Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years

[timdog44]

81. I wonder who is paying his bills too?

He may be getting to the point where his bill are going to be too big to be paid.

I keep seeing more and more former "spies" coming out and offering their two cents worth. It is only muddying the waters. Like Richard Clarke just had an editorial and it is in another post. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023002358
He has his say and seems to me says things both ways. "Rather, the law envisioned the administration coming to a special court on a case-by-case basis to explain why it needed to have specific records. I am troubled by the precedent of stretching a law on domestic surveillance almost to the breaking point. On issues so fundamental to our civil liberties, elected leaders should not be so needlessly secretive." For me, I have not seen any conclusive evidence that the government is not doing things on a case by case basis. And I have not seen any conclusive evidence that all phone calls are being mined. And therein lies the problem. Somewhere else there was a statement that "over 34000 requests had been made since 1979" and implied that that was an extraordinary number. But 34000 divided by 34 years is only 1000 requests per year. I would suspect that they are being made on fairly secure footing for there to be that few. I just don't get it.

I have to always explain that I think surveillance to be a necessary evil, and it should be a small one. No mercenary spies. I hate mercenaries. They go to the highest bidder ( I think Snowden worked for a mercenary spy group). Limit the number of agencies that can do surveillance and make it so the agencies that are left, can cross reference with each other instead of competing with each other.