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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate The 2nd Term of the Obama Administration: Facts, Opinions, and Discussions

Discussion in 'Community' started by Ghost, Dec 6, 2012.

  1. Aytee-Aytee

    Aytee-Aytee Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2008
    The human body is not an automobile.
     
  2. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
  3. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    All this talk about the NSA data collecting is pretty interesting to me. As a commenter at Mother Jones said, we wanted this (collectively speaking). We wanted to be sure that no more scary people did anything bad. In short, we wanted to trade privacy to have a chance at preventing something that is profoundly unlikely to happen to a given person.

    I've always assumed that what's been revealed this week has been going on for awhile now. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone that's been paying attention over the years.


    This is getting ridiculous.


    Not really. Only if you look at it out of context, some of which I alluded to above. If we want to deem it ridiculous, we as a nation need to accept that terrorist attacks will happen and we need to accept the consequences from those. I'm certainly prepared to do that, and I think the best thing to do in general is to leave other countries alone whenever possible, and to mourn people killed in terrorist attacks, and then move on from them. If we butted out of other countries' business and became a much more peaceful country, killing our citizens would become a highly toxic endeavor for anyone who tried to do it. The blowback would start going the other way.
     
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  4. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    If you'd read the links in question, you will see Congress has investigated the NSA as far back as the 70's.

    The difference now is, as the NYT editorial points out and I pointed out in a post above, the Patriot Act gives such broad and vague powers that they can now go this far and use that law as justification for it.

    It's not illegal. Again, this NSA collection and requests for Verizon phone records was obtained via a court order. So, it's legal.

    Here's one from the WashPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

    This one mentions internet companies as well.

    But say bye bye to privacy folks. Gone. Drones will soon be filling the skies and Fear. Fear will keep the local citizens in line. Fear of this battle....err...drone.
     
  5. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    We would need to completely rethink as a society how we look at the world. If we lived in a country that allowed for us to truly believe that kind of data collection was ridiculous, Fox News wouldn't be able to exist, because it would be seen for what it is by all but a few people. We would have to stop being afraid.

    I don't see that happening anytime soon.

    Edit: I'm not talking about legal vs. illegal. I'm talking about an environment that allows for it to exist in the first place, and indeed demands its existence. The country is collectively afraid of terrorism and doesn't want it to ever happen again. So, we allow for things like data collection to exist.

    Either we dispense with the fear or we just accept the loss of privacy. We can't have it both ways.
     
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  6. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    But suture is still a (rather expensive) piece of material used in repairs that costs money to produce. Why would it just be free?
     
  7. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    Oh sure I agree. The Patriot Act would still be around if people didn't believe in a trade off of privacy for more security. I just think it's tipped too far in one direction and has been really since 9/11.
     
  8. Asterix_of_Gaul

    Asterix_of_Gaul Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    They...did save lives.....somewhere around 30 people I think

    And they probably wouldn't have lost their lives if one of the response teams had been approved as back-up...(hours after the initial attack)
     
  9. Vaderize03

    Vaderize03 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 1999
    It's not corruption, it's cost-shifting to cover care for the uninsured, which is a separate issue in and of itself.

    Peace,

    V-03
     
  10. Aytee-Aytee

    Aytee-Aytee Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2008
    I'm not saying it should be free. I'm saying it should be part of the price of the actual operation, instead of being tacked on as a separate expense.
     
  11. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    But you can still ride it all night long.
     
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  12. Aytee-Aytee

    Aytee-Aytee Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2008
    =D=
     
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  13. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    The $100.00 "snot removal system" whch is a box of Kleenex...REAL.

    I'm in insurance (not health) as some of you know, and in one of our CE (continuing ed) ethics class, it was maddening when they brought up the amount of fraud and crap going on with health insurance. It makes P&C (property and casualty) look like an icon of purity. Doctors (some) charge for procedures never done, make up fake patients, etc. Complicit is others getting in on the action - sometimes claims folks.

    I'll see if I can dig up some stats before this conversation changes - don't count on it though - the data is from a class about a year ago.
     
  14. Asterix_of_Gaul

    Asterix_of_Gaul Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    Oh, nevermind
     
  15. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    There's no "reporting" to check on. What you actually mean is the wish fulfillment of a grieving family. Thirty people in total were evacuated from the facility. Are you really saying that every single person who survived did so because of this one guy? Really? No one else had anything to do with it? At all?

    Maybe you should save this big rant for something slightly more factual and less ridiculous.

    Hey. You leave her out of this.

    [face_plain]
     
  16. Asterix_of_Gaul

    Asterix_of_Gaul Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
  17. drg4

    drg4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2005
    Stop making sense, KnightWriter. What's next? Are you going to suggest we walk away from our century-long empire venture?
     
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  18. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Good sir, if this continues, you will meet me on the field of honor.
     
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  19. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001


    Century-long? Try from President Jefferson-on. We've always been empire-building, which is what made Cheney's claim to the contrary several years ago so laughable. And our government has long been used as a tool to go in and clear areas for our engines of commerce to then roll in and start cashing in.
     
  20. drg4

    drg4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2005
    I was thinking of overseas imperialism, but your point is well taken. (And I wasn't suggesting America had a time of innocence.)

    My question: Do we possess the moral courage to relinquish our role as Masters of the World? To rein in our corporate-owned government? To have a Defense Department that's concerned with national defense, rather than plunder? To live as people of a democratic republic?

    There's a lot that's good about America, but we need to remove this rot from our collective souls.
     
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  21. shinjo_jedi

    shinjo_jedi Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    I'm rather indifferent and underwhelmed regarding the entire NSA controversy and my own position is ambivalent and evolving.

    Jeffrey Toobin sheds my feelings on Snowden's actions in this article and here is a money quote:

    These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Business’s phone records, Snowden certainly knew this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don’t like. That’s what Snowden has done.
     
  22. Vaderize03

    Vaderize03 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 1999
    He had other venues available to air his grievances. I find the fact that he fled to Hong Kong interesting, to say the least.

    I do wonder, though, if he will end up eating a polonium-210 sandwich. The NSA isn't the KGB, but you never know....

    Peace,

    V-03
     
  23. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    Evolving into what? Into loving the national security state? Into whatever stupid canned remarks Obama has to say about it? *














    *the NSA approves the content of this post.
     
  24. KnightWriter

    KnightWriter Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2001
    I completely agree, shinjo. I'm indifferent at best, and I believe strongly that the NSA is merely what we the people collectively asked for. We asked for it by re-electing George W. Bush in part because of his anti-terrorism policies, and certainly there are many in politics and in the Republican base (and throughout the country in general outside that base) that would never back a President who did not seek to avenge deaths or couldn't say that we had done everything possible to prevent them.

    There's a tradeoff, and I think it's one that many people don't want to think about. As usual, people want everything while paying nothing.
     
  25. shinjo_jedi

    shinjo_jedi Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    The liberal side of me thinks it's a slippery slope into surveillance state and a breach of civil liberties, while the pragmatic side of me thinks that the concern about what they can do with the information is overblown. Truthfully, I could not care less if the government can access my emails, Facebook, phone records, and other files. But, then again, it puts us one step closer to "Big Brother" but, then again, are they using it for anything other than using algorithms to find people communicating with terrorists overseas?

    As KnightWriter said, we asked for this. Many warned that this program would result from the Patriot Act - because it authorized the government to do so - so I'm rather confused at the indignation from many who were okay with the Patriot Act on passing and now are concerned over government intrusion (obviously not you, Shane). That doesn't make it right - or wrong - but it's completely legal (which is a worrisome aspect) and I wasn't exactly shocked when I read the article because, well, I kind of expected them to be doing this ever since the Patriot Act.

    It's similar to my views on the drone debate. The liberal side of me is concerned over the potential of their use to erode our civil liberties, while the pragmatic side of me kind of shrugs at the hypothetical uses for them that I doubt they will be used for. But the liberal side of me also hates the slippery slope into using them for those reasons.

    So, yeah, I'm neither here nor there on this debate.