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Offlinech1ck3n.s0up
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Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real
    #18216038 - 05/05/13 12:22 AM (11 years, 17 days ago)

"A former FBI counterterrorism agent acknowledged this week on CNN that every telephone conversation that takes place on American soil “is being captured as we speak.”

“every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant ‘is being captured as we speak.’ ”

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/former_fbi_agent_confirms_the_surveillance_state_is_real_20130504/


--------------------

"Inspiration ~ Move me brightly ~ light the song with sense and color ~ hold away despair ~ more than this I will not ask ~ faced with mysteries dark and vast ~ statements just seem vain at last" --Jerry Garcia, Terrapin Station

"Officer, I'm going to remain silent, and I would like to speak with a lawyer. I'm not resisting, but I don't consent to any searches.

Edited by ch1ck3n.s0up (05/05/13 12:40 AM)

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Invisiblefastfred
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: ch1ck3n.s0up] * 4
    #18216568 - 05/05/13 05:19 AM (11 years, 16 days ago)

Old news.

This comes up time and again.  Each time the public is shocked and outraged, for about 5 minutes, then they go back to toiling for the man without another thought about it.

People just don't really care anymore that our constitution isn't fit to wipe your ass with.  They just pretend to care for a few minutes when a shocking violation is exposed, then totally forget about it when the microwave beeps or the phone rings.

Nobody cared about warrantless wiretaps and checking into your library books.  Even when it's done by most likely the worst president in our history, who slaughtered hundreds-of-thousands of foreign savages, they still don't care.

Now we have warrantless wiretaps, surveillance of your internet, search, and reading history, recording of all your digital communications, and have stated that killing American citizens on American soil is completely on the table.

So they know almost everything you do, record all your communications, don't need a warrant to look through any of it, and can kill you with a remote control drone.

When the rise of the robots comes it will actually be a blessing to be liberated from the shit pile that is modern society.  That may sound crazy, but how long can it really take when computers have access to the sum of human knowledge, plus everything we do and say, and have armed robots patrolling the sky.


-FF


--------------------
It drinks the alcohol and abstains from the weed or else it gets the hose again. -Chemy

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I find the whole "my drug should be legal but yours should be illegal" mindset disgusting and hypocritical. It's what George Bush and company do when they drink a cocktail and debate the best way to imprison marijuana users. -Diploid

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InvisibleAdden
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18216780 - 05/05/13 07:24 AM (11 years, 16 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
Old news.

This comes up time and again.  Each time the public is shocked and outraged, for about 5 minutes, then they go back to toiling for the man without another thought about it.

People just don't really care anymore that our constitution isn't fit to wipe your ass with.  They just pretend to care for a few minutes when a shocking violation is exposed, then totally forget about it when the microwave beeps or the phone rings.

Nobody cared about warrantless wiretaps and checking into your library books.  Even when it's done by most likely the worst president in our history, who slaughtered hundreds-of-thousands of foreign savages, they still don't care.

Now we have warrantless wiretaps, surveillance of your internet, search, and reading history, recording of all your digital communications, and have stated that killing American citizens on American soil is completely on the table.

So they know almost everything you do, record all your communications, don't need a warrant to look through any of it, and can kill you with a remote control drone.

When the rise of the robots comes it will actually be a blessing to be liberated from the shit pile that is modern society.  That may sound crazy, but how long can it really take when computers have access to the sum of human knowledge, plus everything we do and say, and have armed robots patrolling the sky.


-FF




Post of the year and it's only May..

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Offlinec1dh3d
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Adden]
    #18218224 - 05/05/13 02:49 PM (11 years, 16 days ago)

Quote:

Dystopia said:
Quote:

fastfred said:
Old news.

This comes up time and again.  Each time the public is shocked and outraged, for about 5 minutes, then they go back to toiling for the man without another thought about it.

People just don't really care anymore that our constitution isn't fit to wipe your ass with.  They just pretend to care for a few minutes when a shocking violation is exposed, then totally forget about it when the microwave beeps or the phone rings.

Nobody cared about warrantless wiretaps and checking into your library books.  Even when it's done by most likely the worst president in our history, who slaughtered hundreds-of-thousands of foreign savages, they still don't care.

Now we have warrantless wiretaps, surveillance of your internet, search, and reading history, recording of all your digital communications, and have stated that killing American citizens on American soil is completely on the table.

So they know almost everything you do, record all your communications, don't need a warrant to look through any of it, and can kill you with a remote control drone.

When the rise of the robots comes it will actually be a blessing to be liberated from the shit pile that is modern society.  That may sound crazy, but how long can it really take when computers have access to the sum of human knowledge, plus everything we do and say, and have armed robots patrolling the sky.


-FF




Post of the year and it's only May..




Got that right :thumbup:

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OfflineAlan RockefellerM
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18223778 - 05/06/13 06:15 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
Old news.




Actually this is a new news story.


Quote:

Now we have warrantless wiretaps




Source?

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InvisibleBoomerMan420
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #18223848 - 05/06/13 06:30 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

Fucking piggers

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Invisiblenooneman
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: ch1ck3n.s0up]
    #18224911 - 05/06/13 10:07 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

I don't believe it. The logistics would be impossible. You know how much hard drive space that would take up? Not even CERN has that much storage. Sure, they probably have the capability to tap whatever they want, but permanently storing all of it? There isn't a datacenter large enough in the world.

Slashdot reported it in a longer form:
Quote:


CNN anchors Erin Burnett and Carol Costello have interviewed Former FBI Counterterrorisim specialist Tim Clemente. In the interviews he asserts that all digital communications are recorded and stored. Clemente: 'No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.' 'All of that stuff' — meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on U.S. soil, with or without a search warrant — 'is being captured as we speak.' 'No digital communication is secure,' by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications — meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like — are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact. To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is."



"All digital communications" would be totally impossible to store, there's just too much. A decent music collection for one person can reach into the terabytes, let alone every single phone conversation in the US, plus emails, plus forum posts, plus online chats. Which, by the way, recording every IRC conversation in the US would be just as completely insane. In any event, it's totally impossible. The data is just too big.

I suspect that this guy either: knows nothing about technology, is disgruntled, wants media attention, or is a conspiracy nut himself, or a combination of all these.

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Invisiblefastfred
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: BoomerMan420]
    #18224991 - 05/06/13 10:26 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

> Actually this is a new news story.

It's a new article or interview, but there's no new information here.  It's been widely reported in the past that the gov. came in and took over an entire floor of various AT&T buildings.  There's plenty of other similar stories, which is why you can't really consider there to be much new here.

There's really not much question what they're doing when they take over a whole building floor, tap right into the main fiber lines, install millions worth of computing and telcom equipment, and keep the whole thing top secret.

It's pretty obvious when you do something like this that you're recording all the data you can.  There's no legitimate purpose to intercept all this data, if there was the project wouldn't be classified.


>> Now we have warrantless wiretaps
> Source?

It's been around since the patriot act.  It's such common knowledge I'm surprised you're not aware of it.
Here's a start...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy

The patriot act clearly violates the constitution in so many outrageous ways it's not even funny.  But even by the twisted standards that allow this abuse...
Quote:

officials at the United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in "overcollection" of domestic communications in excess of the FISA court's authority,



That's like a gang of criminals chastising each other for beating up their rape victim too badly.

Bottom line, you can't trust the government.  Long ago they decided they can limit, twist, and outright shred anything they want in the constitution with the thousands of pages of bullshit legislation they pass each year.

Almost every time we find out another outrageous way they're raping the constitution, we later find out that it either had nefarious purposes in the first place, or it was so rampantly abused as to be embarrassing even to them.

I can't say I'm very optimistic for the human race.  The types of people included in our system has expanded a bit, but no progress has been made in basic freedom.  It's been all downhill since the revolution.

We have a corruption and bribery based system of government, with a fake system of "checks and balances" that only serve to distract people from any real issues.  With technological progress this sick and twisted system just keeps invading further and further into everyone's lives.

I've become convinced that the next level of freedom will have to come from outside the US, and may never reach here at all.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: nooneman]
    #18225023 - 05/06/13 10:35 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

Quote:

nooneman said:
I don't believe it. The logistics would be impossible. You know how much hard drive space that would take up? Not even CERN has that much storage. Sure, they probably have the capability to tap whatever they want, but permanently storing all of it? There isn't a datacenter large enough in the world.



Are you kidding me? Microsoft provides a 25GB inbox a year to ALL educational services across the country for free. Their cloud services, Azure, are expanding to the point that they can support large corporations along with the thousands of other small and medium businesses with TB's and TB's of company data. America's budget is a hell of a lot bigger than Microsoft's.

Quote:

"All digital communications" would be totally impossible to store, there's just too much. A decent music collection for one person can reach into the terabytes, let alone every single phone conversation in the US, plus emails, plus forum posts, plus online chats. Which, by the way, recording every IRC conversation in the US would be just as completely insane. In any event, it's totally impossible. The data is just too big.



I agree with this, but cellular voice, SMS, MMS and data communication has been going on for 12 years. See the NSA Call Database

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Invisiblefastfred
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: SoreSpore] * 2
    #18225192 - 05/06/13 11:26 PM (11 years, 15 days ago)

Quote:

I suspect that this guy either: knows nothing about technology, is disgruntled, wants media attention, or is a conspiracy nut himself, or a combination of all these.




SS already made some points, but I don't think either of you really seem to have a good grasp on reality.

It would be difficult to record ALL digital communications and keep them forever, but certainly not impossible.

Try to think of it this way... Your personal share of the national debt is $53,359.  But that's what they've spent above and beyond what they get from you.  The average american pays about $10,000 in income tax per year.

A one terabyte hard drive costs about $80.00 at retail prices and they obviously pay MUCH less than this in quantity.  1TB can hold 36,408 hours of 64kbps mp3, even more if you do mono or lower bitrate or assume they might have or use a better compression method.

36,408 hours is about 4 years worth of continuous recording.  If you talk on your phone only a few hours a day 1TB can probably easily hold your entire lifetime worth of phone calls.


So the government has $53,359 worth of debt on your behalf, and $10k per citizen per year.  Do you really think it would be that hard for them to spend $80 on recording you?

You should assume they use better compression methods (that's a given), that they get a volume discount on storage, and that they probably don't worry about recording women and children.  Combine that with other obvious ideas like backing up old stuff to another storage method, using voice recognition to convert it to text, etc., etc..

It doesn't seem far fetched to me in the least.  In fact, it seems dirt simple and ridiculously cheap to me.  I can't see how anyone would think it difficult in the least.  My whole digital communication life would easily fit on an $80 hard drive.


-FF

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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred] * 2
    #18225911 - 05/07/13 04:58 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
It doesn't seem far fetched to me in the least.  In fact, it seems dirt simple and ridiculously cheap to me.  I can't see how anyone would think it difficult in the least.



That's because you're ignorant of what it would take to do.  Bandwidth alone would make it impossible.

On top of that, it's illegal.  You'd need literally thousands of people conspiring to illegally record all of these conversations...It would have been prosecuted long ago.

Plus, you should look at the source.  That "former fbi counterintelligence agent" is a writer/actor/producer/tech consultant in Hollywood.  He has a penchant for fiction and a need for publicity.  It's safe to assume he's full of shit.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3153645/

P.S. Doesn't this thread belong in the conspiracy forum?


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Edited by Enlil (05/07/13 05:06 AM)

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Anonymous #1

Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real *DELETED* *DELETED* [Re: Enlil]
    #18226444 - 05/07/13 10:13 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Post deleted by Anonymous

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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1]
    #18226488 - 05/07/13 10:25 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quoting from YOUR SOURCE:

"An NSA spokesperson said, 'Many unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities of the Utah Data Center,' and further said that 'one of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we are unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens. This is simply not the case.'"


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Enlil] * 3
    #18226498 - 05/07/13 10:28 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

And the government has never lied before, nope, they're too honest for that!

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Byrain]
    #18226573 - 05/07/13 10:49 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

I see...so when a former government employee says something, it's true...but when a current government employee says something, it's a lie.


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OfflineAlan RockefellerM
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Byrain]
    #18226592 - 05/07/13 10:55 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Enlil said:
That's because you're ignorant of what it would take to do.  Bandwidth alone would make it impossible.




Well not impossible.  But it would take a storage center the size of walmart.  They do have some huge data centers, but I doubt that it's recording all phone calls.

Quote:

On top of that, it's illegal.  You'd need literally thousands of people conspiring to illegally record all of these conversations...It would have been prosecuted long ago.




It doesn't make a lot of sense to spend billions of dollars to do something illegal.  They would have 0 prosecutions for every billion dollars spent...



Quote:

Plus, you should look at the source.  That "former fbi counterintelligence agent" is a writer/actor/producer/tech consultant in Hollywood.  He has a penchant for fiction and a need for publicity.  It's safe to assume he's full of shit.




Yes good point.

Quote:


P.S. Doesn't this thread belong in the conspiracy forum?





It could go there.

Quote:

Byrain said:
And the government has never lied before, nope, they're too honest for that!




Have you caught them in any recent lies?

If so, please let us know what they are lying about!

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InvisibleByrain

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #18226641 - 05/07/13 11:12 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Alan Rockefeller said:
Quote:

Byrain said:
And the government has never lied before, nope, they're too honest for that!




Have you caught them in any recent lies?

If so, please let us know what they are lying about!




What else are they going to use those huge data centers for?  I'm not claiming they are recording every bit of data out there, but I'm not going to believe they are recording nothing either.

Quote:

Enlil said:
I see...so when a former government employee says something, it's true...but when a current government employee says something, it's a lie.




I never said that, they're both probably full of shit.

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Invisiblefastfred
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Byrain]
    #18227043 - 05/07/13 12:37 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Well not impossible.  But it would take a storage center the size of walmart.  They do have some huge data centers, but I doubt that it's recording all phone calls.




I pretty much lined out how the gov. could record a lifetime of telephone quality audio for less than $80.  There's also a multitude of factors that could make this even cheaper and easier than I suggested.

Quote:

That's because you're ignorant of what it would take to do.  Bandwidth alone would make it impossible.

On top of that, it's illegal.  You'd need literally thousands of people conspiring to illegally record all of these conversations...It would have been prosecuted long ago.




Please enlighten me then!  I don't see the technical hurdle everyone imagines.  They can easily afford cheap storage with their massive budget.  They have direct access to the fiber that our signals are traveling through, and the cooperation of the companies that manage all of this data.

If they had to sniff all this data out with no inside information to help it might be moderately difficult.  But they have cooperation from the telcoms and the authority to compel them to cooperate even if they balked.

If they eliminate women and children, which don't fit the profile of what they're supposedly looking for, then you're left with an even smaller task.

I can understand if you don't buy the "they're recording everything from everyone" theory, I can certainly understand that.  But what exactly do you think they're doing?

We know they're collecting data right from the source.  We know they're doing warrantless wiretaps, so how much faith are you putting in secret courts not subject to public scrutiny?  Assuming they even follow the rules of this behind-closed-doors free-for-all... what do you think that means?

Even assuming the highest integrity of our agents of dubious morality... what are the laws that prevent the "buffering" of a lifetime of data so that at some point you could obtain a "legal" wiretap warrant to listen to it?

IME the LEO feel entirely free to do whatever they want.  Their only limitation is the legality of introducing it as evidence in court.  They constantly use "illegal" tactics to gather information and find the "perps".  Then they're free to use this illegally obtained information to build an entirely "legal" case against someone.  Once they know who you are and what you're doing it's very easy for them to build a case against you using standard legal methods.

I don't see how I'm ignorant of the technical difficulties.  Cops can and do get "roving wiretaps" all the time legally.  How is it that something they do legally would be any harder to do illegally, or semi-legally?

I'm not caught up in the illusion that the data stream is so large and complex that you couldn't possibly gather information from it.  They have essentially unlimited equipment and expert personnel, and the cooperation of the telcoms.  Can they tie data to a phone number?  Can they then compress and save this to a disk?  That's really all that's required and it seems pretty damn easy to me.

If you can really see some technological hurdle then let's hear it.  We know they play fast and loose with the rules, so if there's some iron-clad law that prevents them from doing any of this then let's hear that too.  We already know they're plugged right into the pipeline with state of the art equipment, so what exactly is the law that prevents them from saving data that we already know they have?

Do you really think they have all this gear plugged into our pipes just for the fun of it?  Are they just doing it for kicks to watch it fly through their servers without recording any of it?

I would assume that it's more illegal to examine the data on-the-fly than to simply record it for later, potentially legal, examination. 


This really seems to be a domestic extension of the Echelon system.  That system seems to be fairly publicly exposed regarding its general operation.  They intercept and record all satcom communications, then have rooms full of agents listening to interesting conversations.  Computers sort through the data and attempt to pick out key works like "bomb, explosives, jihad, etc." in order to increase the effectiveness.

To me, this seems pretty well established, logical, technically accomplished, and semi-legal.  I recall quite a few news stories expressing concern that not all satellite communications are international in nature, and that it should be illegal to record or listen to two american citizens' conversations regardless of the communication method they choose.  AFAIK these issues have never been addressed, but nobody seems to care since very few of them use sat. phones.

All the pieces seem to be entirely in place.  We know they have the technology, expertise, and resources in place, and we know they've inserted themselves directly in our main communication networks.  All that we know seems to indicate that they have the capability, motive, and opportunity.

Is it really unreasonable to assume that their activities extend slightly beyond what we reasonably have evidence they are already doing?


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18227146 - 05/07/13 12:59 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

That's a whole lot of assumptions...

I don't see how assuming the worst of your government is any better than assuming the best of it.

At this point, the only evidence you have are some statements from a Hollywood actor/producer/tech advisor.  Is that really enough for you?


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OfflineAlan RockefellerM
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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18227349 - 05/07/13 01:44 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Byrain said:
What else are they going to use those huge data centers for?  I'm not claiming they are recording every bit of data out there, but I'm not going to believe they are recording nothing either.





I think they are probably recording internet traffic.


Quote:

fastfred said:
But what exactly do you think they're doing?




They are probably sniffing the internet backbones, saving every packet.  And data mining it for interesting keywords and suspicious web sites.

I bet those guys hate ssh and ssl.  They probably save those connections until they can crack them.  Which will probably be awhile....

Quote:

We know they're doing warrantless wiretaps




Source?

Quote:

Even assuming the highest integrity of our agents of dubious morality... what are the laws that prevent the "buffering" of a lifetime of data so that at some point you could obtain a "legal" wiretap warrant to listen to it?




I was about to ask Enlil the same question. 


Quote:

IME the LEO feel entirely free to do whatever they want.  Their only limitation is the legality of introducing it as evidence in court.




Right.  But if they can't use the info, maybe they won't be so gung-ho about collecting it?

I always assume all calls are recorded and all internet traffic is sniffed.



Quote:

If you can really see some technological hurdle then let's hear it.





I don't think there are any technological hurdles.  Especially if they use speech recognition software and save a text file with the contents of the phone calls.  The hurdles are legal and human-based - No one wants their tax money to go to saving all phone calls. 

Quote:

I would assume that it's more illegal to examine the data on-the-fly than to simply record it for later, potentially legal, examination. 





I agree.  I don't think the wiretapping laws apply until you start looking at thee data. 


Quote:

All the pieces seem to be entirely in place.  We know they have the technology, expertise, and resources in place, and we know they've inserted themselves directly in our main communication networks.  All that we know seems to indicate that they have the capability, motive, and opportunity.




Yea well at the end of the day, who cares?  I don't talk about illegal stuff on the phone.  Most of the drug dealers I know solve this problem by using disposable cell phones and changing their numbers frequently. 

A lot of my friends talk about illegal stuff on the phone all the time and none of them have experienced legal difficulties because of it.  They even use text messages, which I consider highly irresponsible, but they haven't been busted....

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Enlil]
    #18227356 - 05/07/13 01:46 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Enlil said:
At this point, the only evidence you have are some statements from a Hollywood actor/producer/tech advisor.  Is that really enough for you?



Well, there is Room 641A and who knows how many rooms like it.

The people in this thread might be a bit paranoid...but the surveillance state is coming, and quickly.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Subverted]
    #18227442 - 05/07/13 02:04 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

Subverted said:
The people in this thread might be a bit paranoid...but the surveillance state is coming, and quickly.





Well they try....but....If you don't use strong encryption, you are just lazy.

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #18230066 - 05/07/13 10:47 PM (11 years, 14 days ago)

> The people in this thread might be a bit paranoid...but the surveillance state is coming, and quickly.

I don't think we're paranoid.  We're basically stating what the government has already admitted or what is known to exist.

We know the CIA has aggressively collected satellite and other international communications for decades.  That's pretty much their mission statement, and I don't think anybody has a problem with that.  Most don't even care that domestic communications between US citizens are also sometimes caught in that net.

We also know they have large data centers co-located at major telcom company facilities and are plugged directly into the main pipes that our communications go through.

We also know the Patriot act allows warrantless wiretaps, and abuse of this has already been admitted by the administration.

I don't see what more evidence you expect.  They're not just going to disclose details of classified national security operations.  If that EVER happens it will be at least a few decades after they consider those details to no longer be strategically important.  Since it's an ongoing thing it's pretty doubtful it will ever happen.


>> We know they're doing warrantless wiretaps
> Source?

Check the link I posted earlier.  Warrantless wiretaps are authorized by the patriot act.  They've been criticized many times in the press, and the administration has also admitted this has been abused.  "Overcollecting" I think was the official term.

Of course this is not for average American citizens, it's supposedly only for terrorists and dealing with national security issues.  So you're fine unless you're involved in any way with terrorist activities like explosives, guns, chemicals, drugs, money laundering, or subversive groups.

Since marijuana funds terrorism, if you smoke weed you're a national security threat and can be wiretapped.

Quote:

That's a whole lot of assumptions...

I don't see how assuming the worst of your government is any better than assuming the best of it.

At this point, the only evidence you have are some statements from a Hollywood actor/producer/tech advisor.  Is that really enough for you?




I'm not sure what you think is an assumption.  I started this whole thing off by discounting the news story interview as old news.  If you doubt anything specific I've mentioned then let me know, I'll try to dig up a source or basis.

I'm not assuming the worst of the government, simply using some inductive reasoning.  If we knew the gov. had a secret $1M supercomputing program, and we take what they admit to having, and combine that with what we know other countries/universities/companies have, it would be pretty safe to extrapolate that they have a certain amount more capability than what is known of.

In any case, I can't see any other logical interpretation of the evidence.  They've put in large datacenters on the main domestic pipes.  There's no other credible explanation other than that they are collecting domestic data.

There's legal info on the data centers available.

Check this out Enlil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT%26T

Seems pretty real to me.  If this or anything else is BS or debunked, anyone please let me know.  I'd like to hear your legal opinion on it.  I haven't looked into the paperwork, but as a layperson I'd figure there must be some meat in the EFF lawsuit.

Things like this seem to pop up every so often.  I can't help but think back and wonder what ever happened to those stories.  To me, it would be foolish to just forget about them and just figure it was resolved.  Usually if I bother to look back I just find that everyone just forgot about it.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18230443 - 05/08/13 12:07 AM (11 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
I don't think we're paranoid.



I think we most definitely are paranoid and rightfully so. It is only crazy to be paranoid when nobody is actually snooping around.

I also think you misunderstood my stance, but its ok I was pretty vague. While I agree with most of the points made...with encryption most all of the concerns are eliminated, as Alan pointed out. :thumbup:


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Subverted]
    #18231139 - 05/08/13 04:14 AM (11 years, 13 days ago)



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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Shins]
    #18232522 - 05/08/13 12:47 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Quote:

While I agree with most of the points made...with encryption most all of the concerns are eliminated, as Alan pointed out.




I don't think hardly any voice is encrypted, and when and who you communicate with is probably almost just just as useful to them as the content.

Strong encryption is a great thing for privacy.  I couldn't find any stats, but I'd figure that only a very tiny percent of email is encrypted.  You have to figure that they would take special interest in encrypted messages.

Anybody want to send an encrypted message to some Al-Qaeda related email address and see what happens?


Encryption would work better if the gov. exposed more of their data collection operations or flat out eliminated any perceived protections for email and voice.  Then everybody would use it.  Right now I would think that using encryption would get you on some sort of list pretty quickly.  Of course, that's just speculation, but it's what I would do in their shoes, with their resources and authorities.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18233196 - 05/08/13 03:04 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
Right now I would think that using encryption would get you on some sort of list pretty quickly.  Of course, that's just speculation, but it's what I would do in their shoes, with their resources and authorities.





I don't think using encryption will get you on a list.  If so you'd be on a list with a bunch of crypto nerds and privacy advocates.  A lot of people use encryption for the principle of it.

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #18233269 - 05/08/13 03:18 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Not to mention the fact that AES encryption would take forever to break with a brute force attack.

Well...not forever, but until long after we're extinct.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real *DELETED* *DELETED* [Re: Enlil]
    #18233458 - 05/08/13 03:59 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1] * 1
    #18233860 - 05/08/13 05:31 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Yes.  I don't even believe they have one that can crack it in 1000 years.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real *DELETED* *DELETED* [Re: Enlil]
    #18233924 - 05/08/13 05:48 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1]
    #18233952 - 05/08/13 05:53 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

3 million processors wouldn't do shit, bro...

"To put this into perspective: on a trillion machines that each could test a billion keys per second, it would take more than two billion years to recover an AES-128 key"

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/has-the-advanced-encryption-standard-been-broken-or-weakened/article/210146/


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real *DELETED* *DELETED* [Re: Enlil]
    #18234015 - 05/08/13 06:05 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1]
    #18234684 - 05/08/13 08:33 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

>If they eliminate women and children, which don't fit the profile

They are going to kill all women and children? That sounds harsh even for the govt. Or they won't bother recording anything a female or under 21 person says? Why would they exclude that group? A woman is on the fbi most wanted list right now. Women and under 21's do lots of murders and other crimes every year. Ethnic gangs are made up of mostly that age group in many cities.

They aren't building that data center in utah for nothing. That is a fact. Worst president ever? Lets wait till he finishes his last term before deciding. :wink:


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1]
    #18235417 - 05/08/13 11:20 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Quote:

Anonymous said:
LOL!!! You really think the NSA doesn't have a super computer capable of breaking any AES encryption within minutes? :ilold:





I'm sure that they want you to think that, but I don't think they can.  If they can crack it, they don't appear to have ever used the capability in a meaningful way.

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Enlil]
    #18235444 - 05/08/13 11:29 PM (11 years, 13 days ago)

Quote:

Enlil said:
Not to mention the fact that AES encryption would take forever to break with a brute force attack.

Well...not forever, but until long after we're extinct.



The amount of time encryption takes to crack depends on the length of the password. That's why my passwords are over 32 characters long.

If you have a 6 character password, it doesn't matter what encryption you use, that shit will be broken very quickly.

It also depends on the size of the data. Something the size of a hard drive takes WAY longer to crack than a text file.

Edited by nooneman (05/08/13 11:32 PM)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Anonymous #1] * 2
    #18236296 - 05/09/13 03:19 AM (11 years, 12 days ago)

Quote:

Anonymous said:
Interesting.

Personally I dont care what the government reads. Only people with things to hide are paranoid



:facepalm3:

why are you posting anon then?


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Shins]
    #18238286 - 05/09/13 01:57 PM (11 years, 12 days ago)

It's not practical for the gov. to be trying to break encryption.  As was mentioned, the calculations are far to large.  It's also very easy to up the encryption level, so if there's ever any remote possibility that the encryption scheme has become compromised people would just increase the level.

I think the weakness is that they still know who and when you're communicating with in most cases, and because only a small proportion of people use encryption it would seem to potentially make you stand out as more of a target for surveillance.

Quote:

they won't bother recording anything a female or under 21 person says? Why would they exclude that group? A woman is on the fbi most wanted list right now. Women and under 21's do lots of murders and other crimes every year. Ethnic gangs are made up of mostly that age group in many cities.




It's all a numbers game since, despite their resources, they can't possibly listen to everybody.  Since the vast majority of crime and terrorism is perpetrated by adult or teenage males, it is reasonable to assume that they focus their finite resources on them.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18238543 - 05/09/13 02:53 PM (11 years, 12 days ago)

Quote:

fastfred said:
I think the weakness is that they still know who and when you're communicating with in most cases




That's rarely the case anymore with email, for example.  The government sees your connection to the mail server, and that's it - Even the headers are encrypted by default now.  They would know that you are sending an email to a gmail user, and the size of the email, but that's all they could deduce from sniffing your packets unless you are using seriously outdated mail clients. 

Most ISP's are starting to shut down these non-encrypted services, forcing all their users to use encryption for all email related connections.

Quote:

and because only a small proportion of people use encryption it would seem to potentially make you stand out as more of a target for surveillance.




As someone who has sniffed internet backbones at a large peering point, I disagree that encryption is rarely used. 

Sendmail now defaults to using strong encryption if it's available, and that's been the default for years.  This is the reason most email uses tcp port 587 now instead of 25.  That alone is a HUGE amount of encrypted data.  Add SSH and SSL to that, and you'll see that a large portion of standard internet connections use military grade encryption.  Your mail client probably encrypts POP and IMAP connections without you realizing it.  The amount of plaintext flying around the internet decreases every day.

From a network security perspective, failing to use encryption is lazy and foolish.  Sending passwords in plain text has been a faux paus for 20 years now.  People still do it, but less and less...

Try downloading Wireshark, it's free and will show you the contents of all the packets you are sending.

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Enlil]
    #18238764 - 05/09/13 03:47 PM (11 years, 12 days ago)

Quote:

Enlil said:
That's a whole lot of assumptions...

I don't see how assuming the worst of your government is any better than assuming the best of it.

At this point, the only evidence you have are some statements from a Hollywood actor/producer/tech advisor.  Is that really enough for you?






1- I don't know what in your experience dictates you should expect the best of human behavior (especially when money and power come into the equation) but from what I've seen, governments don't always play by the rules, or do the "right" thing. Even believing that you're doing good, and doing "the right thing" does not always mean it's so. Good intentions and pavement, or something like that...


2- Forget the screenwriter (although lots of retired professionals have gone on to consult for hollywood and tried to get their foot in the door-- who doesn't want to be rich and famous?) This is not a court of law, and we do not have to consider only the facts of the case before us, excluding other evidence.  And the totality of what I've seen suggests to me that FF may have some good points here. :shrug:


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: CidneyIndole] * 1
    #18299190 - 05/21/13 04:12 PM (11 years, 10 hours ago)

Just when we start to forget about the last story...  Another letter agency is caught spying on our press.

http://brainerddispatch.com/opinion/2013-05-15/obamas-doj-under-fire-spying-ap-journalists

That link is an especially shitty hack job.  Full of stupid outrage and surprise. 

http://theweek.com/article/index/244114/why-did-the-obama-administration-spy-on-the-associated-press

This one is a little better written.  Still, you have to wonder how we have any freedom left at all with the morons that we have controlling what we see and hear.

There's never any review of all the old news reports that add up to a surveillance state.  Never an analysis of weather things are getting better or worse, or if anyone has even tried to do anything about this BS.  No updates on all the past "15 minutes of fame" surveillance scandals we've long since forgotten.

Even a half-assed writer or producer could make a 5 part documentary on these issues.

The worst part is this one or two news blurb long outrage they present, which makes people think this is actually something out of the ordinary, and assume someone will be doing something about it.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18299419 - 05/21/13 04:52 PM (11 years, 9 hours ago)

>The worst part is this one or two news blurb long outrage they present, which makes people think this is actually something out of the ordinary, and assume someone will be doing something about it.

I'm already seeing stories by the ap taking the administration's side that obama didn't know. We either have the biggest fool in recent history as president or a dirtbag chicago pol. Take a wild guess. All the news is managed and shaped to give you only what the big shots want you to see and hear. The news guys don't like it but thats the way it is. They said their piece now its back to business as usual. Along with spying by the govt.

They are already reporting that no one seems to care about this. Of course people care but many are sheeplike. Nixon got impeached for a coverup, what the hell are these recent scandals? Clinton got impeached for lying to congress, what has obumble been doing the last 5 years? It hasn't been telling the truth, if you want a clue.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge] * 1
    #18299454 - 05/21/13 04:57 PM (11 years, 9 hours ago)

Nixon was never impeached.  Clinton was impeached for lying in a deposition...not lying to congress.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Enlil]
    #18299650 - 05/21/13 05:33 PM (11 years, 9 hours ago)

Quote:

We either have the biggest fool in recent history as president or a dirtbag chicago pol.




There really doesn't seem to be any scandals here.  My whole point is how stupid it is to be surprised by this.

A "pen register" (seeing what numbers you dialed, how long you talked, etc.) doesn't require a warrant.  It's stupid that nobody cares about that, but are shocked for a few minutes every time it happens.

If there's a security leak I would fully expect that the administration should crack down on that as treason, e.g. someone should hang if they're leaking state secrets.  A completely legal pen register subpoena shouldn't even make the news.  It happens hundreds of times a day, so pretending to be mad at this one specific instance is just plain stupid.

The other two scandals, Benghazi and the IRS deal are equally, if not more, stupid.  I can't see why the Benghazi investigating dumbasses aren't run out of office on a rail for being so partisan and wasteful of our time.  Even if everything turned out to be *twice* as bad as they want to pretend it still wouldn't even be worth reading about, let alone wasting all this time and money on nothing.

Hopefully you realize that the IRS scandal is equally as stupid.  Certainly there's an element of wrongness about it, but these people are bitching that the IRS delayed on approving a form that they didn't legally have to even file in the first place.  You don't need any IRS approval to operate a 501c4 corporation to funnel all your unlimited, anonymous dirty contributions through it.

In any case, this is all small worthless details that I would sincerely hope our president has not been wasting his time worrying about.  There's a million issues that are causing real problems and should have been dealt with long ago.

If you think he should have been spending his time personally supervising each of the thousands of over-empowered government dipshits that work for us... I really don't know what to say to you besides try to get an education and a better perspective on reality.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18306016 - 05/22/13 08:08 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

If investigating your enemies is the proper use of the irs then what would be a wrong use of it? Your defense of every wrong thing obama did just shows your partisan bias. They took phone records from the ap that revealed identities of informants and more.

Thats why we have big govt micromanaging our lives more and more. So many people want the nanny state and willingly allow more govt intrusion. You say you refuse to talk to cops but its ok if the govt gets your phone records and more.


Nixon resigned in the face of certain impeachment and clinton was impeached for lying. Why weasel around about it?


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18307486 - 05/23/13 01:41 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

If you don't like the gov. having access to your phone records then try to do something about it.  Crying about it after the fact when you knew full well that it was legal, and then only when someone you don't like does it is simply lame.

The fact that these are the best "scandals" that the radicals can come up with is just pathetic.  You obviously know better than to actually believe that Obama could possibly know what all the thousands of mid-level bureaucrats are doing.

501c4's aren't even supposed to be primarily political organizations in the first place.  Some slight delay in processing forms that they don't legally even have to file because they have obvious political goals in their names is just weak.

Compared to any real scandal with past presidents this is just embarrassing that this is all you can come up with.

I can't think of any major ones for Bush Sr., but the last couple republican presidents have committed what amounts to mass murder.

Personally I'm glad to have a liberal conservative instead of a radical in office.  I don't like my country being involved in mass murder even if they were savages.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18308137 - 05/23/13 08:03 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Are you calling obama "liberal conservative"? he is not conservative in any meaningful way. Yes, he has brought about and continued a lot of mass murder which you seem to think only repubs have done.

The one thing i will agree on is there are far worse things which get swept under the carpet every day. These that they chose to air are nothing compared to egregious violations of the constitution done by your hero. Just like clinton was guilty of far worse than he was accused of, these mini scandals while revealing of the lax oversight and mismanagement of the present administration are less than the tips of the icebergs. He has persecuted whistleblowers more than any previous occupant. Holder revealed recently that 4 americans were killed in recent times by drone attacks. If they admit to 4 then the true number is likely many times that.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18309158 - 05/23/13 01:02 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Are you calling obama "liberal conservative"? he is not conservative in any meaningful way. Yes, he has brought about and continued a lot of mass murder which you seem to think only repubs have done.




I would call returning tax rates to a more normal level that we've had during successful economic times a conservative goal.  I would call wanting to cut taxes on the rich despite them already being the lowest in the last 40 years a radical agenda.

It's a shame that people advocating radical and untested changes call themselves "conservatives" while simply wanting to return tax rates to Reagan or Clinton levels is considered "liberal".  Doesn't really made sense does it?

Really scary that if you put forth Reagan's agenda and policies today you'd be considered a "liberal".  Quite disturbing that the country's perspective can be so radically shifted by the corporate mass media in such a short period of time.

I have to agree with the rest of your post Stone.  But I'm not aware of any mass murder level things Obama has done.  Certainly nothing on the order of Iran-Contra or deceiving the country into killing at least a couple hundred thousand people in Iraq.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18311081 - 05/23/13 07:30 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

So bush killed more people therefore obama's a good guy? If i kill only one person then i'll be really good according to that.

Raising taxes on corporations has worked well. It has forced large companies to keep most of their profits offshore. I read apple has over $100b offshore. We have the highest corporate tax rates of any major country.

I'm not sure what part of reagan's agenda would be called liberal today. He was in favor of downsizing government, just the opposite of what liberals want. He was in favor of lowering taxes, not raising them.

Looks like 3 1/2 more years of gridlock then a choice between some radical repub and the demo's choice, hillary.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18325688 - 05/26/13 11:04 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Those would be good points if any of them were actually true.

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18326994 - 05/27/13 08:25 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Are you that ill informed that you need simple facts spoon fed to you? You completely avoided answering the question of what part of reagan's agenda would be considered liberal today since he was in favor of small govt. Don't feel bad, liberals usually get tongue tied when presented with questions like these.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18331543 - 05/28/13 01:33 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

> Are you that ill informed that you need simple facts spoon fed to you?

Apparently you are though.  Everything you posted was dead wrong.

We don't have the highest tax rate, in fact our corporate tax rate was fairly average in 93' and has remained steady ever since.

> Raising taxes on corporations has worked well.

Well, we wouldn't know since we haven't raised corporate tax rates significantly since the 1950's, and they've generally declined ever since.

All the republican BS is predicated on the false perception (created by guess who?) that our tax rates are sky high, rich people are suffering like a blister in the sun, government is radically larger than it ever has been, and that republicans actually have a conservative plan in mind.  All of this is, of course, completely and objectively false.

Quote:

You completely avoided answering the question of what part of reagan's agenda would be considered liberal today since he was in favor of small govt.




What history books have you been reading?  Reagan raised taxes across the board, increased military spending, and escalated the war on freedom to the "war on drugs".  Where's the "small government" in that?

Reagan raised taxes while pissing away more American tax dollars than probably anyone else in history.  Yet deluded fools continue to hold him up as some sort of idol for principles that #1 aren't the principles of any party currently in power, and #2 he was completely against in practice.

Stone, you seem like a pretty smart guy.  But like anyone it wouldn't hurt to reexamine your core beliefs or leanings, and check you facts.  Next time someone tries to tell you that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, do yourself a favor and google "effective corporate tax rate".




Sure seems like we're about #15 amongst developed countries' tax rates.  Given that our GDP is easily twice anyone else's that seems pretty damn reasonable, if not charitable.

The 2nd pic shows that (after tax) corporate profits certainly aren't on the decline.

So where's this major problem everyone sees?  Kind of strange that when the economy falters and average people are out of work and losing their homes that all you see is corporations crying about how they need tax cuts and more corporate welfare, all the while they are recording record profits.

Corporations are trying to take the sympathy that is due the workers, and hiding the fact that their ill-gotten benefits are the root cause in the first place.

If you want to cry that tax rates are too high, then take a look at a fucking chart for christ's sakes.

If you want to cry that the economy is in the shitter then look at a fucking chart of corporate profits and get back to me.

The whole record corporate profits = tax cuts for the rich and cuts to social services is just bullshit, and you know better if you bother to examine the issues.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18332711 - 05/28/13 10:28 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

OK, using your own charts, it shows the highest effective rate being 30.5% in australia. The top usa rate is 35%. Where they get tricky is with the use of statistics. The only reason the "effective" rate seems low in usa is because corporations offshore their profits and dodge most of the tax. They also have other tricks. I don't know what slight of hand they used to make this chart but i am not impressed.

It shows usa at 13.4%?? Yeah right, i suggest making a flat tax of 10% on earnings up to $10m and then 16% on anything over that. We would see lots of those profits being onshored if it was as easy as that. Or a flat tax of 13.4% since you seem to think thats the true rate.

Reagan continued the war on drugs so that makes him a liberal? Is that what you are saying? It seems to be so correct me if i got it wrong. It does seem like liberals are tougher on med mj and drugs in general so you may have a point there.

>Reagan raised taxes...

The top personal rate was 70% when he took office and he lowered it to 28%. He revamped the tax code and some taxes did go up but overall they went down. I do agree that raising taxes is a liberal tactic. When the economy is sputtering on fumes, raising taxes is insanity. If he gave a tax holiday to corps, we would see an injection of trillions of dollars into the economy without having to print them out of thin air. Sounds like a better plan to me


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18333653 - 05/28/13 02:58 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

I don't know what slight of hand they used to make this chart but i am not impressed.




It's just the difference between the fake measure of some base tax rate number and the actual tax that corporations pay.  This is our bribery based political system at work.  The laws are written so that large corporations pay very little, while small businesses that might compete with them end up paying full price on taxes.


> Reagan continued the war on drugs so that makes him a liberal? Is that what you are saying?

A multi-trillion dollar perpetual and unwinnable war is hardly something I'd consider to be compatible with small or limited government.  Nixon started it, but Reagan elevated it to the level of a "war".  Now the false patriotism and blood lust bound up in this insanity prevent us from ever implementing any sort of logical "retreat", "surrender", or "cease-fire".


> He revamped the tax code and some taxes did go up but overall they went down.

Quote:

Reagan also didn't really reduce the size of government. Annual spending averaged 22.4% of GDP on his watch, which is above today's 40-year average of 20.7%, and above the 20.8% average under Carter.



Quote:

Two bills passed in 1982 and 1984 together (during a recession no less) "constituted the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime,"



Quote:

As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled.




You can argue the numbers forever, but Reagan both cut and raised taxes.  It's hard to get real numbers on this but he raised taxes 11 times, and any overall tax cut was insignificant (~143B).

Despite the good economic times in Reagan years, he ended up being responsible for the first 2 trillion dollars of our deficit.  Again, doesn't even remotely resemble fiscal responsibility or smaller government.


> When the economy is sputtering on fumes, raising taxes is insanity.

US GDP is the highest it's ever been, corporate profits are the highest they've ever been, the Dow has hit the highest its' ever been just recently, and we have record numbers of (new and existing) millionaires and billionaires.

The only measure that might even hint at a poor economy is the unemployment rate, which is exactly the same people republicans want to target for service cuts and higher taxes.

The marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans really doesn't seem to have ANY effect on the economy...


I mostly agree with a flat corporate tax rate.  I think it would work well if combined with a fair capital gains tax rate (lump it in with income).

The only way out of our problems is to return to REAL capitalism.  That means ending welfare for the rich (capital gains and loopholes) and corporate welfare, including corporate welfare via welfare support of their workers (sorry WalMart).  We need a simplified tax, employment, and legal system that removes the huge advantages to large corporations.  Small business can't afford, and shouldn't have to pay for, accountants and lawyers.  There also needs to be HUGE cuts in military spending.

Other than that, there's really nothing worth even considering as a solution.  SS is a debt we're obligated to pay, and nothing other than corporate welfare, capital gains tax losses, and military spending amounts to anything even worth looking at on the pie chart.


There's just no reason we need to spend more than the rest of the world combined.  Shocking, isn't it?


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18333755 - 05/28/13 03:19 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

You should change your username to "the artful dodger" the way you twisted and squirmed to avoid answering the questions put to you.

My question:

>>Reagan continued the war on drugs so that makes him a liberal? Is that what you are saying?

Your answer:

>blah blah blah blah blah... = yes. So in your convoluted way, you admit liberals are the worst when it comes to legalizing drugs

I found this buried in the blah blah blah

>any overall tax cut was insignificant...

So reagan DID lower taxes. That alone makes him a conservative as you can't dispute that liberals raise taxes every chance they get until they have gotten the last drop of blood. Despite the fact that our high tax rate has caused a lot of outsourcing of production and offshoring of corporate profits, you want to raise taxes even more? And this will do what? more of the same? Or do you think doing the same thing over and over will give a different result?

Here you make real sense:

>The only way out of our problems is to return to REAL capitalism.  That means ending welfare for the rich (capital gains and loopholes) and corporate welfare

But then you say:

>including corporate welfare via welfare support of their workers (sorry WalMart)

So you want to end welfare? I don't believe it! Turn in your liberal card this instant!

> We need a simplified tax, employment, and legal system that removes the huge advantages to large corporations.  Small business can't afford, and shouldn't have to pay for, accountants and lawyers.  There also needs to be HUGE cuts in military spending.

That sounds rational. We need to end legal bribery of our lawmakers aka campaign contributions as well as jobs after leaving office, speaker fees and so on. We could cut the military a lot if we weren't involved in one stupid war after another. I don't care who started it, your hero has continued them and is getting us involved in new ones. And who expanded drone attacks more than anyone? Must be a liberal thing. Who violated the constitution more than anyone?


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18333976 - 05/28/13 04:13 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

> So you want to end welfare? I don't believe it! Turn in your liberal card this instant!

I would certainly end our current welfare system.  It's especially fucked up when it ends up subsidizing the wages that corporations like WalMart pay.  That's corporate welfare for WalMart IMHO, and they already get way more than their fair share.

I believe everyone should be entitled to the basic necessities, e.g. food, shelter, and clothes, regardless of their ability or willingness to obtain them on their own.  This is a simple result of the fact that there is plenty to go around, so nobody should do completely without these necessities.

However, in my system, the food would be government commodity food/surpluses/leftovers/etc., the shelter would be a shared dorm room style living area on a government work farm, and the clothes would be your standard thrift store variety.

Giving people cash or subsidizing their living arrangements in quality housing rarely do much good for the economy or the people themselves.  If you like living in a tent and eating slightly over dog food grade food, then you'd love my welfare system.  Otherwise you'd get a job or bust ass in the work program to earn better accommodations and food.

Everybody's entitled to "three hots and a cot", but it's a shame our current system makes you commit a crime to get them.  The real cost of implementing something like this would be pitifully small, even on a national scale.

Quote:

Despite the fact that our high tax rate has caused a lot of outsourcing of production and offshoring of corporate profits, you want to raise taxes even more?




This is a false presumption.  I already pointed out that our actual tax rate is fairly low for a developed country.

The tax rate really has very little effect on the economy.  People don't quit making money just because they pay a few more or less percentage points in tax on it.  It all comes down to money and profits.

Jobs have gone overseas because there are billions of 3rd world people living in poverty who will work for almost nothing.  The labor savings covers the cost of transportation many times over.

There's no realistic way to deal with this problem.  Communications and transportation advances have made outsourcing to the lowest bidder a fact of life.

Our best bet would be to raise tariffs and use our military capabilities to foment revolutions that would increase the freedom and standard of living for other countries citizens.

We're still the largest market in the world, by far, and we have a ridiculously huge military.  We can easily control the air and seas, and we could use this to enforce our tariffs.  I would implement a freedom and worker quality of life based system of tariffs that would level the playing field and prevent slave-nations from profiting off of us.

Unfortunately, that would cut into US corporation profits quite severly, so it's not going to happen any time soon with our current bribery based system of government.

One other thing would really help... truth in advertising.  Simply require companies to advertise how much labor they outsource to foreign nations.  Right now, even if you try to patronize US companies, you'll often end up talking with someone in India when you have a problem.  US companies have ZERO market advantage because "Made in the USA" is meaningless.  The product may have been 99% foreign produced and the support may be entirely foreign.

A simple label like:
"This company employs X,XXX foreign workers, paid an average wage of $X.XX/per hour."
Would go a long ways towards reducing our dependence on slave labor.

But again, corporations would fight tooth and nail against something as simple and truthful as this because it would make them look bad or cut into profits.

I can't think of any other way to avoid major job losses to slave nations.  Can you?  Playing with the tax rate certainly isn't going to do shit to address this factor, and it's really the only factor there is.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18337547 - 05/29/13 10:01 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

You are against welfare if it goes to people who work for walmart but in favor of it for everyone else. Is that a fair assessment? Or would you include macdonalds in your list of "bad" companies?

You want to give people 3 hots and a cot in a military or jail like complex. And this would be free for everyone? So people could live there free, sell drugs to make spending money and this would help somehow? You do know about section 8 housing and food stamps don't you? Its a lot cheaper to do that than to build massive "dorms" and have food served. Where would these dorms be located? If someone lived in one he/she would be limited to finding jobs nearby and if you build them in rural areas they wont find much in the way of jobs nearby. You can keep your liberal card.

No, you don't want to continue welfare, not much.

>We can easily control the air and seas, and we could use this to enforce our tariffs.  I would implement a freedom and worker quality of life based system of tariffs that would level the playing field and prevent slave-nations from profiting off of us.

Woah! there may be a place for you with team obama after all. He and shrub before him, were all in favor of imposing pax americana on the rest of the world. There are a few small problems with that. For one thing, we weren't able to subdue a small and relatively weak country like vietnam, how are we going to impose our will on china, russia, australia and so on?

>  I would implement a freedom and worker quality of life based system of tariffs that would level the playing field and prevent slave-nations from profiting off of us.

You don't think tariffs will cause other countries to retaliate leading to trade wars? Its always happened in the past. Retaliation would be almost instant and world trade would take a hit leading to the second great depression sooner rather than later.

Grab everybody's money, spend like we had endless funds, cradle to grave nanny state, impose our will on the world and stop "slave labor" in other countries. No one is going to accuse you of being conservative, you are safe in that regard. You may have to duck a little when they pass out the looney left awards if you don't want to get yours. You do realize we are bankrupt don't you? The whole economic system is on the verge of collapse not just here but world wide and you want

I thought we agreed the military was too big and overfunded? But it seems we will need a much bigger military to carry out your scheme since china is one of the major nations offering substandard working conditions you call slave labor. Or will we simply force smaller countries to do things our way? What if a smaller country is one of our allies and objects strongly to your liberal vision? Conquer them anyway? "How to win friends and influence people" by ff

The top corporate tax rate is 35% in usa, not 13%. Rather than raise rates which would just lead to more offshoring, lower the rate and eliminate a few loopholes and we might see those trillions of dollars of profits being onshored. We could charge a flat 10% and reap so much loot it wouldnt be funny. Of course with your hero obumble in charge, that would mean spending it all and borrowing some more to spend rather than reduce deficits and the debt.


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18339559 - 05/29/13 05:54 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

You are against welfare if it goes to people who work for walmart but in favor of it for everyone else. Is that a fair assessment? Or would you include macdonalds in your list of "bad" companies?




I just pick on walmart because they've been covered a lot about how much subsidies they receive and how many of their workers are on welfare.  They also exemplify the use of Chinese slave labor to produce cheap crap that they can sell for larger profits.

I'm sure you can understand how giving a megacorporation 1.2 billion in subsidies and then also subsidizing their labor through welfare is NOT capitalism.

This is where our economy can be fixed.  Create a real capaitalistic system.  Not sure if this has ever really existed in the US, but it would be worth trying at least once.

It's funny that the republicans constantly rail on about capitalism while working towards about the most unfair economic system possible.

They've latched onto an anti-welfare, anti-services platform, but they probably want the system to change less than anyone else.  It's working great for them, they pay less taxes than the middle class, and get more benefits than the poor.  Any scraps the poor do get goes directly back into their profits by subsidizing the buying power of their customers.

> You want to give people 3 hots and a cot in a military or jail like complex.

Sure.  Every city should have a homeless shelter.  It's not like tents and cots cost much.  If they can convert apartments or other facilities then even better.  A soup kitchen/homeless shelter costs so little to set up and operate that there's just no excuse to have bums on the street or begging for food.  This is all just common sense and basic morality here.

With food and shelter provided we can then round up any undesirables and get them out of our society.  I'd have a "three strikes" rule where the 4th time a bum is picked up you ship them off to a large rural homeless shelter where they can't get into trouble or hassle anyone.

> And this would be free for everyone?

Of course!  What reasoning do you have to starve anyone or have them sleeping on the streets?  Americans living in 2,000 sq.ft. houses and throwing away enough food to feed the whole country really have no excuse not to provide the marginal with a cot and some leftovers.

The system would catch all the undesirables and keep them out of our hair, while providing a safety net for average citizens.  It would cost less than the current system and we could remove a lot of administrative overhead so that normal people could take advantage of it when needed.

Enabling people to have the basic necessities or save money really hurts nobody (except the corporations that are currently getting all this money).

> You do know about section 8 housing and food stamps don't you?

Yes, and it's a perfect example of the wrong way to run a system.  All this money goes straight back to corporations, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is wasted money.  Again, who is really getting the handout?  It's landlords/housing corporations and food corporations.

People don't need an apartment and $200/month of food money.  They need a cot and a can of soup.  Giving them any more is a disincentive to being productive.

End the welfare debate already!  Give everyone who needs it 3 hots and a cot!  Done deal.  Now we never have to talk about it again!  Pretty simple, huh!

> Its a lot cheaper to do that than to build massive "dorms" and have food served.

Investments in infrastructure are real investments.  Paying people's rent is just pissing money away.  If we view "3 hots and a cot" as a necessity then we really can't rely on housing we don't own, and we have to eliminate all the paperwork involved.  The only way to do this is to consider it a basic city service like power and water.

> Where would these dorms be located?

Wherever is convenient and cost effective.  The whole system is a "best effort" endeavor.  If your city can only afford cots and tents on the outskirts of town then that will have to do.  If you want to put them in the basement of city hall, fine.


> You don't think tariffs will cause other countries to retaliate leading to trade wars?

Not really.  We buy most of the internationally shipped goods sold in the world, and export very little besides guns.

If you had a better grasp of the world economy you'd understand that the EU and most other developed nations already have high tariffs in place.  They've done this in spite of having weaker currencies.  Because the US dollar is the world's "reserve currency" we have a lot more leverage than them.

Again, our system is set up to service large corporations, not the citizens, or even its own interests.  When your governmental system is setup entirely to make the rich richer, it's just never going to work well.

Quote:

Retaliation would be almost instant and world trade would take a hit leading to the second great depression sooner rather than later.




Of course!  Anything that cuts into corporate profits will cause earthquakes, tornados, and a complete collapse of life as we know it.  Everybody know dat!

If our companies had to pay minimum wage and overtime, instead of paying Chinese workers 35 cents an hour for 20 hours straight (most of which they pay back to live in the company dorms), then that would really hurt profits.

Ask any rich man and he's certainly tell you that even a 0.1% drop in his profit margin will cause the complete and utter collapse of society.

Quote:

You do realize we are bankrupt don't you? The whole economic system is on the verge of collapse not just here but world wide




I guess you better suckle up to that corporate teat and keep drinking the sour milk then, because if you don't do what they say then you'll be destroyed by the coming apocalypse that they currently withhold. 

> The top corporate tax rate is 35% in usa, not 13%.

"Reality Check: Effective U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Much Lower Than Most Other Developed Nations"

The ACTUAL tax rate that corporations ACTUALLY pay is 13%.  You really have to be smart enough to at least understand that part.  Just because somebody wrote down 35% somewhere doesn't mean it has any basis in reality.  Using fake numbers is just not constructive or helpful in any sense.

> Rather than raise rates which would just lead to more offshoring,

Maybe we need to try a little math with you. 

What's 5% of $15/hr?
What's 35% of $0.35/hr?
Is there any way to use percentages to make these numbers equal?

Offshoring has nothing to do with the tax rate.  NOTHING!  Corporations may choose to locate themselves where they please based on tax rates, but this has nothing to do with where the actual work is done.

Our rate is already lower than most developed countries, lowering it would be counterproductive.  Companies should actually be paying a premium to operate here, not getting a discount rate.

Why should we command a top spot or premium?  Security, safety, quality of life, size of the economy, etc., etc., etc..  We are the biggest country in the world in all military, social, and economic measures, THAT'S why corporations locate here.

They don't give two shits about a few percentage points when the alternative is...  Wait, what's the alternative again?  Communism or a third world country?  Hard to run a successful corporation way out in the boondocks, and slaves make poor leaders. 

Quote:

lower the rate and eliminate a few loopholes and we might see those trillions of dollars of profits being onshored. We could charge a flat 10% and reap so much loot it wouldn't be funny.




I don't see why you're so hung up on 3%?  A flat tax would be a huge improvement, but if companies are already paying 13% actual tax why not just set it at that?  We really shouldn't have to compete with third world and even the less powerful developed nations because we bring a lot more to the table.  You seem to think everybody would just pack up and move their operations to some dirt road in Angola if they could save a few percent.  For obvious reasons that just doesn't work.  Corporations care about money and profits, not percentages.  The tax rate is a pretty small factor in total profits, so it just doesn't make sense to focus so much on that number, or to think that we have to beat every developed nation in the world.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18339631 - 05/29/13 06:08 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

hi honey whats for dinner?

I got something in the pressure cooker right now.

^ terrorist..


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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: orison]
    #18340351 - 05/29/13 08:24 PM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Ah, fred, you dodge and dance when you aren't presenting fabricated and misleading figures. At least you finally admitted reagan lowered taxes rather than raised them as you asserted at first. Someone somewhere made a chart that claims corps pay 13% in taxes but you have not told us how this comes about. You can't just toss out a figure and say "see, it says it on a chart" anyone can make a chart so your numbers are very suspect.

>Just because somebody wrote down 35% somewhere doesn't mean it has any basis in reality

Thats what the irs says, so its not just plucked out of thin air

>Using fake numbers is just not constructive or helpful in any sense.

Exactly, so why don't you show us how big corporations only pay 13% when the top rate is much more. I know some corps pay nothing but this is due to offsets or credits from various things such as losing money in a previous year and writing it off over subsequent years. Tax is applied to net profit after all legally allowed deductions, just like people have deductions, corporations have deductions. If you are saying they pay 13% of their gross profits in taxes that may be correct but net profit is the only thing you can spend. If you make $40k in a year and your taxes are 4k, then is your rate 10%? No, because adjusted gross income after all deductions might be 20 to 25k so the 4k is much more than 10% of net

>Not really.  We buy most of the internationally shipped goods sold in the world, and export very little besides guns.

You shoot fast from the hip but i'd like to see something backing up that statement. We are perhaps the biggest importer but that is miles away from buying most of the goods. We export a lot besides guns so i'm calling you out on that one.

>instead of paying Chinese workers 35 cents an hour...

Again shooting from the hip. Do you realize that its not corporations buying this stuff its usa citizens? Surely you can figure that out? They vote for china with their purchases, you probably do too.

> Every city should have a homeless shelter.  It's not like tents and cots cost much.

Agreed, but now we are going from dorms to tents and a cot. My area has such a shelter but demand is always greater than supply. I'm in favor of it and it should be open to all. Building dorms costs a ton and you haven't told us where the money will come from. Or do you believe the usa has loads of excess cash, that we don't run a deficit every year and aren't in hock up to our eyeballs? I really wonder if you think that?

Back up that 13% figure and we will talk about it. So far all we have is a colored chart and i suspect your claim is much like what you said about reagan, IOW, wrong. You made the claim, you back it up.


--------------------
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville political philosopher Circa 1835)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18341982 - 05/30/13 05:32 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

> i suspect your claim is much like what you said about reagan, IOW, wrong.

Reagan did raise taxes, around 11 times in fact.  Some of them were some of the largest we've had and during a depression no less.  It does seem that it was most likely a net tax cut, but again it's useless to compare the wrong numbers and we're not economics experts with all the figures.

He did increase tax revenues, so somebody ended up paying more in taxes.  Weather that came from economic recovery, elimination of loopholes, or just his extensive restructuring is hard to say without a lot of research.

> You can't just toss out a figure and say "see, it says it on a chart"
> Back up that 13% figure and we will talk about it.

Sure, but the problem is that people on your side of the fence never want to talk about taxes in actual real figures.  All they want to talk about is 35%, all the way up to figures of 40%.  Since we KNOW that is not actually what corps. are paying it makes no sense to pay any attention to their statistics. 

The rich and powerful just want us to cry them a river at the same time they rack up record profits.
If you've got any data to back up 35% then we can talk about that!  The problem is that you know that doesn't add up with the numbers, so you've already lost that battle.  You'll have to come up with a new number.

It's pretty easy to see through all this if you open your eyes.  Percentage of deficit vs. GDP went down during Carter, way up under Reagan and Bush I, way down under Clinton, way back up under Bush II, and Obama hasn't done much to get back on track.  There's plenty of good excuses for Obama, especially republican obstruction that has prevented him from doing much of anything.

Regardless of the reasons it's still no justification for the piss poor performance of the past 3 republican presidents, and it does nothing to take away from the fact that the past 2 dems have vastly outperformed them in fiscal responsibility.

Why do you keep advocating failed policies and platforms?  We've tried tax cuts for the rich many times now, to the point they pay less than the middle class, and it has never worked.  They currently pay the least they ever have in our lifetimes.  Why would you think going further in the same direction to an absurd extent is suddenly going to produce different results?

It's going to produce the same results it always has, consolidation of the wealth to the rich.  The top 5% control 72% of our nations wealth (according to Forbes).  You know this isn't a healthy condition, and hopefully you aren't naive enough to think it's the result of a fair or true capitalist system.

This is our real economic sickness.  And you know it can't continue this way.  Tax cuts don't create jobs, demand for products and services creates jobs.  Consolidating wealth simply weakens the buying power of the consumers that create this demand for product and services.  The system WILL collapse at some point if current trends continue.  The wealthy will continue to grab all the wealth they can until it breaks.  They have little to fear as they'll be in the best position to take advantage of whatever situation arises.  It's not like they'll be going hungry no matter what happens.

Quote:

If you are saying they pay 13% of their gross profits in taxes that may be correct but net profit is the only thing you can spend.




Not sure I follow you there.  "Profits" already implies a net figure.  I think you're completely brainwashed to the point of thinking there's some tax rate corporations should be paying on an imaginary number that is less than income - expenses.

Hopefully you don't think that corps are paying 35% on their gross revenue!  Although I'm sure they'd try to convince you that was the case.

Quote:

you haven't told us where the money will come from. Or do you believe the usa has loads of excess cash, that we don't run a deficit every year and aren't in hock up to our eyeballs? I really wonder if you think that?




First, you've been listening to the doomsayers promising a quick cure if you only give them more money.

The USA has a debt of around $16T (2012), and a GDP of $15.7T (2012).  This would be like a family that makes $50k having a $49k mortgage.  Most people would consider that household to be in excellent economic shape.  When you consider they also have more guns than the entire rest of their town, it's hard to see what huge problem could cause them to fail.

We also print the world's reserve currency.  That means we can devalue our currency PLUS everything that is held or traded in USD.  I can't find any good numbers on the total value of all wealth held in USD, but I think it's pretty likely that we could simply use a little inflation to take care of the debt problem. 

Another interesting fact is that compared to the rest of the world Americans are the top 1%.  I think you're way too worried about the wealthiest country in the world carrying just over a year's income worth of debt.

It's far more important to worry about preventing some sort of major collapse and holding onto our alpha dog economic position in the world than fretting over our debt.

We're number 15 in the world in debt vs. GDP, and there's a lot of strong countries well above us on that list.

I agree that the budget should be balanced and the debt paid down, but there's just no crisis and economic collapse isn't going to come from this.

Collapse will come from declining exports, declining buying power of the American consumer, and all the jobs being shipped overseas to slave nations.

> Building dorms costs a ton and you haven't told us where the money will come from.

Certainly you can see the economic sense in owning the facilities rather than paying someone else to rent them.  A lot of the money would also come from a reduction in benefits.  I'm proposing a cot instead of an apartment and commodity food instead of giving everyone $200/month in food money.  Even with building a lot of housing facilities I don't see how this wouldn't pay off pretty quickly and turn into a huge savings in the long run.

I'd also have most of these people working.  Tired of rice and beans and sleeping on a cot in a tent or large room?  Then do some menial labor that needs doing and you can have a curtain and have one meal a day with some meat.  Do some skilled work or really bust ass in some of the harder jobs and you can get a small apartment or private dorm room and have some meat with every meal.

I don't see how any sane person with any morals can think that even a single person in the wealthiest country in the world should go hungry or exposed.  NOR do I think that any reasonable person should think that anyone should get more than 3 hots and a cot for free.

Especially troubling as a geneticist is the idea that people should be paid to have children.  If the parents can't provide their kids with 3 hots and a cot 100% on their own dime then they should be taken away.  Considering that we'd be paying for the parents' meals and cots, if needed, it's a very low expectation that they come up with enough for their children.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18342693 - 05/30/13 10:29 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

LOL, reading one of your posts is like going down the rabbit hole into wonderland where problems are solved by juggling the figures.

You are still in denial about reagan

>Reagan did raise taxes, around 11 times in fact.

He must have lowered them 12 times because even as you reluctantly admit, he lowered taxes.

I asked you to back up your claim of 13% and you said "Sure" but then you changed the subject and never backed it up a bit. Now you want me to back up my statement about 35%? Ok, here it is: Sure.

I'll do better than that

"The highest marginal tax rates in 2011 were found in the United Arab Emirates—at 55%; Japan—with a 40.69% tax rate; the United States – at 40%; Honduras, Malta, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Zambia —all tied at 35%"

Read more: http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/11865-corporate-tax-by-country.html#ixzz2UnBWxmiv
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

So i misspoke, its actually as high as 40% in usa

>Since we KNOW that is not actually what corps. are paying it makes no sense to pay any attention to their statistics.

You know this how? I keep trying to pry it out of you but it seems to be some urban legend that you've latched onto.

>Regardless of the reasons it's still no justification for the piss poor performance of the past 3 republican presidents, and it does nothing to take away from the fact that the past 2 dems have vastly outperformed them in fiscal responsibility.

ROFL! you shouldn't post while tripping or is that what you actually believe? Clinton inheirited a surplus which he squandered. You are telling us obama is fiscally responsible? Obama and responsible don't belong in the same sentence. He has piled up more debt than the first 42 presidents combined. And what does he have to show for it? A stalled economy, gridlock in congress and a looming crisis for the dollar. Clinton faced a hostile congress and house but managed to work out some deals. Obama with full control of the senate and a sizable portion of the house, can't get anything done. His leadership skills are a joke.

You have totally run away from the statement you made that usa imports more goods than the rest of the world combined. Can we get an "ooops" at least?

You have made more shoot from the hip statements than are worthwhile to dispute. Its like playing whack a mole with you. One thing is knocked down, you come back with 5 more whacky things. For example:

>The USA has a debt of around $16T (2012), and a GDP of $15.7T (2012).  This would be like a family that makes $50k having a $49k mortgage.  Most people would consider that household to be in excellent economic shape.  When you consider they also have more guns than the entire rest of their town, it's hard to see what huge problem could cause them to fail.

Sorry, that is so far from the truth i hardly know where to begin. First of all, gdp is not the same as income. Who the hell told you that or did you just make it up on the fly? GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in a year. Not profit net or otherwise, simply the gross value. Like if a company sells $10m worth of goods and makes a profit after taxes of $200k, they made good money but they didn't make $10m.

So now that we've clarified its not like a family with income of $50, who owes 49k, btw, you have you numbers reversed, our nat debt is greater than the gdp. Just a minor detail, right? The other glaring error is you calling the debt a mortgage on a house. There is no house that can be sold to pay off the mortgage if need be. Or shall we sell all public and private land to china to bail us out? Most mortgages have an equity which means if the house was sold there would be money left over. Not with the nat debt. There is nothing backing it up but the rep of the usa.

You've toned down your demand for dorms for every homeless or lazy person, which is good. 3 hots and a cot we can all agree on. This part here is where you make the most sense.

>I'd also have most of these people working.  Tired of rice and beans and sleeping on a cot in a tent or large room?  Then do some menial labor that needs doing and you can have a curtain and have one meal a day with some meat.  Do some skilled work or really bust ass in some of the harder jobs and you can get a small apartment or private dorm room and have some meat with every meal.

You are also right about inflation coming, i've been saying that for years. But it won't be like just adjusting a thermostat, it will cause major pain especially for those on a fixed income and for the poor which you claim to want to help.

So now you will run away from the parts where you were shown wrong and make up some more crazy shite? If you would try to stick with one or two things instead of going on a bunch of tangents everytime, it would be easier for people to follow, if any havent given up by now.


--------------------
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville political philosopher Circa 1835)

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: Stonehenge]
    #18356632 - 06/02/13 03:10 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

"The highest marginal tax rates in 2011 were found in the United Arab Emirates—at 55%; Japan—with a 40.69% tax rate; the United States – at 40%; Honduras, Malta, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Zambia —all tied at 35%"




Hmm... Source is: KPMG International, Corporate and Indirect Tax Survey 2011

If you want to find the actual tax rate you take total corporate tax receipts divided by corporate profits, not take a "survey".  Little surprise that 9 out of 10 republican corporate managers think their taxes are too high.

> So i misspoke, its actually as high as 40% in usa

You need to decide what we're talking about first here, then find some real numbers.  I thought we were talking about the federal corporate tax rate.  You can come up with a whole range of numbers if you want to throw in state/county/city/sales/etc. taxes.


Quote:

Federal Government: Tax Receipts on Corporate Income (FCTAX)
2012: 372.3 Billions of Dollars
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FCTAX
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis



Divided by...
Quote:

Corporate profits: Profits before taxes, NIPAs (A053RC1A027NBEA)
2012: 2,162.2 Billions of Dollars
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis




= 17.2%

So there you have it!  Apparently it's changed little since the 16.1% 2000-2005 average I've been quoting.

This is the REAL number.  This is what companies ACTUALLY pay in corporate taxes.  This is our real, actual federal corporate tax rate.

So again, this puts us right around the middle to low end of the spectrum of developed countries.  Since corporate profits are at record levels, and we're charging discount prices to corporations for the privilege of operating in the most powerful, safest, premium level country in the world...

WTF is your argument for lowering the corporate tax rate again? (Remember that even at 0% tax we wouldn't be even close to doing anything our wage gap with slave nations)

Throwing out numbers like 35% or 40% is at best a diversionary tactic, and more likely just a plain old baldfaced lie.  You can't argue with 2012 numbers straight from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Quote:

You have totally run away from the statement you made that usa imports more goods than the rest of the world combined. Can we get an "ooops" at least?




No, I don't.  Common sense should tell you that with the world's highest GDP (by far) we would also import the most goods.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2087rank.html
Quote:

European Union $2,397,000,000,000 (2011 est.)
United States $2,357,000,000,000 (2012 est.)
China $1,817,000,000,000 (2012 est.)




So unless you consider the all of Europe to be one country, then YES we import the most goods, by far ($540b more).

Quote:

You have made more shoot from the hip statements than are worthwhile to dispute. Its like playing whack a mole with you. One thing is knocked down, you come back with 5 more whacky things.





Wack a mole?  You haven't been right on ANYTHING yet.  I haven't been WRONG on anything yet here.

I can make "shoot from the hip" statements because I actually know what is going on in reality here.  I watch faux news for laughs, not to get real information.

Quote:

Sorry, that is so far from the truth i hardly know where to begin. First of all, gdp is not the same as income.




Damn Stone, quit putting your foot in your mouth!  That's exactly what GDP is.
"Under economic theory, GDP per capita exactly equals the gross domestic income (GDI) per capita" (from wikipedia)

GDP is the total value of all goods and services you produce in a year.  This is our country's income.  It's certainly not what the fed gets, but it IS our (the US's) total income.

Quote:

Like if a company sells $10m worth of goods and makes a profit after taxes of $200k, they made good money but they didn't make $10m.





The analogy is still the same.  Our family still takes in $50k and has a $49k mortgage.  Obviously they have expenses like car/power/water/food/gas/etc., so they can't just pay off the mortgage in one year.  Obviously their income is not the same as their spending money.

The analogy holds just fine.  We take in $49k (gross) and have a $50k mortgage, and after paying all the bills we may only have a few percent left to pay on the mortgage.

How exactly the analogy holds is besides the point.  Running this much debt vs. GDP may not be the best thing in the world (we all agree on this), but it's not unusual in the world, and it's not going to cause any major collapse.

Quote:

its not like a family with income of $50, who owes 49k, btw, you have you numbers reversed, our nat debt is greater than the gdp. Just a minor detail, right?




Looks like you've managed to nitpick your way into one small victory!  Of course, the actual numbers are right, just got reversed in an analogy.  Not really sure how big of a trophy you want for that? :trophy:

Quote:

The other glaring error is you calling the debt a mortgage on a house. There is no house that can be sold to pay off the mortgage if need be.




That's a very valid point.  But perhaps the "equity" is that we've spent the majority of that debt on guns/tanks/planes/bombs/etc., and also on blowing the fuck out of a couple other countries to prove that the money was well spent.

Quote:

You've toned down your demand for dorms for every homeless or lazy person, which is good. 3 hots and a cot we can all agree on. This part here is where you make the most sense.




The whole system is fucked.  There isn't one single politician or major party that is even trying to do what's right as far as I can tell.

I'm certainly no liberal, but from what I can see they are by far the most conservative party in power.  The republicans want to continue and accelerate a radical departure from anything making any amount of economic sense, and use bullshit numbers and deceptive propaganda to an alarming extent.

The fact that a religious nutjob openly proposed the exact opposite of good economic policy and nearly won the election REALLY scares me!

I haven't toned anything down, just clarified.  If there actually wasn't enough food, shelter, or money to go around I'd be the first one to cut out welfare entirely and let people starve in the streets.  I'd never ask a millionaire to eat dog food so some worthless bum could be saved from starvation.  That's REAL communism.  But when our rich have elevators in their garages so their luxury cars can be stored on two levels... it's only reasonable that even the most worthless bum at least get some beans and rice first.

Quote:

You are also right about inflation coming, i've been saying that for years. But it won't be like just adjusting a thermostat, it will cause major pain especially for those on a fixed income and for the poor which you claim to want to help.




I'm not so sure.  And I don't really care about the poor.  They deserve 3 hots and a cot out of common decency, and after doing this I really don't owe them anything more and I can forget about them completely.  That's the beauty and value of my proposal.

Job training, college financing, work programs, education, unemployment insurance, and other things to help them out ARE good things.  But should only be evaluated in selfish terms.  We should do those things because it benefits us.  If we don't see a real return on a program then cut it!  If we provide the basics for everyone in need then we owe them nothing else and we don't have to listen to bleeding heart bullshit about how "good" some program is.  Free education/training programs either pay off or they don't.  A good program will pay us back in taxes and reduced welfare costs, if it doesn't then fuck it.  But if we can at least break even then it's pure self interest to give the poor a "hand up".

Our inflation is pretty damn low, and historically even much higher inflation doesn't usually cause total collapse.  With our economic might and being the world reserve currency, I think we could get away with pretty large inflation without much in the way of short-term penalties.  Of course, in the long term it could cause our credit rating to fall and the other countries to work towards finding another reserve currency.

Hyperinflation is another matter...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

Take a look at that long list of countries that have tried inflation over 50%!  It's pretty interesting how many countries have tried this foolishness.  Guaranteed collapse!

Quote:

So now you will run away from the parts where you were shown wrong and make up some more crazy shite? If you would try to stick with one or two things instead of going on a bunch of tangents everytime, it would be easier for people to follow, if any havent given up by now.




I think the chances anyone else is still following this is pretty slim.

You'll have to refresh me of "the parts where you were shown wrong".

Reagan did raise taxes, even if he had a slight net decrease overall by the end of his terms.  This is in no way compatible with the current republican party.  They would not raise taxes at all in any shape or form according to their "pledge", even if it was part of an overall tax cut strategy.

The actual, real federal corporate tax rate is 17%.  Receipts/profits.  There is no other honest way to figure this number, and if I tried shit like the republicans and you have suggested on MY taxes I would be in prison for tax evasion.  If you want to figure in state/county/city/sales/property/income/capital gains/etc. into it... you can do whatever you want, but it's not really part of the federal policy debate, and you better just get a degree in economics and find a lot of free time if you want to get anywhere with that.


-FF

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Re: Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real [Re: fastfred]
    #18357655 - 06/02/13 10:14 AM (10 years, 11 months ago)

Fred took several huge tokes of killer weed and wrote:

>17.2% (for the corporate tax rate)

You are inching your way along, better than the 13% you claimed a few posts back. Then we have this:

Quote: (me)

You have totally run away from the statement you made that usa imports more goods than the rest of the world combined. Can we get an "ooops" at least?

(you)
>No, I don't.  Common sense should tell you that with the world's highest GDP (by far) we would also import the most goods.

You are as slippery as an eel but "the rest of the world combined" is NOT the same as "the most goods" meaning more than any one country. You said and its in black and white unless you went back and did some editing, more than the rest of the world combined. Do you see how this is different than more than one country? The rest of the world consists of all countries minus usa. I think you see your little error so we will let this drop unless you insist on embarrassing yourself further.

>Wack a mole?  You haven't been right on ANYTHING yet.  I haven't been WRONG on anything yet here.

I see. So you stand by your "rest of the world combined" remark? How about this next one?

>>First of all, gdp is not the same as income.

>Damn Stone, quit putting your foot in your mouth!  That's exactly what GDP is.

GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in the country per year. Can we agree on that much at least? Lets say you are a business man. I know you aren't because of the things you say but lets pretend you are. You make gadgets and in one year you make and sell $1m worth of gadgets. That's pretty fair, i'm putting you ahead of most self employed people who cant sell a fraction of that in a year. Your expenses after all costs including labor for employees runs $900k. Now, what is your income? Think hard, scratch your head, break out the slide rule and what do you come up with? Hint: the answer is $100k

If you said your income is $1m that is incorrect. $1m in this example is gross receipts. Your income which you pay taxes on is $100k and what is left, you get to spend. If you paid taxes on $1m you would be in the red despite making a profit before taxes. GDP = receipts before costs are deducted, thats why it's called "gross" and not "net"

Thats 2, mr i-am-never-wrong and lets look further

>The analogy is still the same.  Our family still takes in $50k and has a $49k mortgage.  Obviously they have expenses like car/power/water/food/gas/etc., so they can't just pay off the mortgage in one year.  Obviously their income is not the same as their spending money.

So your mythical family has a business that takes in 49k, or is it 50k? per year in sales, we don't know what profit they make but even growing pot or shrooms, there are expenses.

>The analogy holds just fine.  We take in $49k (gross) and have a $50k mortgage, and after paying all the bills we may only have a few percent left to pay on the mortgage.

The profit margin on 49k (or 50k) per year is not going to be enough to feed and provide for a family. In your mind it works but in reality it does not. In your mind, gdp is the same as net income and in reality it is not. Go quote me professor I. M. Nutz who agrees with you.

You say the equity on what we've spent lies in:

>But perhaps the "equity" is that we've spent the majority of that debt on guns/tanks/planes/bombs/etc., and also on blowing the fuck out of a couple other countries to prove that the money was well spent.

That "equity" will come back to haunt us. It was money badly and terribly spent. You do veer back into reality now and then

> The whole system is fucked.  There isn't one single politician or major party that is even trying to do what's right as far as I can tell.

When you are right you are right.

>I'm certainly no liberal...

Woah, back into lala land. I guess mr obumble is a conservative then?

>I don't really care about the poor.  They deserve 3 hots and a cot out of common decency, and after doing this I really don't owe them anything more and I can forget about them completely.  That's the beauty and value of my proposal.

That is rational. I don't think we really "owe" them the hots and cot but if its doable, we should provide that. We are rapidly getting to the point that there are more takers than givers. I think i read that the bottom 50% pay no income taxes and receive the bulk of welfare, eic, and other handouts. The top 50% is getting tired of pulling the load but has not thrown off the yoke. Not just yet but it may come.

>Our inflation is pretty damn low, and historically even much higher inflation doesn't usually cause total collapse.  With our economic might and being the world reserve currency, I think we could get away with pretty large inflation without much in the way of short-term penalties.  Of course, in the long term it could cause our credit rating to fall and the other countries to work towards finding another reserve currency.

Inflation figures, much like the unemployment figures, are fictions made with creative bookkeeping. Maybe you can get a job as a bookkeeper with your hero o'fumbles?

I have news for you, the world is already working toward finding another reserve currency, such as the chinese yuan. Our rating has already been dinged by at least one major rating service and more dings are coming.

>Take a look at that long list of countries that have tried inflation over 50%!  It's pretty interesting how many countries have tried this foolishness.  Guaranteed collapse!

They didn't "try" hyperinflation, it was forced on them. What they tried was to spend more than they took in. Thats what lead to the hyperinflation. See any comparison to what we are doing? Of course you don't.

Reagan raised taxes even though they went down, the real corporate rate is whatever. It's been nice visiting you in wonderland.


--------------------
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville political philosopher Circa 1835)

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