UK Equates Journalism With Terrorism

[GostHacked]

Ghost did you say just how dumb is this argument? You bet. You want me to believe you are being spied on? Lol? Right there is someone monitoring you.

Yes, telling me to move to another country, is a really dumb argument. I was born and raised here in Canada. I'd rather fight for my rights here. If I cannot do it here, I won't be able to do it anywhere.

This was a thread on the balancing of individual rights to privacy and free speech with the need to protect state security issues-never an easy task for law makers and regulators at the best of times and you think claiming you are being spied upon is not dumb but my statement is?

Actually this thread is about journalism being treated as terrorism. You seemed to have been easily thrown off the subject matter when Bud and Hudson posts and transgressed that on to me. They are your kryptonite.

Dumb? Really? You go live in another country if you think it offers more freedom than Canada or the US or Israel. No one is telling you to live in any of these nations. Like I said go live in North Korea or Iran or Uganda or Russia. Be my guest.

I'd like to prevent more of my privacy and freedoms from being encroached on by governments. I don't WANT Canada to get to the stage like NK or Iran or any repressive government. IF you don't say anything against the current wide spread spying on everyone, then you ARE living in 'North Korea' and you want to.

Meanwhile I will take my chances with the British and their legal system, the US, Israeli and American legal systems to find the intricate balance.

Good luck, all you need to do is have the label 'Illegal Enemy Combatant' and none of that will matter.

Obama said 'I got two words. Predator drones. You'll never see it coming.'

[Argus]

But a journalist should never be charged with terrorism if they are doing their job. Investigative journalism will uncover some things that people in government don't want brought to light. So the answer is to charge them with terrorism to shut them up? What kind of society do we live in now when that is the case? Accountability?

He wasn't charged with anything, actually, though in my opninion he ought to be in jail along with his boyfriend. Knowingly posessing secret government material should be, if it isn't already, a criminal act. He had tens of thousands of documents on him.

[Argus]

Except that we have proof that it's true, you mean?

What's true? That they had metadata on who was in contact with whom? So what? That only allowed the system to check individuals once they came to light. It had no affect on everyone else, and they certainly weren't, as so many ignorant yahoos seem to think, listening to everyone's private phone calls or reading their emails.

Of course it doesn't need to "bug" people when it has backdoor access to Google, Facebook, Comcast, Verizon, etc.

Everything Google knows about you can be found out pretty easily by anyone who has an interest in checking. You don't need the NSA or the CIA to reveal all or almost all your secrets. But for 99.999% of us, nobody cares. That's why you and the others terrified of the NSA spying on you sound so silly to me.

Obama is a powerless figurehead. And like I said, the US is much more secretive with its police statism. Why murder journalists and lawyers? If they are trying to expose something you don't want known. See any people doing that in the US lately? Oh yeah, Snowden, and the US in fact does want to get its hands on him and throw him in prison for life or maybe even seek the death penalty.

Sorry, but when you compare the Russians in their takeover of public media and murder and imprisonment of opponents to the US you simply come across as someone unbalanced as far as I'm conerned.

[Argus]

Look at all that freedom we have. It's an electronic surveillance grid open air prison.

[Argus]

Further, my OP contains a brief list of spying activities committed by British intelligence....most of which cannot be deemed "counter-terrorism",

There is nothing wrong with government spying against other governments. It's an age old tradition and they all do it, whether for military or industrial/corporate reasons.

[Argus]

He did nothing of the sort. He did not uncover something illegal and gathered the pertinent proof and leaked that. No, he was so much more lazy and simply passed tens of thousands of documents on to be dumped into the public domain with no regard for what was in that collection.

What did he uncover which was illegal?

[GostHacked]

He wasn't charged with anything, actually, though in my opninion he ought to be in jail along with his boyfriend. Knowingly posessing secret government material should be, if it isn't already, a criminal act. He had tens of thousands of documents on him.

Journalists should be protected. If they have damning evidence on an illegal program, why are we treating the journalist as a terrorist? Sets a precedent for other 'information' that the state deems secret.

[Argus]

Here we go again. So the US spies on you. It has a monitoring device on you.

Good gawd man if you know they are spying on you why remain here? Move to Iran or North Korea.

Or Russia. He'll be safe in Russia, the peaceful land of father Putin.

[Argus]

Journalists should be protected. If they have damning evidence on an illegal program, why are we treating the journalist as a terrorist? Sets a precedent for other 'information' that the state deems secret.

What program has been found to be illegal? None that I've heard.

Journalists who posess stolen property are not exempt from the law, and the classified documents are stolen property.

[bud]

He wasn't charged with anything, actually, though in my opninion he ought to be in jail along with his boyfriend. Knowingly posessing secret government material should be, if it isn't already, a criminal act. He had tens of thousands of documents on him.

why is your outrage towards snowden and not the people who are stealing our data, without our consent and giving them away to a foreign country? what's wrong with you?

[Argus]

why is your outrage towards snowden and not the people who are stealing our data, without our consent and giving them away to a foreign country? what's wrong with you?

I don't have any evidence anyone has stolen 'my data' and given it to a foreign country. Your paranoia about Jews is not a substitute for evidence.

[GostHacked]

There is nothing wrong with government spying against other governments. It's an age old tradition and they all do it, whether for military or industrial/corporate reasons.

We know governments spy on each other. The issue here is the government spying on YOU and everyone else with mass blanket surveillance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-23/nsa-s-spying-on-phone-calls-illegal-u-s-privacy-board.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/16/justice/nsa-surveillance-court-ruling/

Washington (CNN) -- A federal judge said Monday that he believes the government's once-secret collection of domestic phone records is unconstitutional, setting up likely appeals and further challenges to the data mining revealed by classified leaker Edward Snowden.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the National Security Agency's bulk collection of metadata -- phone records of the time and numbers called without any disclosure of content -- apparently violates privacy rights.

His preliminary ruling favored five plaintiffs challenging the practice, but Leon limited the decision only to their cases.

"I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval," said Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush. "Surely, such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment."

Unconstitutional means illegal. If it is legal, then the constitution means nothing. The reasons for the United States existing means nothing.

[Argus]

We know governments spy on each other. The issue here is the government spying on YOU and everyone else with mass blanket surveillance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-23/nsa-s-spying-on-phone-calls-illegal-u-s-privacy-board.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/16/justice/nsa-surveillance-court-ruling/

Unconstitutional means illegal. If it is legal, then the constitution means nothing. The reasons for the United States existing means nothing.

There have been two contrary judicial findings on the legality. Thus no one can actually state right now whether it's unconstitutional or not.

[GostHacked]

There have been two contrary judicial findings on the legality. Thus no one can actually state right now whether it's unconstitutional or not.

Then in the meantime, the program needs to be stopped an assessed before it can continue. Since there is not a lot of clarity about the legality of it, best just to stop it and then start it up again when the decision is made. But that legal ambiguity also works in the governments favor to continue the spying until that decision is made. Heck, it's what allowed them to do it in the first place. The government does not seem to want a clear definition of the legalities here, allows the notion of 'plausible denial-ability'. The reaction there is 'we did not know'. Really, you are buying that line from the same people that are pushing these programs through? If the government cannot determine that these actions are unconstitutional, hence illegal, what are they doing in government anyways? What are these clowns doing?

[g_bambino]

What did he uncover which was illegal?

I don't know. I'm not sure he did, either. How could he alone have gone through all those thousands and thousands of documents?

[guyser]

Journalists who posess stolen property are not exempt from the law, and the classified documents are stolen property.

Moreso than less they are exempt.

If they try and profit on it then all bets are off. (of course they cant steal the info in the first place, but if given a copy for journo reasons then ...all good)

[Hudson Jones]

What personal information?

Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadataand content."

The above includes emails.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents

You're okay with your personal emails being read by NSA and for them to hand that over to the Israeli government?

Edited February 28, 2014 by Hudson Jones

[g_bambino]

You're okay with your personal emails being read by NSA and for them to hand that over to the Israeli government?

Before I answer that question, you'll have to prove to me the NSA is reading my emails.

[Hudson Jones]

Before I answer that question, you'll have to prove to me the NSA is reading my emails.

What a silly comment to make.

[Rue]

Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadataand content."

The above includes emails.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents

You're okay with your personal emails being read by NSA and for them to hand that over to the Israeli government?

I am not planning an attack on foreign soil from the US, so yes. Do I think the US must safeguard itself from being used as a site to carry out a terroris attack against Americans or anyone else, yes. I think to do otherwise would be negligent.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Rue

[g_bambino]

What a silly comment to make.

As I suspected, you can't. Thanks for verifying that.

[bud]

I don't have any evidence anyone has stolen 'my data' and given it to a foreign country.

right. there is no evidence. only made up government documents from the government which clearly show otherwise. documents that the NSA or obama have never denied.

it's a good idea to know the basics about a topic before trying to argue for a side.

[bud]

I am not planning an attack on foreign soil from the US, so yes. Do I think the US must safeguard itself from being used as a site to carry out a terroris attack against Americans or anyone else, yes. I think to do otherwise would be negligent.

you have a narrow-minded look at the consequences of the government collecting this information.

[Rue]

Why Bud?

I could agree with you if I said the government should have unlimited rights to spy on anyone and anything with no checks and balances.

I have never aid that. In fact from the get go I said we have to maintain a delicate balance between state security and individual rights.

It is in fact you presenting the rigid formula that all spying is bad.

In this world today, to try advance the notion we can live without safeguards against terrorists through pro-active security exercises is past absurd.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Rue

[Rue]

Bud provide the specifics you claim Argus does not have. What proof do you have that you or Hudson Jones or Ghost are being spied on or that the government has the ability let alone is intercepting every phone call and internet we make.

Please now that you claim you know the real story and that people like Argus and I do not please provide examples. So far all you have done is make unfounded allegations.