Snowden is doomed

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by darksidZz, Jun 29, 2013.

?

Answer

Poll closed Jul 14, 2013.
  1. Yes

    50.0%
  2. No

    50.0%
  3. Unsure

    16.7%
  4. Who is Snowden?

    33.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, yet another case of 1+1=666…I am eternally amazed at how irrational some humans can be. It is truly amazing we have survived this long. I responded to Mrs.Lucy’s comment that a legal law is unconstitutional. And I will repeat my response for your edification once again, if speed doesn’t help you perhaps repetition will. I said a law is not legal if it is not constitutional. It’s really not a hard concept to grasp. It’s taught in elementary schools across the land. It has nothing to do with NSA or secrets files, buddies, blackmail, FISA, the FBI, the media or tabloids or any of the other machinations you might have about that simple statement. It is just a fundamental fact which is or should be widely known to Americans.

    Additionally, no one has produced any evidence that the NSA has violated any laws. No one has produced any evidence that anything the NSA has done with respect to these programs has damaged anyone. And that is a big problem for folks who are trying to make hay out of this affair.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2013
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  3. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    Hi everyone, I don't really care to much about this topic all I think is that really I don' t like people being chased, Snowden should just be let to go wander outside the US
     
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  5. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    Should we take this same approach to all criminals?
     
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  7. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    darky starts a thread and now says he doesnt care about it...as soon as i was beginning to think he has matured, pow in my face.
     
  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    So now Snowden has some countries willing to take him. His trouble now is getting there. Short of a great new yet to be designed burrowing device or a Star Trek transporter, he has to get through airspace controlled by US allies. We saw what happened to the Bolivian president. And as I said before, even if he manages to get to one of these countries, he will always live in fear. The US will not stop its efforts to arrest him. No matter where he seeks refuge he will always live in fear that someday he will be arrested and deported back to the US. Snowden is indeed doomed.

    “Because Snowden's U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of him departing are complicated. Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia have made asylum offers over the past two days, but the three countries haven't indicated they would help Snowden by issuing a travel document, which he would need to leave Russia.” -By NATALIYA VASILYEVA, Associated Press

    http://www.durangoherald.com/articl.../Snowden's-fate-unclear-despite-asylum-offers

    I think Snowden expected to be widely hailed as a hero, a rock star, for his betrayal by the American people. But things didn’t play out that way for him. There are no movie deals. There are no interviews with Oprah. The outrage he expected has largely failed to materialize. Instead he finds himself an international fugitive and his new home is contained within the confines of a Russian airport. And the large gaggle of devotees hailing and praising his betrayal never materialized. Instead he must settle for a small but devoted cadre of anti-American groupies trying to paint him as a martyr for their cause – a cause that has never been popular in mainstream America.

    This is the problem for Snowden, his groupies and a few congressional demagogues who have taken up his cause, for all of their rhetoric; they have no evidence of government wrong doing or illegal activity. And they have no body, they don’t have a victim. They cannot point to anyone who has been harmed by the NSA. In fact government can and has pointed to lives saved and terrorist plots the program has prevented. That is probably why the large gaggle of devotees Snowden expected never materialized.

    As we move further into the information age, privacy and security issues will only get larger and more profound. Information, security and privacy issues of the future will be more complicated and the consequences more profound. Information and privacy will be an ongoing challenge that will only become more severe as our technology continues to evolve. It is the price we pay for the benefits of our technology. And we must continually weigh the benefits against the costs. What troubles me most, is not so much privacy, but the ability a few to manipulate the behaviors of the many. It is a scary new world we face. But Snowden is just a regular wannabe idiot and history will remember him as such.
     
  9. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    2,830
    Oh noooo everyone tremble before USA, they will snatch you from your plane in mid=air, thinking that will not give no consequences later on. Keep up that attitude US and see where your imperialistic dreams gets you.
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    Dreams, what dreams? Two, who is snatching airplanes, who needs to snatch airplanes? If you had been paying attention you would know President Obama has ruled out "scrambling jets" to snatch airplanes in order to capture Snowden. Three, it isn't necessary to snatch airplanes. Nations can just deny access to their airspace as they have done (e.g. the Bolivian president’s airplane). And fourth, it is not about US influence, it is about capturing alleged criminals. Most nations with advanced economies have extradition agreements/treaties with each other. The US would do the same for any one of them. Sorry to spoil your machinations about the evil US empire.
     
  11. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    Not allowing a president of a country to fly is a violation of UN laws of sovereignity. Nations who are pawns under CIA jurisdiction, have acted upon their own selfishness and acted against the democratical principles they themselves stand for. You should be ashamed you are part of a nation that uses others like pawns, including their own citizens.

    and no I am not talking about FOX jokes about "scrambling planes".
     
  12. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    No it isn’t. That is hogwash. Each country has absolute sovereign rights over its airspace. Just because President Obama is the US head of state he cannot fly wherever whenever he wants. He cannot jump in his plane and fly into Russia or Cuba without first getting permissions from those governments. And those governments have every right to deny him access.

    Perhaps you would be kind enough to provide proofs of your claims?

    Neither was President Obama when he said he wouldn’t scramble airplanes to capture Snowden. And as I previously pointed out to you, it really isn’t necessary.
     
  13. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    It isn't necessary? It is absurd to propose such an act. World's airspace is not US airspace. Just because Obama said he would not or he would scramble jets, does not mean the world has to give a ***t about it. He might as well talk to a wall.

    Yes each country has absolute right over its airspace. However no country has the right to dictate the other country when to open its airspace and when to close it. That is what CIA did and France listened to it like an order. Since when is Europe a colony of US? What happened to their dignity?
     
  14. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    So the answer is no, you cannot back up your claims with proof. You are just mindlessly repeating hate and conspiracy nonsense you have picked up from others.

    Again, do you have any proofs of this claim? Apparently you are really ignorant of US-French relations. The French have a long history of doing what they want regardless of what the US may want. For example in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of a US airliner, the US bombed Libya. France, Italy, and Spain denied the US use of their airspace for the raid. And there are many more incidents I can point to. The US didn’t want France to develop nuclear weapons, but they did. So this nonsense about the French or other European countries being American stooges is rooted in ignorance and not history or fact.

    “Relations improved somewhat under de Gaulle's successors, but tensions reappeared intermittently. France, more strongly than any other nation, has seen the European Union as a method of counterbalancing American power, and thus works towards such ends as having the Euro challenge the preeminent position of the United States dollar in global trade and developing a European defense initiative as an alternative to NATO. Overall, the U.S. has much closer relations with the other large European powers, Great Britain, Germany and Italy. In the 1980s the two nations cooperated on some international matters but disagreed sharply on others, such as Operation El Dorado Canyon and the desirability of a reunified Germany. The Reagan administration did its best efforts to prevent France and other European countries from buying natural gas from Russia, through the construction of the Siberia-Europe pipeline. The European governments, including the French, were undeterred and the pipeline was finally built.” – Wikipedia

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France–United_States_relations#Postwar_years
     
  15. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    There’s no reason for the US government to have to suffer the complications of the forcible interception of a civilian airliner to apprehend the criminal Snowden. Wherever Snowden decides to take up residency, he’ll be subject to the same relentless machinery of pursuit that has dogged other notable fugitives from justice.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It will be fully as irrelevant after the fifteenth repetition as the first, but if it makes you feel like you are a smart and logical person then one supposes it has at least that value.

    If you quote my posts and affect to be responding to them, though, you should include something bearing on their content etc.
    Of course they have - the most obvious being the nature and secrecy of the surveillance program undertaken. The burden of proof is now on the NSA, to demonstrate that despite appearances they have not committed the crimes they seem to have set themselves up to commit.

    btw: it is illegal for the US government to tap the phones of US citizens without a specific warrant - whether they actually listen and record or not.

    I am damaged by being spied on, by having my phone calls monitored and metadata from them compiled in secret files, by having to deal with the possibility of the major telecommunications companies still (as in the W years) having direct hardware and software links to government agencies with no one overseeing their use, by having this happen to my community and all ocv the people I rely upon within it, and so forth. That is damaging.

    In addition, no government program of secret and unaccountable surveillance has ever, in the history of human civilization, failed to abuse and harm specific citizens and groups of citizens in various ways. In the light of that, the mere existence of the program (secret and unaccountable surveillance of American citizens) is itself strong evidence of abuse and harm.
     
  17. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    4,924
    =(~
     
  18. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    1,324
    The only way an individual could claim damages by government or private surveillance operations is to show that the data collected resulted in unwarranted loss of property or reputation. When used for security purposes the collected data would only impact those in breach of desired standards. As long as operational personnel limit the use of data to the confines of a given operation, the potential for abuse should be negligible. When trusted employees such as Edward Snowden seek to use such data outside the scope of its intended purpose, then the potential for damage becomes apparent. The real problem isn’t with the well intentioned goals of surveillance, but the quality of the personnel tasked to manage it. If you want to limit the potential for damage posed by such programs, keep usurpers like Snowden out of the loop.
     
  19. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    That is just gibberish. It doesn’t make sense.

    OK, then you should be able to site the crimes the laws they have violated. So what laws has the NSA violated? Until you can point to a specific law that has been violated and offer some evidence to support that claim, the NSA has no burden of proof. That is how our justice system works. In this country we don’t just accuse people of doing something wrong not knowing what they did wrong and without evidence and ask the accused to prove they are not guilty. That works in totalitarian states but not so much in The United States.

    Show me where they tapped the phones of US citizens without a specific warrant? You cannot because that is not what the NSA is alleged to have done. It is my understanding that the NSA is merely capturing communication metadata – that is not tapping your conversation. And when they find they have probable cause to tap into a line, they get a court order before tapping into those conversations. Think about it for a moment. Capturing and storing the conversation of every American every day would require a huge infrastructure. It would be extraordinarily expensive. The NSA retains this data because local carriers do not.

    Well for starters, I think you are being a bit paranoid. You are being “spied” on all the time wither you know it or not. When you go to the grocery store they are tracking your purchases. When you use your credit cards, they are tracking your purchases. When access various websites, they are tracking you. When you drive down the streets, they are watching you. That is the new reality. And it is going to get worse as technology advances and the conveniences it affords us become more popular. Here is something else for you to consider and another downside to our technology, a hundred years ago it was very difficult for one man to commit mass murder…not so today, courtesy of our technology.

    Wow, I seriously doubt you can prove any of that. But in any case, that is not what we are talking about here. Governments are entitled to and need secrets. However, they also need accountability and that accountability is afforded in this case with judicial and congressional oversight.
     
  20. ScaryMonster I’m the whispered word. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually I seem to recall hearing that members of the NSA were heard to be saying that they were planning to disperser Snowden. It's probably just hear say? But the notion is not so far fetched when in the resent past the US government has resorted to Rendition so they can have lackey satellites states do there torturing for them without fear of prosecution in US courts.
    Shouldn't signing a non disclosure agreement for a government agency be null and void if that agency is engaging in illegal and unconstitutional activities as the NSA had been?
    I can't understand why all the talk is about Showden and not the criminals he exposed. Whoever is in charge of over-cite for the NSA and his or her underlings should be getting a legal mauling. Or is the NSA the US version of the Gestapo?
     
  21. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    The only criminal exposed thus far by Snowden is Snowden himself. What's been exposed at the NSA is the inadequate screening of contract employees.
     
  22. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    contract employees?

    inadequate screening?

    US entire population is screened
    All of their information is being monitored. Everything.
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    And since they have no legal access to any such data, there is no recourse for damaged individuals in a country that allows secret and warrantless dragnet surveillance of its citizens.

    btw: What would you have in mind by "warranted" loss of property or reputation, from a secret government surveillance program?

    The mere existence of secret and unaccountable universal surveillance of the citizenry by its government impacts that entire citizenry in hundreds of ways. In this case, we don't even know what those "desired standards" are - have you "breached" them?
    The potential for expanding the use of the data is not negligible, and the potential for setting up abusive operations in the first place is not negligible. Actually, the odds of this being common already are not negligible. Also, there is no such thing as the "confines" of an operation that can keep its actual behavior secret and hidden from oversight.

    We have this, for example:
    Well, that blows any reassurances of proper self-limitation by NSA employees, doesn't it.

    Snowden's existence is proof of the dangers he warns about.

    I see evidence that the USA government has engaged in illegal search and seizure of information about people's phone calls and/or internet communications.

    That evidence is the existence of a dragnet surveillance program that was set up with those capabilities, carefully hidden from oversight and accountability, and when exposed described in vague and uninformative ways apparently intended to mislead.
    Your understanding is not grounded in information - you do not know what that "metadata" is, for example.

    The NSA has so far refused to describe exactly what is and is not in these files it apparently has put together on the American citizenry. Why is that a secret?
     

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