http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/webwel...achfolger.html

Knowledge is power. Nobody should have that amount of power. Nobody.

It all is about industrial espionage. Not terror - business espionage. That is what proves wrong all those pathetic speeches about transatlantic relations and friendship between states.

But one has to give it to the NSA: it successfully spoilt all planned terror plots by the EU parliament and EU commission against the US. Merkel's planned assassination of Obama also so far was not succesfully carried out. Maybe there is something good in all this nevertheless?

That's the spirit. Always look for the positives in any situation. :O:

Totally legal and not exactly unprecedented. This kind if thing happens quite often - some countries are very twitchy about what they do or don't allow in their airspace. This is a lot higher-profile due to it being a government jet, but the European countries were well within their rights to deny access. I make no comment on whether it was the right thing to do, but it was above board.

Diplomatic traffic is what's called flow-management exempt. That means you can't reroute it around busy areas to relieve controller workload. It doesn't mean it has free right of passage. For that a diplomatic clearance is needed, and this is negotiated with every overflown country and noted in the flight plan. Countries are free to withdraw a diplomatic clearance at any time for any reason. I've seen it happen to aircraft midflight.

The question I asked when the dust still had notz settled. It now seems that the plane was blocked by ciountries until it ran out of fuel - and had to land at Vienna, wehre it apparenbtly had been serarched.

French sources and I think Spanish sources meanwhile said "that they were told" (that's how they put it) Snowden were aboard, and in a reaction then closed their airspace to help causing that fuel problem for the jet.

So it was staged, I take that for granted. Formally legal by the dot above the i, but by intention the same as if violating a law, imo.

And the crying wolves in Europe. So thankful for being told about the NSA spying - but in reality being so angry about him and fearing he has unpleasant things to say about their own control programs, too.

Hypocrisy at its best.

I wished we had the greatness to grant him asylum. Assange as well. Instead we act like just another small drop of smear in that cup of grease. Piteous.

All bad enough, especially the spitlicking of some european countries (including Germany), but :
this is about what leaked out, and not about Snowden or second level actions.

What about the contents ? Is ANYBODY questioning and doing something about THAT ?!
:/\\!!

Think about the reaction, if Air Force One with the POTUS aboard would be forced to land somewhere to be searched. It would be a totally regular event?

European nations had no problems with clearing air space for CIA flights, to transport prisoners landing in Poland or wherever, just to torture them not on US soil.

Totally legal? Two face!

[QUOTE=Mittelwaechter;2079937]Think about the reaction, if Air Force One with the POTUS aboard would be forced to land somewhere to be searched. It would be a totally regular event?[\quote] the plane was not technically forced down, it was denied clearance to continue. Air Force 1 isn't immune to this kind of thing, countries refuse clearance to U.S. diplomatic aircraft all the time.

Any country is within their rights to deny clearance.

Point is - nothing was publicly said about rendition or torture when these flights were applying for diplomatic clearance. It was not a state level decision at the time.

...not technically forced... - brilliant! :woot:

...countries refuse clearance to U.S. diplomatic aircraft all the time... - you've got a link to this? Or do you think this is fact?
And any US diplomatic aircraft is not the president's plane.

In Morales case, the clearance was given at first with the flight plan - as usual - but denied midflight somewhere close to French and Italian airspace. They were directed to Vienna, refueled and denied clearance for take off for 13 hours.

...Point is - nothing was publicly said about rendition or torture when these flights were applying for diplomatic clearance. It was not a state level decision at the time.

But it was publicly said, Snowden may be aboard Morales's plane, or what?


It stinks!

Venezuela and Nicaragua are offering Snowden asylum: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...r-snowden?lite

If the SEBIN get a hold of Snowden, they will peel him like an onion. :nope:

I hope Snowden is thinking very carefully these days.

The Chinese have had his information, as have the Russians, so I think he will happily bend over and drop his pants for whomever asks him to.

That's not entirely accurate...
'Murica has asked him to come home and drop trousers but, they forgot to say please.:nope:

The United States has been scrambling with damage control to no avail.

I guess they refuse to realize that, " See through them we can." Well, some of us.

Just some thoughts before the elephant in this room breaks something. We are being a little naive aren't we? Friendly nations spying on each other? Oh my. Didn't see that coming.

Let's face it, espionage is a fact of life. Not using the abilities that are available is like making a scientific discovery and not using that information while others, friend or foe, use the same information on you. My guess is that it will only intensify and become more subtle. Snowden's disclosure will only make them better intelligence gatherers. Get use to it.

Europeans who get outraged by the discovery that NSA is listening should realize that the chief espionage threat to them is not the USA but China and Russia, among others, who of course also spy on the US. The USA has a defence and industrial complex that it shares with its European partners. So let's say because of NSA's intelligence gathering they discover a security leak in a German agency that the Chinese are exploiting.

Wouldn't you like to know that?

Then there is the reality of the situation. I may not agree with it. You may not agree with it but that doesn't change the way the world is. We should not be surprised by any of this. Protest all you want, be outraged and offended.

Do you think it will stop?

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, former head of the CIA and NSA on CBS's Face the Nation.

What does he know?

Some Americans see some European countries as less than trustworthy partners who breach sanctions, go easy on Islamist extremists, flirt with dictators and leak secrets to America's enemies.

Is any of that true?

Countries may spy on their so called friends for a number of reasons, but the main one has to be to find out if they can trust them and to know what their future intentions are.

Is that unreasonable?

One could say that nations are considered "friendly" specifically because we collect information on them so we know what they are up to.

To quote Damon Runyon "Trust, but verify". :yep:

We accept thousands of dead by traffic accidents, thousands dead by doctors botch, by alcohol, weapons and tobacco abuse etc - but we have to run a total surveillance program for some totally unachievable security from terrorism? Therefore we want to know what our potential enemies - but also our friends and all the people in our own countries think, what they fear, what they dream of, what they plan to do?
Are you serious?

Espionage may have been common for centuries, but it was limited to spy the governments, the military, even the economy.
Don't tell me we have to accept this espionage on everybody, just because they have the capacity to do so right now.
The governments, the military and the economy has enough power to deal with this espionage, but the average man has neither time, nor money, nor information to fight back.

I don't want to have a few guys in black suits and shades following me around, noting every thing I do, I watch, I talk about and report it 24/7 to a central entity, claiming it wants to protect me.
I don't want to be checked every 200 meters from some state security police, just to feel mistakenly 'safe' from some imaginary potential terrorists behind the next tree.
This is exactly what happens, just hidden in an unrecognizable, untouchable and unobtrusive virtual space. This is the opposite of freedom. This is to be controlled, to be opressed, to be forced into conformed bahaviour.

Some of us had this sort of dystopia. It existed several times, for the same security reasons - to protect the people from the evil. It was abused everytime.
The free, upright and honest gave their lives to fight these systems. Now their children want to establish exactly this system? That's our way to honour our ancestors sacrifice?
We are encouraged to simply condone the next - even more dangerous - version of this system, because - well - we can't change it anyway?

Those who think they can't change it, won't change it. Those who think they can, will try and probably do. If you fight you can lose - or win. If you don't fight you have already lost.

There are allways those, who obey orders of any superior. And there are allways those who doubt and challenge the superiors to order.
These are obedient and submissive, those are self-determined and free - at least up to a certain degree.

Think! This is the task of our generation.