Snowden Strikes Again - Against Brits

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**Ouze**

I think Russia's a bad play for him. I think they'd trade him, no problem. It's one thing to play the part that they enjoy playing but when it comes down to brass tacks I think Russia will be more than happy to do business on this.

Venezuela or Cuba, though - they'd be willing to hang on to him and would never deal. IMO, that is where he should be heading. I guess he could theoretically go to North Korea too, but I imagine the standard of living in an American federal prison is probably better than North Korean freedom.

**Kilkrazy**

Seaward wrote:
The dude's an IT weenie, not Jason Bourne.

Is Jason Bourne not a traitor because he isn't a weenie? (Ignoring he is a fictional character.)

**Breotan**

I may be mistaken, but Jason Bourne (in the movies) didn't actually betray his country. By the time he blew the lid off of Treadstone, the CIA had already tried to kill him numerous times. Also, he was trying to expose Treadstone to the government, not the world or our enemies.

**Seaward**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Is Jason Bourne not a traitor because he isn't a weenie? (Ignoring he is a fictional character.)

We were discussing the outlandish prospect of Snowden trying to resist arrest through a gun battle, not whether or not he's a traitor.

**Crablezworth**

I find this to be really relevant to the discussion, definitely worth a watch.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2013/jun/25/dirty-wars-jeremy-scahill-video-interview

**Jihadin**

Whatever country gives him up. I bet a case a backroom deal was made to get him. Putin not giving him up. Putin giving Obama a big "FU" with Snowden

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
Azazel's was an ad hominem, sure. Sebster's point that he was supporting was most certainly a strawman, though. The question clearly didn't relate only to PRISM, yet he's not (quite) foolish enough to claim that classified information has no place at all in a modern, democratic society, so he opted to punt.

Whether its a belief that it is just PRISM, or all information that should be made available, it matters not one fething bit to how bizarre your observation was.

Such beliefs could be dismissed as idealistic or impractical, for sure. Do that and I'd likely agree with you. But to comment that such beliefs are the product of generation Y entitlement is weird. Just a bizarre aside, like that eccentric uncle everyone has that somehow links every conversation to the pinch hitter rule in baseball. Entitlement just has nothing to do with it. And if it did, it wouldn't be gen Y thing - wildly ambitious notions of government are a lot older than gen Y, and if anything the talk about what government needs to keep secret is a lot more grounded in practicality than similar debates in previous generations. And it's even more weird because the major players in this series of leaks aren't even gen Y - if the claim could be sensibly made it would have to be leveled at gen X.

So, to repeat my earlier point, it was just weird, weird question. Though not as weird as speculation about Snowden going down in a hail of gunfire, I'll grant you, but still very weird.

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whembly wrote:
...
Good for him.

Prediction time... it's probably some old secret Presidential Order that started this. (didn't start with Obama guys).

Which gets back to one of the weirder things of American politics* - everyone hyper-focuses on the president of the day, and whatever happens is immediately laid at his doorstep. Which isn't to say the President shouldn't be accountable for things that happen on his watch, but people take it one step further, and think by complaining about a president, or even voting him out of office they will have any impact on where most decisions and operations are undertaken. The great, unelected bureaucracy carries on operating as it does, and having some guy installed in the top chair doesn't, and can't really change the overall behaviour of a government.

PRISM and the other operations are a product of a bureaucracy, and when they have the stamp of the powers that be within that bureaucracy, then the president will be briefed on those operations in a way that he can't dispute their necessity. Remember that claim that's been floating around about 50 terrorist acts having been stopped because of PRISM, well who the hell knows what constitutes a 'terrorist act' under that definition, or how much double counting it involves. It's a number produced by a political insider, and likely given to the president in a briefing, who has no means to question it, and therefore whether it's Bush, Obama or whoever comes after him, has no real ability to question the policy.

Which is why, I think, these kinds of things need to be made public. The more secret these things are, the more power granted to bureaucrats to control what information is provided to elected officials. And that means these programs become extremely difficult to control.

*Well, actually this seems to hold true for most countries that I'm aware of.

**Jihadin**

*Well, actually this seems to hold true for most countries that I'm aware of.

Good read Seb then I saw the gap and this sentence.......

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
Whether its a belief that it is just PRISM, or all information that should be made available, it matters not one fething bit to how bizarre your observation was.

Such beliefs could be dismissed as idealistic or impractical, for sure. Do that and I'd likely agree with you. But to comment that such beliefs are the product of generation Y entitlement is weird. Just a bizarre aside, like that eccentric uncle everyone has that somehow links every conversation to the pinch hitter rule in baseball. Entitlement just has nothing to do with it. And if it did, it wouldn't be gen Y thing - wildly ambitious notions of government are a lot older than gen Y, and if anything the talk about what government needs to keep secret is a lot more grounded in practicality than similar debates in previous generations. And it's even more weird because the major players in this series of leaks aren't even gen Y - if the claim could be sensibly made it would have to be leveled at gen X.

So, to repeat my earlier point, it was just weird, weird question. Though not as weird as speculation about Snowden going down in a hail of gunfire, I'll grant you, but still very weird.

I don't believe it is. Even among the anti-war movement in Vietnam, there wasn't this outright wholesale disdain for the notion of "classified information" as a concept. This idea that intelligence gathering agencies should operate only in above-board fashion, making everything they do public, is pretty ludicrous, and it hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, come about before. I don't think it's idealism, either. No one's that dumb.

**sebster**

Jihadin wrote:
Good read Seb then I saw the gap and this sentence.......

In Australia right now there's a big push to get rid of our Prime Minister, under the strange belief that if we do so then all the policies of her party will change. This is despite the fact she got the job after ousting the last guy, because people thought if we got rid of him the policies of the party wuold change. And now they're going back to the old guy, somehow expecting this time around he'll be completely different. And it gets even dumber, because in a few months there'll be an election, and it's very likely the government will get booted and we'll bring in the other side, because people are angry over the budget deficits, despite those budget deficits being a product of international conditions and some very long term financial decisions.

In the UK there exists a large number of conservatives who are very disappointed in the Cameron government as they thought voting them in would massively change the nature of government as a whole. When the bureaucracy kept on doing as it did, and Cameron became more or less another part of that machine, people were quite surprised. Just as many left wingers were when they voted in Blair and the same thing happened, and just as many US left wingers were when they voted in Obama and the same thing happened.

Meanwhile, in Japan they're calling it Abenomics, despite it being basically a minor variation on the pork barrelling the Social Democrats always attempt.

It's called attribution error. It's also why sporting teams with long injury lists think the answer is to fire the coach.

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Seaward wrote:
I don't believe it is. Even among the anti-war movement in Vietnam, there wasn't this outright wholesale disdain for the notion of "classified information" as a concept.

First up, you're really mischaracterising the other side, if you think any more than a tiny minority have 'outright wholesale disdain for the notion of "classified information" as a concept'. The majority simply think some things currently classified shouldn't be.

Also, history goes back way longer than Vietnam.

This idea that intelligence gathering agencies should operate only in above-board fashion, making everything they do public, is pretty ludicrous, and it hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, come about before. I don't think it's idealism, either. No one's that dumb.

I'm guessing you've never been to a college political debate. Almost everything said there is a lot dumber than this.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
First up, you're really mischaracterising the other side, if you think any more than a tiny minority have 'outright wholesale disdain for the notion of "classified information" as a concept'. The majority simply think some things currently classified shouldn't be.

That they do. And I'm not at all mistaken in saying that they also believe there's a lot that's classified that doesn't need to be despite not knowing specifically what they're talking about.

Which, again, is why I'm genuinely curious. If your objection is to the "entitlement generation" title than we can just as easily call it the "information age generation."

Also, history goes back way longer than Vietnam.

Sure does. But the anti-war movement during Vietnam is the best and most recent example of a widespread anti-establishment, anti-secrecy, anti-military/security/intelligence movement.

I'm guessing you've never been to a college political debate. Almost everything said there is a lot dumber than this.

No, I had better things to do in college.

**Da Boss**

It seems as ever that we are talking past one and other. You are focused both on Snowden's character and the general POV that 'military knows best' when it comes to safety. (not attempting to mischaracterise, this is my perception). Whereas I at least am focused on the content of the leaks and the difficulty I have accepting widespread spying of this nature out of fear of an unspecified terroridt bogeyman. I could go on at length about why I think it is uneeded but it's not that relevant. I beliece I feel no more entitled to information than any reasomable person.

**Seaward**

Not really. This has little if anything to do with the military. The reality is that we cannot have effective intelligence agencies - which we need - if they cannot operate in secrecy a great deal of the time. If the measure of when to blow the whistle (not that I think that term applies in this case, as it's not at all certain that PRISM was illegal) is simply that some Americans dislike an activity, then we might as well shut them down now, because there's always going to be someone objecting to something.

Whether or not you like PRISM, though, has no basis on the legality or even the morality of what Snowden did. There are ways to inform the public without breaking multiple laws related to the very necessary task of keeping secret information secret. There is certainly no justification for his release of material completely unrelated to PRISM that deals exclusively with our intelligence gathering operations against foreign countries.

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
That they do. And I'm not at all mistaken in saying that they also believe there's a lot that's classified that doesn't need to be despite not knowing specifically what they're talking about.

Well, yeah. People are going to think there's information that they don't know about that likely should be in the public domain. Believing that is just a basic restructuring of the statement 'it is the nature of both humans and human organisations to attempt to keep things private, even when there's a clear public good to that information being made public'.

Which, again, is why I'm genuinely curious. If your objection is to the "entitlement generation" title than we can just as easily call it the "information age generation."

Which removes some of the weirdness of entitlement, but still doesn't get past the strange idea that this unique to gen Y. Once again, Snowden, Manning and Assange aren't gen Y.

No, I had better things to do in college.

You should have gone. It was a great place to pick up. Perhaps if you had you'd be a happier person today.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da Boss wrote:
It seems as ever that we are talking past one and other. You are focused both on Snowden's character and the general POV that 'military knows best' when it comes to safety. (not attempting to mischaracterise, this is my perception). Whereas I at least am focused on the content of the leaks and the difficulty I have accepting widespread spying of this nature out of fear of an unspecified terroridt bogeyman. I could go on at length about why I think it is uneeded but it's not that relevant. I beliece I feel no more entitled to information than any reasomable person.

I said in one of the earlier threads that one thing the people supporting PRISM will do is attempt to turn this in to a debate on whether Snowden was a good or a bad man for leaking the information, and sidestep the issue of whether PRISM is good and/or needed.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
Which removes some of the weirdness of entitlement, but still doesn't get past the strange idea that this unique to gen Y. Once again, Snowden, Manning and Assange aren't gen Y.

Snowden and Manning are.

You should have gone. It was a great place to pick up. Perhaps if you had you'd be a happier person today.

About the only thing that could make me happier at this point would be lower taxes. It's hard to beat the rest.

**Da Boss**

I just don't buy that this sort of program, this sort of widespread snooping, is needed.
Other countries have dealt with terrorists without secret courts, extra-national prisons, gigantic spying operations.

The public should be allowed a say in how far the government can go in it's protection. I don't give a fig about Snowden, my view is he's probably a narcissist who undoubtably made a poor career choice. My issue is with espionage and spying being carried out in the name of defense. Surely people will accept a degree of risk for a greater reassurance that money isn't being poured into programs used to spy on them that could easily be put to other uses in the future? It's always easy to justify grabbing more power, it's not always so easy to justify giving it up. To me, your stance on this is almost directly contradictory to your stances on small government in many other cases.

Finally, if I may be flippant, other countries can accept some level of risk without the need for a gigantic spying network, so, time to man up, America.

**Seaward**

Da Boss wrote:
I just don't buy that this sort of program, this sort of widespread snooping, is needed.
Other countries have dealt with terrorists without secret courts, extra-national prisons, gigantic spying operations.

If they were secret, how would you know?

The public should be allowed a say in how far the government can go in it's protection. I don't give a fig about Snowden, my view is he's probably a narcissist who undoubtably made a poor career choice. My issue is with espionage and spying being carried out in the name of defense. Surely people will accept a degree of risk for a greater reassurance that money isn't being poured into programs used to spy on them that could easily be put to other uses in the future? It's always easy to justify grabbing more power, it's not always so easy to justify giving it up. To me, your stance on this is almost directly contradictory to your stances on small government in many other cases.

It is contradictory to the "all small government, all the time," stance, isn't it? And if it proves to be a constitutional violation, then I'm in agreement with it going. But I'm also perfectly well aware that, as the largest target in the world, we need excellent intelligence, from as many sources as possible.

Finally, if I may be flippant, other countries can accept some level of risk without the need for a gigantic spying network, so, time to man up, America.

If you're talking about our allies, that's because a lot of them know we do it for them. Sort of like with most aspects of defense.

**Da Boss**

Yeah? You were collecting information on the IRA were you? Wow. And here I was thinking you were supplying them with money!

Jesus, thanks for educating me on that one.

(Yeah, I know, it wasn't the US government policy)

I'm sure all the british intelligence agents will be happy to know they were american all along. Where do they get their passports?

Actually, since my dad did a bit of counter intelligence stuff in his role as a police man, does he get one too?

Don't be so bloody ignorant.

**Ketara**

Seaward wrote:
Da Boss wrote:
I just don't buy that this sort of program, this sort of widespread snooping, is needed.
Other countries have dealt with terrorists without secret courts, extra-national prisons, gigantic spying operations.

If they were secret, how would you know?

There are secret courts on many things, from those involving classified intelligence material, to family abuse cases. Just because the public is not allowed in or to know what happens in them does not preclude knowing of their existence.

The problem with giving security services carte blanche, is that it makes it very difficult to learn of any flaws in their systems, or of mistakes and abuses they make. It's all well and good for the people who run it to say they're following all relevant laws, but who ensures that they are in fact, actually doing so? It's difficult enough with the police (who do indeed regularly make mistakes and abuses and then try and use their power to hide such things). With intelligence services, you have the same problem trebled, as everything can be hidden under the blanket of 'national security'.

'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'

**Seaward**

Da Boss wrote:
Yeah? You were collecting information on the IRA were you? Wow. And here I was thinking you were supplying them with money!

Jesus, thanks for educating me on that one.

(Yeah, I know, it wasn't the US government policy)

I'm sure all the british intelligence agents will be happy to know they were american all along. Where do they get their passports?

Actually, since my dad did a bit of counter intelligence stuff in his role as a police man, does he get one too?

Don't be so bloody ignorant.

Wait, I'm sorry. Did you just try to use the UK as an example of a country without significant espionage operations? Really? Christ, the extent to which GCHQ is doing stuff similar to PRISM is one of Snowden's revelations.

Jesus, dude, I thought you were talking about Norway or something. But no. You actually meant the UK. I'm not sure where this debate can possibly go if you're genuinely that uninformed.

**Da Boss**

Also, I know no large scale intelligence gathering of this kind could have possibly existed in the past because, well, we didn't have widespread internet back then. You needed something like the Stasi to do stuff like this, back in the day, and their existence at least was public knowledge. Something like this can be kept secret because the number of people who need to be involved is much lower.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seaward wrote:
Da Boss wrote:
Yeah? You were collecting information on the IRA were you? Wow. And here I was thinking you were supplying them with money!

Jesus, thanks for educating me on that one.

(Yeah, I know, it wasn't the US government policy)

I'm sure all the british intelligence agents will be happy to know they were american all along. Where do they get their passports?

Actually, since my dad did a bit of counter intelligence stuff in his role as a police man, does he get one too?

Don't be so bloody ignorant.

Wait, I'm sorry. Did you just try to use the UK as an example of a country without significant espionage operations? Really? Christ, the extent to which GCHQ is doing stuff similar to PRISM is one of Snowden's revelations.

Jesus, dude, I thought you were talking about Norway or something. But no. You actually meant the UK. I'm not sure where this debate can possibly go if you're genuinely that uninformed.

I am actually fine with "significant espionage", but it's a matter of degrees. And if they're breaking the rules, as they have sometimes in the past, then they need to be found out , and then inquiries need to happen (which they have in the past) and the people who "blow the whistle" need to not be demonised.

I don't know if I can continue having a conversation with someone who so often wilfully misinterprets things in the most insulting way possible, either. Perhaps it would be for the best if I left you alone, because to be honest I find you incredibly annoying and patronising.

**Seaward**

Da Boss wrote:
I don't know if I can continue having a conversation with someone who so often wilfully misinterprets things in the most insulting way possible, either. Perhaps it would be for the best if I left you alone, because to be honest I find you incredibly annoying and patronising.

You may want to go back and read the post I was responding to, as there's quite a bit of pot calling the kettle black involved all of a sudden.

Also, just because I find it hilarious:

Edward Snowden in 2009: Leakers Should Be 'Shot In The Balls'

**Dreadclaw69**

Seaward wrote:
Also, just because I find it hilarious:

Edward Snowden in 2009: Leakers Should Be 'Shot In The Balls'

Maybe that's why he's off the radar, he's as good as his word and is receiving medical treatment

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
Snowden and Manning are.

Manning I'll grant you. Snowden is at the back end of gen X.

Which more than anything goes to show how silly all the gen stuff is.

**d-usa**

Obama: "I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,"

The US is spying on their own citizens and the Russians are refusing to extradite somebody to the US because of human rights concerns.

When did this become the opposite universe?

**Seaward**

And now the Germans, via Reuters:

BRUSSELS/BERLIN, June 30 (Reuters) - The European Union has demanded that the United States explain a report in a German magazine that Washington is spying on the group, using unusually strong language to confront its closest trading partner over its alleged surveillance activities.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said on Sunday the EU contacted U.S. authorities in Washington and Brussels about a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the U.S. secret service had tapped EU offices in Washington and Brussels and at the United Nations.

"We have immediately been in contact with the U.S. authorities in Washington D.C. and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports," the spokeswoman said.

"They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us," she added in a statement.

Der Spiegel reported on its website on Saturday that the National Security Agency had bugged EU offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks in the latest revelation of alleged U.S. spying that has prompted outrage from EU politicians.

The magazine followed up on Sunday with a report that the U.S. secret service taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month and has classed its biggest European ally as a target similar to China.

Revelations about the alleged U.S. spying programme, which became public through documents taken by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have raised a furore in the United States and abroad over the balance between privacy rights and national security.

The extent to which Washington's EU allies are being monitored has emerged as an issue of particular concern.

"If the media reports are correct, this brings to memory actions among enemies during the Cold War. It goes beyond any imagination that our friends in the United States view the Europeans as enemies," said German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.

"If it is true that EU representations in Brussels and Washington were indeed tapped by the American secret service, it can hardly be explained with the argument of fighting terrorism," she said in a statement.

GERMANY TAPPED

Germans are particularly sensitive about government monitoring, having lived through the Stasi secret police in the former communist East Germany and with lingering memories of the Gestapo of Hitler's Nazi regime.

On Saturday, Martin Schulz, president of the EU Parliament and also a German, said that if the report was correct, it would have a "severe impact" on relations between the EU and the United States.

"On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations," he said in an emailed statement.

Some policymakers said talks for a free trade agreement between Washington and the EU should be put on ice until further clarification from the United States.

"Partners do not spy on each other," the European commissioner for justice and fundamental rights, Viviane Reding, said at a public event in Luxembourg on Sunday.

"We cannot negotiate over a big transatlantic market if there is the slightest doubt that our partners are carrying out spying activities on the offices of our negotiators," Reding said in comments passed on to reporters by her spokeswoman.

The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee head Elmar Brok, from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. echoed those views.

"The spying has taken on dimensions that I would never have thought possible from a democratic state," he told Der Spiegel.

"How should we still negotiate if we must fear that our negotiating position is being listened to beforehand?"

**KalashnikovMarine**

Of course the EU is the enemy. I mean just look at you and your filthy, ungodly, squabbling, filthy unwashed masses socialism! Better red then dead!

*if you can't tell that's sarcasm please accept my personal invitation to go soak your head in a bucket of ice water.

**Dreadclaw69**

In unrelated news the current Administration has now equipped all their press staff dealing with questions about the NSA with a smoke bomb and high quality running shoes to help evade any difficult questions.

**Tannhauser42**

I saw CNN.com's headline, Europe furious, 'shocked' by report of U.S. spying, and my first thought was these lines from Casablanca:

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: Oh, thank you very much.

Seriously, we all spy on each other in the global community, we just don't publicly talk about it out of politeness. So all this shock and outrage is just for show, really.

**Seaward**

I want to know if this means they'll be taking the president's Nobel back.