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  John Fenderson (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:01am

  
  

  CIA

  let's never forget what the CIA was originally intended to do: it wasn't spying or field operations of any sort. Originally, its purpose was to collect intelligence gathered from the myriad intelligence agencies of the US and analyze them as a cohesive whole. That's it.
  
  Now, however, the CIA is a full-fledged spy agency, does spying of its own and engages in active field operations and all sorts of sketchy activities.
  
  The NSA is clearly following the same trajectory.

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:50am

  
  

  Re: CIA

  Government agencies* - like goldfish - tend to grow to the limits of their enclosure.
  
  If we don't enforce those limits, they will just grow, and grow, and grow...
  
  These limits used to be defined by the constitution, but the government that swore to defend it seems to want to treat it like a mere piece of paper - a mere historical curiosity, nothing more - so these limits are no longer in effect.
  
  The result is predictable, and made evident by stories like this one.
  
  
  
  * or anything government related, really

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  steell (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 2:45pm

  
  

  Re: CIA

  Ever hear of the predecessor to the CIA? It was called the OSS and it was very much an active organization taking part in the events of WW2. So you are mistaken.

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  John Fenderson (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 3:05pm

  
  

  Re: Re: CIA

  The CIA was not formed simply by renaming the OSS. The CIA was part of an attempt to reform the intelligence community -- the main problem they wanted to solve was that every branch of the military and law enforcement had their own spy department, and all those departments were competitive with each other and refused to share information with each other.
  
  The CIA was intended to resolve that by becoming a central clearing house for all the various agencies intelligence information.
  
  The connection to the OSS is a straight line in this sense: that was exactly what the OSS was intended to do during wartime. It, too, exceeded its mandate and began spying. The CIA was intended to rectify that problem as well.

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  Internet Zen Master (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 6:16pm

  
  

  Re: Re: Re: CIA

  Given that we STILL seem to have that problem of next to zero communication between the US' current batch of alphabet soup agencies, perhaps it's time to reform the intelligence community again...

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  out_of_the_blue, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:11am

  
  

  "times you just shake your head and wonder"

  Again, YOU are not the audience, Mike. I'll give you that much. But you need to get out of your like-minded crowd now and then to at least read the "YES, WE NEED MORE POLICE STATE!" opinions of "Red state" rabble to see how outright lies are accepted without question. Those people are frighteningly jingoist: just wave a flag and they parrot lies even if contradict the lies of yesterday; point to a dark-skinned "enemy" and they howl for blood. Example: the US is now supporting "al-Qaida" in Syria with money and weapons, besides was just barely dissuaded from bombing in support; the former "existential threat" is now US proxy to overthrow other dictators! We are DEEP into "1984" and "Brave New World".

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:25am

  
  

  Re: "times you just shake your head and wonder"

  Your random sentence generator broke again.....

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:27am

  
  

  Re: Re: "times you just shake your head and wonder"

  Actually, he's making sense.

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:59am

  
  

  Re: Re: Re: "times you just shake your head and wonder"

  Hence it being broken!

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  Michael, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:29am

  
  

  Once again, he talks about the job of the NSA, their responsibilities, and what they are tasked with - and completely avoids discussing what they have done and what they are doing.

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  Vic Livingston, 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:29am

  
  

  U.S. Cyber Command oversees no-touch "e-torture" of Americans: vet journo

  As seen on Twitter:
  
  @AmbassadorRice US CYBERCOM/LOCKHEED CELLTWR NEUROWEAPON SLOW-KILL TORTURE OF 'DISSIDENT/UNDESIRABLE' AMERICANS-jrno http://viclivingston.blogspot.com/2011/12/u.html

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  scrivener50 (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 11:36am

  
  

  U.S. Cyber Command No-touch e-tortures Americans: veteran journalist

  President Obama must know by now that a celltower- mounted speed-of-light "multifunctional radio frequency directed energy weapon" grid deployed everywhere (U.S. Pat. 7629918, Raytheon), under operational control of Lockheed Martin, prime cyber-contractor to the U.S. government, has both surveillance and offensive attack capabilities -- and is being used by U.S. Cyber Command to silently torture, impair, subjugate, harm and slow-kill citizens who are extrajudicially condemned as "dissidents" or "undesirables." The veteran major market journalist who first exposed this "torture tower" grid also believes that the "Obama debate trance" exhibited at the first presidential debate in October 2012 was induced by rogue elements with access to this weapon system -- along with those public bouts of forced sleep experienced by Vice President Biden. The danger now is that the President may think he can put down what amounts to a silent coup d'etat by issuing orders and shuffling personnel, when the remedy to this cancer on the Republic is public exposure -- the only way to ensure that a seditionist security cult within is held to account. See viclivingston(dot)blogspot(dot)com/2011/12/u.html

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 12:19pm

  
  

  I seems like they missed an important part of "plausible deniability" here.

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 12:37pm

  
  

  Such a huge mistake to let the Cyber Command be run by the NSA. It should be run by Pentagon. At least then it would be limited to ACTUAL WAR TARGETS.
  
  When it's run by NSA - ANYONE - can be a target.

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  art guerrilla (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 1:46pm

  
  

  Re:

  ?que?
  *as if* the defense spooks have not shadowed and spied on civilians ? ? ?
  think again...
  
  frankly, it don't matter WHICH gummint branch is doing the actual spying, they ALL are NOT trustworthy under Empire...

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 12:50pm

  
  

  Since when was misdirection anything new? We've been hearing a continual stream of lies, misdirection, and propaganda, ever since they got their tail in a crack over the Snowden disclosures.
  
  Trust is not a word you use when talking about government agencies anymore.

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  Anonymous Coward, 14 Oct 2013 @ 1:10pm

  
  

  Liying by omission

  "Not under this program", meet "not under this acronym".

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  Hans, 14 Oct 2013 @ 2:21pm

  
  

  NSA TREASON

  Sometimes it is hard to tell which is more amazing NSA et al criminality or lies. I guess they land up coming from the same sociopathology where they have a higher calling & therefore r self righteously above the law. I'm convinced the solution lies not in more govt but more accountability of govt. When the punishment is sufficiently sever to deter criminal behavior we will see that behavior change.

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  peter, 14 Oct 2013 @ 2:26pm

  
  

  minor correction

  "....swapping hats depending on what's most convenient."
  
  should read
  
  ".....swapping hats depending on what's most convenient lie."

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  JTReyn (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 9:02am

  
  

  SPIES GONE WILD will never stop

  NSA thinks what it's doing is OK, but it is all wrong, as these comments overwhelmingly agree. Many acknowledge that they're not going to stop. The system is broke, and logic dictates that we take matters into our own hands. Not to violate the law, but to protect ourselves from invasions of privacy wherever possible. Start using encryption, stop using public cloud storage and move everything to a Cloudlocker (www.stoamigo.com) which works the same but stays in your home where they still need a warrant to get it. I'm sure good ol Yankee ingenuity will come up with more inventions like this to protect us from the people supposed to protect us.

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