This isn’t a question of whether the NSA’s program was legal. It was legal. It’s a question of one man arbitrarily deciding that it oughtn’t be, and committing treason in order to undermine it.
Right, so you would have been a slave trader, you would have prosecuted gays, you would have abstained from alcohol for 13 years, etc.
I get where you’re coming from now.
I’m not aware of any law that existed that would have required me to trade slaves, and I’m not a prosecutor so the second would never have come up for me, but yes to the third.
Well, then, how about the laws requiring assistance in capturing and returning fugitive slaves?
Yes, because I’d prefer not to go to jail.
So you don’t particularly have a side in this issue, or any issue for that matter; you will side with the prosecution of law of the US regardless of other factors. Okay.
Isn’t that cowardly? Per Snowden, I mean.
What I personally believe is irrelevant to what the law is. As a citizen of a country with a functioning rule of law, it’s my obligation to respect and abide by those laws.
No. Snowden is a coward for running away from the consequences of his actions. I’m perfectly capable of facing the consequences of my actions, because I don’t engage in actions that would have consequences I’d need to run away from.
But you don’t engage in those actions because you don’t want to face those consequences.
I’ll admit i’m assuming for the basis of this argument that you’re against slavery. So if you say that you would assist in the capture and return of fugitive slaves were that the law, isn’t it cowardly to do so, assuming you’re against slavery, if you’re doing so on the basis that you don’t want to go to jail? Isn’t that running away from your convictions?
That’s one way to make things simple…
[QUOTE=Isaac Asimov]
“What is your definition of justice?”
“Justice, Elijah, is that which exists when all the laws are enforced.”
Fastolfe nodded. “A good definition, Mr Baley, for a robot. The desire to see all laws enforced has been built into R. Daneel, now. Justice is a very concrete term to him since it is based on law enforcement. A human can recognise that, on the basis of an abstract moral code, some laws may be bad ones, and their enforcement unjust. What do you say, R. Daneel?’”
“An unjust law,” said R. Daneel evenly, “is a contradiction in terms.”
[/QUOTE]
Believe me, I understand.
It makes you very, very scary but hey
Ok, so Smapti is the poster boy for lawful neutral. Can we get back to the real discussion?
No, this is not the case.
The various NSA operations under discussion here, and revealed by Snowdon, had been vetted by the FISA court and/or had been considered to be allowable under the precedent established in Smith v. Maryland. Here is the relevant Wiki paragraph which contains cites.
Whatever you think of FISA and its court, and regardless of your take on Smith v. Maryland, what was being done was hardly “hold[ing] themselves above accountability”.
An outfit that hears only the agency’s side of the case isn’t a court, it’s a Discover Card “We Treat You Like You Treat You” commercial.
The idea is gaining traction among the movers and shakers:
I love the contrast between Merkel’s references to the STASI and the classically US amoral response.
You seem unable to take an internationalist perspective. Many people who were criminals in other jurisdictions have been given protection by the US. Do you consider these people to be criminals?
This is such a narrow, one dimensional and simplistic view of the law, that I do not believe that it is being suggested as a rational response here.
I suspect that you would have fitted well into many jurisdictions that believe in the absolute validity of local law. Nazi Germany, Cambodia in the Sixties and Seventies, North Korea now and many more have well-established systems approved by a constitution.
I suspect that you would also have been quite happy there considering your statist views.
Really? How old are you. This sounds like a lily white in Sociology 101.