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U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#301

Post by corin_ »

fusiongyro wrote: post #288
evilduck wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has any whitehouse.gov petition ever led to actual action being taken?

It takes ten seconds and costs nothing. I honestly don't understand the argument against it. It may be no better than nothing, but it can hardly be worse.

It could perhaps be worse, either because it makes 100,000 people (or however many) think "well I've done by part now!" so they become complacent, or because the administration thinks "well they've got it off their chest with a petition, that will keep them away from doing anything stronger so let's keep going with what we were doing".

Definitely subjective, though.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#302

Post by fearlessleader »

corin_ wrote: post #301
fusiongyro wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes ten seconds and costs nothing. I honestly don't understand the argument against it. It may be no better than nothing, but it can hardly be worse.

It could perhaps be worse, either because it makes 100,000 people (or however many) think "well I've done by part now!" so they become complacent, or because the administration thinks "well they've got it off their chest with a petition, that will keep them away from doing anything stronger so let's keep going with what we were doing". Definitely subjective, though.

What if the 'buzz' generated by all of these people inspires a few people to actually do substantive? Kinda like how spam only needs a few clicks per million to generate a profit.

This is just speculation but it helps me cope with the facebook activism.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#303

Post by corin_ »

fearlessleader wrote: post #302
corin_ wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could perhaps be worse, either because it makes 100,000 people (or however many) think "well I've done by part now!" so they become complacent, or because the administration thinks "well they've got it off their chest with a petition, that will keep them away from doing anything stronger so let's keep going with what we were doing". Definitely subjective, though.

What if the 'buzz' generated by all of these people inspires a few people to actually do substantive? Kinda like how spam only needs a few clicks per million to generate a profit. This is just speculation but it helps me cope with the facebook activism.

I should clarify that I wasn't warning against signing the petition, merely adding a thought to the "well at the very worst it can't do any harm" logic. Make up your own mind on whether signing it is good, bad, or neither :)

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#304

Post by zanny »

pinaceae wrote: post #298
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…

hey, non-US citizen here. assuming you're a US citizen based on your "outrage". the point of your defence budget (how large is it again) is to project power through the military and intelligence services. it is ASTOUNDING that only now you seem to have realized what the US intelligennce apparatus is doing. of course they are collecting all the data, they are basically replicating google to be able to search within di…

Myself and plenty of other US citizens and residents understand the imperialistic tyrrany of the fed.

The problem is that 90% of the population isn't engaged, is brainwashed by national news networks, and is complacent in their lives eating McDonalds and watching Desperate Housewives. They accept being exploited and the atrocities they vote in with their amazing public service of going to a polling place for 10 minutes every 2 or 4 years (and they never vote for their local mayors or judges).

The only way anything would truly change in the USA is if that massive body that spans 2 deviations of income in both directions of the bell curve lost their ability to keep fattening themselves up or if they tv went out.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#305

Post by kimlelly »

pinaceae wrote: post #298
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…

hey, non-US citizen here. assuming you're a US citizen based on your "outrage". the point of your defence budget (how large is it again) is to project power through the military and intelligence services. it is ASTOUNDING that only now you seem to have realized what the US intelligennce apparatus is doing. of course they are collecting all the data, they are basically replicating google to be able to search within di…

"...your defence budget (how large is it again)"

It's about the size of the 10 biggest following countries COMBINED! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...

That is YOUR hard earned tax money at work AGAINST YOU.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#306

Post by lern_too_spel »

btilly wrote: post #275
glurgh wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's in Hong Kong talking about US intelligence operations in Hong Kong. Short of the government not charging him for that specific thing (say, to avoid talking about it altogether), there's doesn't seem to be any way to avoid getting in trouble for it.

Everyone seems to be mad about that one. However I've yet to see ANYONE in the mainstream press point out that the Obama administration was recently trying to pass legislation that reduced privacy protection for Americans as a response to the Chinese doing exactly what we are doing to the Chinese. There is a high level of hypocrisy here. Call me an idealist, but my belief is that the USA as a country should take the…

Obama threatened to veto CISPA if it landed on his desk without the privacy issues fixed.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#307

Post by mverwijs »

DanielRibeiro wrote: post #36
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…

The pardon petition also only needs more 7k signatures: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow... Remember that the goal is to get the government address the issue, and show that the people are not fine with the NSA's actions. It would be nice to get them to actually pardon him, but that is a much harder goal.

I'm surprised that I, as a non-US citizen living in the Netherlands, could sign that.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#308

Post by o0-0o »

kimlelly wrote: post #305
pinaceae wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey, non-US citizen here. assuming you're a US citizen based on your "outrage". the point of your defence budget (how large is it again) is to project power through the military and intelligence services. it is ASTOUNDING that only now you seem to have realized what the US intelligennce apparatus is doing. of course they are collecting all the data, they are basically replicating google to be able to search within di…

"...your defence budget (how large is it again)" It's about the size of the 10 biggest following countries COMBINED! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e... That is YOUR hard earned tax money at work AGAINST YOU.

Black projects are not listed in a public budget. The premise of it being tax money is also suspect. The US government does not get all of the money from taxes despite the popular notion. I agree with your gist however; A modern day human sacrifice.

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#309

Post by rwmj »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So now is the time to identify the federal prosecutors who filed this and petition the government to have them fired. In addition, of course, to asking for a complete pardon for Snowden. It also should be noted that any of the Congressional investigations into this mess are perfectly capable of giving Snowden a grant of immunity from prosecution. People ask what to do. There are at least two avenues open to nip this…

The Rule of Law here pretty clearly says Snowdon should be charged, and convicted if guilty. The prosecutors are doing their jobs by arresting him.

Pardoning him would be the Rule of Man.

Just sayin' ..

Re: U.S. charges Edward Snowden with espionage

#310

Post by btilly »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #306
btilly wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to be mad about that one. However I've yet to see ANYONE in the mainstream press point out that the Obama administration was recently trying to pass legislation that reduced privacy protection for Americans as a response to the Chinese doing exactly what we are doing to the Chinese. There is a high level of hypocrisy here. Call me an idealist, but my belief is that the USA as a country should take the…

Obama threatened to veto CISPA if it landed on his desk without the privacy issues fixed.

Yes, once it was clear in polling that the bill was a political nonstarter nation-wide, Obama took that position. At the same time, as http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ among others pointed out at that point, his administration was already violating privacy in all the ways that his rhetoric would say were bad.

Of course that was before the NSA revelations revealed the true extent of the spying going on.

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