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[Mongrel]

Well, he did do his research and as much prep as one man, working alone, who isn't a main character in a movie (yet?), might be capable of. Good luck to him if it actually pans out

[Mongrel]

We're through the looking glass here folks.

Today I received this otherwise-unremarkable HuffPo link to "Meet the Press" host David Gregory trolling Glenn Greenwald, asking why he shouldn't be charged with a crime for working with Snowden.

The link was received from a hardcore right-winger. The kind with a "redneck pride" bumper sticker on his texas-plated truck.

EDIT: In support of Greenwald. In case that wasn't clear.

[Mongrel]

I mean, okay, the act makes logical sense when you actually break everything down, and David Gregory is awful by almost any person's measure, but come on. We now have avowed deep south rednecks posting HuffPo links defending dirty gay liberal New York media columnists.

What world is this and am I wearing pants at the moment?

[Brentai]

"Conservative policies are too conservative for Conservatives" was something we basically all have said is a matter of time at some point.

Though I suspect your guy just didn't read past the headline.

[Thad]

"Conservative policies are too conservative for Conservatives" was something we basically all have said is a matter of time at some point.

Sure, but I think it's oversimplification/wishful thinking to dismiss government action against whistleblowers under the "conservative" umbrella.

I read an interesting post at Popehat last month quoting a WSJ review of a book by Arnold Kling called The Three Languages of Politics.  Quoting the WSJ:

   Mr. Kling's three "languages" are ways of talking about politics and government, and they align roughly with the progressive, conservative and libertarian viewpoints. Progressives, Mr. Kling thinks, typically express opinions using an "oppressed-oppressor axis": societal problems are envisioned mainly as forms of oppression of the weak by the strong. Conservatives favor a "civilization-barbarism axis" and worry about how to defend traditional values and institutions. Libertarians use a "freedom-coercion axis" in which the threat is governmental encroachment on individual choice.

One reason American political culture has become polarized and uncivil, Mr. Kling believes, is that each side puts its contentions almost exclusively in terms of its favored language, and fails to see that contrary opinions are manifestations of a different language rather than evidence of stupidity or duplicity.

The very first thing McDohl and I noted when we started this (current) discussion was that (1) this trend toward government spying and attacking whistleblowers is not partisan, but (2) partisans behave as if it is and support it from their own party while opposing it from the other party.

(This, too, is an oversimplification, of course, as Congressional Republicans and Fox News pundits have, in many if not most cases, fallen in line behind the Obama Administration on this one.  For which I at least applaud their consistency.)

I'd say Freedom versus Coercion is the primary axis we're talking about here, though Powerful versus Powerless is up there too.  Civilization versus Barbarism is a bit more debatable, though I suppose ultimately "There are some things the government SHOULD keep secret" is probably a conservative position.

Then again, the question of State versus Individual is, at least nominally, the primary argument between Democrats and Republicans.  (In practice it's more like State/Corporations versus Corporations/State, but that's a whole other issue.)

Orwell was right: our political vocabulary has been subjected to such meddling at this point that it's difficult even to have a conversation about what's actually happening and why it shouldn't be.

At any rate, I'll reiterate what I've said before: I may not like guys like Rand Paul and Rick Perry, and I may think their opposition to government surveillance is cynical political opportunism -- but they're doing the right thing even if it's for the wrong reason, and I'll accept them as allies for as long as they're willing to behave like they're my allies.

[Mongrel]

Though I suspect your guy just didn't read past the headline.

Well, when I say "logical" that's because it's actually 100% in-character for right-wing libertarian-lites to be anti-government/pro-privacy. Their love for Greenwald is a simple case of "The enemy of my enemy..."

It just results in some wonderfully incongruous bedfellows.

[Royal☭]

Microsoft, in a bid to show you how Microsoft they can be, worked with the NSA to help circumvent their own encryption

[Thad]

Another the usual dilemma rears its head:

The only way to be (relatively) sure your data is safe is if you're the one keeping it that way.  If you're using cloud storage, use your own server for it.  If you can't do that and you have to use something like SkyDrive, DropBox, et al, then encrypt the data before you send it.

In practice, this is of course a monumental pain in the ass and tends to negate all the convenience that would make you want to use cloud storage in the first place.

[Mongrel]

Cute:

[Thad]

Carter criticizes PRISM.  Good for him.

The best part is how the article ends with saying, of Carter, "They don't give you the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, after all," followed by a later correction noting that oh yeah sometimes they actually do.

I love Carter.

[Mongrel]

Carter criticizes PRISM.  Good for him.

The best part is how the article ends with saying, of Carter, "They don't give you the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing, after all," followed by a later correction noting that oh yeah sometimes they actually do.

I love Carter.

"America has no functioning democracy,"

oh wow

[Mongrel]

Google 'Pressure Cookers' and 'Backpacks', get a visit from a gaggle of heavily-armed cops.

OH BOY!

[Mongrel]

Turns out that the above story turns out to be bullshit, but was repeated by just about every major news outlet there is.

If we beleive the Slate article, this wasn't even a deliberate fabrication and the original reporter was in all likelihood reporting what she thought was true. Demise of Traditional Media, etc.

The headline is pretty damned apropos though: "Google Search Pressure-Cooker Saga Shows How Surveillance Fuels Paranoia and Mistrust"

Well no fucking shit.

[Mongrel]

Maybe he's got a point, or maybe Hanlon's Razor applies (and you'll find in me about as big a devotee of Hanlon's Razor as there is).

But you gotta admit that sure is some convenient timing.

[Brentai]

It's telling that I wanted to look up box office failures today and felt the need to be careful not to use the term "bomb" as a search term.

Americans should not have to think this way.

[Mongrel]

There was also this gem:

[Mongrel]

You know, I've been getting into arguments about this lately with some technocrat liberal pro-Obama types who post all this stuff about how it's not all that easy to get the records and the technical blah blah blah.

And the thing is, they're more or less right (though they act as if systematic abuse is impossible, always saying "see no individual could get this stuff", but anyway...).

But they all seem to be forest-for-the-treeing it.

The technical truth of the matter - which I actually still find debatable*, but never mind - is nothing.

Perception is everything.

We are talking about nothing less than the bedrock of the fundamental trust of the American people in the institutions of their government. That trust been under siege for some time, for nigh-on 40 years, arguably since or even before the watershed moment of Watergate. But wounded and battered as it is, that trust has more-or-less survived.

The value of these surveillance programs is dwarfed by the damage they do to the fabric of American democracy. Maybe that sounds trite? I don't know. Few things are as important as trust between the government and the governed; a nation without that ephemeral link will not stand for long.

I also see arguments that the surveillance provides incredibly valuable "signals intelligence".

I think the value of that signals intelligence is most relevant to someone who believes they are currently and perpetually at war.

For those who do not think that is a natural or sane state of affairs, the picture might look different.

Hell, they seem to be forgetting how the last generation fought the Cold War.

Anyway, there's actually been surprisingly little talk about this here on our own boards. Perhaps we're all too far gone in our cynicism and just shake our heads or whatever. Who knows. But I was wondering what experiences you folks have had with people talking about this.

_{*And I work in telecoms security! I actually have a damn good idea of what you can and can't get! One much better than the public anyway.}

[Mongrel]

I feel like rednecks and opportunists have so abused and misused words like "Civic Duty" or "Democracy" to the point where non-idiots have conditioned themselves to recoil in disgust on hearing those words, as if a small child they were holding just filled his diaper. It as if anyone speaking of their country like their grandfathers might have is an imbecile and a fool. Perhaps someone who doesn't understand "business" or "the way the world works".

Well, I'll certainly grant that our preferred system of government is based on an illusion that can be rather fragile. But the illusion is also what gives it all its power.

I've felt so odd these past few years. Like I passed through the cynicism, coming out to some bizarre world on the other side.

[Brentai]

I can't even tell whose country you're talking about any more.

As far as the folks down here go, "perpetually at war" has been the state of affairs for so long that we've integrated it right into daily life.  You know those dramas that show the utter impassion with which people went through the motions of finding shelter during attacks at the tail end of the last big war?  It's kind of a mild, percolating form of that shit.

[Mongrel]

Well, yours. Not that mine's in much better shape, us being chained at the hip and our having our own Nixon and all.

Only our Nixon didn't even bring us an EPA or China or any of those other things, because unlike your Nixon, ours is a small, small man, a mean, petty, nasty brutish little thug of a man.

Instead of Frank Scorpio, we got some nasty old uncle who just hates kids people.

I suppose that's all very Canadian.