Enamel's World

The parallel's are number-some and amusing, I agree. Keep on ignoring the haters, Comrade.

Awesome post! This is precisely what I'm trying to articulate; however, to add to the complexity, "China", "Russia", and "EU" are spying on the US too.

I find this parallelism so hilarious and interesting. I dare say it's why I'm still playing this game today.

EDIT: knowing that you appear to see this predicament similarly to me, you never answered my last question: Do you believe Ecuador (or any country for that matter) can have a valid reason to harbor this guy?

EDIT 2: thanks for the post, I hope you enjoyed the read.

Russia and China, sure, they spy on the US. The EU, not so much. However, that's rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Fact is, in CN, if you spy on someone, you are giving that someone a valid CB. Yeah, if CN alliance "US" catchs alliance "China" spying on them, then they would have a CB to nuke them and all that. However we are speaking now about the opposite case, alliance "US" is the one caught spying others.

Alliance "Ecuador" would have all the right to accept nation leader "Snowden" into their ranks, as alliances have the right to recruit new members and "Snowden" would have done nothing wrong by exposing an illegal activity from an alliance.

Now, to add compexity to the issue, in RL, what Snowden has exposed is less an issue about US spying other countries, but US applying totalitarian Big Brother surveillance on his population and those of his allies. That has a difficult translation into CN, but I suppose it would equate to the Minister of Interior of alliance "US" actually hacking the in-game, forum and IRC accounts of his fellow alliance members and allies in order to read their private messages and conversations

Again, the problem would not be for nation leader "Snowden", but for the spymaster of alliance "US", whose nation would probably be deleted by Admin for hacking the game, and could also face criminal charges in RL for invasion of privacy.

I mean, the whole problem here is that you stablish the paralell in that Snowden is the one that has spied anyone, and has somewhat gone rogue, when in reality the one that is spying is the NSA, and he just exposed the scheme.

Russia and China, sure, they spy on the US. The EU, not so much. However, that's rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Fact is, in CN, if you spy on someone, you are giving that someone a valid CB. Yeah, if CN alliance "US" catchs alliance "China" spying on them, then they would have a CB to nuke them and all that. However we are speaking now about the opposite case, alliance "US" is the one caught spying others.

I guess I disagree somewhat, because according to the news, there's an internationally accepted 'level' of spying. I thought that was one of the purposes of the Chinese-US meeting a few weeks ago. They were going to attempt to come to an agreement on the acceptable level of spying.

Alliance "Ecuador" would have all the right to accept nation leader "Snowden" into their ranks, as alliances have the right to recruit new members and "Snowden" would have done nothing wrong by exposing an illegal activity from an alliance.

But that's the thing. I'm not sure anything leaked that the US is doing is actually illegal. If there's an internationally accepted level of spying, perhaps the US is acting within their bounds? We really don't have any information to compare against. I've been told personally by people who would know, China hits our defense installations often.

Internal spying is definitely legal via the patriot act.

Now, to add compexity to the issue, in RL, what Snowden has exposed is less an issue about US spying other countries, but US applying totalitarian Big Brother surveillance on his population and those of his allies. That has a difficult translation into CN, but I suppose it would equate to the Minister of Interior of alliance "US" actually hacking the in-game, forum and IRC accounts of his fellow alliance members and allies in order to read their private messages and conversations

Again, the problem would not be for nation leader "Snowden", but for the spymaster of alliance "US", whose nation would probably be deleted by Admin for hacking the game, and could also face criminal charges in RL for invasion of privacy.

Eh, an exact correlation of this situation to CN is tough. I guess I can kind of see it like that dude who published a bunch of TOP's FA direction to the OWF. TOP gave the guy access to that information. It's not known if Snowden 'hacked' the information or not. Like that TOP leak, Snowden may have just been given access to the information. I don't think admin can really do anything about it. I don't think that's a criminal act OOC either. At least, good luck getting someone to seriously investigate the TOP Leak. (Although I'm sure Crymson would have pushed for it though if he had some OOC popo contacts xP)

Did TOP have a right to roll the leak? Yeah, and they did I heard. That TOP member knew what he was doing was wrong, but he chose to do it anyway. Was any of the information in the TOP leak embarrassing? Yeah. Was it surprising? Not at all, but he still got rolled for it.

Same situation for the United states. Is the information embarrassing? Yeah. Was it surprising? I don't think anyone finds it surprising.

I mean, the whole problem here is that you stablish the paralell in that Snowden is the one that has spied anyone, and has somewhat gone rogue, when in reality the one that is spying is the NSA, and he just exposed the scheme.

But what the NSA is doing is legal under the patriot act! When the patriot act was passed, we knowingly gave up some of our rights. TOP said things on their boards that would have been "illegal" in 2007, but were deemed by the community as perfectly "legal" in 2013. Even though TOP was acting perfectly within the "law" the leak still got rolled for his 'illegal' actions.

If murder was legalized. People started murdering others, and there was no prosecution, would you be surprised? You could cry injustice all day long, that doesn't change the fact that it's legal. We "the people" legalized it!

But what the NSA is doing is legal under the patriot act! When the patriot act was passed, we knowingly gave up some of our rights. TOP said things on their boards that would have been "illegal" in 2007, but were deemed by the community as perfectly "legal" in 2013. Even though TOP was acting perfectly within the "law" the leak still got rolled for his 'illegal' actions.

If murder was legalized. People started murdering others, and there was no prosecution, would you be surprised? You could cry injustice all day long, that doesn't change the fact that it's legal. We "the people" legalized it!

I can't say I agree with what you have been saying but this post just broke the camel's back. I never agreed to give up my rights. I didn't have a say in whether or not the Act was passed. Yet my rights were taken away. You are acting as if every single citizen of the USA knew exactly what was detailed in the Act, and this is not true.

Saying "We the People" is kind of a misnomer. I do not have a voice in what goes on up in DC, I vote for people who have a voice there. If DC was thinking about legalizing murder, I wouldn't agree with that. I can write my Senator, Congressman/woman, try to get them to agree with my opinion, but I don't have control over their "Yes" or "No" vote.

One last thing, you are comparing a black-and-white act with a rather unexplained act. If DC said "We are going to legalize murder because of blah, blah, and blah", we would know exactly what will happen when the bill is passed. The vast majority of USA citizens didn't have a clue what exactly the Patriot act allowed the government to do. All they heard was "This act will prevent another 9/11", and they let the Act collect dust in the corner. When someone picks up the act, realizes what the act says, and tells the public what it does, of course we have the right to say "This is Wrong". We didn't know what was in the act, we just read the reviews.

I can't say I agree with what you have been saying but this post just broke the camel's back. I never agreed to give up my rights. I didn't have a say in whether or not the Act was passed. Yet my rights were taken away. You are acting as if every single citizen of the USA knew exactly what was detailed in the Act, and this is not true.

Saying "We the People" is kind of a misnomer. I do not have a voice in what goes on up in DC, I vote for people who have a voice there.

Don't you see what's going on here? There's a media frenzy going on right now. People across the country are calling their senators about this. You DO have a voice. Where was the media frenzy over the patriot act? Why weren't the masses calling their senators over the patriot act? The patriot act could have been stopped, but the people allowed it to go through because they thought it would protect them from terrorists.

I hate to say it dude, but by not creating a severe nationwide anti-patriot act sentiment, we the people gave up our rights by effectively saying "The Patriot act is not significant enough for me to call my senator about". The patriot act is quite clear in outlining what it was going to do, and internal spying was one of those things. It might not explicitly outline what it's going to do, but you have to use your head and read between the lines.

If DC was thinking about legalizing murder, I wouldn't agree with that. I can write my Senator, Congressman/woman, try to get them to agree with my opinion, but I don't have control over their "Yes" or "No" vote.

No, you don't have direct control over their vote; however, if everyone in your district calls in too, your senator isn't very likely to vote in favor of the bill

One last thing, you are comparing a black-and-white act with a rather unexplained act. If DC said "We are going to legalize murder because of blah, blah, and blah", we would know exactly what will happen when the bill is passed. The vast majority of USA citizens didn't have a clue what exactly the Patriot act allowed the government to do. All they heard was "This act will prevent another 9/11", and they let the Act collect dust in the corner. When someone picks up the act, realizes what the act says, and tells the public what it does, of course we have the right to say "This is Wrong". We didn't know what was in the act, we just read the reviews.

I think both situations are quite clear. From wikipedia on the Patriot Act "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" What do you think "appropriate tools" means? This is just the title P.A.T.R.I.O.T. lol Furthermore, what do you think terrorism means? Do you think it's just a dude with a turban?

Here's another quote from the wiki: "The act, as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, significantly weakened restrictions on law enforcement agencies' gathering of intelligence within the United States"

"significantly weakened restrictions on law enforcement" is a nice way of saying, "we gave up our rights".

The purpose of the Patriot act was as clear in 2001. Nobody whined about it because they thought it would protect them from ebil terrorists.