alexqgb

68 ms·

571.
by alexqgb 13y ago
Sorry, but the EPA isn't nearly as formidable or effective as you make it out to mb. As recently noted in the NYT: "The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged under the Clean Water Act to monitor America’s waterways and shield
572.
by alexqgb 13y ago
Exactly. If someone's "faith" needs proof, then it's hardly faith anymore, is it? You can't really frame conflicts with these people in terms of "science vs. religion". It's more like blocking trolls
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by alexqgb 13y ago
This point simply cannot be overstated. The absolutely deplorable level of "oversight" performed by Congress is a direct function of the degree to which they've been able to insulate themselves from the electorate. Being able
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Potentially pink unicorns, to be precise.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
The difference is that they mine data in order to better target ads. When the Feds ask them to share the same data with them, it's for reasons that are vastly more disconcerting. Intent is everything, and that's twice as true when
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Also, Google isn't brokering the information they gather. From what I understand they're simply using it to target ads (which is what they actually sell), while keeping the data itself very close to the vest. If you've got so
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Judging from this photoset, it's biting them hard. http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/06/protests-spread-a...
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"They do not know how they got on the list. They cannot get off the list." The default description of the Surveillance State is "Orwellian". But in a recent post for the Atlantic, Rebecca Rosen argues that "Kafkaesq
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Correct, but that doesn't change the fact that his definition of "treason" is wrong.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
I'm not arguing the merits of the position. I'm simply reiterating Assange's stated belief. Whether of not you agree has no bearing on the fact that tmandarano got it wrong.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
You've gotten Assange's position wrong. What he actually believes is that transparency should scale with power, so that the more powerful an organization is, the more transparent it should become, while privacy should be reserved
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by alexqgb 13y ago
""He betrayed the trust of the government he worked for. That means he is a traitor." Actually, no. Treason - as a formal charge - can only exists in a time of formally declared war. Even in the depth of the Cold War, we didn
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by alexqgb 13y ago
The idea that he's referring to policy prohibitions - not technical limitations - is even more unsettling when violations of law as egregious as Clapper's lying to Congress go so conspicuously unpunished. The entire concept of ill
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"If it gets to the point I need to die to make something better, it's not worth it." You know what? That's fine. In reality, most people feel the exact same way. But here's the other reality: without people who felt
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by alexqgb 13y ago
That's true of the list in its current form because the security agencies have (or had) zero interest in making it otherwise and because they're largely insulated from public pressure. However, having realized that this inflexibil
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"Because this totally ignores the reality that this other place didn't appear out of thin air. It has people there that care about these ideals, and most likely some that would be willing to die for them. In some respect, not atte
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"It's amazing more American's don't realize they are the fundamentalists they are told to be afraid of." Sorry, but no. Fundamentalism is the belief that only the literal interpretation of a religious text is the co
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by alexqgb 13y ago
While some say "government intelligence" is a contradiction in terms, I presume the intelligence agencies we've got are savvy enough to know about the Streisand Effect.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
The point is that America's founding ideals are very much worth dying for. "How bad it gets" is totally irrelevant in this context, since the "it" refers to specific conditions, whereas the ideal remains separate, o
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Or one Nobel Laureate jailing another.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Snowden says that NSA employees (and presumably, NSA subcontractors) are expected to file notices of intent to travel 30 days prior to departure, and notes that they will be tracked while they're away. He also says he took a huge risk
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Sorry, but even the most agressive prosecutor is highly unlikely to bring a charge that is so easily and cleanly dismissed. It's like trying to charge someone with the murder of a person who clearly isn't dead. Our justice syste
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Depending on what was leaked, the Whistleblower Protection Act should allow him to do exactly that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act Unfortunately for Snowden, the Act only covers federal emplo
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by alexqgb 13y ago
You really don't understand what a formal declaration of war is, do you?
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"What Snowden did is, arguably, treason." Not by anyone who understands the legal definition of treason. Among other things, treason presupposes formally declared hostilities. Even Cold War turncoats convicted of espionage for aid
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Iran is another. They've been suffering sanctions for years. And I do mean suffering. Which is not to say it's a smart place to go, just that its resistance to American hegemony is well established.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
The point isn't that the government has suddenly gone bad, but that the specific nature of the badness has changed very substantially and fairly recently. Snowden's choices may be unprecedented, but so is the situation that the re
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by alexqgb 13y ago
Oh I know. I just thought it was hilarious to see Finnegans Wake being described as so impenetrable that even cryptologists at the NSA couldn't crack it.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
The author works for Human Rights Watch, so this isn't unfamiliar territory for him.
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by alexqgb 13y ago
"What is the code? What does this say in plain English? This ‘selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless?’ – what is this shit?”

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