Snowden's Email Provider Vanishes, Vows To Fight For Constitution

[NeedsaBetterName22]

I didn't actually mean it in the way you think. We could have increased the minimum wage by something like 0.25 and that would have been enough to at least count as a compromise to quiet down the advocates, but instead we got people refusing to do anything at all and just letting people continuously blow into bigger and bigger microphones, which in turn causes more and more emotional snowballing.

Ah, fair enough, I get you. Emotional debate has definitely dominated the minimum wage discussion recently, a minor increase probably wouldn't have disastrous economic effects.

The problem is that lower and middle class Americans don't have access to enough purchasing power anymore. And the only real way to solve that would be a stronger dollar backed by more market certainty, which is basically counter-intuitive to everything going on in U.S. economics.

A stronger dollar doesn't solve the problem of consolidation of wealth. If you look at each dollar as a fraction of the USA's wealth then increasing the each individual dollars worth does nothing for class disparity in our country.

Class disparity's a separate issue, basic economics dictates that disparity is not necessarily a bad thing as long as overall wealth growth across incomes is fairly solid. We're talking about short-term solutions here, long term class disparity is as much a government and regulatory policy problem as it is a corporate one. If you're talking about raising income taxes for the rich or top marginal rates or anything along those lines, don't bother. Most people don't understand how broken the U.S. tax code is, and how easy they are to avoid. Tax reform is something everyone should be talking about but they're not (real spending cuts, not fake bullshit Republicans claims that are really just increase reductions, are needed but I digress). On top of that, the U.S. government has basically thrown all its chips into the financial market. Investment is what they've been focused on since the 80s, and they're not stopping.

And as much as a lot of people seem to think it's a good idea, Obamacare's been largely held off due to its economic effects. It's producing a lot of part-time jobs, true, but at the expense of full-time jobs. I'd be strongly in favor of scrapping it and starting the healthcare debate over again, cause frankly small business owners and young workers are going to be the ones affected most by rate increases, while the people who will benefit most are (surprise) major medical companies.

But hey, that's human history. Every system is either an autocracy or an oligarchy.

 

[Greg White]

The fourth amendment gives private entities the right to security of person and papers, if data isn't the modern equivalent to papers I don't know what is. The constitution applies to to all persons, private companies included[1]. You are more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist[2]. Do we see a blind fevered push towards overhauling police procedures?

Further more, "national security" is a vague blanket term nowadays for any sort act that someone in a high enough government position of power doesn't like. The FISA court has ruled NSA surveillance ?unreasonable under the fourth amendment"[3], yet the the judicial branch is going along like nothing happened. No policy review/revision, just business as usual.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
[2] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-makes-people-stupid.html
[3] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/surveillance-spirit-law/

The constitution also says than none of your rights are absolute. Freedom of speech is not absolute, same with your rights of life, liberty, and property.[citation needed]

I think you mean various members of government have said that at times through either judicial ruling or legislative passing of conflicting laws. Find me some constitutional text that says that and I will eat my hat. Life liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable according to the declaration of independence (not the constitution), property never made the cut much to John Locke's contention. I'll bring it back to my original question though, do you really want to live in a state where your rights and law turn to vapor at the whim of (not even elected) government officials?

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

That's from the Bill of Rights, but the way.

By due process of law, the state can deprive you of your rights.

 

[SexyGarfield]

I think you mean various members of government have said that at times through either judicial ruling or legislative passing of conflicting laws. Find me some constitutional text that says that and I will eat my hat. Life liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable according to the declaration of independence (not the constitution), property never made the cut much to John Locke's contention. I'll bring it back to my original question though, do you really want to live in a state where your rights and law turn to vapor at the whim of (not even elected) government officials?

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

That's from the Bill of Rights, but the way.

By due process of law, the state can deprive you of your rights.

The 14th amendment is not a part of the bill of rights but I stand corrected on the constitution bit. I think your understanding of that text is flawed though, they are referring to individual states not THE state. Do you believe due process has been given to every single united states citizen that has had their data (the modern equivalent of papers) seized and private contracts violated?

 

[KazeAizen]

How many other secure webmail sites is the government going to attempt to shut down? They're simply using the excuse of "national security" to censor as many critical voices as possible. The US is nothing but an authoritarian democracy these days, and it's getting more blatantly fascist as time goes on. I'm getting pretty tired of being an American in this day and age.

You know I come to these sites to get away from stuff like this. Thanks a fucking lot for bringing me back to where people are at each other's throats because it always happens in politics. See this is what is going to happen. Me being a supporter of his I'm going to say Obama is doing an alright job. Not the best but certainly not the worst. After which I will get spammed with comments saying I'm an idiot and this guy has done nothing right and that I need to wise up and side with the rest of them on trying to bring down "The American Regime" and that the real villains are the Bilderburg Group.

You don't have to read these types of threads, you know. You don't have to comment on them either. Anyway, I think you'll find that most of the community here at the Escapist are pretty tolerant of other people's political beliefs (at least compared to other sites), so you don't need to be too concerned.

I'm always uneasy when political nonsense is brought in. I know I don't have to read these or comment on them. I just wish to god that there was some place on the web that I could go and not ever have to see anything political unless it directly involved video games or movies or something silly.

 

[Denamic]

Snowden unveils information saying that the US government is committing crimes against the American people. His e-mail provider is complicit in crimes against the American people because Snowden used it to leak the info. The irony is so sweet that it's way past delicious and well on its way into disgusting.

Captcha: well isn't that special?
Indeed.

 

[Nikolaz72]

How many other secure webmail sites is the government going to attempt to shut down? They're simply using the excuse of "national security" to censor as many critical voices as possible. The US is nothing but an authoritarian democracy these days, and it's getting more blatantly fascist as time goes on. I'm getting pretty tired of being an American in this day and age.

You know I come to these sites to get away from stuff like this. Thanks a fucking lot for bringing me back to where people are at each other's throats because it always happens in politics. See this is what is going to happen. Me being a supporter of his I'm going to say Obama is doing an alright job. Not the best but certainly not the worst. After which I will get spammed with comments saying I'm an idiot and this guy has done nothing right and that I need to wise up and side with the rest of them on trying to bring down "The American Regime" and that the real villains are the Bilderburg Group.

You don't have to read these types of threads, you know. You don't have to comment on them either. Anyway, I think you'll find that most of the community here at the Escapist are pretty tolerant of other people's political beliefs (at least compared to other sites), so you don't need to be too concerned.

I'm always uneasy when political nonsense is brought in. I know I don't have to read these or comment on them. I just wish to god that there was some place on the web that I could go and not ever have to see anything political unless it directly involved video games or movies or something silly.

1/40th of the events involving Snowden has reached anywhere outside the Politics forum. It is related as it has something to do with the Internet and Privacy and restrictions on privacy, things like SOPA might be evolve from the extensive surveillance in the future which could'ave and certainly would harm the gaming community. Internationally and not just in the U.S if the NSA would be used for such matters (They aren't above Corporate Espionage so they certainly wouldn't be above being corporate tools, as technically. They already are)

I'd say grow a thicker skin and don't click on these articles that might pop up once a month. If you see it just close down the page and wait a couple of days and you don't even have to look at it.

And if you can't criticism of a stance that's wrong by most standards you shouldn't air the dirty laundry in public.

 

[Greg White]

I think you mean various members of government have said that at times through either judicial ruling or legislative passing of conflicting laws. Find me some constitutional text that says that and I will eat my hat. Life liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable according to the declaration of independence (not the constitution), property never made the cut much to John Locke's contention. I'll bring it back to my original question though, do you really want to live in a state where your rights and law turn to vapor at the whim of (not even elected) government officials?

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

That's from the Bill of Rights, but the way.

By due process of law, the state can deprive you of your rights.

The 14th amendment is not a part of the bill of rights but I stand corrected on the constitution bit. I think your understanding of that text is flawed though, they are referring to individual states not THE state. Do you believe due process has been given to every single united states citizen that has had their data (the modern equivalent of papers) seized and private contracts violated?

Honestly, yes.

The NSA operates under the same guidelines for intelligence gathering as Military Intelligence, they just have different tools for it.

For an agent to look at anyone's data they have to have cause for an investigation. Anything that's made publicly available(this includes anything posted on social media sites)doesn't require special permission, beyond being assigned the case, to investigate. Going into the actual data stored in their servers does still require a warrant and is much more less intrusive than just confiscating a suspect's computer.

 

[SeventhSigil]

I think you mean various members of government have said that at times through either judicial ruling or legislative passing of conflicting laws. Find me some constitutional text that says that and I will eat my hat. Life liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable according to the declaration of independence (not the constitution), property never made the cut much to John Locke's contention. I'll bring it back to my original question though, do you really want to live in a state where your rights and law turn to vapor at the whim of (not even elected) government officials?

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

That's from the Bill of Rights, but the way.

By due process of law, the state can deprive you of your rights.

The 14th amendment is not a part of the bill of rights but I stand corrected on the constitution bit. I think your understanding of that text is flawed though, they are referring to individual states not THE state. Do you believe due process has been given to every single united states citizen that has had their data (the modern equivalent of papers) seized and private contracts violated?

Honestly, yes.

The NSA operates under the same guidelines for intelligence gathering as Military Intelligence, they just have different tools for it.

For an agent to look at anyone's data they have to have cause for an investigation. Anything that's made publicly available(this includes anything posted on social media sites)doesn't require special permission, beyond being assigned the case, to investigate. Going into the actual data stored in their servers does still require a warrant and is much more less intrusive than just confiscating a suspect's computer.

I should technically point out that aspects of the program were intended to directly target non-American citizens. Any monitoring of American citizens was largely the result of their interaction with non-American suspects, And as a result they were considered potentially suspects. I mention this only because the Bill of Rights could be said not to apply to anyone outside the U.S., Given they are not recognized as applicable. In fact, the administration has been very specific in insisting that the program was indeed intended only to target non-American citizens or those not currently residing within the United States, Which does lend credence to the idea that the protection of their privacy or user data could be somewhat looser. The irony here is that if in their relatively unmoderated examination of non-American data where to pick up something even remotely suspicious, that would indeed count as just cause to similarly poke at American data; There was a suggestion that such investigations would operate on a three hop query system, meaning that they would be able to examine the data of the suspect, anyone the suspect communicated with, anyone those people communicated with, and finally everyone that all of those people communicated with.

Another difficulty lies in the idea of due process of law, and the programs original classified status. Insistence that one must first Prove the validity of an investigatory request to supervising courts bears a little less weight when those courts are indeed part of FISA as well; The capability to therefore have a program that adheres the letter of the law without necessarily adhering to its spirit Means that an organization could essentially rubberstamp its activities on a regular basis. Because under ideal circumstances, (In other words if Snowden hadn't released those files,) there is no risk of having to answer to the people, and hey, just in case right? Random person number 6043 might actually be a terrorist, so why not just approve this poorly justified data request? Oversight only extends to higher members of government, and of course this is all wrapped in the shroud of national security. The fewer public eyes are on a program, the less likely you are to find a dissenting opinion or contradictory viewpoint, and such contradiction is the very thing that gives a system balance. In fact, in the case of seeking approval, there is no dissenting voice, as you only have one person insisting that they be given clearance, with nobody to argue for the defendant, as it were.

 

[SexyGarfield]

The 14th amendment is not a part of the bill of rights but I stand corrected on the constitution bit. I think your understanding of that text is flawed though, they are referring to individual states not THE state. Do you believe due process has been given to every single united states citizen that has had their data (the modern equivalent of papers) seized and private contracts violated?

Honestly, yes.

The NSA operates under the same guidelines for intelligence gathering as Military Intelligence, they just have different tools for it.

For an agent to look at anyone's data they have to have cause for an investigation. Anything that's made publicly available(this includes anything posted on social media sites)doesn't require special permission, beyond being assigned the case, to investigate. Going into the actual data stored in their servers does still require a warrant and is much more less intrusive than just confiscating a suspect's computer.

Plenty of contracts are violated just by the NSA having some of the data it does in it's database, needing a warrant to access the database doesn't change that. Every citizen is under this surveillance whether of not their data is being combed through by a real live agent doesn't change that. Evidence collection needs to start happening after someone becomes a suspect or else the system is vulnerable to abuse. We have already seen the NSA isn't above using it's data for things outside the realm of national security then telling other agency's to lie about the trail of evidence there by removing the accused right to a fair trial [1].

The bureaucracy of classic surveillance warrants protects everyone and watchdogs in the senate are crying foul at claims that this data has ever helped prevent another terror incident [2] (which I remind you are so rare that you are 8x more likely to be killed by a cop then a terrorist). The NSA has proven they can't handle responsibly manage the power given to it and frankly I doubt any of the other alphabet soup agencies could.

[1] http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE97409R20130805
[2] http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/udall-wyden-call-on-national-security-agency-director-to-clarify-comments-on-effectiveness-of-phone-data-collection-program

 

[level27smartass]

It's all been going down hill since the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay it seems to many people in my nation are willing to give freedom for safety. If you excuse me I think I hear a drone.