risking his life to tell you about NSA surveillance [ot]

The NSA surveillance also violates the first amendment to the US constitution as well as provisions of the Patriot Act.

Tom: but the trade-off between intrusive intelligence and false security is very dangerous and begging for abuse by senior management

i know there are lots of people out there who would love to harm us the minute there is any opportunity, even in our own country... apparently especially in our own country...whether from desperation or revenge or greed or lust for power

to walk around thinking otherwise is just naive

there is tremendous temptation to run around dropping bombs on people and expecting that to solve problems

that may be fun for a while and gives a false sense of accomplishment

but the negative consequences of tearing up a society extend for generations into the future and benefit no one

so that just exacerbates problems, increasing the already too many people that hate us

our managers have to find alternatives to violent solutions

perhaps it is too late to save ourselves, but i don't want to encourage that line of thought...fear is like a prayer for what you don't want to happen

our society is cheating its citizens with artificially contrived monopolies on all the means of survival, making it very a hard to justify any holier-than-thou attitude relative to other countries

i think our central managers realize they have gone too far, but the momentum of old habits is hard to change

these monopolies are sitting on solutions that could completely change the nature of the game...but these are not solutions that can be monopolized

secrecy seems to be more often used to hide discreditable acts than to protect justifiable sources and methods

the elite seem to desperately fantasize that controlling all the money and power will save them during social collapse

bringing social pressure requiring our bosses forgo their greed and face up to fair and equitable solutions might be the only thing that can save us at this point

I have small faith in opinions of those institutions as presently arrayed.

It's also insightful to witness the apparent state of confusion that congress exists in regarding the realties of these programs.

Tom: healyje, your obsessive references to 'conspiracy theories' is quite boring

yueah,, and hows that worked for us?


ill answer that: it HASNT.

Snowden escapes. I don't see any evidence of him working with the Chinese government

Hopefully this thread and similar public dialogues will help not just dispel but shatter the notion that liberals are somehow automatically FOR democracy and personal freedom and conservatives are automatically against it.

Sorry, but Congress and the Supreme Court both disagree with you.

Congress and the Supreme Court both are now stupid monkey men with no brains just creating hell on earth......

NO Liberal is For the NSA surveillance program. We are just pragmatic to realize that you can't fight what has been made law by the Republicans after 911. Hopefully, as the current Admin says, these programs will have Stiff oversight. Which is the exact opposite of what most people are saying.

lots of americans are inclined to believe that if the government were drown in the bathtub, walmart pepboys and farmer brothers would given them a fairer shake...

(Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden, and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.

In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits.

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits," he said.

An influential U.S. senator on Wednesday said he would seek to end those benefits if Ecuador gave Snowden asylum.

Snowden, 30, is believed to be at Moscow's international airport and seeking safe passage to Ecuador.

The Andean nation's government denies reports that it provided a travel document to the former National Security Agency contractor, whose U.S. passport has been revoked.

The government has not been able to process his asylum request because he is not on Ecuadorean territory, another government official said.

Never shy of taking on the West, the pugnacious Correa last year granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to help him avoid extradition from Great Britain to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault accusations.

The 50-year-old U.S.-trained economist won a landslide re-election in February on generous state spending to improve infrastructure and health services, and his Alianza Pais party holds a majority in the legislature.

Ecuadorean officials said Washington was unfairly using the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which provides customs benefits in exchange for efforts to fight the drug trade, as a political weapon.

The program was set to expire at the end of this month.

An OPEC nation of 15 million people, Ecuador exported $5.4 billion worth of oil, $166 million of cut flowers, $122 million of fruits and vegetables and $80 million of tuna to the United States under the Andean trade program in 2012.

Termination of the benefits could hurt the cut flower industry, which has blossomed under the program and employs more than 100,000 workers, many of them women.

Critics of Correa say Ecuador's embrace of Assange - and now possibly Snowden - is hypocritical given what they say is his authoritarian style and suppression of media at home.

Supporters of Correa say he has simply taken on media and business elites who were trying to erode what the president calls his "Citizens' Revolution."

(Writing by Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade benefits.

but according to some of the libtards on this site its still all W's fault.

but according to some of the libtards on this site its still all W's fault.

Although I could never prove it, I feel certain that many people posting to this thread would change their position 180 degrees if there was a Republican administration in the White House.