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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

express.co.uk

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Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

#51

Post by mercurial »

dalore wrote: post #24
ig1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well hypothetically say he wanted to go to Iceland, you can't fly from HK to Iceland so you'd have to change in Europe. The obvious route is changing via London Heathrow, this stops him doing that.

Actually the airports of Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris are all bigger, better and see more traffic than outdated Heathrow.

As a French citizen, I'd like to object vigorously to the notion that Paris (if you mean Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris' main airport) is one of the "better" airports.

If I believe wikipedia, Heathrow is actually Europe's busiest airport (CDG is next).

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

#52

Post by snogglethorpe »

tehwalrus wrote: post #44
tehwalrus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a story behind this one. I once wrote to David Milliband (when he was foreign secretary) on the urging of Amnesty International about the upcoming international vote on the banning of cluster bombs. I wrote it on a 1920s typewriter, sealed it with wax etc, as befitting a letter to one of the holders of the four highest offices, and never got a reply (although they did succeed in banning the use of clust…

Because eccentric presentation implies eccentric ideas, I think. They certainly do get a lot of letters from a lot of very vocal, very extreme people (who want homosexuality banned, hanging brought back, etc.)

My well that's kind of disturbing... not that they do such correlations (everybody does), but that typewriting/handwriting are considered "eccentric" to the point where they don't even read the letters.... [I mean... if they actually read them, surely a good argument and moderate tone would outweigh any initial judgement from slightly non-mainstream presentation?]

So if you want them to read your letter, you'd better write it in Microsoft word, using Arial, at medium size, without any formatting, and print it out on an inkjet printer on A4 paper?

[And sorry for the snarky/argumentative tone, it's obviously not your fault and you can't do anything about it, but it really is disturbing...]

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

#53

Post by tehwalrus »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #52
tehwalrus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because eccentric presentation implies eccentric ideas, I think. They certainly do get a lot of letters from a lot of very vocal, very extreme people (who want homosexuality banned, hanging brought back, etc.)

My well that's kind of disturbing... not that they do such correlations (everybody does), but that typewriting/handwriting are considered "eccentric" to the point where they don't even read the letters.... [I mean... if they actually read them, surely a good argument and moderate tone would outweigh any initial judgement from slightly non-mainstream presentation?] So if you want them to read your letter, you'd better…

No, no...

They do read all the letters (at least, the researcher does.) It is only the first signal.

A handwritten letter isn't in itself an indicator - someone may simply have not had much time - if the writing is difficult to read, or if it's several pages long, then we're into danger territory.

Generally the MPs first see their mail alongside their researchers' draft responses to them. They do need to know what they wrote back to everyone so that if they meet the constituent at a Surgery they will know what they're talking about.

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

#54

Post by Svip »

cabalamat wrote: post #26
arethuza wrote: post #2

As a UK citizen I feel that he certainly hasn't done me any harm and probably has done quite a lot of good so I find it bizarre that the government would make such a statement, especially as he would be mad to consider coming here! I presume the real reasons for this are: - To show solidarity with the US (presumably the NSA and GCHQ are as thick as thieves) - So he doesn't give anyone at GCHQ ideas I'm going to write…

> To show solidarity with the US (presumably the NSA and GCHQ are as thick as thieves) Yes, and it is also consistent with the proposition that the UK's decision to extradite Assange was made at the political level in order to suck up to the USA.

Sweden is not the same as the UK. Sweden's extradition laws are bit less vague than the British ones. The risk of the US asking Sweden to extradite Assange is pretty much nil at this point. At least, if the US has any sense of PR and not trying to adopt the German diplomacy of the First World War.

Re: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

#55

Post by dalore »

mercurial wrote: post #51
dalore wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the airports of Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris are all bigger, better and see more traffic than outdated Heathrow.

As a French citizen, I'd like to object vigorously to the notion that Paris (if you mean Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris' main airport) is one of the "better" airports. If I believe wikipedia, Heathrow is actually Europe's busiest airport (CDG is next).

As a UK citizen I vigorously object that Heathrow is the "best" airport.
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