WH on NSA snooping: You can totally trust us.

[Colon™]

Yeah right, the guy was a subcontracted, low-level engineer 3 months into the job. Unless the CIA is that incompetent he's hardly going to know the location of secret bases or whatever that's running through your mind.

[regexcellent]

I thought he worked for the NSA? the place is basically a big supercomputer complex in Maryland with some other installations with big antennas for listening to **** elsewhere. It's not like they have ~secret operatives~ (although haha how would we know if they were secret I guess)

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Yes, he certainly knows nothing useful - as demonstrated by the articles that have been published based on his leaks.

No, I don't think he's a high-level source by any means, but he's explicitly stated that he filtered what he's given to reporters so of course others would want to know what he kept back.

[regexcellent]

Oh he very well could know quite a lot of classified stuff but he's not a secret agent man, and for that matter I doubt he knows where any secret agent men people are. But who knows.

[kentonio]

It's a good thing you've watched enough of our cable news to understand our collective psyche so thoroughly. You even got the part where we respond positively and constructively to haughty Europeans talking down to us.

As opposed to the unending stream of arrogance that pours out of the US towards basically every other country on the planet? Gosh, we should probably just leave the analysis to the professionals, given how you guys are so much more different and special than everyone else.

[kentonio]

Finland has an extradition treaty with the US. As far as I can tell China does not.

Almost right.

Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the US shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

However, Beijing can block any extradition if it believes it affects national defence or foreign policy issues.

[pchang]

In practice, there are 3 levels of security classifications:
Secret
Top Secret
Embarassing

Snowden breached the embarassing level.

[Elok]

As opposed to the unending stream of arrogance that pours out of the US towards basically every other country on the planet? Gosh, we should probably just leave the analysis to the professionals, given how you guys are so much more different and special than everyone else.

Ken, "but he did it first" is poor moral reasoning even by toddler standards. Also, by "out of the U.S." do you mean "out of the American government" or "out of every single one of the several hundred million American citizens" or both?

[Elok]

Jon Miller. Anyway, consider this an intervention: you're showing early stages of Asher's Syndrome (AKA Monomaniacal Yank-Related Inferiority Complex) here. You should probably get yourself checked out by a professional.

[kentonio]

Ken, "but he did it first" is poor moral reasoning even by toddler standards.

You're trying to tell me it isn't big or clever?

[dannubis]

No he is being his usual annoying passive-aggressive self.

Coming to think of it, this happens a lot lately. Maybe it is time you took your own advice elok.

[Elok]

? All I'm saying is, I seem to recall you used to post fairly balanced, reasonable stuff. Lately, though, you're just getting eaten alive by your own bile. [Nietzsche quote about staring into abyss goes here] You just said that something to the effect that we, as a nation, are too profoundly socially retarded to function in the modern world. What exactly was the point of that? I don't think you were trying to convince us; if you were, you really need to work on technique. If you weren't, the only possibility that remains (to my way of thinking) is that you were engaging in a game of bash-the-foreigner for your own gratification. I.e., evincing precisely the sort of narrow-minded, ignorant mentality you keep accusing us of.

Xpost. Danny, it's not "passive-aggressive" so much as "restrained enough, despite irritation, to retain some vestige of good manners."

[dannubis]

Jon Miller. Anyway, consider this an intervention: you're showing early stages of Asher's Syndrome (AKA Monomaniacal Yank-Related Inferiority Complex) here. You should probably get yourself checked out by a professional.

"vestige of good manners"

[Elok]

Look up "vestige" sometime. Also "passive-aggressive."

[kentonio]

? All I'm saying is, I seem to recall you used to post fairly balanced, reasonable stuff. Lately, though, you're just getting eaten alive by your own bile. [Nietzsche quote about staring into abyss goes here] You just said that something to the effect that we, as a nation, are too profoundly socially retarded to function in the modern world. What exactly was the point of that? I don't think you were trying to convince us; if you were, you really need to work on technique. If you weren't, the only possibility that remains (to my way of thinking) is that you were engaging in a game of bash-the-foreigner for your own gratification. I.e., evincing precisely the sort of narrow-minded, ignorant mentality you keep accusing us of.

Maybe I just lose my temper slightly when people incapable of supporting their arguments in any way fall back on tired cliches and xenophobia. One might even suspect that by doing it back in an over the top and blatant way, I'm actually trying to make a point.

Or maybe I'm just a dick, who knows.