Edward Snowden, Hero or Traitor?

[crudos]

Edward Snowden.... Hero, Traitor, Patsy, Fraud, 15 Minutes of Fame Seeker, or something else......?

Discuss.

Certainly the government spying on it's citizens is nothing revelatory, but does the privatization of keeping tabs on citizens bother you more or less? One argument I've heard for contacting out the spy business is that those companies can be on the cutting edge and beyond in terms of technology and it's uses, compared to relative glacier-like movement of the government. Also been hearing lots of apologists for government spying on it's citizenry from both parties in this discussion.

[JohnyMac]

In my opinion, if the elected officials in Washington honored the oath they swore, to defend the Constitution of the United States, we wouldn't need whistle blowers like Mr. Snowden.

On Monday when Senator Graham and Representative Boehner came out and called Mr. Snowden a traitor and should be tried as such; I was so mad that, yupper, I wrote a letter to both. 

There is a line in the Declaration of Independence that reads, "He [King George III] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people"- Tenth line down on the list of grievances to be specific. That is how we begot the Fourth Amendment to the US. Bill of Rights.

I am sorry but I will not budge on this point or any other Amendments to the Bill of Rights being violated. A law, changing the BOR's is illegal unless it is ratified by 3/4's of the states. This is why in part, I feel that the 1934 NFA is illegal even if the Supreme Court upheld it in their 1939 decision, Miller v. United States, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206

So getting back to your question Crudos, I do not think Mr. Snowden is a traitor because he exposed to the world, the illegal actions of our representatives. After all - How can it be called illegal when you expose illegal actions? By the way these are the people "we" voted to represent "us" in Washington. 

[APX808]

I think Edward Snowden is a true oath keeper and I support him because he revealed something that directly was attacking constitutional rights both of US citizens and foreigners alike.

I don't think the same can be applied to Bradley Manning, he revealed a ton of diplomatic secret information just to damage the US government, being him an active duty intelligence worker he can be considered a traitor.

Being that said, I must admit that I really enjoyed reading wikileaks and the political problems that created, specially in my country

[WhiteWolfReloaded]

Provocateur.  I've not really made my mind up on this, but I'm highly suspicious of his actions and what's occurring now. Don't get me wrong, it's good to know, but it's stuff we've all believed for years. We just didn't know what it was called officially. With all these scandals the boat sure is rocking isn't it? He just rocked it a little more. My thinking is someone, or group, wants to tip the boat.

[Jeremy Knauff]

I'm all in favor of this type of activity being exposed, but on the other hand, I think there is a lot to the story we don't know. I'm still not 100% sure this wasn't staged.

[EJR914]

100% Hero in my book.

[sledge]

I've got mixed feelings about this guy because of concerns it could be a psyop.  None the less, I wrote Boehner a little love note when he said that Snowden had committed treason.

I asked him to consider how someone can commit treason, when they are outing a department of government who is committing treason against the constitution.

I also asked him to considers something that I read yesterday.  If a free society is one where the people live in privacy and the government is under the scrutiny of the people, what do you call a society in which the people are constantly observed by government and the government keeps guarded secrets from the people?


 

[JohnyMac]

Right on Sledge 

Hopefully we will be in the same cell block when "they" haul our butt into jail. 

[sledge]

Right on Sledge 

Hopefully we will be in the same cell block when "they" haul our butt into jail. 

Jail?  Nope that won't happen.  Not until they get rid of the first amendment.  Maybe dragged off in the middle of the night and sent to a combo work camp / reeducation facility.  If they've gone so far as to snatch up all american's emails and phone calls, it makes me think that maybe all of the other crap that I've heard over the years is probably right on mark. 

[crudos]

I don't think he is a traitor, my jury is still out on his game here. That said, the only traitors so far is each and every Congress person who voted and re-voted for the Patriot Act in 2001 and 2006 and the Sunset Extension Act of 2011.

[CrystalHunter1989]

Haven't made up my mind on this. As a civvy, I've never lived under a uniformed code of justice or had to swear an oath of allegiance. On one hand, it seems that everyone wants to be the next Daniel Ellsberg. Look at how much praise he got after leaking The Pentagon Papers. On the other hand, this guy isn't the first. Look at how many whistleblowers have come forward about Fast and Furious. Heck, look at the people who literally risked their lives to tell the truth about smoking!

Our world no longer lives by principles, only regulations. That's why these cases are so explosive. If we were to live by principle again, it would dismantle every government office erected since FDR.

Any logical person would look at me, or any of us and say: "Hm, they don't like these policies, but they don't represent a credible threat." I don't trust the government to make that judgement. Look at the recent IRS and EPA fallouts. Those people didn't act on principle, just what they were ordered to do. There were no internal checks to stop it the abuses from fully maturing.

This incident is just the symptom of a very big problem that began long ago and cannot be solved with any degree of ease. You could roll it over in your mind for weeks.

[EJR914]

"Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies." -Ron Paul

Ron Paul Blasts NSA Defenders On Piers Morgan: 'You're Justifying Dictatorship!'

Ron Paul "When You Have A Dictatorship TRUTH Becomes Treasonous!"

Ron Paul 'Worried' U.S. Might Kill Snowden With Drone

EDIT: Fixed video links ~APX808

[EJR914]

I asked him to consider how someone can commit treason, when they are outing a department of government who is committing treason against the constitution.

In America, we are supposed to have privacy, which came out of the 4th amendment, and the government is supposed to be open.  Instead we have no privacy and everything the government is doing is 100 percent secret.

That's the real answer, what you wrote above.  Excellent post.

[EJR914]

I don't think he is a traitor, my jury is still out on his game here. That said, the only traitors so far is each and every Congress person who voted and re-voted for the Patriot Act in 2001 and 2006 and the Sunset Extension Act of 2011.

 

[EJR914]

I think he's a Patriot.  He has literally give up his life, in one way or another, to get the truth out, WITH PROOF, to the American people.  That is the act of a Patriot.  He thinks those principles are that important, that he was willing to give up his life for US.

He sacrificed himself so we could know the truth of the treason our government is committing against the Constitution and the 4th amendment.

[JohnyMac]

Be careful EJR calling him a Patriot! Doing so could get him audited by the IRS 

[EJR914]

LOL That's funny.   

He's definitely got bigger problems than the IRS right now. 

He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up in a black bag in a Black Site somewhere out in a God forsaken desert somewhere. 

[crudos]

He was for it, before he was against it. 

[EJR914]

Hannity really is a disgusting GOP Hack.

[hjmoosejaw]

There are differences between Bush and Obama. Under Bush, we all knew about it happening. There were guidelines that needed to be met and followed. With Obama, a much wider net was cast with no knowledge by us and no guidelines to follow. To the OP, normally, I say top secret things are to be TOP SECRET. End of story, you give it up, you're guilty of treason and should be hung. With this situation, I think this administration is doing things that they should be jailed for. This is NOT our United States government. This is a bunch of thugs gone rogue. I don't really consider it being a traitor, if it's against a tyrannical government. The government crossed the line, they drew first blood. If Snowden is imprisoned, it should be after Obama and his minions are. I don't think Snowden will see prison. I think they will just conveniently get rid of him.

[special-k]

An open letter sent to Obama by Lon Snowden (and legal counsel), the father of Edward Snowden:

July 26, 2013
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

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

[JohnyMac]

Thx SK for posting it. I wish it was on one page of the Wall Street Journal though.