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After 43 years, activists admit theft of FBI office that exposed domestic spying

Montecresto

Montecresto

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Wow, the original Snowden.


Forty-three years after the mysterious theft of up to 1,000 documents from an FBI office outside Philadelphia, three former political activists are publicly confessing to the brazen burglary, calling it an act of “resistance” that exposed “massive illegal surveillance and intimidation.”

“We did it … because somebody had to do it,” John Raines, 80, a retired professor of religion at Temple University, said in an interview with NBC News. “In this case, by breaking a law — entering, removing files — we exposed a crime that was going on. … When we are denied the information we need to have to act as citizens, then we have a right to do what we did.”

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_...ft-at-fbi-office-that-exposed-domestic-spying
 
And the infamous Church Committee was born out of this.
 
Truth becomes treason in an empire of lies.
 
I'm glad there are brave patriots who have risked their freedom to bring information to the people about what the government is doing in our names. We need more people like this.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
I'm glad there are brave patriots who have risked their freedom to bring information to the people about what the government is doing in our names. We need more people like this.
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What amazes me is that they pulled it off, distributed it through out the media, to the FBI's frustration, and they couldn't (the FBI for crying out loud!!) figure out who had done this, ever. And J E Hoover was NO slouch on such things.

The other and best part is that the very civil liberty minded senator Church, defender of the anti Vietnam war crowd who considered them the highest patriots, took right to this, and didn't bother with HOW this material found the light of day, but an investigation was launched that culminated with a very detailed report to congress and a dire warning that unfortunately, was not heeded. And so we are at the same place again only worse due to advancements in technology. His 1976 report stated, such was technology that the government had devised a method by which there was NO communication they could not listen to, and if a so inclined president one day ever wished to, he could deploy a tyranny, inescapable by Americans.


From his report:

In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.[17][18][19]

Frank Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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They never learn. The government wraps itself in the cloak of secrecy while invading the privacy of private citizens, but some day, someone will blow the whistle on those practices.
 
Birdzeye said:
They never learn. The government wraps itself in the cloak of secrecy while invading the privacy of private citizens, but some day, someone will blow the whistle on those practices.
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Enter Edward Snowden! It's just a matter of whether or not Americans value their civil liberties enough to do something about it.
 
Montecresto said:
Enter Edward Snowden! It's just a matter of whether or not Americans value their civil liberties enough to do something about it.
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The problem I have with portraying people like Snowden as heroes is that some people will leak classified information for nefarious reasons as well. Remember the outing of Valerie Plame?
 
If, Espionage Against the People is not a crime, then neither should Espionage against our government, as a civil privilege and immunity.
 
So, what's next? Justifiable political assissinations?
 
Anomalism said:
Truth becomes treason in an empire of lies.
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Amen. Was that ever more applicable than today in the universally corrupt administration of Obama?
 
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Birdzeye said:
The problem I have with portraying people like Snowden as heroes is that some people will leak classified information for nefarious reasons as well. Remember the outing of Valerie Plame?
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Oh you can't draw that comparison at all. First, Snowden isn't a hero, he's a whistle blower on government wrong doing, whereas the Cheney/Scooter Libby outing of Valerie Plame was retribution for her husband Joe Wilsons NYT op ed exposé of George Bush's lying about Saddam Hussein's purchase of yellow cake uranium from Nigeria.
 
These people are not " heroes " and neither is Snowden.

So depending on the current political climate, almost any action can be justified, and if they truly believed in what they were doing, why not announce it sooner ?


Snowden ran to one of the most Liberty oppressive locations in the world to confess his actions and these people hid.

Did they not think their cause was worth the potential loss of freedom that would come with exposing their true identitites sooner ?

They broke the law and should be forced to stand before a jury of their peers. They had the conviction to stop at theft and then hide.
 
Montecresto said:
Who suggested that in this thread, I missed it?
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Several posters have supported breakibg the law, in the name of patriotism. Where do we draw the line?
 
Fenton said:
These people are not " heroes " and neither is Snowden.

So depending on the current political climate, almost any action can be justified, and if they truly believed in what they were doing, why not announce it sooner ?


Snowden ran to one of the most Liberty oppressive locations in the world to confess his actions and these people hid.

Did they not think their cause was worth the potential loss of freedom that would come with exposing their true identitites sooner ?

They broke the law and should be forced to stand before a jury of their peers. They had the conviction to stop at theft and then hide.
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Oh goodness. Exposing wrong doing has protection under the law. As a business owner, I can tell you that it cannot be sanctioned.
 
apdst said:
Several posters have supported breakibg the law, in the name of patriotism. Where do we draw the line?
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I don't think that's true. We have whistle blower protection laws (even though they are often un-enforced). It is patriotic to expose government corruption, why would you dispute that?
 
apdst said:
Several posters have supported breakibg the law, in the name of patriotism. Where do we draw the line?
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And when the government breaks the law what then?
 
Montecresto said:
I don't think that's true. We have whistle blower protection laws (even though they are often un-enforced). It is patriotic to expose government corruption, why would you dispute that?
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It's patriotic, if it's done the right way. Stealing and publishing classified information is the wrong way to do it.
 
apdst said:
It's patriotic, if it's done the right way. Stealing and publishing classified information is the wrong way to do it.
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When the government fails to provide protection to whistle blowers of government wrong doing, then one needs to use alternative procedures. His (snowdens "crime") trumps the governments crime!
 
apdst said:
It's patriotic, if it's done the right way. Stealing and publishing classified information is the wrong way to do it.
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What is your opinion of the right way that Snowden could have warned Americans of the governments crime?
 
Montecresto said:
When the government fails to provide protection to whistle blowers of government wrong doing, then one needs to use alternative procedures. His (snowdens "crime") trumps the governments crime!
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Snowden delivered secret documents into the hands of the Russians. That's treason, period.
 
Due process!?!?
 
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