The biggest non Irish scandal of the past 20 years that completely shocked you?

IvaBigWun wrote: »

And probably the biggest shocker of all; Jimmy Savile. What a vile man.

I don't recall Savile's TV heyday at all (oddly enough seeing as it seems Jim'll Fix It was on until 94 I think, but I don't remember it). What struck me the most was not the scandal, but upon watching the Louis Theroux documentary, how such an odious, nasty little prick became so beloved as an eccentric national grandad. I mean, if he was some really nice, genuine seeming guy, I would have been shocked, but instead, apart from the abuse side, he was a nasty, narcissistic miserable c'unt who just so happened to raise a few quid for charity.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I always knew the American government was probably spying on people over the internet, but the sheer scale of it was something I literally never even considered - the idea that an agency could literally intercept all internet traffic worldwide and rifle through it seemed technologically impossible. PRISM was surprising enough, but it was the "Upstream" slide which detailed the direct tapping of international fibre optic cables by both the Brits and the NSA and the copying of everything flowing through them for potential rifling through which I never dreamed of.

I still find it quite surprising that PRISM has dominated media coverage of the whole scandal, the fact that the NSA has access to tech company's servers is certainly a scandal, but I personally would have thought the fact that they literally wiretap the entire internet itself through cable tapping would be far more scandalous, and yet a lot of people aren't even aware of that aspect to the spying since it didn't get as much media coverage.

I still can't fathom how people are so shocked about this. It is not revelations as such. It was simply confirming what was unconfirmed common knowledge, that the US and its closer allies have had the ability to monitor and record every single phone and internet communication since at least the late 90's. The only thing that shocked me about the Snowden affair was that people had no clue this happened- haven't you heard of "terror chatter"? I saw a good documentary on the Echelon surveillance network on Channel 4 years before 9/11.

Genocide - Up to a million people slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 whilst the world twiddled collective thumbs
Iraq - The 'coalition' invading a sovereign country under false pretences, daily slaughter continues to this day
USA - Populace voting George Bush in again 2004