Umm, what? Whence do you draw that inference? Members of Congress have been aware of this all along – possibly not all of them, but inside the capitol, this has been no secret. Some of them have not been happy about it, but they take their oaths seriously and would probably be in for a buttload of hurt if they publicized classified info.
OK, so is everything sanctioned by the intelligence services necessarily worthy of the secrecy it demands?
Considering an oath to be something sacred and unbreakable is dark-age thinking, bordering on the woo-woo.
Not everything that is classified deserves respect. I expect my politicians to take a measured view of when to break an oath and ditto for members of the any organisation. If they see a great injustice or immoral, unethical activity then it is their duty as a citizen to spill the beans. That duty far outweighs any supposed loyalty to a set of words.
It is up to them to weigh the potential harm of exposing it (to them and to others) against the harm of the continued activity.
Gonna have to go with ‘other’ here.
If Snowden was serious about making a courageous stand against The Man, he should have stayed and faced trial. It would have received all the media coverage he might want, and would still likely spark the ‘conversation’ on surveillance programs that he claims to want. Of course, he would probably also be sent to prison. As other posters have pointed out, that’s generally what happens to people who reveal stuff like that.
If he was serious about revealing the information and having a discussion about it, he should have leaked it anonymously. Then, the conversation would have been about the programs that were revealed (by an unknown source, granted, but one vouched for by some major journalistic entities), instead of about him, personally. Of course, he wouldn’t be a quasi-celebrity if he did that.
That he did neither of these means he’s either attention-seeking, or just dumb. Either way, I don’t see much to discuss about him, personally.
Cite?
Most of which can be done already with a warrant, and whose NSA equivalent needs to be done with a warrant as well. The metadata they collected is not at all similar to your analogy, and must be done in a broad way to weed out suspect behavior.
AFAIK, nothing he has released has been unknown to congress. The programs are routinely scrutinized by all branches of government, and were authorized by congress.
Right, that an arm of the government is spying on people and the like. Please tell me why if those ideals are so important to him, he would travel to China and Russia? Two places where the government routinely does those things with no oversight or concern.
What bullshit. If he truly thinks he is a whistle blower, he would have stayed around to face the music.
He is one enemy. The government, by and large, is made up of people of various political and philosophical stripes mostly trying to do their best to, in the NSA at least, keep us safe. I am sure individuals and maybe even agencies overstep, but there are clear procedures, protocols, and checks and balances to catch such things. Very little good comes from allowing any random ill-informed employee to substitute their own judgement of propriety and secrecy for what congress and several other branches of the government have decided.
Why?
If he considers he wouldn’t get a fair trial then the logical thing is to keep out of the reach of the USA.
How does being willing to face the music have any bearing on his ability as a whistleblower?
There are numerous protections for whistle blowers in terms of law and public support. He will have access to some of the best representation, and the public spotlight on any trial to ensure scrutiny. Could he still gets screwed? Yes, but a true whistle blower in his position would get a far fairer trial than most. Either way, going to China and Russia is bullshit.
Yea, the “true whistle blowers stand trial” thing seems pretty arbitrary. I don’t see any advantage to him sticking around to stand trial for a crime he’s clearly guilty of by his own admission. “Fair trial” doesn’t really enter into it, it seems pretty clear a fair trial would find him guilty.
Because he doesn’t want to stand trial? Seems pretty straightforward to me. I’ve traveled to oppressive countries before, and I believe in open gov’t as well. Merely traveling to a foreign country is not an endorsement of that countries views on human rights. Especially when the alternative to going to those countries is likely a lengthy jail sentence.
An oath is a verbal contract, a promise to uphold and abide by a set of values/laws. It is not really woo as such, any more than signing an agreement and being held to it. I am not sure what the legislative oath is, I suspect it has something to do with defending the constitution, like the president’s.
Which, of course, could place one in a difficult spot. If you disagree with the congressional majority about the constitutional muster per classified materials, you are kind of stuck keeping your mouth shut. If you spill info, you will almost certainly be expelled from the capitol and possibly face prosecution. So you shut up, or maybe allude to the situation, because being shoved to the side leaves you with zero leverage.
Personally, I find it difficult to accept that the government should be allowed to arbitrarily classify any piece of information, at all. As it is, they should cease claiming to be a democratic republic and hang up the plutocracy shingle in the interest of full disclosure. At the very least, there ought to be an indeoendent oversight body to assess the classification of secrets and place far more information into the reach of the FOIA.
Don’t know if this has been mentioned but: He got his job EXPLICITLY to leak this info.
FTR, he’s a traitor and lethal injection is too good for him!
Nothing really. He gave some details but nobody who’s awake is surprised to learn the NSA has been spying on Americans.
Heck, the Nixon administration got caught doing it back in 1972 and was told to stop by the courts. And it was already a decades old practice. But periodically every few years since, the government gets caught still doing it.
Eh, I think that still understates how not-surprising this is. Unlike Nixon’s hijinks, the current program is legal, and its legal because the gov’t asked Congress to pass a law allowing them to do it just four years ago.
Asking for a law to authorize a program isn’t exactly the same thing as announcing that your going to undertake said program, but its pretty close.
So its not unsurprising because the gov’t often gets caught doing stuff like this, or because spying on Americans just seems like the kind of the the NSA would do. Its unsurprising because this is something they’ve publicly asked to be able to do, and were publicly told they could
ETA: I think that like Manning and Assange before him, that’s way so much of the reporting has focused on the personalities behind the leak and not on the actual content. There just isn’t just that much there there.
remind me again…what were we saying about a fair trial?
I didn’t say he shouldn’t have a fair trial! :rolleyes: BUT, once he’s convicted (nobody in this, or any thread, has said he’s innocent), he needs to pay for his betrayal to his country!
so you’d kill him?
If he doesn’t return do you think the secret services would be justified in snatching him or killing him?
There’s discussion of Snowden here, here, here and here. And there’s been further discussion of the NSA and security issues in other threads. Except for all those it’s been real quiet. The truth here is that Snowden isn’t the most interesting or important part of this story, and the focus on him is kind of unfortunate because it’s a distraction.
NB-I wouldn’t go all Commando secret OPs on him. I would wait him out.
Yes, I searched the board for related threads and noticed that most were short-lived and all of them died out several days before my OP here, and days before Snowden slipped past the US extradition demand to Hong Kong and flew to Moscow. That’s what I thought was curious.
True. The real story is his hot girlfriend.