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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Patriot Act continues to threaten American Liberties
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
My apologies, Hedgehog -- I was too spitting mad to even consider the possibility of humor on this thread. And I am of course in complete agreement with you about what the Patriot Act has done to probable cause.
A question for those in the know: when the Baltimore PD asked a judge to let them tap pay phones, was it a matter of public record? If so, that would make it different from what's going on now.
Also, to me it is important that this has been going on for years without our knowledge. Obama says he "welcomes debate" about this, which is bullshit -- if he welcomed debate, this would have been public knowledge. We can't debate something we don't know anything about.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Link says the page is unavailable.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
I didn't like the Patriot Act when it was introduced and I don't like it now. But it's pretty hysterical to see things like Fox News getting all bent out of shape now when they were all in favor when Bush came up with the idea.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I'm going to piggy-back onto this thread, so apologies in advance.
The most revelations regarding the UK's secret monitoring service (GCHQ) are here, which occurs against a background were a law allowing the government access to precisely the data collected through Prism was withdrawn in the face of almost universal opposition.
Our beloved foreign minister says "if you are a law-abiding citizen of this country going about your business and personal life, you have nothing to fear about the British state or intelligence agencies listening to the content of your phone calls or anything like that."
I say, "fuck that shit."
Citizens have - under existing law - an expectation that their private lives remain exactly that: private. I don't want my life laid bare for someone to pick over (I'll leave that to God), and that's with me living a pretty vanilla existence.
My wife is considering applying for a post which requires additional security clearance above what she already has. I, of course, have spent the last few months working out a foolproof way of smuggling a heavily-armed, highly dangerous team of enemy combatants across the US-Canada border. This can only end well... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Well, this should be a boon for Dan Brown: years ago, he published a novel called "Digital Fortress", about a certain agency...
Now, if I were paranoid, I might think he engineered the whole thing to revive sales...
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif) ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
I didn't like the Patriot Act when it was introduced and I don't like it now. But it's pretty hysterical to see things like Fox News getting all bent out of shape now when they were all in favor when Bush came up with the idea.
It should be noted that one of the key differences between the Bush-era warrantless wiretap program and the current NSA program is that the former was illegal. The latter proceeds under color of law, thanks in part to some 2008 revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Whether that law is Constitutional is another question, but I wouldn't hold up much hope of the current Supreme Court curtailing the surveillance power of the state.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
The Fourth Amendment is dead, and Obama's promises of transparency in government were outright lies.
[/QUOTE]
I'm glad to hear you say it, he hasn't received nearly enough criticism for this whole fiasco.
I had a fleeting thought earlier today that possibly he was taking the Patriot Act to it's logical/extreme conclusion in order to get bipartisan support towards repealing the damn thing altogether; then I remembered who we were dealing with.
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Power once gained, and however gained, is rarely relinquished. The Patriot Act began to show what freedoms Americans were willing to relinquish.
As the Snooper's charter could well in Britain.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
The Fourth Amendment is dead, and Obama's promises of transparency in government were outright lies.
I'm glad to hear you say it, he hasn't received nearly enough criticism for this whole fiasco.
I had a fleeting thought earlier today that possibly he was taking the Patriot Act to it's logical/extreme conclusion in order to get bipartisan support towards repealing the damn thing altogether; then I remembered who we were dealing with.
Did you remember that then-Senator Obama voted in favor of the FISA amendment under discussion (after initially saying he opposed it) in 2008? So yes, it's hardly surprising that President Obama feels comfortable exercising power Senator Obama thought President Obama (or, at that point, potentially President McCain) should have.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Power once gained, and however gained, is rarely relinquished.
Which gets to the problem of why hoping that the president is a swell guy who does the right thing is inherently un-American. The U.S. Constitution does not rest on the assumption that the president is going to always be a nice guy exercising restraint. On the contrary, the structure of divided government with checks and balances assumes that the president very often will pursue policies in line with his own personal ambitions. Theoretically Congress (or, more rarely, the Supreme Court) is supposed to act to thwart this to prevent the diminishment of its own authority, but as we can see from this example the current Congress happy in this particular instance to hand massive power over to the executive branch and take a "hands off" approach afterwards.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
A question for those in the know: when the Baltimore PD asked a judge to let them tap pay phones, was it a matter of public record? If so, that would make it different from what's going on now.
It would be a matter of public record inasmuch as a formal document would be submitted to a judge requesting the harvesting of the relevant data. It wouldn't be public inasmuch as the local drug dealers couldn't skim through the Proceedings of the Courts of Baltimore to see which payphones the fuzz were checking up on.
Basically, for the police or intelligence services to surveille the bad guys and build a case against them you most certainly have to violate their right to privacy and sometimes you have to violate the privacy of innocent persons. And the regulation of the police and intelligence services has to be done <I>in camera</I> because you can hardly alert the bad guys that you have a court order to listen to their telephone conversations.
That's based on a) my having watched all 5 seasons of The Wire and b) having worked for three years for a law enforcement agency in the UK which was engaged in covert surveillance.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Does anyone else find Snowdon's actions in leaking the NSA info really odd???
From what I've heard in an audio interview and a bit of a TV version, it just doesn't make any sense. He'd been working for an NSA contractor for *3 months*, decided to leak info, got his hands on it, and gave it out--*knowing* that his life is probably over, maybe literally? He came out as the leaker *and* hid out in Hong Kong. Legal opinions vary on whether this was smart or stupid: HK has an extradition treaty with the US; but there's a loophole that may protect him.
In the audio interview, his voice sounds very calm, professional, and polished. No sign of the stress I've noticed in previous whistle-blowers. However, per the interviewer and what I just saw on TV, he does sometimes look very emotional. (The interviewer said the only time he seemed so was when he was talking about the possible fall-out for his family.)
I wondered if maybe he was going to defect to China. In the interview I heard on NPR, he was asked that--and he dodged the question. Carefully talked about how China isn't really our enemy, etc., etc.
How did a new, low-level employee get the info and get it out? (I have the same question about Bradley Manning. A private with access to thousands of classified documents, and able to download them undetected???)
Did he do this in order to ditch unknown problems in his life? Is it ego? Is this like some of the gov't employees who've seen themselves as master spies, and acted it out?
This needs John Le Carre', Robert Ludlum, and John Grisham to co-write a novel.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
How did a new, low-level employee get the info and get it out? (I have the same question about Bradley Manning. A private with access to thousands of classified documents, and able to download them undetected???)
Snowdon was not exactly new. He had been working for the NSA, through various contractors, for four years. As to low level, and Bradley Manning, there is a misunderstanding how the process works. Companies, and military units, which deal with classified material are like their parallels who do not. There are jobs that need to be done that high level management, or officers, will not be doing. So you have multiple levels who have the same classification. Otherwise, it is difficult to work together.
The problem arises out of a solution to previous inefficiency. A serious issue in the past was no coordination of resources. Many people operating independently often had information which might help another, but no one knew. Admission of this has lead to more availability of information to more people. These leaks are the flip side of that coin.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
How did a new, low-level employee get the info and get it out? (I have the same question about Bradley Manning. A private with access to thousands of classified documents, and able to download them undetected???)
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Snowdon was not exactly new. He had been working for the NSA, through various contractors, for four years. As to low level, and Bradley Manning, there is a misunderstanding how the process works.
Multiple jobs over the course of four years and three months in a current posting is very different from the kind of highly trained, very dedicated NSA analyst you would imagine being briefed on the parameters of a project so secret its existence is withheld from the public. In part this is probably due to the manpower requirements of running a project on this scale. There simply aren't enough of those highly trained, very loyal analysts at the NSA, hence the need to hire contractors.
I'm beginning to suspect that this project, at least the parts of it we've become aware of so far, isn't so much an intelligence operation as it is a massive grift by Booz Allen Hamilton. This kind of indiscriminate collection of data doesn't seem conducive to tracking terrorism, but it does seem conducive to employing a lot of analysts and charging the NSA a hefty data processing fee.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
This is interesting, Crœsos. Cherchez l'argent is often a clue to actions, but so is the revenge motive. Here, from the linked blog is a pertinent quote.
quote:
Booz Allen Hamilton lists this as its first risk factor: “We depend on contracts with U.S. government agencies for substantially all of our revenue. If our relationships with such agencies are harmed, our future revenue and operating profits would decline.”
Your "grift" perception looks to me as though it may have a lot of mileage. Consultants can make a lot of money out of peddling hope, particularly when any organisation feels it "must do something" to combat "something else". And I mean "really must do something" rather than "being seen to do something".
To find the needle in the haystack, first create the haystack, second the search engine. All that takes time, meanwhile the money rolls in. I think you're on to something. Plus it looks like "game's up" time.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Consulting.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
I didn't like the Patriot Act when it was introduced and I don't like it now. But it's pretty hysterical to see things like Fox News getting all bent out of shape now when they were all in favor when Bush came up with the idea.
Just out of curiosity, how many Republican legislators have introduced a bill in the last week to repeal the damned thing?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
President Obama has made his first comments on the NSA surveillance program since it was revealed to the public.
quote:
You can shout Big Brother or program run amok, but if you actually look at the details, I think we’ve struck the right balance.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with the program is that it's classified so we can't "look at the details", so this essentially boils down to "trust me".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Bumping the thread because this* seems kind of relevant:
quote:
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
Together, the two programs show that snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail.
The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. At the request of law enforcement officials, postal workers record information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered. (Actually opening the mail requires a warrant.) The information is sent to whatever law enforcement agency asked for it. Tens of thousands of pieces of mail each year undergo this scrutiny.
The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retroactively track mail correspondence at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.
Leaving aside questions of legality or Constitutionality, I'm starting to wonder how effective these kinds of programs are at their purported task. If you remember the findings of the 9/11 Commission [PDF], their overarching conclusion was that U.S. intelligence agencies had enough information on hand to expose the plot but had failed to "connect the dots" in the common parlance of the era. In other words, they had enough information on hand but didn't analyze it in a timely manner.
So given that, why does the solution to "not connecting the dots" seem to have become "get more dots"? Collecting a lot more data, almost all of it irrelevant, seems not just unproductive but actively counter-productive. At least assuming that the goal of these programs is to fight terrorism and not to spy on Americans or line the pockets of government contractors.
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*The New York Times website has a ridiculous paywall which allows non-subscribers to view ten free articles per calendar month. Only click the link if you're a NYT subscriber or feel like using up one of your ten monthly Times passes.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
Golden Key asks:
quote:
How did a new, low-level employee get the info and get it out? (I have the same question about Bradley Manning. A private with access to thousands of classified documents, and able to download them undetected???)
Well, it depends on the agency/department where he worked. In most government departments in Canada, classified material is either commercial confidences (as in contract or funding application material), personnel, or cabinet documents. Only a small proportion of staff get to deal with those, but they are of a range of levels.
In other departments/agencies, there is an unbelievably huge daily cascade of classified information (immigration, justice, etc) and much of it has to be handled, at least initially, at fairly low levels. And, unless you're prepared to pay for some complex access procedures, anyone around has easy access. In my bureaucratic days, one of our real headaches was outsourcing, a procedure greatly encouraged and much beloved of fiscal conservatives-- on several occasions, I had to clamp down on contractors who felt that the presence of a single cleared employees gave automatic clearance to the 47 around him.
The most sensitive files tended to be closely guarded in the old-line agencies, but in some places if one is bottle-washer on that floor....
As to how he got the information out: unless he is at a strip-search at exit place, it is very easy to pocket a USB drive. Indeed, we've had several security breaches in Canada where an employee takes information out of the office on a key to work at home, or to transfer the information to another office, and manages to lose it. British Columbia shipmates may have greater current knowledge of the loss of thousands of medical records.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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DouglasTheOtter
Ship's aquatic mammal
# 17681
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Posted
There seems, from an English perspective, to be a slightly worrying unanimity between the Democrats and Republicans.
Anyone?
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Need writing or copywriting? Visit me at...
www.rjpmedia.net
Posts: 171 | From: Twickenham | Registered: May 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
It's always been thus DTO. Caesar is two faced: on both sides of the coin.
[ 03. July 2013, 20:19: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Since Edward Snowden became, to quote Stephen Colbert, "drone-bait", I've been noticing how many times information on telephone calls is part of solving crimes or mysteries in TV and movies. The location of the callers, how long they talked, how often and when they talk, landline or cell, are all bits of information. So Americans have been watching the telephony surveillance program in action, in fiction, for quite a while.
I have no idea whether "As seen on TV!!" makes it all better or even worse. It does make the handwringing over this particular surveillance program look rather silly, IMO.
My employer has strict policies against using free e-mail services like Google, or tools like Survey Monkey, because of the security risk -- specifically, the risk that our information isn't secure from the US government. We were told this was because it could be subpoena'ed under the Patriot Act. Good thing we were careful, since we were so naïve.
As for employee access to sensitive information, everyone I work with has always been completely aware that the guts of our computers are wide open to our IT peeps. These people aren't high up in the org chart, but it's misleading to call them "low-level" because they're highly specialized and skilled, and they're integral and essential to every aspect of operations. If it's stored electronically, a whole host of employees will have direct access to it all as part of doing their jobs. We trust them because there isn't any alternative, and because they have a code of ethics, and because they sign confidentiality agreements.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Since Edward Snowden became, to quote Stephen Colbert, "drone-bait", I've been noticing how many times information on telephone calls is part of solving crimes or mysteries in TV and movies. The location of the callers, how long they talked, how often and when they talk, landline or cell, are all bits of information. So Americans have been watching the telephony surveillance program in action, in fiction, for quite a while.
I have no idea whether "As seen on TV!!" makes it all better or even worse. It does make the handwringing over this particular surveillance program look rather silly, IMO.
Despite the way it's portrayed in popular media, only a very small percentage of American citizens are TV characters.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
their overarching conclusion was that U.S. intelligence agencies had enough information on hand to expose the plot but had failed to "connect the dots" in the common parlance of the era. In other words, they had enough information on hand but didn't analyze it in a timely manner.
To be fair, the attempt to "connect the dots" is what created Manning and Snowden. Allowing more people to see the dots collected.
The collecting more dots is greed and stupidity.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I feel a little like Cato the Elder saying it, but nevertheless : repeal the Patriot Act, and dismantle Homeland Security and the TSA.
This is a good start.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
I would put this in the prayer thread in All Saints but that would be understandably regarded as politicizing the prayer thread, so i am offering it here. Let anyone make of it what they will. Some will get angry, some will just laugh at it -- so be it, it's just what I'm praying -- I hope that maybe at least some others, in their hearts, might add their inward prayers to this.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) God, please protect Edward Snowden -- may he find a safe refuge from very powerful forces
Be with Bradley Manning in his time of persecution and with all the heroic individuals who are willing to risk their lives and freedoms for the sake of the larger good and a more generally decent and humane society for their fellow human beings. Thank you God, for their witness and example.
Dear God, you can do anything. Please somehow deliver the country in which I reside from its present path, and give we who live here discernment -- and please do likewise for the people in other countries facing similar situations.
From the Book of Common Prayer (US, 1979)
For those who suffer for the sake of Conscience
O God our Father, whose Son forgave his enemies while he was suffering shame and death: Strengthen those who suffer for the sake of conscience; when they are accused, save them from speaking in hate; when they are rejected, save them from bitterness; when they are imprisoned, save them from despair; and to us your servants, give grace to respect their witness and to discern the truth, that our society may be cleansed and strengthened. This we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, our merciful and righteous Judge. Amen.
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
Posts: 3149 | From: North America | Registered: May 2006
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
I thought about starting a new thread, but instead decided to pump this one up to ask the question: is Snowden a hero or a traitor?
I'm not sure myself, and was curious what other shipmates thought?
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Possibly both? I am not equivocating,traitor is a legal definition, hero a value judgement.
We, as citizens, deserve to know what our governments are doing. I believe that the British and American governments are stepping beyond a very dangerous boundary between security and invasion of privacy. We are complacent and we should not be.
quote:
The price of peace is eternal vigilance
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
I thought about starting a new thread, but instead decided to pump this one up to ask the question: is Snowden a hero or a traitor?
I'm not sure myself, and was curious what other shipmates thought?
Hero!
(But I would say that, wouldn't I)
[ 24. July 2013, 00:43: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
Posts: 3149 | From: North America | Registered: May 2006
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
A thieving ex-employee.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Traitor, he's acted in a way you'd expect of the Stasi. But given he's admitted his guilt and revealed a despicable betrayal of the American people and values (that he was a relatively small fish in) probably deserves some clemency for his actions before this year.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
A coward.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Traitor, he's acted in a way you'd expect of the Stasi.
Hasn't Snowden acted in a way that's more or less the opposite of the Stasi? Instead of protecting the state's secrets and using knowledge of private secrets to blackmail citizens, he's revealed government secrets and (as far as we know) blackmailed no one. Plus he hasn't tortured or "disappeared" anyone.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Traitor, he's acted in a way you'd expect of the Stasi.
Hasn't Snowden acted in a way that's more or less the opposite of the Stasi? Instead of protecting the state's secrets and using knowledge of private secrets to blackmail citizens, he's revealed government secrets and (as far as we know) blackmailed no one. Plus he hasn't tortured or "disappeared" anyone.
Quite so. The villain in this piece is the government that insists on spying on its own citizens. Snowden, by virtue of exposing the government's nefarious ways and thus seeking to end them, is clearly the hero.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The villain in this piece is the government that insists on spying on its own citizens. Snowden, by virtue of exposing the government's nefarious ways and thus seeking to end them, is clearly the hero.
The villain in this piece are the people who crafted, voted for, encouraged voting for, and applauded the Patriot Act.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Quite so. The villain in this piece is the government that insists on spying on its own citizens. Snowden, by virtue of exposing the government's nefarious ways and thus seeking to end them, is clearly the hero. [/QB]
He has now, that's what redeems him. But prior to that he was assisting in said actions.
[ 24. July 2013, 21:30: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
A coward.
Could you expand on that?
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
"Democracy Now!" had a good and relevant show yesterday (7/24). One segment was about Snowden, including a longer version of a June interview that's the media's mostly used as sound bytes. There's also commentary by Daniel Ellsberg.
The next segment is about Daniel Ellsberg;the "Pentagon Papers" that he leaked, back in the '70s; how that all went down; and how a Unitarian Universalist Church publisher was the only one brave enough to print the papers in book form. Daniel, the senator who presented the papers to Congress, and one of the Beacon Press publishers reminisce. Much of it is *hilarious*. (It's speeches to a UU conference, I think.)
The site has both transcripts (posted with each segment) and recordings.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Traitor, he's acted in a way you'd expect of the Stasi.
Hasn't Snowden acted in a way that's more or less the opposite of the Stasi?
You are misunderstanding the comment - which is a commentary on the actions of the snoopers, a body of which Snowden was formerly part of. Hence 'he deserves clemency for coming clean'.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
irish_lord99. He is infinitely more courageous than I will ever be, but he counted coup and ran away. I would be far more impressed if he stayed and let Caesar punish him. Martyr him. Although to some extent even that cannot redeem what he´s done. He took the king´s shilling, signed a contract and betrayed and broke that. That is not how you, we defeat Caesar.
At least he is one is one step up from Assange.
And these men´s feet of clay are not comparable to those of Kennedy and Martin Luther King. They stayed.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re no torture or execution:
Snowden and his lawyer might want to keep in mind the US gov't's lovely way of side-stepping such agreements by sending the prisoner to another country...where the prisoner can be tortured...
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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