13-Jun-13 WV-Reform candidate Rouhani advances in Iran

[John]

13-Jun-13 World View -- Reform candidate Rouhani advances in Iran's presidential polls


Prism revelation is already damaging national security

** 13-Jun-13 World View -- Reform candidate Rouhani advances in Iran's presidential polls
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e130613



Contents:
Iran seeks to avoid repeat of humiliating 2009 election
Reform candidate Rouhani advances in Iran's presidential polls
Prism revelation is already damaging national security
Syrian rebels changing strategy after disastrous Qusair loss


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Iran, Hassan Rouhani,
Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Edward Snowden, Prism,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Qusair

[Trevor]

One difference I did notice between the situations in Iran and Syria was that in 2009, even many of the hard-liners condemned the brutal crackdown, even if the scale was much smaller compared to what is currently going on in Syria. Not to mention that in Iran, I would expect the youths to be victorious.

Where I disagree with you, though, is the effect that the rebels losing would have on the United States. I see little interest in giving them any assistance at all, much less full-scale military intervention. In fact, much of the sentiment seems to be along the lines of "Let the Muslims kill each other." How would an Assad victory, which seems increasingly likely, cause any kind of nationalism here?

[Reality Check]

Prism revelation is already damaging national security

The traitorous act of Edward Snowden in revealing the top secret Prism program is already damaging national security. Jihadist and terrorist web sites are prominently displaying the information exposed by Snowden, and are instructing terrorists how to use alternate communications channels that can't be trace by the NSA. Jihadists are recommending that terrorists use Linux rather than Windows, and are providing technical information on protecting jihadist information. Previous revelations of top secrets include the admission of responsibility for the Stuxnet virus that slows Iran's nuclear program, and the Obama administration's bragging revelation of the details of the death of Osama bin Laden. All of these revelations have damaged America's security.

This case is very interesting both from a Generational Dynamics point of view, and from a foreign intelligence gathering point of view.

For decades, conflicts between the constitutionally justifiable act of spying outside the United States,

and the constitutionally questionable act of spying on U.S. citizens in the United States were totally avoided by baring the intelligence agencies that collected intelligence outside the United States from operating inside the United States.

The other benefit of this total separation of functions meant that employees of a domestic intelligence agency had no idea what sources and methods the foreign intelligence agencies were using.

The NSA and the CIA were two of those foreign intelligence agencies.

In the 1990s that separation began to blur, and the wall was almost entirely broken down after 911.

Now we have Edward Snowden, born near the bordline between Generation X and the Millennial Generation.

He is outing internal spying which very well may be totaly unconstitutional, and at the same time, he is outing U.S. Penetration of Communist Chinese communication systems which is constitutional, legal and moral ( the penetration being constitutional, legal and moral not the outing ).

Snowden, like Generation Xers, also appears to believe he can break U.S. federal law regarding releasing classified foreign intelligence source and methods information he was entrusted with, without being held accountable.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of U.S. citizens will likely die as a result of Snowden disclosing that the U.S. has compromised Communist Chinese communication systems. So it is hard to argue with his being a traitor who should be executed.

On the other hand he may also be a hero for disclosing what may be a totally unconstitutional collection and storage of meta data and the content of millions of U.S. citizens phone calls, e-mails, skypes and other absolutely innocent communications.