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Edward Snowden

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    Thank NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

    Our country is in the midst of a struggle between the growing surveillance state and our precious civil liberties. Now a whistleblower has boldly stepped forward to expose the National Security Agency’s vast spying on our phone records and online communications.

    Explaining his actions, the 29-year-old computer expert said: “I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

    This page is most easily shared with this address:SupportEdwardSnowden.org

    Background:

    The Guardian: NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions
    The Guardian: NSA Prism Program Taps in to User Data
    The Guardian: Edward Snowden: the Whistleblower

    snowden.jpg

    We thank Edward Snowden for his principled and courageous actions as a whistleblower, informing the public about vast surveillance by the National Security Agency that undermines our civil liberties.
  • There are problems with classifying him.

    he is a whistleblower, and in that alone, you could consider him a hero...

    but the way he did it - he's a traitor I think. I heard a CIA retiree on Fox say this guy was too young

    etc etc, to have that kind of access. Come on... he was a network system security tech. He has access

    to every freakiin thing. He and others like him RUN the security, for cryin out loud.

    In his place, if I had blockbuster information that the American People desperately needed to know

    for their safety, I would secretly arrange a meeting with a couple of Congressmen/women who I knew to

    be safe to talk to, and who would want to know said information. If it were necessary, I'd have a trusted confidant

    with a key to locating a copy of the information, in case I disappeared.

    That's a pretty crazy scenario. But, he went to the media first, and overseas? Then he announces who he is?

    That hurts our country's image, and probly bigtime hurts our security - it puts the terrorists on notice. That

    is traitorous. It wasn't for money - he was making about 120 thou or more. Seems to have a martyr complex.

    The manner in which he was a whistleblower contradicts his intentions, despite the information needing to come

    to light. IOW's, something isn't right there. He's smart enough to have done it right.

    That is assuming that he did go to a few congress members, and they laughed and said it was nonsense, saying that

    Clapper said that the gov was NOT spying on Americans on the net and phone calls. Clapper is a liar, eh?

    The liars are popping up in Obamao's regime faster than sticker weeds in the back edge of our one hay field.

    Holder, Rice, Clapper, Clinton, Obamao, Lerner, Reid, Biden, the head of the HS, and state dept and justice dept officials,

    what a national disgrace in disarray.

  • Ron Paul:

    Snowden has “done a great service for telling the truth” about the government surveillance program. “When you have a dictatorship or an authoritarian government, truth becomes treasonous and this is what they do if you are a whistle blower or you’re trying to tell the American people our country is destroying our rule of law or destroying our constitution, they turn it on and they say oh, you’re committing treason. For somebody to tell the American people the truth is a heroic effort.”

  • I wonder what Cal's reaction would be if someone else was in office.

  • Actually nothing hypocritical in there, oddly enough. The one thing he did change is warrantless wiretaps. He says "The FISA court works." And then wrote a law saying they have to use the FISA courts. No more warrantless wiretaps.

    What part of that do you think is hypocritical?

  • And skip the part about acolyte, if a Republican did it, mainstream media, blah blah...

    Just answer the question. What part of that is hypocritical? It's not like he hasn't changed positions on issues, but I'm not seeing an example of it there.

  • Now Russia set to offer whistleblower asylum: Putin 'considers' giving Edward Snowden refuge as NSA leaker vanishes in Hong Kong

    • Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant fled to Hong Kong
    • Leaked details of Prism, which he says harvests personal data from web
    • U.S. National Intelligence director says surveillance keeps America safe
    • Names Iceland as his destination of choice due to internet freedom
    • Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility
    • News has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly
    • House Speaker John Boehner called him a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk

    By IAN DRURY and JILL REILLY

    PUBLISHED: 21:38 EST, 10 June 2013 | UPDATED: 07:05 EST, 11 June 2013

    Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who leaked the secret information about a classified U.S. government surveillance program.

    'We will take action based on what actually happens. If we receive such a request, it will be considered,' said the Russian president's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    The former CIA undercover operative is on the run after checking out of his luxury Hong Kong hotel on Sunday - his whereabouts is unknown.

    article-0-1A3DAF86000005DC-172_306x423.j
    article-0-1A3BDB57000005DC-522_306x423.j

    Refuge: Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to whistleblower Edward Snowden who leaked the American government's monitoring of phone records and the web

    The news that Putin is considering offering the 29-year-old refuge has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly.

    The president is facing an increasing domestic and international backlash as his administration struggles to contain the explosive revelations. He will come face to face with Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339329/Russia-hints-Putin-grant-political-asylum-whistleblower-Edward-Snowden-NSA-leaker-vanishes-Hong-Kong.html#ixzz2VwC3n4tR

    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  • Hero? Traitor? Whistleblower? Criminal?

    What should be done with this guy?

    @heckofajobbrownie said:

    Hero? Traitor? Whistleblower? Criminal?

    What should be done with this guy?

    2&4

    WSS

  • This is your classic freedom vs security issue. You can't espouse freedom and turn a blind eye to this. You can't damn this and then say we aren't doing enough to combat terrorism. I think he did the right thing and that he will ultimately pay dearly for it.

  • Yup. He's got to prove that he uncovered something illegal though. Some sort of wrongdoing. Then he'd be covered by whistleblower statues.

    But right now, he doesn't seem to have given us anything we didn't already know was happening. He's given us something he didn't like, or didn't approve of. That's different than uncovering wrongdoing.

    His problems are going to stem from the idea that he released details of something that was legal and known to policymakers.

    Unless there's more. And there is more that the WaPo and the Guardian wouldn't print. They thought those parts should remain secret. But he's probably going to be on the hook for everything he turned over, not just the stuff we read about in the paper.

    Unless it's "wrongdoing" he's going to be screwed. Or away from that nice girlfriend for a really long time.

  • He had a government security clearance and had to sign paperwork vowing not to disclose any information either knowingly or unknowingly. He is screwed if he gets caught.

  • He had a government security clearance and had to sign paperwork vowing not to disclose any information either knowingly or unknowingly. He is screwed if he gets caught.

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    He had a government security clearance and had to sign paperwork vowing not to disclose any information either knowingly or unknowingly. He is screwed if he gets caught.

    Exactly.

    WSS

  • Ron Paul: Fear Snowden Could Be Target of Drone Assassination

    Tuesday, 11 Jun 2013 10:45 PM

    By Paul Scicchitano


    Former GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul insisted on Tuesday that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is not a traitor, but he fears the U.S. government may send drones or a cruise missile to kill the 29-year-old, who has fled the United States.

    “I don’t think for a minute that he’s a traitor,” Paul told Fox Business’ Melissa Francis.

    Urgent: Is Obama Telling the Truth on IRS, Benghazi Scandals?

    “Everybody’s worried about him and what they’re going to do, and how they’re going to convict him of treason, and how they’re going to kill him, but what about the people who destroy our Constitution?” the former Texas Republican congressman asserted. “What kind of penalty for those individuals who just take the Fourth Amendment and destroy it? What do we think about people who assassinate American citizens without trials and assume that that’s the law of the land? That’s where our problem is.”

    Paul said that “our problem isn’t with people who are trying to tell us the truth about what’s happening” as in the case of Snowden, and he fears that the U.S. government may try to kill the former contractor.

    “I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a Cruise missile or a drone missile,” Paul said. “I mean we live in a bad time where American citizens don’t even have rights and that they can be killed, but the gentleman is trying to tell the truth about what’s going on.”

    Paul added that there are no signs Snowden is trying to sell U.S. government secrets to Russia or another foreign government, otherwise he wouldn’t have made himself so vulnerable.

    “He’s not defecting, there are no signs of that happening,” Paul said. “It’s a shame that we are in an age where people who tell the truth about what the government is doing get into trouble.”

    He pointed to the case of a CIA agent who was imprisoned for acknowledging that torture takes place at Guantanamo.

    “This is not good that the American people are spied on and the secrets are kept in government,” he said. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”
  • What if.... what if indeed

  • Ron Paul is a bit of a kook.

  • If I was a bettin' man, "gas leak" = drone strike.

  • Now that he's dishing hacking secrets, which are probably some of the things he leaked to the Guardian and the Post and they refused to publish them, he's now officially not disclosing wrongdoing against Americans, or possible Constitutional violations, and just disclosing secrets.

    Even though that's hardly a secret.

  • Now Russia set to offer whistleblower asylum: Putin 'considers' giving Edward Snowden refuge as NSA leaker vanishes in Hong Kong

    • Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant fled to Hong Kong
    • Leaked details of Prism, which he says harvests personal data from web
    • U.S. National Intelligence director says surveillance keeps America safe
    • Names Iceland as his destination of choice due to internet freedom
    • Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility
    • News has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly
    • House Speaker John Boehner called him a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk

    By IAN DRURY and JILL REILLY

    PUBLISHED: 21:38 EST, 10 June 2013 | UPDATED: 07:05 EST, 11 June 2013

    Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who leaked the secret information about a classified U.S. government surveillance program.

    'We will take action based on what actually happens. If we receive such a request, it will be considered,' said the Russian president's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    The former CIA undercover operative is on the run after checking out of his luxury Hong Kong hotel on Sunday - his whereabouts is unknown.

    article-0-1A3DAF86000005DC-172_306x423.j
    article-0-1A3BDB57000005DC-522_306x423.j

    Refuge: Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to whistleblower Edward Snowden who leaked the American government's monitoring of phone records and the web

    The news that Putin is considering offering the 29-year-old refuge has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly.

    The president is facing an increasing domestic and international backlash as his administration struggles to contain the explosive revelations. He will come face to face with Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339329/Russia-hints-Putin-grant-political-asylum-whistleblower-Edward-Snowden-NSA-leaker-vanishes-Hong-Kong.html#ixzz2VwC3n4tR

    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    Now Russia set to offer whistleblower asylum: Putin 'considers' giving Edward Snowden refuge as NSA leaker vanishes in Hong Kong

    • Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant fled to Hong Kong
    • Leaked details of Prism, which he says harvests personal data from web
    • U.S. National Intelligence director says surveillance keeps America safe
    • Names Iceland as his destination of choice due to internet freedom
    • Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility
    • News has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly
    • House Speaker John Boehner called him a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk

    By IAN DRURY and JILL REILLY

    PUBLISHED: 21:38 EST, 10 June 2013 | UPDATED: 07:05 EST, 11 June 2013

    Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who leaked the secret information about a classified U.S. government surveillance program.

    'We will take action based on what actually happens. If we receive such a request, it will be considered,' said the Russian president's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    The former CIA undercover operative is on the run after checking out of his luxury Hong Kong hotel on Sunday - his whereabouts is unknown.

    article-0-1A3DAF86000005DC-172_306x423.j
    article-0-1A3BDB57000005DC-522_306x423.j

    Refuge: Russia today hinted that Vladimir Putin would grant political asylum to whistleblower Edward Snowden who leaked the American government's monitoring of phone records and the web

    The news that Putin is considering offering the 29-year-old refuge has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly.

    The president is facing an increasing domestic and international backlash as his administration struggles to contain the explosive revelations. He will come face to face with Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339329/Russia-hints-Putin-grant-political-asylum-whistleblower-Edward-Snowden-NSA-leaker-vanishes-Hong-Kong.html#ixzz2VwC3n4tR

    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    Maybe he is holding out for 70 virgins?