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Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a patriot?

Patriot, Traitor, or something else?

  • Traitor (Elaborate)

    Votes: 12 25.0%

  • Patriot (Elaborate)

    Votes: 21 43.8%

  • Other (Elaborate)

    Votes: 12 25.0%

  • I don't know

    Votes: 3 6.3%
  • Total voters
    48
  • Poll closed .
I voted other because I don't think we have seen all the evidence or information involved with this man and what he allegedly did.
 
Hard Truth said:
The USS Cole warning call created a reasonable suspicion for tracking down the caller.

Re 9/11; If someone in the USA calls a known foreign terrorist suspect, that would be reasonable suspicion for surveillance of that specific person.

The exposed NSA program is illegal because it is monitoring everyone's phone records without any specific reasonable suspicion about certain individuals.
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You should read up on PRISM sometime - because with PRISM, instead of having to wade through the phone companies' records and hope you find something, you have a database of phone calls that you cross-check with other numbers of known or suspected terrorists...and the picture becomes clearer much more quickly. What most people don't understand is that PRISM isn't a system of listening to what everyone says or reading what everyone writes. It's a DATABASE of phone numbers and IP addresses and e-mail addresses that makes the search for connections much easier. The government doesn't have a fraction of the number of people needed to listen to or read everyone's crap - it'd be like physically searching for the proverbial needle inside a haystack of haystacks of haystacks. All they really need are the numbers and addresses, as any database wonk should understand instinctively.
 
CRUE CAB said:
How? It is not liberty to divulge the secrets of your nation that you have been entrusted with.
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It is liberty at stake when government has secret police and prisons. When they watch us like in a Orwell novel.

This is how the government acted in the novel 1984.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
You should read up on PRISM sometime - because with PRISM, instead of having to wade through the phone companies' records and hope you find something, you have a database of phone calls that you cross-check with other numbers of known or suspected terrorists...and the picture becomes clearer much more quickly. What most people don't understand is that PRISM isn't a system of listening to what everyone says or reading what everyone writes. It's a DATABASE of phone numbers and IP addresses and e-mail addresses that makes the search for connections much easier. The government doesn't have a fraction of the number of people needed to listen to or read everyone's crap - it'd be like physically searching for the proverbial needle inside a haystack of haystacks of haystacks. All they really need are the numbers and addresses, as any database wonk should understand instinctively.
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If they only gathered info on people who are connected to established suspects, I would have no objection to the program. My issue is that they are collecting data on virtually everyone. That data can be used to determine much about an organization or person's friends, family, interests, political views etc. The government should not be compiling such information on people without a reasonable suspicion that an individual is guilty of a crime, even if the government is not misusing or even using the information at this time.
 
Hard Truth said:
If they only gathered info on people who are connected to established suspects, I would have no objection to the program. My issue is that they are collecting data on virtually everyone. That data can be used to determine much about an organization or person's friends, family, interests, political views etc. The government should not be compiling such information on people without a reasonable suspicion that an individual is guilty of a crime, even if the government is not misusing or even using the information at this time.
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They spy on conservative groups now until a dem r is elected then they spy on dems.
 
Shadow Serious said:
Your illusion of security should not trump the rights of the Citizens of the Republic.
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Hardly an illusion of security. I want the government to know about the next bombers before they strike. The age of innocence has long since passed.
 
Helix said:
he's a whistleblower who started an important conversation that we should have been having years ago. as for "traitor" or "patriot," those are buzzwords designed to elicit an emotional reaction. i pick other.
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No, you pretty clearly picked patriot. Somebody who betrays national security interests to everyone - including our enemies - is a traitor.
 
German guy said:
Then you are an authoritarian person who hates civil and human rights, as simple as that.

This "national security" nonsense to justify the most blatant violations of Western values is right from the Nazis' playbook, and people who swallow it will swallow it in any random other case of violation too. And no, this is not godwinning anything. In this case, it is 100% true and absolutely appropriate.

A government that will break the law to spy on the private communication of its citizens will randomly arrest people too, will deny their people fair trials, will enact labor and death camps too -- unless the people stops them. And no, "fighting a foreign enemy" is no excuse (it wasn't valid either when the Nazis used that in 1933).
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Absolute bull****. Any country that doesn't take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect the lives of its citizens doesn't deserve to exist. Your comparison to Nazi Germany is ludicrous.

What 'foreign enemy' were the Nazis fighting in 1933?
 
Wiggen said:
No, you pretty clearly picked patriot. Somebody who betrays national security interests to everyone - including our enemies - is a traitor.
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that's sort of a "with us or against us" false dichotomy. my opinion is that i'm glad he started a conversation that we should have had a long time ago. many of us have been wary about this kind of program for many years now. however, i'm not ready to put his picture on a t-shirt, and i don't support everyone with security clearance making all of the info that they have access to public. i don't know his full motivation for doing this, and neither does anyone else. i suppose that we'll learn more as the story develops.
 
Wiggen said:
Hardly an illusion of security. I want the government to know about the next bombers before they strike. The age of innocence has long since passed.
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In order to know such information it is necessary they invade the privacy of all people. Why do you ask the people to give up their privacy in exchange for a possible danger?
 
Hard Truth said:
I don't recall a rule saying that committing civil disobedience or being a whistleblower requires making yourself a martyr.
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Depending on what you do after you blow the whistle, you may make it veeeeeery hard to even call you a whistleblower.
Snowden has been making it harder every day.
Or ... to put it another way ... does the Snowden-as-whistleblower meme require him to make additional disclosures to parties who are very unfriendly to the USA?
 
And Reagan Bush-41 did not knowingly direct Iran-Contra. Would Snowden have been a traitor or a patriot during the Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush-41, or Bush-43 administrations for giving away government secrets? I give Bush-43 credit for sticking to his guns against Cheney.
 
bubbabgone said:
Depending on what you do after you blow the whistle, you may make it veeeeeery hard to even call you a whistleblower.
Snowden has been making it harder every day.
Or ... to put it another way ... does the Snowden-as-whistleblower meme require him to make additional disclosures to parties who are very unfriendly to the USA?
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He must protect himself and the only tool he has is information.
 
Henrin said:
He must protect himself and the only tool he has is information.
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Oh this is good ... Snowden flew off to the USA's adversaries armed with a thumb drive full of secrets in order to protect himself froooooom ... what?
 
bubbabgone said:
Oh this is good ... Snowden flew off to the USA's adversaries armed with a thumb drive full of secrets in order to protect himself froooooom ... what?
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The government trying to kill him for helping the people.
 
Henrin said:
The government trying to kill him for helping the people.
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Are you suggesting he was/is being protected by Russia and China because he's feeding them USA secrets otherwise they'd have let him be killed by the CIA?
 
Henrin said:
The government trying to kill him for helping the people.
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Look ... I'd like to be able to say he's a good guy for doing what he did but I'm afraid he's not looking or behaving like a good guy ... despite what he did.
 
bubbabgone said:
Are you suggesting he was/is being protected by Russia and China because he's feeding them USA secrets otherwise they'd have let him be killed by the CIA?
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I'm suggesting that bargaining chips are wise to take with you and use towards your protection when you do what he did.
 
Redress said:
When you choose to break the law, you are a criminal.
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When a government agency carries out a highly contentious act that is arguably unconstitutional...and all in complete secrecy...what mechanisms are in place for citizens to challenge that act?
 
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