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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. 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?
Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk.
Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so.
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On June 26 2013 16:30 TBO wrote:
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.
If this is anything like DoD work for engineers: First, you can't get that close to that information and data without being vetted by the federal government. He was required to get a very high level of security clearance, which requires you to be a natural born citizen. His family and neighbors are also questioned by federal agents. If at any point they were suspicious of him, he would have lost the clearance (and probably his job).
Second, his ability to do much of the stuff was very limited. He said he needed authorization to access the information, meaning without it, he would have quickly been found out. Obviously, no system is perfect, but this is definitely more of a case of an employee going rogue more than that of a huge security breach due to a flaw.
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On June 26 2013 16:17 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote: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.
That's my entire point. The content should not be important, either we allow information to be leaked or we don't. Illegal is whatever the government makes it. A smart government would change the law in order so that it will never commit "illegal activities", which is exactly what its doing. e.g Guantanamo Bay, PATRIOT Act, etc.
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the russians could trade him for a US fuck off from syria.
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The guy seems like a completely reasonable dude, and I feel really, really bad for him in that his life is probably to all intents and purposes over now thanks to standing up for what he felt was right.
If the government had any sense it would extend a semi armistice and say' look, you felt you had to do this shit, we gotta show people that isn't on. We're going to lock you up, because that's the law, but we also respect you and won't put you in the alcatraz or something. residency in a good estate with the ability to work on good works.
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One day you see a band of famished, armed men. In exchange for food, they will protect your house. You both make an agreement not to enter each others' rooms during the arrangement. The armed men have you cleaning their weapons, which you voluntarily agree to do, because you thought it would be cool, and they said they'd teach you how to handle the weapon. One day, your mom can't find her fountain pen that she always keeps in her room. While you're cleaning the men's weapons, they ask you to hand them their bag. As you do you notice your mom's fountain pen in the bag and a conversation between two other men about how they stole the pen. You show the pen to your mom. The men find out about it and argue that both parties agreed not to steal from each other and that you violated that agreement when you took the pen which rightfully belonged to your mom. They say you should be punished... their way.
OBVIOUSLY the men are the ones who breached the agreement when the whole home-staying arrangement was made from the beginning (constitution).
Wouldn't it be convenient if you had all the power and weapons, and then you made it "illegal" for anyone to expose your crimes? You focus on exactly what's convenient for you, creating a double standard for yourself and others. give me a break. there is no debate here. Only education of minds so they don't fall prey to obvious obvious propaganda.
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On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so.
Then answer, is the example person a hero or a spy, what do you think should happen to him?
The exact same can be applied to what you just wrote. The example person is "putting the nations security at risk" by leaking classified information. Its a paradox, you are actually not basing your beliefs on logic, but emotional values.
To me the only real threat that exists is the ability for the US to indict people for thought-crime through classified information that does not rightfully belong to the US government. The next thing is what the fuck are all these companies doing?
I don't give a shit if this is about fighting terrorism, the way the government is going about "fighting terrorism" is not the way it should be done.
The US signed the PATRIOT act, this act does not extend to every other country, what is this Prism thing doing searching through my emails? If Terrorism is a threat to your country, well that's your problem, I don't need your security so you can capture "threats to national security" like Julian Assange.
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On June 26 2013 17:01 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:17 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote: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. That's my entire point. The content should not be important, either we allow information to be leaked or we don't. Illegal is whatever the government makes it. A smart government would change the law in order so that it will never commit "illegal activities", which is exactly what its doing. e.g Guantanamo Bay, PATRIOT Act, etc.
Legality is disputed in the courts and is checked against established law in relation to the Constitution. Also, it's not like the government is some towering singular monster that makes decisions. It's not "smart" or "stupid," it's made up by the people to serve the people.
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On June 26 2013 17:25 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 17:01 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 16:17 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote: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:
[quote]
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. That's my entire point. The content should not be important, either we allow information to be leaked or we don't. Illegal is whatever the government makes it. A smart government would change the law in order so that it will never commit "illegal activities", which is exactly what its doing. e.g Guantanamo Bay, PATRIOT Act, etc. Legality is disputed in the courts and is checked against established law in relation to the Constitution. Also, it's not like the government is some towering singular monster that makes decisions. It's not "smart" or "stupid," it's made up by the people to serve the people.
A glorious phrase, pity it is without substance. What you say is what the government should be, not what it is.
Legality is disputed within the courts, unless the government thinks your a terrorist and then you go to Guantanamo Bay without trial.
The government is a towering singular monster when it is persuaded by sponsor corporations and there is money to be made or lost.
A government can definitely be smart or stupid. A leader is not without its people, just look at Syria for an example of a dumb government. Terrorism is a great excuse to garner the will of your people through a common enemy, while enacting selfish acts.
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Americans should just accept that they will never be safe, and that you cant sacrifice freedom for security without losing both.
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On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so.
It's not about terrorism anymore, they're doing nation wide surveillance. Everything from phone calls to literally anything you do online. Unless they suspect all US citizens are terrorists.....which at this point I guess that's not too far fetched. It increasingly feels like the govt/major corporations view all citizens and consumers as enemies and vice versa.
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On June 26 2013 17:35 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 17:25 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 17:01 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 16:17 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote: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:
[quote]
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. That's my entire point. The content should not be important, either we allow information to be leaked or we don't. Illegal is whatever the government makes it. A smart government would change the law in order so that it will never commit "illegal activities", which is exactly what its doing. e.g Guantanamo Bay, PATRIOT Act, etc. Legality is disputed in the courts and is checked against established law in relation to the Constitution. Also, it's not like the government is some towering singular monster that makes decisions. It's not "smart" or "stupid," it's made up by the people to serve the people. A glorious phrase, pity it is without substance. What you say is what the government should be, not what it is. Legality is disputed within the courts, unless the government thinks your a terrorist and then you go to Guantanamo Bay without trial. The government is a towering singular monster when it is persuaded by sponsor corporations and there is money to be made or lost. A government can definitely be smart or stupid. A leader is not without its people, just look at Syria for an example of a dumb government. Terrorism is a great excuse to garner the will of your people through a common enemy, while enacting selfish acts.
Last I checked, Syria was a dictatorship. With a singular leader who has unlimited domestic power, it can act much more stupid (or smart) and singular than many other types of government.
America is a republic, with regular elections to elect members of Congress and the President. Those elected are people, like you or I. They make decisions, like you or I would in their position. Believe it or not, many of them have beliefs not far from many of us and sometimes seek questionable means to an ultimate end, like most of us do. The many appendages of government are also made up of people, millions of them. Again, many not different from you or I.
Guantanamo does not hold US citizens. It did so once by accident, but gave him back to Saudi Arabia upon learning this. (Of course, by now I realize that it doesn't matter to you since you believe the government is out to get you, and your little dog too! Unless government is made powerless to create and enforce laws, we will ALWAYS be in danger of Big Brother and having rats dig holes in our chests to prove that our resolve, even with love, is not stronger than the state!)
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On June 26 2013 18:03 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 17:35 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 17:25 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 17:01 sluggaslamoo wrote:On June 26 2013 16:17 aksfjh wrote:On June 26 2013 16:13 sluggaslamoo wrote: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:[quote] 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. That's my entire point. The content should not be important, either we allow information to be leaked or we don't. Illegal is whatever the government makes it. A smart government would change the law in order so that it will never commit "illegal activities", which is exactly what its doing. e.g Guantanamo Bay, PATRIOT Act, etc. Legality is disputed in the courts and is checked against established law in relation to the Constitution. Also, it's not like the government is some towering singular monster that makes decisions. It's not "smart" or "stupid," it's made up by the people to serve the people. A glorious phrase, pity it is without substance. What you say is what the government should be, not what it is. Legality is disputed within the courts, unless the government thinks your a terrorist and then you go to Guantanamo Bay without trial. The government is a towering singular monster when it is persuaded by sponsor corporations and there is money to be made or lost. A government can definitely be smart or stupid. A leader is not without its people, just look at Syria for an example of a dumb government. Terrorism is a great excuse to garner the will of your people through a common enemy, while enacting selfish acts. Guantanamo does not hold US citizens.
Oh well then its okay!
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There's no doubt he's guilty of espionage. However, what he did can arguably be considered a noble cause despite committing a "crime against the US".
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On June 26 2013 17:49 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so. It's not about terrorism anymore, they're doing nation wide surveillance. Everything from phone calls to literally anything you do online. Unless they suspect all US citizens are terrorists.....which at this point I guess that's not too far fetched. It increasingly feels like the govt/major corporations view all citizens and consumers as enemies and vice versa.
czylu is absolutely right. And I don't know why people care so much about the government having access to phone records. They aren't listening in on phone calls (unless you are being investigated as a terrorist?), it's just freaking phone records. But regardless, Snowden is nothing more than a traitor and I hope he rots in jail along with Bradley Manning.
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On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so.
The "shouting fire in a crowded theater" analogy is sort of like a Freudian slip, since this analogy was first concocted by the government as a justification for imprisoning pacifists by saying that the First Amendment doesn't protect your right to express your opinion that one should not kill other human beings.
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On June 26 2013 18:10 rhs408 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 17:49 AnomalySC2 wrote:On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so. It's not about terrorism anymore, they're doing nation wide surveillance. Everything from phone calls to literally anything you do online. Unless they suspect all US citizens are terrorists.....which at this point I guess that's not too far fetched. It increasingly feels like the govt/major corporations view all citizens and consumers as enemies and vice versa. czylu is absolutely right. And I don't know why people care so much about the government having access to phone records. They aren't listening in on phone calls (unless you are being investigated as a terrorist?), it's just freaking phone records. But regardless, Snowden is nothing more than a traitor and I hope he rots in jail along with Bradley Manning.
They ARE listening in on phone calls. And they have the ability to see anything you're doing while connected to the internet, as if you're streaming directly to their data center.
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On June 26 2013 18:19 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 18:10 rhs408 wrote:On June 26 2013 17:49 AnomalySC2 wrote:On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so. It's not about terrorism anymore, they're doing nation wide surveillance. Everything from phone calls to literally anything you do online. Unless they suspect all US citizens are terrorists.....which at this point I guess that's not too far fetched. It increasingly feels like the govt/major corporations view all citizens and consumers as enemies and vice versa. czylu is absolutely right. And I don't know why people care so much about the government having access to phone records. They aren't listening in on phone calls (unless you are being investigated as a terrorist?), it's just freaking phone records. But regardless, Snowden is nothing more than a traitor and I hope he rots in jail along with Bradley Manning. They ARE listening in on phone calls. And they have the ability to see anything you're doing while connected to the internet, as if you're streaming directly to their data center.
They also have a giant laser shooting robot that is preparing to battle the rebels on the moon base that have created their own laser shooting skyscraper sized robot!
I can make up things as well. That was pretty fun!
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On June 26 2013 17:38 D10 wrote:
Americans should just accept that they will never be safe, and that you cant sacrifice freedom for security without losing both.
Cool quote dude! Sadly it's kind of meaningless. Many "freedoms" are sacrificed for the name of security the world over, and neither are lost. The real question is how far can you push it. The internet is a relatively new thing, and the ways it relates to government and privacy is a murky issue that needs boundaries set. Hopefully this new info will lead to a discussion of it, or at least more transparency.
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On June 26 2013 18:10 rhs408 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2013 17:49 AnomalySC2 wrote:On June 26 2013 16:53 czylu 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. 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? Free speech needs to be practical and reasonable first and foremost. You can't yell fire in packed movie theater, people could die in the resulting panic. You can't say your company has record breaking profits, when it's bankrupt. Similarly, you can't reveal government classified documents that puts the nation's security at risk. Snowden did not reveal that america had been spying on electronic communications. We KNEW that since 2007, and was authorized by the PATRIOT act in 2001. What Snowden did was he revealed HOW and WHAT the NSA actually spied on, which severely damages the purpose of the NSA(which is protect the homeland). If the terrorists know what forms of communication are being tracked, they will inevitably NOT use those forms of communication. Ironically, b/c snowden has revealed these techniques to the general public(and by extension the terrorists), the program will inevitably need to expand to include communications that are not currently monitored. And the NSA will have the legal and constitutional right to do so. It's not about terrorism anymore, they're doing nation wide surveillance. Everything from phone calls to literally anything you do online. Unless they suspect all US citizens are terrorists.....which at this point I guess that's not too far fetched. It increasingly feels like the govt/major corporations view all citizens and consumers as enemies and vice versa. czylu is absolutely right. And I don't know why people care so much about the government having access to phone records. They aren't listening in on phone calls (unless you are being investigated as a terrorist?), it's just freaking phone records. But regardless, Snowden is nothing more than a traitor and I hope he rots in jail along with Bradley Manning.
It's not necessarily about us. Information is power, especially now. Technically the US government could spy on any other company in the world, read emails and listen to skype calls of Europeans Leaders and so on. How is that fair ? : D
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EPT
