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Quote:

Originally Posted by Sid Vicious (Post 8259937)

lets be real here, go'vt surveillance is not only a fundamental violation of americans constitutional rights but completely and 100% ineffective

not only did it failed to prevent the boston bombing, but also the myriad of shootings that happened around the same time

i'm sure alot of people who live in police states "begrudingly" put up with censorship, suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite detainment, and extra judicial killings because it gives them a false sense of security

we should be better than that...give the gov't an inch and theyll take a mile (which they already have)

Is US a police state? Is it even getting close to what a police state is? If you want to see what a real police state is like, I suggest that you turn your attention to N.Korea and China.

This particular post of yours has just proven that you are not worth my while to spend any further time in discussing this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8259945)

although it does possess some characteristics of one, never did i say the united states was a police state

you are the perfect citizen from a police states perspective though: a coward who is easily satiated by a false sense of security

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sid Vicious (Post 8259972)

Thank you for calling me a coward. Obviously you are far from being one.

[/sarcasm]

Mark Zuckerberg gets hot under the collar over your privacy issues and sweats

Perhaps we should look at how Americans themselves view the government surveillance programs:

NEW TIME POLL: Support for the Leaker?and His Prosecution | TIME.com

Quote:

Fifty-four percent of respondents said the leaker, Edward Snowden, 29, did a “good thing” in releasing information about the government programs, which collect phone, email, and Internet search records in an effort, officials say, to prevent terrorist attacks. Just 30 percent disagreed.

But an almost identical number of Americans — 53 percent — still said he should be prosecuted for the leak, compared to 28% who said he should not. Americans aged 18 to 34 break from older generations in showing far more support for Snowden’s actions. Just 41 percent of that cohort say he should face charges, while 43 percent say he should not. Just 19 percent of that age group say the leak was a “bad thing.”

Overall, Americans are sharply divided over the government’s use of surveillance programs to prevent terrorist attacks, according to the results of the poll. Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of the surveillance programs, while 44 percent disapprove, a statistical tie given the poll’s four-point margin of error.

A majority of the poll’s respondents say that the surveillance programs have helped protect national security, with 63 percent saying they’ve had “some” or a “great deal” of impact in protecting the country. Just 31 percent says they’ve done “not much” or “nothing at all.”

A narrow plurality of those polled, 48 percent to 43 percent, believe that the federal government is striking the right balance between protecting Americans’ privacy and protecting their physical well-being or that the government should be doing more to prevent terrorism.

polls... polls... i think we've all seen the validity of polls in our own local election recently...

and this is an international matter not just for americans... remember this post

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarobbt (Post 8257780)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...-large-001.jpg

Map that shows which countries are being monitored. Red is heavy monitoring, green is less.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StylinRed (Post 8260061)

polls... polls... i think we've all seen the validity of polls in our own local election recently...

LOL~ Sure, bro. Pollsters are either wrong or or fudging the numbers far more often than to report their findings straight out of the box.:heckno:

For what it's worth.. or what they claim..

Apple - Apple?s Commitment to Customer Privacy

Quote:

Two weeks ago, when technology companies were accused of indiscriminately sharing customer data with government agencies, Apple issued a clear response: We first heard of the government’s “Prism” program when news organizations asked us about it on June 6. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order.

Like several other companies, we have asked the U.S. government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data, and we are providing it here in the interest of transparency.

From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters. The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide.

Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it.

Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.

For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

We will continue to work hard to strike the right balance between fulfilling our legal responsibilities and protecting our customers’ privacy as they expect and deserve.

Edward Snowden to meet with Ecuador officials, says WikiLeaks - World - CBC News

Quote:

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs, flew to Russia on Sunday and planned to head to Ecuador to seek asylum, the South American country's foreign minister and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government has received a request for asylum from Snowden. WikiLeaks, which is giving Snowden legal assistance, said his asylum request would be formally processed once he arrived in Ecuador, the same country that has already been sheltering the anti-secrecy group's founder Julian Assange in its London embassy.

Snowden arrived in Moscow on an Aeroflot flight shortly after 5 p.m. local time Sunday after being allowed to leave Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding for several weeks after he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs.

Snowden was spending the night in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and was booked on an Aeroflot flight to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials. Aeroflot has no direct flights from Moscow to Quito, Ecuador; travelers would have to make connections in Paris, Rome or Washington, which could be problematic for Snowden.

NSA surveillance leaker charged with espionage

Kristinn Hrafnsson, the WikiLeaks spokesman, told Britain's Sky News that Snowden would be meeting with diplomats from Ecuador in Moscow. WikiLeaks said he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from the group.

The car of Ecuador's ambassador to Russia was parked outside the airport in the evening.

Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that WikiLeaks is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.

A U.S. official in Washington said Snowden's passport was annulled before he left Hong Kong, which could complicate but not thwart his travel plans. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to discuss the matter, said that if a senior official in a country or airline ordered it, a country could overlook the withdrawn passport.

'[Hong Kong] has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving."—Government statement

While Patino did not say if the asylum request would be accepted, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has shown repeated willingness to irk the U.S. government and he has emerged as one of the leaders of Latin America's leftist bloc, along with Fidel and Raul Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez.

Both the United States and Britain protested his decision to grant asylum to Assange.

Critics have suggested that asylum for Assange might be aimed partly at blunting international criticism of Correa's own tough stance on critics and new restrictions imposed on the news media.

The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday's developments by his national security advisers.

Snowden's departure came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in America.

The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The Ecuadoran Ambassador's car sits a Sheremetyevo airport, just outside Moscow. The ambassador is slated to have talks with Snowden.The Ecuadoran Ambassador's car sits a Sheremetyevo airport, just outside Moscow. The ambassador is slated to have talks with Snowden. (Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Associated Press)

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."

It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

Snowden explains why he's in Hong Kong

The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.

Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden go on a technicality appears to be a pragmatic move aimed at avoiding a drawn out extradition battle. The action swiftly eliminates a geopolitical headache that could have left Hong Kong facing pressure from both Washington and Beijing.
Russia has no interest in detaining Snowden

Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request.

Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.

The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.

Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from the former NSA contractor that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.

He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.
'Gravely concerned' about cyberattacks

With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.
Revelations by Snowden have raised concerns that the NSA may have hacked into Hong Kong's key internet exchange, which handles nearly all the Chinese territory's domestic web traffic.Revelations by Snowden have raised concerns that the NSA may have hacked into Hong Kong's key internet exchange, which handles nearly all the Chinese territory's domestic web traffic. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the reports of Snowden's departure from Hong Kong to Moscow but did not know the specifics. It said the Chinese central government "always respects" Hong Kong's "handling of affairs in accordance with law." The Foreign Ministry also noted that it is "gravely concerned about the recently disclosed cyberattacks by relevant U.S. government agencies against China."

China's state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.

A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."

"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."

The leak must have embarrassed the US politics pretty bad if they are willing to go to any lengths to get their man. Also America is caught hacking into China/Hong Kong and they want them to simply hand him over? :fuckthatshit:

He'll get his asylum (no telling where), question is whether or not the United States is willing to take the low road when Snowden is granted asylum, by eliminating Snowden.

At the worst, Russia trades asylum for information if other plans fall through, which is still better than standing trial for "treason" at home.

Start making your popcorn, people.

This case is interesting because the rights in the American constitution are supposed to be/more absolute than the flexible rights contained in the Canadian Charter.

Kind of neutral on the subject for now but I do agree with the statement below so I'm not entirely sure whether I should think of Edward Snowden as a traitor or hero.

"democracy rests on the premise that public issues be freely and openly debated" - Robert Sharpe (ON Court of Appeal Justice) & Kent Roach (UT law prof), which seems to be what Edward is proclaiming here as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8259945)

None of your responses in this thread are intellectual especially this one.

If power is not continually challenged in society, you start heading towards a dictatorship. Things don't have to be as bad as the "world's worst offenders" before you start to do something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yodamaster (Post 8266830)

If "by eliminating Snowden", you mean "making arrangements to get him killed", I would say that is a highly unlikely outcome for the US. If the home country was Russia, then I would totally agree it is the de facto expected outcome.

1) Regardless of our personal views of the US, the USoA has a certain international image to maintain. They may very well be hypocrites, but they can't appear to openly have Snowden assassinated because the No.1 suspicion will fall right back to them, and that would seriously harm their international image.

2) As a matter of fact, because the Snowden case has garnered such high profile public attention, the US can't risk damaging their international image by having him killed.

3) Furthermore, Snowden's revelation has enjoyed tremendous worldwide support. If anything other than normal, documented legal procedures were to happen to Snowden, again, the backlash against the US would be tremendous, and the US simply can't afford that, especially at an international level.

4) Snowden's revelations are wide-ranging, but none of it is really top secret super important stuff. Nobody is surprised that the US conducts widespread monitoring around the world -- Snowden's revelations just gives it some fairly solid evidence that this is happening. So because of its relatively low level of importance, it is not worth US' while to take drastic action to have him killed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8266924)

All perfectly valid points, though Snowden knows a lot more than he has given up (he's said this), he has valuable information that could be of use to another government or authority. It's a sticky situation, since as you've corrected me on, it would look bad if he was murdered because suspect #1 would be the US. The problem is, he's still running around with all of that sensitive information trapped in his head with plenty of ways to extract it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yodamaster (Post 8266939)

All perfectly valid points, though Snowden knows a lot more than he has given up (he's said this), he has valuable information that could be of use to another government or authority.

I agree with the above point that you mentioned. However, I think it is appropriate to draw some parallels between Snowden and Assange, and use Assange's treatment to speculate what might happen to Snowden.

Undoubtedly, Assange has access to a tremendous amount of classified information as well, and I think it is entirely reasonable to assume that at least some of those classified info could be of use other another government / authority. But because Assange has gone as public as he did, none of the Western countries can afford to openly use any low-handed tactics to eliminate him.

Given the way Snowden has gone public, and the possible information that he knows about, I would say a tremendous amount of parallelism exist between the two persons. Assange has been trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy for almost a year now, but at least he is alive and well. And now Ecuador is supposedly reviewing Snowden's asylum case. I think it is safe to say that Snowden will follow Assange's example in at least the foreseeable future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8266954)

From what I understand Ecuador has already granted him asylum status in Ecuador, but Assange is unable to leave the consulate because he will be arrested immediately.

I feel like the American public as a whole is not reacting to this as strongly as you would think that they should ... I guess Snowden is at least giving them a choice: You can choose to accept and do nothing about the fact that your government continuously gives itself the power to monitor and record everything that goes on in your life, or you could do something about it. And if they choose to do nothing about it, and shit continues to go down the drain, the people will have no one to blame but themselves.

The American public is acting as imagined by calling for his head and calling him a traitor :rolleyes: those that feel otherwise remain quiet...news caster on cnn the other day was saying 'what's the problem we got seal team 6 don't we remember bin laden?' think it was don lemon

The fact that Canada doesn't seem to give a rats ass is a bit surprising too regardless of Harper

Quote:

Originally Posted by StylinRed (Post 8267051)

Those associated with the government (House of Rep, Senate, etc.) are certainly mostly joining forces to condemn the security leaks -- I wouldn't have expected them not to. In doing so, they are directly or directly condemning Snowden's actions. But do the same sentiments exist among the (US) public? From the news reports and such that I have read, I am more under the impression that the public is split, at least for the moment -- there is a large number of people on both sides of the issue. What I do not have a very good impression of, however, is how strongly these people feel towards the subject. I have a feeling that those who support Snowden don't feel too strongly about it.

On the international front, there is more support for Snowden, and my guess is, everybody just loves to slam the US as the enemy.

^^ You know what is more funny?

For a democratic country the US is no different from China.

Both countries hunt down it's activists who do not agree with the government.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StylinRed (Post 8267051)

Well, by definition, he IS a traitor.

What you are arguing for is do the ends justify the means. Was the message so worthy that he was justified in breaking his secret status to deliver it.

And of course the government is going to hunt him down. First of all, you can't have just anyone that feels like it sharing whatever information they deem necessary and second, you can't have these people alone making judgment calls on what is safe to leak.

Now, having said that...I think what he's done is bring a conversation to a subject that deserves to have the public's attention. Myself, I'm a little concerned that the major issue here is listening to Americans, and how much a piss off that is...for Americans. Well, as a member of the second rate, "rest of the world" I'm a little pissed that all my shit is free hunting.

by definition whistleblower is more accurate than traitor or the other term they like using treason

i expect the govt to slant it like that but the news agencies and public? :crazy2:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlock (Post 8267325)

Traitor, Activist, Whistleblower? All the same thing. He did not betray America. He is not a KGB spy. He simply does not agree with the direction America is headed in. He holds no military secrets, the only information he holds is how America is violating constitutional rights and what countries America is hacking into and monitoring. Remember those privacy statements that you always have to hit agree without reading?

It just proves that big brother is above the law.

Not any different than activists blowing the cover on the Chinese government on human rights only to disappear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarobbt (Post 8267238)

^^ You know what is more funny?

For a democratic country the US is no different from China.

Both countries hunt down it's activists who do not agree with the government.

It would be great if you could elaborate a little more on your above statement. Because as it is, it makes as much sense as 1+1=11.

Nobody is saying the US is a model citizen. But to say that it is no different from China, you're definitely out to lunch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8267703)

I think he meant it as an exaggerated sentence.

But with the way China is these days, it's really not THAT different. China is no longer a communist country, but a capitalist country with a communist government. Centralized government makes all the decisions without having to go through the people to make decisions. Anti-government people are hunted down. Even at the municipal level you get "voting". But in the end no matter who you vote for it's all the same shit. Kind of get the drift?