Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" 424
eldavojohn writes "According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting at a meeting in Atlanta. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leaks — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize."
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent up.
We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.
Bear in mind, Carter was a one term president, widely despised by Republicans and effectively abandoned by his own party -- unable to get many of his programs through a congress controlled by the Democratic Party (which at the time still contained a lot of southern social conservatives.)
He has worn the mantle of elder statesman and sage well since his time in office. Quite possibly one of the best educated and most greatly concerned for the american people of US presidents of the past century.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
Carter was a complete disaster for the US.
Yes he was, but everybody after him has proven to be far worse.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:2, Informative)
Jimmy Carter is no longer president of the United States.
I was just entering adulthood when Carter became president, so I have some recollection of that time... and I've got to disagree with your use of the word "unfortunately".
I voted for him back then; I greatly respect his work with Habitat for Humanity; and I think he's spot-on with his comments about this particular topic. That said, he was a terrible president. He was a very intelligent man, but had absolutely no idea how to be a leader nor how to get anything done.
Senator Gordon Humphrey (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. Snowden,
Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harms way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution.
Having served in the United States Senate for twelve years as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, I think I have a good grounding to reach my conclusion.
I wish you well in your efforts to secure asylum and encourage you to persevere.
Kindly acknowledge this message, so that I will know it reached you.
Regards,
Gordon J. Humphrey
Former United States Senator
New Hampshire
Here is another of his messages:
Mr. Greenwald,
Yes. It was I who sent the email message to Edward Snowden, thanking him for exposing astonishing violations of the US Constitution and encouraging him to persevere in the search for asylum.
To my knowledge, Mr. Snowden has disclosed only the existence of a program and not details that would place any person in harm's way. I regard him as a courageous whistle-blower.
I object to the monumentally disproportionate campaign being waged by the U.S. Government against Edward Snowden, while no effort is being made to identify, remove from office and bring to justice those officials who have abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States and the rights of millions of unsuspecting citizens.
Americans concerned about the growing arrogance of our government and its increasingly menacing nature should be working to help Mr. Snowden find asylum. Former Members of Congress, especially, should step forward and speak out.
Regards,
Gordon Humphrey
Re:He's not a politician (Score:0, Informative)
I don't work for the government, nor do I work for a government contractor. I think Snowden is an arrogant fool.
Since I know I am not a moron, after a number of objective tests and a lifetime of experience, I am forced to conclude that you are talking out of your ass.
Carter's legacy (Score:5, Informative)
Carter was a complete disaster for the US.
Only by people who think Reagan was the second coming of George Washington. If you were dumb enough to vote for Bush the Lesser you might actually believe that Carter was a bad president. Carter was a mediocre president who served during a period of rather bad economic problems that were not his fault. His record is mixed but isn't especially bad overall. I'm old enough to actually remember when he was in office and there hasn't been a president since who I feel was substantially better and one who was considerably worse.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
Are you a troll, or just completely unaware of what takes place on this planet?
Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Price for his efforts at various hot spots around the world, including Palestine, Cuba, Korea, Egypt, Ireland, Haiti, Venezuela, and the Sudan (and I'm sure I'm missing some others.) He's poured himself into Habitat for Humanity. He created the Carter Center, which works for human rights around the world, peace, and is even fighting preventable diseases.
While he may have not accomplished much of note while in office, Carter has far and away been the most active, most influential, and best ex-president this country's ever seen.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the fact that Carter is the only President, next to Clinton, who didn't pay lip-service to peace in the Middle East. He is the only one to get Israel and a neighbor to sign a peace treaty and formal recognition which exists to this day without issue.
The Clinton issue was a failure by Arafat to pull the trigger and sign the deal for various reasons.
As an aside, Bush 1 did stick it to Israel by stopping the U.S. backing loan guarantees when Israel kept thumbing its nose at the U.S. by illegally confiscating Palestinian land and settling its own people there. He did eventually reinstate the U.S taxpayer being on the hook but only after Israel backed down (for a time. They're back it with a vengeance as we speak).
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
There weren't really any policies that Carter set out that were bad.
Selling weapons to Indonesia while they were committing genocide in East Timor is bad.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:4, Informative)
He's no longer in the public eye, and I can't even think of the last time that Carter may have been politically relevant.
As far as I can tell, he spends his resources doing mostly non-political stuff - building homes for poor people with Habitat for Humanity and such. That's a more mature stance than trying to do good with a political system that's based on violence.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
[America] has a very small productive economy and thrives exclusively on plunder.
We are still the number one manufacturer in the world, representing a full 1/5 of all production output on the planet. It's just that the things we produce are not typical consumer goods, and so the picture you're average American gets is that we don't make anything. Your typical American doesn't use Caterpillar heavy construction equipment, Boeing or Lockheed aircraft (other than maybe flying in them), GE turbines, oil rigs, mining drills, spacecraft, or the bulk of the free world's military equipment.
Yeah, all our clothes and cheap plastic stuff is made in China, and our consumer electronics are made in Japan and Taiwan; but heavy industry, military hardware, construction equipment, resource extraction tools all over the world are stamped MADE IN USA.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
Carter was not a disaster. Too many people speak too much about how little they know.
Carter was a Naval Academy grad who went on to serve in submarines, particuarly in the nuclear service under Rickover himself, and during his stint he was in charge of a special rescue crew that was responsible for cleaning up a failed experiemntal reactor, by actually climbing into the radioactive chamber, which they did, including himself. He went home and became a farmer, and later Governor of GA, and fairly successful and popular at that.
When he was President he didnt' just preach conservation during the energy crisis, but led by example (and when you know how rarely Prseident's do THAT!) and had solar heaters isntalled at the White House, and wore sweaters if the building were cold. You like beer? He deregulated the beer industry. Prior to that, it was illegal to run a home brewery. He also was behind the airline deregulation (which at the time was a reasonable thing...that fact that it's now swung to the opposite side of the too much/too little regulation spectrum not withstanding)
Overall, his presidency was rather uneventful. It is a tankless job that always results in at least one half the country calling you an idiot and playing armchair quarterback. on top of that, Carter was a transitionary president, the country having just gotten out of Vietnam, and the focus moving inward. Presidents in such situations especially tend to be negatively viewed, and lucky if they make it out alive with nothing major happening. Carter's only really big fumble was the botched rescue of the hostages, and that owed more to planning problems (oversights and mistakes, overly complex, too many moving parts, as well as mechanical and maintenance failuers, etc) than to the adminstration.
Carters biggest problem was a seeming lack of confidence in his own position. But since then he's continued to act as a diplomat and representive for our nation,a nd been highly successful at that as well.
He may not have been a shining star of the likes of Jefferson or Lincoln, but neither that does not make him a disaster. He was far from it, and political ideology aside, he continues to be a good example of a good American citizen who loves and serves his country.
Re:+5 Insightful for (Score:5, Informative)
Don't whitewash Nixon here. (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, there's a lot to go through here.
How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell?
Unlike with Nixon, there's no evidence that Obama had anything to do with that. The Watergate scandal, in comparison, involved people from Nixon's presidential campaign (Liddy), the US Attorney General, and Nixon's personal Presidential Council. It's most likely that Curtis Morrison acted independently. He was a member of Kentucky liberal advocacy group that had no connections (that I'm aware of at least) to Obama or his Presidential Campaign. If you have evidence that says otherwise, I'd love to read it.
Just because Obama is a Democratic President doesn't mean that he's actually directly in charge of every Democrat or other liberal.
How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA, and other federal agencies, and have the NSA spy on them and on reporters?
Well, first of all, the IRS scandal was mischaracterized in its early stages by the media. The IRS looked at a broad spectrum of 501(c) groups. Conservative groups were targeted (groups that mentioned "Tea party," "9/12", "patriots," etc.). So were liberal groups (ones that mentioned "occupy," "progress," "equality," etc.). So were groups interested in Israel, constitutional issues, the integrity of elections, and several other nonpartisan issues. Of those groups, the only one that was denied 501(c) status was Emerge America, a liberal advocacy group. No conservative groups were denied.
Now it wasn't completely non-partisan. Conservative groups were delayed in receiving their approval. There's indication that the National Organization for Marriage had its 2008 tax return deliberately leaked. Some chicanery was going on there.
But did Obama know? Signs indicate that he learned of it about the same time the public did. (He was aware of an ongoing investigation but not the contents of it.) No evidence has arisen that he did know ahead of time.
As for the EPA FOIA fee thing, I'll admit that's kind of shady. I don't believe it comes from the top, but it's a black mark on his administration, I think based on the facts I currently have. I think the effects of being on Nixon's enemies list was a bit more harsh: tax audits, denial of federal grants and contracts, etc.
For the last, I hate the NSA spying programs, but is there any evidence they've specifically went after reporters? I'd love to hear it. (More fuel for the fire on that subject, as far as I'm concerned.)
Nixon never orchestrated a false flag kidnapping at a consulate, and then tried to cover it up when it went south.
Neither did Obama. That's full-on crank territory if you want to claim that's what Benghazi was. Nixon did however orchestrate a burglary at the Chilean embassy, which is far closer to what you're accusing Obama of than what actually happened.
He never sold weapons to drug cartels.
True, you'd have to wait for Reagan for that. Of course, he was straight up selling arms to terrorists and using the money fund drug trafficking contras to fight communists. (Yet another episode in a long, terrible history of covert US actions to support terrible people just because they are the enemies of our enemies.)
Obama's ATF, at least, was selling the guns to try to track down criminals with an intent to disrupt and arrest them -- not to deliberately support them. Still, a pretty colossal screw up considering how many arms weren't recovered.
He didn't target children with drones, either.
Only because he didn't have them. The carpet bombing of Cambodia, which killed tens of thousands of civilians was a far greater atrocity than Obama's drone program (which I think is unconscionable too; just on a far different scale of "collateral damage," aka negligent mass murder).