People who have such high "ethics" shouldn't get in the spy biz...

@Al - " the problems that he has exposed were *even more illegal* by an order of magnitude."

Um, no they weren't They weren't illegal *at all*. Congress and the President authorized the NSA to do *everything* they did. SCOTUS never declared *any* of it unconstitutional and still hasn't. It is only Obama bendign to public pressure that has him changing the course of some of it and calling on Congress to pass legislation to setup an independent council as well as tasking someone else with keeping the data. You'll note that he didn't say the data shouldn't be collected, just that the NSA shouldn't be the ones to both hold and search the data. Make no mistake, that data will still be collected and held. Just by someone else and the NSA will have to go get an independent panel to review and choose to submit the request for a judicial order which the judge will then decide if they can search it. And they are being limited to two levels deep, not three. Obama ignored a sit ton of the recommendations his own panel suggested as he doesn't want to kneecap the NSA but wanted to appease the privacy advocates to keep his fair haired boys in power this coming fall.

That's just the thing, Draugnar. Certain people don't view the President's actions as legal.

I think I now understand why some of our friends here consider you to be using circular logic. What you're purporting is the president's actions are legal because he's the president?

No, I am saying that everything done has been done by the President *and* Congress with SCOTUs approval thus far. Now, you can call it circular, but the people who male the laws made the Patriot Act which was upheld by SCOTUS as legal. If the Patriotism Act is legal according to the highest court, then fulfilling its mission in accordance with the Patriot Act males the NSA's actions legal. The Patriot Act mandates what the NSA cam and cannot do. They didn't violate it and SCOTUS declared it legal, ipso facto, they didn't break the law.

Dr. Draugnar, Esq., that's more or less the definition of a circular argument.

Also, this thing is much more complicated than you seem to think. Even assuming everything the NSA has been up to is covered under the Patriot Act (I don't know since I haven't read it; have you?), it still could have done PLENTY of other illegal things and could have broken other laws. Your if A then B then C analysis is a gross oversimplification even if it's broadly right (which, not being familiar with the legal issues in detail, I can't say; you seem to know everything about it, though).

Also, it isn't right to say there's Supreme Court approval thus far. What there really is is the absence of a ruling on the issue. Rather a different thing. In addition, there is a circuit split on whether the agency's actions were constitutional, so it's very much in the air still as to what the final situation is.


In effect, you're saying that since the president did something and Congress hasn't acted to stop him and the Supreme Court itself hasn't weighed in then everything's kosher. That's nonsense.

@invictus - Fuck you too.

I got my info from interviews with the people involved *including* a recent interview with Deputy Director of the NSA, John C. Inglis, amongst others. You see, I actually listen to things *other* than shit pop music on my drive to and from work every day.

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/ic-in-the-news/206-ic-n-the-news-2014/1000-outgoing-nsa-deputy-director-john-inglis-interviewed-on-national-public-radio

I walk to class.

That link doesn't make what you said any less circular.

You can call it circular. I call it factual. And walking to class doesn't preclude you from listening to enlightening radio like NPR. They have these cool things called headphones and earphones and they plug into these things called portable radios and <*gasp*> cellphones with internet connections that allow you to stream audio from web sites like NPR.org...

Fact: SCOTUS determines what laws are constitutional.
Fact: Congress writes bills and passes them to make them law, sending them to the POTUS.
Fact: POTUS signs and/or vetoes bills.
Fact: If Congress passes bill and POTUS signs it, it is the law unless and until either SCOTUS overturns it or Congress and POTUS repeal it.
Ergo, as circular as it sounds, it is a fact that the NSA didn't break the law because they were implementing a law passed by Congress.

Draug -- as with so many things, good Libtards *never ever* let facts get in the way of their carefully constructed emotionally-driven opinions...

Sorry - Invictus isn't a Libtard, I know...

There are thing in this world standing up for. Sometimes, complacency isn't good enough, sometimes there are more important things fighting for. Sometimes you have to sacrifice, law down on the wire, to achieve something greater than you, things you go down fighting for.
They're hunting him. They're condemning him, they've set the dogs on him. But that's what has to happen.
Because USA doesn't deserve a hero like Snowden but he's the hero USA needs right now. Even if some of the people he's fighting for may oppose him, he'll continue to fight because he can take it.
Because he's more than a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector...a dark knight.

*ps copied that from a comment on reddit.

reddit, along with Buzzfeed, are prime examples of our culture's decay.

lmao. okay.

Okay, so some fucktard substituted Snowden's name for Batman in Gordon's final speech from Dark Knight. And he typos and butchered it so bad with horrid, fetid grammar as to almost make it unrecognizable. Did he give credit to Chris Nolan and the movie or did he just plagiarize it?

I still can't help but imagine that Putin (the real Putin, the one with testicles of Russian permafrost) is plying Snowden with Russian vodka and prostitutes.

Actions are legal until they are deemed illegal. The people whining about surveillance are the same people who post pictures of their babies & food on facebook and instagram.
Nukes & religious terrorism render the whole notion of inviolable privacy obsolete, actually the notion is a dangerous suicidal constitutional strait-jacket.

If you don't like it, get off the internet and stop wasting your life on your cell phone.

Well said Putin (even if you don't have Russian balls)

The people "whining" about surveillance are just taking Richelieu's idea seriously: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

This vacuum-up-everything-and-keep-it surveillance gives the people who have access to it immense power over everyone else; even if they don't abuse it now, they will eventually, as we've seen time and time again. It's dangerous to empower anyone to that degree.

People don't lose their rights by being hypocrites, Putin33. If hypocrites they even are. Choosing to tell the world about your stupid avocado salad is a far different thing than the government having more or less unlimited access to your entire digital life without needing to get a warrant.