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UK Prime Minister Threatens To Block Further Snowden Revelations
Bruce66423 writes "From the article: 'In a statement to MPs on Monday about last week's European summit in Brussels, where he warned of the dangers of a "lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view" about the dangers of leaks, the prime minister said his preference was to talk to newspapers rather than resort to the courts. But he said it would be difficult to avoid acting if newspapers declined to heed government advice.' So that will achieve something won't it? Don't these politicians understand that blocking publication in just the UK achieves nothing? The information is held outside the UK, and will be published there; all he's doing is showing his real colors."
Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Will someone remember Snowden is pointing out info to everyone. The most important info. Heck, the Russians pale in comparison to the dangers of the NSA. Ever heard of transparency? Got a clue?
um. No he's revealing info to everyone.. No country claiming to be a bastion of freedom should be in the business of mass data collection of its citizens' comings and goings. The criminals are the politicians in washington DC. Hell, the russian government probably already knows more about the USA domestic spying activities than its own citizens do.
Mostly POW issues from Iraq, the legality of wars, the use of the SAS, black sites and select not so legal weapons sales going back decades.
There is also a lot of MI6/MI5/SAS/FBI views on weapons shipments via the USA old news from the Ireland years.
Domestic surveillance is well understood by the UK press so the 'block' would be over much more interesting stories.
The UK could not stop the US press in the 1930's on UK domestic news. In 2013 the UK gov wants to try again?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Over and over governments have fallen and change has been driven when secrets become known. This is because information is the only real source of power. Controlling what information gets out, and what information you have is real power. Any person who has been in government or even a large organization quickly realizes this and those who thrive in these organizations have taken this to heart.
So this is why governments spend so much effort in "massaging" information and are happy to have things kept secret for a hundred different reasons such as "privacy" or "security" but the simple truth is that once the population has this information they now have the power and this is the scariest of all scenarios for people who want power.
As I said, just look at the history of leaks, in the UK you had ministers that were terrible and people wanted them gone, yet they not only stayed but were regularly re-elected because people didn't have the solid information that could sway an electorate. Then the expenses scandal came out with solid information about people lying, cheating, and repairing their moats and in a flash they were gone. Prior to the leak the public was fed a filtered version of the MP expenses. In the US you had Nixon get turfed from office when he lost control of the information. The key being concrete evidence of what was happening in the oval office. The media loves their dueling opinions but people can tell the differences between narrative, opinion, and cold hard facts. I very much doubt these bozos care one iota about the whole protecting the country part of these revelations but they do care about losing their ability to spy on anyone who is making them look bad or getting in the way of their rich friends. And they really hate the fact that these revelations prove them to be liars themselves.
But the worst part for these people is that the media is no longer just a few media barons that they can be clubby with. In years past they may very well have been able to keep a lid on this through that alone. But now the traditional media is no longer local. So even if none of the press in one country runs a story other countries' press cores will and then there are the million micro media sites. They will all run with anything they can get their hands on.
I love it!
Dear James Cameron,
You might ring Barbra Streisand and ask her how this'll work out for you.
Love,
The Internet
First the government abused foreigners, and the press did nothing.
Then the government started abusing its own citizens, and the press did nothing.
Then the government started abusing the press...
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Why, too lazy to look it up yourself?
Because searching Russia Today for the evils of the US government is like searching Fox News for the evils of the Democratic Party.
The Grauniad is printed as several editions in several locations. The best way to answer this would be to print the British edition with large amounts of white space entitled "Censored" on the pages that the foreign editions have articles that contain information obtained from Snowden. The British people would then go online to see the information which would harm the British press but harm the British government more.
When The Guardian publishes again --- which it absolutely will --- he can choose to do nothing and further relinquish control, further harming himself politically. Or he can take it to the courts like he threatened, spending a fortune trying to get an unpopular order which will also harm him politically. If he succeeds at getting the order all it will do is make the UK government and the crown look even more the fools. He is playing a game that has no winning moves.
Let's change how we look at David Cameron. Instead of viewing him as the PM, look at him instead as a very expensive property of the Murdochs. How much would Rupert and his clan pay to finally silence the Guardian or any joint willing to publish in the UK? Who cares if their latest pawn (Cameron) goes down in flames - they'll just bribe the opposition or push one of their other pawns forward.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
More than three hundred years after the Glorious Revolution, the U.K. has a freaking P.M. who thinks is an absolute monarch. Perhaps it is time for another revolution.
Off with his head!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
There's not much far-left anything in the US.
Sure there is! Fox News tells us all the time that Obama is a communist and there's a big liberal left-wing conspiracy to oppress them because they hate freedom. Okay... my turn to vomit in my mouth.
But more seriously, the fear here has become palpable. They said "lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view", like it doesn't mean anything, but they're already moving to try and suppress it. How was it that Ghandi put it: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you... ah, but I forget what comes after that!
This is the first public admission that the UK is shitting a fucking brick about Snowden, but you have to read between the lines to spot it.
You know, I've had very little good to say about Snowden, considering him little more than some kid who punked the NSA, then mooned us on his way out the door. But this kind of reaction suggests there's more to the story than I think anyone realizes. Now, I'm not saying Snowden has anything, but the UK is obviously worried that he'll say he does. Snowden has credibility now -- he could turn that on the UK. And the UK and US are very close allies when it comes to intelligence.
The UK may be worried that it's staunch defense of the US is about to kick of a political shitstorm as some yet unidentified new leak surfaces. And real or not, it could seriously harm the UK's credibility. The Obama administration's absolutely terrible way of handling this entire affair has turned some dumb kid into a weapon potentially more damaging to the UK than a few hundred drone strikes.
If I were the PM, I'd be fucking livid right now with Obama.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There isn't much "far-left" anything in the world except for couple of wacko countries. Far left in the old sense have lost the battle of ideas so thoroughly and so humiliatingly with the end of the cold war that nobody in the right mind would take them seriously. What the GP means is that majority of the US press leans to the left within the context of the US political spectrum, which is certainly true.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is.
Is the new York Times "far left" except in the fever dreams of the far right? Of course it isn't.
There are no terrorists under Merkel's desk, It's economic espionage, UK/US have been the experts in that field since the end of WW2.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In the delusional hyper-paranoid NSA world you gain power and control when you know things that other people don't know. It's all about insiders and outsiders. If the outsiders find out what's going on, they might become less pliable and start wondering about what's going on and ask questions. They might even start objecting to the current setup.
Some of it is about money. The US is spending something over $50 Billion per year. That a long way from chump change, and a lot of companies are getting very very rich from that. I don't think that the direct government employees are the big winners at this, I think the outside contracting companies really rake it in. First you pay your dues working for the Feds, then you make a vastly higher amount doing the same thing in the private sector. That's what Snowden did.
The second thing is fear of failure. Everyone is terrified of taking the blame for the next successful big attack. They want all the data in the vain hope that it means that failure can be avoided forever. It's not possible, but given effectively unlimited resources they can engage in the insane project of trying to spy on every human on earth.
So not only is the goal impossible, it is a huge waste of resources. For the kind of money they are spending they could literally buy off many of the "bad guys" they are fighting. (This assumes that the money was spent wisely, as opposed to the complete cluster fuck of wasted money poured into Afghanistan and Iraq.)
For example, offer the Palestinians and the Israelis billions of dollars each for domestic non-military spending, with the condition that any violence on either side means a complete immediate shutoff. (And no more Israeli building on the west bank.) Assume they are corrupt and can be bought, and it just might work. Even if it doesn't work, at least the money will be poured down some new rat holes for a change.
Why is Snark Required?
You have to be an inscrutable idiot if you believe that "Liberal" is the same as "Far Left".
But the US just lost the last little piece of credibility it had. All things US are fair game now. The Russians are crooks to, but they don't pretend otherwise.
Russia Today is a propaganda outlet of the Russian government.
Well, that's the point. It would definitely be preferable to prove them wrong rather than right by one's actions. If the worst a propaganda outlet can fantasize about the U.S. is actually true, that does not really paint a good picture.
He is playing a game that has no winning moves.
True. But he's undoubtedly doing it under orders from his US masters - who don't care whether he gets re-elected or not. The UK has for a very long time now been a client kingdom of the US. One of their main roles on behalf of their masters is to disrupt the EU as much as possible, but they have to carry out other menial tasks too.
It's quite unimportant how much some Edward Snowden has been lying (not so much, it would seem by the way). The salient point is how much your own government has been lying to you, and how much your secret services have been lying to both your government and you. Nobody so far has tried claiming that the released documents were doctored by Snowden. So the veracity of the relevations is not in question.
Snowden could be a shill for Hitler and that would not be relevant. What is relevant is that your government chooses to be a shill for Hitler, bringing back fascism into the world.
I would use whatever word is actually applicable to the policies that they're advocating.
"Socialist", for example, is not a dirty word. The Labour Party in the UK still has "democratic socialist" baked into their mission statement. Do you mean that the New York Times is a socialist paper? Because let me tell you, as a socialist myself, I find that very hard to believe.
Unless there is even MORE damaging things which the US and NSA have done.
More recently, as a form of damage control no doubt, were assertions by both the POTUS and the NSA that the POTUS didn't know about many things. Okay great. If it's true, then shut down the NSA as it is clearly an executive branch activity which is not within the knowledge or control of the executive. "It's not his fault! He didn't know!!" Really? You're that far out of control? And he's not in control?! Get rid of both! That's a pretty damning admission if you ask me.
Even if they try their best to do this. Every article, blog post, every news program always reflects point of view of whoever created this content. Even if such person tries his/hers best to be as objective as possible, it is impossible to avoid bias.
The only truth is what you see yourself which is of course impossible for practical reasons. The second best approximation is to snort though raw footage and original materials. This is very time consuming task and it is also impractical for anyone who is not a professional investigative journalist.
This brings us to preprocessed and prepackaged information spewed by either mainstream or alternative media. What works for me is to assume that they all have a lot of spin in their content and that every spin doctor uses at least partially true arguments supporting his/her position at first, is quiet about arguments contrary to his/her position and resorts to lies and fabrications only if all other alternatives fail. So I'm trying to read arguments of all adversary sides (US media, european media, russian media, chinese media, iranian media) and then use my head to sort out things - pretty much 'Scherlock style' deduction. Unfortunately this requires some time and effort, which most of people do not want to expend.
Very unpleasant thing about this is that western media perform very poorly in this regard, especially since run-up to Iraq war. I attribute this to general situation and 'lack of good arguments' on western side - which directly correlates to our latest economic (2008 crash and afterwards) and social (rise of police state) troubles. We now see things going from bad to worse: UK blocking PressTV, UK government forcing Guardian to destroy its computers, now UK PM threatening all newspapers if they do not obey his demands. The same in the US: Obama prosecuting and jailing more than twice as many whistleblowers as all his predecessors combined, US blocking RT, huge assault on journalists, with some of them propably murdered by government thugs to silence and send a message (Michael Hastings). We are certainly not better in this regard than government controlled eastern media and I suspect we might even crossed point of no return in our way have only to strictly controlled, totalitarian media spewing nothing but lies and propaganda.
The PM wants the newspaper to stop publishing because it will be a "threat to national security". Well, maybe they should have thought of that before they did all the things that are now being published. If they'd not done those things and not have been so clumsy with their dirty little secrets, national security wouldn't be at stake now. They clearly brought this problem on themselves and the publishing of these facts is just a symptom of their own threatening national security with their own actions. Don't blame a newspaper for publishing news. Blame the people that did the stupid things that are now being published.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Tony (-6.00, -5.90)
-- "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -- Juvenal
This needs to get modded up to 11
The fact is in the USA in the last 30 to 40 years the republican party has moved to where I am not sure but the facts are just plain funny.
I see conservatives rant and rave and blame obama, but then admit both parties are screwing things up. I see them get all pissy about government spending and taxes, yet at the same time wonder why the roads have pot holes, the schools are losing programs, bridges are falling down, etc.
a simple fact is that conservatives and so called republicans use 55-60% of social security, medicare and medicaid.(Older people tend to be or have become more conservative as they aged). Yet those same people believe they are entitled to those services. They refuse to stand up for their own beliefs.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
My main concern is what the NSA is doing to Americans, not what Paraguay may be doing.
You said, of Snowden ...
Technically he is a traitor ...
Would you be so kindly tell us how would you define your term of " Technically " ?
What Mr. Edward Snowden did was not treacherous to the country of the United States of America.
No.
Just because the Obama Administration that called Edward Snowden a "traitor" doesn't make it so.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
No one outside the NSA knows what Snowden knows
Yeah, just him and 4 million other contractors with Top Secret clearance. And their wives, friends, and anyone else they've ever blabbed to. And high ranking military officials, the CIA, any number of Congressmen, State Department officials, etc.
But, yeah, aside from them--and Snowden--all this stuff is totally contained. Our phone calls, emails, and web browsing histories are safe. And no one could possibly use them for anything illegal or unethical.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."