That's the theory....then there's reality....keep on regurgitating your spiel for I am sure that there are sufficient naive people out there happy to believe that every thing is fine and dandy when the NSA is defending Americans from those nasty foreign terrorists.
Care to provide anything of substance to back up your claim of reality (or even a statement of what you think reality is)? You may view me as regurgitating spiel, but at least I back mine up with substance.
Fucking buffoons in our government! What the fuck really goes on within the realm of the powers that be... that they can't even muster the scintilla of being above board by getting a proper warrant. Either they are complete morons or completely without a conscience. Tigerfan, I'd really love to believe things are much closer to what you say. It would be wonderful for America and the world. But the things we find out about just how deep the secrecy and corruption has gone in the past, plus with how greatly technology has advanced and will continue to do so ... you just are too much of a Boy Scout here. I hate being cynical, but forewarned is forearmed.
They did have a proper warrant. See Article 8, Section 3 in this link (
https://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/documents/105/td003.pdf) for the agreement between the US and Hong Kong. As you can see, it makes no mention of the requirement of an international warrant (INTERPOL warrant.) It only requires a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate and evidence of wrongdoing. These were submitted to Hong Kong. However, they were looking for a way out, so they made up something to justify it. The procedures were done right.
And I don't buy your "government is corrupt and against us" conspiracy theories. As I've asked in most of these threads, where is the evidence that there has been any illegal targeting or collection of Americans? It just isn't there. When you show me actual evidence, then we'll talk. Just assuming a party is guilty because I want to believe it and a proven liar has said it isn't enough.
I note that you do not allow that Congress probably had no idea what it was doing, even if the legislation was read, much less thought about.
I note that you do not allow that the secret judiciary almost never met a submission it didn't like.
I note that you do not suggest that executive oversight was meaningful. But they did understand some of it: NSA spies on US persons to a limited extent and gets GCHQ to spy on all other US persons.
In point of fact if NSA has no idea to this day what Snowden accessed and took there was no oversight.
You seemed adverse to use the word "meaningful" in front of "oversight."
Your argument - as middle school civics as it is - falls within the "catch and release" category.
I am adverse to the idea that meaningful has any objective meaning to it at all. Everything that has occurred has followed the lawful process outlined in the Constitution. Whether you personally feel that is "meaningful" or not is irrelevant. If crimes have been committed or the Constitutional process has been violated, let's see some evidence. That seems to be severely lacking in many of these posts. Existence of a surveillance program is not proof of its use against American citizens. No proof of its use against American citizens has been provided. The only thing we have is the word of a traitor who clearly had a vendetta against the government. If he wanted so badly to get the word out that the government is breaking all of these laws and violating the Constitution, where is the proof? Where are samples of all of this collection they're doing against Americans?
So I'll note that your first point is complete speculation. You have no idea what Congress knew. Premises that contain the word probably don't tend to be backed up with much fact, only speculation.
I'll note that your second point is again speculation because you have no idea what the "secret judiciary" allows and doesn't allow. And regardless, it is the court set up by law to make these decisions. The judges who sit on that court are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, so I'm sure you'll have a hard time making the case it's unconstitutional.
I'll note that your third point is yet again speculation because you have no idea what oversight the executive branch subjects these programs to. You like to back your point up with more speculation (do you have any proof that the NSA spied on Americans and do you have any proof that GCHQ has spied on Americans and turned it over to the NSA?) If there is such lax oversight, where are all of the cases of these innocent Americans being prosecuted for all of this surveillance they are being subjected to?
I'll note tht in your final point, you have no idea what NSA knows and doesn't know. They're not go to itemize lists of what they have records of Snowden taking and print it in the newspaper. It's like any criminal investigation - they're not going to give a play-by-play of the investigation.
You seem adverse to the idea of requiring evidence to prove any truth and seem to just accept speculation and theories at face value. I wonder how you would feel if you were dragged into court and convicted of a crime with the case against you being nothing but speculation and conspiracy theories.
So far I haven't heard any other country denounce Snowden or his actions. You would think that as this plays out on the world stage that if other countries saw what he did as espionage, they would denounce his actions or at the least announce that they would extradite him if he enters their jurisdiction. Have I missed any outcry from the countries that believe the United States Government is in the right?
As it says above in Telstra's signature line, never listen to a one sided story and judge.
@ tigerfan, If you used the channels that you have for reporting abuses, and your efforts are ignored or dismissed repeatedly, and you know for a fact, that these abuses you are reporting violate the constitutional protections, would you continue to stay silent or would you finally alert the news media?
How do we know that Snowden didn't use these channels before going to the public airwaves? Because our government tells us so?
I do not like to mistrust my government, but my government has proven itself to be untrustworthy over a series of several administrations.
Really? Why would any country care about the US's problem with someone committing espionage by releasing their secrets? And other countries have denounced Snowden. Angela Merkel from Germany for one. Great Britain denounced him. And many others have done so by specifically stating they will not give him asylum if he tried.
I would agree with your listening to a one-sided story. However, that applies in all cases. Many of you seem to be listening to Snowden's claim and accepting them as fact without requiring any evidence to support his claim that the government is spying on Americans.
Since my channels include everyone from my direct supervisor to my Office of General Counsel to my Inspector General to the Attorney General to Members of Congress, I would say that if everyone of those channels returned back answers I didn't want, then obviously the concern is not illegal or I have a view on it that differs from what the law says. I would under no circumstances take information I was sworn to protect to the news media simply because I personally believed it was wrong.
Since I'm not investigating the situation, I don't know what Edward Snowden did or didn't report. However, he has not once claimed that he followed any chain of command or reporting system. Instead, he's made several comments to the fact that he saw this information and "felt like something had to be done."
And exactly how has the government proven itself untrustworthy? You're still alive. You're still posting your thoughts and opinions under your rights of free speech online. You're a free man who hasn't been imprisoned for speaking out against the government. I just don't understand what you feel you've lost. If anything, you have more rights and opportunities today than you did 15-20 years ago.
Irrelevant. That's a prescription for sliding quietly into a total police state: so long as there's someone worse, don't complain!
No -- we already live in a country where the courts say the police can lie to us. So out operating assumption, since the police have never neglected to use a power handed to them, should be that they are indeed lying to us.
Not irrelevant at all. You provide no proof of a loss of any rights or liberties yet you complain constantly about it. It's because you don't know what losing rights and liberties is because you've never experienced it. Try going to a friendly middle east country (Qatar for instance.) Try being gay there. Try saying what you think about the government there. Try having a muscle magazine on you when you enter the country. And this is one of the more westernized countries out there. So what I'm actually saying is that you need to get a perspective on what it is you're complaining about before you actually start complaining because it's very possible you're complaint isn't really valid.
And what are you talking about with courts and police lying to you?
