|
On June 26 2013 13:53 omgimonfire15 wrote:
I've actually heard a couple legitimate concern. My friend is afraid that if the NSA can do this, that in future elections, the director of the agency could just pull up shit on the other parties runners. While it would receive backlash, it could change people's minds depending on what is found. While it seems like paranoia, like the 1984 theorists, this is actually highly possible.
The backlash would be enormous, to the point where the US political system would be thrown into instability. The President would be thrown out of office, probably the Vice President as well, and the party affiliated would be burned for at least a decade.
|
|
|
And some americans are still proud of their "freedom", "democracy" and their consitution.
|
On June 26 2013 11:56 jellyjello wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 11:45 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 11:16 radscorpion9 wrote:I think Obama did take pains to ensure that the program he set up was legal under current laws...and it probably is being the legal scholar that he is, although many would say it shouldn't be. I think when you're dealing with terrorism you're going to need to have some form of espionage. And if its out in the open for everyone to see, then they will simply avoid those channels that they know Americans are listening in on (its clearly not espionage anymore  ). I think the problem I have with most people who view Snowden as a hero, is that they believe that a system that is based on a very restrictive method of collecting hard evidence will be sufficient to stop terrorism. I think its more than a bit idealistic to think that Anwar al-awlaki, for example, could have been extradited through some formal legal process. Life doesn't always work by the book, and in those cases action should be taken when every last reasonable resort has been ruled out. I can't really say whether the system has enough built in protections. Apparently it was regularly reviewed, and approved by, congress. All I can say is that, if what Snowden revealed actually was illegal or unconstitutional, then yes he was a hero. But if everything was legal and constitutional, and congress effectively approved of it even if its scope wasn't completely known for security reasons, then yes he is guilty and is effectively a traitor. It doesn't matter whether you have good intentions, US law is supposed to mean something. There is supposed to be a political process by which the people decide, through their representatives, what programs should be allowed and what shouldn't...and it shouldn't be up to individuals who have personal disagreements with the law to share vital national security interests that in turn will inform terrorist networks of what channels to avoid communicating on, just because in his opinion it crosses the line. That's not his job - its the president's job, its congress' job. Its definitely a murky piece of business so I can't speak to confidently about anything. I guess we'll have to wait for the supreme court to make ruling? Is that it? I'm not sure what the progress of the ACLU lawsuit is, now that new information has surfaced. On June 26 2013 11:07 teddyoojo wrote:On June 26 2013 09:32 Wombat_NI wrote:
I find the most depressing thing about this is the huge shrug of apathy that greets news like this, especially in my workplace. People just genuinely don't give a fuck, even if they are relatively informed.
That said, in terms of data collection it's (as far as I'm aware) not all that much more than people stick up on Facebook, or allow other companies like Google to store. Privacy for the sake of privacy is, or should be something worth protecting, I don't really understand why this isn't such a big deal for a lot of folks, but ah well. how many ppl play battlefield 3? how many ppl use facebook? thats like the first steps that lead ppl into not caring about this. I guess the other thing is, are there any cases that really show that the US abused its power? Is there any real evidence of this in the US, or any feeling that by a slippery slope the US will turn fascistic? I think that's why most people don't care; they largely trust those in charge, and feel the president is doing his best to put in checks and balances while not compromising national security by revealing exactly how the US does its espionage. You do make a point, but I think that if that is what people think then it could lead to dire consequences in the future. The problem with a slippery slope is once it starts, its almost impossible to come back the other way. Think of it like global warming, whether you believe in it or not, none of us really wants to do anything until we actually start seeing large chunks of the population being wiped out by natural disasters, problem is by then its already too late. These issues need to be resolved before they become a real issue. Remove the poverty aspect and this situation is not at all that different from 1984, if Winston had acted normal like the rest of the population there wouldn't be much of a story and you would have thought the system wasn't that bad at all. What happened to Winston is much like what is happening to Manning or going to happen to Snowden. There are many cases of innocent people being arrested for thought crimes, yes. Its not hard to find an article about a person who was minding his own business in his own home only to have law enforcement smash down the front door for a crime he didn't commit, nor was it an actual crime, it was a thought crime. Know that the reason you haven't been arrested is because of the herd aspect, the law enforcement can't arrest everybody, so there are "token" arrests in which people that are arrested for thought crimes become an example to scare everyone. You just haven't been one of the ones that have been unlucky to be chosen. Whistle-blowing is not against the law. If he did what he did for any other business he would simply be fired. However if a business was ever in control of the law and law enforcement then things would be hugely different and that is the problem. We should be free to say whatever we want without fear of persecution, right now it seems that a lot of people are being wrongfully imprisoned for doing just this. The US at least, now no longer permits free speech, and that is a big deal. If the laws don't permit free speech, then it should be changed.. On top of this, we now have a big brother looking out for more "Winstons". This is not about the free speech. He had classified information and ran with it to the press without a proper authorization.
Exactly, so its not free speech...
|
On June 26 2013 14:53 samuu wrote:
And some americans are still proud of their "freedom", "democracy" and their consitution.
It's not just the US though. GCHQ is doing this and the BND in Germany wants to start a similar program too. I wonder what kind of public debate you'll have about it.
|
On June 26 2013 15:14 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 14:53 samuu wrote:
And some americans are still proud of their "freedom", "democracy" and their consitution. It's not just the US though. GCHQ is doing this and the BND in Germany wants to start a similar program too. I wonder what kind of public debate you'll have about it.
And besides because most of the internet goes through the US, they are effectively spying on the entire world.
|
americas own fault they gatherd those informations in the first place.
On June 26 2013 15:14 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 14:53 samuu wrote:
And some americans are still proud of their "freedom", "democracy" and their consitution. It's not just the US though. GCHQ is doing this and the BND in Germany wants to start a similar program too. I wonder what kind of public debate you'll have about it.
its true that germany wanted to do something similiar, but it failed and endangered the political work of the etablished political parties to a point that they just stopped it.
the last dictatorship on german soil hasnt passed for that long so there are still a good amount of people here who value freedom.
|
On June 26 2013 15:21 hfglgg wrote:
its true that germany wanted to do something similiar, but it failed and endangered the political work of the etablished political parties to a point that they just stopped it.
the last dictatorship on german soil hasnt passed for that long so there are still a good amount of people here who value freedom.
Have they? This story is just one week old.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-profits-from-us-spying-program-and-is-planning-its-own-a-906129.html
It's true that they don't plan to store the data, which is a significant difference. But the principle that any communication with a foreign element, as well as a significant portion of domestic communication passing through foreign cables, is fair game seems to be shared by all major intelligence agencies.
|
From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail?
Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero?
Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same.
The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary.
Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted.
Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West.
Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope.
Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it.
What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. In 1984, Winston also broke the law, so he must be the bad guy, it was wrong of him to question the regime at all, also all the people punished for thought crimes, they also broke the law, they deserve to be punished...
Is that really what we want?
|
On June 26 2013 15:16 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 15:14 hypercube wrote:On June 26 2013 14:53 samuu wrote:
And some americans are still proud of their "freedom", "democracy" and their consitution. It's not just the US though. GCHQ is doing this and the BND in Germany wants to start a similar program too. I wonder what kind of public debate you'll have about it. And besides because most of the internet goes through the US, they are effectively spying on the entire world.
True, and not just by accident either. They went after internet hubs outside the US too, as the story about hacking Chinese universities suggested.
|
On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want?
Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_;
|
On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_;
The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions
Nothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern".
What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not. At least I know there's a chance I may be punished for thought crime by the US and will have to watch what I say (nothing stopped the US from getting Assange and Kim Dotcom), which is just dumb.
|
On June 26 2013 15:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_; The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptionsNothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern". What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not.
Look up non-disclosure agreements. Getting authorized to access top secret information requires one to sign one with the US Government.
|
On June 26 2013 16:01 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 15:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_; The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptionsNothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern". What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not. Look up non-disclosure agreements. Getting authorized to access top secret information requires one to sign one with the US Government.
Yes and Snowden was authorized to access this information as an employee of the NSA.
Also access of information has nothing to do with speech, you are free to hide information as much as you want. You are not allowed to commit crimes to get that information either. Nothing wrong with that.
|
On June 26 2013 16:03 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:01 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_; The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptionsNothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern". What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not. Look up non-disclosure agreements. Getting authorized to access top secret information requires one to sign one with the US Government. Yes and Snowden was authorized to access this information as an employee of the NSA.
But not disclose any of the information to an unauthorized party. NDAs deal with dispersal of information, not access.
|
On June 26 2013 16:05 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:03 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 16:01 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_; The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptionsNothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern". What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not. Look up non-disclosure agreements. Getting authorized to access top secret information requires one to sign one with the US Government. Yes and Snowden was authorized to access this information as an employee of the NSA. But not disclose any of the information to an unauthorized party. NDAs deal with dispersal of information, not access.
I'm busy so I can't elaborate but that is the entire point of my first post The NDA is more of a contract and less to do with constitutional rights.
See case example, do you think a person who leaks government information to prevent a regime should also be thrown in jail because of the NDA? The whole point of freedom of speech is to prevent things like this.
|
On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:05 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 16:03 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 16:01 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 15:40 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 15:32 sluggaslamoo wrote:From a purely logical standpoint, if the government had some campaign to initiate a dictatorship through control of the army and someone who was in on it became a whistle-blower and stopped the movement, do you believe he should be thrown in jail? Also would you still label the person a @#$%ing spy, or would he be a hero? Note that for both examples it is the exact same situation. Someone is leaking "government secrets" to the public, they should be treated the same. The content of the confidential information is not important. If you believe that the guy in the example above should not be put in jail, then Snowden should also not be put in jail. They have done the exact same thing, again the content of the leak should not be important, the result should be binary. Why is the content not important? We have a right to free speech without fear of persecution. It is binary, if we have rules governing free speech, then it is not free speech. What is happening in the US right now means that free speech no longer exists, we have to live in fear that if we say something the government doesn't like then we get indicted. Free speech means free speech. "free speech, except up to a certain level", that is not free speech. It would be no different from China, you can say whatever you want, just don't say anything bad about the government. What's the difference? Over the years the borders of our so called "free-speech" have been lowered and lowered in the West. Either we indict people for leaking government secrets, or we don't. One of which, I believe, will lead to a slippery slope. Our older generations died so you guys wouldn't get punished for thought crimes, and now you want to just throw that away. The trend is also not looking great, every year the government expands the morally grey area more and more. This effectively means that governments can do whatever they want and jail anyone for "leaking government secrets". And because some people blindly follow "the law" they let them get away with it. What's stopping the government from inventing new laws that keep pushing the boundaries of speech. People will just say "Oh but he broke the law", so its ok. Is that really what we want? Then I guess America has NEVER had free speech, with the First Amendment and all have rules on free speech... ;_; The exceptions of freedom of speech are not restrictions on speech, they are unlawful acts covered by other laws of which the act of doing is against the law and has nothing to do with speech. For example, distributing child pornography, the unlawful act has nothing to do with the distribution or speech, it has to do with child pornography itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptionsNothing in here shows that Snowden did not have a right to do what he did. Prism does not protect society so much as it harms it, and is "a matter of public concern". What the US is basically saying is that even for people in Australia, we do not have a right to know whether the US government is spying on us, and not even the US citizens themselves. As far as I'm concerned the US has no business in looking at my emails or internet activity regardless of whether it is harmless or not. Look up non-disclosure agreements. Getting authorized to access top secret information requires one to sign one with the US Government. Yes and Snowden was authorized to access this information as an employee of the NSA. But not disclose any of the information to an unauthorized party. NDAs deal with dispersal of information, not access. I'm busy so I can't elaborate but that is the entire point of my first post The NDA is more of a contract and less to do with constitutional rights. See case example, do you think a person who leaks government information to prevent a regime should also be thrown in jail because of the NDA? The whole point of freedom of speech is to prevent things like this.
Only if the information he is revealing shows clearly that the government is committing illegal activities in accordance to law. The law can be challenged in court in accordance to the Constitution. If the information is just top secret information about lawful activities, then he's violating the NDA. If he sells the information to foreign sources, he's committing espionage.
|
On June 26 2013 15:28 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 15:21 hfglgg wrote:
its true that germany wanted to do something similiar, but it failed and endangered the political work of the etablished political parties to a point that they just stopped it.
the last dictatorship on german soil hasnt passed for that long so there are still a good amount of people here who value freedom. Have they? This story is just one week old. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-profits-from-us-spying-program-and-is-planning-its-own-a-906129.htmlIt's true that they don't plan to store the data, which is a significant difference. But the principle that any communication with a foreign element, as well as a significant portion of domestic communication passing through foreign cables, is fair game seems to be shared by all major intelligence agencies.
well i dont know of any new plans, but the last time they tried to save a huge amount of informations "just in case" there were protests and demonstrations (not big ones, but they were still there) and a new political party formed and got elected into multiple state parliaments making coalitions much more difficult. i would be surprised if any party is willing to get their fingers burned. especially now shortly before an election.
|
So what confuses the hell out me is that the following issue seems to be not discussed at all:
Apparently a lot of persons have access to the PRISM data.
We know of one person who managed to distribute that data to someone unauthorized.
The person who did it apparently did not do it for selfish reasons (revealing his name, giving up well paid job and family, leaking it to western press), so wasn't exactly your classical full-time spy.
Why the fuck is there no discussion about the risk PRISM poses to the national security and economy of the USA / any country? If Snowden could get the data , surely actual spies (paid by other nations) can also get that data. Traditionally spies had to collect such data themselves but with PRISM all that data is presented on a silver plate and you just need 1 person to infiltrate one of the external companies who have access to the data and you can get way more information than you could even hope to get with any other means. The Case Snowden shows that the NSA can't guarantee the safety of the data so any notion of them to "just use it vs terrorism / the bad guys" is void. It is pretty much like giving thousands of external companies employees access to your nuclear weapon arsenal.
|
he probably signed about 100 papers working there in the first place, so sure he is guilty in that point of view. but fuck that, make him king!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
