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Benghazi-gate
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

At its simplest, he signed an oath to defend state secrets, then violated it by stealing, and presumably transferring to foreign agencies, more secrets than anyone this side of Private Manning.

The NSA metadata gathering and analysis has been known for many years; we saw news photos of its pre-Utah facilities way back in the Bush administration. The bigger problem, the one that makes him a traitor, is the computers full of military and state secrets not yet discussed in the media.

No HONEST politician gives a damn who you call, test, or meet with. The data SHOULD be used in global scale pattern recognition analysis designed to detect behavioral and geographic patterns indicative of terrorist activities. THEN, if deemed necessary on a case-by-case basis, it can enable authorized agencies to identify, monitor, intercept, and/or prosecute guilty parties. IOW, it shouldn't know who's doing what to whom until the "what" makes the "who" a national danger to the "whom", so to speak, with the U.S. usually being the "whom".

What really makes the concept so egregious to me is the iceberg of abuse by this administration via the IRS, EPA, DOJ, etc. Anyone involved with any of this should be under federal prosecution.

Even then, it is emerging that we've seen only the tip of this iceberg. We peons don't know enough about what beans have been spilled to definitively declare Manning or Snowden anything other than traitors. IMO, "hero" qualifies only if everything they revealed improved national security AND the entire chain of command was so guilty the problems were not solvable by any other means. Manning and Snowden are not qualified to make those judgments.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is startling. Both Iso and Bard have made coherent and persuasive arguments! Let me add a bit, but start with Ellsberg. Ellsberg too broke the law, and was willing to go to jail to reveal lies that had been kept secret and had been used to justify/rationalize the Vietnam war. He only got away with it because the Nixon administration broke laws in gathering evidence, leaving them unable to prosecute him. He was a brave man, and remains, by many accounts, an insufferable egotist--like many who do things out of the ordinary.

I think that both Manning and Snowden went way too far, and went about it in probably the wrong way. If Manning had leaked only the cover-up of the helicopter shooting, he might have had a defense that he was obliged to not participate in the cover-up of a crime. But once he was on that slope, he slid quickly into a position of substituting his judgment for others on many matters that didn't involve a crime. I agree with Isobars on this account.

Similarly, while it is a good thing that Snowden triggered a discussion of spying on American citizens and meta-data, he went way to far. When the Securities Act was first proposed, I thought that a rare coalition of lefties with an ACLU bent, and righties with a Libertarian bent, would stop it or at least make it reasonable. (Remember, Bush had been slapped down by the Supreme Court and asked for this authority--to do what he had been doing since 9-11.) No such luck, not even much of an adult debate. Maybe we are less panicky now, but I think that Bard is right--it will take a coalition of right and left to remove this power from the discretion of the Imperial President--something that has rarely been done over the era since WW II. Had Snowden started with the Congressional staff in charge of oversight of the FISA program, or limited the nature of leaks to that, he would have a better case of being a whistle-blower of questionable activities. Again, as many whistle-blowers are difficult people, he thought his judgment was all that mattered and went way too far. My only concern here is blaming the program--a Bush era program that I opposed when it was proposed--on Obama.

One more point that has some subtlety. There is a much larger question, and appropriate debate, about what the modern technology era has done to privacy. (The current Supreme Court is much less likely to find a Constitutional source for a right of privacy than the California Supreme Court.) An argument can be made that we have waived our right of privacy, whatever that might be, in allowing Facebook and other internet firms to accumulate meta-data in order to target us with specific advertising. It is at least a bit inconsistent to argue for libertarian policies that allow corporations to assemble and sell data about us--but then think that the government should be the only entity that can't buy the data. It is still not clear to me that FISA is assembling any meta data that is not already being assembled by the tech firms.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BOOO! It is that simple to get us to close 22 embassies.

All this because a dozen throwbacks to the 7th century hijacked 4 airplanes and crashed them? I thought taking my shoes off at the airport was bad enough. Our founding fathers understood all so clearly.

If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both. Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. Ben Franklin.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

IMO, Ben was wrong. We have to sacrifice some freedoms if we expect to remain free. The old "Freedom is not free" axiom is rather obvious, IMO, in everything from global politics to traffic laws and eating Twinkies.
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windoggi



Joined: 22 Feb 2002
Posts: 2743

PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

Ben Franklin

_________________
/w\
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/uk-dea-irs-idUKBRE9761B620130807

According to a recent article, the average American commits 3 felonies a day. As the old saying goes, they could indict a ham sandwich if they wanted to.
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

windoggie wrote:
"you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

Ben Franklin

Franklin: "Sweetie, can I pick your nose?"

Sweetie: "Sure, Ben."

Sweeie: "Ben! That's not my nose!"

Franklin: "And that's not my finger. All fingers look grey in the dark, Sweetie."
.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 8:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
According to a recent article, the average American commits 3 felonies a day.

At http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx are several examples of Silvergate's felonies. None of them involves "average" behavior by "average" citizens.

BTW, in that second case, Unser quoted the federal agent charging him as saying, “Bobby, the Sierra Club got a hold of Washington, D.C., and ordered us to give you a ticket if we found your snowmobile in the wilderness.” The Sierra Club goons had it in for him because of his widely known anti-Wilderness Act stance. However, there is very little "average" about Unser or his actions. My last conversation with him was astride our ORVs on restricted federal property, and the difference was that he knew it was restricted and I didn't. That was my last felony that I know of, and it was close to 20 years ago.

Even the cyberstalking and libel you see almost every day here from the likes of pueno, Chandler, KC, mac, Mo, and the rest of my killfiled list of fine upstanding violators of WA state law are "merely" gross misdemeanors under RCW 9.61.260:Cyberstalking and RCW 9.58.010:libel, worthy of "merely" a few years in jail and an annual income or two. (Preemptive, relevant, and legally justified element of their ubiquitous false response to that: prove it.)
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:

Even the cyberstalking and libel you see almost every day here from the likes of pueno, Chandler, KC, mac, Mo, and the rest of my killfiled list...

Cyberstalking and libel! I love it! You must have learned all that from Brucie, bless him.

Of course, you can't see any of it because we're all on your killfile list...

...so how would you know?

You just don't like people advertising your hypocritical disability payments.

Laughing Laughing Laughing
.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh my goodness! You mean that a totally innocent individual like isobars, who is well known for minding his own business, is being brutally bullied and victimized by liberal hordes of cyber-criminals right here on the iWindsurf forums? Heaven forbid! What an outrage! Who would have guessed that we have better than 30 left wing cyber-bullies stalking a helpless senior right in our own backyard.
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