Fun new take on "talking heads" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY)
NSA Responds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLNXIXingyU)
I'm listening to the NSA response now... this guy's arguments are weak and will probably make people more sympathetic to Snowden.
First he's talking about how Snowden isn't really a whistle-blower and he's actually hurting whistleblowers by being a bad example.
He insists that there are channels to report oversteps of jurisdiction and that Snowden is an ass for not using those channels.
Ohmygod he is drawing a distinction between massive metadata collection and collecting "content". He says that focusing on metadata is "privacy enhancing". Whaaaaat. That's some amazing NewSpeak.
And every single one of those accusations can be countered. Snowden did, in fact, apparently alert his superiors to what he considered were overstepping the boundaries of civil liberties....about 10 times, as I recall. And he was told to stop being such a pansy, basically.
In fact, I've seen an argument made elsewhere that Snowden was being held up as the example of a "good whistleblower" by the media specifically to counter the "bad whistleblowing" of Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks (the comparison was made, quite a few times. And given the glacial release of information from the Snowden cache, I think there are definite merits to the Wikileaks approach).
Yeah, last I checked, there were whistle-blower avenues for public employees, not private contractors. My government teacher tried to tell me these protections applied to Snowden, but I'm pretty sure he was wrong.
My government teacher also left out what Cain said. Time to go look it up! :D
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 29, 2014, 11:44:16 PM
Yeah, last I checked, there were whistle-blower avenues for public employees, not private contractors.
Um, you checked wrong. The Whistleblower act is being blatantly ignored in the Snowden case.
https://acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%203_9.html
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 12:17:08 AM
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 29, 2014, 11:44:16 PM
Yeah, last I checked, there were whistle-blower avenues for public employees, not private contractors.
Um, you checked wrong. The Whistleblower act is being blatantly ignored in the Snowden case.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 12:32:47 AM
https://acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%203_9.html
Oh, well fuck.
Are you sure this part of the Whistleblower Act accounts for PRIVATE contractors, and not just governmental/public contractors? There are parts of the bureaucracy that are dedicated to contract work for more than one agency, that would obviously be protected by this Whistleblower Act. Maybe it's my lack of understanding of law semantics, but I don't see anywhere where it specifies that these protected "contractors" can belong to a private entity. Maybe it's assumed by some other law or section mentioned in the
definitions main section?
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 30, 2014, 12:49:05 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 12:17:08 AM
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 29, 2014, 11:44:16 PM
Yeah, last I checked, there were whistle-blower avenues for public employees, not private contractors.
Um, you checked wrong. The Whistleblower act is being blatantly ignored in the Snowden case.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 12:32:47 AM
https://acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%203_9.html
Oh, well fuck.
Are you sure this part of the Whistleblower Act accounts for PRIVATE contractors, and not just governmental/public contractors? There are parts of the bureaucracy that are dedicated to contract work for more than one agency, that would obviously be protected by this Whistleblower Act. Maybe it's my lack of understanding of law semantics, but I don't see anywhere where it specifies that these protected "contractors" can belong to a private entity. Maybe it's assumed by some other law or section mentioned in the definitions main section?
It's kinda mentioned right in the link I provided. Contractors (non-government employees) are specifically mentioned and protected.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 02:19:23 AM
It's kinda mentioned right in the link I provided. Contractors (non-government employees) are specifically mentioned and protected.
I was referring to the link. There are government contractors made up of government employees, and there are government contractors made up of private employees from private entities. I was asking if this law made a linguistic separation of these two, but I now realize that would be stupid, considering there's no reason to mention public contractors in this subpart if they are automatically protected by the main section.
Case of the derps. Soz.
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 30, 2014, 02:28:21 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 30, 2014, 02:19:23 AM
It's kinda mentioned right in the link I provided. Contractors (non-government employees) are specifically mentioned and protected.
I was referring to the link. There are government contractors made up of government employees, and there are government contractors made up of private employees from private entities. I was asking if this law made a linguistic separation of these two, but I now realize that would be stupid, considering there's no reason to mention public contractors in this subpart if they are automatically protected by the main section.
Case of the derps. Soz.
Have you ever considered reading thoroughly and making sure you understand a particular issue
before expressing an opinion on it?
Quote from: Nigel on March 30, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
Have you ever considered reading thoroughly and making sure you understand a particular issue before expressing an opinion on it?
I did read thoroughly and I understand the issue. If YOU read thoroughly, you'd see that I simply had a case of the derps. Something in my head, kept me from seeing something that was completely obvious and practically stated outright. The connection was not made because I WENT FULL RETARD for a moment. Makes me wonder if it's a mental disability.
Now, if you're referring to the fact that I didn't know about private contractors being protected by the Whistleblower Act, that's because of misinformation. The descriptions and general versions of the Act that I've read were so general, that they left out that important part. I guess that's my fault for not reading non-general/abstracted versions of the Act though. I'll try to make it happen less :)
Quote from: PlightOfFernandoPoo on March 30, 2014, 05:20:55 PM
Quote from: Nigel on March 30, 2014, 04:57:39 PM
Have you ever considered reading thoroughly and making sure you understand a particular issue before expressing an opinion on it?
If YOU read thoroughly, you'd see that I simply had a case of the derps. Something in my head, kept me from seeing something that was completely obvious and practically stated outright. The connection was not made because I WENT FULL RETARD for a moment. Makes me wonder if it's a mental disability.
No, I did notice that.