Snowden: I'd Go To Jail To Come Back To The U.S.

Hypergreatthing said:
What part of my reply was insulting?
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Question should be which part wasn't?

creepy-obamacare-2.jpg
 
The government did something illegal and refuses to accept responsibility for doing it and they're trying to play themselves off as victims of some whistleblower, a segment of people really believe in silly press coverage as justification for being upset and therefore support those.
 
Husanak said:
So you would have turned yourself in for 3 or 4 years of torture before they gave you the needle right.

I think by fleeing he has not only shone a light on the going ons in the documents he leaked. He is also shining a light on the anti whistle blower culture in the US gov. Had he turned himself in he would have been locked up hidden away and after he was forgotten by all the major media executed. As long as he stays alive the story does as well.
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Really, cause this has happened so many times before, stupid.

Wer have dozens of traitors either still in jail or out now living quiet and forgotten lives. There is not one bit of fact to your baseless statement beyond his being arrested on return.

And there isn't an anti-whistleblower culture. Snowden didn't blow any whistle, he never ever tried to report his suspicions to anyone. Instead he let his suspicions drive him to perform illegal acts and then he performed more illegal acts in an attempt to justify his actions. Just because a few people buy off on his claims doesn't change what he did. If only you paid even a little attention to the details you might have a clearer understanding of just how much bad he did for very little good and he needlessly went about it the completely wrong way.

You know, the purpose of whistleblower protections is to protect people who correctly report things that are wrong from being mistreated for doing what is right. Snowden doesn't fit this description at all.
 
Spidey329 said:
The US would have to guarantee an open/public trial. Otherwise if he comes back I'd suspect he gets renditioned by secret court-order and tried in some secret trial, never to be heard from again.

Our government doesn't exactly play by the same rules post 9/11.
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They have no reason to do this, they didn't do this with Private Manning. They don't need to do this cause Snowden plainly and openly violated the law. They don't have to railroad him in secret because they got him cold without any doubt.

Now if Snowden had actually tried to report things and become a true whistleblower, then they might have a reason to screw him. But Snowden screwed himself well enough so they don't have to do anything but let the ball roll, He's screwed.
 
Red Squirrel said:
US prison is probably one of the harshest places in the world you could go to, other than some 3rd world country prisons, not sure why he'd want to go back to the states only to get pretty much all his life taken away. Doing a crime against the government is like 10x worse than a crime against a civilian so he would get the book thrown at him despite the fact what he did was actually the right thing, ethically speaking.

Pretty sure if he does not get life they'd probably give him death. I could see the US government pull that off tbh. Basically they would treat him as a war criminal.

In reality, it's the government that is criminal.
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Again, almost the same thing as Private Manning who by the way didn't even have the thin veil of exposing percieved illegal activity to cover his actions.Did a Military Court throw the book at Manning? They were very lenient, he faced a charge that could have lead to a death penalty and was found innocent of that charge. Hell, his punishment included getting busted to E-1 with a dishonorable discharge when he is released from Prison, but while he is still in, he is still in the Army even though he doesn't get paid. And even though he is currently in a Military Jail and still on Active Duty, they not only allowed him to begin his sex change they are freaking paying for it.

Yes, being in a US Prison is sooo bad.
 
FndTheRver said:
If the surveillance programs continued, it would have only been a matter of time before some new slightly more intrusive surveillance was added on top of what was already there. He was right to reveal the details about the programs. That being said, he made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. If he thinks that coming home will get him anything more than a sham trial with a treason conviction then he's dreaming. He better learn to speak Russian and like Vodka.
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If? They ARE. This didn't stop anything except the data is no longer stored in NSA facilities, it remains with the providers who now must keep it and make it available to the NSA when properly requested.

As for more Intrusive, that has already started, the target are US Citizens, it is monitoring of online activity at work and at home. The people who are the targets are every US Citizen who holds a security clearance which is quite a few people.
 
staknhalo said:
It's called accepting responsibility for your actions, for better or worse.
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Your right. Had Snowden done things right he could have acheived everything while becoming a real whistleblower and recieving protection for his actions. As it is he's a stupid criminal who has done huge damage and is stuck in the situation he now finds himself in.

And if someone is going to kill him it will be the Russians before it's the Americans.
 
staknhalo said:
It's called accepting responsibility for your actions, for better or worse.
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There's a difference between accepting responsibility and going to jail for a few years and accepting responsibility, having the government "Chelsea Manning" you, make you a laughingstock, and putting you into the deepest, darkest hole they can find for the rest of your life.
 
Because there are so few patriots, people have a hard time recognizing that Edward Snowden is true patriot.
He did the only things a reasonable person could do under his circumstances. Instead of imprisoning him we should be building statues of him.
 
There is so much misinformation being posted in this thread it's unbearable. If I didn't have a slew of stuff to do today I would address everything on a point by point basis but to think that he's doing this to feed his ego is purely moronic. :eek:

If people would actually take the time to read Glen Greenwald's first hand account of what happened instead of just briefly skimming a FOX news article and deciding he's a traitor, you would know he didn't just go "childishly run away to China" or "blindly unload NSA hard drives to untrustworthy hands".
 
Okay, I "get" the people who want to put Snowden in jail.

I do.

However, if you uncover malfeasance by the government, but they've made it illegal to expose said malfeasance, what do you do?

Do you just shut up and be a good little worker drone? Letting illegal activities, both at home and abroad continue unchecked and unabated?

If your answer to this is "sure" or "yes", fuck you and the morally bankrupt scum that whelped you.
 
If he comes back he will either rot in a prison cell the rest of his life or go to the gas chamber. Our government is practically screaming for his blood.

Don't do it, Eddie...
 
He went to his superiors with the issues he had. He was told to shut up or get fired.
He then went to news outlets to get the releases properly redacted as what anyone would do for the correct dissemination of information of this nature. The new york times turned him down, he worked with other responsible news organizations.
Exactly how are you supposed to use whistle blower protection laws if they're not applicable to contractors? How are you supposed to correctly bring up issues if he did go to his bosses on numerous occasions with issues he had?
Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that he's a traitor and the NSA is not?
 
lcpiper said:
It's a stunt. He say's he'd volunteer to go to jail, BS.

All he has to do is go home, if they are going to arrest him then they'll arrest him. If he goes to trial then he goes to trial, they really won't have to work very hard to convict him, he is without any doubt guilty of the crimes he did commit.

The only real question is how lenient or severe the sentencing will be. I know the Judge for Chealse Manning went far easier on "her" then I thought she would. Snowden might not come out as bad as he thinks.

But I'll admit, I don't have a good view of Snowden, I think he is a liar, a theif, a wanabe hero who only want's to be "somebody important" in some way and not have to really do anything to earn it. But that's my opinion, you are all entitled to your own. I don't think he will ever come home unless he get's a signed pardon first and I don't see that happening soooo, yea, He'll probably die in Russia and it's the Russians who are most likely to do it.
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GORANKAR said:
All he has to do is get on a plane to the US and they will put him in jail as soon as he lands. No bail, since he already ran once, no chance of winning in court either. Whatever shenanigans he may have exposed, he still broke the law to do it.
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Here is the thing, as an espionage trial he won't get to vindicate himself as to why he did it. Regardless of the reasons behind it or his motives he is 100% screwed before an espionage court. if it was a civil case he would be able to prepare a defense or accept a plea bargain, but in an espionage trial it is 100% all in.

I don't like how he did what he did and could think of a few other ways I might have acted in his shoes, but right now I'd be playing the same game he is at this point.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
He went to his superiors with the issues he had. He was told to shut up or get fired.
He then went to news outlets to get the releases properly redacted as what anyone would do for the correct dissemination of information of this nature. The new york times turned him down, he worked with other responsible news organizations.
Exactly how are you supposed to use whistle blower protection laws if they're not applicable to contractors? How are you supposed to correctly bring up issues if he did go to his bosses on numerous occasions with issues he had?
Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that he's a traitor and the NSA is not?
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Not a single aspect of this statement is factual. He did none of those things. Read his story here

If in fact he had done those things he would be vindicated in doing what he did, but he didn't. He gathered the information he wanted, took time off from work, released the information and was gone.
 
Jim Kim said:
Because there are so few patriots, people have a hard time recognizing that Edward Snowden is true patriot.
He did the only things a reasonable person could do under his circumstances. Instead of imprisoning him we should be building statues of him.
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Your entitled to your view. But I've known a few real patriots and Ed don't measure up. That's my opinion.
 
Chas said:
Okay, I "get" the people who want to put Snowden in jail.

I do.

However, if you uncover malfeasance by the government, but they've made it illegal to expose said malfeasance, what do you do?

Do you just shut up and be a good little worker drone? Letting illegal activities, both at home and abroad continue unchecked and unabated?

If your answer to this is "sure" or "yes", fuck you and the morally bankrupt scum that whelped you.
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The ONLY malfeasence in this entire story is this;

Ed Snowden was a loser who wanted to be a big hero type guy but was never willing to do what is required to actually earn it.

He dropped out of high school, years later he got his GED, probably a lot of people do just fine this way, nothing really wrong with it I guess, but it's the start of a life long pattern.

He wanted to be important so he signed up to be a security guard checking to make sure the doors were locked at a University Library that just happened to be where the NSA has a language school. Of course he tries to make it sound like he worked as a security guard for the NSA.

He needs to be a bigger hero, not a flunky. Ed signs up for the Army, four months later he's out having never completed any training. He makes up some bullshit story that he broke both his legs in training. Well he did sign up to be a Green Beret and sometimes they get hurt bad in training, specially in Jump School. The problem is, nobody goes to jump School without finishing Basic Training first. And most people sign up on what's called Delayed Entry and your technically in the Army when you sign up even though it takes months before you go to your first School. The news won't say anything about it but I'd be willing to bet real money he never even showed up for training at all. If it smells like shit and looks like shit chances are, it's just shit.

Now Ed spends some time working for Dell as a hardware warranty tech, I know what his job was because that's the only work Dell does for the DoD. Dell doesn't do anything more because that is the companys only business, selling hardware and wardware related services. But it was at an NSA facility in Japan but hardware techs only get security clearances cause they work in the building not because they work with classified information. Still, this is when he started stealing classified information. Neadless to say, I guy like this is not briefed on Intelligence Operations, is not educated on what is the authroity for them or the protections in place to guard against misuse. Still, good old "true patriot" wants so bad to be an important guy, to know secrets, that he is commiting felonies to gain access to data while he is basicly an IT flunky responsible for replacing bad PSUs, Fans, and Mobos. No guy in a position like this is trusted with access to systems and data storage.

Now Ed is really working hard to get something good, to be someone, he's reading this classified stuff and really wants one of these secret spook jobs. He's sick of fans and crap work. He lies about his education to swing a job with Booz Allen, within weks they are asking for proof of his education and he realizes he's busted. They will boot him and he'll never get hired again for this stuff. He doesn't know what to do. And all the time Private Manning and wikileaks is in the news. The light bulb goes off, he grabs all he can and he runs to try and make himself a hero.

You can buy it all this crap and the fact that the media won't dig into his real history and post any facts that matter at all, I don't. The media sells Wow and Snowden's real life is not going to sell Wow so they won't talk about it. They won't kill a name that is worth a million clicks everytime it shows up even if it's a story about the Encryption Technology used by Alien Species.
 
Okay, if this is all you took away from Edward Snowden's story, there's no point in trying to have a conversation with you. It'd be more productive to bang my head off a wall and drink lead paint.
 
I'll tell you what a loser is: people that think their government can do no wrong.
 
I guess we should take the truth from the "professionals" when they bomb a hospital and say it was a mistake.
 
There are other losers like those who think that one of the best governemnts in the world ONLY does wrong.

These same people lump everything about the government into one tidy, simple, and unrealistic bag, and have nothing at all good to say about it.

They will cite stories about how the USA murdered an American citizen in Afghanistan but never pay any note to the simple fact that the same country is also responsible in large part for helping a completed devestated country like South Korea rise to a position of the tenth largest economy in the world in less then 60 years, one person's lifetime.

Other losers think calling the media's reporting biased and untruthful naturally makes the same person someone who believes the government can do no wrong.

I must infer that my saying "the government is wasteful" makes me an ecoterrorist :rolleyes:
 
sliverjazz said:
I guess we should take the truth from the "professionals" when they bomb a hospital and say it was a mistake.
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Not that it has anything at all to do with this discussion, but hey, I'll throw you a bone.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34444053

Who is saying what?

MSF says the warring sides were well aware of the hospital's location in Kunduz, and that the bombing went on for a more than an hour despite repeated calls to US and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington to call off the strikes.

The Afghan defence ministry said "armed terrorists" were using the hospital "as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians". MSF has denied this: "Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the US air strike on Saturday morning."

The US military has changed its account of how the air strike came about. Statements initially said US forces had come under fire, but then said air strikes were requested by Afghan forces under Taliban fire.

The US military chief in Afghanistan Gen John Campbell has admitted "the decision to provide aerial fires was a US decision, made within the US chain of command".

He told a Senate committee in Washington that the hospital was "mistakenly struck" and promised a "thorough, objective and transparent" investigation.
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The bombing went on for over an hour, because it takes that long for the same guys who can obliterate hardened bunkers in Iraq to level a POS one story converted hospital in Afghanistan. BTW, just how long does it take for someone to call whatever the fuck number they dug up in Washington to get anyone who might know how to contact a Field Commander in Afghanistan? Yea, a snowball's chance in hell.

"The Afghan defence ministry said "armed terrorists" were using the hospital "as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians". MSF has denied this: "Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the US air strike on Saturday morning."

So the MSF says no way anyone was in a room or on the roof of their hospital, using a cellphone or a radio, to report friendly military positions because no one was doing any actual shooting inside the hospital? Yes this makes complete sence.

No there is no doubt that bombing a hospital that is currently being used as a hospital is "a mistake", a royal fuckup even. But it wasn't US Forces that called in the target, it was the Afghan Military who claimed they were under fire and that the attacks were being called in from the hospital.

From this same report;
Under international humanitarian law "constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects".

Medical units, the rules say, "must be respected and protected in all circumstances", although "they lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy".
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This statement is completely taken out of context. This statement says "medical units" as in a military medical field unit that is used to treat soldiers, not a hospital building in a war zone. I'm not saying that in this case this hospital was fair game, what I am saying is that these people from "Human Right's Watch" have no problem misquoting International law for their own purpose in the same way that this statement below is written in this article as if they are quoting some other source besides their own words.

"The laws of war require that even if military forces misuse a hospital to deploy able-bodied combatants or weapons, the attacking force must issue a warning to cease this misuse, setting a reasonable time limit for it to end, and attacking only after such a warning has gone unheeded," the group said in a statement.
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This is just their interpretation of what they believe international Law should be, it's not a quote from any treaty ever signed.
 
lcpiper said:
The ONLY malfeasence in this entire story is this;

Ed Snowden was a loser who wanted to be a big hero type guy but was never willing to do what is required to actually earn it.

He dropped out of high school, years later he got his GED, probably a lot of people do just fine this way, nothing really wrong with it I guess, but it's the start of a life long pattern.

He wanted to be important so he signed up to be a security guard checking to make sure the doors were locked at a University Library that just happened to be where the NSA has a language school. Of course he tries to make it sound like he worked as a security guard for the NSA.

He needs to be a bigger hero, not a flunky. Ed signs up for the Army, four months later he's out having never completed any training. He makes up some bullshit story that he broke both his legs in training. Well he did sign up to be a Green Beret and sometimes they get hurt bad in training, specially in Jump School. The problem is, nobody goes to jump School without finishing Basic Training first. And most people sign up on what's called Delayed Entry and your technically in the Army when you sign up even though it takes months before you go to your first School. The news won't say anything about it but I'd be willing to bet real money he never even showed up for training at all. If it smells like shit and looks like shit chances are, it's just shit.

Now Ed spends some time working for Dell as a hardware warranty tech, I know what his job was because that's the only work Dell does for the DoD. Dell doesn't do anything more because that is the companys only business, selling hardware and wardware related services. But it was at an NSA facility in Japan but hardware techs only get security clearances cause they work in the building not because they work with classified information. Still, this is when he started stealing classified information. Neadless to say, I guy like this is not briefed on Intelligence Operations, is not educated on what is the authroity for them or the protections in place to guard against misuse. Still, good old "true patriot" wants so bad to be an important guy, to know secrets, that he is commiting felonies to gain access to data while he is basicly an IT flunky responsible for replacing bad PSUs, Fans, and Mobos. No guy in a position like this is trusted with access to systems and data storage.

Now Ed is really working hard to get something good, to be someone, he's reading this classified stuff and really wants one of these secret spook jobs. He's sick of fans and crap work. He lies about his education to swing a job with Booz Allen, within weks they are asking for proof of his education and he realizes he's busted. They will boot him and he'll never get hired again for this stuff. He doesn't know what to do. And all the time Private Manning and wikileaks is in the news. The light bulb goes off, he grabs all he can and he runs to try and make himself a hero.

You can buy it all this crap and the fact that the media won't dig into his real history and post any facts that matter at all, I don't. The media sells Wow and Snowden's real life is not going to sell Wow so they won't talk about it. They won't kill a name that is worth a million clicks everytime it shows up even if it's a story about the Encryption Technology used by Alien Species.
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The ad hominem attacks on Snowden while avoiding the message does nothing to help your point.
 
Jim Kim said:
Snowden's message.
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His message is pretty worthless, selfish, and thoughtlessly irresponsible. Avoiding it is more polite than acknowledging it cause then you have to call him out for being the horrible person he really is.
 
Chas said:
Okay, if this is all you took away from Edward Snowden's story, there's no point in trying to have a conversation with you. It'd be more productive to bang my head off a wall and drink lead paint.
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:)

You realize, a lot of the posters here have govt jobs, and to have a different opinion would be a problem, right?

As well as the paid astroturfers and shills that seem to always hit these stories on slashdot, and elsewhere...


You're trying to have a rational discussion with people that can't possibly consider your side of the story for an instant, or be lost. :)

Our government doesn't murder people; it subs it out to a contractor, or some soldiers... Same with astroturf.


I completely understand why Snowden did what he did; do you think the people In the Govt are more reasonable than these guys?

:rofl:
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
His message is pretty worthless, selfish, and thoughtlessly irresponsible. Avoiding it is more polite than acknowledging it cause then you have to call him out for being the horrible person he really is.
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Really?

The fact that the government is using illegal means to spy on native citizens, as well as foreign nationals is worthless?

Seriously?

So, you'd have no problem living in a complete panopticon society?
 
S-F said:
What's your point?

Our legal system is shit. Anyone here can list a dozen or more ways that operating outside the law is more humane that obeying it.
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Did you read the post that was in response to, or did you just jump at anyone that appeared to be slighting your hero? In any case,

Spidey329 said:
The US would have to guarantee an open/public trial. Otherwise if he comes back I'd suspect he gets renditioned by secret court-order and tried in some secret trial, never to be heard from again.

Our government doesn't exactly play by the same rules post 9/11.
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,

seemed to be implying the government would try some closed door super secret shenanigans to jail this guy. I pointed out that it was not necessary at all to do that. He is guilty of enough to go to jail for a long time without the government doing anything extraordinary, or extralegal, to make that happen.
 
DrBorg said:
:)

You realize, a lot of the posters here have govt jobs, and to have a different opinion would be a problem, right?

As well as the paid astroturfers and shills that seem to always hit these stories on slashdot, and elsewhere...


You're trying to have a rational discussion with people that can't possibly consider your side of the story for an instant, or be lost. :)

Our government doesn't murder people; it subs it out to a contractor, or some soldiers... Same with astroturf.


I completely understand why Snowden did what he did; do you think the people In the Govt are more reasonable than these guys?

:rofl:
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Well, like I said. If that's what they're trying to argue from, there's no point in having a conversation. It's like trying to discuss astronomy with someone who holds their fingers in their ears, squeezes their eyes shut and screams "The world is flat! Flat I tell you!" incessantly, and at the top of their lungs.
 
GORANKAR said:
seemed to be implying the government would try some closed door super secret shenanigans to jail this guy. I pointed out that it was not necessary at all to do that. He is guilty of enough to go to jail for a long time without the government doing anything extraordinary, or extralegal, to make that happen.
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Yep. Because our government has defined exposure of governmental wrongdoing AS wrongdoing.
 
DarkStar02 said:
There is so much misinformation being posted in this thread it's unbearable. If I didn't have a slew of stuff to do today I would address everything on a point by point basis but to think that he's doing this to feed his ego is purely moronic. :eek:

If people would actually take the time to read Glen Greenwald's first hand account of what happened instead of just briefly skimming a FOX news article and deciding he's a traitor, you would know he didn't just go "childishly run away to China" or "blindly unload NSA hard drives to untrustworthy hands".
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It doesn't matter. He has done irreparable harm to all the countries but mostly the US. I'll never forgive him for what he has done and I don't watch fauxnews.
 
Chas said:
Yep. Because our government has defined exposure of governmental wrongdoing AS wrongdoing.
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It still does not change my point that the government need only proceed with a normal trial, in a normal way, to put Snowden in jail forever +100 years.
I understand that some here are invested in the idea that the government is so totally and completely corrupt that it would have to do something, at the very least shady, if not outright illegal, to get a conviction on this "hero". That simply is not the case.
 
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