The point is that having your mail read isn't a human rights violation
Then you're wrong. Having your constitutional and fundamental rights violated by government thugs is a human rights violation, and you show exactly how much you care about freedom by attempting to downplay the issue of hundreds of millions of people having that happen to them.
Many of the programs that Snowden outed to foreign governments intend only to spy on actual enemies who are actually foreign.
Many of them were also being used to spy on perfectly innocent people.
You call it a straw man, and then declare it again yourself immediately after?
The rest of the world is not 'obligated' to the US constitution or part of America just because we decide to recognize that they have certain inalienable rights even though they're foreigners, you fool.
Ignoring representative governments and thinking that you have the authority to speak for what their people want is the most authoritarian shit posted anywhere in these comments.
Spewing forth straw men and coming to ridiculous conclusions isn't helping your authoritarian garbage look more appealing.
Even if they did vote, would they vote based on these issues, or based on 'hot topics' like abortion and gay marriage? In the US, with our two party system, I don't see this copyright nonsense changing anytime soon, because people are too easily distracted by more popular issues, so they keep voting for 'the lesser of two evils' and nothing changes.
But I think what was meant was that since they cannot effectively stop any of this by any means, they have lost in that way.
Everyone should just have absolute faith in authority figures, because they can never do any wrong. It's not like history is absolutely chocked full of examples of abuse or anything.
Anyone who votes for candidates put forth by The One Party is a god damn moron. When it comes to fundamental liberties, both main parties despise freedom with every fiber of their beings.
And be honest with yourself, the united states doesn't have its gaze on you.
Probably not. But rather, they will have their gaze on anyone who does something (no matter what it is) that they don't like, and they'll use the NSA's massive amount of information to try to harass or help convict that person.
This situation is hugely dangerous for any country that claims to be free, let alone 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.'
The only time, other than filing my taxes, that I really interact with agents of the federal government is when I fly. Yes, it's annoying, and it used to be very invasive. Last couple of times I've flown though, they've actually made it easier to go through security. No shoes off. No belt off unless the buckle is huge. No jacket off unless the metal clasps are too big. No pulling the laptop out of the carry-on. No pulling the liquids in the quart bag out of the carry-on. It's like someone finally decided that the open-everything-up security that they'd been doing wasn't really accomplishing anything other than making a lot of people pissed off, so they rolled it back to close to pre-9/11 levels.
The government cannot be searching everyone at airports; that's absolutely unconstitutional. The TSA can be one of two things: An egregious violation of the constitution, or nonexistent. It's not merely "annoying."
It's counterproductive and obnoxious to always vote for some marginal third-party and loudly assert "none of this is MY fault!" Your job is bigger than just turning in a ballot.
I do other things, as well. But I'm never going to vote for evil scumbags; that isn't even remotely an option.
Did you ever consider why third parties in the US always lose?
Because so many people vote for the 'lesser of two evils', and refuses to vote based on principle, since they have none. It would be difficult for them to win either way because of how our system is setup, but it would send a message, at the very least, that people are sick of the main parties' bullshit.
A protip: if your theory of politics insists that commanding majorities of people are persistently lazy, stupid or evil, you've got a bad theory.
Actually, that's the right theory.
This sentiment seems completely at odds with his stated intentions.
I'm not talking about Snowden, but of myself. If he does have respect for them, I can only wonder why. At any rate, it would be bad for him to call everyone stupid, so I can see why he wouldn't want to do that.
I think this chance is significantly lessened by his refusal to stand trial
Well, I don't, and I don't think that makes any sense. He gave us the information so people would be better informed and they would hopefully start talking about what we should do from here on out, and then escaped because he's not a martyr, a masochist, or a civil rights leader in a position to change everything by getting arrested. The end.
He also revealed US government intelligence activities on foreign targets, which is both moral and constitutional.
You're the one who thinks it's moral; I don't. I believe everyone has rights.
Remember the Emailocaust, when the Nazis read the letters of 6 million Polish Jews?
I'm not sure the point you're trying to make. But, much like other authoritarian nonsense, I'm sure it's nothing I will ever agree with.
If you want non-Americans to be protected by things like the American Bill of Rights, then they have to abide by some other rules, too. Pretty sure that the universal jurisdiction which you're arguing for in order for that to happen is much more authoritarian than anything I've ever done.
Nope. All we have to do is take care not to spy on innocent people to the best of our ability. Actual enemies are fair game, in my opinion.
Pretty hilarious that you think the solution to the world's problems is expanding American rule of law.
What a straw man.
You should probably just let other peoples' governments speak for themselves. I'll spoil their answer for you: they think spying is impolite at worst, not some tragic human rights violation.
You did. He revealed unconstitutional or immoral activities, so he should get a pass for giving away information to foreign governments about the USA's perfectly legal and moral activities.
That is not the same thing as saying that he should be able to break just about any law he pleases, as your straw man implied. I said that revealing the government's abuses should not be against the law. Period. The end.
And spying on innocents is not moral, as people have human rights no matter where they're from. Screw you. You don't really believe in the ideals this nation is supposed to aspire to.
We're responsible for the fairness of our trials, not our government.
We're responsible to the extent that we should vote for the right people (which I believe I do, as I do not vote for Republicans or Democrats), but that doesn't mean the trials will be fair. The fact is, our two party system makes government abuse easy.
Either we're responsible for what our government does, thus we must know everything it does, or we aren't responsible, so we have no duty to know.
We have a right to know what our government is doing, and the people voting for these idiots are responsible, but that does not mean they agree with their candidates 100%.
This idea that either we're responsible for the fairness of our trials and information should be leaked, or that we're not responsible at all and the information shouldn't be leaked, is merely a false dichotomy.
This would make sense if Snowden had an iota of respect for the American people's wisdom and discernment
Considering the situation, why would anyone have an iota of respect for the ignorant general public? I don't. Whether he does or doesn't is irrelevant to the fact that there are people who care, and giving them all the details of what the government is doing wrong is, to me, welcome. Maybe some of the ignoramuses will come around, even.
This is why his argument is ultimately irreconcilable with his actions -- he says he made his disclosures to encourage debate and to let people know what's really happening
Another false dichotomy you're setting up. It is possible to believe that the general public is being fooled by the government or is ignorant, and still believe that there is a non-zero chance that positive change could happen if things are leaked.
You cannot claim to be an idealistic American while fighting for American ideals from a Moscow safe house.
In fact, you can. He's done a lot more than you government cheerleaders.
To be honest I think this position is excessively idealistic.
The "land of the free and the home of the brave" is all about ideals and freedom. Or... it's supposed to be.
What's stupid is trusting the government at all.
I think governments can be legitimate institutions, and even when they aren't, the rights of their constituents, let alone their opinions, their votes, and their moral attachments, are at least as important as one man's moral crusade to make the world into what he thinks it should be.
We live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy. Popularity != morality. Etc. I'm not sure what your point is. If we really want to live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," citizens have a *duty* to leak information if the government is doing wrong. As for what's wrong, individuals decide that and take the chance. Maybe we won't agree with every leaker's opinions 100%, but we don't need to, as banning such leaks all the time is just insane.
I would rather lose 'safety' (In this case, have people leak things that 'shouldn't' be leaked.) than stop these leaks just because some asshole elected representatives don't want hoi polloi knowing what they're doing.
but he doesn't trust that we'd see he'd have a fair trial.
He doesn't trust the US government. And no, just because someone voted for someone, that doesn't mean they agree with the candidate 100%. Thanks to our two party system, voting for someone just means that they're the 'lesser of two evils', and more often than not, people vote for evil scumbags.
When it comes to actually trusting the American people to come through and deliver on their own ideals, he'd rather take his chances with Putin.
That's actually a good idea, sadly. The American people are stuck in the mentality that they need to vote for 'the lesser of the two evils', which allows the government to distract people with 'hot topics' like abortion, gay marriage, etc., while making them ignore all the other important issues. The result is that it's very fucking difficult to actually reign in on these thugs.
So yeah, it's a pretty good bet. At the very least, Russia isn't currently pissed off at him, so there's that.
The net result of this whole affair is the US and its immediate allies lose all of their intelligence programs
Perhaps they should have thought that through before doing all this nonsense?
I don't think you really care either, since these are "thugs" you clearly feel no responsibility for, you probably just get a little righteous indignation high out of seeing the government embarrassed, kinda like Snowden.
Well, you might want to stop theorizing about how I think unless you're a mind reader.
I vote against these scumbags at every opportunity and vote for people who will set the situation right. It's just that idiots make up the majority, and they have not yet come around.
But I disagree with him, I think it's completely appropriate for our country to spy on foreign leaders; I definitely would support the NSA recording every telephone call made in Afghanistan
Then you're an authoritarian asshole; not much more to say. I believe we should also take into account human rights to the best of our ability, even if those people live in another country. I don't think we have any business spying on allies, no matter whether or not other countries do it.
George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Jim Clapper and Keith Alexander all had opinions, access to the Constitution, and knowledge of privacy and human rights
They have knowledge, but they're anti-freedom scumbags, as this whole affair has proven.
but they were at least as qualified as Edward Snowden.
They've shown that that is not so.
Are you sure you're not just special pleading for someone, just because he happens to agree with your prior beliefs?
I'm not the one stating you need 'qualifications.' I merely listed some reasons you might think he had them, but apparently you don't buy it.
To begin with, the part of my post you replied to basically indicated that something is not necessarily okay just because other people do it; that's basic logic. That part of my post had little to do with Snowden.
And are you sure you're not merely a government cheerleader?
Well he broke a lot of laws, and he revealed a lot of government activity that wasn't horrendous, along with the horrendous stuff. Just about everything him and Greenwald disclose now are things that are completely legal for the US to do.
Legal != moral. I, for one, want to know what my dear little government thugs are doing, legal or not. If these things are legal, perhaps that needs to be changed. Releasing information like this puts the issues into the spotlight.
That blames the victim -- the government doesn't have to change, the people should just "love it or leave it."
Straw man. Leaving or not leaving is a personal decision. You can either leave to avoid the abuse, or stay and work to change it (or stay and do nothing, as some do).
Snowden released the information, and now it's up to us to fix the problems. You mention MLK and such, but the situation simply isn't comparable, and even if it was, there is no need for every 'hero' to act in the same way.
And why is there so much focus on Snowden himself? It seems like the government is trying to distract people from their horrendous activities.
Snowden accepts the possibility of Gitmo because, in principle, all of us could be sent to Gitmo and taking a Get-out-of-Gitmo-Free card would be unfair.
I don't think it's unfair for people who don't want to be abused by their government to move elsewhere.
Because he's a human being with an opinion, access to the constitution, and knowledge of privacy and human rights.
Of you only want 'authority' figures to decide such things, may I suggest moving to a country that doesn't claim to want to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'?
That said, cynical people rarely exercise their brains to understand the world
What makes you think so? People often call me cynical, but really, I just take history and logic into account. When I decide if it would be a good idea for the government to have a certain power, I recall some history to see if anything similar was abused in the past, or if the power would be easily abused.
It seems people often accuse people who use their brains of being "cynical."
Jumping to the obvious "cos corporate interests" or "duh NSA" is no brain work at all.
And yet, for some things, that is probably the answer.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is that having your mail read isn't a human rights violation
Then you're wrong. Having your constitutional and fundamental rights violated by government thugs is a human rights violation, and you show exactly how much you care about freedom by attempting to downplay the issue of hundreds of millions of people having that happen to them.
Many of the programs that Snowden outed to foreign governments intend only to spy on actual enemies who are actually foreign.
Many of them were also being used to spy on perfectly innocent people.
You call it a straw man, and then declare it again yourself immediately after?
The rest of the world is not 'obligated' to the US constitution or part of America just because we decide to recognize that they have certain inalienable rights even though they're foreigners, you fool.
Ignoring representative governments and thinking that you have the authority to speak for what their people want is the most authoritarian shit posted anywhere in these comments.
Spewing forth straw men and coming to ridiculous conclusions isn't helping your authoritarian garbage look more appealing.
Even if they did vote, would they vote based on these issues, or based on 'hot topics' like abortion and gay marriage? In the US, with our two party system, I don't see this copyright nonsense changing anytime soon, because people are too easily distracted by more popular issues, so they keep voting for 'the lesser of two evils' and nothing changes.
But I think what was meant was that since they cannot effectively stop any of this by any means, they have lost in that way.
What if TPB was a website that linked people together to buy/sell crack, would that be ok?
Yes. The war on drugs is bullshit.
Everyone should just have absolute faith in authority figures, because they can never do any wrong. It's not like history is absolutely chocked full of examples of abuse or anything.
Anyone who votes for candidates put forth by The One Party is a god damn moron. When it comes to fundamental liberties, both main parties despise freedom with every fiber of their beings.
Nor does 1 equal 2.
Whoops! No True Scotsman! Sorry!
The "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" crowd always has their heads in the sand.
And be honest with yourself, the united states doesn't have its gaze on you.
Probably not. But rather, they will have their gaze on anyone who does something (no matter what it is) that they don't like, and they'll use the NSA's massive amount of information to try to harass or help convict that person.
This situation is hugely dangerous for any country that claims to be free, let alone 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.'
The only time, other than filing my taxes, that I really interact with agents of the federal government is when I fly. Yes, it's annoying, and it used to be very invasive. Last couple of times I've flown though, they've actually made it easier to go through security. No shoes off. No belt off unless the buckle is huge. No jacket off unless the metal clasps are too big. No pulling the laptop out of the carry-on. No pulling the liquids in the quart bag out of the carry-on. It's like someone finally decided that the open-everything-up security that they'd been doing wasn't really accomplishing anything other than making a lot of people pissed off, so they rolled it back to close to pre-9/11 levels.
The government cannot be searching everyone at airports; that's absolutely unconstitutional. The TSA can be one of two things: An egregious violation of the constitution, or nonexistent. It's not merely "annoying."
It's counterproductive and obnoxious to always vote for some marginal third-party and loudly assert "none of this is MY fault!" Your job is bigger than just turning in a ballot.
I do other things, as well. But I'm never going to vote for evil scumbags; that isn't even remotely an option.
Did you ever consider why third parties in the US always lose?
Because so many people vote for the 'lesser of two evils', and refuses to vote based on principle, since they have none. It would be difficult for them to win either way because of how our system is setup, but it would send a message, at the very least, that people are sick of the main parties' bullshit.
A protip: if your theory of politics insists that commanding majorities of people are persistently lazy, stupid or evil, you've got a bad theory.
Actually, that's the right theory.
This sentiment seems completely at odds with his stated intentions.
I'm not talking about Snowden, but of myself. If he does have respect for them, I can only wonder why. At any rate, it would be bad for him to call everyone stupid, so I can see why he wouldn't want to do that.
I think this chance is significantly lessened by his refusal to stand trial
Well, I don't, and I don't think that makes any sense. He gave us the information so people would be better informed and they would hopefully start talking about what we should do from here on out, and then escaped because he's not a martyr, a masochist, or a civil rights leader in a position to change everything by getting arrested. The end.
He also revealed US government intelligence activities on foreign targets, which is both moral and constitutional.
You're the one who thinks it's moral; I don't. I believe everyone has rights.
Remember the Emailocaust, when the Nazis read the letters of 6 million Polish Jews?
I'm not sure the point you're trying to make. But, much like other authoritarian nonsense, I'm sure it's nothing I will ever agree with.
If you want non-Americans to be protected by things like the American Bill of Rights, then they have to abide by some other rules, too. Pretty sure that the universal jurisdiction which you're arguing for in order for that to happen is much more authoritarian than anything I've ever done.
Nope. All we have to do is take care not to spy on innocent people to the best of our ability. Actual enemies are fair game, in my opinion.
Pretty hilarious that you think the solution to the world's problems is expanding American rule of law.
What a straw man.
You should probably just let other peoples' governments speak for themselves. I'll spoil their answer for you: they think spying is impolite at worst, not some tragic human rights violation.
I don't care what they think, drone.
Who modded this authoritarian up?
You did. He revealed unconstitutional or immoral activities, so he should get a pass for giving away information to foreign governments about the USA's perfectly legal and moral activities.
That is not the same thing as saying that he should be able to break just about any law he pleases, as your straw man implied. I said that revealing the government's abuses should not be against the law. Period. The end.
And spying on innocents is not moral, as people have human rights no matter where they're from. Screw you. You don't really believe in the ideals this nation is supposed to aspire to.
We're responsible for the fairness of our trials, not our government.
We're responsible to the extent that we should vote for the right people (which I believe I do, as I do not vote for Republicans or Democrats), but that doesn't mean the trials will be fair. The fact is, our two party system makes government abuse easy.
Either we're responsible for what our government does, thus we must know everything it does, or we aren't responsible, so we have no duty to know.
We have a right to know what our government is doing, and the people voting for these idiots are responsible, but that does not mean they agree with their candidates 100%.
This idea that either we're responsible for the fairness of our trials and information should be leaked, or that we're not responsible at all and the information shouldn't be leaked, is merely a false dichotomy.
This would make sense if Snowden had an iota of respect for the American people's wisdom and discernment
Considering the situation, why would anyone have an iota of respect for the ignorant general public? I don't. Whether he does or doesn't is irrelevant to the fact that there are people who care, and giving them all the details of what the government is doing wrong is, to me, welcome. Maybe some of the ignoramuses will come around, even.
This is why his argument is ultimately irreconcilable with his actions -- he says he made his disclosures to encourage debate and to let people know what's really happening
Another false dichotomy you're setting up. It is possible to believe that the general public is being fooled by the government or is ignorant, and still believe that there is a non-zero chance that positive change could happen if things are leaked.
You cannot claim to be an idealistic American while fighting for American ideals from a Moscow safe house.
In fact, you can. He's done a lot more than you government cheerleaders.
To be honest I think this position is excessively idealistic.
The "land of the free and the home of the brave" is all about ideals and freedom. Or... it's supposed to be.
What's stupid is trusting the government at all.
I think governments can be legitimate institutions, and even when they aren't, the rights of their constituents, let alone their opinions, their votes, and their moral attachments, are at least as important as one man's moral crusade to make the world into what he thinks it should be.
We live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy. Popularity != morality. Etc. I'm not sure what your point is. If we really want to live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," citizens have a *duty* to leak information if the government is doing wrong. As for what's wrong, individuals decide that and take the chance. Maybe we won't agree with every leaker's opinions 100%, but we don't need to, as banning such leaks all the time is just insane.
I would rather lose 'safety' (In this case, have people leak things that 'shouldn't' be leaked.) than stop these leaks just because some asshole elected representatives don't want hoi polloi knowing what they're doing.
but he doesn't trust that we'd see he'd have a fair trial.
He doesn't trust the US government. And no, just because someone voted for someone, that doesn't mean they agree with the candidate 100%. Thanks to our two party system, voting for someone just means that they're the 'lesser of two evils', and more often than not, people vote for evil scumbags.
When it comes to actually trusting the American people to come through and deliver on their own ideals, he'd rather take his chances with Putin.
That's actually a good idea, sadly. The American people are stuck in the mentality that they need to vote for 'the lesser of the two evils', which allows the government to distract people with 'hot topics' like abortion, gay marriage, etc., while making them ignore all the other important issues. The result is that it's very fucking difficult to actually reign in on these thugs.
So yeah, it's a pretty good bet. At the very least, Russia isn't currently pissed off at him, so there's that.
No one said anything about every other action he takes in his lifetime; just the part about leaking information.
The net result of this whole affair is the US and its immediate allies lose all of their intelligence programs
Perhaps they should have thought that through before doing all this nonsense?
I don't think you really care either, since these are "thugs" you clearly feel no responsibility for, you probably just get a little righteous indignation high out of seeing the government embarrassed, kinda like Snowden.
Well, you might want to stop theorizing about how I think unless you're a mind reader.
I vote against these scumbags at every opportunity and vote for people who will set the situation right. It's just that idiots make up the majority, and they have not yet come around.
But I disagree with him, I think it's completely appropriate for our country to spy on foreign leaders; I definitely would support the NSA recording every telephone call made in Afghanistan
Then you're an authoritarian asshole; not much more to say. I believe we should also take into account human rights to the best of our ability, even if those people live in another country. I don't think we have any business spying on allies, no matter whether or not other countries do it.
George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Jim Clapper and Keith Alexander all had opinions, access to the Constitution, and knowledge of privacy and human rights
They have knowledge, but they're anti-freedom scumbags, as this whole affair has proven.
but they were at least as qualified as Edward Snowden.
They've shown that that is not so.
Are you sure you're not just special pleading for someone, just because he happens to agree with your prior beliefs?
I'm not the one stating you need 'qualifications.' I merely listed some reasons you might think he had them, but apparently you don't buy it.
To begin with, the part of my post you replied to basically indicated that something is not necessarily okay just because other people do it; that's basic logic. That part of my post had little to do with Snowden.
And are you sure you're not merely a government cheerleader?
Well he broke a lot of laws, and he revealed a lot of government activity that wasn't horrendous, along with the horrendous stuff. Just about everything him and Greenwald disclose now are things that are completely legal for the US to do.
Legal != moral. I, for one, want to know what my dear little government thugs are doing, legal or not. If these things are legal, perhaps that needs to be changed. Releasing information like this puts the issues into the spotlight.
That blames the victim -- the government doesn't have to change, the people should just "love it or leave it."
Straw man. Leaving or not leaving is a personal decision. You can either leave to avoid the abuse, or stay and work to change it (or stay and do nothing, as some do).
Snowden released the information, and now it's up to us to fix the problems. You mention MLK and such, but the situation simply isn't comparable, and even if it was, there is no need for every 'hero' to act in the same way.
And why is there so much focus on Snowden himself? It seems like the government is trying to distract people from their horrendous activities.
Snowden accepts the possibility of Gitmo because, in principle, all of us could be sent to Gitmo and taking a Get-out-of-Gitmo-Free card would be unfair.
I don't think it's unfair for people who don't want to be abused by their government to move elsewhere.
Because he's a human being with an opinion, access to the constitution, and knowledge of privacy and human rights.
Of you only want 'authority' figures to decide such things, may I suggest moving to a country that doesn't claim to want to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'?
You forgot the one where he knowingly and intentionally violated the law. His acts were, by definition, espionage.
If such a law exists, then it is unjust. Revealing the government's unconstitutional or immoral activities should not be a crime.
Or is there anybody here naive enough to believe that other nations don't do this?
Is anybody here illogical enough to believe that that makes any of it okay?
And I live in the US, so I know my country does this.
He might want the government to follow the constitution, but that doesn't mean he's a masochist or a martyr.
That said, cynical people rarely exercise their brains to understand the world
What makes you think so? People often call me cynical, but really, I just take history and logic into account. When I decide if it would be a good idea for the government to have a certain power, I recall some history to see if anything similar was abused in the past, or if the power would be easily abused.
It seems people often accuse people who use their brains of being "cynical."
Jumping to the obvious "cos corporate interests" or "duh NSA" is no brain work at all.
And yet, for some things, that is probably the answer.