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Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

reuters.com

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Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#81

Post by mpyne »

_bfhp wrote: post #38

Greenwald replies to a Twitter user asking "when do we see the full redacted deck?" "@markskogan @nycsouthpaw You won't - it contains very specific technical NSA means for collection - we'd probably be prosecuted if we did." - https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 Everyone should be keeping their eye on @ggreenwald's twitter, reveals much about the debate and what's going on with him. He gives bits…

Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about.

By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#82

Post by jivatmanx »

mpyne wrote: post #80
jivatmanx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process of classifying material is uncontroversial because in general parlance, we assume that material is specific intelligence of people, place, and times. The extension of that definition to include classified courts with classified rulings used as the legal basis for programs like this... is not the generally accepted one.

I don't know why you'd assume it's specific intel of that. Classified info is literally anything that would be a risk to national security if released in an uncontrolled fashion. The 3 different tiers of U.S. classification are literally just the 3 different levels of damage that would accrue to U.S. national security, nothing more. So in the case of programs like this, if the hypothetical terr'ists know about it, th…

There is no Salafi army capable of achieving military victory against the United States. The existential threat is zero.

Therefore, I see no reason why our sacred liberties should be secretly sacrificed as "tactics" in an eternal, global war.

Better to declare global perpetual war against pools, bathtubs, or uncooked food. It would be cheaper and save more lives. Oh, and, preserve the sacrifice of those who died fighting for our freedom.

Or, is a life lost to a one who has claimed jihad worth more than one from uncooked food?

It may be that Bush was right, that terrorists wish us to abandon our liberties. So, too do the disciples of Leo Strauss who want to elevate to warriors the ideology of people who are merely sad, pathetic men no different from the killers of random school shootings, and deserve no more.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#83

Post by mpyne »

jivatmanx wrote: post #82
mpyne wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you'd assume it's specific intel of that. Classified info is literally anything that would be a risk to national security if released in an uncontrolled fashion. The 3 different tiers of U.S. classification are literally just the 3 different levels of damage that would accrue to U.S. national security, nothing more. So in the case of programs like this, if the hypothetical terr'ists know about it, th…

There is no Salafi army capable of achieving military victory against the United States. The existential threat is zero. Therefore, I see no reason why our sacred liberties should be secretly sacrificed as "tactics" in an eternal, global war. Better to declare global perpetual war against pools, bathtubs, or uncooked food. It would be cheaper and save more lives. Oh, and, preserve the sacrifice of those who died figh…

I can't speak for you (I'm immersed in a bunch of "privilege" already), but the actual concrete effect on my civil liberties, even since 9/11, has been exactly zero.

Remember we oppose tools such as these based on what the government might be able to do with them to abuse their citizens, just like we field militaries based on what other nations might be able to do.

So far your Salafi army example applies in reverse as well: The U.S. government hasn't been running around actually repressing the citizenry. Certainly we should take measures to ensure they can't, but as long as we're worrying about what people might do then I don't see why it's shameful to worry about what Islamists might do as well.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#84

Post by gknoy »

jlgreco wrote: post #60
deelowe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/americans/american government and media(for a lot of us at least)

To be fair, those people are exclusively Americans. Not all Americans think of America as a "beacon of democracy", but pretty much anyone who does is themselves American. Also, rectangles are not squares, though squares are rectangles.

Nearly every American __wants__ our country to be a beacon of democracy, however, which is why this type of behavior by our government is so frustrating.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#85

Post by downandout »

paul wrote: post #22

If the government hasn't done anything wrong, then they shouldn't have anything to hide from us :) More seriously, some amount of surveillance is probably necessary, but they need to be a lot more open and transparent about it. Secret laws and secret courts are not the stuff a free society is made of.

Governments have a legitimate need for secrecy in some situations. If FBI investigations of white collar crimes were posted on a public website, for example, there would be a dramatic rise in both flights and wire transfers to Belize.

The blame here lies squarely with legislators that have drafted laws that are intentionally worded to give the public a false sense of privacy while enabling agencies like NSA to run amok. We elect these representatives precisely for this reason - they are supposed to protect our rights in situations where we can't. Not only did they create these laws, but they were apparently overseeing the mass-surveillance programs established under them and had no problem with the extraordinary Constitutional violations they enabled. Our own President has come in in strong support of these programs. Whether you voted for him or not, you should not be OK with that.

Every senator or congressman that has anything to do with intelligence oversight, along with those that had anything to do with the drafting of these laws, and all other elected officials that have or will come out in support of these programs, must never be reelected. This, unfortunately, is the only realistic defense that US citizens have against their tyrannical government.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#87

Post by _bfhp »

mpyne wrote: post #81
_bfhp wrote: post #38

Greenwald replies to a Twitter user asking "when do we see the full redacted deck?" "@markskogan @nycsouthpaw You won't - it contains very specific technical NSA means for collection - we'd probably be prosecuted if we did." - https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 Everyone should be keeping their eye on @ggreenwald's twitter, reveals much about the debate and what's going on with him. He gives bits…

Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about. By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?

The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#88

Post by contingencies »

rorrr2 wrote: post #55
enraged_camel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, the only people who see the USA as the "beacon of democracy" are Americans. I'm not saying this to start a flame war, but to simply point out that the USA is no more democratic than many other Western nations. (My personal opinion is that the USA is much more of a beacon of imperialism than of democracy. But that's neither here nor there.)

US is actually less democratic than many countries - Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_gree... [2] http://www.democracyranking.org/en/ranking.htm If we're talking about economic freedom or the freedom of press, it's even worse: [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index

The notion of democratic itself is a flawed one - meaningful representation left the building a long time ago.

It is often used to evoke some sense of greater social justice.

Notice though, how notions such as 'willingness to invade other sovereign nations' or 'laws on books against fundamental human rights' or 'presence of any constitution or meaningful court of higher appeal' or 'centralization of media ownership' or 'measured trajectory of higher educational capacity' or 'number of excuses government can use to spy on or detain citizens' also seem conveniently out of scope.

Simply put, the notion we are sold of western democracy as some all-solving wonderland of equality and transparent empathetic good-governance is a farce. The more people lend rankings like these ones credence, the harder that is for people to see. (Though they certainly do have some utility, it is important also to see them critically.)

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#89

Post by mpyne »

_bfhp wrote: post #87
mpyne wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about. By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?

The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.

Neither the Guardian nor Greenwald are "read in" to the U.S. national security information apparatus. They literally have no legal requirement to avoid publishing what they have.

As far as being Disappeared, even Greenwald can't possibly be that dumb, can he? If he has information that the NSA would want to remove him for, and he hasn't already deleted it, it is by far in NSA's best interests to "disappear him" right now.

If they wouldn't find it politically possible to disappear him now then it wouldn't be politically possible to disappear him then.

Does he just think he's going to string NSA along and that they're simultaneously angry enough to kill him and dumb enough to let him choose to leak it after all?

The very fact that you (and surely many others) feel that Greenwald might release this "super sensitive material" later should be all the reasoning you need to understand why NSA will have to remove him now or not remove him at all.

Obviously I'm saying the latter will happen, but this means that Greenwald is acting like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy nutter. Hell, even if the former will happen Greenwald is acting like a nutter; his logic is all wrong even for the world he thinks he lives in.

Once he releases the information he can pose no further risk to NSA for now, which would make harming him far more politically damaging (as it would be revenge, and not to protect further disclosure).

I don't think he's stringing NSA along at all, I think he's stringing the rest of us along.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#90

Post by _bfhp »

mpyne wrote: post #89
_bfhp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.

Neither the Guardian nor Greenwald are "read in" to the U.S. national security information apparatus. They literally have no legal requirement to avoid publishing what they have. As far as being Disappeared, even Greenwald can't possibly be that dumb, can he? If he has information that the NSA would want to remove him for, and he hasn't already deleted it, it is by far in NSA's best interests to "disappear him" right…

Check again: The Guardian US is an American LLC. [1]

It would be in their best interest to disappear him ASAP? Maybe that's why The Atlantic's Washington Editor-at-Large just tweeted that he overheard four government officials on a plane (I believe that's where he was) discussing loudly that the leakers and Greenwald should be "disappeared". [2] He recorded the conversation and is getting together an article as we type.

Greenwald has been writing on NSA abuses and other government fraud and corruption for years. He poses a (the biggest) threat ideologically and now he is a source that leakers can release actual classified information through, if they want. He is obviously very thorough with what he has been doing; he had his computer physically rigged (in the sense of software and probably hardware too) to allow for most secure communications by "someone familiar with those matters" who came to his house to do it for him. He's probably in Hong Kong for safety reasons, or at least reasons related to this story. Who else can travel to Hong Kong at will just to leak stuff?

Try reading his actual articles and Twitter posts. He doesn't actually fear disappearing, he fears being sought-after or... I don't know, maybe he doesn't fear anything from acting alone and will release it all himself later! I just interpreted what I have read, "earning [myself] a Disappearance" is not a quote from him at all.

If you care that much about Greenwald, might want to read the Frequently Told Lies list he has compiled [3] so you don't get tripped up. He usually lives in Brazil but pays U.S. taxes as an American citizen (which is what he is, more than most of us). He can not move because the U.S. does not recognize bi-national same-sex partnerships upon immigration.

[1] http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Guardian-News/1127261...

[2] https://twitter.com/SCClemons/status/343392529913356289

[3] http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/frequently-told-li...

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