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Journalist Claims Secret US Flight 'To Capture Snowden' Overflew Scottish Airspace (thenational.scot)
schwit1 writes with a story in The National (a newspaper which makes no bones about it support for an independent Scotland) describing the charge laid by a Scottish journalist that in 2013 a secret U.S. flight involving a plane involved in CIA renditions crossed Scottish airspace, as part of a secret plan to capture whistleblower Edward Snowden. Alex Salmond, then Scotland's First Minister, is calling for transparency with regard to the knowledge that the UK government had of the flight and its mission. According to the report,
The plane, which passed above the Outer Hebrides, the Highlands and Aberdeenshire, was dispatched from the American east coast on June 24 2013, the day after Snowden left Hong Kong for Moscow. The craft was used in controversial US 'rendition' missions. Reports by Scottish journalist Duncan Campbell claim the aircraft, traveling well above the standard aviation height at 45,000 feet and without a filed flight plan, was part of a mission to capture Snowden following his release of documents revealing mass surveillance by US and UK secret services. ... [N977GA, the aircraft named as involved in this flight] was previously identified by Dave Willis in Air Force Monthly as an aircraft used for CIA rendition flights of US prisoners. This included the extradition of cleric Abu Hamza from the UK. Snowden accused the Danish Government of conspiring in his arrest. In response to flight reports, he said: "Remember when the Prime Minister Rasmussen said Denmark shouldn't respect asylum law in my case? Turns out he had a secret."
I don't know any of the details of what they're alleging here concerning Snowden. But Abu Hamza wasn't "rendered". He underwent an 8 year extradition process involving tons of appeals, ultimately his case to block extradition failed (after receiving binding pledges from the US as to the maximum sentence that would be sought and in what sort of conditions he'd be kept in), and he was extradited to the US to be tried on terrorism charges. Last year he was sentenced to life in prison for them.
The fact that they're playing fast and loose with the terminology on the stuff that's easy to double check here makes me question this report. There might be something to it, but it's not a good start. Extraordinary rendition is a very serious charge to levy. And Abu Hamza wasn't rendered, it was an entirely above-board, fully within normal legal processes extradition.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
I've wondered this myself, but several sites - including Wikipedia which states "The United Kingdom (UK) comprises four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland." - all disagree with you.
"National honor" really is at stake. The Espionage Act of 1917 is a democratic disaster and leads to most of our current ills (those who installed a "secret government") weren't fools - they see the bugs as features.
If we have users here who support the secret state, they're really against this country's founding principles and can be safely dismissed as cowards or cronies.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Yep, in response to the "Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot?" post, I think the first port of call is definitely proper UTF-8 support.
Summation 2
Please direct your complaints to your local Scottish embassy.
The problem here is the term "country" is vauge. In most contexts when people say country they mean "Sovereign state" which Scotland is not (they had an independence refferendum recently but voted against independence). Yet the constituant parts of the united kingdom are reffered to as countries despite not being sovereign.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Hey whiplash -- it's 2016. How about fixing the text encoding?
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What's "country" got to do with it? It went over Scotland, in what way is that not Scottish airspace? Are you fine with drones hovering outside your windows, because you're not a country so it's not your airspace?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Wasn't this around the time Obama said on TV that he "wouldn't be scrambling jets to get a 29 year old .....hacker"
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The USA is above international law, after all.
Scotland is a country. It's not a sovereign state.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Even us Brits have trouble with this sometimes. Scotland is a country, just not an independent one, it's part of a larger entity, the United Kingdom; that bit is clear. But our government is called the "British Government" even though it governs the whole United Kingdom, not just the island of Great Britain. Likewise our army is the "British Army" even though it includes the Royal Irish Regiment, and Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain. So "British" as an adjective seems to mean "of the United Kingdom", rather than "of Britain". It's probably correct in at least some senses to describe the airspace above Scotland as Scottish, British or UK.
Oh no... it's the future.
Strange how the UK itself disagrees with you. "The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales..."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Ok. Now that we've established that. Which governing organization has authority over Scotland's airspace? That would be the most relevant to identifying the actual meaning of the original comment.
The confusion of place names in this region affects even how to address postal mail. See the excellent discussion on the various place names in Frank's Compulsive Guide to Postal Addresses.
(n.b.: Frank's agrees that "SCOTLAND is one of the countries of Britain.")
Which governing organization has authority over Scotland's airspace?
Glorious Supreme Leader Obama (may he live forever).
What does legal control over the airspace matter? "Scottish airspace" was used in a geographic sense. It provided more specificity than saying "UK airspace," and therefore made the statement more informative.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
What a misuse of government power and tax dollars. Give the man a freedom award, not an arrest. This is why secrecy is such a mess. We need a government that is wide open with a total release of all information to our public. In regard to Snowden, the US government is the terrorist.
"Scotland is a country"
Scotland hasn't been a country since 1707. Its a region of the UK. The fact that a lot of scots want to believe its still a country doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Then you don't klnow much bud. Scotland is a country in it's own right and even has a separate and distinct legal system.
As wonkey_monkey says.. it's a country and not a sovereign state. It is one of 4 constituent countries of Great Britain.
They flew over Scotland. The local officials want answers from the UK government about how this was allowed. That shouldn't be hard to figure out, and isn't any different than things that occur on a regular basis between US States and the federal government, when federal actions occur within state borders.
Additionally, stating "Scottish airspace" provides more detail than simply saying "UK airspace," making the statement more informative, and providing the basis for the Scottish interest in the matter.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If by our you mean the US, the use of the term state to refer to something that is not an independent nation state is at odds with most of the rest of the world.
Except for the United States of Mexico, the Federated States of Micronesia, and perhaps a few others.
Then again, some thought when the USA was founded that the states should be independent. Abraham Lincoln pretty much put a stop to that, though.
You are getting somewhat confused. I can try to help:
1. Great Britain is a geographical term, meaning the largest island in the British Isles.
2. Britain is a political term synonymous with "the United Kingdom"
So yes, the government is British as it represents all of Britain (the United Kingdom). The British Army is similarly named correctly.
...and even has a separate and distinct legal system.
Not merely distinct but one with some admirable features. I've always thought that its choice of three verdicts was both interesting and has a certain wisdom to it. Of course that system is under pressure.
"... this verdict is sometimes jokingly referred to as "not guilty and don't do it again"."
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Fucking Slashdot. I read the summary, think "hmm, that's interesting", and want to read through the comments to see if people are talking about the plane that was used, maybe some other links to information about the plane, the flight path, where it landed or took off from, how they thought they were going to capture Snowden, or any number of other interesting things, and here you guys are 8 comment levels deep arguing about whether or not Scotland is a country.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
How would you know, you're not even a True Scotsman!
Anyways, the whole thing is funny; they're offended that an airplane flew over at 45,000ft without their permission, and they feel entitled to information because they're somebody important from... a different government than has control over the airspace. So they don't know if it was with permission, and they're not the people who would be told.
What I want to hear about is, why do they think an overflight affects the village councils and things that they fly over? This isn't a case of a supersonic plane bursting local tomatoes or anything. They didn't even know they should be "concerned" until somebody told them it happened. Too bad nobody pointed out to them it isn't their business to manage it.
Just imagine how the "transparency" they seek would work. The US and UK are close military allies. If every town council can have access to any information about secret US flights there, then the US would have to stop all secret activities in the UK that matter. Things that are just part of frivolous plots are schemes could still continue, of course; but anything with military importance would have to be done somewhere else. Preparing for D-Day? We'd have had to go in through Italy.
If these fools had half a clue about the subject, if they had put some serious thought into it, they would have come up with something better to ask for than to sniff around under Uncle Sam's drawers. He's not gonna pull `em down for you, give it up. And the UK's legit governing authorities are not going to interfere with their closest military ally when nothing actually happened in the UK. Of course they let us fly over whenever we want. They let us park nuclear submarines there when we're driving by, too, and all manner of airplanes with secret weapons on them. How would it work to still be military allies with a "special relationship," and yet allow town councils to make queries about secrets that don't affect them in any way?
Davey, Britain can't mean that. It isn't even available for consideration. One is an ancient term with established meaning, the other is a modern political unit. The ancient term can't be defined originally or primarily in terms of the modern term.
Or to translate that for you: Hoo dae ye say 'United Kingdom' in Scots? A dinna onerstaun. See approach proud Edward's power - Chains and Slaverie. Scots wha hae. Damned few an' they're a' deid.
Presumably most of the Irish agree.
Scotland was part of Britain long before anything was united. Unity is not a necessary element of living on the same island, and historically is not the standard state of affairs.
That's a problem of historic nomenclature. Originally the States were independent nations acting independently, and banded together for common goals. And in frequent disagreement. This was under the "Articles of Confederation". Some people thought this was a bad idea, so they got together a revolutionary committee and wrote the "Federal Constitution". They had no legal authority do to so, but many were strongly connected politically, so they got away with it, and got most of the original states to agree (after including the first 10 amendments). Officially the states were still independent nations, but bound together a bit more tightly. The Constitution was supposed to be a limitation of what the Federal Government was allowed to do. And the states were still in theory independent states. As such the common reference was "These United States". Then there arose a massive disagreement and about half these states decided that they didn't like the federal government, so they were going to split and form a new government. They called it the Confederacy. Well, the Federal government didn't like that much, and so a war was fought to keep them from leaving. (There was no enabling power to allow this to be done in the Constitution, and that was supposed to mean that the Feds couldn't stop them, but military power disagreed.) Since then the US has been "The United States", and the states have continually lost power which has accrued to the Federal government in defiance of the Constitution. Patrick Henry predicted this whole thing (well, sort of) when after reading the constitution he said of it "I smell a rat. It stinks of monarchy."
So the states are called states not because of an improper use of the term, but rather as a part of the process of history. One may confidently predict that if the EU survives over the centuries, some similar process will occur.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The Scottish upper FIR is controlled by something called Scottish control. The FIR boundary is actually south of the Scottish border.
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Given that most of the members here are Americans, I suspect that few of them could point to it on a map. I'd predict a three way split between Ireland, New Zealand, and that one that looks a bit like a camel.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Anyways, the whole thing is funny; they're offended that an airplane flew over at 45,000ft without their permission
Because of course no one in America would care if a Russian or French plane flew over mainland USA at 45,000 ft without permission.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it