Edward Snowden

I think he's a space alien fully intent on seizing global power for his alien brethren. Serially though, he definitely is a traitor in the sense that he betrayed the American government, and that is why they view him as such. Some agree with the government and state that his actions were traitorous, and they think all instances of treason should be punishable. But place yourself in his position for a few seconds. On the one hand you've got your allegiance to uphold the confidentiality of the classified material you are dealing with, and on the other hand you've got the fact that the US government is violating the rights of the citizenry.

Let's say for argument's sake that you are a die-hard American patriot. What do you do? Does it make sense that you would support the government's position when they are undermining what that very government is supposed to be about? Would it not be more patriotic to give your allegiance to the true form that the government is supposed to have, one where it upholds the rights of its citizenry?

a reply to: Yeahkeepwatchingme

you don't know how right you are
PRISM surveillance
Katy Perry PRISM (prison)


..and one of these cud-chewers fine upstanding folks was saying something about
if it weren't for snowden we'd never know

..some folks don't seem to fathom what's happening these days

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
Q: Would I have had confirmation that the NSA was/is spying on American and god-knows which other citizens without Edward Snowden risking his life to tell the world?

A: No.

Therefore he is a champion in my eyes.

To what end? Just curious because as far as I can tell, they're still doing it. Maybe he was just an ad-hok "Public Announcement". I mean, most people are used to it by now, if not down right in agreement. Now, they can set the goal post a little further......

Snowden has held two jobs on his resume - CIA operative and then for Booz, Allen, Hamilton - a defense contractor based in Virginia. The CIA often uses businesses as fronts and moves their agents into the "private sector" through those fronts.

The information Snowden "leaked" was already suspected or known by anyone interested in the subject and no major revelations came from him. What he did accomplish was to put this information on the front page for awhile. While this seems to be a positive and selfless act the fact of the matter is that the information going mainstream did little, if anything, to stem the tide of domestic spying. All it really accomplished was taking the "taboo" away by tabling the issue.

Snowden, and the discourse that followed, enured America to domestic spying. The cat was let out of the bag, America petted it for a minute and then moved on with domestic spying being accepted as the new normal.

IMHO Snowden never left the CIA payroll and he played his part to a "T" in the psyop described above.

a reply to: Hefficide

I'm not saying you're wrong...as I said, I'm a layperson. Most information I have regarding the subject is from this and one other site that is known for fairly reputable, if biased, reporting.

But the US government were pretty active in downplaying everything, no? I mean they had their buddies in the news networks telling everyone that it was "just metadata" (at least until this little incident) and they had talking heads saying "think of the troops!" just like when Assange did his thing. Next they were calling him a defector to the Russians or the Chinese, nothing further seems to have come of that, at least no sign of Snowden waving to spy satellites from the roof of a new highrise Moscow penthouse. I've seen nothing but angry, deflective behavior all around.

While the apathy of the public is very real and the baffling popularity of Facebook and Twitter continue to make the point rather blurred, it does seem that a lot of government people were pretty upset by the fact that someone blew the whistle on their super neato terrorism prevention system.
I don't know. The US govenment has had fantastic success over the last 70 years with just denying the existence of stuff they don't want to talk about. Compartmentalization makes this tactic a virtually impenetrable wall.

And a rumor about a super computer system that's reading every email and recording every phone call is nothing but a rumor, spread by whackos. Revealing that it actually exists and is actively spying on US citizens, without legal justification, is potentially actionable. IF someone with the means actually grows a pair and didn't sign the goddamned thing into existence in the first place.

a reply to: UNIT76

Snowden is just being used as a tool. Nobody's waking up. Facebook, iPhones are still used. There's really no impact except people seeing his face everywhere.

I don't need a tool to tell me what's in the toolbox. It's a show.