Putin on the brakes.

Way to go Eddie boy!:up:

The Russian perspective from my wife is one of apathy and no surprise. While part of it is the two fingers up to America that Russians seem to enjoy it is also one of not being surprised at the Snowden revelations. Maybe it is from seven decades of living in a surveillance society but they don't trust their government and it doesn't trust them. They know governments want to know what their citizens are doing. To be honest I think Obama shouldn't of made such a big fuss of getting him back as the spotlight has stayed on him and the US government. Time will tell. Though my wife's first suspicion was that the whole thing was a double bluff on the part of the CIA

“We don’t have a domestic spying program,” Obama told Leno during a Tuesday night interview. "What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat."

Distraction and desinformation with the president's voice!

Obama’s former adviser Van Jones ridicules statement that NSA doesn’t spy on Americans.

Van Jones said Wednesday on CNN. "First of all, we do have a domestic spying program, and what we need to be able to do is figure out how to balance these things, not pretend like there’s no balancing to be done.”


http://rt.com/usa/us-obama-surveillance-snowden-296/

Email service linked to NSA leaker Edward Snowden shuts down



From http://lavabit.com/

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...baghdadbob.jpg

Why does Lavabit need legal defense?

Russia "disappointed" bilateral talks with US cancelled
BBC News (US & Canada)
7 August 2013 Last updated at 17:10 ET

Quote:

...Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday... ..."This decision is clearly linked to the situation with former agent of US special services [Edward] Snowden, which hasn't been created by us," he said during a phone conference with the press. "For many years, the Americans have avoided signing an extradition agreement," Mr Ushakov said, "And they have invariably responded negatively to our requests for extradition of people who committed crimes on the territory of Russia, pointing at the absence of such agreement." "Russian representatives are ready to continue working together with American partners on all key issues on the bilateral and multilateral agenda," Mr Ushakov said "For many years, the Americans have avoided signing an extradition agreement," Mr Ushakov said, "And they have invariably responded negatively to our requests for extradition of people who committed crimes on the territory of Russia, pointing at the absence of such agreement." But he added the invitation for the bilateral summit was still open. "Russian representatives are ready to continue working together with American partners on all key issues on the bilateral and multilateral agenda," Mr Ushakov said. The decision to cancel the talks, announced during a trip by the US president to Los Angeles...[to make an appearance on the Jay Leno evening chat-show?] ...in which he condemned a newly enacted anti-gay law in Russia. "I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them," Mr Obama said...

Its a real shame when the Russians make more sense than the American pResident in the White House. So essentially the matter boils down to being an issue concerning homosexuals? What a staggering baffoon and unmitigated walking disaster.

http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps4cac9541.jpg

I always though the whole concept of "lets hit the reset button" was ludicrious. As if to magically forget everything that happened in the past, or like it's a video game and you get another life, or reload a saved game and try something over.

Sadly, that's not how real life works. So i though the whole "reset" language being used by this administration was both nieve and laughable.

If you are interested in a different, special point of view concerning the administration's response to the NSA surveillance leaks, how the public and the Congress is totally disinformed about the facts and how the administration slowly turns mad about the whole issue.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...ce-leaks.shtml

From a NYT interview with Edward Snowden:

Why did you seek out Laura and Glenn, rather than journalists from major American news outlets (N.Y.T., W.P., W.S.J. etc.)?

Edward Snowden: After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power — the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government — for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism. From a business perspective, this was the obvious strategy, but what benefited the institutions ended up costing the public dearly. The major outlets are still only beginning to recover from this cold period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/ma...ranscript.html

Made my day.

^ Very good article..
:hmm2:

The best quote from that article has to be from the 1960 report issued by the House Committee on Operations...
" Secrecy -- the first refuge of incompetents -- must be at a bare minimum in a democratic society for a fully informed public is the basis of self government. Those elected or appointed to positions of executive authority must recognize that government, in a democracy, cannot be wiser than its people. "

That idea alone still holds true today, 53 years later. Especially when you consider the world political climate in that era.

Einstein said something like that the kind of thinking that created a problem cannot be expected to solve that problem.

There's the operative word in all of this..."thinking" Something todays politicos are in very short supply of.

Ignorant knee jerks the lot of them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui3KpztUzVg

Lavabit owner talks about the shutdown of his encrypted email service, probably used by Edward Snowden. He can't speak freely, because he is forced by the government to keep the information out of public.

Goooood mooorning Vietn...

Wait.

No, start again.

Gooood mooorning America!

LINK: NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

LINK: Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited

Donate your privacy. It's for a good cause: the control of the fatherland! :yeah:

I don't know if it was the same e-mail service or not but, there was one awhile back that had one of their servers stolen by the FBI. They installed a CCTV camera at the server farm prior to replacing the server and caught the FBI agents putting the stolen server back in its rack about a week later. The agents were confronted and offered no explanation and no search warrant for the seizure. Part of PRISM I would suspect because the encrypted E-mail service catered to dissidents in other countries who would be murdered by their governments if their communications were intercepted.

As far as I understand, this measure is not only an American problem. The police enters our homes secretly and manipulates our computers or leaves surveillance items behind. Our governmental trojan has to be installed that way, if they can't make their suspects to install it over some software from the internet. They say, they have to have a go from the jurisdiction, but the judges are way too busy to check every request for it's justification with proper earnestness. They stamp it and leave it to the police to make it right.

My problem right now is, whoever I talk to about the situation, they are unaware, uninformed, bored or they simply igrnore it. No motivation to act at all. They seem to be surprized and don't believe to be able to fight or even see the problem.

The whole system is out of control and the people are not willing to change anything.
Even the young folks, who are severly compromized in their communication, seem to accept the surveillance, because they believe to be protected by the government this way. As long as they don't feel directly hit, they go on with their daily routine.

I think, if our government would start again to deport and erase some minority, no one would care at all. This law and order spirit would make them ignore the measures, make them assume, they must be justified somehow, or the action would never happen in our state of law.

We have turned into a totalitarian surveillance and police state and there is very little to no resistance. The police is acting more and more independant from the law and they are rarely brought to justice, even if they violate the law obviously. I think this is a symptom of trying to keep the people calm in times of potential uprise. They shall fear the police to be entitled to use force wherever they think fit.

Resistance is only a few, without means to press a claim.
I guess it must turn worse first, before a majority will gather enough momentum and motivation to try change the system into a better one. Force will have to be used.

Then we will see blood and thunder. I don't like it.

It's a conundrum Mittelwaechter. No doubt about that. When people give up their rights or fail to protect them, the next step is slavery.
Hopefully I won't be around to see it.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ained-heathrow

It gets more and more absurd and the law enforcment executives show their power to do whatever they want, wherever they want to whoever they want.

You are connected to someone who is connected to someone suspected? Be careful, you may be victim to your state or another state anytime. They go personal and try to intimidate you and your friends.

Are you willing to accept this? Will you continue to look away?