Except when they testify in front of Congressional inquiries. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kingwilly
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Except when they testify in front of Congressional inquiries. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kingwilly
The lawyer for Pussy Riot said that for Snowden to accept assylum in Russia is as odd as acepting a Nigerian inheritance by email.
^The lawyer for Pussy Riot has obviously never lived in an airport for any extended period of time.
Looking at his options: Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Iceland, Russia...airport is preferable to where the ladies cells are I would think. Daily doses of shalungs from visiting guards.
Obama's ego is bruised, so there's no law, treaty or convention he's not prepared to breach in the name of justice, which in Snowden's case means life in a pit living on worms.
US gives £100m to our spy centre: Deal raises questions over its influence at GCHQ | Mail Online
Related story..
» U.S. Army Now Censoring British Newspapers Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
The U.S. Army admitted Thursday to blocking employees’ access to The Guardian which broke the NSA spy gate scandal.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
This rampant restriction to truth has been ongoing since June 6 when Glenn Greenwald exposed the NSA for collecting millions of Verizon phone records every day.
The Department of Defense refers to the censorship as “network hygiene” to cleanse military servers of “unauthorized disclosures of classified information,” according to Gordon Van Vleet, a spokesman for U.S. Army NETCOM in an e-mail to the Monterey County Herald.
The California newspaper began investigating after employees of the Presidio of Monterey, an army garrison, started complaining.
“We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security,” Van Vleet said in the e-mail. “However there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information.”
“The DoD is also not going to block websites from the American public in general, and to do so would violate our highest-held principle of upholding and defending the Constitution and respecting civil liberties and privacy.”
An ironic statement considering the NSA and the behemoth cyber-industrial complex hold no such principle as they betray our Constitution in their attack on our cherished civil liberties and privacy.
But according to army brass, this gross assault on our basic human rights and the foundation of our republic is simply a classified information leak by a foreign media outlet that requires purging through routine, automated maintenance.
According to them, classified information must be protected, even if its evidence that the NSA’s unreasonable search and seizures are so far reaching, the physical size of the drag net could stretch most of the distance to Mars:
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2013/08/302.jpg
The army blackout of The Guardian has not been the only DoD response to the spy grid scandal. Earlier this month, the U.S. Air Force released a Notice to Airmen, warning service members that reading news stories on the Verizon phone records collection could constitute a punishable offense.
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Does anyone think that things are going to change, no matter what the Government, military, CIA, NSA, MI 5/6 and all the other outfits in the west do.
There will be no mass uprisings, armed rebellion, people will exercise their rights to vote, they will vote for the same few spineless parties and they, people with real power will continue to rule. The sheepeople will continue to obey, believing they are free and protected by rights.
Think the people of communist Lao have more real freedom than we in the west do. Not going to see people running through the streets of NY, London or Paris, screaming give me liberty or death. Jim
What sorts of real oppression do you suffer from personally, jim? In your daily life I mean,since presumably that's where you think the residents of the Lao PDR have this surfeit of freedoms.
The people in George Orwell's 1984 had freedom to do within the limits of the law. The only freedom people should want is more. Justice for the people doesn't hurt either. Bankers could be terrorists, too. They could destroy the country from within so why the f*ck does the government let them do whatever the f*ck they want without government monitoring what they do. Instead of looking at people who control money and power as threats to the government, they are holding their microscope over the workers and the poorest people in the nation. F*ck this government. It is not a government for the people. Rant over.
The "people" in Orwell's 1984 are fictional... there is nothing past tense about it. Which freedoms are people in your real world deprived of?
I would love a revolution to take place - to steer us away from a few catastrophes that I feel are inevitable in the near future. Eg., government spying on / controlling of innocent citizens, a society run by big corp based on the paradigm of eternal growth despite the lack of eternal resources.Quote:
Originally Posted by jamescollister
But I agree Jim, it's highly unlikely that the masses will stand up. As you said, they think they are free and protected. They are made to believe they are free and protected.
Such a revolution is highly unlikely, unless the middle classes are whiped out. If they feel they are not protected, the promiss of eternal growth is an empty promis, then... who knows.
Reading a newspaper and developing their own thoughts on issues, from what's written a few posts above.Quote:
Originally Posted by mao say dung
Accessing a website whilst at work and reading a newspaper are not quite the same thing. Neither is necessary for developing your own thoughts really.
I find the NSA spying and data collection abhorent and should be illegal and if not illegal then unconstitutional.
I don't see where the problem lies in such behavior making western people less free than Lao citizens.
What sorts of real oppression do you suffer from personally, jim? In your daily life I mean,since presumably that's where you think the residents of the Lao PDR have this surfeit of freedoms.[/quote]Have you been to Lao, not a scary police state, poor yes, but happy content people, at least the parts I've been to.Quote:
Originally Posted by mao say dung
Know a few yanks that live over the border and think they would disagree with you.
Before you started talking freedom you need to define what freedom is. Jim
Lao PDR is rural, laid back, with more genuine smiles than in LOS. And so on. But with red tape too, huge red tape. With disappearing 'opposition' members.
Dont misunderstand me Jim, I love Lao PDR and its citizens and all.
Lao PDR for me feels free. But thats probably coz I am a westerner. Romanticizing and all.
Freedom - comparing Lao to the EU or to the United Stasi of America. Its a difficult comparison.
But sneaky tapping your own citizens - innocent citizens, sneaky recording there going abouts, now thats sick.
MSD, after your comments (racist rantings?) on a couple of recent threads, I'm not really prepared to get into a discussion with you - sorry.
I will just mention that 1984 is an iconic book for good reason...
I believe the above quote is you, Jim.Quote:
Originally Posted by jamescollister
I believe that one is too, Jim.Quote:
Originally Posted by jamescollister
So, you are the one who "started talking freedom" without bothering to define what it is.
And I am the one who asked you, sort of, what kind of freedom you feel Lao citizens have that you don't.
So feel free to answer my question using the definition you must have had in mind when you started talking about freedom here, Jim. Mao
No need to apologize. Somehow I think I'll survive unscathed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettyboo
So I guess he finally accepted their public terms shut up publicly - no more public leaks? But I'd guess a bigger private price was paid too that likely would turn him from whistleblower to traitor. Too bad if so. I think he truly meant well
I don't live in Lao, but on the Lao land border, with Thailand. I am free do do as I want as long as I don't hurt people.Quote:
Originally Posted by mao say dung
Free enterprise is still allowed here and in Lao, people can leave to the west if they can get a visa. What freedom have they not got.
You sound like a cold war child.
This thread is about a man telling the truth [ though I don't believe the story ] That's your freedom, speak up and go to jail for the rest of your life.
Many here will have signed, for me official secrets act. Does that mean we should never stand up and say this is wrong.
Jim
:rofl:
We all have our little secrets we want no one else to know about, for example what kind of pornography you prefer. Half of the Thailand visitors can't tell their bosses, co-workers, relatives where they spend the holiday. I mean everybody knows why people go to Thailand, sex with minors and such. Now there is an organisation digging up dirt on you, able to blackmail you any moment they choose. Private people are also interested to learn as much as possible about you, your boss perhaps or someone who wants to do you harm, and they might find a way to get that information.Quote:
Originally Posted by mao say dung
So... by this "reasoning" Thailand's tourist industry is doomed, at least the farang end of things. Because people are no longer free to come to Thailand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainfall
Gee whiz. Hooda Thunkit?
From the admittedly little I do know of Laos I would tend to agree with you although those re-education camps on the islands up north do somewhat bring us back to reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by jamescollister
^ Sam Neua. Near the VN border. I dont think these camps exist anymore, but I am not sure. Prison camps do exist, however.
And the disappearance of Sombath Somphone is reality too.
As is crackdown on ethnic Hmong.
What I am trying to say is - it's not freedom for everyone.
And still, Laos feels like a slow moving paradise. To me. But hey, maybe thats my western romanticizing pink glasses :)