The NSA watches you poop.

AladainAF

AladainAF

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chaos_sl said:
I really wish everyone had been this worked up like 10 years ago when the Patriot Act and all this shit was actually happening rather than getting upset at seeing the results of that.
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Yeah, but let's be clear here. While I said earlier I supported the PA and don't in hindsight, I think that you can apply this to every law. In 10 years if health care is significantly worse off and considerably more expensive, are you going to be posting here, falling on your sword that Obamacare was a piece of shit?

I mean, every law.. that you might disagree with, you can fight it on its merits at the start, or not. But anything can happen to any law 10 years later.

The only solution is to stop making new fucking laws. I had a link to a great article, I acn't recall where I read it or how I got it, but it said that there are over 23,000 federal laws on the books, including things likebeing in possession ofa lobster under a certain size is a federal crime. It's such a mess no one knows anymore what laws they may be breaking. It's a mess, and certainly a great point as to why all this NSA stuff is equally troubling. Sure. "Look, I dont care I do nothing wrong". No, we all do. We all commit felonies every day I'm sure.

That's why I like to say, as crazy as some of you think it might be, a do nothing congress is great. Sure, some real business might not get done, but at least more fucking laws that no one fucking understands are going on the books.
 
Famm

Famm

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Uh, it was very clear the powers being granted to the federal government by the patriot act that opened the door for infringing on constitutional rights. Obamacare almost nothing is so cut and dry, except that there doesn't appear to be any constitutional violations being greenlighted. So STFU it was an invasive bill that was made possible through reactionary post-9/11 attitudes and if you supported it you are part of the problem. So I can sit here a decade later and say "oh really? well no fucking shit moron, we told you so" and you are straight up properly fucked.
 
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Numbers_sl

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I think everyone's private information should be in the public sphere. Obviously I don't think that sensitive government secrets should be out and about, but generally I think if everyone had nothing to hide about their dark sides, it would be like pulling the bandaid off fast.
 
TrollfaceDeux

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Numbers_sl said:
I think everyone's private information should be in the public sphere. Obviously I don't think that sensitive government secrets should be out and about, but generally I think if everyone had nothing to hide about their dark sides, it would be like pulling the bandaid off fast.
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IKKPsyY.gif
 
chaos

chaos

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AladainAF_sl said:
Yeah, but let's be clear here. While I said earlier I supported the PA and don't in hindsight, I think that you can apply this to every law. In 10 years if health care is significantly worse off and considerably more expensive, are you going to be posting here, falling on your sword that Obamacare was a piece of shit?

I mean, every law.. that you might disagree with, you can fight it on its merits at the start, or not. But anything can happen to any law 10 years later.

The only solution is to stop making new fucking laws. I had a link to a great article, I acn't recall where I read it or how I got it, but it said that there are over 23,000 federal laws on the books, including things likebeing in possession ofa lobster under a certain size is a federal crime. It's such a mess no one knows anymore what laws they may be breaking. It's a mess, and certainly a great point as to why all this NSA stuff is equally troubling. Sure. "Look, I dont care I do nothing wrong". No, we all do. We all commit felonies every day I'm sure.

That's why I like to say, as crazy as some of you think it might be, a do nothing congress is great. Sure, some real business might not get done, but at least more fucking laws that no one fucking understands are going on the books.
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Bad example, I didn't support Obamacare to begin with. Single payer all the way, bro.

I do get what you're saying, but really, who is to blame? The uninformed or otherwise indifferent voter who allows bad laws to come into play? Or the government that exercises the power it was given? It isn't as if there weren't people, even people on FoH, jumping up and down about the Patriot Act back then, telling anyone who would listen what this meant. Some people just chose not to listen, and then get upset now whenexactly what was intended comes to pass. And it makes it seem like politics as usual, you know, "Oh so when Bush signed this shit into law you were okay with it, but when you discover details about its use under Obama suddenly this is killing our republic." I'm not saying that is you, but it seems that way. And the reverse also, some people who acted like the Patriot Act was the final nail in the coffin for our republic are shrugging this off. Is it because they don't want to criticize Obama? I don't know but it can seem that way.

The bottom line is that you and others should have divorced yourself from the politics and looked at the laws objectively and what the real possibilities were. Then maybe we could have stopped it then, instead of now getting upset with the government using the powers that we, collectively, allowed them to have. I don't think the answer is more or less laws, the answer is an informed and engaged populace preventing this shit from happening in the first place.
 
Big Phoenix

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chaos_sl said:
Bad example, I didn't support Obamacare to begin with. Single payer all the way, bro.

I do get what you're saying, but really, who is to blame? The uninformed or otherwise indifferent voter who allows bad laws to come into play? Or the government that exercises the power it was given? It isn't as if there weren't people, even people on FoH, jumping up and down about the Patriot Act back then, telling anyone who would listen what this meant. Some people just chose not to listen, and then get upset now whenexactly what was intended comes to pass. And it makes it seem like politics as usual, you know, "Oh so when Bush signed this shit into law you were okay with it, but when you discover details about its use under Obama suddenly this is killing our republic." I'm not saying that is you, but it seems that way. And the reverse also, some people who acted like the Patriot Act was the final nail in the coffin for our republic are shrugging this off. Is it because they don't want to criticize Obama? I don't know but it can seem that way.

The bottom line is that you and others should have divorced yourself from the politics and looked at the laws objectively and what the real possibilities were. Then maybe we could have stopped it then, instead of now getting upset with the government using the powers that we, collectively, allowed them to have. I don't think the answer is more or less laws, the answer is an informed and engaged populace preventing this shit from happening in the first place.
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Courts are the biggest problem, seeing as how they are supposed to be the check on government control and regulation. Right now the judicial branch is nothing more than a rubberstamp for the executive's power grabs.

When is the last time the supreme court has significantly limited or restricted the governments power? Any entity with power has one primary, overriding objective; to ensure its power/authority/influence remains constant and to try and expand it as much as possible.
 
fanaskin

fanaskin

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secre...r-data-seizure

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort.

Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone.That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.

Whether by clever choice or coincidence, Prism appears to do what its name suggests. Like a triangular piece of glass, Prism takes large beams of data and helps the government find discrete, manageable strands of information.

The fact that it is productive is not surprising; documents show it is one of the major sources for what ends up in the president's daily briefing. Prism makes sense of the cacophony of the Internet's raw feed. It provides the government with names, addresses, conversation histories and entire archives of email inboxes.
 
A

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Stop cross posting.

If they were copying all traffic why would they be requesting information from providers ....

I really think you are being purposely blind.
 
AladainAF

AladainAF

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chaos_sl said:
It isn't as if there weren't people, even people on FoH, jumping up and down about the Patriot Act back then, telling anyone who would listen what this meant. Some people just chose not to listen, and then get upset now whenexactly what was intended comes to pass.
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But again, I challenge you to apply this to any law. One could simply say "Yep, you were right on the PA", but again, many many laws we can say these same things about. And yes, I was okay with the PA, and I was wrong. And yes, it's politics as usual, as evidenced by both sides generally saying.

The bottom line is that you and others should have divorced yourself from the politics and looked at the laws objectively and what the real possibilities were. Then maybe we could have stopped it then, instead of now getting upset with the government using the powers that we, collectively, allowed them to have. I don't think the answer is more or less laws, the answer is an informed and engaged populace preventing this shit from happening in the first place.
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lol, and again, ANY law. Like Obamacare, or gun control, or.. --insert law here--, people can look at the laws objectively and see how they can be abused, and what the real possibilities were. While you're here saying "politics as usual!", you're also ignoring the fact that this exact thing applies to every law. But if you say that "CONSPIRACY! LUMIE! RON PAUL! RABBLE RABBLE!".

I don't know what else I can say other than I was wrong about the PA, but that still gives no excuse to: a.) poo poo this off since Obama is in office and he's "your guy" (not speaking to you specifically on this Chaos), or b.) Feel this only applies to the PA, and nothing else, as every other law can never have anything bad with it happen so we shouldn't look at it objectively.

While you're still sitting here saying "politics as usual!", I'm clearly admitting I was wrong in my judgement of the PA- but even so, you have people now saying this has been going on since well, well before the PA was even signed.

So how about we learn a lesson from the PA and understand that all laws can be abused, and that all laws should be more scrutinized moving forward. Especially ones passed as quickly as the PA was.
 
chaos

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AladainAF_sl said:
But again, I challenge you to apply this to any law. One could simply say "Yep, you were right on the PA", but again, many many laws we can say these same things about. And yes, I was okay with the PA, and I was wrong. And yes, it's politics as usual, as evidenced by both sides generally saying.



lol, and again, ANY law. Like Obamacare, or gun control, or.. --insert law here--, people can look at the laws objectively and see how they can be abused, and what the real possibilities were. While you're here saying "politics as usual!", you're also ignoring the fact that this exact thing applies to every law. But if you say that "CONSPIRACY! LUMIE! RON PAUL! RABBLE RABBLE!".

I don't know what else I can say other than I was wrong about the PA, but that still gives no excuse to: a.) poo poo this off since Obama is in office and he's "your guy" (not speaking to you specifically on this Chaos), or b.) Feel this only applies to the PA, and nothing else, as every other law can never have anything bad with it happen so we shouldn't look at it objectively.

While you're still sitting here saying "politics as usual!", I'm clearly admitting I was wrong in my judgement of the PA- but even so, you have people now saying this has been going on since well, well before the PA was even signed.

So how about we learn a lesson from the PA and understand that all laws can be abused, and that all laws should be more scrutinized moving forward. Especially ones passed as quickly as the PA was.
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I don't think the Patriot Act and Obamacare are equivalent, not in their intent or possible impact when we are talking about government power. The Patriot Act was specifically an extension of government powers to track and monitor citizens and non-citizens behind the guise of "lol terror." And now we find that citizens are being tracked and monitored behind the guise of "lol terror." Le gasp. To equate it to Obamacare is to say that 10 years from now we would find that Obamacare did exactly what it was advertised to do, expanded health care to millions of Americans and lowered rates and lowered the deficit. We'd be throwing a damn party. These are not the same thing.

Of course, we should look critically at every law. Well, within reason, none of us have the time to devote to that really. What I'm saying is that this was a law far outside the norm, and what it called for was alarming. But many people just were not critical of it, at all. I'm glad you are able to say you were wrong on it, and god knows I have been wrong on my share of political support. The hope is that we learn something going forward. Not just you and me, but everyone. I don't think that is happening. I see a lot of people being outraged and just glossing over the part about this being legal because 10 years ago they didn't give a fuck about expansion of government surveillance authority, and anyone who questioned it had their commitment to this country disputed. McCarthyism 50 years later and shit.
 
fanaskin

fanaskin

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I think obamacare is among other things a way to force millions of people to pay private companies by calling it a "tax". Obama sold it as a populist by saying it will socialize the cost. To me that's just spreading the bill around so it's harder to see how the costs are rising to bloat the insurance companies who act as middlemen to payment.

The maxim of the age: socialize costs/privatize profits.

The fact that it's run by for profit industries taints the moral high ground for me.


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http://rooseveltinstitute.org/new-ro...th-care-reform

-"The healthcare legislation is important politically since President Obama now looks suddenly like a "winner". But will it actually achieve the objective of improving the nation's health care? Yes, more people will get INSURANCE. Will they actually get more health care paid for?

Not necessarily. We've had a bailout for bankers and now the principle seems to be extended to the insurance industry. As Randy Wray and I discussed in a recent paper, the health care bill just signed into law entrenches the centrality of private health insurance companies and contain no serious proposals to limit costs. More people will get hit with deductions, co-pays, annual limits (for several more years), exclusions, out of pocket expenses. This will ensure that health CARE remains too expensive to actually take advantage of their new INSURANCE. And many currently insured people are going to get higher taxes. Premiums will rise."

Health insurance is the primary payment mechanism not just for expenses that are unexpected and large, but for nearly all health-care expenses. It's akin to going to your local grocery store, buying food, submitting the bill to a 3rd party who reviews it, reimburses the grocer for part of the cost, and then extracts a 13% charge from you for the privilege of scrutinizing the bill in the first place.

The "reform" introduced by this bill largely promotes the status quo by pulling more people into an expensive health care system that is managed and funded by private insurers with no countervailing government option.Given that over half of all household bankruptcies are due to health care costs, creating mandates to force people to turn over an even larger portion of their income to insurance companies will further erode household finances and exacerbate the problem of declining incomes.It's the Wall Street bailout principle extended to the health insurance industry.
 
Furry

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If I'm gonna be forced to keep health care, I'm going to use it god damnit.

Been on health care for 3 years, racked up almost a million in charges. My share has been around 3000$. I don't have the slightest regret for what I've done and plan on racking up far more. If I didn't have insurance I would of spent around 0 on health care.

Every god damn detail of my health requires attention. I really don't get the people who dont want to use their healthcare yet have it. They're the ones enabling this shit ass insurance scheme to keep working. At least I dont feel like a chump thats just taking it from them. The best part of all is nothing I've done is illegal or even slightly against the rules. I'm just using the services they provide, and getting a free and massive upgrade to my quality of life because of it, at the expense of who cares.

Sure its wrong, but so is this whole shit system.
 
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