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If you read "The Devil's Chessboard" you'd know that there has never been a single US president that was in control of the CIA (in particular). In fact, the one guy that wanted to dismantle the agency ended up dead....

Truman released a thinly veiled warning about the CIA in the The Washington Post immediately after JFK's assassination:

http://www.maebrussell.com/Prouty/Harry Truman's CIA article.html

Oh, and the guy that JFK kicked out of the head of the CIA (the man that literally set it up from the forerunner OSS, Allen Dulles) was put at the head of the investigation into his murder...funny, that.

Hmm, interesting statement from HST.
 
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And yet people are saying Trump must be lying when he says he was wiretapped.

You've got it backwards. He was lying about being wiretapped by Obama for political purposes, who doesn't have the power to direct law enforcement surveillance of citizens. (No President does.) If there was surveillance of someone on Trump's organization (Flynn, Manafort) it would be because the Justice Dept. and FBI directed it through a FISA court. Trump's lying about it to muddy the water about his many Russian connections. (And more we likely don't know about because he refuses to release his taxes.)
 
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Tim Cook warned us about this. Turns out he was right. Big gov digging into everything. Cats out of the bag now. The worlds tech organizations, the people and everyone needs to fight to shut these kinds of operations down.

Recently, the people who are against this kind of government baloney decided to use a phrase that describes what needs to be done to fix this. That phrase is Drain the Swamp! That's what needs to be done.
 
And you can bet every other nation on earth with technology has the same, is developing the same, or is doing more.
Different budgets lead to different capabilities. I don't think that every other nation on Earth with technology has the same budget as the U.S.. Some might, like China or Russia, but the vast majority has to make do with a significantly smaller budget.
 
This is news? lol.

The government has ALWAYS tried to spy on its citizens, legally or illegally. People are just too naive and oblivious to believe such facts.

Problem with the truth, no one usually believes it and it usually hurts.

It's more than that. They are keeping exploits secret, creating tools to hack things which have been released out into the wild, and they have the ability to fake the fingerprints of other hackers to, for example, make it look the Russians did it. Which is what we have heard recently isn't it? From what we can tell it has the fingerprints of Russian hacking. What can you believe now that we know THAT IS the tactics and tools that they have?
 
No big deal, most Americans don't care about privacy, government over-reach, or government employees being above the law as long as Facebook, twitter, reddit, favorite TV shows, etc. are free and someone is doing something about their pet social issues like global warming (even if it it does not exist, except to take away freedoms, or is just in talk only.)
 
Governments spying? That's old news, it's the oldest profession starting with God spying on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden...

3. How they were used is key. If it was directed against foreign agents and suspected agents then it is part of the CIA's job. Domestic surveillance is the FBI's job with the associated warrants, etc.

They get around that by using GCHQ to spy on American citizens.
 
In the US you're more likely to be killed by your neighbour with a legal firearm than a terrorist.
 
No big deal, most Americans don't care about privacy, government over-reach, or government employees being above the law as long as Facebook, twitter, reddit, favorite TV shows, etc. are free and someone is doing something about their pet social issues like global warming (even if it it does not exist, except to take away freedoms, or is just in talk only.)
sad but true :(
 
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The DNC leaks...were leaks from a DNC staffer as a former british ambassador involved in handing the information off had stated.

That guy is a nut. A fired former Ambassador to Uzbekistan. He's such a fan boy of Assange that he named one of the women Assange allegedly raped by name on British TV, which is against the law there.

He's also not that bright. He's never heard of the spy term "cut out"? The FSB could easily have someone pretend to be a disgruntled staffer to hand off the emails.

The DNC hack operation has been proven to be Russian hackers. They accidentally left one of the the bit.ly accounts they used for spearphishing set to public instead of private. It was traced to hundreds of spearphishing emails sent to the DNC and other government officials. According to the BfV, the staging server they used to hack the DNC was also used to hack the German parliament and to release emails trying to discredit Merkel in a similar influence operation. Putin, as a KGB officer for 14 years, wants to destroy the West, and this is all out of his playbook.
 
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What are you smoking? Wikileaks is a primarily an influence by the Russians now. Assange regularly meets with RT (Russia Today- state owned television). Notice how he never posts anything bad about Putin, despite Putin murdering journalists, invading Crimea, etc?

You know, maybe you should stop smoking and use the 'search' function on Wikileaks. Yes, I know, RT (FSB Broadcasting System) is the Russian equivalent of CBS (CIA Broadcasting System).
 
You know, maybe you should stop smoking and use the 'search' function on Wikileaks. Yes, I know, RT (FSB Broadcasting System) is the Russian equivalent of CBS (CIA Broadcasting System).

lol, what?
 
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Oh, so now Wikileaks is a good source again? All that stuff leading up to the election was just alt-right craziness. Ok.
Nobody really questioned the truthfulness of the Wikileaks content on the Democratic party. Just that the hacking that obtained the material and its leaking to Wikipedia was done with a specific purpose by Russia.
 
No, they don't have an issue, because we've signed intelligence sharing agreements with just about every ally we have. So if the CIA wants to spy on Johnny Arkansas, you only need to suggest to ally X or Y that they may want to look into him, and then ask them to share the data.

What I'm saying is our own (secret) treaties have rendered the laws on spying on US citizens laughably moot.

Another subject from this discussion. If the CIA did as you suggested, all the information could not be used in any court in the US against Johnny Arkansas. Now the problem, The CIA would need to pass the information to the FBI who would need to get a warrant. The judge would ask where did you get this information? Oops, caught with hand in cookie jar. Only on Extreme National Security issues would your example ever be attempted. Too many gottchas for the rewards. Some might define what you are saying as paranoia.
 
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That's because the agencies in question don't comment at all. You seem to think this is an admission of authenticity, but it's not.

Wikileaks is a Russian influence operation. An HOUR after Trump's Access Hollywood tape came out, they started dumping Podesta's emails, which they held in reserve to serve as a distraction when they needed them. Anyone who doesn't understand this is a complete idiot.

I'd say the complete idiots are the ones who want to shoot the messenger. All this talk of Russian interference in our election is nonsense designed to distract the public from the truth. Thank goodness we have organizations like Wikileaks that stand up to the shameless and hypocritical behavior of governments and elected officials. Did Russia hack our voting machines? No. Did Russia manufacture fake news to manipulate the electorate? No. Do we have any real evidence of them influencing our election? No. What I find most disturbing is how many Americans would rather look the other way and sanction government deceit and unlawful behavior than face reality. I'd rather know the truth about how despicable these fake politicians are than continue to live in some delusional fantasy land Murica. The only reason these politicians are banging the Russia drum is to deflect from their own actions and words. It's disgraceful.
 
Nobody really questioned the truthfulness of the Wikileaks content on the Democratic party. Just that the hacking that obtained the material and its leaking to Wikipedia was done with a specific purpose by Russia.

Wikileaks pushed the pizzagate nuttiness, so anyone with sanity questioned them and their integrity. The DNC hack was definitively by Russian hackers.
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All this talk of Russian interference in our election is nonsense designed to distract the public from the truth.

No, sorry. It's been definitely proven the Russian interfered in our election.

Did Russia hack our voting machines?

Most likely, no. The one benefit of our electoral system is that we have so many different voting machines, many of them old school paper ballots, so it's hard to do. Russian hackers have been target state voter registration systems, but no one knows why.

Did Russia manufacture fake news to manipulate the electorate?

Wikileaks pushed the pizzagate fake news, so yes.

Do we have any real evidence of them influencing our election?

Yes, the non-scandal over the DNC emails certainly had an effect on our election, distracted from Trump's tape admitting to sexual assaulting women.
 
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