Edward Snowden, Hero or Traitor?

[Strike For The South]

At least the diplomatic cables raised people's opinion of your diplomats.
It is also a catalyst in the Arab Spring be that good or bad.

I'm more concerned with a drone kill list then what Manning did.

Dear God are we still on the diplomatic cables?

What do you think goes on in every other capital?

The America has us under our thumb circlejerk is the most painful thing to listen to. If your country is part of NATO or ANZUS, they are complicit in this.

[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.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Dear God are we still on the diplomatic cables?

I want this to become an injoke whenever we talk about intelligence leaks.

"Let me talk to you about these cables."

[Papewaio]

Dear God are we still on the diplomatic cables?

What do you think goes on in every other capital?

The America has us under our thumb circlejerk is the most painful thing to listen to. If your country is part of NATO or ANZUS, they are complicit in this.

I've already mentioned the five eyes agreements.

The potential arrangement is that all parties only spy on foreigners unless a person has triggered a deeper inspection. The thing is each country then shares the data sets. So whilst your country doesn't spy on you regularly, the other ones do and then can legally share your information back to your government.

So all the countries of the alliance can legally spy on each others citizens and then report back to their voters that they only spy on foreigners. They then legally share all data and then legally have data on their citizens.

[Major Robert Dump]

I think I might have gone to North Korea instead, were I in his shoes, because its cheaper to feed your dates

[Fisherking]

I've already mentioned the five eyes agreements.

The potential arrangement is that all parties only spy on foreigners unless a person has triggered a deeper inspection. The thing is each country then shares the data sets. So whilst your country doesn't spy on you regularly, the other ones do and then can legally share your information back to your government.

So all the countries of the alliance can legally spy on each others citizens and then report back to their voters that they only spy on foreigners. They then legally share all data and then legally have data on their citizens.

That is exactly how it worked up until the Patriot Act, in the US.

Then they decided they could also gather data on their own citizens.

The last few NDAAs have only made it worse.

A lot of people (Democrats) were upset when Bush did it, and they should have been, but let it drop when their guy came in office. A lot of Republicans thought it was ok under Bush but upset now that Obama has expanded it, and yes he has greatly expanded it.

It is something everyone should be upset about no matter who is in office.

Congress thinks they are safe as they think provisions keep people from spying on them, but they are only fooling themselves. When everything and everyone is being watched they will not escape.

The program Obama spoke to my only be gathering the data he said but there are other programs gathering more.

None of the recent whistle blowers have divulged actual classified information, yet the government has gone to great lengths to silence them.

The new NSA facility being built in Utah is for more than storing your phone records and face book posts.

[CrossLOPER]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22952011

I would rather my son be a prisoner in the US than a free man in a country that [does] not have the kind of freedoms that we have”

I find this statement puzzling.

[HopAlongBunny]

Further to what Papewaio noted.
Each member of the "5 eyes alliance" regularly shares information with members; while the US may not directly violate "privacy rights" of US citizens, Canada might. Anything of interest will be shared 'cause we're buddies :)
Assuming the same apparatus in each country, privacy of on-line communications, is pretty much meaningless.
Of course, such terribly secure stuff never gets left/lost on a table in the House of Commons, a coffee shop or even a friends kitchen table :p

[Shaka_Khan]

I think I might have gone to North Korea instead, were I in his shoes, because its cheaper to feed your dates

http://images.search.yahoo.com/searc...00&fr2=piv-web

[Husar]

Oh, sorry I missed this post. I honestly don't know what to say to US Allies who are irked by this Prism thing. It is an obvious breach of international protocol, but it goes both ways. We're spied on all the time. I have an ideological beef with spying period, but I'm far more concerned about my government spying on me than I am about it spying on you. The obvious answer would be to complain to your leaders, because sometimes it feels like international pressure is the only thing that can get our leadership to do the right thing, but then again it's never really been tried.

Well, since I posted that a lot has changed. Not only has Putin said it's okay, Obama has also visited Germany (which was apparently not even known to most Americans) and talked to Merkel about it, who wanted to get answers from him about the US spying on Germans. Several things happened during this visit which I shall just recall from memory:

- The head of our police union said the German police needs a program just like prism to fight crime effectively, opposing it would just be naive.
- The BND, our CIA-equivalent got/released a lot of funding to create a very similar program for itself
- Obama explained that Prism has so far helped to stop about 50 terror attacks in the western world
- Obama said they wouldn't really spy on proper Western Europeans either
- Obama and Merkel both said there's not much to worry about
- Merkel said the internet is "new territory" for all of us
- Internetians hate on the government and make fun of Merkel's statement, at best it's called "unfortunate"

Now what is my position? What I said above still holds true to an extent, although I won't create a militia. But I think what bugs me more is that this is done in complete secrecy and now that it's out they say it's no big deal. I can recognize two opposing positions:
1. not all citizens should be regarded as criminals and spied upon
2. the Internet can not be a law-free room for eternity as much as some "netizens" want it to be
So the question is how much control should the government have and how can it be properly implemented with the correct oversight?
I'm a bit lazy to find my own answer until someone puts me in a committee to implement it to be honest but in general a middle ground has to be found. I guess I agree with Putin that it's kinda okay if it's only done based on court orders. A 360° look at all communication would even go against the "Fernmeldegeheimnis" (roughly: long range transmission secret) as embedded in our constitution that forbids stuff like opening letters, recording phone calls and otherwise spying on the communication between citizens. edit: scratch that, it doesn't apply to laws that are required to save our democracy, which arguably applies here if they want to look for terrorists.

I remember when our current minister for defense was minister of the interior and some data storage measures were demanded by several parties he said that it's not even be proven to help and shouldn't be implemented. At the moment he's criticized for wasting 300 million on a drone program he suppedly closed too late. Not only a pitiful sum for a military program, he also inherited it and as such didn't even spend the entire 300 million AFAIK. But yeah, have to find some dirt on a good minister who was plucked into the wrong area anyway...

Oh and for the internet being new territory, I wholeheartedly agree. Internet hipsters may find it laughable because they've used the internet for 10 or 20 years and know how to write a blog and how to be arrogant about it but it's essentially true. Not only do humans and societies take much longer than 20 years to truly grasp and incorporate a new technology, you can also look at the amount of fraud, naivety on the internet, zombie networks and what that clearly show that very large parts of humanity are nowhere near a level of expertise regarding the internet as they ideally should be. And then you can't educate everyone to become an IT security expert either while the IT security experts all seem to fight uphill battles against the criminals. Not to forget the security failures of Sony and others who got hacked despite having a lot of "experts" around. So yeah, like it or not, but the internet is very new territory for humanity.

And as such I also like this leak because we can now have this debate in the first place.

[Strike For The South]

I really fail to see how this is such a big deal.

It is literally the least shocking thing in a history of overblown things. It should come as no surprise that governments around the world, who have the means, are tracking the biggest communication medium in the history of time. As per usual the law of the land hasn't fully caught up yet so the government exploits various loopholes and grey areas.

I don't particularity what they are doing but such is the nature of power, I suppose.

I will get a hearty laugh when a terrorist attacks are starbucks or the Chinese begin to rapidly overtake us. The same people howling now will be the same people howling then.

The real story here is the naked populism

And for the record, Snowden is neither a hero nor a traitor. He's delusional.

[Greyblades]

...How is he delusional again?

[Strike For The South]

...How is he delusional again?

Thinking he stumbled upon something. Is it really surprising to anyone that states and governments are tracking vast amounts of communications and transactions? Large swathes of law from time immemorial are dedicated to stop them from doing this. The law, unfortunately moves fairly slow. I see populism masked by feigned indignation.

People are hating on him and calling him delusional because the easiest way to dismiss the threat of total government domination of your privacy is by attacking the messenger. Its easier than accepting that your government hates your freedom.

LOL

[Tellos Athenaios]

Thinking he stumbled upon something. Is it really surprising to anyone that states and governments are tracking vast amounts of communications and transactions? Large swathes of law from time immemorial are dedicated to stop them from doing this. The law, unfortunately moves fairly slow. I see populism masked by feigned indignation.

He didn't "stumble on something", at least not by his own account. He sat on the info and mulled his options for quite a while, then reached the decision to go public. I still fail to see how that labels him delusional. Secondly as to whether or not this news is in fact, surprising and newsworthy: IMHO the answer is yes. Not because some shady government wiretapping is going on, but because of how much is going on; additionally he has disclosed quite a few specifics which most definitely were not public knowledge.

So it passes the acid test for news on a few fronts. First of all information which was previously something of a open secret among insiders under NDA is now public knowledge. Secondly this information is of public interest, to the US public because of implications regarding their civil liberties (which they seem to have been content to ignore wholesale, but that's for the US public to decide itself) and to the wider world (being on the "receiving" end of the programme). The alleged hacking into Chinese university computers and telcos by the NSA, the breach of quite a number of international treaties and protocol, the criteria for targeting subjects, etc. are definitely of public interest on the receiving side. And finally there's a few debates to be had about the role and scope of the power of government, as per usual, this tendency towards surveillance states. For example: any moral objection to the PATRIOT act was suddenly validated as practical concern grounded in reality. Or as the Daily Show put it: Good News: You're Not Paranoid, which should give some clue as to how this alters the debate. This is not limited to the USA, but then again the USA is not exempt either.

So tell me again why such "news" is not worthy of publication?

[Papewaio]

The difference is between hypothesis and proof.

One is for consipracy theorists the other for indignant voters.

[Strike For The South]

He didn't "stumble on something", at least not by his own account. He sat on the info and mulled his options for quite a while, then reached the decision to go public. I still fail to see how that labels him delusional. Secondly as to whether or not this news is in fact, surprising and newsworthy: IMHO the answer is yes. Not because some shady government wiretapping is going on, but because of how much is going on; additionally he has disclosed quite a few specifics which most definitely were not public knowledge.

There is a lot of information. It stands to reason that there would be fingers in the pie. He is deluded because he thinks he's some sort of martyr for freedom. He was a low level cog whom got his hands on some low level bullet points and it's blowing up because people are being told that they are being "watched"

So it passes the acid test for news on a few fronts. First of all information which was previously something of a open secret among insiders under NDA is now public knowledge. Secondly this information is of public interest, to the US public because of implications regarding their civil liberties (which they seem to have been content to ignore wholesale, but that's for the US public to decide itself) and to the wider world (being on the "receiving" end of the programme). The alleged hacking into Chinese university computers and telcos by the NSA, the breach of quite a number of international treaties and protocol, the criteria for targeting subjects, etc. are definitely of public interest on the receiving side. And finally there's a few debates to be had about the role and scope of the power of government, as per usual, this tendency towards surveillance states. For example: any moral objection to the PATRIOT act was suddenly validated as practical concern grounded in reality. Or as the Daily Show put it: Good News: You're Not Paranoid, which should give some clue as to how this alters the debate. This is not limited to the USA, but then again the USA is not exempt either.

So tell me again why such "news" is not worthy of publication?

It's certainly more newsworthy than the average story that's churned out, don't be so melodramtic.

It's well established that other western countries have similar programs and it's well established that the Chinese hack out computers. Turnabout is fairplay.

[Strike For The South]

Please point to where I was "cool" with this.

This is the nature of states, This is the nature of power. This is the response to an asymmetric threat that we clamored for.

Please define "enlightened political self interest" I will accept "bullshit I heard on the radio"

[Greyblades]

There is a lot of information. It stands to reason that there would be fingers in the pie. He is deluded because he thinks he's some sort of martyr for freedom.

And where does he say he thinks that?

[a completely inoffensive name]

And where does he say he thinks that?

To be fair I am pretty sure Sasaki made a post somewhere mocking how he portrays the CIA down the road getting prep'd Jason Borne style.

[Ironside]

There is a lot of information. It stands to reason that there would be fingers in the pie. He is deluded because he thinks he's some sort of martyr for freedom. He was a low level cog whom got his hands on some low level bullet points and it's blowing up because people are being told that they are being "watched"

It's certainly enough for the US to charge him with 3 felonies and up to 30 years in prison and demanding his extraction.

It's well established that other western countries have similar programs and it's well established that the Chinese hack out computers. Turnabout is fairplay.

Those programs are quite a bit more restrictive and more heavily regulated even on the spying abroad part. Yours is of a "we gather everything and sort it out later"-type and while China probably has the same type, they are also known to be a dictorship.

[Fisherking]

I would not say he is delusional. There is a war on whistle blowers. If apprehended he could look forward to a very long time in prison. He can’t come home but he seems to be doing a lot to keep from becoming a martyr.

What he did was break a security agreement and release classified documents. But the agreement basically required him to be silent to illegal activities by the government, which is about the same as following an illegal order. It makes you guilty as well.

The fact that NSA was monitoring Americans illegally was already known but without the document he released on Vorizion no one had standing to take action in court.

This is the real damage done. It gives us a means to attempt to put an end to it.

I am not encouraged to know that we have secret courts overseeing our secret programs, particularly when they are clearly violate the constitution.

Saying Congress was briefed is a large disappointment. It just means they are also involved in the whole mess. All three branches seem fine in ignoring constitutional protections but would rather that we don’t know. They are all to blame.

Will anything come of it? I doubt it.

But remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qptZOMEwFXM

[drone]

He's delusional, because he had no idea what he was getting into. If he was a true whistleblower, he would have remained in the US, stood up for what he thought was right, and taken his lumps. Instead he ran off, placed himself under the control of a foreign power, and promtply spilled the beans on a bunch of other stuff that isn't targeting US citizens. Did he think the Chinese or Russians would protect him just out of the goodness of their hearts? Everywhere he goes, he will have to pay for asylum with info.

He'll be on the run for a while, but eventually he'll get nabbed. And at this point, I have zero sympathy for him.

[Husar]

He's delusional, because he had no idea what he was getting into. If he was a true whistleblower, he would have remained in the US, stood up for what he thought was right, and taken his lumps. Instead he ran off, placed himself under the control of a foreign power, and promtply spilled the beans on a bunch of other stuff that isn't targeting US citizens. Did he think the Chinese or Russians would protect him just out of the goodness of their hearts? Everywhere he goes, he will have to pay for asylum with info.

He'll be on the run for a while, but eventually he'll get nabbed. And at this point, I have zero sympathy for him.

What? You mean to be a true whistleblower and get your sympathies he should face his inevitable death penalty in home sweet home?
I'd rather make a deal with Putin than get sentenced to death in the US. And to say he didn't know what he was getting into is weird given that he made his way to safety in time. I guess quite a few countries would gladly host him even without any info just so the US won't get him. At worst Russia might exchange him for a KGB whistleblower who ran to the US. Of course if such an exchange happened, the US would send just as strong a message to whistleblowers from their enemies...

[drone]

He wouldn't have gotten the death penalty for the original leak. There was a pretty good chance his punishment would be fairly minimal, considering the publicity and nature of what he put out. Civil disobedience tends to lead to prison, that's part of the process. If he was a patriotic whistleblower worried about the rights of US citizens being violated, why spout on about hacked Chinese universities or the G8 thing, he's compromised and who knows what else he has given up. Now he's just a spy on the run and when he's caught he's going to get the hammer, the sooner the better. Staying in the US would have been a much better choice, the feds don't even have to prep a smear campaign, he's done it for them.

The number of countries that will host him for free is very small. The heat is not worth it, and it appears he wasn't specifically working for any one particular service, so no one owes him anything.

[drone]

Who are you to judge? The guy's a hero in my book, if for no other reason than that we now have a concrete problem to point to. I'm sure the next whistleblower will alert us to something even more unsettling than a domestic intelligence-gathering program worth more than the GDP of many Countries.

Well, the title of the thread asks us to judge (poll lacks Gah! option). He started out as a "whistleblower", although I was sceptical when he showed up in Hong Kong. Now he's just a rat spilling his guts for any chance to escape. The very definition of "compromised".

[drone]

When somebody comes up to you and tells you that the tires on your car are flat, do you call them a liar and kick them in the nuts? Or do you say thank you? The idea that submitting to a life as a political prisoner is what he is supposed to do is mind-boggling. Political prisoners in this country don't ever get out. They are ignored.

Your analogy is lacking. After he told you your tires were flat, he preceded to tell your boss you are a drunkard, and tell your wife about your mistress.

I go on about the abuses of the government a lot here, so I'm glad the issue is at least being discussed. But Snowden went about it in the absolute worst way, and has since shown that he either has no principles at all, or is completely naive. I'm beginning to wonder why he even bothered at all.

[Greyblades]

He's delusional, because he had no idea what he was getting into. If he was a true whistleblower, he would have remained in the US, stood up for what he thought was right, and taken his lumps. Instead he ran off, placed himself under the control of a foreign power, and promtply spilled the beans on a bunch of other stuff that isn't targeting US citizens. Did he think the Chinese or Russians would protect him just out of the goodness of their hearts? Everywhere he goes, he will have to pay for asylum with info.

He'll be on the run for a while, but eventually he'll get nabbed. And at this point, I have zero sympathy for him.

...Dude, that doesnt make him delusional, at best that makes him short sighted and maybe cowardly, which doesnt really discredit what he has done.

[Fisherking]

And why is that hard to understand?

When the people who are supposed to be carrying out the law are criminals working against your interest what makes it so wrong to share what they are doing with a rival gang?

Is that some how making it worse? Is it hard to understand the feeling of betrayal. We don’t know what he has seen and not shared with the public. Or what has not been reported.

People should be upset with the government yet this seem a matter of trying to kill the messenger.

[Xiahou]

Anyone remember this from Obama's campaign platform?

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

Since he's been in office he's busied himself cracking down on them.

I don't think Snowden is a hero. But I don't think he is a traitor either. My personal, unfounded opinion is that he started out as a well-meaning whistleblower who quickly found himself a pawn in International power plays that are beyond his understanding. I think he's just completely in over his head and has been so since the beginning.