Snowdon is a dummy

@Thomas,

Not sure if you are just in one of your cranky moods, Thomas…or if you are being serious.

I am confident that Snowden can get a fair trial here in the US. Are you saying that I can also be confident that he cannot get a fair trial?

I’ve laid out my reasons for thinking this. I think his defense team will be top grade; I suspect that any evidence against him on the “espionage” aspect is non-existent; and I suspect that many details prosecutors would like to use will be unavailable to them because of further national security concerns.

The thing I was talking with Walter about when I made that admittedly over-the-top remark, had to do with whether there were legitimate reasons the NSA did the spying it did. Walter was expressing almost certainty that it was not necessary…and that it was not efficacious. I, on the other hand, was arguing that I did not know if it was necessary or not (I cannot rule out either)…and I have no way of knowing if the spying was efficacious (I cannot rule either side of that out either.)

So I made the intemperate remark. But for you to suggest this indicates I am not capable of self-skepticism and am engaging in duplicity or hypocrisy…is absurd. I doubt there is anyone in this forum as capable of “self-skepticism” as I (and to save you the trouble, perhaps for good reason!)

There is no double-standard here.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Allow me to rephrase then: you don't have a clue what possible good side there could be to a society where "we have less and less privacy".

I most assuredly do...and I have outlined it previously on several occasions, most recently, I think, in this thread.

It appears that without "less and less privacy"...the Boston bomber perpetrators would not have been stopped anywhere near as quickly. Rapers and robbers are apprehended more quickly...and with greater certainty as to culpability. It appears as though lost kids are found more quickly. There are a few that come to mind quickly.

So your nonsense about "what I do not have a clue about"...is indication that you do not have a clue about what I have a clue about. That kind of stuff is something you throw my way, Olivier, because I get under your skin as quickly and often as I do.

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And similarly, you don't have a clue whether that would contradict the US constitution, and the saddest thing is you probably don't care.... Issues are not your 'thing'.

Yeah, issues do interest me...and I have been at this kind of debate for many, many years because they do interest me. And as far as what does and does not violate or contradict the Constitution...as I said before, I am willing to let the SCOTUS make that determination, because that is the way it is legally done here. We don't individually make those decisions. Read up on it, Olivier...you will see I am correct.

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You know what your problem is, Frank? You invest way too much effort in trying to get under other posters' skin, instead of trying to think through the issues at hand. Maybe that's an effective technique on a golf course, but it leads you nowhere here...

I do not try to get under anyone's skin. People like you do not need me "trying." You jump off that cliff as often as you do because you have no control over yourself. And you apparently do not have the self-pride to stop yourself from making it as obvious as you do.

As for "issues"...I deal with them...and then, in my spare time, I have a bit of fun with the people who are lacking self-control and allowing others to get under their skin often and easily. Like you, Olivier.

Wanna keep this up? I'm enjoying it...and I hope you are too.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

It appears that without "less and less privacy"...the Boston bomber perpetrators would not have been stopped anywhere near as quickly. Rapers and robbers are apprehended more quickly...and with greater certainty as to culpability. It appears as though lost kids are found more quickly. There are a few that come to mind quickly.

Here, such is done with and by the normal (= legally, according to laws and legal procedures, approved by a judge) work by detectives and not through mass surveillance by secret services.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I am confident that Snowden can get a fair trial here in the US.

LOL as fair of a trial, at the very least, as the people charge with aiding Booth in assassinating Lincoln.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

approved by a judge)

No secret courts?

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
It appears that without "less and less privacy"...the Boston bomber perpetrators would not have been stopped anywhere near as quickly. Rapers and robbers are apprehended more quickly...and with greater certainty as to culpability. It appears as though lost kids are found more quickly. There are a few that come to mind quickly.

Here, such is done with and by the normal (= legally, according to laws and legal procedures, approved by a judge) work by detectives and not through mass surveillance by secret services.

Fine...I am glad to know how things are done there. I suspect you are being a bit naive, though...and I suspect that less and less privacy will result from the technology available.

I MAY BE WRONG...I acknowledge that.

But as more and more cameras are installed for more and more reasons...privacy is going to be invaded. And the intelligence services of governments are going to use more and more sophisticated methods of protecting their countries.

We can bat this back all day long. But all of it is speculation.

At the end of the day, my bet is going to be that privacy on a scale we have had it recently...is going to be significantly curtailed.

For me...I do not care. It simply does not bother me...and I have no great expectations of having it.

Sorry that attitude bothers some people...but it is the way I feel. I am not a particularly private person.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
I am confident that Snowden can get a fair trial here in the US.

LOL as fair of a trial, at the very least, as the people charge with aiding Booth in assassinating Lincoln.

If you feel your country is not capable of giving an accused criminal a fair trial...that is your prerogative, Bill.

I suspect, however, that you are saying you do not want a fair trial for Snowden...what YOU want is for him to be considered a hero...and allowed to go free no matter if he broke serious laws or not.

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That, by the way, is the problem here with many of the "Snowden supporters."

They truly do not want a fair trial...or any trial at all. They want to consider him a hero, just as some want to consider him a traitor or someone engaged in espionage.

I do not consider him a traitor...and the espionage accusations seem way over the top to me. But I do think the charges of stealing and unlawfully disseminating classified documents seems real enough to warrant a trial.

I want a fair trial for him.

Some of you do not!

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

I suspect you are being a bit naive, though...and I suspect that less and less privacy will result from the technology available.

Might be so. But I've got quite a good inside view about police work (Less about secret services, since it's 40years ago since I .....)

Frank Apisa wrote:

But as more and more cameras are installed for more and more reasons...privacy is going to be invaded. And the intelligence services of governments are going to use more and more sophisticated methods of protecting their countries.

Due to our privacy laws, it's not easy to install such cameras - whenever it happened before, court rulings mostly put them away. (That's why we've got laws about that, "Federal Data Protection Act", state's data protection, states' police laws.)

I agree that the domestic secret services are 'upgrading'. Fortunately, this only can be done according to the provisions of laws.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

They truly do not want a fair trial...or any trial at all. They want to consider him a hero, just as some want to consider him a traitor or someone engaged in espionage.

I don't think that I'm really a "Snowden supporter". But I like the results of his "whistleblowing".
Whatever the real reasons were why he did it - he started a healthy discussion.

I do think that anybody, who gets accused of a crime, should get a fair trial.
On the other hand, I do support "legal defence" of the accused - and asking for asylum is one of this.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

allowed to go free no matter if he broke serious laws or not.

LOL such as Dir. Clapper lying to congress perhaps?

Strange as I had not hear of any charges or even a lost of his position happening for such a serious crime.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
They truly do not want a fair trial...or any trial at all. They want to consider him a hero, just as some want to consider him a traitor or someone engaged in espionage.

I don't think that I'm really a "Snowden supporter". But I like the results of his "whistleblowing".
Whatever the real reasons were why he did it - he started a healthy discussion.

I do think that anybody, who gets accused of a crime, should get a fair trial.
On the other hand, I do support "legal defence" of the accused - and asking for asylum is one of this.

I agree completely with this, Walter. He has the right to seek asylum...and I think Russia has the right to grant him said.

And since we have been so stubborn about refusing to return Russian (or Soviet) asylum seekers in the past...they certainly have the right to refuse to return Snowden.

In any case, we have no extradition agreement with Russia. But I understand we do with Germany...and I cannot help but wonder about the ramifications of Snowden coming to Germany to be deposed in this regard.

Do you have any info on that? Can a temporary departure from any treaties that exist be granted?

I also see Snowden as a less than totally welcome guest in Russia. If he were to leave, I imagine the pressure by Putin opponents to not grant re-entry could be significant. Any info on that?

(I was reminded that you are a significant source of information on the international implications of the Snowden adventure. I acknowledge that you have been; I have been interested and informed by your posts. Sorry I have been remiss in thanking you for them...but...

...thank you for all the work in this regard, Walter. )

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Not sure if you are just in one of your cranky moods, Thomas…

I am sure that there was nothing in Thomas's post that gave any reason to even suspect he might be in a cranky mood. That's the sort of thing you do all the time. You can't answer his question. So you impute some negative characteristic to him which has no justification. Or encourage him to keep it up because you enjoy your Jokerman's fiendish shrieking at what is said to you. You have an arsenal of such gambits. Not a very large one and nothing original. All rote learned.

You being "confident" Snowden will get a fair trial is no use. That is not the same as "sure". He would probably not return even if he was sure he would get a fair trial. And until a trial happened he would be given the treatment over a long period of time.

I'm "confident" that Chelsea will win their game at the weekend. Which doesn't mean they will.

Banging on about a fair trial is a ******* duck quacking. From an agnostic point of view I can't see how the concept of a fair trial can exist as a reality. From a skeptic position in modern science what Snowden did was an accident resulting from a complex series of happenings which preceded it. Some might be identified. For example a teacher enthusing him with the sacred spirit of the Constitution. One might go back to how his parents met. A decision what line of study to take at college. His not having been run over in a street. His having seen what some of his colleagues were doing or hearing what they planned to do.

Rightly or wrongly somebody was bound to become disgusted with what they are doing snooping on Americans using their own money but not many, I suspect, would have the guts to do something serious about it. That takes proper "manning up".

It was always going to happen at some point.

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@spendius,

Quote:

Rightly or wrongly somebody was bound to become disgusted with what they are doing snooping on Americans using their own money but not many, I suspect, would have the guts to do something serious about it. That takes proper "manning up".

It was always going to happen at some point.

My surprise is that it did not happen sooner not that it happen and we need more Snowdons not less.

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@spendius,

By the way I wonder how many others are selling access to all this information that the government is collecting on the black market?

Such information is priceless on the open market.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

It appears that without "less and less privacy"...the Boston bomber perpetrators would not have been stopped anywhere near as quickly. Rapers and robbers are apprehended more quickly...and with greater certainty as to culpability. It appears as though lost kids are found more quickly. There are a few that come to mind quickly.

Lost kids? The NSA's monitoring the entire population's emails and telephone conversations is necessary and helpful to find lost kids? And rapers and robbers and burglars? Where did you pull that out from?

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And as far as what does and does not violate or contradict the Constitution...as I said before, I am willing to let the SCOTUS make that determination, because that is the way it is legally done here. We don't individually make those decisions.

I thought you guys were allowed to have an opinion about your own constitution... My mistake.

In my country we are free to have and share opinions about whatever, apart from holocaust denial and calling for racial hatred. These exceptions are related to our experience of fascism, as are our laws protecting privacy.

Thus I can share with you my opinion on the matter, which is that mass surveillance is simply incompatible with the 4th Amendment.

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I do not try to get under anyone's skin.

You talk about it a bit too much for someone who's really not into it... like those dudes so obsessed with homosexuals that one must wonder when they will get out of the closet.

And as I said, trying to irritate people might be a workable strategy on a golf course but you got no traction here.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

They truly do not want a fair trial...or any trial at all.

Why should we want a trial of Snowden, pray tell? That's YOUR fancy.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
It appears that without "less and less privacy"...the Boston bomber perpetrators would not have been stopped anywhere near as quickly. Rapers and robbers are apprehended more quickly...and with greater certainty as to culpability. It appears as though lost kids are found more quickly. There are a few that come to mind quickly.

Lost kids? The NSA's monitoring the entire population's emails and telephone conversations is necessary and helpful to find lost kids? And rapers and robbers and burglars? Where did you pull that out from?

At no point have I said that "it requires NSA monitoring the entire population;s emails and telephone conversation" to be helpful.

That is another of those straw men you are so fond of creating when someone is blowing the doors off your vehicle.

We were talking about "less and less privacy" (which includes more cameras around)...and you were unable to deal with that...so you created a scenario where I am supposedly saying that nonsense you made up.

Hey...you are good comedy...and I appreciate you for that.

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And as I said, trying to irritate people might be a workable strategy on a golf course but you got no traction here.

Well, as I said, Olivier, I am not really trying. No need to try with you...you jump off the cliff every time you can. And there seems to be a lot more traction going on than you want to acknowledge.

You're okay, Olivier. Just don't take such big bites. Easier to chew that way! Wink

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
They truly do not want a fair trial...or any trial at all.

Why should we want a trial of Snowden, pray tell? That's YOUR fancy.

Like I said...I want him to have a fair trial. He has been accused of serious crimes...and I think he should have one.

Obviously you don't...which pretty much was what I said.

Thanks for confirming.

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Cato Institute calls out Feinstein's bullshit attempts of "reform" which actually codifies the things they're already doing and gives them even greater authorities.

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The business-as-usual brigade have resigned themselves to the inevitability of some kind of NSA reform—but they’re clearly hoping some cosmetic changes, falsely billed as a “prohibition” on bulk collection, along with a few mild transparency tweaks, will preempt any more substantive reform. It’s an ingenious costume, but most assuredly more trick than treat. More

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Snowdon is a dummy

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