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The Perverse Power Dynamic of the NSA and Congress

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Northside Storm, Jun 30, 2013.

  1. Northside Storm

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    ohhh it's a wild trip ;)

    The problem is the very distinct possibility that the elected officials are being duped a) because of how the NSA can track and cause the downfall of politicians, and b) because of how the NSA can lie to Congress with impunity.
     
  2. Northside Storm

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    I've seen a lot of arguments with regards to the whole "I'm an average Joe, none of this will ever affect me."

    right, except you have to consider that the Internet is basically the wild wild west, and governments are seeking to regulate the death out of it. It's already begun with regimes like China, and it'll continue with liberal democracies, though it might take a bit of time.

    I'd say something along the lines of what's not a crime now will become a crime then---but I don't even have to go there. There are plenty of laws about copyright infringement, for example, that aren't so properly enforced. Now with security agencies at the helm, you have to consider the distinct possibility that the government certainly now has the capacity to track whether you do these things---whether or not it uses it will depend on the level of perceived resistance they will see from the people.
     
  3. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    WOW! That is deep.
    Thanks for the insite

    Rocket River
     
  4. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Another Barrier of Entry into the 1%

    Rocket River
     
  5. bigtexxx

    bigtexxx Member

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    I'm not surprised at all. There is so much attention whoring that goes on like this on facebook. People go out of their way to show how much they love organic foods, or homosexual marriage (hey look at me I'm at the LGBT parade!) or the always predictable "beautiful couple" comment on the picture of the awkward white guy married to the asian chick to make sure everybody knows they're cool with the interracial marriage thing.

    Anybody with any psychological training at all can spot these silly projections very quickly.
     
  6. Northside Storm

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    actually, they don't have to go out of their way at all.

    http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay-before-you-do.html
     
  7. bigtexxx

    bigtexxx Member

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  8. MoonDogg

    MoonDogg Member

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    [​IMG]
     
  9. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    The genie though is really out of the bottle with this and thanks to Twitter and we don't even need NSA snooping to get dirt on people when so many people seem so willing to share that themselves. In many ways we are becoming a post privacy society and for the large part are doing so voluntarily.

    That isn't to say that we should just accept greater government surveillance but that even if the NSA were to shut down tomorrow you would still have all sorts of groups looking for all sorts of dirt on people and people willing to share their dirt and innermost secrets on social media. As a society I think we are still learning to adapt to that new reality.
     
  10. Northside Storm

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    The NSA is the agency America deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

    Because it's not an agency---it's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. The Dark Agency.

    complacency breeds results as much as willingness to change
     
  11. dback816

    dback816 Member

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    Are you really not going to vote for a politician who represent "most" of your ideals even if you found out his questionable porno history?

    Who are you going to vote for instead? The other party's candidate? Pffft
     
  12. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    I don't get this line of reasoning.

    -What people share only reflects an image they want to show online.

    -What governments and companies want is everything, and apparently they're good at aggregating different sources, such as piecing together blog postings from a straight edge pastor with his geolocated cell signal, aka metadata, at a gay bar.

    -What they share might not reflect their true character later on. As this data does not disappear, it's more like an uncoverable tattoo.

    People forget. The internet does not.

    Now maybe we're entering an age where everyone knows everything so it's harder to act like a saint while pointing judging fingers at another. The other component that Deji hit on is analytics and number crunching that detects statistical patterns and trends that a person might do, buy, or go. Much like Moreyball, but far more chaotic and unpredictable, yet more concrete for a pencil pusher to base assumptions off of with data they're not supposed to have.

    I think it's more that people aren't fully aware of their actions than the actual action itself. Without such resistance the trend will only get worse.
     
  13. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    The problem lies more though in how much people think before they post. Consider how many embarrassing Tweets are sent out daily by politicians, athletes, celebrities and etc.. No one is forcing them to send those or hacking into their computers to find them but they voluntarily do so.
    I like the tattoo analogy and sending out a Tweet is sort of like that. Just like embarrassing Tweets people do often get embarrassing uncoverable tattoos without anyone forcing them to. I agree with you that doesn't reflect their what their character might be but people doing things in the heat of the moment that I regret later on isn't something new.

    I agree the Internet though makes your mistakes harder to erase but frankly wishing for a collective amnesia on the part of the Internet is not going to happen. As I said earlier the genie is out of the bottle already on that.
    I fully agree but I think the solution has to be how as a society we treat and judge each other. As another poster mentioned and something I've been saying for awhile, we have become an Aldous Huxley society rather than an Orwellian society where for the most part we voluntarily give up privacy in exchange for not only security but for comfort, convenience and pleasure. As in Brave New World the idea that someone would actually want to be completely private (in our present context of disconnecting from the Internet) seems quaint and anti-social. While I think it is important that we address just how much we are being watched and monitored, both by the government and private entities it is too late to really turn back the clock on the amount of surveillance out there. What we need to do is figure out as a society how we deal with what is really a brave new world where there is so much information out there on everyone.
     
  14. Deji McGever

    Deji McGever יליד טקסני

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  15. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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  16. NotInMyHouse

    NotInMyHouse Member

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    Hmm, child p*rn?? Maybe he turns out to be the husband of "Wifey"? :eek:
     
  17. Kim

    Kim Member

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    Bookmarking this and might email you in the future. There's some awesome research project ideas stemming from this thread.
     

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