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 Post Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 1:46 am 
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For the record I think anyone who criticizes one president for doing the same thing they approved of another doing is a hypocrite. The difference here is most people probably had no clue this was happening back when it started because it was so under reported. Snowden should have never had to leak the documents. The media utterly failed to do their job.

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 Post Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:33 am 
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s.i.l. wrote:
For the record I think anyone who criticizes one president for doing the same thing they approved of another doing is a hypocrite. The difference here is most people probably had no clue this was happening back when it started because it was so under reported. Snowden should have never had to leak the documents. The media utterly failed to do their job.


It has been public knowledge that the NSA (and its partner organisations abroad like GCHQ) intercept electronic communications for well over a decade. For politically disinterested people, I can understand that this comes as a surprise, but for anyone who pays attention to politics it would take some sort of willful denial to have not known this already.

That's the hypocrisy that's been annoying me - the political journalists pretending these are massive revelations in order to shift papers and sell ad-space, rather than simply a confirmation of details.

I've also been annoyed by the hypocrisy of governments here in Europe heaping scorn and recriminations on the US over this, while intelligence services in France, Britain and Germany are doing exactly the same thing.

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 Post Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:45 am 
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This comic is still just as relative, and all the funnier for it.

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 Post Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:05 am 
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under reported? What rock were you living under? It was being reported and talked about quite a bit. It was just reported with the caveat that it was for your safety and it's good for the country, while everyone that was opposing it were being called conspiracy theorists.

But notice that all the news is about Snowden and not actually about the spying.


Last edited by Jorodryn on Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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 Post Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:32 am 
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I didn't really have many IRL conversations about this, but where I went online, people opposed it when Bush did it, and were disappointed that Obama didn't halt it. I haven't seen much left-side defense of Obama's not halting it, but I'll believe it's out there.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:21 am 
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How about the bit where Snowden, after fleeing to Hong Kong, told the media that the NSA had been hacking into the computer systems of state and civilian entities in China? I mean, I'm not actually surprised or anything - he just confirmed what everyone already suspected. But he confirmed it publicly it because in his own moral judgment, the US should not have been spying on countries that it isn't at war with.

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I haven't seen much left-side defense of Obama's not halting it, but I'll believe it's out there.

I haven't heard much noise from the Congressional Democrats about it. They seem to accept the status quo.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 9:28 am 
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True. Simply being silent is enough.

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 Post Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:59 am 
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Kea wrote:
How about the bit where Snowden, after fleeing to Hong Kong, told the media that the NSA had been hacking into the computer systems of state and civilian entities in China? I mean, I'm not actually surprised or anything - he just confirmed what everyone already suspected. But he confirmed it publicly it because in his own moral judgment, the US should not have been spying on countries that it isn't at war with.



The agencies should have well defined missions, that for instance includes what in principle their targets are, and what means they are allowed to take to reach what ends. In a democratic country, thoose mission definitions should be public.

If that was the case, either the NSA could have pointed out, that according to paragraph xy secion z they are just doing their jobs, or the NSA would have overstepped their authority and that would have to be dealt with. But it seems even democratic, rule of law goverments want to keep some agencies outside of normal regulations and checks and balances, presumbly because they don't really trust democratic rule of law processes.

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