Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden. I am delighted. This from Ray’s account of the event:
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time. We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody). The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always. I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles. The tabloids would go with that.
There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power. I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.
We hear about terrorist bomb threats and racist attacks but this is the first I have heard of a LD councillor in Denbigh who has been jailed for 18 years for causing 14 explosions with bombs filled with ball bearings and shrapnel.
Lib Dem councillor who started 14 terrifying explosions in town he was MAYOR of jailed for 18 years
He went on television to blame ‘yobs’ for the blasts that rocked his home town – and even demand the perpetrators be caught
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ex-denbigh-mayor-john-larsen-jailed-2526381
~~
AlcAnon Are you suggesting that the blog should be shut down in the absence of a moderator?
Mary,
Certainly not. I fear there could be a danger of it though. Whether you or I like it or not, there are laws covering this blog. It’s not a legality free-zone.
FFS all someone has to do is post large amounts of copyright articles from certain litigious US publishers to cause Craig a serious headache if not removed rapidly. And yes they do go after the blog or forum owners aggressively.
Paserby @ 2;17
Thank you for that video, brilliant Cheers.
Fedup cheers for tip…And the hastings link, i had that one waiting to post myself. Cheerz
@ Nevermind
I keep meaning to post this link for you to have a wee look at.
thought you might be interested re your expertise…You may already have heard of this, but if not have look, Amazing stuff
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/08/12thousand-year-old-ancient-civilization-discovered/
Nice racist types in the Surrey police force apparently. They already have a bad name for incompetence – Deepcut, Sa Vile/Dunscroft, Levi Bellfield* and his previous murders prior to murdering Millie Dowler, to name three cases.
http://news.sky.com/story/1160105/twitter-mistake-police-sorry-for-immigrant-tweet
The person responsible should be booted out of the force.
* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8597743/Levi-Bellfield-trial-Surrey-Police-apologise-for-blunders-in-hunt-for-Milly-Dowlers-killer.html
If CM hadnt made the eye-opening Trodos post,questioning rifkinds now proved fake “intercepts”, we might just have been in a full scale NATO war against Syria right now. A deafening silence from all the “truth seeking” ziofuckwits here at this blog, not ONE word about bandar gassing 426 children together with bibi satanyahu’s fake “intercepts” at starting a NATO bombing campaign against Syria.
Not ONE bloody word from the lot,habba,villager,resdiss,jemand, techni,etc. Yiddery, yarmulkery and dershowitzery, I dare say the Almihgty will remain SILENT again like He did in Poland when they end up getting gassed YET AGAIN. This time in a “only in America” kind of manner.
Interesting, BrianF. Were the Natufians not around in the Levant at least that far back? Old Europe is often overlooked for the Fertile Cresent when it comes the origins of civilisation. Check out the “Myth of the Goddess” by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. Great into on Paleolithic art in south eastern Europe. No agricultural surplus though, so I guess we can’t call it civilisation.
Was it not a Catholic nun who spotted that dead children from NW Syria were being used as media hype for the false-flag sarin attack by rebels? In my recollection many comments were made on this subject at the time. The Friends of Israel lobbies that tell our MPs what’s good for them rather than what the party whips tell them to do had obviously demanded a no vote in our parliament and the US Senate.
The fact that CM, commonsense and past experience from Iraq and Libya coincided with the FOI lobbies’ instructions is no credit to our vile MPs. If they had been told to vote for war they would have done so to get their snouts in the troughs to which they have been trained. Israel wants to be seen as the peace-keeper in a war that it itself created underneath by stealth with its wholly – owned assets Saudi Arabia and Russia. Israel wants to be handed control of Syria in the post-Assad era as honest broker under Cameron’s proposal to give foreign aid to peace-keeping missions.
Cameron is a blatant zionist trougher ready to whitewash the most devious of dark and dirty zionist lies. Unfortunately we see through them however much the trolls throw sand in the eyes of truth-seeking souls. Craig is a truth-seeker standing on the side-lines. This war is controlled by Israel, the CIA and its political mercenaries, not by blog commentators and the likes of me and you.
Jammo “The Dingo”. 635pm
Here’s one of your and Fedup’s mates, Guano –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Skaf
Isn’t it posts like this that get you on the “most likely” list when it comes to posting in Mary’s name on Stormfront?
As for Bilal Skaf, too bad for him he started his rampage a few years too early. A serial gang rapist with his CV would have just the kind of talent that western mercenaries are being paid to use in Syria.
http://intellihub.com/2013/09/07/us-funded-syrian-rebels-gang-raped-executed-15-yr-old-christian-girl/
But maybe it’s not too late for the Aussies to give him parole and some weapons and send him to catch up.
http://www.examiner.com/article/saudi-arabia-coercing-convicts-and-death-row-inmates-to-fight-syria
Thanks for that clarification AlcAnon. I was looking around to see who is legally responsible for the content of comments on a blog, the commenter or the blog owner. It is the latter according to a recent ruling by the ECHR.
EU ruling holds website responsible for offensive user comments
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that an Estonian court was right to fine a news website for anonymous comments posted under one of its stories
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10388923/EU-ruling-holds-website-responsible-for-offensive-user-comments.html
And there was Sally Bercow’s tweet about Lord MacAlpine which landed her with a large sum in damages.
There is obviously now no such thing as FREE speech.
When I wrote earlier that the Saudis think that they have sealed and boxed the Qur’an, I did not mean that it can be changed, but that they think they have circumvented its instructions. They trust USUKIS to maintain the secrecy of its spying systems, and they don’t expect to be exposed by whistle-blowers like Snowden, assisted by God, in showing them up to be a bunch of hypocrites.
Nothing that is done by politics, lies, deviancy, alliances with criminals will ever benefit the truth of Allah’s cause. The Saudis think the Qur’an is in its box on the shelf. How do they justify the use of spying when it is explicitly forbidden in the Qur’an? How do they justify racial discrimination in marriage when racism is explicitly forbidden in the Qur’an? How do they justify their alliance with the enemies of Islam in providing bases for drone attacks in Yemen when these alliances are specifically forbidden in the Qur’an?
They trust the West to be able to maintain secrecy about their wrong-doings. The west is just a cobweb of lies and deception.
They trust the west to maintain the cobweb of deception but the internet is brushing it aside.
@Mary
That was under Estonian law, British law is different. So long a a blog owner removes an illegal post as soon as they are made aware of it they can’t be prosecuted.
Unfortunately most blog owners can’t afford lawyers to tell them if a post is illegal or not so they tend to have to remove all posts which have complaints made about them.
Jemand: “I wonder how many comments ‘out there’ we could find on kooky websites written in the name of Macky and then boldly assert that they MUST have been written by you”
The difference Einstein, is that you will not find the name “Macky” posted on any Site that has been used to frame another Poster from this Site. And not just any Site, but on a right-wing racist Site that happens to reflect your own views voluntary expressed so often here. So why do you have a German screen name, (just like one used on that racist Site) ? Further, as Sofia pointed out, how come you know about & are so eager to post about crimes committed by immigrants ? A practice that is only common & widespread to Posters on Neo_Nazi Sites like StormFront ?
Fred, I hate to quote Farage and The Daily Telegraph but…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10388923/EU-ruling-holds-website-responsible-for-offensive-user-comments.html
I certainly agree it sets a dangerous precedent.
UK Law, as I understand, wold normally allow the blog/forum/news-site owner to respond promptly and remove the offending post. I don’t think “I haven’t read my email in 3 months” would be considered “reasonable responsibility” for a blog owner though. I’m certainly no lawyer but I am aware of UK site owners that have discovered they need to beef up their moderation policy the hard way.
AlcAnon; Thanks for drawing some well-deserved attention to Craig’s liability with an unsupervised forum. Reckless disregard is a serious charge, somewhat like manslaughter in an auto accident.
Craig owes you a debt of gratitude for pursuing this tangent. Hopefully, he’s not too busy to read his own blog for days at a time.
“Fred, I hate to quote Farage and The Daily Telegraph but…”
Don’t worry about quoting the Telegraph but try to quote the relevant part.
‘However, a spokesman for the ECHR stressed that the ruling was only in relation to the particulars of Estonian law and was not applicable to other cases, except by way of case law. “All this tells us is about Estonian law,” said the spokesman. “It is not applicable to other countries.”’
The ECHR only rules on whether the laws of a country violates someone’s human rights. The law in Britain is different to that of Estonia. The British courts would never have made such a ruling in the first place.
Fred; In the US you can sue anyone for anything, it all depends on whether you can find a lawyer to take your case. Craig has plenty of enemies who likely would spend two-to-one for the chance to score some points. Is it different in the UK?
Fred,
Not today I agree. I reiterate that I still believe the ruling sets a dangerous precedent.
And Fred, what happens if a UK court ruling ends up in the European Court?
@Ben
In the Us don’t you have something called Common Carrier Status?
@AlcAnon
The only thing this rules is that the Estonian law doesn’t violate anyone’s human rights.
There wouldn’t be such a UK ruling because UK law is different.
Ben,
At the moment I suspect his enemies see him as “no threat” and “inconsequential”. Typically blogs/forums/etc have a ratio of at least 100:1 readers:posters. Whatever the ratio here it is likely rapidly dropping. Who’s going to want to read more of the blog/comments based on what they see on a first visit?
Fred,
Yes, European courts never over-turn UK court rulings because “UK law is different”
Anyway. Write to Farage and argue if you disagree that’s a possibility. I’m a nonentity.
Bloody annoying wordpress stripped my Sarcanol tag
Fred; ‘common carrier’; sounds like an AttorneyFest of legalisms, which makes anything ripe for litigation, based on your top knot billable hours. I’m sure any international lawyer could make a case for either side.
AA;
” Whatever the ratio here it is ..” Craig has commented a similar ratio, but your initial point is well-taken and shouldn’t be minimized by the assumed drop in traffic. Craig has limited resources and any tort, genuine or malicious, could not be sustained.
Speaking of law, there appears to be a global façade on the really big issues of sovereignty and the rule of international law.
To my mind, the current spying and eves- dropping issues are not the foremost questions as regards the rule of international law.
Well beyond the EU court debate, the world faces real dangers with the existing repeated compromises and violations of the rule of international law. It is of no small significance that post World War 11 a global architecture was established under UN auspices professing that there was no desire to see the world in future global conflagration – yet again – after 2 world wars in the 20th century. Bernard Russell, the English logician and philosopher, is reputed to have said that after the Third World War humans would be fighting each other in the next World War with stones and spears ( he was very aware of the destructive power of nuclear weapons). He also observed that:-
“Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.”
If the invasion and destruction of the state of Iraq is not a very clear example of modern day imperialism in action – I don’t know what else is ( Libya?).
When one nation sets out to rape the resources of another, and still try to claim that the “rule of law” – “the rule of international law” is being respected one is compelled to roll over many times in extreme and tragic amusement.
We live in a world of barbarism thinly disguised as subscribing to civilized norms. It is not that the norms have not been codified – it is that the debasement of them by the world’s greatest power(s) (?) make one question not just the purveyors of global violence – but the credence of America itself as a global power.
The death of Saddam Hussein has much to teach me as a lawyer. I ask myself after watching this video:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCJ8JqtGahQ
Who are the cowards and the truly risible ones?
CB
France believed the United States attempted to hack into its president’s communications network, a leaked US intelligence document published on Friday suggests.
The Nation’s Largest Kosher Meat Plant.
Are you a real nation when 2/3 of your population lives abroad?
Are you a real nation when you have no constitution?
Are you a real nation when you have no clearly defined borders?
As I’ve said for a long, long time now, ‘We should’ve Turned Florida into a Jewish state. Best friend right next door. Surrounded by water, so no pesky sneak attacks by hateful neighbors. And an area already heavily populated with like-minded individuals. A total Win-Win-Win situation for everyone.’
Too bad I seem to hate everything…
“AgriProcessors, founded by Aaron Rubashkin, an Hasidic Orthodox Jewish butcher and rabbi from Brooklyn, supplies over half the kosher meat sold in the United States. On May 12th agents executed criminal search warrants for aggravated identity theft and the use of fraudulent Social Security numbers. There were 697 warrants and 389 arrests. Currently, officials aren’t certain as to who exactly was operating the meth lab.”
Dang. And i thought Walter and Jesse were genius for using meth labs in the cover of tented pest fumigation (“Vamanos Pest !!). Hoodathunk Kosher meant purity wrt crank?
@ Courtenay Barnett,
This appears to be the first time I see your name, so I guess a ‘Welcome aboard is appropriate.’ [if I’m miles off, please ignore this rambling].
If you are indeed a lawyer, may I suggest you contact Craig, as he seems to be in a fight about copy/property rights and can’t afford the $$ to go legal.
Do you dig pro bono publico or only the Irishman?
‘Homo homini lupus est’, some say, and who am I to argue against what was set to become man’s best friend?
@Ben
Common carrier is a basic principle in law that if someone sends you poison pen letters you can’t sue the post office. If someone makes an abusive phone call to you you can’t sue the telephone company.
@AlcAnon
I doubt very much that the ECHR would overrule British courts for not prosecuting a blog owner under similar circumstances. All their ruling means is that they do not consider it to be a matter of human rights, that in their opinion no human rights were violated.