"500,000 Snowdens are looking at your data. But you can still buy a gun w/out a background check"

[kpete]

KarmaPolice wrote on Tue, 6/11/2013 - 5:42 am "500,000 Edward Snowdens are looking at your data. But you can still buy a gun w/out a background check"
God Bless America™

http://www.hoocoodanode.org/node/18155





http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-numbers-dont-lie-its-irrational-to-give-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/

[Life Long Dem]

1. And all those bank employees are looking at my checking account

They better be going by the banks rules and laws.

[BrotherIvan]

2. That is exactly the graphic I've been looking for

The fact that so few "terrorist" attacks have happened in this country and the fact that we've had the most sophisticated intelligence in the history of the universe which has stopped NONE of them is the reason why supporting the spying on EVERYONE is so absurd.

If people want to feel safer, they need to stand up and do something about guns. There are 300,000,000 guns in this country. Whether it be purposeful or accidental, guns kill people. A lot of people. Why can't we do something about them?

[Sheepshank]

3. See, the problem I have with this type of thinking.....

...is that we have no clue what terrorist attacks have been thwarted or discouraged, or overburdened out of existance because of intelligence that has been gathered. Your premis almost seems to imply that we allow the terrorist death rate to skyrocket and THEN assume that surveillance should have been implmented.

And before anyone puts any words in my mouth, I am not advocating for unfettered, unwarranted , unregulated suveillance of ever single American 24/7. I'm saying that somewhere there is a reaonable middleground that continues to provide the continued safety that we currently experience. I would hate to see that terrorist death rate rise to 10,000. Meanwhile, background checks, mandatory training, mandatory trigger locking devices, and mandatory revocation laws for a wider range of offences, for all gun toters!!!!

[90-percent]

4. Reason and Rational Thought

Did the President take an Oath to keep us safe?

No, Absolutely not. The Oath he took states: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."[61]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office#Federal_Executive_and_Legislative_Branch_Oaths

The crux of the biscuit with privacy since 9-11 is the utter lack of PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE to the tragedy of 9-11. I am presuming that keeping us safe also means helping us avoid death. So the most of our resources should be brought to those areas that cause the most deaths.

From a post on DU, someone has estimated that America has lost perhaps 50 lives to muslim terrorists since 9-11. In the same amount of time, we lost approximately 20 million lives from preventable causes. Heart Disease, diabetes, suicides, accidents, etc. My data can be found in this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=123706

We created this self-perpetuating state of TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS in the hopes of turning that 50 dead to zero? Why instead aren't we working more diligently on where it would do the most people the most good and work on the stuff that caused the 20,000,000 deaths instead? This is a ratio of 400,000 "normal"/preventable deaths to 1 terrorism death.

Fighting the war on Terror, based on the concept of proportional response, should be lower on the national priority list than outlawing Donald Trumps hair, fer chrissakes!

Therefore, it's my conclusion that the primary purpose of the "War on Terror" was to justify a bloated and self perpetuating national security state. Something that history shows is always done on the road to a totalitarian fascist police state.

"It can't happen here" in the present is now "It has happened here"

Restoring our Constitutional Rights would do a hell of a lot more for attainment of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" than a police state ever would!

-90% Jimmy

[snooper2]

5. 500,000 Snowdens?

I'm sure there are thousands of Snowdens but he was a low level tool....

[flamingdem]

6. Now we're talking

This should be the number one talking point.