General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So, the big lie Snowden told is an important one [View all]truedelphi
(32,324 posts)However, think about it. He has the proven ability in some position to take away as much data as he did.
When i was 21 years old, I was an underwriter for a moderately sized insurance company. I had the goods on anyone who had insurance at that company. I had abilities the file clerks who worked on my floor did not have; I had abilities the typists didn't have. I could request a file and review it (or not!) and then cancel that person's insurance. Maybe because I saw in your file you had too many car accidents and too many DUI's, or maybe because I didn't like you.
We underwriters collectively agreed to grab ahold of any application requesting "umbrella protection" that involved Washington DC persons. Anyone who applied for "umbrella protection" on account of working in the Nixon White House was denied. No one in my group told our bosses. Those Republicans were all denied. We underwriters had agreed on a very few short sentences, something to the effect that "Due to concerns about the stability of the position you hold, our company declines to insure you at this point."
Okay, sothink about this. Yes, our bosses could have found out that us super radical underwriters were denying decently paying insurance policies. The year was 1973. It was not obvious that Nixon's personnel would be resigning or out of jobs soon. But we did what we did because we wanted to.
If this example is not enough to make you think about it, then here is another one - there is an entire operations code for IRS personnel regarding the fact that they are not to target specific groups according to party affiliation, or according to political stance. Yet those of us reading the news over the last few months have come to learn that certain rogue elements inside the IRS have indeed targeted specific groups, although that is not what the administrative/operations manual tells them.
I think that this is something many others here on DU understand. Right now, at this moment in time, there is an excellent OP up (by HiPointDem) about how there is a strong possibility that NSA and CIA personnel are playing games with their info, for their own profit on the stock market using information they have at hand. Granted this is speculative - but this is the second OP in as many days in which someone is saying what I am saying - that once you are inside the halls of power, the office of information, the storage center for data, you have the power. I had it. My colleagues had it. We used it in a way none of our bosses suspected, but in the end, if they ever found out about it, I bet they were glad we denied all those umbrella policies to Nixon's personnel.
And if you want to say -well look there are safeguards, and an insurance agency isn't what the NSA is - then how is it that Mr Snowden did what he did and is still a free man? And if what he is telling us is not significant, then why is there all the outrage??????
Also if what he is saying is not true, then why the hell is he being considered the most treasonous bastard of the last five years? And that categorization of Snowden is scarey on its own kmerits - if he is a traitor, and the entire definition of a traitor is that they give aid or information or comfort to the enemy - then that means that you and Iand everyone else are the damn enemy! Except of course, the military and the Top Members of society and Top Political Class personages