Yes, and just like eyewitnesses to an accident, it's shown that such "points of view" are often wrong or misinterpreted.

Just one example of many: the statements by people near the Pentagon on 9/11 that it "sounded like a missile". How many of those people have actually ever even *heard* what a commercial jetliner sounds like traveling at nearly cruising speed just hundreds to dozens of feet off the ground "sounds like", much less a missile? This is then used as "proof" that it couldn't have been a plane, and probably was a "missile", despite all evidence to the contrary (including numerous statements from people saying they clearly saw the plane, sometimes in the same sentence as the cherry-picked quotes where they say it "sounded like a missile").

This is why we have professionally trained (usually) journalists and experts, because they do the filtering and analysis for us. I'm sorry, but NO individual is capable, his or her self, of becoming an authority on everything related to every major event that occurs with the end result being better analysis than what has already been done by investigators and task forces of experts. Sure, have a questioning mind and all that, but don't assume everyone in the "media" or the "government" is always lying to you, and random, out-of-context, and/or misinterpreted (or outright wrong) assertions by "citizen journalists" (or anyone else) are gospel.

You're acting as if information was "withheld"...it wasn't. There is no mechanism to release every single piece of evidence collected by every agency to the internet and "crowdsource" it.

What was "crowdsourced" was information that was already on the internet. Furthermore, the FBI did, in fact, release the relevant snippets of video and pictures from the private security cameras and other sources.

Sorry, but "crowdsourcing" is not always the answer, and this was not a success, much less a rousing one.

This has been a fascinating phenomenon, and it's only going to evolve more as time goes on.

Crowdsourcing or witch hunt? Reddit, 4chan users try to ID Boston bomb suspects

Boston bombing: How internet detectives got it very wrong

'I didn't do anything!' High school track runner forced to deny involvement in Boston Marathon bombings after a picture of him and his coach is widely circulated

Social media as breaking-news feed: Worse information, faster

Worse information, faster -- this neatly sums it up, and I'm a huge proponent of social media and its benefits, including to government.

And for the record, no, the FBI wasn't seeking to "censor" anyone, and the "next logical step" (as I have seen asserted elsewhere) won't be to "shut down" internet or social media resources during major public emergencies; however, law enforcement agencies absolutely can request, once they have identified suspects via investigative and legal processes, that people focus on those instead of playing CSI: Internet.

Sadly, the echo chamber of the internet enables some people, in seemingly increasing numbers, to go a step further and choose to believe everything is automatically a "false flag" conspiracy with the stated perpetrators "framed"â¦..

The "wisdom of crowds" can be a misnomer.

In other news (aside from the Twitter and Flickr accounts):

Sorry, Anonymous probably didn't hack North Korea's intranet

Sure, but those people aren't the ones who are the source of our problems. For what it's worth, from 2011 IRS data:

Category..........Top 0.1%....1%....5%...10%..25%..50%..Bot 50%
Income Req'd $........1.4M..344K..155K..112K..66K..32K....N/A
Income Share %...........8....17....32....43...66...87.....13
Effective tax rate %....24....24....20....18...15...12......2
Income tax share %......17....37....59....70...87...98......2

Also, you're comparing apple to oranges by saying that "you could [...] save enough in about 4-5 years to stop working and still be making 10 times what your average American makes." No, because they already have the income they have, and they have a different lifestyle -- and guess what? They haven't done anything wrong.

The place where anything that can be defined as actual unfair "abuse" is occurring is in the 0.01% and up, and it's not even all of those people. To wholesale target the "top 1/5/10%" as evil or the cause of our problems ignores the fact that the top 10% -- who themselves are making over $100,000/year -- are paying 70% of the federal income tax share.

Even if we could have the bottom, say, 50%, or even the bottom *90%* pay NO tax of any kind, including payroll, sales, or anything else, and shift that ENTIRE burden to the top 10% (which is absurd, but let's just roll with it for the sake of argument), there would still be a massive wealth disparity. The very poor would still be very poor.

What then? True wealth redistribution? I'm sorry, but no matter how noble that might be in the view of some, that is simply not compatible with a free society. That's the problem people have with this whole "the top 1% is evil" and/or "has more than they deserve" trope. It's not your business how much someone else has. Surely you can do with less; shall we take it away? Of course not.

What we should be targeting is actual ABUSE and people who are getting off scot-free...and hint, it's not the vast, vast, vast majority of people in the top 1%. So what happens when a certain element of the top 0.00X% are essentially flouting the system and operating outside the bounds of any of the regulations and laws to which the rest of are beholden? Apparently if we ask the Occupy crowd, it's to attack everyone who appears to have more than you as the enemy.

Actually, I know exactly where Occupy (née OWS) came from: the anti-US, anti-capitalist, anti-"consumerist", "culture-jamming" Canadian magazine Adbusters, which openly stated that the goal was to ride the discontent in the wake of the economic downturn to turn people against the "rich", in the form of the "top 1%".

They made absolutely no secrets about it, and were proud of it. The fact that the "Occupy" movement spread to places outside of the US is irrelevant, and happened after AdBusters seeded and initiated the movement within the US.

These are the kinds of people the Occupy crowd always railed on as the "top 1%". They may be /in/ the top 1%, but they're nowhere representative of it. These people are, quite literally, less than the top 1% /of/ the top 1%.

Of course, the Occupy folks don't care about this, as their true, stated aim was simply opposing capitalism, "consumerism", and pitting Americans against Americans in some kind of imagined class warfare, when the vast majority of the "top 1% are the employers and business owners who are part of the solution, not the imagined fat cats on yachts in top hats sipping champagne and lighting cigars with 100s.

In case you need a refresher from Schoolhouse Rock:

http://www.schooltube.com/video/fcde4d15a9276c9a09d3/

We could always count on WebKit being the universal web rendering engine across iOS and Android -- now, that will no longer be the case, and I guarantee you there will be instances where Google uses the inevitable differences between "Blink" and WebKit (which is also the core rendering engine for Mac OS X and Safari) for competitive advantage with Chrome, Chrome OS, and Android, al la Microsoft and IE... :-/

Nuclear power has the lowest deaths per TWh of any form of energy -- and that includes things like Chernobyl and Fukushima, the latter of which had a curious focus given that far, far, far more people were injured, displaced, or killed by the actual tsunami as opposed to any radiation events, now or in the future.

Direct deaths from fossil fuel sources -- including even naturally occurring radiation from conventional fossil fuel energy sources -- far outstrip any deaths that have ever occurred, or even will occur with even the most extreme statistical projections, from any nuclear power source, including accidents. That's right: there are more deaths from "radiation" from the byproducts of fossil fuel sources than there are from nuclear power, including accidents and waste.

This is what we should be worried about:

"Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide. Figured another way, the researchers said, China's toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population."

There is a reason China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.

Cool story, bro.

Apparently your reading comprehension is a little lacking, as again, that has nothing to do with what Navy Information Warfare Officers do. At all.

But if it makes you feel better to believe that, be my guest. It's not at all uncommon to see slashdot commenters wish to wallow in ignorance.

You have no understanding whatsoever of Navy Information Warfare. This might give you an idea.

As I have explained on slashdot before, while most people look to a generic definition of "information warfare" and immediately think "propaganda" (which even then is only one small piece of IW, or what the US now calls "Information Operations" in doctrine), this actually has nothing to do with with 99% of Navy Information Warfare officers actually do.

The Navy Information Warfare Community was renamed from "Cryptology" a few years ago when everything "cyber" started getting big. Navy IW officers do signals intelligence (SIGINT), and "cyber" ("computer network operations", or CNO), to the exclusion of nearly everything else, against foreign adversary targets.

Yes, sometimes Navy IW Officers get put in billets where they are doing traditional "IO" (as they did in Iraq, for example), of which even then "propaganda" is a very small piece. But that has nothing to do with the job of nearly all Navy IW officers, and even when that happens, it's all in foreign theaters (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan).

When I post on slashdot, as I have done for about 15 years, I have always done so as myself. You might disagree with me, but that doesn't make me someone you imagine to be a shill. It makes me someone you disagree with. And no matter what my jobs are, I'm posting here on my own time, with my own opinions, as me.

I do find it amusing that so many on slashdot can't stomach the idea that it's possible for people to have differing views without being paid for them, or automatically assume politics. It illustrates one of my initial points about people falling neatly into political boxes quite nicely; thank you. It's also amusing that you believe, by default, that no developments in the world may ever be worthy of US military intervention.

No, I know, I know...you're one of those types who believes that "war" is all an excuse to line the pockets of some imagined elite, that what the US does is "no different" (or usually worse) than any other nation, and that the US is the source of evil and conflict in the world. It's an interesting, if bizarre, position, and it's always been fascinating to me.

I'm sure the modern world after WWII would have been quite free of major conflicts where millions of lives would be lost, and safe for principles of freedom and liberal democracy without significant US investment. After all, it's not like there was anything else in the world opposed to those views, and I'm sure Iran and North Korea represent no threat to these ideals, and that China's massively accelerating military spending and aspirations to replace the US as a global steward will leave the world in a better place, what with their shining record on personal freedom, freedom of information, and human rights.

Don't worry, China is on track to outpace the US in military expenditures by 2023. I'm sure that's all for "peaceful regional defense" and will have no impact on the US.

China's military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212

The dragon's new teeth: A rare look inside the world's biggest military expansion
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193

Essential reading on China cyber:

The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyber war? (The first page of this is a must read wrt China.)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh

Great snippet: ""The N.S.A. would ask, 'Can the Chinese be that good?' " the former official told me. "My response was that they only invented gunpowder in the tenth century and built the bomb in 1965. I'd say, 'Can you read Chinese?' We don't even know the Chinese pictograph for 'Happy hour.'"

To say nothing of the more recent news.

But yes, yes...this is all about "false flag" attacks, because naturally the US is always the evil aggressor, and there has never been any oppression or tyranny in the world, save for what the US has foisted upon it. The principles of freedom for which the US stands are just an illusion force fed to a compliant public by the lapdog mainstream press. In fact, we probably have secret time machines so we could extend this evil beyond our nation's short existence in this world. That explains all the bad things that happened before we were around.

No, I think the simple fact of the matter is that we disagree. I note how in all your responses to me you cleverly insinuate (or just flat out say) that I am doing something like "leading" the discussion away from a topic, as if merely asserting it makes it so. I am well aware of what happened here: the administration's policy changed with respect to Iraq, and they were looking for reasons to support a military action. Since it was thought that Saddam still had stockpiles of WMD, that would be a pretty darned good public justification to put forth, don't you think?

On any topic for which intelligence work is even required, there is ALWAYS contradictory information and differing analytic viewpoints. People like yourself choose only to see the contradictory information, in hindsight, to the exclusion of all other supporting information. Others may, just as inappropriately, do the opposite. I believe I stated fairly clearly I did not think the Iraq invasion as a particularly good idea; however, that is only my opinion and history will be the ultimate judge. None of this changes the veracity of anything I said in my initial comment.

No "weaseling" here. And you missed the entire point of my comment to boot. Intelligence doesn't come from thin air - it exists to support the information needs and requirements of policymakers and commanders. Sometimes intelligence only exists after a question is asked. "Does Saddam Hussein have WMD?" "Did Iraq provide support to al Qaeda?" Of course WMD was "used" as the primary reason to invade Iraq, just as Pearl Harbor was "used" as a primary reason to enter WWII, and the Zimmermann Telegram was "used" as a primary reason to enter WWI. Do you think those were the only reasons? If not, does that mean our leaders were "lying"? Or is it possible that the reasons the US may enter a military conflict are fare more complex?

Personally, I don't think the Iraq invasion was a particularly good idea, especially with the benefit of hindsight. But that doesn't change the facts about the purpose and application of intelligence I briefly highlighted in my comment. What is ironic to me is that you acknowledge the fact that Saddam had the capability and intent to possess WMD, and act as if that alone couldn't have been enough of a justification. The key point, as you observe, wasn't whether Iraq had WMD; it was that US policy toward Iraq changed, from one of containment to one of removal of Saddam Hussein.