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Still, I think the idea of a small amateur (as far as spycraft is concerned) organization pressuring the DoD like this is insane. They're risking their own well
by eob 17y ago
Still, I think the idea of a small amateur (as far as spycraft is concerned) organization pressuring the DoD like this is insane. They're risking their own wellbeing.
- rbanffy 17y ago> They're risking their own wellbeing. For a good cause, that is. One that benefits us all.
- runinit 17y agoInformation in the ultimate weapon and the internet is the ideal vector for attack.
- Estragon 17y agoI don't understand why this comment is being voted up. What does it mean, and how does it relate to the comment it's responding to?
- k33n 17y agoIt means that the free and open exchange of information is the public's best weapon against corruption.
- dkimball 17y agoIf that's so, why is Africa still a mess? We have no shortage of knowledge about the scale of corruption south of the Sahara (and north of it); the problem is that those who are prepared to fight in, let's say, Nigeria and those who want to stop corruption in Nigeria are seldom the same people. In the end, weapons are the most important weapons. If a group of people no longer care about anything but their own power, and they're armed, the thing to do is to deprive them of those arms -- not to catalog their abuses and trust in the power of words.
- lars 17y agoAfrica is a perfect example of a continent where, in many countries, there is no free press and little access to the Internet. In general you'll find a strong correlation between a lack of free press and low GDP, war, oppression etc. Yeah, causation != correlation, but obviously the reason for a corrupt government to disallow the free press is to keep itself in power.
- setori88 17y agoAfrica is meant to be a mess, Western powers ensure it through foreign aid, propping up dictatorship all to ensure cheap access to raw materials.
- adrianwaj 17y agoWith the internet you can take on the DoD. If you know what you're doing, you can hack the DoD in such a way. Transparency all the way: look how Wikileaks are being so open on Twitter, look how we're all discussing it.
- TeHCrAzY 17y agoYou'll have a hard time hacking past an air gap.
- rdtsc 17y agoActually that is the most effective kind of hacking -- past an air gap between people not between a person and a machine connected by a wire. The most serious breaches of security are the ones done by insiders, agents and whistle-blowers, not by hacking a network or crypto protocol.
- nolochemical 17y agoThey didnt close Gitmo for no reason, its cost effective to outright eliminate people.
- andreyf 17y agoExcept we never closed Gitmo, and even if we did, the public outcry is associated with that base's name alone. If the military were to rename and move it a couple miles over, the public perception wouldn't ever reach Gitmo levels at least as long as Obama is in office.
- waterlesscloud 17y agoWhich is pretty much what's happening, except it's moving to the other side of the world. And we're just killing people rather than bringing them in. So, there's your Gitmo solution.
- jaxn 17y agoAnd we did it before with the School of the Americas. It was in Panama as the "U.S. Army Caribbean Training Center" and was forced to move as a result of the Panama Canal treaty. Then they changed the name to School of the America's and focused on fighting communists (with the same tactic of training what we now call insurgents). After the killing of nuns in South America it started to get bad press (referred to as the "School of Assassins") and eventually was forced to "close" and reopen as "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation". Gitmo seems like it is about to undergo a similar process. Edit: Just saw that today is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. The people responsible were trained at the School of Americas.
- akgerber 17y agohttp://soaw.org/ http://soaw.org/ There are still yearly protests there despite the name change.