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Snowden Ridicules David Cameron For Defending 'Private' Matter of Panama Papers Leak
An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the NSA who worked with journalist to reveal a number of classified mass surveillance programs, has criticized the UK Prime Minister's insistence that his father's implication in the list of high-profile tax avoiders was a "private matter." Ian Cameron's firm Blairmore Holdings Inc managed tens of millions of pounds for the wealthy but has never paid taxes on the profits. Cameron responded to the news saying: "This is a private matter, I am focused on what the government is doing." In response to a Reuters story on Cameron's response, Snowden wrote: "Oh, now he's interested in privacy." Snowden followed up with a second tweet after the Prime Minister of Iceland resigned over his implication in the Panama Papers leak: "Resignation of Iceland's PM may explain why the UK PM is so insistent public has no right to know a PM's 'private' finances."
And how does that devalue his point. Considering that David Cameron has been one of the Western leaders leading the charge against privacy with the British government's "Snooper's Charter", it's the height of irony and hypocrisy to then declare that he should be afforded privacy. If the average man on the street has no expectation of privacy, then most assuredly neither should any politician.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your point can be reasonably extended to any and all pubic servants...
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
I think what GP was getting at is that Snowden's opinion on this is no more relevant then Brittany Spears'. I don't know if she actually tweeted on it though; if she does do you think it should make /. front page?
However, Edward Snowden could not be reached for comment.
More like: "Someone got a papercut today. Mead G.P. Hammermill, the first person to have all four limbs severed by a cardboard guillotine developed and tested illegally under auspices of the U.S. Department of Paper Products, could not be reached for comment.
I thought that if you had nothing to hide then you would not care. I guess he has something to hide then. Privacy is only for those at the top, right!?
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Sorry. But in my book, Snowden earned the right to say whatever he wants about future large document leaks and privacy issues.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I agree. If the regular citizen has no privacy rights, then neither does anyone in government, or anyone else. If there are to be no secrets, then fair enough, let's have absolutely no secrets.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Cameron is exactly the kind of smug corporate sleazebag with different morals prescribed for big and little fish who'd employ tax evasion schemes.
That's not what is putting me aghast. What's putting me aghast is how reliably the scum rises to the top and sticks there in Western democracies. Makes one almost suspect that one would have better odds with aristocracy instead. Not good odds, mind you. Just better than the processes governing the current representative systems.
Unlike say myself or jsut about anyone else, the private finances of a Prime Minster and his family ARE a thing of public interest. The man not only has to be seen to be doing the right thing but also the transparency of investments and where income comes from. So you know, make sure he is not being unduly "influenced" in policy decisions for his and his family's financial gain, ie handing out a govt contract that will boost the shit out oa shareprice to a company he or his family has interests in.
So basically Cameron, the question is -YOU are a public official and thence the expectation of privacy is much reduced. Your position is extremely important and you should be under scrutiny and that also includes your family. You dont get to plead privacy, you gave that up the moment you stepped forward to be Prime Minister.
"Nothign to fear if nothign to hide" is a common BS meme - good squads gets a fucking warrant if you think I've done something wrong so stay the fuck out of my life. However.... THAT does not apply to Mr Cameron. So Mr Cameron, what are you hiding? There is not an expectation of privacy in regards to the financial affairs of an elected Prime Minister.
Snowden is referring to Cameron's plea for privacy, as mentioned in the summary and linked tweet. He's merely pointing out the irony since the UK government has been invading ordinary citizens' privacy for possibly decades now. Why would the political elite be allowed special privilege privacy?
-SR
I agree. If the regular citizen has no privacy rights, then neither does anyone in government, or anyone else. If there are to be no secrets, then fair enough, let's have absolutely no secrets.
But I really really don't want to know exactly what kind of flatulence Cameron has.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Politicians need to have a healthy diet, with plenty of vitamins and irony...
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Your point can be reasonably extended to any and all pubic servants...
Leave the prostitutes out of this. They are earning their money the hard way.
I'm obviously not surprised that a dreadful shitsack like Cameron would have an utterly awful and self-serving hypocritical sound bite; but I am always impressed at how the professionals manage to keep their facial expressions so...neutral...when delivering this sort of tripe.
Snowden is referring to Cameron's plea for privacy, as mentioned in the summary and linked tweet. He's merely pointing out the irony since the UK government has been invading ordinary citizens' privacy for possibly decades now. Why would the political elite be allowed special privilege privacy?
They are the political elite.
That says everything you need to know about "Why" the fuck that question has never been answered and likely never will.
what his dad did, is still not illegal, just distasteful. now it will be interesting to see if the laws do change. but probably not since most people with any money use trusts to bypass inheritance tax. i think its 40% at anything over $700k or so. in US its atleast after 5 mil or so.
the real issue here is the actual tax and not the people who find legal ways to bypass the tax.
its almost as if the tax system is designed to punish those that don't try to evade it...
anyway i am not sure what the right answer here is.
Just sayin
If a leader is unable to handle having their own laws applied to them, they aren't a leader.
It's pathetic, to be honest.
In other news rt.com suggests this is all a George Soros trick to impugn Putin. Should be believe their propaganda machine or their spy?
He's living consequence-free in Putin's Russia, which the Panama Papers suggests has large number of government officials (including Putin himself) engaging in wholesale money-laundering of Russia's oil wealth. I'm sure we can expect him to criticize his hosts any tweet now.
You got that exactly wrong.
Politicians are first-class citizens. They need, deserve, and get privacy. Ordinary schmucks are second-class citizens. They do not need, deserve, nor get privacy.
That shouldn't be at all hard to understand. Now, get back in your place.
Why would the political elite be allowed special privilege privacy?
Because they are the political elite. Duh.
That has never happened to you, and you know it. Mod martyrs always deserve the mods they whine about.
I value his opinion more than 99% of modern journalists who are neither journalistic nor have integrity. Yet I don't hear you complaining about them writing their spew day in and day out.
When Brittany Spears is exiled from the US and all other allied countries due to her principles regarding government spying on its citizenry, then I'll listen to what she has to say regarding these sorts of topics as well.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
No. There will always be government secrets. Your desire for equality is ignored by everyone who has enough power to overrule you. Same goes for your desire for privacy.
Your book's pretty fucking short then. How on Earth has Snowden "earned the right to say whatever he wants about future large document leaks"???? What if the next thing he says is "It's going a bit far when my mucker Putin has his documents examined and going even further when the Western muck-rakers dig into my mate Putin's mates' accounts"? Given they've all been shown to be a pretty fucking sight dodgier than Cameron, Snowden's silence on the filthy tricks of Putin and his corrupt little circle says quite a bit.
Exactly. Now let's see Snowden turn that amusement and scorn of the irony onto Putin and his circle, who have been shown to have been a damn sight more rotten than Cameron's family (who, incidentally, acted unethircally but broke no laws; I say this as someone vehemently against the Tories for decades).
Oh, he seems really fucking quiet on that front! Maybe he doesn't care about this whole "special privilege privacy" quite so much as you think!
PUBLIC servants should definitely have fewer privacy rights than PRIVATE citizens.
Particularly when their decisions can affect the lives of millions.
Example:
In Australia, members of parliament are required to maintain details of financial investments in a public register. Private citizens are not so required.
Now I didn't say public servants should have no privacy rights, but they should certainly have fewer.
The bitter irony is that the regime in the UK - via the government mouthpiece, the BBC - is constantly assuring the British public that they live in a largely corruption-free society.
Just 1 leak reveals that the British PM's circle is involved with the stashing of massive wealth offshore.
And how does that devalue his point....
Snowden's point is devalued when from the protection of the Russian state he criticizes the UK Prime Minister for his dead father's activities, but says nothing about Putin's close personal connections to several living Russian oligarchs who clearly stole and laundered money from Russia.
True enough - I've certainly never assumed the UK is corruption-free despite claims. (Though I'd definitely query that "the government mouthpiece, the BBC"; Labour constantly agitated against it during Tony Blair's time, and the Tories have been trying to shut it down for years. The BBC may have a bias but it's nothing like as strong as is claimed, despite the pressure from particularly Tory governments to shut it down.) It's just pretty rich for Snowden to gleefully wade into what is, actually, a story about non-corruption - deeply unethical and reprehensible but entirely legal off-shoring and tax-evasion - while being harboured by the man most fingered as deeply and illegally corrupt, both by his own government's rules and by UN security council sanctions which his own government voted for.
And how does that devalue his point. Considering that David Cameron has been one of the Western leaders leading the chargst privacy with the British government's "Snooper's Charter", it's the height of irony and hypocrisy to then declare that he should be afforded privacy. If the average man on the street has no expectation of privacy, then most assuredly neither should any politician.
The 1%er / Corporatist mantra
Do as we say, not as we do!
Privacy for us, none for you!
Privatized profits when we succeed, public bailouts when we fail!
We strive for the good ol' past where only male landed gentry (or even better titled nobles) could vote!
Money is speech! (duh, because we have most of it)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
In Australia, members of parliament are required to maintain details of financial investments in a public register. Private citizens are not so required.
The same is true in the UK, and if it turns out that anyone hasn't been disclosing relevant interests properly then there can be substantial negative consequences for them. Given all the scandals around parliamentary expenses and the general them-and-us culture at the moment, if any top Tory MPs (or MPs from any other party, for that matter) turn up on the list or have close connections to anyone who does, they're probably in real trouble.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Then he'd be a hypocrite and we'd call him out on it. Let us know when he says that and we'll call him out on it. Until then, if your best argument is based on what Mistress Anitra told you when you called 1-900-PSY-CHIX, there's not much to say.
The right to have an opinion heard is not the same as the right to have a correct opinion (re your fallacious put in comment)
Snowden ran, he wasn't exiled.
Scum bags. All of them. Most of all the dirty politicians that partake in these schemes. You love your country enough to not feel you need to partake in it's financial stability...really? I can't think of any greater example of interest conflict. Tax evasion is stealing from your countrymen. For a political leader to do so of any stripe is ethically treason.
Sure. Everyone arrested by a cop should be provided with the home address of the cop, and the names of his wife and children. After all, that's just public information, and they shouldn't have any expectation of privacy. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that.
Not that I'm advocating any special permissions, but that a blanket "no privacy" policy would probably not work out well.
Learn to love Alaska
As someone who leaked a large document he is presumably an expert on the matter of large document leaks.
That makes his opinion more relevant than someone with no experience leaking large documents.
Snowden ran so that he'd have all his appendages when he was exiled. The fact that the government has indicated he wouldn't get a fair trial, should he return, seems to indicate it's as close to an official exile as has ever been done in the US, as exile is illegal.
Learn to love Alaska
Let's ask the prime minister of Iceland how all that "power" is working out for him.
No shit, that's why the policy was absurd in the first place! Privacy is important for a functional society. Cameron was pushing to remove privacy for all but then wants to keep his own affairs private. That dog won't hunt as they say
Outsiders pushing for change is rarely useful or productive.
It's up to the Ruskies to cleanup their own mess. Until they are willing to hang Putin and cronies, they can stew in it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I disagree. Unless I'm missing something in the snoopers charter it isn't about the government disclosing information to the public unless it is part of a criminal prosecution.
Furthermore I don't think Cameron was saying private as in you cannot know but private as in not part of the public sector in which he then says was his job. It's somewhat like asking your it guy about plumbing and he says he has to do computers and walks away. It sounds to me like he just didn't want to get drug into something not directly related to his job.
I can go for this.
what a "ruling class" is, do you?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
special privileges they wouldn't be the elite, now would they? Don't you just feel silly now?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I can't begrudge the guy not wanting to die a painful death at the hands of my countries brutal regime. He's still one of the bravest men alive, and a hell of a lot braver than most of American (which never fights a war without overwhelming tactical and resource superiority...).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I think much of the world already thinks pretty poorly of Putin.
I could see Putin declaring he'd find those responsible for the leak and incarcerate them or what have you, maybe threatening any news outlets in his country not to run this story, but I hadn't heard him bemoaning the loss of privacy this represents.
Yeah, Snowden used Russia as a shield when he released the documents.
I don't think that this means he believes Russia is a bastion of human rights, just that it was a bastion of not turning him over to the U.S. One could go 'round and 'round on the morality of this, but I doubt that the U.S. would do him the honor of a public trial of his peers. I think Snowden's trial would more likely be those constitutionally questionable secret court trials we really aren't supposed to do in this country.
With these high stakes issues, it may not do to bite the hand that helped you, even after the fact. Does he really need to in Putin's case?
The fact no US politicians demonstrates the agency is effective.
So how is this different than members of parliament whining when they learned that all the surveillance laws they passed were being used on them as well as the plebs?
I'm sure you would see much nicer cops serving the public if that were the case.
In any case, that info is terribly difficult to come by in lots of places and a great many people know where their police officers live.
Who says that nobody should have any privacy rights? I think that this is a disingenuous reading of what the government of the US and UK are pushing for. There is a world of difference between the government having the ability, for example, to unlock encrypted phones under a legitimate court order and openly publishing everyone's private financial matters. Were the latter to routinely happen, you would find even fewer capable people taking leadership roles in government, you would only find sock-puppets for the rich.
I'm sure you would see much nicer cops serving the public if that were the case.
I don't give a shit how big a smile the cop in a clown suit has, there's nothing "nicer" about being arrested for something that's illegal in one state but not in another, and then having to deal with the aftermath. No amount of happy sunshine a cop could possibly bring to that situation is going to make the overall problem disappear, and therefore people will still feel ill will towards the "messenger".
Do you have to practice at being so stupid, or were you born this way?
As opposed to what we have now?
No, but the cop's recent arrests (with names redacted in cases that have not gone to trial in the interest of not tainting potential jury pools) and personnel history should be public record. These are public servants, after all.
How is that different from the status quo?
don't shit where you eat.....
Oh bullshit. This is about the tit not liking the tat. The reason the PM of Iceland (and now it seems the PM of Britain) wanted to keep things secret wasn't for our liberty in good government, it's because they didn't want their electorates finding out that while these people are making the average person suffer, and suffer mind you, in most cases for events the citizens had no control over, they had nice offshore accounts safely out of the hands of the taxman. They are hypocrites, and their outing was deserved and right.
Wanting to spy on every single thing a citizen types into a computing device is not some righteous cause. It's just a government spying apparatus that believes privacy and liberty should be dispensable at the merest whim. For fucks sake, there are secret fucking courts in several countries, whose sole purpose is to make sure the electorate can never have a clear picture of how many peoples' privacy are being breached.
Well you know what. If the authorities want that level of information, then I say force them to wear cameras and microphones 24 hours a day, which are constantly streamed to multiple web sites. Not a single activity, whether involve state secrets or taking a fucking dump will be permitted to be secret. That way we can make sure they aren't cutting deals that fuck over the citizens and then trying to justify it as "privacy", even as they work to destroy the privacy of millions of people who have done nothing wrong.
And you know the fuck what. If I write my private fucking thoughts down in a code that the FBI can't crack, then too fucking bad. Governments, even the judicial branch, are supposed to be limited, and not stroking each others' genitals in some big privacy destroying circle jerk. The politicians, cops and judges are merely human beings, not one tiny bit more important than anyone else. They are not gods, but if they choose to act like it, then strip them of every once of privacy. If they have a mole on their left testicle, everyone should be able to see it, and if they have a few million bucks in a tax shelter, at any moment every fucking citizen should be able to see the balance of that account. Their every intimate moment should be broadcast on hundred foot high screens.
Why is David Cameron's privacy even the tiniest bit more important than mine? Is he a god? Should we worship him?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
government spying is extremely lucrative, so these things are not separate. If you're spying on business deals you're going to profit immediately.
Ad hominem.
Attacking Snowden's point because of his own (supposed) failings of character. Snowden's actions are irrelevant to whether or not Cameron deserves criticism.
You won't see nicer cops. You'll see cops spend more time watching the crimes than doing the arresting. It's what any reasonable person would do if they cannot predict whether they are about to arrest a crazy. Just look at what happened in Baltimore to see how cops behave when thrown under the bus.
Public servants' salaries are also a known quantity (more or less). So there are already different rules for politicians, public servants and private citizens. Cameron is kidding himself (or trying to kid us).
Might explain why he's playing footsie with direct rule in this case.
Don't forget, we don't know what he knows or leaked.
Considering Merkel was in his data and so was Greece there may be stuff that was insignificantly related or exactly what the British were freaking out about over him to begin with.
It's just not a public leak.
But I demand a 4K video of each and every occurrence!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
On the other hand, the PM of Iceland resigned. As he should.
Now Putin should resign and the president of China too.
> PUBLIC servants should definitely have fewer privacy rights
You mean they should "give up" rights. The purpose of a right is that you have to wave (and be capable of waving) what's you have by default.
This already exists. It takes a shockingly small amount of effort and money (but some) to get this information. Acting like it would result in a different world is naive.
There can be, but generally there haven't been except in isolated cases. They are so arrogant as to not even bother maintaining the illusion of not having been corrupted before taking funding or jobs in the private sector related to areas or lobbying they were involved in in public life.
This also isn't a Man U v Liverpool issue of arbitrary political teams.
Why would you expect him to do that - aren't there other people in the world who can do their bit? Snowden is an individual who did some stuff. He is hardly large enough to tackle all governments, all the time, without consequences.
I suppose if I were to help you financially, I should help everyone financially until I have nothing left?
man... yes.
Edward Snowden is going to die screaming and vomiting. They'll find the lining of his stomach on the floor outside of his body. :)
His eyes will be as big and round as dinner plates.
Oh bullshit. This is about the tit not liking the tat. The reason the PM of Iceland (and now it seems the PM of Britain) wanted to keep things secret wasn't for our liberty in good government, it's because they didn't want their electorates finding out that while these people are making the average person suffer, and suffer mind you,
I don't even think you have to argue whether his policies are good, bad or otherwise. A national leader should present a image of respect and integrity, this is now gone so he should resign for the sake of the country. Better men have fallen for less, he deserves no special treatment.
In Australia, members of parliament are required to maintain details of financial investments in a public register. Private citizens are not so required.
Now I didn't say public servants should have no privacy rights, but they should certainly have fewer.
I did a spell in the Australian Government. Most agencies with any real power will require security clearance for all staff, and mine required disclosing my financial interests, every job I had in the last 10 years, every country I'd visited, what I spend on my groceries each week, even the history of my immediate family etc etc. And if anything changed during my time I was required to report it. So yeah, this already happens.
The problem is not your silly feelings. Its that cops who are not nice have a tendency to leave a trail of corpses in their wake. You cant get a fair trial if you do not survive the unjust arrest.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You havent been paying attention. The means of avoiding taxes is the means of hiding transactions. As a simple matter of course most of the money involved in these leaks are dirty money because slave traders, gun runners, warlords and cartel bosses have more need for this than anybody else. There have aready been some heads of state linked to transactions with such people through this leak but even where that isnt shown these wealthy and powerful elites knew this. In the case of politicians instead of following their oaths to uphold the law and reporting a massive global money laundering scheme - they used it themselves to avoid paying the same taxes they claim from us and allowed their wealthy friends to fo the same. Its a fundamental corruption of the highest order that was used to cover up and profit from extreme atrocties. The global profit from violent crime is higher than the top 50 fortune 500 companies combined. How do you think all that money: a substantial portion of global GDP can be laundered ? Its literally a mathematical impossibility. Unless tge majority of fortune 500 listed profits is tge *same* money. Welcome to the real world of the super rich. The only path to billionairehoid is through a lake of blood.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I can sense that this is something you care about - that's good. I'm not sure I agree with you, but it is a lot better that people care enough to have an opinion instead of just oozing along in whatever direction the flow goes.
In my view, privacy isn't a black and white issue; there are things that should not be private and things that definitely should be, but many - most even - are in the grey zone where it depends on circumstances. Should the tax affairs of an unimportant person like me be made public? Probably not - I don't have things to hide, but how much would it benefit society? On the other hand, should the tax affairs of the most influential man in UK be in the public domain? I can see strong arguments in favour, but I'm not entirely sure. It is certainly necessary that we feel we can trust him, and if doubt has been raised, then it is reasonable that he is willing to answer clearly and fully.
Should the government spy on its citizens? I don't think so - we all do things we would feel embarrassed about if they were known publically, and nobody likes the thought that some unknown civil servant sits somewhere in a grubby office, leering over our private lives; it somehow feels wrong, like being fondled by a stranger in a crowd. But more importantly, I think the substantial amounts of money and effort it would require could be better spent elsewhere.
He didn't declare he should be afforded privacy. He simply asserted it's not his right to disclose personal information of other members of his family. That's up to them. As PM he has to declare his interests in a public register in any case.
Millions of people, literally.
Maybe it looks different in the united states but in my country people want to know what he has to say. He is very well respected and the fact that he is unable to return to his home country safely really speaks about how far the US has fallen.
I want to know what he thinks about all privacy matters regarding western countries across the board. I want to hear what he thinks about US, UK and western Europe in particular. I don't want to hear his thoughts on Russia because that would be suicide if he is honest, ,and if he can't speak honesttly then I'd prefer he didn't at all.
You don't see a flaw in comparing the top 50 corporate revenues (pre-tax) of the single country with the global proceeds of crime? Really, what does it prove?
Your book's pretty fucking short then. How on Earth has Snowden "earned the right to say whatever he wants about future large document leaks"????
Ironically that makes your (picture) book pretty fucking stupid Mr(?) Anonymous Coward. But there's no way to explain that to you without exceeding your 120 character mental limit - unless /. introduce a crayon explanation extension.
How do you fit you head through a standard doorway?
There is a general culture for employees to not discuss salary for a particular role, and when it is discussed it tends to be a fuzzy number rather than an exact one.
That lack of transparency in pay deals is what allows employers to pay women less for doing the same role, it allows executives to be paid orders of magnitude more than the average employee because an awful lot of people don't realize just how big that gap really is.
I realize I'm talking about pay and you are talking about tax, but they are closely related. Having that sort of information publicly available would help a lot with equality in society.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Snowden ran, he wasn't exiled.
Brittany is that you?
Who's pressing the key for you?
Cameron is spectacularly good at hypocrisy though. Remember a few months ago, when he wrote to his local council complaining about the reduction in local services... caused by the 'austerity' measure that his government had pushed through to cut local government spending?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I wonder how many of these tax avoidance schemes were done on a computer. I wonder that if the level of spying that the government wants would have found this without the leak... I wonder if a different standard of spying would be applied to regular people as opposed to the rich and those in government.
I didn't even know there were official flatulence charts to allow you to assign types.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
And how does that devalue his point....
Snowden's point is devalued when from the protection of the Russian state he criticizes the UK Prime Minister for his dead father's activities, but says nothing about Putin's close personal connections to several living Russian oligarchs who clearly stole and laundered money from Russia.
Got it. Do as I say not do as I do. Of course if you had a set of balls instead of a flapping mouth it'd be "do as I do". Right?
Summary: Ranbot is a wanker on a couch playing Monday morning football.
Butt, butt, butt...
You can stop your internal protests now - or list all your life threatening revolutionary activities, or do you live in a perfect state and never visit any that aren't? That would include your little trips to Thailand where you forgot to protest the hypocrisy of their Royal Family.
Something about putting your money where your mouth is - or eating your own dog food.
You can begin dissembling now in an attempt to paint Snowden as someone who mouths off without having ever made a commitment. Reality is clearly not a friend of yours. Must keep you busy constantly comparing yourself to others and finding yourself well short of the standard. Hence your need to potty mouth anyone with a backbone, you spineless turd.
The disproportionate response to this particular example of tax-evasion is not because it is especially egregious. It is because the accused is the PM's father. A modicum of self-critical restraint would be in order before jumping on the band-wagon, lest we muddle the picture with political agendas disguised as righteous outrage instead of justice.
I have no opinion of Cameron as I'm not subjected to his politics, but dishonorable opportunism is always rife in incidents like these. In fact, I find that it is one of the core problems of our society today.
Actually, I think it would work out if nobody had privacy (think glass walls everywhere). There are multiple science fiction stories that explore just that concept.
I know what you mean but that's just it: it can also happen the other way around: to private security personnel that ejected a person (that just happened to be a politician) from an establishment.
What the governing body wants is privacy for them and no privacy for the peons. They can't come out and say that, of course, because then it would be transparent that they are just authoritarians and it's NOT for our good.
Exactly. Now let's see Snowden turn that amusement and scorn of the irony onto Putin and his circle, who have been shown to have been a damn sight more rotten than Cameron's family (who, incidentally, acted unethircally but broke no laws; I say this as someone vehemently against the Tories for decades).
Oh, he seems really fucking quiet on that front! Maybe he doesn't care about this whole "special privilege privacy" quite so much as you think!
You're repeating yourself Ranbot.
Because it's a matter of Cameron's relationship with his dead father. It could not have less to do with electronic communications, their privacy or security.
The other members of his family aren't PUBLIC servants. He is and he has to declare his interests in the Commons Register, which he does.
From what I've read here and there, the PM of Iceland did not officially submit his resignation, but termed it more of a temporary 'break'. Given what a manipulative, deceitful greed pig he is, I wouldn't be shocked if that's what he did (or didn't).
You are one of the people who says so.
"How do you fit you head through a standard doorway?"
He doesn't, that's why his mom keeps him in the basement.
Pubic servants? What do they do? Comb and clip? :p
If the average man on the street has no expectation of privacy, then most assuredly neither should any politician.
I've argued (admittedly somewhat rhetorically) that lawmakers that vote for government spying on private citizens should be required to have all of their phone calls, text messages, IM logs, and emails published immediately on public websites and licensed to the public domain. If the argument is, "Your privacy should be sacrificed for the benefit of the public welfare," and "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear," then it should work both ways.
They'll argue that the can't have their communications be public, that they're conducting sensitive business, that they deserve to have a private life, that leaking their communications could cause embarrassment to themselves and their loved ones, etc. And they're not wrong in those arguments. It's just that all of those arguments should apply to my private communications as well.
This is Slashdot : call Snowden a traitor and you get -1, call him a hero and you get +1.
Karma whores, take notice.
That's not really the issue. The issue is that the most powerful man in the UK believes British citizens should not have any meaningful expectation of privacy from the state. If that is the case, then why precisely should he be afforded any privacy at all. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. If there needs to be a "snooper's charter" that can haul all the electronic data of damned near everyone, then why is it precisely is he feels his family's offshore financial activities, designed specifically to evade British taxes, be secret? In fact, coupled with the general attitude of the British government towards tax avoiders who aren't worth millions, it creates a double-sided hypocrisy; of spying and unfair treatment. As I said, is David Cameron a god, that he should have the rules he insists his government needs for security and financial stability turned off because, well, he's a millionaire and a PM?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yep. Here you go:
http://i.imgur.com/LZYuFck.jpg
Now Putin should resign and the president of China too.
It's worth pointing out that in China you don't get to resign over corruption. Either you manage to bluff your way through, or you are dead.
Should Obama be held accountable for everything his father did? Or would it be ok for him to say that it's a private matter and has nothing to do with his functioning as President? Cameron's father is a private citizen unless he is a member of the government, isn't he? Saying it's a private matter doesn't mean that Cameron says there is a connection to him, but he wants it to remain private. He is saying that the connection he has to the individual (his father) is private and is not related to his function in the government (the Prime Minister). As long as no wrong doing is claimed by the PM himself, why shouldn't he continue to insist that his father is his father (even if he is by some chance convicted of some crime such as tax evasion)? His relationship with his father is still a private matter -- not a government matter.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
So do I. When a cop utters the words "If you've done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide", the public should expect that someone in a position of authority over them like that cop would also be expected to have nothing to hide and would willingly submit to scrutiny in the event that anything untoward would appear to have occurred. Instead it's quite the opposite with cops doing their damndest to keep their affairs from ever seeing the public light.
> Snowden's point is devalued when from the protection of the Russian state he criticizes the UK Prime Minister for his dead father's activities, but says nothing about Putin's close personal connections to several living Russian oligarchs who clearly stole and laundered money from Russia.
I'm not sure you're aware of this, but Russia isn't the US. Everyone and their dog knows Putin and crew are into shady shit, and most people with two brain cells to rub together also know that if Snowden started flinging that accusation around he'd probably meet with some unfortunate accident not long after. Calling out Putin as a crook when everyone already knows he's a crook and getting killed (or tossed out of Russia where he'd certainly be scooped up by a CIA black team and disappear forever) by the crook for the act would be the height of stupidity. Snowden isn't stupid, and he has no intention of tossing his life away for an ungrateful American people on a pointless gesture.
Its about time the UK got rid of Cameron. He's not only been shamelessly using the GCHQ to spy on the entire planet (apparently collecting naked Yahoo webcam images are for "national security") but even engaging in draconian surveillance in the UK. I can't believe this Bush wannabe is still in office in a normally rational Britain. I can hardly blame the nearly 50% of Scots that want out with so many morons voting for Cameron.
I think the substantial amounts of money and effort it DOES require could be better spent elsewhere.
"Is he a god?"
Maybe not God but clearly a divine spokesman. Cameron, who claims to be rational, does believe in the holy noodles. With "leaders" like this who needs enemies?
And I'm a flaming, pants on fire hypocrite!
I'm focused on government business. To wit, invading the privacy of innocent civilians on a massive scale and outlawing the very encryption technologies which are the only effective means of keeping criminals and terrorists out of the lives of those innocent civilians.
Laws are for the great unwashed masses. I'm a maker of laws, a keeper of the law, I'm above the law. In fact I believe that I am the law. Remember the figure of Lady Justice, blindfolded as a symbol of how the law is blind to privilege, wealth and status? Yeah, I don't really believe in any of that nonsense.
However let's say that hiding wealth in offshore tax havens isn't illegal. As a political animal I instinctively know that the politics of using such tax havens smells bad. I can't have that image and be successful politically. Therefore I will invoke the privacy rights I deny my citizens because I am privileged, wealthy and arrogant. It may not be enough politically but it is all I have and therefore it must be enough.
I am a hypocrite, see my pants burn and my reputation wither.
You don't see the flaw in forgetting that most of the fortune 500 companies are multinational ? They may have been founded in the US but they are decidedly not American companies - they haven't been for decades.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You make the claim, but the only evidence is your faith in it.
What we've seen has shown that there's little, if any difference, and that it may even be more corruptible in democracies, since there's more leeway to get out of it entirely. If you're the inherited prince, you can't just graft for 10 years and then retire to a comfy non-voting board directorship of a few companies you helped, and proclaim "Private Industry!" when people want to look at what you did.
LOL... and my posts got modded down as "Troll." Mods here are a riot with anything involving Snowden.