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All fair points. Gag orders are gag orders however and they do not care for big famous names. If it does not have peer reviewed source code hanging out there - how can we trust it especially given this latest bombshell of a revelation showing just how far they are willing to go to "undermine the social contract" of the Internet?

Once again, no, the US did not fund or provide resources to start al Qaida.

A history of terror: Al-Qaeda 1988-2008 --- Note the Leftist approved source!

11 AUGUST 1988 Al-Qaeda is formed at a meeting attended by Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Dr Fadl in Peshawar, Pakistan. The creation of the group brings together extraordinary Saudi wealth, the expertise of a lifetime Egyptian militant, and a philosophical foundation for jihad from a Cairo intellectual

Also note how close that date is to the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan: The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years from December 1979 to February 1989

That isn't much time for the US to fund and develop al Qaida, is it? That's because it didn't happen.

The US did supply funds for the native Afghan resistance. The Taliban didn't form until after the Soviets left Afghanistan and the country was in civil war. Turning Afghanistan into the "Soviet's Vietnam" - turnabout being fair play - didn't require the Taliban, which didn't exist yet, or Al Qaida.

The actual reason you find it "impossible" to debate me is that unlike many here I'm actually reasonably well acquainted with the facts in certain areas and not taken in by the nonsense you hurl, at times, instead of facts.

"...leave the thinking to those with the proper equipment?" Pro Tip: The proper equipment for thinking isn't below the waist, either front or back. There are times when certain topics are being discussed it seems that one is what you know, and the other is the source of your "facts."

Now, just so I don't have to end this on that note.... for whatever it is worth to you, I voted up this story that you submitted. I thought it was an interesting submission, and I've been meaning to tell you that. It was an interesting read. I thought you should have tried submitting it again.

Cheers

Schneier suggests elliptic key may be compromised and should be avoided... as with other public key systems it is based on a computationally hard one way problem, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that our TLA friends may have some special insight here.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance

As a side issue, I've been to vendor presentations where they've boasted about the ability of their advanced firewalls/edge devices to do real time MITM attacks using valid signing certs obtained from (at least one) top level CA, to enable companies to monitor gmail etc for 'IP protection'. Given the NSA's liking for compromising network devices I wouldn't be surprised if that method was also used.

There appears to be much evidence that it was in fact the rebels that used the chemical weapons which were supplied by the Saudis,

There appears to be a lot of false evidence and fabrications, that's for sure. The allegation is that the chemical agent used is the nerve gas called Sarin.

Sarin gas was used in Syrian chemical weapons attack, says David Cameron

Sarin is not a dual purpose industrial gas that can be used as a chemical weapon, it is a pure chemical weapon. Saudi Arabia isn't known to have Sarin, and they have signed the treaties against it. Sarin is extremely deadly and not really a substance for haphazard manufacture or haphazard loading into munitions. If the allegation is that the Saudi's are supplying Sarin, the question is: "Where did they get it?" From Saddam? He used to have it, but I think we can agree that one is right out. Iran? No, Iran is fighting on the other side. So where did it come from?

I think that any claim that the Saudis supplied the Syrian rebels with Sarin gas weapons is a fabrication.

This has nothing to do with liberal or conservative and everything to do with the power of government.
From Bruce Schneier:
Dismantling the surveillance state won't be easy. Has any country that engaged in mass surveillance of its own citizens voluntarily given up that capability? Has any mass surveillance country avoided becoming totalitarian? Whatever happens, we're going to be breaking new ground.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying

I think you can assume that most "popular" commercial encryption software has been compromised.
Bruce Schenier has a good article in The Guardian on how to protect your computer:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance
From the article:
With all this in mind, I have five pieces of advice:

1) Hide in the network. Implement hidden services. Use Tor to anonymize yourself. Yes, the NSA targets Tor users, but it's work for them. The less obvious you are, the safer you are.

2) Encrypt your communications. Use TLS. Use IPsec. Again, while it's true that the NSA targets encrypted connections – and it may have explicit exploits against these protocols – you're much better protected than if you communicate in the clear.

3) Assume that while your computer can be compromised, it would take work and risk on the part of the NSA – so it probably isn't. If you have something really important, use an air gap. Since I started working with the Snowden documents, I bought a new computer that has never been connected to the internet. If I want to transfer a file, I encrypt the file on the secure computer and walk it over to my internet computer, using a USB stick. To decrypt something, I reverse the process. This might not be bulletproof, but it's pretty good.

4) Be suspicious of commercial encryption software, especially from large vendors. My guess is that most encryption products from large US companies have NSA-friendly back doors, and many foreign ones probably do as well. It's prudent to assume that foreign products also have foreign-installed backdoors. Closed-source software is easier for the NSA to backdoor than open-source software. Systems relying on master secrets are vulnerable to the NSA, through either legal or more clandestine means.

5) Try to use public-domain encryption that has to be compatible with other implementations. For example, it's harder for the NSA to backdoor TLS than BitLocker, because any vendor's TLS has to be compatible with every other vendor's TLS, while BitLocker only has to be compatible with itself, giving the NSA a lot more freedom to make changes. And because BitLocker is proprietary, it's far less likely those changes will be discovered. Prefer symmetric cryptography over public-key cryptography. Prefer conventional discrete-log-based systems over elliptic-curve systems; the latter have constants that the NSA influences when they can.

The raw document provides some more details but remains not especially explicit.

"The fact that NSA/CSS has some capabilities against the encryption in TLS/SSL, HTTPS, SSH, VPNs, VoIP, WEBMAIL, and other network communication technologies".

Capabilities are defined here as NSA/CSS ability to exploit a specific technology. This may encompass acquiring and processing plaintext data and/or acquiring, decrypting and processing encrypted data.

From Bruce Schneier Here and here.

Also a nice call to arms here.
"I have resisted saying this up to now, and I am saddened to say it, but the US has proved to be an unethical steward of the internet. The UK is no better."

From Bruce Schneier Here and here.

Also a nice call to arms here.
"I have resisted saying this up to now, and I am saddened to say it, but the US has proved to be an unethical steward of the internet. The UK is no better."

If I gave you a long list of U.S.-supported torturers who were just as bad, would that change your opinion? Start with Pinochet.

So, how does that apply to dones, Romans, and Lizardoids? Mmm?

If you're going for lists of torturers, Pinochet is small potatoes. You need to go to the Soviets, or North Koreans, or the PRC if you want to be really competitive.

Is another man's gold.

Yeah, but those other men are being turned back when they try to do the right thing for our society.

It's funny, if you read that article, how Branson criticizes the 1994 cuts as mistaken while those men who did so have benefited grandly from doing so.

Isn't it Putin's job?

Most deserts around the world are situated in the subtropical zones where the dry air from the Hadley cells descends, around 30 degrees north and south. Global warming appears to be expanding the Hadley cells somewhat which will move the desertified zones a little further toward the poles without necessarily shifting the other edges of those zones further from the equator thus expanding the desert area. For example there is evidence that southern Europe is getting drier but the southern edge of the Sahara Desert shows no signs of shifting northward.

These articles seem to disagree:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8150415.stm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2811
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/16/highereducation.climatechange
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/desertification.php

"Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad." -- http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/may/13/1

"In May 2007, a presidential finding revealed that Bush had authorised CIA operations against Iran. Anti-Syria operations were also in full swing around this time as part of this covert programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A range of US government and intelligence sources told him that the Bush administration had "cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations" intended to weaken the Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon. "The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria," wrote Hersh, "a byproduct" of which is "the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups" hostile to the United States and "sympathetic to al-Qaeda." He noted that "the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria," with a view to pressure him to be "more conciliatory and open to negotiations" with Israel. One faction receiving covert US "political and financial support" through the Saudis was the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: "I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business", he told French television:

"I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria."" -- http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines

"Politicians enraged that Britain gave export licenses to sell Syria 'nerve gas chemicals'" -- http://rt.com/news/britain-sold-nerve-chemicals-283/

"Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad." -- http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/may/13/1

"In May 2007, a presidential finding revealed that Bush had authorised CIA operations against Iran. Anti-Syria operations were also in full swing around this time as part of this covert programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A range of US government and intelligence sources told him that the Bush administration had "cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations" intended to weaken the Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon. "The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria," wrote Hersh, "a byproduct" of which is "the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups" hostile to the United States and "sympathetic to al-Qaeda." He noted that "the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria," with a view to pressure him to be "more conciliatory and open to negotiations" with Israel. One faction receiving covert US "political and financial support" through the Saudis was the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: "I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business", he told French television:

"I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria."" -- http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines

"Politicians enraged that Britain gave export licenses to sell Syria 'nerve gas chemicals'" -- http://rt.com/news/britain-sold-nerve-chemicals-283/

The problem is that a lot of small groups are campaigning under the umbrella of 38Degrees.org but 38degrees can be gagged which means that the literally millions of people that use the site are being gagged. Even the electoral commission is against the new changes. I don't think the gov't realised the consequences this bill.

The separate campaigns should be treated as such for legal purposes, then i expect the £400k wouldn't be a problem and the law needs to differentiate between a democratic process where hundreds of thousands of people chip in to have their voice heard vs the money of individual corporations.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/28/david-cameron-gagging-charities-labour-claims

And this is also an attack on unions right to represent their members political wishes.

Sadly even the Guardian reported the story, parroting the Press Association's version, without thinking to check what the EC actually had to say about it.

Uh, wrong. There are no private schools in Finland. Everyone gets the same education, and the results seem to be exactly what the author of TFA is suggesting.

Patman64 You linked article directly contradicts your claim in a bold heading font.

"
Private schools

The vast majority of children attend comprehensive schools in Finland. The country has a handful of faith-based and alternative schools, which are legally private but funded by the state. They cannot charge fees but may set their own catchment areas. In England, 7.2% of children attend private schools, which are free to select pupils and charge fees. A private education costs parents an average of £10,100 a year.
"

Any belief that forcing public schools on everyone is seriously misguided. Nothing ever gets better when it's forced on people. The best schools in the world are in Finland, where a voucher system forces public schools to compete with private schools.

Uh, wrong. There are no private schools in Finland. Everyone gets the same education, and the results seem to be exactly what the author of TFA is suggesting.

Or such crimes as making a table top role playing game or being the love intrest of a NSA agent.

I don't think you can dismiss out of hand the possibility that this was a planned outcome.

That sounds very weaselly, in the sense that if one person anywhere had such a thought but never spoke it, your statement would be true. And it sounds like the kind of baseless nutball regurgitation we have come to expect from internet conspiracy crazies.

You should meet AC, he's informative but shy. This is probably why it was marked troll initially, since it has been going around for a while, and calling out the NSA is standard fare for a frosty piss.

Skype was moved to centralized servers so they could survive the new era of communications: mobile devices. It was impossible to do Skype on mobile devices without centralized servers because the P2P communications would eat your battery AND your data bill. I'm sure this helps with interception as well, but it wasn't he main intention. This is discussed in detail by a former Skype engineer here:

http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/2013/06/sort/time_rev/page/1/entry/6:271/20130623090855:0B714E0A-DC06-11E2-9F35-8CD4CCA160A2/

Your post should have consisted solely of This link followed by this link which it took me all of 3 minutes to find, so I would know whether to make fun of you or support you.

How Brazil-ian that the line between "chicken little" ignorant asshattery and fact has completely disappeared.

Nothing to do with ability to intercept.

Wait, why was parent marked troll?

In the case of Skype the very FIRST thing Microsoft did (was forced to do) was bring all call routing back through their own servers

How do you know the patent troll in this case wasn't funded by the NSA to force the very same thing on Apple? By forcing Apple to route all sessions through their already compromised data centers, the ability for the government to monitor the calls is restored, and Apple doesn't have to admit anything. Apple already appears on the leaked Prism source chart. So forcing all facetime sessions to go through already compromised data centers would be a high priority for the NSA.

I don't think you can dismiss out of hand the possibility that this was a planned outcome.

John Bolton has a more nuanced view. No doubt you will disagree.

2 wrongs != 1 right (China hacking does not excuse US hacking)

Besides, John Bolton who?!? Do you subscribe to his views?

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. ...

(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.

(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator....

HAMAS Targets Spain

Bonus:
UK: Muslim Gangs Enforce Sharia Law in London
AU: Muslim body wants 'moderate' sharia law but government rejects plan
SE: 'Separate laws for Muslims' idea slammed

John Bolton has a more nuanced view. No doubt you will disagree.

You're right. But you know, no one in the U.S. cares because the U.S. mainstream media controls the narrative, and the mainstream media is controlled by the elites who also control the President and Congress. I just laid out what's going to happen in a timeline, and I have yet to be wrong once. Today, Obama announced the call for military action right after the U.N. inspectors left for Lebanon. Called that last week. Anyways, I'm not going to waste my breath. I'll leave everyone with a few articles and it's their duty to search for more and be informed.

• Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict
• Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern

You're right. But you know, no one in the U.S. cares because the U.S. mainstream media controls the narrative, and the mainstream media is controlled by the elites who also control the President and Congress. I just laid out what's going to happen in a timeline, and I have yet to be wrong once. Today, Obama announced the call for military action right after the U.N. inspectors left for Lebanon. Called that last week. Anyways, I'm not going to waste my breath. I'll leave everyone with a few articles and it's their duty to search for more and be informed.

• Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict
• Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern

Well, if Bush does it, then it must be ok. I however can't help but not a key difference between those attacks and Benghazi. Namely, that those attacks were much smaller in scale, were over quickly, and for which the US has considerable local protection.

For example, the most similar of the Bush-era attacks involved five gunmen breaking into the consulate at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and were quickly counterattacked by Saudi "security forces". The Benghazi consulate attacks reported involved hundreds of attackers with no support for US staff from local authorities for about seven hours. And that outcome turned out as uneventful as it did, because someone in Tripoli apparently decided on their own initiative to commandeer an airplane and fly into Benghazi and organize a rescue effort.

Afterward, the Obama administration took it upon itself to blame the Benghazi attacks on a rather offensive YouTube video, but one nobody had heard of before. That was probably because the attacks occurred before the upcoming November elections in the US.

So what makes Benghazi special is the weak tactical situation, the large scale of the attack, and most importantly, the tepid and politically self-serving response of the Obama administration to the attack.

It's a case in point; the Occupy movement was smashed by the FBI and Homeland security, by infiltration and (almost certainly) involving illegal interception of communication. See How the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy for example.

I must be missing something here because I do not see the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests achieving anything other then turning some parks into a camp ground for a while and irritating the locals to the point they sent the police in to remove them.

It wasn't the locals. It was a nation-wide crack-down coordinated by the FBI and DHS all with the banks at the lead.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

Maybe the reason Occupy didn't really cause any immediate change is because they were the first social movement in the US to face wide-scale, modern techniques of repression backed by essentially unlimited funding.

And: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange

Same here.

After being thoroughly conditioned to be used to think of scrolling as something you do by dragging the thumb of a scrollbar for many years, I decided to give this a chance nevertheless, knowing the brain can be pretty quick in 'rewiring' itself to changes like this. It's even possible to get used to seeing the world upside down within a few days: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable-research-seeing-upside-down - or maybe right side up, as the image on the retina is normally inverted.

I now think of scrolling like: finger drags content up or down. Simple. No inbetween stuff like screens, mouses, trackpads, scrollbars - just my finger moving around content.

we have the technology and resources to do so before people, animals, and plants start dying

People have started dying long time ago. See this article (among many others).

China is working on reducing carbon emissions and poverty while doing more than any other country to lower population.

Yes... those 363 new coal plants, fueled with any coal the Chinese can get their hands on, are certainly reducing carbon emissions.

Not.

Follow the money is the elephant in the room? Absolutely agree. *cough*-big-oil-*cough*.

Better look at what side big oil is on then. They're getting rich off of things like biofuels and renewable energy.

That is a minuscule side-business compared to fossil fuel operations, as evidenced by their actions:

Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
Audit trail reveals that donors linked to fossil fuel industry are backing global warming sceptics

Follow the money is the elephant in the room? Absolutely agree. *cough*-big-oil-*cough*.

Better look at what side big oil is on then. They're getting rich off of things like biofuels and renewable energy.

That is a minuscule side-business compared to fossil fuel operations, as evidenced by their actions:

Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks
Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
Audit trail reveals that donors linked to fossil fuel industry are backing global warming sceptics

This suggests they had decided to raise it to level 3 a week ago:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/21/leap-fukushima-danger-ranking

But that would involve admitting some facts, instead of citing natural temperature changes only to cover things contrary to your view, and dismiss when they actively contradict your views. It's also better instead to assume that anyone who believes different has been taken by a scam artist.

"low natural gas prices" the price of natural gas just sky rocketed, but we will make it cheaper for a while if you let us frack your water, because... in the end that's all that happens, all your drinking water gets fracked.

I guess that's why Bush bought all that land over one of the World's largest fresh water aquifers.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/04/13/the-guarani-aquifer-a-little-known-water-resource-in-south-america-gets-a-voice/

Enough fresh water for 200 years, that's the real Bush legacy.

"How is the Official Secrets Act not adequate to cover this?"

I think he means they're going after the IT staff, the current legislation only applies to high officials ..

"Most of the legislation about state secrets is in the Official Secrets Act and it only concerns an official .. I think there is going to have to be a look at what happens when somebody possesses material which is secret without having authority"

You've got that wrong pal - every single civil servant, from high official to gardener, must sign the OSA before being allowed to accept the job. It's a part of the basic contract for every direct government employee and most contractors - it only covers anything learned during the time you were employed of course.

That was a supremely shitty reference for your claim. Using snowden's name gives your claim more weight, but in reality that article is all about Julian Assange...with only a passing reference to Google. Don't be a dick.

Only a passing reference?? Not sure if we read the same article, because almost every paragraph in that article is about Google.

And true the article writer is Julian Assange, but the revelations he first reference and then adds too with his own experience and knowledge are the latest Edward Snowden revelations.

No, it is not only Google that are caught with their pants down by the latest Snowden revelations. But with the latest revelation it is becoming very clear that Google is just as much in bed with NSA as others, while in beginning people tried spinning Google as still somewhat better. In the article Assange adds to this with his own story, I don't see how that can't be relevant too.

Pretty lousy cop too: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/02/ian.blair.resigns very political and not very coply [to use Jess Stone's lovely word].

Is there anything that cannot be justified by appeals over terrorism?

Don't forget that, as head of the London Metropolitan Police, Lord Blair presided over an organisation that did things like the killing of Ian Tomlinson, the smearing of the family of Stephen Lawrence, and the killing of John Charles de Menezes.

No wonder he's in favour of laws that would keep those kinds of skeletons firmly in the closet.

Is there anything that cannot be justified by appeals over terrorism?

Don't forget that, as head of the London Metropolitan Police, Lord Blair presided over an organisation that did things like the killing of Ian Tomlinson, the smearing of the family of Stephen Lawrence, and the killing of John Charles de Menezes.

No wonder he's in favour of laws that would keep those kinds of skeletons firmly in the closet.

Is there anything that cannot be justified by appeals over terrorism?

Don't forget that, as head of the London Metropolitan Police, Lord Blair presided over an organisation that did things like the killing of Ian Tomlinson, the smearing of the family of Stephen Lawrence, and the killing of John Charles de Menezes.

No wonder he's in favour of laws that would keep those kinds of skeletons firmly in the closet.

'US colleges increasingly view anything published before 1990 as 'inaccessible' for students. So much for timeless themes` ..

"For American college students, 1990 appears to be a historical cliff beyond which it is rumored some books were once written, though no one is quite sure what. Why have US colleges decided that the best way to introduce their students to higher learning is through comic books, lite lit, and memoirs?" link

"How is the Official Secrets Act not adequate to cover this?"

I think he means they're going after the IT staff, the current legislation only applies to high officials ..

"Most of the legislation about state secrets is in the Official Secrets Act and it only concerns an official .. I think there is going to have to be a look at what happens when somebody possesses material which is secret without having authority"

It isn't unknown for nation states, including your own to engage in 'facilitating terrorism' by arming, training or through a proxy. The purpose being, to discredit the terrorists and enthusiasm the natives to not support them. The victims of your policies already know about about it. All you seek to do here is keep your actions a secret from your own people. If the cost of such protection is to live in an armed panopticon, then I for one will take my chances with the terrorists.

'It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War,' he said. 'It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism' link

All Snowden and Manning did was tell the truth. We should be *very* careful about outlawing the truth in America.

There were reporters that knew the date of the Normandy invasion, D-Day, in World War 2. They didn't reveal it. If they had revealed it, that would have been "telling the truth." It also would have likely turned the invasion into a disaster, and possibly resulted in a different outcome to the war.

Great Britain was in danger of being starved into submission by the German U-Boats in World War 2. The U-Boat menace was brought under control because the Allies were able to break the Enigma code system and read German Navy communications. Some Germans suspected from time to time that their communications were compromised, but they were always mollified by the apparent strength of Enigma. When the truth was finally revealed in the 1970s, the Germans were stunned. Had that information been revealed during the war, it still would have been "the truth." But the revelation of that information during the war against the U-Boats would have enabled the Germans to take effective countermeasures quite easily since the ability of the Allies to decrypt Enigma codes always hung by a thread. If the German radio traffic with the U-Boats would have been unreadable, it is possible that the British Isles could have been starved into submission. That would have meant a much more difficult war than it already was, and possibly one with a different outcome.

You're right, America (and the UK) should be *very* careful about outlawing the truth. By the same token, great care needs to be taken regarding the handling of some types of truth, otherwise it may be your fleet on the bottom of the ocean in the future. Had war come with the Soviet Union in the 1970s to 1980s, that is probably where much of the US fleet would have ended up. John Walker and his spy ring gave the Soviet Union the means to read American naval codes. NATO would probably have been either forced to use nuclear weapons in Europe - which it was and is prepared to do, or surrender.

A man telling his wife or girlfriend that a pair of jeans make her butt look big is telling the truth too. Who is going to sign up for that? Improperly revealing national security secrets is far more dangerous than telling a wife or girlfriend her butt looks big in a pair of jeans. The feedback loop just tends to be longer, if you're lucky.

Iran Warns U.S. Against Syria Intervention, Revolutionary Guard General Predicts 'Severe Consequences'
Syria crisis: UK and US move closer to intervention

Here is a hint from the Guardian: it is not Snowden, and it may be the UK government that is leaking stuff that can be considered harmful, in order to suggest it is from Snowden, and call Snowden's discolsure harmful. Hmmmm...