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Is Snowden a traitor?

Read article ... Do you agree he is a traitor or disagree?


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Turin

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I know this may seem old news yet more is being released and a recent conversation with a friend does not view him this way.

I followed this story lightly and would like to dig more and hear your thoughts.

Here is an article that sums up my perspective so far. What do you think?

Yes, Edward Snowden Is a Traitor | The Diplomat

In fact, as others have pointed out, information from the Snowden documents has been published in a manner that seemingly seeks to do as much harm to U.S. alliances across the world as possible. Meanwhile, Snowden seeking refuge in first China and then Russia nearly guarantees that the governments in these countries have gained a treasure trove of valuable information on NSA operations against their countries.

Stealing classified information to systematically undermine U.S. alliances across the world, while aiding U.S. adversaries, is practically the definition of treason. Snowden couldn’t help but know that his actions would lead to these outcomes. And for that reason it is beyond dispute that Snowden, regardless of whether or not some of his disclosures had any merit, has betrayed the United States and his fellow citizens. Nothing from this week or in the future will change this fact.
 
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I would also like to add that does not mean I give a full stamp of approval to the NSA and have issues ...yet I think Snowden is a traitor based on the evidence.

He damaged our relationships with our allies and he aided our enemies and became their propaganda queen and provided them our methods of technology. He betrayed his country.
 
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I know this may seem old news yet more is being released and a recent conversation with a friend does not view him this way.

I followed this story lightly and would like to dig more and hear your thoughts.

Here is an article that sums up my perspective so far. What do you think?

Yes, Edward Snowden Is a Traitor | The Diplomat

Totally agree that he must have spilled the beans to the Russians in order to be granted asylum. Yes, he's a total traitor.
 
I would also like to add that does not mean I give a full stamp of approval to the NSA and have issues ...yet I think Snowden is a traitor based on the evidence.

He damaged our relationships with our allies and he aided our enemies and became their propaganda queen and provided them our methods of technology. He betrayed his country.

This retired Navy man says that Snowden is absolutely a traitor. There's Snowden and Bradley Manning - and Snowden's by far the worse of the two. Manning was a kid who didn't really know what he was doing, or the damage the release of a quarter million diplomatic cables would cause - and while he deserves (and must receive as an example to others) the punishment he gets. But Snowden did know, and went first to China, and then to Russia. He is a traitor.
 
I know this may seem old news yet more is being released and a recent conversation with a friend does not view him this way.

I followed this story lightly and would like to dig more and hear your thoughts.

Here is an article that sums up my perspective so far. What do you think?

Yes, Edward Snowden Is a Traitor | The Diplomat

"He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."...

Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."....

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."..........

He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed...............
Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations | World news | The Guardian

"....Snowden has been vague about when he decided to leak, but he has been very clear on what compelled him to act. "It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress – and therefore the American people – and the realization that Congress . . . wholly supported the lies," he said. "Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper – director of National Intelligence – baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy."..........

But Snowden also understood that giving the documents to WikiLeaks, or simply posting them himself, had drawbacks. "I don't desire to enable the Bradley Manning argument that these were released recklessly and unreviewed," Snowden later said. "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is.".................

The mainstream press, another option, seemed even riskier. Recalling how The New York Times delayed Risen's 2005 warrantless-wiretapping story under pressure from the government, Snowden feared the same happening to him. "When the subject of [one's] reporting is an institution as wildly beyond the control of law as the US Intelligence Community, even the best intentions of the New York Times begin to quaver," he writes me in an e-mail. "You can't stare down a spy agency without being prepared to burn your life to the ground over the smallest grain of truth, because truth is the only thing they are afraid of. Truth means accountability, and accountability terrifies those who have gone beyond what is necessary."............

Greenwald spent every day with Snowden for the next two weeks, interviewing him in the morning, breaking off to write, going back later in the day, and frequently continuing their conversations online. Snowden would go to bed every night around 10:30 or 11, casually telling the journalists he was going to "hit the hay." While Greenwald barely slept, Snowden greeted them at seven each morning, rested and refreshed. "He was about to become the most wanted man in the world," Greenwald says, "but slept as if he didn't have a care in the world." Both he and Poitras were "infected" by the younger man's idealism and enthusiasm, Greenwald admits, and so were his editors at The Guardian, which published the first story on the leaks on Wednesday, June 5th. That piece, detailing a secret court order issued in April 2013 that compelled Verizon to hand over consumer data to the NSA, was followed, on June 6th, by a second story, exposing the PRISM program, and then a third, on June 7th, explaining how the British GCHQ gained access to PRISM in order to collect user data from U.S. companies. On the 8th, Greenwald and MacAskill published in The Guardian a report about an internal NSA tool, known as "Boundless Informant," which recorded, analyzed and tracked the data collected by the agency – suggesting that National Intelligence Director James Clapper had lied to Congress when he insisted that the NSA did not wittingly keep track of the communications of millions of American citizens............."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...aked-the-secrets-20131204page=5#ixzz2zxCGzFjq

The statements quoted in the original post from the Diplomat are false. Snowden was not reckless about the type of documents he released and who he released them to. He released info detailing the privacy and other policy impacts of the government programs and exposed lies made to the public and congress. The people of the USA did not provide informed consent to losing their rights. He meets all the qualification for being a legitimate whistleblower.

More info:
What Edward Snowden Leaked Was Nothing Compared to What He Didn

https://www.aclu.org/nsa-documents-search
 
Questions for those who think he was a traitor:

Are government employees and contractors ethically bound to protect government lies and lawbreaking?

Are government employees ethically bound to protect government programs that were not approved through a legitimate democratic process?

Could he have exposed the lawbreaking and lies any other way? If so, how?

International law made through treaties ratified by the USA says that obeying an illegal order is not legal. Why doesn't that apply to this case?

Who is an example of a more legitimate whistleblower revealing secret government programs?

How can it be a legitimate (representational) democracy if we have virtually no privacy and the government lies and withholds facts about major policy matters?
 
I have seen no proof that Snowden is a traitor. We are still feeling the impact of his disclosures to our benefit, I hope. I do not think NSA spying on all of us is OK. It is illegal and should be stopped. Whistleblowers get prosecuted. The guilty are not prosecuted. I don't believe Snowden had any choice and his path to Russia was forced by outside actions. He was heading to Ecuador.
 
To me the question is irrelevant. He is a criminal, and should be treated as such. He, based on what we know(and as always this is somewhat subject to revision if new facts come in), broke some very specific laws and should be prosecuted for such if we can ever get him in our custody. Whether you want to call him a traitor or not does not really matter, at least to me, but our laws do matter.
 
Questions for those who think he was a traitor:

Are government employees and contractors ethically bound to protect government lies and lawbreaking?

Are government employees ethically bound to protect government programs that were not approved through a legitimate democratic process?

Could he have exposed the lawbreaking and lies any other way? If so, how?

International law made through treaties ratified by the USA says that obeying an illegal order is not legal. Why doesn't that apply to this case?

Who is an example of a more legitimate whistleblower revealing secret government programs?

How can it be a legitimate (representational) democracy if we have virtually no privacy and the government lies and withholds facts about major policy matters?

Resign and report the basics here, accepting the likely consequences. There was no need to flee to a foreign nation and most likely share US intelligence information/methods with those foreign nations in exchange for not being returned to stand trial.
 
Yes, he's absolutely a traitor, and I for one would like to see him extradited to the US to stand trial for his crimes.
 
My what a web we weave when we engage in unconstitutional practices.
 
The ones in the NSA spying on Americans are the traitors and those who continue to allow the NSA to spy on Americans are the traitors.All those elected officials and military personnel violated their oath and ****ted on the constitution. Not the man who told the world what the NSA is doing. If it wasn't for Snowden anyone who said your government is spying on you was seen as being part of the tin foil hat crowd. I understand why he fled to Russia and tried to flee to China.They are not going to turn him and have the force to keep our government from coercing them into turning in Snowden.This idea that he should come back and face the consequences if he is doing the right thing is ****en moronic.Ideally no one should pay for doing the right. The same government that will spy on you can easily do anything to bury you.
 
Yeah, that's why he had to run to Russia like a total bitch. If he was truly standing on principal he's come back and face his charges.

Why should someone be punished for doing the right thing? He would probably be in prison or worse right now if he stayed in the US.
 
were does loyalty belong, to the Constitution or to federal law?

Seeing how the Constitution is the supreme law of the land that means any lower level laws that violate the Constitution are illegal and therefore no one has any obligation to obey such illegal laws.
 
Why should someone be punished for doing the right thing? He would probably be in prison or worse right now if he stayed in the US.

Yes and that's where a traitorous douchebag belongs.
 
Seeing how the Constitution is the supreme law of the land that means any lower level laws that violate the Constitution are illegal and therefore no one has any obligation to obey such illegal laws.

Laws criminalizing giving over sensitive national security secrets to foreign countries are illegal?
 
Yes and that's where a traitorous douchebag belongs.

What about those wiping their ass with the Constitution? Aren't they the traitorous douchbags?
 
Laws criminalizing giving over sensitive national security secrets to foreign countries are illegal?

If those security secrets violate the Constitution then no, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
 
"He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."...

BS. The guy is a loser who managed to make himself famous. He's also not someone who suddenly realized what was going on around him was "wrong", he targeted the NSA because he wanted to steal secrets. He just happened to find some big ones as well as a whole bunch of regular ones, and those big ones have grabbed the headlines

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal

That's interesting. I wonder if he would be willing to explain that to the families of my Marines still over in Afghanistan when they ask him why he stripped away our ability to track Taliban movement and planning efforts.

"....Snowden has been vague about when he decided to leak,

Well, that's because he started making contact with reporters prior to starting his job, indicating that he had already decided to leak information.

Snowden was not reckless about the type of documents he released and who he released them to. He released info detailing the privacy and other policy impacts of the government programs and exposed lies made to the public and congress. The people of the USA did not provide informed consent to losing their rights. He meets all the qualification for being a legitimate whistleblower.

More info:
What Edward Snowden Leaked Was Nothing Compared to What He Didn

https://www.aclu.org/nsa-documents-search

The bolded is both accurate and yet complete BS. Yes, he was deliberate about who he gave those documents to. Specifically, he deliberately gave them to people who would use them to endanger the lives of American citizens and the lives of our allies. We've already seen degradation in our ability to conduct combat operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan from this (hint, a reduction in our own combat efficiency means an increase in friendly casualties from where you would otherwise be) thanks to the Snowden revelations, the NSA, which is huge in our ability to provide indications and warnings of - oh - things like "Russia is about to invade Crimea" has been set back a decade or so, sending a massive wrecking ball into the DOD and IC's ability to anticipate threats and warn of impending attacks.

Everyone focuses on the "Prism" program because that's what made the headlines. But that's not a friggin nth of what he stole, nor what he has given away. If all he had taken and made public were the metadata collection programs that covered American lines, THEN he could have made an argument that he was anything but a traitor. But - and this is important - that's not what he did. He took four laptops full of information, exposing our entire infrastructure, capability set, techniques, and methodologies. We haven't been laid this bare in a long time.

Are government employees and contractors ethically bound to protect government lies and lawbreaking?

Yes. It's called MILDEC and it's a doctrine common to every single security apparatus since the beginning of warfare.

Are government employees ethically bound to protect government programs that were not approved through a legitimate democratic process?

Yes. Virtually no IC programs are approved through the democratic process. They are approved instead by the people's representatives, chosen by them during regular elections. If collection programs were to be made public in order to become part of the democratic process, their usefulness would be destroyed. As an example, we also don't design our missile defense systems in a publicly accessible way - because that would be amazingly stupid and inherently damaging to national security.

Could he have exposed the lawbreaking and lies any other way? If so, how?

There was no lawbreaking involved here. However, if he had believed that there was, then there were a number of avenues available to him to act as a whistleblower without making classified collection programs, capabilities, and methodologies publicly available. Firstly, within his chain of command there is a reporting structure for whistleblowers. If he felt that that would have not been sufficient, there was a Navy IG office, a PACOM IG office, a DOD IG office and Congressional avenues all available to him. He availed himself of none of them.

International law made through treaties ratified by the USA says that obeying an illegal order is not legal. Why doesn't that apply to this case?

Because he was never given an illegal order. Firstly because SIGINT collection isn't illegal, and secondly because he wasn't a SIGINTer. He was a network administrator.

Who is an example of a more legitimate whistleblower revealing secret government programs?

I'd say the guy who outed the Pentagon Papers, demonstrating that we knew that slowly ramping up troops in Vietnam wouldn't produce success, but that we chose it anyway because it was more politically palatable. But that's just off the top of my head.

How can it be a legitimate (representational) democracy if we have virtually no privacy and the government lies and withholds facts about major policy matters?

I don't know, why don't you ask Google, which actually has all the data on you that you apparently think the NSA does?
 
The ones in the NSA spying on Americans are the traitors and those who continue to allow the NSA to spy on Americans are the traitors.All those elected officials and military personnel violated their oath and ****ted on the constitution. Not the man who told the world what the NSA is doing. If it wasn't for Snowden anyone who said your government is spying on you was seen as being part of the tin foil hat crowd. I understand why he fled to Russia and tried to flee to China.They are not going to turn him and have the force to keep our government from coercing them into turning in Snowden.This idea that he should come back and face the consequences if he is doing the right thing is ****en moronic.Ideally no one should pay for doing the right. The same government that will spy on you can easily do anything to bury you.

Sorry, unlike you, I won't heroize someone who renders aid to countries antagonistic to the US.
 
What about those wiping their ass with the Constitution? Aren't they the traitorous douchbags?

You were in the military. How do you feel about this guy exposing the programs that we used to anticipate Taliban movement and planning efforts, thus making it probable that more of your brothers and sisters will die?
 
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