Edward Snowden, Hero or Traitor?

[rvg]

Nope, the Norwegian army starts calling off exercises when money is tight. Happened the year before my service, actually.

So, what's the benefit of having an army that is not ready to fight?

[HoreTore]

So, what's the benefit of having an army that is not ready to fight?

There's no benefit of having an army that is ready to fight.

There's fewer negatives of having an army that's not ready to fight. They'll be less able to kill people, for starters.

[rvg]

There's no benefit of having an army that is ready to fight.

There's fewer negatives of having an army that's not ready to fight. They'll be less able to kill people, for starters.

So, why resort to sabotage? If you're that committed to Norway without an army, won't it make more sense to start a political movement to promote those goals?

[HoreTore]

So, why resort to sabotage? If you're that committed to Norway without an army, won't it make more sense to start a political movement to promote those goals?

I'm already a part of that.

In the meantime, I have no qualms about screwing around. If I can make life just a little bit more miserable for just one soldier, I feel I've done a good job.

[rvg]

I'm already a part of that.

In the meantime, I have no qualms about screwing around. If I can make life just a little bit more miserable for just one soldier, I feel I've done a good job.

Won't that discredit your movement? If just one incident like that becomes public, the public opinion will likely turn away from your movement, killing any chance of you ever accomplishing your main goal.

[HoreTore]

Won't that discredit your movement? If just one incident like that becomes public, the public opinion will likely turn away from your movement, killing any chance of you ever accomplishing your main goal.

You're not familiar with the whole conscription-concept, are you?

I'm a soldier. That should give a clue as to what the average Norwegian soldier thinks of his service.

[rvg]

You're not familiar with the whole conscription-concept, are you?

I understand the basic principle. If your main problem is with conscription, won't it be easier to push for changing the conscription law instead? I can't imagine conscription being very popular.

[HoreTore]

Why do you think Norway can do without an army, HoreTore? Do you believe you will never again have to defend yourselves, or are you just being politically nihilistic? Its one thing to hate on a subversive military industrial complex, but quite another to hate on the concept of a military at all. At the very least you need a self-defense force.

Why I think Norway can do without an army?

Because I see 35 billion better ways of spending the 35 billion NOK spent on the army.

[HoreTore]

So why in the world would you hate on the common soldier if you're problem is with the budget? You should be writing letters, or harassing politicians at the very worst.

I have no problem with either junkies or social welfare recipients, but I do object when they take pride in their commitment not to contribute to society.

[Tellos Athenaios]

As for Snowden & the "coming to get him" angle, well, erhm Bradley Manning & wikileaks did happen. So why, exactly, would you expect him to reason otherwise? Particularly: if he is right on the money he has significant more insight into the inner workings of the "spooks" than Manning ever had so would be correspondingly more important to "bring in". I might well be wrong, but as far as I am aware "coming to get me" is where he stopped, he didn't actually cross into all out paranoia just yet. As for Snowden and being narcissist, well I am not a psychologist but as I understand it narcissism is a different from "gives one interview in which he answers some personal questions from a journalist and vanishes". Unless this is supposed to be an elaborate hoax. In any case he planned the thing carefully enough to minimise impact and avoid his persona being dragged into the matter. He didn't do the whole drama queen act Assange did, for example.

As for the "could he be genuine", why not? Major Robert Dump and Gelatinous Cube can regale us with plenty of tales in which ordinary servicemen had access to all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to, or did things outside of established security protocol for their operation. Misconfigured and insecure IT systems are not an exception but the default; heck nuns breach the physical security barriers of nuclear facility with absurd ease. An IT guy earning approximately 200K pa, tasked with systems administration (monitoring the systems and keeping the whole thing running) is indeed relatively well positioned to know where the internal holes are (it was his job to identify and fix them), what is going on (it was his job to know what the system was doing and configure it), and has the abilities to analyse the results (has access to the system as part of the job in order to be able to test whether stuff works). You don't even need to be in the thick of the action, if you're active on the periphery, on the systems that the NSA uses to manage the logins of its employees for example you already have a good overview of the capabilities of NSA employees because you manage the access controls for that.

As for why the admin thinks this PRISM thing is legal: well, it is legal in terms of US law. You voted in and approved of the PATRIOT act via Congress. Twice. Remember? You let it happen, and this is one of the fruits of those labours. (The Gitmo debacle being another. The let's use drones to "assasinate American Citizens because the Prez says so" thing is another.) Or as the Daily Show put it (from memory): “the worrying thing, Mr Obama, is not that you did something illegal. It's the fact you didn't have to.”

As for why other countries are outraged. Well the moral component, but in the case of the EU also international treaties which quite clearly were broken/signed in bad faith. For example the US-EU safe harbor provisions, which is the escape hatch for US to continue to do business post PATRIOT act in the EU.

Why do you think Norway can do without an army, HoreTore? Do you believe you will never again have to defend yourselves, or are you just being politically nihilistic? Its one thing to hate on a subversive military industrial complex, but quite another to hate on the concept of a military at all. At the very least you need a self-defense force.

Possibly because armies everywhere exemplify a kind of fetish for authority and power (and power play) which breeds this kind of stuff. This is merely a technological wet dream of the kind of authoritarianism that would otherwise find itself in its natural habitat of the military.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

As for Snowden & the "coming to get him" angle, well, erhm Bradley Manning & wikileaks did happen. So why, exactly, would you expect him to reason otherwise? Particularly: if he is right on the money he has significant more insight into the inner workings of the "spooks" than Manning ever had so would be correspondingly more important to "bring in". I might well be wrong, but as far as I am aware "coming to get me" is where he stopped, he didn't actually cross into all out paranoia just yet.

Greenwald: "Have you given thought to what it is that the US government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?"

Snowden: "Yeah, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road and the consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

[Tellos Athenaios]

Greenwald: "Have you given thought to what it is that the US government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?"

Snowden: "Yeah, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road and the consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

And on the other hand he agrees to appear in plain view, on camera, without any particular security theatre that we know of (contrast: Wikileaks). On balance the above snippet strikes me as entertaining the line of thought, rather than genuine paranoia.

I guess I definitely don't qualify as a psychologist; I simply fail to see all these mental disorders everywhere around me.

[Ronin]

if he signed some sort of agreement stating he would not divulge secrets he came into contact with, which I assume he did, then he is a traitor.

having said that, the information he divulged isn´t that surprising or shocking, in the current digital era, this sort of thing can easily be done....so it will be done.

[PanzerJaeger]

[OT]I'm not sure what you guys think the value is in a pretend-nation like Norway maintaining a standing military. If any GDP is to be spent on defense, it should be put toward a nuclear weapons program and call it good. There are only maybe ten nations on earth with the GDP to support a military that can have a materially significant impact on their national security and/or interests abroad. Now, if the fabled Euroarmee ever becomes anything more than a pipe dream, there may be some utility in a nation such as Norway participating in a pooling of resources. As of now, the US is glad to welcome such nations under the umbrella regardless of military prowess/contribution.

[Empire*Of*Media]

of course hero! Like Julian Asange! standing against a powerful worldwide imperialism is heroic! but still, many many many more is to be revealed of USA secrets! this secrets that he revealed was not that much!
This Superclass or called the ELITE will not let their good top secrets be revealed!!

[HoreTore]

Anna Chapman has asked Snowden to marry her.

The guy is definitely the winner. You all lost.

[Strike For The South]

Arabs exploded out of the peninsula and swept away 600 years of Eastern Christendom.

How is that not colonization?

Do they need sailing ships?

[Husar]

Anna Chapman has asked Snowden to marry her.

The guy is definitely the winner. You all lost.

Like I said, dumb move not to stay in Russia.

Excuse me while I try to get some secret government documents....

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Apparently so: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...-marry-me.html

So - Traitor, and now international laughing stock.