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Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

m.washingtonpost.com

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Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#141

Post by malandrew »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #117
alan_cx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been arrested by a corporation.

Do you think law enforcement aren't included in there customers? I know for a fact in the UK at least that they are. As for being arrested by a corporation - that will change. The UK government for one are beginning a process of outsourcing some elements of front line policing.

Interesting thought, I can imagine an ad campaign on Facebook targeting marijuana growers, and then the government using the profile information of those that click through to investigate them.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#142

Post by xradionut »

alan_cx wrote: post #115
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well IMO it's kind of silly to care about the government snooping through my data when huge corporations are the ones who actually own the fiber and can siphon all the traffic they want -- then sell it. You're basically choosing between the US government or a combination of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and Deutsche Telekom.

I've never been arrested by a corporation.

Why should they arrest you when they can destroy you economically?

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#144

Post by toddmorey »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #27

Jesus Christ some of the comments on that article. I wonder if there was some way to analyse what percentage of it is astro-turfing and what percentage is real red-blooded Americans just brainwashed into thinking government knows best. Americans you are lost. It's been nice knowing you.

I love getting another perspective from European publications. However, I've come to discover that the comments section of ANY worldwide newspaper makes you lose faith in the local population.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#145

Post by malandrew »

visakanv wrote: post #13
jessedhillon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assumption #1 in your comment: NSA activities have not and are unable to stop arbitrary terror attacks at all. Assumption #2: That successful attacks in this scenario would lead (reasonable or otherwise) people to demand less surveillance. Assumption #3: Terrorists want to the NSA programs ended, which would not make sense if #1 is true. So I'm not sure why this would be a good strategy for anyone.

I think you misinterpreted the comment. It's arguing that now would be the optimal time for terrorists to strike, validating the NSA.

I don't disagree that that is how it would be portrayed by the media and viewed by the public. But a thinking man would argue otherwise, since it would mean that a terrorist attacked just when the NSA had the most amount of information available ever. A terrorist attack right now would show that dragnet surveillance on top of being Orwellian is also ineffective. When you're looking for more needles, collecting more hay without extremely powerful tools for hay processing is insanity.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#146

Post by delinka »

saraid216 wrote: post #103
quesera wrote: post #5

> “If I defected at all,” Snowden said, “I defected from the government to the public.” He can't run til 2020, but I'll cast an early vote now.

And people don't understand what makes Christianity appealing.

Maybe it's just me, but I need you to tie this together for me.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#147

Post by notdonspaulding »

sailfast wrote: post #134
hooande wrote: post #87

But what has really changed? The NSA is under pressure from the public, less so from the intelligence and defense communities. If anything Snowden has caused those areas of government to close ranks even tighter. There's nothing a leader wants more than a highly visible enemy to unite his or her people. There are orders of magnitude more people who hate General Alexander now than there were two years ago. But his own…

> "But what has really changed?" The major change that I am seeing is that cases previously dismissed due to "national security" or other factors due to classification are now being heard in public courts. This allows the judicial system to perform its job properly and for Americans to bring their grievances formally to effect change. This is a big move forward, and will catalyze a great deal of change as court rulin…

> "This is a big move forward, and will catalyze a great deal of change as court rulings can sometimes move faster than legislation."

Please let's not confuse the responsibilities of the courts and the responsibilities of the legislature. They're different for very good reason.

There's little to legislate here, anyway. What Snowden's revelations are targeted to doing is bringing the Government's actual behavior in line with the law, (in this case the 4th amendment of the Constitution). That's strictly the purview of the courts.

The bits that will require legislation (like "Data collected by the GCHQ on Americans should be treated the same as if it were collected on american soil") are loopholes in the wording of the law that the Government has exploited to do whatever it wanted to do. Closing technical loopholes like that may require legislation.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#148

Post by sailfast »

notdonspaulding wrote: post #147
sailfast wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But what has really changed?" The major change that I am seeing is that cases previously dismissed due to "national security" or other factors due to classification are now being heard in public courts. This allows the judicial system to perform its job properly and for Americans to bring their grievances formally to effect change. This is a big move forward, and will catalyze a great deal of change as court rulin…

> "This is a big move forward, and will catalyze a great deal of change as court rulings can sometimes move faster than legislation." Please let's not confuse the responsibilities of the courts and the responsibilities of the legislature. They're different for very good reason. There's little to legislate here, anyway. What Snowden's revelations are targeted to doing is bringing the Government's actual behavior in li…

Agreed - they definitely have different roles, however if something is legislated and cannot be argued against in court as constitutional that complicates matters. I was thinking more along the lines of PATRIOT Act rewrites coming up in the next year and the awareness of oversight bodies in the legislature such as the intelligence committee that would be providing guidance and funding to agencies.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#149

Post by kochb »

> "Until you’ve got to pull the trigger, until you’ve had to bury your people, you don’t have a clue."

Falling to the "you don't know what it's like" argument is never a good sign. You're acting out of pain and so emotionally invested in justifying your actions that you're incapable of communicating an evidence based rationale to an outsider. You can't reach a reasoned resolution like that.

Re: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

#150

Post by notdonspaulding »

peterkelly wrote: post #92
eru wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll probably make him a felon, won't they? (Can you vote for felons in the US?)

Bush and Obama both got elected for second terms...

I see what you did there.
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