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Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

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Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#101

Post by Ihmahr »

codex wrote: post #94

It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régi…

> His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record.

How poor is their record (including foreign policy) compared with the US?

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#102

Post by nknighthb »

wavefunction wrote: post #98
nknighthb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you proposing that tens of thousands of people around the globe working together on multi-billion-dollar projects perform their jobs effectively if all the information is stored on isolated machines?

Geographic isolation, first, so no more "globe-spanning" workforce on trillion-dollar projects. Then they can only work on a dedicated internal network on machines they leave in the office, which media-isolation limited to heavily controlled workstations so someone can't copy things over USB or burn it to disk or upload it via a VPN tunnel. That seems fair, considering the magnitude of the expenditures and the nature…

So, at this point, are you saying unspecified Lockheed employees should be brought up on criminal charges for doing their work in a manner approved and even directed by the US government?

Or do you just not have any idea how government contracting works?

Edit: Perhaps I should be more clear. There are multiple companies working on these projects. Some of them are in multiple countries. The US government has awarded contracts for various parts of the F-35 project to these various companies and told them to work together. The government knows this will involve communicating between multiple sites around the world.

Even within the US, the government knows different companies are in different states, and does not expect the entire workforce of every company to relocate to one place. These contracts are awarded to geographically diverse companies for political reasons, which you might not like, but that's how it is.

You can't charge people with a crime for executing on a government contract in exactly the manner they are supposed to.

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#103

Post by wazoox »

codex wrote: post #94

It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régi…

Strangely, Venezuela is deemed undemocratic in right-wing newspapers and democratic in left-wing ones. As far as I can judge by myself, it's certainly as democratic as the US or any European country. I mean at least there were real ideological differences between the two last presidential candidates. Whereas Obama's simply going on with the Bush policies, while in Europe people aren't allowed to choose their economic policy through vote.

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#104

Post by wazoox »

Ihmahr wrote: post #101
codex wrote: post #94

It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régi…

> His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. How poor is their record (including foreign policy) compared with the US?

Honestly, China and Russia fare extremely bad. Cuba has been better these last few years, but still is a single party undemocratic regime. Venezuela OTOH seems quite reasonable.

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#105

Post by notdrunkatall »

pekk wrote: post #80
nayefc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all sick of the US acting like the big boss around the world. +1 to Hong Kong, Russia and the rest giving it the big middle finger.

It will be much preferable, of course, to have Russia acting like the big boss around the world, or China.

Sarcasm, I presume?

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#106

Post by cjfont »

mvaliente2001 wrote: post #91
cjfont wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you accept an audit conducted behind closed doors, which for unknown reasons did not include the electoral notebooks uniquely identifying each voter, for an election that had more than 3,200 irregularities[1] including instances of individuals attempting to vote multiple times? I wouldn't, and I'm not sure Jimmy Carter would either. [1] http://rt.com/news/venezuela-presidential-election-results-8...

The audit was a public act where participated all the parties, with the curious exception of the one who solicited it. It was open to the public, and filmed. People around the world was invited and witnessed it. The electoral notebooks were audited twice. The first time before the October 2012 elections and the second one before the 2013 elections. In both case, the opposition parties approved the process. Now they a…

What good is the fact that the notebooks were audited before the last elections? The whole point of including them in the audit process is to fully ensure that each vote is valid and tied to a unique individual, not simply verifying whether an anonymous ballot was cast one way or another. The CNE can but doesn't want to include the notebooks, and the excuse is that the law doesn't require them to.

As far as the irregularities, my point wasn't they should all be automatically taken seriously, but certainly it should be within the CNE's interest to try to dispel some of the more plausible accusations such as voters attempting to vote multiple times under different identities.

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#107

Post by Tloewald »

nayefc wrote: post #95
pekk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be much preferable, of course, to have Russia acting like the big boss around the world, or China.

There's really no better. They're all worse than each other.

Seymour Hersh is still writing for the New Yorker, Woodward writes extensively on US politics, Michael Moore is still making movies, and Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg can still discuss US foreign policy over a kitchen table.

Do you honestly think they're all the same? We're discussing a scandal about the NSA being exposed as doing something I for one have always assumed they were doing as a matter of course (indeed, I assumed they did worse and believe they probably do). Mostly I hoped the NSA was more competent.

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#108

Post by WildUtah »

maneesh wrote: post #62
yeezus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have no extradition treaty with the US. That's why George Clooney fled there.

Also relevant: David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner

Also relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-DShN82mc

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#109

Post by Tloewald »

AJ007 wrote: post #100
codex wrote: post #94

It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régi…

Its a giant red flag that he fears the US more than any of these countries -- which, as Americans, would assume would happily interrogate him for years to get the valuable intelligence he allegedly holds. Watching very closely.

It's not a red flag. He's committed a crime in the US. If I shot someone in Australia and fled to Iran that wouldn't be a "red flag" about Australia. (I'm not saying Snowden did anything wrong, but he definitely committed crimes under US law.)

Re: Snowden's destination is Venezuela through Havana

#110

Post by nayefc »

droithomme wrote: post #97
nayefc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anybody looks stupid, it's clearly the US Government. Not really. What can they really do? Usually, they'd bully countries into submission. Hong Kong proved it does not bow down to the US. They also cannot really kidnap him or anything like that. It's way too public at this point, and as "terrible" the CIA sometimes is, they're not a bunch of murdering assholes like the Mossad.

You are correct the Mossad assassinates people routinely. However, this is a poorly chosen rhetorical attack in defense of the CIA since the US currently is engaging in a global assassination war using drones and other means which has murdered far far more people than the Mossad ever has, and far more of those people are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Mossad at least picks specific and known enemy leaders and…

I completely agree with everything you said. I strongly oppose drones as well, and I know all about them. I was not defending the US or the CIA. I always thought the DoD runs the drones operation. I did not know however (or just did not make the connection) that the operatives are members of the CIA as well. But now I do know :)
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