Buried in the leaked documents, is a yearly cost for the PRISM system: $20 million.

KEEP CALM and Carry On: PRISM itself is not a big deal • The Register

Maybe my views are a little slanted from hanging out at reddit too much but I have to take back anything I've ever said about this not as being a big deal under Obama as it was under Bush. People are completely losing their mind, right down the Nazi regime comparisons. Obama doesn't see to be as much a personal target as Bush was, but people are not happy and they're preparing for the inevitable totalitarian state this will inevitability lead to. Anything that goes wrong in this country in the next 3 years will be viewed by a disturbingly large number of people as just part of a conspiracy to justify additional domestic surveillance. Who knows what false flag terrorist attack Obama is planning as we speak.

I see it kind of like the Occupy Wall Street thing, some valid concerns that got very quickly got overwhelmed by the loudest, craziest voices. And to these voices, pretty much everything the government does is evil and wrong.

There is also a pretty big gap between what people think happened and what actually happened. It is amazing how many people think that this latest revelation was that the government is listening to and recording every call in the US.

I wonder just how many people it would take to actually listen to everyone's phone calls, read everyone's text messages and to monitor their internet activity.

Rough guess, but probably about 80% of the number of people making phone calls, sending text messages and using the internet.

I'm not sure if the people on my facebook feed are joking or not when they keep talking about the government doing this.

That's probably more serious than kidding.

The notion that the calls have been "listened to" en masse has been around for quite a few years now IIRC. Where people tend to lose the finer point of the claim is that "listened to" in conventional terms is pretty much impossible. Being scanned electronically for keywords on the other hand ...

There's a reason Tony Soprano would never use email.

Sam Seaborn(1999) -- It's not just about abortion, it's about the next 20 years. In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?

I'm interested to see if the push for privacy withstands domestic security issues as well. Like, with mental health records and gun control. We are super-connected and in touch with gun violence but I think we see terrorism as this thing that's done with and will never happen again. That could change.

Thats the main thing to consider with any 'monitoring' - the amount of data which each individual generates and sends each day is practically impossible to fully monitor.

(if you doubt this consider I transmit several Gb of data individually myself - if the NSA want to try and decrypt and analyse it then they're more than welcome to .... heck if they want to help write the game then they should just drop me an email ;) )

That's what my ex-NSA uncle mentioned. They have always had a problem with the volume of data coming in. They never had the manpower to really analyze it properly, in a manner they would like. That is why there has been an explosion of consultants brought in to help separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. And Snowden was apparently one of these consultants brought in to help.

Slightly different topic, but Turkey will be an interesting situation to watch.

Thats exactly right. There is no need to have a human "listen" to every call just as no human is needed to physically press play to record a call.

I have no idea whether any of that is going and I've seen no legitimate reports or evidence suggesting this (en masse anyway) but its certainly not a far-fetched concept. We have text to speech, speech to text, and all kinds of intelligent (and dare I say it doesnt require very much intelligence) applications to quickly parse & glean data. The idea that it would take a lot of effort to parse through phone calls because somebody needs to sit down & listen to them is utterly archaic though.

The last estimate I saw (probably a few years back now) was that literally doing every electronic communication in the U.S. would have strained existing resources & capabilities.

Right or wrong, that's the last thing I remember seeing try to analyze it.

United States have confirmed that the Syrian government has used sarin nerve gas on multiple occasions and are authorizing limited military support to the rebel groups.

Cue the Kos-Kiddies screaming "Wag the Dog" and "Impeach Obama".

I admire the administration for acknowledging the nerve gas attacks (I assumed they'd look the other way to avoid the "red line" stuff), and I admire liberals who reacts to the timing of this the same way they would if Bush was in power. At least they're consistent. But sometimes timing just sucks. You can't decide to blow off your word and act differently in important situations just because of the way it might be perceived with the timing. That takes some courage.

I agree, and not to sound too much like Jon The Hun Jr, I'm not sure there's any good way to deal with it.

Both sides are scum and assisting either of them is likely inimical to American interests,but leaving the Syrian public to deal with both of them seems heartless and a failure as well

If Assad is using chemical weapons on the Al-Nusra Front, more power to him.

I hate to say it, but I think we're putting our weight behind the losing side here. Assad's recent success seems to come on the heels ofstories of rebel atrocities (mainly related to Islamists). I don't know the makeup of the rebels but it makes me hard to think there are any good guys in this fight. Which begs the question... was Assad all that bad in the first place?

Bad guys killing bad guys ... yeeeaah. Let's jump right in there.

Supply nukes to both sides? :)

It's an idea ... but I don't much trust their aim ;)

I was going to come up with some hare brained thing about locking the aim but in the end I just figured you'd say we may as well do it ourselves.

Sure, you do. You know they'll aim to the southwest.

Some of your stereotypes might apply to John but I'm pretty sure from stuff he's said that this one doesn't. I think he likes the way Israel stands up for itself except he probably thinks they're too restrained.

referring to if we give nukes to both sides you don't think they'd aim/fire them at Israel?

There's pretty much no nation on Earth I respect more than Israel.

But I think that (knowing who both sides would target) was kinda what he meant there anyway; i.e. that would actually kill the appeal for me.

Good to see some momentum and resignation/acceptance.

Arizona Medicaid Expansion Advances After Jan Brewer Forces Lawmakers' Hands

I think what makes this really complicated is that you have Iran and Hezbollah in the mix as well.

Just make sure that we program some sort of deactivate device on all this hardware when our soldiers end up fighting against it in either Syria or some other part of the Middle East down the road.

Looks as if are getting into a war by proxy. Tricky to have essentially 3 sides and each have to fight the other 2.

Decision to arm Syrian rebels was reached weeks ago, U.S. officials say - The Washington Post

I wouldn't dispute that (nor am I in any position to qualify that kind of bulk analysis) but would point out that I don't think you would need to analyze every call anyway.

Just a small algorithm to find calls made/received by people that match a database of people they want to keep an eye (or an ear as it were) on.

I have no idea whether there is anything like this going on behind the scenes, and even if it were, thats not evidence of a concerted effort of "government" trying to spy on its people for the purpose of controlling them. But the unintended consequences of such a thing is a bit scary. Where do video calls fall in this? Why not video chat then? I dont need the session hosted on a US server to capture this....just need to be ordered by a government entity to capture & provide the capture.

Just saying that technology is moving faster than our politicians can even comprehend. Not that they can't get the basic idea, but they have no intuitive grasp of the very real potential repercussions of it (and the repercussions of poorly thought out legislation as well).

Instead, they would rather talk about a-la-carte which is a waste of time to pursue for consumers as it will either happen organically or not at all. Side track item but just saying...they really don't know what they don't know.

This is such a horrible mistake to get involved with.

well, looks like a moderate won the elections in Iran. I'm hopeful that this means a bit of thawing in the relationship, but I'm doubtful that the Ruling council will back down.

Not sure I understand why he is so vocal about this and why try to get involved?

Egypt Cuts Ties With Syria: Mohamed Morsi Orders Closing Of Damascus Embassy In Cairo, Urges Hezbollah To Stay Out

Sunni vs Shi'i thing seems most likely.

From CNET:


They may not listen to everything, but they can and do listen to whatever they want.

Or maybe not.

CNET Says NSA "Admits" Listening to US Phone Calls - But That's Not What the Video Shows - Little Green Footballs

It appears this is another instance of someone equating metadata with the actual content of a call.

This is where we prefer to go with things in this country...the CYA culture of our masters. This isn't just the NSA, its businesses as well. We don't believe in the concept of high ranking officials/executives putting their personal approval on things under the guise that it would bottleneck the process. So instead of saying "Gee, perhaps we need smaller, leaner organizations & businesses" we simply ignore it (as a decision to do or not do would also be taking ownership of the outcome) until a problem comes up like this & blame the low ranking analyst.

Thats the real story I see in this whole thing.

Sounds more likely to me than the junk we are being fed from Obama and Congress.

That Ron Paul, always good for a laugh.

Even on the odd occasion when he's right ('cause this IS a horrible idea) he manages to be so absurd that he's reduced to comic relief.

"destroy his presidency"? {giggle} Has this damnable fool failed to notice that nothing Saint Barry does moves the needle on his approval?

I think the plan is to supply the rebels to the extent that they will keep fighting. I don't think the U.S. gains from either side, but there are a lot of our enemies killing each other rather than us.

I still don't like it, but it's very Kissinger/realpolitik.

JiMGa's response to any Ron Paul post I make, always good for a laugh.

At least it isn't costing the United States any money or causing any tension with major world powers and definitely has no chance of escalating any more to involving US soldiers and US lives. I guess the 50% praise/50% scorn from you though is about as rough as you will get on Obama so obviously you agree this is a terrible idea.

Fine ... but show me even the slightest shred of evidence to the moronic statement he makes at the end. I mean, hell, if anybody would love to believe there was even the tiniest glint of hope to be found for that assertion, you'd figure it'd be me.

Yeah I felt like the Obama line was not a great conclusion and out of place but he knows the audience he is playing to. I agree 100% though with Ron Paul that another multi-billion dollar war has begun.

Ah yes, the I've never criticized Obama or Democrats line.

Keep fucking that chicken.

There HAVE been smaller scale participation in international conflicts before. Not everything has turned into Vietnam. There's no analysis or reason in anything Ron Paul says. His stated opinions on any issue are automatically generated and extreme. He's just a robot spouting the same stuff no matter the situation. Broken clocks are right once in a while I guess, but Ron Paul is fruit loop and his confidence that this will "destroy our country" should tip people off of that fact.

Who knows what the real motives are and what the outcome will be, but is the claimed purpose here so preposterous that it just must necessarily be a lie - that using chemical weapons is kind of a big deal and that the government wants heads of state to know that if you use them, your chances of winning your conflict go down because international intervention becomes more possible. Everybody has their own "red line." After conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, it makes sense that more people's red lines are a lot further along the spectrum than what they were pre-wars. I mean geez, pre-war, just the fact that Iraq had these weapons was enough for the majority of Americans to want to full-scale invade them. There has to be some point where limited intervention is appropriate. Ron Paul wouldn't have intervened in WWII, but there has to be some closer point where a more reasonable view might justify limited intervention. Maybe Obama's judgment won't turn out to be the best, but I'm at least open to the idea he isn't pumping his fist over this, excited about having the opportunity to do war stuff (to help out his "Haliburton buddies" or whatever), and making up this whole lie to justify it.

Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda

I guess I have a short memory... who was the war on terror's #1 enemy organization?

No analysis or reason? Just quotes from new organizations about how the run up to this war has been in making long before the "weapons of mass destruction" were used. I know... just facts.

Yes. Usually scathing...


1) Here is the reason Obama is smarter than everyone else (different than Bush who was an idiot)
2) I guess I don't like it
3) Let me compare him to somebody who is an iconic figure in foreign policy. (This Syria thing will probably be remember like Nixon's handling of China)

Ouch, almost has me thinking you will vote GOP next election.

Are you convinced there's zero al-Qaeda supporters in the Syrian government?

That's besides my point though, which is that you can't persuasively support an opinion if your opinion is the same no matter the facts. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but if this group was filled with disciples of Chuck Norris, you and Ron Paul would still be against it, so what difference does it make?

Edit: I'll tell you what, if your hero is right and this destroys America, or even becomes equivalent to the Vietnam war, I'll buy you a coke. How much time should we give it? Maybe a year?

I think Kissinger is one of the most evil men to wield power in U.S. history. Maybe you don't know as much about me as you think.

It is possible for people to disagree with you and still have an honest opinion.

You are FAR more a blind supporter of Ron Paul than JPhillips is of Obama. It's a little different situation because one is in power and actually doing stuff, but ideologically, it's not even close.

Maybe because outside of major conflicts like WWII most of these wars are facades for similar reasons. The Chuck Norris rebels would probably be no more our friends than any other rebel group and would eventually either turn on us or sell our weapons to one of our enemies. And you might be right that Paul wouldn't have supported WWII, he probably would have had some problems with the nukes in Japan and carpet bombing Berlin civilians, but he did support Afghanistan so I am guessing Pearl Harbor probably would have convinced him to join WWII)

Not really. I am a pretty big (99%) supporter on non-interventionism which Paul is also and articulates better than I do but I don't toe the line on most of Paul's religious crap.

And I have spoke out against the endless war consistently. If Paul got elected and then started bombing shit I wouldn't excuse it I would call him a sell out. Phillips was all over Bush but now Obama probably isnt right but here's why he is so much smarter than Bush.

Did you find that when you played it backwards? Since I didn't say that, I'm curious how you know it to be true.

Interesting how the Syria proxy war is evolving ... Russia, Iran, Hezbollah vs US, Saudi, Jordan vs AQ and its variants

Saw Rubio on ABC today. I'm sure its from the GOP talking points but think he has a valid point/question ... would it have been better if we had intervened earlier and not given AQ a foothold or Assad an opp to recover?

Saudi Arabia wants missiles for Syrian rebels: report - FRANCE 24

On your coke bet... Would an Iraqlike war be a big enough clusterfuck or does it have to be 50000 dead?

I'd love for him to pinpoint when exactly that was. When did the noble, democratic rebels become AQ supporters?

When the surface to air missile takes down a Western civilian filled airline can we at least act like we knew it could be a possibility with an asinine idea like this?

Valid concern. You would think we would have developed weapons/missiles that would only be good for x time, some sort of planned obsolescence feature etc.

The rebels have already used SAMs to take down a few of Assad's warplanes and helicopters. So they have already had them prior to this latest announcement. In any event, most (if not all) Western airlines have stopped flying into Damascus.

Agree that is isn't going to happen during a war, I was thinking more of an Osama Bin Laden-like event (friend becomes foe not magnitude of 9-11) ten/twenty years down the road. Either in the Middle East or god forbid smuggled into the United States. One would think Saudi (American) weapons might be better than what they have though I will admit I was unaware the rebels had this technology.

So, we're about two scandals back, but looks like Issa was fabricating quotes that said the IRS targeting thing was linked to the White House.

Breaking: Full House committee transcripts shed new light on genesis of IRS targeting

Biden warns Congress on gun reform: ‘You will pay a price’ | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

So Biden says lawmakers will "pay a price" for standing against large percentage of Americans that want these gun control measures? What would be a large percentage? Maybe 70?

Support for gun control slips below 50 percent after Senate vote - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Oh, ok less than 50? Well lets visit another issue...

Poll: 70 percent say no arms to Syria - Katie Glueck - POLITICO.com

Obama steps up military aid to Syrian rebels - Yahoo! News


When the administration wants to give military grade weapons to groups with ties to terrorists then the will of the American people is an afterthought. LOL. The sad part is people actually believe and actively support these clowns?

Well at least gun control works!

Chicago sees deadliest weekend of 2013, with 6 dead, at least 40 hurt - Yahoo! News

New York's Summer of Gun Violence Is Off to a Chicago-Style Start - Alexander Abad-Santos - The Atlantic Wire

Before all the liberals get their panties in a wad... Here is the supposed opposition's next great thing. Even bigger clowns...

Marco Rubio Admits That He Hasn't Read the Gun Control Bill That He Opposes

Rubio: If I were in charge, we would have armed the Syrian rebels much sooner « Hot Air

Rubio Suggests Secret Spying 'Just The Reality' | News with Tags

Rubio, Nelson support Patriot Act extension | Tampa Bay Times

I just did a lot of catching up and I could spend the afternoon making rebuttals to a lot of what you have posted as we don't usually see eye to eye in this thread.

But this post I love. :thumbsup:

SI

Yeah, the bold is what gets me about this. No, they aren't listening in on every phone call we make and everything we do- that's too manpower intensive and, frankly, too stupid.

In fact, right now, I'll give pretty good odds: not like even but like 3:1 that 99% of searches are done above board. Basically, I suspect what they are doing is collecting the metadata in one database and collecting the content in another. And then you look in the content database for "terrorism" and "bomb" and a few other choice words and backtrack to the metadata to find out who did that.

However, I really don't want anyone to have that power in their hands, no matter how well intentioned. It's really easy to put that in the wrong hands so they can change those search terms to "Tea Party" or "Occupy Wall Street" or all of the above to squelch whatever brand of dissent you don't like.

SI

Isn't that just an unavoidable risk if you're going to have any kind of government at all? If we give police the power to arrest people who have committed crimes, what's to stop them from arresting them for having an opinion they don't like? If we give the IRS the power to make determinations about an organization's status, what's to stop them from inappropriately targeting certain political viewpoints? Heck, if we give our military the power to maintain a nuclear aresenal, what's to stop them on dropping the bombs on a state filled with voters from the wrong party? Any power can be misused. Just like individual rights can be misused.

It has nothing to do with 'what if they abuse this power', this is power the Constitution clearly says 'you are not allowed to have without reasonable suspicion of a crime'.

There's no what-if scenario here. The abuse stems from them claiming the right to have this information in the first place - while asserting that privilege is legal thanks to 'secret' court rulings (which in itself leads to a violation of the 6th amendment).

No appellate court has held that yet, and recent opinions support the the government's position that this does not violate the 4th amendment, and that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the cell phone numbers they call not being placed in a database that can be accessed later upon further justification. (and we have one court opinion that says that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in your location, as identified by your phone's GPS function.)

The 4th amendment doesn't clearly preclude this, either on its face or as interpreted by recent appellate opinions. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches, with just begs for court-made tests and case-by-case determinations, and none of those tests or determinations preclude this. You might think it's unreasonable, or that it constitutes a "search", but that doesn't make it unconstitutional at this moment. A lot of the rhetoric surrounding this presupposes that this is illegal, that the government knows it's illegal, and they just decided to break the law in secret, but that's all just opinion, and it hasn't been determined by any authority that actually matters. And certainly, the government isn't justifying this solely based on security, they do contend its constitutional.

How is the 6th amendment implicated in the absence of a actual criminal prosecution?

Whether it's legal is an open question subject to debate, but at this moment it's not clearly illegal. Whether the government should do it is a different question, and almost all of the arguments against it involve slippery slope arguments, which can be tricky to make when they involve government power. Pretty much anything the government does can slippery slope into abuse of power and disaster.

Including when they do nothing.

I should have added 'in my opinion' to that, I guess. I find it yet another example of the watering down of the 4th amendment, and a black and white situation. My experience, unfortunately has led me to believe our lords and masters will say otherwise.

As to part two, it would be as part of a criminal prosecution. With secret laws backed by secrets courts (which is where they are largely claiming they have the authority for most of those), you are denied your rights to see the evidence against you, and to face your accusers - rights guaranteed to you by the 6th.

Article from just yesterday -

Justice Department Fought to Conceal NSA's Role in Terror Case From Defense Lawyers | Threat Level | Wired.com

Most interesting/terrifying part:

Oh, in terror cases, I could see the 6th amendment arguments coming up, gotcha. I was thinking more like how people (at least on my facebook wall) seem to think the government is going to read an email about them smoking weed and then break down their doors and take them in. The way the government deals with terror suspects, especially if they try to charge them domestically, is a whole different thing. It can be a mess.

Today it's terror suspects (and pedophiles - the two trump cards for any rights infringements). Though yes, people will take things to horrible illogical extremes, but the sentiment is close. There IS an element of truth to it - we've witnessed a constant erosion of rights and expansion of government authority in the past 200 years. Powers granted and powers taken don't go away - they go from 'only rarely in the most dire circumstances' to 'this is a vital everyday tool in protecting the people!'

The most horrid, vile, disgusting criminal who ever walked the earth should still have the same rights in this country as Jesus himself. We can't selectively apply the Constitution to people & crimes we don't like because they're "worse". It simply can't work like that.

It does, in increasing frequency.

It needs to end in short order.

It probably won't.

The terrorism thing has created an entirely different playing field and scope of debate, but otherwise, I think criminal rights of defendants have enhanced greatly in the last 50-100 years. There's hundreds of examples of that. Prosecutions and jury trials 75 years ago wouldn't even be recognizable today. It's amazing what they got away with by modern societal and legal standards about what defendants are entitled to.

Terrorism stuff isn't different because those guys are "really bad", it's different because of the military and national security and international components. And it's not different just because those things are "really important", there's actually practical considerations to whether it's even possible to apply domestic rules of evidence and U.S. constitutional rights to every person on the planet that we think is a terrorist. An obviously, our government and military wants to act in instances even where no U.S. law has been violated, or where there's no chance of conviction because of some procedural roadblock. Can the government and military still act in any of those instances? The idea that what our military does should be restrained by domestic criminal rules of evidence and criminal procedure is a very new idea that's still being sorted out.

I know your example is an actual domestic criminal charge, and the when the government pursues that route, of course, all the normal criminal procedures and rules of evidence have to apply. And that's what's happening. As in many criminal prosecutions, the parties have different opinions about what's constitutional, and what's admissible. As do the government agencies who aren't themselves parties in the case. I'm sure that 60-page government brief justifying their conduct didn't say, "this is illegal, sure, but terrorism is really bad and national security is really important." I'm sure it actually contains cognizable legal arguments.

Thanks, as JiMGa would say even a broken clock is right twice a day. Seriously though because of how poorly the finances of this country are handled people don't really ever consider the economic fallout of some of these decisions.

My wife and I are pretty good with our money, but she actually did get me to buy an alarm system for my house (IMO the sign is as much a deterrent as the $50 a month service but that's a whole other thread). Could I set up a more complex camera system? Sure. Could we hire a security guard? Yes but this would really cause us to go into debt. Would buying all of the surrounding property and building a giant wall make us even safer? Maybe but now we are just wasting money to feel safe and probably pissing off the neighbors. (Sound like the United States at all? :) ).

Have you caught anybody trying to kill you before or after you installed the alarm? If not, ya, probably a waste of money.

Wasnt really the angle i was going for but i guess i will play. No we didn't kill a bunch of our poorer neighbors and their children before upgrading the alarm system. And we also haven't recruited people to try and kill us to justify the large amounts of wasted money on our alarm system.

So are you saying the Republican Party is the naggy wife??

Can we file for divorce?

wrong thread

wrong thread

wrong thread

You can say that again.

Are you a truther?

No. I was talking about the number of terror attacks they have stopped. Seems like an awful lot of them are guys recruited by the FBI who are encouraged to set off a bomb and then the FBI takes credit for stopping the attack that never had anyone in danger but makes for a sensational headline. (Like the one in Portland, OR but from what I remember this makes up a large number of the thwarted plots)

This has to be one of the more fiscally efficient anti-terror tools that the U.S. government has employed. Rather than physically invading countries or maintaining massive physical presences, we're relying more of intelligence and information. And with regard to this program, the data doesn't even have to be analyzed, it only has to be logged and saved. When you get a phone number connected to a terror suspect, you can more cheaply acquire a lot of information about his activities. You don't necessarily need to bomb his entire village. It's all in the execution, which we don't know a ton about yet, but there's great potential there for a much smarter and more fiscally efficient national security policy. It's a fascinating balance though - more brute strength/use of force approaches will implicate privacy interests much less - I bet Obama didn't fully grasp that when he wanted to push a smarter/learner approach to terror, or at least, I'm sure he didn't think it would blow up on him like this. I'm sure he kicks back with a beer in weaker moments and yells to himself, "what the fuck to these people want?"

And that's what I was getting at with the ron paul/panerd lack of real analysis - it doesn't matter what the approach is, it doesn't matter if more efficient solutions are explored - if it's the government, its bad, and that's the end of it. You can't have a reasonable debate/discussion or analysis of issues where that's the initial position. The Boston Marathon thing was something of a turning point of how I think about this stuff - where the government was criticized for not knowing about these guys beforehand, not catching them fast enough after it happened, AND for sending too many people to go find them. It's so easy to go strongly on one side when you have no power and responsibility for the outcome, but if you're going to all extreme in one direction, at least recognize the cons and limitations of that approach.

:confused:

I think your use of "guys recruited by the FBI" is disingenuous at best. What you should be saying is "double agents turned (maybe - we hope?) by the FBI."

So you get some low-level non terror cell connected doofus who is not capable of pulling any sort of terror attack off himself and isn't a member of any terrorist organization. You convince him that he has a truck full of explosives and then celebrate when you stop him. Seems like a lesson in fear mongering and not policing to me.

The FBI again thwarts its own Terror plot - Salon.com

EDIT: And if it is just a policing technique Molson why the fanfare and reporting to major news agencies? Sorry if I call bullshit on the purpose of these operations.

No I am talking about the FBI actually going to mosques and recruiting potential terrors suspects who hate America. Listen I have no love loss for somebody who thinks they are going to blow up a bomb and kill people but the level of danger they represent is not equal to the amount of news coverage and/or money spent. Here's another where occupy people thought they were blowing stuff up...

Ohio Terrorists Were Recruited And Supplied With Bombs By FBI

At some point it becomes a thought crime doesn't it?

Data and information based intelligence seems a lot more fiscally responsible that the leg-work that goes along with chasing guys around the world, feigning terror plots, etc, even if that is a valid police technique. But you oppose all of the above on spending grounds, so I'm not sure what difference it makes.

Oh come on. I love how thinking trillions of dollars of debt and a huge bloated military budget that is larger than the rest of the world by ions all of a sudden makes me anti road and anti spending any money on foiling terrorism. My point was they use these terror plots to justify the huge amounts of money they spend and I am guessing an operation like the one in the links I provided aint cheap.

What types of national security programs would you support then? What should the government spend money on? I actually haven't heard you make a case for anything.

Your rhetoric goes way beyond being against bloated military budgets. I'm probably the #3 or #4 libertarian/small government type guy on this board and I wonder sometimes if you are the guy in town who protests the building of every new road as a waste of money (we actually do have a lot of those people in Idaho, that does exist. last month we had people pissed off about the boise police department putting breast cancer awareness decals on police cars. ) I think you have some good points but I think you'd be more persuasive if you could identify something, anything, you think the government does well, or a positive direction they should continue to go in, or some actions that you think they should undertake. Instead it's just opposition to everything that ever happens always. Which makes it seem like the policy and the execution doesn't really matter to you and Ron Paul, it's just the concept of government itself that's offensive. That's why extreme viewpoints aren't very persuasive. Because they're fueled more by raw ideology and anger at systems instead of practical problem solving.

I liken it to a MLB thread. We all agree Miggy is good, Carlos Marmol sucks, and Hamilton is having a shitty year by his standards. Do I have any clue on the specifics of training to be a baseball player or what Marmol could do to right the ship? Absolutely not. Do I know all the specifics of a good GM or bad one? No. I can tell you however who is good, who is in over their heads, and who sucks. I think our country's mindset on civil liberties and policing the world suck. Only in the political thread do any of us think that we are actually qualified to offer up a good solution. We spend a lot of money, a lot more than the rest of the world, and it is leading to all sorts of unforeseen economic issues. Am i qualified to fix it? No. But in my opinion neither is this current congress or current administration.

Really hope that this is a sign of heavy reform of the farm subsidies. I saw a lot of things while working at the USDA that irritated me to no end, mostly related to subsidies. Would love to see some changes, but I'm not holding my breath.

House defeats farm bill amid bipartisan opposition | Fox News

Nope. This was all about gutting food stamps.

Which I'm fine with that as well. No reason food stamps should be in a farm bill. Very little reason to have them at all IMO.

Yeah, fuck people that can't afford food.

Grow a garden, losers.

It was in a farm bill because for a while that was the quid pro quo, the R's get farm subsidies, the D's get food stamps

This is exactly why they aren't taken seriously. They want a world that is black and white, when reality is shades of gray.