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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Tony Scharf schreef op 16-12-2013
18:35:<br>
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<div>> Police brutality was way, way worse in the past than
it is now. Think about it. The police are being watched just
as much as anyone else. <br>
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<div style="line-height: 21px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68);
font-size: 15px;">This is the key to my statement from
before. The reason you *know* about these things happening
at all is because the cameras are just as much on *them* as
they are *us*. Really, Gert, the stuff you are reading
about has been going on all around you your entire
life...but you were blissfully ignorant - we all were!<br>
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<br>
But it's much more satisfying to conjure up some conspiracy theory
and blame someone else.<br>
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<div style="line-height: 21px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68);
font-size: 15px;">The answer to the question 'who watches
the watchers' is 'all of us'.</div>
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<br>
I can see where people like the NSA are coming from, and it's a bit
of a dilemma. On the one hand, there are people that dream of
imposing their own twisted ideas on the world at large, and have no
qualms whatsoever by what means that can be brought about.<br>
<br>
Remember 9/11? The one question that everybody had was: how could
this happen? Why didn't the security services foresee this? Well,
that question was answered (because they fucked up and weren't
cooperating), and action was taken.<br>
<br>
Twelve years later, we see that intelligence gathering has improved
drastically, to the extent that they gather pretty much everything,
and listen in on telephone conversations of supposedly friendly
regimes. So, things have swung back, crossed "Start" without
collecting $200, and are now at the other extreme of the spectrum.<br>
<br>
In itself, there's nothing wrong with intelligence gathering. Are we
complaining that the Polish nicked an Enigma machine, and that the
British cracked its code and could decipher practically all German
communications? I think not.<br>
<br>
There is, however, something wrong with intelligence gathering
without democratic oversight. We, as the population, do not
necessarily need to know what the intelligence community is up to
(even though that pisses us off to no end), but we need to be able
to choose the people to check the intelligence services and make
sure that they operate within the limits of the law.<br>
<br>
- Peter<br>
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