Snowden Granted One-Year Asylum In Russia 411
New submitter kc9jud writes "The BBC is reporting that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. According to his lawyer, Snowden has received the necessary papers to leave the transit zone at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and the airport press office is reporting that Snowden left the airport at 14:00 local time (10:00 GMT). A tweet from Wikileaks indicates that Snowden has been granted temporary asylum and may stay in the Russian Federation for up to one year."
Reader Cenan adds links to coverage at CNN, and other readers have pointed out versions of the story at Reuters and CBS.
Hooray for Russia (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Far more likely it represents the normal immigration process in Russia prior to becoming a citizen. Why would he really want to go to South America, Russia is becoming pretty interesting as far as Geeks/Nerds are concerned with Sochi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sochi [wikipedia.org] becoming a hot spot. All it needs is for Russia to push Sochi as a tech hub due to climate advantages and things could really kick off in the Region. Russia is evolving and with it's unique culture, extreme adventure land in Kamchatka Peninsu
Re:Hooray for Russia (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of things that you read in Russian propaganda, both foreign and internal, about things "growing" and "getting interesting", is pure unadulterated BS. Nanotech is a bunch of vaporware, Skolkovo is a flop, and as for Sochi, it has record-breaking numbers of money just vanishing (presumably in the pockets of people running the show).
If I were looking for a place to go on the basis of its future perspectives, South America (esp. Brazil) would definitely rank higher than Russia.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, I'll take the bait -- the NSA can read your "private communications": http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data [theguardian.com]
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Informative)
Then go Green, it's all the good parts of libertarianism, without the economic extremism.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I'm just going to note here that the bill to strip the NSA of these powers was supported by more democrats that republicans -- but the split was by no means a party-line vote. Here, left-right is not a good identifier. I
I'm definitely on the side that thinks the NSA program amounts to a general warrant, and is therefore unconstitutional no matter what FISA says about it.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
-GiH
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
The major problem we have is the third party doctrine, which says you lose 4th amendment protection when you share info with a 3d party because you then have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
But that isn't really true. People share info with 3d parties all the time and expect and demand that information be kept confidential. It really is impossible to participate in the modern world without engaging in such transactions. But the Supreme Court has just gone off the rails on the notion that once you do this, you have no expectation of privacy.
If that theory was really the case, people wouldn't freak out when their email accounts get hacked and people snoop on their mail. People wouldn't go to jail for doing that. People would walk down the street handing out their credit card to everyone they meet. People wouldn't make their facebook pages private ... on and on.
There needs to be legislation that destroys this 3d party doctrine exception to the 4th amendment. The underpinning of all these NSA programs, is that piece of warped Supreme Court logic.
Re: (Score:3)
True, but is this a "warrant"? It's an "order" for sure, and it looks like a warrant, but when dealing with this, we've left the realm of human language usage behind. The underpinning of this order is the 3d party doctrine which says the 4th doesn't even apply to such metadata. Eliminate that 3d party foundation, and I think this order goes away. That's not to say they wouldn't come up with some other twisted theory, but this particular order would be broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
Democrats /= Left, Republicans /= Right. Parties are not constants - they are groups of people and their ideologies shift over time. The Republicans of the 50s and 60s were consumed by the southern democrats, there has been a complete flip in party politics over the last one-hundred years.
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
All you have to do to validate my claims is to look at politician's records. Obama promised hope and change, and is a Democrat. Name something pertinent that was done differently than Bush. Go ahead and look, but outside of lies and fabrications you won't find anything. The Patriot act was strengthened, not dismantled. Gitmo was not closed, it's still used to torture people. A Presidential "Hit List" was made public, if the guy was anti-war it would not exist or would not have required a whistle blower. War in the middle east has been extended, not ended (Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc...). Surveillance has increased and the executive branch has attacked whistle blowers on a massive scale. I could go on, but believe I have shown my point to be more than valid.
The people in power are currently doing everything possible to keep you from looking at them. They push atheism vs. religion, ethnic hatred, gay vs. straight, and Dem. vs. Rep through a media monopoly which has not been bound to tell you a single truth for nearly a decade. If you don't believe that, compare the AP and what's on corporate owned media to independent reports anywhere in the world. They don't match usually, and on the odd chance that the AP publishes something in a light unfavorable to the people in power you will be inundated with celebrity news on corporate owned media instead of the pertinent "news".
I get that it is easier and more comforting to believe that things are not so bad, but that belief does not change reality. We must demand truthfulness in news and demand that the monopolies are broken up or the masses will never see any truths that are relevant to society. At the same time, we need to follow Socrates' demand and get rid of the political class which is keeping people in the proverbial cave.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at America from a distance, it appears that it has a one party system with two factions - the Democrat and the Republican factions. The name of the party? The Business Party. The sole purpose is to distract the citizens of the USA away from what really matters. Included in the most accurate definition of "fascism" is a description of how corporate interests write the laws, provide the "politicians", and set the government agenda. The country has been taken over and is run by power-hungry monied-elites (a cleptocracy, me-thinks). It's from this perspective that I completely agree with the attached comment:
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
Re: (Score:3)
Whether you call it "The Business Party" or follow some interesting conspiracy theories and call it "The Lucifer Party" makes no difference. The end result becomes the same and is what we must be focused on. With bad people in power, the true motives for what they are doing will never become available until they are gone. The end result is a lost society and potentially much more.
Labeling or trying to guess at the motives at this point is a grievous mistake. It gives the people in power enough ammunitio
Re: (Score:3)
There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team
Sorry, this is just flat-out incorrect. People who keep parroting this line tend to be either single-issue voters (where neither party agrees with them) or willfully ignorant. There are very much two parties, and they do want very different things. For example, the US is in the middle of the largest restructuring of its healthcare system ever, and whether you agree with it or not you can't reasonably say that it would have happened had the other party been in power.
Both parties would like to initiate a lot
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but you are willfully being ignorant. While I would agree that there are a couple really honest and well intentioned people holding political offices, the Democrat and Republican players have become invalid. When someone claims they will do something, and does the opposite, we call them a liar. The majority of people in office spouting Democrat themes or Republican themes are acting, and liars. Look at _facts_ regarding what they do, not what they say.
And no, it's not a one ticket issue. Thi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By insisting that they be able to pay people whatever the market will bear rather than a living wage, libertarians are insisting that they should be able to keep slaves.
Behold the left-wing argument, complete with no substance yet full of appeal-to-emotion bullshit like "living wage" and "slavery."
This is an appeal to people to hate the Libertarians. More hate from the left, and ironically the one thing this man didn't quote from the person he replied to was about the intolerance and hate of the left-wing.
Exactly.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a liberal and even I find myself in agreement with this principle to an extent. Some jobs are really only meant as a stepping stone for high schoolers to get experience, or college kids to get beer money. At least that was true in the past, certainly when I was getting my first job in the mid-80s.
The problem though, is that our job base is shedding its real jobs at an amazing rate. When real jobs are rare, and most employment is comprised of this "learning wheels" work, then it becomes important to ensure that if these are the jobs that are going to replace real economic activity, that they pay something people can live on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
how is that working out exactly.
For who? Seems to me it's working out just as intended for those quietly operating the controls...
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
That is because the Democratic party is vastly different from your dearly beloved Republican party.
I can tell, because in addition to the end of secret courts and the rest of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo closed, we left Iraq on the Bush timetable, and drone strikes have ceased.
Or did you think the Republicans were going to pass socialized health-care?
You mean like the Medicare Part D that was passed by a Republican House, Senate, and President? You are right, that would never happen.
Otherwise, it goes a bit too far, but is a pretty solid troll.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget it took the Democrats to pass Nixon's healthcare plan (minus the liberal parts):
citations:
GOP-centric:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/16/ellen-ratner-obama-health-care-nixon-republicans-liberal/ [foxnews.com]
DNC-centric:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31krugman.html?_r=1& [nytimes.com]
Medical-Industry-centric:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx [kaiserhealthnews.org]
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like the Medicare Part D that was passed by a Republican House, Senate, and President? You are right, that would never happen.
Medicare Part-D isn't healthcare, its a funnel for pouring cash from the federal coffers into the accounts of insurance companies - and very little more than that.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, and BTW, insurance premiums under Obamacare are skyrocketing:
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130718/BUSINESS/307180100/State-says-Obamacare-will-force-72-percent-increase-individual-insurance-plan-rates [indystar.com]
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/313885-obamacare-premiums-lower-than-expected-in-maryland [thehill.com]
Hell, just Google "obamacare rate increase"
Lord help you if you smoke [rt.com], or happen to be overweight. [northwestohio.com]
Gotta love their fucked-up rationale: "Your freedom is likely to be someone else's harm" Yea, that sounds like what a Stasi dogfucker would say.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
You are deeply wrong and your understanding of privacy is very one dimensional.
Consider walking somewhere in New York city. You will be 'seen' by potentially thousands of people but noticed by none. Ask them 5 minutes later and show them a picture of you and you'll get no useful information. Yet you were in 'public' and were seen many times over. That is the privacy of being lost in a crowd that you can have even in a public space.
That privacy can be violated by following a specific person or (in the case of the NSA) by following everyone such that later you can know where the person came from and where they went.
I run a router in the internet. yes, I can see your IP headers. I could see yoiur email headers but I don't look. I know not who you are and I don't bother to do reverse lookups on the IP addresses. I don't care. I don't store that information. I don't care about it. You have the privacy of being anonymous in a crowd.
Ask me tomorrow if I saw any packets going to 192.168.201.192 and I won't be able to tell you one way or another.
So sorry, but as much as I would like to believe the Democrats are still fundamentally different from the neocons, I'm having a hard time buying it. I wish they were. I hoped they were.At this point, an old-school Republican like Eisenhower better reflects the will of a liberal than the current Democratic party. (I said Better, not necessarily well)
I'd like to see more actions against little brother (the corporate version of big brother) and big brother. I would like to see REAL healthcare reform, not an insurance mandate originally authored by the Republican opposition. I'd like to see the corruption swept out and abominations like NSA, TSA, DHS, and DEA disbanded.
Signed, a disgruntled left leaning libertarian.
Re: (Score:3)
At this point, the corruption has infiltrated the NSA and spread. We need some sort of signals intelligence, but we'd need to disband the NSA and re-form it to get back to that now. You're quite right about the FBI.
Gone (Score:4, Funny)
...aaaaaaaaaaand he's gone. Hopefully out of reach of all repressive regimes, including the USA.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it definitly is not.
And that is why it is so sad to see that the nation that just can't stop telling how free and great they are comes of looking worse than the Russians.
The Russians might just do it to simply piss off the US, but a trully free and just country should not have any problems winning this PR battle.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russians might just do it to simply piss off the US, but a trully free and just country should not have any problems winning this PR battle.
You're trolling, right? You want to have a conversation with Gary Kasparov or Nadezhda Tolokonnikova about whether they agree with your assessment?
I mean Im not trying to excuse our faults by saying "look at theirs", but to say that we're worse than a country that hasnt had a real election in years, that imprisons people for "premeditated hooliganism" (shades of the Soviet "wrecking" charge) and blasphemy, and detains and beats people for attending said show trials.... it staggers the imagination.
Why dont you run a little experiment to see which country is "winning the PR battle". Go to Russia and start a protest against Putin, making sure to insult him in the process. Do the same here against Obama. See how each country responds... but I might recommend the US experiment first, otherwise you will be stuck in a Russian prison and will be unable to complete the test.
Re:Gone (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The first sentence of my post only contained five words....
Please wake up yourself and READ them.
Re:Seriously? I mean seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
No you and parent still don't get it.
And your selective quoting is a big hint.
I never said that Russia looks better as a whole. (Re-read those first five words again, better yet do it a few tims).
As for the sentence you qouted: it also contained the words 'IN THIS CASE' which you conveniently left out.
To make it a little bit easier for those who still don't get it:
-Russia bad
-Russia looking better than US in regard to Snowden.
Re:Seriously? I mean seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
The US is still one of the most free countries in the world by a pretty long shot; the drop-off is pretty steep once you get too far east of western Europe.
Your statement is a bit of a dodge and I guess you mean a fairly large group of countries when you say "one of" however it's still pretty misleading. It all depends what and how you try to measure, but the USA is no longer nearly at the top of most lists and it really isn't that free in practice. Look at the world press index [rsf.org] and you will see the USA comes in 32nd this year, up from 47th (mostly because other countries did more bad things recently). Look even at the "Index of Freedom In the World" which seems pretty biased towards the kind of economic freedom the US is so famed for and you will see that the US isn't in the top five. Try sorting by "personal freedom" separately from "economic freedom" and you will see that it isn't even in the top 20.
The situation is not terrible and the fact that Americans still believe they are free and believe in freedom is actually a cause for hope, however if people don't start acting now to keep that freedom there is going to be a big problem. Most of all the fact that people just don't seem worried by giving up their freedom to big companies and their data to the government is really dangerous.
Re: (Score:3)
The situation is not terrible and the fact that Americans still believe they are free and believe in freedom is actually a cause for hope
The fact that many Americans still believe they are free is anything but encouraging. To me it seems to imply that no matter how much of their freedom they lose they will still believe they are not only free, but the freest country in the world. It means that many Americans simply don't understand what the word 'freedom' means. If you start talking about John Locke or 'Natural Rights' you might then get some honest answers about how much these Americans still believe in actual freedom, as opposed to the pse
Re:Seriously? I mean seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
The US is still one of the most free countries in the world by a pretty long shot
I am willing to bet that you have never spent more than a month living outside of the US. Otherwise you wouldn't say such stupid things. Let me list some of the things that many of those other countries don't have.
1. Suspicionless roadblocks/checkpoints on many major highways and secondary roads where you are guilty until proven innocent and must submit to interrogations or arbitrary testing to prove your innocence. If you try to stand up for your so called "rights" or so much as look at the thugs the wrong way you end up some combination of injured, dead, and/or in jail with serious contempt of cop charges against you.
2. Strip searches, electronic or real, and genital fondling and/or sexual molestation must be submitted to in order for the government to grant you the privilege of flying. In most other countries flying is treated as more of a right whatever they might call it on paper. In the US most rights have been converted to privileges kindly granted by daddy government. Even the supreme court refers to them as privileges now.
3. Angry, sociopathic, sadistic police who are just itching to beat you, strangle you, taze you, or even shoot you and kill you. These people have no oversight and are 100% above the law. They effectively even have a license to kill. This is far worse than nearly any country on the planet. I can personally vouch for the fact that it is far worse than Cuba (that's right), Laos, Colombia, or Malaysia. In most countries police are more like normal people just doing a job to get paid and have nothing to prove and are not so much like violent criminals with a badge.
Since the police are the most likely point of contact between citizens and a government representative the fact that the police are dangerous and see citizens as their sworn enemy and see themselves as above any law makes the US seem far less free than virtually any country I have lived or traveled in.
4. Harmless hacking as a major "crime". Ask Aaron Swartz about how free we are compared to other countries. Not many countries go after victimless hacking the way the US does. In the US you can go to jail for many years just for violating the TOS of a web site. Yup. Keep telling yourself how free you are. Ask the innocent people convicted of crimes with no victim being abused by sadistic prison guards and raped by fellow inmates how free they are.
In addition to that we have many harsh prison sentences for what are very minor, harmless acts where not a single person has been harmed. I mention this separately, because many other countries have the same problem. But we are no better than most of them in this respect. I think part of the problem is that Americans are such enthusiastic punishers. We love revenge more than most other cultures I think.
The fact is the US isn't all that free anymore. There is very little real freedom left around here. It has been reinterpreted and just plain stomped out of existence. Perhaps the most important point is that the actual people, the voters, do not value freedom even slightly more than most other countries. Given that none of the loss of our freedom is really very surprising.
Can you give even a single example of a freedom that Americans have that most other countries don't? Or better yet a single freedom that is unique in the world? In the US all of our freedom is on paper. Other countries may fewer paper rights, but more freedoms in real life. I would go so far as to say that most countries feel more free and on a day to day basis are more free than the US is now. A century ago it would have been a very different story, but that was before the government and the American people shat on the constitution, the bill of rights, and everything that the founders of our country believed in.
Re: (Score:3)
The US is still one of the most free countries in the world by a pretty long shot
I am willing to bet that you have never spent more than a month living outside of the US. Otherwise you wouldn't say such stupid things.
It's not so much a "stupid" thing to say as an, oh, "accurate" thing to say. If you would like to see an (as nearly as possible) objective way to look at the relative freedom of countries you might refer to The Heritage Foundation's annual survey. [heritage.org] It says pretty much exactly what LordLimecat
Re: (Score:3)
That heritage foundation index that you linked is a poor source to quote as evidence in this discussion, as they clearly are only measuring economic freedom (it's clearly mentioned in every page of that index), or, in other words, how free you are to rake in the money, and how much the country's economic system facilitates that.
The index does not measure, and has nothing to say, about the main topics at hand - civil liberties and human rights - so it doesn't refute the binary guy's claims even one bit. In f
Re: (Score:3)
The Heritage Foundation is based in the US. That doesn't prove anything.
First, I'm going to try to prove that you're wrong. I'm going to do that by showing that your argument is flawed, and can be rejected on that basis. Following that I'm going to try to prove that I'm right. I'm going to do that by showing that Argument from Authority is a valid inferential technique. Here's why your argument is flawed. You're saying that the US isn't free because the entity stating that it's free is based in the US.
Freedom of Speech & Right to Bear Arms (Score:3)
Those are two uniquely American rights that I as a Canadian certainly do not have.
Speech has exceptions here.. lots of them. We put people in jail for saying things - ugly things, but we still put them in jail.
It is also practically, or effectively, impossible to own a handgun and use it for it's intended purpose - defense of one's person - in Canada, and most of the world.
There's two, some some might argue, the most important two to keep. Without those you have no tools to fix the rest of the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
The US is one of the most free countries as long as you stay within the guidelines of it's government. As soon as you blow the whistle on any of it's corruptions, you're going to be just as free as you would be in China or Thailand. Will you die? The chance is high in either country. The fact that the US isn't more overt than say China or Russia about what happens to their constituents that don't remain in-line doesn't mean that it's more free.
The US is far from the most free country in the world, in fact o
Re: (Score:3)
Ironically, as a Russian citizen, I am in fact concerned about US, too. Because whenever your government persists in fucking you in the ass, our government uses it as an excuse to do the same. "See, you are talking about freedom and stuff, but Americans are doing it, too - and you've always said that they are a model of a free country."
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, it is in this case, relatively speaking, it is. (Note that I wouldn't say that in the more general case)
It should be deeply embarrassing to any American patriot that Russia is granting political asylum to an American whistleblower and far more embarrassing that he needs it.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if Snowden likes those countries anymore than you, however if you want to get away from the US government it isn't a bad move to go to those coutnries least likely to turn you over....
As for Latin America.... compared to the US just about any country could be called 'leftist'. For me (as I am not an American) that doesn't necesseraly mean a bad thing.
Especially since most of those 'leftist' regimes have been democraticly chosen and have replaced US backed rightwing dictators.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is such bullshit. He went to these places because from a practical standpoint, they aren't yet America's goatse doll.
The only way political dissent can survive, is if there are safe places to go to and dissent. The US can house dissenters from China, and vice versa. But if the entire world was completely friendly to the US, the space for corruption becomes enormously vast while the space for dissent becomes non-existent.
One thing the Snowden incident has made clear to me, was why people have feared a One World Government. I've never been partial to that perspective, and I've certainly insulted the "black helicopter" types. My perspective was shaped ... go ahead and laugh ... by Star Trek. The Federation of Planets being a benevolent organization allowing people to maximize their potential. On a smaller scale, a Federation of Nations on a single planet could operate the same way. So in my younger years, I was a big fan of globalization seeing it as a way to such a Federation of Nations.
What I failed to take into consideration however, was that politicians don't act from moral and ethical considerations, like those in Star Trek would. So instead of providing a world in which people are free to self-actualize, a One World Government would almost certainly be a repressive, brutal, corrupt, jobs-destroying threat to liberal values.
You know what -- why don't you take this canard about Snowden going to China and Russia, and shove up your goatse hole, and as a good authoritarian, ask your bossman for more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition, the USA White House petition site received a petition to pardon Snowden, and ignored it. There is now a new petition for them to respond to the previous one. Hilarious, in a very sad way. The government answers to the people, sure, but only when they feel like it.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/respond-petition-pardon-edward-snowden/c7cTD9Lh [whitehouse.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
What choices did he have. The primary four NSA/CIA /FBI whistleblowers who preceded him all said they were persecuted and silenced for trying to work within the system How do you propose he brought this to light in a country that is trying to call him a terrorist/convict him of espionage for pointing out the truth and lies they are spreading?
Re: (Score:3)
They called our bluff! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/07/25/2135207/us-lawmakers-want-sanctions-on-any-country-taking-in-snowden
^_^
Re: (Score:2)
Best way to deflect any talk of sanctions is to say like this : "Mr Putin's foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov said the situation was "rather insignificant" and should not influence relations with the US."
... if he leaves in 6 months ... (Score:5, Funny)
He'd better be careful. If he waits a few more months, he'll be snowed-in and unable to leave at all.
Re:... if he leaves in 6 months ... (Score:5, Funny)
CIA's next move (Score:4, Funny)
Since the CIA can't outright shoot him, they'll just alter a few videos to make it look like he's gay in Russia.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean like they did with Bradley Manning? :)
gay? (Score:5, Interesting)
You joke, but the military is very quick and free to trot that idea out. "He did it because he is gay" as if being gay makes a person more likely to leak information, I mean, commit treason. Some of Bradley Manning's posts I ran across would seem to show he might indeed be gay. Then it occured to me those posts might be fakes.
The 1989 gun turret explosion on the USS Iowa [wikipedia.org] was a classic. The navy put out this ridiculous hypothesis that Clayton Hartwig, a sailor who died in the disaster, was gay and so sexually frustrated that he was suicidal and deliberately caused the explosion. Under pressure, the navy dropped the gay part but clung on to the idea Hartwig was suicidal and did it on purpose. As the disaster was investigated further, it became even more painfully obvious that the navy was doing a cover up. The real reason was that they were using experimental mixings of explosives that if not rammed slowly could prematurely detonate. Strangest was that the officer the navy picked to lead the investigation was the same guy who made the experimental mix.
And remember, some of the most radical social conservatives advanced this absurd notion that 9/11 happened because America is too tolerant of homosexuality. Just the other day I stopped in at my insurance agent's office and heard Limbaugh on their radio, ranting about the possibility that Trayvon Martin might have been gay and tried to sexually assault Zimmerman. I don't expect any better of those retards, but we should have smarter military leaders than that. No General Boykins! May be hard to do. I suppose a military career is attractive to simpletons who think force is a good answer to most problems.
Re: (Score:3)
Just the other day I stopped in at my insurance agent's office and heard Limbaugh on their radio, ranting about the possibility that Trayvon Martin might have been gay and tried to sexually assault Zimmerman.
You misheard. Apparently, Limbaugh was claiming the possibility that martin was a gay basher, not gay himself. I am not justifying those comments, but if you are going to call out someone for being an idiot, it helps to call them out for the right reason.
m
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to me that you are in error. They can shoot him and very little will come of it if they do.
They wouldn't shoot him tho, but not because they can't. It's because there are better ways to kill him.
Cardiac arrest. Car accident. Accidental fall. Overdose.
Re:CIA's next move (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't the CIA shoot him?
Because everyone would see right through that, and it would cause a major international incident. Discrediting is so much more effective, and much less risky. When the head of the IMF starts challenging the primacy of the U.S. dollar [guardian.co.uk] for example, you don't assassinate him. Way too messy and risky. Instead, you arrange [washingtonpost.com] for something a little more subtle, but just as effective.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But on the other hand, it's very important that America isn't seen as a pushover either. The powers-that-be want to make an example of Snowden; they want him rotting in jail. "Mess with us and see what you get!" is an equally important message.
I am saddened by this attitude. The sentiment would sound appropriate coming from a 3rd world dictator, petty bureaucrat, or aspiring fascist, not from one of the most powerful and respected countries on the planet. Really, the idea that one man could do so much damage to the country or its leaders that rotting-in-jail-forever or death are not just appropriate but necessary forms of revenge, looks weak and fragile. A strong country has policies that reflect its ideals rather than its weaknesses. A stron
Re: (Score:2)
So he survives past the end of my attention span (Score:4, Funny)
Attorney Bruce Fein quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"There may be a time where it would be constructive to try and meet and ... resolve this in a way that honors due process and the highest principles of fairness and civilization,"
Seems resolved to me. What remains to be sorted out:
* who is accountable for all of the laws broken by the NSA
* what programs they still have in place which are illegal
* when these illegal programs will be terminated
Let's not forget, if the NSA/US had followed the letter of the law, Snowden's claims would have been pointless.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with the idea of "due process" on this is that I find it very difficult to believe that the government would even acknowledge that the NSA has been breaking the law. The lens through which Snowden's actions need to be interpreted is that of whether the government was or was not breaking the law and hiding behind classification.
A subject upon which the government and a growing segment of the populace seem to disgree rather vehemently.
Re:Attorney Bruce Fein quote (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. The government is viewing this as "Guy exposed classified programs to the world including our enemies. This helped our enemies and hurt us therefore he needs to be punished severely." This is true (up until "therefore..."), the mitigating factor of the program being extremely illegal is completely overlooked. In fact, worse than overlooked, it's being actively ignored and the rest of the story trumpeted over and over to give the impression that the "government version" of the story is the ONLY version of the story.
Re:Attorney Bruce Fein quote (Score:5, Funny)
Ha, I can answer those now:
* who is accountable for all of the laws broken by the NSA
No one will be.
* what programs they still have in place which are illegal
None will ever be found so.
* when these illegal programs will be terminated
Just as soon their differently-named successors that do the exact same thing are ready.
Re: (Score:3)
>Just as soon their differently-named successors that do the exact same thing are ready.
Now you're just being pessimistic. Data processing is a rapidly advancing field - I'm sure the successors will be be much more effective.
Unless of course the population organizes and raises it's voice against these abuses.
Just because you don't like the law... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, which programs were illegal and which laws were broken? I'm sure you missed the news that these laws were written and passed by the House and Senate, funded by same, and just recently re-affirmed in the House.
See, that's the thing about "laws" - they're written by the legislature and confirmed by the executive branch. Unless and until the judicial branch finds them to be technically inadequate or violating the constitution, they ARE the law. It's how a representative democracy works. Or would you rather have a dictatorship, a monarchy? Perhaps you hold up Russia as a shining light of transparency, liberty, and justice?
Re:Just because you don't like the law... (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1930 India was still under Britsh rule and it was forbidden to produce your own salt. This was the law.
Some indian guy thought this law was morally and ethically wrong and marched to the sea and produced his own salt.
Back then types like you when all nuts with 'He broke the law!'.
Today very few would argue that what Ghandi did was wrong.
Is the case against Snowden exactly the same? No, if only because the most brilliant part of Ghandi's actions were its shear simplicity.
But it does show that breaking the Law, no matter who wrote it, is not by definition the wrong thing to do.
Re:Just because you don't like the law... (Score:4, Interesting)
Gandhi had been arrested before, and this had proven to work out for his cause. He made a judgemend call that being arrested would work out again.
In Snowden's case the opposite might verry well be true, and he obviously made a different choice.
However the main point still stands: both broke a law (both viewing it as justified). They also both publicly admitted what they did and why.
Re: (Score:3)
"It's not illegal when the President does it." /nixon'd
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
He would be thrown incommunicado into a U.S. prison and never let out again if he ever came back here. We all know his trial would just be a show trial.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is why this great justice system of yours has worked out great for those in Guantanamo Bay?
As for him bein a traitor in your opinion: history books will judge different about him.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Congress has worked to impede the process but the president does not need congress to do it. They have thwarted some of the ways he tried to go about it, like bringing some of the detainees to the US for trial.
The President is however empowered as the Commander and Chief he could military tribunals and then either, imprison, repatriate, or execute according to the results. As the President he could pardon these people at which point they would be free to apply for visas and or be repatriated. There is li
Re: (Score:3)
But given Obama promised to close gitmo in his first campaign for President, I'm assuming there's a very good reason why he hasn't done it. Again, I don't know what that reason is.
I can take an educated guess as to what that real reason is: There are spooks who would be in front of the Hague right now on war crimes if the witnesses currently locked up in Gitmo ever were in a position to give testimony. Those same spooks are able to tell the president anything they want, and the president has no way to verify if they are lying to him. So they spin a yarn to the politicians in classified briefings about how they're extracting all sorts of vital information from the prisoners, even the
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously believe this or am I biting on a troll. He did this for his ego? His life is over. What ever happens down the road he went from being an unknown analyst in a quasi-secret agency, living in a great location with a girlfriend and supportive family to a wanted man with a target on his back. He now gets to live in airports or secretive homes where his travel is limited. He can't work, he may be able to live in a country where he'll go back to being a nobody with little to show for his actions. He will never be able to enter the Country of his birth again (unless pardoned), potentially never see his family again. He will never get rid of the taint of the word "traitor" attached to his name, even if pardoned....and you say he did this for and because of his ego?
You are a tool.
What Snowden did was expose the actions of an agency that had no scruples in stomping on the Constitution. He also exposed the true colors of our Congress by their lack of even indignation at the NSA for not only subverting the 4th, but also out-right lying to them. If you want to talk about ego, how about the guy who sits in front of Congress and says "Hey everybody, I AM the NSA and we don't lie". Correction, that's not only ego, that is contempt.
While I would not give Mr. Snowden a parade, I would not call him a traitor. He was an average citizen who, upon discovering laws were being violated, made a decision to take a courageous, life altering act. I would not trust the USA to provide a fair trial or fair treatment to this man for nothing resembling reasonable is coming out of Washington DC these days.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it would not be obvious. Just take a look at Guantanamo as an example of how our American Justice can be abused. Once in custody he could be labeled an enemy combatant and hauled off to some dark hole. He is not a soldier in the US Military, thus us not even provided the limited protections Manning received and look how he was treated.
You are naive to think that the Justice department would allow any public trial to take place. Were Mr. Snowden to return to this country, he may not die (right away), but he will be buried. So far he has not lied about his stated facts, he has limited release to general programs, not specific items, and he has attempted to remind our politicians that they took an oath to defend the Constitution. What I am seeing right now are rats defending their piece of cheese.
Re: (Score:3)
Snowden is so screwed (Score:3, Interesting)
The 1 year asylum means they get to pump him for information for the next year and have an exclusive on any information he produces. What information he has is perishable and the US public will forget about this and he will be useless to the Russians by then. They will then decide not to grant permanent asylum and expel him from Russia. He will be right back where he is now but with no spotlight to protect him and a pile of useless information.
RT Source (Score:2)
http://rt.com/news/snowden-entry-papers-russia-902/ [rt.com]
Although it's almost the same as bbc/reuters .. still. Would think that russian news outlet would be included as an alternative.
What a year accomplishes (Score:2)
Just for the sake of argument, let's assume Russia actually has some interest in abstract justice for Snowden. (Yeah, I know, they are probably more interested in being able to accuse the US of abuses so they can excuse their own - I'm sure we can paint the Russian decision in all sorts of unflattering lights - Hell, just claim it's really the third step in their nefarious plan for world domination and comes just after "build secret base in active volcano" and just before "kill Bond in elaborate but unsuper
Help me out. (Score:2, Insightful)
What illegal activity has Snowden actually revealed? The leaked slides I've read so far indicate the NSA are:
Can someone please calmly and rationally clarify or illuminate evidence which suggests or proves the
Re:Help me out. (Score:5, Informative)
Collecting data sent in the clear across public networks
Phone calls are sent in the clear across public networks. It's illegal for the government to listen to them without a warrant.
Re: (Score:3)
I found this in Wiki [wikipedia.org]. Your question posed one of my own which was this, is a letter, a paper correspondence covered by the 4th. It would seem so by a ruling from the SCOTUS:
No law of Congress can place in the hands of officials connected with the Postal Service any authority to invade the secrecy of letters and such sealed packages in the mail; and all regulations adopted as to mail matter of this kind must be in subordination to the great principle embodied in the fourth amendment of the Constitution.[4]
Now you raised a side thought which related to companies like FedEx, UPS, et al. If I send a package via a private (meaning public) company, not the Postal Service, is it too covered under the 4th. I could not find anything specific, but it would seem to cover them as well.
So we have an expectation of privacy with paper mail such tha
Re: (Score:3)
I am asking for an interpretation of specific data on specific slides, leaked by Snowden, that demonstrate, unequivocally, the NSA are committing egregious acts.
Demanding unequivocal, indisputable proof of a top secret government operation is not reasonable. Surprisingly the NSA, after an initial period of denying everything, has actually admitted to some of it. Their dilemma is that if Snowden is just making it all up then he hasn't broken any US law and their attempts to extradite him are just harrassment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#Edward_Snowden [wikipedia.org]
Some of the relevant PRISM slides are on the sidebar to the right. In particular take a
And his worst fear comes true (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously. Think back a quarter century and ponder what someone would have said if you told him that a US citizen flees to Russia to beg for asylum because he's being prosecuted for telling the truth...
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Back then many of us were naive enough to believe the U.S. propaganda. But that didn't make it true, even then. Looking back, I realize that most of the "U.S. is so free, Soviet Union is so repressive" canards that I grew up on were mostly bullshit. The U.S. was never nearly so free or noble as it pretended, even in its heyday. All these post-911 revelations have done is just highlighted the hypocrisy.
Re: (Score:3)
Looking back, I realize that most of the "U.S. is so free, Soviet Union is so repressive" canards that I grew up on were mostly bullshit. The U.S. was never nearly so free or noble as it pretended, even in its heyday.
While that's true, it's also never been so heinous (for the bulk of its citizens) as Russia. We may well be wending that way now; it certainly does appear so.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, Bill Haywood is sort of an example.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't want to see this for what it is. There is no need for Deep Throat, or Snowden, or Binney when everything is on the up and up. Whistle blowing isn't from foreign interests trying to harm us. They are patriotic actions that love this country for what it should be. When Putin is pointing out the irony about a US congratulating itself for not wanting to kill the whistle blower who is being persecuted for telling the truth, and it is lost on the bulk of Americans we have a problem. We have lost our way.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference might be that this isn't about a contract. If it was, the worst that could possibly happen is a cash fine, considering that contract issues are part of the civil, not the criminal, code.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that by asking him to do something illegal, the NSA invalidated their own contract. Under U.S. law no contract may require a person to commit an illegal act, nor may it prevent them from reporting a criminal act so long as they have first attempted to report the criminal activity using internal policies. As long as Snowden tried to get his bosses to stop the illegal wiretapping and reported their actions to his supervisor, he should be protected under us whistleblower protection laws.
That said, this is the NSA, and they seem not to care about the law. Running away is smart, to keep them from doing something illegal to punish him for reporting the OTHER illegal things they did.
Re: In Soviet Russia (Score:3)
National Secrets "contracts" are really one way... You sign one to get a job, and Uncle Sam then is free to change the deal at will. Once you sign the oath to keep national secrets they own your ass. The CIA/NSA are legally defined levels above what normal guys like Manning are made to sign.
You are told, upfront, they can and will cut you into pieces and leave you in a ditch with no identifying marks (or worse, and to your family too) for breaking your oath to their agency. The minute Snowden got on a plan
Someone please mod that up (Score:3)
I don't even know for sure if that's literally true but it damn well is worth reminding people: a contract has terms for both parties. We know Snowden violated his terms, but do we know he went first?
Was his consideration purely his paychecks? I know a lot of people go into various branches of go
Re: (Score:3)
I know, if I would not have beleived that when I was a kid. Either things are changing, or my brainwashing is slowly wearing down.
Things are definitely changing in many ways. Certainly the USA is getting a bit scary in the level of monitoring. However I don't think that's the thing that changed here. Remember though what was done to Charlie Chaplin and company. Snowdon is hardly the first US dissident.
What's new about this is the total level of apparent visible incompetence involved. The fundamental rule of being Russia and China is "never do anything you don't want to do if the USA states openly that you you have to do it". T
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Informative)
Today they're not even pretending. They just openly torture prisoners, arrest and murder people without trial, invade on the flimsiest of blatantly false pretenses, and baldly send in taxpayer-paid mercenaries to massacre people resisting corporate theft of their lands. Perhaps the most appalling thing to me is the easy acceptance of all of this by my fellow citizens, most of whom are well aware that the government is doing these things in their name and don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Please stop wasting pixels and clogging up the internet with this gibberish.