What's your opinion on Edward Snowden?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hero. He unmasked the police state we live in

+ 1

I think what he did was REALLY brave. I honestly don't know if I could be that brave and self sacrificing. I'd like to think so but I'd probably chicken out.

If you know anything about counter-intelligence, you would know that he did more damage to our national security that some of the spies that have been caught in recent years. Aldrich Ames.... Robert Hanssen......John Walker.... all spies that caused incredible damage to our national security and because of the information they passed, people were killed.

This guy is worse. He is no hero. He is a coward. He revealed information than ran to Russia for protection. He couldn’t even stay in the US to defend himself.
He is a treasonous coward.

This is inaccurate. Every study that has been done shows little to no effect on national security. Even his detractors concede that. Go ahead and google it. Anyway, that actually makes sense when you consider that the main point of his leak was data on the US program to spy on Americans in bulk (not targeted).

When people in the business of national security say that someone did "incalculable damage to national security" what they mean is he did damage to the careers of people in the business of national security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he'd had the courage of his convictions to stay here and face the consequences of his behavior, I'd probably view him as a hero and hope that he would be pardoned. That he instead hightailed it out of the country and then decided to stay in Russia, a place that should be so deeply antithetical to his beliefs about transparency, privacy and freedom, completely destroyed his credibility in my mind. He's an opportunist.

Just a reminder about the facts of the situation -- he did indeed leave the US and head to Hong Kong where he turned over some documents to journalists, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald. Hong Kong offered a kind of legal lacunae for him -- a place where the protections of English common law still applied, while physically under the control of a government that likely had no existing channels of intelligence cooperation with the USG. While in Hong Kong, the USG announced that it had charged him with espionage in an attempt to pressure Hong Kong to turn him over voluntarily. Unfortunately, according to news reports, the USG did not provide adequate information in their request to the HKG to issue an arrest warrant for Snowden, so the HKG was unable to prevent him from leaving the country.

Snowden chose to fly to Moscow, but made it clear that he was seeking asylum in a 3rd country like Cuba, Equador or Iceland. In another poor strategic move, the USG chose to revoke Snowden's passport and the timing of the revoked passport and incomplete arrest request resulted in Snowden being stranded in the Moscow airport for several days while trying to negotiate asylum. It was clear his first choice wasn't Russia, but there was no way for him to fly commercially to a 3rd country which would provide asylum without crossing into the airspace of a country that might agree to force the plane down and arrest and extradite him to the US.

So, through the USG's own stupidities, Russia finally offered Snowden asylum, which he was forced to accept.

If the USG had moved more quickly with proper information while he was still in Hong Kong, they might have been able to get him there.

If the USG had kept quiet, he might have travelled to a location where he could have been arrested.

That Snowden ended up in Russia was due in large part to the fumblings of USG officials.

[Anonymous]

Traitor. Maybe he thought he was smart, but in reality, he doesn't understand the big picture, and he endangered the lives of many people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he'd had the courage of his convictions to stay here and face the consequences of his behavior, I'd probably view him as a hero and hope that he would be pardoned. That he instead hightailed it out of the country and then decided to stay in Russia, a place that should be so deeply antithetical to his beliefs about transparency, privacy and freedom, completely destroyed his credibility in my mind. He's an opportunist.

This is how I feel.

Chelsea Manning is facing the consequences and also causing people to step back and talk about the state of our country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he'd had the courage of his convictions to stay here and face the consequences of his behavior, I'd probably view him as a hero and hope that he would be pardoned. That he instead hightailed it out of the country and then decided to stay in Russia, a place that should be so deeply antithetical to his beliefs about transparency, privacy and freedom, completely destroyed his credibility in my mind. He's an opportunist.

He fled because he has no defense is under the Espionage Act, which makes no exemptions for whistle blowers or bungles. He knew that going into it (which is what makes his actions brave).

Anyway, if you're going to prosecute whistle blowers who actually do the public a huge favor like Snowden then you should also prosecute bungles like HRC. She also passed along classified into to people she shouldn't have (supposedly through carelessness and on accident by why should that matter?). Bother or neither.

No. Running is the opposite of bravery. Bravery taking a stand. You can't run and stand at the same time.

Nelson Mandela didn't flee. He was willing to sacrifice himself for his principles and let his imprisonment indict South Africa. That's bravery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he'd had the courage of his convictions to stay here and face the consequences of his behavior, I'd probably view him as a hero and hope that he would be pardoned. That he instead hightailed it out of the country and then decided to stay in Russia, a place that should be so deeply antithetical to his beliefs about transparency, privacy and freedom, completely destroyed his credibility in my mind. He's an opportunist.

Just a reminder about the facts of the situation -- he did indeed leave the US and head to Hong Kong where he turned over some documents to journalists, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald. Hong Kong offered a kind of legal lacunae for him -- a place where the protections of English common law still applied, while physically under the control of a government that likely had no existing channels of intelligence cooperation with the USG. While in Hong Kong, the USG announced that it had charged him with espionage in an attempt to pressure Hong Kong to turn him over voluntarily. Unfortunately, according to news reports, the USG did not provide adequate information in their request to the HKG to issue an arrest warrant for Snowden, so the HKG was unable to prevent him from leaving the country.

Snowden chose to fly to Moscow, but made it clear that he was seeking asylum in a 3rd country like Cuba, Equador or Iceland. In another poor strategic move, the USG chose to revoke Snowden's passport and the timing of the revoked passport and incomplete arrest request resulted in Snowden being stranded in the Moscow airport for several days while trying to negotiate asylum. It was clear his first choice wasn't Russia, but there was no way for him to fly commercially to a 3rd country which would provide asylum without crossing into the airspace of a country that might agree to force the plane down and arrest and extradite him to the US.

So, through the USG's own stupidities, Russia finally offered Snowden asylum, which he was forced to accept.

If the USG had moved more quickly with proper information while he was still in Hong Kong, they might have been able to get him there.

If the USG had kept quiet, he might have travelled to a location where he could have been arrested.

That Snowden ended up in Russia was due in large part to the fumblings of USG officials.

None of that negates that he chose to stay in the arms of Russia rather than face up to what he did. A coward.

[Anonymous]

I don't know why any of his "revelations" were that big of deal.

Seriously did anyone not think our government was spying?

That has been going on since governments were created.

I don't care.

[Anonymous]

He embarrassed the administration. Obama has a long memory. Enjoy Russia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he'd had the courage of his convictions to stay here and face the consequences of his behavior, I'd probably view him as a hero and hope that he would be pardoned. That he instead hightailed it out of the country and then decided to stay in Russia, a place that should be so deeply antithetical to his beliefs about transparency, privacy and freedom, completely destroyed his credibility in my mind. He's an opportunist.

He fled because he has no defense is under the Espionage Act, which makes no exemptions for whistle blowers or bungles. He knew that going into it (which is what makes his actions brave).

Anyway, if you're going to prosecute whistle blowers who actually do the public a huge favor like Snowden then you should also prosecute bungles like HRC. She also passed along classified into to people she shouldn't have (supposedly through carelessness and on accident by why should that matter?). Bother or neither.

There's no sensible way to believe that it is brave to cower in Russia.

And please, someone try to defend his stealing and release of our foreign intelligence. How is that anything but traitorous?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He embarrassed the administration. Obama has a long memory. Enjoy Russia.

I don't think HRC or Trump will be all that sympathetic to him either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you hoping Obama pardons him?

I believe he's a hero and a patriot. The very essence of a whistleblower in the public interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cowardly, treasonous little weasel with grandiose personality disorder. I'm a democrat.

I'm a democrat too and the weasel is you who seem comfortable living in a police state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cowardly, treasonous little weasel with grandiose personality disorder. I'm a democrat.

I'm a democrat too and the weasel is you who seem comfortable living in a police state

+1.

I don't believe first PP understands what "democrat" means.

Nor does Obama, btw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hero. He unmasked the police state we live in

+ 1

I think what he did was REALLY brave. I honestly don't know if I could be that brave and self sacrificing. I'd like to think so but I'd probably chicken out.

If you know anything about counter-intelligence, you would know that he did more damage to our national security that some of the spies that have been caught in recent years. Aldrich Ames.... Robert Hanssen......John Walker.... all spies that caused incredible damage to our national security and because of the information they passed, people were killed.

This guy is worse. He is no hero. He is a coward. He revealed information than ran to Russia for protection. He couldn’t even stay in the US to defend himself.
He is a treasonous coward.

This is inaccurate. Every study that has been done shows little to no effect on national security. Even his detractors concede that. Go ahead and google it. Anyway, that actually makes sense when you consider that the main point of his leak was data on the US program to spy on Americans in bulk (not targeted).

When people in the business of national security say that someone did "incalculable damage to national security" what they mean is he did damage to the careers of people in the business of national security.

No, it generally means that someone - or people, to be more accurate - lost their lives because of the damage.

[Anonymous]

Traitor. He swore an oath, he signed that he will never reveal any secrets. That is all I need to know, he broke an oath.