obama's so smart he's fixing all our problems by ever innovative methods now.. those terr'ists hated us for our freedumbs. so he just take a big **** on the 4th amendment and presto - those 19 guys in a cave plus their camel will never bother us again! maybe obama will get another nobel peace prize now
Another funny post by Basso. The neo-con who loves perpetual wars for other people's kids, will even attack Obama from the left. got to wuv him.
True. Thank goodness Julian Assange is not rotting in solitary confinement in a US prison, but can continue his work. Sure hope the NSA whistleblower can get to a safe spot. Oh, Oh I am editing the above post so it was briefly posted. The NSA has recorded it, so I am ****ed.
You need to stop and think this through. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, whatever dictatorial regime you can think of, has made laws I suppose in the day you would have been against the liberal panderings about freedom and liberty that brought us the civil rights movement-- or in an even earlier day the Magna Carta and our whole system of law.
Typical of you guys. No difference between Obama and Stalin, no difference between Obama and the Chinese, which is why it's perfectly fine for him to flee there ( and like I said, THAT is about 70% of why he pisses me off, especially since he very well could leak serious **** to them), and so on. You may cry about the dictatorial USA, but at the same time, "I'll break the law for a good cause" means absolutely nothing, because half the criminals in this world believe that in their minds. The dude swore an oath to this country, to not pull this ****. That's expected from anyone who has top secret clearance, and I fully hold him to those standards which he chose to abide by and then decided to break for no other reason than his own conscience in the best case scenario, and because he's another Ames in the worst.
Didnt realize people were this naive to think this wasnt going on. How can you prevent attacks if you dont gain intelligence? We are spoiled
Is there a difference between Hong Kong and mainland China, while we're making distinctions? Administration officials swore an oath to uphold the Constitution (which I should note is about 70% of the country). They violated it at least once (as recorded by their own secret courts), and now we can begin to see why this secret court did consider this secret program a violation of the spirit of the Fourth Amendment. secret courts, secret laws, secret methods. How very...PATRIOTic.
Given that Snowden seems to have vanished, no for now, I'm not making distinctions. Good job moron, have fun with the Chinese police as they grill you for every last detail so they can **** with American security even more.
As someone just in both yes there is a distinction to a point. The PRC has preserved many civil liberties in Hong Kong but make no mistake that they maintain overall control. So while there are elections for the legislative body the PRC still has the final say on the Chief Executive. In the case of Snowden from what I have been hearing is that Hong Kong still has an extradition treaty with the US so if the US requested it and had a formal indictment Hong Kong would be obligated to send him back. If Snowden requested asylum Hong Kong's asylum law is currently in flux so he might be able to stay for awhile while that law is sorted out. That said if the PRC really saw an interest in keeping or sending him back to the US that likely would happen. I doubt though that the PRC would try to keep him to avoid causing a bigger rift with the US over this issue and I suspect Snowden whereabouts aren't known right now not because the PRC have him but because he has left Hong Kong.
Hey choose to view it that way if you want. Many do. Too taxing I guess to try to distinguish, say Ghandi, from a common burglar.
Good News! You're Not Paranoid http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-10-2013/good-news--you-re-not-paranoid via @TheDailyShow
Why should he keep his oath when his superiors both direct and far above are breaking the rule of law right in front of him? Would people willingly vote for/abide with these secret processes if they were out in the open as they're being made? Do you know how these secret court rulings are made? Were the checks and balances through separation of powers maintained when these decisions occurred? The very underpinnings of a free and open society requires its leaders to comply with the spirit of the law. Otherwise it's an arbitrary grab for money and power for everyone.
To be fair, at this point, we have no idea whether anything in PRISM violated the law. That's simply his personal opinion, but I'm not sure he's exactly qualified to decide that. Many members of Congress say they were aware of this and have no problem with it - and they are the ones that created said laws.
The problem is that Congressmen/women who have defended the programs aren't really upfront about what the NSA does with that information, so it's ambiguous whether they really are aware of the mechanisms and denying it because the methods are unpopular...or that they really don't know how it works. How many of them have really read and understood the Patriot Act? But at least it's the right thing to do...so at least that's one aspect that they are as similar as those they claim to represent. I'm pretty sure they're justifying legality through the court rulings, but that those rulings are deliberately opaque and needlessly complex shows as much as they having something to hide from its voters as an individual/future-potential-precog-criminal exhibiting the same "profile" in their database. It's richly ironic.