Snowden, Liars, Hegel, Substance

I have long understood the volume of data in our lives overwhelms the ability to discern substantive information, even among those who pay attention to words and logic.  I suppose this is at the heart of

the theme of this blog.

Hegel spoke of the inverse ration between quality and quantity.  We are so deep in quantity, today, that few of us remember the old days when quality was discernible.

For example, we are daily inundated with lies from the government - all levels, all parties.  Not spin, rather in-your-face lies and the average person, including those in important positions, do not even pay much attention, let alone storm Washington, D.C. The media never questions press releases.  All is a spin to control the people. Yes, including Fox.

Nixon lied about covering up Watergate and the Republicans demanded his resignation. Bush I was crucified for promising, "No new taxes." Bush II was excoriated for saying the mission in Iraq was finished (one phase, actually, was.) Now, the current administration lies about everything, all-the-time, including the nationality of its leader. The attorney general stares down the cowardly Congress with obvious lies. Any rational republic would impeach him for lying.  (PS, for those who missed it, Obama is still an Indonesian and Brit who was required to reject joint citizenship upon maturity to remain an American, and has not.  Unless, that is a secret.)

The Executive officials lie to Congress, to the camera, to foreign leaders.  Congress lies to the people. We have been programmed to ignore it and scandal is treated like a sporting contest, not a moral outrage. It is as if the game is to see if you can actually get the opponent in some board game.  The media, in all its guises, acts like a troupe of cheerleaders.

Anyway, and I hope I have been on message; below is an excerpt from the Manchester Guardian I came across on Drudge.  Yeah, yeah the paper is low-class, but it is the one who published Snowden's exhibits. The acceptable papers are part of the ruling class.  It is the easy gambit to shrug off the Guardian's reports, but that does not negate actual documents.

Read through this section which is lifted from a report about British spying:

...UK officials could also claim GCHQ "produces larger amounts of metadata than NSA". (Metadata describes basic information on who has been contacting whom, without detailing the content.) 

By May last year 300 analysts from GCHQ, and 250 from the NSA, had been assigned to sift through the flood of data 

The Americans were given guidelines for its use, but were told in legal briefings by GCHQ lawyers: "We have a light oversight regime compared with the US".
When it came to judging the necessity and proportionality of what they were allowed to look for, would-be American users were told it was "your call". 

The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQdatabases. 

The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m "telephone events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.

The England is married to Big Brother.  They love their secrets.  In the U.S. the governments are at least being sneaky and lie to cover what they, obviously, know is an invasion of people's rights. There, the tech-spooks are illegally (is it?) taping lines.  I would expect they have collectors at nodes, but who knows.

Notice the last section:  850,000 NSA employees and agents have access to Britain's data base.  Start with that number:  850,000 people with the minimal "top secret" clearance.  There are roughly 230,000,000 adults in the U.S.!

The unofficial number of NSA employees, however, is given as 60,000!  This is an estimate based upon the alleged budget of the NSA, which, of course, is an open lie, a new form of double speak.  There is never any analysis that is finite regarding the government; one only learns to distrust anything these people claim. This is part of the disconnect the people have from their government. The remedy is, in theory, an election, but we are given McCain and Romney as an alternative!  The GOP has to go, either from within or without. Both parties want low voter interest, except for those getting free money.

The article excerpt mentions a comment that the British data, which the NSA has, now, is far more extensive than what the U.S. would allow!  This includes U.S. data ostensibly illegal for the NSA to have. On top of this, think what this means.  The spies are controlled only by what they can get away with. If one is not caught, the argument extends, then all is fair.

 The NSA recently reported only a few, certain people have the access Snowden claims to have had and they deny he had such access.  In the middle of this never-ending lying, the NSA ignores the fact that Snowden had documents. You would think a journalist may have raised that odd contradiction. So, either the talking heads at the NSA are lying, again, are incompetent beyond any comfort level, or there is a conspiracy inside the NSA to feed documents to Snowden.  All of the above are plausible.

The volume of ancillary data that floods our lives is a distraction in themselves, but in the hands of professional liars, they work magic. After mishandling a response to the Snowden release, there was a buzz about his true salary (overlooking overtime) and his education. The true believers look for any hook to hang their preconceptions and look no further. Obviously, the messenger has been killed, so there is no message.  There are no documents.

True Believers also love to claim:  So, Bush did the same thing!

Yeah, so?