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Let Snowden Come Home

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Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#291

Post by fenomas »

vacri wrote: post #264
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Because most of the time it's celebrity endoresment - appeal to authority, without having authority. Why should I trust George Clooney's opinion on coffee let alone what he thinks about Darfur?

At least in Jolie's case, she's visited those places. Regardless of her celebrity (and entourage), she has more personal experience than I do. Exposure should at least count for something, even if you have to take resulting comments with a grain of salt due to other factors. I imagine Clooney's also had more access to finer coffee than myself, but I can safely assume that adverts aren't expressing personal opinions i…

> I imagine Clooney's also had more access to finer coffee than myself..

I saw an interview where he mentioned this (probably Inside the Actor's Studio). Words to the effect of: "realistically the studios are not going to fund a biopic about Edward R. Murrow. So if I can fund it by doing coffee ads, that's something I can live with".

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#292

Post by jenius »

eropple wrote: post #197
jenius wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Given Joe Biden's long and fairly distinguished career in the Senate, I would think most adults should know who he is, at least in outline, and know that he's the Vice President. And I don't follow politics any more closely than I think any basically educated American should. But then, there's that "basically educated" thing, isn't it? Our aggressive willingness, as a society, to not know things about how it actually…

Do you honestly think most adults follow what the senate is doing? On top of that, do you think most adults follow what the senate is doing to the extent that they know the names of individual senators, and whether one is more or less distinguished than another?

This would be like me saying that due to X's long and distinguished career in tennis, most americans should know who they are. The problem is that most americans don't follow tennis at all, especially not to the extent that they are familiar with particular players, unless they are superstars that always have their name all over the news (I can think of two for which this might be the case). And senators seem to have their name in the prominent news less frequently than tennis stars, honestly.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#293

Post by yyyyes »

Certhas wrote: post #280
yyyyes wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely. Knowing Joe Biden's name is nothing more than trivia for 99% of Americans and has little to do with knowing "how it actually works". I had to struggle to recall the name. The man is utterly unimportant to me, though I do hope he is eventually punished for the crimes of his administration.

If you don't recall the name of Joe Biden, I very much doubt you know what the administration has done in enough detail to judge whether they were crimes, or if he had any involvement in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#294

Post by brl »

task_queue wrote: post #184
themeek wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://www.voltairenet.org/en is a good site with many essays on these themes.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#295

Post by MrZongle2 »

gojomo wrote: post #71
MrZongle2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A presidential pardon for Snowden won't come from the current occupant of the White House, and by the looks of the candidates so far he'll likely be waiting at least until 2020.

"…won't come from the current occupant of the White House…" Are you sure? In their final days in office, lame-duck Presidents can (and do) use their pardon powers in ways that would be politically-unthinkable at any other time. A total pardon would be very hard – a potentially dangerous precedent, even, for discipline in the security agencies. But perhaps a pardon could be creatively crafted for all acts except some…

"Are you sure? In their final days in office, lame-duck Presidents can (and do) use their pardon powers in ways that would be politically-unthinkable at any other time."

Clinton's last-day pardon of Marc Rich comes to mind...but then again, Rich was a contributor to his campaign so the pardon was just more DC back-scratching.

What possible motivation would exist for the president who continued (and expanded) the Bush-era surveillance state to pardon Snowden? I see none.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#296

Post by cryptophreak »

mirimir wrote: post #282
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…

For those who are curious about what China is telling the Chinese about America etc, some VPN services have Chinese exits. One can also lease Chinese VPS. And usable translation is possible with https://translate.google.com/ plus the Perapera Chinese popup dictionary plug-in for Firefox.

For someone with a passing interest but no desire to do the research, what have you found?

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#297

Post by mVChr »

mapmap wrote: post #127
mVChr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely a few years after his return, when public attention has waned, he would die due to an unfortunate accident of some sort, perhaps a hit and run or the like. While this may sound like conspirilogic, I can site many similar instances of deaths of journalists and other instigators under mysterious circumstances in this country if necessary.

Michael Hastings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)#...

Yes, I was trying to remember his name, thank you.

EDIT: and since I can no longer edit my original comment: *cite

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#298

Post by themeek »

click170 wrote: post #242
themeek wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To catch you up on the Snowden leaks the government was collecting a lot more than metadata. It's also true that Smith v. Maryland is highly controversial. The Third Party Doctrine essentially states that you can't expect technology to provide you technology so long as the technology is bought or served by someone else. Via CALEA and the Stored Information Act, as well as 702 in FISA and a constellation of other legi…

So this means anyone who buys the wrong Samsung smart TV is sacrificing their right to privacy in their own home? Scary.

This is correct under the current interpretation of law.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#299

Post by themeek »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #288
themeek wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Israel has nukes but on an official level 'doesn't have nukes' - the Dr. Strangelove analysis isn't fully complete. (It is true that everyone knows that Israel has nukes). Iran does not have nuclear weapons but they are extremely close to having nuclear weapons. They have the knowledge, the material, etc such that if the sustained cooperation of other nations to sabotage their nuclear operations were to discont…

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but are you sure the reason they don't have nukes is that other countries are stopping them? I had gotten the impression that they definitely have the ability, and haven't done it because they know it will cause a serious escalation in tension for not really a lot of benefit. When the recent Iran deals were being announced, I read material that said something along the lines of…

This is interesting, and of course geopolitics and strategy factor into the decision to acquire the bomb. It's certain that other nations, were Iran to be nuclear armed would feel the need to escalate (Israel) or would otherwise intensify proxy conflict, etc.

I am certain that sabotage efforts are sustained and a critical part of the US-Israel alliance. Beyond the Stuxnet episode and the subsequent Mossad/CIA assassination the history here is dense.

For countries who want to use nuclear readiness as a strategic deterrent, it does make sense to have a short breakout period but not necessarily be already stockpiled.

It's an interesting proposal. My presumption would be that the ideal scenario for Iran would be what was suggested above: that Iran acquire a stockpile, let other countries know that they have them, but not have them in a truly official capacity. It seems like keeping a short breakout period would be less ideal than having a semi-secret, well protected stockpile.

Re: Let Snowden Come Home

#300

Post by rthomas6 »

darklajid wrote: post #231
rhino369 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A plea bargain would require him admitting wrongdoing. Even if you think he did good overall, he did so some wrong. Much of what he leaked is unambiguously legal and exactly the sort of thing that the NSA is supposed to be doing. Clearly legal:PPD-20, spying on China, Tempura/Upstream, Embassy spying, spying on Germany, spying on al Jeezera, various spying methods, etc. etc. etc. Murky: internet meta data program th…

So he did something wrong (exposing 'legal' things) and did the world a favor. The US has a brandished reputation. Snowden made it worse and could actually prove his cases. As a German, Snowden is awesome. I wouldn't give a rat's ass about whether you consider it legal to spy on this country. You (the state) suck. We learned this once more, got proof, understand that the US of A is not friendly and cannot be consider…

You know that German intelligence cooperates with the NSA to this day, right?
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