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."
God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
My country's dick is so fucking big that we can have entire continents close off their airspace! Jesus, I want to snort a mountain of coke and fuck my wife's sister!!!
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll be fun when we slaughter a political dissenter who was forced to flee to a south American country on July 4. So much freedom!
Maybe we should use an axe to kill him. That won't, in any way, draw parallels to anything else that happened in history.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: (emphasis mine)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
It's time ... *puts on glasses*... to bury the hatchet.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
People like you make me fucking sick. Go to the grocery store. Tell me, how many different types and brands of sodas are on the shelf. Now, try telling me we don't got freedom, you fucking godless commie.
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:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
A'int no "home of the free". The US has more people incarcerated - per capita and in raw number - than any nation on Earth, or even in all of human history!
While accounting for a mere 5% of the global population, the US has an aggregated 25% of the world's prisoners, and is growing this at a consistent, exponential rate.
You have states, like Louisiana, where one out of every 55 people in the state is a prisoner for the duration of a year or more.
We make China look like amateur hour. Stalin? a blip.
Now. How can anyone argue that there's no such thing as "brainwashing", or that it only works on stupid or ignorant people?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that we in the US have long ago since stopped being the land of the free,.
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.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well it was really only ever truly free for people who were not of African descent. If your ancestors were from Africa (in the recent past) then the US had no freedom at all. But since I am of European descent, if I had been born in say 1805 I wouuld have lived in what may have been the freest society that human beings have ever known. It wasn't really until the early 20th century that the US really stopped being free for white people. That's when the US really started to develop a taste for tyranny.
If you are trying to figure out why such an unfree country is full of people who like to talk about freedom that is why. It's because we have a very unusual history. The only other country I know of that had a similar experiment in freedom is France, but their experiment died a lot faster.
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: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.
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: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:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hair splitting. So instead of sending them to their deaths, they get sent to their prison rapes. Sure they don't die per se, but they don't often get a trial either. May not be political dissidents, but most of them never actually hurt anyone either, they just happened to be brown people who chose to smoke a joint like the white kids do.
So yah, these distinctions are not really that important to me. I definitely put them in the same general category of evil.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
And when you send the brown folks to jail, they don't vote.
Then - by making 1 in 10 of them ineligible at anytime and demoralize the others - you eliminate the threat of a progressive force in the electorate, which appeared on the threshold of revolution, 35 years ago.
The illusion of a representative republic is maintained by such soft suppression.
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)
People get killed in prisons. People get killed outside, because prisons force them to become a part of the criminal world (talk about rehabilitation). People die by ODing on street drugs (a problem created solely by enforcement). People can't ever hope to get a good job, and so die from health issues. They commit suicides. These deaths may be hard to quantify, but they are a direct consequence of the political incarceration. But you seem to be too taken with "humanely".
You are also quick to dismiss the comparison only because of death rate, as if killing is the worst thing you can do to a person. Dooming them to a life of unpaid slave labor in prison, wage slavery outside, and taking away political rights is just as damaging as killing, as long as you do it to enough people and with enough prejudice.
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:5, Insightful)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, US officials and their acolytes who invoke "the law" to demand severe punishment for powerless individuals (Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning) instantly exploit the same concept to protect US political officials, their owners and their allies from the worst crimes: torture, warrantless eavesdropping, rendition, systemic financial fraud, deceiving Congress and the US public about their surveillance behavior. If you're spending your time calling for Ed Snowden's head but not James Clapper's, or if you're obsessed with Snowden's fabricated personality attributes (narcissist!) but apathetic about rampant, out-of-control NSA surveillance, it's probably worth spending a few moments thinking about what this priority scheme reveals.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It must be nice to be the Index on Censorship and not really have to give a shit about your own foreign relations. Or about the fact that the rest of Europe does the exact same shit as the US, only they just haven't been ratted out yet.
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.
Europe's current "moral high ground" is based solely on the fact that they currently have two fewer leakers than we do, and their government
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: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.
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:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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:4, Informative)
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.
What about the people who just happen to be nearby the people the Navy is aiming at? Do they deserve to be killed too? How many of the approximately 500,000 people in Iraq who were killed qualify as the bad guys that aren't a big loss to humanity?
These are not people who will sit down at the breakfast table and discuss their problems calmly over a croissant.
Really? How many have you asked? I'm reminded of the point where we were planning to attack Iraq, and Dan Rather went over to Iraq and sat down with Saddam Hussein for a perfectly calm interview, which suggests that they might in fact be willing to talk. For what it's worth, the people of Iran just elected a guy who was pushing for just that approach to dealing with the US (assuming the croissant is halal).
They're going to kill people for what we consider no reason at all, and the only thing they can understand is force.
I strongly suspect that those who engage in terrorism think the same about us. For example, we have 86 Yemenis locked up in Gitmo right now that we have determined have committed no crime against us. We have killed more than a few Yemenis with drone strikes, despite no (publicly known) terrorist attacks from Yemen on the United States and an alliance with the Yemeni government.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
I remember that incident you are referring to. If you remember it as well, or if you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see that the Vincennes attempted to identify the Iranian airliner, failed, and in the tense environment, overlooked a series of cues that could have distinguished it from a hostile fighter. So when the airliner did not respond to radio contact, the captain ordered a missile fired at it.
Consensus is that it was a horrible mistake.
So consider this. When and where the US Navy deploys is up to politicians. There are *way* too many hawks in the US government right now, but that's not the Navy's fault. Future tragedies can be averted by giving the Navy better technology. Consider for example better radar that can tell the operator clearly whether the aircraft is ascending or descending, or better communications so the cruiser can get a video feed from a friendly aircraft or drone to visually identify the target before they decide to shoot. This would make the Navy deadlier toward people the Navy is trying to kill, but potentially a lot less deadly toward people it is *not* trying to kill.
If you want to prevent the next Iran Air 655, there are two approaches. You can stop the US sending its military all over the world (good luck!). Or you can provide them with the best sensors and information systems money can buy so when they have to decide whether to pull the trigger, they make that decision with the best possible information.
And yes, I've done Navy work myself. You may wish me a slow, horrible death, too, but I would prefer to discuss your objections over a croissant.
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
No, siree, Jim Bob! The captain who gave the order to fire on a civilian aircraft was awarded a medal! [dailypress.com]
"The president of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit to Capt. Will C. Rogers III, U.S. Navy, for service as set forth in the following citation:
"For exceptionally . . . outstanding service as commanding officer, USS Vincennes from April 1987 to May 1989"
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the THIRD story today, where commenting with the following quote appears both appropriate and relevant to topic:
"The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth
and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought"
-- George Orwell, 1984
Whats the threat we are issuing to these people? (Score:3)
Do what we say or we'll declare bankruptcy and trash the world economy?
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
What you gonna do when we bug you!
NSA?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Weapons of Mass Destruction?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Obama's Drones?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Mission Accomplished?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Fox News?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Hollywood?! Fuck Yeah!!
Stuxnet?! - Fuck Yeah!!
Re:God it feels good to be an American!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you were living in a different country than I was. When Bush was president people were taking to the streets over every little perceived offense. Remember all the demonstrations over the war, the Patriot Act, the G8 and UN summits? Remember how vocal MoveOn.org and others were?
Go on to MoveOn.org today and there isn't a peep about Snowden or the NSA's domestic spy program. I thought these guys were supposed to be defenders of democracy. I guess they only care when a Republican is president.
A while back Al Jazeera ran a story about supporters going to absurd lengths to defend Obama even when it violates their supposed principles. It was almost comical to see the people they interviewed criticize something like drone strikes only to do a full 180 and defend the program when they learned that Obama was behind it.
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: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: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: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:4, Funny)
If you don't like it, move to a planet where there are no countries.
Where do I sign up?
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: spy novel (Score:5, Informative)
What is different, is that we have direct information (not statements, not conjecture, not foil hattery) about the surveillance. It is the difference between suspecting (or even having a well grounded belief), and KNOWING. It is the difference between knowing that AT&T set up splitters, and wondering what happens after that, and knowing what happens after that.
More to the point though, if we do nothing after these revelations, the DC pukes will take it as a mandate to do more and worse.
So instead of wasting your time and everyone else's lamenting how long it has taken to get to the point where real pushback can occur, get on board and start pushing the fuck back. Hard.
Demand prosecutions, impeachment proceedings. Start with the obvious, like Clapper's felonious perjury, and then keep plowing the bastards. Don't sit back and whine about people not acting in the past -- that is a useless waste of time and just plays into the enemy's hands. So stand up and fight, or if you won't do that, go back to your cotton row and shut the fuck up.
Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Funny)
A harsh, but reasonable punishment would be to re-route Airforce One to Austria every time Obama wants to visit some country in Europe.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I see, you want to go to Guantanamo for vacation too? I hear they offer free unlimited stays. And some kind of surf boarding class called "water boarding". Should be fun.
Re: (Score:3)
Christ, sarcasm dude. I... what? How do you honestly think that anyone is in favor of arresting dissenters?
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: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: (Score:3)
you don't think the guard, army (etc) won't shoot on fellow american citizens?
think again.
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:Reasonable punishment (Score:4, Funny)
See the lovely lakes, the wonderful telephone system, and many interesting furry animals, including the majestic moose.
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Funny)
including the majestic moose.
A møøse bit my sister once....
Re:Reasonable punishment (Score:5, Funny)
We apologise for the fault in the comments. Those responsible have been sent to Gitmo.
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?
Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Informative)
No matter what you think of Snowden, at this point he's just a whistleblower or spy.
If the US wants to search plane, they can fucking do it themselves - they still have an Air Force, after all.
Re:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He certainly knows much more about classified materials than what he has released. Considering that he didn't accept Russia's terms to stay, it is likely he plans to release more information. If you're being mugged you don't calm down until the threat is dealt with -- you don't relax because they promise they only want your wallet.
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".
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: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: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: (Score:3)
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 goi
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)
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:Complete asshat move by the White House (Score:5, Interesting)
There's laws (in theory at least) in the US to protect whistle blowers, even those who release information the way he did.
Citation? Examples?
So why, then, did he choose to go into exile rather than accept the consequences and justify his actions in court?
Because, as someone who only just turned 30 he is not prepared for his life to end either through execution (USC 18, section 2381; http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 [cornell.edu]) or just life in prison. It is true that no good deed goes unpunished, but I think Snowden would still like his choice of punishments. Like most people he prefers exile over death.
When he released classified documents he did in fact break US law. He publicly admitted to doing it. Short of a sympathetic jury who believes in jury nullification he has zero chance of being found not guilty of leaking classified documents. So, like everyone else, he has no illusions about living free ever again in the country of his birth.
It always annoys me when people claim that by not choosing to spend the rest of his life in prison he is not facing the consequences of his actions. The dramatic events we are all watching unfold are the consequences. Exile is simply the only option he has that is preferable to suicide. I highly doubt you or any of the others claiming he is avoiding the consequences of his actions would act any differently. Remember that he and many other people all over the world do not believe he did anything wrong. On the contrary, many believe he is a hero.
And what did he think he had to gain by going to Julian Assange?
I'm not sure if you are following the news, but at no point has he been to London. He is still in the Moscow airport. So I'm not sure what you mean by "going" to Assange. He accepted help from one of Assange's associates, which is precisely what you would have done in his situation. Any other questions?
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: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.
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:Bolivia has a big fraction of the world's lithi (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullies and thugs ... (Score:5, Interesting)
If this was done to Air Force One, there would be outrage and calls for war.
It's not supposed to be legal to interfere with the travel of diplomats or search them.
If this was done at the request of the Americans, they've well overestimated their own importance. If this was done by someone trying to keep the Americans happy, they crossed well over the line.
But America seems to believe the rest of the world should be subservient to their wishes -- and the rest of the world is waking up to a big "Fuck You".
Keep braying about how you're the defenders of Truth and Freedom, while lying your faces off and becoming an authoritarian state. What Snowden has done is demonstrate that the US only gives a shit about themselves, and will break any law that stands in their way.
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: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:Bullies and thugs ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bullies and thugs ... (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.
Dear leaders: (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut it out and give Snowden the hero's welcome home he deserves.
What hasn't he revealed? (Score:5, Interesting)
What concerns me the most is just how aggressively the entire world seems to be against him, when all he's basically revealed is the existence of a high-level domestic spy program. Yeah, that's horrible and shit, but that alone wouldn't have the US government moving political mounts pressuring other countries not to harbor him.
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?
Re:What hasn't he revealed? (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't it obvious?!
He has evidence:
1. The moon landing was faked.
2. The U.S. is complicit in the alien abduction of its citizens.
3. The U.S. is reverse engineering alien technology at area 51.
4. Bigfoot is real and a consultant for the DEA.
5. JFK was killed by Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis.
6. The U.S. is run by lizard people of which George W. Bush is one. (Also Morena Baccarin.)
7. Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, and other supposedly dead musicians are alive, well, and immortal prisoners in an underwater city in the Atlantic for the rich and powerful.
8. (The truth about eight is too awful to print.)
9. Tater Tots are PEOPLE.
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: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: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.
Grow a pair, Europe (Score:4, Interesting)
On the heels of revelations about US spying on its European Allies [slashdot.org], why are you people putting up with this crap?
Re: (Score:3)
People don't just put up with it, they revel in it. It's panem et circenses for today's plebs.
As long as something does not appear to affect an American's ability to buy cheap cheeseburgers and petrol, it's only entertainment.
Discovered the Embasy was bugged????? (Score:3)
... isn't that supposed to be a given in todays spy vs. spy MAD comic?
Re:Discovered the Embasy was bugged????? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bugs were invented for the purpose of spying on embassies, which were from time immemorial used as a good place to headquarter your espionage operations in foreign countries.
I remember a story from the '80s where a new US embassy in Moscow was so infested with bugs that it had to be abandoned. The very concrete rebar served as antennae for the bugs.
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-07-29/news/mn-177_1_embassy-building [latimes.com]
So it should be no surprise at all that any embassy is buggier than an ant hill.
My favorite story was the the bugged version of the Great Seal Seal given to the US Ambassador, which hung in his residence. Dr Theremin got an order Stalin award for that one.
It's one thing to be bugging private citizens, and another altogether to be bugging embassies.
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...
War (Score:3)
By now US is at war against the world, by their own definition [washingtonexaminer.com], the ones that act as allies in things like this are targets too, even if they keep covering they ears and eyes to not see the evidence. Even if international law and rights used to have some meaning, is not anymore.
Ok, maybe they have to act like this even if they don't want to. The biggest benefit of massive, worldwide snooping on everything digital is not stopping terrorist, is just have a really big database for blackmailing, to force anyone to do what they want, from the top governors to the last shoeshiner.
Call responsible ministers to parlement ASAP (Score:5, Interesting)
Snakes on a Plane 2? (Score:3)
I am proud (Score:5, Funny)
...to live in Austria, where Mrs. Miki-Leitner, the Minister of Interior Affairs, said ( after the dust had settled somewhat, this afternoon ):
"This was a missed chance for Mr. Snowden. Austria has shown not to let itself be intimidated by the US. If Mr. Snowden had come here, he would have gotten a serious examination of his request for political asylum, as well as an investigation into recognizing him as a political refugee."
I would say: Edward, life in Vienna is more than bearable. Plenty of high-tech firms in case you ever need a job again ( which I doubt ), and the border to Switzerland is only a few train hours away, in case you need to run. Come over here, man !!!
Re:So what was it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what was it? (Score:4, Informative)
It was Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal. The submitter also neglected to mention that these countries deny the accusations.
Citation? I'm not sure that Spain and Italy were accused, but I know that at least so far Portugal and France have not denied the accusations. They refuse to comment on the matter. Are you gullible enough to believe that the Bolivian president just made up the whole thing and chose to have his plane diverted to Austria and then searched?
Re:They still can get out of Europe with some risk (Score:5, Informative)
Afaict Morales was flying in a business jet that didn't have enough fuel to go Russia-Bolivia nonstop, so the original plan was to refuel in Western Europe before continuing on. So that complicates the possibility of just overflying without permission and daring them to shoot him down, because he'd actually have to land and refuel at their airports, not just overfly.