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Edward Snowden Leaks Could Help Paedophiles Escape Police, Says UK Government
An anonymous reader writes "Paedophiles may escape detection because highly-classified material about Britain's surveillance capabilities have been published by the Guardian newspaper, the UK government has claimed. A senior Whitehall official said data stolen by Edward Snowden, a former contractor to the US National Security Agency, could be exploited by child abusers and other cyber criminals. It could also put lives at risk by disclosing secrets to terrorists, insurgents and hostile foreign governments, he said."
Those demagogical assholes are the worst terrorists of all.
Is there anything that they won't use the 'think of the children' line on?
Pathetic.
Sent from my PDP-11
Now we know they're desperate, hate the population, and have entirely run out of arguments.
Time to recall this government. Failing that, maybe just kick them some more while they're down. It's what they'd do to us, after all.
The old, "Associate your target with helping pedophiles" approach.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The secret police state is at risk!
Yeah, and sale and possession of firearms enables rapist to threaten and rape children! Yet we don't seem to imply the same logic there. How strange.
Child rape is becoming the new Godwin. Before we know it Glenn Beck will be using it every other sentence as well.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
We've heard from David Cameron that Snowden's leak "damaged national security."
Cameron made veiled threats suggesting he could take the media to court over publishing the leaks.
Government enforcers employed heavy-handed tactics to intercept, detain and threaten those even tangentially connected to the leaks.
Many were forced to destroy technical equipment in a quixotic quest to purge the unpurgeable.
Now, all of that failed. Predictably, this is the kind of horse shit they've resorted to slinging.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
If they ACTUALLY wanted to help kids they'd apply some actual knowledge gathered from study in this area and develop strategies to minimise occurrence, but it's SUCH a successful rhetorical boogieman/distraction...
Let's see.
"Save the children"? Check.
"Terrorism"? Check.
"For your own good"? Check
If you can't smell the heavy miasma of bullshit wafting off this, you need a new fucking nose.
It's an interesting twist: instead of claiming spying is essential for the nation's foreign intelligence capabilities and security when faced with nation state adversaries, they are now claiming spying is needed to combat internal, run-of-the mill criminals. So they are basically admitting they are building a surveillance state where every possible law that the leaders imagine can also be enforced.
If we are to configure our society so that every sicko that enjoys child molestation videos in the privacy of his home is immediately apprehended, then it seems to me any type of dissent of conspiracy against the government becomes impossible. Good luck explaining to the public that's a bad compromise.
The other side of the coin would be an interesting one - perhaps a Freedom Of Information request to GCHQ, to ask how many man-hours as a percentage of their total work is spent tracking and investigating paedophiles. I would wager a lot of money that, if they were to give an honest answer to that, it would be 0. GCHQ are not, and never will be, interested in tracking paedophiles.
And nor should they be, anymore than GCHQ should be going after shop lifters or any other petty criminal.
Their excuse is that they can ignore due-process to accomplish the all important job of maintaining national security. They can do this because the government has passed various "anti-terror" laws which more or less eliminate the need for due process. Unless you're going to start labelling paedophiles, shoplifters, drug sellers, etc. as terrorists (and therefore apply the anti-terror laws) then you're going to have to follow due process, which means warrantless spying seems like its out of the picture...
And yes, I'm aware that all sorts of non-terrorist activities are now being labelled as terrorism just so they can use those broad laws... *sigh*
http://blog.nexusuk.org
First, they said he was a traitor.
Then, they accused him of stealing.
Followed closely with the accusation that he has been a Soviet spy.
Now ?
Edward Snowden, according to them, is aiding pedophile and all other sexual perverts, especially those "exploiting innocent children", to evade surveillance by the "GOOD GUYS", namely, the spooks/cops/big brothers.
In other words, Edward Snowden, to some, is a de-human-izer.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Give it a couple of weeks and Snowden will be labeled a pederast
Doubtful that many in the target audience know what one of those is, considering the trouble they've had with "paedophile" and "paediatrician" in the past.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
For confirming that nothing Snowden has leaked did actually endanger anyone.
Because if it had, we'd be hearing about that 24/7.
... so we better get some pollution going.
Yes, can will and probably has. Basically you are naming one of the down sides to an unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable security apparatus that can operate in the dark as it pleases. There are many others such as using the security apparatus for industrial espionage/pure profit motive and crush political dissent as they did with the Occupy movement.
This reeks of desperation. Whitehall must really be on the backfoot.
May the Maths Be with you!
as it implies a few things for starters.
1. Britain, having exhausted all other methods of corrective action against pedophilia and child exploitation that may prove fruitful given its nature in the UK, now relies on a clandestine american spy program that hasnt been proven to catch a single pedophile, let alone terrorist.
2. the spy program, although decried throughout europe and asia as invasive and inappropriate, is however of such great importance to the efforts of the UK to fighting crime as to be above critique. Nay, it is above even mentioning the very programs or policies in place.
3. That edwards revalations may prove fruitful to hostile governments neglects to inform the reader that the information disclosed is related to a government that practices rendition, harbored a network of secret prisons, exercises indefinite detention against foreign and domestic nationals, and practices torture. the hostile government in question also operates the largest prison population in the world.
4. that so far your only response to the snowden revelations has been to harass and intimidate your own journalists into silence has exposed the ineptitude and desparation with which you seek to just make the whole thing go away. That somehow you think this condescending appeal to the humanity of the UK through your 'think of the children' rhetoric is even plausibly considered valid is laughable. Glen Greenwald is evidence enough you couldnt care less.
as an american citizen i can only implore europe: please, stop us. this has gone on far enough, far beyond spy vs spy and into america spying on every foreign citizen of any foreign government it chooses under the guise of some malevolent executive privilege we awarded ourselves after jihadists bombed a financial center. we have, as we continue to do today, exercised rendition and torture based on the information we collect using these programs.
Good people go to bed earlier.
What do you mean "the down side"? There is no up side.
You can't point at other regimes and decry their dictatorial policies, and then have a secret arm of government of your own acting with the power of all three arms of government, with no oversight or accountability.
Wake up. The dictators aren't in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt or wherever else you may think they are. The most insidious dictators are right here, ruling YOU.
and whats with this "anonymous reader" submitter? The article reeked so badly nobody wanted to take credit (blame) for posting it?
Quicly looking at comment section of Telegraph article I see that it propably didn't succeed in indoctrinating anyone. Therefore I'm curious why such a piece of crap has been published at all. Maybe it is not directed to unwashed masses. Maybe it is directed to corporate/bankster/military/intelligence estabullshitment, not ordinary people. Maybe it is some kind of message sent by puppet government and puppet media saying something like: "See, we're (still) loyal. We'll go with you everywhere and we're ready to defend your (dirty) business even to our own detriment. We'll do anything, just give us some convenient, well paid position in your corporations when people throw us out.". I see this as a dangerous precedence. Politicians not afraid of what people think about them will not hesitate to send police or military to beat everyone "to the fuck'n skull" or "disappear" people if ordered so by TPTBs. The same with media: seeing journalists producing such crap without any signs of hesitation I smell crappy soviet-style system of propaganda (which I still remeber as I've spent my childhood in communist Poland).
More likely it's just the Big Lie. Repeat often enough and people will start to believe it (so they hope). Especially when you load it with all sorts of right-minded emotional terms.
After all, you're either with us or you're with the paedophiles.
It worked for Iraq.
If you're a banker or other criminal type with inside connections to the survellance complex, the up-sides clock into the trillions.
It is only a matter of time before the men in charge of the NSA and GCHQ start getting invited to City dinners, if they aren't there already.
May the Maths Be with you!
Exactly. Pedophiles and terrorism by now are well understood by governments as the magic keys to sidestep legal protections and process.
See, if you just go straight to sidestepping things, people get upset. But if you say "Zomg the terrorists" or "but, pedophiles" people accept that you're sidestepping things and it's OK.
It's essentially become the point at which you know governments are losing the argument. Because it amounts to the veiled argument of "we're doing this to protect against (terrorists|pedophiles), and if you're opposed to us fighting the (terrorists|pedophiles) then you must be in favor of the (terrotists|pedophiles)"
It's disingenuous in that it basically is used to bully us all into accepting them cutting into our rights and legal protections, because, after all, they're doing it to save us from the (terrorists|pedophiles).
And it's also the point at which all of the other politicians will vote for whatever you're suggesting, and much of the populace will say "well, I'm not a (terrorist|pedophile) so what do I have to hide?".
It is, however, a complete horseshit argument, and a cheap excuse to bypass the controls and protections put in place. But people seem to keep falling for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yes. If you think of the children all the time, you're most likely a pedo.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And you're just being a demagogue.
To claim there is no need, no value, no "up side" to having a strong national intelligence organization marks you as irrelevant to the discussion as the blind patriots knee-jerking that "it's fine because I have nothing to hide".
There IS a tremendous value to a strong intelligence capability.
But our society was built on the need for responsible oversight, generally delegated to our elected representatives.
The blame here I place (as usual) on Congress. If they were exercising responsible, firm, intrusive oversight - with absolute, immediate, and unremitting punishment for the people involved (firing certainly, prosecution as required - and not a bunch of chattering ninnies that have proven their inability to be trusted to keep secrets secret (so as to remain closely advised by the agencies without fear of destroying the value of intel and methods with self-serving 'unattributed' leaks), I don't believe we'd have this problem.
But now we have self-interested politicians, committed to maintaining a political divide and advantage at ANY cost (even to the republic), who thus cannot really be trusted with anything important and who block each other (despite both sides' recognizing the need) from reforming anything substantively. I guess we lose then.
-Styopa
In the US, they keep pointing out that their program is only about terrorism, and only spies on non-US citizens.
Not so in the UK, where the program is apparently about spying on everybody, including Britons, even if no terrorism is involved. That is a significant admission.
If they were exercising responsible, firm, intrusive oversight - with absolute, immediate, and unremitting punishment for the people involved (firing certainly, prosecution as required
While in theory, you're right, in practice, that is unsustainable. You *can* have someone principled and just in power but that is largely an exception to the norm. That position will always devolve and attract the lying cheats who will do anything to attain that power. The reason is pretty simple, the honest man typically has no real desire or need for power and will typically be at a great disadvantage for their unwillingness to cheat to maintain it.
The blame here I place (as usual) on Congress.
That's disingenuous. Best you can do is blame the population for not offering principled people who run for office, or in the rare cases where this happens, blame the population for not supporting those guys in favor of the typical establishment stooges.
Even that isn't fair though... Would you risk of life-destroying consequences that rocking the boat too much in congress will most likely bring down upon you? Would you go head-up against the intelligence agency that can pull out or simply fabricate information to publicly humiliate and destroy you if you so much as threaten them? And even if none of that would stick, are you game to find out what other tricks those guys have to take you out of the picture? Would you wish it on someone else?
The bottom line is this: You didn't follow - or hold your politicians to - the constitution (that thing meant to limit the power of government). You now have a government with so much power that it can destroy anyone or anything threatening to take it away. And by 'you' I mean the population of the US.
Don't feel too bad about it though... You at least *have* a pretty good constitution to return to, hard as that goal may be to reach. The rest of the world isn't so lucky.
Mind the frickin' laser...
I dont give a **** how important you think it is, when those that engage it step over the line, its time for sunshine sanitation.
As a third party reader, I see the two of you as being in violent agreement. I read one comment about "absolute, immediate, and unremitting punishment" for abuse, and another about "step over the line", and they agree.
I agree too. The *biggest* problem in the NSA fiasco, just as it was in the financial fiasco and the CIA-agent-disclosure fiasco, is that somebody wasn't taken out and shot for treason. Perhaps multiple somebodies. Destroying trust in the financial system, destroying trust in the lawful exercise of legitimate police powers, destroying trust in society as a whole - these are treasonous offenses against the very fabric of our nation that far outweigh any of the money and information involved.
And you're just being a demagogue.
To claim there is no need, no value, no "up side" to having a strong national intelligence organization marks you as irrelevant to the discussion as the blind patriots knee-jerking that "it's fine because I have nothing to hide".
There IS a tremendous value to a strong intelligence capability.
But our society was built on the need for responsible oversight, generally delegated to our elected representatives.
If I had to choose between living in 1984 -- which is what we're doing -- and the consequences of not having any secret spying at all, I'd go with the consequences. I think I'm more likely to be arrested for expressing my Constitutional rights than I am to be killed by terrorists.
That's disingenuous. Best you can do is blame the population for not offering principled people who run for office, or in the rare cases where this happens, blame the population for not supporting those guys in favor of the typical establishment stooges.
How do you blame people when they are intentionally mislead, uninformed, and outright lied too? The take over of journalism started a long long time ago, and the last of the "journalists" for large print and television happened decades ago. You could blame the people that ignored the laws that allowed the monopolization of media in the 70s maybe, but corrupt journalism was rampant in the 60s even without monopolization.
People warned us that when the AP becomes the only source of "News" we are fucked, but those voters didn't even know that there were laws being cooked because the "News" prevented those laws from becoming public knowledge. If you didn't pay attention to comedians like George Carlin you simply didn't know.
Hell, if the Internet was censored as people in power want, you would still not know about any of these programs.
I agree that it's disingenuous to blame just congress, but it's just as disingenuous to blame a public that has no knowledge unless they are actively seeking it. It should bother you that "News" agencies collaborate and release stories that the administration approves of. It should bother you that instead of Television "News" programs talking about real issues, the programming focuses on celebrities first, propaganda second, and misinformation third.
The answer goes back in time and requires us to cut the strings tying all of these agencies together. Media monopolies need to be broken up, and journalism needs to once again become journalism. With an informed public we have a chance for reform. With an ignorant public there is no chance of reform, it will just be a few people that see reality bickering on sites like Slashdot.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There's plenty of propaganda articles making it to Slashdot, but I don't think this is an example of what you're saying it is. The general "Slashdot hive mind" mentality is not friendly towards claims of "oh noes, think of the pornchildren!" being used to suppress information. As a piece of propaganda, this article is guaranteed to backfire (as demonstrated by all the upmodded comments in this thread). No one here is being swayed to the conclusion "Snowden helps pedophiles"; the only message coming across is "Whitehall officials are lying liar scum."
To spot a real propaganda article, look for pieces that harness the "groupthink" to produce a positive reception for some corporate agenda (rather than producing a near-unanimous backlash against the article claims). This article is simply ordinary tabloid clickbait for the Slashdot audience. The propaganda work was the original Telegraph piece linked, aimed at an audience who are terrified of the lurking pedos they've been trained to fear --- those are the people intended to be deceived by the crap coming out of Whitehall.