It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?
Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
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Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#12I didn't know the WaPo story had been authored by someone working with Assange to make a documentary on WikiLeaks. That would at least explain why "data directly from" was misinterpreted to mean "backdoor direct access" since I doubt she had the training to disambiguate the terms used. Not that it matters too much anyways, I'm assuming it wasn't an OpEd and therefore she'd still have received the normal editing and s…
It's not yet clear that anything in the original piece is actually wrong, despite some carefully worded denials. I think it's unfair to judge him as misinterpreting something (yet).
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#13So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.
I have trouble deciding whether people intentional misunderstand him, simple can't, or just prefer to be outraged.
The program is classified. Its more effective if it remains so. Since it is now public, though he wishes it wasn't, he's happy and willing to publicly debate the issue of privacy vs security. He's made it quite clear that he struggles with the issue himself.
Leaking classified information is illegal, thus it generally should be prosecuted. Though we also have whistleblower laws that protect people who are leaking evidence of criminal conduct.
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#14US justice system in ‘calamitous’ collapse
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#15So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.
What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it? Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original…
> We can also have the debate ... but that's not the same thing
Yes, it is. The whole thing is cohesive. Penetration at the source is the only thing that will halt government secrecy, and condemning those who leak classified information is egregious and a grave disservice to those people.
Classified information should only pertain to anything with national security at stake. The in-country data mining obviously did not.
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#16So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.
What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it? Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original…
So the whistleblower law is just a "pretend-law"? Whistleblowers are needed for a healthy democracy, unless we have a pretend-democracy at this point, too. How do you uncover dirt on the government if every single act of whistleblowing and investigative journalism on the government is being prosecuted? Not only does that create a very chilling effect, but it also takes out everyone who did it, "before they cause too much damage". And doesn't this begin to resemble a little too much with some of those oppressive regimes?
The government classifies everything it doesn't want the public to know these days, and then tries to arrest everyone who leaks those documents. I think we need to stop thinking about what's legal and what's illegal, and start thinking about what moral and immoral. Many of these laws are immoral.
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#17It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?
> Isn't that what a democratic country would do
An informed democratic country, yes. But people in the United States are misled, misguided, and taught not to question government.
I know this from personal experience. My parents taught me to be afraid of government. Many of my friends were also taught the same thing. Everywhere I go, everyone in my age group either worships the government or fears it.
There is absolutely no democratic attitude here; it's frightening and totalitarian.
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#18It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?
It appears this was justified by a specific law that was passed by the representatives of the people for the people, so why should they investigate the NSA, especially in a democratic country?
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it? Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original…
We can't have that debate if we aren't informed about what's being kept from us.
We barely even need to have that debate, we know our Government are using classified information to cover their own asses and for political reasons. Transparency is pretty much the only weapon we have against Government corruption, thus we really should to be doing more to help protect legitimate whistle blowers and to stop documents being classified or redacted without some overseeing from a party without skin in the game.
Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks
#20anyone else notice there's been none of the usual China-bashing going on ever since this whole thing broke?
which is funny because it should be at an all time high, what with the meeting of the Chinese president Xi and Obama.
maybe they're sharing tips on how best to spy on and kill their own citizens! it is the most important economic and political bilateral relationship in the world, after all.
i kid, i kid.
but seriously, wasn't one of the talking points of the meeting going to be Obama redressing Xi on how the Chinese hack/spy on american companies and citizens' communications?
LOL x 10.