Edward Snowden. Traitor or Hero?

[jbravo_123]

That's the other side of civil disobedience. If you disagree with the law, you publicly break it... and then you own up to it. Don't go running trying to avoid your punishment - it really undermines that whole principled stand thing.

[Don T. Lukbak]

Originally Posted by jbravo_123

That's the other side of civil disobedience. If you disagree with the law, you publicly break it... and then you own up to it. Don't go running trying to avoid your punishment - it really undermines that whole principled stand thing.

No it doesn't.

I believe he outed himself, then bolted not to avoid taking responsibility but to avoid getting disappeared.

Oh, but that doesn't happen in America, right? Right!

[jbravo_123]

Originally Posted by Don T. Lukbak

No it doesn't.

I believe he outed himself, then bolted not to avoid taking responsibility but to avoid getting disappeared.

Oh, but that doesn't happen in America, right? Right!

It may happen, but we'll never know since he ran. Has he also publicly made any statements to that effect? It's a pretty serious charge to level against the government without any proof...

Civil disobedience in protest of perceived unfair laws has always been about breaking the laws and showing the unfairness of the punishment for doing so.

[Dorian Gray]

I'm only going to speak about cellular services as that's what I know.

It's okay for your carrier to: Track origination/destination of calls. Store your SMS/MMS on a server. Collect data on your internet browsing & sell it to advertisers. Track you via Assisted-GPS.

Though when the gov't ask for it now it's wrong.

You sold your privacy the moment you activated that cellular account.

[jbravo_123]

Originally Posted by Dorian Gray

I'm only going to speak about cellular services as that's what I know.

It's okay for your carrier to: Track origination/destination of calls. Store your SMS/MMS on a server. Collect data on your internet browsing & sell it to advertisers. Track you via Assisted-GPS.

Though when the gov't ask for it now it's wrong.

You sold your privacy the moment you activated that cellular account.

Don't you know? In America, we love corporations because they're beautiful people like the rest of us, but we hate the government because it's scary and mean.

[blowpop]

One problem we have in the US is the insane agreements we click to acknowledge. The law allows unsophisticated, unsuspecting citizens to sign away all sorts of legal rights that they probably didn't even know they had. These sort of contracts are written by expensive, well-trained lawyers who represent one site of the transaction, while those on the other are without legal representation at all.

(I believe these sorts of contracts should be nullified upon demand, but I know that's not going to happen. Just goes to those who buy it.)

I think that's a big problem. Corporate interests have manipulated the campaign financing system to essentially let them buy legislation. None of this stuff gets fixed until we outlaw the legalized bribery that is campaign finance.

And back on topic: I think Snowden is a very brave man, and a patriot.

[BatteriesNotIncluded]

Originally Posted by jbravo_123

Don't you know? In America, we love corporations because they're beautiful people like the rest of us, but we hate the government because it's scary and mean.

Lol... Frightening but a ring of truth.

I voted "don't know yet".

Clearly he had access to Top Secret, FYEO and beyond clearances. But simply labeling information as such does not make it a legal, or more importantly, a constitutional issue.

Ultimately this is a fight between the 3 arms of the government. Personally, I feel the mass collection of phone, and potentially email data is unconstitutional. But we'll see how it plays out.

He should have hid in Iceland, not Hong Kong, which is part of frenemy #1 - china.

More importantly, what is his abandoned dancer GF in hawaii to do?

[ackvt]

Yeah, he broke no laws. BUT he might also have compromised productive efforts to protect the US from terrorists and other criminals. So I am undecided... seems like the attention should be directed towards the programs of data collection and not towards this guy, "don't kill the messenger" so to speak. Yes Dorian I agree no laws were broken, but these laws didn't exactly live in the public domain so do we really want/need a gov't to behave this way? Maybe we do, maybe we need it to be safer from our enemies both domestic and foreign. I don't know. But that's the conversation I think we should be having. "People willing to give up their freedom for security deserve neither" - I think that was John Adams but might have been a different founding father, Franklin? Anyway, who said it isn't the point, I think it's relevant to consider in light of this debate.

[Wakeup]

Who is "he"? If you think this idiot hasn't broken any laws, you're sadly misinformed...the NSA didn't break any laws by collecting this info, so he's not entitled to whistleblower protection for violating his security clearance non-disclosure agreement...

[imabout2]

Originally Posted by Wakeuр

He's not a whistle blower because no laws were broken by the NSA...

He's a criminal who violated the terms of his security clearance...simple...

I have to agree with WU on this one. The law was passed in 2001 and the phone company's were under court order to give NSA access.

[tbone77494]

I am still not sure. Need more about info. Two things about this story surprised me - hundreds of thousands of people have high level security clearance and are employed by contractors, not the government. Second, he had a smoking hot pole dancing girlfriend.

[Pistolero]

I voted not sure yet.

He has indicated that he has a list of every intelligence agent of the USA in the world. Undercover and otherwise. Along with their locations and contact info. If he does defect to a foreign country with that info, those who say he is a hero are gonna be pretty embarrassed.

[MisterMeat]

Hero, so far. Only time will tell.

[Dorian Gray]

Exactly what feat of heroism did he perform?

[LittleSpike]

We live in a g*ddamn police state, and we're voting on what color uniforms the guards should wear. We all need to wake the fuck up (but it ain't gonna happen).

LS