Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

[Flashman]

Hero with a Capitol 'H'!

Any person who tows the party line in the name of a job, law or rule and ignores blatant (anti-constitutional) organized crime at the highest levels is the real Traitor IMHO!

Some good quotes of the past:
"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Distrust and caution are the parents of security."
Benjamin Franklin

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

Snowden for the Nobel!

Oh yeah, free Manning as well.

[DanCar]

I think those who consider him a traitor are eager for a police state.

[mbender]

+1(+1)

Here's Snowden's appearance at South by Southwest yesterday (March 10, 2014)

I'd like to see him win the Nobel, too.

In a diffferent setting (an "IQ2" debate), his legal advisor put it perfectly and succinctly: "The President (Obama) believes that the debate that Edward Snowden launched -- a debate that no one seriously believes would have taken place without him -- has made our country stronger."

[AndyH]

mbender - thanks for the youtube link - good to know this has been archived!

Stumbled on this today. It's a crazy double standard that civilians using denial of service tools are jailed after being caught by government agencies using...denial of service tools.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigati ... how-n21361

[klapauzius]

I am curious, did both, Snowden and Manning have venues to call attention to the unethical behavior in their respective organizations without breaking the law?
I suspect that there were guidelines in place to protect whistle blowers, but in practice they would not have gotten far, if they had chosen the "legal" route?

In any case, we would not want a system were people feel they have to break the law on purely ethical grounds. I am not sure they deserve to be called heroes, because what they did certainly caused collateral damage, but I would not call them traitors either.
Both of them did not act for personal gain or on behalf of dubious ideology/beliefs.

[Flashman]

I am curious, did both, Snowden and Manning have venues to call attention to the unethical behavior in their respective organizations without breaking the law?

They did and as reported, both tried multiple times. Both failed to make an impression and were dismissed.
The reason I am calling them hero's is simply the risk they each took in order to expose criminals of the highest of ranks.
Any person who puts there own life in direct jeopardy for the cause of this great nations perseverance of established freedoms and protection or defense of the U.S. Constitution is a hero in my book. (anyone read the bill of rights lately)?

I think folks should put themselves in the same hypothetical situation... What would you do? Knowing your life could end or change drastically forever as you know it? Would you 'blow the whistle' and expose the corruption for the ideal of freedom and the fundamentals of our constitution? I would.
Or would you keep your mouth shut and tow the party line in favor of your comfy safe temporary existence while our rights and freedoms are methodically trampled and systematically removed?

To me, the justification is in the data results... have you seen the video(s) or read any of what manning or Snowden released in detail? perhaps read of what PRISM has to offer us? Or how Google and AT&T (amongst others) are only happy to help pursue this Orwellian dream for $$.
It's the new mafia and it's really big...
The mainstream media is now bought and paid for...
Cronkite is rolling in his grave...
Much of the population is afflicted with Cognitive dissonance...
(it's so horrible... it can't be true so I'll bury my head in the sand.)

Manning will likely be in jail the rest of his entire life.
Snowden is exiled, and has to look over his shoulder every minute of every day.
They both sacrificed so much.

We need Hero's. sadly, it appears history will treat them differently.

[klapauzius]

To me, the justification is in the data results... have you seen the video(s) or read any of what manning or Snowden released in detail? perhaps read of what PRISM has to offer us? Or how Google and AT&T (amongst others) are only happy to help pursue this Orwellian dream for $$.

Well, yes, but would their legal situation (and their view by the American public) have been different, if they had been a bit more selective about what they released?

I understand, that there is a certain type of citizen (which is universal), which will view ANY exposure of wrong-doing by their government/armed forces/secret services as criminal and bad (I think these are the people who call themselves patriots most loudly), but the fact is that Manning and Snowden did spill ALL the beans, which has caused widespread damage.

To the extreme, that is like assassinating a tyrant with e.g. a massive car bomb, that kills large amounts of innocent bystanders.
Last but not least, to stay in this analogy, the whole thing has been the equivalent of a suicide bombing. Manning's life is ruined (although I hope he/she gets pardoned eventually, better sooner than later) and I cannot imagine Snowden is happy in Russia (of all places....), which is the antithesis of what he is supposedly standing for.

I would like my heroes to be a bit more selective.

[AndyH]

Klap, I spent 21 years in this environment. I tried to make as clear as I could earlier in this thread that the inspector general's office or other possible avenues open to a complaint are beholden to the same chain of command.

Hell - I can't get people to believe me here when I try to clarify things on military topics with which I'm intimately familiar - and you're one of the folks I couldn't convince even with links to declassified CIA documents that supported what I was saying!

The only way the pubic and industry would accept the truth, and the only way the politicians could be keep from sweeping things under the rug was to get the data out for full scrutiny. Otherwise the story becomes "how did that mentally unstable homo get access to classified material, anyway?" Followed by "It's ok, it's normal for people to be stuck in solitary confinement naked."

I suspect there are plenty more beans to be spilled. Considering that many of these organizations were formed by the National Security Act of 1947, even if both of them told everything they knew I doubt it would even be the tip of the iceberg. It would be a snowball on the top of the iceberg. Maybe. A very small snowball.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files

[klapauzius]

Klap, I spent 21 years in this environment. I tried to make as clear as I could earlier in this thread that the inspector general's office or other possible avenues open to a complaint are beholden to the same chain of command.

Hell - I can't get people to believe me here when I try to clarify things on military topics with which I'm intimately familiar - and you're one of the folks I couldn't convince even with links to declassified CIA documents that supported what I was saying!

The only way the public and industry would accept the truth, and the only way the politicians could be keep from sweeping things under the rug was to get the data out for full scrutiny. Otherwise the story becomes "how did that mentally unstable homo get access to classified material, anyway?" Followed by "It's ok, it's normal for people to be stuck in solitary confinement naked."

No convincing needed, as I am, in principle, not defending the current system here. I think it needs reform. On the other hand, these agencies exist for good reasons as well...To expose e.g. what looks like war crimes in Iraq, or gross (probably illegal) intrusions into protected privacy of citizens worldwide, was it really necessary to grab ALL the papers/data available and dump it on the public?

There was a lot of stuff made "public" that was damaging to US interests, which are also OUR interests (To the extent that you think of your country's government as acting on behalf of you, the voter).

[AndyH]

... To me, the justification is in the data results... have you seen the video(s) or read any of what manning or Snowden released in detail? perhaps read of what PRISM has to offer us? Or how Google and AT&T (amongst others) are only happy to help pursue this Orwellian dream for $$.
It's the new mafia and it's really big...
The mainstream media is now bought and paid for...
Cronkite is rolling in his grave...
Much of the population is afflicted with Cognitive dissonance...
(it's so horrible... it can't be true so I'll bury my head in the sand.)

Amen.

I run a TOR node and wasn't happy to learn that both NSA and GCHQ run their own nodes in order to track traffic, or that they're working 'man in the middle' attacks on the public.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... e-schneier

Today, the Guardian is reporting on how the NSA targets Tor users, along with details of how it uses centrally placed servers on the internet to attack individual computers. This builds on a Brazilian news story from last week that, in part, shows that the NSA is impersonating Google servers to users; a German story on how the NSA is hacking into smartphones; and a Guardian story from two weeks ago on how the NSA is deliberately weakening common security algorithms, protocols, and products.

TOR Stinks
http://www.theguardian.com/world/intera ... n-document

TOR Attacks
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... -anonymity

http://www.theguardian.com/world/intera ... r-document

http://www.theguardian.com/world/intera ... -anonymity