M$ was the FIRST company on the PRISM slide timeline you know?

Yeah it's ok that the government killed a million people in illegal wars and is now guarding poppy fields in afghanistan and giving arms to al qaeda in syria. Who cares? It's over there and not here.
It's ok that they spy on us. It's only digital crap and "I" have nothing to hide.
It's ok that they get rid of all the rights and civil liberties that are ours by right. 1st ammendment, 4th and 5th ammendments. Hell even 2nd ammendment and habeas corpus. They're only doing it t certain people right, and it's not me so who cares?

Every single one of those views are held by people who aren't targets of people in power *right now*. What you don't realize is that allowing the government machine to do this to others just means they can do it to you to at any time of their choosing. You are not safe.

Of course the army is going to block access to the guardian. There have been several stories published there that prove the US government is listening to the private phone calls of the troops, including tape recording their phone sex and passing it around the office as entertainment.

Army officials are then quoted in the same articles as saying that the troops should know that their phone calls are not private.

I mean really, who wants the troops to know this and be all demoralized and shit, we need to spy on their sex lives in SECRET god damn you Glenn Greenwald.

Your post displays a naiveté so stunning that I would think you have never been around people.

For you to even say aloud that your stasi government is less of a threat than xyz really shows how ignorant you are of the fact that information is power and a monitored human is not a Free human.
Not to mention how you have no fucking concept that your economic Freedom is worse than a peasant in the 1300's.

A percentage of the harvest went to the lord of the manor (the land's lord, or landlord) the amount varied, but it was between 10% - 25% - an additional 10% went to the local church as a tithe. Compare that 20-35% tax rate to the combined 50-80% tax rate many in the developed world pay (the ones that don't suck on the government's tits).

How you doin' Eloi? is the food good? are you happy and eating well? Hey what do you care if we take some people away every now and again, it's not you!
Just keep grazing on your grass like a fat happy cow all the way to the slaughter, telling other people around you how it's not so bad after all, it could be worse.

Well, except history.

If the whole world is fucked up, you're just claiming that you're less fucked up in comparison.
And you're wrong.

What a fucking cop out. You should be ashamed to even float that line.

Come to think of it, there have been some very peculiar incidents recently.

Supreme court justices changing their mind about which way to vote.

The head of the CIA and other officers resigning because of affairs where the government admits reading their personal email without a warrant.

Journalists being spied on.

Fuck, they caught Elliott Spitzer with that call girl and then couldn't explain how they stumbled on him....

Are you sure none of these incidents involved the illegal spying? The eye of Sauron stings a bit when it focuses on you doesn't it?

The purpose of gathering this information is to investigate and determine innocence or guilt only for the crime in question. Once innocence or guilt has been determined, you still need to keep the data for appeals. Once the appeals are over, should all of the evidence become public record (assuming it was introduced into evidence in court)?

What's objectionable to me is that the police gathers your biometric data for the purpose of investigating one crime and then says fuck it we're going to use it however we damn well want. Even if you were innocent, even if it was never introduced into evidence, even if the evidence was exculpatory.

That's like going to work for a company and receiving trade secrets, then when the job is over you tell them: 'fuck you I'll use these trade secrets however I want now'.