There are going to be claims that NSA broke the 4th amendment to the US Constitution, and maybe some others. That will be the key one though. Unfortunately for those claims the question has gone before the courts before and they have found on more than one occasion that Article II of the US Constitution provides the power for much of the activity in certain contexts. The people making those claims are relying upon a simplistic reading of the text without that understanding and the benefit of the precedents of the courts in dealing with the necessary questions. They mean well, but get it wrong as things stand. It could be that a future court will change the shape of the law, as has happened in other areas of the war against al Qaida, but I wouldn't count on it. NSA surveillance has pretty much had the backing of all three branches of government as long as it stayed in its lane.
The nations that the Russians and Chinese have nuclear weapons pointed at and have flooded with spies. The nations that al Qaida is attempting to attack. That's a start.
Sir David, the former head of the UK's communications surveillance centre GCHQ, told the Times: "You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.
"The assumption the experts are working on is that all that information or almost all of it will now be in the hands of Moscow and Beijing.
"It's the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean."
Donald Duart Maclean and Guy Burgess were among a group of British officials who met at Cambridge University and passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the 1950s, other notable members being Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt.
I assume you must suffer from some sort of debilitating condition.
You need to look at the rates for individual countries. Some are higher, some are lower. I believe the US rate has dropped recently, probably due to the economic problems, but it has tended to be closer to 2.
People move to the US and UK for many reasons, including purely economic, or to escape a local war. Life on the dole in the UK beats a firing squad for extremist activity back in the old country.
The trend is simple. 1.3 birth rate for the native population, higher rates for immigrants, more immigration, radicalization of the 2nd generation, and time. You can also throw in religious conversion of the native population, something which is occurring.
There is a difference. The US birth rate is much closer to the replacement rate of 2.1. Some parts of Europe are at or below 1.3, which halves a population in about 45 years. For the US the primary source of immigrants is Catholic Mexico. Although Mexicans have their own distinct culture, they are not fundamentally hostile to the US and its culture. Europe is brining in many immigrants that are fundamentally hostile to its culture and reject it, if not in the generation that immigrates, the one after it. Unless current trends change, Europe may very well be in a civil war in 30-50 years.
Bin Laden's stated goal was not to turn the west to Islam. Why would he want a bunch of white devils screwing up his precious Islam. He hated us remember?
Islam is open to people of all races. It isn't a question of race, and I'm not sure how you got that.
In his letter to America, Bin Laden's first demand was for conversion to Islam. That is consistent with al Qaida's long term goal of bringing about Muslim rule of the world under their variety of Sharia law. Providing such a warning is also consistent with the demands of their culture in making holy war.
(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
As to your Bin Laden quote, that is only to achieve an intermediate aim of reducing the US ability to resist their goals. The long range goal is the same - conversion to Islam, or destruction.
Traffic accidents alone killed 13x the number of people killed at Pearl Harbor that year, and yet the US still went to war. There must be something you are missing in the way you are analyzing the manner in which deaths influence public policy.
Saddam considered the Iranians to be a strategic threat to Iraq and discounted the possibility that the West & UN would act against him in a forceful manner. As a result Saddam had his government continue to act as if they still had WMDs to fool the Iranians after they had secretly disposed of their VX nerve gas after previous fooling the inspectors. (It sounds stupid, but that was Saddam.) Saddam's strategic deception was such a success that he was invaded for it.
If it makes you feel any better, there were unfilled chemical warheads found for Iraq's long range missiles. With a native chemical industry that had previous experience making chemical agents they could have been filled in the future. The disarmament agencies also recovered a number of anthrax bombs. I'm sure there is more. And the other causes of action were still true, such as the massacres of the Kurds - a crime against humanity, and Iraq's support for terrorism.
The presumption of innocence applies to a trial, not public discussions. But Snowden isn't innocent anyway - he has admitted to taking the documents and fleeing with them. The only question is who exactly was on his distribution list. Maybe he is telling the truth, maybe not. If he is, it would be the first time in a long time after lying about so many things to get access to the documents, and then having so many lies about his flight to Russia. And the FSB has apparently been involved with him since at least Hong Kong, if not before. At least one former Soviet bloc intelligence general believe that Snowden is a Russian agent. It may be years before we determine the truth, if ever. It was years after the Chinese stole the design data for the most advanced US nuclear warhead, the W88, before someone walked into the embassy with proof. You're free to believe what you want. I'll probably believe something different based on the evidence.
Quite the contrary. The Russians and Chinese have access to US & UK top secret documents the same as anyone else that goes to various web sites.
One thing you are discounting is the chain of lies and around Snowden's activities. One very interesting example of which is the birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong when the Russians later claimed that they had no idea he was coming to Moscow.
Oh we know they have at least some of the documents, they can read US and UK TOP SECRET documents in the newspapers just like anybody else. They can then use those for their intelligence analysis, or to fill in missing pieces. Before they would have had to get an infiltrator to obtain them, now they can just go to the Guardian. And that's assuming that they haven't managed to obtain either voluntary or clandestine copies of documents from the Guardian or other papers with the documents. Do you recall that Mr. Greenwald's lover was carrying electronic copies of many documents with him, as well as a scribbled note with the password? Funny how we never seem to get releases of Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, North Korean or other documents.
Bin Laden wants the West to turn to Islam. He failed. But it probably doesn't matter much in the long term since much of the West is heading towards a demographic death spiral. The future belongs to those who show up.
Turning documents over to journalists, or anybody employed in any other profession, does not make them magically uninterceptable, unreadable, or unposessable by Russians, Chinese, or anybody else. He has no control over the distribution after he hands it off to anybody, and the people who have the stuff might not even know if someone else is reading it.
If only there was proof. At this point the British believe that the Chinese, the Russians, or both, have copies of all the documents that Snowden took.
Yes... Just fine. Those stories of long waits, or unavailable diagnostic care are just rumors, I am sure...
Yes, they are.
Well, actually they aren't. Looking at both Britain and Canada, both the media and government have reported problems with waiting times. It isn't a new problem, and it both can and does impact patient care. Perhaps you haven't experienced it as a problem, or maybe you have and are accustomed to it, or maybe even pride in the system won't allow you to admit it, but it exists.
People in Cuba say hospitals are chaotic and being controlled by security agents who don’t want alarming reports to get out....
Security agents have locked down the city’s hospital, he added, but staff told him the situation inside is “chaotic.”....
The journalist also wrote that Piñeiro and a hospital employee reported that doctors are signing death certificates saying that the victims died from “acute respiratory insufficiency” rather than cholera.
“We have been forbidden from using the word cholera, and there have been people arrested and detained temporarily in stations of the PNR,” the National Revolutionary Police, Piñeiro was quoted as saying. The provincial newspaper, La Demajagua, and radio stations have reported nothing on the outbreak....
Your faith in socialism and the Revolution is touching, but misplaced.
But dead is dead, and the UK's life expectancy is better than America's, while spending less per capita on health care. No amount of spin can change that.
That really depends on the disease, doesn't it? The UK has lagged behind Europe and the US on various cancer death rates for some time.
In the US, they're more likely to die at home, because they can't afford to go to the hospital.
In the UK there are people that get sent home from hospital to die. There have also been a number of scandals regarding widespread maltreatment and neglect.
Sorry, but you are confused. Progressive lobbyists helped the Democrats write that bill. Republicans had nothing to do with it. (Are you going to call the President of the Center For American Progress* (a fellow "progressive") a liar when she claims credit for her work?
In any event there were substantial practical differences between the two plans. The policy from Heritage was never an unqualified mandate.
For the benefit of any other readers, here is the article he finds so objectionable: ObamaCare's Heritage . Here is the Amicus brief Heritage filed with the Appeals Court explaining its position.
I will also note you've really only disagreed with me, not "debunked" my position. That would be difficult for you to do since I'm simply relying on the facts. But please, disagree with the Center for American Progress*. They need more opposition.
* Not at all either a Republican or conservative think tank.
Slashdot Mirror
So you didn't go to the first link at Politico? Why don't you, you might feel better if you do.
You misspelled "fugitive".
There are going to be claims that NSA broke the 4th amendment to the US Constitution, and maybe some others. That will be the key one though. Unfortunately for those claims the question has gone before the courts before and they have found on more than one occasion that Article II of the US Constitution provides the power for much of the activity in certain contexts. The people making those claims are relying upon a simplistic reading of the text without that understanding and the benefit of the precedents of the courts in dealing with the necessary questions. They mean well, but get it wrong as things stand. It could be that a future court will change the shape of the law, as has happened in other areas of the war against al Qaida, but I wouldn't count on it. NSA surveillance has pretty much had the backing of all three branches of government as long as it stayed in its lane.
The nations that the Russians and Chinese have nuclear weapons pointed at and have flooded with spies. The nations that al Qaida is attempting to attack. That's a start.
To you, maybe. Not to the intelligence agencies. I have no access.
The Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies are far to disciplined to do victory laps. The idea is nonsense.
NSA's sensitive systems are air gapped. That is why you need an insider, like Snowden.
Snowden leaks 'worst ever loss to British intelligence'
Sir David, the former head of the UK's communications surveillance centre GCHQ, told the Times: "You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.
"The assumption the experts are working on is that all that information or almost all of it will now be in the hands of Moscow and Beijing.
"It's the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean."
Donald Duart Maclean and Guy Burgess were among a group of British officials who met at Cambridge University and passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the 1950s, other notable members being Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt.
I assume you must suffer from some sort of debilitating condition.
Maybe I can help.
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You need to look at the rates for individual countries. Some are higher, some are lower. I believe the US rate has dropped recently, probably due to the economic problems, but it has tended to be closer to 2.
People move to the US and UK for many reasons, including purely economic, or to escape a local war. Life on the dole in the UK beats a firing squad for extremist activity back in the old country.
The trend is simple. 1.3 birth rate for the native population, higher rates for immigrants, more immigration, radicalization of the 2nd generation, and time. You can also throw in religious conversion of the native population, something which is occurring.
When native Europe goes, it will take its culture with it. Many of the immigrants reject it.
There is a difference. The US birth rate is much closer to the replacement rate of 2.1. Some parts of Europe are at or below 1.3, which halves a population in about 45 years. For the US the primary source of immigrants is Catholic Mexico. Although Mexicans have their own distinct culture, they are not fundamentally hostile to the US and its culture. Europe is brining in many immigrants that are fundamentally hostile to its culture and reject it, if not in the generation that immigrates, the one after it. Unless current trends change, Europe may very well be in a civil war in 30-50 years.
Bin Laden's stated goal was not to turn the west to Islam. Why would he want a bunch of white devils screwing up his precious Islam. He hated us remember?
Islam is open to people of all races. It isn't a question of race, and I'm not sure how you got that.
In his letter to America, Bin Laden's first demand was for conversion to Islam. That is consistent with al Qaida's long term goal of bringing about Muslim rule of the world under their variety of Sharia law. Providing such a warning is also consistent with the demands of their culture in making holy war.
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'
(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
As to your Bin Laden quote, that is only to achieve an intermediate aim of reducing the US ability to resist their goals. The long range goal is the same - conversion to Islam, or destruction.
The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants
Traffic accidents alone killed 13x the number of people killed at Pearl Harbor that year, and yet the US still went to war. There must be something you are missing in the way you are analyzing the manner in which deaths influence public policy.
Saddam considered the Iranians to be a strategic threat to Iraq and discounted the possibility that the West & UN would act against him in a forceful manner. As a result Saddam had his government continue to act as if they still had WMDs to fool the Iranians after they had secretly disposed of their VX nerve gas after previous fooling the inspectors. (It sounds stupid, but that was Saddam.) Saddam's strategic deception was such a success that he was invaded for it.
If it makes you feel any better, there were unfilled chemical warheads found for Iraq's long range missiles. With a native chemical industry that had previous experience making chemical agents they could have been filled in the future. The disarmament agencies also recovered a number of anthrax bombs. I'm sure there is more. And the other causes of action were still true, such as the massacres of the Kurds - a crime against humanity, and Iraq's support for terrorism.
The presumption of innocence applies to a trial, not public discussions. But Snowden isn't innocent anyway - he has admitted to taking the documents and fleeing with them. The only question is who exactly was on his distribution list. Maybe he is telling the truth, maybe not. If he is, it would be the first time in a long time after lying about so many things to get access to the documents, and then having so many lies about his flight to Russia. And the FSB has apparently been involved with him since at least Hong Kong, if not before. At least one former Soviet bloc intelligence general believe that Snowden is a Russian agent. It may be years before we determine the truth, if ever. It was years after the Chinese stole the design data for the most advanced US nuclear warhead, the W88, before someone walked into the embassy with proof. You're free to believe what you want. I'll probably believe something different based on the evidence.
Quite the contrary. The Russians and Chinese have access to US & UK top secret documents the same as anyone else that goes to various web sites.
One thing you are discounting is the chain of lies and around Snowden's activities. One very interesting example of which is the birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong when the Russians later claimed that they had no idea he was coming to Moscow.
That's right. And there is equal proof that Snowden didn't make them available in some fashion.
Oh we know they have at least some of the documents, they can read US and UK TOP SECRET documents in the newspapers just like anybody else. They can then use those for their intelligence analysis, or to fill in missing pieces. Before they would have had to get an infiltrator to obtain them, now they can just go to the Guardian. And that's assuming that they haven't managed to obtain either voluntary or clandestine copies of documents from the Guardian or other papers with the documents. Do you recall that Mr. Greenwald's lover was carrying electronic copies of many documents with him, as well as a scribbled note with the password? Funny how we never seem to get releases of Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, North Korean or other documents.
Bin Laden wants the West to turn to Islam. He failed. But it probably doesn't matter much in the long term since much of the West is heading towards a demographic death spiral. The future belongs to those who show up.
I'm pretty sure "bogeymen" don't have body counts from massacres, or a record of arrests and convictions for plotted massacres.
Turning documents over to journalists, or anybody employed in any other profession, does not make them magically uninterceptable, unreadable, or unposessable by Russians, Chinese, or anybody else. He has no control over the distribution after he hands it off to anybody, and the people who have the stuff might not even know if someone else is reading it.
That is assuming that he is even telling the truth now after spending a long time lying so that he could get access to the documents. Lies about his adventure continued when the Russians said they didn't know he was coming when he in fact had a birthday party at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong prior to his departure, and made arrangements there. When he got to Russia, an FSB spokesman was speaking for him. Then there is this gem: "(On June 23 Izvestia, a [formerly] state-owned Russian newspaper, wrote that the Kremlin and its intelligence services collaborated with Wikileaks to help Snowden escape from Hong Kong.)" ... It looks to me that there is far more going on than most people want to believe.
If only there was proof. At this point the British believe that the Chinese, the Russians, or both, have copies of all the documents that Snowden took.
Yes... Just fine. Those stories of long waits, or unavailable diagnostic care are just rumors, I am sure...
Yes, they are.
Well, actually they aren't. Looking at both Britain and Canada, both the media and government have reported problems with waiting times. It isn't a new problem, and it both can and does impact patient care. Perhaps you haven't experienced it as a problem, or maybe you have and are accustomed to it, or maybe even pride in the system won't allow you to admit it, but it exists.
Really?
Cholera reportedly kills 15, sickens hundreds in eastern Cuba
People in Cuba say hospitals are chaotic and being controlled by security agents who don’t want alarming reports to get out. ...
Security agents have locked down the city’s hospital, he added, but staff told him the situation inside is “chaotic.” ....
The journalist also wrote that Piñeiro and a hospital employee reported that doctors are signing death certificates saying that the victims died from “acute respiratory insufficiency” rather than cholera.
“We have been forbidden from using the word cholera, and there have been people arrested and detained temporarily in stations of the PNR,” the National Revolutionary Police, Piñeiro was quoted as saying. The provincial newspaper, La Demajagua, and radio stations have reported nothing on the outbreak. ...
Your faith in socialism and the Revolution is touching, but misplaced.
But dead is dead, and the UK's life expectancy is better than America's, while spending less per capita on health care. No amount of spin can change that.
That really depends on the disease, doesn't it? The UK has lagged behind Europe and the US on various cancer death rates for some time.
In the US, they're more likely to die at home, because they can't afford to go to the hospital.
In the UK there are people that get sent home from hospital to die. There have also been a number of scandals regarding widespread maltreatment and neglect.
Sorry, but you are confused. Progressive lobbyists helped the Democrats write that bill. Republicans had nothing to do with it. (Are you going to call the President of the Center For American Progress* (a fellow "progressive") a liar when she claims credit for her work?
Center For American Progress* President Shares Part In Obamacare: "I Helped Write The Bill"
In any event there were substantial practical differences between the two plans. The policy from Heritage was never an unqualified mandate.
For the benefit of any other readers, here is the article he finds so objectionable: ObamaCare's Heritage . Here is the Amicus brief Heritage filed with the Appeals Court explaining its position.
I will also note you've really only disagreed with me, not "debunked" my position. That would be difficult for you to do since I'm simply relying on the facts. But please, disagree with the Center for American Progress*. They need more opposition.
* Not at all either a Republican or conservative think tank.