The News Thread

[B-side]

Hey, B-Side, where is your Arab Spring now, boy?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...647_story.html

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/05/188974...cracy-in-egypt

Why would you direct this toward me like a spiteful attack? It's kind of sad that you would seem to take any pleasure whatsoever in pointing this out. As to the issue at hand, I've never been on Morsi's side, and neither is at least half of his own country. The election was bullshit, but seemingly at least not totally rigged. He's been ruling like an authoritarian since he got in office. It's a damn shame.

[B-side]

I'm curious. Since Bush got into office and decided to start a precedent of pretty much drilling for oil anywhere and everywhere with no regard for the environment, and we're slowly becoming the #1 oil producer in the world, where the hell is all of that oil going? We subsidize these assholes and drill in the name of lowering gas prices, but gas is currently about $4.29 a gallon in my town. There's no way this increase over the past couple years can be attributed to inflation. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on how this all works, so I'm asking you guys if you know why our gas is so goddamn expensive when we're producing so much of it. We're currently third in the world in oil production, and our prices are a bit lower than a lot of Europe, but India's gas is around $1.25 a gallon and they're not even in the top 10 producers. $3.53 a gallon in Brazil and they're also not in the top 10. Saudi Arabia produces just a bit ore than we do and they pay $.74 cents a gallon. Venezuelans pay $.06 cents a gallon. Also not a top 10 producer. Iran produces less an half the oil we do and its citizens pay about $.04 cents a gallon. Fucking Puerto Rico charges $1.74 a gallon. Eh, perhaps these comparisons aren't appropriate considering their GDP rates? Does that matter? Furthermore, should it?

[Irish]

It's kind of sad that you would seem to take any pleasure whatsoever in pointing this out.

B-b-b-but B-Side! I don't understand! How could this possibly happen?

What about all those racially diverse, homosexual Egyptians reading about particle physics on the Internet? Shouldn't the Middle East be secular by now? It's been a whole year!

[B-side]

B-b-b-but B-Side! I don't understand! How could this possibly happen?

What about all those racially diverse, homosexual Egyptians reading about particle physics on the Internet? Shouldn't the Middle East be secular by now? It's been a whole year!

:|

I'm not sure if you're being silly or trying to make a legitimate argument. Either way, you're doing a shitty job.

[MadMan]

I don't know why people enjoy something failing just so they can be right.

[amberlita]

When life gives you lemons, rub them in the open wound of an enemy.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Can B-Side and Irish just kiss already? This is more frustrating than Lost Season 2 Kate and Sawyer.

[Scar]

When life gives you lemons, rub them in the open wound of an enemy.

Don't forget the salt.

[MadMan]

Can B-Side and Irish just kiss already? This is more frustrating than Lost Season 2 Kate and Sawyer.

Or Logan and Veronica VM Season 1.

[B-side]

Can B-Side and Irish just kiss already?

I've proposed anonymous sex, but he's a total prude.

[B-side]

Turkey protests grow even larger, and police are back to using force

Erdogan has ruled out early elections and refuses to concede any ground. Smart move.

[Robby P]

This Edward Snowden guy has balls the size of Neptune. I would advise him to seek out the Ecuadorian embassy post haste.

[Grouchy]

This Edward Snowden guy has balls the size of Neptune. I would advise him to seek out the Ecuadorian embassy post haste.

Wow. Yes, I fear what they'd do to him. The guy is a fucking hero.

[MadMan]

This Edward Snowden guy has balls the size of Neptune. I would advise him to seek out the Ecuadorian embassy post haste.

He should run like hell. But I salute him.

[B-side]

All of us liberals are totally outraged about the surveillance stuff, right? Well, you shouldn't be. Further research has me feeling rather ambivalent; leaning toward indifferent. You should know ahead of time that no, your phone call to your grandma is not being listened to by an FBI agent, and even your internet traffic to YouPorn is not an anyone's radar. David Simon wrote a great piece on this I think those who have reacted so violently to this "scandal" should read.

[Irish]

1) Not just a liberal issue.

2) Simon is well intentioned but wrong, because he doesn't understand what's possible with large data sets.

3) His example of Baltimore cops is extremely misguided, mostly because it involves judicial overview.

4) The director of the NSA explicitly lied to Congress. To their face. On camera.

5) The federal government lied to the entire country when they claimed they weren't involved in this kind of domestic surveillance.

[B-side]

1) I know it's not just a liberal issue, but it'd be pretty hypocritical for republicans to be outraged by something they overwhelmingly put in place.

2) Actually, he does. You don't seem to have read it all the way through. He's well aware of what can be done. The issue is whether it is being done, and there's no reason to believe your phone calls are being listened to, or your internet activity is being wantonly scrutinized for fun. If this were happening, I'd be in jail for all the pirating I do, so there must be some barricade in place here that people aren't acknowledging

3) And you think the surveillance program doesn't? There is overview. You just don't get to see the details, which is a problem.

4) About what, exactly?

5) No, they didn't. The government has had surveillance of this kind in place for well over a decade. They're not doing anything illegal. It's fine to dislike the idea, but it's quite another to insist it's some grand illegal conspiratorial destruction of privacy.

[Irish]

1) Only one senator voted against The Patriot Act, which is what allows for the current nonsense. He is no longer in office. Anything begun by Bush was extended by Obama. One of the first, and most ardent, defenders of PRISM was Diane Fienstein, who is a democrat from California. Sorry, B, but there's no way you can blame the Republicans for this one.

2) No, Simon really doesn't understand what he's talking about at all. And I did read it all the way through, thanks. From the article:

When the government grabs every single fucking telephone call made from the United States over a period of months and years, it is not a prelude to monitoring anything in particular. Why not? Because that is tens of billions of phone calls and for the love of god, how many agents do you think the FBI has? How many computer-runs do you think the NSA can do — and then specifically analyze and assess each result? . When the government asks for something, it is notable to wonder what they are seeking and for what purpose. When they ask for everything, it is not for specific snooping or violations of civil rights, but rather a data base that is being maintained as an investigative tool.

Emphasis mine.

You can tell from the bolded line that Simon has no idea how databases and dataming work at this scale. He doesn't take into account the massive resources behind these agencies. The short answer is: they can do as many queries as they need to, 24 hours a day. Each query might take up to a few seconds to several hours, depending. It is neither labor nor computationally expensive to do it.

3) PRISM doesn't have the oversight that local cops do. Because once the NSA gets the secret court to render a secret decision on a single petition to Verizon, they can milk that data forever. It just keeps coming, without any judicial oversight at all. In Simon's own example, the cops had to go to the judge twice, and that's with a single surveillance.

4) This past March the Director of National Intelligence testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. When asked "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" he flatly said "No."

5) They did lie on several times and on several different occasions. Originally, they claimed that data was only being harvested when it went outside the United States or when it involved non-US persons.

[B-side]

You realize we've had a few elections since The Patriot Act, right? New people are in office. And I had no plans on excusing the democrats who voted for it. I'm saying the current republican field is in no position whatsoever to criticize it.

Do you really think the NSA spends that much time and manpower analyzing every call or text or email? If you do, then it's you who's ignorant, not Simon. Simon didn't imply they weren't capable of mining this data or analyzing it if they chose to do so, but the fact is that they haven't. Your emphasis only further proves that point. The implication is that they don't do all of this mining, THEN proceed to personally analyze every single one. Of course they have the mining capability, it's what they're potentially doing with it that's the problem, and the one Simon addresses.

[Irish]

Do you really think the NSA spends that much time and manpower analyzing every call or text or email? If you do, then it's you who's ignorant, not Simon. Simon didn't imply they weren't capable of mining this data or analyzing it if they chose to do so, but the fact is that they haven't. Your emphasis only further proves that point. The implication is that they don't do all of this mining, THEN proceed to personally analyze every single one. Of course they have the mining capability, it's what they're potentially doing with it that's the problem, and the one Simon addresses.

You don't understand. It's not labor intensive. When you have that large a data set, and can cross reference it, you can find out all sorts crazy shit in seconds. It doesn't take any analysis at all. It takes typing a query and pressing "enter."

Coupled with location data, it would be trivially easy for the NSA to pull up the names and address of everyone who attended a protest, and for how long.

It would be trivially easy to pull up the names and addresses of everyone who has called or visited the local pot dealer in the last six months. Along with a list of their friends, and their friend-of-friends.

Then you could cross reference that information and pull up individual records containing Facebook posts, photos, relevant Google searches and Amazon purchases.

Not in days or weeks. In minutes. All of the data would be in real time, or close to it. And without any judicial oversight at all.

How long do you think it will be before the FBI, state, and local cops will want to run queries of their own?

[transmogrifier]

If we all chipped in, would it be possible to purchase a sub-forum for these guys? They deserve it.

[B-side]

You're ignoring the fundamental question: if this is happening to the extent you seem to think it is, and there's "no judicial oversight", then why am I not in jail? Why are pot dealers still dealing pot en masse without even so much as a knock on the door from police? Do you think they're waiting for more wiggle room so they can prosecute at will or something?

[B-side]

If we all chipped in, would it be possible to purchase a sub-forum for these guys? They deserve it.

This is a forum for discussion, is it not?

[Irish]

You're ignoring the fundamental question: if this is happening to the extent you seem to think it is, and there's "no judicial oversight", then why am I not in jail?

Are you really this shortsighted?

Every time the government gives itself broad powers, those powers are abused. RICO statutes. The Patriot Act. Federal drug seizures. &tc. Do you really think that no law enforcement agency will want to use this data, knowing it exists?

I'm telling you what's possible right now. PRISM is a platform for "turnkey tyranny," and it'll only get worse from here. The technology makes it too easy for them to go fishing, and at the very least that will create a "chilling effect." Recent example: The DOJ pulling phone meta data for AP journalists. Historical example: Daniel Ellsberg (but now, it'll be on a massive scale).

But hey, you're right. It won't be a real problem until people who protest the next Republican president are automatically added to no-fly lists and flagged in local databases as "suspicious." When that happens, Bright-eyes, I wonder who you're going to blame?

[B-side]

My problem is your alarmist rhetoric. You're being needlessly frantic and fearful. Like it or not, we signed up for this when we elected these guys. The Patriot Act has been around for a decade, and we've been wiretapping or otherwise using surveillance for long before that, but now that it has a name, it's suddenly the biggest monster around. And just so you're aware, the details of PRISM have now been declassified and the program is under the jurisdiction of all three branches of government. So yes, there is oversight. Is it enough? Maybe. Maybe not. Should it be more transparent? Absolutely. Should you be concerned that we're becoming a dictatorship? Not unless you think 250 years of democracy is magically going to disappear.