Re: Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
"Constitutional violations are just that".
You are talking about practices that were created by the Executive, fully briefed to the Legislative, and ruled on and constantly watched by the Judiciary. It's hard to get closer to constitutionality than that, in our system of constitutionally divided powers.
Also, you need to be careful about what the Constitution actually says about privacy: nothing. Then look at judicial interpretation - finding some privacy rights in the 4th Amendment. So far, the judiciary, in all cases so far, has held metadata collection to be constitutional. And yes, the Supreme Court has ruled on this sort of thing, in the recent past.
Too many people think the Constitution says what they want to believe, rather than what it really says or what the courts have actually ruled on it.
Re: Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
Of course. Successful Republican women (and blacks) scare the heck out of the left. They cannot imagine that such people aren't Democrats. No matter what Palin says, whether it is right or wrong, it will be mischaracterized and then viciously attacked.
Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
Snowden wasn't trying to show how weak our security was. His public claims are to show it was too strong, revealing a whole multitude of capabilities.
So, how badly has US security been handled since 9/11? It seems to work a whole lot better than before 9/11. There have been a large number of disrupted terrorist plots, and I'd bet that a substantial number of those were detected and/or tracked by signals intelligence - the NSA.
What danger to our security was Snowden purportedly warning about? How would you have made it better>
Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
Snowden took a lot of material describing US signal intelligence, which is the primary means of detecting Russian intentions.
It is not unreasonable to suspect that these releases, which showed that NSA had more capability than foreign intelligence agencies previously knew about, led the Russians to do the same thing that Al Qaeda did after the leaks - change their signals security defeating the NSA.
Beyond the security leaks, do you know of other NSA failures?
At this point, it doesn't matter what Snowden's motivations were. He has probably done more damage to US security than any spy since the "a-bomb" spies of the 40's and '50s.
The US didn't predict Russia's invasion of the Crimea. I wonder why...
Snowden had other routes to follow if all he wanted to do was expose spying on Americans. He could have gone to a congress-critter hostile to the NSA - there were some. He could have published *only* the information about spying on Americans. He could have followed the honorable route of civil disobedience, like the civil rights activists did.
Instead, he stole a huge amount of very sensitive information, put it in the hands of an anti-American left-wing reporter at the Guardian, and then fled, first to our geopolitical enemy China, and then to the very hostile and dangerous Russia.
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
So one out of over 50 terrorist plots succeeded, and a minor one at that. Clearly we have failed.
Get serious!
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
You are talking about practices that were created by the Executive, fully briefed to the Legislative, and ruled on and constantly watched by the Judiciary. It's hard to get closer to constitutionality than that, in our system of constitutionally divided powers.
Also, you need to be careful about what the Constitution actually says about privacy: nothing. Then look at judicial interpretation - finding some privacy rights in the 4th Amendment. So far, the judiciary, in all cases so far, has held metadata collection to be constitutional. And yes, the Supreme Court has ruled on this sort of thing, in the recent past.
Too many people think the Constitution says what they want to believe, rather than what it really says or what the courts have actually ruled on it.
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
So, how badly has US security been handled since 9/11? It seems to work a whole lot better than before 9/11. There have been a large number of disrupted terrorist plots, and I'd bet that a substantial number of those were detected and/or tracked by signals intelligence - the NSA.
What danger to our security was Snowden purportedly warning about? How would you have made it better>
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
It is not unreasonable to suspect that these releases, which showed that NSA had more capability than foreign intelligence agencies previously knew about, led the Russians to do the same thing that Al Qaeda did after the leaks - change their signals security defeating the NSA.
Beyond the security leaks, do you know of other NSA failures?
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
Re: Re: It doesn't matter what his motivations were
Do you know of any other way it did so?
On the post: Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply
It doesn't matter what his motivations were
The US didn't predict Russia's invasion of the Crimea. I wonder why...
Snowden had other routes to follow if all he wanted to do was expose spying on Americans. He could have gone to a congress-critter hostile to the NSA - there were some. He could have published *only* the information about spying on Americans. He could have followed the honorable route of civil disobedience, like the civil rights activists did.
Instead, he stole a huge amount of very sensitive information, put it in the hands of an anti-American left-wing reporter at the Guardian, and then fled, first to our geopolitical enemy China, and then to the very hostile and dangerous Russia.
The guy deserves to rot in super-max.
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