During his tenure as the director of national intelligence, James Clapper has maintained a classified blog. It’s called “Intercept,” and is only accessible to people within the intelligence community with clearance to access the government intelink site. It even offers a secret RSS feed so analysts will never miss a post. Clapper’s Intercept blog has no relationship to The Intercept, except that he hates pretty much everything we stand for. In one of his posts, written in May 2013 and obtained by The Intercept, Clapper posted a handwritten letter he says he received from “a constituent in Nevada.” It’s unclear what makes this person a constituent since Clapper was not elected to any office. In any case, this constituent “discusses supporting the IC’s [intelligence community’s] position on civil liberties” in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.
“If the american [sic] people are not willing to release some freedoms, they cannot blame the IC when they can’t stop” domestic terror attacks because of the intelligence agencies “having their hands tied by Law [sic] & policy,” the “constituent” wrote. He adds that Americans “cannot have your cake and eat it too,” and then offers what has become a dangerous cliche in the post-Snowden mentality of the intelligence community: “So if one has nothing to hide why would a little government watching for mass protection be such a big question.” The letter ends: “WE SUPPORT YOU.”
But soon after Clapper’s post, it became clear he did not actually speak for “all of the women and men” in the intelligence community. While the blog is only available to people with proper security clearance, Clapper does welcome commenters. The first two intelligence people to comment on his post took Clapper, and his “constituent,” to the woodshed. “I think it was inappropriate for DNI Clapper to respond in a way that indicates he agrees with the premise of the writer’s letter, namely, that government must expand its domestic “watching” and the people must give up “some ‘rights’ in the interest of the greater good,” one IC commenter posted. “The head of the US Intelligence Community — the business of which is foreign intelligence —should not be taking sides on matters of domestic intelligence policy.”
Another commenter wrote that, like Clapper, he agreed with the letter’s author about “the fact that it is impossible to defend 100% against these kinds of attacks given the restrictions placed on America’s security forces and the freedom and range of targets enjoyed by the attackers.” However, this commenter, who went by the name Wormy, warned against being “too quick to release your freedoms and “rights” in the name of security.”
Among the points Wormy made:
Wormy concludes with the following:
“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights have survived for centuries, defended by courageous man and women both in the armed forces, in various civil rights movements, and just individual citizens standing up for themselves and others. They have made incredible sacrifices and endured tremendous hardships to pass these sacred rights down to you. Do you want to be part of the generation that threw it all out because a group of Islamic radicals is posing a threat to you that statistically doesn’t even come close to the threat posed to you by lightening [sic]?”
We don’t know if Clapper ever responded to Wormy or other commenters. But we do know that Clapper is a big fan of expanding domestic surveillance operations and doing away with some civil liberties in the name of security. Clapper has submitted his resignation, but rest assured his successor will carry the torch of domestic surveillance. Will the Intercept blog continue to secretly publish under the new administration? As Donald Trump would tweet, Stay tuned!
Documents published with this story:
The next time anyone says to you ” If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” remember these 6 lines witten by a famous Cardinal Richlieu…
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”
This should be part of the masthead here at the Intercept.
Wasn’t Clapper the guy who against all diplomatic protocols forced some Europeans countries to close their airspace in order to have the Presidential plane of Evo Morales – president of Bolivia- searched in Austria. This happened at the beginning of July 2013 as the plane was flying back from Moscow to Bolivia. US intelligence sources were highly confident that Snowden was on that plane…..but he was’t.
I would not be surprise to learn that Clapper authored the letter instead of a so-called “constituent.” Remember, these intelligent agencies are known for fabricating information. Great work Jeremy!
“It’s called “Intercept,” and is only accessible to people within the intelligence community with clearance to access the government intelink site. It even offers a secret RSS feed so analysts will never miss a post. Clapper’s Intercept blog has no relationship to The Intercept, except that he hates pretty much everything we stand for.”
The pathetic coward jingo that is jc actually thought I and all of the others who read The Intercept would stop doing so because of his “blog”. What an ignorant coward war criminal. PROUD to read The Intercept as often as I do.
Sounds like jc needs a reality check.
At face value – for a spook- it is blatantly what we have come to expect from those who wish to know, capture and control it all at will.
This in itself makes me read it with a large grain of salt. Frightening yes, but in the work of smoke and mirrors are we at the point where their sense of omnipotence means they can openly speak the truth?
Truth and fiction is getting harder and harder to determine.
If a curious film making student even using Windows OS! (which means he has no clue whatsoever about how computing reality works, he was just using “apps”) can so easily do all of this; imagine, just imagine, as Lennon would say, what the NSA could do and does with all IT companies and all kinds of private and public businesses “by the rule of law” backing them!
// __ Anthony van der Meer: Short Film: Find my Phone – English Subtitles
Anthony van der Meer
youtube.com/watch?v=NpN9NzO4Mo8
~
In the Netherlands, he had a hard time getting his “‘smart’ phone” stolen ;-)
By the way some of the stuff being said there is not entirely true and people talk about the UK and the U.S. as the most monitored places on earth, but the Netherlands has claimed the #1 place for some time already
// __ Panopticon
~
youtube.com/watch?v=jqWXWNhfZQg
(16:00) … it is mandatory by law to send your (psychiatric) diagnosis to a National Database
~
At least they are open about it and some people protest that b#llsh!t publicly. In “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! . . . ” they do all of it “legally backed” by “secret laws” in covert ways
RCL
Handwriting of a sociopath/narcissist?
http://www.annakoren.com/handwriting-analysis-of-serial-killers.html
A hand writing analyst would have a field day with Clapper’s letter.
And, his blog name is just one word shy of a copyright lawsuit : )
May we entertain the assumption that this article put an end to Clapper’s blog?
Hey Carroll,
Trump intends to eliminate the DNIs office.
Etched into my mind, honest Jimmy Melon Scratching Clapper giving testimony. It will go down as 1 of those infamous moment in our collective consciousness like Colin Powell wiggling a little vial at UN with George Slam Dunk Tenet sitting behind him. BTW Why again should we believe anything the CIA says based on their dismal below-board case history?
Because they only exist to protect America, don’tchya know; walkin’ that wall.
And telling themselves that one lie convinces most every abuse of power or law is justified.
great observation!
That melon scratch was Clapper’s tell. If he’s playing poker with the boys, bet he’s getting fleeced. Could be a security risk.
Test.
The Orwellian state closes its fingers a little tighter, feeling ever righteous in its fascism. Evil is banal…and that’s why we keep allowing it to happen.
“So if one has nothing to hide why would a little government watching for mass protection be such a big question”?
Because we have a right to privacy and we want it. Whether we did anything wrong is a red herring in addition to being irrelevant. The BS argument posed as a (false) choice between safety and civil liberties is used by police state fascists to propagandize for taking away basic human and civil rights.
Disturbing piece, to say the least (including Clapper’s handwriting).
Just a little addition edit-wise: there should be “[sic]” placed after “man” in the first sentence of Wormy’s conclusion (that is if Wormy did type “man”, and it’s not Jeremy’s typo). Apologies if another reader/commenter (or multiple ones) already noticed this, but I don’t want to scan 82 comments to find out.
Interesting article, and while not altogether unsurprising that the head of a secretive spying agency may feel this way, it is rather surprising that he would have a blog, classified or not, to voice his opinion on these issues. Lecturing the American people about wanting more privacy and their civil rights, and yet operating on a blog on the assumption of his own privacy and civil rights…. Irony at its finest.
James Clapper is a fake, fraud and phony. His name is really Terry O’Quinn. I just want to say you all have no clue what the CIA,and NSA really do. I promise.
Speaking from experience Gotthe Clapp has zero clues even when surrounded by Sherlocks.
No matter how often and how hard they lay the fear mongering on us in order to set up the next big lie we are all the more wise to them.
We lose 33,000 people a year due to our gun culture, but we don’t take away everyone’s guns.
We lose 30,000 people a year because they don’t have access to health care, but we don’t give everyone health care.
We lose 30,800 people every year to highway fatalities, but we don’t change the speed limit to 12 mph.
We lose about 48 people a year to lightning strikes, but we do not make it mandatory for everyone to stay indoors.
We have lost less than 100 people since 9/11 to mostly home base Islamic terrorism, and for that we should not allow them to shred our Constitutional rights like grossly violating the right of our citizens to privacy, and even giving up our right to Habeas Corpus; by allowing this we would eviscerate the essence of our democracy.
We know the age old ploy “create an enemy without” so that the” true enemy within” can fiercely and freely reign.
Right on the mark! The fearmongers of totalitarianism don’t know numbers, and look askance at those who do.
… Yet, all your facts were true not in people’s minds if “We the people” had a rational, morally principled grasp of reality. Politicians would self-servingly tell you: “but this is ‘different'” …
They, those “conspiring together in the art of lying” mentioned by Hitler, always can bring us “unpatriotic”, lowlife cowards to “the bidding of our leaders” as Göring points out …
Isn’t it much “nicer” to patriotically die due to medical malpractice after compromising your health due to junk food advertised on ads or being killed by lightening than by “some effing Muslim idiot”?
RCL
Prerequisite for advancement: authoritarian impulses mandatory
Any talk of your surrendering any of your rights is the talk of TRAITORS. . . .It proves that they can not do the job. . . WE the PEOPLE fought for those rights. . . the labor movement was a fight for the rights they have today . . . beatings . . .killings . . .strikes. WE have fought WARS for those rights, and yes most of the WARS were wars based on lies. The PEOPLE are honest and honorable much more so than Washington’s politicians. . . WE have become too civilized – no more tar and feathers – – no more honest JUSTICE. SLAPS ON THE WRIST – – -EXCUSES WELL ARTICULATED, ELOQUENTLY – – TO HIDE THE TRUTH . . .
I’m all for free speech, so I can’t criticize Clapper for having a blog and an opinion. The only thing I can question here is the classified information. The basic question that comes up is that ifClapper’s blog is just a blog, just commentary on his own behalf that means nothing to the intelligence community, can it be justified to make a copy of a classified piece of information simply for him to put it up there for socialization?
Of course, if we don’t believe in most bulk classification, don’t believe it’s genuinely keeping data secret from enemies who have a mole here and there when 500,000 people have access to it, and intend to defy any such policy whenever Wikileaks posts a new expose, that’s no conundrum, so I’m not really a good person to call this. But … if you do believe the very expansive set of data covered by classification needs to be kept secret, don’t you believe it should be kept off forums where there is by definition no need to know?
An extremely relevant series of a DoJ insider making deep revelations regarding corruption of American foreign policy over the past decade to this day.
If you’re seriously interested in understanding what drives the corruption and nation killing, please do watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTzFNrsKns
note: I’ve nothing to do with this production besides sharing it.
“I would prefer not to”
is a good response to their requests, — Clark
Yes. It is. And, ironically, I had just such an opportunity yesterday and took full advantage of it.
I went in for a mammogram and was confronted at the registration desk with the fact that the health care system of which I am part had decided to institute palm scans as the latest/greatest means of ensuring that you are you and that no one else can successfully pretend to be you or be confused with you. It was very new and the woman taking my information had what sounded like a pat script ready, but I cut her off and declined when she got to the line about what a good thing it would be should I ever be taken to a hospital unconscious.
First, I told her, their hospitals were the furthest from my home and, should I have an emergency at my home, theirs would NOT be the ER that would receive me. Likewise for an emergency that occurred while traveling.
Second, I told her that, as a health care worker myself, I had great empathy for issues wrt medical mistakes and that this was a tempting and probably very successful way to avoid them. Nevertheless….
Third, I asked her if she was familiar with the incidence of breaches of health care data (no). Did she know how many people were affected by such breaches each year (no). Could she tell me what my health care system was doing to avoid such breaches and how un/successful they were (no) and how much of their budgets were dedicated to avoiding such occurrences (no).
Lastly, we had a short discussion about the dangers inherent to biometric – i.e. indisputable – data and inherent to that data specific type of data being breached and/or provided to governmental agencies by cooperative and/or unquestioning civic entities (such as medical groups). I then reminded her that, until relatively recently, such data – specifically fingerprints – were only required of those accused/suspected of having committed a crime.
I’m sure she thought she had a loon on her hands by the end, but I noticed several other people in the waiting room listening carefully to our discussion, so maybe it ended up being a good thing. I also told her if the palm scans became mandatory, her health system would lose me and anyone else I knew who had a rational approach to information privacy.
At any rate, thanks for bringing up Bartleby and that particular quote. You are right that it’s one we should be using far more than we do. :-s
You may now feel about my comment somewhat as that lady may have thought of you ;-)
They are past biometrics and, once again, privacy is an illusion that even serves people’s arguments. After having way more information about our own individual lives, including all of our clinical history and DNAs; and knowing us better than we would ourselves know and comprehend, their new MK-Ultra things are more about world wide societal level control based on AI and individual level control based on genomics. They have done such things previously based on pattern recognition and blood type, family structures, lines.
Yevgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley couldn’t have dreamed that up in their wildest nightmares!
RCL
A government that is afraid of it’s own citizens is something to be worried about.
I thoroughly enjoyed this gem of a story.
Mr Clapper is not so much of a gem.
But he is an enthusiastic supporter of reducing liberties.
Wow!!
The rank and file is always so much more impressive than the leadership.
Great piece Jeremy!
Clapper’s response is a clear treason against the Constitution. When is his sorry ass going to be indicted for lying to Congress?
Comrade Clapper only wants to make our glorious country more secure . Perhaps he should start in the nations capital and get rid of those who are ruining the country while making themselves rich . Bah Humbug
terrible handwriting ..
Probable Blog Entries:
– Heading out to the gym, after spreading the lie that Libyan troops have been given Viagra to rape.
– Benghazi, what a bitch! I just hope the congress and media don’t find out about our rat-line to Syria!
– Excited today! Nazi battalions we armed and trained have taken over Ukraine. Can’t wait to blame it on Putin.
– Great day, I finally got Obama to say: “Assad Must go”
– Wow, everything backfired. Congress and even the British refused to bomb Syria with Obama. I need a drink
– So happy now. Obama has 6,000 troops in Iraq! I knew he would come around.
– Just called Pierre Omidyar, owner of the Intercept. Thank god it is now a neoliberal rag, we placed our own journalists well. F Snowden!
– Promised job by Clinton’s for leaking fake Russia hack story. Screw the Russians, i would have done it for free.
I’d love to follow that blog – keep it under surveillance, you might say.
The Clap (if I may be so gauche) is a disease : ) Once you get that, as Stan Lee once put it: “nuff said.”
hey …
WOW!
Amazing revelation!
Thank you!
If the security of the land
calls for a life without conscience
To imagine a word other than ‘yes’is an obscenity
And the mind bends low before the lecherous times
then the security of the land is a threat to us
Avatar Singh ‘PASH’
hmm. Seems to me if Russia did it to the DNC, they would have hacked this jackwod’s blog for fun long ago.
I heart Wormy.
I lmao at the constituent part
http://i.imgur.com/m2T5EQS.png
The man who lies to congress truly believes the government must know the truth about every single episode in every persons life.
Slow news day Jeremy?
Appears to be ankle-biter click bait… and you fell for it.
Guilty as charged
“Slow news day Jeremy?”
That’s your speed.
I have two quotes you might be interested in; 1) from Tacitus:” I prefer dangerous freedom to servile security”; 2) from Benjamin Franklin (I think):” A free people who chooses security over freedom will have neither.”
Your writings in particular and The Intercept’s in general give me great pleasure;thank you, Alexander Mehdevi
The small-ness of holes in the “nets” is in direct relation to
the sinking of ships.
When you keep increasing the size of a net
while decreasing the ability to escape
of the water and whatever else you capture within your net,
eventually your net will become an enormous weight which
will pull your ship under the waves.
The majority of delusional U$A-ans could possibly,
though I highly doubt they are capable of grasping the meaning,
benefit by reading Moby Dick.
The corporate capitalist Ahab and its democrat/republican crew
deserve to be repudiated and rebuked as the id-iots
which they are.
More harpoons and bigger, tighter nets are clearly indicators
of a great void inside the obsessed maniacs of corporate capital
which suck the healthy life out of all whom they come near.
When they shout “Thar she blows!.” it would be best to be
far, far, far out of the vicinity of their delusions.
Speaking of Herman Melville,
there is another character Melville created who sums up
the words which are necessary to be echoed when confronted by
the corporate democrat/republican id-iot candidates and their
Wall Street religion – Bartleby the Scrivner.
“I would prefer not to”
is a good response to their requests,
but alas,
this too is not likely to be within the comprehension
of most U$A-ans.
++
Wittingly?
I found occasion to use his word similarly myself recently. It can be – convenient.
I suppose someone with access to the stats could come up with a list of things we “could” protect American Citizens against that have a higher chance of killing than Islamist (and probably even non “denominational” ) terrorist attacks.
I’d wager death by terrorism – even in the daily broadening of the term – would not make the top ten.
Perhaps we need a War on Lightning instead.
Pete
PS
Really appreciate your writing and insights Jeremy.
“Perhaps we need a War on Lightning instead.”
Good one. I can only blame autocorrect for poor Wormy’s difficulty in distinguishing “lightning” from “lightening”.
The IC is only as good as its tools. ;)
Indeed. I have been disappointed in the choices to run DHS over the past few years. Their job not only covers terrorism but also natural and man-made disasters. This year we had an act of terrorism that killed fifty people, and a hurricane that killed forty-nine. Which gets more attention?
You’re an amazing IR, Jeremy — thank you for your work. Recently finished “Dirty Wars” and am going to check out “All Governments Lie” tonight… Legitimately, you’re an inspiration to people like me. Thank you again for all of your work.
i need to know what J makes of this
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/736223/9-11-tower-Building-7-collapse-fire-conspiracy
Unfucking real. Well, I hear he’s looking for a job – so maybe he’s hinting he’d like one here.
I just celebrated my fourth alternative Thanksgiving of SnowMann (Whistleblowers) Day, having written about it here in comments for almost three years and before that in 2013 at HuffPo. I believe it was at the end of July this year, 2016, Clapper himself tried to declare a Whistleblowers Day on behalf of ODNI. Now I can’t help wonder if maybe he really doesn’t like lying everyone – and unconsciously seeks some form of redemption.
Got a bridge I can buy?
Did you guys maybe used his blog’s name intentionally? That’s more understandable than me thinking it was the other way around because I read too fast the first time. Guess I’m still a bit pissed he tried to make a whistleblowers day. But that second reading also started me wondering at the date of the document disclosed. Namely, the date on the Clapper letter roughly coincides with Ed and Glenn and Laura meeting in Hong Kong, so I suspect this didn’t come from Ed.
>”Did you guys maybe used his blog’s name intentionally?”
Good catch … except
implies, I think, the Clapper Intercept was intercepted by The Intercept post creation of The Intercept.
Dang, bah, I was already fighting a headache this morning because winter’s moving in again, and you go and get it spinnin’. ;^)
I love Snowmann! I might have steal that next year.
Sorry, I was out for a while.
It was the Fall of 2013, just a few months after Ed’s courageous act, I realized I was far more thankful for whistleblowers like him and Chelsea – than I’d ever been for some “manifest destiny” of genocide against this continent’s natives. I then began celebrating my whistleblowers thanksgiving day on the Friday after instead of the traditional Thursday, and telling anyone that would listen about it.
Please feel free, I couldn’t be happier than if it became a thing and catches on. You need to capitalize that “M” though, as it’s short for Snowden and Manning.
Given the general distrust that Americuns as a whole have for intellectuals, it is no surprise that the DNI has never read the writings of the nation’s founding fathers. For his information, it was Ben Franklin (who?) who said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither.”
Strange, isn’t it, how our guardians of liburty think nothing of reading our e-mail, tracking our locations, and recording our internet browsing, while simultaneously decrying the release of their own e-mails. Particularly when said e-mails show their complicity in violations of laws and the public trust.
+++
It’s not surprising at all that someone who is scared shitless that “the Muslims are coming” would beg to have their freedoms taken away if that guarantees greater security. That’s why it’s in the interests of the surveillance state to keep the population scared.
Clapper is a lying sack of shit.
So is Donald Trump.
Our only hope is Steve Bannon and the alt-right crusaders for a whiter shade of darkness.
Right?
Or maybe Vladmir Putin can rescue the world from these ugly authoritarians who would strip away our civil liberties.
Thank you for providing today’s 2 minute hate.
We’ll definitely stay tuned as long as the Party approves.
We can’t look away.
oIII
Speaking of the evil Putin and the Boston bombings: he has TWICE warned the FBI about the Tsarnaev brothers. Was ignored the first time, and “mind you business” response the second time.
One might think that actually collaborating against terrorism would work much better than 24/7 totalitarian spying the Intelligence Community craves for.
Crazy idea, I know.
I will just leave this here:
http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com/
What, what a co-incidence! The DNI Clapper has a blog called [the] Intercept!? *Sounds like some sort-of copy-right infringement to me, Scahill…
More like trademark infringement
They say Russian people have a very elaborate sense of humor. Even Reagan was a fan of soviet jokes. More than half of the jokes he says here relate to what Wormy is stating and our current circumstances. Unfortunately, Reagan with his acting and self-serving sense of humor didn’t live long enough to see “Russian” jokes in a “different” light.
// __ Reagan tells Soviet jokes
youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A
~
Let me share another “Russian” “joke”. A delegate stood in one of those quinquennial plans discussions with a question: “Haven’t we achieved our goals of capitalist mentality liberation and, if not, when will we?”
After 5 years another fellow citizen stood during me meetings. The comrade had two questions:
1) “Haven’t we achieved our goals of capitalist mentality liberation and, if not, when will we?”
2) Where is our fellow comrade who asked the same question 5 years ago?
I find both amazing and confusing how easily and seamlessly “Russian” “jokes” have become so seriously reality in the land of “’the’ ’free’ and ’the’ brave”. It is preoccupying as well that gringos don’t seem to have the spine and brains that such “Russian” “jokes” require.
RCL
Most gringos ;-)
Surveillance and loss of privacy is a non-issue to the American people. To highlight this assertion, I submit the recent US election. Hillary Clinton was pro-surveillance in her policies and so was Donald Trump. Had this been an issue, either Trump/Hillary would make it part of their election platform or another candidate would champion it. As it stands, most Americans either do not know about the issue or do not care. Surveillance and curtailing of privacy is not a priority concern among most Americans except for a minority. I will take it a step further and asset most Americans want/need surveillance and the curtailing of privacy/freedoms. Whether this is effective or not as a security strategy is moot. Simply look at the mobile devices the populace use and the advent of ‘smart homes’. Despite awareness of consequences, these items flourish. So really, there is very little evidence to support the idea most Americans are concerned with their freedoms and privacy.
You are right about most people either not being aware or not being informed well enough about the moral, civic dimensions and the scope of government surveillance to the point of noticing the gravity of living in a police state. But that statement would be true if people were truthfully informed, not propagandized and brainwashed under the guise of being “free” to the extent gringos are.
Even theIntercept is not being honest to matters and truthful to “We the people”. I have been questioning them to no end:
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/in-the-trump-era-leaking-and-whistleblowing-are-more-urgent-and-more-noble-than-ever/?comments=1#comment-309296
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/in-the-trump-era-leaking-and-whistleblowing-are-more-urgent-and-more-noble-than-ever/?comments=1#comment-309986
They could have, can still inform and explain to “We the people” in terms they can understand the seriousness of such issues in ways that (like the Snowden leaks) USG won’t be able to deny, but they choose to not do so, effectively protecting USG officials boasting about torture and genocide.
That is why, as I said a long time ago, I think Trump will be very good for “America”. Now, all of a sudden journalists mind what politicians say and do, or so I thought and wrongly hoped. They said the media had a close door meeting with president elect Trump even before he was inaugurated (on the 2nd day after being elected?) and even Bill Gates has likened him to JFK . . .
Maybe it is my romantic bee but I think this is a bit exaggerated based on my previous points.
Yes, under current circumstances.
Again, most people are not technical enough to even understand the basics of any of it. theIntercept journos do understand that but they choose not to do so, again, you have to talk to people in their own terms and language “by any means necessary” if you need for them to understand anything. I am teacher, this is what I do on a daily basis.
Say, for example theIntercept shows with undeniable evidence not only that Obama lied while keeping a somewhat straight face but also the true dimension and scope of such lies when he said:
// __ Obama on Prism, Phone Spying Controversy: “No One Is Listening To Your Phone Calls”
youtube.com/watch?v=rENTl5JKzlQ
~
Better yet, imagine theIntercept posts some of the videos of the dickpick databases the government keeps about our lives (all of us!), say Michelle fingering her husbands @ss or such thing. Of course, theIntercept has such “controversial” data feeds. TheIntercept could also contact regular unsuspecting folks out there targeted as victims of such abuses and ask them if they mind for that kind of private information about their lives to be made public in order for “We the people” to realize what is going on. I am sure some of them would wholeheartedly agree (I would).
How do you think the public will react to such evidence? The NY Post published nude pictures of our next first lady (who is the mother of Trump’s child) pretending to have girl on girl sex (she used to be a model)
http://nypost.com/2016/08/01/melania-trumps-girl-on-girl-photos-from-racy-shoot-revealed/
and Western MSM defended that as part of their silly anti-Trump crusade
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/08/05/yes-melania-trumps-nude-photos-are-the-medias-and-voters-business/
Why not having a fair game then? Quite honestly I couldn’t care less about Melania Trump’s @ss.
Once again, how come people in the most remote places in India love The Yes Men who have been very effective at making the most corrupt USG institutions change in important ways. Now ask people being droned wherever they may be if they understand theIntercept’s definition of “‘ethical’ journalism”? In fact, that in itself would be an excellent journalistic piece, go to Yemen or Afghanistan and asked the family members of the people killed in the collateral murder video whom they understand Assange/Wikileaks or Greenwald/TheIntercept?
RCL
Article with links to polls by EFF:
a majority of Americans oppose the government’s collection of phone and Internet data as a part of anti-terrorism efforts.
I am skeptical of these demographics you cite. Keep in mind, polls also indicated that Hillary Clinton (not a privacy advocate) would win the presidential election, and then we had different results. If both republicans and democrats truly felt that privacy/liberty was an issue, it would have been on the campaign platform and it was/is not. If anything, expect more surveillance. A case in point, all e-mails that originate in the US and are sent outside US borders are now intercepted. (Well, this was always the case but now our governors are more open about this.) I don’t see any reversal of these policies nor the populace in much of an uproar. We look at how consumers buy things detrimental to privacy (not to mention to health, the environment, labor rights) and there is a willful resistance to any of these highlighted concerns. Business as usual.
I didn’t “cite” the demographics, EFF did.
It’s all well and good for you or anyone to be skeptical, but you didn’t use any demographics at all in your conclusions, you simply stated as fact: “Surveillance and loss of privacy is a non-issue to the American people.” And, you also stated as fact: “As it stands, most Americans either do not know about the issue or do not care.” If you’re going to make those arguments and state them as facts I suggest you back it them with something solid, and that you make your arguments to the EFF or some other well informed organization.
The EFF article only talks about the public’s opinion on government surveillance, which makes sense as that is part of EFF’s mandate.
However the pervasive surveillance on mobile devices is actually designed and carried out by corporations. There is no check on corporate abuses of power – competition is a fantasy, and regulation is a joke. And there is a revolving door between corporations and government for the elites.
Kitt, I have the most solid demographic to go on, look around you. Do you see anything changing? Do you see ellected officials actually doing something about these concerns? Do you see the populace engaging in collective action to address this concern? Do you see buying habits changing to reflect privacy and individual rights? Has the beloved Apple corp enhanced privacy for users? Edward Snowden came forward and this changed very little. Just like Wikileaks changed very little. At best, Snowden and Wikileaks are starting points and they are no substitue for collective action. There is very little in the way of collective action to change things because the collective do not care. It’s sort of like the environment. Most agree that pollution sucks and the environment is important, but I do not see a collective changing of lifestyle to reflect and society this concern. As aways, there is a disconnect between what one thinks is correct and how one acts.
Let me give you an example. There is a case in Italy where gypsy children were swimming in a crowded beach. The children were drowning and called for help, but collectively, no one swam to retrieve the children from danger. If you were to take any of these people on the beach aside and ask them if life is precious and if it is in your means, would you save a life? Most would agree. But here, the collective knew what was happening and did nothing (due to a prejudice against gypsies). So you have a paradox. On the one hand, you agree life is precious, on the other, you do nothiong when a life is being extinguished. We have this paradox on all levels of our society. Most know that Apple inc sells products made from exploited labor, yet they still buy these products and put no pressure on a company (very well placed to rectify this injustice) to fix this. So I will say that in addition to knowing what is right and acting on it, there is a collective will to have this outcome. People wanted those children to drown and people want to buy products made from exploited labor. This is a side of our society not many want to acknowledge. That is why these so called demographics mean little in this context. Whether you like it or not, whether you think it right or wrong, most want surveillance, exploitation (as long as it is not ‘our kind’, undesirables to die and so on. Perhaps some would take issue to lump surveillance with these dark examples I cite–it is extreme–but I am only using to illustrate a duality people can hold. You can be against surveillance, but still vote for it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038747/The-world-shocked-Italian-sunbathers-ignoring-dead-gipsy-girls–But-Italy-showing-chilling-Roma-children.html
Thank you! Just reading what you wrote made me angry, even though I know well our lives are thoroughly entangled with such abuses from the tomatoes you eat to the minerals mined for your cell phones. That picture of people tanning just feet away from the corpses was shocking!
Let me tell you about a similar story. I think it was after one year they had started the Iraq war that there was a demonstration against it on 14th Street in NYC. A silence protest in which people would walk with a candle and a white on black background sign that simply had a 3,000 imprinted on it. The number of U.S. troops who had died in those wars initiated, justified by WMD lies. It turns out I knew some of the social justice organizers of this event and I tried to make them include at least 7 question marks below that number, based on the fact that since that was a war of cheer abuse, genocide that should be pointed out somehow. It was not about “our troops having been killed, but that they went there on a genocidal mission”. Even those folks were pretending they “could not understand” my point …
A simple 3rd grade Math would show to anyone that USG and their al(l)-lies have 8-timed the genocidal ratio of Nazi Germany during WWII, but not a single “freedom of the press newspaper” as they should do based on the very first constitutional right, have questioned their “freedom loving” . . .
Western MSM’s job is entertaining the proles with illusions, keeping things quiet. That is why Janet’s Jackson tit would cause an incredible amount of back and forth on the Internet, but no one commented on that dailymail article. Not long ago, during the July 14th attacks in Paris Western MSM presented all those incidents very graphically, with lots of intersubjective assumptions, emotions (mother’s in hospitals could not even talk to the nurses), … at the risk of being misunderstood I asked a very simple question: “Do Western MSM portray Muslim people as having any kinds of feelings when USG and their allies drone them to pieces?” Here at the Intercept they had an article about a girl whose grandma had been droned who came to the U.S. congress and only one (1) of those politicians even care to pay any attention to her.
https://theintercept.com/2015/04/24/obama-drone-apology/?comments=1#comments
On another piece (which for some reason I couldn’t find) some kinds of people were complaining about showing Muslim people as having any kinds of feelings as part of the included pictures (the last one of this report).
http://thewe.cc/weplanet/news/americas/us_terror_state/children_make_no_sound.htm
RCL
Well, there was no anti-NSA advocate anyway, but you are right, days before Trump got elected, the NY Times was confidently publishing news about polls asserting a 93%! chance of a win by Hillary. They were so confident she would win that they had started to prepare for a huge celebration in Javits Center, NYC.
I think like you and also those polls are like “Do you think cheating is, right?” They don’t ask people: have you ever cheated?
They haven’t been able to read our brains, yet.
I fear the point will come in the near future when they will do away with paper money and they actually make illegal not having, carrying a cell phone (I don’t). Officially turning us all into tag animals. They have other ways to track you anyway.
No, but that does have an impact in people’s trust towards their government and generally in the moral healthiness and civility of a society. The fact that your spouse doesn’t divorce you once she/he finds you are cheating, lying to her/him, doesn’t mean things will be “business as usual” from there on or that she will ever be OK with that. That is why they/the NSA were so crazy about trying to get Snowden in order to “keep things quiet”
I %100 agree with, not because you don’t like something, it means you would oppose it, which is what ultimately counts, concrete actual actions. The types of questions they don’t include in those polls, are like: “Are you willing to stop using your phone or keep it in a Faraday cage to at least not let them track your whereabouts with centimetric precision 24×7?”
You mentioned “‘smart’ homes”. I find hopelessly stupid “‘smart’ cars”
// __ More Details Emerge on the Death of Michael Hastings
youtube.com/watch?v=uoyuXzM059Q
~
they even describe that “accident” as if Hastings had “run red lights”, as if he was actually driving the car . . .
// __ Michael Hastings “CAUGHT ON CAMERA” Running Red-Light Seconds Before Crash
LOUDLABS NEWS
youtube.com/watch?v=gNhqKRugk8Q
~
However I don’t quite agree with you. You are not taking into consideration some important aspects of those kinds of problems which haven’t been tested yet. I am not saying mine is an air tight case, but still no one knows until it is put to the test of general societal consciousness.
My message hasn’t shown up because it has a “status”:”hold” attribute
RCL
This goes to the reply I made to Kit, where what one knows is correct and how one acts are two different things. We can agree that people sleeping on the streets and child hunger are not good things. However, there is very little done about this. Same with the environment, the so-called ‘war on drugs’, military spending, collective debt, education, the environment and so on. Collective action only seems to occur in extreme circumstances. i.e. When coastal cities are submerged in water, then global warming may actually be a ‘thing’ in the collective minds.
Maybe if you talked about global warming in different terms like say “Biblical Flood. Might they listen ??
Probably they’d respond that its god’s will, and a trial to be passed through by “right-thinking” people, to cull out the infidels, and cite biblical precedent that the just and pious would survive. They used the onset of the major AIDS crisis in a similar fashion.
The first step to a police security state is to create fear. Then offer to minimize that fear by asking for your personal freedoms. Then if you don’t voluntarily give up your freedoms for the purported security, they will
simply take them from you. They in this comment is a useless group of Americans commonly referred to as “Congress”.
I missed the asking part.
I see you are confused. As we live in a “representative democracy”, we don’t get to ask ourselves, rather, our elected ‘representatives’ ask for us. Perhaps they did, in executive session. Or perhaps, upon hearing of the gravity of the threat – likely to cause almost as many Amereicun deaths each year as falls from ladders – they simply volunteered.
Ah, yes, thanks. That explains all the bodies by the ladder.
+++
The Intercept, no doubt, has no wish to obfuscate issues to favor certain governmental elements wishing to manipulate public consciousness to passive acceptance of security state agendas. I’m sure that Jeremy would rather spend an entire day shopping with Hillary than to inadvertently give us inaccurate representation.
So, in order to unequivocally distinguish that The Intercept isn’t a limited-hangout operation, however funded by a billionaire supporter of these same security state interests, it would be helpful to make explicit distinction and qualification when referencing certain events so as to not implicitly give unwarranted credence to the officially proffered mythology.
Specifically, the psy-op casually referred to as the Boston Bombing. It should be clear enough by now to most who can think independently that the psy-op Boston event is more precisely just that. Without that qualifier it appears, however possibly mistakenly, that the author blithely accepts the official proffered narrative despite all the glaring and bizarre contradictions to actuality.
If anyone would be so kind as to report new clarity on the mother of all new century psy-ops, the criminal 9/11 destruction of the WTC and its governmentally inflicted terror for turning most American’s critical consciousness to mush while ushering in this never-ending cycle of incredibly profitable war, a similar prefacing of ‘psy-op’ might be helpful to more fully dispel the residual fog that still lingers allowing an unfettered eyeing of the latest attempts to turn the nation into a quivering lump of mumbling red and blue jelly.
Thanks in advance.
Please note what self initiated journalism of conscience really looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4N5o4VsWqs
YouTube removed the above link due to its nailing the truth about massive corruption. Here’s the link to the continued series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTzFNrsKns
What is safety and security? Clapper would violate some rights to preserve others. For safety and security? Life support. Fish in a tank are guaranteed life support – in exchange for their freedom. And yet the humans in the US are not really guaranteed life support. What Clapper is wanting to guarantee is that people can live to compete for life support, that the contestants can remain contestants.
What is it that radical fundamentalist terrorists want to kill? People? or the operating system? Has anyone ever asked them?
“Has anyone ever asked them?”
Following 11Sep01, GWBush complied with 5 of bin Laden’s 6 demands.
Mr. Clapper’s blog seems to have done its job of smoking out members of the intelligence community who secretly believe in rights and freedoms. Until the intelligence community can rid itself of any principled people, er, I mean Russian agents, in its midst, it will be unable to implement the programs of the US government.
The Intercept seems to have done it’s job of smoking out commenters who secretly pray at the alter of tyrants past. Until the planet displays a willingness to prosecute all sociopath maggots like it did to the real Benito Mussolini, pathetic keyboard tyrant wannabe’s will continue to plague comment sections with their true views masquerading as satire.
if this be plague, may all comment sections everywhere be afflicted with such plagues…
Two of these programs were named “Bernie” (Intelligence) and “Have Trump” (Tactical warfare).
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a230860.pdf
At the time these programs were launched it was only logic that these two people might compete each other at some point in the future, after the middle class being severed enough.
From its ashes will raise the Phoenix.
I so wanna click on that pdf link; but I’m afraid it might be a ‘back door’ and I’m not that kinda girl.
Search for: “a special tool for special needs” and “Bernie” and “Have Trump”.
Otherwise read the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/12/us/defense-department-seeks-more-money-for-secret-weapons-analyst-says.html
For more lies and deceit and my actual involvement in all of this see here:
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/16/i-am-fully-capable-of-entertaining-myself-in-prison-for-decades-if-need-be/?comments=1#comment-297896
Put Clapper in the slammer.
Love your reporting… thanks for continuing to be a pain in these scum-bags asses.
I echo your comment, especially the last part.