This is actually terrifying

[BikerDude]

Just watched Citizenfour the documentary about Edward Sweden.
I had already applauded him.
Now? Holy shit!
These programs from the NSA and the ways they reacted to them becoming public is chilling. He does come out as having a very strong moral compass.
The government and the security community have no respect at all for the Constitution or our basic freedoms! It turns out that at that time they had 1.5 million Americans on the NSA surveillance list. Meaning they are actively being monitored. Clearly that has nothing to do with terrorism.

I know my rights man!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h9RI78fRWC4

This also
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6qN167wKo

[ScholarlyDude]

That's some seriously disturbing shit right there. Like, 1984 kinda stuff. Big Brother is watching and all that jazz. I think that this has changed my mind on the whole submission thing. Maybe not all the way but I can see where you're coming from. I personally didn't know too much about the situation before this. Don't ask me how I missed something like this, I don't have a real answer for you on that one.

There were so many points that concerned me in Citizenfour. One of the things that really slapped me in the face was the clip of Keith Alexander lying at a congressional hearing. Saying that the NSA doesn't do things that we now know they do. In the documentary Snowden mentioned the ability to monitor conversations in a room through a phone, even if you aren't making a call! That was particularly shocking. Immediately what come to mind were the telescreens in 1984. An eerie parallel from Orwell's novel.  The scene where they were using those power tools (at around 1 hour and 33 minutes) made me sick to my stomach.  The fact that the Espionage Act is from the World War One era and couldn't possibly cover something as complex as this. The question is, in a situation like this, what is a Dude to do?

I guess that while the idea of Dudeism is to take it easy, there does become a point where one has to stop abiding. Hell, the Dude himself had more than a little fight in him. He very nearly had that scrap with the Irish Monk.  It seems from the documentary the Snowden just couldn't abide one more toe. I totally respect the attitude he exhibited in the video. The fact that he didn't want to hide is admirable. Not only Snowden, but Glen Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and all the other fine humans who helped break the story.

The whole concept of metadata was intriguing. Totally fucked, but intriguing. Jacob Appelbaum explained it pretty well in the doc. He explained that the government can get an idea of the framework of you life based on things like data from your bank card, people you've communicated with over the phone (who and when), and anything else they can get their hands on. It made me wonder what my metadata said about me. And as I'm writing this I'm conscious of the fact that something like this is totally within the scope of what they collect.

In 2015, we passed the USA Freedom Act, which ended the collection of Americans' cell phone records in a umbrella fashion. Here's a link to an article by Sabrina Siddiqui of The Guardian about it https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/congress-surveillance-reform-edward-snowden In the article, she mentions that a few people, including Snowden himself, have said that this was just the start. Do you agree? What would you like to see next?

A good Dudeist, I feel, has to channel the Dude but also pull a little Walter out every once and a while. It's about balance. I think this is a good situation where some Walter is needed. This isn't 'Nam after all, there are rules.

[BikerDude]

Fuckin A!
It's like in 1984 where he voice comes out of that speaker behind the picture on the wall.
To me the most telling thing is that to one extent or another Congress knew stuff was going on. Yes the NSA took things further than they should have. But in the aftermath of these programs coming to light the position that the government took was that they were legal. And consensus seems to be that they are correct.
By and large Congress had given them permission and if push came to shove it would only be about specifics. Essentially that means that those fucks down at the league office couldn't give shit number one out our freedoms or the Constitution. As far as I'm concerned these people have disqualified themselves from public office. Of course as usual the irony will be that they will be re-elected by a bunch of people who support them because their campaign platform centers around a small government message. They will have essentially no idea who they are voting for. It's a dog and pony show.

Now we are hearing that they plan to push the TPP through during the lame duck session with by partisan support. That means that conservative representatives will approve giving foreign tribunals the ability to over ride local laws here in the US. How is this conservative? There are no conservatives. There are no liberals.
I'm not relieving liberals in this it seems particularly to run contrary to basic conservative values.
It's written by corporations and they own the reps. And the voters are largely oblivious to what the fuck is going on.
It's actually hilarious.

[SagebrushSage]

We are the evil empire. When will we wake up and demand change? Oh, wait, we did, then the peaceful revolution was quashed through electoral fraud. I do not wish for widespread rioting, but this is an inevitable consequence of such actions. When the courts are stacked and the votes are not counted, the only recourse left is rioting, as an intermediate step towards civil war.

[poppa Fabian]

it is true. We are on the wrong path, and we know it. This is the root of our discontent. We have no faith in the system we feed, and which, feeds us, and intern to which we are bound. Will we ever commit to where we want to be in unity? proud to work towards what we have created?
Stay tuned to find out.