Starke 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (127)

• On the post: Document Surfaces Showing NSA Intercepted Communications Of Prominent Americans During Vietnam War

  

  Starke ( profile ), 26 Sep, 2013 @ 10:31pm

  I could have sworn Minaret was public knowledge a decade ago. Hell, I've got a freakin' Spycraft Book (The RPG system) that mentions it, from 2005.

• On the post: A Tale Of Two Hit Songs Inspired By Past Hits… And The Very Different Way In Which Copyright Holders Reacted

  

  Starke ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2013 @ 01:24pm

  Re:

  It's a reasonable mistake to make, given their relative depth.

• On the post: Government Considers Dissatisfaction With US Policies To Be A 'High Threat'

  

  Starke ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2013 @ 10:22am

  Re: Only one complaint

  They were eaten by a grue.

• On the post: Government Considers Dissatisfaction With US Policies To Be A 'High Threat'

  

  Starke ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2013 @ 10:20am

  Re: Re: Re: Version 2

  I thought McCarthyism was where you found an ambitious, alchoholic, patholigical liar, and then got them to take over a major political movement, just to see what kinds of crazy came crawling out.

• On the post: Government Considers Dissatisfaction With US Policies To Be A 'High Threat'

  

  Starke ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2013 @ 10:18am

  Re: Re:

  Honestly, looking back at intelligence operations in the Cold War, and for that matter, counterintelligence operations? Yeah, some of the dumbest stuff actually worked, the more sophisticated stuff had a nasty habit of fouling up.
  
  Get a housekeeper in the Soviet embassy to throw out classified documents, and fish them out of the trash? Yeah, that worked for years.
  
  Cultivate a spy network in East Berlin? No dice.

• On the post: Government Considers Dissatisfaction With US Policies To Be A 'High Threat'

  

  Starke ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2013 @ 10:14am

  Re:

  Yeah, although it sounds racist, this specific profile does have a few warning signs.
  
  Basically, they're spending a lot of money on international travel, while not having enough to pay the bills...
  
  Thing is, this is getting cross threaded with the whole ideology element. Past experience is, you need one OR the other to turn someone, not both. And, when I say "turn", I really mean a coordinated intelligence agency, not, you know, "terrerusts!"
  
  Of course, the whole thing is made worse by the fact that we know, in this day and age, all bank seizures of property are legal, right guys?

• On the post: DEA Not Only Gets Intelligence Data, But Then Is Instructed To Cover Up Where It Gets The Info

  

  Starke ( profile ), 05 Aug, 2013 @ 09:54pm

  Re:

  F---in' SODs.
  
  :p

• On the post: Rotolight Uses DMCA To Censor Review They Didn't Like, Admits To DMCA Abuse For Censorship

  

  Starke ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2013 @ 01:15pm

  Wait... normally it's basically impossible to prove bad faith in a DMCA takedown... but, wouldn't this be admissible in court?

• On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 11:42pm

  Re: Re: Ed Snowden

  "Someone from a country that recently had similar freedoms, and is now having those freedoms subtly retracted..."
  
  So, he could be from the US?

• On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 11:12pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Ed Snowden

  For some reason I read that in Don Adam's "...would you believe..."

• On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 06:12pm

  Re: Re: Ed Snowden

  Except, as Mike, and some other posters have pointed out... they didn't really copy his style.

• On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 06:10pm

  Re: Re: Ed Snowden

  Good sir, I do not believe for one moment you are the one true Bill Murry. :p

• On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 01 Jul, 2013 @ 04:38pm

  Re: Plural 'United States' not unheard of domestically...

  The issue there is the definite article. In context, as an American, "These United States" is a plural, and "have" would make sense in context. It's a bit grandiose, but acceptable.
  
  "The United States", with the singular article, should be followed with "has", not "have", as a mater of normal American English conjugation.
  
  Here's the thing, and this isn't normal English, as far as I can remember, with "these", the emphasis is on "states" as separate entities, with "the", the term "United States" is effectively a single, and singular, propper noun.
  
  It's a mistake that most Americans are unlikely to make, because the shifting emphasis on States as a plural and United as a single entity is a familiar idiomatic anomaly.
  
  To a non-American it's an arbitrary mess without any real logic backing it up.

• On the post: DOJ Says Tech Companies Can Sort Of Release FISA Numbers, But.. In A Way That Decreases Transparency

  

  Starke ( profile ), 17 Jun, 2013 @ 06:28am

  Re: Re: Here we go again, distancing evil NSA from friendly Google.

  Most entertaining conspiracy theory I've heard in the last five hours... of course the only OTHER conspiracy theory I've run across today involved the Illuminati... so the competition isn't really what you'd call fierce.

• On the post: FBI Boss: Collecting Billions Of Phone Records Could Prevent Next 9/11, Boston Bombing — Despite Not Having Prevented The Originals

  

  Starke ( profile ), 14 Jun, 2013 @ 03:54am

  Re:

  Shouldn't take too long. The FBI just needs to cook up a new terrorist plot, and find a fall guy first.

• On the post: Feds May Have To Reveal FISA Phone Records In Murder Case

  

  Starke ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2013 @ 05:56pm

  Re: Re: Re: The Phones

  There's also the part where the DoJ was claiming that the records were unavailable. While I'm not expecting every DoJ schmuck to know about Prism's records, it could do a real number on their claims that they didn't the evidence didn't exist.

• On the post: Feds May Have To Reveal FISA Phone Records In Murder Case

  

  Starke ( profile ), 13 Jun, 2013 @ 05:50pm

  Re: Re: Now imagine MPAA getting Google's log of your history!

  Where they're going, they don't need browser histories.

• On the post: Is The US Using Prism To Engage In Commercial Espionage Against Germany And Others?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2013 @ 04:14am

  Re:

  Given that the FBI's passed intelligence to companies in the recent past, it wouldn't surprise me if "in the interests of maintaining American influence", that the CIA and NSA had in fact deliberately passed information to Corporate America. That said, you're probably 100% right about exactly how they passed intell.

• On the post: NSA Spying Revelations Start To Cause Outrage In Europe; China Next?

  

  Starke ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 06:15pm

  Re: NSA may take the blame for the "Naughty Nine'

  Nah,the NSA's the largest intelligence agency in the world, by employment numbers, we don't have the prison space to just lock 'em all up. :p

• On the post: Oh, And One More Thing: NSA Directly Accessing Information From Google, Facebook, Skype, Apple And More

  

  Starke ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2013 @ 06:54pm

  Re: Re: DNI Clapper misstated facts to Congress

  Wait, did the DNI just call the NSA witless?

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