back to article ROBO-SNOWDEN: Iraq, the internet – two places the US govt invaded that weren't a threat

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has appeared on stage at a TED conference in Canada via a remote-controlled robotic screen – and was hailed as a hero by the Web's founding father Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Tim Berners-Lee and Edward Snowden Father of the web meets one of its sons ... Berners-Lee, far left, and right, the Robo-Snowden …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stay tuned...

    "There are absolutely more revelations to come,"

    Why don't you just spit it all out and be done with it? It's getting tedious.

    1. ed2020

      Re: Stay tuned...

      So stop reading about and commenting on it.

      IMHO it's only tedious to those who fail to comprehend the importance of the matter.

    2. Ole Juul

      Re: Stay tuned...

      I believe that Snowden has already "spit out" everything and that it is the holders of that cache who are going through it and releasing stories at a metered pace. The idea is to keep this important situation in public view as long as possible and not just have one news event which would be forgotten in a short time. As I recall, Snowden also promised to discontinue his work as a condition of his staying in Russia. His commenting on it is another story - and a very useful one.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Big Brother

        Re: Stay tuned...

        "I believe that Snowden has already "spit out" everything"

        I don't think so...what about the last leak of a whole country mass surveillance?

        1. Evan Essence

          Re: Stay tuned...

          @ JahBless - The report about MYSTIC was from the Washington Post, not directly from Snowden.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Megaphone

            Re: Stay tuned...

            http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/19/nsa_mystic_retro_recorded_entire_country_phonecalls/

            "Millions of voice "cuts" are extracted for long time storage as part of a system called MYSTIC that's been running since 2009, according to the latest tranche of leaked documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden." in El Reg

            http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-surveillance-program-reaches-into-the-past-to-retrieve-replay-phone-calls/2014/03/18/226d2646-ade9-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

            "The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden." in Washington Post

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Stay tuned...

          As if you all didn't know this crap was happening even before Snowden's leaks. You all must be pretty damn naive.

          A few years ago, those who knew/believed this were called paranoid tin-foil hat wearers. Now who's wearing the hat?

          I give up... this site used to be for technically minded people. Now it's no better than the DailyMail, with readers of the same mentality.

          Herd of blithering idiots with no thoughts of your own.

          1. Sheep!

            Re: Stay tuned...

            "I give up... this site used to be for technically minded people. Now it's no better than the DailyMail, with readers of the same mentality."

            Given that the comments thus far down the list seem to broadly reflect the exact opposite of what your saying that would appear to be just nonsense. Not to mention there have ben plenty of peop;le who've been saying that stuff on here for years, to a mixed reaction. Since the Snowden revalations made it public and pretty irrefutable, the reaction in El Reg's comments have been broadly positive and accepting of the reality of the situation. Is it possible that you've had your "inside knowledge" thunder stolen and you're hurting about it?

          2. boondox
            FAIL

            Re: Stay tuned...

            "As if you all didn't know this crap was happening even before Snowden's leaks. You all must be pretty damn naive.

            I give up... this site used to be for technically minded people. Now it's no better than the DailyMail, with readers of the same mentality.

            Herd of blithering idiots with no thoughts of your own."

            Dude. Patience. That's all you need. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go 'round.

            If all of us took the same approach, then arguably, there'd be no Snowden-revelations, as he'd have stopped bothering to complain and left us "blithering idiots" to fend for ourselves!

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Stay tuned...

      >It's getting tedious.

      Yes can we stop bothering about the dictatorship - Justin Beiber just did something cute

    4. Arc_Light

      Re: Stay tuned...

      Why don't you just spit it all out and be done with it? It's getting tedious.

      So the attention-deficient world in which we live gets regular reminders of how out of control our governments have become - and maybe, just maybe, people become sufficiently motivated to do something about it.

      It makes a lot of sense if you think about it, but as you've clearly demonstrated, this is not obligatory.

      Arc_Light

    5. LarsG

      Re: Stay tuned...

      In 10 years time he will be a foot note on Wikipedia.... Died in an unexplained car crash 2014.

      Just like politics, people tend to have short memories.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stay tuned...

      Mr Clapper is that you?

    7. David 45

      Re: Stay tuned...

      Short-sighted attitude, my good man. Keeping a steady trickle going keeps a bit of public interest going in the case. People (and I include myself in this) just would not want to wade through a huge data dump released in one enormous pile. I would suggest that folks would rapidly lose interest and the publicity value would be lost. At least this inspires interest from non-nerds/geeks and keeps the general public informed about the devious NSA/GCHQ antics that they might not otherwise have known about.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stay tuned...

        someone knows this info, but they're keeping it from us.

        All in the name of profit, too!

    8. JCitizen
      Coat

      Re: Stay tuned...

      We didn't need no stinking 2001 Patriot ACT nor any of the subsequent scraps of paper congress should have wiped their behinds with! No matter what I think of Snowden, he is only pointing out what I could see coming every since 911, and that's an Orwellian nightmare that was not even worth doing. All they needed was a tiny bit more cooperation from the various US agencies to have prevented 911, as the data was there but only people who knew whistle blowers can get their heads blown off were trying to get someone to notice it without - getting their heads blown off! Afganistan should have been a SPEC OPS mission and that is all, we didn't need no stinking invasion to get what we needed done there. Heck it only took about 2000 to 5000 troops to route the Taliban in the 1st place. You don't need many more personnel than that in those situations. We would still have a fairly good relationship with Pakistan as well, without all the heavy handed John Wayne actions. I realize a lot of people were comparing this 911 thing to Pearl Harbor, but it was just stupid they couldn't see it coming. I've been watching terror grow every year since the Black September movement of the '70s, and any person paying attention to it and worth his/her salt could see this building up. I agree with Anonymous Coward on that point for sure! We should have quit tolerating it back in 1970, and worked to supress it more each year since, and learn something about the middle east and teach our ignorant school children the realities of the world! Hell we barely got them doing the three Rs by the time the "graduate" - if that is what you can call it. Matriculate would be closer, except it is more like brain leakage than anything otherwise.

  2. Chris G
    Pint

    Traitor?

    How can a man who feels strongly enough about the wrongs being done by his country to it's own people and be willing to lose the ability to live there in order to help expose the wrongs possibly be a traitor?

    A beer since there is no other icon that will do as an award.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Traitor?

      I'm with you on this. The catch is, who is being "outed"? Not the people. It's those who set policy and think they are protected because they set the policy. Rather circular argument, I know. But they're not safe as the revelations by certain Congress Critters and past history (think J. Edgar Hoover) have made clear.

    2. Andus McCoatover
      Windows

      Re: Traitor?

      Is losing the ability to live in America such a bad thing?

      Just asking....

  3. Charles Manning

    Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

    Well we didn't need to listen to a robo-head from Russia to tell us that.

    The threat was in Afghanistan which is a prick of a place to invade, but Bush wanted to do something ASAP after 9/11. Iraq is easy to access, and pappy had been there so why not just follow in the old boy's footsteps?

    To the average westerner they are all just places out east so either served the PR purpose.

    But they are 3000km apart.

    It's like bombing UK because you hate Russians, or Canada because you hate Mexicans, or NZ because you hate Australians.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

      Afghanistan represented the same threat to us in the US as any other place you could come up with.

      The press helped making it look like the bad guy of the movie. A movie that helped the army and related industries to get some cash.

      Put that way, the real threat to the US(the people of the US) was (and still is) the oil powered economic apparatus owned by a few unscrupulous. Be sure they will make 9/11 or Boston Marathon incidents happen as many times as they need.

      1. Charles Manning

        Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

        The real threat to America: just look in the mirror.

        Arrogance on the international stage is the biggest issue and comes in many guises:

        1) Double standards:

        a) prepared to invade other countries at the drop of a hat, but bleat when Russia plays similar games.

        b) Point and laugh at EU being a bunch of different countries trying to work together, yet USA is itself 50 different states - with different laws and cultures - held together by federal duct tape.

        2) Expecting everyone to trade in USD and taking it as an attack on USA currency when other countries trade directly.

        3) Screwing over free trade agreements etc.

        4) The whole "leader of the free world" swagger, when USA rates poorly on pretty much any freedom index you choose to mention.

        Sure, USA rates better than Zimbabwe of China, but surely one that self-identifies as "leader of the free world" should be number one or two in at least one of:

        * Press freedom index: 46th

        * Economic freedom index: 12th

        * Democracy Index: (doesn't make the top band).

        1. boondox
          Thumb Up

          Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

          @Charles Manning: Well played, sir. Well played!

          @ the AC who posted:" "There are absolutely more revelations to come," Why don't you just spit it all out and be done with it? It's getting tedious."

          With our uber-shor-term memories, the gradual revelation of the Snowden documents keeps the issue in play. There's only so much people can digest, so there's that.

          The people seem to have an unsatiable appetite for all things Bieber & Kardashian, though. Then again, with how difficult it is to live today, who can blame them for needing mindless distractions?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

      But both Afghanistan and Iraq had links to terrorism.

      Who funds Al Queda? Saudi Arabia

      Where is Bin Laden from? Saudi Arabia

      Where were the 911 hijackers from? Saudi Arabia

      Where is Saudi Arabia? Near Iraq and Afghanistan = obvious links

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

        "Where is Saudi Arabia? Near Iraq and Afghanistan = obvious links"

        Then there was this Serbian who shot an archduke. Was Serbia attacked?

        Nope, pretty much everyplace else in Europe was though.

        I guess that half of Europe got the wrong of it, they should have depopulated Serbia.

        Well, by your candle.

        1. Mike Smith

          Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

          "Then there was this Serbian who shot an archduke. Was Serbia attacked? Nope..."

          Yes, it was. By Austria-Hungary. And it stayed under occupation for quite a while.

      2. Mark 85

        Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

        Ok.. so Saudi Arabia is the source. Then why the hell didn't the US blow the crap out of the Saudis? Besides them having much oil????? <rant mode off>

        As an aside, I'm still not sure why we invaded Iraq other than George Jr. wanted to finish what George Sr. wasn't allowed to and that was get Saddam H. out of power. Then there's the issue of the stupidity of having a two-front war... we didn't learn a thing from history. But I digress.

      3. Chris G

        Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

        And who works hand in hand with Saudi Arabia to control all of the destabilising terrorist forces in places like Syria, Chechnya, Iran etc?

        Oh it's the world's policeman, the good ol' US!

    3. LarsG

      Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

      The USA would see a threat in an empty room.

      1. DropBear
        Trollface

        Re: Iraqi wasn't a threat - wow!

        The USA would see a threat in an empty room.

        Well obviously. If it's empty it has to be dark as well, and everybody can think of at least one frightening thing lurking in the dark, just waiting to getcha...

  4. W. Anderson

    Snowden revelations critical to truth

    As Edward Snowden, Tim berners-Lee and many others have stated quite clearly over the past nine months, neither the NSA, Defense Department, any of the pin head idiotic politicians foaming at the mouth or doofus political pundits who call Snowen a traitor can articulate"factually", sensibly and without stupidity how his actions make him a traitor or harm Americans more than what the NSA has done surreptitiously.

    it is wise for those entities who still hold additional condemning evidence of NSA and Government in collusion with corporate wrong doing, to reveal the information piecemeal, since most Americans suffer from a sever case of Attention Deficit Syndrome. (ADS), and will forget in 10 minutes.

    Dick Cheney has "never" had any credibility, and has been proven a liar, bigot and a greedy carpet Beggar, ripping off the US treasury via Haliburton.

    It is unfortunate that many Americans and other citizens around the world whose innocent privacy has been heinously violated by the NSA remain so simple-minded and naive as to not fully understand the legal and Constitution ramifications of such intrusion.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Snowden revelations critical to truth @W. Anderson

      "It is unfortunate that many Americans and other citizens around the world whose innocent privacy has been heinously violated by the NSA remain so simple-minded and naive as to not fully understand the legal and Constitution ramifications of such intrusion."

      Yup, us thicko children are lucky we have you navel-gazers bravely spending so much time raising the issue on a British IT page. If anything'll fix things it's you guys. Honest. Be sure to tell your grandchildren how in the face of tyranny, you heroically sat down and typed something on an Internet forum.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Snowden revelations critical to truth @W. Anderson

        "Yup, us thicko children are lucky we have you navel-gazers bravely spending so much time raising the issue on a British IT page. If anything'll fix things it's you guys. Honest. Be sure to tell your grandchildren how in the face of tyranny, you heroically sat down and typed something on an Internet forum."

        Oh, that's so funny, a guy ranting on a forum about guys ranting on a forum.....

  5. Loverofpies

    Google

    How can a company who base their business on monitoring people so they can sell adverts try to relate to this guy?

    1. Mephistro

      Re: Google

      "How can a company who base their business on monitoring people so they can sell adverts try to relate to this guy?"

      There are several differences. You can opt out -mostly- of Google+ or Facebook, but you can't opt out of government surveillance. Google and Facebook are bound by the terms in the EULA, so if they overstep they can be taken to court, with chances* of losing the case and having to pay big $$$ or even have some executives or employees jailed.

      On the other hand, if a government agency oversteps, suing them is usually a futile exercise, as they have laws put in place to dodge any responsibilities, and the support of big media, and lots of 'private information' about judges and law makers.

      *Small chances, alas.

      1. et tu, brute?

        Re: Google

        "Google and Facebook are bound by the terms in the EULA, so if they overstep they can be taken to court, with chances of losing the case and having to pay big $$$ or even have some executives or employees jailed."

        When they are caught, the harm is done, and the big $$$ disappears in the coffers of the same nefarious governments that are doing the spying! Not really helpful at all, is it?

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Google

      Google don't send drone strikes if you use DuckDuckGo (yet)

      1. Forget It

        Re: Google

        or Startpage

  6. Tank boy

    Crimea river Snoden

    You're running out of 'secrets' to sell, probably just a couple minutes away from a grand tour of a Siberian gulag.

    1. Angol

      Re: Crimea river Snoden

      Tank boy --

      1. Where's your evidence that Snowden has sold anything?

      2. Before you use difficult words like "gulag" you shoould check what they mean. Or did you really intend to suggest that Snowden's lined up for a grand tour of a Siberian state administration of camps?

  7. Forget It

    Question: how was this screen robotic?

    Did it have actuators an'all?

    1. Evan Essence

      It had wheels, which you can see in the photo. They were remote controlled by Snowden. OK?

  8. Belardi

    Snowden is an idiot... Living under the eye of the KGB is better? Russia is freedom?

    1. John G Imrie

      Russia or Guantanomo Bay

      You decide

    2. auburnman

      Comparatively, yes. That's the entire point. The US has degraded to the stage that asylum in Russia is necessary.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      1) I think he covers that point: he doesn't really care what happens to himself.

      2) It's not like he chose to live in Russia for no reason. He didn't really get a choice.

      3) Lots of people seem to think Russia is a good place to live (many in Crimea for example) and I believe Russians are free to leave these days if they want.

      4) Whether life in the USA is freer than in Russia is a matter of opinion and personal perspective.

      I find it difficult to think of someone less idiotic than Snowden. He seems to me to have a full set of marbles.

      1. Belardi

        Freer and good place to live? If youre gay, you get arrested and beaten up. Can't talk about human Rights. (Pussy riot or homosexual) spy cams in hotel rooms, people opposite of the dictator Putin are attested... Crimea? While mostly Russian speaking, a small fraction of Crimea repesentives remained as most of the rest were thrown or arrested. It would be the same as if the teaparty nuts ejected everyone one else here in the USA. Russia has also invaded other parts of the country... So Putin is already a liar... Surprise. This is the awesome Russia you are talking about?

        The USA has issues. It needs more freedom... But is nowhere near as bad as Russia.

  9. AbelSoul

    "The project, called BULLRUN by the NSA and EDGEHILL by the British spies at GCHQ (named after the first battle in both countries' respective civil wars) .."

    How cute.

  10. KBeee
    Headmaster

    Little error?

    "... the threat of terrorism was called a "cover for action," something to trigger an emotional response that can be used to get powers that would otherwise be available."

    I think there should be a "not" before "otherwise" or "be" in there

  11. The Man Himself Silver badge
    Boffin

    value of intellectual property

    " The project, called BULLRUN by the NSA and EDGEHILL by the British spies at GCHQ (named after the first battle in both countries' respective civil wars) meant that anyone with sufficient resources could crack the encryption and destroy the value of intellectual property"

    But this would be a Good Thing wouldn't it? At least it would seem to be, based on the number of comments one reads online from freetards demanding that information be free and saying that hoarding of intellectual property is a Bad Thing.

    Not trolling, just asking....

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