This is why theft of classified information is a crime, and why Snowden is both a spy and a traitor
Strong words, no? But I stand by them.
First, read this Vanity Fair article. I hadn’t yet read it when I wrote the first draft of this post, but it only solidifies just about everything I was already going to say.
Note, also, (although this is hardly the most important thing in the bigger picture) that Snowden recently gave an interview in which he admitted something I had surmised long ago from looking at his job timeline, which is that he got the job with Booz for the express purpose of stealing the NSA records, and for that reason only.
And I suggest you read the Vanity Fair piece by Kurt Eichenwald in its entirety.
In addition, as noted in an early post of mine on the subject, the information Glenn Greenwald published in the Guardian represented only a tiny fraction of the information Snowden actually stole. And even Greenwald himself admitted that the stuff he didn’t publish was far more sensitive than what he did, and could severely damage American security if revealed (I don’t have time to find the exact link for this right now, but I will look for it later when I have more time).
I don’t really want to leave that sort of decision (about what to make public about our intelligence operations) up to Greenwald or any other journalist, or to Snowden himself. Would you? And no, I do not trust them more than I trust the government. Not that I trust the government all that much, but I trust it much more than I trust those two. And Eichenwald’s article makes it quite clear that Snowden’s judgment on this was lousy at best—and actively hostile to US interests and security at worst. To be clear, I’m not talking about the surveillance program involving citizens of the US, I’m talking about other things Snowden revealed to our enemies.
But even if Snowden had not talked to the Chicoms and others, it hardly mattered. Because it is unlikely that the Chinese and the Russians and others would have been able to keep their hands off of everything that is on Snowden’s laptops, whether he or Greenwald liked it or not, or intended to show it to them or not.
Snowden and Greenwald are boys playing a dangerously adult game, one that could impact all of us negatively. Those who have defended Snowden from the start because they like the fact that he exposed the NSA phone logs (which, as far as I can see, we already pretty much knew about from previous whistleblowers who showed more judgment and discretion by going to Congress for their revelations) are ignoring the enormous dangers his other actions represent.
Snowden claimed, for example, to have the names of US intelligence agents around the world. Did he also reveal those to the Russians and the Chinese, whether intentionally or not? That could destroy our intelligence operations, not to mention risking the lives of those agents.
And I blame not only Snowden and his immature, grandiose, arrogant assumption that he could control what he unleashed, but the evidently lax security at the facility where he worked. A bunch of dangerous incompetents, all.
Well, this is the same kid who aspired to be Special Forces and couldn’t even make it through Basic Training. Snowden was a weak link. Apparently, the NSA has lower standards than the Army.
Add: I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this already, but does the Snowden case remind anyone else of this 80s movie?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman
Add-2: Snowden and Christopher “The Falcon” Boyce’s stories have a few strong parallels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Boyce
Bull. The NSA classified the evidence of a massive crime against the American people. Snowden took the people’s side against the government. If the two are in conflict, the people responsible for that situation in the government are guilty of treason. Snowden is a hero. Hang the responsible people at the NSA for treason.
The government is your enemy. They are not in the business of upholding and defending the Constitution. After this, it’s not our government. It’s a hostile occupying power. I obey its laws because I have no choice, not because it has anything to do with the flag I always pledged allegiance to.
I said he was a hero in the beginning & I stand by it now. Have you noticed his dad has come over to his side after his initial reaction was telling his son to turn himself in.
Brave dad as well, it may be along time before he sets eyes on him again.
The dad had a great explanation of the Governments crime against us.
*they have taken all your calls, your emails, & they can just store them away, take them out and look them over whenever they have an inkling, if they find nothing, no biggie, they can just put them back & pull them out again at some time in the future, if they think or suspect something is going on*
If that is not a description of the most egregious
violation of the 4th amendment then what really IS the Bill of Rights???? Might as well burn the whole damn Founding Documents !!!
Snowden has stood tall when it has counted the most & when much is on the line for him.
Frankly I don t care if he didn t qualify for the neighborhood cub scout troop !
A funny aside to the entire situation, I heard this:
Putin has managed to pull down Obama’s gym shorts in front of everybody !!!
Could that be why prez piqued latest remark is something to the effect * I should NOT have to call any world leader to say we want our guy*
And the MOST ironic remark *there are laws that should be followed* (was that his line from Holder???)
Further ineptitude by these Chicago thugs.
Early on when this was developing there needed to be stuff in place to pull his passport, wasn t done. The documents they gave China to arrest him had his name wrong !
As usual this band of tyrants just want to snap their fingers & get everybody else to hop to it
this shows the kind of incompetents Obama has getting 6 figure salaries ! They are very good at sending Churchill’s bust back but the chief of protocol O put in place never told him that one does not bodily touch the Queen, Michelle had her arms all over her, you need to make arrangements to see the Queen at her residence , they just dropped their suitcases & ran over to Buckingham Palace !!!!
And even the customary gift exchanges were screwed up when Cameron came to the US & they had to resort to sending someone to the WH gift shop because there was no prior realization that that is the diplomatic way things are done.
A bunch of dangerous incompetents, all.
Hear, hear. What Snowden is “exposing” (to date, anyway) is old stuff and authorized by the bipartisan Patriot Act. There are aspects of the NSA operations that need review and overhaul, so it’s good to have the national conversation, not that I expect much to come from it.
But it’s seditious for Snowden to purloin large quantities of highly sensitive data and traipse around the world with it, even if he doesn’t intend to release it. That’s true even if he doesn’t have the keys to decrypt it. (If he was a sys admin with root, one would hope that the files he had access to were encrypted and that the keys weren’t available to the admins. But, like Neo says, it’s hard to overestimate governmental incompetence.) Doing that goes far beyond the point he claims to be making.
And Chinese decryption technology may be pretty good. One wonders if they were able to image his laptops. Or if Russia has done so yet.
Snowden is a coward and a traitor. This was a premeditated attack against the American people. He has done nothing for America, only against it. You do not help your country by giving ammo to the enemy and a field day to communist journalists. He is a pathethic narssicist and is as far away from the word hero as the sunrise is to the sunset. He has neither courage nor truth in his being. Neo called this right from the beginning.
and when obama did it?
he is not a traitor in the legal sense
he is one though in the idea that people hold…
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
sorry… no act of treason here…
espionage maybe, treason no
given that russia and china are declared friends
and one by john kerry a few days ago
how is he treasonous, they are not our enemies…
see petard
buy petard and take ownership
use petard to hoist yourself up
A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications, of French origin and dating back to the sixteenth centurys
(idiomatic) To be hurt, or destroyed by one’s own plot or device, of one’s own doing which one intended for another; to be “blown up by one’s own bomb”.
in order to not be treasonous for the stuff the left does
they declared enemies friends, and so neutralized treason
the law does not say the enemy has to declare friend
so you can neutralize treason legally by such a thing
welcome to the chess game
in fact, why not read.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI
THE GRAND CHESSBOARD
[the great game continues]
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives is one of the major works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and became Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University before becoming the United States National Security Advisor from 1977 – 1981 under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
Regarding the landmass of Eurasia as the center of global power, Brzezinski sets out to formulate a Eurasian geostrategy for the United States. In particular, he writes, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger should emerge capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America’s global pre-eminence.
then you can read about russia and china and the new superweapons they are claiming to make.
interesting is that russia is envisioning drone, and robot wars where one soilder will control five others, and armies of them will march like the terminator movies… but the horror is not automated machines, its machiens backed by the ideology that invented non stop war (Trotsky).
anyone remember the origin of the word robot?
its czech for forced labor… robota
Yes, Snowden exposed classified information to our enemies. He also exposed an operation that is part of the continued violation of our constitutional rights that started quite some time in our past and continues, in an ever-expanding pattern. Federal courts have been allowing what seem to be unconstitutional practices by our Government when they at least give the appearance of providing some commonly-recognized good. I had lost sight of the fact that our government seems to be essentially reading our emails and listening to our phone conversations (at least, Obama reading our emails and listening to our phone calls is a fun concept, no?).
John Kerry urges Russian “friends” to hand over Edward Snowden
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/25/john-kerry-vladimir-putin-edward-snowden-video
if they are friends, they are not enemies
and if they are not enemies then snowden did not commit treason
funny, but i thought these idiots were lawyers?
but then again, i have explained the term cross purposes (in ways that are opposed to each other ) with soviet feminism (why not with soviet racism, and soviet treason’s)
if you make it that none of the people you send, give aid, transfer information, including the president cant make treason as the war point, then you also do it for the others. the courts are not quite kangaroo yet in their asymetrical idea of law under the equality before the law concepts that are but mere cargo cult imagry
Dmitri Rogozin, the key arms control official, announced Sunday that Russia is developing a new strategic “superweapon” to deal with its U.S. adversary
“Russia is analyzing the situation,” he said. “We are creating a weapon that could be called a superweapon. This is a weapon that will allow us to see the enemy sooner than he will see us and to inflict a blow on him, in retaliatory measures, that will be irreversible for him.” He did not elaborate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 20 also disclosed that Russia, following the Chinese military, is building state-of-the-art space weapons that would “guarantee [for] Russia the fulfillment of space defense tasks for the period until 2020.”
By contrast, the Pentagon’s new guidance on nuclear weapons issued last week appears to ignore the growing Russian strategic nuclear threat. The guidance states that although Russia is modernizing its nuclear forces, “Russia and the United States are no longer adversaries.”
if thats what the pentagon said
then snowden is not a traitor, is he?
Not only is Snowden a traitor, he is also a narcissistic, immature nerd following the latest fad on internet transparency. In Germany, there is a now disintegrating political party that calls itself the pirate party. They probably started out because they didn’t like having to pay for music and games. After winning some seats in a local election, they started arguing among themselves and lost some of their “leaders.” Few seemed to have any interest in other polotical issues such as the economy, foreign policy, or social issues.
If the beginning of wisdom is to know what you don’t know, These types haven’t even approached the starting line.
Whatever Snowden’s motivations were, the results of his going public have been good for America, as he has exposed the widespread criminal activities of the U.S. Government. Clapper should be first fired, then jailed. The NSA should not have its budget simply cut: it should be eliminated, and the folks at the NSA who authorized these activities should be put in jail.
Snowden’s right about one thing, for sure: he should be afraid for his life.
I’m in full agreement that Snowden’s exposure of domestic surveillance is, on balance a positive good. That said, I find myself in agreement with neo’s view; “I’m not talking about the surveillance program involving citizens of the US, I’m talking about other things Snowden revealed to our enemies.”
As well as Eichenwald’s point;
“I can understand that disagreement when it comes to the data-mining program that slurps up e-mail and phone data of American citizens. But what, exactly, is Snowden attempting to prove with his China revelations? That countries engage in espionage? That the United States listens in on communications of countries with which it maintains often tense and occasionally volatile relations?”
I see no positive good in Snowden’s exposure of our capabilities and actions toward any foreign power, much less the Chinese. In that regard, Snowden has acted traitorously and if not an actual spy for a foreign power is certainly acting as one.
One of the things that bothered me from the very beginning was Snowden spouting off about how free and liberal Hong Kong was. Made me think he was either a very dumb guy to not understand that the place is under China’s control or that he was sympathetic to China and simply pushing the party line.
I now lean heavily toward the second option.
Henry Bowman:
You have absolutely no idea—NONE—whether Snowden’s revelations have on the whole been good for America or very, very bad for it. That is the entire point of my post: that there is every reason to believe that the part we can see (the NSA phone-records, domestic surveillance part) is merely the tip of the iceberg that people think was a good thing to know.
It is astounding hubris if you think that’s it, and that you know whether on the balance what Snowden has done is a good thing.
Jim Bender:
And no, Snowden did not expose the NSA programs about phone records, etc. Anyone who was paying close attention should have known about it already.
As I said in this post and in others before it, other whistleblowers prior to Snowden revealed those things to Congress and to the public. People didn’t pay that much attention to them because they didn’t call attention to themselves in dramatic fashion in the way Snowden did.
Read this article about the whistleblowers. They did it the right way.
Snowden did it the wrong way. And he did a lot of other things that were the wrong things.
Maybe you don;t want to leave this up to Snowden to disclose, but do you really trut the guys who are spying on you without your knowledge.
I supported the atriot Act. I now regret that support. As Glenn Reynolds pointed out, it had more to do with getting “wish lists” passed than it did with our safety.
Don’t carry classified information on your person. It makes people more expendable.
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