What is Obama's responsibility here?

[Yurt]

The source of the intelligence leaks that revealed the National Security Agency's massive domestic surveillance program last week was identified on Sunday by the Guardian and Washington Post as Edward Snowden, a soft-spoken 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of NSA defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

Snowden, a Hawaii resident who was interviewed by the U.K. newspaper in his hotel room in Hong Kong where he is hiding, said he has no regrets about going public—even if he never sees his family again.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things," Snowden said. "I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under ... 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."

NSA whistleblower revealed as Edward Snowden, 29-year-old ex-CIA employee

 

[LoneLaugher]

Stupid question.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Stupid question.

Stupid answer.

 

[Yurt]

Stupid question.

how so?

 

[whitehall]

Same as Nixon.

 

[Pete7469]

Stupid question.

Stupid answer.

Liberalism is a stupid answer, to a stupid question.

 

[Clementine]

Snowden has a lot of courage to come forth.

When the surveillance goes this far, it isn't about warding off potential threats. Think about things Obama has said and done. He had used the word "enemy" to describe those against his policies. Jarrett said there will be hell to pay for those who oppose them. Remember Attack Watch, where people reported their neighbors, co-workers, families and posters for bad mouthing Obama's policies? They want to know who is who, where we are and what we think. So many things point to Obama being eager to find out who is against him. One doesn't take such drastic steps to find out who their political enemies are without having a plan to deal with them.

History has repeated itself time and time again. Wannabe dictators need to know who their enemies are and they deal with them harshly. Dissention cannot be tolerated.

Obama needs to step up and take full responsibility for what goes on in his administration. Claiming ignorance of all that happens in his own administration is chicken shit. Is he really that clueless? If so, he should resign. On the other hand, if he knows what is going on, he needs to resign. Either way, he has shown himself to be incompetent for leading this country. A captain with integrity always goes down with the ship even if it's not his fault it's sinking. He takes responsibility for all those under him. Obama simply does not possess that kind of integrity and we all know it. He's playing dumb and still trying to point the finger at anyone other than himself.

He appointed people to certain positions and did so because he was well aware of how they would perform their jobs. There is no way he is surprised at the underhanded tactics taken against the American people. From the way they lied and shoved Obamacare through to the way he refuses to admit that most terrorist attacks have been committed by Muslims, Obama has shown he can't be trusted and isn't putting the interests of Americans on the top of his priority list.

This is far worse than Watergate. Where are the reporters who used to believe that our leaders should be held to a certain standard? Or are they too afraid to do some serious investigative reporting and put Obama on the spot? Maybe they fear having to join Snowden in hiding.

 

[Mr. H.]

And the hits just keep on coming...

 

[TemplarKormac]

Lets be reasonable though, what Snowden did also put lives in danger. I give him credit for standing up to his government, but on the other hand he committed treason, just as Julian Assange did with WikiLeaks. It is unwise to take the law into your own hands. There are less extreme ways to reveal the truth. Such as letting it come out on it's own. Someone is bound to slip somewhere, and when they do, everyone will know about it.

 

[The Rabbi]

Lets be reasonable though, what Snowden did also put lives in danger. I give him credit for standing up to his government, but on the other hand he committed treason, just as Julian Assange did with WikiLeaks. It is unwise to take the law into your own hands. There are less extreme ways to reveal the truth. Such as letting it come out on it's own. Someone is bound to slip somewhere, and when they do, everyone will know about it.

Well he didnt commit treason, which is very tightly defined. Unlike Assange I do not know of any operatives who ended up dying as a result of the leaks. We can argue whether he ought to be prosecuted or not but it is irrelevant at this point. He is out of reach, probably for the rest of his life.

 

[OKTexas]

Maobama's responsibility, just like always, he'll read a nice speech form his teleprompter. That's enough for his zombies.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Stupid question.

how so?

It’s a stupid question because the president is not responsible for prosecuting suspects accused of treason, that’s the responsibility of Justice.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Stupid question.

how so?

It’s a stupid question because the president is not responsible for prosecuting suspects accused of treason, that’s the responsibility of Justice.

This maybe a crime but it does not raise to the level of Treason. It meets none of the criteria to be so classified.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Lets be reasonable though, what Snowden did also put lives in danger. I give him credit for standing up to his government, but on the other hand he committed treason, just as Julian Assange did with WikiLeaks. It is unwise to take the law into your own hands. There are less extreme ways to reveal the truth. Such as letting it come out on it's own. Someone is bound to slip somewhere, and when they do, everyone will know about it.

No, he didn't. Snowden is and was a civilian. It remains to be seen if any documents he signed as a condition of employment are a restraint on his First Amendment rights. Assange is a citizen journalist and not an American. Bradley Manning was a soldier who betrayed his service and knew what the stakes were.. Manning is being tried under the UCMJ.

People don't seem to get that.

 

[Interpol]

It's ironic to read that the crazies who hate Obama are actually on the side of someone who would reveal secrets about our government that could put people's lives in danger.

Obama's first responsibility is to keep us safe. But the tools at his disposal were handed to him from the previous administration, and they changed the law and made it systematic from the executive branch on down.

So, the NSA and others pull shit like this, but since the laws were basically made to favor them, I'm not even sure what they did was illegal anymore.

If this is a case where a whistleblower should be afforded certain protections, than we should make the necessary changes to the law so that Snowden can be protected. Otherwise, he's made things difficult for himself, since it's the President's job to protect the American people, not anti-government loners who take the law into their own hands.

Obama calling for less government power was wise, but too bad most of the morons who hate him didn't even pay attention to that speech a couple weeks ago.

He's basically asking Rand Paul and all the rest of them to hash over what the government can and can not do, and to pass something that makes situations like these more clear. Think the Republicans will do it? Of course not, because one day they plan on taking the White House back, at which point they'll be all too happy to spy on us, too.

 

[auditor0007]

Snowden has a lot of courage to come forth.

When the surveillance goes this far, it isn't about warding off potential threats. Think about things Obama has said and done. He had used the word "enemy" to describe those against his policies. Jarrett said there will be hell to pay for those who oppose them. Remember Attack Watch, where people reported their neighbors, co-workers, families and posters for bad mouthing Obama's policies? They want to know who is who, where we are and what we think. So many things point to Obama being eager to find out who is against him. One doesn't take such drastic steps to find out who their political enemies are without having a plan to deal with them.

History has repeated itself time and time again. Wannabe dictators need to know who their enemies are and they deal with them harshly. Dissention cannot be tolerated.

Obama needs to step up and take full responsibility for what goes on in his administration. Claiming ignorance of all that happens in his own administration is chicken shit. Is he really that clueless? If so, he should resign. On the other hand, if he knows what is going on, he needs to resign. Either way, he has shown himself to be incompetent for leading this country. A captain with integrity always goes down with the ship even if it's not his fault it's sinking. He takes responsibility for all those under him. Obama simply does not possess that kind of integrity and we all know it. He's playing dumb and still trying to point the finger at anyone other than himself.

He appointed people to certain positions and did so because he was well aware of how they would perform their jobs. There is no way he is surprised at the underhanded tactics taken against the American people. From the way they lied and shoved Obamacare through to the way he refuses to admit that most terrorist attacks have been committed by Muslims, Obama has shown he can't be trusted and isn't putting the interests of Americans on the top of his priority list.

This is far worse than Watergate. Where are the reporters who used to believe that our leaders should be held to a certain standard? Or are they too afraid to do some serious investigative reporting and put Obama on the spot? Maybe they fear having to join Snowden in hiding.

When you start using words like dictator, you have lost sight of reality. Obama is gone in a little over three years, just like Bush had to go. This isn't about Obama trying to be a dictator or finding out who his enemies are.

Some of you, including Mr. Snowden are a bit naive. While our government has the ability to do things like mining data to determine who is talking to who, people tend to forget, or don't even realize it from the get go, that advances in technology are happening so fast that things can change on a dime. If it's not our government staying on top of certain things, it might just be other countries hacking into systems and causing damage to our financial and economic infrastructure. Maybe stopping a bombing attack that would kill a few hundred people isn't important. Maybe stopping someone from poisoning the water supply to a few hundred thousand people isn't important. But what about the technological infrastructure that runs our government, the stock markets, and almost everything else this country runs on? If one of our enemies found a way to disrupt all or even part of it at once, it could get very ugly for us.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Snowden has a lot of courage to come forth.

When the surveillance goes this far, it isn't about warding off potential threats. Think about things Obama has said and done. He had used the word "enemy" to describe those against his policies. Jarrett said there will be hell to pay for those who oppose them. Remember Attack Watch, where people reported their neighbors, co-workers, families and posters for bad mouthing Obama's policies? They want to know who is who, where we are and what we think. So many things point to Obama being eager to find out who is against him. One doesn't take such drastic steps to find out who their political enemies are without having a plan to deal with them.

History has repeated itself time and time again. Wannabe dictators need to know who their enemies are and they deal with them harshly. Dissention cannot be tolerated.

Obama needs to step up and take full responsibility for what goes on in his administration. Claiming ignorance of all that happens in his own administration is chicken shit. Is he really that clueless? If so, he should resign. On the other hand, if he knows what is going on, he needs to resign. Either way, he has shown himself to be incompetent for leading this country. A captain with integrity always goes down with the ship even if it's not his fault it's sinking. He takes responsibility for all those under him. Obama simply does not possess that kind of integrity and we all know it. He's playing dumb and still trying to point the finger at anyone other than himself.

He appointed people to certain positions and did so because he was well aware of how they would perform their jobs. There is no way he is surprised at the underhanded tactics taken against the American people. From the way they lied and shoved Obamacare through to the way he refuses to admit that most terrorist attacks have been committed by Muslims, Obama has shown he can't be trusted and isn't putting the interests of Americans on the top of his priority list.

This is far worse than Watergate. Where are the reporters who used to believe that our leaders should be held to a certain standard? Or are they too afraid to do some serious investigative reporting and put Obama on the spot? Maybe they fear having to join Snowden in hiding.

When you start using words like dictator, you have lost sight of reality. Obama is gone in a little over three years, just like Bush had to go. This isn't about Obama trying to be a dictator or finding out who his enemies are.

Some of you, including Mr. Snowden are a bit naive. While our government has the ability to do things like mining data to determine who is talking to who, people tend to forget, or don't even realize it from the get go, that advances in technology are happening so fast that things can change on a dime. If it's not our government staying on top of certain things, it might just be other countries hacking into systems and causing damage to our financial and economic infrastructure. Maybe stopping a bombing attack that would kill a few hundred people isn't important. Maybe stopping someone from poisoning the water supply to a few hundred thousand people isn't important. But what about the technological infrastructure that runs our government, the stock markets, and almost everything else this country runs on? If one of our enemies found a way to disrupt all or even part of it at once, it could get very ugly for us.

True.

You’ve also lost the argument.

 

[buckeye45_73]

Stupid question.

how so?

Because Lone is an Obama butt buddy. I think he's a 33rd degree anal examiner for Obama