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NSA spying on most of the internet traffic was a crazy conspiracy theory before Snowden.

griffzhowl 1y ago
Not if you believed Bill Binney, who was the technical director responsible for designing the surveillance programs, but blew the whistle when they were set on US citizens after 9/11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_official) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...
SirFatty 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
mc32 1y ago
Lots of “so-called” conspiracies end up being true in one sense or another if not exactly matching a sometimes misled conspiracy. I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is.
- catlover76 1y ago
  [dead]
- burningChrome 1y ago
  ALex Jones was talking about Epstein during the Clinton years and all these flights powerful people were taking to his island. It was an open secret Epstein had a thing for young women so naturally Jones start inferring that Clinton and others were pedos. Everybody labeled him a kook at the time, mainly because this was just one of the many outlandish theories he had on the Free Masons and Illuminati.
  - mc32 1y ago
    Alex Jones has a credibility problem. While he has used thinktank & other quasi-governmental institutions's papers to find nuggets of information he contaminates that with "interdimensional beings" blah... So yeah, frogs's hormones were out of whack and he predicted aspects of 9-1-1, government spying on citizens and some other things, he also has whoppers like sandyhook.
  - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
    Even kooks (and Alex Jones is a kook) can be right sometimes. But that doesn't make them right anywhere near all the time, and it doesn't make them worth paying any attention to, ever - the things they're right about will generally be discussed, and more rationally, elsewhere too.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is. And to muddy the waters even further, some people believe there is conspiring going on, some people don't. Some believe that it's so big everyone in DC is just kinda dropping it because they're all afraid they'll know someone on it or something like that. That is hugely different degree of "conspiracy theory" from the folks who believe something along the lines of the spooks have the list and are blackmailing everyone and of course there's beliefs everywhere in between. Some of the theories involve literal conspiring, many do not. The whole thing stinks to high heaven so much so that the idea that the official narrative is false is likely the majority opinion. Where do we even draw the line on what constitutes a conspiracy theory here?!
krapp 1y ago
NSA mass surveillance was literally a gag in the Simpsons movie years before Edward Snowden.
cubefox 1y ago
Some have also argued that the academic theory of "systemic racism" (as opposed to conventional racism) is a conspiracy theory. It's an invisible force that can be postulated to explain any form of discrepancy. "Group X performs worse than group Y? Must be due to systemic racism!" Basically the opposite of alleged Jewish "nepotism". Unlike racism, systemic racism cannot be observed directly, and its existence is only inferred from its hypothetical effect: group disparities.
- Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
  Systemic racism is real. Obviously, it's not going to written into laws, and the people engaging in it probably don't think they're doing it, but all it takes is looking at statistics to see it.
  - cubefox 1y ago
    Statistics only show group disparities, not that those are caused by things like "systemic" racism, nepotism, etc.
    - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
      Group disparities are basically the definition of systemic racism.
      - cubefox 1y ago
        No, because systemic racism is supposed to cause and explain observable group disparities. If they were identical, there could be no causal relationship, because nothing can cause itself.
dboreham 1y ago
Um no. I've sat in numerous meetings through the 1990s where the discussion went like "so should we do X thing to make our system more secure?" "nah, the only relevant attacker is the NSA and we're never going to keep them out regardless".
arp242 1y ago
It really wasn't. No one knew the exact extent and no one really knew anything for sure, but belief about this was fairly common in the early 2000s (esp. after 9/11) and even 90s. But again, we didn't know for sure.
godshatter 1y ago
You're being down voted because some people actually were aware of the extent of the data the NSA was hoovering up and wouldn't have thought of it as a crazy conspiracy theory. Your average Joe on the street though would have thought this was crazy until Snowden made the extent of it known to a far wider audience, so I agree with your point.

Not if you believed Bill Binney, who was the technical director responsible for designing the surveillance programs, but blew the whistle when they were set on US citizens after 9/11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_official) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...

SirFatty 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

mc32 1y ago

Lots of “so-called” conspiracies end up being true in one sense or another if not exactly matching a sometimes misled conspiracy. I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is.

catlover76 1y ago
[dead]
burningChrome 1y ago
ALex Jones was talking about Epstein during the Clinton years and all these flights powerful people were taking to his island. It was an open secret Epstein had a thing for young women so naturally Jones start inferring that Clinton and others were pedos. Everybody labeled him a kook at the time, mainly because this was just one of the many outlandish theories he had on the Free Masons and Illuminati.
- mc32 1y ago
  Alex Jones has a credibility problem. While he has used thinktank & other quasi-governmental institutions's papers to find nuggets of information he contaminates that with "interdimensional beings" blah... So yeah, frogs's hormones were out of whack and he predicted aspects of 9-1-1, government spying on citizens and some other things, he also has whoppers like sandyhook.
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  Even kooks (and Alex Jones is a kook) can be right sometimes. But that doesn't make them right anywhere near all the time, and it doesn't make them worth paying any attention to, ever - the things they're right about will generally be discussed, and more rationally, elsewhere too.
potato3732842 1y ago
>I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is. And to muddy the waters even further, some people believe there is conspiring going on, some people don't. Some believe that it's so big everyone in DC is just kinda dropping it because they're all afraid they'll know someone on it or something like that. That is hugely different degree of "conspiracy theory" from the folks who believe something along the lines of the spooks have the list and are blackmailing everyone and of course there's beliefs everywhere in between. Some of the theories involve literal conspiring, many do not. The whole thing stinks to high heaven so much so that the idea that the official narrative is false is likely the majority opinion. Where do we even draw the line on what constitutes a conspiracy theory here?!

krapp 1y ago

NSA mass surveillance was literally a gag in the Simpsons movie years before Edward Snowden.

cubefox 1y ago

Some have also argued that the academic theory of "systemic racism" (as opposed to conventional racism) is a conspiracy theory. It's an invisible force that can be postulated to explain any form of discrepancy. "Group X performs worse than group Y? Must be due to systemic racism!" Basically the opposite of alleged Jewish "nepotism". Unlike racism, systemic racism cannot be observed directly, and its existence is only inferred from its hypothetical effect: group disparities.

Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
Systemic racism is real. Obviously, it's not going to written into laws, and the people engaging in it probably don't think they're doing it, but all it takes is looking at statistics to see it.
- cubefox 1y ago
  Statistics only show group disparities, not that those are caused by things like "systemic" racism, nepotism, etc.
  - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
    Group disparities are basically the definition of systemic racism.
    - cubefox 1y ago
      No, because systemic racism is supposed to cause and explain observable group disparities. If they were identical, there could be no causal relationship, because nothing can cause itself.

dboreham 1y ago

Um no. I've sat in numerous meetings through the 1990s where the discussion went like "so should we do X thing to make our system more secure?" "nah, the only relevant attacker is the NSA and we're never going to keep them out regardless".

arp242 1y ago

It really wasn't. No one knew the exact extent and no one really knew anything for sure, but belief about this was fairly common in the early 2000s (esp. after 9/11) and even 90s. But again, we didn't know for sure.

godshatter 1y ago

You're being down voted because some people actually were aware of the extent of the data the NSA was hoovering up and wouldn't have thought of it as a crazy conspiracy theory. Your average Joe on the street though would have thought this was crazy until Snowden made the extent of it known to a far wider audience, so I agree with your point.