UK Equates Journalism With Terrorism

[bud]

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.

you make it sound like their hands are tied and they're unable to get information on people legally. there already is a path in obtaining information on individuals. that path requires an oversight so no one steps out of boundary. what the NSA is doing is side-stepping the rules and law that was already set in place. they are breaking the law. not only that, but they're giving information on their citizens to a foreign country. i understand you're okay with that, because this foreign country is israel, but i'm sure most people would not be happy to know that this raw information is being passed onto a foreign country.

[GostHacked]

you make it sound like their hands are tied and they're unable to get information on people legally. there already is a path in obtaining information on individuals. that path requires an oversight so no one steps out of boundary. what the NSA is doing is side-stepping the rules and law that was already set in place. they are breaking the law. not only that, but they're giving information on their citizens to a foreign country. i understand you're okay with that, because this foreign country is israel, but i'm sure most people would not be happy to know that this raw information is being passed onto a foreign country.

I think for this we don't even need to touch the topic of Israel specifically. Should be dealing with the fact that the UK would be giving the information to ANYONE period. Hard to blame Israel for information they get willingly from another country. Canadian governments are giving this information out and the Canadian government needs to be taken to task on it, not who ever they give the information to.

But we do have an agreed network of intelligence between the 5 Eyes, which may have grown out of Echelon, I am not really sure there.

Edited March 2, 2014 by GostHacked

[Rue]

Bud nothing in the article that NSA is side stepping the law. Nothing in the article stated that. That is your interpretation. They give information on their own citizens only after they first obtained a warrant to get that information and then only if that information contains information about potential terrorist attacks on foreign soil. No I have no problem with that and you saying I have no problem with that only because its Israel is typical of you. The US provides even more detailed info on its citizens to the 5 eye nations. Each day its police forces and enforcement agencies exchange information on its citizens to foreign police forces and enforcement agencies. There are joint task investigation forces across the world.

Again your attempt to spin this so the US is providing anything about US citizens to Israel is false.

Yes I think the NSA should get warrants for US citizens and it does.

You have an agenda clear as can be to state anything to do with Israel is wrong and once again tried to twist an article to bash Israel and continue to allege things the article never said.

You have yet to provide one ounce of evidence the NSA breaks the law. Its what you do-make allegations but never back them up with any facts....please provide one example of the NSA breaking the law along with Israel. Prove your conspiracy or stop with the false allegations.

Also let's clarify what I am saying once again, as you once again misrepresent it but did preface your misrepresentation with "it seems that" which do note is an effort to not be accused of me accusing you of deliberate misrepresentation which I appreciate.

Do I think the NSA's hands are tied? No. Never said that. What I did say is the NSA and for that matter all intelligence agencies to not just send everything on the airwaves to each other. That is absurd. They must use pattern recognition systems to strain down the random searches they do otherwise it would be impossible to find anything.

This is why NSA has pattern recognition systems that only look for issues within its jurisdiction, info concerning possible attacks on foreign soil being planned in the US. Of course it will have one agreement with Israel, others with its 5 eye allies, other agreements with other nations.

The NSA would not be the only people doing this either. For intelligence to work it must have cooperation across borders with many nations.

Any intelligence gathering exercise is restrained by constitutional rights of course. Intelligence by its very nature can't be disclosed or it becomes

compromised and that necessarily is problematic in an open society so we have to decide, do you want to compromise vital intelligence because you Bud do not like Israel?

[Rue]

I think the 5 eyes could be said to have arisen over the 2nd world War in Japan and then the Korean war in ihich all these nations fought closely together.

As you are well aware the commonwealth countries all worked within the British military structure and we know Australia and New Zealand were close to the US and allied with them in Vietnam as well as Korea.

Now our country does share intelligence on its citizens with the US not just as part of the 5 eyes alliance but because of NORAD, NATO I ssues.

Also and you may be aware as well, the IRS and the Canada Revenue Agency have a reciprocity agreement to access each others computers on both Canadian and US citizens.

We do have emergency procedures where either country's armed forces can enter each other's country as a last resort if they are the closet unit to a life threatening emergency.

We have regularly shared intelligence on anything in the air and crossing the border.

Our police forces have their own alliances with US police forces.

We have similar concerns with our RCMP and intelligence gathering organizations as to what they exchange with the US.

we have an out in the open Drug Enforcement Agency officer, FBI attaches. CIA attaches in Ottawa and the Toronto consulate. We regularly exchange info to the Treasury Department and Secret Service on counterfeiting. Its all public domain. What they do is of course classified but its part of the reality of today's world.

We need to monitor not just terrorists but criminals, tax evaders, drug pushers, sex offenders, organized crime.

We have a charter, We have a dynamic tension between its parameters and the need to keep certain information secret that conflict.

The courts are there to try find the balance.

[Hudson Jones]

From what I'm reading, it sounds like people don't really know the consequences and the legality (or illlegality) of information collected by the NSA.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.html#ixzz2uq4ywF8L

Edited March 2, 2014 by Hudson Jones

[eyeball]

From what I'm reading, it sounds like people don't really know the consequences and the legality (or illlegality) of information collecting by the NSA.

I think it's more a case of people who just don't care. Sycophancy and servility to authority runs deep and wide through many.

[GostHacked]

Bud nothing in the article that NSA is side stepping the law.

Correct. However the reasons are, they made once illegal actions, LEGAL. You don't need to sidestep the law when you have the power to alter it for your benefit. I would be like legalizing rape.

Edited March 3, 2014 by GostHacked

[Michael Hardner]

I think it's more a case of people who just don't care. Sycophancy and servility to authority runs deep and wide through many.

Maybe they don't care because they have weighed the costs/benefits and decided these changes are warranted.

[dre]

First, I disagree. Second, this was not 'collateral' but deliberate. Snowden didn't need to shine his light on foreign intelligence gathering. He could simply have focussed on efforts within the United States. He exposed foreign intelligence gathering deliberately.

You mean the thinking portion? I'd wager Snowden will never be able to walk down a street in the United States without being beaten. And he will be arrested if he sets foot in any western nation, including Canada.

Snowden is a shallow, callow, self-righeous moron who now lives in a police state where every word he says or types is monitered by the intelligence services. After doing his best to damage United States and western interests, Russian tolerance of him will only last so long. Any word he puts wrong, anything he does in a similar manner to what he did in the US will land him in prison or dead.

I won't shed a tear.

No, authoritarian yes-boy state-power sycophants certainly would mourn Mr Snowdens demise.

[Rue]

Never fails to amaze me how the same clique applauds themselves on the back as being so much smarter than anyone else and have the only valid opinions on any topic let alone the NSA.

http://www.law360.com/articles/499940/nsa-says-court-lacks-jurisdiction-in-surveillance-suits

Of course the fact they quote someone with no legal jurisdiction is par for the course.

"Los Angeles (January 10, 2014, 9:59 PM ET) -- The National Security Agency on Friday told a Washington, D.C., federal judge who said its surveillance program was likely unconstitutional that his court lacked jurisdiction over claims in a former U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor's two suits against the federal agencies.

In a partial motion to dismiss, the NSA and the DOJ argued to U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon that Congress had precluded judicial review of Administrative Procedure Act allegations, such as those made by Larry E. Klayman, that the program exceeded the statutory authority..."

There are of course other versions of the legality of NSA activities other than those of Hudson Jones.

In addition to the comments of the Judge Hudson Jones produced, I guess he forgot that less then 3 weeks after that comment, U.S. District Judge William Pauley, " ruled that the NSA’s collection of telephone records is legal and valuable in the fight against terrorism. In his opinion, he wrote, "a bulk telephony metadata collection program [is] a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data" and noted that a similar collection of data prior to 9/11 might have prevented the attack."

source for the above:

Bazzle, Steph (27 December 2013). "Judge Says NSA’s Data Collection Is Legal". Indyposted. Retrieved 28 December 2013.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Rue

[Rue]

Say now will anyone criticize Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other intelligence operations doing the exact same thing as the NSA. Of course not. On this forum unless its the US or Israel, we don't discuss it. NSA operates for no reason. It just invented itself for no reason other than to spy on innocent people in the US. what a crock. Not a peep about its purpose and what it is trying to monitor. Not a peep as to what the Russians and Chinese have done.

Ye sir let's just pretend the US is the only country in the world that has an NSA and ignore all the rest. Let's just pretend the US has no reason to spy.

"An E.U. Parliament survey of 5 member states found that 4 of the 5 (U.K., France, Germany and Sweden) engage in bulk collection of data. Only the Netherlands doesn’t, but that’s not because it doesn’t want to. In fact, The Netherlands is currently setting up an agency for that purpose. France, which summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain allegations that the NSA spied on Alcatel-Lucent, ranks fifth in the world in metadata collection. And Sweden? Its National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) is alleged to have been running ‘upstreaming’ operations (tapping directly into the communications infrastructure as a means to intercept data) for the collection of private data — collecting both the content of messages as well as metadata of communications crossing Swedish borders through fibre-optic cables from the Baltic Sea.”

source for above: http://www.tarborotimes.com/2013/10/29/weird-news-every-country-spies-just-not-as-much-as-the-usa-and-the-uk/

The MSS. Would Hudson Jones even acknowledge them and what they do. Does he even know who they are? Ministry of State Security. They spy all over the world requiring the US to have an NSA to counter them.

Say now what about the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia and its Federal Service Agency. Will Hudson Jones talk about them?

Here's a hint they used to be called the KGB. Same people new name.

The NSA exists and engages in the activities it does the same reason all other countries have intelligence agencies. Its part of a network to protect the US from foreign spies and terrorists and to protect other countries from terror attacks coming in from US soil in exchange for them doing the same for the US.

To pretend the world is a nice quaint place and only talk about what the US does is bull. It does not operate in a vacuum- no intelligence agency does.

Then again why should I be surprised. These same anti American bashers won't acknowledge terrorist activities even exist and need to be monitored let alone that the US is only one of many doing this.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Rue

[GostHacked]

Say now will anyone criticize Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other intelligence operations doing the exact same thing as the NSA. Of course not.

China says they spy, and they are spying,

Russia says they spy, and they are spying.

USA says they are NOT spying, but they are spying. I think this is the part that people take issue with.

Then again why should I be surprised. These same anti American bashers won't acknowledge terrorist activities even exist and need to be monitored let alone that the US is only one of many doing this.

No one is bashing America.

Edited March 4, 2014 by GostHacked

[Argus]

China says they spy, and they are spying,

Russia says they spy, and they are spying.

USA says they are NOT spying, but they are spying. I think this is the part that people take issue with.

The US denies the NSA works for them? I hadn't heard that.

Or do they say the NSA is responsible for picking potatoes?

[Rue]

The US spies as does every other nation including Canada. We have governments that spy on each other and their own citizens. Some on this board think they should only be concerned when the US does it. I am not so selective. I believe the US does what it does not in a vacuum but as part of an over all game all countries play and to simply isolate them and criticize them while ignoring the terrorists and other countries of this world it must protect itself against is nonsense.

The US is not an evil empire. No one likes big government and curtailing of individual rights. What I can say is the US has a legal system that struggles its best to balance state security with individual civil rights. I can say the same for Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel. Our governments and legal systems work. They may not be perfect but they work. We allow our governments to be scrutinized and we try out best to keep our legal system separated from the politics of the government of the day.

I can not say the same for China, Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea,Hamas, Fatah Hawks, Intifada.

Spying is a reality of this world. You wand it to end? Please come on this board and explain how the US somehow is doing something no other country does and should stop. How can it? This double standard against the US, Israel and then the magical "West"some o you have on this board reflect your sheltered trendy leftist upbringings where you take the rights you have for granted. You have no clue what the external threats are to the very life you take for granted.

You want to suck up to Putin, Hussein? You want to apologize for them and suggest they are victims of the West? Go play that tune to your fellow trendies. Its bull.

By the way, even the NDP supported Harper's comments. Guess the NSA got to him,

[GostHacked]

The US denies the NSA works for them? I hadn't heard that.

That is because no one said anything like that. The US denied that they are spying on the scale that they are. Only after Snowden revealed that did the USA admit, 'ya we spy'.

Reading comprehension people.

Or do they say the NSA is responsible for picking potatoes?

Asinine.

[bud]

Only after Snowden revealed that did the USA admit, 'ya we spy'.

"ya, we spy... but it's not so bad."

argus: "it's not so bad!"

"snowden should be tried for treason"

argus: "snowden should be tried for treason!"

Edited March 5, 2014 by bud

[bleeding heart]

Well, Obama's proposed--and publically-announced--changes to US spying (whether they are cosmetic or not) occurred as a direct result of Snowdon.

So anyone who has noted the rightness of Obama's speech has Snowdon to thank...which of course is close to unthinkable.

[guyser]

Rue, on 05 Mar 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

Spying is a reality of this world. You wand it to end? Please come on this board and explain how the US somehow is doing something no other country does and should stop. How can it? This double standard against the US, Israel and then the magical "West"some o you have on this board reflect your sheltered trendy leftist upbringings where you take the rights you have for granted. You have no clue what the external threats are to the very life you take for granted.

You want to suck up to Putin, Hussein? You want to apologize for them and suggest they are victims of the West? Go play that tune to your fellow trendies. Its bull.

By the way, even the NDP supported Harper's comments. Guess the NSA got to him,

Perhaps you are the RobandDoug Ford of MLW?

You make arguments no one proposed or proposes.

Rob Reiner called. He wants his quote back.

Perhaps prior to that you could inform us of what threats exist? Because you know.....thats exactly what you are intimating.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Guyser2

[iolo]

What's new? My best friend was thrown out of work at GCHQ for belonging to a trade union. That's what happens when you fall under extreme-right control.

[Argus]

What's new? My best friend was thrown out of work at GCHQ for belonging to a trade union. That's what happens when you fall under extreme-right control.

All government employees, other than managers belong to trade unions. Oh, wait, you're from the UK? I find it odd GCHQ would have it in for unions. All civilian employees of CSEC (excluding managers) here are union members. Members of CSIS are also represented by trade unions.

And I don't think many would term the current coallition government in the UK 'extreme right"

[Rue]

What threat exists Guyser acts. None. I made them all up Guyser. The world is a perfectly safe and calm place with zero threats.

[iolo]

I would describe the current UK Government as very extreme right, devoted to outright class war, and the union ban at GCHQ was under American pressure.

I write, and it is rubbed out, again and again. Why?

[Rue]

Iolo you alsodescribe the Ukraine as Nazi. You seem to be quick in labelling countries Nazi and extreme right wing offering no criteria. Its clear you have biases that are subjective and put Russia to the left and the Ukraine and Britain to the extreme right.

nd d

Since they are your subjective biases with no basis you probably won`t get much of a response to your allegations.

I also can`t help but think you have never been to Russia, Britain or the Ukraine. Its been my experience the more someone is ignorant of a country and its people the quicker they are to label it. Subjective stereotypes for me are an intellectually lazy tactic to avoid debating. You simply are making it clear you already have a bias and preconception about an entire people. I find your analysis illogical particularly since Putin is now engaging in the exact same process Hitler did to justfy the invasion of the Ukraine. How about you read what Hitler did in Sudetenland and Poland and what Stalin did in Poland and the Ukraine. Your reference for labelling people as right wing I would suggest reflects an ignorance of Stalinism that is being resurrected by Putin complete with people marching in Crimea now with pictures of Stalin.

[iolo]

The rich rule. In some countries they aren't strong enough to bully, so they are liberal; in others, they control the media but have to cope with residual democracy and are out to destroy it; in yet others they are in control, the Nazis. What's your problem here?

[Argus]

The rich rule. In some countries they aren't strong enough to bully, so they are liberal; in others, they control the media but have to cope with residual democracy and are out to destroy it; in yet others they are in control, the Nazis. What's your problem here?

Define rich. Every society in history has had its more sophisticated and educated elites. And yes, they do tend to rule. Who should rule? The dumb and uneducated? Most of them have little interest in even voting.

And if you think the British government are Nazis I wonder what you think of the Canadian government... :-P