Bolivian President's Plane 'Rerouted Over Snowden Suspicions' 621
niftydude writes with the latest news on the Edward Snowden saga. It appears that the Bolivian President's plane was denied access to French and Spanish airspace due to suspicions that Snowden was on board. Quoting a few pieces from the Guardian: "In an extraordinary move, France and Portugal revoked flight clearances for the Bolivian President's plane on Tuesday after representations were reportedly made by the U.S. State Department. Mr Morales was flying home from an energy conference in Moscow and his aircraft was hastily rerouted to Vienna, Austria. Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca angrily denied that Mr Snowden was on the President's aircraft, a fact later confirmed by Austrian authorities, and said France and Portugal would have to explain why they abruptly canceled authorization for the flight. AP reports that Venezuela's foreign minister Elias Jaua has condemned the decision by France and Portugal to block the plane from its airspace. He claimed that changing a flight's route without checking on how much fuel was left in the plane, put Morales' life at risk."
Spain claims they only agreed to allow the plane to refuel there if it were subject to search, and France did end up authorizing use of their air space today. In related news, Julian Assange and the general secretary of Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire published an Op-Ed today why Europe must protect Snowden. And: dryriver sends news that Ecuador discovered that their embassy in London was bugged, describing the incident as "another instance of a loss of ethics at the international level in relations between governments."
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
If Snowden was a Chinese gangster or (Score:2, Insightful)
had a criminal past we in Canada would let me stay and give him refugee status.
Bolivia has a big fraction of the world's lithium (Score:5, Insightful)
and I'll bet France and Portugal have business interests associated with Bolivia's lithium deposits. Morales could spank both of them by levying an access fee amounting to a few hundred million Euros. Gotta make it more expensive to be a USA poodle if we want this bad behavior to stop.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter what you think of Snowden, at this point he's just a whistleblower or spy.
Just a whistle blower? He's God damn American hero, even if most American's can't understand that. Where are the yellow ribbons reading "Support Our Whistle Blowers"?
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple. The hunt for him is a threat against any other would be whistleblower.
Re:So what was it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time to go beyond petty shit like that.
Patriotic Americans should descend on DC with pitchforks, tar and feathers, and enhanced voting techniques.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
land of the free, home of the "shit, that guy must be snuffed out, he told the world how dirty we really are. an example must be made so that others think twice about being a whistleblower".
happy fourth of july, fellow americans ;( can't say I'm very proud to be american right now. in fact, I'm ashamed of what my country is looking like, to the rest of the world.
Dear leaders: (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut it out and give Snowden the hero's welcome home he deserves.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this was done to Air Force One, there would be outrage and calls for war.
Of course. But it wasn't Air Force One, it was merely the plane of the president of some unimportant country that's not the US. So who cares, right? Only the US really matters. Only the people in charge of the US really matter, I mean. If there's one thing abundantly clear now, it's that.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
lets also blame our fellow geeks who have ENABLED this spying via their tech efforts.
do you work for a networking company and have you worked on any sniffer or DPI code or hardware? you are to blame - you are part of the problem!
do you work for anything having to do with calea? you are to blame!
do you look the other way when you go into work each day? how do you justify the harm you are doing? oh right, you're helping to 'catch bad guys'. yeah, keep telling yourselves that.
fellow geeks who enable the evil governments that spy are FULLY TO BLAME just as much as the politicians and folks in power who ordered the equipment and software to do this.
seriously - if we, as a group, said NO to such jobs, they would not get done. but we are whores and will work for spying companies and not even think twice about it.
its fucked up beyond belief. and we are part of the problem.
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:4, Insightful)
True. He might be hiding people like Luis Posada Carriles, which is wanted by multiple countries for terrorism, or Victor Bout, a convicted russian arms trafficker.
The double standards, where USA wants special treatment because it is USA, and refuses reciprocity, is becoming quite tiresome. How can anyone take us seriously?
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a man with principles. There's nothing more dangerous to illegitimate authority. They are sending a message to every individual who cares about liberty and the rule of law: "If you stick your neck out, we will stomp on your face".
Conflicting stances...double standards? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the BBC article...
Meanwhile, France has urged EU-US trade talks be delayed amid the fallout from secrets leaked by Mr Snowden.
The talks are due to begin on Monday but claims that the US bugged EU diplomatic offices in the US, and spied on internal computer networks, have upset transatlantic relations.
French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Berkacem said the talks should be suspended for 15 days to enable mutual trust to be restored.
Yet at the same time it is claimed that the French potentially violated the diplomatic priviledges of the President of an interntionally-recognised, non "axis-of-evil", democratic nation-state in order to please the USA?
Looks like genuine 'realpolitik' at its cynical best; we're pissed that you're spying on us, but we'll still help you collect your "bad guy" in case we need you to return the favour in the future. Just like what happened when NZ gave back the Rainbow Warrior killers so fast...
Bottom line: Why is this spying stuff so persistent and pervasive? Because everybody in power wants it...
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
So why, then, did he choose to go into exile rather than accept the consequences and justify his actions in court?
Because he knows there's no chance of a fair trial. Those whose crimes he exposed won't see a courtroom, why should he?
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
the highest rule one can follow is to Do The Right Thing. we each should have some idea as to what that is.
this is higher than any loyalty to a government or country. higher than loyalty to a religion. higher than what your employer wants you to do.
I include manning and snowden as true heros and patriots. when a country or government goes bad (ours has, in case there was any doubt) then its your DUTY to Do The Right Thing and inform on them.
the notion of checks and balances is near and dear to my heart. those who keep the people informed of wrongdoings are at the highest level of hero.
its sad that our modern heros are being treated like criminals. isn't that a laugh, the criminals are punishing the good guys. I'm not sure when things got so backwards, but they clearly are, now.
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Insightful)
i assume some blame must also reside with the ball-less wonders of Europe?
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this was done at the request of the Americans, they've well overestimated their own importance
I take great offense at that statement. the corrupticians in power run bartertown. the american people have no say in things anymore.
please do not assume that We The People have any control over our lawless government officials. that boat sailed a long time ago and it isn't coming back any time soon.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
illegitimate authority
Ha! You wish it was illegitimate authority. Unfortunately, those are your elected representatives. Totally legitimate. :(
Oh, right, that is sad, not funny
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:2, Insightful)
America can either realize her own problems and fix them, or continue to act like arrogant douchebags.
Ignore this at your own peril, because the rest of the world is getting tired of putting up with the shit your leaders do.
Really? A presidential plane was diverted to search for a person of pressing interest to the US and you are going to claim there was no US involvement? These countries just decided on a whim to violate international law, redirect this plane and demand to search it?
Are you going to pretend that 'rendition' never happened either?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, "moreso" over the top. I voted for him twice, but I'm dismayed at how far overboard he's gone with the "pragmatic" view that killing U.S. citizens without judicial review and continuing the indiscriminate spying is necessary for the national interest. Better than Willard, but it's still creepy.
Why did you write "killing U.S. citizens"? Why not "killing humans"?
If you believe that US citizens are worth more than any other human beings and should have rights others shouldn't have because of the circumstance of their birth, you're part of the problem.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
There's laws (in theory at least) in the US to protect whistle blowers, even those who release information the way he did. While we can argue back and forth over whether he'll get a fair trial, he is entitled to his day in court. From what I've read of it, the information gathering being done is against the US constitution, and he should be exonerated.
So why, then, did he choose to go into exile rather than accept the consequences and justify his actions in court? And what did he think he had to gain by going to Julian Assange? These are the questions people need to be asking about this situation...
I'm sorry, but your arguments sounds a lot like the ones we hear against anonymity, and in favor or letting the government spy on its people.
The reason he went into exile is simple: he doesn't trust the government. And rightly so.
Maybe he doesn't want to be a martyr?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, for the record, there were and are a large number of us who bitched about Bush's criminal behavior just as much as we bitch about Obama's. Problem is, the shills and sheeple bray so fucking loudly with their partisan nonsense, we end up being drowned out.
Well, plus the partisan nonsense itself - when I complained that Bush was fucking us all over and defiling the Constitution, the 'liberals' cheered while the 'conservatives' called me a traitor. Now that it's a Democrat pulling the exact same shit, when I complain the 'conservatives' are right there with me, while the 'liberals' claim the only reason I don't agree with Obama is because he's (half) black. WTF?
the 2-party system, combined with the general and willful ignorance of the population at large, are the reason we appear to be fucked.
Re:What hasn't he revealed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. The world is not against him. The world is against the possible [economic] retaliation from the US. That's kind of funny: during the cold war, a time people were worrying about possible armed conflicts, Snowden would have been granted asylum from many countries, including USSR. Nowadays, it seems the economic threat has more impact than nukes.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's not specifically authorized in the Constitution, it's not legitimate authority. Generalized surveillance is prohibited by the 4th amendment, no matter how many representatives or judges have oversight. Congressional oversight of an unconstitutional law does not make that law legitimate, it makes those congress people traitors to their oath to defend the Constitution. The only way to make this legal is to amend the Constitution.
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, in America there does seem to be a growing number of people who have no issue with arresting protesters, dissenters and other people who speak against the status quo. You only have to look at major recent protests over the past ten years (OWS, G8, anti-Iraq War, etc) to see how often people are detained under the most frivolous of charges. Dare to step outside the designated "free speech zones" they outline for you, be they literal or figurative and thereby attract the attention of the Powers That Be and you are ever more likely to rue your actions. I had a colleague who went to one OWS protest, was arrested but never charged and /still/ he had to go to court three times. He wasn't imprisoned but just the inconvenience of having all these court dates has made him reconsider participating in future protests.
The grandparent poster wasn't suggesting that /you/ believe in arresting dissenters, or even that most Americans do. But increasingly there is an awareness that if you /do/ go to one of these protests, you are likely to face detainment despite the fact you are doing nothing more than expressing your right to free speech and assembly. Are they arresting everybody? Of course not, but it is far more likely to happen than it was even fifteen years ago. It is a legitimate fear.
And America is less free because of it.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple. The hunt for him is a threat against any other would be whistleblower.
Were that the case, one would think the persecution of Bradley Manning would have sufficed.
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:4, Insightful)
you don't think the guard, army (etc) won't shoot on fellow american citizens?
think again.
They have before, many times, including the 1970 Viet Nam and Equal Rights incidents, and several union/strike - breaking attempts.
Try as I have over the last 45 years to believe the military and paramilitary (police, etc) has become more enlightened, I see absolutely no evidence of that -- and rather a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stalin? Really?
So we've sent 4 million political dissidents to their deaths and left another 8-10 million to starve to death, then?
Idiot.
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
What they don't seem to realize is that if becomes the norm, there won't be any reason to limit one's protest to the ostensibly legal kind.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
How's it going?
I'm a military contractor. The stuff I work on is designed to kill people. Well, mostly communication systems and power distribution, but a few of the systems, and the whole giant thing, is there to provide weaponry, humanitarian aid, and search/rescue operations.
Life's about choices, and if you've made the kind of choices where the navy is firing at you, it's probably not a big loss to humanity if we have to kick you off the planet. Right now, there are people who will throw acid on girls for going to school or kill their sisters for dancing in the rain. These are not people who will sit down at the breakfast table and discuss their problems calmly over a croissant. They're going to kill people for what we consider no reason at all, and the only thing they can understand is force. If you can figure out a way to get them to the table, fuck man, I'll buy the bagels with my last paycheque.
Now, as for this warrantless wiretapping, or the use of military force without judicial permission and gratuitious amounts of oversight? That's something for which someone should be facing jail time -- because WE ARE the kinds of people who will sit down and discuss our problems over a croissant.
Re:What hasn't he revealed? (Score:5, Insightful)
His problem is he's a geek and doesn't understand how social relations work between people, much less countries. For example everyone spies on everyone-else's diplomatic missions, but everyone also pretends that no such thing ever happens. In a lot of ways these spy-missions-between-allies are actually in everyone's best interest because if French spies tell the the French government the UK really is serious about issue #47, the French know that pressing the Brits too hard on Issue #47 is likely to lead to big problems in other areas. But it's considered rude to talk about this stuff openly because the voters don't understand this, and the Brits will have to do something if anyone ever points out to those voters that the French spies got all Britain's documents on Issue #47.
Snowden and co. just did that to the US. Instead of doing whatever they were actually planning on doing today, the Foreign ministers of multiple countries have to be self-righteous hypocrites for the next three months. They know they are being hypocrites, they do not like it, and they blame Snowden/Wikileaks for forcing their hands. Therefore they are sending a message to Evo Morales. Helping Snowden is going to have repercussions with his relationships with them. I'm not sure whether Morales cares one way or the other about that, but now he knows.
If Snowden had stayed in Hong Kong, and avoided Assange religiously he'd be a lot better off. Since he's with Wikileaks he's burned his entire stock of moral authority with all people who have legal authority, he's also guaranteed that his information is worthless to those people because Wikileaks always tells everyone everything eventually. But he fled to Russia with Wikileaks help, now the Russians don't know what to do with him, and the Latin American countries that might shield him as a FU to the US are finding out that they'd be telling a lot of other countries FU2.
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: spy novel (Score:3, Insightful)
Realistically, show of hands who thought the USA ever shut down spying on other countries from during the Cold War? These Europeans are so silly and naive they thought the USA closed up spy shop just cause the Comminist countries fell? I mean that's so naive as to be dangerous for politics and military. These guys are too content coasting on NATO treaties for security arrangements in the area that the USA does the lion's share of the operations on.
But to think for a minute the USA isn't spying on you is just silly.
That said, back in the 1970's if the USA thought you were openly harboring a spy, we'd have just "accidented" you mr from Bolivia. I'm sure Ecuador is starting to feel the "coup de Tate" pressure from tge CIA right about now too.
Snowden's self-exile actually makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
So why, then, did he choose to go into exile rather than accept the consequences and justify his actions in court?
Have you seen what due process has been for Bradley Manning? During his nine-month stay in Fort Quantico, he was reportedly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, forced to sleep naked without pillows and sheets on his bed, and restricted from physical recreation or access to television. A military judge ruled that his treatment was excessive and credited him with some time served against any future punishment.
The government has demonstrated that it will crush whistleblowers who try to defy it. Who in their right mind would allow this to happen to them? Extreme measures for Snowden to protect himself just mirror the extreme measures our government has taken to punish those who oppose it.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
US government, just like any other, is primarily responsible to its citizens who elected it to look after their interests. It is not a matter of whose life is more important. If you don't like it, move to a planet where there are no countries.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps simply because it's an easier case to make, when arguing with other Americans. There are a scary number of my countrymen who are willing to agree with statements like "[anyone accused as] a terrorist doesn't have any rights." Even the most ignorant American is aware that US citizens have certain, specific rights. Persuading him that those rights need to be respected is, in my opinion, a prerequisite to subsequently selling him on the idea of natural and universal human rights.
So I think framing the discussion as "killing US citizens" does reflect a certain chauvinism, but not as bad as it probably appears to a foreigner. :-(
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now all we have are the accusations of one man who, by the way, has his own agenda.
President Morales was not the only one on that plane. It is the accusations of everyone on that plane. And his agenda was just to fly home.
He's riled up sentiment among the Latin American countries against the U.S.
No. We and our French and Portuguese lapdogs (who cannot seem to get enough of our cum down their throats) have riled up sentiment. And rightfully so. If we are willing to essentially ground the plane of a foreign president for just the slightest of rumors can you imagine what we would do if there were some real evidence that Snowden were on the plane. Would we simply shoot the plane down? Maybe. I've never heard of anything like this before. It sounds like the US government wants Snowden more than they have ever wanted anyone. I shudder to think what the government has done that makes them so afraid of this guy.
Maybe what he is saying is true, but the countries involved deny it.
Have you got any evidence for that? They haven't denied it. Even if France and Portugal do deny it no one with any sense is going to believe them because it is by far the most likely sequence of events that could lead to President Morales' plane changing course and landing in Austria.
I'm beginning to suspect that Snowden is dead no matter what he does. If the US governemnt feels he is so dangerous that they have to ground a president's plane like this over the most insubstantial of rumors then he is well and truly fucked. They will simply assasinate him and try to make it look like an accident or extraordinary rendition him to gitmo and torture and murder him there. It is sad because he truly is a brave hero. Obama's protest that this issue is not worthy of his attention is starting to sound more and more like the opposite of the truth. It is becoming clear that they are terrified of what he might reveal. It's sickening to speculate about, but maybe it is something that makes Abu Ghraib seem tame in comparison.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
For the record, there are a significant percentage of liberals who complain about Obama's behavior as much as we did Bush's.
I in fact see that as a quick test of which political figures and organizations have principles: If their opinions remain consistent (e.g. ACLU and Glenn Greenwald and the EFF), they're legit. If their opinions change based on who's committing the crime (e.g. MSNBC and Fox News), they're partisan hacks.
Re: spy novel (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand ANY of this. We have known, since the 90s, that Echelon existed and monitored everything everywhere for keywords. The only new information is "now we can do it in real time and we also archive everything". We even knew this went for the NSA and CIA spying (illegally, by obligation of the agencies) on our own people. We have also known that we still spy on other nations. And other nations spy on us. And we all spy on each other. It is actually astonishing to me that the general consensus seems to be that it's horrible that we are spying on other countries, because I thought everyone knew we were doing this the whole time. Spying is just something every nation does and, frankly, it seems to be almost an obligation for their own protection. How does the Central Intelligence Agency gather Intelligence without spies and spying?
And, of course, when it comes to spying on our own citizens, we have known about this for the last couple of decades and we've tried making a big deal about it and nobody has given two shits. It wasn't even until a few years ago that the general media started to even reference Echelon and most people who had any concern about the government spying on its own citizens were dismissed as being paranoid.
Now, it is suddenly trendy, and people who didn't give two shits six months ago or two decades ago are all getting major boners over on Reddit as they all pretend to be revolutionaries fighting for freedom and against surveillance etc etc and now that all these little kids give two fucks, the rest of us are supposed to tag along and act like they're the first to acknowledge this and want to do something about it. Sort of like when you keep posing an idea to your boss and he keeps ignoring you, until he finally brings the idea up and claims it was his.
Fortunately, I think most of us on Slashdot are halfway through our life (or more -- some of you guys are real old bastards), so I think we can pragmatically say "have fun with things, kids - we're going to be dead soon". And so, I can't be assed to give much of a fuck anymore. I exhausted all my giving a fucks over the last two decades. I say, bring on the surveillance state. Bring on the dystopian future. Bring on Mother America and government involvement in everything. Big monolithic buildings being erectic. Futuristic all encompassing surveillance systems. The whole boat load. It'll be fun to watch. And by the time it really crushes the absolute spirit of man, we old timers will be ashes in the dirt.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apologies if you were trying to be ironic, but that sounds like a perfect comparison.
How many people disappeared in the night, only to be rendered to random countries around the world to be tortured?
How many were sent to Guantanamo?
How many were just killed by extra-judicial drone attacks?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
... if you've made the kind of choices where the navy is firing at you, it's probably not a big loss to humanity if we have to kick you off the planet.
It's funny that you mention that, on the 25th anniversary of yet another senseless massacre [wikipedia.org] by your beloved US Navy:
"On 3 July 1988 (...) the aircraft serving the [Iran Air 655] flight, an Airbus A300B2-203, was shot down by U.S. missiles fired by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes as it flew over the Strait of Hormuz. The aircraft, which had been flying in Iranian airspace over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf on its usual flight path, was destroyed. All 290 onboard, including 66 children and 16 crew, perished".
I hope it's not too late for you to reconsider the choices you've made in life. Otherwise, I'll settle for you dying a horrible, slow death.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, there are people who will throw acid on girls for going to school or kill their sisters for dancing in the rain
There are also people who will fabricate grounds for a war that kills half a million people (iraq). Those who will overthrow democratically elected regimes in favor of friendly dictators (iran). Those who will ally with the worst of the wahabists (saudi arabia) while overthrowing a much more progressive secular government.
These are not people who will sit down at the breakfast table and discuss their problems calmly over a croissant. They're going to kill people for what we consider no reason at all, and the only thing they can understand is force
You could say the same about the hawks in the US government.
WE ARE the kinds of people who will sit down and discuss our problems over a croissant.
Apparently we're not. It's been, what, 50 years now and Kissinger has never as much been indicted for war crimes? Can we expect Bush to be?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow! According to radiumsoup we only have to stay better than Stalin before we start to worry about our freedoms eroding. I have heard about setting an impossibly high bar to surmount. Only due to lack of imagination have I never dreamed that setting an almost impossibly low bar to crawl under could be just as difficult.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You should add a <sarcasm> tags.
There's a large portion of the American population who would mod you "insightful" thinking you actually believe what you wrote.
Re:What hasn't he revealed? (Score:5, Insightful)
What did he potentially have access to that's so damning to the government that it's strong-arming the entire world over the possibility that he could release it?
A conscience.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think that they are helping the US? They want to show their own prospective leakers that they had better not get any ideas.
They might think they are intimidating prospective leakers, but what they are really doing is encouraging them. Snowden saw what the US did to people like Bradley Manning and the NSA leakers who came before him and he STILL decided to go ahead.
It was apparent from the first mention of his name that he was motivated by patriotism and idealogy - all this bootlicking by EU members is only going to push their own leakers that much closer to a similar breaking point as Obama's 180 on warrantless wiretaps pushed Snowden.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that we in the US have long ago since stopped being the land of the free, but I don't think Stalin is a good comparison. I doubt we really know how many people disappeared in the night, how many were actually incarcerated, how many were sent to Siberia, how many were just killed outright.
At the rate the United States Government is going, I expect people that speak out to start disappearing...
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I'm kind of shocked at how far they've let that veil fly open, and for how long. If there's one thing politicians are good at, it's PR and vague, meaningless statements. But they're being really specific. "These programs are legal! Full oversight! Bipartisan support! That dude's a traitor!"
It's incredibly (or intentionally?) botched PR. Why is the NSA still in the spotlight (or at least light) instead of slipping back into the shadows?
Usually, it would go something like:
1) Whistlerblower: "They doin' the snoops!"
2) Republicans: "Saint Bush never intended this! It must be a secret Muslim plot by Obama to install Sharia law!"
3) Dems: "No way, it was the Cincinnati branch of the NSA!"
4) Senate hearings: "Mr. Snowden, thank you for your service to your country."
5) Snowden: "No prob. I'll go rot in obscurity now."
6) NSA: "Ow. My wrist. From the slapping." (Goes right back to biz as usual)
Instead we've got international relations breakdowns, furious Internet rage that might actually result in demonstrations (for what that's worth).
What the hell is going on?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Life's about choices, and if you've made the kind of choices where the navy is firing at you, it's probably not a big loss to humanity if we have to kick you off the planet."
It must be nice knowing that whoever Navy happens to kill is an evil-doer.I am sure it helps you sleep at night too. Obviously Navy does not make mistakes about life it kicks off the planet as you eloquently put.
Now, before we get into the politics and boring reality of what is currently happening, the people that you already write off as those who would not want to eat a bagel with you, typically don't want to eat a bagel with you because you either stole or shat on their entire breakfast at one point or another. It is a little hard to get over social faux pas of such magnitude.
But there I go being pro-terrorist, right?
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bolivia has a big fraction of the world's lithi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Just wondering when the US was supposed to be the "land of the free"?
Even after the era of forcefully removing the previous population from their land coming to an end, and slavery ending, there has still been apartheid
(including anti-miscegenation laws) and anti-communist drives until rather recently.
Despite the multitude of current problems, it may well be that the US is the most free it has ever been.
Yes, but we didn't care about those people. The government has started spying on me now.
There's a quote about that, somewhere. First they came for...
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stalin? Really?
So we've sent 4 million political dissidents to their deaths and left another 8-10 million to starve to death, then?
Idiot.
The USA has killed that many civilians and dropped bombs on a quarter of the world's countries, since the end of WWII.
Perhaps you need to remove the blinkers and learn a little about you own country's history?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you want to get into raw numbers, the United States is responsible for at least a few million deaths worldwide since the end of WWII. If you count our proxy wars and the wars we helped arrange, such as the Iran-Iraq War, the Soviet-Afghan conflict, various central American death squads, etc, then it is upwards of 20-30 million dead in the last sixty years or so.
(Here's a weak source [countercurrents.org], but discussing our empire isn't exactly acceptable conversation in regular media outlets. The basic facts are undeniable, even if you'd like to discount our role in arranging, funding, and supplying arms for war that are in our own interest.)
We're not above watching people die of starvation either:
I think we all remember how many WMDs were found after we spilled the blood of our own and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, along with emptying our treasury of five trillion dollars.
In any case, what is undeniable is that the United States of today and the Stalinist era of the USSR both share one common feature: the respective governments of both nations are hiding their decisions to have people killed and imprisoned from a transparent judicial process. Our government has now openly declared that the political elite are above the law.
But instead of talking about those hard realities, you have backpedaled to the position that we are not as bad as Stalin.
Well, that's a load off my mind! I hope Obama spends the 4th helping military doctors force feed hunger striking prisoners at Guantanamo while they celebrate spending the rest of their lives without the right to a trial. I even have an idea of what we can write on the cake:
"NOT AS BAD AS STALIN!"
"USA! USA! USA!"
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
In terms of numbers, Stalin's atrocities are off the chart; Bush/Cheney/Obama are peanuts in comparison.
However, saying that the other guy was 1000x worse shouldn't be valid defense when it comes to war crimes, atrocities, tyranny and oppression(*). And – saying that it was the other guy who did it, I just let him get away with it, shouldn't be a defense either.
(*) Though, it is interesting to note that several Germans had their sentences commuted during the Nüremberg trials for crimes that had also been committed by the allies.