Snowdon is a dummy

@oralloy,

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China spies on ordinary citizens more than any other government in the world.

Hmm I question if the US with it many tens of billions dollars budget and resources aim at massive internet spying is not outdoing China.

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The spying that the US government presently carries out is neither unconstitutional nor illegal (regarding US law at least).

Given that even with Snowden we do not know all of what the US intelligence agencies are doing and that they had proven more then willing to lied to congress and even spy on congress I question your above statement.

Lying to congress under oath does not off hand sound very legal to me nor does hacking into a congressional intelligence committee computer network sound very legal to me for example.

There is little question in my mind that the constitution is being used as toilet paper by the US intelligence services on a large scale using the power to declared their actions secret and a willingness to lied in order to hide their misdeeds from the courts, the congress and the American people.

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@BillRM,

How any American citizen can believe or trust our government after all the lies from our government is an amazing thing to observe.

Vietnam, Iraq, and other wars were started by our government on lies or in secret by the CIA. Our own government lied to its citizens by spying illegally, then tried to hide it from the public - making excuses of one sort or another without regard to our Constitution. We also learned about our government torturing prisoners against domestic and international laws. We also learned that Obama approved the use of drones that kills innocent people.

You trust our government? I don't.

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@cicerone imposter,

Sadly also if the executive branch of government cry national security needs it is rare for the courts to protected citizens and uphold the constitution.

Let see during WW1 the courts allowed laws to be enforced that placed men into prison for ten years for daring to disagree with fighting that war.

A man who "crime" it was to produced a movie showing Brits in a bad light during our revolutionary war was sentence to ten years and the courts upheld that sentence.

In WW2 the SC upheld the moving of Japanese Americans into camps for the crime of having the wrong blood in their veins.

Because the courts will not at times enforce the constitution does not mean that the actions of the government is constitutional.

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12 other governments that spy on their citizens

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

12 other governments that spy on their citizens

From the above quoted report:

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The government recently ended its Cold War pact with the United States and the United Kingdom to prevent any spying on German citizens. But what if that spying is done by the German government?

I'm rather sure that the German government doesn't spy.

We've got the Federal (plus the 16 state's) Office(s) for the Protection of the Constitution. Without any doubt, they try to expand and circumvent their legal tasks when possible. Therefore, parliamentary committees look at what they do. (To be the president of any of these offices is a kind of hotseat for civil servants.)

And of course the police is spying on our citizens, ordered by the various offices of the prosecution, with a ruling by a judge.

Additionally, the tax offices (state) and the custom office (Federal) are doing some spying as well.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Haven't you recently been posting articles from Spiegel (?) which said the BND corroborates with NSA on spying on your citizens. You act as though no one else has laws, we have laws as well. Both circumvent laws, it is the nature of the beasts.

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@revelette2,

Heh, heh! I just was responding to the article you posted.

The BND actually is our foreign "spy agency". And certainly they have collaborated with the NSA. (And still do so, as is thought.)

But that doesn't mean at all that our government is spying on us.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Are your agencies not part of your government? If they are and your government does not stop your BND from working with NSA spying on your citizens, then, in effect, wouldn't that mean your government is spying on your citizens the same as ours is?

My only point with all this is yes, the US spies more than most, except China, and yes, we were forever going on about our free country and lording it over everyone else. However, that all changed after 9/11 and with it, the whole world. We live in a different reality and I really don't see it going back to the way it was before completely. However, I do hope there are now that the cat is out of the bag, more openness and truthfulness with our government (US) and our intelligence agencies to come out of all this and more efficient less intrusive ways to reach the desired goal. I honestly think we will get there.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

Are your agencies not part of your government?

No. The Federal government consists of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers.(State government of the Minister-President and Ministers - in the city state of Berlin it's the Governing Mayor and Senators, in Hamburg the First Mayor and Senators, and in the state of Bremen the Mayor and the Senators.)

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@Walter Hinteler,

I added some more after I thought about it deeper. Anyway, no offense, truly, but does that not let you have your cake and eat it too? Is the BND not accountable to your laws?

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@BillRM,

True; our government seems to apply their own interpretation about national security vs and the Constitution, and even after proving most of their actions were wrong, our government still repeats the same mistakes.

"Never again" is an oxymoron based on human fears that often crosses the line between legal and illegal. It's scary to think that today our president allows torture and the use of drones to kill innocent people in other countries - all crimes against humanity.

"We will never learn" is probably embedded into our Constitution.

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

Anyway, no offense, truly, but does that not let you have your cake and eat it too? Is the BND not accountable to your laws?

The BND is - as are the offices for the domestic spying. (That's all regulated in the various civil servant laws, laws about those agencies etc)

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@revelette2,

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However, that all changed after 9/11 and with it, the whole world. We live in a different reality

Your statement is simply terrific, Revelette2. I applaud your intuitive understanding.

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@revelette2,

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However, I do hope there are now that the cat is out of the bag, more openness and truthfulness with our government (US) and our intelligence agencies to come out of all this and more efficient less intrusive ways to reach the desired goal. I honestly think we will get there.

An how is that going to happen when the head of agencies can lied to congress and spy on congress and no one is punish for doing so?

Strange that when the facts of a sexual affair came out about the head of the CIA he needed to leaved office but for lying and spying on congress no one needed to leave their positions.

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@revelette2,

Walter is going to defend his country wherever possible even if it involves contorting some things to show it in its best light, Revelette, unlike many of the Americans here who will contort things in order to do the exact opposite...to conceive of their country in the lowest terms possible at every opportunity.

It goes without saying that I admire Walter for the way he deals with his country.

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@Moment-in-Time,

Moment-in-Time wrote:

Quote:
However, that all changed after 9/11 and with it, the whole world. We live in a different reality

Your statement is simply terrific, Revelette2. I applaud your intuitive understanding.

I second your thought here, MiT.

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@BillRM,

That's because our government is broken. Humpty dumpty.....

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Walter is going to defend his country wherever possible even if it involves contorting some things to show it in its best light, Revelette,

I'n NOT defended anything here. I'm just giving my opinion about published reports and facts.
And fact is that our foreign intelligence service seems to have acted outside the law - that's what the parliamentary committee is investigating.
The domestic agencies (both federal as well as especially those of some states) - well, they stumble from one scandal to next one. But as far as I know, that's not related to Snowden, the Snowden documents or similar. But it could be, too.

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@Walter Hinteler,

You have made it quite clear over all of your posts about privacy laws in Germany, and the media reports about it. At least it's been clear to this reader that your reporting has been accurate.

The US has our Constitution that protects our privacy (as does all democracies as a right of freedom from unnecessary searches), and Germany has their privacy laws that's considered the strictest in the world. People in both governments broke the laws.

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@cicerone imposter,

The president does use drones, but not torture or "enhanced interrogation."

Executive Order 13491 -- Ensuring Lawful Interrogations

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Snowdon is a dummy

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