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  • #46
    Re: Snowden/NSA

    Originally posted by Kalalau View Post
    Snowden is asking Russia for asylum. I think that says something. Even though Russia has advanced tremendously since the days of Stalin it remains infinitely less free than the US even with gvt monitoring here. Daniel Ellsberg did not petition Communist China or North Vietnam for asylum after leaking the Pentagon Papers, he accepted his punishment, so did Dr. Martin Luther King and many other real heros. Blame? Snowden, of course, but also the US gvt for going off on this insane contracting thing, "oh private industry can always do it better and cheaper" and who needs background checks anyway, we can save money and cut taxes etc. How would Snowden have played back in the cold war days? Could he just be too young and too uneducated to know what real tyranny looks like?
    Daniel Ellsberg has defended Edward Snowden's decision to flee and said "The country I stayed in was a different America".

    Snowden has no reasonable expectation to be treated fairly in the United States. James Clapper has yet to be indicted for perjury, which indicates this is not about breaking the color of law, it's about a political agenda. Bradley Manning was badly mistreated and placed in solitary confinement.

    That said, I for one surely wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in Russia.

    Originally posted by Kalalau View Post
    The reporter who Snowden leaked to, I believe named Greenwald, says Snowden has material that if released would be the US ultimate nightmare. Wow, the mind boggles. What could it be? Is Obama really a Kenyan Muslim socialist? Is it the cover of agents around the world? The location of secretly placed doomsday bombs around the world? He said the US should be on its knees praying that nothing happens to Snowden because if he dies that material gets released. Wow. Of course it could be empty hot air too. But I am curious as heck.
    As much as I am in favor of Snowden and Greenwald, I really can't take this claim too seriously. I can't see them holding something like this in reserve unless it's something between countries (i.e. the USA spying on another country, something of that nature). If it had something to do with human rights violations against the American people, it would have been already published. I heard the excuse that they want to create a "narrative" by gradually disclosing information, but I'm just not buying it. The first thing that comes to mind is when Wikileaks or another whistleblower agency said they had all these damning documents from the big banks, but I don't think we ever got to see those.

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    • #47
      Re: Snowden/NSA

      Originally posted by Vanguard View Post
      Daniel Ellsberg has defended Edward Snowden's decision to flee and said "The country I stayed in was a different America".
      Interesting remarks from Ellsberg, including this:
      But Snowden’s contribution to the noble cause of restoring the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution is in his documents. It depends in no way on his reputation or estimates of his character or motives — still less, on his presence in a courtroom arguing the current charges, or his living the rest of his life in prison. Nothing worthwhile would be served, in my opinion, by Snowden voluntarily surrendering to U.S. authorities given the current state of the law.
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...0_story_1.html
      Greg

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      • #48
        Re: Snowden/NSA

        Head of the NSA says it is already harder to counter terrorists because of Snowden's leaks. Of course thats what you'd expect him to say but that doesn't change the fact that he is probably right. Snowden had ideals. So did the people who gave A Bomb & H Bomb secrets to Stalin and that didn't help the US either. Ideals don't operate in a vacuum. Hitler had his own ideals too. Some secrets do need to be kept. It is that kind of world.

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        • #49
          Re: Snowden/NSA

          Originally posted by Kalalau View Post
          Head of the NSA says it is already harder to counter terrorists because of Snowden's leaks. Of course thats what you'd expect him to say but that doesn't change the fact that he is probably right. Snowden had ideals. So did the people who gave A Bomb & H Bomb secrets to Stalin and that didn't help the US either. Ideals don't operate in a vacuum. Hitler had his own ideals too. Some secrets do need to be kept. It is that kind of world.
          History has shown us that some of the most corrupt and oppressive political leaders have used the tactic of fear mongering to gain power and get people to wilingly cede their rights and liberties away.

          Kalalau, it's up to you how you want to live your life. For me and others, it's takes more than some vague claims about counter terrorism efforts from NSA and the Obama administration in order to convince us that an unlimited spying program not subject to transpancy is necessary to our national security.

          Already, Congress is seriously talking about legislation to place limits and institute a system of checks-and-balances on govt. spying to decrease the chance of someone abusing that power. You can thank one Edward Snowden for that.
          This post may contain an opinion that may conflict with your opinion. Do not take it personal. Polite discussion of difference of opinion is welcome.

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          • #50
            Re: Snowden/NSA

            It is a difficult call and I am not comfortable with it. We do not like being spied upon, its against everything the country says it stands for. And yet...if what the gvt says is true and they are not actually monitoring actual speech, just keying in on phrases or certain phone numbers, and if that can prevent another 3000 from being murdered, or prevent a nerve gas attack or an atomic attack, whatever...it does have appeal. Has the gvt ever lied? I couldn't begin to count!

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            • #51
              Re: Snowden/NSA

              Jimmy Carter Defends Edward Snowden, Says NSA Spying Has Compromised Nation's Democracy

              "America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time," Carter said

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              • #52
                Re: Snowden/NSA

                Not a functioning democracy since the crooked judges on the sup ct gave the 2000 election to Bush and we all know how that turned out and continues to turn out, and they top it off with Citizens United letting the rich buy whatever results they want. Even that isn't good enough, now Republican legislatures are doing all they can to block non whites from voting. Oh, and overthrowing the Voting Rights Act, too.
                Last edited by Kalalau; July 20, 2013, 02:49 AM.

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                • #53
                  Re: Snowden/NSA

                  Originally posted by Kalalau View Post
                  Not a functioning democracy since the crooked judges on the sup ct gave the 2000 election to Bush and we all know how that turned out and continues to turn out, and they top it off with Citizens United letting the rich buy whatever results they want. Even that isn't good enough, now Republican legislatures are doing all they can to block non whites from voting. Oh, and overthrowing the Voting Rights Act, too.
                  Don't forget Kelo v. City of New London.

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                  • #54
                    Hanabusa sucks, badly!

                    HANABUSA IS A TRAITOR TO THIS COUNTRY: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3648737.html

                    No matter what her reasoning or excuse, this traitor (AND ALL THAT VOTED NO) should never be allowed in any politics again and if recall is an option it should be used NOW.

                    In case you didn't notice, our country is now a dead man walking. In my lifetime I've watched our country with real hope and chance to be the great country it professes to be go belly up with a fork sticking out of it's bloated gut. The sooner it completely burns and goes under the waves with all aboard, the better. This show is over, thank god I have no kids!
                    https://www.facebook.com/Bobby-Ingan...5875444640256/

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                    • #55
                      Re: Snowden/NSA

                      The Obama admin. is purging the positive term whistleblower from Snowden (which he is) and associating him as an illegal leaker (which he is not) in every way possible along with the media condemming him constantly, making it impossible for him to get a fair trial should he ever be in a courtroom for his day of absolute injustice. But it's comforting to hear DOJ head Holder assure Russia that Snowden won't be killed or tortured if he's extradited to the US for trial, he'll just be railroaded to prison forever and greatly mistreated until he soon dies of 'natural causes', an 'accident', or assault.
                      https://www.facebook.com/Bobby-Ingan...5875444640256/

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                      • #56
                        Re: Snowden/NSA

                        Originally posted by Ron Whitfield View Post
                        But it's comforting to hear DOJ head Holder assure Russia that Snowden won't be killed or tortured if he's extradited to the US for trial, he'll just be railroaded to prison forever and greatly mistreated until he soon dies of 'natural causes', an 'accident', or assault.
                        Yeah, exactly. When I heard that statement this AM, I LOL'd.
                        flickr

                        An email from God:
                        To: People of Earth
                        From: God
                        Date: 9/04/2007
                        Subject: stop

                        knock it off, all of you

                        seriously, what the hell


                        --
                        God

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                        • #57
                          Re: Snowden/NSA

                          Originally posted by Ron Whitfield View Post
                          The Obama admin. is purging the positive term whistleblower from Snowden (which he is) and associating him as an illegal leaker (which he is not) in every way possible along with the media condemming him constantly, making it impossible for him to get a fair trial should he ever be in a courtroom for his day of absolute injustice.
                          "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X
                          Last edited by Vanguard; July 27, 2013, 05:33 PM.

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                          • #58
                            Re: Snowden/NSA

                            XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

                            • XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data
                            • NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
                            • Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
                            • NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations

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                            • #59
                              Re: Snowden/NSA

                              Snowden has now been granted asylum in Russia for 1 year and he can apply for citizenship after a while. Ignorant Snowden haters giggle questions of why he's there if he's such a patriot and why he just won't give himself up and face... drum roll, please... justice.
                              Maybe for the same reason his detractors won't do us all a big favor and put a bullet in their heads.

                              Some interesting bits I noticed on google today;
                              http://www.columbiatribune.com/opini...04b9f6eda.html

                              http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread961968/pg3

                              http://www.tennessean.com/viewart/20...-chase-Snowden

                              From Edward Snowden's father; http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread961968/pg3

                              Dear Mr. President:
                              You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
                              Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”
                              Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders. A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.
                              Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.
                              We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.
                              From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done!
                              The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today.
                              Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated:
                              The Fourth Amendment states: “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.”
                              These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.
                              We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible.
                              We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward.
                              On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence.
                              We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act.
                              Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a“traitor.”
                              Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
                              You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?”
                              We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.”
                              In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour.
                              Sincerely,
                              Bruce Fein
                              Counsel for Lon Snowden
                              Lon Snowden

                              Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc.
                              722 12th Street, N.W., 4th Floor
                              Washington, D.C. 20005
                              Phone: 703-963-4968
                              bruce@thelichfieldgroup.com
                              https://www.facebook.com/Bobby-Ingan...5875444640256/

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                              • #60
                                Re: Snowden/NSA

                                I wonder how the Soviet Union's...oops, Russia's adoption of anti gay laws and roughing up gays in public is going down with the idealistic Mr. Snowden. The US is not ideal, it is not in an ideal place, but at least it is moving in the right direction, away from the violence and authoritarianism of the Dark Ages, as the rest of western society is, while Russia embraces it, and always has, except for a few brief years after Communism took hold and it actually put Marxist ideals of sexual freedom into practice. It was Stalin, with his peasant background, who brought the dictatorship of the proletariat against free sexual expression. Not saying that Mr. Snowden is gay, it wouldn't make any difference if he were, or were not, but as a committed idealist brutalizing harmless minorities really ought to make him think some.

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