Topic: BitCoins for Edward Snowden. - page 2. (Read 30961 times)

This is a very good piece that pretty much says it all...

I still believe the US has all the dynamics needed to move forward, adapt and compete in this new world setting, but those who missed the wind of change have yet to acknowledge that new setting first.

Have you seen this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h__uutzcQXc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dh__uutzcQXc

The terrorists didn't like the freedoms the people of the US had; so the government bowed down and systematically eroded those freedoms away. Who is the traitor again?

You know what?

As a liberal, non-US citizen, I agree with the last part of your reasoning.

When I was 14 (I'm now 32), I was admiring the US so much, it was really the land of my dreams, as it embodied my ideal of a leading nation in the world, producing most of its technological advances, enforcing an ideal of freedom and democracy, etc.

I had the map of the US pinned to my wall. I learned the (US) English language, the geography and the 50 states, the history, the constitution, I impregnated myself with the culture through the exported TV shows and movies (at least the mainstream thing, carried by the mass media). I learned about Thanksgiving, Halloween, jocks and nerds, bullies in high school, the proms, US football and the cheerleaders, so many things we didn't have on the other side of the pond.

Overall, my vision of politics and the world — as a teenager in the 1990s — was that US standards were indeed far above those of other countries, and that what could be perceived as arrogance was merely a byproduct (or collateral damage as they would later say) of excellence, or simply plain jealousy. But all in all, the US deserved respect from the rest of the world because they had achieved so much.

It's hard for me to say that my vision has changed since then. Of course, I'm no longer a teenager and even the thought of any nation embodying any ideal seems totally naive to me now. But specifically about the US, I have visited that country almost 10 times in my life now and since that infamous 9/11 (or is it a coincidence?), and I feel like things have changed.

I still have a positive opinion, overall, and a lot of respect for the US as a nation in the world. But I'm afraid that many US citizens are blinded by the fantastic achievements of their nation in the 20th century. The world is evolving, very fast, and the focus of economical growth has shifted to Asia and other places in the world. The US is still among the world leaders, but it's got competition.

tl;dr:
You WERE right, 30 years ago.
Now that we're in 2014, I would strongly recommend more modesty towards the rest of the world, for your own sake!

Cheers

PS: some useful fact checking here (i.e. US still doing good but competing with many others)

• List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita
• List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
• List of countries by Human Development Index
• PISA 2012 test results
• List of countries by military expenditures

... and don't forget about the debt, we are Bitcoiners for a reason ;-)

Well fuck obama for one thing. Put a god damn infantile monkey in charge and this is what we get. Colin Powell, Condi or McCain would have done a better job of at least keeping things stable in terms of power on global stage, sans palin.

I am in favor of a dedicated nation who is willing to do what it takes, and citizens who are responsible and worthy of the privileges and opportunities that they were born with as Americans.

Do you stand for anything? You should ask your question to any idiotic anti-US fools around the world about what they stand for.

Always with the bitching. Try to apply that standard for once outside of US and see how many people even deserve to live to see the next sun rise. At least US produced resulted and even now ensures the stability of key aspects around the world.

Honeypot ... sounds like you are champion for

- indefinite Guantanamo Bay detentions without charge,
- extra-judicial drone killings,
- ubiquitous mass-surveillance,
- unaccountable militarised policing forces
- court martial for dissidents, whistleblowers
- political protest movement infiltration by State agents
- IRS politically-motivated harassment

rah, rah ... Hitler luvs thuggy guys like you, Jefferson not so much.

Do you know what you stand for anymore besides USA, USA, USA, rah-rah-rah!?

You are completely naive I don't know where to start with your little drivel about what you THINK is an American Ideal. Or any ideal for that matter.


I love it when fools are all of a sudden experts on US constitution and champion of liberty when they need to find excuses to bitch at US.

Have you read the profiles of Manning and Snowden? Do either of them remotely seem like even che guevara material (a false hero and a coward who met the result of his childish ignorance and adventurism in the forests of bolivia and had to be held on a leash by more level headed castro)?

You sermonize about 'ideals' of US when it's convenient. I expect you to follow them when they are not.

Look at the state of affairs in the rest of the world, the REAL state underneath all the excuses and bitching that fools empty gullible 1st world children. Who is in a position to sermonize to US about what its ideals are? At least past events have proven US is much more capable of ultimately bringing results where it really matters. But of course, every one conveniently forgets them.

Maybe you think, perhaps as an American citizen, you have the right to take potshots at your own country in the same tone and voice as those foreigners who seek to denigrate US. When all you can do is sit there and moan without knowing why such measures were necessary, you expose yourself not as an independent, proactive citizen but a mere complacent fool who doesn't know what it means to act as a member of society where the best results come from each and every individual carrying the heavy and powerful responsibility of being relatively independent. You are truly free when you can live up to your ideals in action and demeanor, as a person. Not when you sermonize about them.

You are right about ideals not being matched with reality. Therefore you disregard them as irrelevant when arguing about how important they are? 'That's not the point'? Ideals and goals are backed by will to power through the opposition. Those rights, no privileges, are granted as an opportunity, inalienable by actions or pressures of external origin. They are most DEFINITELY alienable by your own lack of virtue and ability uphold them as an individual. With your kind of selective mentality that is really just excuse making when convenient, I doubt you even know what that means.

The "evil empire" bull shit again? We are brining pain and misery to those who are fully asking for it. Their excuses and rationale are but a veneer of hypocrisy that changes words when it's convenient. Their cultures are full of 5000 years of 'glorious' hypocrisy that they never truly addressed and kept compounding upon itself. Results are much more poignant proof than any self-deceptive delusions about how they are 'spiritually, mentally' better. You are clearly too shallow to be influenced by such cheap self-serving bitching of these fools.

Snowden and the likes of Manning are all hiding behind excuses of 'constitution' while their actions clearly indicate they have no ability to become an actual professional for anything save childish self-glorification and spines of a jellyfish. They are both very insecure, empty individuals who are trying to act heroes.

'Risking his life and liberty'? Don't make me laugh. Being too self-absorbed to even maturely care about what he would do to his own self doesn't constitute courage. That's self-deluded fantasy at its lowest, most infantile form. When reality of the consequences hit him, snowden ran to fucking china and russia. He betrayed all that mouthy attitude in one moment, when he was truly challenged. Make whatever excuses. He and manning are just a couple of scared bitches, just like Assunge. 


"I have already won" LOL you can't make this shit up.

Bitch please.

Thanks for this, it is some detailed work that ought be repeated and confirmed by any with doubt.  FIPS is an interesting set of requirements, and raises the cost of a government contract significantly.

The NSA almost succeeded in making the whole encryption process a ridiculous masquerade by backdooring the PRNG

Actually, the NSA are doing a really good job, since they are by definition supposed to crack any kind of encryption, and establish global surveillance over global communications.

The question is why bother with "official" encryption in the first place, when we know that it's so weak. If I wanted to plot against the US Government, I wouldn't trust my /dev/random to be really (even pseudo-) random, when it comes from a "Designed in Cupertino" machine. Likewise, I wouldn't use any cipher algo that was designed by... the NSA itself

IMHO, the real Snowden effect is just a confirmation that mainstream, consumer-grade encryption is a farce: one the one hand, you have the US Gov. (DHS etc.) admitting that they will spy on any foreign (?...) communications, on the other hand, you have legal systems that are sold with the claim that they offer "privacy". It's just not compatible.

Many non-US businesses (i.e. cloud) are already benefiting from the Snowden effect, and the trend should continue. It's so obvious...

SO wrong and misguided.

Lets look at some of your assertions:

 - Delusional that he has done something remarkable (exposed the largest, broadest, most abused spying program ever seen)

 - Running makes him level with Manning (who didn't run, rotted in solitary and is now imprisoned)

 - Cowardly because he sat behind a computer and exposed lies (risking life and liberty in standing up for his beliefs)


You seem to be upset that people could believe in the ideals under which the US was born or any ideals of justice, privacy etc.

Now, these ideals may not represent reality and global geopolitics may not leave room for niceties or equality (which seems to be what you are saying), but that isn't the point.

The point is that people deserve their own privacy and that the US has been invading, bombing, sanctioning and jailing in the name of the very ideals it had been violating on a massive unprecedented scale.

If the (Socrates) question were would you rather be a bad man who appears good, or a good man who appears bad, Snowden has unmasked the US.

 He's a hero! I love him.

Exposure and change?
The exposure is more international than US.  US is losing lots of international IT service business due to the revelations, but other than that, not much changed.  

Its approved and backed at the highest levels.  Nothing meaningful is likely to change, you can believe that.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/07/transcript-what-obama-said-on-nsa-controversy/

Obama rhetoric includes:
"when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program" (leaving out all of the data collection in that briefing, just the voice)

" I think at the outset, it’s important to understand that your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we’re doing." (whether or not representatives are briefed, it is important that you believe that this is normal procedures - a new normal).

"When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls." (They are computer transcribed, voice analyzed, and data processed, not listened to)

"if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they’ve got to go back to a federal judge" (far a rubber stamp with no oversight, unless they decide it is an emergency, then they can do this later)

"I think, on balance, we — you know, we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about" (He want's the American people to feel comfortable with the way it is - so no changes need be implemented.)

Unless there is a very outspoken public within the USA, there will be no change except maybe something around the margins as window dressing, probably to include some more funding and an expedited surveillance approval process.

It is costing the USA business, but the government doesn't feel that.  They don't need to make a business work, so long as there is enough tax "revenue".

Snowden is a real hero. I wish there were more people like him.

great!

Snowden was a defector against a web of tyranny and deceit where even our own elected officials were lied to and completely ignorant. 

History is littered with the uprising of tyranny and just as littered with people that bury their heads in denial while they let those that value their lives less throw themselves in front of the train of oppression.

If anyone believes that Snowden could have made a tiny dent in NSA and government behaviors by following normal channels of communication, I have 10 million Dogecoins i want to trade you for 10 million BTC.

THERE IS ZERO POSSIBILITY that the NSA or government would have done anything if Snowden would have followed proper channels. ANY Channel available to him would have led to 1) losing his job 2) worse 3) the government plugging the holes that Snowden used and furthering their lies to the American people. There is no end to corruption and manipulation in an organization that has every email about every person at their disposal. How many Senators would Ed Snowden have had to talk to before he found one that was incorruptible and had not dirt in his email closet. ALL OF THEM and he would have failed.

Snowden will go down in history as a hero of our times. I doubt if anyone criticizing him would have ever had the courage to do what he did or the foresight to understand the folly of doing anything else.

The exposure and change we are seeing related to our privacy has been nothing but amazing and we have only one man to thank and that is Edward Snowden.

Ever thought to have no cares about you being the catalyst for something of that magnitude would most likely make you look like a sociopath?

I would not. Not for a second.

Not responsible, but catalyst for it. People's actions are their own of course. I know for one however, I would definitely feel the weight of it, if I did some action that spurned others into reacting violently.

He's not responsible for the consequences at all. Many other people are, but not him.