NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

[Universal Mind]

Edward Snowden is the National Security Agency employee who reported to the press that the NSA has been collecting electronic communications data on millions of Americans without probable cause or warrants. That is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no WARRANTS shall issue, but upon PROBABLE CAUSE, supported by Oath or affirmation, and PARTICULARLY DESCRIBING the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. That is the major key to preventing a U.S. police state. We have to have it and uphold it. I think that when the government steps over the 4th Amendment, especially on such a large scale, the government betrays the people and commits an act of treason. NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The Guardian Edward Snowden is now in hiding instead of being given the celebration he deserves. He might never come back to the country he risked his life and freedom to defend. FBI says U.S. will hold Snowden responsible for NSA leaks | Reuters When a person knows that the government is engaging in traitorous behavior, what should the person do? Is it an act of treason to report a government act of treason? The U.S. government is turning totalitarian on us. We are not far from the threshold.

[DreiHundert]

I can't call this man a traitor... The U.S. Government has betrayed its own ideals. And its citizens, for the most part, don't care. Police are getting out of hand. It goes from the local police departments all the way up to the government agencies. Data farming by NSA is only the tip of the iceberg. Look at surveillance drones, SWAT Teams, drug raids, stop-n-frisk, highway checkpoints, airport security, warrant-less wiretapping, etc etc... All examples of the U.S.A. becoming more and more of a police state. And yet we're taught in public school that we are the land of the free and have all these rights, but nobody understands them so the government will walk all over us. It's going to keep getting worse, because Americans are too ignorant to know it's wrong, and too lazy to do anything about it. Most people justify that anything that makes the police's job easier saves police lives and helps them save lives. I hate to be the one to say it, but... Firemen save lives. Policemen take lives. Sure, from time to time a cop does some good in the world, but for the most part the police spend more time harassing citizens than they do helping them. And I know, someone who read this is going to be a cop or a close friend or relative of a cop. And that someone is going to think I'm just a criminal sympathizer and an ass for saying mean things about the authorities. But honestly, just look at the facts. The relationship between the police and the general public should not be so strained. It's not just me. There are countless others who have experienced the horrors of the prison industrial complex. The least common denominator is not the 'criminals', but the policemen. So, Edward Snowden is not the traitor here. The NSA is the traitor here.

[Universal Mind]

The Edward Snowden interview video I posted seems to be coming and going. In case it gets lost again, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3...AwD1LmCmtj6k3E This is the petition for getting Edward Snowden a pardon: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...owden/Dp03vGYD I can't call this man a traitor... The U.S. Government has betrayed its own ideals. And its citizens, for the most part, don't care. Police are getting out of hand. It goes from the local police departments all the way up to the government agencies. Data farming by NSA is only the tip of the iceberg. Look at surveillance drones, SWAT Teams, drug raids, stop-n-frisk, highway checkpoints, airport security, warrant-less wiretapping, etc etc... All examples of the U.S.A. becoming more and more of a police state. And yet we're taught in public school that we are the land of the free and have all these rights, but nobody understands them so the government will walk all over us. It's going to keep getting worse, because Americans are too ignorant to know it's wrong, and too lazy to do anything about it. Most people justify that anything that makes the police's job easier saves police lives and helps them save lives. I hate to be the one to say it, but... Firemen save lives. Policemen take lives. Sure, from time to time a cop does some good in the world, but for the most part the police spend more time harassing citizens than they do helping them. And I know, someone who read this is going to be a cop or a close friend or relative of a cop. And that someone is going to think I'm just a criminal sympathizer and an ass for saying mean things about the authorities. But honestly, just look at the facts. The relationship between the police and the general public should not be so strained. It's not just me. There are countless others who have experienced the horrors of the prison industrial complex. The least common denominator is not the 'criminals', but the policemen. So, Edward Snowden is not the traitor here. The NSA is the traitor here. I agree. It has gotten outrageous at all levels. When I was a kid in the 70's and 80's, seeing a cop while on the road was a rare event. Now I can't drive a mile without seeing a cop. They are all over the place. There are some roads I can drive at night and face about a 50% chance that a cop is going to end up tailgating me. Cops tend more than ever to screw with the people they are supposed to be protecting. I am not dissing all cops. A lot of them are good. I am mainly complaining about the politicians who are behind the mass policing and encouragement to mess with random people. This country is supposed to be about the opposite of that.

[Original Poster]

I'm hard pressed to find anyone who considers him a traitor. He deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[Universal Mind]

People in high places in the government are calling him a traitor. It's interesting that they are calling him that because he revealed traitorous activity by the government. I have seen some people on forums today saying he is a traitor. Some people seem to think that it's never okay to oppose the government. It is people like that who make dictators powerful.

[Original Poster]

Yeah, there are a lot of people who have no sense of the world, it's rather frightening how deeply powerful this country's propaganda is. Some of the brightest brains in the country with some of the greatest technological knowledge will utterly blank out, with their eyes glazing over, when you ask them to explain how the twin towers collapsed. I don't know what's going on in these people's heads. All their knowledge on structural engineering, yet they can't explain it so they choose to zone out. And they're trained to zone out.

[DreiHundert]

The Edward Snowden interview video I posted seems to be coming and going. In case it gets lost again, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3...AwD1LmCmtj6k3E This is the petition for getting Edward Snowden a pardon: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...owden/Dp03vGYD I agree. It has gotten outrageous at all levels. When I was a kid in the 70's and 80's, seeing a cop while on the road was a rare event. Now I can't drive a mile without seeing a cop. They are all over the place. There are some roads I can drive at night and face about a 50% chance that a cop is going to end up tailgating me. Cops tend more than ever to screw with the people they are supposed to be protecting. I am not dissing all cops. A lot of them are good. I am mainly complaining about the politicians who are behind the mass policing and encouragement to mess with random people. This country is supposed to be about the opposite of that. I think it's like the Athenians, who thought they were the epitome of freedom and democracy, and the Romans, who thought they were the pinnacle of human advancement... Americans think they are the final incarnation of civilization, that we have finally "perfected it". But time will tell a different story. Whether or not we move forward or backward in the near future is unknown. I don't advocate a revolution in America. I think that this can still be fixed democratically, but it won't. Eventually, and probably not within my lifetime, Americans will take up arms against their own government. It remains to be seen whether or not a revolution will do the world any good. If you look at the state of affairs in the entire world -- Western civilization is highly abusive to the developing world... and capitalism is proving to be just as destructive and evil as communism. The simple fact is that human nature contains evil, and evil will manifest where power exists. As long as there continues to be a "ruling class", there will continue to be oppression. If you want my honest opinion, I think that humankind will never achieve liberty and justice for all. Never ever. We're not even close to it. Honestly it's more likely that the human race wipes itself out than achieves a perfect society

[Original Poster]

I have very strong faith that we will reform this country democratically. It appears we're seeing two different futures. I hope mine wins.

[Chimpertainment]

He is a modern patriot in my mind. Along with all the other whistle blowers that have been growing in numbers. There has been a massive campaign to blind people to the facts. The philosophy of constant growth is responsible for this in my mind. 9/11 was a perfect excuse to once again go flank speed into another arms race. Not only the US but every other nation on earth responded in a similar fashion to the "threat of terrorism". Over time, it will come out that these NSA programs are worthless as well as intrusive. Then we will see what the people will do...

[Xei]

I don't even understand what he's done wrong. How can it possibly be illegal to disclose government practices? Do people in America seriously think he's a traitor, or is it just bullshit from the press?

[DeletePlease]

A hero of the people, an enemy of the system. I don't even understand what he's done wrong. How can it possibly be illegal to disclose government practices? Do people in America seriously think he's a traitor, or is it just bullshit from the press? The Obama administration has been cracking down on whistle blowers like crazy, they're on par with terrorists as far as government officials are concerned. There's a good chance that he'll either be killed or taken in and tortured just like Bradley Manning (both options would be legal). Hopefully the public pays close attention and supports him, I feel as though that's the only way to keep the feds off his back.

[Descensus]

I don't even understand what he's done wrong. How can it possibly be illegal to disclose government practices? Do people in America seriously think he's a traitor, or is it just bullshit from the press? The leaking of classified/"privileged" information is illegal. People end up paying a fine and/or going to jail for "not more than 10 years" (Espionage Act) for each count of leaking. But usually it's just the overly nationalistic conservatives that call people like Snowden and Bradley Manning traitors.

[Xei]

He just revealed government practices, right..? Not specific details. How do Americans not even know the practices of their own government? They're not allowed to know whether the government is violating the constitution or not? Wat?

[Darkmatters]

Why would citizens know the practices of a top secret agency like the NSA? When their procedures are made public an intelligence agency loses its effectiveness. Both Manning and Snowden knew they were violating their sworn oaths to secrecy. They did it because they believed it needed to be done - they essentially martyred themselves.

[Descensus]

He just revealed government practices, right..? Not specific details. How do Americans not even know the practices of their own government? They're not allowed to know whether the government is violating the constitution or not? Wat? Information relating to whether the government is violating the Constitution would undoubtedly be classified info. A person with access to that information, who then leaks it, and is caught, would be charged with a crime under the Espionage Act.

[Darkmatters]

Here's what gets me about this - after 9-11 it was revealed that there were warning signs people felt should have been followed up on, but the government's reasoning was that there were way too many such hints and that it was too overwhelming to sort through them all and make sense of it. Now they're collecting data at an exponentially increased volume. How do they expect to be able to sort through it more effectively now?

[Universal Mind]

There is a petition to Congress that I just signed. It is getting close to 200,000 signatures. This is the letter: Dear Members of Congress, We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States. The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization. Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders. This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy. We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly: Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court; Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance; Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance. Thank you for your attention to this matter. This is where you can sign the petition: https://optin.stopwatching.us/ Please tell everybody you know about this.

[Xei]

Why would citizens know the practices of a top secret agency like the NSA? When their procedures are made public an intelligence agency loses its effectiveness. Erm... no? The NSA is an agency of the state and thus the citizens. They decide what it can and cannot do. They decide on national privacy law, on what the precise limits of government are with respects to fighting crime, and so on. This attitude that a spying agency is somehow above the law and its functions not naturally known to the public is utterly bizarre.

[Universal Mind]

This attitude that a spying agency is somehow above the law and its functions not naturally known to the public is utterly bizarre. It is insane and shockingly scary. It is completely out of the question. This is all a formula for totalitarianism, and we have to reject it with everything we have. I would rather the United States be nuked to dust than go totalitarian. It can't happen. There are zero excuses for throwing out the 4th Amendment and zero excuses for giving the government secret legislative power.

[Darkmatters]

Oh, I totally agree ^ On the one hand a secret spy organization does need to have its secrecy, but on the other hand it should be spying on suspected terrorists, not everyone who uses the internet or a cell phone. So I don't believe the CIA and FBI and NSA should publish their playbooks and broadcast their every move but they should be limited to legal and constitutional acts.

[DeletePlease]

I was just watching a segment on this on a Canadian news channel (CBC), and out of three panelists, two of them labelled him a traitor. Because he broke the law. And breaking the law is bad. Like I said, bitch-made.

[Universal Mind]

Oh, I totally agree ^ On the one hand a secret spy organization does need to have its secrecy, but on the other hand it should be spying on suspected terrorists, not everyone who uses the internet or a cell phone. So I don't believe the CIA and FBI and NSA should publish their playbooks and broadcast their every move but they should be limited to legal and constitutional acts. Yeah, I don't think we should get rid of spying, but I do think we should get rid of the secret courts and secret decisions about what policies are Constitutional. We should also get rid of all policies that violate the 4th Amendment. The government has a very long list to cover. I was just watching a segment on this on a Canadian news channel (CBC), and out of three panelists, two of them labelled him a traitor. Because he broke the law. And breaking the law is bad. Like I said, bitch-made. Those people give the government absolute power status. They think it should be illegal to report classified government activity even when the government activity is illegal. We might as well turn the United States into the Soviet Union if we are going to support that philosophy. It is the right and the duty of the people to monitor the government. I asked several people on YouTube the same question today, and they all dodged it repeatedly. I asked at what level of classified government corruption it is okay to report the corruption. An example that almost everybody would side with the whistle blower on is one in which a person has knowledge that the government is going to nuke New York. Obviously the whistle blower would not be committing treason by reporting it. So, there are examples of government corruption that would call for exposure. Flat out violating the 4th Amendment is one of them.

[Original Poster]

It has nothing to do with security. Follow the money. On a lighter note: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba0...e-announcement

[Original Poster]

Snowden did an interview: Edward Snowden Q&A: Dick Cheney traitor charge is 'the highest honor' | World news | guardian.co.uk Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it. Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school. Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope, and skill involved in future disclosures. Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an even harsher hand against me, they can be assured that they'll soon find themselves facing an equally harsh public response. This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it. I would advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs, repudiate the dangerous "State Secrets" privilege, and, upon preparing to leave office, begin a tradition for all Presidents forthwith to demonstrate their respect for the law by appointing a special investigator to review the policies of their years in office for any wrongdoing. There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

[Photolysis]

The man's a hero for bringing it to light. It's just unfortunate that the UK seems to want to emulate this model of unwarranted spying. It's also very unfortunate that most people cannot adequately assess the risks of terrorism. I've had members of my family be scared of flying over fears of plane crashes or terrorism when they're thousands of times more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the airport. Or from many other bizarre causes or accidents. This isn't to say I don't support anti-terrorism efforts, just that these efforts should be in proportion. And I feel that the current resources and abilities of the government are more than adequate. What really pisses me off with the plans to monitor the internet is that they would only catch the innocent and the clueless. I even wrote to my MP to tell him how easy it would be to evade any monitoring plans if I cared to do so. It would also be easy to hide encrypted information in steganographic images and such that it would be almost impossible to detect it was there in the first place. I'd also expect the software to do this to become even more sophisticated in order to prevent tell-tale signatures.