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Post by fuglyville on Jul 6, 2013 10:27:24 GMT -6
Discuss
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Post by Woody on Jul 7, 2013 0:44:30 GMT -6
Neither. We have the "Big Brother Awards" here, that are ironically given to companies and organisations that violate privacy protection. In the course of this also the "Defensor Libertatis"-Prize is awarded to people, who rendered services to the protection of private data. That one would be suitable for Mr. Snowden
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Post by Breka on Jul 8, 2013 10:12:36 GMT -6
In present days it is hard to define - what is treason ? it is hard to define - what is spying ? What is good ? What is bad ? Who sets the standards or moral ? What is moral or politically correctness at all ? Need to answer these questions first - before we start making a mind about Snowden !
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Post by starbux on Jul 11, 2013 2:13:08 GMT -6
Neither, He better call Saul!
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Jul 11, 2013 2:36:32 GMT -6
If Felix were here the comment would be "one man`s terrorist is another man`s freedom fighter". But Felix hasn't chimed in.
Strictly from my point of view based on my past and present experience, I would call him a traitor and treason is publishable by death.
I feel a Peace Prize should be awarded for advancements that benefit ALL mankind, not political agendas.
I question his motives and his personal "sacrifice" when he spends more time trying to save his hide rather than publishing his "truth". Mandela, Solzhenitsyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, John the Baptist - spoke the truth and paid a price, not were paid a price.
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Post by josephdphillips on Jul 11, 2013 8:05:24 GMT -6
Traitor, of course. He worked for the NSA. Duh.
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Post by kingsindanger on Jul 14, 2013 11:53:08 GMT -6
If Felix were here the comment would be "one man`s terrorist is another man`s freedom fighter". But Felix hasn't chimed in. Strictly from my point of view based on my past and present experience, I would call him a traitor and treason is publishable by death. I feel a Peace Prize should be awarded for advancements that benefit ALL mankind, not political agendas. I question his motives and his personal "sacrifice" when he spends more time trying to save his hide rather than publishing his "truth". Mandela, Solzhenitsyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, John the Baptist - spoke the truth and paid a price, not were paid a price. Agreed.
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Post by The Tipsy Broker on Jul 14, 2013 13:45:41 GMT -6
Sir Walt would have a hoot here.
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Post by charon on Jul 15, 2013 2:45:02 GMT -6
Traitor, of course. He worked for the NSA. Duh. Agreed. His occupation spells it out, his actions qualifies it. Kill him.
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Tim S
Old Hand
Posts: 567
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Post by Tim S on Jul 15, 2013 4:58:03 GMT -6
Lets call him a whistleblower. I understand that he made have caused some damage. I understand that he is a huge embaressment.
But at the end of the day I do not apreciate my emails telephone calls etc being listened to by people who have nothing to do with me.
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Post by nils on Jul 15, 2013 9:44:02 GMT -6
Yep. We like what Snowden did. It is sad indeed that the great democracy of America that we learned to respect so much, has lost many of its values and departed from its own constitution.
America has been practicing torture of prisoners. America is keeping prisonees without trial. Keeping them under inhuman conditions. The list goes on. and on.
Twenty years ago,I would never have dreamt this could happen in a large and powerful democracy.
Best euro wishes from Nils
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Post by honeyroastedpeanut on Jul 15, 2013 12:04:11 GMT -6
Yep. We like what Snowden did. It is sad indeed that the great democracy of America that we learned to respect so much, has lost many of its values and departed from its own constitution. America has been practicing torture of prisoners. America is keeping prisonees without trial. Keeping them under inhuman conditions. The list goes on. and on. Twenty years ago,I would never have dreamt this could happen in a large and powerful democracy. Best euro wishes from Nils Nils, I'm not defending what you're critizing. But your constant self-righteous whining is so incredibly repulsive and boring at the same time. Does that take some special training or are you a natural?
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Post by SubSurfCPO(ret) on Jul 15, 2013 12:26:41 GMT -6
Chris - that is a fabulous retort. You must be a fantastic lawyer.
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Post by nils on Jul 15, 2013 15:20:00 GMT -6
Yep. We like what Snowden did. It is sad indeed that the great democracy of America that we learned to respect so much, has lost many of its values and departed from its own constitution. America has been practicing torture of prisoners. America is keeping prisonees without trial. Keeping them under inhuman conditions. The list goes on. and on. Twenty years ago,I would never have dreamt this could happen in a large and powerful democracy. Best euro wishes from Nils Nils, I'm not defending what you're critizing. But your constant self-righteous whining is so incredibly repulsive and boring at the same time. Does that take some special training or are you a natural? Hi. I only refer to what Americas founding Fathers put down in writing as they founded America. Thats all. It goes without saying that torture and imprispnemnt without a fair trialis a crime against any democratic standards and should be prosecuted. I still like America a lot, but it is sad tomse the roads sje is walking down. Mybest Euro wishes. Nils.
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Post by oslooskar on Jul 28, 2013 23:06:59 GMT -6
But your constant self-righteous whining is so incredibly repulsive and boring at the same time. So who's twisting your arm and forcing you to read Nils's comments?
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Post by oslooskar on Jul 28, 2013 23:08:35 GMT -6
Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution Dear Mr. President: You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders. A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens. Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution. We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act. From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done! The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today. Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated: The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police. We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible. We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward. On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence. We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act. Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a “traitor.” Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?” We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.” In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour. Sincerely, Bruce Fein Counsel for Lon Snowden Lon Snowden Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc. 722 12th Street, N.W., 4th Floor Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: 703-963-4968 bruce@thelichfieldgroup.com - See more at: www.thedailysheeple.com/snowdens-dad-schools-obama-pelosi-and-holder-in-open-letter_072013#sthash.JpZ4P5rl.dpuf
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Post by whitediamonds on Aug 3, 2013 15:10:34 GMT -6
Nils, I'm not defending what you're critizing. But your constant self-righteous whining is so incredibly repulsive and boring at the same time. Does that take some special training or are you a natural? Hi. I only refer to what Americas founding Fathers put down in writing as they founded America. Thats all. It goes without saying that torture and imprispnemnt without a fair trialis a crime against any democratic standards and should be prosecuted. I still like America a lot, but it is sad tomse the roads sje is walking down. Mybest Euro wishes. Nils. So, if you like America a lot, what is it about America you still like? You never shared your warm feelings towards us that I am aware of.
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Post by whitediamonds on Aug 3, 2013 15:37:06 GMT -6
But your constant self-righteous whining is so incredibly repulsive and boring at the same time. So who's twisting your arm and forcing you to read Nils's comments? I have the same question to you reading my comments.
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Post by ltdc on Aug 5, 2013 13:51:25 GMT -6
nobel peace prize, what a joke. how big a deal can it be? obama got one for simply being black at innaugaration.
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Post by oslooskar on Aug 5, 2013 23:27:53 GMT -6
I have the same question to you reading my comments. And why is that?
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Post by Donnie on Aug 29, 2013 19:47:39 GMT -6
Yep. We like what Snowden did. You don't know what Snowden did.
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Post by starbux on Aug 29, 2013 20:35:45 GMT -6
It looks like our friends the russians are granting him a one year assylum. i imagine not out the kindness of heir hearts. i bet they wan to gt debriefed on everything Snowden worked on. Then they cast him to the wolves. I wonder how long it will take for the accidental death courtisy of our state department. The CIA auto maintnence unit
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Post by charon on Aug 29, 2013 22:20:11 GMT -6
It looks like our friends the russians are granting him a one year assylum. i imagine not out the kindness of heir hearts. i bet they wan to gt debriefed on everything Snowden worked on. Then they cast him to the wolves. I wonder how long it will take for the accidental death courtisy of our state department. The CIA auto maintnence unit Oh, they've got his number, alright.
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Post by Matt on Aug 30, 2013 21:34:05 GMT -6
The idea of giving Snowden the Nobel is disgusting, and would be even more so if it weren't for the fact that the prize is already a joke because it was given to Obama. It's not that I have anything against our president, really, but he should never have accepted it. That act has made a mockery of the whole Nobel institution, in my view. Anyway, the winners are all basically decided by a bunch of Swedish academics at Karolinska Institute (the Harvard of Scandinavia) and really do not reflect very much in the way of world opinion.
Snowden is a traitor. He fled to Russia after his nefarious act - a country that is decidedly NOT friendly toward the US. If we ever get our hands on him, he should face life in prison. I don't believe we execute traitors anymore, but I may be wrong.
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Post by starbux on Aug 31, 2013 16:29:00 GMT -6
Snowden is a traitor. He fled to Russia after his nefarious act - a country that is decidedly NOT friendly toward the US. If we ever get our hands on him, he should face life in prison. I don't believe we execute traitors anymore, but I may be wrong. I doubt he will get executed, unless they can prove that any info he gave directly resulted in the loss of life. The last people to be executed in modern times were the Rosenburg's who were communists in the US, who sold information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets. They were executed in 1953. Prior to that were several people executed for espionage during WWII. There are two serving LWOP for espionage a former Navy intel analyst and an FBI agent. They profited off the sale of the information. I imagine if cought his punishment will be similar to Inmate Bradley Manning. On another note, if I were Snowden, I would not feel to very comfortable being granted asylum in Russia. Russia has an angle, they can turn arround and denie it anytime they want. I wonder how free he is to move about the country? He maybe actually a prisoner and not know it. the onlly place he might be safe would be iceland. Russia could be using him as a bargaining chip.
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Post by Californian on Aug 31, 2013 18:51:24 GMT -6
I still think we should crucify him. A message needs to be sent.
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Post by oslooskar on Aug 31, 2013 23:01:31 GMT -6
the onlly place he might be safe would be iceland. You’re dreaming! Iceland would be one of the easiest places in the world for a professional assassin to conduct business.
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Post by starbux on Sept 1, 2013 1:36:09 GMT -6
the onlly place he might be safe would be iceland. You’re dreaming! Iceland would be one of the easiest places in the world for a professional assassin to conduct business. I meant a government likely to change their mind with the asylum. I agree Iceland would be easy to track him down and assassinate him. I just think the countries who hate us who harbor him could possibly give him back to us if saw opportunity to gain something. I think Russia probably interviewed him on all the technology that he knows about other than stuff he leaked again. Which now makes him a real traitor.
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Post by Big Al on Sept 4, 2013 2:23:13 GMT -6
Ok so he is a traitor.
Isn't what the govt is doing wrong?
Shouldn't we know about that?
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Post by fuglyville on Sept 4, 2013 16:02:50 GMT -6
Who among you honestly believes that the U.S. Govt. would make this public if they had a choice? The public has a right to know when their government screws up, which they have in this case. He might be a traitor to the U.S., but he should be a hero to the rest of the world. And as long as his revelations hasn't caused any deaths, he can hardly be said to have damaged anything else than the U.S. reputation. And Matt - the Nobel Peace price has never been awarded by the Swedes; it has always been the domain of the Nobel Institute in Oslo. You might want to check your sources
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