Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
IainB:
Re. MH370 - It amazes me that there isn't an EPIRBw mounted on aircraft tail assemblies...
-4wd (March 16, 2014, 12:27 AM)
--- End quote ---
Are you thereby suggesting that the NSA or some other shadowy US SS organisation has not already done that and doesn't know exactly where the "missing" plane is - especially since 911?
Yeah, right.
IainB:
NSA denies Facebook snooping as Zuckerberg lays into Obama | Security - InfoWorld
This seems to be more theatricals: Act 1, Scene 2 "The Denial"
(Act 1, Scene 1 was "The Zuckerberberg Attack" (Goodness! Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off re the NSA surveillance!).
More popcorn please.
40hz:
I think Zuckerberg "doth protest too much" with that one.
Re. MH370 - It amazes me that there isn't an EPIRBw mounted on aircraft tail assemblies...
-4wd (March 16, 2014, 12:27 AM)
--- End quote ---
Are you thereby suggesting that the NSA or some other shadowy US SS organisation has not already done that and doesn't know exactly where the "missing" plane is - especially since 911?
Yeah, right.
-IainB (March 17, 2014, 02:52 AM)
--- End quote ---
I think it's more a situation of not "acknowledging" or "admitting" than it is a case of not "having" the capability of tracking all air traffic in realtime.
In an era of massive satellite reconnaissance, advanced commercial and military radar systems, the ongoing concern over the North Korea's belligerence, and the overall military importance of pretty much everything that happens in the vicinity of the China Sea...yeah...I think between China, Russia, and the USA, there were enough electronic "eyes-on" that somebody has a very good idea about where that plane eventually landed or crashed.
I suspect what's really holding up the announcement are high level discussions about how to best spin the story.
IainB:
...I suspect what's really holding up the announcement are high level discussions about how to best spin the story.
-40hz (March 17, 2014, 03:26 AM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, eggsaggerly.
IainB:
I read somewhere that Snowden had apparently been nominated for the Nobel Peach Prize, but after Snowden's open letter (below), Adam Scott reckons that Snowden could well end up being nominated for US President:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
SNOWDEN: I Questioned Putin To Get His Answer On Record - Business Insider
EDWARD SNOWDEN: Here's Why I Asked Putin A Question Yesterday
Edward Snowden, The Guardian
Apr. 18, 2014, 8:40 AM 12,819 20
On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: "Does [your country] intercept, analyze or store millions of individuals' communications?"
I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.
The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion. (See a side-by-side comparison of Wyden's question and mine here.)
Clapper's lie – to the Senate and to the public – was a major motivating force behind my decision to go public, and a historic example of the importance of official accountability.
In his response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial – and we'll get to them soon – but it was not the president's suspiciously narrow answer that was criticized by many pundits. It was that I had chosen to ask a question at all.
I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticize the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question – and Putin's evasive response – in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it.
The investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, perhaps the single most prominent critic of Russia's surveillance apparatus (and someone who has repeatedly criticized me in the past year), described my question as "extremely important for Russia". It could, he said, "lift a de facto ban on public conversations about state eavesdropping."
Others have pointed out that Putin's response appears to be the strongest denial of involvement in mass surveillance ever given by a Russian leader – a denial that is, generously speaking, likely to be revisited by journalists.
In fact, Putin's response was remarkably similar to Barack Obama's initial, sweeping denials of the scope of the NSA's domestic surveillance programs, before that position was later shown to be both untrue and indefensible.
So why all the criticism? I expected that some would object to my participation in an annual forum that is largely comprised of softball questions to a leader unaccustomed to being challenged. But to me, the rare opportunity to lift a taboo on discussion of state surveillance before an audience that primarily views state media outweighed that risk. Moreover, I hoped that Putin's answer – whatever it was – would provide opportunities for serious journalists and civil society to push the discussion further.
When this event comes around next year, I hope we'll see more questions on surveillance programs and other controversial policies. But we don't have to wait until then. For example, journalists might ask for clarification as to how millions of individuals' communications are not being intercepted, analyzed or stored, when, at least on a technical level, the systems that are in place must do precisely that in order to function. They might ask whether the social media companies reporting that they have received bulk collection requests from the Russian government are telling the truth.
I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them.
Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded "will make our nation stronger". I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then.
I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims.
• Edward Snowden wrote for the Guardian through the Freedom of the Press Foundation
This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk
--- End quote ---
It seems that some people, including Adam Scott (but not me, you understand) might think that having an honest and freedom-aspiring president could make a welcome and beneficial change for the people of the USA and for that country's national integrity and international standing, but I couldn't possibly comment.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version