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Snowden's Big Truth: We Are All Less Free
chicksdaddy writes "In the days since stories based on classified information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden hit the headlines, a string of reports and editorials claim that he had his facts wrong, accuse him of treason – or both. Others have accused journalists like Glen Greenwald of The Guardian of rushing to print before they had all the facts. All of these criticisms could be valid. Technology firms may not have given intelligence agencies unfettered and unchecked access to their users' data. Edward Snowden may be, as the New York Times's David Brooks suggests, one of those 20-something-men leading a 'life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society.' All those critiques may be true without undermining the larger truth of Snowden's revelation: in an age of global, networked communications and interactions, we are all a lot less free than we thought we were. I say this because nobody has seriously challenged the basic truth of Snowden's leak: that many of the world's leading telecommunications and technology firms are regularly divulging information about their users' activities and communications to law enforcement and intelligence agencies based on warrantless requests and court reviews that are hidden from public scrutiny. It hasn't always been so."
Bruce Schneier has published an opinion piece saying that while Snowden did break the law, we need to investigate the government before any prosecution occurs. (Schneier's piece is one in a series on the subject.) Snowden himself said in an interview today that the U.S. government has been pursuing hacking operations against China for years.
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?
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.
None of the warrents said something like
"All emails stored on VZ servers (listed below) that mention pressurecookers as bombs from the 723 people (listed below) who visited terrorist training camps (listed below) in 2010-2013."
From the Dictator (2012) - start at 0:28 for the meat.
And as somewhere here on /. said (to paraphrase) "NSA's wiretapping stopped the bombing in Boston. Right?"
We should scream that in every moron's ear who says they "feel safer" with this monitoring.
The thing about "net neutrality" is they don't actually have to do anything. Hell we could get 99% of what is needed for true network neutrality by declaring ISPs to be common carriers.
A few things scare me about this topic so far (and it's mostly about discussion rather than the revelations):
- People aren't doing anything / can't do anything about this issue even if they wanted to :/
- People are actually siding with the government and defending them instead of fighting for privacy & freedom
- Big corporations could help us out but what good would storing every piece of user data in encrypted format do for them (no ad money based on our data = no free site anymore, they would just turn into free service providers for their service)
- American's politicians & lawyers are completely paid off by major corporations and if the root of all evil is not separated from the law of the land, you should not expect any freedom or privacy, and it's scary that the American population is more concered about TV shows like The Voice rather than their freedom...
-- No one's really willing to risk their lives or time because right now it's "just good enough", maybe you guys need to hit rock bottom first completely before any change happens or takes place
I'm not really sure what to say or do either, but I'm Canadian and the NSA is probably seeing this as well. Hi NSA, I love you!
- stoops
Given the damage he's done to the US and the West, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that.
While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason. By doing what he did, he's ended himself as surely as if he'd put a gun to his own head. Except he'll probably have the US government do it for him (or if he's lucky, life in supermax).
You can't do what he did, and not expect consequences.
So you support the government assassinating people for the sake of national pride?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
This is what happens when a government declares 'War' on an idea, or other abstract.
Crusades
Spanish Inquisition
Prohibition
The War on Drugs
The War on Terrorism
etc.
We don't seem able to learn from history, or past mistakes.
We have allowed the Constitution to be folded, spindled, and mutilated...then used for asswipe.
We are overdue for another Revolution.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
inconveniencing those who have power, without having any power himself
anonymity is the only defense the weak have against the powerful, that is why the powerful are working so hard to destroy it
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
Had to be said.
How is it treason? Is he levying war against the United States? Is he siding with the enemies of the United States?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society
would this be the same civil society whose past mediations have helped perpetuate the institution of slavery and policies of racial discrimination? or is this some other, perfectly enlightened civil society that has at some point between those primeval days and now descended from the heavens to rid us of the need for such crackpots and radicals as might resist its influence?
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
... and petty power corrupts all out of proportion anyways.
We've lost freedom constantly. Freedom to alter things we PURCHASED? Check. All the freedoms associated with actually making a purchase? Gone to shrink-wrap agreements, "End User License Agreements", and other bullshit that makes a purchase not really a purchase.
Onboard computers in cars: now you can't clear the code or find out what's wrong on a new-model car without going to the dealership because they lag behind and won't sell your local mechanic the adapter and the reader software. Friend of mine got his brakes changed on a volkswagen model and an alarm started blaring off; turned out VW stuck a sensor in the brake pads that causes the alarm if it's not found, and the normal size-compatible pads from 3rd party makers didn't have the sensor.
NSA tracking is the tip of the iceberg, the consumer got fucked in the ass long ago.
Given the embarrassment he's caused for the US government, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that.
There, I fixed it for you. I will never begrudge a man like Snowden who exposes constitutional violations by the government.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
This is a high-school dropout who gave up a $200k yr. job, an acrobat girlfriend and was living in Hawaii -- things I would have given my left nut to have.
Yes, he gave that all up because, get this, he is one of the few people in this nation that actually understands the Constitution.
The Constitution is the highest law in the land. It's supposed to control our government so they do not do PRECISELY what they are doing. It's supposed to prevent us from falling into tyranny.
But most of us do not care. He did. He's a hero.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Not necessarily
"Given the damage he's done to the US and the West, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that."
Honest question: are you out of your mind?
He was pointing out damage the government has done , not causing any himself.
Treason is betraying The People of the United States. That's what the government was doing. Treason is NOT betraying the government, it is betraying The People.
A hero, on the other hand, is somebody who says "The public has A Need To Know, damn the torpedoes". That's what Snowden did.
I think you need to get your priorities examined.
If it's genuinely gotten so bad that it takes an expert to understand the plain words of the constitution, we're screwed anyway.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I like the idea that our rights and laws can only be understood by specialized lawyers, but they're supposed to apply to us and ignorance is not a defense.
It's a completely irrational state of affairs, and the best part is when people criticize others using it.
Which government do you think will "disappear" him? He has a laptop full of stolen US national security data and is in the Communist Chinese city of Hong Kong, and has been invited to Russia. Don't you think that the Chinese government might have some people watching him? You know, in case he forgets his laptop after buying some noodles, so he doesn't lose it?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Who watches the watchers?
Congress is supposed to watch the watchers. The voters are supposed to watch Congress.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It may be that that would be the best thing for the rest of us ... it would certainly illustrate the scope of the problem of governmental overreach to the NSA apologists and defenders of the "sacrifice anything in the name of safety" mindset.
I'm not so sure.
The US government isn't engaging in economic espionage (and they damned well should, since US businesses pay taxes as well). They are doing it to foil terrorist attacks (and they've gone on the record saying that gathered intelligence has foiled "dozens" of terrorists attacks). Western spying is subject to a tremendous amount of oversight by the right people (and if you'll excuse me, Slashdot keyboard warriors aren't "the right people").
The Chinese merely hack to steal IP so that they can make money, to "catch up with the West", as they try and justify it. China is a squalid oligopoly, and their hacking and spying is subject to no oversight whatsoever.
You can't compare the two. Our reasons are far more noble in intent.
From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change things.
Have more ideas? Please post below.
Links worthy of attention:
http://anticorruptionact.org/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections
http://represent.us/
http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/
https://www.unpac.org/
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Suggestion #1:
(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.
Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.
Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.
If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.
I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson, especially if it is on corporate letterhead.
Suggestion #2:
Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.
Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.
Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.
Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!
Suggestion #3:
A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.
In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.
Suggestion #4:
What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.
Suggestion #5:
Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I've made in
That is all.
Problem is, you have to *keep* fighting against any and all loss of rights. People are corrupt, greedy, and stupid... this naturally leads to an erosion of individual rights.
Freedom is a high-maintenance thing, but the cost of not doing the maintenance is slavery; if history is any indication, the outcome is all too damned common.
What was the saying again? "A republic, if you can keep it." People keep forgetting that last bit.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
he has committed an extremely serious act of treason
Cunts like you are what has ruined this country. You probably would have voted for Nixon with glee.
The idea that exposing government malfeasance is treason is the most insidious bullshit I have ever heard. If the government does it, it IS illegal, and it SHOULD be exposed. Anything less is the real treason--treason against the people.
I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.
Article 3, section 3 of the US Constitution: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
He most definitely has not committed treason. He did commit a crime by disclosing classified information, but I think we need to first investigate and determine whether the government was indeed breaking the law. It cannot be illegal to reveal classified information relating to illegal activity. Otherwise, our government would be able to act completely unchecked by simply choosing to classify information on what they are doing, with no justification.
The Constitution specifically restricts treason to two cases: 1) levying war against the United States; 2) "adhering" to its enemies, which is generally taken to require explicitly joining them or allying with them. For example, someone who joined the Wehrmacht during WW2 would be guilty of treason. So would someone who joins Al-Qaeda today. Or someone who raises a private army and invades a U.S. territory.
Treason cannot be charged just for any act that harms the United States or benefits its enemies, but only the specific acts of levying war against the country or joining someone else who is doing so. The Founding Fathers were worried about the more expansive meaning of "treason" that had been in use in Europe, to mean anyone who is taken to betray their country's interests, so defined it much more narrowly in the Constitution.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm not sure his leak has done any damage at all. It's not like this program wasn't known about. Hell it was suspected of being this bad or worse. All his leak did was verify what people already thought.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
You mean the semi-autonomous capitalist city-state of Hong Kong? HK has been a thorn in the side of the CCP constantly - as a British Crown Colony before the handover and as a Special Administrative Region after.
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"And yet the Tea Party thugs were demanding government "do whatever it takes" post-9/11... "
You knew about the Tea Party in late 2001? What else did you know about that was still in the future? Lemme guess, you knew about Katrina and didn't warn us? You bastard!
Given the damage he's done to the US and the West
Snowden has done no damage to the US and the West. On the contrary, he has done us all a huge favor by bringing abuses of our rights to light.
Now, the criminals who set up this illegal surveillance program, THEY have done extreme damage to the US.
he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.
No, that would be the criminals responsible for implementing PRISM.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That is not the same as declaring war on the USofA.
How? Look up ECHELON. The story here is how much the USofA spies on its own citizens.
So China is an "enemy country"?
Where do you think your mobile phone is manufactured? If they're an "enemy" then we certainly do a lot to help their economy and employment.
Taking a stand is not the same as committing suicide.
Our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that their signatures would be used to convict them if they lost the war. But it was not a suicide pact. It was them standing up for their beliefs.
Anything else is tyranny.
I'd suggest that reacting cynically to it makes it less likely that it will be righted. You're throwing a wet blanket on the outrage. No doubt that is an honest reaction, but everyone reading it is at least less motivated to do so much as e-mail their senator about it. Lets, for the moment, pretend that this is positively SHOCKING news, that this CANNOT FUCKING STAND, and that this is an unprecedented invasion of our privacy. Because in many ways it is. This surpasses 1984. Forget cameras in every household, we have unintentionally been giving hourly reports on everything to the government. That's not something that was true ten years ago.
Anyway, you don't get any points for thinking some bit of bad news was obvious before it was news. Well, you get mod points, so maybe you do, but I'd rather have negative karma and a slightly higher chance of the NSA being put back in its place.
Intelligent people invite opposing opinions and welcome discussions that may change each other's mind. Mindless goons with clubs and "loud" words don't seek to convince, they seek to demand. It's clear what camp you are in.
Edward Snowden has defected to China.
Currently, only North Koreans will defect to China.
Therefore we can conclude that Snowden is from North Korea or a comparable nation.
Q.E.D.
New Economic Perspectives
They are doing it to foil terrorist attacks (and they've gone on the record saying that gathered intelligence has foiled "dozens" of terrorists attacks).
Of course they would say that. How do we know it's actually true?
Western spying is subject to a tremendous amount of oversight by the right people (and if you'll excuse me, Slashdot keyboard warriors aren't "the right people").
The whole point of Snowden's leak is that that is not true. There is essentially no oversight. Definately not enough oversight to comply with the 4th amendment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Not just that. Freedom is scary. There are always lots of "reasonable" arguments to give up some freedom (even just for a little while) in order to defeat or defend against the "bad guys".
You don't want your freedom getting in the way of fighting the bad guys, do you?
The bad guys will abuse your freedom so that they can attack us good guys.
As always, Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.
The reason why he's angered the US government so badly, is because he's divulged sensitive information that has damaged American interests.
American interests are strictly limited by the Constitution. He may have damaged the interests of the criminals who run this country, but that's not the same as American interests.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They are doing it to foil terrorist attacks (and they've gone on the record saying that gathered intelligence has foiled "dozens" of terrorists attacks).
The cutest part is that you actually believe this crap. Yeah they pinky swear this time that it's only to catch terrorists. It not like the government has been caught secretly spying on US citizens before for political reasons.
Realistically, the federal government will never relinquish the power that it has usurped - our right to be secure in our persons, papers, and effects will never be respected under the status quo.
The realistic course of action is to focus on state legislatures, and call a convention to forcibly remove these noxious elements from the sphere of federal power. The procedure to do so is quite clear:
The first question before us is clear: do we have agreeable legislatures in two thirds of the states, to initiate the process?
The next question is what needs to change, from what and to what? Do we need an obudsman, an office with full subpoena power over all the other branches, answerable to state legislatures? That might do it.
Funny you mention the year 1984... ...as recently as when that book was originally written, if this kind of news came out? I suspect that half the federal government would have been recalled, impeached, and imprisoned. That is, if the White House wasn't burned down first.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"You can always tell who the mentally handicapped people are by their belief in freedom."
Really? I always thought it was determined by medical, psychological and educational professionals nowadays.
Amazing the people we'll have to reclassify if belief sets determine whether you're mentally handicapped. All that research out the window.
Dissent is not the same as treason.
Violated the 4th Amendment (oh right, we're not qualified to understand our own rights.)
No, they'd do it and rely on secrecy, security clearances, high pay, intimidation and threats of legal retribution if it gets out and they find out who did it.
A government with a track record of violating the constitution and human rights of many people has, yet again, violated the constitution?
This does not follow. The government has many a time done illegal, underhanded things and tried to cover it up. I bet you'd do your damnedest to suggest that no one's rights have been violated by the Drug War, too.
Are you suggesting that since our anal orifice is already stretched we should just roll over and get out the Vaseline(Tm) ?
Yep, even many members of Congress are now coming out talking about how little they were informed of what was going on. And you have to love choice quotes from Clapper about how when previously asked about the surveillance that he was telling them the "least untruthful answer". And these are the people we are to trust?
They're the government. They can change the law whenever they want. And the President is one of the foremost experts on US constitutional law.
Think about what you've just written for a second.
How hard is it to use wikipedia to check basic facts before spouting off nonsense in a public forum?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law
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...and yet how off the mark you are.
Here... let me fix that analogy of yours so it reflects reality.
Team A would check every other team's playbook without their knowledge.
They would do it by making copies of said playbooks naturally.
But they would also by spying on every coach of every team, every player of every team, their family members, neighbors, anyone who ever had any contact with them, including the players, families and everyone even remotely connected to players on the team A.
Would that be OK with you? One team doing all that spying so they could win every, single game? OK?
Now imagine that team A is Russia.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The NSA has one last hole in its program to spy on every citizen- the home in which the citizen lives. Traditionally, throughout Human history, the residencies of civilians have provided refuge from organised efforts of intelligence gathering. This fact, for instance, has allowed the emergence of new political and religious movements, movements that the regimes at the time were determined to crush at birth.
Now Microsoft has partnered with the NSA to solve this problem. The Xbox One (now more commonly known as the XBone or XB1) has been designed from the ground up to spy on people in their own homes.
The XBone comes with a so-called Kinect sensor block. This block contains ordinary and infra-red high definition cameras. It also includes a 'depth processing' system that can easily extract Humans from the background, and apply a skeletal recognition algorithm to track body movement and shape (say when people are having sex). The final sensor is a microphone array that can clearly pick-up the conservations of multiple people in the room (and frequently, adjoining rooms as well).
While the XBone is receiving mains power, the Kinect is fully functioning and processing input. It CANNOT be switched off. If it suffers ANY hardware fault, the console immediately stops working. If the cameras are set facing the wall, or taped over, the console pesters the user to re-calibrate the Kinect.
All software developers (games and apps) must, at the very least, include code to request user calibration of Kinect, even if the app/game doesn't use Kinect features to any significant degree. All game/app interfaces MUST be Kinect aware (allow Kinect gestures to replace input from the controllers). At no time is the user allowed to think non-Kinect use of the console is normal.
Microsoft dedicates at least 1/4 of XBone's hardware resources to processing the data produced by the Kinect sensor system. These resources CANNOT be re-assigned to, say, a AAA high-graphic intensive game. The hardware available to Kinect includes real-time video-compression and encryption.
By default (and this CANNOT be disabled by the user) the Kinect is set to constantly monitor each new person who enters the room (and the times). A full face photograph is taken of each new person. This data is uploaded to remote servers on the Internet at least once each 24 hour period. While the Internet connection is off, this data is stored in a dedicated area of the HDD as an encrypted group of files, for later uploading.
All Internet connected XBones can be remotely programmed with a list of 'trigger' events that trigger against various data conditions recognised by the Kinect sensors. The triggers can include things like gunshots, a male shouting at a female, a given person entering the room, or people in the room moving in a particular way. When any trigger condition occurs, the console can begin streaming video data from the Kinect to either the HDD (for later uploading) or to a remote Internet server if the Internet is currently connected.
Of course, remote intelligence personnel can connect to ANY XBone currently on the Internet, and receive live output from the Kinect sensors regardless of what the console owner is currently doing. The console owner will have ZERO idea this is happening, unless they monitor their outbound Internet traffic. Even then, Microsoft has a program of constantly bursting data to and from each connected console to 'groom' the owner to expect unexplained Internet traffic via the console.
In many ways, Snowden's announcements (which others have correctly pointed out simply confirm data that leaked years ago) show that the NSA is 'bored' with their current level of data collection, now it is old hat to suck and save all regular Internet/phone traffic. Team Obama is desperate to go into places the NSA has never gone before. Much of the intent is the power powerful scumbags think they gain when they can become the supreme 'peeping-tom' and peer into the homes of millions of citizens at will.
Constitutional law is another branch of the law, one, AIUI, which requires dedicated years of study to fully master.
No, it takes dedicated years of study to become fully indoctrinated to the point where this kind of bullshit appears legal. The point of law school is not to teach you the law, it's to teach you how to distort the law to get your way.
Remember, just government relies on the consent of the governed. Uninformed consent is invalid. If The People cannot understand the Constitution, they can't consent to be governed.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ultimately, if we the people allow the government the power to know everything about our daily activities, the inevitable eventual outcome is a totalitarian police state.
As for you're statement that "Western spying is subject to a tremendous amount of oversight by the right people" ... that is clearly false ... without truthful testimony to Congress, congressional oversight is meaningless.
People often say treason when they mean sedition.
If it's genuinely gotten so bad that it takes an expert to understand the plain words of the constitution, we're screwed anyway.
It doesn't! Many laws are not that hard to read.
Our brave officials have gotten to redefining very plain words in the constitutions/laws in general.
"Spying" is not really "spying"
"Meta-data" is not "data"
"Imminent" danger means "there might or might not be a danger in the future"
"Militant" means "anyone we killed by drone"
"Terrorist" means "someone we don't like"
"Whistle-blower" means "traitor"
Oh, and many of those re-definitions are classified, so it takes years (and a whistle-blower) to even find out that they already happened.
its really presumptous to say someone broke a law without a fair trial
I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.
Saying he has no sympathy doesn't sound much like he's simply stating what will happen. Makes it sound like he approves.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Yet they have separate passports and can't apply for or receive a passport at a Chinese embassy. I was told this about 4 months ago by a Hong Kong resident with a US greencard.
You don't have your own passports if you aren't autonomous at an international level. Now if you are arguing they don't provide their own defense or execute trade agreements independent of China you might be right.
As a Brit, I've always wondered about how you guys look back on the revolution. Since the US was created out of a revolutionary war you'd think that there could be no act that is more than in keeping with the spirit and founding principles of the republic than seeking to overthrow a government that has overstepped its bounds. But most of your 'patriotic' type pundits seem to view any form of anti-establishment sentiment as either communism or treason.
In the UK we've never really gone in for violent revolution, so I can understand why our national identity doesn't lend itself to direct action. But you guys are always going on about the glory of the republic and the benefits that you gained via armed struggle against the state. How do you keep those sort if ideas straight in your heads alongside the sort of 'my country, right or wrong' jingoism that has you reciting oaths of loyalty in school and so forth?
Everyone thinks he's a hero.
But no one is willing to stand alongside him and shake a collective fist against the government for fear of 'reprisals'.
We've lost.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If Snowden keeps calling the government out on its lies and providing evidence that embarrasses those currently in power, he will be made to disappear without any trial at all.
It's embarrassing for the US govt that it hacked China? It's not as if China has any superior technology the US wants to steal. The US govt simply wants to know what China is up to, since China happens to back a rogue states with nukes and missiles that occasionally saber-rattle about evaporating cities if their extortion demands aren't met.
They cannot change the law whenever they want.
"Article. V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America can ONLY be changed via the process set out in Article V. Other laws can NEVER supersede it. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and if it says something is illegal then it's illegal, no matter what other laws may say.
Not a sentence!
Good point. I like this bit:
By that logic, you could say that the NSA is internally engaging in seditious action towards the American people with this program. Of course, Snowden isn't being seditious either as he's simply provided evidence of their highly questionable activities.
The rule of law is well developed in Hong Kong and the legal system is completely separate from mainland China. If the Chinese or Hong Kong government wishes to break the law, it can, but not without political consequences.
The only alternative would be "extraordinary rendition". Any country can practice this anywhere, as long as they can successfully pull it off without getting caught.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Dude, you beheaded your own king...
Meh, that was some considerable time ago - and we just ended up with a kind of mini monarchy for a few years before reverting to the status quo (albeit with a few more constitutional restraints on the crown). Being a regicide has never been much of a badge of honour.
More recently, we kept the monarchy in the 18th century while the French were murdering their aristocracy, we had a general strike that didn't become a communist revolution and we flat out ignored the blackshirts who were agitating in the late 30s / early 40s.
On 9/11 3000 Americans died in terrorist attacks.
Other losses incurred as a result were much worse.
Who watches the watchers?
Congress is supposed to watch the watchers. The voters are supposed to watch Congress.
Actually, Congress, the President, and the Courts are supposed to watch each other (aka "separation of powers), and the voters watch Congress and the President.
The Separation of Powers part of this has broken down over the last century or so. Thanks to Teddy "Bully Pulpit" Roosevelt and the necessity of presidential leadership during the World Wars and the Cold War, Congress has gotten into the habit of deferring to the President a lot more than it used to. The Progressive Era and the New Deal (in particular, Wickard vs. Filburn) set Supreme Court precedents of deferring to Congress, essentially reversing the assumption from "Congress may only make laws about things the Constitution explicitly allows" to "Congress may make laws about anything the Constitution doesn't explicitly forbid." And with this increase in number and especially scope of laws, Congress can't write them without leaving a huge amount of the details and oversight to the discretion of the bureaucracies implementing them -- a power it is not supposed to delegate, because it means that the executive branch (the bureaucracies) is effectively crafting legislation.
This is an example of what happens when people grant power to government to achieve something they want, without considering how that power will be used. Both the political right and left are guilty of this. Whenever the questions of "should we give government this power?" or "should we set this precedent?", people tend to think in the short term about how people who think like they do can use that power or precedent to do things that they want done. The question they usually fail to ask, and should, is "how will someone whose ideas I detest use this?" Think of someone whose ideology you loathe -- it doesn't matter who it is. Assume that someone like them will have political power someday, because they will. Now look at any question of "should the government have this power?" in terms of what that person would do with it.
To use a tech-related analogy: when the developers of an online game are working on a feature (a new item, new rule, new quest, whatever) or even major bug fix, they not only have to ask "will this be fun for the players?" They also have to ask "will this empower griefers? How about gold-farmers? Bot-users? Does it leave anything open to exploit?" And that's the type of question too many Americans have been neglecting to ask for a long time.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
They've sailed close to the wind a lot. They've done some things which a lot of people could call vicious (e.g. drone strikes on women and children; made the incredibly unpopular decision of bailing out TBTF banks, etc).
I personally wouldn't go as far as to say they're completely useless though. Underestimating the current administration would be a mistake.
Pretty much. You're facing off against people who can redefine the word treason to mean whatever they want, and have that troop of yes-men known as the citizenry nodding their heads as any charge is read off.
I am John Hurt.
While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.
Although he did break the law, he did not commit treason.
This power was not granted, it was simply taken by stepping over democracy's dead corps.
That would be "dead corpse." The way you're spelling it, a dead corps would be a few divisions of zombie Marines. Which, granted, would be pretty cool.
"Semper braaaaains! Oorah!"
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
fleeing to an enemy country
Speaking of "important details", the US and China are not at war.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's not a bipolar situation. Neither the NSC, CIA or the Chinese are on 'our' team.
And who the fuck is the ref, anyway? I wanna call a few fouls.
Unfortunately in this modern era, it's hard to recommend someone actually buy a car -- you should lease with a 100% of service covered (this is yet another one of the subtle ways people with poor credit are relegated to the Second Class).
If you must own a car, you should pay cash up front. If you want a new car with all the googaws, you should prepare to be slowly bled dry by service. The other option is to buy something from before the Computer Revolution and expect to get it serviced a lot, but for a lot cheaper!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
In the UK we've never really gone in for violent revolution
British self-delusion. The English Civil War(s), and more generally the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, were about a lot more than beheading one lousy king, and were incredibly bloody affairs that can hardly be dismissed, as you try to do, as some minor exception to an otherwise peaceful history. The real difference between Britain and France or the US is that you had your revolution earlier.
Meh, that was some considerable time ago
17th century. American Revolution was 18th century. Not exactly recent.
you guys are always going on about the glory of the republic and the benefits that you gained via armed struggle against the state
As would the British if Cromwell hadn't been such a schmuck. You brought back Chuck 2, but in many meaningful ways what you call your Civil War(s) was a revolution. Things changed considerably and Chuck 2 was careful not to tell Parliament to go screw itself and wind up like his father. Britons pride themselves on the Glorious Revolution, but usually overlook that it was largely made possible by the recent Civil War(s) that, de facto, put Parliament in the driver's seat.
the sort of 'my country, right or wrong' jingoism that has you reciting oaths of loyalty in school and so forth?
The Pledge of Allegiance is not jingoistic in any way. That's some sort of weird European hangup over something that's little different from singing a national anthem.
The flaw in your logic is the postal service. They are now maintaining images of the exterior of every piece of mail that they process. The exteriors of written correspondence are also part of my effects. This intrusion, useful as it has been, violates the 4th.
Perhaps a convention could clarify our privacy rights - if Google, Verizon, Microsoft, et al. cannot guarantee privacy from all intrusions, then they cannot prevent any intrusions. From this moment forward, all information on 3rd party carriers must be opened to public inspection. Everything. I get to hear all of your phone calls, read all of your email, and see all of your searches, and you get the same access to mine.
The court rulings have established unequal privilege and power for a shadow government, and I do not believe that they are correct. The majority of U.S. citizens appear to agree with me.
We've been having serious national problems in the political realm since Nixon because the powerful think they own the populace and do not have to abide by the rules for the rest of us. What do you suggest we do?
I don't know ... Coast Guard?
I've said it before, the Constitution is an incredibly difficult document to understand, if you are trying to understand it as a means of limiting rights/expanding government authority.
It's a spectacularly clear and concise document to understand if you are looking at it from the perspective of protecting rights/limiting government authority.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
The Pledge of Allegiance is not jingoistic in any way. That's some sort of weird European hangup over something that's little different from singing a national anthem.
Bull fucking shit. Anyone who actually grew up in the US knows better than that.
It is jingoistic, nobody else does anything remotely like it, and when you get right down to it, it's weird.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
So then, what do you think of North and Poindexter? Since knowingly selling weapons to Hezbollah via a third party (Iran) not long after they had killed over a hundred US marines is apparently not enough to provide support to an enemy how the hell can Snowdon be considered to be supporting an enemy?
Meh, that was some considerable time ago - and we just ended up with a kind of mini monarchy for a few years before reverting to the status quo (albeit with a few more constitutional restraints on the crown). Being a regicide has never been much of a badge of honour.
1649, to be exact. 127 years before the Americans decided to throw off the yoke of King George. However, keep in mind that the religious descendants of the movement that lopped off Charles' head were among the first colonists in what later became the United States. Then a few years later (in 1688) y'all had the Glorious Revolution, importing a foreign king to replace the one you didn't like, largely because he was too easy on Catholics.
And if you read the writings of some the the USA's leading revolutionaries, they thought they were honoring an English tradition resisting monarchs who had gotten too big for their britches.
The difference though (at least from my point of view) is that the tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy brigade never had any actual real evidence to justify their complaints that the government was listening in on everything.
Snowden has flipped that around. It's no longer a suspected conspiracy theory, because it has been proven to exist (... assuming his evidence pans out to be real, which I have no reason to doubt at the moment).
All you have to do is wear a rubber mask that looks like George Bush whenever you are in the room with the gadget. Its a perfectly reasonable trade-off.
Every month like clockwork 1300 people are killed in this country. No "terror" fearing talking heads seem to give two shits about that.
A 9/11 every 3 months and still endless shit about us being "less safe" cuz of something that happened 12 years ago.
The actual tragedy are politicians who waste countless billions on militiary industrial complex with statistically irrelevant results while that money stands a much better chance of saving real lives if used for other purposes...assuming that is actually what they care soo much about.
Heck you can save lives to unecessary car accidents and save money in the process just by reigning in the TSA.
I heard on the news that Saddam Hussain was working with the terrorists. Year after year our officials make shit up and lie to us, start wars based on knowingly dubious and false information and none of them go to jail not a single goddamn one of them. Sell weapons to Iranians to raise money to fight wars in Nicaragua and everyone gets pardoned. Lie after lie, abuse after abuse, secret courts, secret laws.
The government does not deserve our trust. No government on earth deserves the trust of its people.
At risk of being modded as a troll, I'm going to say this - Snowden is an idiot.
Anybody who was surprised by his 'announcement' that the US government is 'invading your privacy' is an idiot. PRISM is nothing more than an evolution of ECHELON, which has been public knowledge for more than a decade (a quick search on Wikipedia could have saved him a lifetime as a fugitive). Let's get one thing straight, when the Government and Intelligence agencies say they have found a "balance between privacy and surveillance" that balance is 100% surveillance, 0% privacy.
In the words of Sun Microsystems CEO (1999): You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.
Seriously, PGP is very well respected for crypto, but I remember Phil Zimmermann very publicly saying "There will never be a government backdoor in PGP as long as I work here" about six months before he stopped working there. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that the NSA probably can read your PGP encrypted messages without resorting to brute force. There are open-source alternatives, but they all have limitations. Not least of which is this one: http://xkcd.com/538/
But just because *some people* can crack your encryption, doesn't mean you shouldn't encrypt. We need to stop looking at privacy as an all or nothing thing. I value my privacy from my peers and the police. I don't give a crap what the spy agencies know, or what my government knows, because you like to think they have bigger things to worry about than me. I also care very little that my workplace can read all my emails, because they also have better things to worry about.
But just because a few people can read my email, doesn't mean I'm going to do away with a password altogether.
The only thing we can do to fight back is get the same level of surveillance over our governments, that our governments have over us. This is not done by one or two whistleblowers (while we're at it, isn't it funny that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enforces criminal penalties for not 'blowing the whistle' in corporate america, but that Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden will be hunted to the death for doing it to the government?); it's done by voting in mandatory transparency of government affairs.
I think The Economist may have got it right: The US sees espionage against the state as just part of the game, but espionage against its private civilian businesses as illegitimate, whereas the Chinese government doesn't recognize the difference.
Rage all you want against the 'terrifying new revelations' about government data collection, this is the INEVITABLE arc of human societies.
I know Toynbee may socio-historically old-fashions, but it seems a never-ending repetitious cycle: humans scrabble their way out of chaos and savagery, build cohesive societies that take care of basic needs freeing their citizenry to think and dream and grow. Ultimately, the weight of a society exceeds its carrying capacity (largely through the people's ignorance of how great they have it compared to the alternatives) and everything collapses in anarchy and violence, until some inspired individuals lead the way back out of chaos again.
But we're social animals (emphasis on the latter). Freedom is HARD; look carefully behind a student's eyes on graduation day, and you'll see a core anxiety "OK WTF do I do NOW with my life?"
(An aside: I believe that this is the core reason that college is perceived to be so necessary to job-hunters today. It's not the commonly-ranted "companies are demanding college degrees for everything" complaint, that's confusing cause/effect. I believe that the comfort-value of a life-on-rails with few meaningful choices has kept people in school longer and longer. It's simple, lazy, expensive procrastination of "real life" for another 4+ years. Faced with a ridiculous excess of applicants with college degrees, wouldn't you as a business likewise begin to demand them if only as a first-tier way to weed out candidates who ostensibly have fewer skills? If you think about it, it's actually contrary to what they should WANT in an employee, and why a thoughtful HR department should consider carefully if they really want degree-holding applicants, if the degree isn't directly pertinent to the job.)
You can see it too if you play a face-to-face roleplaying game with today's teens, they are literally paralyzed with choices, as opposed to the linear games with fixed, obvious options that they're used to from their PC or consoles.
In a couple of moments of startling clarity from an otherwise vapid film: ...
"Loki: I come with glad tidings of a world made free.
Nick Fury: Free from what?
Loki: Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie.
Loki: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
They are lines that are supposed to enrage, of course, to light the righteous indignation in freedom-loving Americans (and in fact it's immediately followed by the formulaic 'defense of the lone guy brave enough to stand up' and Capt America's line "You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."
ANYONE who watches that and doesn't immediately recognize the historical, essential truth of Loki's statement hasn't been paying attention.
As artists have a particularly skillful ability to be succint:
http://i.imgur.com/DrlRmZK.jpg
(sfw)
Personally I suspect that freedom on the level of that envisaged by the Founding Fathers is unsustainable, because it demands a broad level of intelligence, education, the leisure to care about things larger than ones' next meal, and the willingness to put in the WORK. Lying in your hammock isn't freedom, it's the reward of freedom.
Either people are generally too indolent to be willing to work for it (think herd of sheep or cattle, happy to merely have food and get milked/sheared once in a while in exchange for perceived comfort & safety - until the farmer needs meat, but that's in the distant future...), or the governments have figured out that the way to ensure their grip on power is to opiate the masses. Either way, the masses are largely happy with it and always have been.
So stop your screaming and shouting. Ecce homo, indeed.
-Styopa
I'm not sure you understand (I apologize if I'm misreading, but your phrasing in a couple of places seems to imply you're not from the United States) that in the US, the entire principle upon which our bill of rights (the first 10 amendments of our constitution) was written included the necessity for the language to be so plain, simple, and so unequivocating that they could not be abused without even the most common of men being able to identify when those rights were being infringed.
Over the past 220 years, of course, our lawyers and government officials have done everything they could to twist the words and the language into things which the founders could never have meant in the language of their day, and if one simply takes the time to read their writings, would never have passed into law in the first place.
In this example, the fourth amendment was intended to ensure the right of the people not to have their property, persons, homes, recorded information (papers essentially being the medium of the day, as opposed to the literal meaning of paper itself), and so forth, against general government scrutiny as well as to prohibit general warrants (such as Writs of Assistance, which were heavily abused in the colonies and are essentially not substantially different from PRISM and other government tracking and general surveillance programs).
So rest assured, I am quite confident that my understanding and view of how the fourth amendment was intended by its authors to restrict the government is sufficient to apply it in this case, as well as that my understanding of the reasons for which it was authored as it was is properly sufficient. Regardless of how the present government may choose to interpret it, something that has been quite questionable in many rulings despite the plainness of the language. For one such example, you might examine Kelo v. City of New London, which was clearly decided in a way not consistent with the intent of its authors in any manner, or even with the language itself barring an egregious twist of the words and meanings.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I don't give a crap what the spy agencies know, or what my government knows, because you like to think they have bigger things to worry about than me.
And that notion combined with the completely irrational fear of terrorist threats (The cost of 9/11 was less than the cost of Katrina and all other terrorist activities on American soil combined add up to very little compared to almost any natural disaster you care to mention). I'm btw not saying we should do nothing about global terrorism. But, we should be rational about its real cost and threat and act accordingly.
As long as the citizenry of the US are cowering in fear of terrorism and do not see the long term threat that government surveillance of is own citizenry contains nothing will change. Let us hope that we still control the government through the ballot box when we finally realize that our current direction leads to totalitarian rule.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.