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Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

thenational.scot

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Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#121

Post by School-Cotton »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #95
tptacek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scotland is the UK . Scotland's airspace is managed by the UK central government. This is like saying "flying over Maine, rather than over the more typical USA, is suggestive of subsurface politics".

It's still a country, albeit one in increasingly reluctant political union with England. It would be rare for a Scot to refer to something as happening in the UK rather than specifically Scotland. The legal system is independent and different to England and Wales for instance. The nearest US equivalent would I guess be Puerto Rico rather than Maine.

Alaska and Maine have different legal systems too. Scotland is culturally considered a country, sure, but I'm curious whether that has any concrete meaning.

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#122

Post by jccc »

tptacek wrote: post #63
scrollaway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden has been far more independently active since his asylum. He even maintains a twitter account. It's not like his entire life is filtered through the media.

I understand that (believe me; get RT'd by him sometime and see what happens to your mentions). But add up everything he's said publicly and you still don't have a complete picture of what he had, who he gave it to, and who got what. I'm not suggesting that anything nefarious happened. I do not think Snowden is an FSB operative. I think he grabbed a giant tranche of documents, few of which he actually read, and hande…

Does the USG also have an interest in (c) the ability to prosecute and punish Snowden in such a conspicuous and forceful way that anyone else in a position similar to his would be frightened enough not to take any action similar to his?

Snowden and his informal team of assistants

Do you believe Greenwald, et al. are collaborators and therefore should be prosecuted?

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#123

Post by atmosx »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

One thing I don't understand - why would the US care? Why expend resources on trying to capture Snowden? He's basically harmless at this point - he's passed all the information he had to few journalists (which would be a better target now) and there's no way anyone will ever let him near anything more secret than grandma's cookies recipe. Besides petty vengeance, what's the point?

> One thing I don't understand - why would the US care? Why expend resources on trying to capture Snowden?

To dishearten any future whistleblower, it's a matter of pride. He must pay and he must pay big like Manning.

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6qN167wKo

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#124

Post by MagnumOpus »

canistr wrote: post #62
ghrifter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most "tech savvy" people support him and how he made us aware of the NSA bs, but a lot of normal people who just watch the news view him as a "traitor" to 'Murica (America). Sadly, people think "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care if the government/NSA monitors my internet usage/history/etc". Personally, I think the terrorists have won in a small sense. TSA is a joke (American airport security), NSA monitors ever…

I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter. And I wouldn't suggest people suddenly align themselves one way or the other based on the premise of tech-savviness, education-level, political-savviness, etc.

> I wouldn't conflate tech-savviness with being a Snowden-supporter.

I would. You will find the correlation to be extremely high.

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#125

Post by jccc »

tptacek wrote: post #63
scrollaway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden has been far more independently active since his asylum. He even maintains a twitter account. It's not like his entire life is filtered through the media.

I understand that (believe me; get RT'd by him sometime and see what happens to your mentions). But add up everything he's said publicly and you still don't have a complete picture of what he had, who he gave it to, and who got what. I'm not suggesting that anything nefarious happened. I do not think Snowden is an FSB operative. I think he grabbed a giant tranche of documents, few of which he actually read, and hande…

It's not crazy to think that the USG might want to relieve Snowden of that role.

The argument has been made that a crucial difference between Snowden and other recent whistleblowers is his relative freedom to participate in ongoing conversations and inspire potential future whistleblowers.

Is it crazy to think that the USG might want to relieve Snowden of that role?

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#126

Post by bediger4000 »

SuperChihuahua wrote: post #29
vlunkr wrote: post #10

I really hope they pardon him eventually. I could be wrong, but don't most americans support what he did? EDIT: you are probably all correct, plenty of people don't understand/care who he is or what he stands for. I still wish the government would recognize that the NSA is acting unconstitutionally and he called them out on it.

Are we sure that he didn't leak anything else to the Russians?

Are we sue that there's anything left to leak to the Russians that matters?

1. I worked in the aerospace industry in the 80s. Every once in a while, whatever I was working on would show up in "Aviation News". All the details were there, everything.

2. The DoD gives more information about satellite launches to Russian than they do to their own citizens. Yes, this is to prevent Russia from mistaking an Atlas launch for a Minuteman launch, but still...

3. Does it matter? There's very few real national secrets, which are certainly overwhelmed by career-ending blunders, favoritism towards certain contractors, massive budget overruns, and incompetent designs. The amazing majority of "classified" material is absolute tripe, and whoever reads it actually becomes stupider.

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#127

Post by bertil »

tptacek wrote: post #65
mc32 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing Scotland over the more usual U.K. or British, is peculiar. It's like saying a Russian aircraft violated Alaskan airspace rather than US airspace. This choice is possibly indicative of other subsurface politics.

Scotland is the UK . Scotland's airspace is managed by the UK central government. This is like saying "flying over Maine, rather than over the more typical USA, is suggestive of subsurface politics".

The newspaper is implicitly arguing that if Scotland becomes independent enough to have their own air authority, they would be able to prevent those. “Look what is happening in your name that you disagree with.”

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#128

Post by jonlucc »

tptacek wrote: post #99
jonlucc wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know we're getting a bit off topic, but can you share what happens to your mentions when you get RTd by Snowden?

ZILLIONS of randos. That guy has some engaged followers.

Mostly positive though? I wondered if you meant that you were being bashed for being related.

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#129

Post by tomjen3 »

tptacek wrote: post #22

The craft was used in controversial US ‘rendition’ missions This is apparently true, but misleading. The specific plane we're discussing was used by the CIA, but by this point had been transferred to DOJ for some time. It's also misleading to use the word "rendition" as a shorthand for "extraordinary rendition" (which is itself newspeak for "kidnapping"). "Rendition" itself is simply the process of effectuating extra…

What should have happen is that the US should be banned in all eternity from any kind of rendition, "extraordinary" or otherwise and the plane put up on the white house lawn as a permanent object of shame.

Re: Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

#130

Post by infinite8s »

tptacek wrote: post #115
SapphireSun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there might be prosecutions in 30 years. That's long enough for people to come around and for the perpetrators to still be alive. If evaluated as a strictly criminal matter, these are the sorts of crimes that do not have a statute of limitations, though the fact they were official duties might activate one.

There's no precedent for that in American history, though, and while the CIA torture program was unmistakably evil, it's far from the worst thing that has happened in the US over the last 100 years.

What would you rank higher?
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