Why I Think Edward Snowden is a Hero
by Kingbingo
This is a guest post by Kingbingo, a long time contributor to this blog.
Life used to be pretty good for Edward Snowden. He had a good income of over $100k from a job he was good at and a slim, attractive girlfriend. However, after last weekend, if agents of the world’s greatest superpower are able to get their hands on him (and perhaps they already have), he could possibly spend much of his life in an underground cell, never seeing anyone apart from the man that pushes his food under his cell door. What is all the more remarkable is that Mr Snowden knew that. He also knew that the US getting their hands on him sooner or later was pretty much an inevitability and yet he blew the whistle anyway. It was an act of such remarkable courage that I have no hesitation in saying that I am simply not that brave myself. I doubt many are. Some people win the Victoria Cross when they, with a split-second decision, decide to seriously jeopardise their life for another. Mr Snowden did not jeopardise his life with just a split-second to decide, he had months to reach his conclusion knowing the extreme danger it put him in and with steely determination did it anyway. Quite remarkable.
In Mr Snowden’s job working indirectly for the NSA, the huge and powerful US intelligence agency that monitors electronic communications, he realized that this agency was secretly collecting data, not just on people for whom they had a warrant for, nor even on suspected terrorists and foreign government officials, but they were actually collecting all the information they could, all of it, from everyone. That included any telephone call made, stored and logged, any email sent, stored and logged, indeed if you do anything ever online, the chances are the US government is storing and logging that too. But why should you care? As long as you’re not a terrorist you have absolutely nothing to fear right?
America asserted its independence from Britain 230 years ago, tired of an arrangement that taxed the many while severing the interests of a select few. The people of America had no say in their government and could be subject to whatever whims a distant autocracy felt it wanted to impose. In the drafting of its Constitution and Bill of Rights, that young nation realised that states abuse their power not as an exception, but as a rule. Powerful passages in the constitution were added to protect the people from their government, including the fourth amendment protecting people from search and seizure without probable cause. But the founding fathers were not paranoid, indeed history has proven such fear of government correct. Over the last century a few thousand died as a result of terrorism, 37 million were killed by war, yet studies show that a staggering 262 million were killed by their own government. And always before the killing and the oppression, came the lists.
Now, do I think the government of the US and the UK are going to start murdering their own people Mao style? No, absolutely not, it won’t happen. But what about doubling the taxation from today’s already high levels; making the state so powerful that if you don’t recycle correctly you’re fined a month’s income; or if you publicly speak out that you don’t believe in climate change you get ordered to attend a 4 week re-education course; or maybe if you have your own mother look after your children for a weekend without getting her CRB checked and pay £400 to the state to facilitate those essential checks then you face prosecution.
Do I believe all of these things could happen in the next 50 years? … yes … yes I do believe all of those could happen if they are not battled against between now and then.
“Ah” you cry, “the state is collecting all this information purely to catch terrorists. Who could possibly be opposed to that?”.
Well today, maybe. However another recent US scandal has shown that their tax authority, the IRS, has been targeting people they ideologically disagreed with such as libertarians, and subjecting them to audits and other harassment to make their life unbearable until they just drop their attempts to advocate such heretical notions such as ‘taxes should be lower’ for example. It is not only likely, but given what we all know about government if we have been paying any attention at all, it is almost a certainty that if the state has the means to crush you, sooner or later it is going to use it. The only thing standing between us and some Orwellian future is if people stand up and make a noise about it. But, what if the state had some way to silence its critics, like the ability to search any online activity and phone call they had ever made and then selectively draw from that data to find some way to discredit that person or incriminate them. Given the amount of laws that exist today we are almost certainly all criminals to some extent. There will be some law somewhere that either we have broken or could be used to make us to look like disgusting perverts or perhaps tax evaders with very selective evidence. It might be only the security services that have this information today, but you wait, one day your local council will have it too, and they will happily use it when you complain that you got fined for not having bought the correct number of recycling permits.
Am I in fear of terrorists blowing up my train as I go home tonight? Yes, perhaps a very little bit I am. But I have a much greater fear that the state will grow and grow until we are all just worker drones being taxed up the rear, working from sunup to beyond sundown, straddled from birth with debt we can never pay off, never able to actually retire and that, if anyone speaks up against the system, they are instantly discredited or discovered to have committed 817 minor offenses throughout the course of their life that the state has suddenly decided to prosecute on and is looking for a custodial sentence. If the state has the power to crush any of us it has the power to silence any of us because we conclude it’s not worth speaking out.
Mr Snowden spoke out, he was extremely careful to leak only the information that would not harm any security agents or operations around the world in the way that the indiscriminate Wikileaks did. He only leaked enough information to let us see the broad strokes of what the state was building to use against us in secret . The man is a bloody hero, and we must all resist the state becoming too powerful, even if it does try and scare us with terrorists. Because even if there is a 0.00001% chance that a terrorist will kill me, there is an almost 100% chance that the state will bleed me dry and not tolerate complaint for the rest of my life.
Kingbingo 
June 20, 2013 at 09:50
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Interesting to see that the internet behemoths are now demanding the
governments reveal more about their own activities.
I wonder if they are
all falling out over the payment of TAX issue….
“On Tuesday, Yahoo and Facebook followed Google in urging government
transparency, with separate statements.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/11/nsa-google-seeks-approval/2412569/
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June 17, 2013 at 14:22
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Oh, and don’t forget this, straight from the horse’s mouth:
“I having been in government have every reason for believing that the
government routinely abuses the powers it has. It’s not a matter of the last
resort, it’s the first resort. It isn’t something that happens exceptionally,
it happens all the time.”
The quote is from Michael Portillo.
Others are less candid.
- June 17, 2013 at 15:49
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I used to work for Michael P actually. I think the day he failed to make
it as leader of his party was the day I started to drift away from party
based politics and focus on ideas and how to propagate those ideas. I
suppose it also marked the end of my political career, I was not going to
work for Clarke and frankly could not see the point of working for IDS so I
switched into business instead.
I still believe he was one of those great Prime Ministers we never
had.
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June 17, 2013 at 14:15
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Hear! Hear!
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June 16, 2013 at 10:49
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I agree with Frankie. What young man, in his right mind, on a good salary
and everything going for him, runs the risk of life imprisonment/being chased
about about the earth until caught? As far as I am concerned, we can all have
an educated guess that, if a spying process is available, it will be used and
expanded. Especially if it can catch one out in even the simplest sin and
extract money from your purse as a result. Speeding and road tax spring to
mind with the connivance of the DVLA. Phone hacking is an ancient process, now
done electronically. Us humans cannot resist going larger….pyramids and Easter
island statues. Wider…..ever longer bridge spans. Higher……twin towers etc.
More overblown and ugly…..cruise liners. Even nature=hump back whales can’t
resist the urge to expand! Much better to have kids, stay happy, and keep his
mouth shut from telling us what we can already deduce for ourselves
- June 16, 2013 at 00:27
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One has to wonder at Mr. Snowden and whether he truly thought this through,
whatever his admirable motives for exposing skullduggery…
I suspect that he did not and that, in addition, he may be labouring under
a stress related mental condition – my reasoning for this is not only his
actions in exposing this, but his actions subsequent to doing so – in ineptly
condemning himself to a short and extremely stressful attempt to hide from the
agents of a very pissed off Superpower.
Does anyone honestly think that his actions, however laudable in theory,
are those of a fully rational human being, in full possession of all their
faculties?
I don’t, for one.
Either that, or he has cojones the size of coconuts.
- June 15, 2013 at 20:51
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And in all honesty, America doesn’t have the budget to pay enough people to
monitor everything and anything, and furthermore, who’s interested in the
comings and goings of regular people? Snowden is going to probably have this
thing blow up in his face. He claimed to have taken four laptops, for example,
when it is more likely he took a thumb drive, and so on. Back in the day, I
used to occasionally make live appearances with musicians who were fiercely
against the Contra situation, and the FBI were always at the gigs, taking
photos, scribbling notes. So far, 30 years later, I have yet to hear from
them, radical that I was!
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June 16, 2013 at 02:01
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And in all honesty, America doesn’t have the budget to pay enough
people to monitor everything…
Really? It hasn’t stopped them building this: Utah Data
Center
A computer complex so large that its projected to cost $40million a year
just for the electricity bill. And where a NSA spokesperson said, “Many
unfounded allegations have been made about the planned activities of the
Utah Data Center, … one of the biggest misconceptions about NSA is that we
are unlawfully listening in on, or reading emails of, U.S. citizens. This is
simply not the case.”
That just leaves those US citizens they do have lawful authority to
monitor… and everyone else in the world, including you and me.
- June 15, 2013 at 20:28
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How many thousands of people would be needed to read e-mails or listen in
to the usual inane chatter of the mobile and landline phones? Get real. Don’t
succumb to paranoia. After I had hung up my wings I went to work for an
‘interesting’ outfit that is charged with our national security. For the
interception of any message on any media it was necessary to get a specific
HOW (Home Office Warrant). Let me assure you that it was like drawing teeth to
obtain one of these. They are not granted willy nilly. We have a perfectly
good system in place and there is simply no need for all the hysteria that is
going on.
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June 15, 2013 at 21:49
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And yet……. back in the 1980s at the height of the ‘troubles’, a small
mainland group organised a sport-based trip to Northern Ireland, entirely by
phone. In between the planning and the departure date, one of the group was
visited by ‘an interesting outfit’ and advised that, due to a close
relative’s sensitive occupation, he should not participate in the trip for
his own safety.
The only folk who knew about the trip were those mainland
travellers and their NI hosts – plus anyone else listening in to their phone
calls, someone who was able to work out the names of all the group members,
then to deduce that one of them had a ‘sensitive relative’, then to take
visiting action.
I’m not knocking their admirable concern for both
national and personal security, but it makes you wonder how they ‘chanced
upon’ the source information about that small, specialist-interest group, as
this was only ever transmitted by landline phone between a handful of
civilian ‘mates’ with no connection to militance.
Earlier, back in the late 1960s, a local group of students became aware
that the authorities were mysteriously ahead of them in any demos. To check
this concern, the organisers phoned each other (landlines only then),
talking up the details of a planned (imaginary) demonstration at a specific
date, time and place. At the appointed time, the location was checked and it
was swarming with police, some even mounted, in apparent readiness for the
imaginary demo – spooky. Again, not knocking their concern for public order,
but the source of their ‘intelligence’ was pretty obvious – and I’m sure
there was no turgid Home Office Warrant procedure involved each time.
Old habits die hard.
- June 15, 2013 at 22:32
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Mudplugger :
I do not have an explanation for these I’m afraid as
they do not chime with my experience.
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June 16, 2013 at 02:12
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The Mormon Church has blasted out caves in Utah, where they store
everyone’s family history from all over the world on microfiche, or as
much as they can find and keep. They also have the largest database of
family history in the world – records on everyone they can obtain. The
internet has been invaluable to them.
Just wanted to share this with everyone – coincidentally received via
email today. I don’t know if the writer of this is a paratrooper or an
operative or simply a concerned citizen who doesn’t want to dance
center-stage while revealing a few facts. Anyway, here you go:
“This is a note I just got from my eldest son…..he is a former US
Paratrooper, 82nd Airborne and worked in Iraq for the military
(biometrics) for 7 years….this was a response to my saying that the
American government/American people called the Russians asses in the
80′s when they were in Afghanistan. Truth be known.
**********************************************************************
Yeah, that was a huge smokescreen. We were involved to the core of
that first war, and then left them hanging after the Russians
left.
It’s just one lie after another. That’s why I’m amazed when the
public appears to believe everything it is told.
Like I said before, my turning point in understanding things was
sitting in that secure deployment compound in Fort Bragg watching Bill
Clinton tell the American public that we were going into Haiti on a
humanitarian mission—just after I had been briefed on my mission which
was to destroy the mechanized Haitian infantry, release political
prisoners in a prison, and then kill a rogue U.S. Vietnam-era Special
Forces soldier that had been training them.
Just like that, you can believe nothing you hear. That’s why the
flag-waving and unthinking patriotism of your average person nearly
makes me vomit.
And not asking the right questions leads us into this
sort of thing. We’ve been trained to be obedient little puppies while
those in power work toward agendas we have zero visibility on.
It’s like this NSA PRISM surveillance thing everyone is talking
about. First of all, is anyone all that surprised?
Secondly, the Facebook angle. People talk a lot about this venture
capitalist Peter Thiel having given $500K to Mark Zuckerberg (president
of Facebook) early on to start the company, and how that was so much
money. What people never talk about is how a guy named James Breyer at
the same time gave over $12.7M dollars. And he allegedly sits on the
board of a data mining company that is a front for the CIA.
And, allegedly, at that time the CIA and DARPA were working on
developing some way to exploit the internet to gather information on the
population. So now you have a voluntary opt-in service that is
fashionable, and all of the members post everything imaginable: personal
info, photographs, location.
Facebook is an intelligence-gathering dream come true. The subjects
provide all of the information to you. So am I surprised that the NSA is
data mining the servers? Nope. It virtually belongs to them.
This gets to be a bit conspiracy theory-like, but it wouldn’t
personally surprise me one bit if Mark Zuckerberg had been recruited
early on at Harvard to set this entire thing in motion. Or is at least
complicit in the ruse.
It’s a crazy world we live in, for sure.
And when you consider the (failed) role Facebook played in the Green
Revolution in Iran in 2009, and the successful role it played in
destabilizing Libya, Egypt, and Syria things start to make sense
regarding the CIA’s role in things. Their footprint is all over it.
Domestically we now know it is being used to surveil the U.S.
population, and abroad we are utilizing it as a tool to sway the
citizens of foreign countries toward civil war. It didn’t work in Iran
because they are smart as shit, but one government after another has
been toppled since.
Think about it. You can rile up a population to the point that it
turns on its own government and does the dirty work for you.
Kadafi fell with minor official input by us, and is now run by folks
as bad as Kadafi ever was. Egypt’s government flipped, only to be
unexpectedly replaced by extremist Islamists. And Syria has turned into
a disaster, and looks to erupt into something even worse as Assad will
not step down.
Much like how things turned out in Iraq and
Afghanistan, one of two things is possible here. Either our brightest
people running things behind closed doors are complete idiots and have
utterly blown it, or their actual goal from the start was to simply
disrupt and destabilize the Middle East. To create chaos.
The scary thing is I just saw something about U.S. troops staged on
Syria’s border, so who knows where this thing is headed.”
I grew up in the era of Big Brother Is Watching You – and was
suitably alarmed that governments had so much power that they could come
to your house in the middle of the night and take your mother and father
away. I wouldn’t call myself paranoid but I certainly don’t stick my
head in the sand either. But, what is the end game here?
- June 15, 2013 at 19:29
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There are not enough hours/days/months/years available to read all that is
collected and stored. Therefore, I suspect they will only be read if the State
has reason to believe they are important enough to warrant it, for suspected
terrorism for example. Thus the records may confirm suspicions, but on the
other hand they may prove innocence! Which, I believe, is the point that
William Hague is making.
- June 15, 2013 at 19:33
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Precisely, ifabloke.
- June 15, 2013 at 20:00
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Are you innocent? Do you expect to remain innocent as the petty laws
and regulations continue to escalate?
Recycle incorrectly?
Leave a
light on when you’re not in the room?
Visit sites like this where you
risk becoming radicalized?
Technology will enable a huge number of new
regulations. It may be too late before you realize.
The sheep will say, “Keep your head down, they’ll pick on someone else.
I’m a good sheep. I look innocent. Take those bad sheep!”
- June 15, 2013 at 20:26
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“There are not enough hours/days/months/years available”
Yet people were still afraid of the Stasi, despite the people being so
many and the state being so few. They only need target those who forget to
be afraid.
- June 16, 2013 at 12:57
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The reading is done by machine. The NSA, YEARS ago, applied for patents
in this field (parsing in real-time to uderstand message meanings). You are
terribly, horribly, ill-informed.
The machine does not have any intelligence however, which is why
Oldholborn’s excellent blog posting provides as many false hits as possible
to it. If we are to be surveilled, lets overload the system.
My worry is, that it becomes impossible to organise any sort of political
activity which is counter to the government: just try it, and you will
allegated up as quick as a Savile. Especially easy, as our host points out,
that holiday snaps of your own children almost certainly classify as
child-porn in these enlightened days.
- June 15, 2013 at 17:13
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The IRS was not targeting ‘libertarians’ they were targeting right-wing
conservative groups associated with the tea party. And Snowden is now looking
somewhat suss himself. Too much stink of the martyr and a perverse claim to
fame for my liking. We need a lot more information before we jump to wild
conclusions.
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June 15, 2013 at 18:41
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Agree. All the usual jumpers-on jumping on without pausing for breath or
facts.
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June 15, 2013 at 17:00
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“Ah” you cry, “the state is collecting all this information purely to
catch terrorists. Who could possibly be opposed to that?”
I am.
Its simply not necessary to collect all this data… and often times its only
useful after the fact. Sure, if you suspect someone of evil intent then the
authorities should have the power (and they do) to seek a warrant to tap that
persons communications. And I mean from a proper court, not one of those super
secret ones that have all the transparency of a lead brick.
One thing that really bothers me is the way the US legislators happily
believe all this is to protect their citizens… the same citizens that are less
travelled than most, the same citizens that have but scant idea how the rest
of us live (or where) and the same citizens that see the military as a family
sized bug spray to be used to keep irritating pests away. And yet, I recall
Fox News doing a special report from Daytona Beach (I think) on July 4th last
year where they asked random folk about the origin of their Independence Day
holiday. Less than half knew from whom they got their independence from and
even fewer knew when. Some even named countries like Mexico, Canada and Japan!
Many recognised 1776 as being significant but didn’t attach it to this holiday
and some didn’t even know the numbers referred to a year. Now I’m not knocking
the Americans. They are a perfectly fine people. But much of this surveillance
is being done in their name and I’m worried that if they don’t know why, then
no one is going to be inclined to touch the brake.
For us, in this country, we really SHOULD know better. Our leaders, like
Hague and May, disappoint me massively. Their default roles should always be
to tell the spooks and the police that they cannot have additional powers –
and to tell us what they are doing to monitor and when appropriate/safe to
dismantle existing schemes/structures.
Instead, temporary measures are becoming permanent. Spying on foreign
powers becomes spying on us. Information gathered for the most secretive and
select is allowed to filter down to the Inland Revenue, to the cop on the
beat, to social workers, to the council wonk in charge of school places or
bins.
The old canard: “If you’ve nothing to hide….?” Then how come I, you, and
everyone you know are on so many lists these days? Dare you count them? And
what about those lists and databases in other countries… ones you will never
know about, ones you’ll never be allowed to query or inspect. Nothing to hide?
Damn right, they know all about you already but that won’t stop them looking
for more..
- June 15, 2013 at 17:45
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“…temporary measures are becoming permanent…” – Don’t they always? Like
the once-temporary measure of an income tax; but these concerning our
liberties are far more frightening.
“Our leaders, like Hague and May, disappoint me massively” – Me too,
especially when following that noce Mr Straw – the Lavrenty Beria
wannabe…
When I was an A-level student (back in the heady days of the “Summer of
Love”) I read both 1984 and Brave New World and I now find to my horror,
that the powers-that-be have taken the best aspects of neither, but the
worst aspects of both and are foisting them upon us.
“If you’ve nothing to hide….?” – Agreed: I have no (immediate) intention*
of murdering anyone, so does that mean I shouldn’t oppose capital
punishment?
*The more I think of Whitehall and The Palace of Westminster, the less
certain I am of this lack of intent…
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June 15, 2013 at 12:26
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Haven’t we already seen something similar with the Anti Racism Brigade and
The Company Stores which got people into terrible debt?
- June 15, 2013 at 09:49
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After a long time away from blogging, Old Holborn has a good take on this
issue: http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/troll-nsa.html.
Welcome back Holby.
- June
15, 2013 at 09:27
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I would be somewhat cautious about getting over exited with anything that
has the Grauniads number one sleazeball Glenn Greenwald running point on…
- June 15,
2013 at 13:43
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Even a stopped clock, etc, etc…
- June 15, 2013 at 16:11
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Even a compass which always points South can be useful if used
correctly…
- June 15, 2013 at 09:16
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Good points Kingbingo.
Did you know that we have had unreasonable state snooping in this country
for 13 years thanks to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.
This was apparently passed as an anti-terrorist law, but like most Marxist
policies it has been used by public sector apparatchiks in precisely the
opposite manner to which its name suggests.
Ordinary council workers, who couldn’t be more far removed from the
terrorism front line, are currently empowered by this unpleasant, badly
drafted law to spy on us for trivial reasons. Some of this act’s consequences
are described in this article from 2011: Councils use RIP act to snoop.
“According to an analysis of government credit cards, Basildon Council
spent £1,757 in a shop called Spycatcher in Knightsbridge, buying zoom
binoculars, night-vision goggles and a GPS tracking device.”
“Councils are spying on our telephones and computers, too. According to
Sir Paul Kennedy, a retired High Court judge and the current Interception of
Communications Commissioner (ICC), councils last year made 1,756 requests for
data relating to their taxpayers’ phone and email usage.”
However, I would like to air my concern about Edward Snowden and hope he
doesn’t turn out to be another lefty, anti-west, self appointed martyr like
St. Julian Assange. I take on board your point, Kingbingo, that at least
Snowden didn’t risk lives like Assange did in his zeal to expose US
secrets.
Isn’t it strange that the likes of St. Assange, the BBC, the Guardian et
al. never try to expose Russian or Chinese secret documents or protest loudly
about the suppressive behaviour and intrusive surveillance in China, Russia,
the EU and other non-capitalist states.
Talking of the EU, they are just as much a fan of surveillance as the US.
The EU wants a 40% increase in its home affairs budget to 10 billion euros (in
2014-2020) at least 7 billion is for security related purposes, the rest
is for “migration management”
That is in addition to another 3.8 billion euros for a separate EU security
project called Horizon 2020. According to this document, the EU wants this
3.8 billion to create “Inclusive, innovative and secure societies”. That’s on
top of their other security funding and on top of what national governments
already do.
(Courtesy of Open Democracy)
And let’s not forget our own domestic snoopers’ charter that the Limp-Con
Coagulation wants to pass. Thank god for Cleggie’s opposition to it, I suppose
he does have his uses after all.
- June 15,
2013 at 12:54
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Well in 2008 we investigated the Academy project and found that all the
huge University building programmes are in fact a cover for the huge data
collection and sorting operations not for GCHQ but for the private corporate
empire.
One can then hire what they call cctv time which allows you to
utilise the entire cctv network across the country.
Given they now have cctv in children’s changing rooms and toilets, and,
cctv around all outdoor play areas, then it is fair to suggest that this
network is also available for paedophiles. From there own documents we found
their talk on so called security to be nothing other than an agenda to
secure the nation for a form of fully accessible virtual environment with
real people as the stars of the show, right down to the smart TV allowing
full access to your living room as you watch TV, and to listen to your day
to day lives through your smart mobile phone.
The universities are not what they appear to be, and of course as is
obligatory today…we the taxpayers have paid for it, or are liable for the
debt accrued in building and running them.
- June 15, 2013 at 13:19
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“Did you know that we have had unreasonable state snooping in this
country for 13 years thanks to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of
2000.”
Loosely, thanks for the details, very helpful.
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June 15, 2013 at 09:10
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I didn’t see this, but some TV wag was suggesting that we are all supplied
with parrot sized effigies of “William Hague” to perch on our shoulder, so
that it will be easier for our communitarian leaders to make sure that we
don’t wander off piste.
BTW: Entirely agree with your piece KingBingo… Apart perhaps from your
assertion regarding doubling tax… I reckon that it would be extremely
difficult to double tax that is already in the 90% of income ballpark.
- June 15, 2013 at 09:43
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“Apart perhaps from your assertion regarding doubling tax… I reckon that
it would be extremely difficult to double tax that is already in the 90% of
income ballpark.”
Direct taxes indeed, and perhaps they have gone bout as far as they can
with direct taxes, but they can heap on sales taxes, permit taxes, special
taxes, and put you in debt that grows way faster than your ability to pay.
Something like: Dear Mr Writes, National debt increased £20,000,000,000 this
year, of which we have decided £22,000 is your to pay, don’t worry about it
now, but as soon as you sell your house/get a bonus/die we will be right
there to take what YOU OWE, have a nice day.
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June 15, 2013 at 10:05
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I was actually making that point KingBingo… The direct taxes are
somewhere around an average of 40-45% (NI inc)… But the indirect taxes are
many and frequently hidden…
As for your £22 grand owed scenario… That is already happening in
Ireland, where the Euro makes it difficult to steal as secretively as they
do here. In the UK we suffer from the money printing scams and
artificially low interest rate scams, and any other mafia type scam that
you can think of that our government (and government in general) serves
up.
- June
15, 2013 at 12:42
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Well having just received a notification from Nationwide Building
Society that there are changes to my current accounts which from the first
read suggests changes that will open the way for a bail-in after September
2013, you are on to something…
I do believe that any bank that took a
bailout is then subject to control from the Bank of England, itself the
administrator of debt for the Bank for International Settlements
(BIS).
The BIS is the private fund offered to bankrupt Europe and the
US in 1930′s bankruptcy declarations, and comes direct from the Order of
the Garter and the global oligarch network.
Perhaps we might look to banking operations that have not taken a
bailout and are thus not subject to the dictates of the BIS.
- June 15, 2013 at 08:43
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The cynic in me wonders if Hague & other MPs acquiescence of PRISM is
because the Americans now know of their illicit surfing ‘habits’?
- June 15, 2013 at 17:19
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Please check out TOR browser for untraceable anonymity:-
If for no other reason, the sheer buggeration factor in p*ssing of
members of the Spook community has to be worthwhile.
- June 15, 2013 at 08:05
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Applause!
This is so true.
- June 15, 2013 at 17:16
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“…an arrangement that taxed the many while severing the interests of a
select few…”
A succinct and apposite definition of (almost any) government today!
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