If you relied on VoIP, would you like the option to pay maybe $1/month extra to have a 1Mbps fully-QoS'd channel to guarantee that your VoIP traffic always gets through no matter how badly intermediate networks between your modem and VoIP provider might be? That's one of the use-cases the EUP offered as a justification for having to allow some degree of traffic prioritization.

If you choose the right VoIP.

As long as ISPs are not allowed to intentionally degrade non-premium traffic on the back of direct-peering deals, I see no fundamental problem with it.

So they won't intentionally degrade specific traffic. They'll just allow for the creation of the network equivalent of slums. This isn't about QoS, or "enhanced" anything, as the providers are already capable of doing that. It's about large, powerful corporations leveraging their positions to increase their power. Increasing their power via the marketplace by becoming better providers would be accessible.

Why would you want the government to shift the power of the marketplace from consumers to these corporations? Instead of the market of consumers at large choosing things like "hey, I want VoIP service" or "I'd like to watch television via the internet" or "I like this new thing that has yet to become popular", consumers at large would see choices like "I'd like to choose the same thing as MSNBCComcastTimeWarner".

Skype? Netflix? Hulu? Nope. Have fun with Vongo and the thousands of other forgettable services pushed by content-providers which have come and failed miserably. Anything sensitive to bandwidth or latency like a Skype, instead of creating and setting a market for new products, will have to first be filtered through their lieges for approval.

In theory, maybe.

This would provide an incentive for providers never to improve their base service, since they would then be required to provide that same level of service across the board. Why would they ever give it away for "free" to already-paying customers when they can place a massive new premium on it? Especially when sharing a tiny nibble of the new pie to a few already-paying customers means they'll have to give that nibble to everybody, every day.

Instead of an open infrastructure which is equally accessible, it will statutorily create pay-for-access with a "basement" tier shouldn't get worse than the current status quo. That might seem fine now, but think about what it would be like if this were allowed to happen during the dialup days?

A "fast lane" net neutrality is the opposite of net neutrality. Every lane will be a "fast lane", ie, mostly monopolized toll roads run by corporations which have already shown no qualms in leveraging their positions of power to crush competition and squeeze consumers.

Looks like it's the opposite to me. He's complaining that he's forced to purchase upgrades to the latest and greatest major versions of his OS, and purchase hardware that it says it will run on, just for a security patch.

Al-Awlaki does ring a bell. Like I said, if Snowden were in a place like Yemen, where apprehending him was impossible because he was protected by a group of people who were openly hostile to their own government and the US government, sometimes conducting open warfare or terrorist operations, then the United States might try to have him killed.

He's not, though. Even if he were, it would be so unlikely as to almost be unthinkable. He's not violent. He can't cause any more direct harm. He has no real options on the table, considering just about every other nation in the world would be more than willing to extradite him. It's not even worth a huge expense to try to apprehend him.

The idea that Snowden would be assassinated by the USA, especially without serious attempts at his apprehension, is absurd. There's no other way to put it. The only thing I can say about it is that everyone is lucky the US government has so far successfully filtered out people who would consider it feasible or a good idea or legal.

If anyone can make a leap of logic from the dubiously legal killing of al-Awlaki to justify a killing of Snowden, then they are part of the problem. They're miles apart.

There certainly were large movements of support against Germany. There were even plenty of men who crossed the border into Canada or traveled to the UK to volunteer, and there were even men who went to Finland to fight against the USSR in the Winter War of 1940. This kind of "world police" behaviro is definitely a fairly common thread in American history, both unofficially by volunteers and officialy often driven by the same undercurrents which drove the men to act independently in the first place. There were even official American expeditions to fight against the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolutions in 1918.

That said, it should be easy to see that these same undercurrents and social movements aren't unique to any particular movement, with some much stronger than others, and the "world police" interventionist tendencies of the USA and American civilians are just that: undercurrents. In addition to those that volunteered to fight in WW2 early, before America's official entrance, there were also a large number of Nazi sympathizers. People with German ethnic heritage make up the largest single demographic of America even today, with memories and ties to Europe much stronger half a century ago. Coupling this with tendencies for Americans to voice their opinions adds to the "world police" caricature.

I only bring all this up because I think it's an injustice to history to take the "world police" superpower caricature of the USA today and apply it to its actions around the time of WW1 or WW2. Calling America's entrance into both wars anything other than a reluctant, late entry due to the strong isolationist tendencies of the vast majority of America is simply wrong. America was basically dragged, kicking and screaming, into both wars, and are probably a major cause for the Cold War-era interventionism.

that said!

I don't think it's surprising at all that the US focused so much on Europe early on. Nazi Germany's industry and power were a huge threat to established industrial powerhouses, with many others with important manufacturing, manpower, and resources already under its control. With access to these, Germany was even more of a threat to the UK and USSR. If the UK fell, especially, hope of a decisive victory against the Nazis would be lost.

Japan had already conquered most of its goals, and already had access to most of the resources it needed, and most of this was a region which is more defensible and has less ease of transportation (thanks mostly to the ocean, large numbers of islands, and tropical jungles). Almost none of it was industrialized. Losing Australia was a threat, but not an entirely serious one. I just don't think that what happened -- focus on Europe, smaller focus on defending areas just off of Australia like the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands -- was surprising.

Sorry, but that's not torture. Manning was placed in isolation and was often treated by his jailers to the utmost of the letter of the law. Disrespectful or humiliating, maybe, but that's true of all imprisonment. Especially when the prisoner is flippant and disrespectful to begin with. Men who cannot read minds were in charge of keeping him locked up and were rightly concerned about the potential for him to hurt himself and he worsened an already worse situation by brushing off their concerns. I might have sympathy with that if he were just some scared kid who couldn't take the army life and was unable to look his superior officers in the eyes anymore, but he was a scared kid because of the treasonous behavior he engaged in.

He tried to refuse wearing an anti-suicide smock, complaining of it being uncomfortable! How is that torture?

Regardless of any of that, I still don't see how it's very applicable to Snowden, and you've failed to answer it. Considering Manning's crimes were so much more reckless, and considering he faced the consequences under the UCMJ instead of the law that most Americans are familiar with, and considering the greater sympathy shown by the American public towards Snowden, it's much more likely that Manning would be treated far worse than Snowden ever would.

I don't see you saying anything that disagrees with that, aside from untruthfully claiming that Wikileaks "sorted through" the information released to them. Wikileaks released documents completely unredacted, in bulk, only withholding some so that they could stay in the news cycle. Information they released was only "sorted through" after an outpouring of complaint. Considering Manning's involvement with the planning behind these actions of Wikileaks, and considering the lack of any kind of historical basis for having faith in Wikileaks' competence and behavior, he absolutely did release these documents to the public. He tried to disseminate them as far and as fast as possible to the greatest number of people. This is in stark contrast to Snowden's behavior, who released documents to notable newspapers with vast amounts of experience in reporting and confidence in their ability to break the story while withholding sensitive details which might be dangerous.

If someone walks up to you and punches you in the face, you should not thank them for failing to stab you, you should expect them to be able to be punished for their crime. Conversely, if you walk up and punch someone in the face, you should expect the same of yourself. Since Manning was treated harshly, but according to law, and certainly not torturously, I don't really see how it should scare Snowden off other than the awareness that he would likely face a trial.

No they haven't.

Seeing as how you don't even care to do more than imply what you're trying to say, I guess it will go on as it has been.

what the hell is going on in this thread?

Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, not the other way around.

If you think about it a little more carefully you might come to the conclusion that China and Russia, despite their obvious shortcomings, are two places where he would be guaranteed that the US wouldn't do anything to get at him that would start WW3. Most anyplace else, they'd launch a few missiles at wherever they thought he was, write some letters of apology to the government there and move on.

Maybe if he went to Yemen and hid in camps with people who were waging a war.

The US Government will launch missiles at a lot of things like foreigners, terrorists, Chinese embassies, etc. Assassinating one of its own citizens without even attempting to apprehend them is not something it would do.

We've shown Americans how we deal with leakers by our handling of Bradley/Chelsea Manning.

How's that?

Manning was in the military, which has its own parallel legal system which is more strict and less forgiving than a normal American civilian would face. On top of that, Manning's leaks were in bulk, to the public, often without any kind of redaction for safety reasons. Including the release of plaintext documents! Snowden's leaks might be more structurally damaging in the long run, Manning essentially released everything she could get her hands on and did not cause more unintended damage only because of luck.

They could have fairly easily pushed for a death penalty, but he's transitioning to be female at his request. How is it even a precedent at all since it's under the UCMJ? Is that worse than you imagine Snowden? Better?

on another note:

For him to be a hypocrite, he'd have to spy on americans. If he has to do propaganda for the Russians to survive, then who cares?

Every American who has to deal with a more aggressive and assertive Russia thanks in part to political leverage like this cares.

I'm yet to hear a good criticism of how Snowden behaved.

How about a good criticism of how Snowden behaves? He shouldn't stooge for Putin on television.

The problem with leaking, even for the public interest, is that once the material is out there, you have little control over it. The information-wants-to-be-free crowd have all sorts of half-arsed claims about how responsible they are and how they can be trusted,

I've always loved the phrase "information wants to be free", but I hate seeing it used only as some kind of moral foundation for political philosophies. People who use it like that are missing out on the greatness of the saying.

"Information wants to be free" means that, once the material is out there, you have little control of it. You can't lock it up. It's nearly impossible to rewind or erase it. Once ideas are out there, they are out there, and are likely to spread. It's a property of information similar to how atoms are bound together are a property of physical material. It's not some anthropomorphic desire of information where it is sad and upset about not being known by others. It's water seeking its own level.

It's absolutely a shame. The dog and pony show of foreign leaders expressing shock and dismay in return for their electorate's goodwill is embarrassing. Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany, and didn't know phones could be tapped? Please.

Victoria Nuland, a State Department official, was recorded in a private phone call dismissively saying "Fuck the EU" and suggesting names for post-Yanukovych leadership America would be content in a phone call with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, and it's released to the press as if it were some kind of CIA plot to instill a puppet government! Who recorded it? How was it leaked? It was even edited to change the context! And it was basically shrugged off as "good Russian tradecraft".

Snowden receives a large amount of praise for having, and from people with, a very, very American distrust of government. To lump in political favors for foreign governments with that praise is reprehensible, especially knowing that they can be used as political leverage against America for years, if not decades. At some point you have to question his motivations for it and what he was looking to gain from it.

Chelsea Manning is even worse. Here are two cables detailing events and predictions about Ukraine:

http://wikileaks.org/cable/200...
http://cablegatesearch.net/cab...

They are both remarkably accurate considering the timeframe. It's unlikely that Russian strategists would be unable to come up with these ideas on their own, but it serves as confirmation in a world of geopolitics where that is a priceless commodity.

He does have a choice.

Snowden said that he felt he needed to speak up even knowing that he would have to make sacrifices in his life for doing so. So he goes to Russia? And asks staged questions to Vladimir Putin on state-owned, state-funded, state-backing television?

Russia practically invented the modern police state:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

Russia's underlying currents of a police state and culture of serfdom are something which it has been unable to shake for centuries.

Despite all of the blood shed in attempts to fight them, they keep popping up. The October revolution turned communist optimism into bloody murder for decades, with an end only coming because of a much more pressing focus on killing Germans. Which went much worse, of course, because of Stalin executing a huge portion of his military's leadership in the 1930s, largely thanks to this police state culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

The Cold War-era Soviet Union, despite all of its pretty obvious flounderings and negatives, was peaceful and glorious compared to earlier times. It reared its ugly head again after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While Putin is often criticized for "glorifying" the USSR in stating that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century, he's not exactly wrong. It was a complete government collapse in which everything of value fell into crime and corruption, led by an alcoholic prime minister. What direction does a society with a grand tradition of chekism turn to when faced with massive lawlessness, crime, and corruption? Chekism, of course.

Russia has been a land which practically worships wealth and power for as long as it has been a distinct place with anyone trying to change it having died in the process.

This isn't meant to "bash" Russia, as each society humanity has developed has faced problems of its own, but problems that Russia face have historically been ones of secret police, surveillance, authoritarianism and corruption. Russians know it better than anyone.

So, please, don't say Snowden has no choice. He had lots of choices to make, he had a choice in this, and there are many more points where he can choose in the future. He chose to act in Putin's theater.

If C-programmers make secure programs 85% of the time, it's pretty safe to make something with.

It's not safe to make everything with.

It's like how desks and other furniture will have rounded edges and corners instead of sharp points. Sure, you trust adults not to bump into inanimate objects around the office and hurt themselves, but would you bet on it never happening?