The Big Ass Second Term/Politics thread part III

[Rose]

I agree that Snowden has kicked off a healthy debate.

I completely disagree that the Russian government is the lesser of two evils. And completely disagree that Russia doesn't spies on its allies.

I assume you're an American?

Compare Edward Snowden to Alexander Litvinenko.

If 6 years go by and Snowden is not full of polonium-210, we'll have our answer.

So, what exactly is your problem with what Snowden did (and/or how he did it), if you believe he kicked off a healthy debate?

Agree to disagree on the Russians being the lesser of two evils, although they did get busted for trying to put spyware on the G20 computers because they're idiots. Yes, I'm American.

I don't think Litvinenko is a fair comparison. He betrayed his corrupt government in secrecy before going all out and making sure that everyone and their brother knew about what the FSB was doing, how Putin was put in power, etc etc. More importantly, that government has a very deep history of assassinating dissenters/traitors.

Whereas, Snowden just said **** the US in the most public way possible and left, because he knew the court system would be against him until the tides turned. After the Supreme Court ultimately decides whether the NSA/Five Eyes are legal he'll be back. And personally I'd much rather face the American Supreme Court than the FSB.

[KevinNYC]

So, what exactly is your problem with what Snowden did (and/or how he did it), if you believe he kicked off a healthy debate?

Agree to disagree on the Russians being the lesser of two evils, although they did get busted for trying to put spyware on the G20 computers because they're idiots. Yes, I'm American.

I don't think Litvinenko is a fair comparison. He betrayed his corrupt government in secrecy before going all out and making sure that everyone and their brother knew about what the FSB was doing, how Putin was put in power, etc etc. More importantly, that government has a very deep history of assassinating dissenters/traitors.

Whereas, Snowden just said **** the US in the most public way possible and left, because he knew the court system would be against him until the tides turned. After the Supreme Court ultimately decides whether the NSA/Five Eyes are legal he'll be back. And personally I'd much rather face the American Supreme Court than the FSB.

Wait, you admit the Russians have a very deep history of assassinating dissenters and but you still think America is worse? The court system should be against Snowden because there is absolutely no doubt he committed multiple felonies.

Fred Kaplan in responding to that Time editorial I linked to above, make several good points why Snowden doesn't qualify as a whistleblower. Including the facts that a couple of dozen of his coworkers lost their jobs because they trusted him and he ****ed them over.

[KevinNYC]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...df2_story.html

A rejuvenated al-Qaeda force asserted control over the western Iraqi town of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, the Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three- way war.

[KevinNYC]

Interesting read on the three types of snooping Snowden revealed who responds to which type.

[Rose]

Wait, you admit the Russians have a very deep history of assassinating dissenters and but you still think America is worse? The court system should be against Snowden because there is absolutely no doubt he committed multiple felonies.

Fred Kaplan in responding to that Time editorial I linked to above, make several good points why Snowden doesn't qualify as a whistleblower. Including the facts that a couple of dozen of his coworkers lost their jobs because they trusted him and he ****ed them over.

And the court system should be against a lot of politicians because they've committed felonies, no? In terms of killing their own...Russians are more likely. In terms of who I'd rather be aligned with right now if I'm Snowden it's definitely Russia.

I wouldn't count him as a whistleblower either. I just want to know what exactly is your problem with what Snowden did (and/or how he did it), if you believe he kicked off a healthy debate? Because it seems to me like you have no problem with what he did just how he did it. Which I can see why, but I think how he did it was the best course of action. He just shouldn't have lied while doing so/ given the Guardian inaccurate information.

[falc39]

Wow. What an argument. People on the internet misunderstanding something. What will they think of next.

Without Snowden, that task force would have never existed. Without the task force, the recommendations (and hopefully the following reforms) would not exist. That's why whenever the task force is brought up in everyday conversation it is nine times out of ten in Snowden's favor and to his credit. Easy enough to understand?

Remember Snowden came out of the gate lying; saying he had the authority to wiretap the president's phone or read his email. That's a lie. It's illegal for anyone in the NSA to do so and as a network/systems guy not even near his job description. To Snowden those are mere technical issues. Snowden doesn't agree with the NSA legal mandate of collecting signals intelligence on foreign targets. He doesn't think we should be keeping an eye on China. Feel feel to go back and point out all my posts where I criticized Bush and Cheney for spying on China.

Wait, you admit the Russians have a very deep history of assassinating dissenters and but you still think America is worse? The court system should be against Snowden because there is absolutely no doubt he committed multiple felonies.

You make it sound like the NSA is very organized and good at keeping tabs on its personnel and what they are doing on their jobs. If only that were the case, we wouldn't be having this discussion now, would we?

Funny how you speak of lying and felonies. You know who else lied and embarrassed the nation? I'll give you a hint: He works at a high position for the NSA and is walking around freely without any punishment. Amazingly, he still has his job. Isn't perjury a felony? Oh, but wait, he is one of Obama's cronies, so I'm sure you're cool with it like you always are

[KevinNYC]

Man Who Understands 8% Of Obamacare Vigorously Defends It From Man Who Understands 5%

[KevinNYC]

Clapper's lawyer, the General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, says he didn't lie. Blames it on the context of the question. The last bit is the most interesting.

This incident shows the difficulty of discussing classified information in an unclassified setting and the danger of inferring a person’s state of mind from extemporaneous answers given under pressure. Indeed, it would have been irrational for Mr. Clapper to lie at this hearing, since every member of the committee was already aware of the program.

[KevinNYC]

Looking up what Wyden said at the time, I can across this editorial from the NY Times.

This was not, by the way, the first time data-collection came up at a Senate hearing. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2006, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked whether the government had accumulated large amounts of data on Americans’ routine phone calls. “The programs and activities you ask about, to the extent that they exist, would be highly classified,” Mr. Gonzales said.

You have to wonder about giving a position of vast responsibility to someone who can beat Mr. Gonzales in dishonesty.

[KeylessEntry]

Clapper's general counsel says he didn't lie. Blames it on the context of the question. The last bit is the most interesting.

Wrong. Maybe you should read your NY times opinion pieces a little more closely before posting, because the article you linked points out that clapper did lie, he just lied unintentionally (allegedly, according to his lawyer, lol).

I like the paragraph directly above the one you quoted

When we pointed out Mr. Clapper’s mistake to him, he was surprised and distressed. I spoke with a staffer for Senator Wyden several days later and told him that although Mr. Clapper recognized that his testimony was inaccurate, it could not be corrected publicly because the program involved was classified.

[KeylessEntry]

[QUOTE=KevinNYC]No. I'm not a fan of Snowden. He has that toxic combination of arrogance, naivete and paranoia that you find in a lot of hacker/anarchist types.

You get the paranoid in statements like this: "I don

[KevinNYC]

Wrong. Maybe you should read your NY times opinion pieces a little more closely before posting,

Wrong, how? You may want to reread my post a little more closely before posting. Because I didn't say if I agreed with the op-ed at all.

Originally Posted by KevinNYC
[COLOR="Red"]A.[/COLOR] Clapper's general counsel says he didn't lie.
[COLOR="Red"]B.[/COLOR] Blames it on the context of the question.
[COLOR="Red"]C.[/COLOR] The last bit is the most interesting.

A. Fact. Not my opinion.
B. Fact. Not my opinion.
C. My opinion on a small part of the op-ed, still doesn't say anything about my opinion of the whole argument.

because the article you linked points out that clapper did lie, he just lied unintentionally

You may want to look up the word lie. Because intention is pretty big part of it.

noun: lie; plural noun: lies
1.
an intentionally false statement.

You can make misleading or false statements without lying. False or misleading describe the the statement. Lying describes the mindset behind the statement. I could say there's never been a three-peat champion in the NBA since Jordan's Bulls and not be lying. I would still be wrong and the statement would still be false. That's not enough to say I'm lying. If I forgot about Shaq's Lakers (or never knew about them), I'm not lying. I'm just wrong. If I do know that Shaq's Lakers won three times in row and I still say what I said, then I'm lying.

It's this distinction that is the basic argument the general counsel is making through out the op-ed including the paragraph you cite

(The Jan. 2 oped) repeats the allegation that James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, “lied” to Congress about the collection of bulk telephony metadata. As a witness to the relevant events and a participant in them, I know that allegation is not true.
......In that context, his answer was and is accurate.......
we pointed out Mr. Clapper’s mistake to him.........although Mr. Clapper recognized that his testimony was inaccurate,

You can believe this letter to the editor or not, but it's clearly arguing that Clapper didn't deliberately lie.

[KevinNYC]

Not everything I post here argues a point one way or the other. Sometimes it just moves the story along as with the general counsel post.

The Alberto Gonzales link was intended to advance an argument. It shows Clapper coming off worse than Gonzales, that he could have answered the question without misleading Congress and ****ing himself over. So that's Bush official 1, Obama official 0, but that can't fit into your narrative.

[KevinNYC]

I think you hate Snowden so fiercely because he is basically responsible for destroying the "good guy democrat" vaneer that you and the people you get your opinions from at the NY times have been hiding behind, exposing you for being the same as the status quo authoritarians that supported Bush when he was trampling over civil liberties.

You hate Snowden because he exposed your beloved party of democrats.

It's not because of any veneer that I dislike Snowden. He deliberately made sensational claims that he couldn't back up. "I can personally tap the President's phone, etc."

I feel that he has gone way past any civil liberty issue and exposed legal spying practices to deliberately damage the US. Why is OK to leak to the Chinese how we are spying on them?

Is it illegitimate that the US is spying on China? A country with the largest military force on Earth, nuclear weapons and an incredibly robust cyberwar division?

Same goes with Russia.

Is it OK, to offer to help spy for Brazil if they gave him asylum? That goes waaaaaaaay beyond his initial concerned citizen pose and give lies to his motives. The same goes for his threats to release more damaging information if he gets extradited.

I'm not against the US having intelligence agencies and using them. That's for starters. A lot of folks in this debate have a problem with that basic point. It would be nice to live in a world, where we don't have wars and folks aren't out to harm Americans, but I don't live it that world.

Read that Fred Kaplan article I linked to. He comes down very much where I am at in regards to Snowden.

[KevinNYC]

link

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”