Edward Snowden: Hero? Or Traitor?

American Thinker ^ | 06/10/2013 | Rick Moran

[caww]

We already knew those things...Snowden hasn’t revealed more than what was already known. BTW the latest in his whereabouts is he’s still in Hong Kong...just in another hotel...apparently news agencies swarmed to Hong Kong trying to locate him for interviews etc. from local news agencies there...so he had to go...

But here ...examples we already knew about these “snoops”...

December 2005:

The New York Times reports that the National Security Agency is secretly eavesdropping on telephone calls and emails of Americans communicating with people outside the United States, without seeking warrants from the FISA court.

May 11, 2006:

USA Today reports that the NSA is secretly collecting phone records of millions of Americans in a giant database. Some of the phone companies cited dispute the story.

[DannyTN]

I think Snowden's a hero. And I'd like to see Congress pass a bill declaring him such and immune from prosecution.

The main reason is that government doesn't appear to have been sufficient controls on this database to protect citizen rights or sufficient oversight. As such it's an unconstitional violation of the 4th amendment.

I can certainly see the value of having such a database to track terrorists, rather than 50+ court orders to gather information to track a terrorist and his associates, a central database would allow just one court order and provide the information real time.

But the danger to a free society of such a database is overwhelming.

And it doesn't sound like individual court orders were required to query information on individuals. It appears that many people had unfettered access to it on anybody.

Even the oversight that existed was retroactive in declaring search activity as unconstitutional.

Even with sufficient controls, the database still remains a threat to a free society as the controls are only good until someone bypasses them. Although it would be great to hear Hillary's conversations during all the scams she has been involved in.

[M Kehoe]

Until Snowden's info puts intelligence assets in danger, he is a hero. For prospective, look what 0bama has done to intell assets (Pakistani doctor, Yemeni British operative, SEAL team 6 commander, etc.), then Snowden is not a traitor unless 0bama is.

5.56mm