Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Sgt PSN]

How do you know it's working?  They won't tell us anything.  Simply because the terrorists haven't been spectacularly successful too often since 9/11?  How often were they successful before then?  Was it working then?

I'm not convinced it's working, or that it couldn't be done another way.  Secret laws, secret courts, secret prisons, secret domestic spying programs, secret rules by which we are assured it's legal to kill American citizens...unacceptable. 

Jesus farging Allah, I wish for the life of me that more people would think like this when it comes to illegal data mining.  How the hell this simple of a concept gets overlooked by so many people is astonishing.

[ice grillin you]

im fine with the nsa programs as constituted.....much ado about nothing imo

torture and cia black sites are much more sinister

[phattymatty]

i think the only reason i'm not totally up in arms is because i've just always assumed this has been possible since technology has been what it is. seems like common sense to me to just assume that someone is always listening to you. nothing i do is compromising national security but i've been using code words in texts and emails since college.

[rjs246]

How do you know it's working?  They won't tell us anything.  Simply because the terrorists haven't been spectacularly successful too often since 9/11?  How often were they successful before then?  Was it working then?

I'm not convinced it's working, or that it couldn't be done another way.  Secret laws, secret courts, secret prisons, secret domestic spying programs, secret rules by which we are assured it's legal to kill American citizens...unacceptable.

farging amen. What Rome is essentially saying is that the ends justify the means, which is horseshtein because there's absolutely no way for anyone to know what 'the ends' are in this case. How do you measure terrorist attacks that didn't happen? Do you measure it against the number of terrorist attacks before 9/11? Or since 9/11? Or just the number of attacks that actually happened ON 9/11, because that seems to be how everyone measures it. What? No planes rammed into the Pentagon today? Means justified! What we do know is that our privacy is significantly more infringed upon now than it was before 9/11 and that instead of looking at our own policies and how they impact our relationships with the world, we said "We'll change nothing and start spying on everyone." It's lazy and arrogant and fargs with one of our most important principles.

Also, Legendz is 100% correct about our foreign policy. There is no dissenting voice right now other than Ron Paul, which is depressing. I've said it before, if we're going to fight an endless 'war on terror' I'd rather we use drones than risk actual human soldiers, but that shtein is still totally illegal and is only serving to further anger the people in the areas we're targeting. It's shtein like this that gave birth to wide-spread hatred of our country and spawned whatever miniscule threat there is to our livelihood.

[ice grillin you]

i think the only reason i'm not totally up in arms is because i've just always assumed this has been possible since technology has been what it is.

exactly....its hard to get mad at something everyone knew was and will always be in effect in this and future ages....that being said i understand the concern of people who are always worried about bounds being overstepped because thats undoubedtly going to happen at some point as well....just gotta find that happy middle ground

torturing humans to me is a million times worse than going thru databanks of random anonymous phone calls to look for something suspicious that then requires a court order...to me the court is the more important factor here....are we going to have fiza judges that will actually have the balls (or bear trap) to say no to the govt "you need more than this"

[Sgt PSN]

Judge Phelan would....as long as he's not up for (re)election.

[ice grillin you]

i absolve you of all your sins jimmy

you are my sin

[Eagles_Legendz]

The point isn't that the left and right are the exact same with foreign policy, but rather that no one represents what I want.  It's right wing versus center-right.  I'm not advocating for a Ron Paul style isolationism, but I would prefer limiting the powers of gov't when it comes to security at least somewhat.

I may not be fearful of how Obama is going to use the NDAA but I sure as shtein would be if someone like Cheney was in office.  Similarly, I don't need a crazy hawk with the precedent that he can farging blow someone up with a drone whenever he wants as president.  The drone program as it's current constituted is illegal, period. 

Democrats/Obama taking center-right stances on all these things puts the beginning of the debate starting point laughably to the right.   How about a viable left wing contrast which points out for every drone that we use to take out an AQ member, we're breeding 5 more when we blow up a building with civilians in it.

It's like the gun debate.  Repubs have pushed the starting point so far to the right that any "compromise" is so far beyond where it should be.  It's the exact same way with national security, the 4th amendment, and drones now.  I'd like the democrats to actually /contrast/ ridiculous republican policies rather than being a watered down slightly less offensive version of them.

[Rome]

I wasn't trolling but more trying to spur debate.

The idea of the govt spying on me is awful but I'm not sure it matters.  They always have and always will.  I screamed about it 10 years ago when the patriot act passed and no one cared.  Honestly my life hasn't changed because someone may or may not have peeked at my Gmail account.

[Munson]

Phatty more or less said what I feel. As much as it pisses me off, at the same time I'm so "meh" about it because it was something I assumed was going on since before I was even old enough to understand it was illegal.

[Diomedes]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/3-former-nsa-employees-praise-edward-snowden-corroborate-key-claims/276964/

Asked what Edward Snowden should expect to happen to him, one of the men, William Binney, answered, "first tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed." Interesting that this is what a whistleblower thinks the U.S. government will do to a citizen. The abuse of Bradley Manning worked.

[Rome]

The guy is a criminal.  I agree with what he did but he's absolutely a traitor who released classified & top secret information to advance his own agenda.  If he was a foreign citizen, (read: spy) I wonder what the reaction would have been from the left and right?  Probably chest-thumping on both sides with some finger pointing thrown in. 

[Diomedes]

A criminal, clearly.  A traitor...not so clear.

I'm surprised to be disagreeing with you on this Rome.

[Rome]

You're not, really.  I agree with his stance and maybe traitor is the wrong word.  He's a dissident, actually.

[ice grillin you]

wow michael hastings died in a car accident