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If you can assume the worst about dragnet surveillance - NSA has already done it. That would be a pretty safe bet at this point.
by devx 13y ago
If you can assume the worst about dragnet surveillance - NSA has already done it. That would be a pretty safe bet at this point.
- loceng 13y agoAs far as I know they haven't selected a portion of the population based on certain beliefs and murdered them. Obviously an organization could attempt to do this with public information, though I imagine the NSA knows where most people are most of the time - and their home addresses, or where they will be, etc.. Not meaning to jump into conspiracy, though this has happened in the past.
- malandrew 13y agoWell there are already clear examples of people being targeted for laptop border searches in a premeditated fashion. i.e. I can't get a warrant for the computer of citizen X, but I know s/he will be traveling outside the country and coming back on date Y through airport Z. Since constitutional rights aren't respected at borders, I can simply instruct airport Z to detain citizen X, and seize their computer equipment and copy it. This isn't even just about what happened in the UK with David Miranda. There is at least one well documented case here in the US involving a guy named David House. These actions are definitely a step along the slippery slope of legitimizing other practices. Plus, it is entirely possible that our intelligence agencies have already targeted some individuals very specifically for neutralization somehow. We can only confirm that they have not done so through transparency and oversight.
- aspensmonster 13y ago>Through counter-intelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them.
- toyg 13y agoJacob Applebaum has been targeted in this way as well, afaik, as well as anybody vaguely related to Wikileaks.
- awakeasleep 13y agoWholesale murder was only necessary in the past, with its rough, inelegant tools. When the nazis needed to devote an actual human being to physical surveillance of his communist nemesis, it made sense to kill that nemesis Now, computers can track the development of that nemesis for nearly free. If the situation develops the global network of finance can be made to exert pressure on the undesirable. Then, if the situation continues to develop, near perfect information can be used to find a law that they broke and arrest them. We see out country using lethal force in the only situations that benefit it, namely armed confrontations or societies outside the reach of our financial and political power.
- loceng 13y agoWell, that's what makes this more scary right? You could now target very specific individuals and remove the from the equation.
- ferdo 13y agoMichael Hastings might beg to differ.
- frank_boyd 13y agoDo we actually get some kind of independent investigation on what really happened or have they closed the case now?
- steveklabnik 13y agoThey cremated the body against the family's wishes and without them even knowing, so no, we didn't and never will.
- alan_cx 13y agoDrone strikes? Remember the criteria for that? If there is a suspect, not convicted, but merely a suspect, its simply collateral damage if you also wipe out his wife and kids, oh, and family... and friends..... by standers. No due process. Or did you mean Americans? Well, even if you did, I have to wonder how long it will take for drones to be , er, surgically taking out drug dealers in shitty areas in the US. For the sake of the children, you understand.