US public hate Snowden - but sexpot spy Anna Chapman LOVES him The American public is turning against NSA leaker Edward Snowden, with increasing numbers of people now believing he was wrong to reveal details of secret US government surveillance, a survey has found. But you shouldn't feel too sad for the geeky whistleblower, because sexpot Russian spy Anna Chapman has said she would …
"Or is it just because he's hiding out with the Russkis?"
Not quite. It's not _just_ the Russkies. It's also that the Bolivians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, among others, are using him to produce Yet More anti-American propaganda. A _lot_ of people still recall that the current prez of Venezuela, for example, when still the veep, accused the CIA of 'infecting' the previous prez with the cancer which killed him, <http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/05/17196733-venezuela-vp-chavezs-cancer-was-an-attack-by-his-enemies?lite> and that the previous prez accused the USN of generating earthquakes in Haiti. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9QtZkT8OBQ> The current prez of Nicaragua hasn't said anything quite that over the top, but he's been saying a lot of stuff for a long time. Ditto the Bolivians. The Great American Public looks at that, and figures that if _they_ are supporting Snowden, then he's a very bad boy.
In addition, past whistleblowers, such as Daniel Ellsberg and even Bradley Manning, ran their mouths... and stayed to face the music. Snowden ran his mouth and bugged out for China, and then Russia. This makes him look bad.
And, one last thing: a lot of the public, including a large subset of those who think that he was correct to disclose PRISM _and_ to bug out, think that he's an idiot for not taking proper evasive action _prior_ to running his mouth. It's not just the right wing which has problems with him.
In addition, past whistleblowers, such as Daniel Ellsberg and even Bradley Manning, ran their mouths... and stayed to face the music. Snowden ran his mouth and bugged out for China, and then Russia. This makes him look bad.
Yes, and even back then it was not sad at all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Trial_and_mistrial
I would not call the shit coming down on people nowadays "facing the music". Military detention, torture, "accidents" and whatnot? I can quite understand that one does not want to stay in GermanyUSA and may want to ask for some hospitality in countries that are not exactly beacons of liberalism but at least have the courage to show the US some inverse V sign.
@James O'Shea.
I guess the 'average' American hasn't asked why these other countries are spouting all this stuff about them? Could it be something to do with the constant American interference in their countries? Could it be to do with the Americans supporting 'rebel' groups etc.? Could it be to do with the Americans supporting death squads?
When they start asking these questions and getting the right answers, perhaps the 'average' American will start to understand why so many people hate them......
Errmm... the Nicaraguans and the Bolivians _were_ the 'rebel' groups. In the case of Nicaragua, the boys currently in charge had been the 'rebel groups' for 50-60 years, and they most definitely did NOT have American support. Indeed, the USMC invented dive bombing in Nicaragua while carrying out operations agains the present lots' grandfathers. Somewhat later there were the anti-rebel rebels, the Contras, in Nicaragua, and twits like the assorted anti-Castro idiots, but even the CIA was (mostly) smart enough to stay out of direct involvement. (Indirect involvement, now that's a different story.)
The fact still remains, and will remain no matter how many downvotes I get, that the Great American Public has a look at who Snowden's friends are, and draw conclusions from that. This is the heart of his problem: the only people who are willing to help him are so willing not because of what he did, but because they feel that this is a good way to annoy the US. And, frankly, anyone who takes seriously the idea that the USN has an earthquake machine and that they tested it on _Haiti_ of all places is completely insane. If I've got a an earthquake machine and I want to test it, I'd go a little further up the Greater Antilles and light up Cuba. Or I'd go south and see what happens to Caracas. That the Venezuelans actually spewed that crap shows where they're coming from... and says all that need be said about those who support them ,and who they support.
And, frankly, none of your questions makes the least difference. it does not matter _why_ Venezuela, et al, hates the US. It merely matters that they do... and that they are well known to do so. And that it is blindingly obvious why they're supporting Snowden. And this reflects badly on Snownden, so far as the public is concerned.
Actually, most of the Central and South American countries have been directly or indirectly fucked upon by the CIA. Pinochet was indirectly supported by the CIA to take over the democratic government in Chile. The CIA helped a lot of tyrant dictatorships in the region, including the secret network they had to kill dissidents who managed to flee to non-tyrant countries. Then there's Nicaragua, El Salvador ... get the idea? The one country which has managed to avoid CIA-backed bloody dictatorships in the 20th Century has been Mexico... and even then, it wasn't because the US didn't try to. A certain General was called upon by er... US agents after the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, offering support in pulling off a coup against the government, seizing the opportunity as it had ordered a massacre against the civilian population. Said general declined the offer, as he thought it was worse to do that than to keep with the not-so-evil Mexican Government.
So yes, those governments are offering Snowden asylum as a 'fuck you' to the US ... but in this case, the US earned said disrespect.
>Not quite. It's not _just_ the Russkies.
To be honest, I felt bad for Snowden that he has had to seek asylum from the likes of these bozos.
But that's more an indictment of where the rest of our Western democracies are standing at, innit?
For all the pious bleating emanating from our shocked, shocked, governments, it would seem that they want to run their own intel gathering operations as well.
Myself, I think that some form of snooping is likely necessary to limit terrorism or make it less easy to pull off in the short term. We are democracies, so not everyone will agree, so put it on the political table. Myself, I would definitely like it to be:
- more transparent in what is being done in general, though not necessarily on the particulars of individual investigations. If that means some terrorist acts will not be averted in order that we know how we are being spied on, that's a risk I am willing to take with my life.
- requiring periodic extension and subject to sunset clauses (i.e. if the world is better in 10 yrs, snoops go away)
- only used in the context of terrorism - not tax evasion, drug dealings, pedos and whatever else - "normal" laws should be used for those crimes.
- last but not least, judicial warrants should be required for all actual access and analysis of recorded data. till then: sealed away. Combine warrants with limitation to terrorism only and I could live with it.
Snowden is a genuine hero for basically throwing away his life to allow to decide how much intrusion we are willing to put up with. And I totally don't buy the "now the terrs know about it we are in danger" crap. We were the only idiots left in the dark, the bad guys probably operated on the premise of compromised telecoms already. And even if they did not, and will now adapt, that's a risk I am OK with - the transparency tradeoff is worth it, to me.
James O'Shea:
" the current prez of Venezuela...accused the CIA of 'infecting' the previous prez"
"the previous prez accused the USN of generating earthquakes in Haiti."
Yeah, it's on the scale of presidents saying and believing Saddam was somehow behind 9/11....
"past whistleblowers, such as Daniel Ellsberg and even Bradley Manning ...stayed to face the music"
Stay with the facts! Bradley didn't "stay" as it was unknown he was the leak until someone else ratted him out. And Ellsberg himself explained recently that things have changed since his time and that the wisest thing to do in this day and age of empire, is to get the hell out in any similar situation.
I'm not so sure that it is primarily fickle and mostly stupid. I think to a considerable degree it is fear. The relentless propaganda about the threats to the American Way of Life, the belief that foreigners are trying to weaken the US and remove its "freedoms", and the lack of most of the social security nets we take for granted in Europe - these are all designed to make people fearful and believe that they need Big Brother to protect them. There's a book about it, I think.
People, to use the term loosely, are trying to do the same to us Brits, whether it's Melamine in the Dily Mile or the EDL. But we have a long tradition of disbelieving our Government that started roughly with, I think, the Newcastle Administration, and our organs of Government - SIS, the Met, the MOD, the Home Office, you name it - seem to put plenty of effort into ensuring we continue to do so.
By ensuring the average American knows of nothing outside of the USA, other than they are trying to destroy the USA, the fearful populace allow all this sort of thing. They are so scared of everyone else, they believe their government are wonderful, can do no wrong and aren't actually causing a lot of the problem themselves. I include most American politicians in the above as well.
Should the US populace ever understand anything about countries and politics beyond their borders (other than they're trying to kill us), this whole charade will end.
It comes to something when you begin thinking the anti-government rednecks and mountain boys are probably the more enlightened Americans and understand the situation better than the majority. At least they don't believe all the rubbish spouted and blindly support anything the USA does.
It is becoming that the US 'freedoms' are principally for corporations and the state to what whatever they like, and in particular keeping a eye on whatever the rabble^H population are up to. With so many vague and all-encompassing crimes around they can always find a troublemaker guilty of something.
I'm not so sure that it is primarily fickle and mostly stupid. I think to a considerable degree it is fear. The relentless propaganda about the threats to the American Way of Life, the belief that foreigners are trying to weaken the US and remove its "freedoms"
Which is where the stupid kicks in. Snowden effectively showed those people that it is thier own government who represents the greatest risk to their "American Way Of Life" by their unconstitutuional seizing of private citizens data for no other reason than "because we want to".
It is a direct violation of their constitutional rights. No ifs, no buts, it is illegal.
Yet, instead of being furious at their goverment for goosestepping down the road to totalitarianism they are angry at Snowden for opening their eyes to what is happening.
Morons the lot of them.
“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson
The American Way Of Life sucks rotting gorilla balls. Why the fuck would people want to actually defend a nation based on Animal Farm?
They were warnings, guys...not instruction manuals. America should give up trying to "defend it's way of life" and instead aspire to having a "way of life" as good as the many other nations that have since surpassed it.
Now the Snowden haters are in the ascendancy, with 43 percent of Americans saying they have an unfavourable view of the whistleblower, and 36 percent in favour.
I wonder how the survey went.
"Do you you love freedom, apple pie and the American dream and support those who protect it? Or do you hate democracy and want nothing more than this great country to be laid waste by suicide bombers and godless communists?"
""Do you you love freedom, apple pie and the American dream and support those who protect it? Or do you hate democracy and want nothing more than this great country to be laid waste by suicide bombers and godless communists?""
Excellent point.
Ask the "right" (or in some cases very right) question and you get the right answer.
I suspect it's actually very difficult to devise a question on a subject that actually has no effect on the choice of the respondent.
Thumbs up for the question, not the buffoons who seem to want liberty and security at the same time.
It's actually easy to set up:
q1: How do you feel about what Ed Snowden has done:
a1: No opinion
a2: I don't know who that is
a3: strongly negative
a4: strongly positive
a5: somewhat positive
a6: somewhat negative
Of course, that means the pollster cannot push whatever agenda they want to push, and might get actual answers.
"Now the Snowden haters are in the ascendancy, with 43 percent of Americans saying they have an unfavourable view of the whistleblower, and 36 percent in favour."
It's always the way. People want peace, love and harmony. They want libertarianism, open government and everyone to be open with each other. They only start to turn against people who give it to them when they see their children's ear, nose and throat scattered with the rest of their body parts over a couple of hundred metre area of central London.
What can I say, people are hypocrites. They eat Black pudding too, some of them.
"The people you are trying to enlighten are fickle and mostly stupid."
Of course you're now also assuming that these numbers are actually correct and that the right conclusions have been drawn.
It wouldn't be the first time that the government tries tactics like "divide and conquer" to try and bring someone into discredit.
Make people believe that "many people" don't agree with the hero and all of a sudden you'll have people disliking him/her. Not because they think that he did the wrong thing. But if so many people think bad of him then surely something must be afoul?
Too bad many people don't seem capable to look beyond the source of such information.
Anna Chapman is definitely not stupid. If he did marry her he would be able to do what the hell he liked and then Kremlin wouldn't do anything about it.
It is the obvious thing to do. (You can never truly know but it is fair to say she truly hates (In a way that people who are not driven never really do) both America and Britain.(Britain for getting rid of her British Passport)).
Russia is the safest place for him still.
It's a bit hard to enlighten when an article uses a suspect pollster:
"Is it worth it to point out yougov's political affiliations - for instance to the Murdoch press, and its directors who are conservative supporters? Wikidea 15:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)" --Talk Page, YouGov, Wikipedia.
The main page transparently promotes youGov's supposed 'accuracy' by selecting those predictions that are...accurate. Of course, it works for psychics, why not pollsters?
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I've been talking to all kinds of Americans old and young and most of them that have heard of Snowden are fully behind him. I find it's the older people that aren't on the internet that are the uninformed or misinformed. I was talking to a 76 year old barber and when I told him the extent of the NSA's spying he was shocked/surprised. So this poll is bullcrap at best or they are calling people that rely totally on network news.
I think that the main reason for this "mood swing" is that the general public has, as a whole, an attention span of about 3 seconds. Since the phrase "Snowden is a bad spy hiding in Moscow" is constantly repeated, it blanks out his message of "The Spooks are snooping on everyone."
Watch the film "Wag the Dog"; QED.
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Watch that "J/K."
In the US, that can get you 8 years in jail.
And that is why Snowden is quite right to run. There is a complete common-sense failure in the West.
When governments take great pains to defeat their own laws (PRISM, GITMO), why would you trust them to do the right thing? Indeed, why would the Iraqis or the Afgans or North Africans trust them? Even if governments are staying within the letter of the law, defeating the clear purpose of the law makes you untrustworthy.
When you dispense with morality and stick only to the law, there's no internal logic left in sticking to the law. There is only power and the quest for power.
Neitzsche would be proud.
A movement of 3 percentage points hardly qualifies as a "mood swing". To be fair, Yougov.com doesn't provide information on the accuracy of their poll. But based on some quick calculations for a sample size of 1000 in a country of 250000000 to 300000000 people, 3% easily falls within the confidence interval at 95% and 99%.
Nothing to see here; move along.
Who says the fine art of propoganda isn't alive and well. The Snowden narrative, in the U.S. anyway, has steadily shifted in the papers with a notable increase in negative commentary after the Bolivian airplane incident. The 'they hate our Freedom' crowd has been trotted out in the LA Times and the economic importance of surveillance talked by the Wall Street Journal. It is really sad to know that people are so easily controlled. If I were an evil man it would make me want to be a politician.
Reading the various guardian articles on Snowden/NSA ~ one of the very interesting features of this banned newspaper (IP blocked in US dot mil) is the comments page beneath each article. There are often around a thousand comments , with a significant minority of commentards being blatantly very recently created 'sock-puppet' propaganda warfare elements. Obviously The Guardian isn't banned on every US gov dot mil nets, as otherwise the cyber warfare attempts to shift public opinion wouldn't be happening.
As I can't be bothered to read USA today Online etc comments, I've no idea if the same psycho warfare is being aimed at US news outlets & readers. The SPAWAR sockpuppets are so easy to spot on CiF , that they're probably making the situation worse for themselves , which isn't what the ludicrously expensive 'ten plausible ids per workstation' are supposed to achieve! Maybe in the Land Of The Free the sockpuppet herd opinion changing does work more reliably, hence the changing opinion polls? There's certainly a lot for sociologists to study if The Guardian ever looks at the true IPs of all the recently created proNSA commenters.
I have serious doubts about polls claiming to accurately gauge what "Americans" think. It's a big and diverse country. If you canvass Washington, DC you will get one answer. Call people in Seattle, WA and you will likely get another. Approach people in San Francisco and you will wonder if you are still in the US or Fantasyland.
Everybody I know is happy that Snowden spilled the beans with a lot of "better him than me". My money is on a smear campaign organized by "The Man®" and all of his prime contractors.
The only way to combat the US government's intrusions is likely to be a grass roots effort to excommunicate people that work for the NSA and related agencies. I wonder how many people working at the new data center in Utah would quit or request a transfer if they were refused service at restaurants and shops. How about neighbors shunning them? Even more disconcerting would be for people to just blankly stare at them whenever they and their families are out in public. How about if their children couldn't make any friends at school and neighbor's children were told not to play with them. I would bet that filling staff positions and hiring services locally would get very difficult.
Seriously?? Talk about a population deeply entrenched in propaganda. I do seriously wonder whether so many fools are even worth fighting for anymore. I do feel for Snowden as possibly his worst nightmare, that is, his message falling upon on deaf ears, appears to be becoming reality.
Deeply troubling.
Not just his message falling on deaf ears, but him becoming the story rather than the intrusion of the NSA on the world's communications being the story. I get the impression that unlike Draco Malf^H^H^H^H Julian Assange, Snowden wasn't super keen to be the centre of attention, though I guess it makes him harder to render if he is high profile.
Meanwhile in Egypt, according to the army generals who took over there, Morsi support is in decline from the 51% he got at the last election, and totally justifies their coup.
The people they shot who protested, they were terrorists, all 40 + of them so far.
And the roundup of supporters of the former elected government using communications metadata in no way makes collection of meta data a problem for democracies.
William Hague was quick to approve of the military government, and Tony Blair says the coup was necessary.
It's interesting that very few are calling the military takeover in Egypt a coup. By definition, it is, but then sends all the wrong messages. How can the western countries then back the action. After all, they constantly bang on about democracy (and the military did depose an elected leader) and bleat about coups in general.
The whole world is being run on soundbites. Issue is; too many of the world's population is taken in by such things.
A former colleague spent 6 months working in a university department in Russia where one of the staff was very definitely a dissident. He discovered that the others didn't care for him because his banging on about the wonders of the West was boring, and the local KGB rep wanted him to shut up so that he didn't hear anything that would have to be reported. Just like us really...
They didn't even know or cared about a word "dissident", equally they didn't care about having enough money for sending their children to college, university, doctorship or having surgery or cancer therapy unlike people in "democratic countries" did.
And Russia can still intercept incoming ballistic missiles unlike The USA BTW.
The truth isn't setting them free, though, is it?
The truth is showing them that if they want the things their constitution claims to guarantee they will have to fight for them long and hard through every avenue as the two-party hegemony ( when the two parties are so politically close they have to use vocal media divisiveness to distinguish themselves from one another is it even really two-party? ) has already identified them as the enemy.
Nobody likes to be told they need to do work to get something a little bit amorphous like "freedom" or "democracy", not when they are having to struggle to pay the rent and feed their families. I can understand that. Nobody, especially here in the privileged, comfortable, west likes to be told we might have to make sacrifices of any kind.
People would rather be comfortable in a spacious cage than struggle and sacrifice to live under the free sky.
"Nobody likes to be told they need to do work to get something a little bit amorphous like "freedom" or "democracy", not when they are having to struggle to pay the rent and feed their families. I can understand that. Nobody, especially here in the privileged, comfortable, west likes to be told we might have to make sacrifices of any kind.
People would rather be comfortable in a spacious cage than struggle and sacrifice to live under the free sky."
The short version.
"Freedom is the right to be uncomfortable. "
WTF?! It wasn't (allegedly) AMERICAN lives, you (...). it was to spy on the rest of the world, you know, this place that you (don't) go to with your passport an they speak English funny, so funny that you have to ask them to repeat, and those morons still can't do it right. What's a passport? Well, you have seen a passport, haven't you? I mean, you go to the movies, etc? Yeah, well, they show the passports IN THE MOVIES. Sometimes. A piece of cardboard they show to those uniform officers when you get off a plane.
On the use of passports in America:
J.D. Tuccille on How Our Right To Travel Became a Bureaucratic Ordeal
Anna is THE HOT, though.
As the NSA story was unfolding, Labour & Conservative Home Secretaries, were writing letters (more like propaganda) to the Times pushing for more surveillance of Brits. Here the thing, THEY WERE IN ON IT.
13th June: Former Home Secretaries call for snoop law:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22891845
"The letter was signed by former Labour home secretaries Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson, along with former Conservative home secretary Lord Baker and defence secretary Lord King, and Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile, who until 2011 was the independent reviewer of government anti-terror laws. "
All of them ALREADY KNEW GCHQ WAS DOING IT ILLEGAL ALREADY! The GCHQ leak hadn't yet come out. Not one of them mentions it when writing to the Times demanding more surveillance.
17th June, GCHQ leak:
http://theweek.com/article/index/245699/new-snowden-leak-nsa-britains-gchq-eavesdropped-on-foreign-leaders
See? They knew, they withheld the information, were complicit in the coverup, and demanded laws to make it legal.
"The letter was signed by former Labour home secretaries Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson, along with former Conservative home secretary Lord Baker and defence secretary Lord King, and Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile, who until 2011 was the independent reviewer of government anti-terror laws. "
You see, how duplicitous it's become. The British law is clear, yet they do it anyway illegally in secret and the people in on the lie, push a fake agenda to get their masters bidding.
ElReg, do us a big favour, make the link above yourself.
Go ask Jack Straw,/David Blunkett/Alan Johnson, /Lord Baker /Lord King, /Lord Carlile, if they knew about Tempora, the GCHQ spy program before it was leaked on 21st June.
Go ask them if they wrote the letter in the knowledge of Tempora?
Ask them if Tempora is legal. Ask them if it is why they were asking for new laws?
Ask and ask and ask. Because these people knew, were complicit in it, and were pushing for laws that would have made it legal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22891845
"Senior politicians from across the political divide have united to call for UK security services to be given greater internet monitoring powers."
GCHQ keep it *all*, Tempora means they intercept *everything* how exactly could they get greater surveillance powers than *everything*??
"Instead, referring to the recent murder of Drummer Rigby, they write: "When such a threat reveals itself, government has a duty to ensure they can do all they can to counter it."
THEY KNEW IT WAS ALREADY HAPPENING! This is mainly the people who planned the 'Mastering the Internet' surveillance.
If they knew it was happening then they knew IT DID NOT STOP THE MURDER OF DRUMMER RIGBY! And was a false justification leveraging the death for their agenda.
There's a story there, a big big story.
Which is this BS has persisted through eight of these oxygen thieves.
Now this letter int he Time
What's really despicable is Lord Carlisle, whose supposedly reviews "anti terror legislation" is in favor of it.
Britain. You've been here before. RIPA. "Only going to be used against paedophiles, terrorists and serious criminals" (oh and the odd fly tipper, and perhaps a family sneaking their kids into a good schools catchment area and....).
£500m/year and alleged savings of £150m (WTF from?).
Build your own coalition. If your MP is Liberal, tell them you support Cleggs stand, and explain why MI5 stated roughly 2000 Islamist suspects (suspects, as in viewed/posted on website, spoke to an informant, not actually making a bomb vest). That's 0.003 percent of the UK population. Or £5.3 (excluding that alleged savings of £150m) for every man, women and child in the UK.
Oh, that's simple.
The EU privacy commissioner should fill his/her boots with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook et al, those who collaborated with the NSA to give them backdoors into their systems.
The EU fined Microsoft 561 million Euros for not putting a browser selection screen on Windows as promised.
I think wholesale violation, wilful, of user privacy, sending everything to the US spooks. Call it a billion each?
> They were spying on citizens of their closest allies
So what's new? After WWII, one of the of the reasons Churchill wanted Bletchley Park kept secret was that he was giving Enigma machines to allied countries like France, as the bleeding edge in encrypted comms. He didn't want them to know that all their traffic could be read by their 'friends' in the UK & US.
Spies spy. On everyone.
Not all in the US feel that way. I think the US needs to focus on fixing our own house and leave the others to do the same. We do not/should not want to be the worlds babysitter and the world should not want us to wipe their noses. Of course many of your nations are more than capable of taking care of yourselves and the UN needs to step up and stop being a complete joke IMO. I wish the US would boot the UN out of New York and out of the US. Time for another nation to babysit this wreck of an organization IMO..
I can understand how many resent the US.....It's arrogant to think you know how others should be/live, when your own house is in such a mess.
I think the US needs to focus on fixing our own house and leave the others to do the same. We do not/should not want to be the worlds babysitter and the world should not want us to wipe their noses.
Err.. Most of us DO have our 'houses' in order, we don't spy on tens of millions of private citizens of other nations, our governments need... ya know WARRANTS to spy on our own citizens.
How about you freaking yanks get your noses OUT of our private affairs huh? How about you deal with your shitty third world hellhole, you gun crime, homelessness, shitty healthcare, and other bollocks first.
Where the HELL do you get off looking into the private information of Australians, British, French, Germans, etc.
And you wonder why the rest of the world hates you...
"Err.. Most of us DO have our 'houses' in order, we don't spy on tens of millions of private citizens of other nations, our governments need... ya know WARRANTS to spy on our own citizens."
I'd be curious to know what country you live in. Because it's apparently not anywhere in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia or Oceania. Is there some sort of libertarian enclave in the Antarctic maybe?
"Is it worth it to point out yougov's political affiliations - for instance to the Murdoch press, and its directors who are conservative supporters? Wikidea 15:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)" --Talk Page, Wikipedia.
The main page transparently promotes youGov's supposed 'accuracy' by selecting only those predictions that are...accurate. Of course, it works for psychics, why not pollsters?
"Based on what you've heard, do think Snowden's leak of top-secret information about government surveillance programs to the media was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?"
Note the "Based on what you've heard" bit. They're not trying to see what the population thinks. They're trying to see if their propaganda is working.
There are many people in the U.S. who think what Edward J. Snowden did was heroic. They cite the oath, with the part "from all enemies, foreign and domestic" recognizing that what the men and women of the U.S government, NSA, and other related entities, are doing is wrong, illegal, and should be exposed.
The U.S. and the world needs a lot more people with the courage of Edward J. Snowden to step up and speak on the injustices being perpetrated at large and in grand fashion against the world's citizenry.
I had a think.
How is it, that all the NRA-nuts, (not the 'normal' people who might have a hunting rifle, a revolver and a shotgun because they're living in the sticks; I'm talking about the guys with the M16s, MP5s, the .50cal and the Grenades) who usually bring the 2nd Amendment in to justify their toys, don't stand in front of the Capitol right now and demand the Government hung?
Amongst other things:
"The concept postulates that the Second Amendment was intended to provide the means by which the people, as a last resort, could rise in armed revolt against tyrannical authorities."
Col. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. (1995)
I actually had to look that up.
But no, not really. He's just having some fun there.
The nuts are the one that really believe that they need all this to defend Gods Own Country™ and themselves from the Chinks, if they try to bomb Pearl Harbour again*, Muslim terrorists, Puerto Rican thieves, rebelling niggers, Nazis, Commies, Bolivian drug dealers, British gay TV hosts, zombies and mutant jackalopes.
*I know, and I know that you know. Billy Bob Redneck** doesn't, though; Chinamen, VC, Khmer Rouge, Norks: all Chinks to him.
**My apologies to all decend rednecks and guys called William Robert who aren't twats.
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Because it's a choice of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
1) attempting to show up anywhere NEAR the Mall (Congress and the White House) with anything more weapon-like than a spoiled banana will get you arrested if not shot.
2) Even if you could arrange a peaceful demonstration of armed people, then everybody will be saying "Dem Dere crazy gun nuts want to overthrow de govmment! Dey is bad peeplez!"
3) If we do nothing (as we should - we have not yet exhausted the first three of the 4 boxes to use to protect liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo) then we are criticized for doing nothing.
Your point 1.) proves to me that that particular 2nd amendment reason for owning, for example, an assault rifle, is invalid.
Your point 2.) shows, again: to me, that it would also be pointless because it would not even be appreciated.
I start to think that the people of the United States have, after 225 years of working towards an ideal state, lost.
It's over. Feudalism has won.
A majority of US residents DO NOT hate Snowden. As long as He has not disclosed specific intelligence....like Wikileaks....I think what He has done is confirmed what many in the US feared. That our government has become overbearing and thinks it knows what's best for its residents.
IRobot.... That was the same concept for the movie.....we are our own worst enemy and so we have to be controlled. That's what our current administration thinks....but they are wrong and he will go down and the worst president of all time IMO.
We have a man that does not think like an American and He does not understand what it means to build something on your own or to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. He is an academic and has never built a company or created jobs through a business of his own.
"As long as He has not disclosed specific intelligence....like Wikileaks"
It was newspapers such as the Guardian that actually published the Wikileaks info (until the Guardian double-crossed Assange, possibly because he let them know he wasn't happy that they didn't publish stuff relating to Israel). It was also a Guardian 'journalist' who also published the encryption key for the whole archive.
Most Americans don't fear the NSA 'cause they got doG on their side. HE wouldn't let anything bad happen to them. Besides, how much trouble can you get into when the only book you own is the Bible and your emails are limited to pix of the grandkids, links to stupid kitten videos and hate-mongering homophobic rants?
Most comments here are to the general effect that the NSA activities that Edward Snowden confirmed (anyone interested should have been pretty well aware three to five years ago) are illegal, unconstitutional, and either oppress or contribute to the continued and increasing oppression of U. S. citizens. In addition, they seem to incline to the position that opposing some or all of those activities requires that one regard Mr. Snowden as a major hero. Both sorts of claim are largely rubbish.
The activities so far revealed, however, appear to have been authorized by laws, implemented over at least the last five or more administrations, and regulated by internal instructions and a court which issued warrants. They were legal on their face. Some may take issue with the secrecy involved, particularly in the matter of warrants, but plenty of sealed warrants have been issued in the past in other contexts such as public corruption and organized crime investigations, so there is nothing unique here.
Whether or to what extent the activities are constitutional is a matter that courts have yet to determine, and it is to be hoped that litigation now started will lead to determinations without undue delay. While I am not a constitutional authority (and the sitting President is) it is my understanding that properly enacted laws are presumed to be constitutional until a court, in adjudicating a case, rules otherwise.
The case that the NSA data collection has oppressed the people, or in the current environment poses any real risk of doing so, needs far more justification than simply stating it some large number of times. Some might feel inhibited by the fact that their telephone, email, and web metadata (and possibly content) may have been collected, but has this resulted in systematic suppression of dissent, let alone uglier things like criminal prosecution or disappearances? I have seen reports of a small number of cases, most of them not clearly traceable to NSA data collection. The real risk, it seems to me, is that a different administration, some time in the indefinite future, could abuse such information far more than may have been done in the past.
This activity by NSA, however legal, is incompatible with my understanding of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. I do not like it, did not like it during the Clinton, Bush (II), and Obama administrations, did not agree with increases allowed by the PATRIOT act, and think it very unlikely that it has been effective except as an adjunct to more customary police activity based on observation and informants.
As for Mr. Snowden: he sought and accepted a job under false pretenses, signed documents promising to keep secret the classified documents he was authorized to see and not to access those that he was not authorized to see. He admitted publicly doing so having already planned to copy and make public such documents. He collected and removed from NSA copies of a large quantity of such classified documents and delivered them for publication and possibly also to the governments of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation. By doing so he proved himself without honor, and also violated a number of laws.
I have no problem simultaneously opposing NSA data collection and considering Edward Snowden a non-hero.
"The activities so far revealed, however, appear to have been authorized by laws, implemented over at least the last five or more administrations, and regulated by internal instructions and a court which issued warrants. They were legal on their face."
Nope. Both FISA and the Dept. of Justice found the NSA's programs illegal in 2008, programs which (based don Snowden leaks) the NSA then continued to operate unmodified to present day, while continuing to falsely claim they are legal. Several presidents have written executive orders, but executive orders do not override federal law or the Constitution. These programs are unconstitutional either way.
"While I am not a constitutional authority (and the sitting President is) it is my understanding that properly enacted laws are presumed to be constitutional until a court, in adjudicating a case, rules otherwise."
I feel like it's splitting hairs to call anything, no matter how heinously unconstitutional, constitutional until a court declares it unconstitutional
"The case that the NSA data collection has oppressed the people, or in the current environment poses any real risk of doing so, needs far more justification than simply stating it some large number of times. Some might feel inhibited by the fact that their telephone, email, and web metadata (and possibly content) may have been collected, but has this resulted in systematic suppression of dissent, let alone uglier things like criminal prosecution or disappearances?"
It really doesn't need justification. Has the NSA opressed people? Realistically, I doubt it. But, you really claim that there is no real risk to having ubiquitous wiretapping of most internet backbones, telecom backbones, and widespread data collection and analsysis facilities (including directly in AT&T switching centers)? Sorry but I cannot take that argument seriously, this is too much capability for anybody to have, too rife for abuse. This also violates the 4th ammendment. After all, you could have cameras in your house, all your mail read, your movements tracked, your data collected and analyzed, and you can make just the same argument you are making here that "If you haven't been disappeared, you're not opressed." It's simply not true.
"As for Mr. Snowden: he sought and accepted a job under false pretenses, signed documents promising to keep secret the classified documents he was authorized to see and not to access those that he was not authorized to see. He admitted publicly doing so having already planned to copy and make public such documents. He collected and removed from NSA copies of a large quantity of such classified documents and delivered them for publication and possibly also to the governments of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation. By doing so he proved himself without honor, and also violated a number of laws."
I view him as blowing the whistle on illegal and unconstitutional programs, which the NSA officials, instead of just saying "no comment" would flat out lie about. However, I do find your view valid and hold it in respect.
Excuse me, but as a citizen of the United States, I object to this article's assertion that "The US Public" hates Snowden.
The US government, under the direction of non-citizen Barack Obama, is SPYING ON US, ILLEGALLY.
Snowden is a HERO for exposing this corruption.
The American public is turning against NSA leaker Edward Snowden, with increasing numbers of people now believing he was wrong to reveal details of secret US government surveillance, a survey has found.
I do wonder, has the almost non-stop propaganda the government has levelled at him had anything to do with that?
You know, because they spent far more time attacking the person who pointed out their massively illegal activities, rather than - I dunno - doing something about their massively illegal activities.
"The American public is turning against NSA leaker Edward Snowden, with increasing numbers of people now believing he was wrong to reveal details of secret US government surveillance, a survey has found."
There's several factors causing this, mainly it boils to the piss-poor reporting of US media:
1) Some (many) Americans are stupid. The mainstream media reports that he is naughty and the NSA in the right, and they just slurp it up unquestioningly. They've begun to noticeably dumb down the language on the news the last year or two, now there will not be an optometrist on the news, it's an eye doctor (even if one didn't know what an optometrist is, it'd be obvious from the stock footage of an eye exam.)
2) Astoundingly, the mainstream media is not calling the NSA officials out for flat-out lying in their assertions that these programs are legal, and furthermore are not questioning the constitutionality of these programs. The fact is, in 2008 the NSA came up with a twisted, circular logic, nonsensical legal argument on how their programs were legal; both FISA and the Dept. of Justice found these arguments worthless and declared the programs illegal. The NSA continued these programs, based on their nonsensical and discredited legal arguments, and continue to lie and claim their nonsensical and discredited legal arguments stand and these programs are legal. The media fails to publicly call them out on these lies.
3) Fox News. See #1-2. They distort news until it's virtually unrecognizeable, and people buy it up. The people who watch CNN, CBS, NBC, or ABC news don't know much about what's going on in the world, but the ones who watch Fox News know nothing about it. They'll have what at first glance seems like reasonable news coverage, until you go to literally any other news source and find out how distorted it is. My dad started saying some of the Snowden news I had was false, he's like sneering and says "Oh you got that ONLINE huh, the source of all reliable news? What's your source?" (He is duped by Fox News, and couldn't believe that news contradicting their false news reports could be true). "Umm, the Guardian and the New York Times". Damn did he look deflated.
4) These surveys are generally RIGGED to get just the answer they'd like; they'll REPORT results as though a survey asked "Do you support Snowden's actions?" while in the fine print, the question they ask will be like "Do you support Snowden leaking sensitive information to foreign terrorists?" I.e. they put out a loaded question, then when reporting on it put the loaded question in tiny fine print and state a completely different question in the news report.
I hope the NSA's illegal and unconstitutional actions are stopped dead in their tracks. I hope the main stream media shapes up and does their job.
On occasion, I get asked something along the lines of "If you could have any one thing you wanted, what would you wish for?"
My stock, pat answer to any question along these lines is, "The complete and utter destruction of the human race and all its works, and the planetary gene pool purged so that nothing like us could ever evolve again."
I've received many raised eyebrows, and people shocked at my immediate answer question me as to why I would want this, or question what makes me hate the human race so much.
This article answers that question.
Well it occurs to me that this could all be part of a plot to assanginate Snowden, all they have to do is genetically splice a variant of AIDS with resistance to everything and a MTBD of like a month, introduce it to Snowden via the good old fashioned method and voila.
Plus they get to blame (insert least favourite country here) and use it as an excuse to blast their biowarfare labs off the map.
Its happened before, google "lab smallpox incident"..
In this case it appears that the plot was part of a love triangle that went wrong, wiping out everyone involved.
"Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness." [Wikipedia]
She could "pump him dry?". Heh!
But (warning: substantive comment) :
Snowden confirms that as soon as a thing becomes both possible, feasible and affodrable, it is inevitable. Many of us are not foresighted enough or don't read enough science fiction) to see that, so are shockd and surprised, but a reasonably intelligent person coukd have predicted PRISM and other nation's equalilvants would arise. Echelon? Primitive, really.
What's worse? Well... http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/god_humans_machines.php
I see el Reg is reporting on Facebook's (TM) "Graph" search engine.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/08/facebook_graph_search/
Possible, feasible, and eminently affordable. And we do it to ourselves.
We now return to the not-for-children (or is it?) fantasies...
It's a pity there's no Big Momma icon. PARIS is watching you. Or "Anna Chapman." Hmm.
I find myself torn on the subject of Snowden.
On the one hand we have an individual who has essentially forfeited his personal liberty in aid of the common good - that is, the exposing of government programs which routinely track and hold communications data regardless of who you are or where you're from. he has highlighted the most important point for me here - not whether or not any laws were broken, but the fact the they didn't NEED to break any laws to accomplish what they set out to do.
On the other hand, we have someone who was entrusted with national secrets, classified information on delicate subjects, and was deemed responsible enough to keep those secrets. And he betrayed that trust. I don't care what your personal beliefs are, when you're dealing with the affairs of a nation state and you've been trusted to do a job, you do that job without expressing whatever political viewpoints you may have.
What i guess I'm saying is that it's not black and white. Snowden's actions define a whole new murky shade of grey, and I'm not sure how to objectively view it all.
There's a long history of NSA domestic spying that dates back to the 70's and even before.
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline It is in no way complete. There is more.( Cryptome)
To think that anyone even tries to understand Americans is imho pure science fiction. It cannot be done , billions of good men before you have tried and failed. Just take it from me . It's a waste of time.Americans are as contradictory as they get. They love blue , but won't wear it .They like red , but they wouldn't be seen in anything red so they prefer blue , but .. ( here it's time to take a few aspirins ). Questions asked in American surveys are always worded to induce an answer survey contractors and those who pay for it want to hear. Totally untrustable numbers and outcomes.
Snowden is a hero , i hope he finds peace. For the rest :fugget about it and enjoy a cold one.
Cheers
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