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Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace to capture Snowden

thenational.scot

21–30 of 244 posts

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

#21
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.

Most Americans probably do not even know who he is.

Of those who do, I'd say roughly half support him and half think he should go to jail.

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

#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 extradition. The term "extraordinary rendition" is doubly Orwellian, because "rendition" is the word for what a host jurisdiction does. A government cooperating in extradition renders subjects. The CIA kidnapped people, apparently without engaging any process of the host government.

To make matters worse, the CIA's kidnapping program sent terrorism subjects to foreign jurisdictions, allegedly (and almost certainly) to enable them to be interrogated by the norms of countries that weren't squeamish about coercive, torturous interrogations. The USG wanted Snowden back on US soil.

I suppose there's a coherent argument to be made that the US should have destroyed the CIA's torture charter jet, and that any further use of that particular piece of equipment is tainted by its history. To me, it's just a plane, and if we're going to do something drastic in response to the CIA's complicity (and participation) in torture, that thing should probably be a series of criminal prosecutions.

Either way, the implication that Snowden was targeted for extrajudicial kidnapping isn't supported by any evidence presented so far. So far, the facts we know about support a pretty boring narrative: the USG knew it was going to charge Snowden with crimes for which most of Europe would comply with extradition, and sent a DOJ plane to streamline that process.

It's hard to blame media outlets for reporting like this, because the story of how we came to know that this particular plane had participated in the CIA's kidnapping scheme makes for really good reading. But it's still important to know the whole story.

And this particular headline is pretty silly. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, proprietors of GCHQ, the west's most unhinged signals intelligence agency. A DOJ plane flying over Scotland to fetch a SIGINT leaker isn't particularly newsworthy.

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

#23
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.

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 everything so nothing is really secure, backdoors are built into all devices, encryption across several companies is being questioned because "terrorists" use it (even though the Paris attacks communication were over SMS).

Edit: typos

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

#24
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.

If you ask most Americans who Edward Snowden is they won't know.

Those that do know seem to largely support what he did even if the way he went about it wasn't the best.

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

#25
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.

No. Mostly. Some support him, but most polls show that Americans don't like him.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snowden%20polls

Foreigners seem to support Snowden; however.

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

#26
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.

I don't think most American's support what he did, because he's been painted a traitor by the government and media. It's a matter of perception and a lack of understanding.

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

#28
post #5

Not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker. -- Obama 6/27/13 http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19166043-obama... He's true though, it wasn't jets.

Well, it's likely it was a jet airplane as the altitude of the flight was 45,000. I suppose in this usage it was implied to be fighter-jets.

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

#29
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?

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

#30
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.

Definitely not. He's very popular abroad, but most Americans don't like what he did.
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