That Pesky NYT Article about LATEST NSA SPYING...that folks don't want to read:

[KoKo]

(This Newest Snowden Revelation is so OTT...that I had to grit teeth to get through it about what NSA is doing WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS! AYYYYYYYYYYY! The FULL READ of Article is worse than these "Snips" due to Copyright would allow me to give." It's really a description of how NSA is Suctioning Up EVERYTHING all OVER THE WEB..and we are Caught up in the "Spider Threads" ...even when we are just innocents posting some Photos or Chat on Facebook/Linkedin or just here on Democratic Underground or Daily Kos or wherever we go in our Daily Lives on Blogs/Internet Search...whatever.

Read and wonder how FAR this should go in Your Opinion!
--------------------


No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: November 2, 2013

But the documents released by Mr. Snowden sometimes also seem to underscore the limits of what even the most intensive intelligence collection can achieve by itself. Blanket N.S.A. eavesdropping in Afghanistan, described in the documents as covering government offices and the hide-outs of second-tier Taliban militants alike, has failed to produce a clear victory against a low-tech enemy. The agency kept track as Syria amassed its arsenal of chemical weapons — but that knowledge did nothing to prevent the gruesome slaughter outside Damascus in August.

The Global Phone Book

No investment seems too great if it adds to the agency’s global phone book. After mounting a major eavesdropping effort focused on a climate change conference in Bali in 2007, agency analysts stationed in Australia’s outback were especially thrilled by one catch: the cellphone number of Bali’s police chief.

“Our mission,” says the agency’s current five-year plan, which has not been officially scheduled for declassification until 2032, “is to answer questions about threatening activities that others mean to keep hidden.”

The aspirations are grandiose: to “utterly master” foreign intelligence carried on communications networks. The language is corporate: “Our business processes need to promote data-driven decision-making.” But the tone is also strikingly moralistic for a government bureaucracy. Perhaps to counter any notion that eavesdropping is a shady enterprise, signals intelligence, or Sigint, the term of art for electronic intercepts, is presented as the noblest of callings.

“Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms,” the plan declares. “Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minuscule-for-all-consuming-nsa.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&

[WillyT]

1. I Read It..

[grasswire]

2. I read it.

And I plan to go back and read comments, if there are any allowed.

[adirondacker]

3. Funny how the comment section doesn't differ from that of DU. Excellent article for the NYTimes. nt

[Oilwellian]

4. Wow

That was chocked full of interesting information. Thanks for posting, Koko.

[KoKo]

5. A Kick...Please try to read this...it's a lot to cough down...but,

its more revelations from Snowden that NYT got from Guardian. The revelations get worse...I hate to think what ELSE IS COMING..!

[arely staircase]

6. it was the first thing I read this morning

It described an agency out of control that also collects some really important information that they often don't understand because over a decade after 9/11 you have agents filing reports and saying they didn't understand the conversation they tapped because it was in Arabic. WTF?

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. Starship Commander Alexander probably deemed it a higher priority that

all staff be trained in Klingonese (after the military fired several of its Arabic translators back in 2003 for being gay {under DADT} -- http://www.democracynow.org/2003/12/5/despite_increased_post_9_11_need ).

God only knows who'll be picked to replace him when he retires next year.

In the NSA, the means have become the ends. It seems they're spying for spying's sake only (and because, with a $10 billion budget that'll buy lots of toys, they can). The NSA now exists primarily to ensure that the NSA keeps existing.

[grahamhgreen]

16. Which is especially stupid since gays are hated

by the fundementalist Islamic jihad wackos almost as much as the are hated by the fun dies here...

[Luminous Animal]

8. One if the 1st things I read this morning...

And I've been in a funk all day.

Then, I read that greenwald's husband is considered a terrorist and see that some DUers are cheering that on and I can't help but think that we are completely corrupt and royally screwed.

[hootinholler]

9. I started reading this yesterday

I still haven't been able to get through all of it.

[xchrom]

10. du rec.

[malaise]

11. K & R

for exposure

[riderinthestorm]

12. Another am kick. Anyone continuing to say the NSA info from Snowden is no big deal

Or that "everyone" does it are trying to be deliberately willfully blind.

Great article

[KoKo]

13. another...it's a must read...

[wtmusic]

14. k&r

[wtmusic]

15. Great. Like Charles Manson, the NSA is a self-appointed definer of morality.

That's, er, kinda why we have government in the first place.

[Savannahmann]

17. Oh, I read it.

Still have it up on one of my tabs, keep going back and re-reading parts of it. Astounded doesn't go far enough, sickened doesn't describe it.

Now, I'm wondering something. For a while now we haven't had anyone telling us about all the terrorism the NSA has managed to thwart sucking up every bit of data. We still have a handful of the Snowden is a traitor crowd, but not too many. I'm just wondering, where are the defenders of the faith? The ones who posted the picture of the cop stealing the milk from the family in Boston. You know the ones. The pro military intervention in Syria Love the NSA and have nothing to hide group.

Where are you all at, because if I don't hear from some of you soon, I'm going to start thinking that nobody likes the NSA anymore.