Snowdon is a dummy

So, not wanting foreign troops on British soil is an act of war now is it?

You're starting to sound a lot like the American general in A Very British Coup.

If the police officers think, they need to listen to to telecommunictions or investigate emails to do so, the prosecution makes a relevant request to the court.

United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"FISC" redirects here. For other uses, see Fisc (disambiguation).
United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(FISC)

Location Washington, D.C., United States
Established 1978
Judges assigned 11
Chief judge Reggie B. Walton
uscourts.gov/uscourts/courts/fisc Official site
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court) is a U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies. Such requests are made most often by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Congress created FISA and its court as a result of the recommendations by the U.S. Senate's Church Committee.[1] Its powers have evolved and expanded to the point that it is "almost a parallel Supreme Court."[2]
Since 2009, the court has been located in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.[3][4] For roughly thirty years of its history, it was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building.[3][4]
In 2013, a top-secret order issued by the court was leaked to the media by Edward Snowden. It required a subsidiary of Verizon to provide a daily, ongoing feed of all call detail records – including those for domestic calls – to the NSA, sparked considerable public controversy.

Real hot and cold with you Frank, maybe we can't stop you spying on us, but we could drop the pretence, and shut a few bases down, without actually going to war. France managed to do it without firing a shot.

The thing that most concerns me right now is the potential use of British bases in any action against Iran. Such action will make us a lot less safe.

What do I want out of the 'special relationship?' It would be nice if we weren't spied upon, and actually treated as allies, not a hostile power.

Getting the goods on the EU's contracts doesn't make American citizens safer, it makes American companies richer. It's insider trading, it's a crime.

Interesting article on FISA. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/06/13/White-House-got-EU-to-drop-anti-NSA-spying-measure/UPI-73151371106800/

"As we both modernize our data-privacy systems, we must make sure that we build interoperable systems that protect privacy and protect our citizens from transnational criminal threats," he said.

Halliburton has become the object of several controversies involving the 2003 Iraq War and the company's ties to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000 and has received stock options from Halliburton.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which 'unusually' only Halliburton was allowed to bid.

That is not related to the thread's theme but on "old case" from last year.

But the bill, first introduced by the European Commission in January 2012, has been the target of intense lobbying by the US government and US-based companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

“It has been debated at the council, it has been debated in the EU institutions, also in the representation in Washington,” noted Albrecht.

MEPs are currently grappling with over 4,000 amendments in the regulation, pushing back a scheduled orientation vote in the civil liberties committee to the end of the year.

The unfolding series of US-led spy scandals first revealed by the Washington Post and The Guardian in June has prompted the MEPs to strengthen the bill with an anti-snooping clause.
[...]
The parliament’s group of lead negotiators on the file is set to debate re-inserting article 42 into the regulation before the end of summer.

But in reality, the regulation and the directive would have little impact on foreign intelligence gathering on US-based Cloud services because neither apply to national security issues.

I don't think my commentary is that negative at all. It's called realpolitik. The alternative is to sit open mouthed and swallow whatever bullshit the politicians serve up.

There was a political commentator on Radio 4 a few weeks back when this all blew up. He pointed out that the information obtained from bugging EU offices would be of little if any use security wise. It would be very valuable for anyone considering bidding for EU contracts.

Don't say this doesn't happen, Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton did very well out of Iraq.

Quote:

Halliburton has become the object of several controversies involving the 2003 Iraq War and the company's ties to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000 and has received stock options from Halliburton.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which 'unusually' only Halliburton was allowed to bid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton

Come on Frank, surely you don't need to be shot in the face to see what's going on.

You're not answering my question.

that they follow the laws.

I can tell you this...it does not matter what happens in our next several elections. What is going on right now will almost certainly continue.

My perception of things is that the people have asked our leaders to do as much as possible to prevent further attacks of the 9/11 kind...and the leaders have decided that extensive surveillance of the sort being discussed is necessary.

Quote:

I can tell you this...it does not matter what happens in our next several elections. What is going on right now will almost certainly continue.

Of course it will, Frank. You can't make a claim to sanity if you can't comprehend that US terrorist actions will bring responses from people fighting for freedom in their own countries.

Count the number of countries where the Taliban have installed brutal dictators. Count the number of countries that the US had and has their own brutal dictators.

Consider the theoretical situation where every country had the same access to the weaponry that the US has. Do you believe that this planet would still exist, in its present form?

Quote:

My perception of things is that the people have asked our leaders to do as much as possible to prevent further attacks of the 9/11 kind...and the leaders have decided that extensive surveillance of the sort being discussed is necessary.

Baaaaaaa, baaaaaaa, baaaaaaaa.