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Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

animalnewyork.com

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Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#281

Post by [deleted] »

dragontamer wrote: post #248
adamnemecek wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Snowden is the first guy I'm aware of who fled to China (and later, to Russia) to protect his own free speech. Color me a little bit suspicious of him. There aren't that many countries who would not release Snowden to the US.

Yes there are. Ecuador has proven itself reliable with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. It proved itself reliable _long_ before Snowden decided to pull Chinese-specific information from the US Spy agency, fly to China, release Chinese information and (probably) beg to stay. Instead of going to a reliable country like Ecuador, he went to China. Snowden isn't a dumb guy either, he was clearly keeping up with the news.…

[deleted]

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#282

Post by brightsize »

pc2g4d wrote: post #171

Fremont (in Seattle) might be a good home for this. It already hosts that crazy Lenin statue!

The Seattle parks department has not in the past seen a reason to leap to cover up and/or remove unauthorized structures that have appeared in its parks. The Monolith (2001) [1] comes to mind. Note that it was not covered or dismantled by the authorities, it was simply stolen. There have been other cases [2] where the city has been downright laid-back about such things, even supportive in a nod-and-a-wink sort of way. Yes indeed, it would be an honor to have this statue here in Washington state. The Fremont Lenin [3] statue has been for sale on and off over the years, the last time priced at $250K. If I could scrape together a spare $1/4M I'd be tempted to buy it and put it on my front lawn.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Monolith

[2] http://tiny.cc/4g1owx

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle

Edit: formatting

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#284

Post by mixmax »

plainOldText wrote: post #62

It's interesting to see that these people (1) installed the bust in such a way that it can be easily removed without damaging the existing structure and (2) went to great lengths to ensure that the new design is honoring the aesthetics that were already in place. One can argue otherwise, but I think this is a very creative and considerate form of protest which btw is also non-violent.

it's civil disobedience at its best.

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#285

Post by nbouscal »

dragontamer wrote: post #278
rosser wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're seriously suggesting that FISA is some kind of check on the use/abuse of the government's surveillance powers, you're either a shill, or deluded.

And if that is where you stop your argument, then you aren't helpful at all. Why don't you trust FISA? And if you don't trust it, what reforms to the FISA courts are you proposing? Or are you just a lazy armchair protester who doesn't even think about how to improve the world around you? Hey look, I can fling insults at you too and be unhelpful!! Seriously, the FISA system is documented, and it is part of the debate.…

Since 1979, out of 33,949 requests submitted, the FISA court has denied 12 of them, 4 of which were later partially granted after being resubmitted. You're correct in saying that it's good that this number is documented, but it also makes it extremely clear that the FISA court cannot be meaningfully said to constitute independent oversight.

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#287

Post by rosser »

dragontamer wrote: post #278
rosser wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're seriously suggesting that FISA is some kind of check on the use/abuse of the government's surveillance powers, you're either a shill, or deluded.

And if that is where you stop your argument, then you aren't helpful at all. Why don't you trust FISA? And if you don't trust it, what reforms to the FISA courts are you proposing? Or are you just a lazy armchair protester who doesn't even think about how to improve the world around you? Hey look, I can fling insults at you too and be unhelpful!! Seriously, the FISA system is documented, and it is part of the debate.…

At a minimum, I'd like something enabling me to trust that FISA isn't just the rubber stamp it has every appearance of being. It has denied less than 0.035% of the requests ever submitted to it (and a third of those were subsequently at least partially granted, anyway), and "modified" (where "modification" appears to be a request for clarification, given the public remarks one former FISA judge made on the subject) less than 1.5% of them.

As "oversight" goes, that sounds rather a lot like, "That's nice, son. You run along and play, now..."

Almost all of the sitting members of the court are former law enforcement in some way, and many of them have evinced strongly statist and authoritarian views in the rulings they've made in the trial courts they also sit in.

So I'd also like to see some membership on the panel that doesn't seem hand-picked to yes-man (nearly) every request that comes along. I'm not suggesting this as a definitive proposal for changing the court, but what about including members from (or elected by) demonstrably pro-liberty organizations like the EFF or ACLU or whatever, with some kind of veto-like power?

I legitimately believe that there is value in being able to investigate suspected "bad" actors — and that sometimes those investigations must be surreptitious, or that actor will become aware of the suspicion and change his behavior. I don't buy the leap from that being the case to, "We can look into anyone at any time for any reason, or no reason at all, and then use whatever we find against you down the road, or hand it off to sibling agencies for 'parallel construction' type purposes." (And don't even try to suggest that doesn't happen. We know it does.)

So there's two thoughts off the top of my head.

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#288

Post by csandreasen »

rhino369 wrote: post #167
cryoshon wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the state wants it to be so, it will be legal. The holocaust was legal. Segregation was legal. Stop mentioning legality of the NSA spying; the government writes the laws for their own benefit, of course what they do is legal. Legality of government actions is utterly, brutally, critically, inhospitably irrelevant when compared to what is ethical. A dragnet isn't ethical. A police state isn't ethical. Furthermore,…

I agree morality and legality aren't the same thing. But we cannot have a personal morality exception to classified materials. I'm sure many people who work for the Department of Defense think the Iranian Nuclear deal is wrong. Should they be able to leak a bunch of classified information to sour it? I'm sure they'd believe making peace with, in their minds, genocidal maniacs with nukes is completely immoral. >Furthe…

The PATRIOT Act and Section 215 has been controversial since way before 2006. You might remember the whole argument that the FBI could collect everyone's library records and look for people reading subversive books.

This article is dated February 15th, 2002, and one of its references is a now dead link to an article entitled "Library computers targeted in terrorism investigation" from the Sun Sentinel dated September 18, 2001.

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#289

Post by mikeash »

tessierashpool wrote: post #188
plainOldText wrote: post #62

It's interesting to see that these people (1) installed the bust in such a way that it can be easily removed without damaging the existing structure and (2) went to great lengths to ensure that the new design is honoring the aesthetics that were already in place. One can argue otherwise, but I think this is a very creative and considerate form of protest which btw is also non-violent.

Snowden's a hero and deserves his place on that memorial. This whole deal with the people putting up a statue of a hero and the government tearing it down? Not what America's supposed to be about. Combine that with the fact that most of the senators who voted for the Patriot Act probably read 1984, and didn't object to the obvious propaganda in the name Patriot Act? Not what America's supposed to be about either.

I don't think "the people" put up this statue. Some people did, but it's hardly some popular movement.

Re: Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn

#290

Post by hackuser »

Don't overlook the potentially enormous cost to the artists for this brief statement, in both time and money:

The materials needed to create a bust of this type cost thousands of dollars, and the pair ponied up the cash. It then took a little over six months to sculpt, mold, cast and ship to New York. Had the sculptor charged market rates, he said it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. “The amount of work that goes into this kind of stuff, it’s easily a 30 grand project,” said the 30-something sculptor. “If it were bronze, it could be a $100,000 piece of artwork, maybe more.”

[From the article]

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