Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[C27]

I think the best thing we could do would be to end the Drug War somehow, and shut down the CIA permanently and put all the spooks under direct, unified Pentagon control.

Yeah, who needs Posse Comitatus anyway? /s

To put this as diplomatically as I can, the way to fix our domestic intelligence apparatus is not to hand it to the folks who think civilians aren't real people.

We neither need nor should have a domestic intelligence apparatus. That's the point of moving it all to the Pentagon, where it'd be limited to defense purposes and have more actual oversight to keep it in line.

[Trekkin]

We neither need nor should have a domestic intelligence apparatus. That's the point of moving it all to the Pentagon, where it'd be limited to defense purposes and have more actual oversight to keep it in line.

Including, presumably, those defense purposes served by a domestic intelligence apparatus, including the recruitment of citizens for espionage purposes by foreign powers. Assuming arguendo that we do not want our enemies stealing our secrets, the only alternative to spying on our own people would be to ask all foreign spies to please register at the door so that we can tell if the people nicking plans for fighter planes from Boeing or whoever are doing it for the Russians, making it a legitimate use of counter-espionage resources, or for Lockheed, in which case we presumably stick our fingers in our ears and let them get on with it. Then again, they may not be so obliging as to tell us, or to separate themselves neatly into categories.

The other problem, of course, is that while the Pentagon might offer more oversight, it is at this point tantamount to oversight by a foreign country who we happen to pay to kill people on our behalf.

[wierd]

I would propose that we would have less pressing needs for those kinds of security, if we werent dead-set on being the 300lb gorilla tearing up the playground all the time.

EG, Russia and China would be significantly less interested in us, if we weren't devoting more than a third of our budgets every cycle on new and exciting ways to make people die, and weren't exporting moxxie and hubris all over the world in a bid to 'stay on top'.

In short, we should not be acting like a hegemon; Cessation of that set of activities would greatly reduce our 'needs' for domestic spying apparatus.  Is it not enough that we could blast anyone trying to enter the country by force?  Must we ALSO constantly saber wave that we are the big boy in the room with the biggest war-penis as well?

[C27]

We neither need nor should have a domestic intelligence apparatus. That's the point of moving it all to the Pentagon, where it'd be limited to defense purposes and have more actual oversight to keep it in line.

Including, presumably, those defense purposes served by a domestic intelligence apparatus, including the recruitment of citizens for espionage purposes by foreign powers. Assuming arguendo that we do not want our enemies stealing our secrets, the only alternative to spying on our own people would be to ask all foreign spies to please register at the door so that we can tell if the people nicking plans for fighter planes from Boeing or whoever are doing it for the Russians, making it a legitimate use of counter-espionage resources, or for Lockheed, in which case we presumably stick our fingers in our ears and let them get on with it. Then again, they may not be so obliging as to tell us, or to separate themselves neatly into categories.

Corporate counter-espionage should be on the shoulders of the individual corporation in question, and protecting IP and patents is a matter for civil courts. It should neither be the government's responsibility, mandate, nor authority to protect corporate assets.
If it's a military secret, then it should be the property of the military instead (not a corporation), and they already have the ability to protect it.

The other problem, of course, is that while the Pentagon might offer more oversight, it is at this point tantamount to oversight by a foreign country who we happen to pay to kill people on our behalf.

I'll grant you that there's too much corporate influence in the Pentagon, as there is in general, but singling them out as being alien and untrustworthy in some special context is really disingenous. The military is made up of ordinary people just like you and I who have families and homes, just like anyone else. It's a job. They're not an entity unto themselves.
I'd argue that they'd be inherently more trustworthy than a private military contractor would be, because they're motivated partly by loyalty and oaths and honor, and not solely profit - youcan't outbid their contract or pay them to switch sides.

[wierd]

That's a naive view;

The government does not directly hire for R&D.  They have corporations bid on, and be awarded contracts.

See for instance, the role of Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, BOEING, Raytheon, and pals.


As such, the government DOES have a vested interest in ensuring that the military technology being developed by those civilian corporations does not end up in the hands of ambitious foreign powers.



Again, my proposal was that the need for that kind of security would be greatly diminished, if we did not spend such epic and absurd amounts on military R&D to begin with.

[Trekkin]

I'll grant you that there's too much corporate influence in the Pentagon, as there is in general, but singling them out as being alien and untrustworthy in some special context is really disingenous. The military is made up of ordinary people just like you and I who have families and homes, just like anyone else. It's a job. They're not an entity unto themselves.
I'd argue that they'd be inherently more trustworthy than a private military contractor would be, because they're motivated partly by loyalty and oaths and honor, and not solely profit - youcan't outbid their contract or pay them to switch sides.

In reality, perhaps, but they don't see it that way. Recall "America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall." Recall General Kelly's insistence that no one outside the military is fit to criticize the President, or Mattis' "[America]'s got some problems….problems we don't have in the military." The military is made up of ordinary people who consider themselves separate from and superior to America. If you give an entity like that authorization to operate within the civilian sphere, what you have is not oversight.
it is a coup.

"Loyalty and oaths and honor" are, as our President has handily demonstrated, ultimately strictly voluntary. They can be interpreted to mean whatever expedience demands, and provide high-sounding window dressing for it all the while. They are not real in any way that can be relied upon.

[Iduno]

I firmly believe that when we're all dead because the environment has entirely collapsed, that it won't be because of Republicans.  It will be because opposition to Republicans was continually neutered through the process of capture by Democrats for transformation into strategic branding.  And we'll spend our final days all consoling each other about how action appropriate to the circumstances just wasn't ever realistic.

If I was a suspicious person, I might suggest that the results from what we are seeing is exactly the same as the results of all politicians being rich bastards out to fuck us, so they're only pretending to disagree.

Well since the US

You know

Caused all of those societal collapses

Fine, just go ahead and post a better version of my response before I get here.

[Dunamisdeos]

Oh my god are you saying we should have to take responsibility for all of the problems that we caused around the world?

For real we destroyed all of those stable societies specifically to avoid this sort of thing. We would have had to declare war and be held to the standards thereof. Do you want all of that work to be thrown away? Do you want us to sacrifice OUR OWN SOLDIERS for profit? Why do you hate our men in uniform?

'Murrica

[PTTG??]

Well since the US

You know

Caused all of those societal collapses

Reagan and the CIA/DEA did, I sure as heck didn't consent to this and it's unfair to make me carry the burden.

I think the best thing we could do would be to end the Drug War somehow, and shut down the CIA permanently and put all the spooks under direct, unified Pentagon control.

It's unfair to you, who benefited from the coups and assassinations, to deal with their consequences, sure. But it's definitely less unfair than preserving those consequences in perpetuity by treating refugees like garbage.

[MrRoboto75]

that's bananas

[hector13]

I want to make a joke about Americans being ubermensch, but I always worry things like that will come to haunt me in future, so here’s me explaining why I’m not making that joke instead.

[Culise]

It's unfair to you, who benefited from the coups and assassinations, to deal with their consequences, sure. But it's definitely less unfair than preserving those consequences in perpetuity by treating refugees like garbage.

No, no no no.  You see, by treating refugees like garbage and kicking them back out, we're preventing brain drain and thereby helping our southern neighbors maintain their human resources, unlike those who want to pillage their human resources dry by opening our borders.  And by building a wall that Mexico will pay for, we're actually contributing to the financial stability of our southern neighbor due to all the illegal immigrants our companies will hire to do the actual work.  We'll even block the remittances so that they can keep the money themselves, instead of sending it to those drug barons to the south: you can tell they're evil because they're "barons" and stuff, unlike our pharmaceutical corporations who only provide the finest and healthiest opiates.

[/s], just in case.

[Magistrum]

Holy shit!, this is nuts.

[smjjames]

The only crossover though is that Bernie Sanders commented on it and apparently Rep. Ro Khanna wants the Trump admin to investigate it. I'm not even sure what the Trump admin (or any other Presidential admin for that matter) can do or investigate about it since it's not even our jurdicision, for one. The most we could probably do is use sanctions and political pressure.

[wierd]

Good luck with that.

Shitler thinks that the new order down there is his southern kin.