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."

Comments

wrong target

[deodiaus2]

Will someone point out that Snowdon is probably revealing info to the Russians? After all, everyone wants SOMETHING!!

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:wrong target

[epyT-R]

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.

Re:wrong target

[PPH]

Will someone point out that Snowdon is probably revealing info to the Russians?

Why? Don't they have their own subscription to The Guardian?

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Cameron is a COMPLETE idiot!

Re:wrong target

[Demonantis]

Incorrect: According to Snowden, the laptops he brought to Russia were empty. Shockingly the internet exists making physical transport of data unnecessary. He doesn't have control and probably access over the information anymore. That is why Cameron is attacking the news outlets now. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/14/snowden_decoy_laptops_russia_china/

Re:wrong target

[Frobnicator]

Why? Don't they have their own subscription to The Guardian?

One interesting thing about threats is that you absolutely must be able to follow through and the threats most be seen as a positive action. Cameron has just put his head in a noose. (Well, more than usual)

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.

By all means, I hope he continues to make threats like this. If he doesn't follow through he will be seen as weak, and if he does follow through he will become even more unpopular. Boris Johnson is already twice as popular in the polls, Cameron is already less popular than his party (which is also rapidly sinking) and idiotic statements like this will just cause the ship to sink faster.

Mr Cameron, every time you open your mouth you make it easier for those who will oppose your party in 2015. Please carry on.

Re:wrong target

[mosb1000]

No country claiming to be a bastion of freedom should be in the business of mass data collection of its citizens' comings and goings.

That's probably just a consequence of having the ability to collect such data. I'm more worried about they way they encourage people they have a problem with to engage in illegal activities just so that they can arrest them. Or the way the way laws have been passed prohibiting recreational drug use, effectively declaring 10% or so of the population to be criminals. Them tracking our comings and goings wouldn't be such a problem if our innocent activities weren't illegal in the first place.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true; many parts are still missing. But he's pulling himself together, so to speak.

Re:wrong target

[OhANameWhatName]

Don't they have their own subscription to The Guardian?

If the Guardian processed payments from the bank of moscow, they'd be aiding terrorism.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:wrong target

[rsborg]

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.

Re:wrong target

[ruir]

Why only the Guardian? As far I am aware UK is in track well with China and Pakistan, having Internet censorship already in place.

Re:wrong target

[erikkemperman]

Cameron is a COMPLETE idiot!

Not true; many parts are still missing. But he's pulling himself together, so to speak.

He's almost all there, but for shame and common sense.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking forward to the Queen curtly saying, "I think we've about heard enough from you" to Cameron.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:wrong target

[WillKemp]

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.

Re:wrong target

[vague regret]

USA knew about USSR more than USSR citizens. Well, it is at least fair.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think that any data storage server outside of the Guardian could have an 'accident' and have all of it's data destroyed? Or how about any files that the Guardian has created in the past few months?

And how long could the Guardian survive if the website was blocked or DDOS's and the paper wasn't printed for one reason or another?

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden only ended up in Russia because Obama cancelled his passport mid flight. He had no way of traveling anywhere after that. Snowden is in Russia because that is where Obama wants him to be. Obama can paint him as a traitor or whatever and all the slack-jawed knuckle-draggers
in the US will go along with it.

Re:wrong target

[coastwalker]

I agree, Cameron is coming over more and more like a complete twat. The Labor party will be back in power at the next election because of him.

Re:wrong target

[artg]

I know they're always ignored and this one fails to attack the most significant points - such as the government's treatment of Snowden as a criminal rather than a whistleblower showing up abuse.

However, lots of votes will at least make ignoring the call embarrassing. Even the americans are claiming to review the situation.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing to consider is propsed Royal Charter for Press Regulation. It's a pretty hot topic here at the moment and a trial started yesterday for the two people at the centre of the whole debarcle, who just so happen to be good friends of Cameron.

One potential win out of Cameron's stance is that people lose faith in governments ability to regulate the press and so leave them unregulated, much to the pleasure of his friends...

Just a thought.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

The most important info. Heck, the Russians pale in comparison to the dangers of the NSA. Ever heard of transparency? Got a clue?

Ah yes, the famous "transparency" of Russia. I'm pretty sure that the NSA has never threated to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries, but Russia has. Why you would think that nuclear armed Russia with its own intelligence services unchecked is somehow less dangerous than NSA is baffling. Are you posting from fantasyland, or Russia?

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Cameron is a COMPLETE idiot!

Not true; many parts are still missing. But he's pulling himself together, so to speak.

He's almost all there, but for shame and common sense.

Ok, you claim the difference between Cameron and a COMPLETE idiot is shame and common sense.

I'll take your word for it, but can't figure out the sign of the difference on my own.

Re:wrong target

[jalopezp]

I don't know, Ed Milliband is working hard to make sure that doesn't happen.

Re:wrong target

[kthreadd]

Technically he is a traitor, but that doesn't of course mean that what he did was wrong.

Re:wrong target

[TheRaven64]

Boris Johnson has always been popular. He's a very intelligent individual who plays the affable buffoon role to perfection and so seems unthreatening. However, polls asking whether he'd make a good prime minister have consistently shown a lot less support than ones just judging his popularity. This may change as a result of his time as Mayor of London, but it would still be a big gamble for the Conservatives.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

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?

Interesting comment from an Anonymous Coward, and provably wrong. I think you would have to point to genuine transparency on the part of Russia. As to the danger of Russia compared to NSA, to start with, NSA doesn't have nuclear weapons aimed at NATO countries, Russia does, and that's not all. Russia has apparently continued the former Soviet practice of killing dissidents and defectors. Of course Snowden was welcomed to Russia after he made arrangements with the Russian consulate in Hong Kong.

Russian general says Poland a nuclear 'target'

Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services

Russia supported Litvinenko murder, says security official

The Russian government supported the murder of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, it was reported last night.

A senior security official told BBC's Newsnight there were "very strong indications it was a state action" and that the Russian security services continued to have a "willingness to consider operations against people in the west".

Last year, the CPS issued an extradition warrant to bring Lugovoi back to the UK from Russia, but Putin refused to hand him over, saying it would be in breach of his country's constitution to do so.

Newsnight said it was told Russia's internal security organisation, the FSB, operated with far more autonomy than organisations usually entrusted with foreign espionage operations.

The source said: "We very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some state involvement."

The source used an MI5 operation last summer in which officers arrested and deported a man they believed to be on a mission to kill another Russian dissident, Boris Berezovsky, as an example of "continued FSB willingness to consider operations against people in the west".

Re:wrong target

[sI4shd0rk]

Them tracking our comings and goings wouldn't be such a problem if our innocent activities weren't illegal in the first place.

Ridiculous. Of course it would; it is unconstitutional, creepy, and morally wrong.

Furthermore, the law could change at any time, and even the constitution can be ignored/amended (mostly ignored).

Re:wrong target

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'm going to throw out a suggestion: Consider becoming the first modern parlimentary system to adopt a constitutional style list of powers explicitely forbidden to government.

It has warts, but is seems to work fine by keeping pleading arguments for censorship dead on arrival. Do it with a supermajority such that a supermajority is required to repeal it.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is taking the high moral ground. They're both bad. However, when you have like 10k nukes, you couldn't point *all* of them at DC or NY... Also, how does one ``point'' a missile anywhere? (you mean they have the GPS coordinates of most interesting places already in the address book?). If that's the definition, I'm sure US has nukes `pointing' at some of its own cities... (uh, oh!).

Re:wrong target

[Curunir_wolf]

Interesting comment from an Anonymous Coward, and provably wrong. I think you would have to point to genuine transparency on the part of Russia. As to the danger of Russia compared to NSA, to start with, NSA doesn't have nuclear weapons aimed at NATO countries, Russia does, and that's not all. Russia has apparently continued the former Soviet practice of killing dissidents and defectors.

Maybe we should specify "dangerous to whom". Russia has had nuclear weapons aimed at other countries for half a century, and they are no closer to using them than they've ever been. The NSA's actions probably push nuclear countries into more desperation making the nuclear option more likely, not less, so in that regard they are certainly more dangerous. And of course Russia's government is more dangerous to its own citizens than anyone else (dissidents and defectors and the like), but that's true of every government in the world.

So you could say that Russia is a greater danger to some European countries than the NSA, but you would probably not win that argument with Angela Merkel.

But the real point is that the NSA is clearly a greater danger to people in the US than Russia, far greater. They can track and target anyone at any time, and there is evidence they have done so. They are making many countries in the world very angry at the US, Russia included. And don't lets forget that the NSA is not just some division of geeks with keyboards - they can mount a very capable armed response at any time. If someone in charge at the NSA decided to take out a target, no one would even question the orders until well after you're counting the bodies.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

Explicit threats to use nuclear weapons are generally considered a serious matter.

I'm not sure how you think that NSA would push some other country into a nuclear attack. The NSA's primary job is simply to listen and gather intelligence.

Angela Merkel spent most of her life with Soviet troops just across the border in East Germany, and Germany is part of the alliance that Russia threatens with nuclear weapons.

Russia's reaction to the scandal contains elements of "don't care" and glee. Russia is highly active with their own spying, including Germany, the UK, US, and many other nations. They also know that they get spied on. The Russians derive both advantage and amusement from the agitation in the West about this matter. If it hurts diplomatic relations between NATO/EU countries and the US, so much the better for Russia.

The NSA isn't an armed service, nor do they have police powers. Although they pose a great potential danger, as any intelligence service does in a democracy, as a practical matter, not so much.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep licking government balls you pathetic bitch. Get all the peanut butter off or you'll be kenneled again.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

You are pointing to examples of government oppression as an argument of why we shouldn't fear a secret government agency?

Re:wrong target

[TheCarp]

Actually, while I am no expert, I do believe that the ICBMs are not actually guided by GPS. A little clicking around wikipedia seems to indicate they use inertial guidance, and some have an "Address book" of 8 targets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118A_Peacekeeper).

So not spot on but pretty close.

Re:wrong target

[TheCarp]

> Them tracking our comings and goings wouldn't be such a problem if our innocent activities
> weren't illegal in the first place.

Yes but, even if they were not, how could you trust that they never would be? The problem with surveillance is NOT that you are being watched and have to trust the watcher. Its that you have to trust him, and his replacement, and his replacement, and your kids will grow up having to do the same.

Were there no innocent activities that were illegal, what assurance would you have that they wouldn't become illegal AFTER the survillance was added?

Re:wrong target

[fustakrakich]

...idiotic statements like this will just cause the ship to sink faster.

No, they will just throw him overboard, and the Good Ship Lollypop will continue on its merry way like nothing was ever amiss. Much worse has happened, and the Monarchy still stands, to this day.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

The question was which was more dangerous, and people were choosing badly. Isn't that plain?

Re:wrong target

[mosb1000]

I agree that the government shouldn't be powerful enough to enforce these kinds of laws. The the reality of modern data collection is that it's so cheap and easy practically any government could do it. Moreover, such surveillance has the potential to increases the strength of the rule of law by making the enforcement of laws more consistent. Stopping it as probably an unrealistic goal. Everyone in a position of authority wants more information.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my God!!! The Russians kill people in other countries? Not quite as bad as the US then who invade other countries and bomb people in friendly countries with drone attacks killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the mean time. Russia took the moral high ground a long time back and although no one thinks they are good guys they are certainly better than the US

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

I assume then that you've never heard of Chechnya, Georgia, or Pussy Riot? Russia is a much better country than the Soviet Union was, so far. But Putin has them working back towards the Soviet model. If you think that Russia is a better friend toward Europe than the US, you are greatly mistaken. There is probably more than one thing you don't know.

Re:wrong target

[mjwalshe]

So reporting your house moves to the police in Germany (which has mandatory ID cards) doesn't worry you

Re:wrong target

[mjwalshe]

Yes every one knows that Sgt Wilson was the really competent one in Walmington-on-Sea home guard - I see Ken Clark in this role Borris gets to be Pvt Pike.(with the firing pin on the tommy gun removed just in case)
For non Uk people "lah di dah" is a reference to a famous uk sitcom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad's_Army though using that term is a bit of an own goal a bit like Duncan Smith 's " quiet man" quote

Re:wrong target

[mjwalshe]

A conspiracy theorist might think that the Gruniad is doing this so they can back away from supporting the new press charter - they have some rather unpleasant people who originally supported the hacking in the "public interest"

Re: wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having trouble seeing the direct connection between freedom and surveillance.

Re: wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

In post-Soviet Russia, authoritarianism isn't back. It was never permitted to leave.

Re:wrong target

[chris_mahan]

Doesn't the NSA have the ability to put a manila envelope on the president's desk, and next thing you know: boom! Hellfire missile blows up you and your family. No police, no judge, no jury...

Re:wrong target

[lennier]

NSA doesn't have nuclear weapons aimed at NATO countries

Well, that they've told the public about. Fortunately, all the US nukes are under careful control at all times and the strategic targeting systems probably aren't run off anything involving a computer. And even if they were, the NSA aren't much into computers, don't have any experience writing viruses that penetrate command and control systems, and certainly don't have any access to computer networks that they shouldn't.

Yeah. Thanks for that bit of nightmare fuel.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

Manila envelope on the President's desk? Sure. Blow up the family? From what I understand they try to avoid that, and even pass on opportunities to shoot out of concerns about collateral damage. Blow up you (assuming you are a terrorist fighting with al Qaida) without police, judge, or jury? Sure, since they are in the same status as these other Americans that the Federal government shot dead without arrest, charge, trial, conviction, or sentence. Al Qaida is making war against the US, not picking pockets. The US is making war right back. Anyone that is fighting with al Qaida that doesn't want a visit from Hellfire on earth can surrender.

Re:wrong target

[lennier]

However, when you have like 10k nukes, you couldn't point *all* of them at DC or NY...

Probably not the sub-launched ones, no, you have to put a submarine in position first. You probably could target all of the ICBMs at a single city though. It would waste a lot of warheads because of fratricide, but you would be very sure that it was melted by the time you were finished.

Also, how does one ``point'' a missile anywhere? (you mean they have the GPS coordinates of most interesting places already in the address book?).

Very cleverly, and I imagine they do have an 'address book' of sorts.

They have coordinates, yes. ICBM guidance systems way predate GPS and use inertial guidance based on very accurate gyroscopes, very accurate maps of Earth's gravitational field, and some of the first digital microcomputers which predated even the Apollo guidance computer. The first Minuteman one was 1962, and that was the third generation of US ICBMs. The first US ICBM, the Atlas-A, actually used radio guidance, which had the problem of being able to be jammed from the grond - if you're a James Bond fan, you'll remember this as being a major part of the villain's scheme in the first Bond movie, 1962's Dr No.

ICBM guidance systems basically are one of the secret projects which built the American computing industry as we know it. Far more than civilian NASA spaceflight, the ICBMs had the real military money and the political will to make advanced miniaturised real-time computing happen.

Re:wrong target

[Uberbah]

Interesting comment from an Anonymous Coward, and provably wrong. I think you would have to point to genuine transparency on the part of Russia. As to the danger of Russia compared to NSA, to start with, NSA doesn't have nuclear weapons aimed at NATO countries, Russia does, and that's not all.

Because the U.S. isn't as ready to fire nukes at everybody from North Korea to China to Iran as Russia is to fire nukes at France? Just for once, could you come up with some far out winger stuff that can't be thrown back in your face in .002 seconds?

You want to talk actual substance, why don't you go find a list of democratically elected governments overthrown by the USSR/Russia, and see how that compares to the CIA and get back to us.

Re:wrong target

[cold fjord]

So you're making France and North Korea out to be equivalents in your faulty example of moral equivalence? Nice. Nice. You have a rare gift for insights like that.

The Soviet Union had a long history of aggression. I don't even have to look anywhere to come up with at least a short list of countries, many of which it either annexed directly, or stole territory from: Poland, Finland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Afghanistan. There are other cases of Soviet aggression to be sure. That list you have is also faulty in a number of respects, not the least of which is that there was no democracy in Iran when the US and UK assisted the restoration of the Shaw to the throne of Iran in a counter-coup.

Re:wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

He's no idiot. He's just an asshole.

Re: wrong target

[Sloppy]

One of the silly/weird/sad things I have noticed in the last couple years, are long/lat coords being referred to as "GPS coordinates." Yet the same people who say that, don't say "ruler feet" or "thermometer degrees" or "Amazon dollars" etc.

Re: wrong target

[TheCarp]

I never considered that people used it that way, mostly because usually these days anyone talking about them is talking about them on a GPS.

That said, what I find funny about this is, way back when GPS was new to the public, I remember people referring to lat/long as your "missile address" (or something very close to that that meant basically the same thing).

Re:wrong target

[Burz]

No-- He's revealing info to the PRESS.

Which BTW is just what Manning tried to do, but NYT did not want to touch it until Wikileaks (the buffer zone they actively endorsed as a partner in their press activities) made it a story... then 'Oh, gosh' they just had to cover it while WL incurred the wrath of the US government.

Re: wrong target

[tolkienfan]

It's possible that you are right today. But with so much power seized, tomorrow is looking increasingly grim. Who seriously doubts that these powers will be abused in the future?

Russian Times to the rescue

[ulatekh]

I remember reading about these NSA revelations years before Edward Snowden disclosed them...on the Russian Times web site.

Guess we'll have to go back to relying on the Russian press to defend freedom and print the truth.

Ugh...I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[siddesu]

The only little problem with that is that krivda.ru and the likes are even more tightly controlled by the Russian government and will present whatever information they have in an even more slanted way, probably as a part of a plan to harm you.

It seems a much better idea would be for y'all to get a grip on your government and make it better instead of relying on bunch of foreign crooks to do it for you.

I won't even touch the many Russian conspiracy theories that explain how Putin (whose children live in the West and whose personal money holdings are also in Western banks) is actually on a leash, probably tightly held by the US government ;)

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Finland... the amount of propaganda they spin at RT and in the whole of the staterun media (there isn't anything else left) is amazing. They even have their own finnish puppet to comment on every story, to give lectures at putin youth camps and even work as an election monitor in Abhasia, the occupied part of Georgia.

It's some scary shit that's going on east of the border and it just seems to be getting worse.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guppy06]

And a stopped clock is right twice daily.

Seriously, how about some links so we can see how "right" they were?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[ulatekh]

The only little problem with that is that krivda.ru and the likes are even more tightly controlled by the Russian government and will present whatever information they have in an even more slanted way, probably as a part of a plan to harm you.

And that's different from the far-left government-lapdog U.S. press how, exactly?

It seems a much better idea would be for y'all to get a grip on your government and make it better instead of relying on bunch of foreign crooks to do it for you.

On the other hand, the U.S. didn't win the Revolutionary War all by itself. France helped a lot.

I won't even touch the many Russian conspiracy theories that explain how Putin (whose children live in the West and whose personal money holdings are also in Western banks) is actually on a leash, probably tightly held by the US government ;)

That's just what they WANT you to believe...(cue "dramatic look chipmunk")

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

A: being critial != being paranoid
B: "even more tightly controlled by.... than" ERRNOEVAL missing argument.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[mirix]

And that's different from the far-left government-lapdog U.S. press how, exactly?

There's not much far-left anything in the US. Certainly not 'the press', unless you're counting some random blog or the communist party's paper.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's different from the far-left government-lapdog U.S. press how, exactly?

Funny, I seem to remember better part of 10 years of CNN and Fox parroting everything the administration as if it was true.

When that was happening, I bet you thought they were speaking holy truth, right?

As usual, anybody who jumps to saying "far-left leaning" leans just as far to the right and has their own reality distortion field, and is a hypocrite and a douche about it.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[ulatekh]

Why, too lazy to look it up yourself?

Here's one: NSA whistleblowers: Government spying on every single American

A full year before Edward Snowden.

I remember showing that article to some friends of mine, people who were deeply involved with government work. They laughed at me and called me paranoid and gullible. Sure sucks when the tinfoil-hat crowd is right.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guppy06]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[DNS-and-BIND]

Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is.

Do you disbelieve this phrase? Highlight the entire two sentences with the mouse, right-click, and select 'search'.

The press is certainly a government lapdog. They have had plenty of chances to go after the administration but refused. Tough questions are not asked, investigations are not launched, Pulitzer Prizes are not won.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[girlintraining]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[clarkkent09]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is.

Do you disbelieve this phrase? Highlight the entire two sentences with the mouse, right-click, and select 'search'.

So you are not even pretending to hide that confirmation bias?

Let us do an experiment to demonstrate. Search for "Are aliens real? Of course they are."

How about "Is Obama a muslim? Of course he is."

Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing. You can prove anything with it!

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[clarkkent09]

Russia Today is a propaganda outlet of the Russian government.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[siddesu]

You should not interpret random text in the same way a computer interprets a piece of code. In particular, you should pay more attention to the context. The easiest way for you to do so on /. is to refer to TFS and TFA before you dump core on a stupid question.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guy Harris]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you notice that that article is actually quoting American media as it's only sources? I imagine you trust RT more than the "leftists" doing the original reporting.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberal has nothing to do with 'left', let alone 'far left'.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

As seen from a scandinavian view ( or, a personal view of mine if you like), there is no left and right in American politics. You have two right wing parties, which are essentially the same, and then a few idiots who in the naming of their group - the tea party movement - are ass raping the history of the US.

But that is it. Left wing politicians? I don't see them at all.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Patch86]

You have to be an inscrutable idiot if you believe that "Liberal" is the same as "Far Left".

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[reve_etrange]

The press is "left leaning" on certain social issues, such as gay marriage and voter suppression, but other than that the press is nearly uniformly in support of fiscal austerity (commonly presenting the deficit as unambiguously bad in so-called news pieces), is vitriolically anti-labor (unions are portrayed as "hostage takers"), anti-regulation, generally hawkish on armed conflict, etc.

Not that I would call them "right wing" either. The US press is essentially pro-business and supportive of the status quo, but also very sensitive to current trends in public opinion (which they both reflect and manipulate).

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[reve_etrange]

There are "left" and "right," but our current national politics are a struggle between the center-right and far-right. If you look at local governments there is a lot more variation and mixture in general. For example in California, the open primary and citizen-controlled redistricting have recently blown open the field. Last year all my local contests were between the Dems and Peace and Freedom, which is actually sort of left-wing.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

There's not much far-left anything in the US. Certainly not 'the press', unless you're counting some random blog or the communist party's paper.

Actually, I wonder whether the communist party's paper would be what anybody outside of the U.S. would call "far-left". There is so much room left by the big parties clustering in the far-right that it's probably sort of pointless crowding oneself in the far-left corner without anybody else anywhere close.

Heck, scientific articles about climate change or evolution or biological diversity are "far-left" in the U.S.A.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

And it seems like the NSA is doing everything in their power to help them.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks - that brings a little more perspective to the picture :)

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[DNS-and-BIND]

Read between the lines. Liberal is a polite word. What else would you call an organization that openly supports far-left causes not only on the editorial page but the news pages?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Hypotensive]

Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is.

Far left = communist.
Left = socialist.
Middle of the road = liberals, greens.
Right = Democrats, New Labour, David Cameron.
Far right = Republicans, Marine le Pen, Bashar al-Assad.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[emj]

New york post publisges too much right wing crap to be called far left, may be they have a streak of red in them somewhere. Maybe.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is.

Liberal and left share the same first letter, but that doesn't make liberal left.

Nationalists - Conservatives - Liberals - Socialists - Communists

Even if you would loose all liberals, socialists and communists it wouldn't make the conservatives a left wing party. They are than seated on the left side, but that doesn't change their political world view. Liberals sit in the middle and the us lacks anything the rest of the world would call a left-wing party.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Patch86]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

ITYM get a grip on the trigger of the arms you're allowed to bear.

Have you not noticed that the first 3 boxes have failed, and it's time to fall back onto the 4th?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[0111 1110]

Assuming that range is correct how is that in any way useful? And where would you place Libertarians or Anarchists on your chart? Not in the same category as Republicans I hope. Actually we Libertarians would place Republicans and Democrats on the same point on the chart. Probably communists would too. They are nearly indistinguishable from our perspective. A distinction without a difference.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

The UK's been a pathetic lapdog of the US since the 80s with Thatcher cow-towing to Reagan.

I was just about to pull up some youtube links for the old /Spitting Image/ sketches where she was literally portrayed as a lapdog as we knew it back then (or at least the "red wedge" did), but I notice - as have others according to the comments - that all the scenes showing that seem to have been cut.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guy Harris]

Read between the lines. Liberal is a polite word. What else would you call an organization that openly supports far-left causes not only on the editorial page but the news pages?

Far left? Such as, say, the Revolutionary Communist Party?

As distinguished from the New York Times, which supports nothing that any person who's actually aware of reality would call "far-left".

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there is a Left in the US. There are those to the Left of Genghis Kahn and those to the Right.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[madprof]

Which far left causes has the New York Times supported? You cannot name any I bet.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I skimmed through your link and I would say that they are pretty lame for claiming to be a communist party.
Their major points appear to be to stop racism and fight for gender equality. No reasonable person argues against those things.
They claim to be revolutionary but the revolution they talk about is that of gathering a large voter base in a democratic republic.

As someone who lives in a socialist nation (But currently with a right wing government.) I consider New York Times to be way out on the right wing and I would say that that Revolutionary Communist Party of yours doesn't really say anything to indicate that the system they want is any less capitalistic, just that they want to get rid of some of the more fascist elements you currently have.

Interestingly enough you need the same prerequisite for both capitalism and communism to work, as long as people are allowed to be born rich neither system will be fair.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Resident Emil]

If I were the PM, I'd be fucking livid right now with Obama.

Who's Livid?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I think what you mean to say is that the forces of evil are currently winning. Reality has a left-wing bias.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

British drivers?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

And almost all US news agencies are propaganda outlets for corporate America. At least the Russian government can ostensibly be replaced via elections. How do you destroy a system predicated upon greed?

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[madprof]

You assume most of them can drive properly. But very good well done.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[SuricouRaven]

The leaks so far include the UK and US working together to tap emails and phone lines used by heads of allied states, and a US attempt to intercept the diplomatic lines at the UN. It's hard to imagine what could come out next to top that one. The only possibilities I can see would be using the intelligence services for political advantage (Watergate-style), using them for commercial advantage to domestic companies (China-style) or using them to deliberately manipulate the politics of another country. Those are juicy possibilities, certainly, because they'd clearly reveal the 'protecting our country from terrorist threat' line as a big lie.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe in reality the NSA is a Russian agency masquerading as an American agency, with the goal to make the USA look bad.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

Well, there's some here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLBwP5EhftE
(15 or so minutes in)

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

a) I think it's Russia Today
b) Russia Today is like Fox News, it spouts wild conspiracy theories constantly

The fact one of them just happens to have now turned out to be correct doesn't mean they had any special knowledge, they were just slagging off the West as usual with their conspiracies and one of them just turned out to be right.

It doesn't mean they'll ever be right again though, or they may be. Who knows, either way, if you assume they were saying it because they knew about it you run the risk of believing them when they're just talking bollocks.

It will have been happy coincidence and nothing more.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

It's also quite possible he simply believes his own bullshit.

This is the guy who was quick to cry terrorism in response to the Lee Rigby murder but at least initially refused to call it terrorism when a Ukrainian far right extremist stabbed a muslim and bombed two mosques in the UK.

Certainly he has a very warped perspective on threats and terrorism so I could quite believe he believes his own bullshit about how Snowden's revelations help terrorists and will be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarians and Anarchists live on the Anarchy/Authoritarian line, which is different from left/right (which are pretty arbitrary labels themselves).

Anarchist left = hippie communes
Anarchist right = Libertarians
Authoritarian left = USSR
Authoritarian right = US govt.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

And where would you place Libertarians or Anarchists on your chart?

Although your confirmation bias will likely cause you to reject this because the Republicans, Marine le Pen, and aBashir al-Assad have convinced people that liberal is a curse word, libertarians are classical liberals and would fit squarely into the middle of the road category in the above post.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[macsuibhne]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Tony (-6.00, -5.90)

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Cow Jones]

They laughed at me and called me paranoid and gullible. Sure sucks when the tinfoil-hat crowd is right.

And that is precisely what's so special about the whole Snowden affair. Lots of people claim outrageous things all of the time. Conspiracy theories and stunning revelations are a dime a dozen. Without any confirmed sources or any kind of acknowledgement by the involved parties, the impact those stories have is about par with urban legends. The documents leaked by Snowden are different because their authenticity has been confirmed by the NSA itself (I'm still not sure exactly why they did that, seems like a bad move on their part).

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[benjfowler]

The Greens, AFAICT, are lunar-Left cultural Marxists everywhere I've been.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah just like all your tech companies, media outlets and newspapers are arms of the US government - believe me, no American can be taking the moral high ground these days without sounding like an utter hypocrite.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Americans do not understand what socialism, liberalism, left wing, right wing or indeed what communism means. Such breathtaking proud ignorance might fly in the US, but try that on the internet at large - particularly when you come into contact with well educated Europeans - you are just going to make an utter tit out of yourself with moronic statements like this.

Go read a book or something; come back when you understand these terms and their history.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

There was a guy on here the other day telling me he was the most conservative Republican conservative going.

At the same time he was saying about how welfare should be about giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are (i.e. he was advocating communist ideas).

He was completely unable to grasp that was he was advocating was most definitely not conservative given that by definition conservatism is about resisting change, and he was advocating massive change, and was very much a communist idea - i.e. the complete opposite of the right which he claimed to proudly represent.

I never cease to be amazed how messed up the political views and comments of many Americans are. So many wear their supposed leaning like a badge of honour whilst spouting views that completely contradict it and similarly declaring things about other leanings that make absolutely zero sense. From the libertarians that rally against gay marriage and the freedom to have abortions, to the conservatives that demand profound change, to the tea partiers who claim to be all about the constitution and free speech whilst turning up at opposition rallies armed to try and stifle discussion of opposing views with implied threats. It's insane and it's so painfully hypocritical.

I have more respect for people who at least come out and say what they are. I can't stand Nigel Farage in the UK because he refuses to admit he's far right whilst advocating primarily far right policy - at least Nick Griffin of the BNP for all his flaws had the courage of his convictions to admit what he was even if I think his views are sickening. It's like a denial people have because they fear being associated with Nazism if they openly admit they're far right even though in practice they do in fact often align politically with them. If you don't have the courage to admit what you believe in, whether that's far left communism, or far right fascism or something in between then the implication is simply that you know deep down that there's something wrong with your beliefs. Don't try and dress yourself up as something your not, because either you believe what you believe, or you know full well you're just being selfish, ignorant, and full of shit.

Of course the problem is it works - there's so much confusion especially in the US that you can claim to be a libertarian and people see you as a freedom fighter when in reality you're advocating primarily anti-libertarian policy. It's as if some people see the political leaning people label themselves with as more important in defining what they stand for than the actual policies they're pushing in practice.

People need to learn what different leanings mean and start evaluating candidates on what they actually stand for rather than obscure paranoia over terms that aren't dirty like "liberal" and "socialist" contrary to what the idiot squad likes to pretend. They think by saying "he's a liberal" they're being nasty and slagging them off, when in reality they're saying "he's a guy that supports protecting people's rights and freedoms and ensuring equality" as if that's somehow a bad thing. The opposite of classic liberalism is basically fascism, so by decrying someone for being a liberal with the implication that you oppose liberalism you're effectively aligning yourself with fascism. If only they knew how fucking stupid it made them sound to those of us who know what things like socialism, and liberalism actually are.

The fact is pretty much the entirety of the Western world is primarily liberal with a hint of socialism and a focus on capitalism in them more general economy so to decry that is to decry the bulk of what stands behind Western ideology.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I am confused. Are you calling the New York Times liberal, or far left? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Nixon was far more "liberal" and "left" of a president than Obama is.
Obama is pretty much right of center, just not as far far right as the Republican party has gone over the last couple decades.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

You got your links so that you could see how right they were. How did that all work out for you?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Curious, can you get the George Michael "Shoot the Dog" videoclip on Youtube in America and UK, or is it censored?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fritsd]

As one of the 1% non-idiotic commenters on a BBC blog put it: "sure they spy on Angela Merkel; who knows she may be planning to blow up the Bundestag!"

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[peragrin]

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.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering socialists are considered center left in Europe and in US Obama's policies are wrongly compared to socialism as if the extreme far left was being discussed i don't think not much center policies are left in America. Only right and and far right.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[DNS-and-BIND]

What could have happened in the past to make socialism a dirty word? Start with the events of 20th century.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[DNS-and-BIND]

I think it may be an inconvenient truth to point out that both of them are factually correct...

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe in reality the NSA is a Russian agency masquerading as an American agency, with the goal to make the USA look bad.

There's only one man who can figure this one out ... the original Agent 86

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Hypotensive]

Assuming that range is correct how is that in any way useful?

In rebutting the hypothesis that a liberal newspaper is "far left".

And where would you place Libertarians or Anarchists on your chart?

Libertarianism is orthogonal to the left-right issue: you can be a socialist libertarian like Gandhi or a conservative libertarian like Rand. And anarchists (in the strong "anarchy" sense, rather than the weak "anarchism" sense) are purely reactionary and basically oppose any kind of political system. Anarchists in the weak "anarchism" sense are indistinguishable from libertarians from any moderate viewpoint.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Few generic rules: "objective media" propaganda works by selecting which embarrassing truths they reveal about who and what they talk about - when it comes to bigger media, they typically tend not to publish nasty details about their "friends", as example RT is not the most likely media to report on some shit going in Russia, nor is Fox news is likely to report on the shit done by right-wing murricans. As a general rule, in order to find out about shit going on in ones own country, one might need to look elsewhere for the news (assuming ones country is worth noting on global level), to get as good media coverage as possible, one needs to look as widely as possible accompanied with healthy doze of media criticism & investigative journalism (when it comes to any media, it's probable that they will at least at some point publish more or less obvious disinformation - I'm pretty sure if I would browse slashdot archives for long enough I'd find someone posting some shit news).

What comes to NSA spying, all Snowden did was provided a confirmed source for the information regarding the spying ~ taking into account all the technology related to communications infrastructure/social media services it would be a big surprise that NSA (and others) wouldn't be spying.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[jalopezp]

Buddy, those links seem to be pretty spot on. I don't know if the clock is broken, but it's definitely pointing at the current time.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

>t the same time he was saying about how welfare should be about giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are (i.e. he was advocating communist ideas).
Wow. Please educated yourself. The core tenet of communism is "to each according to his need; from each according to his ability." So "giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are" is not communism. It may be what Russia did, but it's not communism. If anything, it's an American idea rooted in some sort of fairness-based idealistic view of the world.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[TheCarp]

> The only little problem with that is that krivda.ru and the likes are even more tightly controlled by the
> Russian government and will present whatever information they have in an even more slanted way,
>probably as a part of a plan to harm you.

Right well this is why I personally advocate a diverse set of news sources, including the russian ones (I like RT myself). Sure, they are biased, but I take issue with "probably as a part of a plan to harm you."

I don't think the Russian Gov gives a flying fuck whether they harm me or not, but, I also don't think they give a flying fuck about most news issues that I do....and that indifference is part of why I can trust them on many issues. Sure anything involving Russian political interests probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and they probably do have some bias in which stories they choose but, overall, I know that when it comes to a number of issues, they don't really have enough skin in the game to bother with a lot of spin on issues that are not central to them.

That is, I doubt their American division (which seems to be produced by people here in the US) gets many calls about US stories that don't directly involve Russia or whatever proxy pawn is todays subject of discussion.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[TheCarp]

And another "Ive been listening to too much Bill Hicks in the car" post:
"Its like we all just woke up from a car crash and all we know is someone named Reagan was driving, and there was this Thatcher woman in the back seat yelling 'turn right, go right, turn right, go right'"

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[FhnuZoag]

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but RT *are* a stopped clock. They'd report any old bullshit if it helps their cause. Recall the reporting during the Libya campaign that Gaddaffi's victory was imminent, that the rebels were NATO troops, and so on?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

The ultimate goal of communism is to move to a classless society (which is ultimately what the quote your referenced refers to).

If you can't understand why taking tax money which is paid to some degree dependent on wealth (yes, tax avoidance skews it a bit) and redistributing it equally to everyone would be a key policy in moving towards that goal then I'm afraid I can't help you "educated" yourself any further. It's called wealth redistribution and used in this particular manner ultimately eliminates class based on wealth which is fundamental for achieving communism because you can't have "to each according to his need; from each according to his ability." whilst there is still the concept of differing levels of wealth in play.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I never cease to be amazed how messed up the political views and comments of many Americans are.

Political parties are little more than sports teams. Ideologies and their advocates can swap sides, but you cheer^H^H^H^H^H vote for whoever has your teams colours on at the time.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[erikkemperman]

Yeah, well, if you're standing in the North Pole you can only go due South. Your belief that the Greens "everywhere" are Marxists says more about your fundamentalism then theirs.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

McCarthyism, Red Scare?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[sI4shd0rk]

Lots of people claim outrageous things all of the time.

And if you can't distinguish between fantasy and reality, you may be unintelligent. The whole thing about spying on nearly everyone's communications was so obvious it's not even funny, even if all the details weren't so obvious; most people are just imbeciles.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to defend Cameron in any way (I despisie him actually), but he is pretty much the same as most UK prime ministers in that he has been 'captured' by the security services. Virtually on their first day in office they are given the 'nuclear codes', the 'special briefings for their eyes only', (and probably a special decoder ring too!) and generally made to feel that they are some kind of super spy master; then they are putty in the hand of the security services from that point onwards.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

Agreed, it's the same with home secretaries. One or two of them have been against the interception modernisation program (so was Cameron) prior to election, then the election passes and suddenly they're all for it.

Though as I've theorised before, I suspect this is as much about successive home secretaries finding out GCHQ is doing illegal monitoring already which we're now all aware of and wanting to make it legal by pretending it'll be a new thing they're creating when in reality they're just legalising what they've been doing illegally all along.

I guess it's easy to be against something when you naively believe you'll just be saying "no" but much harder when you find out the security services are already doing it illegally and if you don't help them make it legal you'll be implicated in their illegal actions and likely be used as a scapegoat if it comes out with claims you "authorised it" or whatever.

In some ways I bet Theresa May is actually relieved that she doesn't need to have that battle for the IMP now given it's now widely know it's already there illegally from before her time and given that it was one of a number of things that Labour lost the last election with trying to push it through against the will of the populace. It certainly makes her life easier I guess in removing the need for her to face a tough political battle in arguing for billions in funding for it.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes. Russia. That bastion of equality, fairness, democracy and, of course, transparancy.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[alexo]

Why, too lazy to look it up yourself?

Researching every unsubstantiated claim on /. isn't feasible. There's just not enough time.
It works much better if the commenters include the pertinent links in their posts. After all, they already (claim to) have the info.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Red wedge, LOL, that brings back memories.
I hope today's youth have a similar source of amusement.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I am the Greens are considered conservatives that smoke pot.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Jason Levine]

Along the same vein, Republicans like to talk about how the Federal government should be smaller, taxes should be less, and more should be left up to the states to provide, but then the Red states pull more money from the Federal government than they give in. (Blue states tend to give more than they take in.) They are pocketing money with one hand while holding up a "Federal government money is evil" sign with the other hand. No sign of hypocritical behavior here. Just politics as usual.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[AmiMoJo]

It has already been leaked that the UK uses spying for commercial gain. GCHQ were even hiring staff to help their "commercial partners" make use of the information they stole.

Cameron is a fool. Every time a politician attacks the Guardian for leaking stuff they have something ready to release which exposes that politician as a liar, or links them to some scandal. William Hague discovered that early on and has since kept his gob shut, but apparently Cameron didn't learn from his mistake.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Rob the Bold]

What could have happened in the past to make socialism a dirty word? Start with the events of 20th century.

A concerted campaign by their opponents to demonize them?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[alexo]

Did you notice that that article is actually quoting American media as it's only sources?

That's the important part.

If the allegations were reported then as they are reported now, why didn't anyone raise a similar stink?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[alexo]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you... ah, but I forget what comes after that!

Extraordinary Rendition, followed by Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[alexo]

If I were the PM, I'd be fucking livid right now with Obama.

Who's Livid?

From the context, the US and UK citizens.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[DNS-and-BIND]

I rather think it was the hundred million human beings they murdered in pursuit of their goals. But hey, don't trust me, let's go straight to the horse's mouth:

"If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is worth millions of atomic victims."
-- Che Guevara to the London Daily Worker, November 1962

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[intermodal]

As much as I love watching people bicker about political terminology and euphemisms are in the United States, I think the most important thing to realize is that in the United States, political terms have absolutely no meaning, and the parties in the US have no principles at all.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[khallow]

And why should this particular provincial Scandinavian viewpoint hold any more weight than any other viewpoint? For example, you don't have a long history of high immigration (though apparently there are now a bit more foreign born immigrants in Sweden than in the US as a percentage of the population). The US has tragedy of the commons problems and other failure modes that don't manifest as strongly in countries with lower immigration rates and stronger cultural cohesion.

We'll see if Scandinavia can continue to afford to maintain its current political outlooks given its current higher immigration rates.

and then a few idiots who in the naming of their group - the tea party movement - are ass raping the history of the US.

What's with the empty libel? I see no evidence that the original tea party participants wouldn't be quite at home in the modern version.

But that is it. Left wing politicians? I don't see them at all.

Then I guess you just don't see them. For example, you can't get much more leftist in upbringing and career than President Obama, even in Scandinavia, yet that doesn't manifest in his current politics - because he wouldn't get anywhere otherwise.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Hur dur. Even when presented with an informed view from a resident of a country, we'll keep believing the stereotype we've made from news coverage of national politics.

There is a left in the US, but it is not apparent at the national level. If that disrupts your ability to easily put all of the US in a convenient little box that you can hate on, then go ahead and tell yourself otherwise. Seriously, you guys sometimes sound more like your "ignorant American" stereotypes than actual Americans do.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[TooTechy]

Yessir - Comin' in five bah five yo!

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[TheGratefulNet]

you can't harm the UK's credibily or the US's for that matter.

in whole numbers, there is nothing less than zero. if you see what I'm saying.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

Well, the last time I was in my city of birth, it appears that the youth's primary source of amusement was burning furniture shops and looting.
It was quite a spooky view at about 5am, as there was little left but pillars of smoke with a few red glints from the soon-to-be sunrise, as we rode the taxi to the airport, crossing most of north London.

I can't understand why the UK police have this logic:
- Electrician going to work: shoot 7 times in the head
- Looters setting fire to listed buildings: do bugger all
Personally, I'd reverse both of those policies.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[alexo]

Left wing politicians? I don't see them at all.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012

Compare it to the previous elections and note Obama's drift:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

And the trend for Canada:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2005
http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008
http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2011

(the NDP is actually a centrist party nowadays)

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a computer, you insensitive clod

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Jeremy Erwin]

RT used to stand for "Russia Today". Perhaps you used a different website to learn about the NSA revelations.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Smauler]

at least Nick Griffin of the BNP for all his flaws had the courage of his convictions to admit what he was even if I think his views are sickening.

What's actually interesting is that economically the BNP are most definitely not a far right; they are further left than Labour, for example.

From that website : It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear. It's easy to see how the term national socialism came into being. The uncomfortable reality is that much of their support comes from former Labour voters.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

Sure, there are always arguments that you can't measure a party explicitly by right, left or whatever else you may want to because they often have policies that sit elsewhere.

But that's ultimately nitpicking, because really when we say, right, left, far-right, far-left, we talk about their overriding policies and goals, and there's really no doubt that the BNPs overriding policies and goals aren't sat firmly within the far right, just as UKIP's nationalist goals also clearly are. The BNPs ultimate and primary goal is to remove people who are not white skinned and born British from the UK - it's never tried to get elected on it's leftist economic platform, only it's far right nationalism platform.

So it doesn't really matter if they have some left wing policies, just as it didn't matter that the Nazis had some left wing policies ultimately the overriding balance of their policies situated them firmly in the far right which is why in common shorthand we simply say they are far right.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[misexistentialist]

You begin by saying that people should examine what people really stand for despite what they call themselves, but then criticize some for interpreting "liberals" as standing for something other than the official definition of "protecting people's rights and freedoms and ensuring equality", which is a pretty implausible motivation to ascribe to the degenerate "liberals" in office (and is little more than a platitude that every political movement has claimed to stand for). You're just blowing a bunch of semantic smoke at the "opposition".

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Jeremy Erwin]

So go and fight your little war. We'll wait.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[psmears]

The UK's been a pathetic lapdog of the US since the 80s with Thatcher cow-towing to Reagan.

Why was she towing a cow? Couldn't it move by itself? (or did you mean kowtowing ;-) )?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Being far in the direction of the good is nothing to be ashamed of. Libertarians are to the right of all of those, Democrats are socialists, plain and simple, and Republicans are still on the left. There is no middle.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[bfandreas]

I'm roughly in the same neighborhood(-5.6, -6.4). The test has a certain cultural bias so it's hard to take it too seriously. But as a ball-park estimate it does ring rightish even if some questions are blatantly idiotic.

But you and I are individuals. We are free to be easy-going and charitable with what we've got. Politicians OTOH have a national mandate and are sworn to uphold the best interests of their respective nations(all of which have in common that they are the bestest ever). Now, the best interest is a matter of perception since they need to think about what would/could happen in the future. Also politicians need to be in control. So if you asked them about their personal opinion(and they were willing to answer truthfully) I wouldn't be surprised if they were leaning a bit more to the left and libertarian views. But once you take responsibility a bit more serious because you have a lot of it then I'm not surprised if you leaned more to the right and authoritarianism. But sometimes they overdo it and forget that the long term interests of a nation may lay a bit more to the left and to liberties.

I fully acknowledge that I may be living in an ivory tower but I do enjoy the view.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were the PM, I'd be fucking livid right now with Obama.

Who's Livid?

All of us

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

Nonsense. If your problem with liberals is that the people in power pretend to be liberals but aren't then don't attack liberalism because that's not what you mean, attack the people in power for not being liberals despite what they claim.

Anything else and you're just falling right into their trap, you're attacking a group of people that you want them to be rather than attacking the people you want to attack which leaves them scot free to just pretend you're illiberal.

That said (and I'm not from the US so it's got nothing to do with the "opposition" for me) the only time I see the people in power in the US referred to as liberals is in tea party/Fox News attack pieces so if you want to blame anyone for defining them as liberals when they're actually entirely illiberal then blame the extremely partisan right wing press as a starting point for deciding to use "liberal" as the new bogeyman.

You can't pretend it's okay to use liberal as an insult when you don't even understand what liberalism is with a 3rd grader argument like "but mum, they used that nasty word first!". That's precisely the sort of child like thinking at the core of the problem I'm bitching about. Your he-said, she-said type argument is precisely why your country is stuck with a fucked up two party system, because you're actively engaging in that sort of two party he-said, she-said childlike mentality. You realise it's quite possible that neither of the two big parties are genuinely very liberal right?

If rights and equality are what you genuinely stand for then start referring to yourself as a liberal because that's what you are. If others are not standing for that but calling themselves liberals then call them out on their lies. Don't pretend you're something you're not, and don't let them keep pretending they're something they're not either. This does however mean that when you call yourself what you are - a liberal if that's what you are - then you may find Fox News* is writing nasty things about you, and at that point you have to ask if Fox News really has your interests at heart, or if Fox News is in fact pursuing an illiberal, possibly even fascist agenda and you have to make a choice based on that, either campaign for Fox News to stop misrepresenting liberalism, or accept that Fox News is supporting fascism or whatever and is not actually the friend it tries to pretend it is.

But one final point is to keep in mind that there are shades of grey, you can support equal rights for women and be against gay marriage and still be far more liberal than the Saudi who thinks women shouldn't drive, shouldn't vote, and should always have their face covered for example and that's what I refer to when I say the West is built on liberalism- yes we could do much better on that front, but we're far freer and far more equal in Western societies than most other parts of the world. For all the anti-rights stuff I hate Obama for, he at least is still way more liberal than the tea partiers who are against gay marriage so even then he does have some right to refer to himself as the more liberal option, even if generally calling himself a liberal is a bit of a stretch.

* I use Fox News as a single example here. It could be any outlet that's misrepresenting it's, or others views. This discussion could just as well be switched around to the "liberal" media that isn't actually liberal so please don't read this as a partisan point - my point applies to ALL sides of the discussion whatever your political leaning.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guppy06]

I think it may be an inconvenient truth to point out that both of them are factually correct...

As is this.

I guess it may finally be time to take Russia Today as seriously as the National Enquirer.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has tragedy of the commons problems and other failure modes that don't manifest as strongly in countries with lower immigration rates and stronger cultural cohesion.

There are two logical solutions to these problems

1) Stronger central government and central planning. Force stronger cohesion (cultural or otherwise) by subjugation or destruction.

2) Break up the country, peacefully or violently.

That's what worked throughout history. Countries either succeed as strong centralized empires, or they break apart and form smaller, less powerful, relatively freer states

The United States was an exception, if not an illusion as the US also practiced solution 2 to break away from Britain, and as early as the Whiskey Rebellion exercised solution 1. This is before getting into the race issues (which goes beyond just blacks)

Hilariously, those suggesting logical solutions today are deemed as radicals, stupid, insane, all of the above, or worse.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[eheldreth]

During the cold war left/right politics was largely replaced by the us/them capitalist/communist simplified politics of the time. Even today most people in the us have no idea what left/right real means. Modern US politics is largely a continuation of the cold war without Russia. The Democrat party is more or less a moderately socialist right leaning party while the Republican party is a heavily corporatist right leaning party. The citizens involved early on in the Tea Party could have been considered far more left wing than the Democrats. They acted mainly on a belief in less government control over our day to day lives. The Tea Party as it exist today is just a way for Republicans to capitalize on that sentiment and farther marginalize other third parties. There are left wing groups of varying degrees. The Libertarian party is center left socially with an unfortunately strong affinity for "Free Market". The Green party is probably is probably as left as a major third party in the US gets but their environmental policies often border on the extreme. The irony is the founding fathers of our country would likely be considered left wing radical terrorist by today's standards.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

If you watch the Bourne movies, there is a scene or three wherein the baddies chasing Bourne fire up their satellites and trace a reporter via keyword listening software, and then tap into traffic cameras to follow this target, all from Langley. In 'Good Will Hunting', Will is interviewed by the NSA, and dumps a mouthful of stats about the agency, both enlightening and scary. All of this before Snowden. They whistle past the first time, but look amazingly well informed in hindsight. I think Matt Damon was warning us long before Snowden got past his vetting.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guy Harris]

I skimmed through your link and I would say that they are pretty lame for claiming to be a communist party. Their major points appear to be to stop racism and fight for gender equality. No reasonable person argues against those things. They claim to be revolutionary but the revolution they talk about is that of gathering a large voter base in a democratic republic.

That's the closest thing you get to "far left" here in the US; you probably won't find the Communist Party USA, or the Peace and Freedom Party, to be too far on the left by the standards of the rest of the world, either.

And, yes, the NY Times is well to the right of all three parties, so calling it "far left" is a sign of being so far right that just about anything to your left looks "far left".

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Rob the Bold]

. . . Che Guevara to the London Daily Worker, November 1962

If you're argument is that "The New York Times is a Left-Wing Mouthpiece because they don't "go after" Obama to your satisfaction and Liberals are bad because Socialism is bad because Che," then it's no wonder that people think you're off your rocker.

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. I've been saying this for years, but nobody believes me. Nice commentary on the tea party, BTW.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh...I think I just threw up in my mouth.

And you should be throwing up because of the mass idiocy about these revelations publicly by an "asshole" who doesn't give one rat's ass if the enemies of the free world bbq you up on a fire and end all your offspring. Its not as if the world didn't already know these spying governments were doing this from day one, either. sNOwden has only cemented his ass in history as the worst traitor ever of the United States of America and our allies. Bar None.

The only assholes who win by these revelations are the enemies of the free world and the free world is playing right into their hands. sNOwden doesn't care about you or the free world. he has his own sinister agenda.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, and that ultimate goal is supposed to be achieved by implementing a post-scarcity society, where you don't need to redistribute wealth because there's enough for the taking for everyone. It's not supposed to be done by equalizing wealth through taxation.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

A propaganda outlet prefer an ugly truth over a fantastic lie everytime. the lie can be refuted, you see. A government generally has the resources to do so. But they can't refute the truth.

Russian press is probably fine - for covering what's wrong in countries other than Russia and har friends.. Similiar to how American press is fine for covering what's wrong with Russia.

Russia is not at war, they have no need to demonize America completely. Merely pointing out real faults suffice.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

What makes you think I'm a US citizen?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

Don't drunken Oxbridge types do pranks with cows? So it really could be either.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[ultranova]

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.

/blockquote>

Who's us? The NSA? The people who'd rather keep their heads in bushes and pretend their governments are not their enemies? The people who benefit from all that illegal digital stalking?

Or are you simply an authoritarian who gets angry at the thought of the rule of law?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[BasilBrush]

The cold war wasn't a "battle of ideas". It was a real war fought by soldiers in proxy countries such as Korea, Vietnam and Grenada. And fought economically.

As ever, winning a war doesn't mean you were the righteous side. There are many possible reasons, such as you were better equipped, had better (possibly more immoral) tactics, of had a geographic advantage.

Any thought that the US won the cold war in a moral way should have died when they were napalming Vietnamese citizens. But if you are a US citizen, you have had your news and history written to make you think your on the righteous side.

A "battle of ideas" wouldn't have needed any of these proxy wars. If communism was really an unworkable system, the US could have simply let the communist countries fail by themselves. The fact that they didn't proves that they knew communism is a sustainable political model.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[BasilBrush]

At the same time he was saying about how welfare should be about giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are (i.e. he was advocating communist ideas).

Thatcher also held this view. Are you saying she's communist?

Meanwhile it's a view that communists DON'T hold. "From each according to the means, to each according to their needs" is not the same as "To each the same."

Re: Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, agreed - this country has lost its way.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[girlintraining]

How about "Is Obama a muslim? Of course he is." Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing. You can prove anything with it!

Actually, that's circular logic.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell Id rather be called a communist than a liberal, At least Id stand for something than a slightly watered down shit the republicans believe.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Uberbah]

Far left in the old sense have lost the battle of ideas so thoroughly and so humiliatingly with the end of the cold war

You left out the "constantly having their democratically elected governments overthrown by the CIA" part.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember showing that article to some friends of mine, people who were deeply involved with government work. They laughed at me and called me paranoid and gullible. Sure sucks when the tinfoil-hat crowd is right.

That's funny, most of the tech-aware populous (gov workers included) would've said "well, duh, that's what encryption is for."

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

" The only possibilities I can see would be using the intelligence services for political advantage (Watergate-style), using them for commercial advantage to domestic companies (China-style) or using them to deliberately manipulate the politics of another country. "

      You're talking like they aren't doing just that. Fact is with the ability to do these things comes the willing-acceptance to do them. (And brother have they got a lot of will.) -- McCoy - trouble with tribbles?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[St.Creed]

You're talking Stalinists and social democrats, not Communists as Lenin would have defined them. Social democrats define class by wealth or education or whatever their latest sociological think tank found fashionable.

Communists, or revolutionary socialists as they're called nowadays, use Marx's definition: your class is determined by your relation to the power to produce goods: labour power. If you have to sell your labour power to create goods in order to survive, you're a worker. If you buy labour power and use it to create more goods, you're a capitalist. If you employ just a few workers, you're a small capitalist. There's a few subcategories for de-classed or yet un-classed folk (students, kids) or peasants, but that's basically it.

So saying that redistributing wealth moves us closer to Communism is going to be treated to howls of laugher by revolutionary socialists. At best, it diminishes a bit of the inequality under capitalism and therefore provides a much more stable form of capitalism. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not a move towards communism.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Richy_T]

I must have watched nearly every Spitting Image and I don't recall that. Which isn't to say it wasn't there but if it was, it was a rare clip. Are you sure it wasn't another show?

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[fatphil]

Well, the clip in my own follow-up contains one example of it, but it wasn't the one I was thinking of. I'm 99.99% sure it was Spitting Image, up from 99% sure before finding the above clip, but it was 25 years ago.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but RT *are* a stopped clock. They'd report any old bullshit if it helps their cause. Recall the reporting during the Libya campaign that Gaddaffi's victory was imminent, that the rebels were NATO troops, and so on?

I wonder if you recall Fox news anouncing the 'election' of one G.W. Bush in 2000? Many other examples are available for those prepared to use a good search engine. My point here is one should never trust only one news source. I myself usually spend an hour and a half at least reading newspapers and watching news reports from different sources every day, reporting on the same news event can vary wildly from source to source and often does. One should always try to glean as much information as possible from the sources available and then make an informed decision. To completely discredit a source of news based on inaccurate reporting from time to time is a dangerous game to play. Lastly if you claim not to have the time to investigate more than one news source then you have no right to comment on the accuracy of one source versus another.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

      That's because the goal posts have moved so far to the right that the only difference between prewar nazi Germany and the US is little more than publicity.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[ulatekh]

Wow, all you had in response was not one, but two, ad-hominem attacks.

Face it...you lost the argument.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about "far-left", but Socialist Party USA is at least _authentic_-left.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations opposed the war in Iraq. The "Labour" Party in the UK sided instead with American neo-conservatives in the matter. If the Labour Party is socialist, then it is bureacrat-socialist, not worker-socialist.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

At the same time he was saying about how welfare should be about giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are (i.e. he was advocating communist ideas).

Errr.. the actual communist idea is "from each person according to ability, to each person according to need". Just sayin'

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

"Thatcher also held this view. Are you saying she's communist?"

Right and I expect Nick Griffin is a left leaning liberal in your mind because some of his economic policies are? I'll let you figure out why your example is just braindead stupid - hint: one policy does not define someone's overriding leaning.

"Meanwhile it's a view that communists DON'T hold. "From each according to the means, to each according to their needs" is not the same as "To each the same.""

From each according to their means (those with plenty of wealth but who don't need the level of wealth they have) to each according to their needs (those less well off and in poverty) is exactly what wealth redistribution in this manner is due to higher income tax payments by those with higher wealth being taken from the wealthy and redistributed which ultimately removes the Western concept of wealth based class that communists long to be rid of.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

At the same time he was saying about how welfare should be about giving everyone the exact same amount regardless of who they are (i.e. he was advocating communist ideas).

No, this is not what communism is.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Guppy06]

And what argument is that, exactly? This all started with my "stopped clock" metaphor, alluding that even the most untrustworthy sources of information can occasionally turn up something factual/useful. That doesn't change the fact that Vladimir Putin's personal fanzine is only marginally more reliable and/or less biased than Newsmax.

And unlike the RT links provided, at least the National Enquirer actually broke the story on John Edwards. Putting Russia Today on equal footing with that is actually giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[badasawsomeness]

this kind of reaction suggests there's more to the story than I think anyone realizes.

That's what many governments are slowly realizing. Every time a new packet of documents is released the US government claims, "yes we did that, but that was the extent of what we did." Then a week later a new document is released showing they went even further.

Then outside governments are quick to point a finger and state how outraged they are, and days later documents leaked reveal they are guilty of the same practices. I think all the governments severely underestimated exactly how much information Snowden took with him. And this exposure has inspired a number of other individuals to dig even deeper.

The UK has been semi quiet during this whole ordeal, and this new action is an easy indication that they have a number of secrets that they are hoping Snowden didnt manage to collect. Even if they cant fully stop the release of the documents. Seizing a copy from the press will give them some insight in to what Snowden found out and give them a head start on damage control.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[BasilBrush]

one policy does not define someone's overriding leaning.

And yet that was exactly how you were trying to say this guy wasn't a republican but was advocating communist ideas. And yet he was advocating the same as Thatcher.

From each according to their means (those with plenty of wealth but who don't need the level of wealth they have) to each according to their needs (those less well off and in poverty) is exactly what wealth redistribution in this manner is due to higher income tax payments by those with higher wealth being taken from the wealthy and redistributed which ultimately removes the Western concept of wealth based class that communists long to be rid of.

No. "To each according to their needs", and "to each the same" are fundamentally different things. The latter is certainly NOT progressive. In much the same way that flat poll tax (everyone pays the same) was a regressive tax, and not at all communist.

Sorry mate, but you are just wrong.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

"And yet that was exactly how you were trying to say this guy wasn't a republican but was advocating communist ideas. And yet he was advocating the same as Thatcher."

No, I didn't say he wasn't a Republican. I said he was proclaiming himself as the most patriotic ultra-conservative type of American you could imagine whilst pushing for a communist idea. If he simply said he was a Republican or whatever then that'd be one thing, but he was claiming to be more than that whilst arguing for something that contradicted that greatly. Specifically as I say he was claiming to be a conservative's conservative whilst asking for the most unconservative policy you could imagine given that by definition it was a massive and fundamental change.

"No. "To each according to their needs", and "to each the same" are fundamentally different things."

I think you have a rather binary view of the world, a mistake many people make on Slashdot. Your belief seems to be that it's not communist unless it fits one of the many exact definitions of communism that you've arbitrarily chosen as the definition of communism. This is nonsense though, because by this definition America isn't a capitalist society because it has regulations as to what corporations can do, the UK isn't truly democratic because MPs aren't elected in a manner truly representative of the vote of the people, and because some groups, such as prisoners can't vote.

The fact is, that flat wealth redistribution towards removal of class based on wealth is a move towards communism more so than any single other political ideology, and that is why I called it a communist policy. Just as a dictatorship moving to the UK's electoral system would be a democratic policy move, even though they wouldn't be truly democratic in the strictest terms afterwards.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[BasilBrush]

The fact is, that flat wealth redistribution towards removal of class based on wealth

That's not a fact, it's your fundamental misunderstanding. Whether it's a flat tax, or flat welfare (welfare is simply negative tax) then that is a REGRESSIVE policy. And that means it contributes to the wealth gap, not reduces it.

That's why you are confusing what is a very conservative policy for one that is communist. The ultra conservative fellow you mention isn't wrong, and neither am I. You are.

Re:Russian Times to the rescue

[Xest]

Sigh, I see you still struggle with simple math and the like. I guess you'll never change.

The fact you seem to think a flat tax is the same as a flat handout which is incredibly amusing.

If you can't see why increased tax based on increased level of wealth (the status quo, which the person I was referring to did not suggest changing) coupled with a flat handout results in wealth redistribution then you're a pre-school level of intelligent, I mean, it's really simple basic math.

This coupled with the fact that you believe something that's never been tried before is a conservative policy when the very definition of conservatism is resistance to change (let's just reiterate that to make it clear how stupid you sound - you're saying something that's never been done before is the sort of policy pursued by people who are against change) raises your nonsense to a new level of stupid.

I'm not surprised you got mod bombed to hell, you really are as stupid as they come. Your inability to fathom basic math or comprehend basic logic is astounding.

Puppet strings

[ArchieBunker]

Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do about the master of puppets but more to do about allegiances and alliances. This shit is coming out, whether anyone likes it or not.

Re:Puppet strings

[Kazoo the Clown]

Probably doesn't need any pressure, only to find out that some of his own dirty laundry is in the mix just waiting to be aired. My heart bleeds.

Re:Puppet strings

[ruir]

It is not pressure, the UK is pleased to do back bending to the US all the time.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is you are correct. It's nonsense, of course, but if he wants help... Plus, the UK was a HUGE supplier of data to the U.S...or maybe he's hoping that people didn't notice that, especially if he is seen as someone who is against the giving away that information. Or maybe he's worried about what it says about him?

Re:Puppet strings

[timeOday]

I wonder too, since so far Obama administration has done hardly anything to stop or recriminate against the leaks, at least publicly.

Re:Puppet strings

[Kazoo the Clown]

It's EXACTLY what they deserve. And what do they do, act like the arrogant a$$holes, for all to see. You know we can hear you, right? LOL! If they had any brains they'd make a spectacle of firing Clapper and Alexander for being so incompetent as to allow themselves to be pwned by a Snowden. Then they could claim "problem solved", "mission accomplished" and all that at least. But no, they'd rather make a permanent enemy of all the decent journalists in the world. War on Journalism, that's what this is, plain and simple.

Re:Puppet strings

[epyT-R]

Obama did vote 'yes' for PATRIOT after all..and he renewed its provisions as president.

Re:Puppet strings

[AHuxley]

What can the US do? Send a "crew" into Russia and hand Russia a PR victory if successful or if caught?
Its win win for Russia and they know not to touch any of the 'gifted' material too.

Re:Puppet strings

[OzPeter]

Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

No no no .. don't you know how a ventriloquists dummy is operated? I'll give you a hint, the TSA has been practicing how to control the US population using the same manner.

Re:Puppet strings

[OhANameWhatName]

how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

Well .. Obama is a black man. I'm not saying that all of the stereotypes are true, but where there's smoke..

Re:Puppet strings

[OhANameWhatName]

they'd rather make a permanent enemy of all the decent journalists in the world

Unfortunately with the current low point in the world market for decent journalism, all of them have been forced to live together in a shared apartment in Idaho.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

.... and/or is there some nasty UK bits about to be released?

Re: Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic: He is half black, half white. Why do people constantly insist he is black?

Re:Puppet strings

[WillKemp]

Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

He doesn't need pressure. When their US masters give them orders they simply obey. They don't even question it. It's been that way for decades. All the bullshit whining about the EU taking away their sovereignty is just a smoke screen - the UK has had no sovereignty for a very long time. And, of course, one of the tasks their masters have set them is to disrupt the EU as much as possible (it's a threat to US economic dominance).

Re:Puppet strings

[locofungus]

I'm not sure it's Washington.

We've had a huge amount of legislation passed over the last 15 years or so where there were significant complaints that it lacked proportionality, limits and oversight and the mantra from the politicians was "Trust us, we won't abuse the powers" and "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear"

I suspect that there are things to be released that will show that not only were these obviously meaningless platitudes but that the people saying them knew they were meaningless.

For example, there may be memos along the lines of "once we've got RIPA passed we'll be able to get this information"

Re: Puppet strings

[TheP4st]

Off topic: He is half black, half white. Why do people constantly insist he is black?

Because to some people mulatto and black are synonymous and anyone that are not of European heritage is considered as untrustworthy, nefarious and inferior by default.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

When the 'journalists' want to be the ones with the power to shape foreign relations, yes, they deserve everything they get.

They haven't just dumped everything out there, Greenwald is picking and choosing what to release and at what time to control the outcome of world events for his own reasons.

And why is this 'news' again... There hasn't been any wrongdoings yet that I have a problem with. No assassinations, no election rigging, and we are still taking out terrorists and preventing bad attacks from happening. The next time something happens, Snowden and Greenwald gets 100% of the blame for it happening.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

It's EXACTLY what they deserve. And what do they do, act like the arrogant a$$holes, for all to see. You know we can hear you, right? LOL! If they had any brains they'd make a spectacle of firing Clapper and Alexander for being so incompetent as to allow themselves to be pwned by a Snowden. Then they could claim "problem solved", "mission accomplished" and all that at least. But no, they'd rather make a permanent enemy of all the decent journalists in the world. War on Journalism, that's what this is, plain and simple.

Given the success they've had with the war on terror and the war on drugs, I wouldn't worry about the war on journalism. It's when they sign the "no journalist left behind act" that I'd be afraid for the future of journalism.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

The GCHQ is funded by NSA for this. The major spy location in the UK, RAF Menwith Hill, is a US facility in spite of the pretense that it is an RAF site. The UK is US's lapdog and infiltrator of EU meetings.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

None. He's been trained well enough in the past that no pressure is required anymore...

Re: Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

Because to some people mulatto and black are synonymous and anyone that are not of European heritage is considered as untrustworthy, nefarious and inferior by default.

But in this case it has nothing to do with race - his actions demonstrate that he is untrustworthy, nefarious, and inferior.

Re: Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have an American friend, her father was half Scottish and half Indian (ie from India). Her mother is (almost) half Chinese and half African-American with some Cherokee traces. She speaks English and Mandarin.

She considers herself "black", as did everyone (both her white and black friends) around her. I once asked why, since she is less than 1/4 African. She claimed it was originally a French(!) colonial law, which existed to prevent the offspring of slave-owners and their slaves to be free: one black ancestor is enough to be black. I still find it very weird.

Re:Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet what you see instead, is an anonymous source within the security apparatus outing their own commander-in-chief as a liar w.r.t. "I didn't know about spying on Merkel". Shows that that person was more loyal c.q. afraid of their colleagues than their president, in other words: who do you think is really in charge in the USA?

Re: Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get the American obsession with skin colour in general at all.

Re: Puppet strings

[jalopezp]

Mulatto sounds offensive to Americans, because of its connotations of slavery and rape. There was also a deep taboo against miscegenation during the time which led to it being used pejoratively. Mulatto is not offensive in Latin America for instance, as black slavery was less widespread (outside of the Caribbean and Brazil), so some people do call him that. But more importantly, Obama identifies himself as black, and it's up to him really, so that's why people call him that.

UK Prime Minister Threatens to hide what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, how much does the UK have to hide? There must be something they want to hide, or we (the US) are just forcing them. Either way, its pathetic, and doomed to fail on their part. If you manage to stop the UK newspapers, all you will accomplish is to lower those newspaper's value, it won't hide the information from anyone.

Re:UK Prime Minister Threatens to hide what?

[AHuxley]

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?

Re:UK Prime Minister Threatens to hide what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"select not so legal weapons sales"

I do not know what you are talking about, they are not jet fighters we sold to Indonesia, they had two seats and are therefore trainers. It was only the sale of weapons that were banned and the sale of training aids... etc. etc. etc.

I am Jack's...

[nctritech]

...complete lack of surprise.

Let Cameron Die By His Own Drunken Hand

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nough Said Dano. Case Closed. Move Along. Nothing Here.

Reminds me of Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

While Paul Bernardo was being tried information about the girls he tortured and killed was kept gagged for newspapers in Canada. In the US, of course, it was published legally. Canadians crossed the border and bought whatever rag had it on the front page and simply brought the newspaper back over the border and passed it around the office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo#Publication_ban

Nowadays you don't even have to go through that amount of difficulty. What a giant waste of time.

Can he block lady Gaga too in the mix and X-Factor

[ruir]

Please, please. I don't care about politics, but would be his much greater fan from them on.

PM's talk to the newspapers

[c0lo]

The kind of PM talk UK newspapers can expect

Re:PM's talk to the newspapers

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that's what will happen if the PM simply must involve the courts, because the newspapers were being "unreasonable".

And on a related note, does the PM really think anyone will be fooled by this statement?

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.

Or to put it another way, "do what I say, otherwise I'll involve the courts to force you to comply".

Yeah, he's really interested in talking. /sarcasm

Re:PM's talk to the newspapers

[Cederic]

The courts wont do what the Prime Minister tells them to do. They'll apply the law.

Then everyone will share the news on Twitter anyway so it'll be pretty fucking pointless, following which the courts will acknowledge that the information is in the public domain and the newspapers will publish it.

lah-di-dah

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel so airy-fairy about this stuff.

Silencing the Press

[Phoenix666]

So Gen. Alexander releases a propaganda video saying he believes the journalists releasing the stories ought to be silenced, and now the UK is echoing that? It seems to me that we are well on our way to the point of no return.

Re:Silencing the Press

[AHuxley]

Yes MI6 and SAS teams on the ground world wide "hunting" the free press with help from the GCHQ? Did that work out well for the East Germans and KGB vs their dissents in the free West?
Did the truth just stop with each successful mission from the Soviet Union?
Any day in open court will be a joke as the UK gov is forced to admit the material is 100% real and very admissible.
A closed UK court is even more of a joke - then the legal reform starts and more material leaks in protest.
One member of the UK press is legally disappered for 20 years as a warning? Sealed court case, all the UK court staff have clearances :) Its a real powerful win until the Hollywood movie and new leaks
Did the truth just stop with each court case in 1960's South Africa?
Soviet option...closed court or show trial ...

Re:Silencing the Press

[Anubis IV]

I'd like to see them try shutting up the press. Can you imagine what will happen if Fox News goes off the air and all of those angry, gun-owning citizens suddenly have a lot more free time in their lives?

Re:Silencing the Press

[TapeCutter]

Alexander and the UK are odd bedfellows, apparently he was a financial supporter of the IRA before Clinton at the urging of Bono)speech starts @2:21) stopped Americans from donating to the IRA. Say what you like a Bono, but it took the balls of an Elephant to make that speech as an Irishman in Boston.

Re:Silencing the Press

[OhANameWhatName]

well on our way to the point of no return

what road are you on? I'd like to visit :D

Re:Silencing the Press

[IamTheRealMike]

Have you got a citation for that? It would be very interesting (but not surprising) if true. I mean, Rep Peter King is/was a full-blown supporter of the IRA and actually sits in fucking Congress, where he actually was chairman of a homeland security committee. So there is precedent. But I couldn't find anything with the obvious keyword searches.

Re:Silencing the Press

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see them try shutting up the press. Can you imagine what will happen if Fox News goes off the air and all of those angry, gun-owning citizens suddenly have a lot more free time in their lives?

"Shutting up the press" would almost certainly not include silencing state propaganda organs.

Re:Silencing the Press

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, Rep Peter King is/was a full-blown supporter of the IRA and actually sits in fucking Congress, where he actually was chairman of a homeland security committee.

Isn't it nice to know that a country can engage in a "war on terrorism" whilst supporters of terrorists are actual members of the government. Hypocrisy, you're drowning in it!

Re:Silencing the Press

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't silence the press entirely, just stories they don't like. Instead they'll celebrate child heroes and victories over Oceania.

Re:Silencing the Press

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the part in the article where the Prime Minister says it's very important that the press "thinks" that it's free.

Cameron told MPs: "We have a free press, it's very important the press feels it is not pre-censored from what it writes and all the rest of it.

Better to let the bad things out in the open

[poity]

than let people imagine the worst.

Re:Better to let the bad things out in the open

[Jason Levine]

I don't know. Before all of this, I think that the worst I would have imagined would have still been better than what Snowden has revealed. And if they are STILL worried about further leaks, then what bad things are still to be revealed?!!

Re:wrong jigs

[Anonymous Coward]

Will someone point out that Snowdon is probably revealing info to the Russians? After all, everyone wants SOMETHING!!

Niggers just want to rap, play basketball, abuse drugs, be thugs, slang, eat fried chicken, run from the cops, destroy property values, collect welfare, and make more niggers. Lots and lots of more niggers! Lots and lots of more niggers with different babydaddies. I mean who gives a fuck how many when you don't have to pay for them yourself amirite? One confusin fuckin day in the ghetto is Fathers Day! Hey at least with Kwanzaa they can pretend they ever came up with a culture that doesn't involve being a gangsta!

Fuckin' niggers. If you don't think theyre inferior, prove it! Move in with a whole lot of em. See how cool that is! (NOT RECOMMENDED) Find your car on blocks and the stereo gone and tell me how magnificent and equal they are! See gang colors and hear gunshots in the night and reflect on how diverse and inclusive you are! Find out what incarceration really costs and tell me they need reparations! All that's just GREAT. Just don't say anything TRUE about them that is bad, that's RACIST.

Sen. Feinstein

[Phoenix666]

They're reporting this evening Sen. Feinstein is backpedaling on surveillance after defending the NSA's crimes all summer. Did one of her grandchildren chew her out for turning the country into a police state? Or is she so stupid that she hasn't actually paid attention to the issue and its implications til now? Or is it a dodge to deflect the criticism until the public forgets and moves on and all can return to status quo ante?

Honestly, I'm kind of to the point where the situation won't be made right until the people at the NSA responsible for this are in prison, the NSA is dismantled, and everyone in the Whitehouse and Congress are impeached and thrown into the deepest, darkest hole we've got.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Kazoo the Clown]

Leave it to a lot of public pressure to see a politician get religion.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

They're reporting this evening Sen. Feinstein is backpedaling on surveillance after defending the NSA's crimes all summer. Did one of her grandchildren chew her out for turning the country into a police state? Or is she so stupid that she hasn't actually paid attention to the issue and its implications til now? Or is it a dodge to deflect the criticism until the public forgets and moves on and all can return to status quo ante?

That third one, almost certainly.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[matthewv789]

No, you think far too highly of her. I expect she has her own phone and email conversations with various foreign officials that she doesn't want anyone listening to.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this one. Sadly, many people in California are stupid enough to keep voting for this woman along with Boxer and Pelosi. Is it any wonder why this state going down the drain into insolvency?

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

They're reporting this evening Sen. Feinstein is backpedaling on surveillance after defending the NSA's crimes all summer.

All I read is that she doesn't think the NSA should spy on our allies.

Spying on americans is still ookey-dookey.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until now she was defending it because the NSA was spying on the plebes/proles. How dare the NSA spy on a politician or head of state though!

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Guppy06]

Or is it a dodge to deflect the criticism until the public forgets and moves on and all can return to status quo ante?

Nah, she's got five long years ahead of her to get around to that.

Re:Sen. Feinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I'm kind of to the point where the situation won't be made right until the people at the NSA responsible for this are in prison, the NSA is dismantled, and everyone in the Whitehouse and Congress are impeached and thrown into the deepest, darkest hole we've got.

Some of the work the NSA does is good. Cryptography wouldn't be as far along as it is if not for the NSA. The problem is even as they've helped evaluating cryptographic algorithms, they've been weakening implementations and inserting backdoors everywhere.

Control of information is power

[EmperorOfCanada]

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!

Re:Control of information is power

[skaralic]

Power is power.

Re:Control of information is power

[Oneflower]

Over and over governments have fallen and change has been driven when their crimes become known.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Control of information is power

[FhnuZoag]

As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"

Re:Control of information is power

[EmperorOfCanada]

It doesn't even need to be a crime. In Britain I believe the moat repair was a legitimate expense. But under government information control it would be released under some bland category such as "Maintaining constituency premises" but when people found out it was for a moat repair they humiliated the guy in the press every day.

Recently the premier of Ontario was chiding a consultant of some sort for billing the province 91 cents for parking when they are paying him over $500,000 per year. Her suggestion was that his expense was legitimate but showed that his heart was in the wrong place.

To me you can only have true democracy if the government can't hide anything. I think that the freedom of information act should cover basically everything including phone calls. There might be a few areas where privacy may be for a greater good in areas like personal medical records; as people might not get treatment for embarrassing diseases. Even military secrecy needs to be cut way back so as to avoid stupid things like the F-35 project.

Re:Control of information is power

[alexo]

Over and over governments have fallen and change has been driven when secrets become known.

It doesn't work in a "democratic" 2-party, first-past-the-post system where both parties are beholden to the same interests and implement similar policies.
The illusion that change can be brought by voting keeps the populace from revolting and nothing ever changes for the better.

I suspect it is by design.

Re:Control of information is power

[Anonymous Coward]

Be wary of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

We all know what this means...

[hyades1]

I guess it's a pretty good bet that Snowden got hold of something nice and juicy about what Cameron's Tory government has been up to.

I can't help but look forward to the revelation, and wonder exactly how that jumped-up little fascist thinks he's going to prevent people in Britain from finding out. Will they be legally required to go around with their eyes squinted and their fingers in their ears?

This should be fun!

Re:We all know what this means...

[OhANameWhatName]

how that jumped-up little fascist thinks he's going to prevent people in Britain from finding out

I think he's 184cm isn't he? That's not such a little fascist, it's more of a fairly sizeable fascist isn't it?

Re:We all know what this means...

[hyades1]

You raise a valid point. ;-)

Re:We all know what this means...

[TapeCutter]

I'm waiting to find out about Australia, we have some strategically placed US listening stations out in the bush and the US is our BFF. Over the half century I've watched pollys come and go in Oz I've seen a few prospective PM's take the grand tour of the "secret" listening such as Pine Gap, I've noticed some come out looking rather shaken and are never really themselves again after the experience, especially the ones who had previously criticised US policies. Mark Latham is the most striking recent example, except he didn't stop criticising US policy. Suddenly it seemed all of Oz turned against him, ostensibly because of an awkward looking handshake with Howard that somehow proved he was a "thug".

On the rare occasions Latham is mentioned in the media since that time, he's been largely portrayed as deranged and potentially violent. True he hasn't helped his cause with some of the things he has said since leaving politics, but I think he has some pretty good reasons to be bitter.

Re:We all know what this means...

[sconeu]

Can we get an ASBO against Cameron?

Re:We all know what this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

... he's been largely portrayed as deranged and potentially violent ...

Yes, that's the image I got of him in his last few days. While Latham understood what policies the country needed, he didn't have the people skills to garner support for change.

I remember the shit hitting the fan because he called "man of steel" Howard an arse-licker (for US interests). Politics is a dirty game, but it is also a gentleman's game: There is only so much of the truth one speaks aloud, even when talking about the enemy. Latham didn't play nicely with the other politicians.

I remember his personal visit to the tree-loggers in Tasmania. There was another shit-storm because Latham didn't sympathize with the tree-loggers and promise to save their jobs. Of course, the news channels limited bitching about Howard to 5 second sound-bites.

Re:We all know what this means...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

we have some strategically placed US listening stations out in the bush

Typical Obama apologist . . . blaming it on Bush again.

Actually, all this NSA spying on Angela Merkel was done because Obama was curious and wanted to find out if she has a "baldy" or a "wizard's beard" on her "wizard's sleeve."

So Obama can blame that on Bush, as well.

The NSA operation failed, though, because Angela Merkel doesn't talk about such things on the phone. Mr. Obama will just have to gather up the courage to call her up and ask her himself. However, the office of the Chancellor of Germany issued a statement saying that, concerning the chance of any contact with the President of the US right now, she's "up on blocks" for a while.

Re:We all know what this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing but the Total Information Awareness system originally setup by Poindexter under Rumsfeld. It's name was changed and the program was shifted inside the NSA after Congressional outrage in 2006.

Re:We all know what this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he'll put all news websites outside the UK on the porn blocking list.

Re:We all know what this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

we have some strategically placed US listening stations out in the bush

Typical Obama apologist . . . blaming it on Bush again.

Someone should photoshop Bush wearing listening posts all over his body, that would probably be pretty funny with the right caption.

A Working Solution for the UK PM Found

[LifesABeach]

In order to block out the singing of the Snowden? Buy a good pair of noise canceling head phones. I just go and micro wave a bag of popcorn. Because lets face it, to say, "I found in on the 'net just doesn't get old."

V for Vendetta, a tad prescient.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In a time of necessity, all things are permitted." The gist of the Nazi party, in the mid 1930's.

"In a time of necessity, all things are permitted." The gist of the Tories in England and American Democrats, in the mid 2010's.

Truly these countries have lost there way, when the means to protect The Free World, is the means to shut down The Free World.

If your government shuts down freedom. Shut down your government.

Freedom Forever.

GreekGeek.

Re:V for Vendetta, a tad prescient.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the brits could at least have this guy to shut his own fucking uncle fucker's face that'd be a good start.

Also considering the UK are like Europe's cancer.

Re:V for Vendetta, a tad prescient.

[sI4shd0rk]

The gist of the Tories in England and American Democrats, in the mid 2010's.

Take a look at how many in congress voted for the Patriot Act the first time around; nearly everyone, including those on the Republican side. Both parties are hopelessly corrupt.

Dear James Cameron:

[Entropius]

Dear James Cameron,

You might ring Barbra Streisand and ask her how this'll work out for you.

Love,
The Internet

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[rmdashrf]

Wrong Cameron. The political twat is David, the film-maker is James.

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[Khyber]

Sssshhhhh, don't upset it. The brain is only living up to the name.

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[Anonymous Coward]

James Cameron just raised the bar, only to see his namesake dropping it back again. Barbra Streisand shakes her head at the thought and transforms.

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[minus9]

" Dear James Cameron, You might ring Barbra Streisand and ask her how this'll work out for you. Love, The Internet "

This thing goes deeper than you can imagine.

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[Anonymous Coward]

David Cameron: David Cameron doesn't do what David Cameron does for David Cameron. David Cameron does what David Cameron does because David Cameron is David Cameron.

Re:Dear James Cameron:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear James Cameron,

You might ring Barbra Streisand and ask her how this'll work out for you.

Love,
The Internet

James Cameron doesn't do what James Cameron does because of what Streisand thinks James Cameron should do...

And the free world threatens

[Anonymous Coward]

to block the inbred UK PM from saying any further shit.

Then they came for me...

[ulatekh]

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...

Re:Then they came for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just an AC with no account but I say mod this up! The abuse of the press is already happening for anyone that opposes this administration.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/28/federal-agents-pre-dawn-raid-on-reporter-home-raises-questions/?intcmp=latestnews
Yeah I know it's FOX but you should be able to find elsewhere. If you can't, what does that tell you?

No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden knows

[Anonymous Coward]

Will someone point out that Snowdon is probably revealing info to the Russians? After all, everyone wants SOMETHING!!

Will someone remember Snowden is pointing out info to everyone. The most important info.

Unless you are working for the NSA (or possibly the Russian or Chinese security agencies) how would you know what info Snowden accessed?

How do you know that what he releases to the public is complete, that some things are not held back and only released to his generous hosts?

When a leaker appears that leaks embarrassing and compromising info about the U.S., Russia and China I will be a little less skeptical about that leaker being completely open and transparent.

Close your ears!

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. He'll just order everyone in his country to close their ears and turn off their internet! LOL.

Now im curious

[lapm]

Sure makes me wonder what the heck has government of England got it self involved into... Must be something really bad if PM is making threats to news outlets. Personally i'm glad Snowden decided to reveal what e knows. Now we all get to know exactly how much NSA has been spying on us all. Long live the queen, down the PM.

Re:Now im curious

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure makes me wonder what the heck has government of England got it self involved into... Must be something really bad if PM is making threats to news outlets.

They try genetic engineering with samples of Goebbels and Michael Jackson to create their next spokesperson.

What am I missing?

[wwalker]

Can someone explain it to me, why US/UK/etc. governments are so freaking afraid of leaks, when apparently it's such a common knowledge that everyone spies on everyone, including their friends and allies?!

Shouldn't it be, if you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't be afraid of the truth? Since enemies of any state already assume they are being spied on anyway?

I mean, I can understand if the leaks included real names of agents and informants, or were putting real people in real danger of being killed in some other way. But at this point it's all just about governments lying to the people and each other, and about politicians losing all credibility. Oh, wait, I think I just answered my own question...

Re:What am I missing?

[yamum]

Snowden has proved he has some pretty wicked shit. I'd say the governments are shitting themselves as the best is yet to come.

Re:What am I missing?

[TapeCutter]

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.

Re:What am I missing?

[sconeu]

I believe the .gov (of your choice) tells us, "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear."

Given that official line, the Us.gov and the UK.gov's reactions are quite telling...

Re:What am I missing?

[Required Snark]

It makes sense once you realize who the real enemy is. It's not the terrorists/Islamists/Chinese/Russians, it's the citizens of the US/UK/NZ/Australia and other countries that are the target of the spying. The general population is the enemy.

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.

Re:What am I missing?

[SuricouRaven]

The obvious answer is that there is something even worse they know of, and are concerned will be revealed soon. It'd have to be something really big - a career-ending scandal. I can only imagine three possibilities that could scare Cameron.
- Someone has been using the intelligence services to spy on or suppress political opponents domestically. Watergate all over again.
- Someone has been using the intelligence services to advantage domestic economic interests, perhaps by giving important illicit information to corporations. Just like China is widely believed to do, but without conclusive proof.
- Someone has been using the intelligence services to actively intervene in the political process of another country - eg, by tapping the calls of a politician and passing information on their campaign to an opponent, or anonymously sending scandalous information to the media.

Re:What am I missing?

[RoTNCoRE]

Option 2 is happening. Canada (part of the Five Eyes cabal) has been spying on Brazilian mining firms. Canada is a big player in the global mining industry, and the target is unlikely to be a coincidence.

Re:What am I missing?

[Jason Levine]

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.

Not only isn't it possible, but it's counterproductive. If you tapped every cell phone conversation, e-mail exchange, web browsing session, etc, you would definitely capture data to show terrorist plots in the making. The trouble would be sorting through all of that data to find the "terrorist plot" data elements. How do you do this without having too many Googled Backpacks and Pressure Cooker false positives? It's much better to have a more focused approach and just pull the data for selected individuals.

Then again, as you stated, there is a climate of fear and control. They are afraid of missing a data point that shows a terrorist plot in progress so they try to pull more and more data to make sure they collect them all. (Yes, that Pokemon reference was intentional.) At the same time, they want to maintain "control" over the situation so they use fear of terrorism to justify bigger budgets, less oversight ("don't get in our way or the next attack will be your fault"), and more powers to do basically whatever they want. Because "terrorists".

Re:What am I missing?

[Strawser]

'zactly. David Cameron is calling for "social responsibility". These leaks are social responsibility.

Re:What am I missing?

[Uberbah]

Option 4: They're all acting like J. Edgar Hoovers, and blackmailing the shit out everybody.

Every once in a while, it looks like somebody "got a call". Like when Roberts wrote the opinion to strike down the mandate before he wrote the opinion to uphold it. Or when John Lewis went from supporting Snowden to castigating him in 24 hours. Or when Al Franken went from questioning how warrantless wiretaps could possibly be legal under the 4th Amendment, since the person and place must be named, to being a big fan of NSA's infinitely broader goal to "collect it all".

Given that one former official says Senator Obama was spied on when he was in Congress, it's only one more step to arrange a little meeting to discuss this upsetting information that would ruin your career if exposed to the public....

Re:What am I missing?

[SuricouRaven]

That is also a possibility.

One thing we can be sure of is that if the prime minister is still trying to pressure the guardian into silence, he must have his reasons. So somewhere, he must at least *believe* there is a huge secret that could be exposed. That doesn't mean that it is in the documents Snowden managed to grab, just that the prime minister believes there is a possibility something of that nature is in there just waiting to be revealed to the world.

[OT] Puppet strings

[c0lo]

Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

About strings... maybe "tension" or "pull" instead of pressure? (imagine one trying to push a piece of string)

Re:[OT] Puppet strings

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder how much pressure the PM is getting from Washington?

About strings... maybe "tension" or "pull" instead of pressure? (imagine one trying to push a piece of string)

You like anal I see. Or at least being anal. Did I phrase that perfectly enough?

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you'll trust a whistleblower who has climbed the ranks high enough to access top secret information in the U.S.'s intelligence service, Russia's intelligence service, and China's intelligence service? But what if this whistleblower dosn't release information that's embarrassing to Paraguay, too? How could you then trust that he wasn't just a shill for some Latin American strongmen? Hmmmm?

I vote fewer secrets, more freedom

[kawabago]

Of course, it depends on who is counting the votes.

Re:I vote fewer secrets, more freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

WOOOOSH!!!!! That's what it sounded like when it went over everyone's head.

Re:I vote fewer secrets, more freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it depends on who is counting the votes.

No, it depends on whether the votes count. In the U.S., "popular vote" and "election results" are already kept strictly apart. An interesting play on the concept of "democracy".

Release it all!

[dohzer]

Why don't they just release the remaining data before the UK implement the block?

Re:Release it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the UK can prevent the articles from being published since the US is not going to censor the Washington Post, who has been publishing articles in parallel with the Guardian, and the UK cannot destroy all encrypted copies of Snowden's leaked documents. If David Cameron tried to block the Guardian's reporting I think it would backfire by becoming a major news story itself, like has happened with the Guardian's stories about their hard drives being smashed and the detention of David Miranda. If that's the way the Guardian feels then they will just keep publishing as before.

Re: Release it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

The guardian website is now hosted in the US to avoid such shenanigans. Cameron would have to get the courts to order a block on the guardian website.. Even attempting that would create such a shitstorm he'd be risking his entire political future.

Re:Release it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if they did that then the story would be old news in a few weeks. By continuing to release it bit-by-bit, the story is kept fresh and in the news.

Re: Release it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not know they were hosted in the US. Thanks.

How far will they go...

[hawkingradiation]

so as to feel so defensive about what they have done to dismantle the liberties and freedoms that we all hold dear? Listening to these bureaucrats quip is more than just a nuisance, these guys have power to summon the government to imprison or send a drone to your home. Maybe we should all wait patiently until the whole government collapses. *chill* if that is the only hope we have then that is a scary thought.

Crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

We're living in an age where the government wants to know everything about you but you are not allowed to know anything about the government. It's what I would like to call a democrazy.

Re:Crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

We're living in an age where the government wants to know everything about you but you are not allowed to know anything about the government. It's what I would like to call a democrazy.

Call it what it is : Tyranny.

Re:Crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

In such an age, it's very important to study and understand the majority that is manipulated to make that possible (instead of the small population of tyrants, who are mostly all different). Please try to read "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer (can be downloaded for free from canada).

just nuke the fuckers

[Anonymous Coward]

someone needs to just wipe out america and its little bitch allies

hey germany give it another go, you probably wont look like the bad guys this time... you know what i'm talking about

Needs to be Japan that releases the docs now

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian may be releasing info but they are under pressure by UK authorities and the US, but Japan would have no problem with it because quite honestly they gave the finger to the NSA a few days ago. What will the US do? Wage war against Japan? If they do that then the American people will wage war against its own government. Nobody fucks with Japan (or Canada for that matter). I would say let Canada do it but they are the US's bitch so they can't exactly do anything and plus they are still regulated by the Queen.

Re:Needs to be Japan that releases the docs now

[Ogi_UnixNut]

No, they would not need to go to war with Japan, all they would have to do is abandon them to the Chinese. Things like removing the nuclear umbrella over them, or cutting off military aid/support would be enough.

Re:Needs to be Japan that releases the docs now

[CanadianMacFan]

I could see New Zealand letting these revelations be published. I keep tabs on one of the papers from there and it has always provided a good balance to the coverage in the Middle East, especially Iraq. Plus NZ isn't afraid to tell the US to get stuffed.

I can't see Canada being too co-operative in publishing these leaks as long as Harper remains in power. Even after because our economy is so dependant on the American one.

Re:Needs to be Japan that releases the docs now

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by how far you're off the mark on world politics you must be an American.

Everyone has been fucking with Japan, especially its 3 neighbors China/Korea/Russia, they've managed to pissed everyone off and the only one protecting them from being crushed is the US. The moment the US leaves the Japs will be fucked sideways.

re Another Revolution

[jelizondo]

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!

Re:re Another Revolution

[JockTroll]

With what weapons? The british populace is disarmed. Moreover the UK police forces have shown to be ready, willing and able to murder civilians and the courts happy to let them go away with it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes). A properly terrified public opinion would side with the authorities any time. No, there's no liberation for the british. They do not deserve it. Let them live in slavery, just dynamite the eurotunnel and close off any traffic with the UK. Let them "prosper" under US rule, if they can affort to keep the little island going. Starve them to death. When they're all gone, we can repopulate with a smarter breed.

Re:re Another Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

The british populace is disarmed.

The british population was never 'armed' in the sense you are implying in the first place, mr genocide.

Re:re Another Revolution

[JockTroll]

Killing off the limeys is not genocide: it's pest control.

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you'll trust a whistleblower who has climbed the ranks high enough to access top secret information in the U.S.'s intelligence service, Russia's intelligence service, and China's intelligence service?

Any one will do, U.S., Russian or Chinese security. Each will have dirt on the other two.

Damnedable units

[Anonymous Coward]

how that jumped-up little fascist thinks he's going to prevent people in Britain from finding out

I think he's 184cm isn't he? That's not such a little fascist, it's more of a fairly sizeable fascist isn't it?

Admit it. 'Six foot fascist' is so much more fun to say than 'one hundred eighty-four centimeter fascist'.

Re:Damnedable units

[cripkd]

Ok, then we've settled this unit war for good!
Imperial for making fun of people and metric for work.

Re:Damnedable units

[rasherbuyer]

184cm is just over 6 foot

Re:Damnedable units

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when you don't care about precision.

Re:Damnedable units

[Cederic]

Aye, but "Six and a bit foot fascist" doesn't have the same ring to it.

I'm all for googlebombing Cameron with Six Foot Fascist.

Raj IT Making IT Easy

[rajit]

software firm in bangladesh

George Orwell

[theshowmecanuck]

This just makes it even more understandable that George Orwell came from England. You write what you know. It is amazing that from what he knew growing up in England, that he could predict many aspects of the future the way he did.

Other Possibilities

[jamander4]

One dark possibility is the PM going all past US policy for real. He could just start locking up everyone involved his government could get their hands on. Then the governments in question could use extrodinary rendetion to get the rest. If other governmants would not cooperate (Brazil) then start killing those held to be responsible(Greenwald and the offending editors). Given the claimed targeted killing and extraordinary rendition powers already used the only differences would be the scale of non legal behavior and the targets. This use of power would make some use of supression of dissent necessary. When governments go all out with no regard for any laws domestic or international the offending parties can be removed from the playing field. With the help of the US it could be done. Lets hope cooler heads prevail.

lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view

[Anonymous Coward]

he warned of the dangers of a "lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view" about the dangers of leaks

Tell you what, I'm worried about the dangers of a "lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view" about the dangers of a surveillance state (I apologize for the repetitive use of the word "danger" here, but I am just following Cameron's lead in this particular regard). As are the leakers, apparently, and for good reason.

Personally I sort of agree

[Eskarel]

Glen Greenwald has continually made what are essentially libellous accusations and caused a great deal of difficulty in terms of international relations both within the West and between Western and non Western nations. Now if he actually had and was releasing evidence to back up his claims that would be all fine and dandy, but he doesn't. He makes all these grandiose claims and then releases nothing of any substance to back them up, and he's had all the evidence he's ever going to get since the very beginning so there's no need for him to do this.

Whatever you might think of Edward Snowden, Greenwald is a self serving narcissist who is far more concerned with milking this story for his own personal aggrandizement than he is in actually contributing to the discussion about the proper use of surveillance. He should release what he actually has immediately and stop editorializing.

Re:Personally I sort of agree

[Anonymous Coward]

No revelation coming from Greenwald has been shown to be false so far -- despite the fact that his adversaries have almost unlimited resources and enormous motivation to do so. On the other hand, almost everything the governments have told us in recent years regarding surveillance were lies. These are the hard facts.

In light of these horrendous revelations about government behaviour that infringes on basic human rights that all civilised world agrees on, you choose to worry about weather Greenwald has a certain (ill-defined) personality trait or not. I worry about this to the point that you are willing to accept the erosion of another fundamental principle that the civilised world is built on: freedom of the press.

Let's be honest here: you like the status quo and you want it to be maintained. You think that the government should indeed spy on everybody. You have the right to think these things and you have the right to defend them. Why hide?

Re:Personally I sort of agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Is being a "self-serving narcissist" a crime? Because, if it is, there's going to be more politicians put in jail because of it than journalists.

Narcissistic or not, the UK's PM has no reason to try to censor a newspaper. Remember that libel/defamation is (in most places) part of civil law and NOT criminal law, so... if someone feels like they've been unfairly and wrongly portrayed by Greenwald, speak up.

Finally, the biggest problem with your argument is that "speaking the truth" is an absolute defense against libel, and I have yet to hear those accused deny any of Greenwald's assertions. Actually, I take that back: we HAVE heard some denials, that are then usually followed by more leaks that clearly show that those denials are simply more lies. So, thanks Mr. Greenwald... your sense of timing is perfect. Keep dripping them leaks.

Notice that the UK's PM doesn't say "the newspaper have to stop printing this, because it's false and libelious", but "the newspapers have to stop printing this, because it's embarassing".

But, sure Eskarel, keep attacking the messanger and disregard the (inconvenient) message.

Re:Personally I sort of agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Greenwald has done nothing of the sort.

Re:Personally I sort of agree

[lennier]

Glen Greenwald has continually made what are correct accusations and caused a great deal of difficulty in terms of illegal and unconstitutional military intelligence activities both within the military intelligence community and between the evil bastard and non-evil bastard communities. Now if he actually didn't have and wasn't releasing evidence to back up his claims that would be a non-story, but he does. He makes all these true and disturbing claims and then releases carefully assembled documentary evidence to back them up, and he's had all the evidence he's ever going to get since the very beginning so he's conducting a staged release to make sure Snowden's heroism isn't wasted.

Whatever you might think of Edward Snowden, Greenwald is a ground-breaking journalist who is far more concerned with serving the public interest than he is in contributing to the discussion about Miley Cyrus twerking. He should continue doing exactly what he's doing, since it's exposing the constant ongoing lies of the establishment and making the evil bastards squirm.

I agree completely!

Re:Can he block lady Gaga too in the mix and X-Fac

[DrEasy]

A "Gaga order" then?

Cornered rat.

[mindwanderer]

I reckon a select number of government officials are shitting bricks not because of what has already been revealed, but what remains. This irrational, dangerous behavior by Cameron tells me that whatever it is, it's huge.

Re:Sen. Frankeinstein

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I'm kind of to the point where the situation won't be made right until the people at the NSA responsible for this are in prison, the NSA is dismantled, and everyone in the Whitehouse and Congress are impeached and thrown into the deepest, darkest hole we've got.

They are already in congress. You don't get much more of a quagmire.

Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Did you...did you...just compare President Obama to Hitler? I know you racists love to do that...but really. Come on. Fascist? The man is a protege of a radical leftist who set off bombs in the U.S. Capitol.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Kilo Kilo]

Hitler was a National Socialist (leftist) who had the Reichstag burned down. Therefore Obama==Hitler. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, right. The most transparent administration ever. The AC didn't even mention Obama, he said

your government chooses to be a shill for Hitler

Though, being the president and all, he is in a position of responsibility here. And if our govt is acting like Hitler's govt, it's not too much of a stretch to say that the guy in charge can be compared to Hitler. But he didn't actually say that. However, you did call him a racist. Because yelling racist is the easiest way to win an argument...on the internet...with an anonymous coward.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Shaman]

> The most transparent administration ever.

What?! Uh... no.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[morgauxo]

One guy brings out the Hitler card. Another counters with his racist card. I blame Pokemon. Obviously that is where the kidies are learning their communication skills these days.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's administration is the most closed administration ever according to a NYT reporter. War is peace. Peace is war.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/05/nyt-reporter-obama-admin-most-closed-control-freak-administration-ive-ever-covered/

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler was a National Socialist (leftist) who had the Reichstag burned down. Therefore Obama==Hitler.

That's not entirely accurate: who was responsible for burning down the Reichstag had never been established. But this attack on a central symbol for the German state was seminal in getting the Ermächtigungsgesetz passed that basically set aside the constitution and gave the dominant NSDAP party large and only marginally controlled executive powers.

Blame history for any parallels with 9/11 and the PATRIOT act. I have nothing to do with it.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Austerity Empowers]

Everyone knows that Hitler was Obama's fault.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: Just because the Nazi party had "Socialist" in its name, doesn't mean it actually was socialist in any way. Get your political compass right.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. Downie is a hard core religious right winger who worked for the post. He has numerous lies like you.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote from article:

“Whenever I’m asked what is the most manipulative and secretive administration I’ve covered, I always say it’s the one in office now,” Bob Schieffer, CBS News anchor and chief Washington correspondent, told me.

Obama isn't for transparency, he's waging war on journalism.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[lennier]

> The most transparent administration ever.

What?! Uh... no.

Sure it's transparent. It's just one-way glass.

Re:Can we stop about Snowden already?

[Burz]

Hint: Just because the Nazi party had "Socialist" in its name, doesn't mean it actually was socialist in any way. Get your political compass right.

I'll second this-- It comes from the same vein of American far-right myths as the one about the Nazis being a conspiracy of homosexuals. Its quite backward.

The Nazi political philosophy was only "socialist" in the sense that they used redistribution to condemn anyone deemed weak/degenerate to die of overwork and deprivation. It was a reallocation of resources to groups who were considered to be "strong"... So you could say it was like an upside-down socialism in that one respect. (BTW, difference and diversity were classed as causes of weakness.)

Another aspect of Nazism and Fascism is that the masses are deprived of any education or sense of agency that would lead to analytical thinking. Real thinking was to be reserved for the elite, while the masses were to me manipulated by pure emotion if possible. OTOH, socialism placed emphasis on teaching analytical thinking (but not individual independence).

Yet another large difference is the position of women in society (another distinctly right-wing trait of Nazism-- the hierarchy emanating from the strict national father-figure or "Führer").

The GP (and +mods) inhabit a universe where everyone and their ideas are evaluated in terms of black and white, and so a lot of distortion is employed to shoehorn reality into their dualistic habit.

He IS offering evidence

[Bruce66423]

At no point have the people or organisations outed by these allegations claimed his information is fabricated; in effect they've admitted its truth, so there's no libel involved. Given that Snowden DID have access to the data and turned it over promptly, the most likely hypothesis is that it's accurate, and certainly the sight of Obama in practice admitting that the NSA had intercepted Merkel's personal phone calls gives the rest of it credibility. There is a debate to be had as to whether there has been damage to the appropriate data gathering abilities of the intelligence services; that's the argument that is being advanced by both Cameron and Alexander. However their credibility is rather shot given that they've been shown to have misled about it in the past. The Guardian has claimed that it's offered spooks the chance to comment on the material before publication, and that they have been careful to avoid the obviously damaging. Overall it is clear that there has been an abuse of power and that this has been the only way that it has been exposed to the point where something has been done about it (the NSA has stopped intercepting Merkel's phone calls). Coincidence?

Re:He IS offering evidence

[Jason Levine]

At no point have the people or organisations outed by these allegations claimed his information is fabricated; in effect they've admitted its truth, so there's no libel involved.

Unfortunately, in the UK, truth isn't a defense against libel. (I think they're working to fix that, though.) You can say something absolutely true, but be sued for and convicted of libel.

Of course, I'd like to see the UK PM try to sue the Guardian for libel over the Snowden revelations. It would be a very interesting court case.

Re:He IS offering evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

At no point have the people or organisations outed by these allegations claimed his information is fabricated

That's not true. In the beginning they were denying everything. PRISM doesn't exist, we're not monitoring American phones, we're not tapping friendly countries, etc.
But as each denial was quickly and methodically proved false, they eventually stopped with that and instead are now in full on damage control and attempting to stop the source.

Re:He IS offering evidence

[http]

Rogers (Republican, chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) and Rupersberger (democrat, member of same) have made such claims publicly.
You need to keep your facts straight if you want them to go to prison. Just because nobody took the assertions seriously doesn't mean they didn't say such a thing.

Murdoch seeking to get rid of Cameron by this?

[Bruce66423]

Or if the response of the public is sufficiently negative to this then Cameron may be forced out, so Murdoch gets a better leader for the next election...

Re:Murdoch seeking to get rid of Cameron by this?

[jalopezp]

No shit. He's been hanging out with Boris quite a bit, hasn't he?

Re: There should be a new tag

[Anonymous Coward]

#goodfuckingluck

UK Gov - We don't censor

[Anonymous Coward]

We demand the journalists to censor themselves

I'm more surprised that...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more surprised that the Guardian et. al haven't been torrenting these revelations like Julian Assange did with his Wikileaks Insurance.

Streisand Effekt

[mailuefterl]

Did someone say "Streisand Effekt" ?

The cat's out of the bag already

[erroneus]

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.

What does NSA have on him?

[citizenr]

You have to wonder what is Cameron so afraid of?
Polish prime minister sang the very same tune when it was revealed CIA had concentration camp in Poland during his tenure. Why are those high ranking politicians clearly betraying their own constituency?

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[Anonymous Coward]

How come you trust the people that haven't released anything to the public? They're obviously the ones selectively leaking to only a few, hmm?

There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[boorack]

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.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[siddesu]

There is no such thing as "objective media", but there is a definite and unsubtle difference between media that are influenced by the government in a democratic state, and media that run errands on behalf of a dictator. I'll let you figure out which is which in this case. It ain't very hard.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[akinliat]

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.

I'm not sure it's that complex. Just look at goals. The goal of media outlets in the US/UK has been, for years, to provide entertainment. This is probably most obvious for Fox, but it applies almost universally at this point. The result has been an increasing tendency to identify news channels with market segments (political left, right, or center) and news that is driven by viewer response rather than editorial judgement.

An unintended (but highly important) consequence of the infotainment model is the power it gives to the subjects of news stories, because actually having the subject on-camera is far more likely to get viewers' attention than reportage from the same old journalist/talking head types. The subjects realize this, and have been limiting that access as a way of rewarding or punishing various news outlets. Combined with the decline of (boring) investigative journalism, this has really put polticians in the driver's seat with regard to their PR management.

Note: If you're thinking that the above comments don't really apply to newspaper and blog news sources, then consider what sorts of newspapers and blogs have become popular, and what sort of articles they use to draw readership.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Uberbah]

There is no such thing as "objective media", but there is a definite and unsubtle difference between media that are influenced by the government in a democratic state, and media that run errands on behalf of a dictator. I'll let you figure out which is which in this case. It ain't very hard.

Your naivete is cute.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The second best approximation is to snort though raw footage and original materials..."

What, like some sort of news addict?

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[siddesu]

This guy has never seen state-controlled media in operation from his porch. Certainly hasn't followed any in a language he can understand well.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Uberbah]

This guy has never seen state-controlled media in operation from his porch. Certainly hasn't followed any in a language he can understand well.

You're sidestepping the issue. When it comes to war and matters of "national security", how would a state-run press function any differently from the American press. Unverified, unsourced claims from "senior officials" are treated as fact, and obviously bullshit pronouncements, whether they come from Obama or Cheney, are never questioned.

It's like with the NSA spying, where retired officials are saying is just like the KGB. But they were only Stasi, so what do they know?

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[siddesu]

If you lived in a country with a state-controlled press, there would be no "unverified, unsourced" claims. You would not know from the official media anything about what the NSA counterpart there is doing, except for the official line.

Things like the Iran-Contras affair, Watergate, the Wikileaks and the Snowden leaks are impossible to happen in an environment where media is controlled by the state by definition, as they would simply not have been covered by the press.

When most media is tightly controlled by large financial interests, the outcome may begin to approximate state control, but it is still a far cry from it.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Uberbah]

If you lived in a country with a state-controlled press, there would be no "unverified, unsourced" claims. You would not know from the official media anything about what the NSA counterpart there is doing, except for the official line.

Still waiting for a distinction or a difference.

Korean Central Television: reporter repeats government claims as fact.

Fox/MSNBC/NPR/NYTimes/WaPo: reporter repeats government claims as fact.

It's not like we don't have examples to chose from, like Saint Russert admitting in a trial that he always asked for quote approval when interviewing said "senior officials".

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[siddesu]

In the two cases you bring up, how did you (and everyone else) realize that the reported government claims weren't facts?

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Uberbah]

In the two cases you bring up, how did you (and everyone else) realize that the reported government claims weren't facts?

Foreign press. Until the POTUS calls up the friendly neighborhood dictator and has the reporter imprisoned, anyway. You also seem to think this is all-or-nothing. Would you say that the existence of microblogs in China and privately owned (but still self-censoring) media outlets mean that China doesn't have a lapdog media? I'm guessing not.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[siddesu]

Foreign press.

Yeah, right. You make a rather general allegation about six specific information outlets ("reported government claims as facts") and then, when asked a question, proceed to dismiss it without:

a) bothering to provide reference to the allegation and
b) bothering to provide a reference that confirms your claim

If you do, I'm sure it will look like this: the "home" media did quote the government side, and when facts came up that disputed the gov't claims, it was the home press then reported those as well. Under a state-controlled media regime, you would not get the second part of the story.

As for the part where the POTUS "called my friendly neighborhood dictator", you support fully exactly the point that I'm making. It would be somewhat harder for the POTUS to call Mr. Hollande or Mr. Harper and order them to imprison reporters.

To sum it up, you're severely ignorant about the ways press operates under a dictatorial regime, but you think you know better and you are okay with making shit up to go along your beliefs. Suit yourself if life is easier for you this way.

Re:There is no such thing as 'objective media'.

[Uberbah]

That's an impressive word salad to dodge the fundamental point: that on matters of 'national security', the U.S. media functions just like a state-run media. Claims are treated as fact. Officials are given the utmost deference. Embarrassing stories are quashed.

Pick the issue, any issue. Drone strikes, torture, black sites, evidence of Syria's chemical weapon's use that's more laugh-out-loud than Nigerian yellowcake and aluminum tubes...

Insulting

[Anonymous Coward]

To suggest that the Guardian's attitude towards the Snowden leak as "lah-di-dah" is, as far as I'm aware, the most insulting thing this bastard has said all year (which is really saying something). I hope this piece of shit is soon divorced from the power it wields.

Who threatened national security here?

[dutchwhizzman]

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.

The Naughty Boy has much to hide....

[Anonymous Coward]

David cameron is worried about people found out about why his child died? and other details that would have in suicide watch in seconds if revealed and I would need to step down immediately.

Lah-di-dah

[FatLittleMonkey]

where he warned of the dangers of a "lah-di-dah, airy-fairy view"

Well, I'm glad we can at least have an intelligent debate about the issue.

A minor point which all should understand..

[Anonymous Coward]

...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"

These politicians all have a strong track record of saying one thing and doing nothing. In the past, Cameron famously gave a 'cast-iron' promise just before an election, and ignored it immediately afterwards.

If Cameron is talking about blocking something, that means he wants to give the impression that he's doing something. It does NOT mean that he WILL do anything...

Danger of the Leaks! Oh Noes!

[VortexCortex]

Here, I'll just copy/paste myself, WRT threat narrative:

Just a reminder: Heart Disease and Accidents cause more deaths every single year than over four hundred 9/11's. It's been over a decade now... That's more than 4000 September 11th sized attacks. Are you scared to eat and/or drive now? That's how fucking pathetic the fear narrative is.

This is America. We drive fast cars to fast food restaurants without a second thought. You want me to continue to ALLOW an expensive totalitarian spying apparatus to protect us from 0.00025 the danger we face from cars and cheeseburgers? What the fuck can the ineffectual terrorists do? If the NSA wanted to protect us they'd be making tastier health food and building self driving cars or the Hyper-Loop.

Now, that's ACTUAL terrorist attacks vs automobiles and junk food I'm talking about. You can imagine the threat from the leaks is ridiculously minuscule in comparison. As a scientist, when confronted with extraordinary claims, especially about threats, my immediate response is to shout: PROVE IT!

Now, I'm not from the UK, however, I suspect midges aren't feared as eye-pecking vultures over there. Free yourself from the threat narrative. Godwin be damned, bowing to such notions is how you wind up slaughtering Jews, Internment Camping Japanese, Victims of population control in Vietnam, and with Stasi-style police forces.

Use fear to win political goals? Fuck right off, Terrorist!

That's not a cat.

[Anonymous Coward]

After pulling out several meters and the bag still not being empty, it should be pretty clear that the animal we are talking about is not actually a cat.

Re: No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden k

[Anonymous Coward]

My main concern is what the NSA is doing to Americans, not what Paraguay may be doing.

his what?

[Anonymous Coward]

colours*

Insurance File

[lagomorpha2]

The journalists that have the data need to do what wikileaks did: encrypt the entire Snowden information and upload it as a torrent.

As long as there are only a few people with access to the data there is a threat the spy agencies will go after them directly. They need to know that if they try that then everything will be released to the public at once.

Technically, as defined by whom ?

[Taco Cowboy]

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.

Re:Technically, as defined by whom ?

[isorox]

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.

The OP never said he was betraying the U.S.A.

a person who betrays a country or group of people by helping or supporting an enemy

He is a traitor to those who employed him (the U.S. government), by helping their enemy (the U.S. public)

Re:Technically, as defined by whom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What Mr. Edward Snowden did was not treacherous to the country of the United States of America.

You haven't been following the news lately have you?

From the Order to Remove Boneheads from Office

[Anonymous Coward]

Cameron is a total ID10T... If the British people don't remove him from office pdq, then they have just what they deserve!

It's time for that Alpha Centauri quote again

[Anonymous Coward]

As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

        Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"

Cameron should resign

[Anonymous Coward]

Openly opposing a democratic society in this way, has made his position untenable.

Showing his colors might be the goal

[Opportunist]

He just wants to show his master that he's a good puppy.

Engage Brain

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that:

1. Information is held outside the UK
2. Information will be published and will be available to UK subjects but not in their national press
3. All arguments made against these information leaks have been around preventing terrorists becoming aware of this information
Its clear that 3. in the context of point 1. and 2. is non-sensical.

This is about a political game around manipulating public opinion and in restricting information that the general public are aware of.

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[TWiTfan]

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.

Re:wrong jigs

[Anonymous Coward]

And white people just want to make stupid prejudices?

And you're wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just claiming "they are a stopped clock" is not proof they are right here just by accident.

Whereas you're running in antiphase.

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore never right.

Won't stop you clamouring, though, will it?

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[gmuslera]

So you prefer to stay in the dark, hoping that the big predator that isthere won't be anymore because the one that warned that it is there could had hidden that are also a few ants around? Or believe the word of that predator that won't harm anyone anymore, after it made sure that noone will warn their next victims in the future? Ignorance is bliss, lets shoot the messenger,

Re:No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden kn

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy. If he was actually handing information over to the Russians, there would be 100 'official' leaks calling him a traitor. Right now they only have astroturfers like you who smear him by the 'possibility' of being a traitor.

Trust the NSA. Why would they have so much power if they weren't going to use if for good? It doesn't make sense. Mind broke. QED.

NSA spying for American economic interests

[Anonymous Coward]

That has already been disclosed. Articles in O Globo and the Brazilian press reveal that the NSA spied on the Brazilian state oil company and the information apparently made it to competitors.

Another use for Big Government Data has been to pass the information obtained without warrants or probable cause to the DEA and INS.

Manipulation of political figures? It's certainly been done. When the government has all the data (and the public knows and accepts that) while you have no records or way to disprove the allegations, how could you respond to a threat to expose you as a pedophile?

When did the UK PM became Obama bitch anyway?

[madhi19]

Because seriously Cameron you could not suck up more to the US President if you flew to Washington and give him a blowjob right there in the Oval office live on TV!

Who cares about Snowden?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Actually, if I'd have to pick between labels of "patriot" and "traitor" for Snowden and, say, pathological liars and power-greedy crooks not just shitting on their oath to the constitution but continuing with perjury before congress, like Clapper and Holder, it would not be much of an effort.

Why does nobody discuss the question "patriot or traitor" for those who actually are at the levers of power?

It's no different

[ThatsNotPudding]

He was completely unable to grasp that was he was advocating was most definitely not conservative given that by definition conservatism is about resisting change, and he was advocating massive change, and was very much a communist idea - i.e. the complete opposite of the right which he claimed to proudly represent.

It's no different than the current US extreme right now advocates and embraces the same foundational beliefs of the systems their grandfathers fought against in WWII (fascism). I truly believe the GOP and their Randian backers merely waited until almost all of the WWII generation were dead or senile to begin implementing their greatest desires.

Nerd rage

[blanddragon]

at traitor nerd. I find that funny for some reason...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Truth is a defence to libel in England

[Bruce66423]

Says our equivalent of the ACLU http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-of-free-expression/defamation/defences-to-a-claim-of-defamation.html

Yum!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

You just got a free america smoothie!

Government Advice?

[pev]

So he's calling it "advice" but threatening to force via the courts if unheeded. I think most people would call that a "demand" or "threat".

RT News channel

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in the UK, it's very interesting to hear about things that seem to be deliberately hidden from the public in the mainstream news, and it's a real eye-opener to hear some of the other general info.

One snippet the other day was that 90% of all bank deposits in the UK go to just six banks, whereas in Germany, 70% of all bank deposits to go to two *thousand* banks.

One of the reporters also regularly refers to David Cameron as a "buffoon" (The Keiser Report) which is sadly all too close to the truth, and something no mainstream media outlet would dare do !

Are they any more reliable than mainstream media outlets ? - you wouldn't think you were watching the same day's news ! - that "slow news day" where you hear the most boring inconsequential things they can find, suddenly turns into issues that have massive implications to the UK in one way or another.

Sadly, Virgin don't make it available, but you can get it on Freeview.

Re: No one outside of the NSA knows what Snowden k

[tolkienfan]

There could be people lesking stuff to China and Russia without leaking anything to the public. Whereas Snowden put his life in danger to bring you this info.

how did this post run off the tracks?

[Anonymous Coward]

the issue is how to get cameron put out the door

This guy tried to blow the whistle in 2007

[ulatekh]

Just in time...an article about an NSA employee that tried to blow the whistle on them back in 2007.

I remember someone in Congress saying that Edward Snowden should have gone through the proper channels to blow the whistle. That's what this guy did. You can read the article to see how that worked out for him.

I wonder why Edward Snowden got attention when he blew the whistle, and no one up until that point did? Hard to say...though it may have had something to do with his hot girlfriend.