Big Brother is Watching You

[Dryer Vent]

Oops, I forgot about the Longest Run.

[neoplacebo]

Look, I know some people in government do criminal things; I know some in authority take advantage of that authority; I know shit happens. But it's astounding to me the number of otherwise intelligent people who have no confidence in the government itself - just because it's the government. That lack of confidence and deep distrust includes not just elected officials but the military, law enforcement, judicial system, and apparently everyone who works therein. It includes agencies that haven't actually done anything wrong as well as those whose wrongs have been exposed and corrected.

The greater good is not served when the exception (cop shoots wife's girlfriend) is served up as the face of the norm (all cops are crooked or incompetent). Nor when we're more afraid of what the government "might" do than we are of what is actually being done.

I agree. The very nature of instant global communication creates a situation in which our government would be stupid not to take note of it. The ripple effects with regard to personal Americans privacy certainly can't be ignored, but I really don't know how to reconcile that in a moral or legal sense. I guess you could call it being on the horns of a dilemma or something.

[Dryer Vent]

Vrede: I forgot to mention Save the River campaign (see my sweatshirt) - worked with Barry Freed on that one as our summer house was down the street from his. Barry wasn't really Barry, if you remember those days.

OK, pissing match is over.

[Dryer Vent]

Look, I know some people in government do criminal things; I know some in authority take advantage of that authority; I know shit happens. But it's astounding to me the number of otherwise intelligent people who have no confidence in the government itself - just because it's the government. That lack of confidence and deep distrust includes not just elected officials but the military, law enforcement, judicial system, and apparently everyone who works therein. It includes agencies that haven't actually done anything wrong as well as those whose wrongs have been exposed and corrected.

The greater good is not served when the exception (cop shoots wife's girlfriend) is served up as the face of the norm (all cops are crooked or incompetent). Nor when we're more afraid of what the government "might" do than we are of what is actually being done.

I agree. The very nature of instant global communication creates a situation in which our government would be stupid not to take note of it. The ripple effects with regard to personal Americans privacy certainly can't be ignored, but I really don't know how to reconcile that in a moral or legal sense. I guess you could call it being on the horns of a dilemma or something.

Totally agree. The current "spying on Americans" is law pursuant to the Patriot Act. Is it moral? It is legal. This is the "horns of the dilemma." While most of us believe in privacy, we need to be able to trust the government and it's employees not to violate that privacy unless there is verifiable evidence that any one among us is a danger to the country. It seems incredible to me that there is a server large enough to accommodate every phone call made by every American every second of the day, every day of the year, every year of....... As for social media, we are all fair game. You don't want anyone to know it, don't blab it on a blog, twitter or facebook, etc.

[Dryer Vent]

But, you ducked my point, obviously you've also often chosen "right" over "legal". Why did you grief me for believing in the same? If you protested COINTELPRO, why are the objections to what we're doing now so difficult for you to fathom?

You have to pick your battles. CONINTELPRO was illegal. A lot of stuff I protested was illegal. The current collection of information on who calls who and when is legal. That's the HUGE difference.

OK, so you can say that not allowing women to vote was legal as well. So, women got uppity and protested and got themselves the vote. When I look at the potential for abuse versus the potential for protecting me, I err on the side of caution. Abuse me.

[Cowboy]

Abuse me.

My place or yours?

[Dryer Vent]

Abuse me.

My place or yours?

My place. It's 20 degrees cooler, and 100% bluer!!

[Stinger]

Stinger, you poor, ridiculous, paranoid wingnut still trying so desperately to do anything you can to cover for your 28 "mistakes" by blaming me for them. I didn't "move" anything, I interjected a comment of disagreement.

Here's what I posted (page 15):

...So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source...

Here's what you're now saying I should have done:

...So far, your best shot was a couple of articles in ThinkProgress where content was mentioned in the article . . . but not in the original source...

Your source until it didn't say what you wanted it to say.

Oh, wait. You DID move it? After 27 lies saying you didn't move it? (Just showing how ridiculous) But you knew you did move it, but repeatedly said you didn't move it, so wouldn't that qualify as an actual lie versus a mistake? (Just reciprocation the ridiculousness.)

WTF is the difference???!!!

As I explained several (27? 97?) times already, the second one has my complete statement that the article stated there was content monitoring, but the articles that it cited for a source said the opposite. That shows valid rejection by me of the article for shoddy journalism -- i.e. claiming the Guardian said content when the article the author cited actually said data mining -- rather than as a matter of convenience as you tried to claim. Your claim works a lot better when you move the justification for my rejection out of the picture.

Now, as long as we're explaining what matters, why not explain what you were whining about?

I'll even throw in the New York Times -- "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" — every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations."

Misquote! The sentence actually ends with " — fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government." I'm insulted that after all this time you thought you get such deception past me.

So here's the original sentence: "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" -- every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government."

So, explain to me how leaving off "fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government" somehow magically changes the meaning of "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" -- every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations ...."

My point was that the NYT said the program collected metadata, not content. For me to have been deceptive on that point, the rest of the sentence would have to undone that claim. It didn't. So where was the deception?

If what you did was in no way deceptive, then what I did damn sure wasn't deceptive.

Your childishness and irresponsibility is just digging your hole deeper.

[Cowboy]

My place or yours?

My place. It's 20 degrees cooler, and 100% bluer!!

That's in the 70's.
No wonder y'all are blue.
It's freezing up there.

[Stinger]

Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS - all fell apart in the face of facts and Obama was pretty unscathed.

The media searches and Snowden seem to be doing more damage.

How's he doing more damage?

Wonder why he insisted that the Guardian publish the story without doing the requisite background checks that a newspaper normally does. (That's why WaPo turned him down.)

It seems like he may be losing credibility:

Now that the dust has settled after the Edward Snowden affair, it’s time to ask some tough questions about The Guardian’s scoop of the week. Snowden’s story is that he dropped a $200,000 a year job and a (very attractive) girlfriend in Hawaii for a life in hiding in Hong Kong in order to expose the evils of the NSA's Prism programme. But bits of the story are now being questioned.
1. Why did he go to China? It was always an odd aspect of his plan that he should choose as his refuge from tyranny a totalitarian state that happily spies on its own people and imprisons dissenters. True, Hong Kong itself has a tradition of resistance to dictatorship, but it also has a treaty with the US that would make it relatively easy for America to extradite their guy back. Perhaps Snowden simply has the worst lawyers in history?
2. Snowden’s backstory is not entirely accurate. Booz Allen says that his salary was 40 per cent lower than thought and a real estate agent says that his house in Hawaii was empty for weeks before he vamoosed. Does the fact that he only worked for three months with Booz Allen and the NSA suggest he was planning a hit and run all along – that he took the job with the NSA with the intention of stealing the documents?
3. The administration is pushing back on the definition of what Prism actually is – that it’s not a snooping programme but a data management tool. The call logging accusations are pretty much beyond doubt (and reason enough to scream Big Brother) but the Prism angle is a little less clear. Extremetech points out that it is a programme that has hidden in public sight, that Prism is in fact, “the name of a web data management tool that is so boring that no one had ever bothered to report on its existence before now. It appears that the public Prism tool is simply a way to view and manage collected data, as well as correlate it with the source.” This is not to say that there isn’t a scandal to investigate here: “What is much more important is to pay attention to what data is being collected, and how.” But Prism might not be the smoking gun.
None of this debunks outright Snowden’s claims that the NSA is gathering data, that it has extraordinary power or that it has lied to Congress about it. But it does smack of a lack of fact checking on the part of The Guardian and it risks giving credibility to those who think this is a lot of fuss about nothing (and I'm not one of them). As Joshua Foust of Medium.com suggests, the problem probably rests with Snowden. He first approached the Washington Post via a freelancer and demanded that they publish everything without time for fact checking or government comment. The Post hesitated – so Snowden went to The Guardian instead. This forced the Post to speed up publication of its own story. Frost: “Both papers, in their rush, wound up printing misleading stories.” If so, they're in trouble.

telegraph.uk

[Stinger]

So here's the original sentence: "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" -- every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government."

So, explain to me how leaving off "fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government" somehow magically changes the meaning of "The surreptitious collection of "metadata" -- every bit of information about every phone call except the word-by-word content of conversations ...."

My point was that the NYT said the program collected metadata, not content. For me to have been deceptive on that point, the rest of the sentence would have to undone that claim. It didn't. So where was the deception?

If what you did was in no way deceptive, then what I did damn sure wasn't deceptive.

Stinger, you poor, ridiculous, paranoid wingnut. You're still keening about that? Your desperation to cover for how badly you screwed up above is pitiful.
No one eliminates words from a sentence they're quoting - automatic deception.
You didn't even do so with a "..." - automatic deception.
All your words were left intact by me - automatically you were more deceptive.


Wow. What happened to that pathetic claim that I somehow changed the meaning of the sentence?

I knew you couldn't explain it. I would day nice try, but it wasn't.

Logic fails, so you resort to Vrede's 10 (27? 96?) Commandments Which No Mere Mortal Can Violate.

Leaving irrelevant words off of a quotation is not "automatic deception," no matter how many times you say it.

Here's a non-Vrede source on partial quotes:

Be sure to introduce the author from the source work within the sentence itself and use quotation marks. No comma is necessary to introduce the quoted phrase.

Example:

Margaret Reardon points out that today's economy cars are "better equipped" to handle accidents than the smaller cars of the past.

Another:

Partial Direct Quotation (used to remove text from the middle of a quotation)

Definition:
The use of a direct quotation in which a middle section of the quote has been removed. The text that has been directly quoted must be enclosed in quotation marks and the source must be cited.

Example:

Original Text:

"If writing is a tool, then it is part of the Cartesian dualistic reality in which we all continue to live. A tool is a thing out there in the world, a palpable object that one can store in the garage and retrieve as necessary. A tool can be put aside; language cannot."

Partial Direct Quotation of the Text:

"If writing is a tool, then it is part of the Cartesian dualistic reality in which we all continue to live. A tool is a... palpable object that one can store in the garage and retrieve as necessary" (Welch 1999, 145).

Benefit of using this strategy:
Removing a section from the middle of a quotation allows you to include the best and most pertinent part of the quotation in your essay.

Challenge of using this strategy:
The point where a quotation is stopped and restarted should make a smooth connection so that the quote is clear for your reader.

And from the God of Journalism, the Chicago Manual of Style:

Ellipses are not used (1) before the first word of a quotation, even if beginning of original sentence is omitted (2) after last word of quotation, even if end of original sentence is omitted, unless sentence as quoted is deliberately incomplete (11.54).

I rest my case. Everywhere but here in VredeWorld, it is allowed to provide a partial quotation, and one is allowed to omit the ellipses at the end of a sentence unless the sentence as quoted is deliberately incomplete.

It wasn't. Opss. Looks like I was right, and you were wrong. At least in the real world. I understand things are different here.

Since our whole conversation started on PRISM and metadata vs. content, the only thing I talked about the entire time was PRISM and metadata vs. content, and the part of the sentence that I quoted was the part of the sentence that dealt with PRISM and metadata vs. content.

See how simple? Not deliberately incomplete. The last part was completely irrelevant to PRISM and metadata vs. content. It was deliberately on topic.


You knew all along that my point and the point of this thread was about the threat to civil liberties, regardless of the details.

As Thorn would say, "Wha wha wha." This thread started out on IRS seizing medical records and wandered all over the place. At one point, you even infringed upon some civil liberties by using someone's IP address to trace his internet connection and try to intimidate him.

My egregious error was that I forgot that you get to decide what a thread is about and what topics are allowed to be discussed within that thread ... even after the fact, if necessary.

My other error was thinking that when you started with PRISM and content, and I replied with PRISM and data, and you argued back with PRISM and content, and I argued back with PRISM and date, that we were actually discussing PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA.

Silly me.

You kept trying to dodge that discussion with your obsessive and inaccurate (as banni has now shown you, too) focus on minutiae.

Oh, that's right. You not only have the power and authority to decide what can and cannot be discussed, and how it is to be discussed, you have the omniscience to know what a person is thinking. You can actually read my mind, from 500 miles away, and tell that I was trying to dodge that discussion.

I don't know how I let that slip my mind. I don't know a single other person with any of those powers. You can bet I won't forget again.

Now, someone without your powers might think that, since we started out with you discussing PRISM and content, and me replying with PRISM and data, and you arguing back with PRISM and content, and me arguing back with PRISM and data, that I was actually sticking to the topic by focusing solely on PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA

But that person obviously wouldn't have your powers.

As far as your fantasy that Bannination rebutted me, too ... he didn't. What he mentioned was Bush's warrantless wiretapping program that Bush shut down before he left office. That is not PRISM. Guess you didn't bother to read his source. You certainly didn't recognize the subject matter.

If you want to be that pathetically silly, fine, but to remove a phrase that you knew bolstered my point is just too convenient - deception.

Again, my mistake for not realizing we weren't discussing what we had been discussing. You had moved on (not that you were dodging the point we were discussing or anything), but when I quoted the sentence, I quoted it to support the argument I was making about the point we had been discussing.

Omitting the end of the sentence does not change the first part of the sentence -- metadata, not content. That's right. The New York Times said metadata, not content. No amount of whining about how the end of the sentence supports your position about some other topic makes one bit of difference.

Whine all you want. Carry on till the cows come on. Rant and rave. Make up new topics that I can dodge.

It still won't change the fact. The part I omitted was irrelevant, and the Chicago Manual of Style backs up my omission of the ellipses ... at least it would out in the real world.

And, not to question your omniscience, but I had no clue what point you were trying to make. I thought we were discussing PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA

Your real stupidity was in thinking that you could get away with it when I'm the one you're debating.

Remind me again what I was supposed to think I was getting away with.

My mistake was not seeing where you had moved the rest of my sentence. I couldn't possibly think I was putting anything over on you there. You knew the words were still there, just in a different place. If I had seen them, I would have know that you didn't edit them out. Therefore, I couldn't possibly have tried to put anything over on you. I know that you know, I can't fool you, can I?

The stupidity would be if you actually thought I was trying to get away with something there.

The second item you might be talking about has pretty well been put to bet. I didn't deceive. I didn't try to fool. I didn't even do anything wrong. I left off the end of the sentence that was irrelevant to the point we have been discussing.

The stupidity would be if you actually thought I was trying to get away with something there.

Oh look, Stinger is whining and whining and whining over my inserting a comment to no sane, conceivable disadvantage to himself when he just removed another half a paragraph. Oh well, thanks for the opportunity:

For your own sake just STFU about it.

Your childishness and irresponsibility is just digging your hole deeper.

[Stinger]

How's he doing more damage?

Seen Obama's latest job approval numbers? Now, I understand that they're in part due to scandal overload and it may just be the straw that broke the camel's back added to the groundwork the wingnut cons laid, which is a shame, but it's still that straw.

Down 2 points since May. Hardly earthshaking. If that's the best Snowden can do, he amounts to little better than those vaunted Republican whistleblowers.

Wonder why he insisted that the Guardian publish the story without doing the requisite background checks that a newspaper normally does. (That's why WaPo turned him down.)

Ahem, at first. Thanks, I thought it was because US secrecy law precluded it, but I didn't know. WaPo did release the PRISM material, they left Verizon to the Guardian. You knew that, right?

Yeah, they rushed something out when they knew the Guardian was scooping them, but they didn't have time to vet it either.

[Stinger]

Five-year-old news. The FISA court made public its 2008 decision allowing warrantless wiretapping for ... you guessed it -- CONTENT.

WASHINGTON — In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.

But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001.

New York Times

This is specifically about incoming and outgoing international communications to suspected spies or terrorists. It did not address Bush's domestic warrantless wiretapping.

And it's not PRISM. Confusing everything NSA does with PRISM is a mistake many have made.

[bannination]

Even though I believe our conversations are converted to text, I think it's funny that people don't believe they can't record every single call with an unlimited budget.

Completely free voice codecs can store good quality speech at 1200 BITS/s ...... So we'll say what? 1/2 a megabyte per hour of phone call? That's 2,097,152 hours of conversation on a consumer grade 1 TB hard drive, just directly storing voice. Convert that to text and.... wow..... if the entire Library of Congress were converted to digital text it would fit it 10 TB's......

Oh, and the military has codecs that record in less than 1200 BITS/s for voice.

Anyone wanna tell me what good it does to just record phone numbers? The phone company does that anyway without requiring any special hardware from the government to be installed.

//Napkin maths.

[bannination]

Skype Provided Backdoor Access to the NSA Before Microsoft Takeover [NYT]

[Stinger]

Even though I believe our conversations are converted to text, I think it's funny that people don't believe they can't record every single call with an unlimited budget.

It's not a question of believing they can do it. Of course they can do it. They can monitor everything on the forum, identify all participants, tap our phones, and send people to watch us.

The question is, why the *#@& would they do that? The ability to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things. Why on earth would they even think of doing something that foolish and counterproductive?

Especially when the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data daily -- precisely why they don't monitor content. They can, technically, but they can't, realistically, because of the sheer volume of metadata they have to look at.

Another N.S.A. document, again cited by The Guardian, showed a “global heat map” that appeared to represent how much data the N.S.A. sweeps up around the world. It showed that in March 2013 there were 97 billion pieces of data collected from networks worldwide; about 14 percent of it was in Iran, much was from Pakistan and about 3 percent came from inside the United States, though some of that might have been foreign data traffic routed through American-based servers.

Of everything the NSA sweeps, only 3% is in the U.S.

Anyone wanna tell me what good it does to just record phone numbers? The phone company does that anyway without requiring any special hardware from the government to be installed.

Read the articles. They're not just recording phone numbers. They're recording what number you call, when you call, how long the call lasts, where you are and where your call's received. Then they analyze the data using algorithms (and also run it against known dirty numbers.

//Napkin maths.

[O Really]

So somebody give us a theory - not on what NSA, et. al., could do with the data they collect - but on what you think they really do. Here's what I mean - what do you think their real mission is, if not trying to prevent various attacks against the US? What do you think is the objective if you believe they're listening to everyone? Who gains by exceeding their authority? Who should oversee their work if not a court and Congress? And does anybody really think intelligence gathering and covert work can be done in an environment where everybody knows everything?

[Stinger]

You're really okay with groups linked to Al Qaeda try to transport Strontium 90 from Uzbekistan into Kazakhstan?

They're doing so using Verizon phones in America?

No one said they were.

How many people will die if Al Qaeda manages to get a suitcase nuke or make a dirty bomb? We know they're trying to. We should just sit back and let it happen?

The US has always led the nuclear arms race, is the only nation to have used them against others, has poisoned millions of its own citizens with them, continues to violate the NPT by not disarming, has thrown away trillions of dollars on them, abets Israel in operating outside the NPT, made Pakistan a well-financed ally despite its clear violation of the NPT and then sharing its technology with even more unsavory nations, is incredibly sloppy with them as the recent Minot revelations show, and the only reason there might be the materials in Uzbekistan is because the USSR was trying to keep up with us.

Nice little diatribe, but none of it makes one bit of difference to what I said. It doesn't stop Al Qaeda from trying to get a suitcase nuke. It doesn't stop Al Qaeda from trying to get fissionable material. It doesn't stop Al Qaeda from trying to make a dirty bomb.

What are you doing about all that if you're so worried? Or this:

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste

Oh, that's right, you absolutely trust the same national security state that's done and is doing all this to not abuse American rights with the most intrusive domestic spying program ever created. Does that even make sense to you?[/color]

You should have read the whole article. The correction on the back page said that fly ash released from a power plant emitted more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

Doesn't sound like it would make very good dirty bomb material.

I don't absolutely trust anyone. That's just your cute little trick of putting words in someone's mouth. I bet you pitch a bitch when someone does that to you.

[Stinger]

Wow, you really mucked up the formatting and color. I'll try to fix it, if I mess up something it's not intentional.

That's pathetic. ROTFLMAO!!!


Wow. What happened to that pathetic claim that I somehow changed the meaning of the sentence?

I knew you couldn't explain it. I would day nice try, but it wasn't.

Logic fails, so you resort to Vrede's 10 (27? 96?) Commandments Which No Mere Mortal Can Violate.

You deleted the rest of my list, just like you deleted nearly 2 1/2 paragraphs from my last post. Here it is you lying sack of poop:

Poor, poor paranoid Vrede62. Your 2 1/2 paragraphs were pointless blather talking over everything I said, and had nothing to do with what I wrote here, you oh so mature sack of poop. It's not lying to ignore stuff that makes no difference. You didn't put it back in.

What you added here I left in. Wow, you really mucked up the formatting.

You knew all along that my point and the point of this thread was about the threat to civil liberties, regardless of the details. Answered below. You kept trying to dodge that discussion with your obsessive and inaccurate (as banni has now shown you, too) focus on minutiae. Answered below. If you want to be that pathetically silly, fine, but to remove a phrase that you knew bolstered my point is just too convenient - deception. Answered below.
Your real stupidity was in thinking that you could get away with it when I'm the one you're debating. I think all that time childishly carping at Leo Lyons killed some of your brain cells. Answered below.

Leaving irrelevant words off of a quotation is not "automatic deception," no matter how many times you say it.

Here's a non-Vrede source on partial quotes:

Since none of Stinger's examples justify eliminating a phrase that supports the conversant's point, I've dispensed with them and his diversionary irrelevant ranting. Shame he wasted so much time, isn't it? Well, maybe I'll leave one in:

Way to go, Vrede 62. Declare yourself dispenser of a rhetorical asswhipping. You sure remind me of someone.

Uh, Vrede 62. I was the conversant. I brought up the quote to make my point. I couldn't have left off anything you were using because I provided the link and the quote.

Regardless of that fact, the end of the sentence did not change the first part of the sentence, so my edit is perfectly fine and acceptable. Your continued mewling that the end of the sentence somehow undermines something is pathetic and factually incorrect. It doesn't undermine the fact that the New York Times said data collection with no content monitoring.

The only place you're correct on this is here in Vrede World.

And from the God of Journalism, the Chicago Manual of Style:

Ellipses are not used (1) before the first word of a quotation, even if beginning of original sentence is omitted (2) after last word of quotation, even if end of original sentence is omitted, unless sentence as quoted is deliberately incomplete (11.54).

There it is, Stinger made it "deliberately incomplete" relevant to my whole point, one I harked back to over and over.

ROTFLMAO!!! You weren't making a point. I was. I was making the point that PRISM collects data and doesn't monitor content. It was my quote, making my point, so -- logically -- what was left off was irrelevant to my point, had zero impact on my point, did nothing to refute my point, and could not have been deliberately incomplete because it was completely irrelevant to my point.

But you keep spreading your bullshit and pray someone's dumb enough to believe it. I think some appropriate remarks might be, "For your own sake just STFU about it. Your childishness and irresponsibility is just digging your hole deeper."

Since our whole conversation started on PRISM and metadata vs. content,

Lie, again, I was conversing about the big picture including drug war applications. It's not and never was my problem if Stinger:

Here's how it all started:

That means that PRISM may have noted any of our posts here about drugs and the drug war. Knock, knock . . .

PRISM collects records from internet companies, not content

PRISM is all about content and who posted what.

The program [PRISM] doesn't let the U.S. listen to people's calls, but only includes information like call length and telephone numbers dialed."

.the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications..."

So you weren't talking about PRISM? We weren't talking about PRISM and data vs. content? I could talk about lying sacks of poop, but I'll just say, it's not my fault if Vrede62:[/color][/b]


the only thing I talked about the entire time was PRISM and metadata vs. content, and the part of the sentence that I quoted was the part of the sentence that dealt with PRISM and metadata vs. content.

Yeah, you sure screwed that up, see post above. Remember all those claims by you that the June 8 Guardian article was supposedly correcting earlier errors? Now, the Guardian says "content", over and over and over again. If history is a guide Stinger will now deem his own source to be not credible.

No, I didn't screw it up. You did and still are.

Since Prism was first revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post, there has been much discussion across the media around exactly what the NSA's top-secret program is, how it works, and what it covers.

While many of these have provided useful insight and detail into the operation of the program, several of the reports do not tally with the information obtained by the Guardian.

Kind of implies that what follows WILL tally with the information obtained by the Guardian. What follows it this:

It clearly distinguishes Prism, which involves data collection from servers, as distinct from four different programs involving data collection from "fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past".

Essentially, the slide suggests that the NSA also collects some information under FAA702 from cable intercepts, but that process is distinct from Prism.

All your snarky, petty, petulant bullshit aside, the Guardian says that its information shows PRISM to be a program that collects data.

Thanks for playing. Please try again.

See how simple? Not deliberately incomplete. The last part was completely irrelevant to PRISM and metadata vs. content. It was deliberately on topic.

Lie again, it supported my point, the one you were scrambling to ineffectively and, as it turns out, inaccurately dodge.

Lie again, and more stupid on top of the earlier stupid. It was my frickin' quote. I put the quote and the link in my post. Sounds like you're the one scrambling now, trying to save some of that precious face.

The last part is completely irrelevant to PRISM and data vs. content.

For it to be relevant, you'll just have to show how the last part of the sentence changes the first part. Go ahead and show how the last part changes "collects data, not content" to "collects content."

I'll be waiting.

As Thorn would say, "Wha wha wha." This thread started out on IRS seizing medical records and wandered all over the place.

Lie, again. Guess you don't understand the title that we've stuck pretty closely to and that was certainly contained in the post of mine that you responded to.

No surprise you're quoting Det.Thorn, he (I think) likes you, too. Figures.

If you live in California

and the taxpayers may be left with a $250 billion bill in compensatory damages if suit is successful.

First post is about IRS. Just like I said. And I'm a liar.

Uh, that post I responded to? I responded to a specific part of your post. That was kind of made blatantly obvious by my response being solely about PRISM. To which you responded with a comment about PRISM. Which I followed with a comment about PRISM, bringing another response about PRISM.

Like I've seen you do a thousand times, I picked a particular part of your post to talk about. Everyone on this forum has done the same thing. That's what people do on this forum.

Now you want to claim that you can't discuss one item from someone's post? After you've done it countless times?

What should I call that. Disingenuous? Hypocritical? You talked about PRISM. I commented about your PRISM. You responded with your own comment about PRISM. I returned the comment with more PRISM. You commented again about PRISM

But we weren't talking about PRISM. We were talking about something else. Got it.


At one point, you even infringed upon some civil liberties by using someone's IP address to trace his internet connection and try to intimidate him.

Oh, you are utterly clueless about what civil liberties and intimidation are. That explains a lot.

And you're not responsible for your own actions. That is to be expected.

My egregious error was that I forgot that you get to decide what a thread is about and what topics are allowed to be discussed within that thread ... even after the fact, if necessary.

"allowed"? You're the one that disallowed the ongoing big picture discussion even to the point of lopping off the ends of sentences that included it. And, you're the one now habitually deleting whole relevant sections of my posts.

Funnier than hell. Pretty desperate too. I guess that's the best you could come up with.

I commented on an aspect of a post that I thought was in error. Something you've done countless times, especially with you being the bigger nitpicker.

But suddenly, according to Vrede62, we, or at least I, can't do that anymore.

My other error was thinking that when you started with PRISM and content, and I replied with PRISM and data, and you argued back with PRISM and content, and I argued back with PRISM and date, that we were actually discussing PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA.

Silly me.

Yeah, you sure screwed that up, see post above. Remember all those claims by you that the June 8 Guardian article was supposedly correcting earlier errors? Now, the Guardian says "content", over and over and over again. If history is a guide Stinger will now deem his own source to be not credible.

You sure screwed up that answer, didn't you. My point was about how our conversation started. Your dodge was some babble about what Guardian says. Cognitive disconnect.

By the way, I posted what the Guardian said. Haven't seen jackshit from you.

Oh, that's right. You not only have the power and authority to decide what can and cannot be discussed, and how it is to be discussed, you have the omniscience to know what a person is thinking.

"me"? You're the one that disallowed the ongoing big picture discussion even to the point of lopping off the ends of sentences that included it. And, you're the one now habitually deleting whole relevant sections of my posts.

I didn't disallow anything, poor, paranoid Vrede. I commented about one and only one aspect, and you responded to that same aspect, only to later claim that you were talking about something else.

Best you can do, I guess.

You can actually read my mind, from 500 miles away, and tell that I was trying to dodge that discussion.

"trying"? You were dodging that discussion. It's impossible to discuss "content" or any other part of the revelations without discussing civil liberties. You got caught deceiving and the only reason you're obsessing about my one post noting it is because of your humiliation over having falsely accused me of doing the same 18 times.

Hey, where did that whole part of my post, including your new deceptive editing go? Those 30 "mistakes" too uncomfortable for you?

You're now shaming yourself even worse, but don't seem smart enough to get it.

I wasn't dodging anything. I was discussing what I was discussing. The same thing you were discussing until it got away from me.

It's not impossible for me to discuss whether PRISM is content monitoring or data collecting without getting into anything else. I don't see any reason why it would be impossible for you, what with you being the forum's greatest mind and debate specialist. Maybe it just wasn't your day.

Regardless, to know whether I was dodging anything, or whether I was "desperate to avoid the real issue," like you said on an earlier rant, you would have to be psychic. Or have a really huge ego.

And that point, "the one I was always discussing," why did you start out by specifically discussing PRISM post after post?

I don't know how I let that slip my mind. I don't know a single other person with any of those powers. You can bet I won't forget again.

No powers, your dodging was obvious. You're nowhere near as crafty as you imagine, and you "forget" everything that's convenient for you to forget.

Your egotistical delusions are obvious. You're nowhere near as crafty as you imagine, and you invent everything that's convenient for you to invent.

I didn't dodge anything. I clicked on the thread. Saw your post. Disagreed with you about PRISM. We started discussing it as data mining vs. content monitoring, and suddenly you claim we weren't discussing that, and a quote that I made somehow was suppose to support a point you never made. That dodging thing just might be some projection on your part.

Now, someone without your powers might think that, since we started out with you discussing PRISM and content, and me replying with PRISM and data, and you arguing back with PRISM and content, and me arguing back with PRISM and data, that I was actually sticking to the topic by focusing solely on PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA

Yeah, you sure screwed that up, see post above. Remember all those claims by you that the June 8 Guardian article was supposedly correcting earlier errors? Now, the Guardian says "content", over and over and over again. If history is a guide Stinger will now deem his own source to be not credible.

You sure screwed up that answer, didn't you. More BS you can't back up. My point was about how our conversation started. Your dodge was some babble about what Guardian says. Cognitive disconnect.

By the way, I posted what the Guardian said. Haven't seen jackshit from you.

But that person obviously wouldn't have your powers.

As far as your fantasy that Bannination rebutted me, too ... he didn't. What he mentioned was Bush's warrantless wiretapping program that Bush shut down before he left office. That is not PRISM. Guess you didn't bother to read his source. You certainly didn't recognize the subject matter.

Lie, again, it's an article posted today responding to "FBI Director Robert Mueller's Congressional hearing this week". Shrub has nothing to do with it. You just can't help yourself, can you?

Man, you screwed that one up too, didn't you? Bannination's sources for listening to content were c-net and wiki. Both were talking about the warrantless wiretap program, not PRISM.

Now, here's the really, really funny part. That techdirt article that you said Bannination had rebutted me too.

Mr. Mueller addressed a proposal to require telephone companies to retain calling logs for five years — the period the N.S.A. is keeping them — for investigators to consult, rather than allowing the government to collect and store them all.

You know what calling logs are? Data, not content.

Guess he really didn't rebut me after all, did he? And I didn't lie, did I?


Again, my mistake for not realizing we weren't discussing what we had been discussing. You had moved on (not that you were dodging the point we were discussing or anything), but when I quoted the sentence, I quoted it to support the argument I was making about the point we had been discussing.

Yes, you've been clueless for a good long while now. Your mistake.

Not as clueless as you, thinking my quote from my cited source is supposed to support some point you brought in, unannounced, somewhere down the line.

Your mistake again ... and again ... and again ... and again.

I was just kidding about your powers while ago. You can change your argument willy nilly, but you can't change mine to suit your needs.

Omitting the end of the sentence does not change the first part of the sentence -- metadata, not content. That's right. The New York Times said metadata, not content. No amount of whining about how the end of the sentence supports your position about some other topic makes one bit of difference.

Yeah, you sure screwed that up, see post above. Remember all those claims by you that the June 8 Guardian article was supposedly correcting earlier errors? Now, the Guardian says "content", over and over and over again. If history is a guide Stinger will now deem his own source to be not credible.

You sure screwed up that answer, didn't you. I'm talking about the New York Times, and the only way you can try to save face and run from your screw up is to start blathering about the Guardian again.

By the way, I posted what the Guardian said. Haven't seen jackshit from you.

Whine all you want. Carry on till the cows come on. Rant and rave. Make up new topics that I can dodge.

You will, just as you dodged the whole first part of my post that you're responding to, just as you lopped off half a list from it, and just as you edited out almost 2 1/2 paragraphs from the prior post. Dodge away, Stinger, dodge away.

ROTFLMAO!!!! The only way you can keep up in a good argument. Spread enough ridiculous, irrelevant, pointless bullshit and wear someone down through attrition rather than simple logic and rational thought. It would have to have some sort of significance for me to dodge it. It didn't.

It still won't change the fact. The part I omitted was irrelevant, and the Chicago Manual of Style backs up my omission of the ellipses ... at least it would out in the real world.

Lie, again, it says "unless sentence as quoted is deliberately incomplete". Thanks for reminding us.

Lie again. The sentence wasn't deliberately incomplete because had I included the ending, it wouldn't have changed the fact that the first part supported the only thing I was discussing -- data mining vs. content.

I see you've run from the challenge for the 5th time (27th? 103rd?) Still can't explain how the second part of the sentence magically changes the meaning of the first part of the sentence.

Thanks for proving that the sentence, by definition, was not deliberately incomplete. Your silence is an excellent corroboration of my being correct.

And, not to question your omniscience, but I had no clue what point you were trying to make. I thought we were discussing PRISM AND CONTENT VS. DATA

Yeah, you sure screwed that up, see post above. Remember all those claims by you that the June 8 Guardian article was supposedly correcting earlier errors? Now, the Guardian says "content", over and over and over again. If history is a guide Stinger will now deem his own source to be not credible.

You sure screwed up that answer, didn't you? Have you been drinking? How could me not knowing what point you were trying to make possibly have to do with me quoting an article that backed up what I WAS discussing. The only way you can try to save face and run from your screw up is to start blathering about the Guardian again.

By the way, I posted what the Guardian said. Haven't seen jackshit from you.

Remind me again what I was supposed to think I was getting away with.

Nah, your "memory" and quotations are just too convenient.

Another senseless dodge?

My mistake was not seeing where you had moved the rest of my sentence. I couldn't possibly think I was putting anything over on you there. You knew the words were still there, just in a different place. If I had seen them, I would have know that you didn't edit them out. Therefore, I couldn't possibly have tried to put anything over on you. I know that you know, I can't fool you, can I?

Yes, you were stupid 16 times to accuse me of deleting anything, as you're making a habit of doing, you were stupid to continue the accusations even after I posted the real quote and the link, and you remain stupid and wussy in continuing to call an insertion a "move" and in continuing to express the uber-paranoid delusion that the insertion itself rather than its content was some plot to make your point less effective even though it meant you got the last word in.

And you were stupid to say I was trying to put something over on you when I obviously made a mistake and did not see where you had moved the rest of my sentence, and you're still being a wussy by denying that you moved part of my sentence.

If you hit the return button three times, and the words moved down the page, then you moved it, pure and simple. If you try to deny that, you are the world's most pitiful liar.

The stupidity would be if you actually thought I was trying to get away with something there.

The second item you might be talking about has pretty well been put to bet. I didn't deceive. I didn't try to fool. I didn't even do anything wrong. I left off the end of the sentence that was irrelevant to the point we have been discussing.

The stupidity would be if you actually thought I was trying to get away with something there.

You didn't like my point, you didn't like admitting that it was part of the very first post of mine you referred to, you didn't like that I kept returning to it, you didn't like that the sentence bolstered it and, yes you are stupid in thinking that "content", which you got wrong (see post above) or any other aspect of this travesty can be discussed absent civil liberties, and stupid in thinking you could get away with it, and really stupid in continuing to remind us.

Lie again. It wasn't part of the very first quote. You didn't quote the New York Times. You quoted a petition drive. And I never read that part of your quote until just now. That's sad claiming that similar wording in a frickin petition drive means anything. Maybe I should do all that stuff about how stupid you are, thinking you could pull that on me, etc. Maybe not. Desperate sounds more accurate.

We had never discussed government abuse or violations of poverty. The only thing we discussed was PRISM, content vs.data.

The PRISM program is one of the greatest violations of privacy ever committed by a government.

vs.

fundamentally alters the relationship between individuals and their government.

The second one is part of the first one? The first one's from your petition drive and the second one's from the article I cited in the New York Times.

Seriously ROTFLMAO!!! The more I look at it, the funnier it gets. I'm going to have to print that one out, too.

Your "logic" is just too precious. I quoted an NYT article, since you had been claiming the NYT supported your content belief, that supported my contention, plain and simple, and you cry foul and create this shitstorm because the irrelevant part I left off was sort of similar to your petition drive?

And that's what you base your claim to overrule the Chicago Manual of Style? My sides are starting to hurt.

For your own sake just STFU about it. Your childishness and irresponsibility is just digging your hole deeper.

Wise words. You really should follow them. But those sure were some good laughs. Thanks.[/quote]

[bannination]

Official: Water complaints could be 'act of terrorism'


Yep, I'm sure all this spying stuff will work out to protect us..... No one in positions of power could possibly abuse it....... no oversight needed.

Behavior we don't like? Just call it terrorism.