New View on Conspiracy Theories

[FlyingNarwhal]

So I've always been skeptical of conspiracy theories. I have thought that while there may be some truth to some of them, most of them are just people attempting to connect the dots into a larger picture that may not necessarily be there.

But the recent uncovering of secret NSA programs has truly shaken my skepticism. Edward Snowden himself was not even a high level government employee. He was just a private citizen, that worked for a private company contracted by the NSA. And the more I think about it the more it troubles me. It is unlikely that Snowden was the only person at Booz Allen Hamilton that was working on this program, and also unlikely that Booz Allen Hamilton was the only private company working on the program. Before this leak while I may have ceded that the U.S. was probably doing some kind of spying on it's citizens. But I would have completely shot down that the U.S. government was involved in the extensive level of surveillance that we now know it is engaged in. And my reasoning behind it would have been that it would be extremely improbable that there would be (possibly) hundreds of citizens whose job it is to spy on the American public, without it becoming leaked. Now it did eventually get leaked, but not until recently and this program has been around since the previous presidency. And even still it has only been leaked by one person, meaning that there are still American citizens complicit in the surveillance program spying on their fellow Americans, and they are still very quiet about it.

Essentially what I'm trying to get across, is that I was very skeptical of people being able to keep a secret. Especially a big, juicy one like the NSA surveillance. But it was done. Which leads me to ask, what else are they hiding from us? What other secrets have they hid from the American public?

Have your views on conspiracy theories changed? What are your thoughts?

[Silver]

I still know religion is the biggest conspiracy theory of them all, for god is not real.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Which leads me to ask, what else are they hiding from us? What other secrets have they hid from the American public?

Probably a shitload.

[Mister Agenda]

The only thing that was a secret was the extent of the surveillance. The NSA has always spied on American citizens when given the approval of the Attorney General (when I was assigned to the NSA) or FISA Court, but post-9/11 their remit to do so has been steadily expanding.

Note how different this is from many alleged 'big C' conspiracies regarding our government: it was arguably legal given the vague parameters of the Patriot Act, it was arguably in the best interest of the country (to prevent terrorist acts), it's just a day at work for most NSA employees (In God we trust, all others we monitor), and it involved no violence on American citizens. The NSA is considered on of the most secret organizations in America and couldn't keep the extent of their domestic activities a secret for ten years.

This doesn't erode my skepticism about conspiracy theories. If there had been one about domestic NSA surveillance, by now it would include 'spy rays', disinformers patrolling the interwebz, and mysterious deaths of people who had the proof that would have exposed the whole thing.

[Faith No More]

While I have no doubt that our government is guilty of hiding secrets that would shock the public for their heinous nature and the level of secrecy needed to keep them hidden, the issue is that conspiracy theorists think everything is a conspiracy and every conspiracy theory put forth is true. People lose all credibility when they start spewing nonsense like 9/11 was a government plot.

And in reality, the Snowden leak has only reinforced my notion that the government isn't an all-powerful secret keeper, because eventually, something of this magnitude did leak. Some people believe the government to be a completely trustworthy entity. Some people believe it to be an all-powerful evil. This leak only reinforces my belief that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

[Minimalist]

But I would have completely shot down that the U.S. government was involved in the extensive level of surveillance that we now know it is engaged in.

Why? Were you not paying attention? In 2008 Congress passed a law making certain amendments to the FISA law. It included this:

"Release from liability.—No cause of action shall lie in any court against any electronic communication service provider for providing any information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with [an order/request/directive issued by the Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence]

They did not ask for that immunity because they weren't using it. It seems that much of the data being collected was collected as a matter of routine by those companies. Rather than destroy it they turned it over to the government and all they asked in return was that no one could sue them for doing so. Congress gladly obliged.

The New York Times reported the program in 2005.

The majority of the population is far more scared of an Arab with a bomb than they are of a government eavesdropping effort. Or...at least they were until they saw a black guy in the white house.

[Something completely different]

No secret is kept from the public forever. All files are eventualy releasd to the public.
For example: During the Cuban missile crisis the public didn`t know that there where already nukes on Cuba - that was revealed during the 1990s as Cuba and Russia opend files. The use of agent orange was also confirmed through the opening of files.
Every branch of goverment in this world keeps a protocol on it`s actions which are archived and every goverment releases those files to the public after a certain time. You can make up as many conspiracies as you like - the truth will eventualy be clear when the files are released.

I might make the note that the Bush/Cheney administration deleted email files which protocolled the decision making arround the Iraq war - thereby sabotaging that process which guarantees transparecy.

[Angrboda]

This is a theme that conspiracy theorists themselves make ample hay with. There have been legitimate government conspiracies in the past. Does that make it demonstrably possible that a government conspiracy of such and such could exist? Sure. Does the existence of other government conspiracies increase the likelihood of any specific set of facts being the result of a government conspiracy? No. This is the fundamental problem with conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, taking logic which is superficially appealing, and applying it in ways that are fallacious and lead to unreliable conclusions. (I attended a talk on the various ways in which conspiracy theorists' reasoning typically deviates from the norm of sound reasoning, unfortunately I've lost the notes on that talk. Conspiracy theorist thinking applies a logic all its own to ordinary events.)

(ETA: Thinking about this a moment, it's a given that human reasoning is flawed in ways which are justified by their utility to a social species of animals. Religion is a potent example of cognitive features of the human brain applied beyond the sphere in which they produce reliable and useful results. I wonder if the peculiar logic which seems to afflict conspiracy theorists might not be instrumentally useful in a more intimate inter-personal, social context. There are many times in which, socially, we need to draw conclusions based on incomplete and inconclusive information. Is the "conspiracy theorist mind" adapted to that context, and only errant when misapplied to these larger questions?)

[Chas]

So I've always been skeptical of conspiracy theories. I have thought that while there may be some truth to some of them, most of them are just people attempting to connect the dots into a larger picture that may not necessarily be there.

But the recent uncovering of secret NSA programs has truly shaken my skepticism. Edward Snowden himself was not even a high level government employee. He was just a private citizen, that worked for a private company contracted by the NSA. And the more I think about it the more it troubles me. It is unlikely that Snowden was the only person at Booz Allen Hamilton that was working on this program, and also unlikely that Booz Allen Hamilton was the only private company working on the program. Before this leak while I may have ceded that the U.S. was probably doing some kind of spying on it's citizens. But I would have completely shot down that the U.S. government was involved in the extensive level of surveillance that we now know it is engaged in. And my reasoning behind it would have been that it would be extremely improbable that there would be (possibly) hundreds of citizens whose job it is to spy on the American public, without it becoming leaked. Now it did eventually get leaked, but not until recently and this program has been around since the previous presidency. And even still it has only been leaked by one person, meaning that there are still American citizens complicit in the surveillance program spying on their fellow Americans, and they are still very quiet about it.

Essentially what I'm trying to get across, is that I was very skeptical of people being able to keep a secret. Especially a big, juicy one like the NSA surveillance. But it was done. Which leads me to ask, what else are they hiding from us? What other secrets have they hid from the American public?

Have your views on conspiracy theories changed? What are your thoughts?

Except - it's not a secret now, is it? Snowden blew the whistle. If it hadn't been him, then it wold be someone else.

Conspiracies on that scale simply can't stay secret - they never do.

[downbeatplumb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGqBkqqPIQ