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About the Reuters article

guardian.co.uk

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Re: About the Reuters article

#51

Post by grandalf »

tptacek wrote: post #46
grandalf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your numbered options fairly absurd. The US has let Snowden linger in the Moscow airport, likely hoping that he'll do something stupid due to the stress. By reminding everyone of the dead man switch, Snowden (via Greenwald) reminds the US that both have a shared interest in Snowden's asylum bid moving along smoothly. Your conjecture above depends entirely on the idea that Snowden is unsafe at the Moscow airpor…

What does it matter where he is? The same numbered points would apply if he was holed up in the back of a Chili's in Des Moines.

1) the information had already been published.

2) wildly speculative and wildly inconsistent with all of Greenwald's other behavior.

3) I imagine you have some kind of conspiracy theory to justify this one?

In this case, the simplest answer is that a dead man's switch gives Snowden a bit of additional leverage, and that Greenwald mentioned it to help the reporter interviewing him understand the dynamics of the situation.

Re: About the Reuters article

#52

Post by tptacek »

grandalf wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it matter where he is? The same numbered points would apply if he was holed up in the back of a Chili's in Des Moines.

1) the information had already been published. 2) wildly speculative and wildly inconsistent with all of Greenwald's other behavior. 3) I imagine you have some kind of conspiracy theory to justify this one? In this case, the simplest answer is that a dead man's switch gives Snowden a bit of additional leverage, and that Greenwald mentioned it to help the reporter interviewing him understand the dynamics of the situat…

Next time read the article you're commenting on.

Re: About the Reuters article

#53

Post by grandalf »

tptacek wrote: post #52
grandalf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) the information had already been published. 2) wildly speculative and wildly inconsistent with all of Greenwald's other behavior. 3) I imagine you have some kind of conspiracy theory to justify this one? In this case, the simplest answer is that a dead man's switch gives Snowden a bit of additional leverage, and that Greenwald mentioned it to help the reporter interviewing him understand the dynamics of the situat…

Next time read the article you're commenting on.

I did read it. Did I miss something that invalidates my counter argument?

Re: About the Reuters article

#55

Post by apk17 »

tptacek wrote: post #29

Did Greenwald just say that Snowden has documents that could cause grievous harm the United States, and that he may have set up a dead man's switch that would cause them to be published should any harm come to Snowden? Three possibilities I can see: (1) Greenwald really can't think even one move ahead and see that he's just published a reason for any number of US adversaries to kill his source. (2) Greenwald understa…

No, he didn't. He said it would cause embarrasing damage to the US Government, not to the US per se. Besides this is no news, Snowden himself said so earlier.

Re: About the Reuters article

#56

Post by mortenjorck »

jivatmanx wrote: post #48
brown9-2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, deciders chosen by a government elected by the people, whatever value that has, is of more value than a single self-chosen person who happened to have the correct level of access and skills to access more documents than he was supposed to.

But, few congressmen had any idea of the true extent of this; and Clapper has already admitted to being untruthful to them. Which leaves the president. You can't believe that providing 1 bit of information every four years is sufficient to maintain a democracy, can you? While there are allowed exceptions, a Republic operates on a default assumption of public access and transparency in government, and the liberty and…

  You can't believe that providing 1 bit of information 
  every four years is sufficient to maintain a democracy, 
  can you?
Novelly and thought-provokingly put.

Re: About the Reuters article

#57

Post by apk17 »

brown9-2 wrote: post #50
gnosis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensibly elected (or selected, if the election was decided through fraud) in a system where more than 40% of eligible voters are too disgusted, cynical, or apathetic to vote. In a system where elections are so influenced by money that billions are spent on advertising candidates. Where virtually all the discussion of the candidates is about their personalities and presentation (such as whether a candidate wore a fl…

Elections have plenty of problems. Do you have a better solution?

Fix the known bugs: Gerrymandering, campaign financing.

Re: About the Reuters article

#59

Post by tptacek »

apk17 wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #29

Did Greenwald just say that Snowden has documents that could cause grievous harm the United States, and that he may have set up a dead man's switch that would cause them to be published should any harm come to Snowden? Three possibilities I can see: (1) Greenwald really can't think even one move ahead and see that he's just published a reason for any number of US adversaries to kill his source. (2) Greenwald understa…

No, he didn't. He said it would cause embarrasing damage to the US Government, not to the US per se. Besides this is no news, Snowden himself said so earlier.

Read. [...] the reality that he has all sorts of documents that could quickly and seriously harm the US if disclosed, yet he has published none of those.

Re: About the Reuters article

#60

Post by tptacek »

grandalf wrote: post #44
mtgx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is Obama completely agreed with what the NSA was doing, and most likely even ordered everything to be done that way (that's why he so viciously defended the FISA Amendments Act last year, and why he tried to get lawsuits dismissed). However, I agree that is what he should do anyway. Clapper and Alexander should get fired immediately, and so should Holder - but he's been bailing out Holder so many times, I…

Isn't it silly to fire the officials when the blame lies with the presidents? In my opinion, it's about as useful as blaming Rumsfeld for Bush's war. Appointed officials are servants who fall on their swords when needed to protect the boss. Punishing the underlings just insulates the presidents from blame.

Rumsfeld's culpability for what happened in Iraq is extensive.
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