BitCoins for Edward Snowden.

[lazydna]

I just don't get it, why HongKong? what the fuck, he's going to get extradited.
why didn't he just go to HongKong, out of reach of the Americans, THEN go to Iceland, THEN TELL YOUR STORY.
balls.

edit: I don't buy the 'i couldn't reach iceland in the short time'.
earning $120k a year and your telling me he couldn't sit at HKG, pay in cash/credit for the first flight out to KEF?

[auto2nr1]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower

Edward Snowden Q&A

[agnostic98]

Listening to some of the politicians in Hong Kong speak today it seemed like much of Hong Kong actually supports what he's doing and will be helping to delay the extradition process as long as possible, possibly years.

[cypherdoc]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower

Edward Snowden Q&A

Wow. That was extraordinary. Thanks for the link.   Any more?

[Cubic Earth]

I just don't get it, why HongKong? what the fuck, he's going to get extradited.
why didn't he just go to HongKong, out of reach of the Americans, THEN go to Iceland, THEN TELL YOUR STORY.
balls.

edit: I don't buy the 'i couldn't reach iceland in the short time'.
earning $120k a year and your telling me he couldn't sit at HKG, pay in cash/credit for the first flight out to KEF?

He was worried that he would have been captured in Iceland before he had a chance to go public.  Iceland is small and the US can exert enormous pressure and maybe even have its agents operated directly there.  Hong Kong, under China's umbrella, would not suffer from those same risks.  Did you see that Snowden said he would have had to give the NSA 30-days of notice before he left the country?  He was worried he might not have even made it to Hong Kong without being nabbed right off the airplane.

[cypherdoc]

I just don't get it, why HongKong? what the fuck, he's going to get extradited.
why didn't he just go to HongKong, out of reach of the Americans, THEN go to Iceland, THEN TELL YOUR STORY.
balls.

edit: I don't buy the 'i couldn't reach iceland in the short time'.
earning $120k a year and your telling me he couldn't sit at HKG, pay in cash/credit for the first flight out to KEF?

He was worried that he would have been captured in Iceland before he had a chance to go public.  Iceland is small and the US can exert enormous pressure and maybe even have its agents operated directly there.  Hong Kong, under China's umbrella, would not suffer from those same risks.  Did you see that Snowden said he would have had to give the NSA 30-days of notice before he left the country?  He was worried he might not have even made it to Hong Kong without being nabbed right off the airplane.

The good news :

Snowden says encryption is safe.  It must be. Otherwise how could he be giving all these interviews out in the open?

[runam0k]

Snowden isn't in any danger at all (except, perhaps from kidnap by foreign intelligence operatives).

It's absurd to think the US authorities would try to kill him. He would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the US too.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Snowden isn't in any danger at all (except, perhaps from kidnap by foreign intelligence operatives).

It's absurd to think the US authorities would try to kill him. He would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the US too.

You might not have been paying attention ...

[Lethn]

Snowden isn't in any danger at all (except, perhaps from kidnap by foreign intelligence operatives).

It's absurd to think the US authorities would try to kill him. He would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the US too.

You might not have been paying attention ...

You know they have the death penalty in the U.S and people have been talking about how the government are considering targeting U.S Citizens they think are terrorists right?

[hashman]

The bickering about the power structure of HK is pointless; Snowden could be on the moon by now.

He seems smart enough to formulate a simple plan like: "Tell everyone I'm trying to head to Iceland next, but sneak down to my secret bungalow in the Seychelles the minute this reporter leaves the room."

People like you are part of the problem, not the solution.

+1

yes, the government should operate within the law.  Oversight committees have direct responsibility for making sure that happens.  There should be consequences for illegal activities.  Heads should roll.  Time for everyone to consider the legality of what the NSA does.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Did you hear about that country that started up in the 1770s as the greatest experiment ever in small government?
It only took ~230 years to become the world's most bloated and restrictive government in history.

This has happened before a few times... But never this large.

Sadly, it always ends the same way, so we can fully expect for that particular experiement to end a lot noisier:

(Hence many people's interest in bitcoin here.)


Anyway, what we learned from that failed experiment is: The smaller you make a government without actually removing the government entirely, the less structure there is in place to actually curb the growth of the government.

So with all of this in mind, are you really trying to just keep the status quo moving along as usual? More oversight committees? More regulations? Hoping the problems will go away if we just get one more good man in some public office somewhere?  

An alternative view, with which I tend to agree:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html

EL OH EL at the 700+ DEATH THREATS the author got in the comments below.

Here's one for you too:  Please go die in a fire.

Great post BTCLuke  

The only surprising thing to me here is:  a long bitcointalk thread where nobody questions the official story of the MSM. 

[runam0k]

You might not have been paying attention ...

You know they have the death penalty in the U.S and people have been talking about how the government are considering targeting U.S Citizens they think are terrorists right?

Did I miss something?

There are lots of so-called whistleblowers sitting in the US, none of whom have disappeared or otherwise died young.

Immediately Snowden went public he was safe (at least from US authorities). Sure, he'd be jailed pretty quickly (he committed a crime) and wouldn't be able to do the interviews and Q&As he's currently conducting from HK - nor flirt with China and Russia to secure his long term liberty - but physically safe nonetheless.

Do you really think the NSA, CIA or whoever would try to kill Snowden? I say again, absurd.

[BitJohn]

Snowden isn't in any danger at all (except, perhaps from kidnap by foreign intelligence operatives).

It's absurd to think the US authorities would try to kill him. He would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the US too.

You might not have been paying attention ...

He committed treason hes not safe.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The only surprising thing to me here is:  a long bitcointalk thread where nobody questions the official story of the MSM. 

I wondered this myself and came to the conclusion that no-one even bothers questioning the MSM because they implicitly assume (KNOW?) that they are spinning propaganda ... it must have been like this with Pravda during the USSR.

[runam0k]

yes, the government should operate within the law.  Oversight committees have direct responsibility for making sure that happens.  There should be consequences for illegal activities.  Heads should roll.  Time for everyone to consider the legality of what the NSA does.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

So WTF is your solution?

I'm not saying any of this is ideal, but if we want the ability, for example, to gather information on persons of interest (whether they be criminals, terrorists or foreign government or corporate spies) as and when required, there will necessarily be some form of clandestine operation that must necessarily be kept secret from the general population. We necessarily rely on our elected representatives to decide how best to formulate and implement that plan. We necessarily rely on a small subset to specify the boundaries within which these programmes operate. The result - the best we have manged to come up with - is oversight committees and bona fide whistleblowing programmes.

Got a better idea?

An alternative view, with which I tend to agree:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html

EL OH EL at the 700+ DEATH THREATS the author got in the comments below.

Here's one for you too:  Please go die in a fire.

Nice.

[hashman]

At first I was outraged...$200k working for Booz Allen in Hawaii!!! 

Then I saw the end:

Snowden left the CIA in 2009 to work for a private contractor that gave him an assignment at an NSA facility on a military base in Japan.

$200k makes sense. So does that mean his position is open?

Yes.  And advertised in the NYT. 

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.co.uk/2013_06_01_archive.html

[Lethn]

Do you really think the NSA, CIA or whoever would try to kill Snowden? I say again, absurd.

When has the U.S government ever given a shit about what people like you think is absurd? They went and organised an illegal spying operation on Kim Dotcom just for setting up a file hosting site for fucks sake and in another country I should add.

[bg002h]

Snowden isn't in any danger at all (except, perhaps from kidnap by foreign intelligence operatives).

It's absurd to think the US authorities would try to kill him. He would have been perfectly safe had he stayed in the US too.

You might not have been paying attention ...

He committed treason hes not safe.

He revealed treason, IMHO.  He will be _accused_ of committing it.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Do you really think the NSA, CIA or whoever would try to kill Snowden? I say again, absurd.

A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State

[ErisDiscordia]

I'm not saying any of this is ideal, but if we want the ability, for example, to gather information on persons of interest (whether they be criminals, terrorists or foreign government or corporate spies) as and when required, there will necessarily be some form of clandestine operation that must necessarily be kept secret from the general population.

So do you personally want to have this ability? Or are you just conflating government with society in general? Because if "we" end up having this ability I don't think it's going to be you or me that will be using it or even having any say in how and against whom it will be used.

Hey btw if institutions like banks and governments want to spy on me...well I can live with that as long as I can spy on them in the exact same manner. I bet that I have significantly less to hide than them

[runam0k]

So do you personally want to have this ability? Or are you just conflating government with society in general? Because if "we" end up having this ability I don't think it's going to be you or me that will be using it or even having any say in how and against whom it will be used.

Hey btw if institutions like banks and governments want to spy on me...well I can live with that as long as I can spy on them in the exact same manner. I bet that I have significantly less to hide than them

Ha, no, not me personally. "We" meaning US society as a whole.

As in if this was put to a vote tomorrow, there's zero doubt the people of the US would choose to keep the NSA and every other branch of the US government that deals with national security matters.

I would go so far as to say that without such institutions, the US simply wouldn't be the superpower it is today. Chances are we wouldn't have the freedoms we enjoy today. We probably wouldn't even have the freedom to be typing here about bitcoins or bitcoins for Snowden.