Former NSA Chief Warns Hackers Will Attack US If Snowden Is Captured 413
Okian Warrior writes "The Guardian is reporting Michael Hayden speculating that hackers and transparency groups are likely to respond with cyber-terror attacks if the United States government apprehends whistleblower Edward Snowden. Hayden called the potential attackers 'Nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years.'"
Re:Same Brush Syndrome (Score:5, Informative)
I like how he lumps "activists" in together with Lulzsec and Anonymous.
Within a couple of years, the US media will be using "activist" as a synonym for "terrorist".
Sadly, most Americans will go right along with this.
Fox News does that already.
Re:Old Married people? (Score:0, Informative)
They don't. Michael Hayden is just a fucking prick. Not that that is any surprise to anyone who has every worked with the piece of shit.
Re:Same Brush Syndrome (Score:5, Informative)
Here in New Hampshire, home of the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org), that's already happening. We're about to go have a protest next week in Concord against the city PD requesting what is essentially a tank. In the reasons stated on the form they filled out to apply for the DHS grant, they specifically reference "Free Staters" and "Occupy" as potential threats they're worried about -- as justification for getting a fucking TANK.
http://freekeene.com/2013/07/29/concord-pd-requests-a-bearcat-to-deal-with-sovereign-citizens-free-staters-and-occupy-new-hampshire/
Re:grain of truth? (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly there's a grain of truth - anyone who values freedom is likely to be unhappy with the Fed's nascent police state, and some of them will act out violently against their corrupt and unaccountable rulers. When that starts to happen more and more frequently, it's important not to see it not as justification for repression, but as a sign of just how hated and undemocratic the U.S. government has become.
As John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Re:In advance of possible cyber attacks, (Score:5, Informative)
The US was NEVER a democracy... The US was initially established as a Representative Republic...
This is such a lame argument and it needs to stop being made. Democracy just means, "rule by the people". A representative republic is a form of democracy, as is a direct democracy. Saying that a country is a democracy is making the distinction that the government represents the will of the people, as opposed to an aristocracy (represents the will of a small ruling class), monarchy (represents the will of one person), a plutocracy (represents the will of the wealthy), etc.
The entire basis of the United States is that the government must represent the will of the people, so the US is a democracy (in theory).
I mean, read the dictionary before calling other people idiots:
democracy (d-mkr-s)
n. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
n. A political or social unit that has such a government.
n. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
Can we please never see this argument again?