CIA To Monitor Internet Chatter For Anti-Government Sentiment (drug, Clinton, Kennedy)

[groar]

Originally Posted by momonkey

Here's where you lost me.

"Recent scientific polls that show around 84% don't believe the government's explanation behind 9/11..."


Take your medication and lay down until the voices stop.

alex jones is a nutjob but that doesn't mean this isn't a sinister move. and the linked source (wired news) is a legitimate one.

the cia doesn't do domestic stuff, it's true, but there's no reason the fbi won't start using the same technology at some point.

[AeroGuyDC]

Originally Posted by mikemeatball

I actually feel safer, because I get nothing to hide from CIA/FBI.

C'mon, Mike. You gotta dig deeper than that. Surely there is something in your mind that tells you that "monitoring anti-government sentiment" is inherently anti-freedom?

[ergohead]

Originally Posted by mikemeatball

Well, freedom never come without price.

Yeah, a couple of Chinese Communists told me once that living in China isn't that bad, as long as you do exactly as your told.

They said that over there, if you do exactly as you are told, you are free to do anything you want.

[DC at the Ridge]

Originally Posted by mikemeatball

Well, freedom never come without price.

But is freedom the price you're willing to pay?

The equation isn't, after all, that more security equals more freedom. The equation is that more security equals less freedom. The more secure you feel, the less freedom you enjoy. Every person is different. Some people prefer safety to freedom. Some people prefer freedom to safety. It's a balance, and the right balance for you might not be the right balance for me. This particular balance is actually an exercise in democracy, because it is the balance that meets the needs of the majority of Americans that will have to take precedence. And so the question to each of us is what is the threshold between enough security and too much?

[ovcatto]

Alex Jones!?!?!?

[delusianne]

Thanks, OP, for not one but THREE Alex Jones links, one from 2006.

Wired says,

"In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using 'open source intelligence' — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports.
***
In-Q-Tel says it wants Visible to keep track of foreign social media, and give spooks “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” spokesperson Donald Tighe tells Danger Room."

Suddenly the right wing isnt interested in monitoring foreign chatter?

[idahogie]

Were you all just as outraged when Bush started spying on Americans in violation of FISA?

What? That didn't count?

Do you remember the liberals asking you if you wanted Hillary Clinton to have that power? We knew that a precedent was being established back then, and that it would be hard to take it away from even a Democratic president.

As I recall, you were all in favor of it back then. Glad to see that you're so concerned now.

[groar]

to be fair, alex jones/prison planet was just as critical of the bush administration's real and imagined infringements on civil liberties. jones is just generally anti-government/pro conspiracy theory. even kramercat's first post implies that this is something that has been going on since before obama took office, with the reference to "change".

[irspow]

Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge

But is freedom the price you're willing to pay?

The equation isn't, after all, that more security equals more freedom. The equation is that more security equals less freedom. The more secure you feel, the less freedom you enjoy. Every person is different. Some people prefer safety to freedom. Some people prefer freedom to safety. It's a balance, and the right balance for you might not be the right balance for me. This particular balance is actually an exercise in democracy, because it is the balance that meets the needs of the majority of Americans that will have to take precedence. And so the question to each of us is what is the threshold between enough security and too much?

The only "security" that I want is that no government, group, or individual can initiate force against my freedom when I have not engaged in using force against another. Any other "security" is anti-human and anti-freedom.

[DC at the Ridge]

Originally Posted by irspow

The only "security" that I want is that no government, group, or individual can initiate force against my freedom when I have not engaged in using force against another. Any other "security" is anti-human and anti-freedom.

Thank you for defining your threshold so unequivocally. That's what we need in this discussion.

I can live with a government being more pro-active than you have described in order to minimize threats to my well-being. I'm willing to have my luggage x-rayed when I travel, for instance, or to providing identification to authorities in certain venues like when I visit Congress. I'm less willing to let the government record my phone conversations, or to police my communications with other private citizens. As I think on this, I realize that there is a factor of time in how I feel about certain restrictions. Short-term versus long-term does have weight in the way I define my threshold.