Pretty sure that Moyers is firmly on the sensible side of this issue.
A sampler:
http://billmoyers.com/tag/national-security-agency/
That Maher isn’t, shocks me not a whit. Although ostensibly “left,” dude is functioning at approximately “broken clock” level, anymore.
Maher is the walking embodiment of everything that went wrong with the US liberal left. He’s got the self-indulgent hedonism of the Me Generation 70s, the narcissistic hippie turned yuppie malaise of the 80s…if Maher was a band, he would be some kind of toxic amalgamation of the Eagles and Jefferson Starship. His political ethos can be summed up in one line: “Every thing I was passionately opposed to when Bush was doing it? I totally support it as long my My Guy is doing it.”
Maher used to be at least a relatively respectable ‘funnyman’ who could expose some lunacy on his shows but he’s not strayed so far from his libertarian views one would have to call him a right-center guy. It’s not just his views on the surveillance state but also his rampant islamophobia.
he was just trying to get cheap shot laughs off the audience…
Bill Maher is a bit of a dummy. I don’t get the focus on Snowden either. I don’t care if I ever her Snowden’s name again. My focus is on the NSA and this whole military system. It’s time for a big retirement party. America need to choose a new profession.
Some men, when confronted with the obvious truth about important things, refuse to believe them on the account that the required self-examination that would follow would simply be too painful. The look on Bill Maher’s face, as Glenn Greenwald politely dismantles his worldview, is the same one you would get if you asked someone to step out in front of a bus. They cannot conceive a situation wherein that would end up well for them, so they refuse to do it.
Bill Maher is not a serious person, and his worldview should not be taken seriously, by anyone who wants to understand what is going on. He’s a silly bird person, parroting things other people have whispered in his ear. His supposed familiarity with guano the revealing factor, imo.
The narrative for the general audience has been that Snowden is a traitor, not that he is batshit crazy or that he says batshit crazy things. Maher has implanted a new perspective of, " Oh, that crazy Snowden, he’s so hapless and nuts, thank god he gave the info to you Glenn, instead of Perez Hilton. Maybe that’s his methodology, but it sucks, and as noted in the headline above, what will travel now in soundbites is that Snowden is just a nut. Therefore, what was released and what Snowden said is not worth listening to.
Further the NSA does have records of people not on the internet, they keep records of every bit of mail you send and receive as well as every interaction you’ve had on phone calls.
Don’t forget Greenwald’s excellent retort: “It’s crazy that you think he’s crazy.”
Bill Maher has been disassembled by Glenn Greenwald every time he’s been on the show. So, Bill needed a way to try to outfox the fox and get him to reroute his comments. Again, it didn’t work. I have not yet seen one single instance where Greenwald didn’t bring his A game.
You are demonstrating exactly what I was talking about. You should take a longer perspective or you will only be talking to your friends.
And boy howdy. I stopped watching Religulous when I realized the subtitles are for humorous effect and do not reflect what the people are actually saying (at least in a few cases). I’ve found him entertaining at times, but it never compensated for his infuriatingly blithe anti-intellectualism. Worse still, he denies being anti-intellectual.
You’re putting words in Maher’s mouth. If he meant it that way, he’d have said it that way. I’m not going to read his fucking mind.
The NSA haven’t really changed the way they do their spying. What has changed is the way people communicate. Suddenly every bit of information we exchange goes through the same easily searched channel, so the NSA’s coverage increased vastly.
Maher is being disingenuous at best. He knows damn well Snowden is speaking in the context of electronic communications.
This is a highly specialized position you are taking I believe. I don’t think you really mean you do not interpret what people say beyond the surface meaning. I think you are playing games here and that is what I am pointing out. You can play at debate or have a real conversation. I prefer cooperation over posturing.
Knight to E4 is playing games. Pointing out that you are arguing intent without the benefit of evidence is not.
We are not doing philosophy here. We are having a conversation. Your use of fancy phrases to attempt to intimidate me is further proof you are posturing.
I have no idea what you are talking about. This is dead-simple: You can’t prove anything you say. At least not to a standard I find acceptable. Therefore what you say is of limited worth to me. Maybe not to everyone, but certainly to me. Also don’t tell me what I’m doing. You do what you want. I’ll do what I want. Learn to live with it.
Mod edit: removed flametastic cussing
What am I demonstrating exactly?
Yes, because the functional abilities of the NSA that we’ve come to learn are so plain-jane and easy to reproduce that Snowden’s revelations really weren’t a shock in the least little bit.
Well of course they don’t, because they could never do that. They could never work through an air gap to hack remote systems, either. They could never break the cryptography of a VPN. They could never collect and store [insert number here] amounts of online communications. And on and on. Frankly, I think Snowden’s revelations have been the ultimate wet dream for conspiracy theorists the world 'round.
Just gonna leave this here for you:
I also found it depressing to read the following language in the Presidential Policy Directive linked from the article:
In addition, our signals intelligence activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside, and that all persons have legitimate privacy interests in the handling of their personal information.Well, they should, shouldn't they...except they're not, because 'Merica, fuck yeah.
