re: #141 Vicious Babushka

Doesn’t matter. They’re not the NSA. /dudebros

We know that the US spies. Heck, the NSA says it on their homepage. They even telegraph that they’re spying on foreign countries and those that wish to do the US harm. That’s not news. That’s part of statecraft.

Revealing how the NSA does this can and does undermine US national security, and Snowden’s document dump isn’t about whistleblowing, it’s about undermining US national security. After all, spying on Brazil or Pakistan or France or Germany isn’t violating US law (US law and EO12333 mandate the NSA mission). Greenwald wants to undermine US national security and Snowden’s cache of documents is his means to that end.

Mind you, Wikileaks isn’t about revealing how the Russian FSB operates and spies on its own citizens or how China restricts Internet access and is seeking to impose fines and prison terms on those who spread what it calls online rumors about government malfeasance. You know, like when there was a deadly train crash and dozens killed when two high speed rail trains collided. The government wants to clamp down on the independent reporting of those kinds of stories and chilling free speech.

According to a judicial interpretation issued by China’s top court and prosecutor, people will be charged with defamation if online rumors they create are visited by 5,000 internet users or reposted more than 500 times.

That could lead to three years in jail, state media reported, citing the judicial document. That is the standard sentence for defamation.

“People have been hurt and reaction in society has been strong, demanding with one voice serious punishment by the law for criminal activities like using the internet to spread rumors and defame people,” said court spokesman Sun Jungong.

“No country would consider the slander of other people as ‘freedom of speech’,” Sun said at a news conference, carried live by the People’s Daily website.

The interpretation also set out what is considered a “serious case” of spreading false information or rumors online, including those which cause mental anguish to the subjects of rumors.

Other serious cases involve the spreading of false information that causes protests, ethnic or religious unrest or has a “bad international effect”.

Users of China’s popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging site expressed anger about the new rules.

“It’s far too easy for something to be reposted 500 times or get 5,000 views. Who is going to dare say anything now?” wrote one Weibo user.

Wikileaks is silent about that, but carps endlessly and breathlessly about potential harms done in worst case scenarios by the US government against people - not even necessarily US citizens at that.