Al Gore: NSA's Law-Breaking Worse Than Snowden's - USNews

[Uncle Joe]

32. Not to mention this, which dropped like a rock for some reason, possibly because

the interview with two other whistle-blowers, Weibe and Binney was 22+ minutes long?

So I posted some of the points they made on that thread, but there is much more on the actual interview, including how the NSA is circumventing the judiciary, basically shredding the Bill of Rights.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025071450

This was well worth watching and they confirm at least two of Snowden's points.

1. The NSA had prior knowledge of an imminent attack against the U.S. prior to 9/11, they also state that NBC didn't telecast that part of the interview with Snowden.

2. The NSA is spying on everyone in the U.S. this is stated a couple of times by both men.

Furthermore

1. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are in bed with the NSA instead of overseeing them.

2. The NSA is sending information to the DEA among others and telling them not to disclose where they got the information that's easy to do as the FISA Court has no oversight.

3. They have a separate organization set up for the sole purpose of covering their tracks so that an article 3 court won't know how any evidence was obtained, thereby subverting our judicial system.

4. This is still ongoing, it didn't end with the Bush Administration.

5. There is a total lack of ethics in the NSA most everybody working there is more concerned with their reputation, family, paychecks, lives etc. and that's why more haven't come forward yet and this in turn can only serve to corrupt our government beyond recognition.

6. While the Stasi of East Germany didn't have the technology, the modus operandi is the same, total spying on everyone in their nation, respecting no privacy for the people.

There is more on the link, which I haven't posted, again this is a must read, unless you prefer to remain in the land of the ignorant, but if you do, this can only get worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_germany

Stasi

The Ministry of State Security (Stasi) included the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, which was mainly involved with facilities security and plain clothes events security. They were the only part of the feared Stasi that was visible to the public, and so were very unpopular within the population. The Stasi numbered around 90,000 men, the Guards Regiment around 11,000-12,000 men.

(snip)

Culture

Main article: Culture of East Germany

East Germany's culture was strongly influenced by communism and particularly Stalinism and was described by East German psychoanalyst Hans-Joachim Maaz in 1990 as having produced a "Congested Feeling" among East Germans as a result of the East German state's goal to protect people from dangers of deviant cultural influence and dangers of popular expression deviating from the state's ideals through enforcing official ideals through physical and psychological repression of these tendencies via its institutions, particularly the Stasi. Critics of the East German state have claimed that the state's commitment to communism was a hollow and cynical tool Machiavellian in nature, but this assertion has been challenged by studies that have found that the East German leadership was genuinely committed to the advance of scientific knowledge, economic development, and social progress. However, Pence and Betts argue, the majority of East Germans over time increasingly regarded the state's ideals to be hollow, though there was also a substantial number of East Germans who regarded their culture as having a healthier, more authentic mentality than that of West Germany.