Seriously.

Of course not. The homosexuals here are mostly the 1s class citizens. All homosexuals I know, I know from TV because they are famous singers, actors etc. We even have a saing here: "Wanna be rich and famous? Be a gay then."

So I didn't get your comparison.

good job snowden, today's news cycle is all about how snowden is tired and misses his girlfriend. now that's a story that will create change!

p.s. the same girl he bailed on and left with the rent due. classy turnaround.

too bad - now i am going to miss him when i'm in Moscow next Thursday

Yep, Moscow is a very cool city. I've been to many places and I do confirm that Moscow is the best one to spend time in.

Just FYI: the yearly budget of Moscow is $52.4 billions, so it's a second city in the World after New York ($65.9 billions). For example, the budget of London is only $18.9 billions.

Are you gonna be in Moscow? For how long?

unfortunately just for 2 hours in airport transit on my way to Cuba

:(


8char

I'm gonna to explain my question. Some time ago the United States of America was considered as the best country in the World because of the freedom. Everybody knew that in the USA you are free. But what's about now? Where are those freedoms today? Could you say that you (as an US citizen) are more free than somebody say in EU, Brazil, Argentina, Russia etc? Do you have more rights than me or what?

Everything that comes from the USA nowadays does strongly remind me of the USSR in its worst exhibition.

i'm not in a freedom competition with you. i couldn't care less if you have more or less freedom than me or what exact freedoms you have now that you didn't have yesterday or wtfever. enjoy your life, do what you need to do, live where you choose to. if you don't like it, change it. works for me.

Funny you mention this. I was just reading this article:

http://io9.com/is-america-the-new-russia-1006054089

You would do differently? He'd just end up beign a martyr instead of a hero...

What Snowden did took balls. He is a hero, and not a traitor at all.

The government-owned media has clearly done its job.

and that's exactly why i think snowden is a complete fuckup.

this isn't supposed to be about him. it's supposed to be about the information. but due to snowden being a complete absolute fuckup, it's about whether snowden dies or is a hero.

that's bullshit. what you are all saying is you are accepting the attention about this being diverted from the data collection problem and making it entirely about snowden and whether or not he is a hero or a martyr or a leaker or a whistleblower or a good guy or a bad guy.


but his real true huge fuckup was in releasing just enough data for the nsa to admit to it because it is not illegal.


that's not hero level shit, that's fuckup level shit.

i said it before, i'll say it again: what the NSA does might not be illegal in the US when they don't do it to US citizens (really, they don't?) but it is illegal in many other countries

therefore i don't blame you when you are unhappy with Snowden but many other people actually appreciate to have their eyes opened.

and no, the extend of the data mining done by the NSA was not public knowledge yet

Please tell me you're going somewhere other than Varadero? Cuba is so fun. :thumbsup

actually Havana and Varadero - and something else i forgot

i have a Cuban friend who is already there and organizes everything for us

no hotels, no tourist guides, staying with locals... should be fun :winkwink:

you make this sound like an either/or proposition when you say

these aren't mutually exclusive.

the fact is he didn't reveal anything illegal and to make that worse, is claiming he is still hiding the really bad shit the nsa does because he is skeered for his life.

and i am sure you mean you are appreciative of the fact that snowden's effort revealed germany's own snooping efforts and for also being in cahoots with usa intel snooping.

we'll never agree on this - starting with the legal/illegal thing

your legal <> my legal

again, if it were up to me it would be illegal. not sure why that gets lost here. he didn't reveal anything illegal, that doesn't mean i am ok with it, contrary, i've said it umpteen times in this thread, he fucked up an opportunity by only revealing a slice of what he claims he has, that slice has been determined to be perfectly legal, case closed, the government and media has moved on to snowden being upset about the girl he bailed on.

i know it's important at gfy to find things to disagree on, in spite of several posts completely contrary to that. but i am scratching my head why peeps think that just because i am stating he released nothing illegal that i am ok with that and the intel gathering.

my last attempt: not illegal to US laws, illegal to many other countries laws

i'm with ya. what changes are resulting from that reveal? i hope something is changing there. because that's my problem with it here, nothing is changing. over here. some more people know about nsa snooping programs and they went on facebook to tweet about it and went back to the bigger issue of media generated racism.

i will tell you one thing that is fucked up with snowden are those what appear to be them high definition professionally shot photographs of him distrubuted to the media newsrooms around the world to accompany his story, that was just weird.

i also noticed he ran to hong kong to coincide with obama visiting china to meet their new president, however you would have to be an idiot to think they even mentioned snowden especially publicly, hell no. those two men are powerful men i think it is true of many politicians of various political belief they know how to play their cards right damn it.

this would be a good time this weekend to maybe watch catch me if you can starring leonardo decaprio.

way too early to find out if anything changes

but on our media it's right now on top of page 1: http://www.spiegel.de/

:thumbsup :thumbsup The best way

btw, i'm aware you've mentioned this many times, my point isn't based on my not hearing it, it's based on

1. snowden is otr stating he did this for the american people, specifically.

2. the tangential benefit that germans now know this is of no consequence to matters here, the fact that the usa broke a german/international law/rule about snooping just does not register. moreover, some of the chatter about it is that germany gov knew anyway, they all know that they all snoop each other's shit.

I love ad hominems!

So what you're saying is you don't understand why he would possibly be thinking strategically and keeping an ace in the hole, so to speak, right? If you keep your adversary in a very reactionary mode, you have a better chance at success. You knew that, of course.

The rest sounds like projection to me. I've not said anything that the media has or even remotely expressed an opinion until now(sort of).

But you have. And it's definitely what the mainstream media in the US has said.

i know many of you guys see it differently in the US - i wrote how many see it over here

and of course no one is delighted about the german government being involved as well

So before Snowden, there was a ton of discussion about these actions by the government in the mainstream, right?

Not just on reddit and with your other somewhat politically adept friends around the fire pit?

Right?


Or are you being dense still?

The Patriot Act didn't exist then. You seriously cannot be this dense.

no dipshit. i am saying snowden is no hero of mine. he's a dipshit coward, not unlike yourself, so i can see why you can relate to an ex-nsa snooper who stole a bunch of documents under the guise of doing it for the american people and now he's withholding those documents under another guise of a negiotating chip.

i can see how you get that and think that's hero shit and how you fail at seeing he's done more harm than good.

umm, you have no idea wtf you are talking about. the patriot act was not in effect in 2008?

you are fucking moron. :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

umm, retard, what are we discussing? fyi:


SNOWDEN.

dipshit.

once i found supposed classified united states government secrets on kazaa. :thumbsup

i agree with you, snowden is not a hero because he has obviously waited for an opportunistic time that only inconvenienced and embarrassed president obama and blotted the national reputation (whats left of it) of the united states.

he thinks he can get a win win for those who he feels deserve it but ultimately he puts himself above anyone or anythng else. oh well, a lot of other people would.

exactly.

this part especially

thomas drake, the nsa leaker previous to snowden, stayed in the usa and refused to plea bargain the truth. he also released all the data he had. his charges of espionage were dropped, he's won accolades and is prolly getting some nice pussy too, all as a result

Obviously, since that's what the thread is about.

You seem to love ad hominems. Very classy of you. It makes your argument sound so much more logical.


But it's really just a reflection of insecurity.

Can you quote me saying that Snowden is a hero?

I'll be waiting.

Snowden is a HERO to the human race, it was about time some one had to guts to call out the US Gov! :2 cents:

I'll just leave this here, since according to our resident intelligence expert he's done more harm than good.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech...-whistleblower

but when you think about it it is about snowden and the n.s.a., the united states establishment, both.

that government is in serious trouble and they do it to themselves. corruption is rife in the highest echelons of office, watchdogs keep on watching no barking, fed up moles are coming to ground, all the people who could be helping the anti-war movement, who are the anti-war movement, aren't anymore. not even yoko ono, not even jane fonda, nothing but silence from either of them when we still need them too the most.

more to your point, prism is nothing new, even the social networking sites do this and that is sell your information to the highest bidder, they have been named datamines and of course you will read mark zuckerberg say he doesn't believe in privacy, however he will stop short of saying he doesn't believe in that mighty dollar.