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He participated in the illegal activity of monitoring the communications of millions of innocent Americans without due cause or warrant. He knew if he simply complained to is superiors (which he probably should have done), he would have been dismissed prosecuted if he spoke and he knew that the press/world would go nuts over the then unknown classified program.
That is what Kurt Vonnegut would have called a Catch-22
Naw, it's pretty cut and dry my friend. I see what you're saying, but I have plenty of buddies that could've tapped their spouses' phones while we were deployed to make sure they weren't cheating. Why didn't they? Illegal.
That's why certain things aren't admissible in court, depending on how they were obtained. Snowden doesn't get an excuse because we get annual training on this stuff, just so people can't claim they "didn't know" or whatever other reason they can come up with. Go through the proper channels; if you don't, then you're screwed. Easy as that. Manning was a so-called whistleblower, and look at him. Or her.
Regardless of what somebody signs they have an obligation to uphold the constitution and expose governments illegal activities.
That is quite true, the problem with Snowden is that there was absolutely no attempt on his part to vet that which he considered to be against the law and the whole sale dumping of classified information which was well within the scope of the Constitution. What state department officials said in there communication has no bearing on the rights of American citizens. Snowden had every right to report abuses, what Snowden didn't have a right to do was to steal thousands of pages of secured documents dump them on a table and tell foreign journalist "have fun."
I don't have a problem with Snowden the "whistle blower" but does whistle blowing include revealing such state secrets as the allegation that the U.S. spies on Israel? How is that whistle blowing that protects American liberties?
The USA spies on Israel? So what. We have caught them repeatedly spying on us and selling our secrets.
I agree tho. There is whistle blowing and then there is Snowden.
If the whole Snowden episode happened on Bush's watch our so called"Liberal" members would have him on the dollar bill. Since he exposed the current Administration, they want to reopen Gitmo just for him
He participated in the illegal activity of monitoring the communications of millions of innocent Americans without due cause or warrant. He knew if he simply complained to is superiors (which he probably should have done), he would have been dismissed prosecuted if he spoke and he knew that the press/world would go nuts over the then unknown classified program.
That is what Kurt Vonnegut would have called a Catch-22
Uh, no.
Snowden was a contract computer janitor. He didn't participate in the of monitoring anything. He kept computers running - that's it. And what he leaked was about five percent of the program - probably all he could see - which was just enough to make people think the government was illegally monitoring their communications.
What he didn't bother to leak (perhaps because in his position he wouldn't have known how they work) were any of the safeguards that were in place that prevent the government from monitoring the communications of USPers.
And then he fled to Russia where he bought safe haven with details of our intelligence capabilities.
If you think that the US was monitoring your communications, you have to explain how that could happen given that metadata only consists of digits and punctuation marks. Not letters, digits. 0 through 9. Can't even store the letters in your name.
*...Sigh...* But if he's your hero, good for you. Get out your checkbook. Your hero cost the US taxpayers about $6 billion (according to Mike Hayden).
Just because he disagreed with it and even disgusted with it doesn't mean he should blow the whistle. I think he should be sent to Guantanamo bay for water boarding, hell yes, my Trump like comment. But I think he's done a lot of damaging to this country.
He signed the SF 312 which states that the clearance holder will not participate in the negligent handling of classified information. That was obviously violated, so no excuse for him.
Ah, lawyer speak! what on earth does 'negligent' mean?
Not to you, but to the horde of lawyers that get involved.
I can imagine the clinton's have a field day with that word.
The USA spies on Israel? So what. We have caught them repeatedly spying on us and selling our secrets.
My criticism certainly wasn't directed at the U.S. for spying on anyone friend or foe, to me that is just good sense.
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