Friday, June 21, 2013

Memo Reveals How Feds Use Domestic Intelligence, Aaron Swartz ...

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.

  • Fist of Etiquette| |#

    The feds can collect and use domestically sourced intelligence, and a leaked memo shows how.

    Now we pivot from full denial to explaining how it's necessary and legal.

  • DJF| |#

    Next they will say that the Commerce Clause mandates it, since terrorism interferes with commerce

  • Rich| |#

  • Jerry on the boat| |#

    Clearly, not engaging in terrorism is also a national security concern.

  • Rich| |#

  • MJGreen| |#

    Terrorists receive their funds across state borders.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    It's a tax. An information tax, if you will.

  • Warrren| |#

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    That's what Old Man Bush said, "Read my lips, know new taxes!"

  • Matrix| |#

  • | |#

    Hot in here, my eyes started sweating.

  • NoVAHockey| |#

    fucking gawker commenter has to ruin it.

    That is wonderful, but it is also sad to think how the corporate entities involved are thinking "this is going to be a great revenue stream, imagine what money-capable people would be willing to pay for this.. BUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Yes, they are. They are. You know they are. I know they are. We know they are.
  • Marc F Cheney| |#

    "Money-capable people"?

    Whoever this is, their thinking is a model of clarity.

  • | |#

    Why? Why look? Just enjoy the triumph of money over ignorance.

  • | |#

    money-capable people

    It's a PC term for rich people. Why? Shouldn't this person be using rich as a slur? Or would using the word rich make people feel who are money-incapable(?) have hurt in their hearts?

    Ugh, just say moneyed.

  • TANSTaaFL| |#

    "fucking gawker commenter has to ruin it."

    Pretty good retort to that comment, however, just a bit down the thread,

    "And YOU do what for free for the betterment of humanity?"

  • Ted S.| |#

    Wait until they start dealing with the "deaf culture" people.

  • Warrren| |#

  • NeonCat| |#

    And money-capable deaf-culture people would be the worst.

    Honestly, though, that was my first thought as well.

  • MJGreen| |#

    As with buying organs, the major fear is that only rich people will be able to buy organs and live longer.

    And if that's the case, well, then no one should get organs. They'll just have to die.

  • | |#

    "In the early 1930s an assistant of Jane Addams, the famous social worker, went on a visit to Soviet Russia and wrote a book about her experience. The sentence I remember is: 'How wonderful it was to see everybody equally shabby!' If you think you should try to appease altruists, this is what you are appeasing." --Ayn Rand

  • LynchPin1477| |#

    You know they are. I know they are. We know they are.

    I sure as hell hope they are!

  • robc| |#

    Ive seen a couple of these videos before. They can only be viewed from dusty rooms, apparently.

    Also, because, you know, it has to happen, deaf advocates think the parents are evil for inflicting hearing upon the child.

  • Matrix| |#

  • Ted S.| |#

    SLD that he shouldn't have to choose either.

    (I haven't read the article.)

  • | |#

    His punishment stemmed from an incident last Anzac Day (Australia and New Zealand's version of Memorial Day), during which Wild "pushed over four port-a-loos, exposed himself and threw his own urine at rangers at Litchfield National Park,"

    Eh, unless you are completely against creative punishments I think an alcohol ban is a suitable punishment in lieu of putting him in jail. Maybe 3 months jail time or 2 years alcohol probation is too much but shorter of each seems warranted.

  • TANSTaaFL| |#

    "pushed over four port-a-loos, exposed himself and threw his own urine at rangers at Litchfield National Park,"

    Heeeeell! that's juss called "tursdeey" 'round dees pots

  • | |#

    O'Neill said he found Wild's claim "extraordinary," adding: "There is nothing to do in Darwin for a strong, healthy young man except to drink?"

    "And root, yer 'onor."

  • Archduke Pantsfan| |#

  • A Serious Man| |#

    Do they curse using the phrase "Gods damnit!"?

  • Rasilio| |#

    These Guys are much more interesting, it is just a shame that they attract so many white supremacists

  • Rich| |#

    It's easier to join these guys.

  • Rasilio| |#

    Eh I don't have to worry, I'm already on register as a founder of a Druidic church in New Hampshire (a splinter group of These Guys) but if I really was going to join up with a neopagan church I figure I may as well stick with one that has a distinctly libertarian origin and promises plenty of free sex (as long as your tastes are closer to John's) like This one

  • Rich| |#

    I'm afraid to click This one now.

    Maybe just before going to sleep.

  • Rasilio| |#

    Lol don't worry, no pictures that I know of, it is the homepage for the Church of All Worlds, a neopagan church based on the teachings of Valentine Michael Smith from Robert Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land

  • Warrren| |#

    Their gods can't help them with website design?

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    I assume that's just some new bullshit thing, like praying to crystals in Sedona, right?

  • ChrisO| |#

    Some of that, but it's also tied to Greek nationalism.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Are they also advocating the restoration of the Byzantine Empire? Because if they are, I'm in.

  • ChrisO| |#

    No, that's Christian. They want to go back to the Athenian Empire, I'd guess.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Most of it was Christian, but the empire itself wasn't really Christian when it was founded.

    They could claim the Alexandrian Empire, I suppose.

  • mr simple| |#

    When is the festival for Dionysus?

  • Pro Libertate| |#

  • ChrisO| |#

    I've read about this attempt to revive the Greek religion before. One big problem is that the public aspect of the religion is well-documented, but the Mysteries that were the private--and probably most important--part of the religion were (obviously) not documented.

    As is also pointed out in the article, this whole thing has a strongly New Agey feel to it that is at odds with the religious attitudes of the ancient Greeks. They didn't worship gods so much as try to placate them.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Yes, the mysteries are largely lost, right? Or is there a secret cult out there that's been operating nonstop all along?

  • Rasilio| |#

    Generally speaking this falls into the neopagan religious spectra as many modern Hellenists also consider themselves to be Wiccans (at least in the US) and while you will find a few who claim that there is some secret unbroken line back to antiquity their claims are always bogus linking back to some well documented historical charlaitan like Gardner or Crowley

  • Pro Libertate| |#

  • ChrisO| |#

    Some of the Hellenists in Greece seem to be more serious about truly reviving the religion, rather than merely creating a form of New Age spiritualism that features Greek costumes.

    One difference is that the public aspect of the Greek religion is well-documented. Wiccan belief is drawn from Celtic and Germanic tribes that were largely pre-literate. Their beliefs and rituals are only known either from contemporary Roman sources or from later Christian historians. A lot of that isn't to be trusted, course.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    I think it would be awesome if we could dig up a family that had stuck to the old religion for the last two thousand years.

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

    The Gospels were written in Greek by Greeks well after Christ was supposedly executed.

    I maintain Christianity is a Greek religion since its origin is certainly Greek fiction.

  • ChrisO| |#

    Not to mention the strong Gnostic influence on Christianity, which was primarily a Greek phenomenon.

    In fact, Christianity likely started as a form of gnosticism practiced by Hellenized Jews, possibly a century or more before the putative birth of Jesus.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Regardless of your religious affiliation or lack thereof, I think it's hard to argue that Christianity isn't, in part at least, Hellenized Judaism.

  • ChrisO| |#

    True, but the theory I described is more a matter of putting a Jewish gloss on gnosticism, not the other way around.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    I'll buy that. There's not much Jewish in Christianity, not really. Hasn't been for nearly 2,000 years.

  • The Immaculate Trouser| |#

    This is rather silly. One can make the argument that gnostic or mystery religions contributed to Christianity or that Christianity was highly Hellenized, but there isn't much of a case to date the founding of Christianity 100 years before Christ or to cast it as an entirely Greek phenomena. That's simply poor historiography.

  • The Immaculate Trouser| |#

    Hell, it's dubious that gnosticism as a developed set of ideas (rather than a poorly-defined tendency in some non-mainstream religions at the time) pre-dated Christianity; certainly after Christianity's rise it was almost always defined in the context of Christianity either as an oppositional force to or outgrowth of the religion.

  • ChrisO| |#

    The way I've seen the case made stems from one main point: the fact that the Gospels were written decades after Paul's letters, despite their contrary presentation in the final version of the New Testament.

    Supposedly, if you read the Letters without having the Gospels as a reference, the entire thing becomes much more gnostic. I haven't cracked a Bible in years, but other material I've read indicates that Paul had only scant interest in Jesus' human life, but mostly treated him as a divine figure that sounds suspiciously like the divine intermediary found in gnostic belief.

    The letters are also written to far-flung communities across the Mediterranean only a couple decades after Jesus was killed. That seems highly unlikely, given the modest state of Jesus' followers at the time of his death, as well as the primitive state of communications and travel at the time.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    The gospels could be based on an earlier document (so-called Q), so the timing isn't entirely clear.

  • The Immaculate Trouser| |#

    That seems to rely heavily on speculation regarding the size and reach of Christianity at the time. I would point out Christianity's spread in 16th-century Japan as an example of how quickly a religion can spread, and pre-Tokugawa Japan wasn't nearly as developed as the Roman Empire in terms of political and economic unification. Mediterranean trade and political organization was very far-flung and subject to variation; there are plenty of well-attested migrations and political unions that were both rapid and far-flung (the Greek colonization of the Mediterranean, for example).

    In addition, oral traditions of the evangel had great import in early Christianity -- some parts of Christian India still maintain an oral tradition. Even if one doesn't assume a Q source for the synoptic gospels, there was most likely a strong oral tradition in the churches that Paul wrote to.

    Finally, I would put forth the non-Pauline letters as further evidence against gnosticism predating Christianity, as they can't really be interpreted as non-Gnostic and rely heavily on the Jewish tradition. (I believe that Paul does as well in certain epistles, especially if Paul is the author of Hebrews, but I agree that the case for pre-Christian gnosticism is stronger if we restrict ourselves to letters of Pauline authorship.)

  • Killazontherun| |#

    I've always wondered if there were families who kept consistently unconverted over the generations.

  • ChrisO| |#

    Total societal conversion took a long time in many places, but the early Christian leaders were clever in adapting local pagan practices, so that it usually wasn't a difficult transition.

    That's the reason for having zillions of saints in the Catholic and Orthodox sects. The older ones are all replacements for one local god or another.

  • | |#

    You see the same sort of syncretism in Mexico. The cult of Santa Muerte, for instance, is just some local death goddess or other with a Christian veneer over it. Or so I've read. I don't know shit about Mexico.

  • The Immaculate Trouser| |#

    Entire towns in the Byzantine Empire kept to Hellenic beliefs as least as late as the 9th Century.

  • | |#

    I hope these guys are into Rotting Christ. ???

  • Fist of Etiquette| |#

    Small businesses continue to shy away from expanding their payrolls out of fear of costs related to Obamacare.

    Well, this is coming at us from out of nowhere.

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

    Talk about low-info idiots.

    If you have less than 50 employees Obamacare does not effect you.

    If you have more than 50 just offer them some qualifying group plan at their expense. And if you don't want to you're a scumbag anyway.

    Problem solved.

  • Jordan| |#

    If you have less than 50 employees Obamacare does not effect you.

    It effects your insurance rates and your choice of plans, moron.

    And if you don't want to you're a scumbag anyway.

    If it's so trivial, then why aren't you out buying insurance for everyone who needs it?

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

    Reason Magazine surely has less than 50 FTEs. I will look forward to their hardship account.

  • Marc F Cheney| |#

    PURPLE MONKEY DISWASHER BLARRRGGGH

  • Lord Peter Wimsey| |#

    Oh yes, huge money-sucking, liberty-smashing government programs won't effect you if you work for a mom and pop bidness, 'cause you is insulated from the economy.

    And from your own brainstem, evidently.

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

    Now you are onto a different topic - macroeconomics.

    And since you admit Obamacare does not directly effect small business you have a bone to gnaw on.

    More will be insured thus less subsidies to hospitals and other service providers. As those costs are bucketed accurately we will see efficiency rewarded with lower premiums.

  • C. Anacreon| |#

    AARRGH! Every single one of you. It AFFECTS small business, not EFFECTS small business.

    Now go and effect change in government policy and your own grammar.

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

    Guilty here. I stand corrected.

  • Sevo| |#

    Palin's Buttplug| 6.20.13 @ 4:38PM |#
    ..."If you have less than 50 employees Obamacare does not effect you."

    Dipshit has some real fantasies there, don't he?

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

  • BigT| |#

    My small business suffered a 17% rise in insurance rates already this year. So, sorry, we ALL will suffer.

  • Palin's Buttplug| |#

  • Rich| |#

    He's correct, Sevo.

    Obamacare *effects* only babies.

  • MJGreen| |#

    So, fuck those people who could have been an employed by a scumbag.

  • Matrix| |#

  • | |#

    I get it now! California's plan to handle its budget crisis is to drive as many people as possible from the state, including businesses, so that it doesn't have to pay for...wait, uh...what's the plan again?

  • Matrix| |#

    Didn't someone post an article in the AM Links about Kalifornistan trying to impose regulations on egg farmers, so that any eggs brought into the state had to come from facilities that were up to Cali's standards?

  • | |#

    I have no idea. The AM Links are a disgusting display of early rising and East Coast tyranny that I ignore. Only classless buffoons read the AM Links.

    (stares at ProL)

  • Fist of Etiquette| |#

    Anyone who only contributes to one daily Links is half a man.

  • | |#

    Call me the Imp, then. I mean, I am an ill-made, spiteful creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning.

  • Warrren| |#

    I've always imagined you as a homunculus.

  • | |#

    This. Epi's west coast snobbery is as dated as the Seattle coffee culture and as coherent as Kurt Cobain's cerebellum.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Weren't you born in the sacred time zone that is Eastern Time?

  • | |#

    Where I was born is irrelevant. Where I am is what matters.

    "He's not meltin', he's chillaxin'. If you can't speak the language, go back to Mexico, where you were born, and are from."

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Look, aliens in galaxies 500 million light years away operate principally on ET.

  • Fist of Etiquette| |#

    Just as there is only one global temperature, there is but one earthly time zone and it is right now, right here, 5:00PM.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Embrace the temporal harmony, Eastern brother.

  • Ted S.| |#

    Actually, it's just after 2100 UTC everywhere on Earth. Just do your offsets from UTC.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Really, England is the center of your universe? How quaint.

  • robc| |#

    Just as there is only one global temperature, there is but one earthly time zone and it is right now, right here, 5:00PM.

    4 PM, or 4:30 now. Eastern STANDARD Time is God's time.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    What? No, embrace the extended light, brother.

  • Archduke Pantsfan| |#

    but then again, the PM links has you, so it's a wash.

  • | |#

    You're just going to have to live with that. I am an infestation.

  • Rich| |#

    Only classless buffoons read the AM Links.

    Careful, Epi.

    Mary got banned for less.

  • | |#

    Once Sacramento has driven everyone away, I'm tearing down all of my neighbor's homes and homesteadding the shit out of their property.

  • Adam330| |#

  • | |#

    Don't care, who will stop me when there are no more people?

  • Tejicano| |#

    Why don't they just pass a law which makes the density of lead less than the density of air so the expended bullets will just float up to outer space rather than into the ground - where it came from.

  • Archduke Pantsfan| |#

  • Matrix| |#

    I kind of agree. Until the cost of batteries goes down and they significantly increase the distance while significantly decreasing the charge times, they will not take off.

  • C. Anacreon| |#

    Pfft. Since we will have already reached the singularity by 2035, this won't even be an issue.

  • | |#

    Well, no shit. I had to do those fucking calculation sfor 3 fucking classes. Chemical storage in liquid hydrocarbons is pretty optimal for storage, transportation, consumption, and safety.

  • Sevo| |#

    Brett L| 6.20.13 @ 4:44PM |#
    "Well, no shit. I had to do those fucking calculation sfor 3 fucking classes. Chemical storage in liquid hydrocarbons is pretty optimal for storage, transportation, consumption, and safety."

    And the revolutionary battery is only ten years off, as it always will be!
    Or just waiting for that next gov't grant.

  • ant1sthenes| |#

    Especially once we can use solar power to produce gasoline.

  • Matrix| |#

  • | |#

    "Mr. President... we cannot afford... a mine shaft gap!"

  • Fist of Etiquette| |#

    One guy brings bath salts down there and it's all over.

  • Hash Brown| |#

  • Butts Wagner| |#

    *Butts Wagner shows up wild eyed and frothing from the mouth*

    MMMXFDJB!!! YDJSFIHKJ!! SKHGFSJBN!!!

    *He spits and wipes the froth from his lips*

    Cot Damn!! Doing the Mentos and Diet Coke thing in your mouth is fuckin' awesome!

  • Matrix| |#

  • Eduard van Haalen| |#

    This needs to be hammered home as often as possible.

  • Marc F Cheney| |#

    And then counted as a victim of hammer violence.

  • | |#

    Chris Dorner's name also on the list.

  • Pro Libertate| |#

    Is bin Laden's name on the list? I understand he was shot by guns as well.

    While we're at it, looks like Hitler was a victim of a shooting incident, too.

  • | |#

    I like how their excuse there was trusting Slate's list.

  • SugarFree| |#

    Slate ran an article today defending the practice. Even though Tsarnaev probably died from being run over and dragged under and SUV, because he was shot in the arm, his death was gun violence.

  • | |#

    Yeah, well, like Dirty Harry says, nothing wrong with shooting, so long as the right people get shot.

  • A Serious Man| |#

    Small businesses continue to shy away from expanding their payrolls out of fear of costs related to Obamacare.

    Small businesses Kulaks continue to shy away from expanding their payrolls show their racism out of fear of costs related to Obamacare.

  • Archduke Pantsfan| |#

    STEVE SMITH hunter claims he was bullied by police

  • http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/20/memo-reveals-how-feds-use-domestic-intel

    michael madsen day light savings day light savings spring forward daylight saving time 2012 grapes of wrath silent house

  • No comments:

    Post a Comment

    Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.