Cassi Creek:
The NSA is doing what Google does
“…Everything about Edward Snowden is ridiculously cinematic. He
is not paranoiac; he is merely narcissistic. He jettisoned a girlfriend, a
career and, undoubtedly, his personal freedom to expose programs that were
known to our elected officials and could have been deduced by anyone who has
ever Googled anything. History will not record him as “one of America’s most
consequential whistleblowers.” History is more likely to forget him. Soon, you
can Google that.
Like many people, I’m on the fence about this. I dislike the idea of outsourced government
function. Privatization serves only
those who get the contracts and then kick back to campaign funds.
We’ve known that this was going on for decades. I can recall picking up the phone in an
off-campus house that was an unofficial gathering place for SDS and hearing the
relays kick in before the dial tone ever came up.
We had radio security units in VietNam that primarily
monitored U.S. transmissions. “Don’t say
“….” on an open push!” The capability to
obtain legal wiretaps and to proceed with illegal taps kept J. Edgar Hoover in
power long after he should have been put out to pasture. When he was finally retired, the wiretaps
remained.
There were the Plumbers who cared a lot about outflow but
not much about legality. Watergate
brought down Nixon and minions but the lessons learned were more about not being
caught than about legalities and constitutional rights of citizens.
The Patriot Act rammed into being by Bush and Cheney has
shit all to do with patriotism and everything to do with obtaining every bit of
data that can be obtained about everyone, everywhere.
Governments run on taxes and secrets. Power projection requires information to
direct the force. Not all information
should be released to the public. Some
secrecy is required in order to effectively police our borders and to maintain
internal security. External security is
even more in need of intelligence and secrecy.
I appreciate the need for covert operations and for the
names of government employees in security agencies to be kept
confidential. It appalls me that anyone
would make public such a list. It also
is appalling that the illusions of privacy are all that remain for U.S. citizens. However, the genie is out of the security bottle
just as the nuclear weapon genie and the space program genie are. We’re not going to march backwards in the
application of technology.
I assume that everything I do online is mined by some
agency. There are things I don’t say on
line and hopefully never will. But those
things are not political. I rarely
hesitate to voice a political opinion.
Nor will I.
I am far less troubled by governmental data mining and
outright spying than I am by corporate practices that collect information that
I’d rather not share. I try to minimize
corporate access to my life but I know it is futile. The online world is already too deeply
infiltrated to escape the corporations’ chokehold.
The government is charged with internal and external
security. It maintains that such measures are necessary to detect internal and
external plots by terrorists. I believe
that to a large extent the programs that monitor for such plots are
necessary.
Do they work? Do
such programs prevent new terrorist attacks?
I believe that they may, if we are diligent and lucky in their
application. The thing to remember is
that only those terrorist acts that avoid detection make the news. Those that are detected and foiled may never become
known in the media. In fact, they should
not. It is often far better if the
would-be terrorists simply vanish so that there is no feedback about failure to
the groups that launched them.
Snowden is guilty of leaking classified information. What other charges are placed against him
remain to be seen. I find his actions
unjustifiable.
He is not a latter day
incarnation of Daniel Ellsberg. Verifying
the existence of a government program that was truly no longer secret is not a
heroic act. It was a violation of his
terms of employment. Unless his actions
result in the death or injury of U.S. troops or agents, he’s a small time
criminal. That’s how he should be
regarded now and how he should be remembered.
11 June 2013
Cassi Creek:
The NSA is doing what Google does
“…Everything about Edward Snowden is ridiculously cinematic. He
is not paranoiac; he is merely narcissistic. He jettisoned a girlfriend, a
career and, undoubtedly, his personal freedom to expose programs that were
known to our elected officials and could have been deduced by anyone who has
ever Googled anything. History will not record him as “one of America’s most
consequential whistleblowers.” History is more likely to forget him. Soon, you
can Google that.
Like many people, I’m on the fence about this. I dislike the idea of outsourced government
function. Privatization serves only
those who get the contracts and then kick back to campaign funds.
We’ve known that this was going on for decades. I can recall picking up the phone in an
off-campus house that was an unofficial gathering place for SDS and hearing the
relays kick in before the dial tone ever came up.
We had radio security units in VietNam that primarily
monitored U.S. transmissions. “Don’t say
“….” on an open push!” The capability to
obtain legal wiretaps and to proceed with illegal taps kept J. Edgar Hoover in
power long after he should have been put out to pasture. When he was finally retired, the wiretaps
remained.
There were the Plumbers who cared a lot about outflow but
not much about legality. Watergate
brought down Nixon and minions but the lessons learned were more about not being
caught than about legalities and constitutional rights of citizens.
The Patriot Act rammed into being by Bush and Cheney has
shit all to do with patriotism and everything to do with obtaining every bit of
data that can be obtained about everyone, everywhere.
Governments run on taxes and secrets. Power projection requires information to
direct the force. Not all information
should be released to the public. Some
secrecy is required in order to effectively police our borders and to maintain
internal security. External security is
even more in need of intelligence and secrecy.
I appreciate the need for covert operations and for the
names of government employees in security agencies to be kept
confidential. It appalls me that anyone
would make public such a list. It also
is appalling that the illusions of privacy are all that remain for U.S. citizens. However, the genie is out of the security bottle
just as the nuclear weapon genie and the space program genie are. We’re not going to march backwards in the
application of technology.
I assume that everything I do online is mined by some
agency. There are things I don’t say on
line and hopefully never will. But those
things are not political. I rarely
hesitate to voice a political opinion.
Nor will I.
I am far less troubled by governmental data mining and
outright spying than I am by corporate practices that collect information that
I’d rather not share. I try to minimize
corporate access to my life but I know it is futile. The online world is already too deeply
infiltrated to escape the corporations’ chokehold.
The government is charged with internal and external
security. It maintains that such measures are necessary to detect internal and
external plots by terrorists. I believe
that to a large extent the programs that monitor for such plots are
necessary.
Do they work? Do
such programs prevent new terrorist attacks?
I believe that they may, if we are diligent and lucky in their
application. The thing to remember is
that only those terrorist acts that avoid detection make the news. Those that are detected and foiled may never become
known in the media. In fact, they should
not. It is often far better if the
would-be terrorists simply vanish so that there is no feedback about failure to
the groups that launched them.
Snowden is guilty of leaking classified information. What other charges are placed against him
remain to be seen. I find his actions
unjustifiable.
He is not a latter day
incarnation of Daniel Ellsberg. Verifying
the existence of a government program that was truly no longer secret is not a
heroic act. It was a violation of his
terms of employment. Unless his actions
result in the death or injury of U.S. troops or agents, he’s a small time
criminal. That’s how he should be
regarded now and how he should be remembered.
Don’t waste the money
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