-Caveat Lector-
>> >POOR, POOR General Whathisname feeling a little embarrassed at the
reception
>> his agents and his agency receive at the theater. Let's all have a pity
>> party for him okay.
>>
>> Pity that is perhaps warranted, given the penchant of Hollywood to give
>> every
>> wild conspiracy theory about the NSA the widest possible airing.
>>
>>>Oh and let's not forget to raise the old budget for the
> NSA who are, presumably, according to this article running the risk of
> falling behind. They gotta catch up to catch those "rogue nuclear powers",
> and those "sinister hackers who are just itchin' to crash global computer
> systems". Why I'm just as amazed that with such a paltry budget of
[deleted
> for NATIONAL SECURITY reasons] that they are able to do anything at all.
> And
> with only [UNKNOWN] agents they certainly can't be expected to do
everything.
>
>
>> Do you even have a sound idea of what they do?
>
>> >Wait a minute! I think I got the answer! How about this, let's have the
> good old NSA start actually using it's resources for productive National
> Security purposes and have them QUIT WASTING ALL OF OUR MONEY ON MONITORING
> ALL OF US LAW ABIDING CITIZENS WITH THEIR ECHELON AND OTHER VIOLATIONS OF
> THEIR CHARTER, FEDERAL LAW, AND THE CONSTITUTION.
>
>>Nope. You don't have a clue. But it's obvious that you only see Big Brother
> down in Fort Meade...
>
> >>Simple isn't it.
>
>>If only you were right, but I think you're not.
>
> >>I'm so stupid!
>
> >Well you said it. Why argue with that?
>
>> >There is even a better answer, how 'bout we scrap the
> hulking piece of shit instead, especially since the FBI has field offices
in
> other countries (not that there's anything wrong with that (lol)).
>
>> Ah. Of course. Don't understand what it does. Someone or other told it was
> bad. I don't believe officials who say it does good. Smash, crush, kill,
> destroy is the only answer.
>
> Perhaps if you examined some of the literature around the traps about the
> essentially foreign intelligence collection role of the NSA as opposed to
> the
> speculative and alarmist work of the all too numerous "Big Brother
watchers"
> out there, you might realise that some things are not what they seem...
>
> BD
>
>Oh I understand their role to be sure. You failed to notice that I said in
>my comments that they should perhaps concentrate on their real role of actual
>intelligence gathering for REAL national security issues.
Can you actually prove that the NSA isn't concentrating on foreign
intelligence gathering? Or at least provide some reasoning to suggest that
maybe it isn't?
>HOWEVER, that being said, perhaps I DO believe more of the "conspiracy"
oriented >views of the NSA rather than the official explanations of its
activities as given by
>themselves. I don't trust any agency that is so shrouded in secrecy AND has
>a history of violating their charter by spying on Americans.
Like all SIGINT organisations the NSA shrouds itself in secrecy so those who
it is eavesdropping on never find out because if they do discover their
communications are no longer private then they will change things making the
NSA's work that much harder. If you read the books about breaking the Enigma
code you will see that the British had to go great lengths to ensure that the
Nazis never found out that their codes had been broken. If the Nazis had
found out they would have changed the codes again and becomemore security
conscious probably extending the war as a consequence.
Your mistrust of secrecy verges on the superstitious. The "if it must be
secret it must be truly shocking & immoral" line of thought leads people into
the dark worlds of Bill Cooper & David Icke. Did it occur to you that most
secrets are actually more likely to be terribly mundane?
>The recent talk
>of collaberation with the FBI on tracking so-called "terrorism" in the US is
>another example.
>I think a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted. By the way do you believe
>all the pronouncements from Big Brother as to the necessity and value of all
>their "agencies" and plans?
No the point is that the assertion that the NSA is involved in Big Brother
like activities is based more on speculation about the alleged capabilities
of Echelon (mentioned by yourself) to intercept everyone's communications
than any hard evidence that the NSA actually is doing that.
>Are you in ignorance of the many times they have
>violated basic human rights, not to mention national and international law in
>pursuit of dubious schemes (Contra/cocaine, Iran/Contra, Iraqgate, LSD
>experimentation, etc. . .)?
I'm afraid I am .... not ignorant. But I wasn't aware that the NSA was the
nasty organisation at the heart of these specific foul deeds. I had hitherto
understood that it was certain members of National Security COUNCILs of past
administrations and elements of the CIA that were involved in those nefarious
activities. The NSA was indeed involved in domestic surveillance in the 60s
and early 70s, including being used the Joint Chiefs of Staff to spy on Nixon
and Kissinger who had a penchant for practising their diplomatic acrobatics
without telling anyone else what they were doing. Other NSA targets included
various persons deemed subversive. But if you actually did some reading you
would discover the NSA is now strictly forbidden to conduct any domestic
surveillance operations, except under special guidelines, and usually only in
pursuit of foreign intelligence targets residing in the US.
>Perhaps we shoul sit idly by and let them just do what they want since there
>is no oversight. They even deny Congress its authority and refuse to release
>information to them, or perhaps that is a matter of National Security too?
>It is only a role that the Constitution grants them.
>Rather than castigate me why not tell us all how valuable the NSA is and what
>role they serve in garnering our National Security.
Easy. The NSA intercepts foreign communications, sorts them out and provides
the info to your government, and in doing so attempts tell Washington what
foreign officials & military are saying & doing privately. Quite simple &
very useful I would think. But unless you can prove that they are not doing
what they purport to be doing, you would seem to be expressing your own
prejudices rather than any knowledge.
BD
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