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What do you think?
He did not leak anything other governments didn’t already know. He only informed the public of what the US government was doing to its own citizens.
Yet politicians on both sides are calling for his head and saying that they are doing nothing wrong.
Who do you believe?
Delusional narcissist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro
Well, I know which newspaper you read that in.
A nice piece of media based damage control.
To me it is more the open release of the information than the individual, yet they start to work to discredit and vilify the leaker.
Was there ever a time when the people were asked, do you think this is a good idea or is it a step too far?
It s not that it has not been obvious. It has just been one of those things you know they are doing but not saying.
I am guessing most of you don’t really care that your government is becoming a surveillance state.
Calling him a traitor is hypocritical because if it's OK for the government to snoop on its citizens, it's OK for a citizen to snoop on the government.
And for the record I find such a degree of surveillance a little creepy. What perverse motives do they have that they go so far in spying on their citizens?
He didn't put anyone in danger like Assange did, he just revealed something that is worth worrying about. He deserves nothing but respect
The reason that these programs are seen as legal is because there is no way to challenge them.
As the programs are secret, courts, including the Supreme Court, will not grant standing to anyone bringing suite. They can not know what is in the law because it is secret.
Just how cool is that?
While this incident points up that the call data and not the calls are being logged, don’t fool your self. Calls are being recorded.
Perhaps the only ones kept are the ones with keywords in the conversations that trigger a response but all are monitored.
The call data would allow them to link conversations to phone records to know, more or less, just who made the call.
I am sure there are worse things going on, and yes, your computer spies on you too. This is only the tip of a great iceberg.
The US government insists that what it is doing is legal. Classic criminal response; they've rationalized activity that is an obvious affront to law to people not involved in the conspiracy. It is not legal just because they say it is. General warrants without reasonable suspicion to consume all personal effects and spy on people are barred by the constitution. Judges who have signed off on this are criminally corrupt. When government actions break the law, people informing the American people are whistleblowers. Bradley Manning was a traitor, but I support anyone stealing information from our corrupt government for non-terrorist or extra-national related purposes
Americans have an obligation to betray the political elite and the media that supports them. There are 2 parties in Washington. The people and the enemies of the people.
Too easy, let them explain how it is still legal if they do it internationally.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
This is basically my view as well (minus the Assange bit). Manning also just vomited up reams of information, the vast majority of which did not show any wrongdoing by the US, and thus endangered US policy, relations, and possibly lives for no whistleblowing purposes whatsoever. Regardless of whether he exposed some wrongdoing with some of his data, releasing the rest of it was inexcusable. I will not shed a single tear if he gets life in prison.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Snowden is significantly different. He actively selected out the information that he felt was necessary to inform the public about a serious issue. He released only the information that was needed to cover that issue and held back all other information that could have endangered US interests or lives. In addition, he released that information through sources that themselves then did a second round of editing to ensure that the absolute minimum amount of information necessary was released into the public. That is someone who cares a great deal about correcting a problem while doing as little harm as possible to our nation and our people. I hope they just leave the fellow alone, he's not likely to cause any more damage in the future anyway.
Ding ding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro
Let me preface this buy saying, I have no delusions that the American government does shady extra legal things. It's part of the territory when you're a government, even more so when you're the superpower basically tasked with the security of your underlings. I know Germany, Canada, and the UK have expressed outrage over this and all over the internet their citizens are quick to claim that they will never do business with America again. Even though their states are perfectly happy with letting the US do their dirty work for them. If your country participated in extraordinary rendition, your country is getting information from the NSA.
I would also like to point out this data mining is really only good for large scale groups and deductive reasoning after they have caught a singular man. Lone wolves will slip though cracks (undoubtedly to the jeers of "CONSPIRACY" to you internet heroes.) while groups that were once large start getting picked off, they will splinter once they get lost among the white noise. It's good in the sense that smaller groups plan smaller attacks due to smaller amounts of resources (generally of course) it's unfortunate in the sense that we will probably have to be dealing with a lot more fertilizer bombs. Of course you get in your car everyday, so I know you're not totally risk averse.
Cyber rights are the next big civil libirties debate. I don't know why it's surprising that the government is doing this stuff. Hell twitter itself is considered public space, obviously your tweets are not the same as your emails or your phone calls. It just goes to illustrate the fact that privacy rights in these spheres are still the wild west and I think a portion of this hand wringing is going because people went crazy with the personal stuff on the cat tubes.
Now to the issue of Snowden himself. Why should I believe a low level IT GED wielding tech guy at some BFE outpost in Honolulu? This is to say nothing of his ridiculous assassination fantasies. I have a couple of power point slides and him claiming he could bug the president. Not to mention he looks like every 28 year old virgin I ever met.
Color me unimpressed with this whole thing
New York Bomb July 4
OMGITSTOATTLYLIKE1984
I will gladly share everything I learned about the comms equipment(or aything else) during my conscript year to anyone who asks.
If I ever get knowledge of any other "national security risks" I'll spill the beans in an instant.
I don't give a crap about either state secrets or national security.
\Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Literally a hero
BRAVO YOU ARE THE NEW CATO
"Hero" is a bourgeouise concept. I just don't give a crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
Also, if I can help in any way to make life a little more miserable for our boys in green, I will.
\\Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
The bourgeouise is a bourgeouise concept
What are you trying to accomplish by this?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Not trying to make our army more competent and capable, that's for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Though considering the fact that I'm one of those soldiers, I doubt it's possible to lower the standards any further. But still, there's no harm in trying!
Well considering there are a couple of congressmen trying to get him the death penalty he might have a point, solitary as it may be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
This doesn't make any sense. What's your goal?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Wasting his majesty's pocket money, as I always have.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Isn't his majesty on a salary? This just sounds very irrational. Is this just a matter of entertainment(?) or a part of some larger plan?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
"His majesty's pocket money" refers to the defense budget.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Every krone spent on silliness, is a krone well spent.
But if you waste what's already allocated, won't they just allocate more to make up for your waste? This seems counterproductive.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Nope, the Norwegian army starts calling off exercises when money is tight. Happened the year before my service, actually.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
So, what's the benefit of having an army that is not ready to fight?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
There's no benefit of having an army that is ready to fight.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
There's fewer negatives of having an army that's not ready to fight. They'll be less able to kill people, for starters.
So, why resort to sabotage? If you're that committed to Norway without an army, won't it make more sense to start a political movement to promote those goals?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
I'm already a part of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
In the meantime, I have no qualms about screwing around. If I can make life just a little bit more miserable for just one soldier, I feel I've done a good job.
Why I think Norway can do without an army?Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Because I see 35 billion better ways of spending the 35 billion NOK spent on the army.
Won't that discredit your movement? If just one incident like that becomes public, the public opinion will likely turn away from your movement, killing any chance of you ever accomplishing your main goal.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
You're not familiar with the whole conscription-concept, are you?Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
I'm a soldier. That should give a clue as to what the average Norwegian soldier thinks of his service.
I have no problem with either junkies or social welfare recipients, but I do object when they take pride in their commitment not to contribute to society.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
I understand the basic principle. If your main problem is with conscription, won't it be easier to push for changing the conscription law instead? I can't imagine conscription being very popular.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
I'm not in any way against conscription.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
I'm against the existence of military forces. If we do have them, conscription is a must.
That's just not true. Our military functions just fine without conscription...Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
....and that's the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Okay, now you lost me completely... Why were you bringing up the issue of conscription in the first place?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Because a soldier who wastes the time and money of the army is the norm, not the exception, in a conscript army, and thus incidents like the one in your post won't raise an eyebrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Civil service(which was rightfully regarded as the worst option) was dumped years ago, and no longer exists.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
My point with junkies and social welfare recipients, was that they contribute as much to society as a soldier does(ie. nothing), but the soldier takes out much more of society's resources than the first two groups(who additionally feel shame because of their condition and are often/most of the time there because of past life experiences have put them there).
So, then why did you become a soldier? Why not pick an alternative service and end up working at a hospital for 2 years or something?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
It's mainly a drain because it's an instrument designed to kill. Anything else is a bonus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
Because I didn't have a choice except by lying, and I don't feel like lying to get out of a democratic obligation. I was called in again this spring, and I have no plans to lie my way out, even though I know it's the easiest thing in the world. If they want me out I'll happily leave, but in the meantime I'm happy being a drain on their resources.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
(service is 1 year plus repetition btw)
HoreTore I think you are misdirecting your anger at the military as an institution when you vent against ordinary soldiers.
Even if politicians and military leaders organise unjust or disastrous wars, soldiers are often the ones that do contribute something to the world, if not their own society as such. Look at what MRD did to help kids in Afghanistan.
And even then, soldiers to make their own society safer - consider how the Islamists were driven out of southern Mali, much to the residents' joy. That place would have been a breeding ground for terrorism. Some wars might be counter-productive in that respect, but that is not the fault of ordinary soldiers.
Right, because returning soldiers are treated so well by society, feel nothing but pride for what they have done, and have no difficult past experiences to explain how they ended up in the military. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
I'm strictly speaking about Norway's military here, even though I certainly applaud every arms reduction wherever they happen. A norwegian soldier doesn't go into the army because of a lack of options, and he is most certainly not sent to war unless he desperately wants to be a part of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr
....And if helping kids is your dream, might I suggest the Red Cross...?
As for Snowden & the "coming to get him" angle, well, erhm Bradley Manning & wikileaks did happen. So why, exactly, would you expect him to reason otherwise? Particularly: if he is right on the money he has significant more insight into the inner workings of the "spooks" than Manning ever had so would be correspondingly more important to "bring in". I might well be wrong, but as far as I am aware "coming to get me" is where he stopped, he didn't actually cross into all out paranoia just yet. As for Snowden and being narcissist, well I am not a psychologist but as I understand it narcissism is a different from "gives one interview in which he answers some personal questions from a journalist and vanishes". Unless this is supposed to be an elaborate hoax. In any case he planned the thing carefully enough to minimise impact and avoid his persona being dragged into the matter. He didn't do the whole drama queen act Assange did, for example.
As for the "could he be genuine", why not? Major Robert Dump and Gelatinous Cube can regale us with plenty of tales in which ordinary servicemen had access to all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to, or did things outside of established security protocol for their operation. Misconfigured and insecure IT systems are not an exception but the default; heck nuns breach the physical security barriers of nuclear facility with absurd ease. An IT guy earning approximately 200K pa, tasked with systems administration (monitoring the systems and keeping the whole thing running) is indeed relatively well positioned to know where the internal holes are (it was his job to identify and fix them), what is going on (it was his job to know what the system was doing and configure it), and has the abilities to analyse the results (has access to the system as part of the job in order to be able to test whether stuff works). You don't even need to be in the thick of the action, if you're active on the periphery, on the systems that the NSA uses to manage the logins of its employees for example you already have a good overview of the capabilities of NSA employees because you manage the access controls for that.
As for why the admin thinks this PRISM thing is legal: well, it is legal in terms of US law. You voted in and approved of the PATRIOT act via Congress. Twice. Remember? You let it happen, and this is one of the fruits of those labours. (The Gitmo debacle being another. The let's use drones to "assasinate American Citizens because the Prez says so" thing is another.) Or as the Daily Show put it (from memory): “the worrying thing, Mr Obama, is not that you did something illegal. It's the fact you didn't have to.”
As for why other countries are outraged. Well the moral component, but in the case of the EU also international treaties which quite clearly were broken/signed in bad faith. For example the US-EU safe harbor provisions, which is the escape hatch for US to continue to do business post PATRIOT act in the EU.
Possibly because armies everywhere exemplify a kind of fetish for authority and power (and power play) which breeds this kind of stuff. This is merely a technological wet dream of the kind of authoritarianism that would otherwise find itself in its natural habitat of the military.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
But if there was no conscription, you'd never be in this position. Wouldn't it make more sense to oppose conscription instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
I haven't killed anybody, it's not my own service I oppose.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
I quite enjoyed wasting other peoples money for year, the downside was the time spent with absolutely nothing to do.
That's a pretty hefty downside imho. Too big of a downside if you ask me.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Meh, the barracks-disease gets everyone eventually, that doesn't mean it's not fun driving $100k vehicles into pieces without consequence.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
Whatever floats your boat, I guess.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
At the end of the day I'm not given a choice, it's something I'm obligated to do by the majority of my countrymen.Quote:
Originally Posted by rvg
I'm not going to lie to get out of that.
It was one year of your life, not mine. You spend it as you see fit.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Like they care...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
As the only superpower, they alone define what is legal internationally, that's why they stay out of the hague and other international institutions. Just look at how Obama said they only spy on foreigners. He can easily say that because he only cares about Americans and the opinions of anyone outside don't really matter.
With such attitudes it's really not surprising that the amount of goodwill towards the USA has plummeted in other countries...
If my own government collects data about me that's one thing, but if the USA does that's a completely different thing because I have absolutely no influence on government and policies there. If you want my data, let me vote in your elections.
:soapbox: No data collection without representation! :soapbox:
A nation that constitutes a quarter of the planet's GDP could never practice such a thing.Quote:
notions of disentanglement
Travel back in time and help the Confederacy to win, so that in the 20th century North America comes out pretty weak. It's the only way.
Greenwald: "Have you given thought to what it is that the US government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
Snowden: "Yeah, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road and the consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."
We is after all an American president. What did you expect him to say?Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
B-but it's O-B-A-M-A. Isn't he a godlike figure in Europe? Perhaps we need to vote in Sara Palin, so that you guys have something real to complain about.Quote:
With such attitudes it's really not surprising that the amount of goodwill towards the USA has plummeted in other countries...
Nuh-uh. But, if your government decides to spy on Americans, please do. I wouldn't mind one bit. Not my government, not my country, not my place to say what they can or cannot do.Quote:
If my own government collects data about me that's one thing, but if the USA does that's a completely different thing because I have absolutely no influence on government and policies there. If you want my data, let me vote in your elections.
Prism runs counter to my policies, so where can I opt out of prism? I didn't vote for the party that established prism and neither did I vote for the party that kept prism and there is no other party that I could vote for that would do away with prism? I'm basically spied on by not my government and there is nothing I can democratically do against it. Does that mean Obama is a dictator to me and I have the right to form a well-armed militia to overthrow him? I'd call them Al Queda, sounds nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
01010111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01100111 01101110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100100 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00101110 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Happy now?
Manning isn't a traitor until after he's been found guilty.
If he is already considered guilty how is he to get a fair trial?
=][=
Also aren't the Apache pilots shooting unarmed reporters the ones who should be facing trial and all those who covered it up and hid the evidence?
I assume the soldiers oath covers something to do with lawful orders and protecting the Constitution. If fellow servicemen were abusing the law, doesn't that create an oath bound obligation to become a whistleblower once the chain of command is found complicit?
I understand that following orders wasn't a defense for WWII Germans but it was for Vietnam War Americans. So is it the current standard that the threshold for unlawful actions is anything goes unless it embarrasses those in command?
You guys are at the top and it is your fields to sow.
And on the other hand he agrees to appear in plain view, on camera, without any particular security theatre that we know of (contrast: Wikileaks). On balance the above snippet strikes me as entertaining the line of thought, rather than genuine paranoia.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro
I guess I definitely don't qualify as a psychologist; I simply fail to see all these mental disorders everywhere around me.
At least the diplomatic cables raised people's opinion of your diplomats.
It is also a catalyst in the Arab Spring be that good or bad.
I'm more concerned with a drone kill list then what Manning did.
Dear God are we still on the diplomatic cables?Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
What do you think goes on in every other capital?
The America has us under our thumb circlejerk is the most painful thing to listen to. If your country is part of NATO or ANZUS, they are complicit in this.
if he signed some sort of agreement stating he would not divulge secrets he came into contact with, which I assume he did, then he is a traitor.
having said that, the information he divulged isn´t that surprising or shocking, in the current digital era, this sort of thing can easily be done....so it will be done.
[OT]I'm not sure what you guys think the value is in a pretend-nation like Norway maintaining a standing military. If any GDP is to be spent on defense, it should be put toward a nuclear weapons program and call it good. There are only maybe ten nations on earth with the GDP to support a military that can have a materially significant impact on their national security and/or interests abroad. Now, if the fabled Euroarmee ever becomes anything more than a pipe dream, there may be some utility in a nation such as Norway participating in a pooling of resources. As of now, the US is glad to welcome such nations under the umbrella regardless of military prowess/contribution.
I want this to become an injoke whenever we talk about intelligence leaks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
"Let me talk to you about these cables."
I've already mentioned the five eyes agreements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
The potential arrangement is that all parties only spy on foreigners unless a person has triggered a deeper inspection. The thing is each country then shares the data sets. So whilst your country doesn't spy on you regularly, the other ones do and then can legally share your information back to your government.
So all the countries of the alliance can legally spy on each others citizens and then report back to their voters that they only spy on foreigners. They then legally share all data and then legally have data on their citizens.
I think I might have gone to North Korea instead, were I in his shoes, because its cheaper to feed your dates
That is exactly how it worked up until the Patriot Act, in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Then they decided they could also gather data on their own citizens.
The last few NDAAs have only made it worse.
A lot of people (Democrats) were upset when Bush did it, and they should have been, but let it drop when their guy came in office. A lot of Republicans thought it was ok under Bush but upset now that Obama has expanded it, and yes he has greatly expanded it.
It is something everyone should be upset about no matter who is in office.
Congress thinks they are safe as they think provisions keep people from spying on them, but they are only fooling themselves. When everything and everyone is being watched they will not escape.
The program Obama spoke to my only be gathering the data he said but there are other programs gathering more.
None of the recent whistle blowers have divulged actual classified information, yet the government has gone to great lengths to silence them.
The new NSA facility being built in Utah is for more than storing your phone records and face book posts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22952011
I find this statement puzzling.Quote:
Originally Posted by article
Further to what Papewaio noted.
Each member of the "5 eyes alliance" regularly shares information with members; while the US may not directly violate "privacy rights" of US citizens, Canada might. Anything of interest will be shared 'cause we're buddies :)
Assuming the same apparatus in each country, privacy of on-line communications, is pretty much meaningless.
Of course, such terribly secure stuff never gets left/lost on a table in the House of Commons, a coffee shop or even a friends kitchen table :p
http://images.search.yahoo.com/searc...00&fr2=piv-webQuote:
Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump
Well, since I posted that a lot has changed. Not only has Putin said it's okay, Obama has also visited Germany (which was apparently not even known to most Americans) and talked to Merkel about it, who wanted to get answers from him about the US spying on Germans. Several things happened during this visit which I shall just recall from memory:Quote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
- The head of our police union said the German police needs a program just like prism to fight crime effectively, opposing it would just be naive.
- The BND, our CIA-equivalent got/released a lot of funding to create a very similar program for itself
- Obama explained that Prism has so far helped to stop about 50 terror attacks in the western world
- Obama said they wouldn't really spy on proper Western Europeans either
- Obama and Merkel both said there's not much to worry about
- Merkel said the internet is "new territory" for all of us
- Internetians hate on the government and make fun of Merkel's statement, at best it's called "unfortunate"
Now what is my position? What I said above still holds true to an extent, although I won't create a militia. But I think what bugs me more is that this is done in complete secrecy and now that it's out they say it's no big deal. I can recognize two opposing positions:
1. not all citizens should be regarded as criminals and spied upon
2. the Internet can not be a law-free room for eternity as much as some "netizens" want it to be
So the question is how much control should the government have and how can it be properly implemented with the correct oversight?
I'm a bit lazy to find my own answer until someone puts me in a committee to implement it to be honest but in general a middle ground has to be found. I guess I agree with Putin that it's kinda okay if it's only done based on court orders. A 360° look at all communication would even go against the "Fernmeldegeheimnis" (roughly: long range transmission secret) as embedded in our constitution that forbids stuff like opening letters, recording phone calls and otherwise spying on the communication between citizens. edit: scratch that, it doesn't apply to laws that are required to save our democracy, which arguably applies here if they want to look for terrorists.
I remember when our current minister for defense was minister of the interior and some data storage measures were demanded by several parties he said that it's not even be proven to help and shouldn't be implemented. At the moment he's criticized for wasting 300 million on a drone program he suppedly closed too late. :no: Not only a pitiful sum for a military program, he also inherited it and as such didn't even spend the entire 300 million AFAIK. But yeah, have to find some dirt on a good minister who was plucked into the wrong area anyway...
Oh and for the internet being new territory, I wholeheartedly agree. Internet hipsters may find it laughable because they've used the internet for 10 or 20 years and know how to write a blog and how to be arrogant about it but it's essentially true. Not only do humans and societies take much longer than 20 years to truly grasp and incorporate a new technology, you can also look at the amount of fraud, naivety on the internet, zombie networks and what that clearly show that very large parts of humanity are nowhere near a level of expertise regarding the internet as they ideally should be. And then you can't educate everyone to become an IT security expert either while the IT security experts all seem to fight uphill battles against the criminals. Not to forget the security failures of Sony and others who got hacked despite having a lot of "experts" around. So yeah, like it or not, but the internet is very new territory for humanity.
And as such I also like this leak because we can now have this debate in the first place.
I really fail to see how this is such a big deal.
It is literally the least shocking thing in a history of overblown things. It should come as no surprise that governments around the world, who have the means, are tracking the biggest communication medium in the history of time. As per usual the law of the land hasn't fully caught up yet so the government exploits various loopholes and grey areas.
I don't particularity what they are doing but such is the nature of power, I suppose.
I will get a hearty laugh when a terrorist attacks are starbucks or the Chinese begin to rapidly overtake us. The same people howling now will be the same people howling then.
The real story here is the naked populism
And for the record, Snowden is neither a hero nor a traitor. He's delusional.
...How is he delusional again?
Thinking he stumbled upon something. Is it really surprising to anyone that states and governments are tracking vast amounts of communications and transactions? Large swathes of law from time immemorial are dedicated to stop them from doing this. The law, unfortunately moves fairly slow. I see populism masked by feigned indignation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
He didn't "stumble on something", at least not by his own account. He sat on the info and mulled his options for quite a while, then reached the decision to go public. I still fail to see how that labels him delusional. Secondly as to whether or not this news is in fact, surprising and newsworthy: IMHO the answer is yes. Not because some shady government wiretapping is going on, but because of how much is going on; additionally he has disclosed quite a few specifics which most definitely were not public knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
So it passes the acid test for news on a few fronts. First of all information which was previously something of a open secret among insiders under NDA is now public knowledge. Secondly this information is of public interest, to the US public because of implications regarding their civil liberties (which they seem to have been content to ignore wholesale, but that's for the US public to decide itself) and to the wider world (being on the "receiving" end of the programme). The alleged hacking into Chinese university computers and telcos by the NSA, the breach of quite a number of international treaties and protocol, the criteria for targeting subjects, etc. are definitely of public interest on the receiving side. And finally there's a few debates to be had about the role and scope of the power of government, as per usual, this tendency towards surveillance states. For example: any moral objection to the PATRIOT act was suddenly validated as practical concern grounded in reality. Or as the Daily Show put it: Good News: You're Not Paranoid, which should give some clue as to how this alters the debate. This is not limited to the USA, but then again the USA is not exempt either.
So tell me again why such "news" is not worthy of publication?
The difference is between hypothesis and proof.
One is for consipracy theorists the other for indignant voters.
There is a lot of information. It stands to reason that there would be fingers in the pie. He is deluded because he thinks he's some sort of martyr for freedom. He was a low level cog whom got his hands on some low level bullet points and it's blowing up because people are being told that they are being "watched"Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
It's certainly more newsworthy than the average story that's churned out, don't be so melodramtic.Quote:
So it passes the acid test for news on a few fronts. First of all information which was previously something of a open secret among insiders under NDA is now public knowledge. Secondly this information is of public interest, to the US public because of implications regarding their civil liberties (which they seem to have been content to ignore wholesale, but that's for the US public to decide itself) and to the wider world (being on the "receiving" end of the programme). The alleged hacking into Chinese university computers and telcos by the NSA, the breach of quite a number of international treaties and protocol, the criteria for targeting subjects, etc. are definitely of public interest on the receiving side. And finally there's a few debates to be had about the role and scope of the power of government, as per usual, this tendency towards surveillance states. For example: any moral objection to the PATRIOT act was suddenly validated as practical concern grounded in reality. Or as the Daily Show put it: Good News: You're Not Paranoid, which should give some clue as to how this alters the debate. This is not limited to the USA, but then again the USA is not exempt either.
So tell me again why such "news" is not worthy of publication?
It's well established that other western countries have similar programs and it's well established that the Chinese hack out computers. Turnabout is fairplay.
Please point to where I was "cool" with this.
This is the nature of states, This is the nature of power. This is the response to an asymmetric threat that we clamored for.
Please define "enlightened political self interest" I will accept "bullshit I heard on the radio"
And where does he say he thinks that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
To be fair I am pretty sure Sasaki made a post somewhere mocking how he portrays the CIA down the road getting prep'd Jason Borne style.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades