Snowden dodges US agents in Moscow, skips out on flight NSA leaker Edward Snowen's seat on the flight he booked from Moscow to Havana was empty on Monday, but if the throng of reporters who gathered at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport to interview Snowden had done their research, they would have realized he was never likely to board the plane. The flight Snowden booked …
Ahh, the hypocrisy. The US chooses "not to live by the standards of the law" by illegally snooping on its citizens without warrant and with just a secret court's rubber stamp, but other countries better do...
Do as the US says, not as the US does.
Turning the US into a police state will be the lasting legacy of the Obama administration, unless they stop this illegal snooping now.
A snowball has better odds of surviving Jenna Jameson's silicone cleavage that the US doing away with their spying. With enough noise from the media PRISM and it's like will just be broken up, renamed and continue. There's just too much money to be had by the president, congress and the IT suppliers.
You misunderstand. What the NSA does is not illegal. It is aainst the spirit of the constitution and the concept of freedom but it is not sgsinst the law.
This is what happens when you let lawyers run a country. They are a group for whom the highest art form is the ability to find loopholes and twist words to suit their desires.
For most of us, the law is a codification of basic principles of human decency. For politicians, the law is.a straightjacket that prevents them from behaving the way they truly wish.
No I think a lot of what they are doing is illegal. But as soon as there is any danger of anyone getting in trouble they get a "get out of jail free card" like all the telcos that got immunity when people started lining up to sue them.
Any "Problems" that come up will be fixed retroactively so no need to worry about stuff like laws or rules.
What the NSA does is not illegal. It is aainst the spirit of the constitution
Um....no. It's illegal and against both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. I'm fairly certain that the existence of a secret court goes against the Constitution to, but I'm not completely confident on that one.
They're not finding loopholes, they're just ignoring it completely.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Not Illegal?
GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.
Enough of this nonsense. The laws under which the NSA collects communication data were passed by majorities in the elected Senate and House of Representatives, signed by elected Presidents (at least two of them), and the operational procedures were reviewed and approved by the Attorney General who was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and by a court consisting of Federal judges nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They are the law in any part of the United States where a federal judge has not found them unconstitutional.
So the NSA's actions are lawful. They may or may not be effective for their stated purpose (I suspect that they are not); they may or may not be constitutional (I believe they are not); and NSA operations may or may not be compliant with the laws and regulations. On the last, I have no opinion, and as far as I am aware the material Edward Snowden released has not been evaluated for that competent attorneys. Since the releases were selective and surely incomplete, that might be pointless.
For now, it would be better if everyone stopped repeating untruths as if doing so somehow would make them true.
"Enough of this nonsense. The laws under which the NSA collects communication data were passed by majorities in the elected Senate and House of Representatives, signed by elected Presidents (at least two of them), and the operational procedures were reviewed and approved by the Attorney General who was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and by a court consisting of Federal judges nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They are the law in any part of the United States where a federal judge has not found them unconstitutional."
Bull Pucky. No law can be made in opposition to the US Constitution without the express permission of all of the individual states. Period. Such is the rule of the highest law upon which the USA was founded.
Furthermore, any member of the Executive or Legislative branches that voted/signed to approve "laws" in violation of the Constitution have thus also violated their oaths to uphold said Constitution.
When you talk about how it's an elected Senate and House Of Representatives signed by elected presidents and so on, who could the electorate have voted into power who would have resisted this legislation? Because of everyone in all the parties that the electorate could vote for stands in favour of it, then it's not really relevant whether or not they are elected is it? Voters had no choice at all.
But they have a warrant: It says to hand over anything and everything. That makes it legal. The place is described (everywhere) and things specified (all of it).
It's obviously violating the spirit of the constitution, but that isn't important. The law isn't about spirit, and it's barely about intent. It's about what the words actually say.
They can make it "legal" (if it isn't already) and they can fool the (supine) American voters with the usual Four Horsemen but they can't undo the damage internationally.
Of course anyone who thought about it knew the NSA were tracking everything entering and leaving the US but we didn't think about it. Nor did we realise that they were looking at corporate data from the inside.
But now we are thinking about it. The backlash has begun: companies and individuals are switching from US IT and cloud providers to ones in their own country, or personal clouds, or third countries with less sophisticated spying capabilities. The EU will be forced to terminate the discussions on companies being allowed to store personal data in the US without telling their customers. Encryption is becoming more routine (and less suspicious) -- how many downloads of Https-Everywhere have happened since Snowden?
People are thinking and caring more about what data is stored and transferred, by whom, and where.
Sorry, but this doesn't stand in isolation. The process is essentially legal until it is found to violate the constitution by the courts. The SCOTUS does not grant advisory rulings, so this would have to go to trial and make its way all the way up the chain for there to be a change in its legality. Both the other branches of the US government have signed off on this, so that means it is within the bounds of law, including constitutional law, until found to be otherwise. It is a process (I know that sounds trite, sorry).
I cannot imagine this issue will not be challenged in court, multiple times, so we should get to find out if it is in fact legal. We should also continue see the political ramifications play out. These are, however, mostly separate issues.
"You misunderstand. What the NSA does is not illegal. It is aainst the spirit of the constitution and the concept of freedom but it is not sgsinst the law."
Oh, it's illegal. The NSA took some of their legal arguments they came up with to expand their data collection to the FISA court several years back, *and the FISA court turned it down*. They went ahead and followed this legal fiction anyway. It's also unconstitutional, as it stands there is not any accountability for how this system is used. The big problem is this system was built without consultation, and operated outside of any sort of oversite now that even FISA did not approve of their behavior.
I'm glad Snowden got this information out, but really even his being able to get this much information packed away indicates to me the NSA is probably not compartmentalising stuff the way they should be either.
"What the NSA does is not illegal."
I think you what you probably mean (or at least, would mean if you knew) that what the NSA does is not illegal unless caught and any evidence involved can't somehow be demeaned in the courts' version of distant, bureaucratic terms. That's a different concept of legality to the standard one, especially when coming from the authorities, the same institution in vague terms as who, to extents, controls the law.
There are two meanings of this - that something is "not illegal" because one is not caught at it. And I guess that both are relevant here, the authorities likely at times at least to be involved in the first and attempting to place it in the context of the second.
The first is simply that something is not portrayed as illegal because it has not been communicated about, acknowledged for what it ought to be, or reprimanded. These kind of terms are weak actually, as this kind of "not illegal" is as good a disturbed strangler's opinion that he is not on the wrong side of the law because it has not told him that. It doesn't need to be said that this type of "not illegal" is only utterly a misnomer.
The second type of "not illegal" also finds itself based by those who live under its auspices around the idea that one is not on the wrong side of the law because, it can be alleged one can only reasonably conclude one must be told by the law this. It may involved perceiving there are grey areas in the law. It may involve perceiving that parts of the law either have not been interpreted properly yet to clearly mean one thing or the other. Or that one's own interpretation, in the circumstances (always considering the importance of a particular aim) can have to be the right interpretation. Always in the circumstances, placing their context or the aim higher that any other considerations.
While there can be times when type two "not illegal" might be fair enough (maybe), and also those operating within its assumed "shelter" will suggest that one does not know anyway unless one goes to court, of course many involved persons know that they are only using the idea, and more falsely than in true terms.
As mentioned at the top, of course type 1 may often be pretended to somehow have been conceived to have been within type 2 "non illegality".
To answer Nicho, I think there are times when spying, invading privacy and so on are not against the law, you're right. Though is it not the case that this is more the exception than the rule? I think privacy laws and, actually, everyday laws favouring the sovereignty of the citizen can not be flouted generally, as a rule, otherwise it seems they are not really law, but wish and ideal.
The NSA/CIA/FBI are not snooping on US citizens without respective relevant court order etc, they are getting GCHQ to do it for them, likewise the NSA is snooping on UK citizens for GCHQ.
Neither are breaking their own regulations, neither is breaking their contractual agreements to share 'intelligence'.
What they are doing is immoral, but not illegal.
I don't think you're giving enough credit to the big dick Cheney, but President Obama clearly failed to undo the damage he inherited. In short, the shock of 9/11 had already been used to drive the government to new depths of secrecy and the Constitution had been more undermined than ever before and Obama failed to undo the damage or reverse the trend. I think the historians' question will be whether or not Obama even slowed it down a bit.
My current view on this is that Cheney and Rumsfeld won by basically playing clever bureaucratic poker. It's relatively easy to redirect the government a little bit through your political appointees, but the problem is that your political appointees leave office when you do. The innovation was to use those political appointees to target the career civil service. In theory, the civil service is supposed to be hired on the basis of competence with a focus on doing whatever they are told to do, but Cheney made it a high priority to change the retention and hiring processes. The existing civil servants were actively harassed and encouraged to quit, and the hiring process was "adjusted" so that the post-Cheney government was strongly tilted in a new direction.
What incentive would Obama have to do anything but expand the surveillance powers the previous administration gave him? He inherits a lot of power(all that really matters once you get the office) and doesn't have to spend any political capital. He has the added bonus of an American public that is half asleep and half retarded, so he could do anything and still be remembered as the greatest president of our time. It is why laws never get repealed and we can only expect the next president to be even worse, regardless of party or ideology.
You are woefully mistaken if you think stuff like this is solely Obama's fault, plenty of it is but if you think electing the other lot will help, it won't. The comments above re lawyers are entirely correct. There is an entire civil and military service behind each administration that by and large doesn't change with each new potus. Whilst the repubs love to act as champions of the constitution they are no better or worse than them dems.
By all means hate Obama, but don't be fooled into thinking you'll get anything but more of the same elsewhere. The current fad of blaming him for stuff like the IRS (what they did was wrong and they deserve jail for it) is counter productive. Put aside prejudice for a second, the repubs said they would cut irs funding. Do you honestly think Obama needed to say anything to the irs? Go after the real crimes.
"Turning the US into a police state will be the lasting legacy of the Obama administration"
Most of this stuff was started by George Bush, actually. Reagan did some underhand stuff but you could not accuse him of wanting to spy on his own people.
Agree, however, that despite being a supposed lawyer, Obama acts like a Mafia Boss.
Might have happened already if the US government bureaucrats weren't incompetent and would have revoked his passport sooner or even more important put him on interpol lists. Not really taking a side in all this but the US government reaction to this has been very strange if this guy really was a big threat as they are making him out to be.
"Not really taking a side in all this but the US government reaction to this has been very strange if this guy really was a big threat as they are making him out to be."
I don't find it that strange at all. When a bureaucracy reaches a certain size, it becomes almost impossible for that bureaucracy to act with alacrity no matter how much it may want to. Bureaucracies are cumbersome beasts, and it takes them a while to get their collective arses in gear.
Even when they're really pissed off.
Very strange? Not really, if you consider that the bureaucrats who pushed it ahead in a spirit of being beyond moral or legal judgment wound up handing a hot potato to all those equally unprincipled politicians. The result is a predictable outcome when no politician or bureaucrat wants to be the last one holding the potato. It's now an avoidance game and has no more to do with being right, effective, moral or legal than building that data-amassing digital spider web did in the first place.
Have you noticed that in the U.S., at least, criticism of the NSA's actions already centers on their getting caught at it or on their failure to prevent some dangerously principled contractor's employee from telling the truth about them? Even the reg calls Snowden a leaker, not a whistle-blower.
If you believe the desperately patriotic posturing of those in power, or their twisted legalistic justifications ("Congress passed the law, go talk to them"), you probably believe the Pentagon's little fables about wanting to win wars, too. Unfortunately, the closer I look at any of this the more it seems like it's really about piping money to various favored contractors, building influence and avoiding responsibility. That's all.
So Snowden's a leaker and a runner, not a whistle-blower. And yet everything he has said in the course of taking the huge risks he took indicates he acted, rightly or wrongly, out of principle. Funny this key question of motive has escaped the notice of everyone in authority and even many who are sympathetic to him.
I keep coming up against jaw-dropping hypocrisy. I mean really -- 'US secretary of state John Kerry wagged his finger at Russia, saying it would be "deeply troubling" if Russia had advance notice of Snowden's arrival and chose "not to live by the standards of the law."' Good gawd. It beggars credulity.
So Snowden was principled? Never fear, by the time they're done spinning his character in every direction but the inconvenient truth, we'll all believe he eats babies and sells their skins for soft ladies' gloves, to borrow a riff from Swift. Then all the bureaucrats and politicians will go back to the money pipeline business as usual.
Sad but true. Non-techies just don't seem to give a damn about what the NSA and GCHQ were up to between them. It also doesn't explain why the national newspapers (less the Guardian) aren't bothering to follow up the PRISM story and not concentrating on Snowden..
No, because any judge with an ounce of sanity would, as in earlier cases, agree that what you can freely read about on the Internet in publications from countries like Canada cannot be subject to such an order. The last one I remember was when the government tried to D-notice the name of an army officer, and it was in all of the US papers, thus making them look ridiculous. And that's without Spycatcher.
People don't give a damn because most people have no concept of cause and effect. They cannot draw the path from "Government reading your emails" to "official takes a dislike to you and trawls through for anything they could use to upset you".
The authorities can, however. How do you feel the average Council official feels about being able to get the goods on those annoying members of the public?
I would describe myself as a techie and frankly, I don't give a damn about what the NSA and GCHQ were up to. For me, the real question is, knowing what the NSA and GCHQ were set up for, i.e. to monitor communications in order to intercept information on potential threats both eyternal and internal (at least, this is what I have always thought they were meant to be doing), why is anybody surprised that they are in fact doing it? What did people think they were doing?
I've always assumed that any form of communication I have used is subject to monitoring. I have also assumed that, given the volume of traffic that has to be monitored, any such monitoring cannot be very efficient without either enormous resources or some way of homing in on the rogue elements (which is where MI5, SIS, CIA, FBI etc come in).
Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm naive to think this is technically possible (although I would argue that as time passes it is increasingly possible to monitor all communication), but should I really be shocked that agencies set up to monitor potential threats might have to monitor everybody in order to find those threats?
"Even the reg calls Snowden a leaker, not a whistle-blower."
Was pondering this myself. Is he a tout, a leaker, a whistle-blower, or a witness?
They all broadly mean much the same, yet the perceived needle goes from "dirty and unacceptable" to "valued and essential" as you move from left to right.
Why the majority of the media seems to push the needle over to the left of this scale without questioning if the right of it is the proper place is disappointing.
He did. That's why he was in Hong Kong, which is technically part of China, a country that would not respect an extradition request from the US (anything from the US would be considered politically motivated to China: grounds for a refusal). Snowden's big fear instead is extraordinary rendition: the CIA simply plucking him out of wherever he's hiding, laws be damned. That's another reason he's in Chinese territory and working through countries like Russia: attempting to perform extraordinary rendition in either country is likely to open a huge can of political worms.
If a US citizen doesn't have a valid US passport, that would make it very difficult for them to get back into the US from a foreign visit. However, it would not stop them entering a foreign country if the government of that country was sure of their identity and was willing to let them enter.
I've come back into the States twice without my passport. There's an affidavit you sign stating your identity and where you have been since you left the country. They validate your info, rummage through your bags, say 'tut-tut don't do this again' and send you on your way; took less than an hour both times. It is illegal for them to deny a US Citizen entry into the country.
I think Bush launched the US down this disastrous path. Whatever, US officials now seem very hazy about the rule of law etc. Consider the demand to Hong Kong that they deny Snowden his right to an extradition hearing "to uphold the rule of law" - law presumably meaning White House diktat.
The NSA has much, much bigger problems than Snowden, and that's why they want him so badly.
All those files that he's leaking just didn't fall into his lap, They've even admitted that he didn't have the authority/clearance to access them.
So, IMO, somebody higher up has misgivings about the types of things the NSA has been up to, but is working to take down the NSA from the inside, rather than fight it from the outside.
Whether it's one well placed individual, or a cadre of like minded employees fudging a clearance here, covering a leak there, so that someone like Snowden could pull the coupe he did, who knows? And the NSA is dying to find out.
That's why they're so keen on getting him. Names, leads, anything he knows that could expose the source.
Whether they get Snowden or not, there's a good chance the events, or even suspicions of events is going to cause the NSA to implode, and the big guys at the top need something, anything to cover their asses when it does. and right now Snowden is their best key.
....historical note: Admiral Canaris.
He worked from inside to bring down the Nazi regime and was only found out after the failed assassination attempt in July 1944. Given the US still is a much less totalitarian society than was Nazi Germany, it's reasonable to assume that they have a fair number of similar characters.
The US talks about upholding the rule of law?
UN Convention Against Torture: Article 2
Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
Yes yes everybody knows. We get two shitty choices come election time and even when we don't vote for the whiter than white corporate shill this all goes down. Perhaps we should be doing what the Brazilians are doing but for me with it 45 Celsius outside where I am right now the protests better be at night. Ok just kidding but Animal Farm did a good job of showing how most revolutions turn out.
That's not realistic. Each State determines its own rules for who can be on a ballot; they make it nearly impossible for 'off-brand' candidates to meet the requirements. Hell, some of the major establishment players couldn't get on the primary ballots in some States for the last election. In the State where I vote, there was only one (1) third party candidate on the entire ballot!
For a Presidential election there is almost zero chance of a third party candidate ever winning. Even if they won the popular election the Electoral College would not vote for a third party candidate and the Electoral College is all that matters in those races. It is all screwed up.
The electoral college is not a problem to third party victory. The electors from each state are basically the most loyal members/supporters of the winning candidate in that state. Really, what you are voting for when you vote for a President are that candidates slate of hyper-partisan supporters for your state, or in rare instances for your congressional district.
So it is extremely rare that electors vote against their candidate in the actual electoral college.
Bollocks, whilst the chips have been stacked over the last 100 years against 3rd party candidates it is not impossible but America, like most modern democratic societies these days, lack the desire or will to overturn the status quo by forcing the issue.
Everywhere you look there is division, purposefully created by manipulation of the media, (and no not by some conspiracy theorist cabal of people manipulating the media in a coordinated fashion but by by the very nature of information overload at every media source), that ensures a united focus on 3rd party candidates could never be achieved.
NB: That is not to say that the media are the sole contributors to divided opinion but they certainly do exacerbate the issue...
That division of popular opinion is the sole reason the two party system will continue to lead the day
Third party movements in the U. S. historically have tended to fail because psychologically, most people know their party preference before they are 6, and that is difficult for a new party to disrupt. Further, any time a third party gets significant voter recognition. its platform begins to be diced up and adopted piecemeal by the two dominant parties. Single member districts also play a role: third parties may win some districts on local issues, but extending that geographically is difficult. It is worth noting, also, that the meaning of "Republican" and "Democrat" mean vastly different things across the country, so the national parties are mainly coalitions of state parties of the same name but often dissimilar beliefs.
And, of course, the current two dominant parties have written preferential treatment for themselves into the election laws.
US secretary of state John Kerry wagged his finger at Russia, saying it would be "deeply troubling" if Russia had advance notice of Snowden's arrival and chose "not to live by the standards of the law."
Is that U.S. law or an international law?
In an interview with CBS's Face the Nation program on the matter on Sunday, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Diane Feinstein (D-CA) told reporters, "The chase is on."
For the politicians it's all a game.
That countries like the US and the UK can snoop so broadly and so secretly and call it "lawful" when they make the laws themselves.
Its akin to giving a thief the keys to a bank and saying please look after it.
This guy is a bloody hero for exposing what a lot of people knew but could not prove was happening, read the "Puzzle Palace" by James Banford for one and the "Shadow Factory" to understand it has been going on for a very long time all under the guise of "lawful".
MInor problem in UK side - UK does not quite make the laws. It has to comply with EU directives and some of the snooping programme has snooped on internal Eu-Eu links which are subject to Eu regulations.
Eu wheels do not turn fast. However, once they get rolling in a particular direction they are nearly impossible to stop as Microsoft and many others can testify - they bribed their way out of multiple US trials and failed to do that in Europe. I would not expect Germany and other key Eu players to sit a take a slap on the face of that size and smile. There will be paybacks and repercussions and it will get very very ugly for UK business in general as a result.
US business will be on the receiving side too. We can start from the Eu/US customs union currently under negotiations. I suspect that is now totally dead in the water. I just do not see someone like Germany or the Scandinavian countries putting their sig on it under the circumstances. So the snooping program (I am not going to say Snowden as that would have gone out sooner or later) is quite likely the US (and UK as the main treatie driver) north of 10s (if not 100s) of billions annually in lost trade over the next decade.
Yes - the response of the EU and our (NATO and other) "allies" is going to be a treat to watch. I'm expecting any country with a west coast on the Atlantic to be getting a lot of new business building and operating trans-Atlantic comms cables (I have always thought it odd that the UK was allowed to have the lion's share of that business in light of the well-documented WW1 interception of German traffic).
This is likely to be good, long, popcorn-eating session.
If the US have been acting legally and have nothing to hide, why all the fuss? After all, as they are so fond of telling everyone, if you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide.
What's "deeply troubling" is the fact that, as usual, the US expects everyone to jump and do their bidding - even Russia and China. I'm quite sure if they had issued valid and legal arrest warrants to Russia or China - that's valid and legal according to those countries respective laws - they would have detained Snowden.
Throwing your toys out of the pram and yelling what a bad boy he's been isn't sufficient to prevent the lawful transit of anyone in most countries - no matter what muppets like John Kerry think.
"If the US have been acting legally and have nothing to hide, why all the fuss? After all, as they are so fond of telling everyone, if you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide."
Well, one BIG justification is, to use poker parlance, "telling" the enemy (the terrorist). It's hard to fool or bluuf your opponent when they can see your cards. That's the main reason for black and secret projects: knowledge of its very existence gives the game away. Let's use a historic example: the Manhattan Project was black until at least the Trinity Test. Would the Germans, Japanese, Soviets, etc. have strategized differently if they knew America was actively developing an atomic bomb? Probably. Will rogue agents alter their communications strategies if they suspect America has a massive data store and is working on a quantum computer to crack historic encrypted data? I would think so.
Growing up in the Shadow of Fort G. Mead md, and with something like 1:5 People with-in that region actually working for the NSA. It was like an open secret. Everyone knew it and just went on.
Really the only One(s), I can see harmed outta this are MicroSoft. and their new FailBOX.
No it wasn't bad enough that they wanted to bust your nutz on used Games. Which to their credit did latter (i.e. were forced to), retract. Sadly no word was given about the always on and always snooping Kinect though....
As if their Used Policy wasn't enough to keep me away, you can be as sure as sh!t the Kinect(ed) Prism FailBOX WILL be enough to keep me away!
So I wonder if the US Government would try to add financial terrorism to his rap sheet as well?
Oh hey Schumer is showing up:
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democratic leader, warned that Russia could face serious consequences if it harbored Snowden. If Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered him asylum, it could impact negotiations to reduce nuclear arsenals, Schumer said.
Considering that Putin was not that excited about the new arms control initiative. Reducing maximum warheads from 1500 to 1000 is not all that impressive considering that both sides used to be up around 10000+ warheads. Plus Putin wants to have enough warheads to swamp any nascent U.S. missle defenses in case something should ever happen.
"I do think that when history looks at this, they are going to contrast the behavior of James Clapper, our national intelligence director, with Edward Snowden. Mr. Clapper lied in Congress, in defiance of the law, in the name of security. Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy. So I think there will be a judgment, because both of them broke the law."
[Sen. Rand Paul]
How come 'They' didn't see what Mr Snowdon was up to?
FAIL.
It's (well past) time to crank up the surveillance WITHIN the NSA et al. Amusingly, that's exactly what they must and will now do. They're going to get themselves wrapped around the axle over the next year or two. How do you run the world's largest IT project when all the (other) sys admins have had their privileges curtailed. It'd be popcorn-and-chair material except they won't let us watch.
Anon - not that it matters. Hi guys!!
There's public backlash against government spying and all I hear politicians saying is how hard they're working to punish the whistleblower. Diane Feinstein's buddy Nancy Pelosi keeps saying that it's all about the economy. How much money does all that illegal spying cost? I'm guessing it's enough money to give every US citizen fast Internet, cleaner energy, and a good education.
Does he represent the true every-man? Assange is too much the wannabee pop-star, and Manning, too anonymous an unknown-soldier. But Snowden is the tech for every Reg reader. We can relate to his situation... We can ask ourselves what would we have done in the same circumstances....
I know what I did in his situation...I blew the fucking whistle and paid the price.
But I'd do it again, though it nearly cost me my sanity.
PHORM.
If you hear anyone saying that this guy is a traitor, I encourage you to encourage them to imagine for a split second the courage it takes to take a stance like this against the NS fucking A and have the entire US government nipping at your heels, forcing you to leave everything you know behind for an uncertain future.
Mr Snowden, I salute you..you are not completely alone.
Some have commented that there's nothing new here. That this type of snooping has been going on for decades, with the NSA vacuuming up our data. Not so! What's different this time is how personal the information is. All exchanges of intimacy, all ideas and correspondence, from sharing of interests and hobbies to intimate correspondence betweens lovers, friends, colleagues, and family. All of this is being sucked up indiscriminately and being fed to the intelligence monster... So it is different this time....
Why so? Because Its data that we hold dear. Data that we attach a personal value to. Data that has emotional value. You can't say that was always the case. Previously the raw data simply wasn't there to capture, not in raw format and not in such vast quantities. It had to be assimilated from old-school methods: wiretaps, cameras and real-world surveillance etc.
To those who feel satisfied that they won't be caught in the net, I say this. With online accounts hosted all over the world and high levels of people-movement through work and travel, isolating US versus non-US accounts will be impossible to guarantee, thanks to the 5-eyes exchanging data: US, UK, Can, Auz, NZ.
The problem is that there is an implicit assumption that 5-Eyes intelligence will be used for good and not evil i.e. solely to capture terrorists. But what do we mean by terrorist? One man's definition can quickly morph from 'terrorist' to 'traitor' to just 'target'. How magnificently laws are amended in 'Animal Farm'!
Two examples from history where intelligence was abused. A. The IRA hit on the RUC with collusion in the "widest sense of the word" being investigated by the Smithwick Tribunal. B. The illegal methods used to track the whereabouts of a US senator's plane in the early days of the Patriot Act.
Should there be more US 'traitors', you can be bet your life that Prism will be used to hunt down the offender using extreme prejudice! But what if that traitor is in fact a whistleblower, divulging abuses by our elected officials, such as the Pentagon Papers bringing the Vietnam War to a close? ... What then?
What we value the most is our Freedom. We know what its like to live in truly totalitarian regimes. But the 5-Eyes intelligence agencies may use our data is ways we'd never expect and that won't be caught by the safeguards. So what's our privacy going to be like in 20 years? Will all the spying be worth it?
Statistically, what is the greatest risk to you or me? Is it a theoretical terrorist or a crazy man or gang-banger with a gun in a major US city today? The problem is there's very little self-examination in the 5-Eyes countries. There's little internal questioning begging answers to questions such as: is there anything we are doing overseas regarding foreign policy that exacerbates hatred against our great nation? If we drone women and children by accident or deliberately in order to get high value targets, what could happen? Will some of the surviving families grow up seeking revenge? I recall Bush railing against the use of abortion, but he had little remorse for dead babies from his two wars in the middle east...
The US is still the number one county, barely. It doesn't have the resources anymore to be the world's policeman. Hence-why its new foreign policy has quietly shifted away from the middle east and towards Asia. The aims of its intelligence program are a cruel joke considering its borders are so porous. I have no doubt that terrorists could land in the Americas and work their way up through Mexico or by sea into Miami. So what is this really about? The US refuses to beef up its own borders, but claims its all about National Security... It doesn't make any sense. If you don't properly secure your own borders, how can you claim that all of this Prism info-grabbing is in the name of bolstering security.... ?
Putin doesn't drink. Complete teetotaler.
One of the advantages of past Russian and Soviet leaders was that they perfectly fit the stereotype of the vodka fueled strongman. Putin is all the more dangerous because he doesn't drink and all his decisions are made after clear headed contemplation and calculation. He doesn't make brash alcohomotional decisions which makes him scary and his shirtless crossbow wielding photo ops even stranger.
"Putin is all the more dangerous because he doesn't drink and all his decisions are made after clear headed contemplation and calculation"
When you've got your finger on 1000 nukes, I don't think being sober makes you all the more dangerous. It may be irritating to Western governments to have someone in the Kremlin who is essentially sane, competent and loyal to his own country, but it's better than the alternative.
A nice bit of double play from the wikileaks team. They seek him here, they seek him there....
I look forward to watching the film of this with the end credits stating Edward has been living freely and happily out of the reach of the United States of Hypocrisy for many many years. Good luck to him!
As i understand it, this is legal under the patriot act.
It's about time that was repealed and that politicians stopped using patriotic acronyms to target peoples patriotic sense of right and wrong to make grossly offensive laws palatable.
That and using terrorism to justify everything.
I commented about the size of my wife's shoe collection once. She primly responded that I owned several computers. When I attempted to justify why, she just smiled and said her shoes were all purpose specific too and sashayed away in her 'haha husband logic fail' shoes.
It is unclear just what "Rule of Law" John Kerry states that Russia is breaching. Is it US Law or Russian Law, since the UN Charter cannot override US, Russian, Uruguay or any other sovereign Law, he therefore cannot be quoting any UN regulations that do not apply or have any real affect on a country's constitution.
An international legal expert in Europe has told me just in last few days that declarations and quotes in US media are very misleading, and give the American people a false sense of just what authority and concrete influence their country really has abroad, other than military. These statements basically amount to (toothless) arrogant bravado from US officials.
The US constantly tries to give the impression to US citizens and others that US law applies all over the world. It is exactly analogous to the Roman Empire, which did exactly the same thing. No matter who you were, unless you were prepared to risk an early death at the hands of the Persians or the Germans, you were within reach of the power of Caesar.
If people start to get the idea that that is not the case, who knows what might happen?
It is incredibly easy to go to an airport and get on a plane without anyone knowing exactly where you went to. Let's say you buy a ticket to Cuba and have a friend buy a ticket to Finland. Both of you go to the airport, pick up your ticket/boarding pass and go through the security areas. In the lounge area you trade passes. Your friend then leaves the airport meanwhile you board the plane that the friend had purchased a ticket for.
They don't check IDs at the gate in most airports.
The thing called airport "security" is such a cluster f**k that Snowden's ability to not be where the US agents think he is akin to Bugs Bunny running rings around Elmer Fudd. Some people have claimed this drama is similar to the Enemy of the State movie. That only makes sense if the main protagonist is played by Jacques Clouseau.
"The United States has gone from a 'model of human rights' to 'an eavesdropper on personal privacy', the 'manipulator' of the centralised power over the international internet, and the mad 'invader' of other countries' networks." - Chinese newspaper article, quoted by the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23053915 Also described Snowden as "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask".
To the fellow posting about the supposed legality of the NSA's actions:
Dating back to the Magna Carta era, a fundamental tenet to any civilized society is the prohibition of military action on domestic soil. In U.S. jurisprudence, this sentiment was firmly grounded in the Posse Comitatus Act which until recently abolished had prohibited NSA surveillance on U.S. soil without a FISA court order. The Patriot Act purports to skirt these fundamental protections despite the clear and prevailing Constitutional standard that requires a clear line of demarcation between DoD and domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.
What the FBI and NSA are doing is dead wrong and completely illegal, rampant abuses of power. Never mind the fact that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper point blank lied to the Congress which is completely illegal as well. He should be charged with contempt and thrown out of office.
How does the law work 'flightside'?
The comments from the Russian's about him not being on Russian soil etc, flightside must have laws, and I'm assuming they largely follow the laws of the country the airport is in and are policed and prosecuted by that country. I understand they have some grounds for not taking action (and a huge dose of spite, if the ruskies wanted him they would take him), just curious how the law works in airports.
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