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[GlyphGryph]

I was wondering where you where, Redking. You're not the first I've seen say that, by the way. Why do you think Bradley Manning went down the route he did?

He just wasn't very good at leaking. He tried to go to "proper" news channels but couldn't get anyone to take his stuff and eventually ended up at wikileaks, who he thought was a proper news channel (and in many ways, it is and was) and would take his stuff and get the important bits out to people.

His major misstep seems to have been that his views on "reputable news organizations" don't really dovetail with those of many other people. If he'd been more skilled, though, he probably would have been able to handle the whole thing a lot better (and I'm glad he didn't, since I doubt any newspaper would have published the things that kicked off the Arab spring, something for which he is pretty much solely responsible).

[Zangi]

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

why

Ah... yes... the power of ignorance and denial...  It is a strong amongst humanity.

[Scoops Novel]

I was wondering where you where, Redking. You're not the first I've seen say that, by the way. Why do you think Bradley Manning went down the route he did?

He just wasn't very good at leaking. He tried to go to "proper" news channels but couldn't get anyone to take his stuff and eventually ended up at wikileaks, who he thought was a proper news channel (and in many ways, it is and was) and would take his stuff and get the important bits out to people.

His major misstep seems to have been that his views on "reputable news organizations" don't really dovetail with those of many other people. If he'd been more skilled, though, he probably would have been able to handle the whole thing a lot better (and I'm glad he didn't, since I doubt any newspaper would have published the things that kicked off the Arab spring, something for which he is pretty much solely responsible).

I remember something about this, but not nearly enough. Please PM me more information, or if it's relevant to the thread, post it here.

[Eagleon]

Even here, where privacy is more of an issue than in the US, I think the majority just doesn't realize the extent of this. I keep hearing "I have nothing to hide" from people, until I point out that future employers might object to their passed-out-drunk-pics on Facebook. Everyone is used to mistrusting the government, but they only care if it costs them money.

What people need to really understand is that there are people that have something to hide, people that they should be interested in protecting. Passed-out-drunk pics notwithstanding, there are legitimate abuses of power in government every day, or else the EEO offices for every federal agency would be very, very quiet. If federal employees can't get a word in against their employer, their employer will be doing things you find very disturbing and destructive, guaranteed, such as taking pay-offs from car companies, banks, oil giants, etc. etc. etc. etc. The road to deep-set corruption isn't so long that people shouldn't be infuriated by this.

I don't think people really mistrust their government, they think that they're in control because they vote, or someone they know votes, or opinion polls are in their favor. So they shrug it off, and things get steadily less in their power. The fact that we're talking about whether we should be going after the whistleblower instead of demanding the NSA director's prosecution and incarceration, and impeachment if not prosecution for every person involved with this thing, says volumes to me.

[XXSockXX]

Well, people here do mistrust the government to a certain extent, though not as much as they mistrust big companies. There was a lot of complaining when they made bank accounts completely transparent for authorities a few years ago, since that makes small scale tax evasion much harder to pull off. But then, you're probably right, people shrug things off, because they ultimately hope someone up there will do the right thing.
Ultimately it boils down to double standards, the US protects a lot of people that are persecuted elsewhere, but if one of their guys disagrees with something, freedom suddenly is relative. And if we weigh in on this, because our laws were broken, we are probably "Old Europe" again.

[Sir Finkus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22850901
Well then
:edit: Please actually read the article.  The headline is overly sensationalistic and implies that he's gone without explanation.  I lost respect for the BBC because of it.

[Scelly9]

So, now taking bets, CIA or On the run?

[XXSockXX]

I'm going with "on the run".

Seems plausible, if this was true:

I've just read that Snowden is seeking asylum in Iceland. There is a loophole however:
If China does not extradict him, the US-authorities plan to declare his passport invalid. China deports stateless people to the country they travelled from. (Says a german newssite citing rumors from Washington...)

[Sir Finkus]

I'm going with "on the run".

Seems plausible, if this was true:

I've just read that Snowden is seeking asylum in Iceland. There is a loophole however:
If China does not extradict him, the US-authorities plan to declare his passport invalid. China deports stateless people to the country they travelled from. (Says a german newssite citing rumors from Washington...)

If you try and get on a plane with a revoked passport what actually happens?  Is it up to the country you're trying to fly to?

[XXSockXX]

If you try and get on a plane with a revoked passport what actually happens?  Is it up to the country you're trying to fly to?

No, up to the country you're flying from. And you're not getting on the plane without papers. Everything else may vary, some countries will deport you to where you came from, but that country may refuse you and then you're kinda in a limbo.
I know for example that Germany will not deport stateless palestinians. It has been tried to deport stateless palestinians that were suspected to have libanese passports, but Libanon refuses to accept them and claims they are not citizens. So they can stay.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, I suspect he's been offered asylum as well. But there's no guarantee he'll actually show up again - going off the radar at this point is potentially bad news.

[penguinofhonor]

:edit: Please actually read the article.  The headline is overly sensationalistic and implies that he's gone without explanation.  I lost respect for the BBC because of it.

This is the most important line in this topic right now.

[kaijyuu]

BBC does relatively sensational article titles all the time. It's not a new phenomenon.

[Owlbread]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22850901
Well then
:edit: Please actually read the article.  The headline is overly sensationalistic and implies that he's gone without explanation.  I lost respect for the BBC because of it.

If you lost respect for the BBC because of that headline you clearly don't watch/read enough of their stuff.

[olemars]

I'd say decent chance he's at an embassy. Hopefully not the US embassy.

RedKing, couldn't you get in trouble for approving of whistleblowers? Also, what do you think of PRISM, if you can tell us about it?

palsch: what your aticle describe doesn't seem so far removed from what Snowden claim. The main differences with the wildest claims are that 1) The internet companies know what they give the NSA, as they are answering FISC orders, and 2) It all goes through a FISA court.

But now, the process of handing over the informations through PRISM may well be automated. And given the tradition in the US government to interpret the law in far-reaching way (like the fact that apparently Obama's talking over a meeting of whether or not to kill someone fullfill due process), I wouldn't be surprised if analysts had access to the informations by default, with the FISA court analyzing the stuff afterward.


P.S. Also, as a non-US citizen, fuck your government guys.

Unfortunately, our European governments aren't much better, which is why they're rather timid in approaching the matter. Read up on the Data Retention Directive, it's not that different from the Verizon reveal. Also the swedish FRA law. Also the danish "expansion pack" to the DRD, in which they're storing every 500 data packet of internet traffic.

It's going to expand in the name of security as long as people are apathetic to the issue.