Snowden Granted 3 More Years of Russian Residency 266
SiggyRadiation writes Edward Snowden is allowed to stay in Russia for three more years. According to the NYPost:"His lawyer, Analtoly Kucherena, was quoted by Russian news agencies on Thursday as saying Snowden now has been granted residency for three more years, but that he had not been granted political asylum. That status, which would allow him to stay in Russia permanently, must be decided by a separate procedure, Kucherena said, but didn't say whether Snowden is seeking it." The question that remains, of course, is did the Russians use this as leverage over him to get to more information or influence him? Or is the positive PR in itself enough for the Russians in the current climate of tensions and economic sanctions relating to the Ukraine crisis?"
First post (Score:2, Informative)
He should be able to live wherever he wants!
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
The traitors are those in power who have operated using unlawful actions. Nothing is more dangerous than a government operating outside of law. Get your priorities straight.
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
The government also tends to _pass laws_, I don't know if you noticed. The "law" is supposed to be rooted in morals and ethics, and it is entirely possible to act in a lawful and yet unethical manner. In this case the government has been lying to us for years, but revealing that the government is behaving unethically yielded a witch hunt for the lone unlawful rebel instead of a scandal about how the government has been acting all along.
This is like a king yelling "Traitor! To death!" when evidence is published that the king behaved wrongly for years.
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden broke the law, and must be held accountable for his actions.
Just like Schindler should have been held accountable for illegally saving the lives of all those Jewish factory workers?
The Nazis should have thoroughly put an end to the idea that the law is right and people should always be law abiding. Seriously, I know Goodwin's law is about this cliche, but the thing is the Nazis provided all the best counter arguments to your line of reasoning, because they showed empirically what happens when you follow your reasoning to the letter.
For some reason however when people like you year "Nazi", instead of thinking "oh hey actually my reasoning has some really unfortunate potential consequences", they instead thing "omg you compared me to the nazis get a real argument I'm not listening".
What Snowdon did was absoloutely morally the correct thing to do. He did it for his country and the greater good of its citizens. The only account he should be held to is the one where he gets the medal of congress for putting his life on the line for blowing open large scale illegal activities in the government.
How hard is that to understand?
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A lot of people who fled Eastern Germany might disagree.
Hint: Fleeing to the West was a crime there.
Or, more bluntly, just because something is a law doesn't make it right. Question your laws. Blind subserviency is what makes dictatorships and tyrannies possible.
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LOL, "Booth was a patriot" (per your .sig), but Snowden isn't?! That's the most hypocritical thing I've read all day.
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That would be like kicking the Punch for his puppeteer making a bad joke.
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
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The fact you think the US legal system is fine and dandy means you really don't know what you're talking about. It's a cruel joke.
Compared to what other system? Russian courts? Mexico? Does anybody out there look around and compare us with other countries before they complain about our systems?
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You did not address the point parent was trying to make. just because there are court systems worse than our does not excuse the failings within our own system.
I believe the name of your logical fallacy here would be tu quoque.
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There is ZERO evidence that a trial would not be fair. Like it or not, our criminal legal system works just fine and generally produces the right results. If anything, our system favors the accused and we let a lot more people walk who did it than punish those who didn't. Snowden would be fairly tried.
There cannot be "evidence" of something that hasn't happened yet.
There are hints though, and opinions from knowledgeable people [nbcnews.com], that he wouldn't have a fair trial, for he'd be tried using a law intended to deal with spies, not whistlebowers.
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Like it or not, our criminal legal system works just fine and generally produces the right results.
Depends on whether you define the "right results" as convicting anybody who breaks a law. If the law is wrong, then enforcing the law is just as wrong.
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Like it or not, our criminal legal system works just fine and generally produces the right results.
Depends on whether you define the "right results" as convicting anybody who breaks a law. If the law is wrong, then enforcing the law is just as wrong.
So then the issue is with the law, not with the question of if Snowden broke the law. Which it is obvious that he did. And that he's likely to be convicted of breaking the law is not a case of the criminal courts making the wrong choice by convicting him like a fair trial would.
So can we dispense with this "He cannot get a fair trial" garbage and say what you really mean "The law is bad"? They are separate issues.
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I just hope he realizes that America-hating blogger/grifter Glenn Greenwald conned him into committing a serious crime and ruining his life. If he still has delusions that he's some kind of hero as Putin's puppet, that's just sad.
Russia will never kick him out (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks that Russia would deport Edward Snowden does not know much about the long history of Russian spycraft.
Yep. He's now a pawn and a prisoner (Score:2, Insightful)
The Russians are never letting him go - at least not for free. They'll have to get something to give him up. Snowden probably couldn't leave Russia even if he wanted to.
But the Russians will treat him well - to make an example of him: "Leak classified US data and the Russians will take care of you."
At least until the US offers Russia something substantial for him - then the Russians will ship him back.
Which documents... (Score:2)
From that perspective, any as yet unreleased documents they can get are a bonus and not an end result.
<sarcasm> Yup, I'm positively sure that a single lone rogue simple consultant has unreleased document to bring that are completely unknown to the mighty FSB (a.k.a KGB ( a.k.a tcheka)) and their own information channels~ </sarcasm>
Russia/USSR has been for much more longer time at this spy game and are likely to be damn good at it.
- Snowden is probably of no information-gathering interest to Russia (beyond the fact that he managed to publicly reveal what lot of them already knew but couldn't publ
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Anyone who seriously uses the word 'spycraft' has read too many Tom Clancy novels. HAND.
Not about leverage or influence (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia isn't using this to leverage information or to influence Snowden. Russia is using this to stick it to the US. And if, every once in a while, they can trot him out like a useful puppet (like they did during Putin's televised Q&A), then all the better
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Yep.
And to answer the summary; the positive PR value is enough.
Since you already know this is the kind of guy that will fall on his sword, bullying him would get you little of value, while throwing away the 'useful puppet' advantage.
If we don't like the situation, nothing is stopping Obama from offering him a deal.
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"Snowden won't because he is a coward "
No, he's not. A coward (or even just the non-brave) would have continued to take the 6 figure salary for an easy job in Hawaii. He gave up everything. Do you really think he's living large in Moscow?
"Putin wouldn't allow it "
He wouldn't like it. But a public offer and Snowden's public acceptance would sure put him on the spot.
"Obama won't willingly take the domestic political hit ..."
No, I doubt that he will. He campaigned against this exact thing, and now he is its b
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That makes no sense.
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NSA's grab of data is one debate that has nothing to do with Snowden. That grabbing is still there and will continue to bet there. It was going on before Snowden ever showed up.
More upsetting to me than grabbing big data is the government's failure to learn from Manning regarding how many worker ants have access to the big data.
Snowden (and Manning) walked in; got the stuff; and walked out.
THAT's the larger problem which continues today.
Both Snowden and Manning are so last year. Snowden's value now is for R
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The biggest problem is actually not people having access to sensitive information, but that it is not morally wrong to spread it. As a government, you have two choices.
Either you're morally integer, then your people will willingly support you and will do whatever they can to keep harm from you, because they believe in you and the country you represent. They will willingly fight for you and will, if need be, die for you, or rather, what you represent.
Or you can be morally corrupt and force, coerce and bribe
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I'm not so sure about the "influence Snowden" part. By giving him a temporary stay when he's got very few other places to go they're giving him a lot of incentive to be that useful puppet, as opposed to a permanent stay. If they did that, he might withdraw from the public spotlight or start pointing out it's the pot calling the kettle black. No doubt the Russians have similar operations of their own.
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You don't go around Russia calling attention to the government's abuses, citizen or not. You manage to embarrass Putin in the media and you are in *serious* trouble. You do remember the "girls band" members that tried to desecrate the church right? Russia is not kind to it's detractors.
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For years the US portrayed Russia/USSR as an evil empire.
Russia would respond with "but the US is no better".
Snowden is the poster child proving Russia right all along.
Where ever he goes, Snowden will always do that.
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Nothing's proving Russia right when there's a wall of evil doings proving the counter. Snowden is one of the few things they can genuinely cling on to.
For all of the US' wrongs there's nothing changing the fact that Russia is an evil empire, well, that's a lie, it's not an empire any more thank god, it just wants to be, but it's still evil.
Let's just look at a few of the things they've done this year alone, let's start near the beginning of the year where the scene is that there is a popular uprising agains
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The Russians are not interested in Snowden for "information". Likely they already had any information that Snowden could have provided them, even before he leaked anything.
The Russian interest in Snowden is about propaganda. Snowden is tolerated because he is useful to gain media attention when they want/need too.
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Because the value of information decreases with the amount of people having it.
An example: The most valuable 0day exploit is one that you and only you have access to. If the creator of the software has it, too, its value drops sharply.
More information (Score:2)
If Russian wants to get more information out of Snowden wouldn't they just, like, read the newspapers?
Or even better, just ask their own secret service which has been longer at this game and have way much more resource than a simple contractor operating alone.
FSB probably knows a lots more than Snowden would even dream being able to intercept. And probably knows it long time ago, some dating back when FSB still went by the name KGB...
Why That Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question that remains, of course, is did the Russians use this as leverage over him to get to more information or influence him?
Why is that a question? Has there been any indication that anything like that has happened? No? Well then why does that question come up for you? I believe it is because you know that if you said what you are implying outright, the unanimous response would be, "Citation Needed!"
Don't propagate bullshit suggestive questions [wikipedia.org] that try to make a point you don't have the balls (or the evidence) to present in a forthright manner. Leave that kind of rhetorical crap to the downward spiral that is major media news. Here, you will be held to a higher standard.
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Have you recently been to Sweden? Because that was a 10 x 15 km serious frikkin burn.
Anal what? (Score:3, Informative)
Nice typo, Anatoly Kucherena will be pleased :D.
Apparently the original source, among other sites, added the extra L, so poster has an excuse :D
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"Questions" that remain, not question (Score:3)
There are many _questions_ that remain. How much additional information does Snowden have squirreled away in dead drops, that will be revealed if he is killed or imprisoned? How much information can Russian personnel gather about subtle policies of NSA, by indirect deduction of what Snowden says to press or to his handlers? What has, or can, the NSA do to protect its revealed policies and assets? What inspiration do minor details about NSA monitoring provide for Russian surveillance?
The concept that there is "the only remaining question", and posing the question to cast the Russians as aggressive victims, is a straw man. It's a side issue distracting debate from much more important issues.
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I'll give you my answers to your questions. These answers are based on little to no real data, mostly just reasoning about how Snowden's flight most likely went down, and a (reasonable, I think) assumption that he's a fairly ordinary guy, not a brilliant and nefarious planner. I also doubt that he extracted much, if any, data prior to his big grab-and-run, because it would have been too risky. So I don't think he had much time to do things between getting the dump and hightailing it.
How much additional information does Snowden have squirreled away in dead drops, that will be revealed if he is killed or imprisoned?
None. This would have re
Will they use him as part of any deal over ukraine (Score:2)
Will they use him as part of any deal over ukraine?
Russia may use him as part of any deal to end the sanctions and / or war over Ukraine
Course of action (Score:5, Insightful)
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Meanwhile ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your matters weren't private before Snowden since the govt. was violating the 4th amendment without your knowledge. Just because the revealing of an illegal practice modifies the behavior of others does not make that illegal practice legitimate.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of punishment is that being punished is more expensive to you than keeping the law. Else, why bother being a law abiding citizen? If all I have to fear when I get caught shoplifting is to pay the price for the item I stole, why bother paying unless you got caught?
Consider the surplus of information revealed the punishment the US got.
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Seriously. One of the bigger demotivators my shoplifting peers had back in high school wasn't the misdemeanor (as a juvenile); it was getting the shit kicked out of them by the mall cops. Ah, the 80s.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since I prefer freedom over safety, it looks to me like you have no valid point, even if what that article is saying is true. Snowden releasing the information was morally right. It is not wrong to tell people about the immoral/unconstitutional activities of the government, even if they're doing it to keep us 'safe.' And that's a big "if."
We are supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave,' after all. We can't be free or brave if we trade away our freedoms for security and allow the government to violate the constitution. Snowden released the information, and now it's up to all of us to stop the government's activities.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden didn't need to leak that much information to make his point.
Yes, he did. We deserve to know exactly what how our government is violating the highest law of the land, and that includes details of the program. Both so we can better defend ourselves against this (if only be being aware of it) and so we can see what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again. Knowing all the details lets us make better informed decisions.
You are a coward.
And it seems as well Snowden is prefering safety over freedom.
Alright, what freedoms is Snowden saying that we should sacrifice to the government in exchange for safety? You're a moron.
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Beside the name calling thing, it is not true he needs to leak that much information to make his point. He is going far beyond his point with the GB of information he has leaked than just proving the NSA has violated the Constitution.
For the freedom, it seems obvious to me Snowden has given up on his freedom since he is locked in Russia for an undetermined time in exchange of his security. Talking coward here...
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Beside the name calling thing, it is not true he needs to leak that much information to make his point.
Yes, it is, and I explained why. Without knowing the full extent of the program, it becomes more difficult to defend oneself until it stops, and it also becomes more difficult to stop it from happening again by having the right protections in the right places. Besides that, The People need to know how, exactly, the government is violating the constitution.
For the freedom, it seems obvious to me Snowden has given up on his freedom since he is locked in Russia for an undetermined time in exchange of his security.
You are confusing surrendering everyone's freedoms to the government with going to Russia because your own government will likely strip you of your freedoms if you do not. There is a difference between someone choosing to go to Russia and the government violating people's freedoms. Try to keep up.
Talking coward here...
You or I have done nothing even close to what Snowden has, and likely never will. He's not the coward here.
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Yes, it is, and I explained why. Without knowing the full extent of the program, it becomes more difficult to defend oneself until it stops, and it also becomes more difficult to stop it from happening again by having the right protections in the right places. Besides that, The People need to know how, exactly, the government is violating the constitution.
You did not explain anything, you are just convinced all this information was necessary even if most of it has not been leaked in public anyway. That is in fact the proof he doesn't need all this information to make his point.
You are confusing surrendering everyone's freedoms to the government with going to Russia because your own government will likely strip you of your freedoms if you do not. There is a difference between someone choosing to go to Russia and the government violating people's freedoms. Try to keep up.
He did not choose to go to Russia, he had no other alternative and was locked in Russia. Now, you already presume he would have been striped from his freedom by the USA government. Do you mean nobody will stand for him in USA? What is that? If it is so obvious he was the good in the
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You did not explain anything, you are just convinced all this information was necessary even if most of it has not been leaked in public anyway. That is in fact the proof he doesn't need all this information to make his point.
No, it's proof that you need to slowly release the information to maintain people's attention. It will get released, and that is good.
He did not choose to go to Russia, he had no other alternative and was locked in Russia.
Which is even worse. If he didn't choose it, then it only undermines your point further.
Do you mean nobody will stand for him in USA?
At trial, they'd attempt to eliminate anyone who has a chance of using jury nullification to stop him from being convicted for breaking unjust laws; that's the sort of thing that usually happens. What would be left (assuming anyone intelligent was there to begin with) are ignorant jurors.
If it is so obvious he was the good in the story, why do you believe he would not be capable to escape a trial or win it?
Y
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Snowden giving up freedom for safety. Now that's rich. I guess anyone who stood up against tyranny gave up his freedom in exchange for the safety of his prison cell in your books, eh?
He gave up his freedom, hoping that we'd be able to reclaim ours.
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what, you imagine living in Russia less free than living here in this police state?
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And it seems as well Snowden is prefering safety over freedom.
Alright, what freedoms is Snowden saying that we should sacrifice to the government in exchange for safety? You're a moron.
He is trying to make the claim that Snowden is hiding out in Russia, sacrificing his freedom for the sake of security from American persecution. Ignoring, of course, that Snowden is much more free in Russia than he would be in the United States.
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The point you're trying to make here is ludicrous.
No, the point is that Russia is a fundamentally less free place to live than the US, and getting worse by the day.
And prison only enters into it when, like Snowden, you scam your coworkers out of passwords, and then do something like deliberately steal all sorts of sensitive data and take it right to Russia by way of China.
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Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Informative)
Somebody is mis-remembering the controversy.
1) Snowden releases a controlled release, which starts the manhunt to collect him for prosecution.
2) NSA, CIA, and pals all BLATANTLY LIE to congress. Congress eats it up like fudge.
3) Snowden releases MORE information, catching NSA, CIA, and pals in their blatant lie.
4) NSA, CIA, and pals whine about how unamerican snowden is, and how cowardly he is to have fled the country where they cant capture him and interrogate/punish him in secret. Lie some more to congress. Congress eats it up like fudge.
5) Snowden releases MORE information...
Rinse, repeat.
This has happened about 4 times now, with the NSA and CIA heads being caught lying EACH AND EVERY TIME.
Without snowden releasing the information he has released, there would have been no proof that the NSA and CIA had been lying to congress in a blatant fashion.
He didnt just release it all at once, bradley/chelsey manning style. He released it as it was NECESSARY to have it released, to prevent the NSA and CIA from continuing to operate as they had been previously.
Your argument is absurd.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your absolute freedom?
Our constitutional and fundamental freedoms. You know, the things that the government is violating.
Then you go on to list a bunch of irrelevancies that have nothing to do with Snowden, other than the fact that he's... currently in Russia, I guess?
You Snowden lovers are finding it tougher and tougher to defend his crimes.
It's as easy as ever, because law does not equate to morality, even assuming he did break laws. The sooner you fools learn that, the better.
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Of course Snowden behaved immorally by revealing state secrets regarding our foreign spying
No, he didn't. Foreigners have rights too, and spying on them haphazardly is wrong.
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What for? Defending the constitution? Has that been turned into a crime while I wasn't watching?
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My definition of "valid" differs from yours, government worshiper. For instance, I think everyone has rights, and that we shouldn't spy on allies or spy on people en masse period. There should be standards even when you go to spy on foreigners.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:4)
It's funny how you government hating nutjobs
Did you know that our entire system of government is based around the idea that the government shouldn't have too much power, and that everyone should be cautious of the government? Do you know that that's what it takes in order to truly be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'?
call people who aren't hopeless square pegs like you government worshippers for being part of western civilization.
I'm calling them government worshipers for defending egregious violations of people's fundamental liberties and the US constitution, and for mindlessly appealing to laws in search of morality.
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"Legal" activities in terms of a technicality, not "legal" in terms of the spirit of law (which includes the US Constitution). You really should learn the difference, because the former is why we are having such severe problems in the USA.
If there are changes need to the Constitution there is a process for changing it, very clearly defined in fact. Bypassing the law or ignoring the law because someone does not like the Constitution is illegal, period.
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Last time I checked this is called "collateral damage" today, and if the recent wars are any indicator it's a-ok as long as the goal is important enough.
Re:Huge nit to pick (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a false dichotomy that needs to die.
No, it's an important point. By saying you prefer freedom over safety in general (which isn't a false dichotomy, by the way), you make it clear that the issue isn't about safety, but about freedom. That is, even if their programs were *proven* to keep us safe, you would still oppose them out of principle, as people who want to live in a free country should do.
While it's sometimes important to point out when the programs don't actually do what they say they do (whether it be the NSA's surveillance, DUI checkpoints, the TSA, etc.), I feel that it's much more important to let it be known that these things aren't okay under any circumstances.
Re:Meanwhile ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is obviously a first post from an NSA working group. Notice the low-level dig against us for discussing Snowden, and on top of that this is a blatant attempt to steer the conversation away from the main points.
Remember, there is a rather active disinformation campaign in place right now. And this is an example of it.
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The Bill of Rights makes clear distinction between a US citizen and "persons". The fact that terrorists all happen to be people (in theory at least) means that the restrictions that are imposed upon the federal government and the NSA by the Constitution in what it can and can't do in it's mandate concerning all people, not just citizens, means that just because they are evil bastards deserving of nothing but contempt and they themselves would like nothing more that to NOT be grouped in with their enemies...
Re: Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that it is fact, the public is a whole lot more paranoid.
The Patriot Act was Al Qaeda's greatest achievement.
Re: Meanwhile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Patriot Act was Al Qaeda's greatest achievement.
Over two hundred years of American History, many many thousands of people dead in civil war, world wars, cold war under the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction and we let the greatest threat to the US Constitution and the future of Liberty in the United States end up being twenty guys with razor blades and the morally vacant people that use their terrible acts of murder as an excuse (and an opportunity).
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Al Qa'ida's greatest achievement was the indiscriminate slaughter of almost 3000 civilians in pursuit of their delusional but still very real goal of establishing a califat once more. Give me an example of someone getting killed because of the indiscriminate collection of meta data and I'll start listening to your crazy rants again.
If the goal was to prevent Al Qaida from killing another 3k people via airplane hijacking, the US government didn't need to do anything at all. Today if terrorists take over a plane, the passengers aren't just going to sit back and wait until they crash and die. Sure, they can blow up a plane, but they still can do that, or just blow up a bus instead.
However, if they wanted to do something prudent, then taking steps to harden cockpit doors would go a long way towards improving things.
The post-9/11 measure
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Freedom is simply more important than safety. You seem to only care about physical safety. If that is so, why do you live in a country that's supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'? Why do you live in a country that has a constitution that only gives the government the powers that the constitution says it has, a measure that came about because people with power simply cannot be trusted? Why do you speak as if the government is full of perfect angels who could never make mistakes or
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Snowden leaked a ton of information on the methods NSA uses to do the job we want them to do.
Who is "we"? I know I don't want them to keep exploits in the dark, thereby making everyone less safe (without good reason) just so they can exploit some so-called "terrorists." Fuck that. And to say these things wouldn't be used for other nasty purposes is just naive.
Re:Snowden is a traitor (Score:4, Interesting)
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Enemy?
Rats, a week without C-Span and I miss the reheating of the Cold War...
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Not doing that makes a mockery of our laws.
Our laws make a mockery of themselves.
This would be a good time to use jury nullification, if the opportunity presents itself.
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Not doing that makes a mockery of our laws.
Our laws make a mockery of themselves.
This would be a good time to use jury nullification, if the opportunity presents itself.
Which leads to the question, Why doesn't Snowden serve his cause and get his butt home to the USA and willingly stand trial? If his motive is to expose the misdeeds of his employer, this would serve his purpose much better than getting buried in Russia to be used as a pawn by a government with NO boundaries, legal, moral or otherwise.
IMHO, he's not really interested in the "cause" except that it brings him fame and feeds his ego. He's all about Snowden and nobody else and cooked up this media angle to ju
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So you define a fair trial how? He gets found not guilty? I don't think so.
A fair trial would result in his conviction. Snowden knew what he was doing and what the punishments could be for it. Yet, you want to start by claiming he wouldn't have a fair trial because you don't think the outcome is fair? I think you are the one trying to pervert the legal system....
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Which leads to the question, Why doesn't Snowden serve his cause and get his butt home to the USA and willingly stand trial? If his motive is to expose the misdeeds of his employer, this would serve his purpose much better than getting buried in Russia to be used as a pawn by a government with NO boundaries, legal, moral or otherwise.
Because he's not a masochist, a martyr, or any number of other things you might think are righteous. Given the US government's shady activities, there's no reason to think there would be a free trial, that the jury would not turn against him, or that some other horrible outcome wouldn't happen.
IMHO, he's not really interested in the "cause" except that it brings him fame and feeds his ego.
Yeah, because fame and ego is worth having to constantly worry what your future holds because you've pissed off the most powerful government in the world. Right.
In reality he is a coward who dropped and ran when the going got tough.
No one who releases documents that prove the government
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The fly in your ointment here is that like it or not our legal system is fair, especially in criminal cases. The bias in our country favors the accused and we let more guilty people walk than convict the innocent. But in this case, there is no real question. He broke the law, everybody knows it.
So this "he won't get a fair trial" is just garbage. Of course he will get a fair trial, especially given the public attention this case would get. Where I think the verdict would be a foregone conclusion that d
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The fly in your ointment here is that like it or not our legal system is fair, especially in criminal cases.
Oh, really? [wikipedia.org] And that's just one example.
Then there's also the fact that our laws themselves are not necessarily just. Most people don't know about jury nullification, which is what might be needed to stop Snowden from being convicted, assuming that he'd get a fair trial at all.
He broke the law, everybody knows it.
You just said that everyone is innocent unless proven guilty. What the hell is wrong with you?
So this "he won't get a fair trial" is just garbage.
Only if you ignore history.
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He broke the law, everybody knows it.
You just said that everyone is innocent unless proven guilty. What the hell is wrong with you?
I don't figure that either of us will be on the jury, having already formed our opinions. You get removed from the pool by the prosecution, I by the defense. So the system is fair, despite your claims. IMHO I believe your issue is with the law, not the criminal courts, so this whole "He won't get a fair trial" thing is garbage.
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You get removed from the pool by the prosecution
Yes, they try to remove people who could correct their nonsense. That's why you must feign ignorance. That is most certainly not fair.
So the system is fair, despite your claims.
Unfair laws mean that our system is unfair. And I linked to a case where it was demonstrably *not* fair. There are many more.
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How do you folks sleep at night...
If you intend to lie to get on a jury, I remind you that is illegal, immoral and wrong. But apparently that doesn't matter to you, only the "cause" you support matters. If anything messes up the court system here it is the willingness to do stuff like that.
So it's not the laws which are wrong in this case, but your willingness to subvert them with a lie to support your cause.
In the USA, if you don't like the law, you have the right to petition and lobby to get it change
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See the US legal system, especially in criminal law is not at all fair.
Or how do you explain that a nation with 5% of the world's population holds 25% of the world's prisoners, are you guys 500% more criminal?
Another example, your legal system makes the plea bargain possible, you get a sentence without proper judicial oversight, it stinks to high heaven.
Or the fact you can actually rent a cop...Legalised corruption.
Or the violence and rape in your prison system, in a civilised country the prison ma
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Probably for the same reason a lot of dissidents that left North Korea don't wanna go "home" for a fair trial?
Anyone who thinks that this trial could in any way be fair is a moron. It CANNOT be one, for the simple and plain reason that accuser and judge sit on the same side of the bar. That was, btw, the way inquisition trials worked.
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Snowden knew before he did it what penalty was possible.
Now you want to claim "No fair!" if he is convicted? Sorry, no sale. Clearly he broke the law, he did it knowingly. Now you can judge his motives or the morality of what he did differently than I do, but if his cause really is just and his actions really are moral the problem is that the law is wrong. Real rebels are willing to accept the consequences to bring to light their cause and argue for the law to be changed. People who run away and start
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Oh, I'm pretty sure everyone fleeing from North Korea knows exactly what the penalty is for his "crime", too.
I think you're working from the (presumably incorrect) assumption that he WANTS to get back to the US in the first place.
Besides, "real rebels" want change. Usually for "their" country. And that is something he can by some margin accomplish better by being free and medially available than imprisoned and gagged.
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Oh there are SOOOO many ways your comparing Snowden to a defector from North Korea breaks down and you cheapen the plight of the people who have managed it by comparing Snowden to them.
Snowden is no political refugee, he is not being unfairly accused and he was not justified taking the law into his own hand. He's obviously NOT willing to pay the price, but he is willing to be used by a government which is worlds worse in the very area he protests is unfair here in the US. That alone tells me that this is
Re: Snowden is a traitor (Score:2)
If a criminal breaks into your house, assaults you, you shoot him, and he happens to die, we don't call that murder and give you a more lenient sentence because you were defending yourself. We call that self defence.
Equally so, technically what Snowden did "broke the law". But that's a pretty obtuse way to look at it considering the greater good he achieved by demonstrating th
Re:Not leverage, but payback (Score:4, Insightful)
damned traitor.
Would you really like to live in an alternate reality where all the Snowden's revelations would never have happened?
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Why do you show up to support people that break the law and put this country at risk?
It's not Snowden that's putting the country at risk, but people who attack those who reveal the government's wrongdoings under the guise of wanting to enforce the law, without even realizing that not all laws are just and our government is horribly corrupt. People like you.
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This is just payment for all the secrets he has given them we dont know about. Dragging it out this way looks less suspicious.
damned traitor.
The Government of the United States of America is the only traitor in this saga.
Not really. Snowden's leaking aside, it's obvious to me he's being used as a willing propaganda tool of the Russians now. Could that be traitorous? One could argue it is.
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Seriously? I'm betting Snowden didn't leak anything the Russians didn't already know or strongly suspect in the first place. He's been there over a year now so I'm betting *any* deficiencies in what they knew that Snowden could clear up have been dealt with.
Snowden's only value now is as a propaganda tool for the Russians.. They can keep poking the US in the eye over their surveillance programs by trotting Snowden out to make some inane statements or ask Putin scripted questions and basically stir up ant