Letters to the Editor
Bill Owen
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 5
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Hello Osama? It's Agent 4321
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The really really funny thing is the idea, that any 'terrorist' anywhere, who, unlike the idiot King, is following this story would talk to anyone on a phone.
We heard a long time ago the "librul media" had tipped off Osama that the NSA was listening to his sat phone calls, and that nowadays he relies on couriers.
Now we are supposed to believe that there are terrorists who actually call the United States and discuss their plans on the phone? Does anyone believe that? Anyone?
If there is communication, it is, as I said by courier, or more likely, any number of essentially undetectable methods via the Internet. For instance a picture with steganographically encoded information could be posted on Flikr for 30 seconds at prearranged intervals. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) If the embedded data was encrypted the chances of such a message being detected and decoded in anything like a timely manner are truly astronomical.
Failing that a simple encrypted file could be sent. The bad news is that the feds still can't decrypt data encrypted at a high enough level. For those of us who still hew to medieval concepts like privacy this also the good news.
No, data mining is aimed at dissidents and political opponents, at least those of them still naive enough to believe that the Stasi disappeared with the Berlin Wall, and who still think that a phone call is private.
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I'll sum it up for King, since he is so busy
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi John
The government is spying on American citizens, without a warrant. That's illegal.
McConnell is a fascist and liar.
Got it?
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@ Aycharaych It's True
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Feds have been trying to take down the Mafia, and more recently the Angels, the Crips et al since forever.
They have failed utterly. One of the reasons has always been the inability of those on the outside to get "inside". What successes they have had have usually been through turning someone on the inside who knows that "we should talk to Tommy about that" really means Tommy is about to go for a drive with the tinted windows up. That is not happening with Al Qaida, mostly because there is no Al Qaida, but to the extent that the enemies exist, they are opaque to the inbred white bread Yale types who still pollute and populate the intelligence agencies.
I also understand that machine translation, even the advanced systems used by the NSA still work very badly, add to that the shortage of Arabic translators and it is unlikely that even a perfect record of every conversation will yield anything of real intelligence value. "They" know this of course, which brings me back to my original point. The surveillance is not there to catch "terrorists", it is there to spy on the real enemies, ie anyone who might be a threat to the oligarchy, and the permanent government (to the extent that they are separate entities). And it is there to instill fear in us all. I have friends who will tell me, "shh, don't say that on the phone". And I am not talking about my biker friends.
And as an aside I do agree with you about the drug war and the prison industrial complex. The people who are really running the show from behind the curtain employ brilliant social psychologists. One of the things they do is covert desensitization, ie they squeeze a little every day so we don't notice the loss of our liberties. A good way to do that is the drug war. We accept, almost unconsciously now, that our neighbour can be locked away for many years for growing a forbidden plant. Just as we accept the need for our employers to sample our urine. So when they come for our neighbour or our friend on the mere suspicion that he might be a terrorist, and lock him up without charge on the basis of secret evidence - we don't find that shocking at all.
If you want to read a great book on the subject check out "Prison as Industry" by Nils Christie.
2.2 million in prison in America, more than China, more than Russia, who's got the Gulag now?
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@ anon Pre-trial Detention
[Read the article: John King with Mike McConnell: Rare journalistic honesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Germany had Eichmann, Amerika has Sherrif Joe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio
Many of the schmutzig gefangen at Uncle Joe's little torture camp have only been accused of a crime.
I would posit that many of his practices rise to the level of torture. And yes Aych, a lot of them are there for drugs.
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Gore Vidal Must be a Bit Lachrymose Today
[Read the article: The "father of modern conservatism," dead at 82]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now that Buckley is gone, there is no one left in the conservative movement, who could go even 2 rounds with the old "queer" as Mr. Buckley called him once.
William F. Buckley was a piece of work, he had many bad qualities, but he was a remarkable man.
I can't wait to hear what Vidal will have to say on the subject.