So we can expect massively disproportionate actions like this.
And you know what... that's great. Because you know what it does? It reinforces a sense that at the heart of the American government there's an intelligence community that's turned into a feral beast. A beast that seemingly can't be controlled by anyone we elect and it's wandering around the world pissing off people indiscriminately in its wild attempts to get Snowden back.
Snowden has revealed the nature of the beast and the beast itself can't help but make things worse for itself.
So with this latest escapade, they've thoroughly pissed off the South Americans, who will likely be absolutely furious with America, but even more so europe. The european populace is going to be scratching its head wondering why the hell they're denying flights into their airspace at the behest of people who apparently spend all their time spying on them?
Seems like a complete and utter mess to me. The beast can't help itself, it's panicking, running around the world doing increasingly stupid and desperate things to get Snowden back.
The beast has lost its anonymity, it's showing itself up by taking actions obviously not in the best interests of the USA but rather out of pure panic.
It's making itself vulnerable.
It's not vulnerable, it's more dangerous.
It's just that more people are finally see the men behind the curtains and realizing that they are just as petty and human as the rest of us, but have insane amounts of power. And are not willing to give up any of that power or even display any true global leadership or responsibility.
Realize that "these people" have absolute power. And as time goes on, don't need as much as the population around to maintain their status or luxuries. What would you do in their place if faced with a angry populous?
I would behave so much better than when faced with an apathetic one.
To me this is like the argument that "prostitution avoids rape", it's blackmail.
I can't remember it ever happening. Dictators can fly around the world with impunity but they'll contrive to ground the plane of a democratically elected president and search it, for some guy who published a bunch of powerpoint presentations?
And they did all this... with all the consequences it's going to have and they didn't even get Snowden!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...
Sometimes I think the powers that be are poking an enormous sleeping dog with a stick just for giggles.
"We had to destroy the [village] in order to save it" doesn't really apply if you consider, say, New York City.
As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 (and, of course, successful terrorist acts over the last decade) demonstrated, low tech is still Good Enough for a lot of purposes.
The US gets away with much of what it does because of the enormous US market. But at some point other countries will realize that the cost of that market has gotten too high and then a large chunk of the the US' power will dissolve.
If you're the leader of a sovereign country and try to make decisions that clash with wishes of USA, they will make your own life difficult.
Interesting play.
In the end sovereign relations is little different from playground antics; pleading your case from the stance of rationality and/or fairness doesn't get you very far, only once someone is seriously hurt do things change (sometimes not ever then; Stubenville anyone?).
That's the first I've heard of this line of thought. Is there research on this statement? It's pretty counter-intuitive to think that the true power in a relationship lies with the subordinate party. I don't see how slaves, military personnel, or even office workers could be considered truly powerful over their superiors. In some cases saying "no" would lead to serious inconvenience and possible misery. In other cases it could lead to death.
Obviously you couldn't get that many people to allow themselves to be tortured to death to prevent future enslavement, but the thought exercise makes it appear that the GP's assertion has merit even if it's not entirely practical.
Doesn't look like a big win to me. Native Americans were not very popular as slaves, so they were simply killed instead...
I think in the end it's all a matter of how you sell it. There wasn't a unifying story for all those enslaved africans to rally behind. In the end there needs to be a narrative that pushes people into openly rebelling against the status quo.
There are no masters, only slaves. None command, when none obey.
No non-US entity is ever going to give high-value confidential data to Google, GMail users, Android phones, AWS, companies hosted on AWS, Apple, iPhones, or Skype ever again.
Even if NSA swears up and down that they've stopped spying, how could we ever know if they're lying? (We already know they're more than willing to lie under oath.)
France, Italy, Spain and Portugal all agreed to deny this aircraft access to their airspace. Europe may be furious with America, but they are certainly not showing it by their actions.
Europe's bark is worse than it's bite - and America will be very satisfied with that.
Unfortunately, I doubt that. I think that anything the US does in its search/example-making of Snowden will be accepted by the majority of Americans as reasonable and even virtuous.
They're in total control of the beast. They want the beast. They could end the beast at any time.
You think that Bush's and Obama's massive expansions of government weren't all about amassing and maintaining political power? Those guys both believe that more government power/money solves all woes.
Where are all the big government apologists in this thread? Let's hear a defense for the inevitable abuse of power that unchecked government growth leads to.
Tell us more about how those of us who believe in investing in public education and transit infrastructure while cutting the military/security budget are really the ones in favor of this military/security program.
Don't forget to include how the Tea Party are the heroes here. You can cite all the redstate.com contributors calling Snowden a traitor as evidence. (http://www.redstate.com/2013/07/01/tech-at-night-snowdens-on...) Or you could go to David Brooks or basically every conservative except for Rand Paul.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should drop the tribal BS and recognize that this issue cuts across party lines.
I understand the "almost true scotsman" as a reference to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman but I'm not really sure how it's applicable.
> You think that Bush's and Obama's massive expansions of government weren't all about amassing and maintaining political power? Those guys both believe that more government power/money solves all woes.
This is clearly bipartisan. He's attacking both democrats and republicans and suggesting that on many issues there's little difference. I don't believe it's possible to argue that it's partisan. It attacks both sides.
It might be tribal, but on an axis orthogonal to the traditional left/right political spectrum.
It's at I'm afraid to say what I want to say about the topic online.
It's:
1. Decentralized (real p2p, no central servers)
2. Encrypted communication
3. I'd even add: Easier to set up than encrypted email: Install -> Exchange "certificates" -> Done.
IMO, it's currently the best way to communicate.
I found RetroShare worthy of its own submission, given today's climate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5983913
When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners. -- John J. Chapman
Retroshare is nice, but can't be used to talk in public as a member of the public with other members of the public. I mean, a few friends talking freely behind closed doors? Even dictatorships have that.
Don't take this wrong, I know you meant to point out a cool program, and I'm not having a go at you or anyone seeking technical solutions for this.. but I think this is a social/political problem, and ultimately needs to be deal with as such, if we're ever to achieve anything real.
If talking freely is risky, because we're still in the stone age in so many ways, then I want the risks, not to shut up.
Imagine if the zebras instead had watched in horror as the first few "pioneers" got mauled... prodding each other saying "your turn", until all of them were too weak to be able to cross, even as a herd, and the crocodiles simply came out of the river and dragged them into it (which is exactly what would have happened, because the reason they cross rivers is that there is nothing left to eat on their side of it).
Not that I consider humans herd animals, or that I want to other humans who prey on humans so much that I would cast them as a different species. But I still think there is a lesson for us in there, too. Cowardice, as rational as it may seem, simply doesn't pay in the long run. Until we learn that, we're stuck.
> a few friends talking freely behind closed doors? Even dictatorships have that.
But I feel that I do not have this across the Internet! It is good to be able to talk freely behind closed doors, too. This is why RetroShare seems to solve an important problem for me :)
If the next time I visit the US I have my laptop confiscated, my luggage searched or have my entry denied, so be it. I'll know that's because the US no longer welcomes free speech and plan my future travels and career moves accordingly.
I'll add that, if that ever happens, it'll be a sad day for me. I still have faith a country founded on principles rather than ethnicity or geography means something. I'd like to keep that faith, if possible.
When I exercise my fifth amendment right to silence when I am questioned upon attempting to re-enter my home country, I get arrested and harassed and threatened for hours and hours.
The phones are all tapped, the cops rule everything, and all of the basic rights we were told we had are now exercised only at the mercy of the military rulers.
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/q71/s720x720/100...
A few years ago I went back to the US to visit the crypto museum (incidentally, right across the street from NSA in Fort Meade). It was my first trip to the DC area and the first night I got in, I went over to the Jefferson memorial. A sign on the pathway approaching the dome warns visitors that due to federal law, firearms are prohibited on the grounds.
Jefferson would be proud, I'm sure.
[note to non-US citizens: It's basic right #2 in the USA that people can own and carry firearms.]
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/07/0...
Both the NCC and the Interception Centres set up under RICA have virtually unlimited power and access, in fact every service provider is required by law to install the equivalent of Verizon's Room 641A which feeds data real-time directly to an Interception Centre.
We do know that the OIC carried out 3 million interceptions between 2006 and 2010 and the implication has been that at least some were live.
The biggest problem at the moment though is the NCC, which the Matthews Commission found regularly conducted warrantless bulk interceptions and environmental scanning. Unfortunately the Matthews Commission's recommendations went nowhere and from what I'm hearing the NCC has even fewer internal controls on what it monitors within our borders.
I just wish South Africans would have as much outrage about what happens locally as they do for what the NSA does.
Laura Poitras for example is routinely questioned for hours on entering or leaving the US, just because she made a film about Iraq. She is no danger to the US, she is not a terrorist or associated with them any more than another journalist, and yet she is harassed for her views, even before she interviewed Snowden. I believe Jacob Appelbaum is another example.
She's quite high profile, but I personally know of at least one other case of someone being detained every time they crossed the border - an ordinary apolitical person living in the US, stopped every time for hours simply because of where they were born or their name, they were never sure which. It was so frequent that they gave up living/working there.
There is a distinction here to make though; I don't think it is inherently wrong to refuse entry to the U.S./question any person who is not an American. It is not clear why that should be the case ever. (I say this as a person who found the visa system to enter the U.S. profoundly annoying.)
On the other hand, refusal of entry to American citizens is a whole different issue.
I never said that; just because I don't think a system is wrong doesn't mean that I think it is right. I am saying that the system is broken. It however is a complicated system; I don't see any possible way of making it magically better.
I am pretty clear that the U.S. can decide however it wants to to allow entry to its soil. For example, the visa process when I traveled was atrocious; yet for most Europeans under a visa waiver program, it becomes easy. It is easy to claim discrimination or complain; however, I am not a voter, there is no lobby out there complaining about why the visa process for non-Europeans is so awful.
Also, the U.S. is not special in this process. A white American traveling to Europe faces way less hassle than someone else who doesn't have the right ethnicity or the right passport does.
Most of you are becoming aware of the process when people you can relate to are being affected; my point is that this has been happening for decades with no domestic opposition to the process.
AFAIK Jake Appelbaum is a US citizen.
They can't actually refuse entry to citizens, but they sure as hell can interrogate/threaten/harass/etc. I know Jake's been harassed a bunch of times at the border (and had his laptops/phones/etc stolen under the guise of searching them - they get to keep them for 48 hours to forensically image but then never give them back).
It's happened to me, too, and I'm not even on any of these lists, I just choose not to answer any of the voluntary questions they ask of everyone coming in. Anyone who values their freedom and has watched the excellent Don't Talk To The Police video[1] will do the same, and will meet with similar harassment and abuse.
Cops in the USA are real dicks, especially the super-"patriotic" border cops, and they can and will make your day really terrible if you don't do exactly as they say (even if you have the legal right not to).
(Meant as words of understanding, not criticism.)
But if everyone censors themselves out of fear, then that's much more effective of a power for a government to have, since they barely have to do any censorship work themselves. They just need to set examples every now and then to remind people "what's waiting for them" if they dare try to expose the truth.
I've said it before around here - the most dangerous thing is not the dictator himself. He can be removed if, and only if, the population itself has a free spirit and viciously opposes him, until they remove him.
But the real threat is when part of the population starts believing in the dictator's "ideals" and principles, and defend his actions "for the good of the people", and the other part is too scared to say anything anymore. That's when a dictator can rule in "peace", for a long time, and so will his successors, because then, for "his kind", the environment is very "welcoming".
Here's a good example of the opposite of self-censorship, and what everyone should be doing:
http://mobandmultitude.com/2013/07/02/the-nsa-comes-recruiti...
I never thought I would say this, and I'm actually afraid of saying it out loud because it sounds like hyperbole. But the way I see it, the USA is becoming a totalitarian state. It won't look like any previous totalitarian regime, but many of the hallmarks are there.
Indiscriminate spying and privacy violation. Selective execution of citizens with no trial or oversight. Secret courts. Gag orders for oversight initiatives. World record in incarceration. Lifetime prison sentences for non-violent offenses. Indefinite, extrajudicial detention of prisoners. Torture. The use of plea bargains to persuade a guilty plea. Use of paramilitary forces (SWAT teams) to apprehend non-violent suspects. Asset freezes, with the consequence of rendering a fair trial impossible. Systematic persecution of whistleblowers, even those who follow the "chain of command". Harsh limits on legal protests ("free speech zones"). Persecution of investigative journalists. Overtly propagandic statements in the news media (referring to, for instance, CNN's very particular use of language in the Snowden case).
The US does not systematically persecute investigative journalists, at least not yet. But the sentiment is there, and there are cases that have crossed the line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown
http://falkvinge.net/2013/06/30/with-journalism-persecuted-t...
Needless to say, this is a gross abuse of power; the AP couldn't even challenge the seizure in court because they executed the seizure secretly. It's particularly frightening because it dissuades anyone, particularly government officials potentially privy to corrupt programs & practices, from anonymously talking to journalists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/business/media/head-of-the...
EDIT: here's a Wikipedia article on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Department_of_Justice_inve...
Everyone believes this before and while it is actually happening. The US already has literally all required elements. All that is missing is scale.
I don't believe it is useful to level accusations on a society based on such simplistic hand waving.
The details are important. The scale is important. On this very small scale there is significant resistance, what would you expect when the scale widens?
In a democracy, dissent is usually oscillatory. It will rise as public opinion takes a for all practical purposes random walk in some direction, and the people in power, who are necessarily few, develop into another direction. Then there's a bang, be it an election, an accident, a scandal, or something like Fukushima prompting the German exit from nuclear power, and "dissent" is incorporated into power, lowering the amplitude of discontent.
We are the 0.00612 percent!
Weren't you all going to protest on july 4th? Tomorrow?
I would rather Snowden still was in Moscow, but found asylum swiftly in an EU nation.. Unlikely, but I think that would be the best outcome.
These EU nations, France Portugal Italy, you think they would ever give him asylum? Europe is the backwater of the world when it comes to freedom right now. These countries are puppets of US, no more no less than Manchuko was for Japan, Vichy France, Quisling/Norway for Hitler.
If anything, behind the scenes they are running to lick ass of US, running against each other to bring Snowden to their big daddy first.
its not about karma. what is right resonates.
I humbly disagree with you though. There are many instances where heinous acts by the powerful have gone unpunished. Many of them by the US and Britain. They have had no repercussions on the perpetrators because of power.
When the brightest minds of the young Latin American population in 5-10 years time ponders an international career in the US or China, things like this will nudge a few more people to China instead. This could make a huge difference in the long-term. Big leaps can be made by relatively small teams of people.
The talented person might go to Europe, or to Canada. Or he might stay home and contribute towards the economy of his native land.
Either it's incompetence, or ruse, or a 'not-giving-a-fuck' if we know that the intelligence agencies are above the law and can act with near global impunity.
whelp. I should shut up. Probably?
[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/15/nation/na-powell15
Funnily enough, the US government itself pushed to overcome that view after WWII, by instituting the Nuremberg tribunal: they flat-out invented "international law" as we know it today, introducing the concept of a "law of humanity" that didn't know borders. This was done against the will of European rulers, who knew it would have come back to haunt them one day (which it did, when they were forced to dismantle their colonial empires).
Today, power is just one of the various factors of international relations. The fact that subsequent US governments have been hell-bent into ignoring this, will count against them whenever the inevitable redde rationem comes, be it at the hands of crazy Middle-Easterners or fed-up Europeans. History is a harsh judge.
After the International Military Tribunal there were US-led trials at Nuremberg but there were lots of different sets of trials held by the Allies in their parts of Germany and also by countries like Poland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsequent_Nuremberg_Trials
NB The IMT was in the US zone and did benefit a lot from the material support of the US.
It turns out that the IMT was a fantastic idea, probably a bit too successful -- it made more difficult for nation states to (ab)use their military forces, at least until the end of the Cold War.
I am not denying that happened. My point was that only the losing side was punished; you didn't see Roosevelt or Churchill taking the stand for the Dresden bombings? Neither did Hirohito get punished for Japan's part in the war. Realpolitik always prevailed. In fact, let us even take Iraq to this day, the UN thing that Powell did was a farce. However, did anyone get punished for that? I don't see Powell or Bush or Blair in a criminal court.
On the other hand once you have authorising them to cross your airspace usually grants them extra-territoriality. Meaning that for an reglementary standpoint you can't force a plane to land and search it. (No suspending authorisation once the plane is in the airspace, and you can't search the plane because it is considered foreign territory.
(note this is what i understand of this matter, and may not be exact)
Edit: I inaccurately wrote Austrians.
The article claims:
> Morales refuted speculation that Snowden had stowed away on the plane and allowed authorities to conduct a search.
They did indeed search the plane.
[0] http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23590259/snowden...
Updated at 14:40 UTC: landed at Las Palmas.
Austrian journalist tells me: Bolivia did not give
permission to have Morales' plane searched, but airport
policeman allowed to walk through
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) 12:00 PM July 3, 2013
Still, Bolivia's story is slowly falling apart.
There's a line you have to draw between keeping it real and getting it done. What's going on a gross misuse of power - but President Evo knew who he was going against when he publicly made note that he would consider Edwards asylum application.