Edward Snowden was a BOB

[Despanan]

[Phantomgrift]

No Desp, you don't.
Learning about the history of Intel is a required part of our job.

What you do "know" is to continually reference items that happened 30, 40 or 50 years ago and hold it up as a screaming mirror of the future.
Ala: "SEE! IT HAPPENED ONCE! IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN!"

Welcome to human history.
Again though, it has been conclusively proven on these boards that it doesn't matter what I say, you will remain convinced that you either know more, or know enough to dismiss me because it doesn't fit with your fatalistic view of Capitalism and the State.

No, Manning and Snowden don't know how to keep a secret.
Manning was an emotional wreck that should have never had access in the first place, and Snowden is a manipulative liar who in all likelihood, planned this from the get-go.

At this point, it's okay.
You and Dex can go join the others at the "Above Top Secret" forums, and rabbit on about how the government is watching you poop, all the time, every time.

You? You I can understand. You fit the long-haired, anti-establishment hippie vibe that caters to this.
Dex? Dex is more amusing with his facebook profile of "Here's my new suit, me in my house, the All-American stuff I have going for me" before segueing into "ERMERGERD! THE GOVERNMENT SUCKS AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!"

Face it. We'll never convince each other of anything, and continually be secure in the knowledge that we're right and the other guy's wrong.
To claim otherwise means you're either naive or lying to yourself.

[Rip]

[dexeron]

[Despanan]

[Phantomgrift]

Then at this point, sure, you deserve to be spied on because you're a anti-American idiot.

As I've already pointed out, you will dismiss anything I say. At the same time, you will never be able to see this from the perspective I have per my job.
Some people and groups straight up deserve to be spied on. Is that the line you've been waiting for me to say, you godless Commie, you?

And sorry Rip, the meds reduce my serotonin levels and really help curb that whole "sociopath" thing.

[Despanan]

[Despanan]

[Phantomgrift]

Sure, I'm an authoritarian, but I also have this nifty set of guidelines to factor who we "spy" on.
It's not just a willy-nilly, lets-dial-in-this-neighborhood-for-shits-and-giggles.

You're anti-authoritarian. As such, you view almost any and all authority with this overt level of paranoid suspicion. In the same way I view most people as inherent morons driven by base instinct that are hard-pressed to overcome their general primal brain, you view any and all authority through this "V-For-Vendetta-The-Man-Is-Corrupt-And-Out-To-Get-Me" lens.

Maybe this is where some of the disconnect comes from.
The fact that due to my job and the nature of my job, I know just how difficult it is to obtain certain things, and how many legal loopholes we have to jump through in order to pursue certain avenues. When you start eye-balling the entire Intel community as this entity that can just do whatever they want, you start veering towards levels of assumption that approach paranoid conspiracy theory.

And I'm not just a "grunt". A lot of what I work with is directly tied to satellite imagery and imagery in general. It's pretty fascinating shit. But there are a lot of regulations and guidelines in place to determine what we can do. And maybe that's why I find your outlook on the government so amusing.

In the same way that commercial satellites used by companies like Google are getting better and better, the American populace dumps a massive amount of their own personal information directly into company databases like there's no tomorrow. And most of them havent the faintest notion they're doing it. Who actually takes time to read the terms of agreement before firing up a new software install.

But the government does it in pursuit of active defense as opposed to the almighty dollar, and guys like you lose your shit, convinced that we're one step away from Big Brother cameras and secret police squirreling you away in the night.

Nor is it all my tendency towards viewing it in a "pollyanna" light. Desp has hawked that term so much, I don't think he's really constructed anything else to go with it, leaving it as little more than basic name-calling.

I have my view points simply because I have a greater perspective on some of these things because I work directly with them.
You?
You get your info from historical news accounts, and sensationalized media that may or may not come complete with it's own biased slant.

Though I agree with you on this much... The Department Of Homeland Community is viewed as a giant joke amongst me and a great number of my peers.

[Rip]

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/28/206231873 ... -or-europe