Snowden embraces American flag in WIRED photo shoot[W:511]

Redress said:

Just out of curiosity, how do you think the founding fathers would have reacted to some one who leaked their secret documents? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest they would have not treated him well...

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I'll go out on a limb and suggest that they'd be very suspicious of an all seeing Big Brother collecting massive amounts of personal data on U.S. Citizens, and 'promising' cross their hearts to only use it to protect the new country from English terrists! Promise!

Another thread about Snowden...nice to see a true American hero is doing okay.

He seemed to have sacrificed his freedom and (apparent) happiness to help his fellow Americans. And yet he is vilified by many.
Sadly, this speaks volumes about post-911 America. The land of the free and the brave has been partially replaced by the land of the cowardly sheep...terrified that every shadow houses a terrorist and blindly doing and thinking whatever the government says.


I am quite sure that history will view Snowden as far better then many do today as those that have been brainwashed by the government/mass media will fall away/die off and this situation can be looked upon by people with greater clarity.

JasperL said:

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that they'd be very suspicious of an all seeing Big Brother collecting massive amounts of personal data on U.S. Citizens, and 'promising' cross their hearts to only use it to protect the new country from English terrists! Promise!

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That is one way to attempt to avoid the question. Not quite as honest as trying to actually answer it...

Redress said:

That is one way to attempt to avoid the question. Not quite as honest as trying to actually answer it...

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OK, your question assumes two things (in order to relate it to the issues at hand):

1) The early U.S. had a massive surveillance program that included bulk data collection on American citizens.

2) Someone leaked the existence of that program.

I reject the first assumption, and so don't think the question is worth answering. If your question is whether or not the Founders would have objected to leaking some other type of completely different, secret, information, sure, OK, yeah, they would have if those individuals thought it was important information, etc. So what?

I just don't believe those who made a point of including the 4th Amendment in the Constitution would have made an exception for mass domestic data collection. If you do, that's fine, make that argument. An early example might be opening and copying all the mail, or at least making a notation of the sender and recipient of each piece of mail, and then storing all those records in Philly or somewhere, only to be looked at when there was a national security issue - say, fear of British spies or something! And I doubt in 1798 that a secret court that makes secret decisions, hidden from all but a few elected Congressman, to decide what data to collect, and when to use data collected, would have gone over too well.

TeleKat said:

Patriotism isn't about obeying the law or loyalty to the government. It's about being loyal to the country and the ideals it was founded on. Arguably, Snowden showed that more than any other scumbag in the NSA. At least he didn't feel the need to boldface lie to the American public about the government's surveillance habits.

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:lamo Snowden wasn't loyal to this country, it's people, or the ideas it was founded on. he uses that as an excuse for the gullible, and does so because it is known that the gullible make up a sizeable enough portion of this country to hinder the Presidents' ability to engage in effective foreign policy.

I will never cease to be amazed at how people are willing to look past the fact that he's an enabler of Putin, the guy who just cracked down on free speech again in Russia, in order to argue that Snowden of all people is some kind of crusader for liberty.

DA60 said:

Another thread about Snowden...nice to see a true American hero is doing okay.

He seemed to have sacrificed his freedom and (apparent) happiness to help his fellow Americans.

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He didn't help his fellow Americans and he may very likely have gotten some of them killed. He certainly has helped kill plenty of foreigners.

"hero" :roll:

And yet he is vilified by many.

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He's a traitor who serves the interests of dictators. He deserves vilification.

I am quite sure that history will view Snowden as far better then many do today

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i am rather sure that history will view Snowden far more accurately than that.



But hey, Snowden says he would be willing to do Jail Time to come back to America because He Just Loves It So Much.

Anyone willing to bet me he is lying his ass off, and has no intention whatsoever of making good on that?

cpwill said:

:lamo Snowden wasn't loyal to this country, it's people, or the ideas it was founded on. he uses that as an excuse for the gullible, and does so because it is known that the gullible make up a sizeable enough portion of this country to hinder the Presidents' ability to engage in effective foreign policy.

I will never cease to be amazed at how people are willing to look past the fact that he's an enabler of Putin, the guy who just cracked down on free speech again in Russia, in order to argue that Snowden of all people is some kind of crusader for liberty.

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Just so I'm clear, he flies to Russia, we strip his passport, ground planes we think might be carrying him OUT of Russia, he spends weeks in the airport working to get out of there and to a safe haven but we bully all our allies to make that impossible, and it's Snowden's fault he's stuck there in Putin's Russian, enabling him? Because the U.S. has done it's best to make it impossible for him to leave there?

Who's being gullible here?

JasperL said:

Just so I'm clear, he flies to Russia, we strip his passport, ground planes we think might be carrying him OUT of Russia, he spends weeks in the airport working to get out of there and to a safe haven but we bully all our allies to make that impossible, and it's Snowden's fault he's stuck there in Putin's Russian, enabling him? Because the U.S. has done it's best to make it impossible for him to leave there?

Who's being gullible here?

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Wrong. He flew to China, and then flew to Russia, carrying 4 laptops crammed full of US National Security in them in order to trade for passage, at which point he basically became Putins' Agent. Snowden chose to trade with and seek the embrace of the autocrats. He's welcome to fly back to the US any time he wants, and he doesn't, because he prefers it precisely where he is.

OldWorldOrder said:

Well, some people consider the FISA courts to be meaningful restraints. Certainly legal restraint. I mean according to those federal judges, anyway. And near blanket coverage is simply not true, period. Unless you have a very liberal definition of "near".

Do you wonder why, of the 40,000+ folks who work at NSA, the vast, vast majority of them have no problem with what it does? They who know much more of it than normal folks? Is it because they're all bad people? Dumb? Or could it be something else?

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With few exceptions, no one has a problem with that kind of power as long as it's in THEIR hands and not someone else's.

Snowden happens to be one of the few exceptions.

JasperL said:

OK, your question assumes two things (in order to relate it to the issues at hand):

1) The early U.S. had a massive surveillance program that included bulk data collection on American citizens.

2) Someone leaked the existence of that program.

I reject the first assumption, and so don't think the question is worth answering. If your question is whether or not the Founders would have objected to leaking some other type of completely different, secret, information, sure, OK, yeah, they would have if those individuals thought it was important information, etc. So what?

I just don't believe those who made a point of including the 4th Amendment in the Constitution would have made an exception for mass domestic data collection. If you do, that's fine, make that argument. An early example might be opening and copying all the mail, or at least making a notation of the sender and recipient of each piece of mail, and then storing all those records in Philly or somewhere, only to be looked at when there was a national security issue - say, fear of British spies or something! And I doubt in 1798 that a secret court that makes secret decisions, hidden from all but a few elected Congressman, to decide what data to collect, and when to use data collected, would have gone over too well.

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No, my question does not require an massive surveillance program. It merely requires the existence of secret material.

cpwill said:

Wrong. He flew to China, and then flew to Russia, carrying 4 laptops crammed full of US National Security in them in order to trade for passage, at which point he basically became Putins' Agent. Snowden chose to trade with and seek the embrace of the autocrats. He's welcome to fly back to the US any time he wants, and he doesn't, because he prefers it precisely where he is.

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He's welcome to return to the US... where he will promptly be thrown in a hole to await a kangaroo court that will throw him in an even deeper hole. Forever.

I suppose I could say you are free to swim in shark infested waters with chum strapped all over your body.... but I guess you must really hate sharks and wish them all to starve. Shame on you.

Gonzo Rodeo said:

He's welcome to return to the US... where he will promptly be thrown in a hole to await a kangaroo court that will throw him in an even deeper hole. Forever.

I suppose I could say you are free to swim in shark infested waters with chum strapped all over your body.... but I guess you must really hate sharks and wish them all to starve. Shame on you.

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Damn America where we actually have laws. How unreasonable!

cpwill said:

He didn't help his fellow Americans and he may very likely have gotten some of them killed. He certainly has helped kill plenty of foreigners.

"hero" :roll:



He's a traitor who serves the interests of dictators. He deserves vilification.



i am rather sure that history will view Snowden far more accurately than that.



But hey, Snowden says he would be willing to do Jail Time to come back to America because He Just Loves It So Much.

Anyone willing to bet me he is lying his ass off, and has no intention whatsoever of making good on that?

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I would point out that using the term "traitor" is probably counterproductive. It ratchets up the emotional rhetoric unnecessarily. It is enough that he is a criminal. Same practical considerations apply, and without all the extra emotional baggage.

And isn't it weird how 2 people who disagree on so much, and have such a wildly diametric view of the word as you and I, and yet we agree pretty much 100 % on this one issue?

Redress said:

Damn America where we actually have laws. How unreasonable!

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It's a crying shame our own government refuses to listen to them. Snowden exposed quite a bit of illegality regarding surveillance of Americans that is unconstitutional. For that, we should be grateful. What he did after may have been reprehensible, but I for one, do not want to live in a world with a set of surveillance programs former Sec. Ashcroft would not even agree to. The past 12 years has seen privacy decline dramatically and a Big Brother state emerge. How any one can think that is good is beyond me. Snowden is no saint or devil, and he's done good and bad, but I do strongly believe that the revealing of the illegal surveillance of Americans who've done nothing wrong was good.

obvious Child said:

It's a crying shame our own government refuses to listen to them. Snowden exposed quite a bit of illegality regarding surveillance of Americans that is unconstitutional. For that, we should be grateful. What he did after may have been reprehensible, but I for one, do not want to live in a world with a set of surveillance programs former Sec. Ashcroft would not even agree to. The past 12 years has seen privacy decline dramatically and a Big Brother state emerge. How any one can think that is good is beyond me. Snowden is no saint or devil, and he's done good and bad, but I do strongly believe that the revealing of the illegal surveillance of Americans who've done nothing wrong was good.

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Two separate things.

1: NSA spying

2: Snowden spying

The problem so many have is that they cannot think of them as two separate things. To use a historical example: Benedict Arnold had some pretty good reasons for being pissed off at the revolutionary army and continental congress. This does not excuse his turning coat.

Redress said:

I would point out that using the term "traitor" is probably counterproductive. It ratchets up the emotional rhetoric unnecessarily. It is enough that he is a criminal. Same practical considerations apply, and without all the extra emotional baggage.

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:shrug: I don't look at it here as a epithet, I look at it as an accurate description of his crime. He committed treason.

And isn't it weird how 2 people who disagree on so much, and have such a wildly diametric view of the word as you and I, and yet we agree pretty much 100 % on this one issue?

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Is this the part where we race each other to the "broken clock" joke?

Gonzo Rodeo said:

He's welcome to return to the US... where he will promptly be thrown in a hole to await a kangaroo court that will throw him in an even deeper hole. Forever.

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He would go to jail because he broke the law. That's not a kangaroo court, that's just a court.

cpwill said:

He would go to jail because he broke the law. That's not a kangaroo court, that's just a court.

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And the illegal, unconstitutional things he exposed? Who goes to jail for enacting and carrying out those things?

Ok, fine, the way he went about it was wrong... does this mean what he exposed is not wrong?

cpwill said:

Is this the part where we race each other to the "broken clock" joke?

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I kinda suspect it is more like we both spent time in the military. We both learned that authority is not necessarily a bad thing, that rules are not oppression.

Gonzo Rodeo said:

And the illegal, unconstitutional things he exposed? Who goes to jail for enacting and carrying out those things?

Ok, fine, the way he went about it was wrong... does this mean what he exposed is not wrong?

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Separate issue. I know I am not going to defend some of the things done in the name of security. That does not excuse giving classified information to foreign countries. Random contractors and low ranking soldiers cannot be the ones who make decisions on what should and should not be classified.

Redress said:

Two separate things.

1: NSA spying

2: Snowden spying

The problem so many have is that they cannot think of them as two separate things. To use a historical example: Benedict Arnold had some pretty good reasons for being pissed off at the revolutionary army and continental congress. This does not excuse his turning coat.

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The problem I have with labeling Snowden "a spy" is that he's already been convicted in the court of public (government, in this case) opinion. He caused damage to the sitting administration for exposing all of the wrongdoing the sitting administration is presiding over. This does not exonerate the sitting administration, calling Snowden a spy.

The only thing I can think of that kind of compares would be to ask you to image that your neighbor is having some words with a cop outside his house on the street. You see a calm conversation and then watch the cop suddenly pull out his asp and start beating the ever living piss out of your neighbor. If you stop the cop, you are in the wrong and will also go to jail after catching some of that beating yourself... but stopping the beating would be the right thing to do. You would, however, be guilty of assaulting an officer, obstruction, and resisting arrest before you even set foot in a courtroom. A guilty verdict does not exonerate the cop for assaulting the citizen, but nothing bad is going to happen to him.

Gonzo Rodeo said:

The problem I have with labeling Snowden "a spy" is that he's already been convicted in the court of public (government, in this case) opinion. He caused damage to the sitting administration for exposing all of the wrongdoing the sitting administration is presiding over. This does not exonerate the sitting administration, calling Snowden a spy.

The only thing I can think of that kind of compares would be to ask you to image that your neighbor is having some words with a cop outside his house on the street. You see a calm conversation and the watch the suddenly pull out his asp and start beating the ever living piss out of your neighbor. If you stop the cop, you are in the wrong and will also go to jail after catching some of that beating yourself... but it would be the right thing to do.

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Snowden has not been convicted by any one. He has yet to stand trial. If he should ever return to the US, he will not stand trial because he embarrassed any one. He will stand trial because he broke the fucking law. And in fact, it is a very good, reasonable law. Information is classified for a reason. Allowing Joe Blow to decide if information should be classified is a really bad idea. If he guesses wrong then the information is still out there.

I think it's odd that the Snowden apologists talk about how he is being found guilty without trial and yet they claim he exposed illegal and unconstitutional things and yet those things have not yet been fully determined in a court of law.

Redress said:

Snowden has not been convicted by any one. He has yet to stand trial. If he should ever return to the US, he will not stand trial because he embarrassed any one. He will stand trial because he broke the fucking law. And in fact, it is a very good, reasonable law. Information is classified for a reason. Allowing Joe Blow to decide if information should be classified is a really bad idea. If he guesses wrong then the information is still out there.

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So, you'd agree that had any of the doctors working on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment come forward, the damage they would have caused the US Government would have outweighed putting a stop to the barbaric experiments? The guy who blew the lid off that one wasn't a part of the program (so he wasn't sword to secrecy about it), so I guess he's a hero for not breaking a promise?

How about John White, a lowly O-2 in the Navy that used classified knowledge to publicly call the sitting President a liar and accuse him of manufacturing a casus belli?

How about Daniel Ellsberg, the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers? That dealt a huge political blow to the US government and public support of the Viet Nam war. He broke the same law.

How about Mark Felt - a.k.a. Deep Throat - the guy who brought Nixon down with a leak? He was sworn to secrecy as well. He was the number 2 guy in the FBI at the time, but the decision to declassify stuff resides higher than that, not to mention talking to the press.

How about Frank Snepp, the CIA spook that wrote and published a book about the inept handling of the fall of Saigon by several US agencies?

A similar situation happened with an MI 5 agent in the '80s who publicly outed her own agency for classifying citizens and domestic institutions like trade unions as "subversive" so they could be "legally" spied upon. How do you feel about what she did?

In 1996, Gary Webb of the CIA published a report linking the CIA to cocaine trafficking to support the Contras. Was he a traitor? Traitors sometimes feel really guilty and then commit suicide eight years later by shooting themselves in the head... twice.

All White House staff members are given Special Access Program (SAP) clearance which includes a blanket statement about the interworkings of the White House and the office of the President. Linda Tripp was no different. So, when she went to the IOC with the truth about the sitting president and another staff member with a particular blue dress with an accusation of perjury , was she violating her contract and acting in bad faith?

A retired O-5 leaked intel about bad intelligence in the lead up to the Iraq war. Did she break a law, or expose a horrendous wrongdoing?

Samuel Provance, a low ranking enlisted man in the Army, violated direct orders and exposed the Abu Ghraib scandal to the media. Criminal?

The government has a habit of punishing those who don't toe the line in these dealings. Qwest communications was blocked from further government contracts after the CEO refused to go along with an NSA request for surveillance back in 2001. They were the only telecommunications company to who refused to act without a FISA court order. Everyone else just rolled over, and Qwest was punished for not wanting to spy on the American people.

After being ignored by congress and retaliated upon by the NSA in 2002, several officials went public with information about wasteful programs. They highlighted one program that was more focused and, thus, cheaper (and retained more privacy for citizens) than another program called Trailblazer "which automatically collected trillions of domestic communications of Americans in deliberate violation of the U.S. Constitution." After the NSA called Trailblazer a failure due to financial concerns, they sealed the report and never released it to the public. In 2006, the FBI raided the homes of people involved to intimidate them. In 2011, Tom Drake published an article in the New Yorker and did a 60 Minutes interview, calling the program a massive violation of the 4th Amendment. Traitors? Criminals?

Some of these people are considered whistleblowers, and some of them have criminal records. Hell, some of the whistleblowers did time and then were exonerated after the fact. All of them, however, committed the same crime you accuse Edward Snowden of.

Crovax said:

I think it's odd that the Snowden apologists talk about how he is being found guilty without trial and yet they claim he exposed illegal and unconstitutional things and yet those things have not yet been fully determined in a court of law.

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AMENDMENT IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If the NSA is doing 1% of the stuff Snowden has exposed, the government is blatantly in violation of the Fourth Amendment. If they aren't doing what Snowden has accused them of, then he is guilty of libel and not exposing classified material.

The problem is, it's very hard to take the Federal Government to court (which is presided over by the Federal Government).