Snowdon is a dummy

I agree.

As a rule of thumb, Mame, remember that unencrypted internet communication has about the same level of privacy as a postcard. So whenever you're about to send information that you wouldn't send on a postcard, encrypt it first.

I love when you are being smug, Thomas. It fits the German persona so well.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I love when you are being smug, Thomas. It fits the German persona so well.

I love when you make your retorts about persons rather than their arguments, Frank. It fits my observation that you have little of substance to bring to this discussion.

Yeah...I think it is a decent experiment in trying to uncover terrorist plots.

I love when you are being smug, Thomas.

The pressure gotten to the point the President just gotten on TV to tell us that he will oversee reforms concerning the government spying programs.

One wonder if having two American companies just shutting down instead of aiding the government in spying and both stating that trusting any internet company operating under US laws is very unwise might have been the trigger.

During the Q&A portion of today's President Obama press conference, reporter Chuck Todd asked Obama about Ed Snowden and whether he was a "patriot," after Obama announced some reforms and even directly made clear that those who support civil liberties and greater transparency "love their country" and are "patriots." Except, Obama said that he does not think Snowden is a patriot, in part because he had signed the Whistleblower Protection Act and extended the protections to the intelligence community. This is laughable on a variety of levels, including the Obama administration's actions against other whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and William Binney, who did go through official channels, and then were subject to ridiculous investigations and (with Drake) totally trumped up charges on a bogus unrelated issue.

But there's a bigger point: Snowden actually is not covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act, entirely contrary to President Obama's claims. That's because the act does not cover contractors, such as those who worked for the NSA via Dell or Booz Allen like Snowden did. After the Snowden revelations came out, the Obama administration admitted that it was "looking at" ways to extend the protections to contractors, but at this time (and at the time that Snowden leaked) they do not cover him.

In other words, there were no legal protections under the Act, contrary to Obama's claims, and (worse) it's not as though the government has a history of respecting such whistleblower protections in the first place. Why bother when you can just trump up some other charges on those same people as punishment? Remember that this is the very same Obama administration that has directly declared that anyone leaking documents is aiding the enemy.

that the government has no intention of stopping the collection of meta-data

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/jimmy-carter-edward-snowden_n_3616930.html
Former President Jimmy Carter announced support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden this week, saying that his uncovering of the agency's massive surveillance programs had proven "beneficial."

Speaking at a closed-door event in Atlanta covered by German newspaper Der Spiegel, Carter also criticized the NSA's domestic spying as damaging to the core of the nation's principles.

"America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time," Carter said, according to a translation by Inquisitr.

On Friday afternoon, President Obama held a press conference where he promised to bring increased transparency to the NSA's digital surveillance programs. He announced a series of proposed reforms to the way the NSA collects data and to how the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) operates, along with plans to convene a group of "outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies."

US Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been one of the biggest thorns in the administration's side when it comes to raising questions about how mass surveillance programs threaten civil liberties. After the president's remarks, he said that he was encouraged by Obama's suggestions, several of which the Senator and others have been pushing to get for years.