
Almost enough to make me want to go to RSA
If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. And since nothing can be hidden from the NSA, we must all be perfect!!
Comedian Stephen Colbert closed down the RSA 2014 conference in San Francisco on Friday with a characteristically smart yet snarky roasting for his hosts, the NSA, and Edward Snowden. "RSA developed this conference in 1991 as a forum for cryptographers to gather and talk shop, and I assume breed with one another. Of course …
More a case that we don't get the references that everybody with an education would have understood at the time.
For instance, Gargantua et Pantagruel is actually a very funny and satirical book, but unless you know rather a lot about the 16th century in Europe, you won't see the point of almost any of it.
Another example is that people often joke about Macaulays "As every schoolboy knows " remark. But it was in a magazine, and it was referring to an event which was about as famous then as, say, the crisis in the Ukraine is now. Context is everything.
While this is true, but why did he have to so thinly veil, or remove the veil, from his barbs in the first place?
Think on it. If nobody at the NSA could think to themselves"hey, what we're doing is a bit dodgy", then they obviously lack the brain power to understand the obfuscated humour and logic of a good bard.
it does take immense balls to skewer ones' hosts like he does (case in point, Bush at the White House Press dinner a couple years back).
Yup - there will be few who can claim to have the cojones to do that. Especially since they were still happily shipping people to Gitmo in those days AFAIK..
"it does take immense balls to skewer ones' hosts like he does (case in point, Bush at the White House Press dinner a couple years back)."
Not exactly.
The President is the guest of the White House Press Corp at those things.
Obama I think handled his rather well.
But he also seems to have a sense of humour.
Always trying to run the fine line of "it's not fascism when my progressive president does it".
The guy's practically a war criminal - I don't understand how they could put him up for the same prize they once gave to Henry Kissinger
or his rather more endearing darling Obama for that matter.
"Trust me, that was funny."
Snort. It's only funny when you are less than 15 and haven't ever heard of Monty Python's Kissinger song. I have probably more books mentioning Kissinger on my immediate right than you have books on programming on C++.
I couldn't care less about Kissinger at this point in time. Taking out old skeletons to cover up the present? Standard progressive debating tactic.
What concerns me currently is the other war criminal (also an economic nincompoop and a political know-nothing relative to Kissinger) with a peace prize. He's currently droning from the White House.
Or, to KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE
Five years later, Obama’s commandants need a rewrite. Here’s what they should now look like and, barring surprises in the next three years, these, as written, will both be the virtual law of the land and constitute the Obama legacy.
- Thou shalt not torture (but thou shalt leave the door open to the future use of torture).
- Thou shalt detain forever.
- Thou shalt live by limitless secrecy.
- Thou shalt wage war everywhere and forever.
- Thou shalt not punish those who have done bad things in the name of the national security state.
You really need to actually read those books that mention Kissinger. If you don't learn from history, the only alternative educational system is hard knocks. Since possibly Nixon or Kennedy at least, there has been ample historical evidence that the president has come to be more and more the target for political darts, a scape goat, and has effectively nothing to do with running the country. The candidate runs for office, wins and then is informed in a secret briefing, "you are now owned." If you think about the campaign of John McCain, it seems pretty clear that he chose Palin as a running mate not because she was female, but because she was a lunatic and would guarantee he lost. A friend had come by and whispered truth about being president and he responded, "no thanks." The US government, like the UK's, consists of political mayflies who come and go, and career bureaucrats who aren't responsible to anyone. Complaining about the "promises" this president didn't keep is a waste unless you are willing to complain about the promises every president since Kennedy failed to keep.
Obama’s commandants need a rewrite?
- The torture was under Bush
- Congress blocked closing Gitmo
- You got the secrecy part right
- Obama pulled the troops out of both countries with only a token remaining force until handover
- Crimes in the name of national security weren't invented yesterday.
Knee jerk much?
One of the sad realities of the US these days is that the educational system really has failed. It persists in (mistakenly) encouraging every one passing through that their opinion is legitimate. I'm fairly sure this approach is behind the statistical rise in autism in the country. Psychological tests simply aren't sophisticated enough to differentiate between the actual condition and mindless self-centered egotism, but psychologists are certain their confidence in their tests is legitimate. The schools also fail to teach students to identify irony when they read, hear or see it.
"As for the NSA, he said that the agency showed that if you gave an organization unlimited budgets and no oversight the results were always fantastic. The NSA had built up an incredibly powerful and sophisticated organization that could be completely pwned by a 29-year old with a thumb drive."
I liked that bit.
Of course, we specialise in giving covert organisations effectively unlimited budgets with little oversight in the UK, but they seem better at not getting pwned.
The tramp: you always get a whole seat on the bus if you don't wash
"but they seem better at not getting pwned."
You're kidding, right?
The MIs were practically subsidiaries of the KGB throughout the Cold War and there's absolutely nothing to suggest they're any less thoroughly infiltrated by foreign sympathizers now. Russians, Chinese, Iranians, etc. don't need a UK Snowden because they're already have a better FOI fulfillment rate than the UK public does.
Still, better to be like the UK with a few bad apples in the intelligence agency than what we see here in Canada. Reams of files passed to the Soviets during the cold war? Entrusted to a Hell's Angels groupie in the '08? Having a fling with a Chinese spy in '10? Must be someone in Cabinet.
So presumably in the 80s, Mujaheddin would sidle upto young Cambridge homosexuals at sherry parties and persuade them to join the cause. These bright young things then rose to the heights of director of the intelligence agencies while keeping their commitment to revolutionary Islam, and their beards, secret.
Rather like the dyslexic Oxbrige don who secretly recruited students to join MFI
"he'd also disclosed how much the US was spying on the rest of the world"
Er, no, he hadn't. The rest of the world already knew that the NSA had a mid-blowing budget, legal powers to secretly compel US companies to provide unlimited access to customer data, *most* of the world's computing power (by any measure) and was tasked with hoovering up as much as they could about the rest of the world. So what kind of idiot would you have to be to have been surprised by the "revelation" that they were doing it.
Sorry, but the only bit that surprised the rest of the world was the bit where apparently the NSA regards their fellow Americans as "the enemy" as well as the rest of the human race.
> Waco, Ruby Ridge, and ESPECIALLY Oklahoma City
The US collectively pretends there is no domestic right-wing terrorism, to avoid encouraging copycats. Acts of domestic terrorism by rightwingers are fairly common in the US, but never ever reported as such, usually no mention of motive is given at all. E.g. this guy is a libertarian/conspiracy theorist who'd overdosed on Prisonplanet propaganda, but search as you might you'll never find that mentioned in mainstream media. This guy was much the same, and even though he left notes explaining the political motives for his attack you will not find this attack referred to as a terror attack.
Not clear what the point is here, unless it is that the authorities don't do enough spying to catch the presumed right wing terrorists.
On the other hand, although bombing the Oklahoma City FOB certainly was a terrorist action but both the Ruby Ridge and Waco events were badlyh botched actions by the FBI and ATF, respectively. They might have thought the targets were terrorists, but the real terror came from the government. Note that the NSA was not involved in any of them.
But they WERE perpetrated by anti-government radicals: the kind who would prefer to declare their patch of land sovereign territory outside the US's jurisdiction. BECAUSE they were anti-government, they defied the feds and basically made a stand. NO government likes that kind of attitude, so they responded. While no Oklahoma City, they DO represent the kind of domestic radical that can give rise to events like Oklahoma city. They're enemies WITHIN, meaning the government HAS to keep watch for them, if not for their own sake then to avoid having to explain things to survivors when the next big one comes from a domestic rather than foreign terrorist. And given how things are progressing, there may come a day (sooner rather than later) when one man can ruin an entire government with one attack.
> the only bit that surprised the rest of the world was the bit where apparently the NSA regards their fellow Americans as "the enemy"
And ironically that is also the only bit americans care about. Anyone who thinks any of the proposed changes will have any effect for anyone who is not that most exalted of beings, a ~: US CITIZEN :~, is sorely mistaken.
Then again, everyone, and especially brits, should be clear about that they are still far more at risk from being spied upon by their own government, than by the NSA.
Ignoring the obvious, he should invest in cigarettes, booze, and toilet paper (tools of the trade being a truckload of 0.22 (or maybe 5.56) with projectors of your choice).
Sheep and tradeable women are perishable, the latter having a mind of their own which is inconvenient; additionally in the short term the former are more edible for most people. That just leaves baser uses but even then you could just turn off the lights... .