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With Nixon, there was a break-in and old technology, CIA style spying. It was HUGE.
I dont think there is the outrage now, because the spying is using technology already in place, and people expect it.
I remember Watergate, well. Im also jaded to our political system and think the real scandal would be if the Gov was not spying on us. Warrantless Gov. searches/intrusions . . . well duh!! This is the USA.
I wasn't alive at the time of Nixon, so I want to ask those were...
What caused a bigger outrage? What should cause a bigger outrage?
And more importantly, what do you think is causing the difference, if any, in the public's reaction between the two scandals?
The difference is and was significant the Nixon/Watergate scandal was about a criminal abuse of power while the NSA "scandal" is about the power of government to legally "abuse" the civil liberties of American citizens.
I wasn't alive at the time of Nixon, so I want to ask those were...
What caused a bigger outrage? What should cause a bigger outrage?
And more importantly, what do you think is causing the difference, if any, in the public's reaction between the two scandals?
The NSA is a bigger outrage. During Nixon the only recordings of phone calls were on tape. And there were NO cell phones. The difference is advanced technology and the ability to snoop undetected. And of course, an Administration which proactively endorses such activities.
Watergate is nothing compared to the breadth and depth of this NSA spying.
A shadow government operating with secret courts and secret military, getting whatever they want via phone calls because there can be no paper trail because they are secret.
Go read up on the General in charge of this new "Cyber Command".
He feels the private sector is doing a poor job of protecting computer systems.
He says soon the government will have to step in and take it over.
He says they are ready.
ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run cryptographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.
According to one leading US cryptographer, the IT world should be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made this month impossible. "Had the next-generation CPU's with encrypted instruction sets already been deployed, we would have never found out about NSAKEY."
The NSA is a bigger outrage. During Nixon the only recordings of phone calls were on tape. And there were NO cell phones. The difference is advanced technology and the ability to snoop undetected. And of course, an Administration which proactively endorses such activities.
Say what?!?
1. making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
4. approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;
5. endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
6. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or
7. endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
vs.
The obtaining records from a privately held corporation by a court ordered subpoena based upon a duly passed federal statute and then culling those legally obtained records for indications about the private communications of American citizens.
As odious as that may be, and until a court says otherwise, those were lawful actions based as authorized by a law enactment by an overwhelming majority of both the House of Representative and the Senate of the United States, a law which continues to be supported by an astonishing bi-partisan majority.
So when it comes to the Watergate canard... puleeeze.
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