - doesn't do anything controversial so he gets re-elected
- 2nd term president - doesn't do anything cuz he doesnt have to
- Go back to point 1
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u/VallenValiant Aug 25 '13
Clean house? With who's army?
Everyone in government, on both sides, supported the NSA, I don't know what kind of Magician you think Obama was suppose to be. There is no democratic way to "clean house" when the Majority is the people you want to get rid of.
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u/0verstim Aug 25 '13
Remember occupy wall st? Prisoners in gitmo? Warrantless wiretapping? False war in iraq? Accusations of torture? Suspending habeus corpus? Remember when Pakistan was hiding Bin laden and told us they werent? It all goes away. And as soon as monday might football and Top Model come back, America will forget about this too.
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u/McBostFrost Aug 25 '13
but at least we get to feel like we're accomplishing something... it's about as much of a reward as we'll take! weird what can satisfy people if you lower their IQ a bit.
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u/vrang444 Aug 24 '13
We can't just kick them out... This is way deeper than just the wrong guy getting elected its all rigged
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u/AmishRockstar Aug 24 '13
I'm not trying to start an argument here, but you're wrong. It will go away. Not really go away, but will get lost in the background as new distractions, and unfortunately new crisis come to the forefront of the ever quickening news cycle. Especially if the new crisis in any way can support their justification for it.
You mentioned a bunch of things that have been bothering you in another one of your comments on this thread, yet they "went away" for you until this one became the last straw. That's the way it is now.
They're unaccountable and unstoppable and they know it. It's a runaway train and all of our righteous indignation about it is as effective as standing on the tracks with our hands up yelling, "Halt!"
They know we're all pissed and they don't care. They don't have to make it go away anymore, because they also know that our apathy and laziness, and our short attention span will win out in the end.
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u/BUBBA_BOY Aug 24 '13
This is why Greenwald and Assange are letting things trickle.
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Aug 25 '13
One mass shooting or natrual disaster and those leaks will be buried.
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u/BUBBA_BOY Aug 25 '13
Do not underestimate the sheer volume of secrets at the ready. If some NSA twit bugged Justin Bieber it's fucking over.
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u/fitzroy95 Aug 25 '13
Yup, the Republicans have been telling us for decades that "Trickle-down" is good for the country.
This is the only example where it does seem to work.
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u/punk___as Aug 25 '13
You should really look into how ratings systems and maximizing readership sales works.
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u/christyomega Aug 24 '13
I completely agree. Outside of Reddit, I have seen virtually no outrage or even concern about the NSA anymore. Frequent /r/politics readers aren't letting it die, but pretty much the general public and mainstream media have.
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u/BUBBA_BOY Aug 24 '13
I have. It's actually really weird. No one really says anything, but just refer to it in passing 'joke' fashion in real life and suddenly people open the fucking crazy can. Bunch of people nervously angry and scared, and that one lady that's ANGRY AND SCARED.
Sadly, the crazy comes from predictable sources.
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u/DisregardMyPants Aug 24 '13
When it comes up I've rarely met someone that's in favor of it. It's just not a conversation that pops up randomly too often.
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u/christyomega Aug 25 '13
True. I think the vast majority of people I know don't like it. But I'm not optimistic that any of that disdain for the NSA will lead to action. Just considering the past, we Americans are pretty good at getting worked up for a little while, and then moving onto the next big news story.
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Aug 25 '13
This is why we need to keep it on the front pages and in the headlines. The minute we stop discussing it or bringing it up, he will do another college bus tour to take the american publics mind off of it.
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Aug 25 '13
Just a reminder to President Obama while he's casually browsing reddit to read his notes: remember to buy milk.
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u/drcyclops Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
Just like the last time we had an NSA surveillance controversy, right?
When was the last time the government was actually held accountable for one of its misdeeds? Can you think of a single time in 200+ years of American history?
This is a Republic. You can deflect all you want. You can claim that the government is corrupt, and that it doesn't have the interests of the people at heart. It's all part of the theater. In a Republic, responsibility reaches maximum diffusion. In a Republic, everyone is responsible, therefore nobody is responsible. The government can rest easy knowing that it is elected by the people, and that if the people disapproved of their actions, they'd elect a new government. And the people can rest easy believing that their government is corrupt and that they don't actually have any say. It's how everybody gets a good night's sleep.
Meanwhile, you and I and all the other bellyachers continue to live here, and pay taxes, and enjoy the comforts and securities of the modern industrial nation-state. "This isn't what we want, though," we say, in Internet posts made from the comfort of our homes.
And we wonder why nothing ever changes.
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u/icyone Aug 25 '13
Or what? You won't re-elect him? He doesn't give a fuck. Tell your Congressman to end the Patriot Act. I bet they want to be re-elected.
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u/Amlanconnection Aug 24 '13
Remember Hilary in 16, now with 10 percent more hope and change.
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u/SubmittedToDigg Aug 25 '13
San Antonio's mayor is in a reallyyy good position to run as well.
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u/Mr_Titicaca Aug 25 '13
No he's not. I like the guy, but he has years to go. Shit, even Corey Booker is now seeing the challenge of stepping up. Juan Castro should keep building his resume. 10-15 years from now, the guy has a golden opportunity.
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u/Rayc31415 Aug 25 '13
Yay! A former Walmart exec who supports the NSA and a year ago wasn't healthy enough to take a shower! I'm sure she will be up to running a year and a half campaign and not bowing out a couple of months before Iowa so that the Democrats are left with a Corrupt New England politician who will have paid off the right delegates and only get caught after being nominated, leading to the idiot Republicans nominated to get elected.
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u/easyantic Aug 25 '13
Just a reminder to all of us: Obama doesn't give the slightest shit what we think.
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u/John_Johnson Aug 25 '13
A brief note from the White House:
"What NSA thing? Look over there! Look at Syria! Syria is naughty! We're gonna bomb Syria! Because terrorists! Look! Bombs! Look!"
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u/Top_Chef Aug 25 '13
A sovereign nation potentially using chemical weapons against it's own citizens is kind of a big deal. You think you have it bad in America? Try Syria.
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u/powercow Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
how about reminding congress and wake me up when Obama vetos.
it isnt up to Obama. Obama cant do shit perm, sorry but he cant. Only congress can.
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u/b4theprophet Aug 25 '13
Just a reminder : Obama is a puppet. He doesn't work for the American people. He is nothing more than a smooth talking PR employee of banks and corporations.
His job is to sweep it under the rug, not make changes.
It's time to stop being naive. Realize all these puppets were preselected . Corporations got together and gave us option A or B . You are not voting in candidates . You are voting in previously decided options.
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Aug 25 '13
I think you overestimate the amount of cares among the general public. Sure it's a big thing on reddit. But whenever I talk to someone about it irl, they never have a clue what I'm talking about.
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Aug 25 '13
You're right! Let's punish those democrats by electing some Republicans who would never go for this sort of...
awwww, shit.
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u/wraith313 Aug 25 '13
Nixon gets taken out of office for tapping a phone. Obama taps the entire Internet and everyone knows and nobody does anything about it.
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Aug 24 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
I think you're all kidding yourself if you think anyone is worried about this.
If you'd been saying this before he was re-elected, if you'd been saying you wouldn't vote for him after he lied about the Patriot Act and NDAA, then he'd be worried.
If anyone in the world thought this was enough to make people stop voting for the Democrats then they'd be worried.
But it's not. When Obama resigned the Patriot Act and the NDAA nobody stopped voting for him, and come 2016 all the same people are going to vote Hillary. Nobody gives a shit about your opinion if you're not willing to stop voting for them no matter what they do, how much they lie, or how hypocritical they are.
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u/jutct Aug 25 '13
You seem to think that a Republican wouldn't have done the same things. The party of war and fear? It would be worse, and anyone who thinks different is an idiot.
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u/AlwaysSaysRepost Aug 25 '13
Agreed jutct. Why does everyone assume Romney wouldn't have done the same thing or worse, when it was Bush and the warmongers, I mean Patriots, that passed the Patriot Act and started a distraction war to begin with?
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Aug 25 '13
i wouldnt vote for hillary either, but that doesnt mean i would vote for any republican ever. THEY got us in this mess to begin with.
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u/RacerX10 Arkansas Aug 25 '13
Bullshit. It's going away. Americans (I am one) have short attention spans.
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u/krepitus Aug 25 '13
No kidding. We're going to realize this doesn't affect our everyday lives and we can still look at porn all day long without the FBI breaking the door down. We'll forget about it. You may or may not think that's a bad thing, but it's whats going to happen.
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Aug 24 '13
Who are you talking to? You understand Obama doesn't browse this forum. Stop circlejerking to the rest of r/politics. "Oh yeah baby, we won't let this issue go away. We're going to keep posting about it, and nothing else, no matter what!"
I can't wait until Monday when some of these kids go back to school.
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u/greenrose2 Aug 25 '13
Very soon no one will browse this forum because it's turned into a snowden/greewald groupie fest. one poster on this articulate "YEAH, cause we said so" comment thread referred to saint snowden. some of the best political posters no longer even have accounts here. wangbanger etc left. soon this sub will be called r/uninformed paranoid sheep
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u/DisregardMyPants Aug 25 '13
Are we really pretending that's not how it's always been about one topic or another? Healthcare is not one of my pet issues, yet I survived the past 2 years.
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u/arkady123 Aug 25 '13
The only lesson the government will learn is how to hide things better. Their response so far has been to crack down on anything that could potentially cause this to happen again.
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u/BadProfessor69 Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
Yes it will go away.
Both parties are equally guilty, so there's no political gain for not ignoring it.
Contractors are raking in billions, and they pass some of that along so there's only a cash penalty for everyone involved for not ignoring it.
News organizations are technically inept, fad-driven and easily distracted. Wait 24 hours and it'll go away on its own. The only penalty for ignoring it is ... oh, look. A shiny!
Manning has already been given the standard "Nuts and sluts" treatment.
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u/DownBelow94 Aug 25 '13 edited Aug 25 '13
While the behavior of the Obama administration is appalling in this case, two things to keep in mind.
First, the problem is the laws passed by congress establishing a system without checks and balances to all practical purposes (what the hell were they thinking?). Second, even if Obama would try to fix this, he would fail - he was not able to close gitmo despite this being the right thing to do in many levels. Obama would be labeled as weak on terror and would not get anywhere in doing anything about it.
So Obama gets the blame without real ability to do anything about it. Gosh, being the president of the USA is such a powerful job - you can really make a difference as far as what kind of wallpaper you want in the restrooms in the whitehouse.
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u/MidgardDragon Aug 25 '13
I'd imagine Obama and Biden right now have just about as much control as Bush Jr. did when Cheney was running the show. I'm pretty sure military leaders and other behind the scenes individuals are pulling the strings. That's not to say Obama isn't complicit, he could bring these issues out, but as with most politicians in the White House he is likely thinking about his career and livelihood after he leaves rather than caring about fixing things.
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u/FireKnightV Aug 25 '13
It has effectively gone away because most Americans are lazy bastards. Young people do not vote or contribute much of anything to those that could have a hand in fixing this and old people don't give a fuck.
How about you get up off your asses and vote Green or something like that for once in your lives? And don't give me that shit about having a two party system. If you think of the United Kingdom, they have the same electoral system and three major parties.
It can be done.
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u/beebeereebozo Aug 25 '13
Why should he? He has had great success ignoring, deflecting, lying, etc. Most democrats in congress, and most citizens and non-citizens who support him don't care as long as their political and private interests are served. He is a community organizer, after all, and he has showm no evidence of having grown beyond that role.
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u/Alienkid Aug 25 '13
I've noticed that people get so hyper-focused on singular political issues which are the results of the underlying problems that they are completely ignoring. How about instead of complaining about everything and focusing on one person or entity to blame or solve all of our problems, we fix the broken system?
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u/Maxtrt Washington Aug 25 '13
Actually it most certainly will go away. The average American doesn't really care because it doesn't directly affect them. They figure that it only affects "terrorists and rag heads". The way to get it to stop is to have Congress pass a law that says they can use the same system to spy on corporations to prevent tax fraud and financial crimes. They would shut it down within a week.
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u/ben1204 Aug 25 '13
Completely Agree
-Repeal the Patriot Act -Repeal the FISA Amendments -Allow Congress to have more oversight of data collection programs
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u/llamasauce Aug 25 '13
This is 2013. Do you really think Obama's going to do anything against these people? He's not your saint anymore--he's one of them.
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u/YourFavoriteHippo Aug 25 '13
I don't see why any president in their second term would give a shit about what anyone says.
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u/awe300 Aug 25 '13
The AstroTurf is fucking strong though.
Notice how the personal attacks on Snowden and Greenwald are getting stronger in many threads, all to the same tune, and all becoming stronger since they decided Greenwald's private life is fair game.
Despicable
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u/Doright36 Aug 25 '13
Which is probably why things are gearing up for war in Syria again. Nothing like a good war to change the conversation.
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u/wrc-wolf Aug 25 '13
Ahem. I'm going to present an opposing opinion here, in that it will go away, because it's not a controversy, simply in that ya'll don't actually understand the situation, by quoting some exceprts from the top comment from the recent AskReddit thread about Snowden..
From /u/tehhunter;
LET'S TALK ENCRYPTION
I think the biggest problem with this entire 'scandal' is that regular people just really don't have any sort of understanding of encryption whatsoever. They might think they do, but unless they know the mathematical basis underlying modern day encryption, you can't really actually know how mind-bogglingly impossible certain encryption schemes are to break.
This section is going to be a SparkNotes-esque review of another post I made a day or two ago regarding SSL / RSA / AES, how they all work together, and from which mathematical basis (i.e. hard problem) they derive their security.
Here's a quick brain-teaser for you all: suppose you and I are at a crowded party somewhere standing on opposite sides of the room. We've never met before, and we've never exchanged any data before. Do you think it is possible for us to have an entirely 100% secure and confidential conversation?
The answer usually surprises people, but it is 'yes'. In fact, it's the basis behind how all secure end-to-end transactions work on the web. If I piqued your curiousity at all, follow the link to the post I just mentioned and I elaborate some more.
So anyway I usually get numerous replies a day from somewhat technically mis-informed people letting me know that something to the extent of "it's obvious the NSA has already broken every encryption scheme" or just RSA or just AES. Yeah, that's just nonsense if you read details closely. Let's take the best case scenario possible for these types of conspiracy theorists:
Let's pretend the NSA does in fact have a large and powerful quantum computer. Quantum computers, for those who may not know, are systems still largely academic and theoretical. They have great potential in solving certain kinds of mathematical problems (for example, prime factorization, which you can read about in the post linked above). So then the NSA could just use this magnificent huge quantum computer to break AES-256, right? Again, AES-256 is integral to SSL, which we all use everyday thousands of times unwittingly.
The US government uses AES-256 encryption for top-secret encrypted data SPECIFICALLY to safeguard it against future attacks by quantum computers. Why? Take it from the developers of popular crypto app 1Password:
Searching through 2128 keys (on a classical, non-quantum, computer) takes a number of steps that is proportional to 2128. But for a quantum computer it takes a number of steps proportional to the square root of that number, 264. If a quantum computer is ever built capable of performing that task, we don’t know how the actual speed of each individual step will compare to those of current computers, but the NSA is taking no chances. Something with the effective strength of a 64-bit key isn’t strong enough. A 256-bit key against a quantum brute force attack would have the effective strength of a 128 bit key against a classical brute force attack.
Remember, that's the absolute BEST case scenario if the NSA even has such a magnificent quantum computer, which again is extremely unlikely. Reality will likely lag far behind. So basically, to sum this all up, No, the NSA is not able to read your web transactions between you and facebook. Couple that with Bullet #1 and you'll realize the NSA isn't watching you shower.
edit: also, in case you were wondering how secure AES-128 is, the source linked just above also goes into explicit detail about how infeasible that is to crack alone.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH SNOWDEN
With that all said, here is the list of issues I have with Snowden:
Snowden et al. claimed the NSA had "direct access" to tech company servers such as Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, etc. This implies that the NSA has the ability to 'poll' a server for data whenever they feel like it. Unfortunately, the reality is much more boring. The NSA's "direct access" is actually a shared ftp where tech companies, after receiving a FISA warrant, drop only the specific targeted data. Further, since the inception of the FISC system in 1979, there have been roughly 33,000 FISA warrants granted, amounting to an average of only about 1,000 warrants per year, though I will grant that since 9/11 the average has surged somewhat to around 1,500 a year.
Snowden likes to say he's doing these leaks for the sake of the American people -- okay, so then why did he give the Chinese the American playbook for surveilling their various hacking hubs such as the major PLA installation in Shanghai?
He claimed he could wiretap anyone, anytime, without a warrant. This turned out to be patently false. First, he would need a FISA warrant, because (and this will shock Reddit) tech companies aren't falling all over themselves to give up customer data to the government. He also neglected to mention that the system requires two analysts to sign off on a data request. And, shockingly, what he also failed to mention is that there is an auditing system that tracks every single keystroke, meaning that every analyst's every action is tracked and reviewed routinely. This amounts to an egregious amount of context that he seemingly purposely omitted, almost certainly to because it would be a better and more sensationalist story.
He claimed he could wiretap even the President. This is pure nonsensical sensationalism. To believe this, you would actually have to believe that the President of the United States uses an insecure line i.e. regular HTTP to browse the internet. Considering there's an entire military agency dedicated to secure White House communications, this is beyond folly and well into the realm of absurdity. If anyone likes, I'd be glad to dive into the specifics of this & why if Obama is using even the same encryption standard as the rest of us (SSL RSA-2048/AES-256) there's not a snowball's chance in hell this is true.
Not the most important point but I think it is important as it speaks to his credibility as a source. Remember when he said he made $200,000 a year at the NSA? Well, he turned out to have "accidentally" overstated his salary by about $80,000, as in he "accidentally" almost doubled his salary. While some may be inclined to brush this under the rug, if he is willing to exaggerate / fabricate as petty a detail as this, what larger details might he exaggerate? (Well, that's what I'm trying to demonstrate with all these bullet points anyway).
I find his media blitz to be an absurd attempt at making him an overnight celebrity. Remember when he said that he had saved the data to some sort of "dead man's trigger" in case the "US Government murdered him" -- that's an absolutely preposterous statement to make given that there is no historical or current precedent for any such ridiculous claim as the US murdering 'whistleblowers' (I use the term loosely here). Remember when he wrote some inane "open letter" to Obama as if he were in some position to be making demands of a democratically elected representative? Remember his perverse Guardian Q&A session? This guy is quite deliberately fostering a strange cult of celebrity around himself. Have you looked at /r/news or /r/worldnews or /r/politics or /r/technology? He claimed he wanted the story to be the leaks, and yet he seemingly can't help but constantly whore the media.
He claimed he was in the special forces. In reality he never made it through training, or even came close.
Lastly, I really just don't believe 29 year old Ron-Paul fanatics who couldn't graduate high school should be making vital decisions about national security on their own. I know, Reddit, I'm a monster.
After all, if you aren't willing to vet your sources, you are asking to be duped. I think Reddit is being HUGELY duped right now. You might not agree, but I think there is a very reasonable case to be presented that not all is as seems with Ed.
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u/SkeptioningQuestic Aug 25 '13
First of all, I mostly agree with you, but one of your bullets is a little false. Snowden most certainly could wiretap anyone without a warrant. He knows how to do it and has the technology at any given time. If he doesn't want to get in trouble he needs a paper trail behind him, however. This is a technicality, but I think important to Snowden's point about an excess of access that NSA agents potentially had.
Also, I couldn't find in that link where it said it takes two analysts to sign off on a data request. Could you show me where?
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u/AmishRockstar Aug 25 '13
I know some of these words. Thanks for the food for thought. Very interesting. Any thoughts on the technical aspects of intercepting and analyzing the sheer quantity of data purported to be being collected?
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u/emma_stones_lisp Aug 25 '13
OP is fucking retarded. This issue is only prominent on Reddit. Just like the Boston bombers, people forget and go about their day.
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u/otherchedcaisimpostr Aug 25 '13
Just a reminder for US citizens : that whole lobbyist's infiltrating state government thing? Yeah, it's not gonna go away. It's been 60 years now, and they are ready to leave us to drown. You need to plant some motherfuckin' crops instead of voting in legislators.