So what is the real deal with the NSA?

[SmawGunner]

"If you like your massively in debt bankrupt tyrannical government, then you can keep your massively in debt bankrupt tyrannical government."

"Useful idiots are very useful."

I cant believe we still have citizens drinking the kool-aid. I guess there will always be the brainwashable brown shirt types. Better decide what side your on now and prepare.

 

[Redcap]

You sir must not have jumped through all the hoops necessary to obtain a security clearance. I don't wear a tinfoil hat. On the other hand, I don't have my head in the sand either.

Don't "sir" me, maggot. I work for a living.

 

[MikeE]

Exactly. The idea that NSA hasn't stopped any terrorist threats is ridiculous. Because you simply can't know that. NSA has to protect its sources or they go away, so you aren't going to see them advertising their successes when they happen. Snowden essentially just handed out that source data in spades, which is why he's nothing more than a traitor in my book. It can take years and even decades to put together the traffic analysis to ferret out threats, who they're working with, and what their target is. Snowden's actions blew that up in an instant. I'm personally conflicted about the need to collect domestic intelligence in the form of metadata, but I also know that if we had been doing that 15 years ago, we very likely would have identified the 9/11 plot and stopped it. The Twin Towers would still be standing, the 4000+ Americans who died in Afghanistan and Iraq would still be with us, and the tens of thousands of physically and psychologically wounded veterans would likely be whole and fully functional. My specialty area was East Germany. I know from the inside out the years of effort by military intelligence and NSA t took to map and understand their capabilities. And I was in Berlin when the Wall fell in '89 and got to watch it all melt away. But even then the capability to understand what was going on within the military and communist infrastructure was vital to national decision makers in terms of what their response, militarily and politically, should be. These people are ultra-professionals and justifiably proud of the role they play in keeping the nation safe. Uninformed "everyone in government is bad, bad, bad" drivel does them a grave disservice. And someone like Snowden who cloaks himself in the role of a hero while hiding out in some government-subsidized job and apartment in Moscow makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. I had someone who worked directly for me who turned out to be an East German spy, by the way. He was recruited by the infamous Stasi and, during the years he copied and fed them some of the most highly classified information we had, violated every oath, friendship, and trust he was given. And compromised our intelligence efforts to a degree we may never actually understand. His name was Jeffrey Carney and he, like Snowden, fled the country before we realized what he had been doing and subsequently explained his actions as being for the greater good of mankind. After we found him in East Berlin after the Wall fell, he was sentenced to 38 years in Leavenworth for revealing far less than Snowden did. He got an early release, given that East Germany didn't exist any more and he was no longer a threat to anyone, but he stood trial and did his time. If we ever get Snowden back on U.S. soil, by whatever means that happens, real justice calls for him to do the same. If not, there is no justice.

Synaptic -Thanks for telling us of your experience. I also remember the uncertainty that followed the 9/11 attacks and can understand the concern and shock that must have spread through the organizations assigned to protect the nation. But 13 years into the crisis, I think we are overdue for a re-assessment. Billions have been spent around cyber security, but , as the December Target hacking showed, the people are not secure today. There's a cyber arms race going on.
I can't see Snowden as a spy, if he were one, he'd still be at work at the NSA, IMO.
Lastly, the Independent Review Panel just published its finding and recommnded the shut-down of the broad scale NSA data collection projects:
Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end - The Washington Post

 

[aslinged]

I'm personally conflicted about the need to collect domestic intelligence in the form of metadata, but I also know that if we had been doing that 15 years ago, we very likely would have identified the 9/11 plot and stopped it. M

Really, then how do you explain the fact that multiple international intelligence agencies had informed the US gov of the plot well before it went down?

The NSA, NIS, DIA, CIA, WH and FBI all knew damn well that something was in the works. That's not even conspiracy stuff---it's fact on record from those agencies.

You're somewhat ill informed for an intel guy it seems.

 

[Burt Gummer]

http://rt.com/news/snowden-nsa-industrial-interview-208/

The Germans - according to polls – have lost confidence in the US as a trustworthy partner, and the majority of them consider NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden a hero.

 

[mosinguy1]

It is a fact that ALL the government agencies knew about 9/11 yet the ball was dropped in a major way. There is also a whole lot of that event that still , in all honesty, hasn't been explained. To much of it sounds like there was a whole bunch of sacrifices!!!!!!!

How many of the countries in the sandbox did not have a Rothschild's influenced bank.

Oh and let's not forget the oil, which the sheeple have been led to believe we need!!!!!!!!!!!! That is complete and total toro poopie!!

 

[SmawGunner]

Why are you still drinking the .GOV kool-aid? Do you really believe what the .GOV tells you? Are you getting a free handout? Are you trying to side with the team you think is going to win? The politicians have bankrupted this country and there is no mathematical way to pay it off. Its over. Were bankrupt. Its not just a few citizens losing faith. Other countries are now losing faith also. Its all downhill from here.

 

[JackThompson]

Someone here said "All the government aren't evil"

Ok, that's true, and there are a fair amount of decent people out there trying to make a difference, and honestly, I think they greatly outnumber the madmen there, but the system, the media, the whole thing is rigged against them and us. That why we all at some point need to stand up and stop playing by their rules,

These criminals need to be marched into a jail cell, then the rest of them hunted down and put on real trial for their actual crimes,

...and regarding that tinfoil hat slam. Our own government invented the tinfoil hat. You want to talk paranoid. Our government is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the tinfoil hat group.

 

[rdb241]

The biggest terrorist threat we face today is named Monsanto, coca cola, citibank, Wells Fargo, the list goes on, but none of it contains some Arab across the world,

I just saw a blip today on ABC about Snowden and a real quick statement by him saying that not only is the NSA listening to your phone calls, The NSA is also collecting data from major US corporations not for National security reasons but for national financial reasons.........what the hell does that mean?

 

[Burt Gummer]

http://rt.com/news/european-data-protection-network-283/

 

[Burt Gummer]

A true hero speaks, but your average American is too apathetic to care.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2014/03/10/sxsw-edward-snowden-satellite-interview/6232223/



http://rt.com/usa/snowden-soghoian-sxsw-interactive-914/

 

[GunRightsCoalition]

• Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
  - William Pitt, 1783

• "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation"
• "There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong"
• "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy"
  - James Madison

• People never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
  -EDMUND BURKE