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Let Snowden Come Home

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Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#181

Post by derefr »

themeek wrote: post #177
derefr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I was talking about the information bubble within China , affecting Chinese citizens. The people within it are immune to Chinese government propaganda; the people outside of it (most of the rural population, for starters) are affected by the propaganda. The Chinese government doesn't care to attempt to change what Americans think about China; they know they won't be able to convince them of anything after s…

Here is a 2009 report in the first session of the 111th Congress on Chinese Propaganda targeting the United States. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/china/09_04_30_infl_ops.... America propagandizes China, China propagandizes America, China propagandizes China and America propagandizes America. Or, if you perfer, each country performs "Influence Operations", "Strategic Communications", "Psychological Operations".

Sure. I do prefer the latter terms, though—because using "propaganda" in both contexts makes it seem like it would be the same information being sewn domestically and abroad. Whereas what China wants America to think (and what America wants China to think) are very different things—and pursued in very different ways by very different parts of government—than what each country wants their own citizens to think.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#182

Post by themeek »

eli wrote: post #169
themeek wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the history of Espionage Act cases - the Espionage Act being a wartime temporary restriction of normal constitutional proceedings that survived past its wartime statute - excludes the possibility of arguing a whistleblower case, which is what Snowden would want in this case to argue. It's important to note that Snowden did not disclose these documents - he brought them to journalists, who then worked with the USG…

Regardless of how long ago the law was passed, it intuitively makes sense that it's illegal to publicly disclose national security secrets. This talk of the history of the Espionage Act feels like a lot of hand waving. You make it sound like the government cherrypicked and misapplied some old law in order to stymie Snowden's defense. I don't believe there ever was (nor ever will be) a scenario where leaking national…

Please see the reference to Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and the associated Supreme Court case where document leaking was protected by whistleblowing. You can also look at the COINTELPRO leaks.

The Espionage Act has been used a total of 8 times, multiple times during the Obama Administration.

(You can disagree but Lavabit had suite that it effectively was not allowed to bring. This is point I made above - Lavabit was trying to mount a legal defense against the destruction of its business in this case; it was not able to.)

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#183

Post by pdeuchler »

rayiner wrote: post #55
sixQuarks wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that most people in America know more about Bruce Jenner then they do Snowden.

Can one reasonably believe that acceptance of transsexuals in the U.S. is a much bigger deal than NSA surveillance?

Nope. Not even in the slightest.

There will always be those who are marginalized on the edge of society. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to address those issues, but trying to reach some sort of utopia where everyone is perfectly included in society is delusional at best.

On the other hand, the NSA revelations present a pretty clear path to totalitarianism for 100% of the population. It would be pretty hard to argue that such a result can be outweighed by much more that doesn't include some sort of large swath of death.

I know from your past comments that you probably disagree with my "clear path" statement, so just to make sure... At it's absolute highest projection the transgender population is ~10% of the US. It would be extremely hard to argue that the NSA's overreach in power effects a smaller percentage than that, and even harder to argue that having a governmental organization with no accountability would be a positive influence on any portion of the population. And that's not even addressing the butterfly effect of so many of the NSA's programs.

A quick thought experiment: The two issues might be more intertwined than you think... any society that accepts transgender/transsexual individuals must contain some semblance of privacy. The NSA is an active opponent of any kind of privacy we hope to have. Thus, you could draw a straight line from NSA abuse to the further acceptance of LGBTQ individuals in society.

Edit: I hate calling out anon downvoters, but I'm gonna break my own rules and ask anyone to challenge my assumption that any kind of social reform takes precedence over the subversion of our fundamental political system and basis upon which we derive civil rights. (Pro tip: you can't, because civil rights are a priori a requirement of social reform)

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#184

Post by task_queue »

themeek wrote: post #137
linkregister wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they also do not know much about the America's support of Chinese civil unrest Me either, can you give a recent example or two?

I don't have time for anything comprehensive, but if you feel like doing your own research look into: - NGOs and CSOs the US has in China and their support of Civil Society; Civil Society is a comprehensive word that means signon to US standards, expectations, culture, economic norms, etc - Source code (hosted on GitHub) that supports civil dissidents and websites (greatfirewall) that align with US narrative work tha…

This is very interesting, do you have any sources of information where I can read up about this? Even a general site where information like this is curated.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#185

Post by TeMPOraL »

rayiner wrote: post #121
rosser wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to understand, and easier to have a visceral, attention-grabbing (and, more importantly, attention-keeping ) reaction to. That's what appears to matter most in American "news" reporting.

That's not what I asked. My question is, can a reasonable person believe that the acceptance of transexuals in mainstream American society is a more important and newsworthy concern than NSA surveillance?

Depends on what you mean by "important" and "newsworthy". If you mean a topic that people will care about and that will sell papers, then hell yes. The general principle is, the more important (in affecting individual, social and planetary future) a topic is, the less mainstream cares about it.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#186

Post by linkregister »

guelo wrote: post #151
tzs wrote: post #130

There was an interesting comment on Reddit pointing out some things often overlooked in these discussions [1]. People seem to forget that he leaked information on both illegal and legal foreign spying (which is what the NSA is supposed to be doing). The former is arguably whistleblowing, but the latter is not. Even Greenwald and Binney admit this. See the reddit comment for details and links to sources. Particularly…

It's wrong to break into foreign computers and spy on people. If China did it to you would not think, "oh china, you rascally superpower". You would be scared shitless and would contact the FBI. It's state sponsored terrorism. It's also, technically, an act of war.

I'm in doubt about any real negative diplomatic or economic repercussions that prolific Chinese computer espionage has yielded for China. The strongest American responses to Chinese espionage have been from the Google and Github corporations. The U.S. government issues tepid responses [1] [2] [3] to incidents that would be considered some of the most impressive and extreme acts of espionage. (The U.S. government issued indictments for the operators behind [2], but this is essentially a no-op since they need to be on U.S. soil to be arrested.)

The fact is that the major powers of the world conduct espionage and that disclosures are not handled as acts of war. Discovered spies are typically placed in a persona non grata diplomatic status and granted safe passage back to their home countries. See U.S. spy Ryan Fogle. [4]

I don't mean to pick on China; I addressed it because it was the example you gave. Every major power has had at least one widespread computer espionage campaign discovered by Kaspersky, Symantec, Mandiant/FireEye, etc.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29817644 (White House computer intrusion by China)

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21502088 (U.S. Defense contractors' networks intrusion by China)

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21271849 (New York Times network intrusion by China)

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_declared_persona...

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#187

Post by josu »

dragonwriter wrote: post #153
josu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>legal foreign spying I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't sound right.

US law does not prohibit US intelligence services from spying on foreign countries. Quite the opposite. So, from a US perspective, NSA foreign intelligence gathering (specifically SIGINT gathering, its whole mandate) is, generally speaking, legal.

So what does the US law say about spying on your own citizens? Wasn't the NSA acting within its powers too?

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#188

Post by themartorana »

bbatsell wrote: post #45
eli wrote: post #11

Perhaps a minority opinion, but I believe the NSA vastly overstepped and that they need to be reined in (much further than what the USA Freedom Act contains)... but also that Snowden probably should face charges. Snowden is charged with "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person," which -- I think sensibly -- is illegal even if the unauthorized person is a r…

> I'm not a lawyer, but if he wants to argue that he's innocent or that the law is unconstitutional, it seems like the courtroom is the right place to make that argument. You should know that he would be legally barred from doing so under an Espionage Act prosecution. https://freedom.press/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-tr... https://freedom.press/blog/2014/01/sen-schumer-wrong-snowden...

This is the stuff of nightmares. My nightmares, anyway. A fair and speedy trial in which you are not allowed to argue against the charges you face.

It flies in the face of everything American and everything decent. There's a reason jury nullification is a thing - it's a check against the unbridled power and resources of the prosecution, and any laws that may be unjust by existing.

Seriously, it's crazy to me when shit is ruled inadmissible when the information clearly has everything to do with the case. And if I put myself in the shoes of a juror, if I pass a verdict and later find out part of the truth was withheld, I'm very much going to feel that I was used - a pawn in a broken system, and not at all a participant in justice.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#189

Post by themeek »

derefr wrote: post #181
themeek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a 2009 report in the first session of the 111th Congress on Chinese Propaganda targeting the United States. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/china/09_04_30_infl_ops.... America propagandizes China, China propagandizes America, China propagandizes China and America propagandizes America. Or, if you perfer, each country performs "Influence Operations", "Strategic Communications", "Psychological Operations".

Sure. I do prefer the latter terms, though—because using "propaganda" in both contexts makes it seem like it would be the same information being sewn domestically and abroad. Whereas what China wants America to think (and what America wants China to think) are very different things—and pursued in very different ways by very different parts of government—than what each country wants their own citizens to think.

I don't see how using propaganda would imply that the same information are being sewn multiple places.

Propaganda is merely the focused government effort to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products.

Different audiences are going to require different messaging.

The US's propaganda is quite different than China's propaganda when it comes to the exact physical end product, although the countries are starting to share more and more common tactical forms and procedures.

Of course what the US wants US civilians to think is different than was the US wants China to think is different from what US wants Chinese civilians to think is different from what China wants USG to think is different from what China was US civilians to think.

Propaganda is not a blunt instrument. It has to be and is targeted to specific audiences.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#190

Post by jenius »

mortehu wrote: post #89
hueving wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would join the hopefully overwhelming protests in favor of his release. All 12 of us would be fired up! More seriously, did you see the bit on John Oliver about Snowden? The majority of the US population have no idea who Snowden is. Be careful not to get caught up in our tech news bubble.

I think the being known to a majority of the US population is a way too high bar. In a 2010 poll[1], only 59% knew the name of the vice president, as mentioned in a Greenwald article[2] about this issue. 1. http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-s... 2. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/06/john-oliver-in...

Honestly, I'd be significantly more likely to know Snowden's name than the vice president. I feel like he made a major impact on society that will be written about in history books for years to come. If you don't follow politics closely, the vice president is simply not relevant. The only way you'd know their name is by remembering it from the last presidential campaign, where the his and the president's names were everywhere, or if a vice president happened to do something extraordinary, which if I'm not mistaken is not super common.

I hear people citing this specific stat all the time as a proof about how stupid or uninformed americans are, and every time I hear it it bothers me. Knowing the vice president's name is something that is neither useful nor relevant to most americans, and therefore not knowing it makes sense entirely. I honestly don't see how that makes them uninformed at all.

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