ferdo

Not just a response. More like an effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

Miranda was offered a government lawyer at first, not one of his own choosing. He was smart to refuse their stupid offer.

> It's not like there's a whole ideology and movement and organization that supports their actions.

The same can be said of the culture of illegal invasions, illegal detentions, secret trials, secret jails, spying, drone attacks and other fun things brought by the National Security State.

The Taliban is far younger than and wouldn't exist but for the American National Security State. Let's keep cause and effect in mind here.

I trust Greenwald more than I trust the NSA and the government. Glenn doesn't spy on me, for one.

> they need to be beyond reproach

I don't understand this thinking. Greenwald and the Guardian have very little power in comparison to the intel agencies and governments they report on. Why is their conduct more important than the people they're reporting on, people we already know are misusing law and the power of government?

If anything, intel agencies and governments need to convince me they're beyond reproach or I'm just going to assume that their amoral ways will only get worse.

I consider Kangas the first internet-age reporter to die under suspicious circumstances. I won't busy up the thread with links but I urge anyone with an interest in this topic to research Kangas and his writings. He imparted much information in his short career.

Lots of geeks with jobs funded by the public sector have no idea of the history of some of the agencies they work for. The history of misdeeds by American intel agencies is a topic that is relevant to hackers, imo.

Steve Kangas was ex military intel that became a journalist. In 1999, he was found dead of a gunshot wound in a billionaire's building in Pittsburgh.

He was an education for me some 20 years ago when I began learning about the depredations of the National Security Corporate State that now has us in thrall.

--

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

By Steve Kangas

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

I know enough to have already exited the bubble market that's not too far from busting.

> "legally and procedurally sound"

These claims were also made by the Church and the State during the Inquisition, except with the "in defense of the Faith" bit added for flair.

"...I additionally believed that one of our best defenses against the national security state was the perennial proclivity of clandestine organizations to piss off their own employees."

-J. Orlin Grabbe, 1995

http://peculium.net/2013/04/03/the-end-of-ordinary-money-by-...

Buckley was old CIA material. His superior in the CIA was E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate burglary fame. NR has rarely strayed from its intel roots.

If The National Review is annoyed at the NSA, it might indicate a small tip in the scales.

> that makes them keep doing what they're doing.

For many of them, the paycheck is probably motivation enough. IT subcontracting from governments and security agencies can be quite lucrative.

All monetary systems are speculative bubbles. Some just have the backing of a government to give support to the bubble. The last guy out of assignats probably felt a little foolish.

If you don't create it, you can't control it. You can make laws about it, but you still don't actually control it.

I see the opposite. Regulations will create an even larger undermarket for Bitcoin than exists now. In the next decade, use of Bitcoin (or something similar) will have grown enough outside of regulation that the next generation of Bitcoin users won't even pay attention to the regulators anymore.

Unlike the creations of the central banks, there's an end to Bitcoin's creations. The value in this model is seen in Bitcoin's steadily rising and holding price.

> No one controls bitcoins.

That really annoys regulatory mindsets.

Bitcoin's ones and zeroes don't originate in a central bank.

The argument could be made that this move by Germany is actually a ploy to make Bitcoin look like a paperwork/legal nightmare and time-moneysuck so that merchants will stay away from it.

Bitcoin is too useful to be squashed by mere government regulation. If a few more countries employ these draconian measures, some cash-starved government will welcome Bitcoin in the future.

If regulators ("the body of Leviathan and the head of a social worker", to lift from Joseph Stromberg) were smart, they'd advocate easy exchange rules and impose a small tax on each transaction on the exchange.

Over the course of generations, I tend to have more faith in markets than in governments. That's why I think regulators will fail in their efforts in the long run.

Regulation is about control, which is what Germany is now trying to do with Bitcoin. I suspect the regulators will fail with regard to control of Bitcoin in the long run.

Thus far, government efforts to regulate ones and zeroes haven't met with great success.

Greenwald's response:

"Reuters is the absolute worst at tearing comments out of context for sensationalizing headlines. The paraphrase:

Q: Will the UK's detention of your partner deter your future reporting?

A: Absolutely not. If anything, it will do the opposite. It will embolden me: I have many more documents to report on, including ones about the UK, where I'll now focus more. I will be more aggressive, not less, in reporting.

Q: What effect do you think they'll be of the UK's detention of your partner?

A: When they do things like this, they show the world their real character. It'll backfire. I think they'll come to regret it.

REUTERS: HE VOWS TO PUBLISH DOCUMENTS ABOUT UK AFTER DETENTION, SAYS THEY WILL BE SORRY!!!"

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rm09tf

Combine those responses with Michael Grunwald's "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange" and we can see the lines being drawn right before our eyes.

I've known kids that give up on life, not get jobs and play video games all day without weed.

Weed isn't the problem here. The kid and/or his family is generally the problem.

Much agreement on smart people doing clever things.

In 5-10 years, Bitcoin (or similar systems) will end up being adopted by enough individuals and businesses that critical mass of usage will be achieved and digital currencies will no longer seem novel or strange. We saw the same dynamic at play with the internet itself not that long ago and here we are already seriously considering the effects of the first viable digital currency.

Sidenote: A gentle reminder to folks to back up the efforts of indie Bitcoin developers with whatever can be spared.

And one of the foot soldiers of the Powers That Be weighs in:

"Glenn, Glenn - did you really think there'd be zero consequences for you and those close to you? I expected Ed to believe WL lies, but you?"

- John Schindler (@20committee) August 18, 2013

https://twitter.com/20committee/statuses/369169570298208257

One of the functions of a free press (journalists) is exactly to aggressively report on the malintent of bureaucrats and the maladministration of government power. Actual journalism is and always has been a form of dissent.

> Miranda was then released without charge, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

Thievery and intimidation are good indicators of who and what we're dealing with.

By your link, we're also 8 times more likely to get killed by a government employee than by a terrorist.