Edward Snowden is asking the US president to pardon him based on the morality of his action.
Well, here is a completely opposite view from the other side, so to speak:
http://observer.com/2016/09/were-losing-the-war-against-terrorism/
"Since 9/11, NSA has been the backbone of the Western intelligence alliance against terrorism. Its signals intelligence is responsible for the strong majority of successful counterterrorism operations in the West. More than three-quarters of the time, NSA or one of its close partner Anglosphere spy partners like Britain's GCHQ, develops a lead on a terror cell which is passed to the FBI and others for action which crushes that cell before it kills. If NSA loses the ability to do this, innocent people in many countries will die.
Unfortunately, there's mounting evidence that NSA's edge over the terrorists is waning. It's impossible not to notice that jihadist emphasis on communications security and encryption, which is now gaining ground, began in 2013. That, of course, is when Edward Snowden, an NSA IT contractor, stole something like 1.7 million classified documents from his employer, shared them with outsiders, then defected to Moscow."
"However, our precious edge in the SpyWar is waning fast. We are no longer winning. We're about to hear a great deal of unwarranted praise of Ed Snowden thanks to the hagiographic movie about him by Oliver Stone that's to be released this week. Don't be fooled. Snowden is no hero. In truth, he and his journalist helpers have aided terrorists in important ways. Snowden and his co-conspirators have blood on their hands—and perhaps much more blood soon thanks to their aid to the genocidal maniacs of ISIS."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:05AM
Honestly, I don't feel like dignifying this with much more than "your stupid and your opinion is wrong".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:26AM
Pretty much. We're losing the war with terrorists because we view it as a war. The only possible way of winning is to stop bombing brown people and just provide aid to groups engaged in peaceful activities.
Or better yet, just leave well enough alone and let things sort themselves out. We've had the better part of 50 years of incompetent small dick diplomacy that has had consequences that are still working their way through. Every time we get involved in a bullshit war that has nothing to do with us or arm rebels we just add more chaos that has to work itself out.
At this point, we've more than adequately proven that continually meddling in the affairs of sovereign states and trying to make things go our way backfires most of the time. Perhaps it's time we stopped sending troops into places and tried just supplying humanitarian aid with no strings attached?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:27PM
What do you mean "backfire?" There was an article on the other site yesterday about GCHQ pushing for a Great Firewall of the UK. Look at all the pork that's gone to drone manufacturers and the F-35, not to mention the security theater at airports.
The EU is crumbling due to Muslim migration, and a US presidential candidate who's polling pretty well is running mostly on the idea that they should shut down all immigration of Muslims. Just think of the jobs program that border wall will create.
If you're a lizard and don't really care about human lives beyond keeping them happy enough that they don't organize against you (and do something crazy like elect a democratic socialist or a libertarian), you would say it's been quite successful.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:20PM
"NSA has been the backbone of the Western intelligence alliance against terrorism"
Just a bullshit thesis. A lie that makes the liar proud of himself and his worldview, based on hubris and delusional self-aggrandizement.
"Well we can't show you evidence proving this claim, because revealing these secrets would further damage the mission that is saving us all from mortal danger and threatens national existence."
Always the pearl-clutching security patriotism of the liar.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:30PM
Islamic Jihadi Immigrants 2
US Far-Right Terrorists 5
All "Islamic Jihadi" Terrorist including Americans 9
Armed Toddlers 21
Lightning 31
Lawnmowers 69
Being Hit By A Bus 264
Falling Out Of Bed 737
Being Shot By Another American 11,737
SAVE US, NSA!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:45PM
Citation needed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:25PM
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14322269_10153993404713380_4334703221756919234_n.jpg?oh=5f12ad68953324fc4e8ba3aadeab6381&oe=587A4D26 [fbcdn.net]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:56PM
Congrats, I'm too scared to go to sleep now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DavePolaschek on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:51PM
I initially read that as "Falling out of a 737" and wondered how I had missed THAT news story.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:22PM
Interesting that the next item is 11,737.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @12:11PM
Remember that 73.7% of statistics you read on the internet are made up.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:03PM
I think somewhere between lightning and lawmowers is being stung to death by bees. Seems like we should wage war on bees and wasps before jihadis if we want to save more lives.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:50PM
Arguably, we are already wiping them out through our use of pesticides and the like. I don't think it will be too long before we REALLY start to feel the impact of their vastly diminishing numbers.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:27PM
Another ideological non-term, identifying someone who smokes their breakfast.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:23PM
It looks to me like the US needs to keep these wars going because it is so lucrative.
Here are a couple of links which show America's various wars:
Lots of murdering of native people here [wikipedia.org]
I haven't checked this [infowars.com]but it looks about right to me.
If the country's major industry is killing people, you get pretty good at it. Creating your own market is what every business likes to do, so arming a bunch of people you can then go and fight is a good strategy, so is making people so angry they attack you.
This is what the US does.
Here is a list of some governments toppled. [globalresearch.ca]
Some of those were democratically elected.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:54PM
The only good way to deal with terrorism is to consider it normal crime. Find the perpetrators and fuck everybody who helped, directly or indirectly. You let the family of Bin Laden depart after 9/11? that means obstruction of justice, go behind bars. When whatever political decision is made because of terrorism, somebody will have profited from it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday September 16 2016, @10:03AM
So your answer to Was Operation Neptune Spear (in which Bin Laden was killed) justified? would be an uncompromising Definitely not, then?
The difference between ordinary crime and terrorism is that terrorism is far closer to an enemy-of-the-state situation than to, say, robbery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @10:57PM
>The only possible way of winning is to stop bombing brown people and just provide aid to groups engaged in peaceful activities
Tell it to France and Belgium, who do everything in their power to bring in more Muslims, pay them welfare to stay, and appease any and all of their demands. They still get bombed and shot up.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Saturday September 17 2016, @04:47AM
Maybe if Gaddafi and Saddam were still keeping the lid over those infuriated islamists, maybe, France would not have been cowardly bombed. And maybe if did not armed a bunch of blood thirsty Afghanis to fight against the Soviets maybe 9/11 would have been an ordinary day. But alas we cannot change the past.... However we could maybe stop seeding our future ennemies, maybe?
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:01AM
Taken in that light, it's an interesting piece on the kind of arguments that the pro-surveillance establishment are putting forwards to try and forestall the wave of Snowden sympathy and anti-NSA sentiment that Stone's film will probably bring, maintain the status quo of the mass surveillance state without any focus on the actual (and necessary) targets of surveillance, and ideally ensure that the next wave of pork is even larger than the last one. It might be distasteful commenting on it, but if the best rebuttal the public can come up with is "your [sic] stupid and your opinion is wrong" then they've already won, and that's double plus bad.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:15AM
My opinion is that if a professor and author of 4 books has an argument based on a correlation with one year granularity about things leaked by snowden, ignoring the fact that every half witted reader of spy stories knows what encryption is and what secret services around the world intercept, then Your stupid and your argument is wrong is a proper response.
A secret service, after a leak, should go mea culpa (BECAUSE YOU ARE A SECRET SERVICE AND DEFECTORS SHOULD BE EXPECTED FROM THE START) and work to minimize the damage, not go mew mew about the leaker.
Leaker of what. Personally I was not even 18 and the computers were 8 bit, and I learned that guys playing "diplomacy" by mail had an interview with the police because one sent a letter with "I concur on the attack on liverpool" or something like that.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:34PM
Personally I was not even 18 and the computers were 8 bit, and I learned that guys playing "diplomacy" by mail had an interview with the police because one sent a letter with "I concur on the attack on liverpool" or something like that.
Maybe, they're just using the situation to win public support for mass surveillance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:33PM
I kicked the figurative, living shit out of Schindler on Twitter. More than once.
He's an idiot with no ability to either think or deduce. A useful amplifier of jingoisms.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1) by xvan on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:31PM
They're not complaining about the leaked information, but the security awarness triggered by the media exposure of the leaked information.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:55PM
Which seems like a burglar complaining about alarms.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by boxfetish on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:57PM
More like a burglar complaining about a neighborhood watch, imo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:01PM
It might be distasteful commenting on it, but if the best rebuttal the public can come up with is "your [sic] stupid and your opinion is wrong" then they've already won, and that's double plus bad.
Read it again. Not "the best rebuttal." But the rebuttal that the piece deserves. A better rebuttal could be written. But in the face of that stupidity, why should one bother?
Oh, and who has then won? Playing the pronoun game, are we?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:03PM
they should establish a official "whistle blower" department:
if shit looks like it's going to go south, just deploy a whistle-blower from said department
and then blame everything on him/her .. then continue with business as usual: violate privacy
and gobble up massive amounts of tax payer monies?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:11PM
but if the best rebuttal the public can come up with is "your [sic] stupid and your opinion is wrong" then they've already won, and that's double plus bad.
How many times do we need to give detailed responses about how liberty is more important than security, how the surveillance doesn't actually increase security, how the mass surveillance is unconstitutional, and how the government can't even be trusted to conduct mass surveillance on the populace because every single government in history--including the US government--abused its power? How many times does it need to be pointed out that mass surveillance threatens democracy for countless reasons? [gnu.org] When will they shut the fuck up and stop trying to violate our freedoms? Obviously, never. They're dishonest, reprehensible authoritarians and they should be treated with nothing but absolute contempt.
It's interesting how if 'our side' gives a short and angry response, then we'll somehow lose, but if they keep repeating the same debunked garbage an infinite amount of times, that's fine.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:12AM
Wrong person to blame, son. Look in the mirror and see a traitor, murderer and a terrorist.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by novak on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:20AM
I'll respond to this rather obvious clickbait.
Terrorists, no matter how famous, really don't manage to kill almost anyone. They are terrible at their only job, which is apparently being so evil that not only do they not deserve human rights but people accused of being them also do not deserve these rights. The real crime is the human rights abuses in the countries that "fight" these so-called evil-doers.
I would rather that terrorists are allowed to roam free. That they are unsurveiled, unimpeded, and generally unnoticed. Terrorists are not only feeble but actually more feeble than such viscous killers as cows or elevators. Like many quantum phenomena, They only have any measurable effect when under direct observation.
You know how the terrorists win? Pretend that all immigrants are terrorists. Pretend that they are everywhere. Pretend that they are dangerous. And set up a police state to stop them. A police state which kills, every year, hundreds of times as many Americans as the terrorists do.
novak
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:30AM
That's a point I wish more people would realize. Terrorists kill a shockingly small number of people compared with things like car crashes and infectious disease. And prior to the US arming shady people, the number was even lower.
In 2001, there were something like 15 people killed in car crashes that year for every one 9/11 victim. And at this point the 9/11 victims are outnumbered by the service people killed trying to get revenge. And the service people killed are outnumbered like 20 or 30 to 1 by innocent civilians killed in Iraq during the genocide that followed our embarrassing attack on Iraq.
In other words, the terrorists won. They killed about 2500 or so of ours, and in the ensuing incompetence something like 40x as many people wound up dead as a result.
(Score: 5, Informative) by davester666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:03AM
And we turned our country into even more of a police-state, with the TSA feeling up the genitals of small children and the elderly, mother's been forced to throw out breastmilk because it's in too big of a bottle, everyone forced to take off their shoes, roving gangs of TSA agents searching people at bus and train stations, and onboard buses and trains. Basically everyone is assumed to be a "potential terrorist", unless you are part of the gov't.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:28AM
Human physiology at work. For those things considered routine (car crash/disease) we tend to have no fear (or little fear) due to their being routine. But for things that are extremely rare, far too many people have a built in hardwired primal fear reflex.
There's probably an aspect of this that evolved over millennia. If you were so afraid of falling from a tree that you would refuse to climb it, you also likely eventually starved to death eventually due to lack of food (trees often contain edible fruits). But if you were instead irrationally afraid of a lion hiding in the tall grass that you avoided all the tall grass, you usually lived to tell the tale and pass along your genes (because the lion in the tall grass was an unlikely outcome [as compared to falling from that tree], so you'd have been almost as likely to survive anyway). Millions of years later, that same reflex is now being exploited by terrorists to make folks cower in fear over something that, for them personally, is likely to never be directly experienced in their lifetimes.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:23PM
In that case the obvious solution is to recruit the terrorists, rather than try to stop them.
Schedule a routine terrorist suicide bombing every Wednesday morning at 10am. Once it becomes routine, people will stop paying attention to it.
Facetious as this suggestion is, it would probably save lives overall.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:50PM
It's amazing how government always uses edge cases, like terrorism and diseases like Zika and the swine flue that almost kill no one, to justify expanding their reach (ie: the CDC post mentioned before).
Yet when it comes to things that actually kill people, like starvation and the actual flu, the government hardly lifts a finger to fix these problems. and these problems can be fixed relatively easily too by comparison.
Makes you think the government's motive isn't to fix anything but, instead, to just keep expanding its powers and reach. They purposely look for imaginary problems that are so rare that they don't really need to be addressed and they use it to justify more government overreach without actually addressing those 'problems' while ignoring the problems that actually need to be addressed but the government is too lazy to do anything about them. Easier to avoid addressing a non-existent problem and to then use it as an excuse for more government overreach.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:09PM
Those aren't good examples. Those are infectious diseases that aren't well understood. The Swine Flu in particular was a pandemic and they didn't have the luxury of waiting around to see what was going to happen before doing something about it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:21PM
Look at who is running the government [ballotpedia.org]:
Republican state senators 1,085 55.0%
Republican state representatives 3,021 56%
Republican governors 34 56.3%
The party with majorities everywhere just happens to be the party whose entire platform is "Government can't do anything right", which means they have a vested interest in proving that at every opportunity. This isn't to say that Democrats are any better, but looking at the party steering the government along with the direction they've been taking the government for the past 2 (4) decades, its pretty clear that they need to be ousted. Stop electing and re-electing fascists already, look at what they do and stop listening to the obvious lies they keep repeating. Start looking at independents in your area to elect as your representatives.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:07PM
Makes you think the government's motive isn't to fix anything but, instead, to just keep expanding its powers and reach. They purposely look for imaginary problems that are so rare that they don't really need to be addressed and they use it to justify more government overreach without actually addressing those 'problems' while ignoring the problems that actually need to be addressed but the government is too lazy to do anything about them. Easier to avoid addressing a non-existent problem and to then use it as an excuse for more government overreach.
I think it is far more likely it is good old fashioned human corruption at work, rather than any vast, complicated conspiracy to gain more government control over us. Let's look at Florida for example (Florida is always a fine example of corruption and villainy, should you need a quick go to...). Governor Rick Scott is lusting after funds to "fight" the Zika virus. If he was simply interested in expanding government overreach, he would have grabbed the funds for expanding Medicaid when he had the chance as well. But he turned those down those funds because they were earmarked for a specific purpose (helping poor people for chrissake!) and had to be accounted for in their use. But Zika money? That sort of government funding is a grant that can be handed out to potential donors and family members* or simply swallowed up in mostly "administrative" costs. Bureaucrats absolutely love that sort of thing for reasons that have nothing to do with control of the population. The only control involved is a marketing effort to gain public support.
*It turns out Rick Scott's wife is heavily invested in a Zika mosquito spraying business.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by guizzy on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:50PM
I'll echo Scott Alexander here: you can't compare causes that work at a steady, reliable pace with causes where much of the effect is in outliers.
If terrorists had, right now, a nuke in New-York or London or any major western city, they would not hesitate to detonate it. It fits with their goals and their MO. Then you'd have 10 million deaths by terrorism in a single day. It's not because most years there's only a handful of Americans killed by terrorists that it should be treated as less important than, say, deaths by falling off furniture. Because there won't be a year where 10 million people will suddenly fall off their beds to their death, but there could very well be such a year with regards to terrorism. Just one such event per century (which is really not that much of a stretch) would spike "deaths by terrorism" to over 100 000 deaths/year.
Flu's the same thing as terrorism in that regards. Most years have a couple thousand deaths by flu. Then there's the Spanish Flu that killed between 50 and 100 million in a single year. You don't want to wait until this happens before you take flu seriously.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:01PM
such viscous [google.com] killers as cows or elevators.
Or honey! The spelling you were looking for was "vicious."
But grammar Naziing aside, you're much more likely to get screwed over by your own government than killed by a terrorist.
Land of the free and home of the brave :/
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:33PM
Exactly. You beat me to it.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:47PM
"Terrorists, no matter how famous, really don't manage to kill almost anyone. They are terrible at their only job,"
Do you really believe this? I know you are trying to be reasonable with the rest of your post, but I seriously wish people would just stop with this egotistical naval gazing.
The reasons they do what they do are many and varied as are the groups themselves. "Terrorist" has become a catch-all used by ignorant bigots to label any group of people they don't like.
For example: Currently ISIS's main aim is to form an Islamic caliphate. (as per their holy book) They were far more successful at this than they should have ever been considering the audacity of the move. Had you allowed them to roam free, they would have won. Of course one could argue the only reason this move worked was because of previous atrocities.
Osama bin laden's main goal was not to "kill Americans" (despite the propaganda). It was to cause a jihad, thereby engaging foreign powers on his turf, which he believed would cause economic collapse in Russia and the US.
Yes, killing Americans was what he considered revenge for crimes (including those by US-backed Israel) against Muslims and why he said were "justified" targets. But this was not his main aim. He also wanted more Islamic countries with sharia law. (Just like when the US helped Iran throw out its democracy in favor of sharia law....) He was of course bat shit crazy also.
Disclaimer for the mouth breathers: I think they are all pieces of shit but I don't limit that just to brown people: I include ALL violent groups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:38PM
Do you really believe this?
Yes. The threat of terrorism in first-world countries is almost nonexistent.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:31AM
After the DOJ hack, which Snowden wasn't responsible for, the notion intelligence has been a complete joke. And if we are being completely honest, Clinton's actions with her mail server isn't that far removed as far as security goes, and no one is calling her a traitor (well no one in the DOJ at least).
And suppose Snowden's actions did compromise terrorist investigations, it doesn't detract that the government was acting illegally. Clean up your own house before you go assigning blame.
And for as much of a cluster-fuck the middle east is in now, I'm actually hopefully that curbed actions there might keep us from another world war, because fuck if anyone in intelligence has been keeping that monster at bay.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:36AM
The man who exposed the criminal behaviour of the TLA's?
Or
The TLA's that trained the insurgents, provided them with weapons, and then continued to meddle in the domestic affairs of nations after the insurgents had upset the status quo in their own country?
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:42AM
Yeah, perhaps you can con most of the US people but plenty of us outside the USA don't buy that bullshit about the NSA stopping terrorists.
The US Gov and its TLAs are responsible for much of the terrorism around the world:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/155236.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Afghan jihad was backed with American dollars and had the blessing of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
He received security training from the CIA itself, according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian.
Same sort of shit in Syria, the USA supported terrorists to fight vs Russian backed incumbents:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism [wikipedia.org]
Even within the USA itself:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515 [rollingstone.com]
So far they've been creating terrorists (real or fake) and all their spying is good* for is finding out more details of the real terrorists AFTER the act.
If you want to fight and reduce terrorism you can start by shutting down the CIA and arresting the many in the CIA responsible for terrorism.
* There's plenty of other stuff their spying is for but it's not for good.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:55AM
... Edward Snowden will be pardoned. After all, he's embarrassed the U.S. government and intelligence community so much that there is no chance of a pardon unless some bizarre third-party candidate becomes president. Well, stranger things [donaldjtrump.com] have happened during this election.
And, of course, I could be wrong. By applying sufficient thrust pigs do fly.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:29AM
The ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a few celebrities are demanding exactly that (a pardon, not porcine aviation).
https://pardonsnowden.org/supporters [pardonsnowden.org]
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:59PM
And for some reason I read that as
https://porcineaviation.org/supporters [porcineaviation.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday September 16 2016, @06:55AM
It'll never happen. If it does, strap on the porcine aviation thruster pack and launch me into orbit.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:16PM
Or at least squeal.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:37PM
" By applying sufficient thrust pigs do fly."
It's more "falling... with style" ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:01AM
I know the illegality of some things seems obvious to many people around here, but plenty of people disagreed and it took a supreme court decision to determine this.
OK, so maybe we could forgive Snowden for exposing that. It makes no difference for him, since the illegal stuff was but a tiny portion of what he released. Nearly every tactic that got exposed was used for 100% legal purposes. Maybe a pardon for exposing the illegal stuff could knock 20 years off of some crazy multi-century prison sentence. Unless we do amazing things with life extension technology, it just doesn't matter. Snowden would still die in prison, or in Russia which is pretty much the same.
Car analogy:
Some accountant at Ford thinks the IRS tax rules have been violated. Most of his coworkers disagree, and the remainder don't want to rock the boat. In a fit of outrage, the accountant dumps the entirety of Ford's file storage out in public where it can be seen by competitors, suppliers, customers, and scammers. This includes info about future engine technology, patent applications, employee W2 and W4 data, employee disability accommodations, price negotiation with suppliers, legal arguments, union negotiations, factory plans, full CAD models of all vehicles, email containing lots of passwords, network layout, and more. Ford is well and truly fucked, worse than how North Korea got Sony. When confronted, the accountant points out that breaking the IRS tax rules is illegal. It's illegal!!! He's a whistleblower, so he did the right thing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:14AM
It's a good thing that the "legal" surveillance tactics were exposed. Surveillance and counter-terrorism hurts US citizens more than it helps, whether they realize it or not. Snowden also does not need to be convicted or charged with a crime to be pardoned by the President.
If "good" whistleblowers are scared off by the Snowden example, Russia or China will be the ones to drain the TLAs in the future, and they will only release certain parts to embarrass the US. They will keep the surveillance tricks and intellectual property for themselves.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:21AM
How does legal surveillance hurt me?
I want my country's intelligence service to read every other country's internal communications.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:24AM
You should want better security for yourself and others. What goes around comes around.
Your shitty country can always fly a satellite over the other countries.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:56AM
And I guess you also want your country's ingelligence service to cooperate with other countries intelligence services..
Now assume both countries agree to share information and are not allowed to spy on its own citizens - this leaves the obvious workaround to just help the other country to spy on your own citizens and share that data back (of course - the entire raw data dump could be encrypted with the spied-on's countrys own cryptos)
-
But to answer your question instead of your rhetoric: surviellence doesn't hurt anyone - its (mis)use does (just look at anyone monitored by the gestapo/stasi/kgb [_most_ was legal btw, being able to blackmail lawmakers does wonders for legality] - and compare that with anyone who had their information acted on)
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:55PM
surviellence doesn't hurt anyone
It violates people's privacy and mass surveillance is unconstitutional in the US, at least.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @04:56PM
Not all of them...
That's why law is not code. You don't get to say "no single step was illegal therefore the whole thing is legal", we're allowed to take combined effects into account.
Anyway, taking away the US's ability is irrelevant in that situation. My actual problem is with MI5.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:14AM
hat's why law is not code. You don't get to say "no single step was illegal therefore the whole thing is legal", we're allowed to take combined effects into account.
Well, I guess you then technically could set up a "counter espionage" where you simply enough download whatever dump your co-conspiritor will get helped in getting from you.
Anyway, taking away the US's ability is irrelevant in that situation. My actual problem is with MI5.
Do note that I never wrote US-centric - in my case I'm more worried about FRA, SÄPO and - tbh - MI5 (they are eerily good)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:09AM
1. Hoard zero-days.
2. Get hacked, all zero-days released.
3. Oops.
4. Request more funding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:58AM
5. Rinse and repeat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:10AM
Because, US security service is there for the ruling class, the average man in the street wouldn't feel any difference?
Or are you one of the shadow presidents of the military-industrial complex, huh? :D
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:44AM
In that case, as they are the same protocols and programs, etc. as you use in the US, your own private communications will be insecure too.
Why do you want that?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:50AM
Because he's Captain Oblivious.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 17 2016, @03:43PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @05:41PM
Huh? This is not about weakening protocols or backdoors. This is about the NSA finding and exploiting backdoors. The bad guys had the same chance to find them, and still will.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:55AM
because its a fallacy.
Do you want to read your wife's mail?
Do you want to be present during your daughter's first date?
Do you want to know exactly what your employees are thinking when they do their job?
Apart from the fact that "legal" often means no more than not explicitly forbidden by law, gather knowledge about peoples or groups of peoples doing is not per definition a good thing. It damages trust, and is a never ending race for who can know and control the most. It is a freakishly addictive behavior that seems to make you more powerful. But the more you know, the more it requires you to judge.
It puts you in a place where everybody dislikes you, and starts to plot against you, making it even more important to continue your spying. Your statement is what makes me dislike your country. You better start your (legal) surveillance of me before I do indeed plan to hurt you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:25PM
How does legal surveillance hurt me?
Which legal surveillance? The legal surveillance that should be legal or the legal surveillance that should be illegal?
And you'll be glad for that legal surveillance when the Stormtrumpers or the Clintonistas are roaming through your neighborhood rounding up evil dissidents and other pernicious threats, real and imagined, to our glorious society with lists easily generated from that copious legal surveillance.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:38PM
> How does legal surveillance hurt me?
The fallacy of your question is that because something may be legal it is therefore good.
How does the perfectly legal torture of non citizens, not on US soil, with the wrong color of skin hurt me?
Why was NSA spying on a foreign leader's phone? Or on Parliament?
But rather than continue with the fallacy of the question, here is a direct answer to that question.
It hurts you, sooner or later, when your own government is building a detailed personal profile on every single person in the US, or maybe even on the entire planet. It may not hurt you today. But sooner or later, different people come into power. And they will not hesitate to use this 'innocently' gathered database to do real harm. To you, or to your descendants.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @05:54PM
My claim wasn't "it was legal, therefore good" It was "the things that happen to be legal, are good"
Torture is morally horrible, makes the world worse, and is again and rightly, illegal.
That's their job. So that the President et al can make better decision.
See, that's where "legal" comes in. I agree about databases of US citizens. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't spy on anyone. Anything Angela Merkel (or Barrack Obama) says into an unencrypted cellphone (or landline) should be assumed to be known to every country's government (or at least, all major countries).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:43PM
> How does legal surveillance hurt me?
One more answer to this.
What makes you think what is going on is actually legal?
Consider the US Constitution. Now consider the following.
1. Secret surveillance (even of US citizens)
2. Secret databases and profiles of people
3. Secret warrants
4. . . . issued by Secret Courts
5. Under cover of Secret Laws
6. Or under Secret Interpretations of public laws
7. Secret Arrests
8. Secret Trials
9. Using Secret Evidence
10. (which is not made available to the defense)
11. Secret Convictions in the Secret Courts
12. Secret Prisons
13. Secret Torture
It sounds to me like we are becoming the very thing that we were fighting against in the previous century.
And this is legal?
I don't think so. No matter what they say. This is not what the writers of the constitution envisioned.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:46PM
Just to add one thing.
The beauty of how such an evil system works is that anyone, at any point in the above chain, can rationalize that they are just doing their job. Their part in it is not so bad. For example, the surveillance people. The real problem is that everything else on that list exists. But the one item in the list where I do my job is just my patriotic duty -- to protect us from bad guys.
Clue: if you participate in the overall list of what I mentioned, then YOU ARE THE BAD GUYS.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:58PM
exactly. you don't protect america by attacking americans. you attack americans when you attack american values, even if perpetrating your crimes against freedom on non americans (in america's name no less). you are the terrorists, you are the traitors, you are the enemy to be rooted out and destroyed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:13PM
Well for starters it violates the 4th amendment and the presumption of innocence. Mass surveillance is strictly prohibited by the constitution, and it has lead to massive miscarriages of justice like "parallel construction", which hurts everyone.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Thursday September 15 2016, @10:34AM
*whoop*whoop* Authoritarian Alert ! ! !
you dingleberry, in these debased times when 'illegal' MEANS NOTHING, UNLESS you are of the 99%; iT IS MORALITY we lack in our leaders (if not ourselves) not some blind obeisance to The Law (which, as mentioned, has become a perverted and corrupted tool of the 1% to fuck the 99%, END OF STORY)...
we are NOT a nation (or planet) of laws, we are a planet dependent upon the whims of approx .1% of the world's population...
but authoritarians do WHATEVER Big Daddy tells them to do, including following unjust laws...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:38PM
Ding ding ding ding!! We have a winner here!
I'm reminded that you can't legislate morality. We are in a sad situation, in which our populace seems to admire immorality. Trump doesn't seem to have especially high moral standards - and his opponent is the epitome of immorality.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:09PM
Snowden would still die in prison, or in Russia which is pretty much the same.
That's one huge-ass prison right there... But, please do yourself a favor, visit Russia some time in your lifetime and prove yourself wrong. May I suggest at least a tour along the Golden Ring [wikipedia.org], or even just Moscow and St. Petersburg, if you're more of a city-person? Please do plan at least a week for visiting the Hermitage [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:54PM
can I tour the prostitutes?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:35PM
I'm not sure, if you have enough money for them to want to go on a tour with you, but maybe you can find some exchange students from your village that would like to.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:38PM
Ford has a right to private, proprietary information by default.
The United States Government must demonstrate the need to make information secret on the basis of individual cases, or it operates outside of legitimate authority.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:43PM
You suck at car analogies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:52PM
OK, so maybe we could forgive Snowden for exposing that. It makes no difference for him, since the illegal stuff was but a tiny portion of what he released.
And there's your problem. You're mistaking "legal" with "ethical". If my government is violating the human rights of people in other countries, even if that is legal, I want to know about it so that we can perhaps take action to stop it. I don't hold the view that someone's fundamental rights are null and void simply because they happened to be born on a different piece of land than me, and you will never convince me with this 'rules are rules' act.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:12AM
I think that no one outside of the NSA really has enough evidence to check this claim:
"signals intelligence is responsible for the strong majority of successful counterterrorism operations in the West"
An objective evaluation of the NSA's activities answer three questions:
- What benefits have been gained? How many? Not "majority", not "three-quarters": are we talking about 2 thwarted attacks or 2000?
- What cost? In dollars? Little though anyone likes it, human lives do have a price. It is not worth spending $1 trillion to save a life. It is worth spending $100 to save a life. What is the cost/benefit ratio of the NSA?
- Finally, legality? Even if we say that the NSA is only required to consider the rights of American citizens (as a non-American, I disagree, but that's another discussion): what impact does their spying have on the rights of the populace? Are they violating rights guaranteed under the American Constitution? If their actions are legally forbidden, the best cost/benefit ratio cannot justify their actions.
Of course, TFA contains no useful numbers and no objective analysis.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:58AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:46AM
A 2014 article, "You'll Never Guess How Many Terrorist Plots the NSA's Domestic Spy Program Has Foiled [vice.com]," cites an NGO's report saying that of
[...] the 227 Al Qaeda-affiliated people or groups that have been charged for committing an act of terrorism in the US since 9/11 [...] just 17 of the cases were credited to NSA surveillance, and just one conviction came out of the government's extra-controversial practice of spying on its own citizens. And that charge, against San Diego cab driver Basaaly Moalin, was for sending money to a terrorist group in Somalia. There was no threat of an actual attack.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:19AM
It feels like I'm overstating the obvious, but NSA, CIA, FBI, local police, etc., all did themselves in on this one. If they had controlled their insatiable appetite for power and control and only spied on truly bad people, none of this would have happened. Shot themselves in the foot, so to speak. Snowden aside, We The People would have eventually collectively compiled enough facts and data on how the govt. has been getting information. None of Snowden's revelations have surprised me at all. I'm surprised it took so long for people to find out. I'm also surprised at how surprised the general public is regarding the surveillance. For years I've taken note of comments over on the Green Site and other places about "mysterious" data connections into major Internet backbone systems. Those data connections (Ethernet) go through walls into restricted access rooms and floors of buildings.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:22AM
Room 641A has been known since 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:51AM
That is true, and I remember the earlier leaks about the switching station in San Francisco. I even remember joking at the time to a friend of mine who works in the Defense Intelligence Agency, "You're not spying on my email, are you buddy?"
But Snowden blew it all wide open. It was undeniable after that, could no longer be disregarded and swept under the rug. I credit his careful study of what had happened to the earlier leakers and plan to work with Glenn Greenwald to publicize it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:00AM
Every single Western company that does anything remotely interesting was hacked by the Chinese authorities a few years ago using dodgy PDFs to exploit a hole in Adobe Reader on Microsoft Windows.
Seriously people, you will be hacked (cracked). Get over it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:05AM
Full Definition of terrorism
: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
terrorist play \-ər-ist\ adjective or noun
terroristic play \ˌter-ər-ˈis-tik\ adjective
--
Full Definition of terror
1
: a state of intense fear
2
a : one that inspires fear : scourge
b : a frightening aspect
c : a cause of anxiety : worry
d : an appalling person or thing; especially : brat
3
: reign of terror
4
: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
terrorless play \-ləs\ adjective
--
Soo, if the reports that we are losing against terrorist causes you fear, anxiety or worry please remember who wrote the report.
(I've mentioned before that the misuse of the word "terrorism" for the sake of terrorism is a pet peeve of mine - also, please remember that the us and uk english definitions pf "terror" and "terrorism" are different)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:05PM
also, please remember that the us and uk english definitions pf "terror" and "terrorism" are different)
Legally, or in the vernacular? Please explain.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @10:24AM
"Unfortunately, there's mounting evidence that NSA's edge over the terrorists is waning. It's impossible not to notice that jihadist emphasis on communications security and encryption, which is now gaining ground, began in 2013. That, of course, is when Edward Snowden, an NSA IT contractor, stole something like 1.7 million classified documents from his employer, shared them with outsiders, then defected to Moscow."
Something about correlation and causation... Really, stop assuming that all terrorists are full retards... and don't act like one.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:09AM
I've noticed a growing trend of troll articles emerging and frankly, it's not something I am willing to support. I spoke with those involved in the site and it appears that they are moving to posting news that will get a response rather than being a good source of well written news stories.
Slashdot has actually gotten better since DICE sold it off, so I'm going back there.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:33AM
The first article is news.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:52AM
I think zocalo got it right [soylentnews.org] and you are overreacting (what a shock).
Did you speak "with" or "at" those involved? You are known for trolling on IRC.
You say you see a "trend". Why don't you list the last 5 "troll articles", and we can see how bad they are and if "troll articles" even approach 5% of the stories posted.
Here's the part of the conversation Gravis chose not to quote:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:32PM
Especially the quip about margins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:38PM
It's curious that you choose a story where SN is atypically doing what mass media typically do, ie., bring in a perspective from the other side for balance, to decry the declining quality of SN. Shouldn't you rather be lauding the editorial decision to run a story that challenges the prevailing opinions of the Soylent community?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:11PM
Gravis, no one forces you (nor anyone else) to open the link to a story you consider to be a "troll article"; those are in the minority and as such are not burying other articles.
Personally, I do greatly appreciate the articles about bleeding edge or otherwise interesting science news, but like many SN readers, I usually don't have enough experience to write a worthwhile comment, nor in fact to enjoy most comments by those who do understand the subject matter unless said comment is particularly well-written.
Unfortunately, political matters do draw a lot of attention because such matters potentially affect EVERYONE, and the foundation of that effect is the threat of lethal force which is the means by which all governments I know of enforce their collective will on members of the hapless populace. Advances in science have a small chance of providing a benefit which may affect you a few years down the road, whereas changes in politics can have an impact within weeks or days - of the baton-to-face sort.
(Incidentally, this is why I think it is so important that the authority of my own country's government, the USA, be clearly and concisely defined. So much USian scientific work is forbidden under threat of death that politics has become a threat to the practice of science. Should the USian government be returned to its lawful state where its authority absent consent is limited to that of its source - a single human being's - then the potential for advances in the fields of power generation, medicine, chemistry, and more spikes up through the roof. I also find it interesting that the other person to come to mind who threatened the use of lethal force in an attempt to slow or stop scientific progress was Theodore Kaczynski [wikipedia.org], more commonly known as the Unabomber.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:35PM
We are not losing the fight against international terrorists.
I know, that seems hard to believe, but we really aren't losing: ISIS' territory has been slowly but steadily shrinking in Iraq (they basically have Mosul and some of the southern suburbs still under their control, and are surrounded there by Iraqi and Kurdish forces), and is also starting to get pushed back in Syria as well (basically, everyone who isn't ISIS is now mostly going after ISIS). There have been fewer deaths by terrorist attack in Europe [datagraver.com] than in decades past, and only 108 Americans total have been killed by terrorists (counting the Christian terrorists like Dylan Roof and Wade Page) in the last decade - that's less than was killed in a single bombing attack in 1983 [wikipedia.org].
The politicians want us running around scared of terrorist boogiemen in every corner, and the media continues to believe in "if it bleeds it leads", but the fact is that we're winning, and you're much more likely to die from falling off a ladder than from a terrorist attack.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fishscene on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:38PM
I'd wager the CIA and NSA has been closer to a terrorist organization, both domestic AND abroad than ISIS ever was.
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:39PM
I think now that the Islamoterrorists are using encryption and the NSA can't sort them out anymore, we might have a fighting chance at keeping them out. If you can't tell the good from the bad, then only the most retarded, misguided, SJW will still want to open the door to more sand monkeys.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Oakenshield on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:41PM
Since the author of TFA's name is John Schindler, might I surmise from the content that Snowden is on Schindler's List?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:54PM
Yeah, Schindler's Shit List.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:50PM
There is a fundamental evidence problem with the argument that the Snowden leaks about PRISM and similar programs have hurt the war on terror. Specifically, no intelligence agency has ever provided a single cases in which evidence gathered through these programs played an important role. This despite being asked multiple times, both in relatively nonpartisan Congressional hearings and by journalists.
These programs have existed for enough years that the NSA must surely have at least one case whose details would not compromise current operations. Just one case where we can unambiguously say that PRISM data collection caught a terrorist. Can anybody even say that PRISM data collection discovered a terrorist? Or hinted at where one might find terrorists? Surely it's not that hard. And we don't need hard evidence or details. Just a single damn case to prove that it's all worth it. Without even the bare minimum of evidence, we can only assume that we get absolutely nothing out of this massive invasion of the privacy of American citizens and breach of international trust with our allies like Germany.
In other words, since they cannot produce a single shred of evidence, a single redacted case report, a single narrative of American victory, these programs are a complete waste of time and taxes whose only outcome is harming the long-term freedoms of American citizens.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?