General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWith everyone criticizing the BIG, SPOOKY NSA online, I've decided to help them with some advice
Since my first REAL confrontation with the NSA, about ten years ago, right after similar news about data-mining with large telecoms appeared my readership and recommendations at Democratic Underground has decreased significantly. Do you think the agency had anything to do with the decline in readership? I often post material the NSA might consider sensitive.
Anyhow, instead of criticizing the spy agency today, I will offer them some advice since this particular OP keeps being buried: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023384102
Occasionally, I criticize the NSA online, so perhaps they have some standing order to discredit or bury every OP I create. Today, however, instead of criticism, I will offer some recommendations:
Being an agency under direct supervision of the DoD, they might adopt the military tradition of a "Uniform of the Day."
They can ALL (male and female) wear red panties, with gold Chinese flags embroidered on their butts! That way they can show how tough they are to Chinese satellites. They must also wear super-short red skirts and bend over outside so Chinese satellites can clearly see their "real power" and their true nature! (This is code for me calling the NSA online a bunch of "asses."
Maybe they can also find some domestic terrorist group knowingly working with our enemies to assist in discovering U.S. Top-Secrets.
leftstreet
(36,081 posts)How did the NSA influence your 'recommendations and readership?'
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)Right after I visited a few Muslim sites to find anti-war graphics, they obtained a FISA warrant on me and, instead of simply checking my email, they scrambled it up, so that my new email came out in the middle of the page and my 6 month old junk mail was at the top of my inbox.
Then, when I tried to prove it by posting a shortcut straight to my inbox, they redirected my shortcut causing DU readers to believe that I was using the OPs as an excuse to sell hotmail.
That cost me plenty of respect and credibility here, which equals a significant reduction in readership and recommendations.
This truthful and accurate answer should cause this post to slowly vanish.
There's a great deal more to this report. I'll write a bit more as it comes to me.
Before my initial confrontation with the NSA online, I had thousands of readers here and every post gained enough recs to make the greatest page.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)youre posting crazy shit about an NSA plot to bury your posts on DU. Seriously. This is out there.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)OPs I write that appear more reasonable slip under the reader horizon rapidly with few if any comments. Do you think that affects readership?
bunnies
(15,859 posts)PS. I kinda like your skivvies idea. Red is my favorite color.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)You might have missed another important detail. I didn't claim they worked against me back then because I criticized the NSA. I said that I was was posting "sensitive" material. I had a top-secret clearance in the Navy and was involved in activities, which are still "sensitive" when it comes to government secrets.
Before I stopped drinking, I would post all kinds of information, here at DU. After posting several details about my Naval service, I found myself being asked for more details about the specific equipment we used to detect Soviet and Chinese submarines from an aircraft. I decided a federal agent was likely interviewing me and went into a; Do you really "need to know" approach?
Perhaps that has something to do with why absolutely non of my OPs are read; no matter how pertainent.
Still, with all I have done for [the damned NSA/CSS] our country I deserve better treatment than I get at DU these days.
I took the name Jeffersons Ghost because I stood for freedom and that included protecting the long lost 4th Amendment.
Did you know back in the early days many of the founding members of Anonymous formed up here at DU?
Back then, we ran in packs to hunt Freepers and Trolls. One of the guys in our freeper hunting unit ran a Navy swiftboat in Vietnam. In a PM he once told me that he had thrown all his important medals to the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge, because that is where they belonged; underwater where a large number of "the best friends he ever had died." The next and final line of his PM said, "I can't write anymore. My eyes are filling with tears."
I think before the NSA online decides to start playing mind games with people they should take a long hard look at what we went through or are going through.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Objection, your honor! Facts not in evidence!
bunnies
(15,859 posts)I had an account here back in 2004. I used it for a couple years then my computer died and I fell off. I had a different name then. I wish I could remember what it was. But I remember you. I remember your name. Mostly because I love the idea of ghosts. An agnostic who loves ghosts. Really loves ghosts. Go figure.
I dont, however, remember the specific things you're thinking might have turned DU against you. And there are so many new posters now that I'm not sure how you could still be effectively shunned. It stands to reason that you may have been looked into, so to speak, if you were posting sensitive government material. I have no reason to doubt you, Ghost. Nor would I put anything past the NSA.