Forum Post: 5 articles from the last 24 hours that EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ
Posted 11 years ago on June 6, 2013, 9:49 p.m. EST by therising
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5 ARTICLES YOU SHOULD READ as an American citizen (please share this post with others if you are so inclined):
BREAKING from Wall St. Journal: NSA's monitoring includes all AT&T and Sprint customers, and their email records and web searches http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887324299104578529112289298922?mg=reno64-wsj (The video at top of article interestingly points out that this intrusion into millions of Americans lives won't even help catch terrorists because fortunately there aren't enough terrorists to develop patterns. This NSA program is about something else entirely: maintaining power by spying on citizens.
Washington Post Breaking News - The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates http://m.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
New York Times: Even the author of the Patriot Act thinks the NSA overstepped its bounds intruding on the privacy of millions of Americans. This piece nails it. New York Times says our president has lost all credibility on this issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?hp&_r=0
Washington Post - NSA gets phone records Each Day on all Americans Using Verizon -- http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/05/nsa-asked-verizon-for-records-of-all-calls-in-the-u-s/
New York Times: "The reports came as President Obama was traveling to meet President Xi Jinping of China at an estate in Southern California, a meeting intended to address among other things complaints about Chinese cyberattacks and spying. Now that conversation will take place amid discussion of America’s own vast surveillance operations on its own citizens." Full article http://nyti.ms/19LxW8u (note: the New York Times changed its language in article this morning and dropped the phrase "on its own citizens".
It's funny how Americans point the finger at other nations for their human rights violations. This is a human rights violation. Privacy is a human right.
The American Government is Hypocritical and many of our fellow citizens can not accept that FACT - No - they would rather live in denial.
The great blinders of nationalism. Time to look past them and see the nation for what it is becoming and start working toward improving it. It's not too late, yet.
Absolutely. Time to take the bitter pill of reality and get straight to work.
Well said, and, before it's too late.
Maybe the rising anger over the invasion of privacy will be the item that gets people involved. Civil liberty cases are starting to be filed to sue over this.
The invasion of our privacy is beyond the pale. We may as well say we have a fascist government.
It really is heading in that direction - or a communist government as they resemble the old USSR more and more each day - what with the repression and suppression of the populace and the wealth of the country being hoarded by the few - with moves made against public protest - We are definitely not living in the USA any longer.
So true. The New York Times line here is priceless: "The reports came as President Obama was traveling to meet President Xi Jinping of China at an estate in Southern California, a meeting intended to address among other things complaints about Chinese cyberattacks and spying. Now that conversation will take place amid discussion of America’s own vast surveillance operations on its own citizens." Full article http://nyti.ms/19LxW8u (note: the New York Times changed its language in article this morning and dropped the phrase "on its own citizens".
It's out now and there is no going back. They can change the language all they want. What a joke.
You are so right. Time for the people to rise!!!
Voyeurism is also a secret pleasure enjoyed by the intellectual elites in the N.S.A. Take a deep breath, spread your legs, and repeat after me, "I have nothing to hide!"
Similar to the rapes by the military. Point the finger at other nations where this is a problem, and hide it at home. We are just as bad. We are not above other nations. We may spend more money but that is about all we have over them at this point, and that's nothing to be proud of.
Yes, you've got it right! China's money is what made us 'superior' to other nations. Renminbi - ride to the rescue! Digitization has got a new meaning. Transparency also has a different interpretation from the pre-election days.
We are neither morally, nor fiscally superior.
We are not superior but we in the U.S. had been indoctrinated so much that we honestly believe so (it applies to the populace of many other nations, too, because we all live in the drum of the powers that be). There is that American exceptionalism that some call arrogance.
I do not question the value of our ideals but we as a nation have strayed very far away from them so the quest to renew may seem like a quest to return. It is really to return to our point of origin and see it for the first time under the light of the historical perspective of our national experience.
I would agree that history has the answers. Now, if only we learned our own history properly....
We can learn from others' history, too. Germany, for example, put a much heavier emphasis on privacy so our recent revelations about N.S.A./F.B.I./social-media/internet-company/telephone-company spying would not have happened there. Germany also frowns upon our Federal Reserve's extremely loose monetary policies.
Germany learned these lessons very hard from its experience with its Nazi past and the hyperinflation of its Weimar Republic. The Nazis had their Jews so the U.S. government has its al-Qaeda affiliates and gasp, the American "Bantus." We try to print our way out of our economic difficulties. Will we succeed?
Japan censored their history textbooks and kept on raising generations of youngsters who seem to be very ignorant of the crimes committed by their forebears. Some have even risen to positions of power and recommended prostitution to relieve sexual tensions of our troops stationed at Guam. Those who kept on hiding the past are likelier to have to learn the lessons the hard way.
One of the biggest problems with our education system is it's failure to teach world history well. Having a grasp of the past makes the present and future easier to manage as decision making is based on something concrete not just fear.
Ben Bernanke, being a scholar of our own Great Depression and knowing our history, is extremely fearful of going into a deep and enduring recession, ergo the extremely loose monetary policies. The bogeyman was the decades of non-growth experienced by the Japanese economy.
The Japanese had interlocked banking companies with government connections so the incurred financial losses could be kept from being realized but they are still there anyway. Its zero-interest policy was kept so long that Japanese housewives (yes, woman power in the macho land of the rising sun! ironic, isn't it?) got so sick and tired of it that they took matter into their own hands in the yen-carry-trade to render Japan's central bank eunuch. It is a lesson that Ben Bernanke needs to learn.
New York Times: The reports came as President Obama was traveling to meet President Xi Jinping of China at an estate in Southern California, a meeting intended to address among other things complaints about Chinese cyberattacks and spying. Now that conversation will take place amid discussion of America’s own vast surveillance operations on its own citizens. Full article http://nyti.ms/19LxW8u
Funny how this comes up - Now - when the gov is making moves on internet privacy.
Yeah - it's just so strange.
It's like they are not even trying to hide their intent anymore - throw a dart whats our lame excuse to the public gonna be this time.
I agree.
When one stops caring about their work - it is not long after that they lose their job. Hhmmmmmm - they should have taken note of Rome as well as all of the fallen governments throughout history.
So true!! Such arrogance. How do you think leaders become so deluded?
Living detached from reality - the reality that there "are" others in this world and they have needs also. That people are not background extras in their movie.
Fer sure man.
Movie extras get free lunch.......................:)
No craft service from those bastards - they are attacking food stamps now - taking away food from people they helped to put on the street.
Don't you know?
They "chose" to be poor.
Just like the Koch's and Walton's, chose to be born rich.
Ahhh - yep - poor choice - what a crock - Hey?
Perpetual war means the focus is no longer on providing opportunity for the people, its about grasping for control as it slips from their grip.
Like jelly, the harder the grip, the more they lose.
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=6660
I'm a fan of this one
http://www.businessinsider.com/huffington-post-george-w-obama-front-page-2013-6
Not sure why you got stinkled...that pic is priceless!
What puzzles me is why is this just becoming news now? Nova did a story on NSA "The Spy Factory" in 2009. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html
I am worried these deliberate leaks are meant to distract us from something else....Benghazi was getting too hot, which is all connected to the total fucking mess in the middle east, Syria. Can't just be be over the criminal Immigration Bill that has come out of Senate Committee?
I also think about the timing of U.S. meeting with China: Days before that meeting in California, the world (and China) learn two things:
U.S. watching every phone call, email and web search
Per President Obama's order to military, U.S. is preparing a list of targets for potential cyber war http://occupywallst.org/forum/obama-to-military-prepare-targets-for-potential-cy/
Was the point to shift the ground a bit before that meeting? Was there something that occurred at that meeting that would not have if those two things above weren't known worldwide?