Is Snowden a traitor or a public servant?

[midkansmithfan]

arjay and dswancutt,
Basically I'm saying I believe in the US Constitution, separation of powers and that we are a nation of law. Further I believe it to be the responsibility of the US Congress to reign in the Executive branch
and it is up to SCOTUS to hold up their actions to the Constitution.
Finally, I am grateful for this thread and the people involved because
I'm forced to examine my values, one of which is a unshakable belief
in the Second Amendment.

 

[Straightshooter2]

If Feinstein is calling him a traitor, then he must be because she is certainly correct about everything she says. </sarcasm> Yes, I think he should just blindly have gone about his job like a good little drone and not worried about what Big Brother was watching or listening to.

Seriously on a side note, Amazon says sales of 1984 have increased 3100%.

CW

 

[S&W45Colt]

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.


George Orwell

 

[PALADIN85020]

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.


George Orwell

Orwell was a prophet, and his visions are coming to pass as we speak... Do we have the guts and ability to put the brakes on all of this? Or do we just acquiesce and bleat?

I think Teddy Roosevelt said it best:

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."

John

 

[Biginge]

I'm already on thin ice till November. You all handle this one. I'm on the sidelines.

 

[therevjay]

The land of the free and the home of the brave, well at least we are still the home of the brave.

Well maybe, it's scarey how many Americans say they are willing to give up some of their rights (i.e. more gun control laws) in order to" feel safe."

 

[ChuckS1]

Now the terrorists, I'm sure have been well aware of this for years.

Which is why Bin Laden was using a courier instead of e-mail or cell phones.

Given what the IRS has done, there's no question that the politicians and political appointees in the Government can't be trusted to do the right thing. I'm not surprised that he revealed the details of the program and I'm not sure what I think at this point. From what I've read, he just revealed the scope of the collection effort, but I don't think it wasn't already something we didn't all suspect. And, if I recall, the collection was of metadata about the calls, not the content. So for those of you who don't understand the difference, it means the collection was data about your calls, not the call itself. So basically it means number called, locations of the caller and person called, duration, time of day, etc. couple that metadata with some really good data mining software, and that's a powerful analysis tool. Too geeky, I know. Scary what the Govt can gather, even scarier what they could do with it. At least we know the Govt is watching us; now we can fix it.

 

[Mike7.62]

Mike7.62,
Comparing the US Congress to the Nazi parliament seems a bit strange to me.
National Security is neither a veil nor an umbrella but a solid wall against enemies foreign AND domestic.
Yes, I'm sure the former Soviet Union, present day Russia and China
despise the NSA but not out of jealousy.

Why is it strange to you? Most of them are power hungry narcissists who have sociopathic tendencies or they wouldn't be seeking the offices that they hold. I give you McCain, Graham, Reid, Feinstein, Pelosi, and a few hundred others as examples. They have and do pass legislation that contravenes the US Constitution and evades the clear meaning of the law, and benefits those who give them the most in campaign contributions and perks. Look at just a few of the laws that they have passed in the last dozen years as prime examples: the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the NDRP, TARP, Dodd-Frank, the Bankruptcy "Reform" Act of 2005. If you don't see the increasing encroachment of government on the liberty of those whom they are supposed to serve, then you are either blind or complicit.

And yes, the Chinese and Russians and former SovBloc are and were jealous of the powers that the NSA have, because it makes controlling the internal population much easier. External threats are there, but not to the extent that the government makes out, and most definitely not to the extent that civil liberties must be abrogated in order to "defend" against an external threat. Once we give up those, we will be the former Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

 

[Mike7.62]

Orwell was a prophet, and his visions are coming to pass as we speak... Do we have the guts and ability to put the brakes on all of this? Or do we just acquiesce and bleat?

I think Teddy Roosevelt said it best:

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."

John

Would that he had said "stand by the Constitution", because without the rights codified in that document, the country is just a collection of territories with a population.

 

[Badquaker]

I hate to even think this.... but could this be a false flag event?

It has drawn attention away from all the other events. hmmmmm.

 

[fshfindr]

He is a traitor, he should live a long life behind bars.

 

[venomballistics]

I hate to even think this.... but could this be a false flag event?

It has drawn attention away from all the other events. hmmmmm.

could be ... toss another scandal on the grill to take your eyes off the previous .. oh I lost count ...

 

[keith44spl]

.

I hate to even think this.... but could this be a false flag event?

It has drawn attention away from all the other events. hmmmmm.

.
The ol 'Red Herring', a favorite among the power brokers along the Potomac River and all point of the compass.


It's not about those in office, that are to be protected........

But, those powers that put the candidates in office....

That surely wants the protection from scandal.


Nixon knew Felt's role..........Mark Felt knew all the 'Rest of the Story' and held close his hole cards.


Snowden may know more...Maybe not. Who knows?


.

 

[Mike7.62]

I hate to even think this.... but could this be a false flag event?

It has drawn attention away from all the other events. hmmmmm.

I don't think so. Look at the revelations of Binney and Wiebe, one of whom was a top cryptographer for NSA, and what is going on in Bluffdale, UT. Literally spooky stuff.

 

[Mike7.62]

He is a traitor, he should live a long life behind bars.

Does he fit this description?

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."

Did he do that? I don't believe so. He wasn't feeding intel to AQ or the Tangos, or the Syrians, or anyone else except to the American people because of abuses of power he observed within an agency purportedly defending our rights under the constitution.

 

[Kanewpadle]

History will measure a man's character by his actions or inaction's. Some men are leaders and some are followers. And I fear that some men will follow straight to hell without ever giving it much thought.

A decent man will set a code to live by and follow it till he dies. But before he dies he will lead by example. He will always do what he thinks is right and true. And before he dies he will be satisfied in knowing that he lived a good life. That he loved his family and his country.

Such men are too few.

And such a man would never stand idly by while wrong was being done no matter what oath or promises he made. Because he swore to that oath or promise with good intentions and expected that oath to apply to ALL and was for the welfare of ALL. Not just a chosen few.

 

[moosedog]

This government is out of control. Period.

 

[Cal44]

I have a friend who was born in Germany about 80 years ago.

He was in his teens at the end of the war.

He came from a prominent, well educated German family. His father was an engineer, and he was in training in electrical engineering himself. He went on to run a large US subsidiary of a major German company after the war and became a US citizen.

Anyway, he had some comments on the frequently heard debate about what German people knew about what Hitler's government was doing.

He said, many of the educated people either new or suspected what was going on.

But, if you raised the question or discussed the subject of government abuses, you stood a good chance of being arrested.

If you even mentioned what was happening to Jews and others who opposed the government while riding a bus or subway, and anyone overheard, there was a good chance the SS would show up and take you away.

People who were taken were often never heard from again. Their families and friends didn't know if they were shot, put in a concentration camps, used a slave labor on a factory, or burned in an oven.

And if a family member tried to find out, they disappeared also.

It goes without saying that there were no reporters writing about things Hitler didn't want written about.

If there was a Snowden back then he would have been gone within hours -- along with all the people he talked to and probably his family also.

So it's easy for us to make statements about what we as "good men" would do to oppose a tyrannical government.

But, my friend says, we have no idea what it's really like to live in a real police state.

Dave

 

[Kanewpadle]

I have a friend who was born in Germany about 80 years ago.

He was in his teens at the end of the war.

He came from a prominent, well educated German family. His father was an engineer, and he was in training in electrical engineering himself. He went on to run a large US subsidiary of a major German company after the war and became a US citizen.

Anyway, he had some comments on the frequently heard debate about what German people knew about what Hitler's government was doing.

He said, many of the educated people either new or suspected what was going on.

But, if you raised the question or discussed the subject of government abuses, you stood a good chance of being arrested.

If you even mentioned what was happening to Jews and others who opposed the government while riding a bus or subway, and anyone overheard, there was a good chance the SS would show up and take you away.

People who were taken were often never heard from again. Their families and friends didn't know if they were shot, put in a concentration camps, used a slave labor on a factory, or burned in an oven.

And if a family member tried to find out, they disappeared also.

It goes without saying that there were no reporters writing about things Hitler didn't want written about.

If there was a Snowden back then he would have been gone within hours -- along with all the people he talked to and probably his family also.

So it's easy for us to make statements about what we as "good men" would do to oppose a tyrannical government.

But, my friend says, we have no idea what it's really like to live in a real police state.

Dave

That's my point. We need good men to stand up BEFORE we become a police state!

 

[desi2358]

Did he supply our enemies in other countries with vital data or did he just let us know how far our own government trusts us....I think it is all too clear that the feds view "us" as the real enemy and don't really care about foreign enemy's ...things are a real mess right now and the feds are determined to make them even worse