Snowdon is a dummy

Is Edward Snowden a whistleblower and hero, or a treacherous traitor? I’m afraid that for right now, the only suitable answer is “yes.”

The European Parliament has voted to suspend the sharing of financial data with the US, following allegations that citizens' data was spied on.

Those vermin certainly have a lot of nerve.

I have never been able to understand why anybody has any dealings with the USA in all my adult life. The chances of getting the better of the USA are zero.

Thursday, Jul 18, 2013 03:03 PM CCST

Jimmy Carter: US “has no functioning democracy”

The former president weighs in on NSA and the future of Internet platforms like Google and Facebook

By Alberto Riva

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is so concerned about the NSA spying scandal that he thinks it has essentially resulted in a suspension of American democracy.
“America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy,” he said at an event in Atlanta on Tuesday sponsored by the Atlantik Bruecke, a private nonprofit association working to further the German-U.S. relationship.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/jimmy_carter_us_has_no_functioning_democracy_partner/

There might have been more of an excuse for the proliferating operations of the NSA – 30 or more foreign leaders are said to have been given the Merkel treatment – had they been instrumental in Washington bringing off some diplomatic masterstroke. To put it mildly, that has not been the case.

I think the people who want to destroy western civilization (such as it is)…are every bit as happy with what is happening as you apparently are, Walter.

You need to define Utopia Apisa. Otherwise your statement is foam from the fingertips. You just MYOEP again.

As I said earlier--Snowden can be recovered from but unhindered mass surveillance cannot.

Will you be brave enough, to man up as you often have said to others, and address the point. It is the Razor's edge here. Your pretending it isn't is head in a bag ****. It is setting your own exam as well as marking it.

Did you know that for a few grand you can get a first class honours degree in atomic physics in return for a fat fee and within a month of your check clearing your bank? Peeaychdees are extra. Beautiful parchment certificate to have framed and stuck up over the mantelpiece. Hundreds of offshore universities to choose from.

Our educational institutions perform the job more discreetly. You need to be marked "present" on a few days each year which is easy to explain to an employer you are washing dishes for. Although there are some employers who would query whether you might get a proxy to sign you in.

That the condition of a certain minimum presence "on campus" is required is the reason the fees are much greater than those of the offshore institutions of the Higher Learning.

Get a grip man.

Well, in that case, I suppose, we all here (= left, centrist and conservative Europeans) are really Old Europe.

Stay with it if you see value in what you are doing, Walter.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Stay with it if you see value in what you are doing, Walter.

I will. And indeed, I strongly feell that we all should uphold those values of western civilisation and not fall back to the behaviour of some Roman Empire's despots.

The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.

Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community.

Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.

The papers also reveal that:

• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.

• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissable in court.

• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and the US National Security Agency.

The most recent attempt to make intelligence gathered from intercepts admissible in court, proposed by the last Labour government, was finally stymied by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 in 2009.

A briefing memo prepared for the board of GCHQ shortly before the decision was made public revealed that one reason the agency was keen to quash the proposals was the fear that even passing references to its wide-reaching surveillance powers could start a "damaging" public debate.

Referring to the decision to publish the report on intercept as evidence without classification, it noted: "Our main concern is that references to agency practices (ie the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime."

A later update, dated May 2012, set out further perceived "risks" of making intercepts admissible, including "the damage to partner relationships if sensitive information were accidentally released in open court". It also noted that the "scale of interception and retention required would be fairly likely to be challenged on Article 8 (Right to Privacy) grounds". ... ... ...

If I were a terrorist intent on doing as much damage as possible to places like America, England, Germany and the like…I would be reveling in ecstasy over the angry discussions and ruminations being expressed in newspapers, on television, and in Internet forums. Each posting condemning the NSA—each expression of condemnation and indignation would fill my heart with joy. I would be thinking, “They are eating their own young…so I can just rest for a while they do what I am having so much trouble doing—dismantling and severely damaging the apparatus that keeps us relatively in check.”