Spoken like a true bastion of intellectual debate. From now on, I'm not going to comment on threads. I'll just post links and tell people "it speaks for itself."
I agree that Snowden isn't a bad dude. He wasn't a traitor to his country (if treason is your footing here), I think from his perspective, he was speaking out about the treason against the American people by their government. But I cant know his mind. Another famous pariah of free information is, of course, Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Who, incidentally, the USA wanted to charge as a traitor despite that fact he is not an American, but an Australian. How you can be a traitor to a country which isn't yours is beyond me. Anyway, he is similarly divisive in discussion. I was quite supportive of Wikileaks, because I believed the information being revealed was significant and important. Maybe it boils down to a right to know (sensitive information), or the right to be unknown (your own sensitive information). Who decides which is which? However, with the amount of personal information that people put out over apps like Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, or in blogs, they are undermining their own privacy better than any government could. Governments will always hide things from their people, for whatever reason, and people will always hide things from their governments (take the Panama Papers, for example, where people in government were hiding things from the government - #inception). Its highly contextual as to whether it is good or bad.
That's actually my question to you. Direct me to a site where I can find a list of privacy rights. -- Also, SnowDen may have thought he was "doing" the right thing, he just did it in a treasonous way.
@AJ, The 4th and 5th amendments are in the constitution. That's where the Supreme Court derived its conclusion that we have a right to privacy. When you enlist in the U.S. military, you swear an oath to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is under this authority that combat troops can disobey direct orders if they believe the order is a violation of the constitution. I suspect that NSA analysts have to take a similar oath. That's why I don't see his actions as even remotely treasonous. The problem with calling his actions "treason" is that it implies malicious intent. Snowden didn't intend to harm our nation. He said he struggled with the balance of national security and privacy rights under the constitution, and he strongly believes that he didn't have a choice. So when you call it "treason," people read that and the first thing they think is a bad guy stealing secrets and selling them to a foreign government for their personal benefit. Snowden gained zero benefits by this disclosure. He lost everything he cared about because he stood up for what he believed was right. He lost his career, his family, his friends, and even his own country because he believed the government was violating the Constitution in such a significant way that he couldn't live with himself if he did nothing. So is he really a traitor? I'd say not. He lost everything, just so the rest of us could benefit from knowing how much the NSA was spying on us. In the process, he gave the American public the legal tools we needed to bring litigation against the NSA to limit their surveillance power.
@Daphnia, You're absolutely right. It's important to keep context in mind. As I said earlier, nobody thinks of themselves as "bad guys." If you talk to people on each side of any conflict, you'll find that each side believes they are right and just and morally superior to their opponent. What I especially love about America is that we are free to discuss both sides and make arguments for both sides. This is not the case in many other countries.
So, I've taken the liberty of looking up your POV on the rights of privacy a good bit before work. Now, keep in mind I'm no constitutional lawyer. And that I'm just gaining your perspective on the subject. The number one thing that popped up in my searches was: "The United States Constitution does not contain any explicit right to privacy." The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." That's all well and good. I like telling the police no. But now, the FBI was given the authority by section 215 of the patriot act. And in 2006, the FISA spy court secretly ruled that it could use provision to order phone companies to turn over domestic calling records in bulk to the N.S.A., for the purpose of hunting for hidden terrorists. The information gathered did not reveal the contents of conversations, but included phone numbers dialed, calls received and the time and duration of calls. From a good thirty minutes search, it seems they did have the legal authority to do such a thing. What is your response? ----- Back to AJ: Also, we know he is in Russia. Where at in Russia doing who knows what with how much rubles and who knows how many putin approved Russia super models m? No one knows really. And lastly, I don't think of myself as morally superior in any type of debate because I believe any standpoint can change via new information brought in.
Snowden doesn't care about you or any other american he ran from the US and went to Russia lol. He's not even in your country if he really cared he wouldn't of run away from the country he did this heroic act for. He wanted fame and he's a smart guy.
its our privacy but they honestly dont care so why should we? so seeing as we know theyre listening how about we lay down some subtle insults at em while we talk on the phone? i mean it wont solve anything but they cant do anything about it and we cant do anything about them listening in so its like a draw.
That's because until the Snowden revelations, it wasn't possible to challenge section 215 because nobody could prove that they'd had their rights violated. Under section 215, the FISA court authorized the government to conduct unlimited searches on American citizens without probable cause by collecting phone data, as required by the 4th amendment. This shows that the collection of phone data by the NSA was a direct violation of the 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The way our legal system works is that you have to prove harm was done before you can prosecute. In the case of spying on Americans, we couldn't prove we had our 4th amendment rights violated because the NSA used "state secrets" authority to prevent civil rights groups from getting their hands on details of the spying program. So because they couldn't prove that the NSA had violated anyone's rights, they couldn't sue the government. Section 215 was allowed to sunset, but it was replaced by the Freedom Act (ironic name because it accomplishes the opposite). The Freedom Act requires telecom companies to retain customer call data for (I think) 2 years. That way, if the government wants the data, they get a warrant and then request it from the telecoms. Whether the government can force companies to retain customer data for so long is a different question, but the important part is that the government recognized (under pressure from the Snowden revelations) that it doesn't have the constitutional authority to scoop up citizen call data without a warrant and that data request warrants must be specific and cannot be a blanket warrant to collect all phone data. We really have Snowden to thank for the return of our privacy, because without his revelations, the government would still be illegally collecting American citizen phone data in direct violation of the 4th amendment.
You know what he's thinking? You know if he cares, and you can tell that he's lying? I didn't know you could read minds, griz. What are you doing playing KaW? You should be out solving the world's problems. Or did you give him a polygraph after he went to Russia? All joking aside, please don't speculate and put words in other people's mouths. The fact is you can't possibly know if he's lying, especially because he's given you no reason to believe he's lying. And if you have a shred of evidence that proves otherwise, I'm dying to see it.
Of course they care. They used their spying power to keep Obama in office by forcing conservative political organizations to go through costly and time consuming audits for the IRS. They wanna know who you support so they can eliminate you as a dissenter. They've done it all throughout American history and they use the privilege of state secrets to hide their illegal behavior. It's time you stand with the rest of modern America and demand your right to privacy be preserved.
The patriot act was fully signed into action October 26th, 2001 by George W. Bush. The law approved by congress, gave the FBI the legal ability to conduct such investigations, though they must also not be performed on U.S. citizens who are carrying out activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Any order that is granted must be given by a FISA court judge or by a magistrate judge who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to allow such an order to be given. Any application must prove that it is being conducted without violating the First Amendment rights of any U.S. citizens. The application can only be used to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. citizen or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. Now, again, the information gathered did not reveal the contents of conversations, but included phone numbers dialed, calls received and the time and duration of calls. As far as I know, that is it. But, honestly, there is no difference. There is no real obstacle, just another step they have to take to get the records they want, which don't seem like a big deal. And I also believe we've reached the usual stand off point. Lastly, many turn coats give up high level intel for promises of something better.
Now.... Your thoughts on Richard Nixion? He pretty much wrote the book on what you're saying the democrats did.
AJ, monitoring phone records, whether it be the content of calls or just who you called and when is still a search. A search is an act. The purpose of a search is to extract information that is not readily available to the public. In the case of the NSA spying, their collection of phone metadata is still considered a search, which still means that the government cannot do without probable cause. Furthermore, probable cause is specific to the actions of an individual and cannot apply to any and all phone metadata because to use such an argument would imply that the government believes that there is probable cause to believe that the entire U.S. population of civilians has committed a crime. You have to understand the legal definition of probable cause is a very high standard. In a court of law, probable cause is defined as "a reasonable person would believe that illegal activity is afoot or has just taken place." In other words, an average person looking at the facts would believe that the person is in the process of committing a crime or that a crime had just taken place. Simply making a phone call can't possibly rise to the level of probable cause unless the phone call is to a person known to be engaging in illegal activity. So again, this proves that the NSA phone metadata collection practice under section 215 was unconstitutional. And again, the reason the law was allowed to stand for so long without being struck down by the Supreme Court was because no one could prove in a court of law that the government was collecting metadata because the NSA invoked state secrets protection, effectively making it immune from prosecution. So going back to my earlier point, just because a law is passed does not make it legal. We have 3 branches of government in place to check each other. But the supreme law of the land shall be the Constitution of the United States. Congress can make a law and the president can sign it, but the Supreme Court can strike it down if it is unconstitutional, BUT only if a person can prove that they were harmed as a result of the law. So because the NSA invoked state secrets protection, no one was able to bring a case before the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of section 215.
I'm not saying the democrats did anything. This isn't a partisan issue. This is about illegal, unconstitutional acts done by secret government agencies using the state secrets protections to spy on Americans.
It's not going to change, and there are still ways to have privacy for those who genuinely care about it.
Yes, but it costs time and money. Exercising your constitutional rights cannot come at a cost because that makes them privileges, not rights. Only those with enough time to learn how to cover their digital tracks and the money to pay for those tools can afford to have privacy. That goes against the letter of the constitution. That would be like saying you can only have free speech if you know how to write a computer program to express yourself. It's insanity, immoral and illegal as hell.