Snowdon is a dummy

@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

btw, is the mirror the same as the onion?

A tabloid (Sunday People is a tabloid Sunday newspaper by the Mirror group). [The Sunday Mirror has merged with the Mirror.])

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@oralloy,

Here is Bernard Shaw on what audiences wanted--

Quote:

They want to be excited, and upset, and made miserable, to have their flesh set creeping, to gloat and quake over scenes of misfortune, injustice, violence, and cruelty, with the discomforture (sic) and punishment of somebody to make the ending "happy". The only sort of horror they dislike is the horror that they cannot fasten on some individual whom they can hate, dread, and finally torture after revelling in his crimes.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

You guys might be laughing, but I think he has a well made point.

If some "terrorists" really think that their phone calls and emails can't be read by others - that's the same level as if criminals think their fingerprints wouldn't be discovered.

If it's done legally, okay with me. Otherwise ...

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

If some "terrorists" really think that their phone calls and emails can't be read by others - that's the same level as if criminals think their fingerprints wouldn't be discovered.

Yes somehow I question that people with the resources to mount a serous attack on the US from the middle east would not be aware of communication security needs.

Hell I am just a security hobbyist but I can think of any number of ways and means of setting up untraceable and secure communication channels/links despite all the hundreds of billions being spend to monitor the whole world communications.

The massive spying being done now is unlikely in my opinion to either detect or stop any real threats to the US or the EU.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I think oralloy likes the idea of killing people and anybody who has let themselves in to be a target will suffice.

What gave you that bizarre idea???

spendius wrote:

The real question is whether oralloy would throw Eddie down an elevator shaft himself instead of vicariously enjoying the thought of an anonymous agent of the State performing the illegal deed.

I do not agree that CIA assassinations violate the law.

But to answer your question, I am happy to leave the exercise of violence in the hands of the government. (I do like to think that I could shoot a bear if it were attempting to to eat me, but I think I'd feel bad about it afterwords.)

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Not illegal. Not unconstitutional.

Since when is lying to congress or a court for that matter is not illegal? An even the secret rubber stamp court had found elements of the programs unconstitutional.

I doubt the court was lied to. And even if someone did lie about the programs, that does not mean that the programs themselves are illegal or unconstitutional.

The various court rulings that the programs are unconstitutional have little basis in fact or law, and are destined to all be overturned by higher courts.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

I can understand your beef, Walter and I wholeheartedly agree with you, the US shouldn't have spied on our allies and we rightfully were called on it.

Allies have always spied on each other and they always will. We did nothing wrong.

revelette2 wrote:

btw, is the mirror the same as the onion?

The Onion intentionally creates fake stories because they are satirists who poke fun at people.

The Mirror intentionally creates fake stories because they are tabloid trash.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

The Mirror intentionally creates fake stories because they are tabloid trash.

I really don't want to disagree about this, and certainly Sunday People is a mirror of The Mirror, but "GCHQ-sources" often use tabloids for their 'leaks'.
So you think that this story is a fake. Could well be so.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Saying something is a fake, and not providing any evidence for it is spacious (or empty)!

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@oralloy,

Quote:

Allies have always spied on each other and they always will. We did nothing wrong.

Don't be getting silly oralloy or assuming we are.

Eddie wouldn't have made such a sacrifice as he has done to expose allies spying on each other.

It was people you are paying, and whose education you have paid for, getting up all your arseholes that Eddie considered unconstitutional. And that is something that has not been always going on.

You really are looking for somebody to lynch.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

But even though it gives terroists a chance to kill 4 or 5 thousand more innocents its better than letting them listen to my phone conversations. Right Walter?

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@RABEL222,

Of course, everyone will say that the agencies should list to such calls.

When I worked in the judiciary (probation office, prison and prosecution) and with the police (crime prevention department at my State Criminal Police Office) everyone would have been glad, if they'd known details before any crime was permitted.
Unfortunately for some, we live in a country with basic rights that bind the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.

And I'm really happy that haven't spend any years of my life under the Nazi regime or in the German Democratic Republic when the dictators tried to know everything of their citizens. (But crimes happened as well.)

Another thought: when this terrible attack happened in Boston, even the names of the suspects were given earlier (from Russian agencies) to US-agencies (like "in the good old days) besides that phones have been controlled (like it's now promoted) ....

1 Reply

@RABEL222,

Quote:

ut even though it gives terroists a chance to kill 4 or 5 thousand more innocents its better than letting them listen to my phone conversations. Right Walter?

LOL so tying up resource monitoring your and a billion other people is somehow going to prevent four or five thousands deaths ?

By the way if maybe stopping four of five thousands deaths enough for us all to live in a monitoring police state how about the 40,000 deaths by cars every year?

Should we ban cars or put a speed limit of 30 mph at least?

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Another thought: when this terrible attack happened in Boston, even the names of the suspects were given earlier (from Russian agencies) to US-agencies (like "in the good old days) besides that phones have been controlled (like it's now promoted) ....

Electronic hubris lead the US spooks to neglect good old human intel?

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

electronic hubris lead the US spooks to neglect good old human intel?

Hell the US government think that randomly monitoring role playing games chat rooms is worth a few thousand people collecting federal paychecks!!!!!!

Funny as when press they [NSA] could not come up with one case of almost complete random monitoring that had aided in stopping terrorists attacks.

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@RABEL222,

Quote:

But even though it gives terroists a chance to kill 4 or 5 thousand more innocents its better than letting them listen to my phone conversations.

But, RABEL, we can only arrive at a situation where terrorists have no chance by a system I very much doubt you would like. Until then your argument is always going to be valid.

Every society does a deal to try to solve the freedom/security problem. If either becomes absolute I think the society would disintegrate.

We accept the risks of where we set the balance.

Your point is unanswerable, thus banal, because it can be made until there is no chance for terrorists. Which is fair enough if you can tolerate it being done. The taxpayers would not fork out for long to fund the forces to fight terrorism if there was no chance of terrorism.

A deal is done with road safety and gun ownership in the same way. We accept the deaths, injuries and mournings in both for some gain which might defy easy explanation.

We owe Eddie a debt for concentrating minds on the issue. It had been almost forgotten. Hence the open gate that the NSA strolled through. In the general direction, in my opinion, of disintegration.

If the Constitution is whittled away at there will come a point when it falls into disrepute and is ignored. And there will be interests hoping that will happen.

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@Olivier5,

That's not the first or the last time any forewarning of a terrorist attack is going to prevent it. Look at what happened on 9/11?

Not only that, but mass data collection hasn't proven to prevent anything.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I think you are being a little dismissive of sheer amount of information which Snowden leaked on the methods used by NSA to attempt to try and track terrorist. Its like giving someone a blue print of the security measures inside a bank. Of course would be robbers know its there, but they don't know all the ins and outs of it, if they did, they would simply come up with ways around it. Which is exactly what it is being reported terrorist did.

In the US, the spying done was and so far still is legal, it was made so by congress other than those few instances and which were stopped, eventually. I realize the one who thought up the Patriot Act (or the one who takes the credit for it) up is saying it was not his intention for the US to spy on their own citizens, but you know what they say, the way to you know where is paved with good intentions. If the courts end up saying data storage is unconstitutional, then it will be illegal and the US will stop, but so far, it is not.

1 Reply

@revelette2,

I know that. (I'm against capital punishment as well, knowing that it is of course legal in USA.)

If something is done legally, I have to accept it. But that doesn't mean at all that I have to change my position.

Our agencies (the three engaged in "spying") are obviously acting very similar - they are using a kind of grey zone.
If the Snowden affair hadn't started discussions,we wouldn't know that.
And for most of us it was new as well that the USA spies from German soil on Germans, in a couple of months even from buildings partly paid by German taxpayers.

What me personally surprises most is that even 23 years after the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) we still are treated in parts as if we were an occupied country.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

As a side note to "capital punishment" and "Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany": only then, in 1990/1991 it came to the surface -because it was classified - that in the American Sector of Berlin we still had had capital punishment.

Quote:

ORDER NO. 2
1.The carrying, possession or ownership of arms or
ammunition by any person is prohibited.
[...]
7. Any person failing t o comply with this Order shall
be liable to criminal prosecution including the death penalty..

1 Reply

Snowdon is a dummy

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