Not really to unlimited power .. but examples where governments (including US) has used desinformation or sheer lies to 'motivate' and get its own people go to war are abundant. And in comparison to what the average John Doe knows and does the power concentrated in the hands of a few, with their possibilities to change the minds of their sheep, IS almost unlimited.

I do not know so much about the Bill of rights especially when it comes to changed new electronic surveillance, but is not each and every paragraph guaranteeing an abstract 'freedom' being violated by Prism, Tempora, Marina, you name it ? And not only against 'enemy' or 'allied' countries, but within.

I would not say the USA is on a way to a fascist state or that it is anyone's intention at the moment, but the technical possibilites provided and used would - in case that happened - make a swingback to normal circumstances 'difficult', to say at least.

As far as i read the NSA is really in search and open for hints regarding how they should do their work, or at least they try to present that picture. Not that England or any other country with its secret services is shy to spy out own, and foreign citizens.

I admit it is difficult -
but we would not even know about all that, without men like Manning, and Snowden.

^ What Catfish said Mr Tarjak.:)

I'm curious, why not?

After all your "country" isn't just a bunch of government politicians and employees, it is made up by your family, your neighbors, your community and the millions of your fellow citizens across the land mass known as the United States of America.

Personally I think your country deserves your loyalty.

Don't get me wrong Wolferz. I'm not saying that I don't have my own gripes or disagreements with our government, and that's on a Federal, State and local government level. What I am suggesting, is maybe this whole seemingly anti-government atmosphere has been brewing for some time now, and not always due to the government's own behavior. Maybe there's is a lot more to learn about this eavesdropping issue before we all throw in the towel, one way or the other.
Maybe, just maybe, the government isn't out to get us on this issue. Maybe there is an even more powerful force out there (corporate and business, now a worldwide entity) who knows more about the foods we eat, the clothes we wear and the places we frequent, than our own government does. But, no one raises an eyebrow to that?

Not all the facts appear to be in, and in light of this thus far, Mr. Snowden is not a hero to me. He stole. I think he saw something he didn't fully understand, assumed it was "Big Bad Brother" and stole the information for his own personal agenda, whatever that agenda may prove to be.
If there's anything I've come to learn, it's that people tend to be self-serving, first and foremost, followed by their "best of intentions".
I'm not passing judgement on either, but everyone already knows he stole the information. The facts remain to be seen on everything else.

We've got to learn their weaknesses somehow...

Oh...wait...

Forget I said anything... :shifty:

Well, Wern, I won't disagree that Mr Snowden obtained this information in an illegal fashion even though the information is damning in its content. Two wrongs don't make a right. But, it does light up the kitchen to give us a glimpse of some supremely underhanded roaches who are now scurrying for the woodwork. Pointing the finger of misdirection as they go.

After I took the oath to serve my country and defend our constitution and all the other confetti that goes with it, I take special affront to those within the halls of government who would deem themselves worthy enough to cast aside the same oath and do as they please. Sure, there's a bigger picture. The only problem is that the picture is veiled in secrecy. I really don't fear death at the hands of any perceived enemy, foreign or domestic. Giving up even one right for some false sense of security is a step toward the same tyranny we cast off so long ago. I'm not so much concerned with how it will affect me. I'm more concerned with how it will affect my children and my grand children and so on down the line...
I too am just as concerned with the corporate influence that seems to be so pervasive within our lives, our government and the world at large. Maybe that is The Beast that Revelations speaks of?
My span is short now and I won't be around much longer to rage against the machine. But I will rage against the dying of the light until I can rage no more.
Then I will return with the master and cleave evil with a sword of truth in the valley of Armageddon. Nobody gets out alive without the master's blessing.
For now, let the wicked men do as they will. I will say no more.

Personally a country deserves what it deserves depending on the issue and its actions surrounding each issue.
Its why the blanket "my country" approach is only supportable if you don't really think about it at all.


I was just surprised at the amounts Snowden revealed they are paying the UK to do their domestic spying for them.
Britain is getting a great deal there.

Well, to be fair, and no offense to the NSA and CIA, but we've been in the spying game for a very long time, and been countering attacks on our country for a lot longer too, so our infrastructure for intelligence gathering is likely to be a bit further reaching. I am surprised that our elint is what's being sought after though, traditionally we've been more humint than elint, that's usually been the US's job, but I guess we've been working on elint on the quiet too. :yep:

Not on the quiet really. Mark Thomas done a piece on the growth and the scope of it about 20 years ago. Now it has a bigger staff and bigger budget than all the other intelligence services combined.

Normally I would probably be on the side that is mad at the government for doing what its been doing, but that was until I read a book called "Operation Dark Heart". It was written by a former intelligence officer he wasnt CIA he was army intel/ another agency I wanna say DIA something like that. Anyway during the book he talked about a time when JSOC/SOCOM were focusing more on terrorism an this was pre 9/11 an they had come up with a data mining program, an guess who they found using some of the same programs being discussed??? Mohammed Otta an the rest of the 9/11 terrorists, but government lawyers wouldnt allow any type of investigation into them since they werent american citizens an some other reasons I cant remember. So these lawyers pretty much said forget about them period, they didnt have any info about 9/11 but if they would of been allowed to investigate these guys you can bet that 9/11 would of been avoided. So if these programs can help stop terrorists from trying to pull something like a 9/11 again I'm good with it, plus I dont have anything to worry about. An from what I've seen growing up if terrorists did attack the country again probably half of America would be angry at the government for not using these same programs to catch an stop them, so really the government is damned if they do an damned if they dont

What he said was different to what you said. specifically about UNLIMITED power. I'm still in the dark about your examples.

His comments about PRISM being unconstitutional somehow don;t ring true, if the NSA is "goverened" by a court, then why is that court not upholding the constitution? Does your constitution also separate state and judiciary?

Again, not trying to be difficult, but you've made a statement that I'm not seeing much evidence for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act
Illumination for you my friend...

You should notice right off the bat that the word PATRIOT in Patriot act has nothing to do with patriotism. It's an acronym.

The last four words in this quote are the most disturbing... " and for other purposes"
Purposes not enumerated or disclosed. That alone raises my WTF?! flag.

Uniting and strengthening America? I think not. In fact, it's pretty much had the opposite effect imho. The Bush cabinet used bald faced lies to embroil us in two military actions on foreign soils. Questionable actions with no clear purpose presented. The act has done one thing rather well. Circumventing due process and giving the government the power to detain indefinitely without charge or trial. There's your unlimited power grab.

A political system rutheless trying to hide its crimes and lying, its cheating and betraying, its abuse of powers and overstepping of lines: Manning, Snowden, Assange are all battles of the same war against unmasking the criminal nature of the regimes.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-914834.html

With the recent move of the prosecutors of Manning it is obvious that the only purpose of this show trial is to intimidate any wannabe whistleblower in the future, and to silence free press which is a press beign pointless, toothless, meaningless if it is not able to base on occasional leaks that reveal the abuse of powers and the criminal nature of the regimes.

What Obama here orders to do, is not one bit different from the Urkaine's case against Timochenko, or Putin's prosecution of his critics and throwing them into jail, or Turkey, Erdoghan throwing discrditing the military and throwing dissidents into jail - erosion of possibilities to resist and oppose his regime, and pure intimndiation. It is about intimidation and silencing the press from A-Z. Nothing else, all sweet words and pathetic paroles aside. Under Bush, this was turned into WH dogma. Practiced, however, it already was before Bush. Just never before in such shameless and obvious candidness.

Too many people still are sleepy, prefer to look the other way, are ignorrant and comfortably chose to blindly trust in empty words and catch phrases, thinking that if some law is written on aper it automatically wins authority over the acting of politicians, Lobbyists and secret elites.

Well. The harvest will be according to what has been sown. No desire for mercy or feelings of compassion from me then.

P.S. German industry has started to react, in a way. For them, russian and Chinese industrial espionage are only secondary threats anymore. They realised that the Us is the worst threat in the field of industrial spionage by now. Some days ago, the British Tempora program was defended by referring to some official phrasing that allowed no other interpretation than that business spionage was the primary purpose of it from beginning on. And Prism and Tempora shrinking in importance - beside the followup Xkeystroke.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...97409R20130805

Trust the government and its working hands? Really?

In a democracy the people have to distrust their government to keep the democracy up and running.
That's THE attribute of a democracy. The people as rulers control their executive to do what they are ordered to do.
Distrust the government. NEVER believe ANYTHING the government tells you without questioning it. Allways check and cross-check before you accept an information.
If you don't have any evidence, not enough insight - don't assume the government tells the truth. Assume it lies until your government proves - undoubtly!!! - the truth of their statement. That's democracy.

If the peolpe get tired to watch their government, it will eventually hive off - take an own life.
It will start to lie and it will start to work to it's own advantage instead to the advantage of the people. It will start to bend and break laws. It will turn the 'observation' towards the people to gain more control.
It will abuse it's force to reduce the freedom of the people, to opress them and to be less controled by them.

A massive false flag operation can't be kept secret, because there are so many people involved and one of them would speak up sooner or later?

Yeah, we see that with the NSA mess right now. It was kept under the radar for years until one man, who sacrificed the rest of his life, spoke up. He was hunted around the globe and miscredited for taking cover from his honourable government. People are still dumb enough to take side with their government of liars, criminals, torturers, murderers.
That's a good motivation for the other secret keepers to come up with the dealings and wheelings of the governmental work against the people.

Before there were rumours, from plain crazy, ridicules conspiracy theorists and alu-hat wearers. Now everybody comes up with this 'nothing new here', who ever was interested could have known the whole story before. The government does a good job for our security.

Trust the government! Support the troops! Bla bla bla...
It doesn't matter what wrong is done - don't question but support!

This is the answer?



The US and their western allies as masters of the world are neo-fascist societies. They just don't want to realize it. Some see there might be a problem in the distance.

How many signs do we need to recognize the face of fascism?
Secret courts, special laws for the executive, surveillance of the people, abuse of rights, murder and crime by government, fusion of politics and corporates, terror and violence, propaganda, supported militias and mercenaries, ideological supremacy, torture camps and prisons, religious enemies, security justifies any action against people, one party (right winged)...

Yes, only two right winged parties are 'one party'. Just because the US has been indoctrinated for decades that anything left from republican (ultra right winged) is socialist doesn't make it right. The republicans are the right wing and the democrats are the left wing of your conservative, capitalistic right party. The US has no political choice. They may choose between 35 breakfast cereals, 18 sodas or 42 commercial ad channels. That's the freedom of choice.

There is not much difference in the other western societies. The money rules, not the people. They are just made to belive they have a say.

Deeply distrust your government! That's the people's job in a democracy.

The People have to gain control. The control of the Money has to be reduced.

Let's add a new wrinkle to this ever widening chasm of trust in the Federal government...
http://news.msn.com/us/dea-agents-di...g-on-americans

DEA is spying on us too and leaving a phony trail of their investigations!!!

More and more of my fellow Americans who are supposed to be working on my behalf have become paranoid to the extreme.
The CIA thinks we're all terrorists.
The DEA thinks we're all drug dealers.

The ground work continues to progress toward totalitarianism.

Today, America. Tomorrow, The World.

I'd say the conspiracy nuts aren't so tooti frooti are they?