In First American TV Interview, Snowden Talks Accountability and Patriotism 389
mspohr (589790) points out NBC News's interview with Edward Snowden, the first time Snowden has talked with an American television reporter. It's a wide-ranging conversation, in which Snowden emphasizes his ongoing belief that he did the right thing to release the many documents that he did, even at the cost of his ability to travel. Snowden told NBC's Brian Williams "he had tried to go through channels before leaking documents to journalists, repeatedly raising objections inside the NSA, in writing, to its widespread use of surveillance. But he said he was told, "more or less, in bureaucratic language, 'You should stop asking questions.'" Two U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that Snowden sent at least one email to the NSA's office of general counsel raising policy and legal questions." Perhaps paving the way to eventual repatriation, Snowden also indicated that he would be willing to accept a "short period" behind bars. But, he said, the U.S. should "reform the Espionage Act to distinguish between people who sell secrets to foreign governments for their own gain and people who return information to public hands for the purpose of serving the public interest," and to include contractors as well as government employees.
How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the reason for public hearings with juries of our peers. The constitution already contains the means whereby we may come to these determinations.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Shouldn't be much of a problem here. Snowden's already shown all the cards the NSA didn't want anyone to see.
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Re:Don't bet on it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt that he's played out his hand since he seems to know very well how to play the game. Even if he did though, the US Government has made a lot of US Soldiers and Veterans very very angry withe the newest leaks on the VA. Sure, there are a few scumbags in 3 letter agencies that would kill Snowden to turn a quick buck, but a whole lot of people with military training should be watching his back if he comes back to the US.
Very interesting times we are living in, because currently the US is a powder keg waiting for a spark. Everyone knows that the system is corrupt to the core, but few are sure what to do with the situation and many hope for a peaceful solution.
Re:Don't bet on it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knows that the system is corrupt to the core, but few are sure what to do with the situation and many hope for a peaceful solution.
One of the most important things to consider is that historically very few violent or armed revolutions and coup d'etat have resulted in a better government than the one they were overthrowing. Things that have generally brought improvement are slow drifts in line with public mood over time.
The problem with violent change, especially when instigated by people who have history of serving in a professional army is that they often have huge difficulties when it comes to coping with disagreement. People not doing what they are told in a military context often has huge repercussions (and so it often needs to) but the general public not doing what they are told is often their democratic right in a free society.
People with an army background seem to be very good at becoming dictators. The sort of flexible, politician types that have no backbone are exactly the sort of people you need when it comes to dealing with a free populace. Part of being free, is being able to believe things like "socialism is better than capitalism" even though the vast majority of the population and the government strongly disagrees.
The best sort of change the US could undergo would be driven by a mass movement of a highly educated, non-violent population who realised they were being oppressed and refused to stand for it simply by not playing along with a bullshit system designed to keep them down. Of course, that is not likely to happen any time soon.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Funny)
Two problems:
1. Like hell he'll get a public trial, or any trial at all, before he's shipped off to Gitmo. Even if he does...
2. As once brilliantly stated (I think I saw it in a Slashdot sig), 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty is not a jury of my peers.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is EXACTLY why you owe it to your true peers to submit to jury duty. If you were falsely accused, or accused of something not well understood, wouldn't you wish that people just like you didn't duck it?
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod this up. The Jury is (by design) the closest the average citizen gets to the system of laws and government that controls them. This belief that jury duty is to be avoided is one of many reasons why this country is in the fucking toilet. Whole treatises have been written on The Jury Trial being the keystone of a fair and just society, but nobody seems to care or understand why.
I continue in my belief that Civics should be taught every year from 8th grade through 12th grade.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that society doesn't want to avoid jury duty because of jury duty. It's because it messes up your life.
You get paid $40/day for Jury Duty, and many employers don't pay for Jury Duty at all. For a typical middle-class American, you lose your $100-$200/day job for a $40/day ($5/hour) jury duty. You can't live on that much of a cut in pay.
If you got paid the same as your job for the brief time you're on jury duty, I bet Americans would relish the opportunity for a 'break' or 'vacation' from their day to day job. But that's not how it is today.
I had a co-worker who had jury duty EVERY Thursday for 2 straight years. His bosses still expected him to put in 40 hours at work. He had to work 10 hour days for 2 years straight. Not fun at all.
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Perhaps there is a reason that jurors are treated like crap by the court system, precisely to make sure that only the "right" jurors show up. There is no legitimate reason why being on a jury should take ten times more time than the amount of time actually spent in the courtroom. No one in that court room, except maybe the defendant, has their time wasted as liberally as the jury.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:4, Informative)
Would you make the same statement if you replaced "jury duty" with "paying your taxes". I would, but most seem to think it is some kind of legal obligation-nay necessity- that you do whatever you can to avoid paying them. Why would me not dodging jury duty as much as possible not fall in the same category?
Re: How does one determine the difference... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with your stance on taxes. I take the itemized deductions I'm entitled to for my house and my small business (tax incentives for contributing to the economy), but I would be fine without them. The spreading of tax burden down the economic ladder is class warfare and has been going on for a long time...
Re: How does one determine the difference... (Score:3)
Forgot the other bit: I believe companies should either be required to pay salary, or the gov't should be required to pay at least minimum wage for jury duty. But I also believe that the US is behind most civilized countries when it comes to labor rights. Unions are one way of fighting for rights, but those are being broken pretty handily these days.
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Jury duty sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
I continue in my belief that Civics should be taught every year from 8th grade through 12th grade.
I'd take this a step further and require that juries be picked only from 12th graders and retirees. That way, no one can complain about missing work. You may think it's a bad idea to use teens and the elderly, but I think they may actually do a better job than a bunch of people who don't want to be there in the first place.
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This idea has merit... too bad it'll probably never happen.
I definitely think civics should be taught as a required pass/fail course in high school. I also think Logic and Home Ec (yes, you SHOULD know how to cook, balance a checkbook and do laundry) should be required to graduate.
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I'm pretty fucking sick of people saying things like this. Why does anyone believe things like it?
To even joke about it shows a flippant disregard for the rule of law. Not only do you think there is no rule of law, but you don't even care if there is -- you're simply accepting it as fait accompli. You're practically pushing it along. If people think it's funny to think that nobody cares about h
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Every state in the union allows for pre-trial detention of criminals convicted of serious crimes. Every one of these detainees is held indefinitely. Theoretically, this is just temporary and they will receive speedy trial. In actual practice, they can be held for as long as the prosecutor wishes to stall. If they don't have a smart lawyer who files a speedy trial petition and they're not willing to accept a plea, this could be years. It could be a lifetime. That's why it's called "indefinite."
You want proof
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Not everyone on a jury is stupid. People will serve on juries if they think it is their civic duty. In Greece the equivalent would be "people so stupid they actually paid their taxes."
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Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you have public hearings on an entity that is spying on members of Congress and the judiciary? That is not accountable to Congress, and is so above the law that they have their own court to make up laws depending on their needs?
Our surveillance regime exists outside of government.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Between serving the public's interest, and serving one's own interest at the expense of the public? This is intended as a serious question--I like Snowden's idea, but how would we determine the difference between someone who's alerting us to government malfeasance, versus someone who's ideologically bent on disrupting government regardless of whether there's malfeasance or malevolent intent involved?
Wrong question. If the bar is set so high that people like Snowden have to prove their intentions unambigously, beyond a reasonable doubt, in order to prove their credibility, then they are lost before they begin, because the system assures that's never possible. But that's not why it's the wrong question. It's wrong because information about the workings of a government should never be secret except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Revealing information that should never be secret in the first place should not pose the risk of "disrupting government" regardless of the intent involved. If "disrupting government" merely means "learning what we are doing so you can debate the issue and vote to stop us", then the problem is more fundamental than you think.
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If the bar is set so high that people like Snowden have to prove their intentions unambigously, beyond a reasonable doubt, in order to prove their credibility, then they are lost before they begin, because the system assures that's never possible.
But that's not the US justice system - the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense.
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If the bar is set so high that people like Snowden have to prove their intentions unambigously, beyond a reasonable doubt, in order to prove their credibility, then they are lost before they begin, because the system assures that's never possible.
But that's not the US justice system - the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense.
The U.S.A. does not, and never has had, a justice system. It has a legal system. The distinction is important, and explains most of the questions being raised here.
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Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Informative)
Are you talking about the country with over a million people in jail due to plea bargaining?
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I've thought about this point a bit when others have mentioned it on slashdot – the idea that a government should hold nothing beyond easy public access unless it presents a true danger to the people, as defined by the people. It's a great ideal, but I don't think it'd survive the news media in any country; the 24/7 news vultures would shred any political who enacted such legislation to bits. No matter how well-intentioned your actions are, someone will spin it into doom to sell ads.
It's not entirely
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the 24/7 news vultures would shred any political who enacted such legislation to bits.
So you change the system without any Constitutional amendment process as defined by law to suite a few private individuals that wish to take profits over duty? I'm sorry, but I believe you are looking at this from a bad angle.
It's not entirely the media's fault – a lot of things that happen behind closed doors really shouldn't occur at all
That statement is a circular logic condition based on your first statement, which is not correct in my opinion.
Not that long ago there was this thing called integrity and duty which most journalists had. Many journalists today have the same sense of duty and integrity, but we have al
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Interesting)
Between serving the public's interest, and serving one's own interest at the expense of the public? This is intended as a serious question--I like Snowden's idea,
Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
If you are concerned someone is going to "maliciously" divulge secret information to the public for no personal gain but the satisifcation of causing disruption? So what? I can live with that trade off. Its better than the treat whistlblowers as traitors we have now.
And realistically, most of government secrets shouldn't be secret anyway. If that person releases troop movements, under cover agents identities, and your private health information 'the public' will crucify him regardless of the law.
If he releases the contents of a secret in-the-works treaty and you can't tell whether his intentions were disruptive or public service based on the contents of the treaty, I'm ok with erring on the side of public service. And I don't think treaties should be secret anyway.
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The last person to out an operative was Scooter Libby. His sentence was commuted so that he served no jail time.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Informative)
The last person to out an operative was Scooter Libby. His sentence was commuted so that he served no jail time.
Are you really that misinformed, or are you just trying to deceive?
... it was a guy in the State Department, not the White House, who told the reporter her name. And Armitage never got any grief during the witch hunt.
The person who disclosed Valerie Plame's name was Richard Armitage, not Libby. Libby's legal trouble revolved around how cooperative he was during one round of questioning, and his prosecution had nothing whatsoever to do with her name getting out. Because
Of course, Armitage was NOT the last person to "out" an operative. Just a few days ago, the White House stupidly disclosed the name of the top CIA official in Kabul. You know, a guy actually out dealing with dangerous ground, rather than occupying a desk in Virginia like Plame was.
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So where are the calls for a trip to gitmo or a life sentence?
BTW, Libby was charged with the disclosure, they needed a fall guy to try.
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From his indictment [cnn.net]. Have a look at items 14, 17, and 24 of the grand jury charges.
I presume a court document is sufficiently authoritative?
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By definition within the law, Valeria Plame was not an operative.
Scooter Libby didn't out her.
Scotter Libby lied to investigators, for whatever idiotic reason, and was convicted of that crime. His sentence was commuted but the conviction and its costs are still on his record.
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And he is doing so bad these days because of it. What with his syndicated radio show and the advertisements I've seen him in, it is wonder the guy can afford ramen noodles.
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That would suggest that random government employees can exercise their personal moral judgment over what their country's allows to do. So, PRISM is illegal, disclosing it, assuming ti works like Snowden says it does, it's legitimate whistleblow
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Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
Not always (who says it has to be in secret?). I'll make up an example. Let's say we're at war with Islamistan, and a DoD contractor or employee discovers a serious flaw in a cruise missile that was a main weapon we're using against Islamistan that would allow anybody with a couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment to take it down if it was being shot at them. The contractor or employee also discovers (with evidence) that there was corruption involved between the contractor who makes the missiles and
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Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
Snowden gave the NSA documents to well known American journalists.
Now imagine if he gave it (under the same terms/conditions) to journalists at Russia Today (a state sponsored newspaper) or Xinhua News Agency (China's state newspaper).
The difference gets a little fuzzier, doesn't it?
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The government serves the government, not the people. So it's a moot question anyway.
Re:How does one determine the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a very clear standard for this; if you follow the law or appear to do so in all outward respects and there is no grounds for investigation against you then you have the right to privacy/secrecy. If you break the law in one way then you are subject to investigation in all ways.
In today's environment, that is no protection at all, because there is always some law that can be applied that you are breaking. In fact, speculation is that the average American commits three felonies a day [threefeloniesaday.com].
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So you're saying Snowden was wrong because the NSA was giving the appearance of following the law in all outward respects?
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Repatriation, yeah right. (Score:5, Interesting)
The only place he'd ever get repatriated to is Leavenworth (if they're being generous) or Gitmo (if they aren't).
Poking the bear is bad enough, making the bear feel foolish (while continuing to poke) is unforgivable. In this case, the bear is not Russia. :(
If they let him go free, or off with a light sentence, he'll have a new career as a public speaker, or activist against the NSA and surveillance. No way the government would allow that sentiment to have a publicly acceptable mouth piece.
Re:Repatriation, yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a fair amount of confidence that if he were freed, we'd read an article about his sad, untimely death within a couple of years. You know, those strange suicides where they shot themselves 3 times in the head. Maybe a tragic car crash. The powers that be have good resources and plenty of plausible deniability.
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That's true. Or read about how the taxi taking to the Moscow airport was found at the bottom of a river.
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Re:Repatriation, yeah right. (Score:5, Interesting)
And of course the inevitable stories of how depressed and lonely he had become, and how he had become paranoid and anti-social and started doing drugs, before he decided to take his own life. And the media would be all over that shit.
Re:Repatriation, yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
They haven't killed Daniel Ellsberg.
Which reminds me of a recent debate [democracynow.org] he had on Democracy Now with former NSA counsel on the topic of Snowden. Ellsberg brings up the important point that previously, several NSA veterans had brought up complaints through channels and in return, the government, without any real reason to suspect they broke rules or laws other than the fact they believed intelligence methods were becoming unethical, raided their homes and, in the case of Thomas Drake, threatened prosecution for documents they found in his home (after fishing for evidence, not that they already suspected he had them) which they claimed were classified, but were actually marked unclassified, which they then re-classified and tried to prosecute ex post facto. Fortunately, a judge not only threw the case out, but actually apologized to Drake, but only after the ordeal ruined his savings, reputation and career. This intelligence professional, committed to older NSA principles of not violating rights of Americans, now does consumer tech support at an Apple Store. It is in this context (which Ellsberg notes is necessary to acknowledge when discussing whistleblowing) that Snowden went beyond channels to inform the public.
Frontline also recently did a two-part series on eavesdropping involving NSA, Drake, Snowden and even a complicit tech industry.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/#part-one---the-program
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Snowden however has seriously pissed off the current administration, which makes comparisons with Ellsberg somewhat naive.
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He could just get so fat that he's considered unattractive on television, so only those who know how to listen pay attention to him. It's kept Michael Moore alive for years.
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The only place he'd ever get repatriated to is Leavenworth (if they're being generous) or Gitmo (if they aren't).
Poking the bear is bad enough, making the bear feel foolish (while continuing to poke) is unforgivable. In this case, the bear is not Russia. :(
If they let him go free, or off with a light sentence, he'll have a new career as a public speaker, or activist against the NSA and surveillance. No way the government would allow that sentiment to have a publicly acceptable mouth piece.
Don't speak so fast. I suspect there will be at least one person running for office in the next election that would pardon him.
Re:Repatriation, yeah right. (Score:5, Informative)
Are you high? He was trained and employed as a spy *by the US CIA*. He is not admitting to espionage, he's saying that whenever the NSA paints him as a hacker and a low-level IT guy, the NSA is lying. And the CIA has now confirmed that the government has known all along that it's telling lies about who Snowden really is.
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I'd bet it's Leavenworth, assuming they let him live. The guy is now claiming "He was a spy" which means he is admitting to espionage. To me, that makes him no-longer a whistle-blower, but something quite different. He's admitting to being a traitor, which entitles him to a trial on charges that can carry some serious penalties, including death. I'd be surprised if they went for death, given he's still alive.
He is claiming that he was trained and worked as a spy for the US government, not (as you seem to think) that he spied on the US government for a foreign power.
Not the first interview (Score:2)
http://www.ted.com/talks/edwar... [ted.com]
First, he's a Patriot (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I'd like to say that he's a Patriot.
There were a lot of things he could have told you that he hasn't.
Second, if the US government would just follow the Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, and stop spying on American citizens in America without individual court orders for individual American citizens, and instead focus on the actual sources of terrorism that we all know are the source: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, this would all go away.
That said, I look forward to him being granted Amnesty by a free and independent 100 percent green energy Scotland soon.
Re:First, he's a Patriot (Score:4, Insightful)
You make it sound like the rest of the world has no rights, which by the way seems to be the most prevalent American point of view.
Actual Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Snowden revealed information about USA spying
3) Snowden claimed it was in violation of US Constitution.
4) As a result of Snowden's revelations, US collection has gone down. But there has been no terrorist event since then, so no one possibly have died because of his actions.
5) US claims that because collection is down, Snowden damaged US security. Snowden claims that because no one died, he did not.
6)Previously people objected within the US spying agencies about their actions - Snowden was not the first. No one in the agencies ever did anything about the complaints.
If you believe the US did wrong, then Snowden is a patriot. If you believe the US did no wrong, then Snowden is a traitor.
Opinions: from here on out. But honestly, this is a question not of action, but of political belief.
Most importantly, the people in the espionage agency SHOULD be more paranoid than the general population. Otherwise they are in the wrong job. That also means they need to deal with the fact that the general population will NOT want and should NOT allow them to do everything they deem necessary for a safe country. I can make the world safe for children by locking all the children up in a cage till they turn 18. But we don't do that because life is worth the risk. Similarly, we should NOT be giving any spy agencies all the power they think they need. And when we catch them going overboard, they need to be reigned back in.
All of which means that Snowden should be given the benefit of the doubt
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If you believe the US did wrong, then Snowden is a patriot. If you believe the US did no wrong, then Snowden is a traitor.
There are more than two choices. Most people think the NSA probably didn't break any laws, but got uncomfortably close to doing so. Perhaps the laws should be clarified or made stricter. But Snowden unquestionably broke laws by revealing NSA operations that are clearly legal.
Re:Actual Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
But Snowden unquestionably broke laws by revealing NSA operations that are clearly legal.
Only if his revelation was unjustified.
If someone breaks into your house and is about to shoot your child, but you shoot them first, and they die, you have committed murder (or at least manslaughter). But the law includes a general provision that lets you off the hook: justification. If you committed your crime in order to prevent a greater crime, the law does not hold you accountable.
The principle of justification is a general one, which can and does override absolutely any other statute.
The NSA was clearly perpetrating a greater crime upon the American people than Snowden did by revealing their crime.
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If someone breaks into your house and is about to shoot your child, but you shoot them first, and they die, you have committed murder (or at least manslaughter).
Wrong, in that case you haven't committed murder or manslaughter.
NSA was clearly perpetrating a greater crime
That's not clear to me at all. And even if it was true, expanding on your analogy - I can't shoot someone outside my house who is trying to steal my car. Whether or not Snowden should have exposed questionable practices by the NSA, he should have stopped there.
Re:Actual Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the one where he knowingly and intentionally violated the law. His acts were, by definition, espionage.
If such a law exists, then it is unjust. Revealing the government's unconstitutional or immoral activities should not be a crime.
Or is there anybody here naive enough to believe that other nations don't do this?
Is anybody here illogical enough to believe that that makes any of it okay?
And I live in the US, so I know my country does this.
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Why is Edward Snowden qualified to decide what's "okay"?
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Because he's a human being with an opinion, access to the constitution, and knowledge of privacy and human rights.
Of you only want 'authority' figures to decide such things, may I suggest moving to a country that doesn't claim to want to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'?
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But I disagree with him, I think it's completely appropriate for our country to spy on foreign leaders; I definitely would support the NSA recording every telephone call made in Afghanistan, we're fighting a war there, that kind of ability is awesome - awesome until he told everyone it was happening, having the effect of making it useless! Nobody tells me to think this way.
George W. Bush, Barac
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To be honest I think this position is excessively idealistic.
I think governments can be legitimate institutions, and even when they aren't, the rights of their constituents, let alone their opinions, their votes, and their moral attachments, are at least as important as one man's moral crusade to make the world into what
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We're responsible for the fairness of our trials, not our government. The government isn't some foreign occupier that imposes its justice on us. YOU were the one downthread who was arguing that we're obliged to know everything the government does, because we're responsible for what it does on our behalf. Either w
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Again it's like this total double-bind. If you think that there's a good chance that people won't properly debate the NSA after you've released the information, if you don't trust the American people to take it all in and take responsible steps one way or the other, there's absolutely no reason to release the information in the first place.
Unless, of course, you're motivated by pique and a desire to embarrass powerful people and institutions, because you're a radical that just likes to break things.
Re:Actual Facts (Score:5, Interesting)
So what about the rest of the NSA? They're breaking the law every day, all day. What should we do about them?
I'm not for touching Snowden with any legal repercussions of his actions until the NSA is held accountable for their violations of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and outright lying to congress under oath.
You can't have it both ways, you can't say Snowden is a traitor and the NSA is not, and advocate for punishing one and not the other. The NSA is hugely more guilty of law breaking than Snowden could ever hope to be. When I see some bigwigs of the NSA behind bars, then I'll accept Snowden needs to serve some time (not life) for his supposed crime of enlightening the rest of us of the huge disregard for the law the NSA has shown.
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Well, you can say Snowden was entitled to blow the whistle on PRISM, and that he shouldn't be punished for that. OTOH, he's a traitor for revealing the extent of US global surveillance, or any other programs which were not illegal. It's not unconstitutional to tap Angela Merkel's cellphone.
Re:Actual Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the one where he knowingly and intentionally violated the law.
The US government knowingly and intentionally violated the law when it began to demand records of ALL calls made within the us and then began to LIE about it before congress where Alexander et al redefined the word "collect" and hoped nobody would parse his words carefully enough to notice.
The patriot act DOES NOT even authorize this. Collecting information on EVERYONE cannot possibly be relevant to a specific authorized investigation.
Don't shoot him. Life imprisonment should suffice. Or is there anybody here naive enough to believe that other nations don't do this?
The only thing that matters is the US government broke US law without any repercussion. Surely this is indefensible and any "but mommy johnny did it too" defense is worthless.
The same way the previous administrations "intelligence community" knowingly lied about the veracity of their Iraq WMD cover story prior to invasion of Iraq leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths with no repercussions.
I want to see US government officials go to jail.. hell in the case of Iraq no reason executions should not be on the table. Once that happens lets talk about Snowden's transgressions...
Legitimacy matters. If the state does not follow the law and is not held accountable it is foolish to expect the governed to show respect for law. I personally don't even care that what Snowden did is illegal... Wish I did but I don't.
Re:Actual Facts (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't know that he lied. The people who produced the document are the ones he exposed. It is not in their interests to show that Snowden was telling the truth, and so if there were other emails with more detailed concerns about NSA policy, they are unlikely to see the light of day.
Why do you folks keep accusing him of lying when a single email has come out? Surely you realize the government does not stand to benefit by affirming the truth of what Snowden has said, and in fact has already accused him of lying. How can you be so silly to think they would actually release the emails Snowden says he sent, even if they have them?
Total surveillance (Score:5, Insightful)
Setting up the infrastructure for a total surveillance state is simply beyond the pale. What Snowden has done is what any true American should have done. The machine that government is setting up must be stopped dead in its tracks while there is still time, or there will be no stopping it. And there will be no United States of America after that, only a spot on the map infringing a trademark. Snowden is a true patriot.
If King George had had the NSA, you'd all be speaking proper English.
suspicious circumstances (Score:2)
Snowden is going to be the first person in human history to have a suspicious death at the age of one-hundred and five.
There's a big difference between what these agencies do under cover of darkness, and what they do under the glare of a public spotlight. Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after two decades in exile, whereupon he continued to criticise his homeland for another fourteen years, before dying of heart failure under suspicious circumstances at age eighty-nine.
There's a good reason they get mighty
Good luck to the man... (Score:5, Insightful)
The politicos want his head on a pike... God help help him because I don't see anyone of consequence standing up for the man.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Feinstein says NSA has no paper trail (Score:5, Interesting)
http://time.com/137530/nsa-to-... [time.com]
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
"He goes on to cite a list provided in the training that ranks presidential executive orders alongside federal statutes in the hierarchy of orders governing NSA behaviour.
“I'm not entirely certain, but this does not seem correct, as it seems to imply Executive Orders have the same precedence as law"
With an unnamed individual sending back "“correct that EO's cannot override a statute” but that they have the “force and effect of law”."
Would seem to show a legal question in one email was 'found' and is now been presented with spin to the wider media.
Come to think of it, if the US government (Score:3)
Snowden is a hero. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Snowden a criminal? Yes. Is he a hero to those of us who wish to continue to live in the land of the freer than average? Yes.
Here's what our government has been doing since 9/11/2001 gave the anti-freedom brigade carte blanche:
1. As Mr. Snowden rubs our face in it: massive and sweeping unwarranted surveillance and collection of data and meta data of our phone and internet communications,
2. Secret courts.
3. Extra-judicial assassinations of both foreign nationals and in rare cases, US citizens. 4. Drone strikes on people in many countries outside of our declared war zones (Iraq and Afghanistan).
5. Declaring war on a country that has not invaded us or attacked us or any of our allies (Iraq).
6. Detaining criminals without due process, no sentence, no release date.
7. Torture on a massive scale. Abu Ghraib is just where we got caught on film. We've funded the torture of thousands of individuals. We as taxpayers are complicit and accruing a pretty massive karmic debt.
8. CIA black sites where our government can and does operate outside any bounds of law or moral constraint.
Since 9/11, we have been sliding into a nasty democracy of evil and unconstrained government behavior. We need to start rolling this stuff back. Strike down the patriot act and adopt a pre-9/11 stance towards freedom, due process, privacy and the constitution. It'd be a bargain to suffer a dozen 9/11 attacks, compared to what we're becoming because of our craven fear.
Live free or die.
Re:But he did do it for his own gain (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But he did do it for his own gain (Score:4, Insightful)
and became a tool for international politics
and doesn't have a country he belongs to
Ed basically sarificed himself so that we become more than mere data clusters.
I hope some of you are reading this; the biggest responsibility in this terrible breach of human rights is on the ones who sold their expertise and soul to Uncle Sam for a bigger lawn. Your grandkids will grow up with the Big Brother.
Re:But he did do it for his own gain (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise he would have done it anonymously.
You play games. If he had done it anonymously you would say "what has he got to hide? He must be a foreign agent!"
Re:But he did do it for his own gain (Score:5, Insightful)
Establishing the source establishes the credibility of the documents, and is necessary to prove that the information was obtained from someone with the necessary clearance and access. Going public is putting yourself at mortal risk, if not from the government whose secrets you are exposing, then from the random "patriots" who believe in that government. When working with information of this sort, keeping yourself anonymous is of benefit to your life expectancy, and thus is generally the preferred route. Suggesting that going public means he's doing it for his own gain is to ignore the fact that the drawbacks of identifying oneself as the source FAR outweigh the gains to be had.
Re:But he did do it for his own gain (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous whistleblowers tend to have no credibility whatsoever. That's why he didn't hide his identity.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He might want the government to follow the constitution, but that doesn't mean he's a masochist or a martyr.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if the court is a kangaroo court, civil disobedience requires standing trial -- you expose the illegitimacy of the system by showing people the system is rigged. Thoreau stood trial, Martin Luther King did, cripes even Hitler stood trial a the critical point in his career, it demonstrates that you do not consider yourself above the reach of a system that can affect all of us: Snowden accepts the
Re:If he is such a believer of constitution... (Score:4, Interesting)
Snowden released the information, and now it's up to us to fix the problems. You mention MLK and such, but the situation simply isn't comparable, and even if it was, there is no need for every 'hero' to act in the same way.
And why is there so much focus on Snowden himself? It seems like the government is trying to distract people from their horrendous activities.
Snowden accepts the possibility of Gitmo because, in principle, all of us could be sent to Gitmo and taking a Get-out-of-Gitmo-Free card would be unfair.
I don't think it's unfair for people who don't want to be abused by their government to move elsewhere.
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Well he broke a lot of laws, and he revealed a lot of government activity that wasn't horrendous, along with the horrendous stuff. Just about everything him and Greenwald disclose now are things that are completely legal for the US to do.
That blames the victim -- the government doesn't have to change, the people should just "love it or leave it." I think
Re: (Score:2)
Well he broke a lot of laws, and he revealed a lot of government activity that wasn't horrendous, along with the horrendous stuff. Just about everything him and Greenwald disclose now are things that are completely legal for the US to do.
Legal != moral. I, for one, want to know what my dear little government thugs are doing, legal or not. If these things are legal, perhaps that needs to be changed. Releasing information like this puts the issues into the spotlight.
That blames the victim -- the government doesn't have to change, the people should just "love it or leave it."
Straw man. Leaving or not leaving is a personal decision. You can either leave to avoid the abuse, or stay and work to change it (or stay and do nothing, as some do).
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The net result of this whole affair is the US and its immediate allies lose all of their intelligence programs
Perhaps they should have thought that through before doing all this nonsense?
I don't think you really care either, since these are "thugs" you clearly feel no responsibility for, you probably just get a little righteous indignation high out of seeing the government embarrassed, kinda like Snowden.
Well, you might want to stop theorizing about how I think unless you're a mind reader.
I vote against these scumbags at every opportunity and vote for people who will set the situation right. It's just that idiots make up the majority, and they have not yet come around.
Re: (Score:3)
The net result of this whole affair is the US and its immediate allies lose all of their intelligence programs, while Russia gets to keep doing whatever it wants.
Ah so the essense is that the US should not be a free country where the government sticks to the morally justified law bacause of Russia?
oooookay.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because when the government has proven it has subverted the constitution, that clearly means they will suddenly decide to play by the rules when called out on it, right? Or...you could stop being a dope and realize that the government is out of control and above the law. Rather than act in the best interest of the people it is supposed to govern, it has instead been acting in its own interest and pushing through with a powergrab even harder now that it doesn't even need to hide it.
Stop listening to their li
If he is such a believer of constitution... (Score:4, Interesting)
At best he would have found some political interest in his case.
He would have faced a sealed court as just a 'contractor' as the gov aspect of his NSA and CIA work would have been carefully hidden.
A 'contractor' may face all the same legal charges as a gov worker but enjoy few of the gov worker only whistleblowers legal protections.
He would have had all the legal protections of a contractor before a sealed court with a very expensive short list of cleared lawyers.
His legal team would not have the clearance to see, question or ask for more evidence that would support his case.
His legal team would not have the clearance to present more facts to any interested cleared political supporter.
After a short, rigged hidden trial the very public spin would begin.
The left of the US main stream media would understand he was a low level private contractor and not worth reporting on.
The right of the US main stream media would understand he was a low level contractor with far left union ideals and not worth reporting on.
For anyone else the hint that he was a limited hangout would make sure they lost interested in the few public fragments of the case.
Knowing what happens to even the most politically powerfully supported US gov whistleblowers within the US legal system the only wise option was to get the information to the press and then be free of the material.
You can more read about other past US whistleblowers and their US court experiences here: http://cryptome.org/2013-info/... [cryptome.org]
The other good aspect is that great law reform teams can now work with the public information in public courts and slowly bring more media attention to the loss of US rights and freedoms over the past decades.
Re:If he is such a believer of constitution... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're begging the question. His whole point was that the government which would like to prosecute him does not follow the Constitution. Case in point, prisoners in Gitmo, or the CIA's torture victims.
Re: (Score:2)
But you don't know that he lied about this. It may have been the case that he, as he said, mentioned this to higher ups in one form or another on multiple occasions and was told to shut up. It's not as though the NSA documents every single CONVERSATION its employees have while working. Snowden was under no obligation to actually document when he had these conversations or what they consisted of.
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