Is there an Admirals Club at Moscow Airport?

See http://gbata2013.premeetingmaterials.com/

I wrote and presented about this in Helsinki 3 weeks ago.

The choice between safety and privacy is a false choice.

The Magna Carta, the common law doctrine of "a man's home is his castle" and the US bill of rights are the basis for Western culture's primacy of law over divine right. They also bind governments to the law.

In the last 50 years, court decisions and technology have transformed our homes from our castles to digital prisons.

Our kids have less rights in schools than prisoners in jail.

The Patriot Act, and it's excessively broad interpretation by the Executive branch is dangerous. America was not meant to be ruled by secret courts, secret rulings and a suspension of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments.

We have a revolution to overthrow rule by divine kings and star chambers.

Somebody tell me how the Presidency with publically acknowledged KILL LISTS, Global Drone Strikes, nenever ending wars and complete disregard for the Bill of Rights is any different from the British, French or Russian monarchies?

Rule of law is what made/makes America different from the rest of the world.

The Patriot act, as executed by Bush & Obama, makes a mockery of that.

Or as Franklin said, those who trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither.

There's wisdom in those words... That we too often forget.

- Raj

Be mindful of what you do and where you do it and with whom. Or just don't care, have fun and be free.

"Have fun and be free"...I think I'll risk it. :)

I read an interesting article in The New Yorker wherein the author went to the Moscow airport to find Snowden. The zone that Snowden in includes two hotels that are attached to the airport. So the preception that he's living in the airport is a misnomer.

If I'm not mistaken, Congress voted on at least the war in Iraq, if not both wars. Also, I believe all of the powers the Patriot Act provides the Executive branch have to be backed up in court after the fact. This isn't a question of rule of law, but rather what we want to allow our government to do.

The sad part is that with all of the additional media these days, it is harder than ever to find the truth. Our biggest problem isn't that the government has too much power, it's that they have too little accountability. For example, the IRS needs to have the powers it has, but if those powers are abused, there has to be accountability. We are to unwilling to hold the people on our political side accountable.

Legislative bodies across the nation enjoy the power of oversight, many with subpoena powers; it remains a most underused power; even the budget approval power does not get wielded that way it can (exception to some extent, maybe, with Congress)

Here are 2 good articles on this topic:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-31/the-public-private-surveillance-partnership.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/31/opinion/schneier-nsa-trust/index.html