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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

#91

Post by mpyne »

_bfhp wrote: post #90
mpyne wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ty…

It doesn't matter that the Guardian is an American LLC.

If you walked up to some dude on the street, who hasn't already agreed to protect NSI, give him a confidential sheet, he's under no legal obligation to protect it (though, see below).

That's one of the surreal effects of our 1st Amendment rights is that for whatever reason J. Random Citizen (and especially the press) are not bound by classification requirements (with the exception of actual national defense information such as war plans, military designs, etc.) unless they've already agreed to be.

So is Greenwald sitting on military secrets? If so he'll never be able to disclose it, so there's no point mentioning it. If not he could disclose it today, if he felt like it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_U...

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#92

Post by _bfhp »

mpyne wrote: post #91
_bfhp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ty…

It doesn't matter that the Guardian is an American LLC. If you walked up to some dude on the street, who hasn't already agreed to protect NSI, give him a confidential sheet, he's under no legal obligation to protect it (though, see below). That's one of the surreal effects of our 1st Amendment rights is that for whatever reason J. Random Citizen (and especially the press) are not bound by classification requirements…

Can you explain the labeling of WikiLeaks as an enemy organization and fears that Assange has? Why don't you tell these things to Greenwald himself on Twitter or in an email?

The release of any secret through a media outlet could be considered a "threat to national security"; James Rosen, the New York Times, AP, and Antiwar.com all know this now that they've all been indicted and some of their phone records have been targeted and seized. Glenn has written extensively on this topic, almost daily. I think he has a better understanding of this issue than most people.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#93

Post by rhizome »

enraged_camel wrote: post #44
mtgx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, they do. FISA spying has been found unconstitutional since 2011, but they are keeping it a secret: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret... This is happening in the "beacon of democracy" of the world.

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.)

"You are free, because this is what freedom looks like."

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#94

Post by mh- »

cinquemb wrote: post #37
mtgx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, they do. FISA spying has been found unconstitutional since 2011, but they are keeping it a secret: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret... This is happening in the "beacon of democracy" of the world.

So basically, trying to engage in a debate about such gives something (like the president suggests), that shouldn't have legs to stand on constitutional grounds, is just more fuel for the machine? Good to know.

I tried to parse your comment way too many times.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#95

Post by rhizome »

kunai wrote: post #15
mayneack wrote: post #6

Earlier 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 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 n…

I believe that "national security" reasoning has been expanded to cover the country's reputation. The security being protected is that of a portrayed image.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#96

Post by rhizome »

cenhyperion wrote: post #72
mtgx wrote: post #4

So 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've pretty much come to the conclusion that he does the direct opposite of whatever he promises. He promised to end all this when he was elected, yet expanded on what Bush had started.

I have had to consider the possibility that the military has gone rogue and it's not his decision to make.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#97

Post by philwelch »

pandaman wrote: post #79
philwelch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This semantic argument is completely tiresome. There's no contradiction between being a democracy and being a republic. The US is a democratic republic. Non-democratic republics include ancient Rome and 18th-century America (where slaves couldn't vote). Democratic non-republics include the UK, Canada, and Holland (which are monarchies). "Republic" doesn't actually mean anything aside from "not a monarchy". When the f…

There is no contradiction between being a democracy and being a republic however, as you add "constitutional" in front of "republic" it becomes a constitutional republic, which is not a democracy.

That's absolute nonsense by any meaningful definition of the word.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#98

Post by cinquemb »

mh- wrote: post #94
cinquemb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, trying to engage in a debate about such gives something (like the president suggests), that shouldn't have legs to stand on constitutional grounds, is just more fuel for the machine? Good to know.

I tried to parse your comment way too many times.

Yeah it reads weird because I should have put the comma after such (with the parenthetical reference before it). At least entering comments doesn't work like a complier so I don't have to spend hours trying to figure out where all my syntactical errors are haha.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#99

Post by tomp »

gknoy wrote: post #84
jlgreco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nearly every person wants their country to be a beacon of democracy (and freedom). Except those in power, of course (in America and elsewhere).

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#100

Post by pandaman »

philwelch wrote: post #97
pandaman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no contradiction between being a democracy and being a republic however, as you add "constitutional" in front of "republic" it becomes a constitutional republic, which is not a democracy.

That's absolute nonsense by any meaningful definition of the word.

Can you elaborate? It's pretty simple in my opinion: democracy is the power of people and in a democracy (which would be also a republic, since it's not a monarchy or a theocracy) the people is the ultimate source of power. That could be either a direct democracy (where all people get to decide) or representative democracy, where the people choose representatives to decide everything. There is no power above the people's in a democracy.

In the USA the ultimate source of power is the Constitution of the US. It rules over the power of the people. Since the ultimate source of power in the USA is not the people it cannot possibly be a democracy.

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