"We have not heard such blatant, shameless lying from intelligence and military officials......

[marmar]

...... since 2002 and 2003 when they propagandized the country into invading Iraq based on utterly false pretenses."

Published on Nov 19, 2015

As France and Belgium move to expand state power in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, top U.S. officials have renewed a push to defend mass surveillance and dismiss those who challenge it. On Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey said intelligence and law enforcement officials need to have access to encrypted information on smartphones, despite no evidence that the Paris attackers used encryption. Meanwhile, others have used the Paris attacks to criticize NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In recent days, CIA Director John Brennan has suggested revelations about mass spying have made it harder to find terrorists, while former CIA Director James Woolsey has said Snowden has blood on his hands. "We have not heard such blatant, shameless lying from intelligence and military officials since 2002 and 2003 when they propagandized the country into invading Iraq based on utterly false pretenses," says The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who exposed NSA mass surveillance based on Snowden’s leaks. "It is actually shocking to listen to."

Democracynow.org - Democracy Now!, is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,300+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9am ET: http://democracynow.org

[uhnope]

1. so says shameless liar Glenn Greenwald LOL

[marmar]

2. Please identify one lie in this piece.

I dare you.

[uhnope]

3. lol. I didn't say that and you know it.

I said Greenwald is a discredited liar (in general).
The whole Two Wrongs Don't Make thing. But you probably don't get that.

[marmar]

4. As I suspected. The usual word salad bullshit.

And no, I don't "get" cryptic nonsense.

[uhnope]

5. No surprise that "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" is incomprehensible to the Greenwald cult

[marmar]

7. Sarah Palin called. She'd like you to return her incoherent babble.

[Enthusiast]

15. I refutiate that.

Cut it out!

[uhnope]

42. yr English teacher called. She'd like you to not tell anybody that you attended her class

but still can't comprehend basic sentences, even one at a time.

[marmar]

43. No, I can't comprehend incoherent babble.

[wildbilln864]

17. So you're saying

what he's saying here is correct. Thank you.

[uhnope]

24. an effective propagandist mixes truth with BS & that's GG to a T

[wildbilln864]

28. what part is the BS I ask again? n/t

[wildbilln864]

33. yet you can't

expose the BS part. Got it.

[uhnope]

36. If someone asked you to listen to David Duke speak for 15 minutes because it's "the truth", would u?

see if you can't get my point.

[wildbilln864]

38. yes I might.

Only fair to hear someone out then show evidence to dispute their claims if there is any. Otherwise it's just ad hominem shoot the messenger....

[uhnope]

40. sorry, then it's a lost cause

and symptomatic of the mindless age we seem to be entering--all blabber is equal, let's listen to the KKK man and see if maybe he's right about white supremacy. WTF.

Okay whatever, good luck

[Jesus Malverde]

45. Ironic since you not only read stormfront but post their links here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=308964

You remind me of a poster called sand_wind

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024399335

[uhnope]

48. with that smearing lie of yours, you've just totally discredited yourself

anyone who goes there can see that I was pointing out that the other poster's RT video was being pushed by Stormfront--which I found in a Google search of the RT vid.

You know that--and yet you've put out for all of DU that I "read Stormfront". That's a disgusting lie and smear.

And you did it because you are defending RT and Greenwald and the other things that conform with the propaganda of you Putin supporters--who are the actual fascist supporters, not me.

Really, really despicable.

[Jesus Malverde]

53. lulz.

Nothing smearing about it. You're the one who read an article on stormfront and posted it here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=308964

Personally I'm open to a wide range of view points but I would never go to a vile nazi/racist site, much less use their material to make a point on DU.

You might consider toning down your attitude and contribute to threads instead of your obsessive criticism of sources, which in this thread, you admittedly don't even read/view the content. Most people here are here to argue the content of an issue, not the source. At some point attacking the messenger gets boring.

Posting a stormfront link not your best moment.

[uhnope]

55. after you finished reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,

that classic anti-Semitic hoax written by your heroes in Russian intelligence, what did you read next?

Also, why exactly do you support homophobia? Why? You should be ashamed.

But you're not.

Why do you mock the suffering of Gays and Jews in Russia? Why do you support dictatorship?

[Jesus Malverde]

56. LOL my friend.

I see you ignored my advice and doubled down. Get some help your not making much sense. Are you sand wind?

[zeemike]

6. Don't hold your breath

And if it should come it will be bullshit spin spin spin.
The authoritarians very much want total information awareness.

[uhnope]

8. lol. I love it when authoritarians smear others as authoritarians.

It's so...Scientology-like.

[zeemike]

9. And I love the "I'm rubber you're glue" response.

Reminds me so much of grade school playground.

But no sooner than I posted you had already proved me correct.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Excuse me, but I don't know enough about Scientology to get that

You're not even making sense tonight, uhnope.

Knock off with your private jokes and make a point.

Even if Greenwald were a liar, you've already said you can't anything false he said here.

[uhnope]

26. I'm not bothering to watch it. Why don't you summarize GG's main points and then we'll discuss?

I'm not wasting 16 minutes on the discredited Greenwald blabber.

From the description by Dem. Now, GG seems to be comparing the Bush admins' Iraq war lies to people now saying bad things about Snowden in regards to the Paris attacks. If that is what Greenwald is doing, then once again he's hyperbolizing and bullshitting and emotionalizing, all the things we are used to from him.

Why don't you summarize GG's main points and then we'll discuss?

[sabrina 1]

21. Point out the lies so we can discuss your opinion? Otherwise Greenwald is 100% correct. We remember

[uhnope]

25. Sorry, I'm not wasting 16 minutes of my time listening to Greenwald blather on and on

He seems to be comparing the Bush admins' Iraq war lies to people now saying bad things about Snowden in regards to the Paris attacks. If that is what Greenwald is doing, then once again he's hyperbolizing and bullshitting and emotionalizing, all the things we are used to from him.

Why don't you watch the vid, outline the points he makes, and then post them?

[sabrina 1]

27. Well if you don't know what he said, any comment you make about it isn't going to be very

credible.

[uhnope]

34. you are missing the point. & you don't seem to know what he said either

otherwise you'd summarize it here.

The point is he's a discredited pseud & that's why I don't bother with what he's saying. It's like if someone asked me to listed to a David Duke presentation because "it's true." Do you get my point now?

Feel free to summarize GG's main points, if possible.

[wildbilln864]

35. so you claim that GG is mixing BS with truth...

yet you haven't watched it, don't know what he said and can't identify the BS there in. Hmmm makes me wonder who is really spreading the BS!

[uhnope]

37. brush up on yr reading skills

I said GG is known for mixing BS & truth, the way any liar does.

You apparently can't identify what he's said either, or else you'd have summarized the main points by now. If I'm wrong, go ahead and post the summary and then we can discuss it.

[wildbilln864]

39. my reading is fine....

it's your logic that leaves so much to be desired. I'm not interested in discussing it when you've already condemned the content with out knowing the content. Happy to do so with more open minded members though.

[uhnope]

41. lol. that means you can't. you can't even say what GG's points are

you probably haven't even watched the video either.
hilarious.

[cantbeserious]

10. The Global Establishment Will Use Paris As A Cudgel To Justify Further Illegal Surveillance

eom

[wildbilln864]

54. precisely! n/t

[Babel_17]

11. Sleeper Cell, on Showtime

It was a great show, and it was available on Netflix for a while.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465353/

If you watched it you saw the show's creators developing a plot line about how sophisticated the most dangerous terrorists were. They know how to get around the everyday surveillance that governments use.

(lines of code in a JPEG was one method we know they used)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-24784756

The list, say experts, is endless and limited only by individuals' imaginations.

Jpegs or Gifs. Also known as "steganography" or the art of hiding a message within a message. Digital images encoded as Jpegs or Gifs can in theory be used to carry other data with them using an innocuous subject title.

Twenty years ago this was obscure knowledge, yes, but today there are hundreds of thousands of people in Islamic countries who know how to employ methods beyond those encompassed in what Snowden revealed. His revelations were more about the significance of the unaccountable bulk accumulation of data.

[snagglepuss]

13. Sounds like not a good thing at all. What is your

opinion about govts having access to encrypted messages?

[Babel_17]

14. I defer to the independent experts

It comes down to accountability, and establishing trust. For too long accountability has been something that can't be discussed with a straight face. Trust is trust, it has to be something that those in power will not squander.

[cprise]

19. Look up Phil Zimmermann and PGP

The US already went through this in the 90s. Its a free speech issue.

[Babel_17]

23. Free speech issue as in people of influence, who know how the system works, ...

Free speech issue as in people of influence, who know how the system works, don't feel free to speak their minds? I agree that's a big concern. Hoover with his tapes, which powerful people knew he had and might use, established the precedent to fear this.

I was pretty disgusted to learn the government paid people to go to forums and advocate for the government while posing as regular posters. To me it's all part and parcel of grinding down the public so as to be acquiescent.

"Hi, I'm from the government and I'd like to give you a friendly heads-up as to why what you're posting is wrong". lol I guess posting openly might not be much better.

[cprise]

29. No. Encryption is a way that people communicate.

The government is free to intercept traffic under public control (like radio spectrum) and they are free to *try* to de-crypt it. But people are free to run their communications through a mathematical algorithm of their choosing, too.

I think the debate suffers from confusion in that "encryption" can be added to a channel at many different points using different means. The most critical free speech issue is whether individuals are free to encrypt data their own way on their own equipment: Person to person.

You touch on another important issue: Trying to drown-out public sentiment with propaganda (especially if it contains falsehoods) should be treated as an incursion against the first amendment.

[Babel_17]

30. I see

Very interesting. I half way remember a case wherein the authorities wanted somebody to provide the key to their computer HDD/SSD. No idea how it turned out, or what can be done if someone says they forgot/lost it.

That's sort of like showing up with a search warrant and demanding somebody hands over the stuff they cleverly hid, that the authorities can't find. Though the courts might see it different.

Also, didn't Gingrich once have a cell phone call intercepted, back in the analog days? IIRC the interceptor violated some regulation about what you can scan with.

[cprise]

31. I remember such a case

IIRC the defendant was protected by the fifth amendment, against self-incrimination. The crucial aspect is that an encryption key is information, and it can reside completely in the defendant's head. Of course, corporations do not have this same level of privacy though I can imagine this Supreme Court trying to change that like they did with campaign finance.

I don't recall the Gingrich incident... the interceptor might have tried to listen on phone lines, not radio channels..?

[Babel_17]

32. Here's the gist of it

http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-14/news/mn-18534_1_ethics-committee

Appearing at a news conference with their lawyer in Gainesville, Fla., the Martins said that they were listening to a police scanner in their car during a Christmas shopping trip on Dec. 21 when the scanner picked up a telephone conference call between the speaker and other top Republicans.

The couple said they began taping the call, using a hand-held tape recorder that they had with them in the car, after hearing the Georgia Republican's ethics case mentioned in the conversation and deducing that the participants were prominent congressional Republicans. Public disclosure of the conference call has sparked a political firestorm.

[GoneFishin]

16. More bullshit excuses for collecting information that is none of their fucking business to get

embarrassing dirt on politicians, civil servants, and corporate leaders to use for blackmail.

[wildbilln864]

18. precisely! n/t

[uhnope]

44. interesting conspiracy theory

can you give us examples of when the collection of metadata in the fight against terrorism has been used to "blackmail...politicians, civil servants, and corporate leaders"?

[GoneFishin]

47. Can you give me an example of when it wasn't?

[uhnope]

49. lol

did you really write that?

[Babel_17]

50. It's a time bomb waiting to be misused

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html

U.S. Sen. Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy said yesterday that he was stopped and questioned at airports on the East Coast five times in March because his name appeared on the government's secret "no-fly" list.

It's a powerful tool that anyone with bad intentions can "accidentally" misuse.

[GoneFishin]

51. There have been reported cases of operators using it to spy on their exes.

Human nature hasn't changed much since Hoover kept his blackmail dossiers on his enemies in Washington.

I get a big laugh from people who think that wearing a suit and tie, and having an important sounding titled engraved on a name placard on your desk makes you incapable of sleazy exploitative and illegal behavior.

Naive.

[90-percent]

20. Links related to this

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/18/nyt-editorial-slams-disgraceful-cia-exploitation-of-paris-attacks-but-submissive-media-role-is-key/?comments=1#comments

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/opinion/mass-surveillance-isnt-the-answer-to-fighting-terrorism.html?_r=0

Glen seems like a decent journalist to me? What did he do that makes fellow DU'ers so quick to reject what he has to say?

"America is a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced." - Frank Zappa

Aren't there people in prison for what Brennen and Clapper have done - lie under oath to Congress? And wasn't Bill Clinton impeached for lying under oath about a fucking blowjob? PS - Have GWB or Cheney EVER testified under oath since 9/11? I think they demand that they will not take an oath to tell the truth if you want them to testifiy? At least that's what they did, TOGETHER, when they testified before the 9-11 commission, right?

-90% Jimmy

[GoneFishin]

52. He has embarrassed authoritarians.

[Babel_17]

22. Whistleblowers: How NSA Created the 'Largest Failure' In Its History

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday November 22, 2015 @10:32AM from the that-wasn't-very-good dept.
An anonymous reader writes:
Former NSA whistleblowers contend that the agency shut down a program that could have "absolutely prevented" some of the worst terror attacks in memory. According to the ZDNet story: "Weeks prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, a test-bed program dubbed ThinThread was shut down in favor of a more expensive, privacy-invasive program that too would see its eventual demise some three years later -- not before wasting billions of Americans' tax dollars. Four whistleblowers, including a congressional senior staffer, came out against the intelligence community they had served, after ThinThread. designed to modernize the agency's intelligence gathering effort, was cancelled. Speaking at the premier of a new documentary film A Good American in New York, which chronicles the rise and demise of the program, the whistleblowers spoke in support of the program, led by former NSA technical director William Binney."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/11/22/1359237/whistleblowers-how-nsa-created-the-largest-failure-in-its-history

slashdot is linking the story so you can reasonably expect some pretty informed commenters. Not my wheelhouse so I'm not starting a new thread on this. Anyone who is up to such a task, feel free to use the above. Not that anyone needs me to say that.

[Jesus Malverde]

46. it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be sh

Privately, law enforcement officials have acknowledged that prospects for congressional action this year are remote. Although “the legislative environment is very hostile today,” the intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, said to colleagues in an August e-mail, which was obtained by The Post, “it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”

There is value, he said, in “keeping our options open for such a situation.”

Litt was commenting on a draft paper prepared by National Security Council staff members in July, which also was obtained by The Post, that analyzed several options. They included explicitly rejecting a legislative mandate, deferring legislation and remaining undecided while discussions continue.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tech-trade-agencies-push-to-disavow-law-requiring-decryption-of-phones/2015/09/16/1fca5f72-5adf-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html