I am fooled by the news stream, even though I am skeptical.
I have been led to believe that Venezuela and the USA are practically enemies.
Venezuela is in the news now, right?
Well looky here on MSNBC. The headline is "Colombia extradites 'Madman' drug lord to US" but if you read carefully you find out how Colombia captured the "madman." Working with British and USA governments (and no doubt the spy apparatus that we are hotly debating these days) the Colombians knew that this drug lord was using a pay phone in Venezuela. They notified the Venezuelans who picked him up on the spot. The articles about this say that the "madman" was working closely with "leftist guerillas" fighting the Colombian government.
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/...
http://www.foxnews.com/...
I bring this up because I think it complicates our discussions in interesting ways. It shows the futility and disservice done by oversimplification. The "leftist" government of Venezuela turned over to Colombia the drug lord who was working closely with the "leftist" guerrillas fighting Colombia.
The arrest, it seems to me, must have been made by electronic surveillance (on foreign nationals in this case) -- and if that is the case, under what authority was it done?
I am still thinking about this. Help me think about it. There are two "camps" about Snowden -- people like me who are more concerned with the development of the universal surveillance infrastructure that is getting built up - and those who think Snowden is the issue, and that he is a traitor and that if he is brought back to the USA what he will face is "justice."
But I think this should be interesting to both "camps" and that facts and principles can be discussed in a somewhat neutral way (up to a point anyway).