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Notes -
The point of bringing up Binney is that the discussion about whether to go for everything or just a more limited program was made back then, and he was on the losing side. Serious leaks from within the NSA don't happen that often, but the last one that I saw (which was the Snowden leaks in 2013) implied that absolutely nothing had changed. The various revelations regarding the abuse of NSA database access for political opposition research during the Trump campaign seemed like more evidence that they hadn't actually changed anything since - but I'm more than happy to read if you've got a really good source for the NSA changing strategy.
I'm afraid this comes down to an issue of unclear language - when I said that they are reading and listening to all of this shit I was referring to the broad sweeping and data archiving. Maybe I'm just being persnickety, but I think that those automated sweeping and archiving systems, with particularly "interesting" topics and ideas getting the attention of actual humans, absolutely do constitute listening. As I said, I've seen someone get a visit, in person, from a member of a FVEYS intelligence organisation to ask them about posts made in a small forum not unlike the motte, so it isn't like this is some bizarre hypothetical or paranoid fantasy. Saying that because actual human eyes only look at the posts their filtering systems flag means they aren't reading or listening just seems inaccurate and unclear to me - if someone I knew in person said they weren't listening to my phonecalls using the same reasoning I would very quickly stop being their friend.
I actually have no idea - I have not read whatever post contained that quote. It wasn't in any of your replies to me, nor was it in any of the replies I saw in the thread. This is my first time reading it and I had to click onto your profile in order to look through your other replies in order to see it (I hate doing this because it reminds me too much of reddit users trying to avoid dealing with someone's actual point). I actually totally agree with you that they aren't combing through Motte posts to find inclinational wrongthink, I just don't see how I was meant to glean that from the posts of yours that I actually interacted with.
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