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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 .
He released classified information to the world, based on nothing more than his belief, after 3 short months, that the government was doing something wrong. He did not follow legal procedures to register his complaints. He is a criminal, and a traitor, and should be tried in a US federal court. If convicted, he should receive the appropriate prison time.
 
Redress said:
When you choose to break the law, you are a criminal.
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Well, yeah. But is he a traitor? I say no. He has done a great service for liberty for bringing this to light (though those who pay attention already knew much of this). And by doing what he did he struck a blow to secrecy and deception.
 
CanadaJohn said:
In my view, Snowden is neither a traitor nor a patriot - had he disclosed the information while remaining in America, a true act of civil disobedience in order to shine a light on government misdeeds, he may have been a patriot, but by fleeing the country he lost that moral high ground.
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Fair argument, but I think a lot can be said about the fact he had a lot to lose by revealing this information (whether he stayed or left).
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Snowden is not making a good case for himself based on the company he is keeping. Supposedly he is in Moscow preparing to fly to Ecuador, which is coincidently where Julian assange of wikileaks is hiding out.
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What does travel have to do with "the company he keeps?"
 
Wiggen said:
He had other choices. To deliberately choose the Russians says everything you need to know about him.
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Most Russians are no different than you and me. And the Russian government has no more blood on its hands than the US government.
 
He is a patriot.

May the universe grant him safe passage. I hope he invests his money well. He earned it.
 
Wiggen said:
Personally, I'd torture his worthless ass if I had the opportunity, but I'm not the U.S. Government.
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Well that says a lot about your character. Torture a man who has not harmed anyone. :roll:
 
Wiggen said:
No, he wasn't. But if that's how you really feel about Washington, then maybe this country isn't for you.
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Washington WAS a traitor and criminal to his British government, that is a fact... and I like the man a lot. Takes a lot of courage to directly oppose an oppressive State.
 
Yeah pretty hilarious calling Snowden a traitor. What was General Washington then?
 
Philanthropist. :peace
 
bubbabgone said:
Doing what Snowden did was one thing and if he hadn't run off to China, Russia, perhaps Cuba, and God knows where else, my opinion of him ( not what he did ) would be a lot different.
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I don't recall a rule saying that committing civil disobedience or being a whistleblower requires making yourself a martyr.
 
DiAnna said:
He released classified information to the world, based on nothing more than his belief, after 3 short months, that the government was doing something wrong. He did not follow legal procedures to register his complaints. He is a criminal, and a traitor, and should be tried in a US federal court. If convicted, he should receive the appropriate prison time.
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There are no "legal" ways of whistleblowing top secret projects. Anyone you talk to doesn't have the clearance. This was the only way.

And treason only counts if you betray your country. He betrayed his government to benefit the people.

Are you saying you'd never whistleblow, no matter how bad the issue is?
 
Redress said:
Depends on your moral values, doesn't it? Me, in this case, there are better ways to handle classified information you feel there are problems with.
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Like?
 
Glen Contrarian said:
To all -

Notice that my bio says I "lean progressive". I am quite progressive (as can be seen here)...but that doesn't mean that liberal/progressive/Democratic views are always right - that's why I'm a contrarian. Sometimes - if only rarely - the conservatives are right. When it comes to Snowden and Bradley Manning, the conservatives are right.
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The political lean you are trying to describe is statist. ;)
 
I don't know if "patriot" is quite the right word, but I think he at least believes he did the right thing. On the other hand, anyone who thinks the NSA hasn't been spying on every single U.S. citizen since it was created is probably kidding themselves. The sad fact of the matter is that, whatever happens, this will die down in a few months and people will go back to watching movies and playing video games. Snowden will either find asylum somewhere, or not. His actions will, ultimately, not make much of a difference.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
There are no "legal" ways of whistleblowing top secret projects. Anyone you talk to doesn't have the clearance. This was the only way.

And treason only counts if you betray your country. He betrayed his government to benefit the people.

Are you saying you'd never whistleblow, no matter how bad the issue is?
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Snowden did betray his country. At this point, nobody knows whether his claims are accurate or not, or what those claims could mean. The guy was in the job for 3 months, and NSA higher-ups have stated that his claims are not accurate, his interpretations of the data he saw are not accurate, and his public disclosure world-wide could cause grave danger to the security of the country. The only way to know for certain who is lying is for Snowden to stand trial... only he doesn't want to do that, nor does he want his information to be publicly questioned.

I do not consider him a Whistleblower at this point. Based on the facts that are undisputed, he has released classified information without regard to consequence, and is by definition a traitor.
 
Wiggen said:
You go much further than I would. I'm happy to be able to go to a restaurant or movie without the danger of getting blown to bits. If that means the NSA listens to phone calls, I can live with that.
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Your illusion of security should not trump the rights of the Citizens of the Republic.
 
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.
 
DiAnna said:
Snowden did betray his country. At this point, nobody knows whether his claims are accurate or not, or what those claims could mean. The guy was in the job for 3 months, and NSA higher-ups have stated that his claims are not accurate, his interpretations of the data he saw are not accurate, and his public disclosure world-wide could cause grave danger to the security of the country. The only way to know for certain who is lying is for Snowden to stand trial... only he doesn't want to do that, nor does he want his information to be publicly questioned.

I do not consider him a Whistleblower at this point. Based on the facts that are undisputed, he has released classified information without regard to consequence, and is by definition a traitor.
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Of course they would claim that what he said isn't accurate, just like how they blatantly lied in front of congress. Snowden was a super-user and could gain access to any of the information in the system. Like he said, he had the ability to run a tap on Obama if he so chose.

A trial, like Manning's, would just be a show trial at this point, which is also why they're charging him with espionage - because they don't have any legitimate basis for charges.

Releasing of classified documents is not "by definition [treasonous]". What a stupid statement.
 
Zyphlin said:
I'd report it to my superiors. If nothing seemed to happen based on that, I'd report it to the Inspector General's office. If still it seemed nothing happened with it, I'd leak it to the population anonymously so as to make sure the attrocities being commited where the story, not myself, since I wouldn't be doing it with the hope of being famous or going down as some kind of prolific "leaker".
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What makes you think you would even have access to it (or have a job for that matter) after complaining about it to your superiors? Your superiors more than likely already know about it.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Snowden is a traitor. Three weeks before the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed in August 2000, my office - the Security office - got a phone call from someone with a foreign-sounding voice who said that when we pulled into port overseas, they would blow up a ship next to ours. We pulled in to Dubai in early October - we were nervous and kept an eye on everything, but nothing happened. Four days after we departed Dubai, the USS Cole was bombed by a boat that pulled up next to it. In other words, that person knew something...and if we'd had PRISM then, not only would we have found the individual on short order, but we'd have found all those he had contact with...and one of those who helped plan the bombing of the Cole turned out to be one of the 9/11 hijackers. PRISM could have prevented 9/11, if we'd had it then, and by extension could have prevented the decade of right-wing neo-con insanity (and 5000 American military deaths and 100K+ Iraqi deaths) that followed.

Likewise, Bradley Manning is a traitor. He's not on trail because of the video of us killing a reporter - he's on trail because he released 250,000 diplomatic cables, each and every one of which had the potential of either exposing agents and/or contacts, or exposing how we react to certain situations, and what assets we may or may not have.
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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.
 
DiAnna said:
he has released classified information without regard to consequence
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Actually, he did regard the consequences, which is why he is no longer in this country. He also decided to not reveal a lot of information because he was worried about it putting certain lives/careers in jeopardy.
 
The man does the people a favor and yet the people call him a traitor? Shame on you.

A patriot stands for and fights for the liberty of the people and like it has always been sometimes a patriot must break the law in order to do it. I hardly see a reason to stand by the government when they care little for our privacy. If they will not respect our rights then to perfectly frank they are a danger to the people.

If they desire to protect me it would be better suited that they act like a friend and not like an enemy.
 
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