TRoaches

@sukeban: What you are describing is very reminiscent of the persecution and mass murder that black africans were subjected to after the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya. It did not take long after Gaddafi's fall for the "freedom fighters" that overthrew him to show their true colors. Gaddafi's regime was not without its bad points, but he was a champion of civil rights compared to the monsters that took power in his absence. At least under his rule ethnically motivated mob killings were not tolerated.

The association between Republicans and the tea party is mostly the result of unpopular Republicans attaching themselves to the movement in an effort to seem more connected to the "common" people than they really are. Sadly, it is an effective tactic. The tea party started out as quite an intellectual and principled group, but has generally been dumbed down a bit as it has grown in size, and at this point a person referred to in the media as a tea party candidate may in actuality stand on a platform that is quite oppositional to the movement's principles. The same phenomenon can be observed in the Occupy Wall Street movement: What started as a protest against bad fiscal policy was co-opted and derailed by a combination of its own growth, which managed to transform the message into a crazy hodgepodge of social justice issues, and the self-attachment of politicians who publicly advocate for the movement while continuing to support the very policies that the movement was intended to protest. Politicians love any chance for face time with a populist movement. As far as being an independent party there have been some efforts, but the sad fact is that the two major parties actively work together to discredit any potential threat to their current duopoly. This can best be seen by looking at the consistently negative treatment of Libertarian candidates. They are always marginalized as "crazy", and are denied access to debate time. Democrats only want to debate Republicans, and Republicans only want to debate Democrats, and they only want to have these debates via a moderator who is sympathetic to maintaining that duopoly. This video is probably the most accurate satire I have ever seen about the American political duopoly. Honestly, its just about perfect.

My cynicism is justified by the history of American politics. But thats just it....they do not affect the nation to nearly the extent that our politicians want us to believe. There are very few, if any, examples of true social progress being forced through legislation. The law is not capable of ending racism or sexism or any other -ism in our society. It has never worked in the past, and there is no reason to be optimistic that it will work in the future. All it does is drive such social ills deeper underground, and in the process solidify the beliefs in the minds of those who hold them. Repression always breeds resistance. When the civil rights act was passed it did not mean that everyone was suddenly ready to accept people of all races into society. A black father in the deep south did not read the news the day after the act was passed, turn to his wife, and say "Awesome! Get the kids ready because we're going to have a nice meal at that previously whites-only diner down the street, now that our equality is guaranteed by law!". If anything, in the immediate aftermath of the act's passage they would have been in more danger that week because of the emotional backlash among the people who did not like the societal shift that was being forced on them by law. The only reason that the diner in question eventually accepted non-white customers was because the old man retired and left his diner it to his children, who were more progressively-minded than he was and were willing to provide service regardless of race. True progress towards diversity and inclusion is not about making sure that every group is recognized as a homogenised unit, but rather about abolishing the idea of default allegiance to an ideology group based on superficialities like race or gender. It makes me angry when I hear journalists or politicians talk about the "female vote", or the "latino vote", or the "black vote" because it implies a lack of political diversity within those groups. Such talk promotes the idea that all people within those groups share the same beliefs, which is insulting. Your point is moot because no political party is capable of making me feel like a 2nd class citizen. I know my rights, and am confident enough in my beliefs that I do not need them to be affirmed by a politician or a party. If a political candidate focuses on social issues to any significant extent they will not receive my vote. If a citizen or journalist focuses on social issues when voting, writing, interviewing, or asking a question during a debate I think they are doing more to hinder progress than aid it, and will most likely disregard what they are saying as irrelevant when compared to the issues that truly matter.

The difference in scope is enormous. The NSA data collection likely includes everything that Google has, which means that the totality of Google's data is a fractional subset of the NSA's data. As you said, Google does not have access to phone calls, and they can only see a fraction of the email that is sent. The NSA and Google are incomparable, to a similar extent that my local grocery store's ability to mine data via their loyalty card is incomparable to Google's ability to mine data via their services. Also, the latest estimates that I could find are that Google only has about 10% of the internet indexed. Again, Google cannot just index everything without concern for cost. For a company like Google data is a resource that comes with an overhead cost, and the cost must be outweighed by a potential for profit. The electricity costs alone associated with the type of massive data centers that the intelligence agencies build are staggeringly high.

Social issues are a tool used by the two major parties to provide the illusion that they act in opposition to each other. They are a diversion, and an effective one because social progress cannot be attained through legislation and most proposed social legislation is truly outside of the domain of federal government. This creates an eternal stalemate, and allows them to loudly argue about social issues and project an image of opposition while remaining in near-complete agreement regarding issues that really matter and are clearly within the domain of federal government: fiscal, foreign, and military policies.

By what possible scenario could such a thing ever be "over"? What are the victory conditions for a war declared against a broadly defined tactic?

You are only quoting half of what I said: To say that something cause "a lot" of damage or loss of life is vague. A statistic is only large or small when viewed relative to another statistic. I used the phrase "by comparison" to demonstrate the relativity between the cost of terrorism and the cost of anti-terrorism.

Now compare those statistics with the statistics derived from our anti-terrorism response. They are dwarfed by the casualty counts and expenditures in the Afghan war, which was a direct response to 911. In fact, those numbers are similar to the ANNUAL statistics in that conflict, which means that the people in that country do not have to "imagine if they had a 911 attack once every year". It is their reality. My premise was that our anti-terrorism response has been much more costly in terms of blood and money than the terrorist attacks themselves. Your statistics, when viewed next to the civilian casualty statistics from Afghanistan alone, only support my claim. Now consider that, when calculating the aggregate "cost" of such a war you also have to consider all of the displacement, the creation of refugees, and other health care problems caused by that anti-terrorism response, then consider that the Afghan war is only one piece of a statistical puzzle that also includes the Iraq war, DHS, ICE, CBP, ATF, NSA, CIA, FBI, grants to local and state law enforcement, and so on and you can see how small the 911 statistics start to look when viewed next to the greater "war on terror" statistics. It is clear that the response is much more costly, in blood and treasure, than the incident it is intended to prevent. Coupled with the well-grounded theory that our anti-terrorism response has itself lead to increased radicalization within certain groups it begins to all look like a very bad idea with almost no benefit.

Perhaps, but it does not happen without any risk of getting caught. That is the difference between the NSA and FBI as far as the potential for corruption. An FBI employee would be under intense scrutiny from other branches of law enforcement, legislative and executive auditing bodies, as well as internal scrutiny from within the bureau. Even the FBI director or other extremely high ranking official would not be able to surveil for profit with impunity. They would either have to break the law, thus opening themselves up to legal prosecution, or they would have to gain authorisation through FISA or something similar. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but it does mean that it is a difficult and/or risky thing to do. In contrast, the NSA is not accountable to a court or auditor that we know of, and if people like Snowden and Tice are correct in their allegations it would be relatively easy for an NSA agent with appropriate access to surveil for profit with impunity. This simply cannot be true. Neither Google nor Facebook have the ability to access a comparable mass of communications. They are only able to archive what they process for their customers, or what they purchase from other companies. In contrast the NSA is able to access ALL domestic communications under the guise of national security. They also are able to operate with relatively little concern for budget, whereas Google and Facebook must weigh the benefits of data archiving with the overhead associated with maintaining the archive and keep their budget above water. The NSA does not require monetary profit to justify its existence. If you really think about it terrorism has caused very little damage to property, claimed very few lives, and disrupted very few businesses. Government policies executed in the name of ANTI-terrorism, by comparison, have claimed millions of lives, caused many billions of dollars in property damage, and destroyed the economies of entire nations. The bill for running a police state has already been paid. It would not require higher expenditures than the current levels being spent on law enforcement and the military. The infrastructure and personnel are already in place, what Snowden referred to as "turnkey tyranny". The force that prevents a true police state from developing is not a lack of necessary funding, but the checks and balances that exist in our government. This is why any threat to that balance represents a much greater danger to our society than any terrorist attack ever could be, and why it is imperative that steps are taken to ensure that domestic spying cannot be used for political purposes or for the corruption or undermining of the various organs of government who keep each other in check and maintain that balance. As of right now there is no protection against that sort of corruption that we know of. If such a check exists it does so in secret, and a secret audit done by a secret auditor is useless.

@sukeban: I appreciate your observations on the limitations of the two party establishment that currently controls our government. For the first time since I have reached voting age I didn't even bother to vote in the last presidential election out of disgust for the two candidates offered. At this point neither party comes close to representing my views. I think people should be able to own machine guns, obtain any medical procedure that their doctor is willing to perform, and marry whomever they wish regardless of gender. I also strongly oppose foreign militarism. Voting either of the two major candidates would have required compromising on half of those beliefs. I recently saw a thread on another forum that was about groups like Pink Pistols that advocate for LGBT gun ownership and concealed carry. The discussion turned to questioning why so few gays are gun ownership advocates, and why they tend to vote for the party that is more opposed to gun rights, given the serious threat of violent gay bashing that exists in many areas. My conclusion was that an LGBT person is given a choice between voting for a party that recognizes their human right to love and marriage, or voting for the party that supports their right to self defense. For most people it would be an easy choice to give up the self defense right in favor or something as grand as love. By forcing a person to make that sort of decision I think it also causes them abandon their sense of entitlement to the right that was sacrificed, and to react oppositional towards those who were able to retain that right without having to make a similar sacrifice with regards to their choice of spouse. I like the Pink Pistols group because they perfectly illustrate the lack of logic that exists in forcing everyone into a one dimensional left v right spectrum. There are multiple dimensions and axes that political thought slides across. It is more like a big room than a single line, and there is far too much diversity of thought in the world to fairly group everyone into two little corners of a big room. We should have more freedom to wander around, climb the walls, stand right in the middle, levitate, swing from the chandelier, and so on.

That is a big and very loaded "probably" that is entirely based on the assumption that a terrorist group would rely on telecoms despite the obvious increased risk of detection. If the group is smart enough to never use easily monitored telecommunications then they are outside of the scope of this detection. Prison gangs are smart enough to communicate via coded letters, so I see a big logical flaw in the assumption that terrorists would be plotting via easily monitored telecom services. In other words, this surveillance would only be effective in catching the most inept and short sighted potential terrorist. Also, the accusation being made is not that the NSA is monitoring all communications, but that they are archiving all communications. To actively monitor everything for meaningful data would be a massive waste of resources, and an engineering challenge that is likely beyond current technological capabilities. Archiving everything, then searching for meaning in targeted areas as deemed necessary, is what Snowden is alleging. The image of an unknown person discussing a plot over the phone and suddenly being flagged for investigation is inaccurate, according to what Snowden, the NSA itself, and others have described. Your premise implies that we are faced with a choice between physical searches or data mining. This is a false, in that the adoption of one tactic will not preclude the other. If this is the lesser of two evils, but the greater of two evils continues in practice alongside the lesser, then there is nothing to be gained by adopting a second, lesser evil. All you are saying here is "Monitoring more stuff is an engineering dilemma". 50 years ago this level of data collection was "impossible". 15 years ago it was "improbable". Now it is reality. To assume that any particular engineering issue cannot be overcome given sufficient resources is to ignore the exponentially increasing trajectory of technology. If this is the case then why is history dotted with examples of governments imprisoning activists? It seems to indicate that either activism and political expression are considered important enough threats to established power that they warrant the effort required to silence them, or that all of those governments were dumb and liked to waste resources on unimportant things. I tend towards the former belief. Also, we should consider the blurry line that exists between government and business interests. I don't think people should be afraid of "the government" meaning the bureaucracy itself, but I do see plenty of reasons to worry about the greater complexities of government employees in positions of power being subverted by corporations to achieve goals that are in the interest of the corporation, not the government or the society that it represents. If a Mcdonalds employee sells drugs out of the drive through window it does not mean that Mcdonalds is selling drugs. If a corrupt NSA agent is selling private surveillance services on the black market, for example to be used for corporate espionage or organized crime, it does not mean that the government is doing it. In either example it is an employee utilizing the access granted to them by their employment position for personal gain to the detriment of their employer, not to its benefit. Assuming that a bureaucracy operates on some concept of "sense" is absurd. Bureaucracy does not possess sense, or a conscience. It does not act in the interest of any particular goal or moral compass. It is a machine, and it is only capable of whatever level of sense, conscience, or morality possessed by those who are at the controls. There are plenty of other potential extralegal uses for the data being gathered, such as the hypothetical scenario that I described earlier. If I could dream that up in two minutes imagine what the entirety of the business world, including organized crime, could come up with. The only thing preventing that from happening is the hope that the agent who is offered the payoff is happy enough with his current salary that he can turn down such a massive amount, or that he is morally incorruptible. I would not bet the fate of a nation on either of those being true for any given individual. An FBI agent would have a much more difficult time performing such a service on the side because of the oversight that exists over what the FBI does, and such oversight is lacking at the NSA. I'm not arguing that the whole Prism program should be dismantled, but at the very least it needs something akin to the FISA court to prevent abuse.

@Lord Garon: Your refusal to compromise or vote for the "lesser evil" is something that I personally identify with as well. Several conservative friends of mine were angry at my refusal to support Romney in the last election, and even cast blame at me for Obama's election due to their assessment that refusing to vote for one candidate is equivalent to voting for his opponent. I simply refuse to budge on this, and will never vote for someone whom I consider corrupt just because it is considered a vote against someone else who is also corrupt. I insist on voting for people, not against them. What a wacky fringe idea!

Why register with a party if you do not support any of its members? If I were you (or anyone else) I would concern myself with identifying the actual cause of those problems rather than placing the blame on an a political movement that does not have social politics on its agenda. The tea party does not control your state's government. It is simply not possible, through gerrymandering or otherwise, for such a situation to exist. Gerrymandering alone cannot produce a super majority in the legislature, so again I would wonder what circumstances actually led to that situation. I would not concern myself with feeling "welcomed" in any particular party, but would support candidates who express ideals that correlate with my own beliefs, needs and desires. I would reject the opinions of both Republicans and Democrats with regards to each other because such opinions are bound to be loaded with politically expedient lies. I wouldn't even need to be you to do any of these things. I do all of them. This is a much more valid point, and one that I agree with completely. The problem is not Republican gerrymandering (although they have been doing a better job of it lately) but the fact that it is even possible to do in the first place. Regarding your point about ethnic disenfranchisement : At this point there is little to no chance that a person would be denied the right to vote, or run for office, based on their race. Drawing districts along racial lines actually encourages underrepresentation among minority voters by encouraging people to vote based on antiquated racial allegiances rather than their political or moral beliefs.

That is the current map of the 4th District of Illinois. I don't know why you are still talking about the 60's. That district map was used in 2012. It does not get any more current than that. Also, I am confused as to why you would need to stop voting Democrat, given that you asserted your lifelong allegiance to the Republicans earlier in this thread. Honestly!

I'll say it again...... THEY STILL DO THIS TODAY. THEY CONSISTENTLY DRAW THEIR DISTRICTS ACCORDING TO THE RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE AREAS IN QUESTION. IT IS NOT A RELIC FROM THE 60's. IT IS A CURRENTLY UTILIZED TACTIC. http://hhallgrimur.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/gerrymandering41.jpg

Like I said, they still commonly draw their districts along racial lines. It is essentially the same practice as it was in the 60's, just reversed. I don't think it is right for people to be grouped according to their perceived race in that way, but the Dems see no problem with this. It perpetuates racial division in our society.

I thought the example that I provided of Democrat gerrymandering specifically to disenfranchise non-white voters in response to thevoting rights act was a pretty solid example. In fact, I would argue that it was a far more offensive and unforgivable tactic than anything the Republicans have ever done. To this day they consistently gerrymander along ethnic lines, which I consider a racist and divisive tactic.

@colourwheel: So now you think we should be critical of it? Earlier you described worrying about the spying as "paranoia". You are being very inconsistent.

So, if I understand you correctly, you think that it is wrong but that we should not worry about it or speak out against it? We should silently condone something that is wrong?

Gerrymandering has existed for as long as there have been voting districts. It is a fact of political life within both parties. It is a part of our government process, and it is juvenile to pretend that it is wicked simply because it does not always operate in your favor. The implication that gerrymandering is primarily a Republican act is extremely fallacious. For every example of Republican gerrymandering there is an equal and opposite example of Democratic gerrymandering. The Democrats perfected gerrymandering in 1960's in an effort to disenfranchise non-white voters. Besides, I thought you were a registered Republican? Shouldn't Republican gerrymandering please you, given your stated life-long dedication to the party?

I wouldn't quite consider Obama to be a dictator but domestic spying on citizens, politicians, academics, and activists is one of the hallmarks of fascism. The issuance and execution of an arrest warrant is arguably a step in the prosecution of the law. To describe a court that controls surveillance of citizens as "just a name" and imply that it lacks real power is absurd. The FISA court, which in itself is not an entirely bad thing, has no oversight with regard to the NSA spying. In fact, there is no court or higher authority of any kind that oversees the NSA domestic spying, which is unprecidented in our history. It has effectively become extra-governmental agency. Here is another relevant quote from Russ Tice: "As a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) officer it is continually drilled into us that the very first law chiseled in the SIGINT equivalent of the Ten Commandments (USSID-18) is that Thou shall not spy on American persons without a court order from FISA. This law is continually drilled into each NSA intelligence officer throughout his or her career. The very people that lead the National Security Agency have violated this holy edict of SIGINT." @colourwheel: Have you always been so supportive of domestic surveillance? Did you support domestic spying back in 2005 when Room 641A was all over the news? When the administration at that time was being rightly criticized for it did you speak up in favor of that president's administration, or speak against the allegations of dictatorship that were leveled against him?

Are you suggesting that the link is obvious enough that it does not require any rhetorical support? Is it true simply because you believe it to be true? All I asked was that you provide some proof to support your claim that there is a link between the tea party movement and the social agendas that you are describing. You have not done this, because it cannot be done. The tea party is not about social politics. This does not mean that anyone associated with the tea party lacks concern opinion about social issues. A person can be sympathetic to the tea party ideals and still hold various opinions about social issues, but there is no intrinsic link between tea party ideals and social issues. Correlation does not equate to causation. Please explain how a person is "put into power" by the tea party movement. Is it perhaps by **gasp** public elections? Oh, such horror! Bachmann is a fine example of an absurdly inept politician who managed to associate herself with the tea party despite a complete lack of understanding or sympathy for the principles of the movement. Once again you are confusing the actual populist movement with the political brand that is self-applied by weasely congresspeople. You are accepting and regurgitating the deceptive revision of truth that is being fed to you by Republicans, Democrats, and mainstream media alike.

You did not establish a link between any of those examples and the tea party movement.

The problem with this is the label of "known terrorist". The Patriot Act broadly expanded the definition of "terrorism" to the point that nearly any person can be labeled as a terrorist if law enforcement is feeling creative enough. For example, racketeering and drug crime are considered terrorism according to the law. This does not mean that every racketeer or drug dealer is prosecuted as a terrorist, but it means that they could be if a prosecutor was feeling ambitious enough to go for it. The ACLU said this in 2002: "Section 802 does not create a new crime of domestic terrorism. However, it does expand the type of conduct that the government can investigate when it is investigating "terrorism." The USA PATRIOT Act expanded governmental powers to investigate terrorism, and some of these powers are applicable to domestic terrorism. The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism." Since they released that statement the anti-terror powers have only expanded. To say that Ryan is a "known terrorist" could mean anything from political activist to drug dealer. A fair enough point, but the problem again is that there is a lack of oversight or procedure involved in the NSA's domestic spying. For example, if the FBI wants to conduct secret surveillance they must go through the FISA court. It happens behind closed doors and is all very secret, but there is at least some oversight that acts as a check against abuse. The FISA court has basically rubber stamped every request for surveillance, and the proceedings are secret in every way, but should something go wrong or some abuse occur the FISA court is accountable for the authorization. An FBI agent who wants to surveill someone for personal or profiteering reasons would have to justify that request to the court. If an NSA agent with a sufficient level of access wants to do the same there is no check against that abuse. The spying on politicians has not exactly been proven, but Russ Tice is an accomplished and credible source of the claim. He says that he specifically was told to target President Obama for surveillance back when he was still a Senator, as well as an unnamed supreme court judge. He also claims that law firms were targeted. This means that they could have listened in on confidential conversations between the criminally accused and their attorneys, and there is no check in place that prevents this information from being passed over to the Justice department. This effectively eliminates the attorney-client privilege of confidential communications. This is an argumentum ad passiones logical fallacy. If my family members are saved by domestic spying it does not mean that they would not have been saved had the spying agency been required to follow an oversight procedure while collecting the data. I'm not arguing that the NSA should not collect the data, but rather that there should be some form of legal check against the power that comes with the ability to collect the data.

Can you provide an example of a state where this has happened? Truthfully, you should be able to give at least a dozen or so examples given that your claim is that it has happened in "almost every totally republican controlled state". The tea party, like any populist movement, has at this point gained enough attention that politicians who do not really adhere to the core philosophy are associating themselves with it. Government intrusion into any medical procedure would be in absolute opposition to the core values that the tea party represents. Referring to this as a part of the tea party platform is like saying that the Russian gulag was an inherent and essential principle of Marxism, when most scholars agree that the Soviet Union was not a true Marxist state despite claiming to be. This is true, and the tea party movement began as a response to this. You are looking at it backwards. The tea party did not force the Republicans to adopt a backwards social agenda. Rather, the tea party movement, which was perceived as a threat to the Republican/Democrat hegemony has been co opted and subverted by the Republicans. At this point people attach themselves to the phrase "tea party" in order to gain votes, despite holding positions that are oppositional to the movement's core philosophy.