# Smapti is Pitted **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 21, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907 "2014-05-21T08:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/181 "2014-06-03T08:51:50Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Why am I not surprised? Try reading your fucking [Constitution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States) once in a while. Snowden is adhering to the enemies of the United States and providing them aid and comfort. He’s a traitor. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/182 "2014-06-03T10:39:58Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > If the NSA did not know about Heartbleed despite their massive budget and mandate to protect American cyberinfrastructure (as they claim), they are incompetent. If the NSA did know about Heartbleed and exploited it without warning the industry to fix it (as discovered by Bloomberg), they are nefarious. > [@Smapti](#): > > Alternatively, they were aware of it and determined that the security of the American cybersphere was better served by not disrupting it. OK, so I’ll put you down for “incompetent”, then. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/183 "2014-06-06T15:17:56Z")
Just to cap things off, a summary: > [@](#): > > [Five dumbest defences for NSA spying](http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/60089764/five-dumbest-defences-for-nsa-spying.html): > > But as we approach the one year anniversary, it’s time to call out the key claims that have been thoroughly debunked and insist that the NSA apologists retire them. > > So if you hear any one of these in the future, you can tell yourself straight up: “this person isn’t credible,” and look elsewhere for current information about the NSA spying… > > _1. The NSA has Stopped 54 Terrorist Attacks with Mass Spying_ > These claims [have been thoroughly debunked](http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence)… > > _2. Just Collecting Call Detail Records Isn’t a Big Deal_ > As former director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden recently admitted: “We kill people based on metadata.” And former NSA General Counsel Stu Baker said: “metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.”… > > _3. There Have Been No Abuses of Power_ > We already have evidence of abuses of power. We know that NSA analysts were using their surveillance powers to [track their ex-wives and husbands](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/), and other love interests. They even had a name for it, LOVEINT… > > _4. Invading Privacy is OK Because It’s Done to Prevent Terrorist Attacks_ > We know that NSA surveillance is not used just for stopping terrorists and it’s not even just used for national security… > > _5. There’s Plenty of Oversight From Congress, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and Agency Watchdogs_ > EFF and others have long documented that Congress has an incredibly [hard time getting information](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/way-nsa-uses-section-702-deeply-troubling-heres-why) about NSA spying… ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/184 "2014-07-12T11:53:04Z")
The two-faced mongrel is at it again: > [@Claim: the NSA records and stores 80% of U.S. phone calls](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/claim-the-nsa-records-and-stores-80-of-u-s-phone-calls/692912/9): > > If the government was not acting in the best interest of the people, it would rapidly cease to be the government. In this country, we achieve this revolution by doing what you so glibly describe as “pressing a button once every few years”. The rules of Great Debates forbid me from explicitly pointing out that he’s a lying bastard who only pays lip service to the idea of voters removing a bad government while constantly arguing that the information necessary to do so should be kept from them, so I shall do so here. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/185 "2014-07-14T18:38:49Z")
When Mr. Beware-The-Organleggers accuses someone else of engaging in “baseless paranoid speculations”, one hardly knows whether to goggle in disbelief or golf-clap a pedestrian but momentarily amusing bit of performance art. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/186 "2014-07-15T06:30:58Z")
Here’s the most awesomely Straussian distillation of Smapti so far: > [@Claim: the NSA records and stores 80% of U.S. phone calls](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/claim-the-nsa-records-and-stores-80-of-u-s-phone-calls/692912/13): > > It is in the people’s best interest to conceal information from them which would cause them to act against their best interest. Is that an ice bath I just climbed into? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/187 "2014-07-15T08:52:30Z")
It’s a true statement. The American voting public in general is ignorant, fickle, has a short-term memory, and is easily swayed by insignificant matters. These are the people who elected and re-elected the president and Congress who made these intel programs possible in the first place, and only voted them out of power because a no-account congressman from flyover country got caught sexting teenage boys (and then put them back in power four years later because the other guys were requiring them to have health insurance). These people re-elected a congress that wanted to impeach one of the greatest presidents our country has ever had because he got a blowjob from an employee, they kicked Jimmy Carter out of office because of things he had no control over in favor of an ignoramus who brought America closer to nuclear destruction than it has ever been, and they sabotaged the New Deal because of vague and meaningless platitudes about taxes and socialism. Clearly, the system would work a lot better if the voting public was not allowed to hear about things they’re not intellectually capable of comprehending. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/188 "2014-07-15T10:34:27Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Clearly, the system would work a lot better if the voting public was not allowed to hear about things they’re not intellectually capable of comprehending. Even if one studiously ignores the fascist jackbootery of this statement as one might pointedly ignore a particularly reverberating and nauseating fart in the middle of Easter mass, it is irrelevant to the present debate. The revelation that the government is engaged in Orwellian mass surveillance is quite simple and easily comprehensible, even to someone at the lower end of your ski-jump-inclined nose. Fortunately, solutions to patch the problem and render the debate irrelevant, in the form of [flat-learning-curve](http://www.hackersnewsbulletin.com/2014/07/minilock-simple-app-encrypts-anything.html?PageSpeed=noscript) [routine](http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/06/making-end-to-end-encryption-easier-to.html) [end-to-end encryption](http://marketingland.com/how-google-privacy-protect-86129), are being developed and (more importantly) penetrating into the general consciousness as a result of these scandals. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/189 "2014-07-15T10:37:46Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > Is that an ice bath I just climbed into? You’re not allowed to discuss that; it’s against the public interest to allow people to interfere with the organ collection process. If you recant now and declare the whole thing to be an urban legend, you may yet escape **Smapti** ’s fate. (Er, not that anything happened to him. Officially. But he _really_ shouldn’t have been spreading those rumors, as he himself admits.) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/190 "2014-07-15T10:38:31Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Fortunately, solutions to patch the problem and render the debate irrelevant, in the form of [flat-learning-curve](http://www.hackersnewsbulletin.com/2014/07/minilock-simple-app-encrypts-anything.html?PageSpeed=noscript) [routine](http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/06/making-end-to-end-encryption-easier-to.html) [end-to-end encryption](http://marketingland.com/how-google-privacy-protect-86129), are being developed and (more importantly) penetrating into the general consciousness as a result of these scandals. Any encryption scheme which serves to enable criminals to hide their criminal acts from the government is unacceptable in civilized society. These programs must be made illegal or be required to contain a backdoor for government access. If nothing else, the government should continue to infiltrate makers of this software in order to sabotage it, which has worked well enough so far. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/191 "2014-07-15T10:58:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Any encryption scheme which serves to enable criminals to hide their criminal acts from the government is unacceptable in civilized society. These programs must be made illegal or be required to contain a backdoor for government access. If nothing else, the government should continue to infiltrate makers of this software in order to sabotage it, which has worked well enough so far. Civilized society has made its decision, notwithstanding your position that it is “unacceptable” to know how to do math\*. The tech community, finding itself beset with cybercrime as a result of the government’s efforts to weaken and sabotage the security infrastructure, is [patching the problem](https://www.resetthenet.org/). The government, finding itself confronted with twisty passages of strongly encrypted traffic, all alike, will be forced to do what it should have done all along (narrowly focus its intelligence operations onto a very small number of actual suspects, each of them requiring significant resources for either cracking or bug-planting, with the cost and risk of being caught serving as a check against the sort of misuse that is going on currently). \*Why do Smaptistan secret police operate in trios? One who can read and write, one who can count and compute, one to keep an eye on the dangerous intellectuals. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/192 "2014-07-15T11:17:38Z")
Then it’s looking more and more like “the tech community” is a growing threat that needs to be dealt with. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/193 "2014-07-15T11:41:05Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Then it’s looking more and more like “the tech community” is a growing threat that needs to be dealt with. Duh; that’s why you assigned that third guy to each of your goon squads. (Geez, I’m _trying_ to keep it at 70% serious, 30% mock, but it ain’t easy when you make Dr. Drakken look like the genius he thinks he is). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/194 "2014-07-15T11:44:07Z")
Intellectuals aren’t inherently dangerous, for the record. They have a choice as to whether to use their talents for the public good or against it. Abetting drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists in hiding their dealings from law enforcement is not a legitimate use of that talent. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/195 "2014-07-15T12:03:42Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Intellectuals aren’t inherently dangerous, for the record. They have a choice as to whether to use their talents for the public good or against it. The experts have determined that the public good is served by securing the communications networks against snooping, including government snooping. The government can work around that in a limited way, thus enabling police operations within the sphere of bare necessity and no further. _Your_ place, _as required by your own repeated declarations_, is to shut up, accept the judgment of your betters, and forget the whole thing (which you should not have known about in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/196 "2014-07-15T13:02:09Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The experts have determined that the public good is served by securing the communications networks against snooping, including government snooping. Cite that tying the government’s hands is in the public interest? > [@](#): > > _Your_ place, _as required by your own repeated declarations_, is to shut up, accept the judgment of your betters, and forget the whole thing (which you should not have known about in the first place). After you. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/197 "2014-07-15T13:18:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Any encryption scheme which serves to enable criminals to hide their criminal acts from the government is unacceptable in civilized society. These programs must be made illegal or be required to contain a backdoor for government access. Yes. Absolutely. By the same token, any opaque wall which can serve to enable criminals to hide their criminal acts from the government is unacceptable in civilized society. These walls must be made illegal, should be torn down and replaced with transparent fiberglass so that the government can watch everybody at all times. Oh, clothes, too. Illegal guns and exploding underpants, dontcherknow. Can’t be too safe. Fuck it, just microchip everybody and implant eyeball cameras already. Then, at last, \*\*Smapti \*\*will feel safe. Ish. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/198 "2014-07-15T13:27:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Cite that tying the government’s hands is in the public interest? [Cite.](http://constitutionus.com/) > [@](#): > > After you. Nope. I’m acting according to my stated standards (We The People make political decisions) and holding you to yours (The Experts Speak, the plebes shut up). > [@Kobal2](#): > > Fuck it, just microchip everybody and implant eyeball cameras already. Then, at last, \*\*Smapti \*\*will feel safe. Ish. Nope. None of those measures will prevent the organleggers from coming for him. Then again, according to his own declared political philosophy, no measures _should_ be taken to prevent the organleggers from coming for him. If one of the elite decision-makers who runs the country for everyone’s benefit gets sick… well, they are precious and few while drones like **Smapti** are a dime a dozen. Clearly, the elite should be at the top of the recipient list, and traitors like **Smapti** (who blabbed about a matter that – again, by his own professed standards – should have been kept secret in the public interest) should be at the top of the donor list. Heck, given that betrayal I’m not sure it is strictly necessary to wait until he becomes eligible for donation for other reasons; it seems like an appropriate penalty for the transgression… ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/199 "2014-07-15T13:31:48Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > [Cite.](http://constitutionus.com/) I don’t see anything in this cite that prohibits the government from enforcing the law. > [@](#): > > Nope. I’m acting according to my stated standards (We The People make political decisions) and holding you to yours (The Experts Speak, the plebes shut up). Of course I believe that the people make the decisions. It’s just important that they be protected from lies, propaganda, and irrelevancies so they can make the right decision. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/200 "2014-07-15T13:43:09Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I don’t see anything in this cite that prohibits the government from enforcing the law. The government is prohibited from conducting general fishing expeditions, and limited to narrow searches based upon specific grounds. That _is_ the law – which they keep breaking. Fortunately, the technical developments I mentioned above are making it increasingly difficult for this lawlessness to continue. > [@Smapti](#): > > Of course I believe that the people make the decisions. It’s just important that they be protected from lies, propaganda, and irrelevancies so they can make the right decision. [QUOTE=George Orwell] Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to explain the new arrangement to the others. “Comrades,” he said, “I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills – Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?” [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907.md?page=11)