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> they had means, motive and opportunity They didn't have the legal right. > All it took was one person willing to burn their career to provide the proof. Sn

> they had means, motive and opportunity They didn't have the legal right. > All it took was one person willing to burn their career to provide the proof. Snowden proved that the NSA does not vacuum everything up in the US and only vacuums everything in a few countries. You seem to be reading different documents from the ones that Snowden released.

jacquesm 6y ago
Not having the legal right to do something does not count as evidence that it didn't happen.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  Since there isn't any evidence that it did happen, the fact that it is illegal is a pretty good reason to believe that it didn't happen. When you consider that Snowden released a trove of internal documents not vetted by the secret keepers, and none of them show that it did happen (while many of those documents cite the law for why it should not happen), that provides further circumstantial evidence that it didn't happen.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > the fact that it is illegal is a pretty good reason to believe that it didn't happen And yet I believe crime exists regardless of its legality. > Snowden released a trove of internal documents not vetted by the secret keepers Why on earth should the secret keepers be the ones to vet documents about themselves when they are being whistleblown on?
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      You seem to have misunderstood both points. > And yet I believe crime exists regardless of its legality. Well over 99% of the time, the government does not go out of their way to break laws. I didn't claim that the fact that it is illegal proves they didn't do it. I simply said that the fact that it is illegal makes it more likely that they didn't do it. Do you disagree? > Why on earth should the secret keepers be the ones to vet documents about themselves when they are being whistleblown on? Who said they should? My point was that despite the fact that they weren't combed through by the secret keepers, the documents did not say that the NSA did the illegal things that GGP claimed. Instead, these documents supported the opposite conclusion — that the NSA didn't do those things — by repeatedly citing the laws that they follow that don't allow them to do those things.

jacquesm 6y ago

Not having the legal right to do something does not count as evidence that it didn't happen.

lern_too_spel 6y ago
Since there isn't any evidence that it did happen, the fact that it is illegal is a pretty good reason to believe that it didn't happen. When you consider that Snowden released a trove of internal documents not vetted by the secret keepers, and none of them show that it did happen (while many of those documents cite the law for why it should not happen), that provides further circumstantial evidence that it didn't happen.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > the fact that it is illegal is a pretty good reason to believe that it didn't happen And yet I believe crime exists regardless of its legality. > Snowden released a trove of internal documents not vetted by the secret keepers Why on earth should the secret keepers be the ones to vet documents about themselves when they are being whistleblown on?
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    You seem to have misunderstood both points. > And yet I believe crime exists regardless of its legality. Well over 99% of the time, the government does not go out of their way to break laws. I didn't claim that the fact that it is illegal proves they didn't do it. I simply said that the fact that it is illegal makes it more likely that they didn't do it. Do you disagree? > Why on earth should the secret keepers be the ones to vet documents about themselves when they are being whistleblown on? Who said they should? My point was that despite the fact that they weren't combed through by the secret keepers, the documents did not say that the NSA did the illegal things that GGP claimed. Instead, these documents supported the opposite conclusion — that the NSA didn't do those things — by repeatedly citing the laws that they follow that don't allow them to do those things.