> This isn't just an attack on the internet, as Greenwald portrays it, it's an attack on people and free will. It's intended to get people to do or say something that they might have done differently otherwise, in response to the "crime" of being a pain in the ass, or even a threat, to the powerful.*
They're not using violence, terror, they're using non-violent and subtle psy-ops. Terrorists want you to know who did it and why they did it. These psy-ops spies would prefer that they're never discovered.
Although if we were doing something like this, they would call that terrorism. Because anything that they can possibly insert themselves into automatically becomes terrorism.
> Although if we were doing something like this, they would call that terrorism. Because anything that they can possibly insert themselves into automatically becomes terrorism.
That's an interesting way of looking at it.
I would have said it the other way around: "If the 'good guys' found out the 'bad guys' were doing something like this, they'd call it terrorism.
By "we" I meant everyone who is not a spy. By "they" I meant the spy agencies. And so, if the spy agencies take an interest in some activity, it becomes by (their) definition terrorism, so that they can claim that it's within their charter.
So, by definition if we agree the "good guys" would call this terrorism, then isn't this terrorism ?
(After all, the "good guys" are writing the history books, and they're making the definitions, because whatever the "good guys" say is obviously correct)
Well, if by "good guys" you mean the NSA, I think we've crossed some wires. :)
But no, it's not terrorism, especially not merely because they say it is. There's no violence, and the perpetrators not only don't want to be found out, they don't even want people to realize that something happened. Not all evil is terrorism (but all terrorism is evil).
> But no, it's not terrorism, especially not merely because they say it is. There's no violence, and the perpetrators not only don't want to be found out, they don't even want people to realize that something happened. Not all evil is terrorism (but all terrorism is evil).
You're going by the dictionary definition, I'm going by "it's whatever they say it is".
Isn't that a good definition for terrorism?