Glenn Greenwald on the brink of revealing the depth to which the NSA is building an Orwellian state.

I suspect that the NSA would not hesitate to use its spying against even elected politicians or certainly those opinion makers who later become elected officials.

Certainly Hoover had his secret files that he used to threaten elected officials. Is there any reason to think that the NSA guys wouldn't do the same?

 

Hard to have an opinion until I see the details, but my body is ready to be thoroughly outraged.

 

Yikes!

 

Is Greenwald comparing matters of national security with a ****ing fireworks show? Isn't he supposed to be a SERIOUS JOURNALIST and not an entertainer?

 

Yup. It's a figure of speech called a metaphor. I too am OURAGED that someone who writes for a living would use metaphors in their discourse. Shame on you Mr. Greenwald!

 

That isn't very interesting at all. Muslims are who we should be targeting to stop Muslim terrorist attacks.

That they were also American is a big deal, but we already knew Americans were targeted.

If they were spying on people for no discernible national security reason, that would be a big deal.

 

Interesting. They were also all male terrorist attacks. Should we target all males?

They were also all human. Should we just target all humans?

Why is "Muslim" the right generalization point as opposed to "male" or "human" or "terrorist"?

 

Yes, any common pattern, human male Muslims as a starting population, then narrowed down further from there.

This is not a comment on the means used, merely the appropriateness of the targets.

 

So I assume you would agree that if we see a rash of groups requesting non-profit status after a USSC decision and many of the ones incorrectly doing so are new tea party groups, it would be smart and appropriate of the IRS to target new tea party groups for additional scrutiny?

 

Dystopian/Orwellian governments are out in the open. The dystopian characteristics are in full view.

This is a different. This is sort of a subversive implementation of a concealed Dystopian state. Well at least dystopian from a surveillance perspective. They just didn't have the courtesy to tell us that big brother was watching.

 

STRAWMAN ALERT!!!

But I agree, it's stupid to generalize.

 

He states that he wants to "save the best for last". Uh, if Greenwald wanted to actually expose the evils of the totalitarian surveillance state or whatever, shouldn't he have started out with the worst abuses right up front?

 

No, not necessarily. If I thought the reaction would be bad and inhibit other planned disclosures or the information was important but might get lost, I would try whatever strategy I could to draw attention to it. He could be wrong in either his assessment of the importance of the information or in his strategy, but I don't think it gets to his journalistic integrity.

 

Certainly not, that would get lost in the 24 hour news cycle. The way in which Greenwald has released all the information is a masterclass in how to counter the natural bias in the media. He has determined that what he releases is no good for the people who currently exert the most control over the media, whoever they may be. So he has had to release this information in a manner that makes it more difficult for them to control.

Morally, yes, it makes sense to release the big stuff first. But he's not playing a game of morals here, nor does he care to assert himself as a person who goes by the rules. He is simply trying to inflict as much damage onto a system he considers unjust by releasing new information about that system and letting people reasonably decide if they're ok with it. If they're ok with it - and signs sadly point to many people being accepting of it - then that's fine with him.

If he released the worst first, everything afterwards wouldn't seem so bad because popular media could more easily bury it. If he released it all at once, most of it would never be heard of.

 

They didn't commit their crimes in the name of humanity or in the name of masculinity. They committed them in the name of Islam.

That said, I am not a fan of some of the excesses of the NSA.

 

Details of the XKeyScore and disclosures about the authors of this information is also available here:
http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/NSA-targets-the-privacy-conscious,nsa230.html

 

I'm pretty sure they'd argue that they committed their crimes in the name of humanity and what God wants for all. But regardless, does this mean that all people of a group are suspect if people claim to be committing crimes in their name? When crazy people bomb an abortion clinic in the name of Christianity, do we treat all Christians as suspect as a result?

 

I am opposed to it, whether it's Muslims targeted or any other group.