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Snowden being offered amnesty if he shuts up

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 Dominion 16 Dec 2013
I guess that means that he's revealed so much that is blatantly true, already, about the "beyond their remit" activities of the NSA and other intelligence gathering agencies, that they are worried that he might reveal something even bigger?


I mean, it was apparently OK to listen in on any phone message of everyone in Germany, but beyond the pale to have Angela Merkel in that set of data. But "normal" citizens have less human rights not to be monitored than she has?

Angela Merkel should be outraged on behalf of her citizens, not on her own behalf. She is from East Germany, as was, which is still undertaking investigations into the human rights abuses inflicted upon it by the Stasi - re-constituting shredded documents et al - and she should f*cking well know exactly what abuse of surveillance of the general public by the state really means. She had prior experience.

But it's apparently OK for normal citizens, but not OK if a foreign power includes her as a normal citizen? and her government has OK'ed it for normal citizens to be monitored?

Hmmm....



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25399345



||-)
Clauso 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Dominion:

What's the difference between Gary McKinnon and the NSA?

... There's no punchline. This isn't a joke. Although I suspect that the NSAs activities go beyond naively searching for data about UFOs.
OP Dominion 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Clauso:

Ha, I had a discussion about Gary McKinnon, and Edward Snowden last week with someone who thought that Snowden is a traitor, when it is blatantly obvious that the NSA - or at least a section of them - are going far beyond what they are supposed to be doing, it's like a Robert Ludlum movel / film series.

He posited that the NSA is so lax that a small time contractor like Edward Snowden should never have had access to the information / files that he has actually leaked.

I responded, describing that episode of the X-Files - yep - where Agent Mulder had been missing for months supposedly "kidnapped by aliens" and yet his ID key pass was still good enough to be able to get him access to a secure building. ie agent missing, don't cancel his pass, don't put an alarm on it if is used, just don't bother, he still has high security access, don't bother cancelling that if he is kidnapped.

I posited that there was no way that a high level US government agency would ever be so stupid... errr...

I was apparently wrong, the Gary McKinnon episode proved that they were insecure, and the Edward Snowden incident says they still haven't learned a thing.

I had to laugh when Hong Kong was issued with a warrant for Edward James Snowden, and of course that meant that they couldn't stop Edward Joseph Snowden leaving for Moscow, as no such person existed...


OP Dominion 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Dominion:

Which leads me to wonder, exactly which James Snowden is apparently being offered a Pardon?

They didn't get his name right when - as his employer - they tried to get him extradited from Hong Kong...
andyathome 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Dominion:


> He posited that the NSA is so lax that a small time contractor like Edward Snowden should never have had access to the information / files that he has actually leaked.

> I responded, describing that episode of the X-Files - yep - where Agent Mulder had been missing for months supposedly "kidnapped by aliens" and yet his ID key pass was still good enough to be able to get him access to a secure building. ie agent missing, don't cancel his pass, don't put an alarm on it if is used, just don't bother, he still has high security access, don't bother cancelling that if he is kidnapped.


> I was apparently wrong, the Gary McKinnon episode proved that they were insecure, and the Edward Snowden incident says they still haven't learned a thing.


>

I am confused by your post. Did you mean to say 'He posited that the NSA would never be so lax that a small time contractor like Edward Snowden should ever have had access to the information'? Otherwise what you've said doesn't seem to make sense.
I'm also a bit confused by your assumption that the 'X-Files' was real.
andyathome 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Dominion:

But then again. On the other hand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25410064
OP Dominion 16 Dec 2013
In reply to andyathome:

What I was suggesting was that the NSA appear to have as little sense of security as the script writers of a TV series who don't seem to think that a Security Service would disable the card pass of an Agent who had been "kidnapped".

ie TV thinks that Security Agencies are really that stupid, reality seems to suggest they are really that stupid, too...
In reply to Dominion:

www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/nsa-phone-surveillance-likely-unconstitutional-judge
OP Dominion 16 Dec 2013
In reply to andyathome:

And yes, Snowden should never have had access to the information that he appears to have had access to.

Poor security, similar to the poor security that allowed Gary McKinnon to access their systems more that 10 years ago.

Did they learn nothing from that?
OP Dominion 16 Dec 2013
In reply to Stuart (aka brt):

Well, good on the judge.

> www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/nsa-phone-surveillance-likely-unconstitutional-judge

That's been blatantly obvious from the start.

And again, one thing that appears to be revealed is that european governments granted access rights to the NSA to carry out surveillance on their citizens, and only complained about it when they found out that MPs and Prime Ministers and Presidents were also under surveillance.


It was all OK apart from that, who cares about the general public's human rights? But trace Angela Merkel's phone - when you have permission to tap the phone of everyone in Germany? Suddenly it's not OK...

Hypocrisy at it's worst...

And Merkel should know that more than anyone.
 jkarran 17 Dec 2013
In reply to Clauso:

> What's the difference between Gary McKinnon and the NSA?

Power.


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