Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations | World news | guardian.co.uk

It's probable that the government is going to go after this hero, harshly, when, in fact, they should be the ones arrested.

He is not a hero.

He is not a villain necessarily, either.

But let's not get all carried away.

The laws exist for a reason and he intentionally took it upon himself to decide what worth the law was in regard to the secret nature of this information.

It was not his call to make. Nobody elected him.

Yes, the laws exist for a reason, and the government broke them. It doesn't matter that he wasn't elected. He exposed the crimes of people who were elected. He tried to complain to the people above him, as he explains in the interview, but they wouldn't listen. So he decided that we should all decide for ourselves, and I'm glad he made that decision and admire his bravery in doing so. You can say it wasn't his decision to make, but it wasn't the U.S. government's decision to spy on every American in such a fashion, and that is what we should be worried about. The government is not going to hold itself accountable, and we can't if we don't know what they're doing.

And what evidence do you have of that?

What crimes of what people elected? Where are the court records of their trials, convictions, and penalties?

Absent any of the above, you’re in no position to claim anyone committed a ‘crime,’ and neither was Snowden.

You’re making the untenable Nixonian argument that the ends justify the means, since persons in the government are ‘committing crimes,’ it's justified for others to commit crimes to expose their ‘criminal activity.’

It doesn’t work that way.

 

[deltex1]

The way I see it the dude blew the whistle on obama. Obama is losing it on all sides...that is a good thing.....the spurs suck tonite......

 

[TemplarKormac]

How exactly has he endangered anybody?

How has he not? Revealing secrets about your government can come with a price, Kevin. You can alert other countries as to the flaws in the internal mechanisms of your government, they in turn can work ways to exploit them. This behavior only broadcasts these kinds of things to foreign governments that hate us. Whether or not we played a role in their hating us is beside the point.

"They" hate "us" for the actions of the U.S. government. You can't blame Snowden for that. Regardless, we have to be able to hold our government accountable for its illegal actions, and whistleblowers are an integral part of that process.

And you seemed not to grasp the "whether or not we played a role in them hating us is beside the point" part. We can hold our government accountable by less expositive means. We don't hold our government accountable by sabotaging it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Someone please refresh my memory. What's the big leak---people have known about this since Bush. Aren't we just revisiting an old issue ?

The technology to do this did not exist even 5 years ago, which means no one could possibly have known about it since Bush.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations | World news | guardian.co.uk

It's probable that the government is going to go after this hero, harshly, when, in fact, they should be the ones arrested.

He is not a hero.

He is not a villain necessarily, either.

But let's not get all carried away.

The laws exist for a reason and he intentionally took it upon himself to decide what worth the law was in regard to the secret nature of this information.

It was not his call to make. Nobody elected him.

Yes, the laws exist for a reason, and the government broke them. It doesn't matter that he wasn't elected. He exposed the crimes of people who were elected. He tried to complain to the people above him, as he explains in the interview, but they wouldn't listen. So he decided that we should all decide for ourselves, and I'm glad he made that decision and admire his bravery in doing so. You can say it wasn't his decision to make, but it wasn't the U.S. government's decision to spy on every American in such a fashion, and that is what we should be worried about. The government is not going to hold itself accountable, and we can't if we don't know what they're doing.

So, do we expose crime by committing a crime? Enforce the law by breaking the law? What sense is there in that?

 

[Lakhota]

If Snowden did in fact commit treason - his future ain't too bright. As a defense contractor employee, I assume he had some sort of top secret clearance - which he obviously violated.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"mind boggling in its sophistication"....



You guys crack me up.

You are cracked up because security experts find the idea that technology like this even exists mind boggling? Just a month ago an expert I pay a lot of attention to told me it was impossible to keep track of billions of data points, much less store it. Now we know that the government has backdoor access to most major internet servers, and that they routinely track billions of bits of data in the US alone.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

As much as I admire him for his actions, he should be extradited and tried for treason. Anyone who willfully endangers my country or it's men overseas is not my kind of hero.

For the first, and indeed likely the last time, we agree.

 

[TemplarKormac]

As much as I admire him for his actions, he should be extradited and tried for treason. Anyone who willfully endangers my country or it's men overseas is not my kind of hero.

For the first, and indeed likely the last time, we agree.

Don't be so certain, Clayton. You may be surprised.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.

“…alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.”

Interesting, both of whom were aggressively pilloried and demonized by the right. To be consistent, therefore, Snowden should be subject to the same treatment by conservatives, where they seek his imprisonment or death.

Or will Snowden be presented as a ‘hero’ by conservative hypocrites, more interested in using him as a political weapon against the current administration than concern over justice or privacy rights.

Knowing conservatives as we do, it will clearly be the latter.

What is really interesting is that you think the guy you quoted is on the right.

Then we have the fact that you actually think the right is happy that this was leaked even though the right has been defending Obama on this.

Perhaps you should look toward your pretend leftist roots for your reaction to this, instead of simply defending Obama.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Someone please refresh my memory. What's the big leak---people have known about this since Bush. Aren't we just revisiting an old issue ?

No. The size and scope are revelatory here.

He copied and released documents ( I assume to the guardian ). Are they available for everyone to see. I'd like to know exactly the nature of the leak.

There is this brand new invention called the Internet, and the Guardian has a a place on it called a site with a bunck of things called links with quite a few stories on it, including the one in the OP.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.

“…alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.”

Interesting, both of whom were aggressively pilloried and demonized by the right. To be consistent, therefore, Snowden should be subject to the same treatment by conservatives, where they seek his imprisonment or death.

Or will Snowden be presented as a ‘hero’ by conservative hypocrites, more interested in using him as a political weapon against the current administration than concern over justice or privacy rights.

Knowing conservatives as we do, it will clearly be the latter.

I haven't seen any conservatives calling Snowden a hero. I called him a hero, but am obviously not a conservative. So who exactly is being a hypocrite?

Anyone who doesn't worship the ground Obama walks on is a conservative to Jones.

 

[Lakhota]

After reading the following OP article once again, I've reached a conclusion - this kid doesn't seem too bright - scholastically or politically. I wonder how many more Libertarian loonies are working in sensitive positions? Scary...

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations | World news | guardian.co.uk

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"mind boggling in its sophistication"....



You guys crack me up.

Yeah? Tell me more about it.

Project Narwhal: How a top-secret Obama campaign program could change the 2012 race. - Slate Magazine

This year, however, as part of a project code-named Narwhal, Obama’s team is working to link once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign. Such information-sharing would allow the person who crafts a provocative email about contraception to send it only to women with whom canvassers have personally discussed reproductive views or whom data-mining targeters have pinpointed as likely to be friendly to Obama’s views on the issue.

I've used the program. There's nothing "mind boggling" about it. It's just a voter file linked to a volunteer/contact database.

Programs like it have existed for years. VoteBuilder has been around since 2007, and it can do everything described in your post.

You used a program that was specifically developed for the Obama campaign? When? How?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

He is not a hero.

He is not a villain necessarily, either.

But let's not get all carried away.

The laws exist for a reason and he intentionally took it upon himself to decide what worth the law was in regard to the secret nature of this information.

It was not his call to make. Nobody elected him.

Yes, the laws exist for a reason, and the government broke them. It doesn't matter that he wasn't elected. He exposed the crimes of people who were elected. He tried to complain to the people above him, as he explains in the interview, but they wouldn't listen. So he decided that we should all decide for ourselves, and I'm glad he made that decision and admire his bravery in doing so. You can say it wasn't his decision to make, but it wasn't the U.S. government's decision to spy on every American in such a fashion, and that is what we should be worried about. The government is not going to hold itself accountable, and we can't if we don't know what they're doing.

And what evidence do you have of that?

What crimes of what people elected? Where are the court records of their trials, convictions, and penalties?

Absent any of the above, you’re in no position to claim anyone committed a ‘crime,’ and neither was Snowden.

You’re making the untenable Nixonian argument that the ends justify the means, since persons in the government are ‘committing crimes,’ it's justified for others to commit crimes to expose their ‘criminal activity.’

It doesn’t work that way.

Well that's an interesting notion, that I'm taking the Nixonian position, considering I'm the one calling for government openness and accountability.

Regardless, of course the government is not going to charge itself with a crime. It has a monopoly on justice and so it can never be wrong. But yes, stealing data that it has no right to is a crime, whether they're held accountable or not.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

How has he not? Revealing secrets about your government can come with a price, Kevin. You can alert other countries as to the flaws in the internal mechanisms of your government, they in turn can work ways to exploit them. This behavior only broadcasts these kinds of things to foreign governments that hate us. Whether or not we played a role in their hating us is beside the point.

"They" hate "us" for the actions of the U.S. government. You can't blame Snowden for that. Regardless, we have to be able to hold our government accountable for its illegal actions, and whistleblowers are an integral part of that process.

And you seemed not to grasp the "whether or not we played a role in them hating us is beside the point" part. We can hold our government accountable by less expositive means. We don't hold our government accountable by sabotaging it.

Yes, and how do you propose that happen in this case, absent Snowden? Nobody knew it was going on, so how can anybody hold them accountable for it? Not to mention how, if you watch the interview, he mentions that he tried to go through official channels with his concerns, and was repeatedly rebuffed. Without whistleblowers we don't even know that these things are taking place, and are thus unable to hold anybody accountable for them.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't need to read the article. I've used the damn program.

They've combined their databases. There's nothing revolutionary or sophisticated about that, it's just a matter of automating processes that we used to do ourselves - i.e. looking up a donor in the voter file, and noting the donation.

OK I wont confuse you with the facts anymore.

when you start using them, im sure we will be peeing our pants

Interesting.

You have no problem with a board member claiming he used a program that was specifically designed for Obama's reelection campaign, then you complain about someone else not being factual.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

He is not a hero.

He is not a villain necessarily, either.

But let's not get all carried away.

The laws exist for a reason and he intentionally took it upon himself to decide what worth the law was in regard to the secret nature of this information.

It was not his call to make. Nobody elected him.

Yes, the laws exist for a reason, and the government broke them. It doesn't matter that he wasn't elected. He exposed the crimes of people who were elected. He tried to complain to the people above him, as he explains in the interview, but they wouldn't listen. So he decided that we should all decide for ourselves, and I'm glad he made that decision and admire his bravery in doing so. You can say it wasn't his decision to make, but it wasn't the U.S. government's decision to spy on every American in such a fashion, and that is what we should be worried about. The government is not going to hold itself accountable, and we can't if we don't know what they're doing.

So, do we expose crime by committing a crime? Enforce the law by breaking the law? What sense is there in that?

Whistleblowing is not a crime.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

How about PRISM? Have you had a chance to play around with that yet ?

No. I'm a political consultant, not a spy.

Yet you are so stupid you think that Obama used an old, off the shelf, program to coordinate his reelection campaign, even though he hobnobs with people who created Google and Flipboard, and collects millions of dollars from them.

No wonder you spend so much time posting on message boards.

 

[Plasmaball]

Yeah? Tell me more about it.

Project Narwhal: How a top-secret Obama campaign program could change the 2012 race. - Slate Magazine

I've used the program. There's nothing "mind boggling" about it. It's just a voter file linked to a volunteer/contact database.

Programs like it have existed for years. VoteBuilder has been around since 2007, and it can do everything described in your post.

You used a program that was specifically developed for the Obama campaign? When? How?

thats not what he said shitstain. Seriously why do you need to make up things in order to post?