BTW, it was reported that Snowden has with him 4 laptops containing classified government stuff (I assume he stole them from the NSA).

Now they're saying he traded this classified stuff to China and Russia in exchange for their assistance.

Who is? And how would they know?

karn wrote:The variable right now for Snowden is to what extent did he expound on his intel to the Chinese government/agencies. At face value of what's been reported both here and in HK it only sounds like he confirmed what I'm sure they've known all along re: US hacks of Chinese infrastructure - basically tit for tat on what they've been doing to us. As far as what he's (thus far) told the Guardian and the Post, he's hardly endangered anyone by - again - simply CONFIRMING what a fistful of NSA whistleblowers had already been beating the drum on for quite a while now. Unless he's made it known through backchannels that he has truly devastating, or - more likely in my opinion - personally incriminating info and is threatening to disclose, then the circus over espionage and hunting him to the ends of the earth as some braindead Congressional types have suggested is pointless grandstanding by and for a dying breed.

There's now a large enough generation of millenials, raised online, who view the warrantless seizure of data (meta or otherwise) as far more treasonous, and, for them, the Snowdens and Mannings are, if not heroes (which, like traitor, is not really a defined concept for this generation anyway), far more in the right on this matter than Washington and its greedy cabal of baby boomer politicians and lobbyists. The dog and pony show of trying to cast him as a traitor to the republic or whatever nonsense is ridiculous.

Yup.

pacino wrote:a million people signed recall petitions. does that mean a million people are permanently disqualified from public service??? that is a crazy litmus test. serve the public OR use your rights. don't do both.

Oh c'mon. If I signed a petition to have a guy recalled, I wouldnt expect that same guy to give me a job. In what industry/country would that not be true?

government is where it is not true, at least not supposed to be, especially not for a guy who didnt even vote. your vote is yours, and it breaks the spirit of that to not extend that to petition signings and other various means of employing your rights in the political spectrum.

Werthless wrote:

karn wrote:The variable right now for Snowden is to what extent did he expound on his intel to the Chinese government/agencies. At face value of what's been reported both here and in HK it only sounds like he confirmed what I'm sure they've known all along re: US hacks of Chinese infrastructure - basically tit for tat on what they've been doing to us. As far as what he's (thus far) told the Guardian and the Post, he's hardly endangered anyone by - again - simply CONFIRMING what a fistful of NSA whistleblowers had already been beating the drum on for quite a while now. Unless he's made it known through backchannels that he has truly devastating, or - more likely in my opinion - personally incriminating info and is threatening to disclose, then the circus over espionage and hunting him to the ends of the earth as some braindead Congressional types have suggested is pointless grandstanding by and for a dying breed.

There's now a large enough generation of millenials, raised online, who view the warrantless seizure of data (meta or otherwise) as far more treasonous, and, for them, the Snowdens and Mannings are, if not heroes (which, like traitor, is not really a defined concept for this generation anyway), far more in the right on this matter than Washington and its greedy cabal of baby boomer politicians and lobbyists. The dog and pony show of trying to cast him as a traitor to the republic or whatever nonsense is ridiculous.

Yup.

How does confirming the hacking help Americans? How is it wrong for us to hack them, anyway? It is the very concept of the NSA to spy on other nations, especially ones where we have a volatile and tenuous relationship. if you dont believe in the idea of the NSA, good luck with having any sort of coherent means of gathering any information on any nation. spying prevents war, in my estimation, by giving the government the straight dope on what is going on.

he started a conversation, but he did commit a crime, and basically going to every nation we have a bad relationship with makes his and GG's claim of him seeking to help Americans to be a specious one at best. was he whistleblowing? im not sure.

i think the biggest worry about all this is we allow contractors to get way too much access.

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

karn wrote:The variable right now for Snowden is to what extent did he expound on his intel to the Chinese government/agencies. At face value of what's been reported both here and in HK it only sounds like he confirmed what I'm sure they've known all along re: US hacks of Chinese infrastructure - basically tit for tat on what they've been doing to us. As far as what he's (thus far) told the Guardian and the Post, he's hardly endangered anyone by - again - simply CONFIRMING what a fistful of NSA whistleblowers had already been beating the drum on for quite a while now. Unless he's made it known through backchannels that he has truly devastating, or - more likely in my opinion - personally incriminating info and is threatening to disclose, then the circus over espionage and hunting him to the ends of the earth as some braindead Congressional types have suggested is pointless grandstanding by and for a dying breed.

There's now a large enough generation of millenials, raised online, who view the warrantless seizure of data (meta or otherwise) as far more treasonous, and, for them, the Snowdens and Mannings are, if not heroes (which, like traitor, is not really a defined concept for this generation anyway), far more in the right on this matter than Washington and its greedy cabal of baby boomer politicians and lobbyists. The dog and pony show of trying to cast him as a traitor to the republic or whatever nonsense is ridiculous.

Yup.

How does confirming the hacking help Americans? How is it wrong for us to hack them, anyway? It is the very concept of the NSA to spy on other nations, especially ones where we have a volatile and tenuous relationship. if you dont believe in the idea of the NSA, good luck with having any sort of coherent means of gathering any information on any nation. spying prevents war, in my estimation, by giving the government the straight dope on what is going on.

he started a conversation, but he did commit a crime, and basically going to every nation we have a bad relationship with makes his and GG's claim of him seeking to help Americans to be a specious one at best. was he whistleblowing? im not sure.

i think the biggest worry about all this is we allow contractors to get way too much access.

If you think that's the biggest problem here, you've got some serious blinders on dude. That very line of pragmatism is what is being used to minimize the outrage towards this egregious violation of rights.

There is no earthly justification for a government agency to need to know the full communication spheres of every person on the planet - which is what the current apparatus allows for. It's positively megalomaniacal in both scope and function. Given what we now know about their current level of operation, it's ridiculous to think that they couldn't simply be doing the job you describe of gathering information on other nations to prevent war without casting an unavoidable domestic net over hundreds of millions of innocent citizens. No justification at all and if not by the book illegal (which it might still be), it's at the very least despicably immoral.

Until proven otherwise, Snowden IS simply a whistleblower who presented the hard evidence that others who have made similar claims could not and that those in a position to be able to present / describe the programs' scope and the purpose behind such scope have repeatedly lied about under oath.

As far as his flight path, he's trying to avoid extradition and more likely death, so I don't begrudge him of making high risk / reward decisions about where he goes. There's a justifiable amount of cynicism out there based on it, sure, but he's yet to even imply let alone actually do anything that suggests his intentions are anything but (in his estimation) patriotic and I am curious as to what else he has to disclose.

Q: What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

Snowden: This country is worth dying for.

Link

the charges he faces do not denote death, so i seriously have no clue where you get your info.

and it's not illegal, sorry. it may be wrong, but it's not illegal. blame congress, but it;s not illegal. it's just not. invest in the importance of governance if you want to change things.

Preach, pacino

Though you're wrong about the Scott Walker thing. It's not a regular government job; it's an appointment to a Board of Regents spot. If he doesn't want to reward someone who signed a petition to have him recalled with that, good for him.

Luzinski's Gut wrote:This may or may not be interesting to you, but I've been working with a senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel over the last two weeks. He's done some very innovative and groundbreaking work on climate change...and the four star general I work directly for is very interested in the impacts of climate change.

It's actually one of the coolest projects I'm in charge of right now.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Good to read that people are too stupid to understand that climate change has more implications than rising temperatures.

Seems odd that you would be working with someone from TWC rather than NOAA. I don't doubt you, it's just odd that TWC has a climate expert that well regarded and that you wouldn't use someone from another government agency.

it doesn't look like a random expert solicitation, but rather something targeted because of this dude's specific research.

jerseyhoya wrote:Preach, pacino

Though you're wrong about the Scott Walker thing. It's not a regular government job; it's an appointment to a Board of Regents spot. If he doesn't want to reward someone who signed a petition to have him recalled with that, good for him.

the thing is, these appointments are not rewards; they are basically standard appointments based on mostly merit. he only rescinded the nomination after he found out the guy signed a paper. nothing else changed. it's the epitome of petty.

petty=politics.

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Preach, pacino

Though you're wrong about the Scott Walker thing. It's not a regular government job; it's an appointment to a Board of Regents spot. If he doesn't want to reward someone who signed a petition to have him recalled with that, good for him.

the thing is, these appointments are not rewards; they are basically standard appointments based on mostly merit. he only rescinded the nomination after he found out the guy signed a paper. nothing else changed. it's the epitome of petty.

To some extent these entities are autonomous and make decisions that affect policy. You would prefer them to contain people who support your vision for how the state and the state's educational system should be run rather than containing people who think you should be booted out of office just as your term is starting because you made some tough calls trying to get the state's finances on track.

pacino wrote:and it's not illegal, sorry. it may be wrong, but it's not illegal. blame congress, but it;s not illegal. it's just not. invest in the importance of governance if you want to change things.

Oh I'm sure it's all legal in that they got a FISC stamp of approval for whatever wiretapping, hacking etc was done, hence why I didn't call it illegal bro. Read up. But whatever. You've clearly got the handle on it.

Bucky wrote:it doesn't look like a random expert solicitation, but rather something targeted because of this dude's specific research.

Yeah, but I would have thought NOAA would have someone who would be way more qualified than TWC considering TWC's main focus is operational meteorology and not climate change.

Pac, you worry about fisa oversight of spying on americans, but don't give a fuck abiut the same approach being extended to me. Cheers. I'll be sure to treat you with equal respect in the future.

Wizlah wrote:Pac, you worry about fisa oversight of spying on americans, but don't give a fuck abiut the same approach being extended to me. Cheers. I'll be sure to treat you with equal respect in the future.

There should be different rules about NSA spying on US citizens/residents and foreigners. I mean really.