Is Snowden a traitor or a public servant?
- Thread starter bdsorcic
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Both he and......
Snowden and that rinky-dink private that leaked all that info are traitors in my book. They took an oath and I don't think either of them is of rank to make national decisions.
Whether anybody likes it or not, we are in a state of perpetual war with terrorists. Maybe we should have told the Germans that we were really going to invade Sicily instead of Sardinia because it's wrong to deceive people.
Snowden and that rinky-dink private that leaked all that info are traitors in my book. They took an oath and I don't think either of them is of rank to make national decisions.
Whether anybody likes it or not, we are in a state of perpetual war with terrorists. Maybe we should have told the Germans that we were really going to invade Sicily instead of Sardinia because it's wrong to deceive people.
"Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe, until a trespass on the constitutional provisions for either, shall be felt with the same keenness that resents an invasion of the dearest rights."
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
ruger-p94
Member
I am like most folks here on this....sort of either way...but he is no hero. Rights are great and should be treasured above all else but lately it seems they are being abused or being used for everything. Prisoners have rights and look what that gives them. They can find ways to get cell phones, drugs, guns, make hits, and run a business while in jail. I am a honest person and have nothing to hide from the govt and have put in my 25 years military service. I really don't care if they have to use what means to protect my safety. I feel you sometimes you have to give up some stuff for the greater good. I know the govt is not listening to what i say on the phone. They don't care if I call home and tell the wife that bread on aisle 3 at wallmart is 2 for 1. I do know that they use software for voice recognition to catch drug lords. What this bimbo snowden did was just make it a little more unsafe in this country. If he was a patriot he would have stayed in the US and could have had his day in court to bring up his case for the American people. Instead he goes to China. I guess it all boils down for me it that there are some things that should be left out of sight. I read an article about when a president takes office and gets his first intelligence briefing that the whole world is never the same for him again...and its been the same for every one of them...just check the gray hair. I think we have came a long way since 9/11 and are a lot safer because of some of these items. i will go to bed tonight but will now have to keep one eye open.
Tell me what liberty you don't have now? What is different in your life today than say 10 or 20 years ago?
I'll jump in here too.
The Government did not violate the Constitution at will, didn't watch us like the Gestapo, didn't think the President could order a citizen killed at will or intern citizens without trial, rights etc etc.
I agree 100%, but not just Boston and Newtown, but if, as we keep hearing from the NSA apologists, these programs have been in place for decades and for our own good, how about the first attack on the twin towers, Oklahoma City, and 9/11?
Sorry, but as you say, I'm unwilling to lose my liberty for some program that seems to be more effective at removing ALL vestiges of what is left of the Fourth Amendment than it is at identifying and preventing attacks.
Of course some, who have nothing to hide, seem to prefer chains v. liberty. I prefer the latter, and prefer less security if the cost is infringement of my Constitutional rights.
How do you know?
Freedom to be secure in my persons, papers, and property. (Fourth Amendment, US Constitution)
Freedom from warrantless intrusions into my home. (King v. KY)
Freedom from having my DNA recorded when I have not been convicted of a crime. (King v. MD)
Freedom from having my movements tracked via my cell phone, Onstar service, or the latest NHTSA mandate for model year 2014 cars and trucks. (NHTSA/NSA)
Freedom to open a bank account in another country without reporting it to the IRS (FATCA)
Freedom in having my life's savings secure from a Cypriot style bail in. (Dodd-Frank Title II)
Freedom to choose my own doctor or to opt not to have healthcare. (Affordable Care Act)
Freedom from having my property seized by the Federal government if they declare a national emergency for any reason. (NDRP)
Freedom from being held without Habeas Corpus rights or arrested by the military and renditioned. (NDAA Section 1021)
I won't go into the numerous tax, firearms, and property rights that the Congress, Executive, and the SCOTUS have eliminated in my lifetime, as your timeframe was the last 10-20 years, but if the list above isn't enough to convince you, then you're firmly rooted in statism and its effects. One day you may discover that though you thought that you didn't have anything to hide, you were wrong, and all of the Constitutional protections that you willingly gave up for improved "security" aren't there for you, and that you allowed it to happen.
rojodiablo
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If not the rinky-dink PFC, or the lowly contractor, then WHOM should stand up for peoples' rights?
If your wife were being attacked, and you were not there to defend her, would you be so bold as to chastise a '98lb weakling' for stepping in and getting his teeth knocked out on her behalf? I mean, he had no business trying to protect her. Her chastity and honor are not at stake for him...... he's Mr.Scrawny, and it is YOUR job to protect her.
So many ways to look at this. But look no further than the fact that those who ARE higher up, and who KNOW just how wrong they are for performing so many of these actions are way, way to cozy having this power over people, and they are not about to give up that power, and the $200,000+ paychecks they get for wielding this power.
There is no one MORE QUALIFIED to call out an illegal act by a general than the lowly Corporal who watches him commit the act. He is duty bound to step forward and risk his career to make right and whole what the general in question has perpetrated and carried out.
If it's so good and right what they are doing, then riddle my to why they would get a team of lawyers to craft requests in such a manner as to ask a secret court about secret powers, rather than going directly to a federal judge and bringing forth evidence to support their request for a WARRANT to search a person's habit/ dwelling, property, place of work, or their private correspondence.
Are you telling me that after a period of 200+ YEARS our judges are not qualified to do their job, so we need secret judges with no accountability to rule on the powers government will have over its' subjects??
So in essence what you are saying is: The employees get to spy on their employer, and can find reasons by which to prosecute their employer?? If there is one lesson you can learn from Iraq, Libya, and now Syria: The government which rules over its' people and subjects them to unjust persecutions is a government who is in need of fundamental change, of the highest order.
This IS the GREATEST nation on earth. There is NO REASON we should EVER stoop to being the USSR, Cuba, Iraq, Egypt, Romania, WWII Germany....... or ANY of the 'stan countries.
No reason what so ever.
For those who would believe that GWB was so wrong, so evil, and so at fault for all this, then I will ask you THIS: Why on earth would President Obama further and expand these programs to levels unheard of in our nation. And.......
If. IF you think President Obama and his administration are ok for doing this, because they are really putting the screws to those dreaded 'Tea Party' people.....................
Can you IMAGINE how you are going to feel when the next administration is Republican, and they start looking to get even? How you gonna like it then? Will you feel safe, knowing (Actually, NOT knowing
) just how far THEY can take this and run with it?I want a nation where NO ADMINISTRATION has this kind of access to power to abuse the citizenry with. It's not that I do not like one or the other. I want NEITHER, nor ANY party to ever have this kind of control over the people.
That is what those pesky 10 rules are all about. And that is WHY young Mr. Snowden may not be a 'hero' but he is certainly not a traitor to America. He's a traitor to the program which he recognized as violating the constitution, but not a traitor to the American people.
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
I have been watching these people on the hot seat testifing. They dont give me the warm fuzzys. I honestly belive I have worked with guards and janitors that knew more, had more inteligence and far higher morals than these lieing rats.
finesse_r
Member
Not since one of the people (the under cover policeman) involved in that conversation clearly gives permission for you to listen in. Someone wearing a wire is not even the same thing as listening in on private communications where none of the parties to the communication have given permission to listen in.
I do agree with you that stings where someone is actually encouraged to violate the law by the police, and then busted for doing so should be illegal. In my mind such "stings" are illegal (entrapment) but the courts allow them for some reason.
I think all RICO laws are illegal and unconstitutional as well, but the supreme court allows this gross violation of the constitution. Under RICO the defendants have to prove they are innocent, rather than the government having to prove they are guilty. How anyone that has ever read the US Constitution could sanction these forfeiture laws is beyond my comprehension. These laws are being so abused it is unreal since the law enforcement agency gets to keep what they confiscate, it is an easy way to supplement their budgets. This gives them a vested interest in accusing as many as possible of a RICO violation.
The federal crimes of conspiracy are also being expanded to the point if you talk to someone you can be a co-conspirator even if a crime was never committed. That is just insane. If they cannot prove someone did something they just try him or her for conspiring to do something.
The other are the civil rights prosecutions by the federal government after someone has been found innocent of a crime. The feds then do an end run around the double jeperty clause of the US Constitution by calling the murder a civil rights violation and retrying the person. Often this is done decades later and under new liberal procedures.
Don't even get me started on hate crime laws.
All these are laws just made up out of thin to advance certain political agendas or to circumvent the citizens basic rights. And the number of these kinds of laws is growing very rapidly, and each of them nibbles away at our freedom.
feralmerril
Absent Comrade
I was reminded of humphry bogart being on trial in "The Caine Mutiny" as captain queeg when I watched national inteligence director james clapper put on the hot seat.
quneur
Member
Hypothetically (big word alert), if Snowden exposed a different plan, say, BATF purposely giving firearms to Mexican drug cartels and the cartels were using them to kill border agents would you call Snowden a traitor then? You could say the cartels are more dangerous to the average American then any hidden terrorist.
The more important question is: what do you think I can get for my copy of 1984, Hardcourt Brace, book of the month club edition, printed in 1949, dust cover is average condition?
The more important question is: what do you think I can get for my copy of 1984, Hardcourt Brace, book of the month club edition, printed in 1949, dust cover is average condition?
BearBio
Member
So, by your reasoning, normal citizens shouldn't have the right to vote? That's making national decisions and also they don't have military rank.
When you stand before the Almighty, do you think he will give you a pass because you swore an oath to your fellow man?
You'll have to keep one eye open because it might be some domestic police agency overheard or was alerted to a conversation you had, or read one of your texts that you thought was perfectly innocent, but struck them as conspiratorial, or had become illegal while you were sleeping with both eyes closed, and decided that they need to bring you in for questioning.
Because you're on record as being a military veteran and owning a firearm, then the special response unit was dispatched at 3AM and broke down your door, shot your dog, and trashed your house. During the search they discovered that you had a few too many rounds of ammunition in your possession, and that you had forgotten to secure your firearm as mandated by the state when children are in the dwelling, or that your teenaged son had a gram of marijuana in his possession that you didn't know about. You're charged with violation of at least three laws and processed. During processing, your DNA is recorded. Then you go before a judge and bail is allowed-or not-and a trial date is set. You're released, but your life as you knew it is over.
Think that it can't happen? It happens every day in some locales, and by increasing the powers of the state, you all but guarantee that it will become a daily occurrence in the entire nation, and that more and more people will all of a sudden disappear in the night, never to be seen again.
This is exactly how every police state is established, through the willing participation by a populace who prefer to sleep with both eyes closed and allow the state increasing powers, rather than stand for their liberties and risk possible injury through less security.
It can happen here. It IS happening here, as we speak.
finesse_r
Member
Orwell Was a Prophet
1984 is certainly one of the great books of modern times. I first read it in 1963 when I was in high school. I have read it more than once since then. I am not a collector of rare editions, so no idea of your particular copy's value, but the book itself should be required reading for every high school student. Orwell was a true prophet and his death was very suspicious at age. If my memory still serves me he was in his early forties.
Below is a quote from an article on his works with a link to the article.
ZCommunications | From Ingsoc And Newspeak To Amcap, Amerigood, And Marketspeak by Edward Herman | ZNet Article
"(This is a chapter in a just published book, edited by Abbott Gleason, Jack Goldsmith and Martha G. Nussbaum, On Nineteen Eighty-Four: Orwell and Our Future, Princeton University Press, 2005, based on a conference on Orwell in 1999)"
"Although 1984 was a Cold War document that dramatized the threat of the Soviet enemy, and has always been used mainly to serve Cold War political ends, it also contained the germs of a powerful critique of U.S. and Western practice. Orwell himself suggested such applications in his essay on "Politics and the English Language" and even more explicitly in a neglected Preface to Animal Farm. [1] But doublespeak and thought control are far more important in the West than Orwell indicated, often in subtle forms but sometimes as crudely as in 1984, and virtually every 1984 illustration of Ingsoc, Newspeak and Doublethink have numerous counterparts in what we may call Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak. The Doublethink formulas "War Is Peace" and a "Ministry of Peace" were highlights of Newspeak. But even before Orwell published 1984, the U.S. "Department of War" had been renamed the "Department of Defense," reflecting the Amcap-Amerigood view that our military actions and war preparations are always defensive, reasonable responses to somebody else's provocations, and ultimately in the interest of peace."
1984 is certainly one of the great books of modern times. I first read it in 1963 when I was in high school. I have read it more than once since then. I am not a collector of rare editions, so no idea of your particular copy's value, but the book itself should be required reading for every high school student. Orwell was a true prophet and his death was very suspicious at age. If my memory still serves me he was in his early forties.
Below is a quote from an article on his works with a link to the article.
ZCommunications | From Ingsoc And Newspeak To Amcap, Amerigood, And Marketspeak by Edward Herman | ZNet Article
"(This is a chapter in a just published book, edited by Abbott Gleason, Jack Goldsmith and Martha G. Nussbaum, On Nineteen Eighty-Four: Orwell and Our Future, Princeton University Press, 2005, based on a conference on Orwell in 1999)"
"Although 1984 was a Cold War document that dramatized the threat of the Soviet enemy, and has always been used mainly to serve Cold War political ends, it also contained the germs of a powerful critique of U.S. and Western practice. Orwell himself suggested such applications in his essay on "Politics and the English Language" and even more explicitly in a neglected Preface to Animal Farm. [1] But doublespeak and thought control are far more important in the West than Orwell indicated, often in subtle forms but sometimes as crudely as in 1984, and virtually every 1984 illustration of Ingsoc, Newspeak and Doublethink have numerous counterparts in what we may call Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak. The Doublethink formulas "War Is Peace" and a "Ministry of Peace" were highlights of Newspeak. But even before Orwell published 1984, the U.S. "Department of War" had been renamed the "Department of Defense," reflecting the Amcap-Amerigood view that our military actions and war preparations are always defensive, reasonable responses to somebody else's provocations, and ultimately in the interest of peace."
I'll go with the way he describes himself..
'I'M NEITHER TRAITOR NOR HERO. I'M AN AMERICAN', yep, I'll go with that...
Asked about his choice of Hong Kong to leak the information, Snowden said, "People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality."
'I'M NEITHER TRAITOR NOR HERO. I'M AN AMERICAN', yep, I'll go with that...
Asked about his choice of Hong Kong to leak the information, Snowden said, "People who think I made a mistake in picking Hong Kong as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality."
Did you read the book 'Unintended Consequences' by John Ross? It's a quick little 861 page hardcover book (
) that really keeps you engaged, and details exactly what you are saying. Ross takes it another step and shows how the raids happen and how the media is twisted around. I pray it never comes to his depiction, but fear the pendulum has already begun the swing that way....
.
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