[SatinDoll]

I was a cryptanalyst and linguist while in the Navy (1980 - 1986), and was assigned to programs for NSA. Part of our training emphasized that we were not to copy or listen to the conversations of U.S. citizens. To do so required a warrant, and we were just searching bandwidths looking for foreign comms.

Our training emphasized that we took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, including the rights of its citizens. Any illegal orders were to be reported.

My education included the history of WWII during the 1960s. The Nuremburg trials weren’t so far in the past, the late 1940s. Because of those trials, people were hanged for “following orders” that resulted in war crimes.

Go to Nachumlist.com, and see the dead associated with BHO2. Breitbart wasn’t the first, and Hastings will not be the last.

Melodramatic? I think not. Snowden has no doubt read history, and is familiar with the U.S.Constitution.

[PhilDragoo]

SNOWDEN WOULDN'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID

[antceecee]

God bless you SatinDoll... you are a true and HONEST Patriot. I take comfort in the FACT there are millions of Patriots in this country. Those who seek to destroy our rights and freedom should be forewarned, it will not go without a fight.

[Irish Rose]

Your training sounds like very good policy to me. I’m not sure what has been going on in the NSA lately. Frankly, it would not surprise me if Obama has been abusing its surveillance programs, like he has abused other things. And if he has, I do not mind someone being the whistle-blower.

But if you are going to play the whistle-blower, wouldn’t it be better to do it on Capitol Hill than in Hong Kong? You were trained to report illegal orders within our own government, not run off to a Communist-controlled nation and publicize the problem from there.

And what I really can’t understand is this: Why did he leak America’s intelligence operations against China?

Snowden, in this statement, is also throwing around psuedo-legal jabberwocky: extralegal penalty, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, judicial order.

You want to say: Look, Edward, the president of the United States has never needed a judicial order to ask other nations not to grant somebody asylum. And: Look, Edward, unlike the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, extradition has been around pretty much forever. Seeking to extradite someone is not “using citizenship as a weapon”.

The man claims to be acting in defense of the Constitution, but reading this statement leaves me wondering if he understands it.

[OneWingedShark]

I was a cryptanalyst and linguist while in the Navy (1980 - 1986), and was assigned to programs for NSA. Part of our training emphasized that we were not to copy or listen to the conversations of U.S. citizens. To do so required a warrant, and we were just searching bandwidths looking for foreign comms.

Our training emphasized that we took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, including the rights of its citizens. Any illegal orders were to be reported.

My education included the history of WWII during the 1960s. The Nuremburg trials weren’t so far in the past, the late 1940s. Because of those trials, people were hanged for “following orders” that resulted in war crimes.

All that said, do you think the NSA took that oath as seriously as the Navy did then? How about now?