Too broke
Not too broke to pay for their armed forces to help out with the insurgency in Ukraine. I suppose bullets and other ordinance do have best before dates - so they doing the russian army a favour, no sense in letting them go to waste
Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has no mass telephone and internet surveillance programs to compare with those in the United States. The Russian President made the claim in his annual Q&A session on live TV on Thursday, when the topic was raised in a call-in question in English by NSA-leaker Edward Snowden. "Does Russia …
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Ordinances are a US weapon, not a Russian one - but usually turned against their own people (e.g. three strikes laws).
Ordnance - different matter. Wasn't there a US battleship that blew up because the 40 year old charges in the magazine had become unstable? Of course, forgetting about a missile full of RFNA becomes a serious mistake after about 5 years, and nuclear warheads have a best before somewhat shorter than that. Currently, however, you can't buy short shelf life MIRVs round the back of the arms fair.
"Ordnance - different matter. Wasn't there a US battleship that blew up because the 40 year old charges in the magazine had become unstable? "
The only US Battleship ever lost other than at Pearl Harbour was the USS Maine - the cause of its destruction remains unknown. Are you maybe thinking of the explosion that sank the RN battleship HMS Vanguard in 1917 which out of date cordite might have played a contributing factor?
"take Palin as in.... have an intercourse with her? OMG, she's not manly enough! And the bare chest... not enough hairs there either! "
I was wondering who else had noticed that those "manly-man" media exposures seemed to be the thing that a closetbound man might do to hide his sexuality (Thinking about Rock Hudson here)
> I was wondering who else had noticed that those "manly-man" media exposures seemed to be the thing that a closetbound man might do
It's also the kind of things fascist dictators have done since forever to show that they're in good health and real manly men, not dying and/or weak. It is, ironically, a thin line between being a rightwing dictator eager to show how hyper-masculine he is, and being an overcompensating closet gay.
Surely Palin would fit right in to contemporary Russia? Anti-gay, check. Corruption allegations, check, waving guns around, check. And she'd be able to see Russia from the door of her dacha.
OK Obama, here's a solution. Swap Alaska and Palin for guaranteed non-interference in Ukraine. Let them deal with the melting permafrost so no-one will be asking the Kochs awkward questions. And wait for Palin to run against Putin for President, and have an accident with a Po-210 bottle.
> "We don't have a mass system of such interception, and according with our law it cannot exist," Putin said.
He also claimed that Russian soldiers were not on the ground in Crimea forcing the people to vote to leave Ukraine. He became so good at lying in the KGB that he became tsar
See further the first image at http://www.geekarmy.com/funny-pictures/806/putin/
Boy George Bush 'looked into his soul' and liked what he saw. But then he also liked Dick "The French Texan" Cheney and Condi 'Concrete Hairdo' Rice. Could be worse. Boy George may be the stupid Bush brother, but he's the smart Texas governor, if Rick Perry is anything to judge by.
CCTV is not hiden and it's cheaper then trying to listen to everything everywhere. You can learn a lot more about where people do by looking at where they go.
Plus, having a chance to take a jab at the US on human right abuse? That's like the ugly girl being called the most beautiful star at the ball.
I can tell you, with the utmost honesty, we don't. Have money. Means. Will. Or interest. In fact, we abhor spying on our (ex)friends. We would never, ever, nevereverneverever EVER do such a thing, nosir! Trust me, I'm a fucking ex-KGB and hey, just look at how honest I've been recently! Next question!
you mean the Canadian 5EYE Delisle data that Russia paid many thousands of dollars a month for..
...meanwhile Russia's national PHORM (& PHORM2 upgrade) isn't(*) used for mass interception as it is using the FBI (actually NSA....shhh!) designed International User Requirements & Interfaces for purely Lawful Interception... just following international standards.much more at www.issworldtraining.com
(*) actually it probably *is*, *has-been* and *will be* used for mass interception
Considering Snowden's previous access privileges, he already knew the answer. And considering how he worded his question, "millions of people" , Snowden seems to have set it up for an honest (that's right) denial. Snowden was trying to show that *even Russia*, a country with an unrivaled totalitarian history, is not as bad as the current US gov (combined with the UK et el, I should say).
Russia isn't quite the dictatorship cold-war-aficionados would have you believe. Maybe something on the scale of PRISM isn't doable in the Russian system.
> Russia isn't quite the dictatorship cold-war-aficionados would have you believe.
You do realize that Putin has consolidated government control under his command, Russian parliament are appointed by Putin and controlled by him. The same with generals, what the media reports, heads of big business, He rigs "elections" so he will always win (I think he studied the Norks), etc.
How is all of this not a dictatorship?
"Russia isn't quite the dictatorship cold-war-aficionados would have you believe. "
Actually Russia is CLEARLY an autocratic regime, with no working democratic institutions, with a one-man leadership, oppressing dissent - many ways it's far worse than the former Soviet-style dictatorship as far as Cold War-style politics go: eg when it came to foreign policy the West was able to calculate or at least approximate Brezsnev's or Andropov's next step, even talk to them and make deals (if necessary) but Putin is a lying PoS, a typical oily, disgusting KGB rezidentura operator, his words are worthless (clearly he didn't manage to pick up the value of "Ein mann ein wort" during his German spy years...)
..and with no access to the back doors in American software, provided by the platform (windows, IE etc), or physical access to the networks of websites which mostly hosted in US (google etc) they have a tough time doing any effective cyber spying. Money is not the limiting factor, knowing the weaknesses (deliberate or discovered) is more important.
...seriously: just who is this KGB guy trying to fool with this laughable propaganda BS...? His own people? I doubt they would be so clueless - and outside of Russia nobody believes a word he says, for sure.
It's sad to see though that Snowden is now forced to participate in this theater.
Except we don't get arrested or, worse, murdered if we dare to speak up, unlike your ilks do to your opposition, Comrades.
(Please, STFU, I grew up in a Commie regime, I know your scumbag Comrades very well, there's a reason why people like don't try to emigrate to broken-ass Russia instead of the US.)