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Is Snowden a traitor?

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

  • Total voters
    81
cpwill said:
:lamo

Really? What is the maximum capability of the Patriot intercept system?
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Be specific. Do you means

1) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that the US govt. wants others to believe (via military advertising)?

2) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that its engineers are claiming (as part of classified material)?

3) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that has been evidenced in actual war (i. e. the relevant statistic)? That one's easy :) It's near worthless, as seen during the 1991 Gulf War when about 30 Scuds (primitive unguided missiles) hit Israel and one destroyed an army barracks.
 
solletica said:
Be specific. Do you means

1) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that the US govt. wants others to believe (via military advertising)?

2) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that its engineers are claiming (as part of classified material)?
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What is it's actual maximum range and engagement capacity.

3) What's the maximum capability of the Patriot system that has been evidenced in actual war (i. e. the relevant statistic)? That one's easy :) It's near worthless, as seen during the 1991 Gulf War when about 30 Scuds (primitive unguided missiles) hit Israel and one destroyed an army barracks.
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:lol: That's nice. Apparently there have been no advances in computer science since 1991. That's good to know. :)


However, you also (and, this is important) didn't answer the question.
 
cpwill said:
Even if exposing the NSA metadata program wasn't treason because the program was unconstitutional (I am not saying that it was), that would not mean that all the other things that he exposed would not be sufficient to make him a traitor. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, despite the fact that he successfully led U.S. troops. Against the British. Failure to break the law in once instance does not suffice to cover ones' breaking the law in another.



That is simply incorrect. The IG and whistleblowing process are protected explicitly to encourage people who have concerns to bring them forward within the system by protecting them from retribution. Had Snowden used the IG system or the congressional reporting system the information would have remained secret and it would have nonetheless challenged the program and forced review by actors whose interests are against the power of those who instituted and ran the program. To respond to that by targeting Snowden, on the other hand, would have convinced the tens of thousands of people with access to our nations top secret information that they would be better off going to the press rather than attempting to use the system in place. It would have been insanely self-destructive for the IC or the administration to target or prosecute anyone making an IG or congressional complaint. Additionally, Snowden would have been legally immune from prosecution.



I want to point out what he has done because that is what determines whether or not he is a traitor. His actions determine that independent of what philosophy he claims.
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Your response is naive and uninformed. And until you understand the philosophy of the government wielding its power over the very people who give it to them, you'll not see the difference between a patriot and a traitor. As a military soldier are you told to follow all orders without question or to follow only the legal ones?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

What Snowden did was also naive and had no chance of changing anything but it was about the only way he could do it and survive. And though it was meant as a patriotic act, it was something that hurt the country and informed it's people about the government.

Did you know the government was aware of the 2008 financial collapse months in advance? But there was nothing they could do but wait for it and react. I have no doubt that the POTUS, NSA, CIA, Military Intel and Mike Rogers, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee mean well towards the nation, they just can't do it anyway they see fit at the expense of it's citizens right to privacy.

If all they were doing was recording all the info, then it's no problem. But you know damn well they're running it all thru programs, looking for keywords, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
 
grip said:
Your response is naive and uninformed. And until you understand the philosophy of the government wielding its power over the very people who give it to them, you'll not see the difference between a patriot and a traitor. As a military soldier are you told to follow all orders without question or to follow only the legal ones?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

What Snowden did was also naive and had no chance of changing anything but it was about the only way he could do it and survive. And though it was meant as a patriotic act, it was something that hurt the country and informed it's people about the government.

Did you know the government was aware of the 2008 financial collapse months in advance? But there was nothing they could do but wait for it and react. I have no doubt that the POTUS, NSA, CIA, Military Intel and Mike Rogers, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee mean well towards the nation, they just can't do it anyway they see fit at the expense of it's citizens right to privacy.

If all they were doing was recording all the info, then it's no problem. But you know damn well they're running it all thru programs, looking for keywords, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
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Why do you continue to pretend this is only about the metadata program? Even if that never existed or was excused, Snowden is a traitor for everything else he exposed.
 
The only traitors are those that committed the crimes of which Snowden released.
 
joG said:
And that is exactly, what I meant, when I distrusted the seriousness of your request. Why put in an effort, if the result doesn't interest you enough to read it. I find that rather shady.
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Oh come on now...if you are going to present 100 pages of proof...do you really expect me to read all that?

But if the evidence is short and concise, then I will probably read it.

But even then, I do not know. I might drop dead before I can, get distracted, lose interest, never come back here again...I believe in exactitude...and it would be inexact to say that I WILL for certain read it when I cannot know.
If you want some silly lie ('I will for sure read it'), look to someone else.

It's irrelevant anyway, IMO, there is no realistic way to accurately prove what I am asking...and I think you know that.

And, if true, then there is no substantive basis for saying what you (and others) are about Snowden.
 
Redress said:
Notice the part I underlined and made large...
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:rolleyes:

So what...it says 'charged AND CONVICTED'...not charged OR convicted.

By definition, you have to have both to be a criminal.


Your thought process is ridiculous on this...so everyone that is ever charged with something, even if they are acquitted or the charges are dropped through lack of evidence, is a criminal?

Again... :rolleyes:


Edward Snowden has not been convicted of anything in a court of law...therefore - by definition - he is NOT a criminal.
 
solletica said:
Sounds like you love your govt., as opposed to your country.
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The government is part of my country. And the laws of the country are not the government.
 
So far, most people that answered this poll say he is NOT a traitor...encouraging.
 
36 out of 67 is not much of a most.
And we have no idea how many of them are coming from Putin-sympathizers.
We do know the Amash/Paul coalition is all over the internet .
 
Alyssa said:
There is little the public shouldn't know about its government.
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When it comes to intelligence operations- things that need to be secret to be effective- it's the vast, vast majority of it.

I don't ignore that Snowden leaked information regarding US operations overseas. However, I do not support every US operation overseas. Piracy is what it amounts to.. Americans stealing everyone else's resources in the name of preserving liberty. Of course, Russia may invade another country. But Russia does it in the open. That's the difference.
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So now it's not bad/illegal if you don't agree with it? Should everyone adopt that standard? "I don't agree with this, so it's fine if I divulge it to the world"?
 
DA60 said:
:rolleyes:

So what...it says 'charged AND CONVICTED'...not charged OR convicted.

By definition, you have to have both to be a criminal.


Your thought process is ridiculous on this...so everyone that is ever charged with something, even if they are acquitted or the charges are dropped through lack of evidence, is a criminal?

Again... :rolleyes:


Edward Snowden has not been convicted of anything in a court of law...therefore - by definition - he is NOT a criminal.
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No... that makes him not a convicted criminal. It is the deed that makes you a law breaker, not the public acknowledgement of it.
 
jamesrage said:
What other way could he have gone?Give the info to an American media and hope they would report it while fearing that the government might do something to him?
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There would have been that. The nyt did publish that Australian's infos. But the main thing would have been to sort the material so that legitimate spying and data collection was not mixed with information regarding data collection on Americans in the US. Publishing that was inexcusable and has done the country enormous harm.
 
cpwill said:
No... that makes him not a convicted criminal. It is the deed that makes you a law breaker, not the public acknowledgement of it.
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If you read my posted definition you will see that to be a criminal one must be charged AND convicted to meet the definition of a 'criminal'.

Snowden has not been convicted, therefore - by definition - he is not a criminal.

If you have a problem with that - please take it up with the dictionary people...they wrote it, not me.
 
Hard Truth said:
People in the USA are not the only ones who have human rights. Many of us consider it unethical to spy on anyone, even people who aren't USA citizens, without reasonable suspicion and due process.
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Spying and large scale data mining is not only legitimate in the international areana. It would be irresponsible to neglect it.
 
Hard Truth said:
People in the USA are not the only ones who have human rights. Many of us consider it unethical to spy on anyone, even people who aren't USA citizens, without reasonable suspicion and due process.
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If you don't like spy agencies, that's one thing. But that's really, really naive.
 
Hard Truth said:
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him". Nuremberg Principals

"This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".

Previous to the time of the Nuremberg Trials, this excuse was known in common parlance as "Superior Orders". After the prominent, high profile event of the Nuremberg Trials, that excuse is now referred to by many as "Nuremberg Defense". In recent times, a third term, "lawful orders" has become common parlance for some people. All three terms are in use today, and they all have slightly different nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which they are used.

Nuremberg Principle IV is legally supported by the jurisprudence found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which deal indirectly with conscientious objection. It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in an illegal war."
Wikipedia
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Wait a minute. Snowden didn't refuse to participate - he volunteered to participate. Had he walked in and said "I quit", no one would have done anything to stop him other than cease paying him.
 
Hard Truth said:
People in the USA are not the only ones who have human rights. Many of us consider it unethical to spy on anyone, even people who aren't USA citizens, without reasonable suspicion and due process.
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Right On! While we're at it, I think we should force U.S. troops to hold a trial with a jury of native Afghani's and convict each individual Taliban before they shoot back during firefights. It's their right, after all.
 
Why not just everyone be nice to everyone else? That would solve it all, let's just do that.
 
It doesn't matter if he released the info here or in another country. Once it's known here, the world knows. No, I don't think he's a traitor.
 
Dion said:
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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What you said sums it up nicely for me.
 
Wiggen said:
Yet you support a traitor who fled with his secrets to the country you don't want us to become? Something isn't computing here. I can only assume that those who support this dirtbag don't give a damn how many lives his treason is likely to cause. I suppose it's because they know it won't be their life. It'll be some kid getting blown to bits by an IED.
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I have seen no evidence that he gave any information to the Russia, China or any other government. I haven't heard of any information being released that will make it more likely that some "kid will get blown to bits by an IED." That was already happening before Manning or Snowden. Snowden did a lot of good by allowing the people of the USA, for the first time in a long time, to be informed and involved in the policy discussions regarding how much we are willing to sacrifice our freedom and privacy for safety.
 
Dion said:
Snowden was just supporting Putin and playing propaganda boy. You cannot separate your opinion of the NSA v. a traitor that told us nothing new and harmed our country and empowers Russia.
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Proof?
 
Redress said:
I disagree. I do not trust Joe SixPack to make informed decisions based on limited knowledge on what should and should not be revealed.
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Joe Sixpack is We the People. I trust the people, when sufficiently informed, more than bureaucrats, a small handful of selected politicians*, generals, contractors and vendors to make major policy decisions about whether we are entitled to privacy, whether we should respect the autonomy or privacy of the people of other nations, whether we should engage in a cyber sabotage war with other nations, and whether we should be allowed to kill anyone, anywhere without due process.

*like Sen Feinstein who had no problem with spying on us until the spies turned on her own staff
 
pogomutt said:
Amazing the response here. The most telling thing that I can see is the general mistrust of the US government shared by so many Americans at this point in history. Well, I'm part of that demographic. But to label Snowden some sort of whistle-blowing patriot? That's idiotic and anyone on the left with a triple digit IQ knows it. Snowden compromised many military secrets. Do you think he cared a wit about how many American lives he compromised with his actions? He's a traitor by every definition we've ever been taught to understand. So now he skulks in a Kremlin broom closet. What a hero. What a man of his convictions. Oh, and who do you suppose he turned all those military secrets over to? You don't think he got his bit of sanctuary for free?
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People on the left don't support having a secret government that makes major foreign policy decisions without the consent of our legislators. People on the left support the Bill of Rights, including the right to be free from search and seizure without a warrant or probable cause. People on the left believe in respecting the basic human rights of everyone in the world, not just the residents of the USA. People on the left don't support war and violent covert action for the purpose of increasing the profits of mega-corporations. Informed people on the left are well aware of CointelPro and the Hoover-era's FBI spying on people and sabotaging groups because of their political views (which happened under both Democrats and Republicans). Informed people on the left are aware that J.E. Hoover amassed a huge amount of power and influence by blackmailing and threatening other officials. Informed people on the left are aware of the thousands of people murdered by death quads and military dictatorships as a direct result of the USA's covert actions. Informed people on the left know that many of our current problems of oppressive governments, war and terrorism are blowback from covert operations to kill and overthrow democratically elected leaders and governments.
 
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