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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#351

Post by [deleted] »

brabel wrote: post #311
genman wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely misinterpret the situation with Russia and China. Russia and China have the objectives of their own. For Russia it is to expand their empire that in their own mind rightfully belongs to them. They didn't attack Ukraine because of US actions but because they seriously believe that they have some kind of right over Ukrainians lands, or even more seriously, that Ukrainians don't exists. If US woul…

No, you're misrepresenting it. Your rationale is that Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory, and that's why it attacked Ukraine... a primary school level of simplification. You ignore that Russia's number one fear after the collapse of the USSR was for another military invasion from the West, as had happened several times over the last few centuries... that Russia's border with Ukr…

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#352

Post by lern_too_spel »

hutzlibu wrote: post #334
lern_too_spel wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there a law preventing agencies from going somewhere else and killing and stealing as they see fit? Yes, the laws of the country they go to. >>International law is kind of complicated, but the basic idea is to not interfere with each other to keep the peace. How is spying interfering with each other? > And activly hacking foreign computers is considered interfering What about passively collecting the information…

"How is spying interfering with each other?" Hacking into computers on foreign soil, sounds quite interfering to me, or would you be OK with me giving it a try at your computers/network? "> is there a law preventing agencies from going somewhere else and killing and stealing as they see fit? Yes, the laws of the country they go to" Same with hacking. It is not legal, to hack computers here in germany. And sure, Merke…

> would you be OK with me giving it a try at your computers/network?

I wouldn't be OK with it, but I wouldn't call it interfering either if you don't actually interfere with my actions after gaining access.

> Same with hacking. It is not legal, to hack computers here in germany

Then try to enforce those laws on other countries, and see how far you get. If the US sent an agent into Germany to kill someone, the killer would be held liable.

> They assumed naivly [sic] [emphasis added], ally means respecting the other party.

Exactly. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/18/spies-like-us-germany-s...

Would Germany have acted differently had the US not spied on Germany? Of course not.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#353

Post by genman »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #342
genman wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory. If you haven't understood this by now then it's not meaningful to continue this discussion with you.

Even if we adopt the moral relativism and stop calling Russia "evil"... still, the fact remains that it is an empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory.

Well, they are evil, we just can't ignore that. If calling to murder millions of people is commonly tolerated public discourse then what else are they?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#354

Post by genman »

Matl wrote: post #348
genman wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And from where does this isolation come from? I think you are contradicting a little with yourself here.

It comes from it attacking Taiwan unprovoked, but there's no need for large U.S. presence for that to already not be attractive as it would be a huge blow for China in the economic realm and even include the Global South. On the other hand, Taiwan declaring independence on U.S. encouragement for example could be spun by China as protecting its stated red lines and acting out despite U.S. presence in the region. You m…

Not from "what" but from "where" is the question. If there was no Western opposition to the attack, there wouldn't be no isolation.

The fact that Russia has received some sympathy shows how important is to express the situation correctly - Russia was not provoked by anything. They would have attacked either way because they consider these lands theirs and the people who live there at best as nothing. The thinking goes - those countries they attack will greet them as liberators or they are the worst enemies that must be eliminated (e.g. Nazis).

Now I can understand that some countries have strong anti-US sentiment, but reason for the whole war has a very little to do with US despite Russia's huge effort to make it appear to be the cause.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#355

Post by ganesh7 »

While we commemorate the violation of privacy of US citizens and others, we should also commemorate the victims of US foreign interventions. There were 251 such interventions in the name of "freedom in democracy" in the last 30 years: https://mronline.org/2022/09/16/u-s-launched-251-military-in... https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/wp-content/uploads/sites/...

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#356

Post by hkt »

agurk wrote: post #300
hkt wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Swiss model of lots of referenda, very strong regional (canton) govt and a seven person executive, but also.. Swiss women didn't get the vote at federal level until 1991. Some changes are hard to pull off through referenda, others less so.

> Swiss women didn't get the vote at federal level until 1991 To be pedantic it was one Canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) that the supreme court finally forced to let women have full voting rights, as in the rest if the Cantons, in 1990 [0]. So it was part of the state forcing this rather than through their direct democracy, which makes the issue even more interesting. The other states were still slow at granting univer…

That is interesting - as you can tell I only had a shallow knowledge of it. I'll read more about how it works. Thanks!

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#357

Post by Matl »

genman wrote: post #354
Matl wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from it attacking Taiwan unprovoked, but there's no need for large U.S. presence for that to already not be attractive as it would be a huge blow for China in the economic realm and even include the Global South. On the other hand, Taiwan declaring independence on U.S. encouragement for example could be spun by China as protecting its stated red lines and acting out despite U.S. presence in the region. You m…

Not from "what" but from "where" is the question. If there was no Western opposition to the attack, there wouldn't be no isolation. The fact that Russia has received some sympathy shows how important is to express the situation correctly - Russia was not provoked by anything. They would have attacked either way because they consider these lands theirs and the people who live there at best as nothing. The thinking goe…

Why is there 'anti-US sentiment' in the Global South?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#358

Post by super256 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #336
super256 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing that dies in war is the truth. Amnesty International, the UN and Human Rights Watch documented very well how Ukrainian extremists and paramilitary organizations tortured and put people randomly into detentions after the allegedly USA friendly government was installed in the Ukraine in 2014. Here are some money quotes which I found interesting: September 2014: “Members of the Aidar territorial defence…

LOL. Well, that's certainly... "useful." Amnesty is a captive organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_Internati...

German public media also has some reports which underline the information above:

"How nationalists continue to divide Ukraine (2014)"

https://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/archiv/2014/Hitlers-Helfer-...

"Putsch in Kiev: What role do the fascists play? (2014)"

https://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/archiv/2014/Putsch-in-Kiew-...

When I was searching for an English source, I stumbled upon Craig Murray's blog, who was a diplomat for the UK, who quotes the UN a lot:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/12/protecting-t...

Yes, amnesty is certainly flawed and disliked by the USA. They are even banned in Russia. But you're dismissing the reports from Human Rights Watch and the office of the UN for human rights which I linked above. I think the UN's reports are "useful".

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#359

Post by Aerbil313 »

_8j50 wrote: post #239
throwaway892238 wrote: post #176

Years ago, when I interviewed at places that did USG-related work, the stuff I heard about that I didn't have to sign an NDA to hear , scared me enough that I knew Snowden-scale stuff was entirely within the capabilities of the US Govt. I didn't realize they would use it against us just blatantly in direct violation of every law put in place to prevent it, though. I think the lesson I learned from the Snowden leaks i…

I think your takeaway is wrong. It isn't the government doing naughty secret things but the government doing so with support from a plurality of the people. The patriot act is a non-partisan issue that gets renewed every administration. Snowden and Assange should be locked up accroding to a majority of americans. Your takeaway should be that a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any…

> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear.

The modern state is far more freedom-restricting than any other type of state which came before, and this is due to technology. Historically there were many slaves who were freer than the “free” man of today. You’re also right that fear is the predominant feeling/force that maintains order in a modern state. See the book Technological Slavery: https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Tec...

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#360

Post by Aerbil313 »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #341
brabel wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're misrepresenting it. Your rationale is that Russia is an evil empire trying to expand its borders to its former glory, and that's why it attacked Ukraine... a primary school level of simplification. You ignore that Russia's number one fear after the collapse of the USSR was for another military invasion from the West, as had happened several times over the last few centuries... that Russia's border with Ukr…

You can both be right at the same time. It is true Russia was invaded several times over the last few centuries. It is also true that Russia have invaded and annexed many countries over the last few centuries. Evil empires also get invaded once in a while. Sometimes, when everyone else is hostile to you, it can make sense to consider that maybe... just maybe... you might be doing something that triggers their anger.…

> Sometimes, when everyone else is hostile to you

Anthromorphizing, just another symptom of the human mind’s inability to really comprehend things as complex as geopolitics. We’re not meant for this, people! Technology has complexified our simple and beautiful world.

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