Edward Snowden

Secret and unaccountable, you mean like a jury?

Even worse - a jury of PEERS.

Hurdeehur. Appeals.

Even worse - a jury of PEERS.

We need elected juries who will "do the right thing" and make politically popular decisions to acquit or convict. America has elected judges (who don't even need legal training - there is probably even no requirement that they be able to read or write)… and that works well. That way judicial independence will be more "accountable".

We need elected juries who will "do the right thing" and make politically popular decisions to acquit or convict. America has elected judges (who don't even need legal training - there is probably even no requirement that they be able to read or write)… and that works well. That way judicial independence will be more "accountable".

What's "accountable"?

they spy on everyone, their own people, the rest of the world, even european institutions:

Report: NSA spied on EU institutions

According to a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the US National Security Agency bugged institutions of the European Union. The magazine cited documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Spiegel report, published Saturday in its online edition, says that the NSU used bugs, phone taps and cyber-monitoring to obtain information from EU institutions in Washington, D.C., New York, and in Brussels.

Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who recently leaked classified documents about the NSA's monitoring program of US citizens, provided the documents the magazine cited in its report.

The documents, marked 'top secret' and dated September 2010, specifically name the EU as a "target" for surveillance. The NSA appears to have had access to telephone calls, computer documents and emails.

Part of the surveillance included monitoring the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels (pictured above) where the European Council is housed. Every EU member nation has rooms in the building which can be used for phone calls or to access the internet.

Spiegel reports that five years ago, EU security officers had investigated a series of missed calls to NSA offices located in NATO facilities in Brussels.

Snowden fled the United States in May before the initial stories of the NSA's secret phone and data monitoring program were published. The extent of the government monitoring continues to grow as Snowden shares more leaked documents with news outlets.

He is currently believed to be in a transit center at a Moscow airport. The US has called for Snowden's extradition and arrest on espionage charges. He had previously been in Hong Kong, and has submitted an asylum request to the government of Ecuador.

http://www.dw.de/report-nsa-spied-on-eu-institutions/a-16915813

^ Actually, that idea is as old as humanity itself, even Sun Tzu wrote about it in his classic treatise on warfare, as did various others. Keeping a well-informed army of spies at work has always been necessary - the others do it as well.

The US and the UK have just upped the level of control and surveillance to a level that is beyond what even Hollywood screenwriters could have imagined a couple of decades ago.

Funny thing is that I have heard on the radio (so I have no evidence for this claim) that Snowden started to work for the US just because he wanted to go public, apparently he is not one of the hardliner-becomes-opposition type of people.

you heard it wrong, he startet at the last company to get the infos, he even was accepting a lower pay check

The fourth amendment isn't as important as the second, apparently.

Kn.

It's the most important amendment actually. It is the means by which the population can defend the rest of their constitutional rights.

/derail

Statement he released today:

http://wikileaks.org/Statement-from-Edward-Snowden-in.html?snow

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

Edward Snowden is seeking asylum in Germany, and an official statement by the Foreign Minister is that it is going to be checked. Snowden has another one in the pipeline with the Russians. Going to be interesting.

As far as I understood the news, Russia is checking if they can take him in as a refugee.

As far as I understood the news, Russia is checking if they can take him in as a refugee.

Snowdon is fast becoming a political pawn. Maybe in retaliation Obama will give Pussy Riot asylum in the US?

He's lucky he's not Israeli.

It's the most important amendment actually. It is the means by which the population can defend the rest of their constitutional rights.

/derail

You may have missed out on my sense of irony. Murricans howl like banshees when their gun rights are ever so slightly trod upon (2nd), yet are blithely unaware or ambivalent when their right to unreasonable search is openly violated (4th).

Kn.

You may have missed out on my sense of irony. Murricans howl like banshees when their gun rights are ever so slightly trod upon (2nd), yet are blithely unaware or ambivalent when their right to unreasonable search is openly violated (4th).

Kn.

The language of it all doesn't really matter. Amendments, constitutionality, etc, etc. I actually think the average American gun owner couldn't care less about this whole situation as long as they get to keep their guns.