Posted on 07/01/2013 8:30:29 AM PDT by USS Johnston
Former President George W. Bush has weighed in on the Edward Snowden saga, telling CNN the former National Security Agency contractor threatened the security of U.S. citizens by leaking information about the surveillance program his administration created after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"I know he damaged the country," Bush said in an interview from Zambia, where he and his wife, Laura, are on a humanitarian mission. "The Obama administration will deal with it. I think he damaged the security of the country."
Like President Barack Obama, Bush deflected criticism of the spy program.
"I put the program in place to protect the country, and one of the certainties is civil liberties were guaranteed," Bush said in the interview...
Bush also refused to criticize his successor. "It doesn't do any good," he said. "It's a hard job. He has plenty on his agenda and it's difficult. [A] former president doesn't need to make it harder."
The White House said Obama will meet Bush on Tuesday in Tanzania...
He added: "You know, ultimately history will judge the decisions that I made. And I won't be around because it's going to take a while for the objective historians to show up. So I'm pretty comfortable with it. I did what I did."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“certainties is civil liberties were guaranteed”{
No, they weren’t. If the government can take our “papers” anytime they want without a warrant that a crime had been committed then you, sir, violated the constitution and our civil liberties.
For what it’s worth, the opinion of “white hat” hacker, th3j35t3r: http://jesterscourt.cc/2013/06/26/so-about-this-snowden-affair/
The problem is where this program has morphed since then under democrats....It is no longer only looking at terrorist who call people in the US from overseas...it is now big brother watching everybody and everything they do.
Huge difference and it needs to be dismantled.
That’s why we call them the Stupid Party. Now Bush, and a number of Republicans in Congress, have provided Obama and his legions of America haters the political cover they need to survive this.
Just more for the Bush Republicans to respond to.
Is the violation of our Constitutional rights what they stand for?????
I can let them call Snowden a traitor and its clear he’s violated laws, but I will not allow them to defend the collection of all this data.
They must oppose it but they steadfastly refuse to do so.
Bush, shut the hell up, you stayed slent for years while this country goes to crap, you stayed a coward when you and conservatives were attacked by the media and by Obama, hell he made fun of you nearly every day and mentioned you by name and you still stayed silent.
Now if frigging speaks up, the same man who wanted immigration amnesty, the same man who reached out to the Dems and lost us the house and senate, the same man who lost us the white house, the same man who never tried to stop this perverted homosexual agenda, oh yea Bush I want tot hear form you.
The Bush Brothers: Novis, Ordo, and Seclorem.
When the government of this nation specifically our POTUS, our senators and our congress, in both parties start taking serious and profiling the real threats such as embedded radical Islamic terrorist and ending the threats of our open border policy with Mexico get back with me. In the mean time the e-mail I sent to Uncle Bubba about his 57 Chevy truck is none of your dern business.
Even if the programs put in place under your two terms as POTUS had honorable intentions we now have some not so honorable persons in charge. Ones with Islamic sympathies. Others simply are in it with a craving for power and control over others persons lives.
Liberty and Freedom has risk Mr President. Surrendering our Constitutional Rights & Freedom for promised protections is not a good exchange.
he damaged the country, \\\ARF, it’s a talking point from the media, the elitist establishment and a couple of trolls use to try and demean Snowden and take the heat away from bozo and /GOP’/Bush and this regime
Let's see.
Snowden has revealed that private US companies are supplying metadata - metadata that tracks effectively all citizens - to the NSA, and which the NSA is then using for analysis.
Is this a violation of the 4th Amendment? This is highly debatable. We freely give our service providers information about ourselves. They freely repackage and sell this data to other companies. And now we learn they apparently offer it to the US government as well.
This is, arguably, the good that Snowden has done.
What else has he done?
He stole information from the US about intelligence programs that the US is running on Red China, Russia, EU countries and others.
He fled with this data to Red China.
He then provided a Red Chinese newspaper with independent confirmation of US hacking of China, a perfect propaganda victory for Red China.
Then he was allowed to leave Hong Kong - and do not imagine he was allowed to leave without China copying all of his data.
He then went to Russia, where you can be sure he was not allowed into the country without transferring all his data to the FSB.
At that point, he released more information about US intelligence operations in Europe, creating more damage for the US abroad.
Now he is threatening to blackmail the US with further disclosures unless he gets a free pass on the crimes of theft and espionage he has already committed.
His partner in all this is the anti-American Wikileaks organization.
Unless one is allowing President Obama to live rent-free in one's head, a normal person would have concluded by now that Snowden is a spy, in the employ of foreign powers, blackmailing his own country and embarrassing the US over a domestic surveillance program which may not even be illegal in order to cover his tracks and evade capture.
And he gave us Traitor John Roberts to finish off the job.
>> “He also betrayed US intelligence to foreign governments and entities.” <<
.
You have no proof of that assertion.
Wow!! I must have sent you "vigilante" photos of my Annie Oakley fence-building days until you caved... :0)
Ironic is not the right word. It all fits together.
Go back to late 2001 when FNC was new and the flags were waving and if you opposed any new power proposed for homeland security then you were aiding the terrorists. Bush/Cheney/Rummy were unquestioned. GOP pretty much stuck with this thinking until maybe 2011 believe it or not,.
But by 2007 Dems were trusted more than Republicans(Bush) on national security in polls, it all fell apart.
Well, of course he is going to defend the program he put in place. Why bother asking his opinion? Just to give cover to Obama, I guess.
I heard Trump today talking to Eric Bolling who of course defends the constitution and Trump actually said , “I don’t care if they listen to me, they will be bored, I care about the security”
Boling then told him the 4th amendment has been violated and still Trump and the other goons like Kilmeade and that dope of a woman Alyson Camerata,sp. still did not matter the law was being broken and lept saying they care about being attacked.
It’s these fools why the country is going to crap and the Govt plays an the fears of an attack
He gave Red China independent confirmation of our intelligence gathering - and gave them a list of their own compromised websites!
This is public knowledge.
Have you not been following this story?
It's certainly not what I stand for.
I can let them call Snowden a traitor and its clear he’s violated laws, but I will not allow them to defend the collection of all this data.
You know, I'm not sure Snowden is a criminal; by bringing the practice into the public (not to mention the scope) he was upholding his oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Moreover, would a contract binding you to some group still be binding if you found out that said group was going to murder someonea nd by the terms of that contract you had to help? If such would not be a legally binding contract, then why would a contract which bound him to violate the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, be valid?
They must oppose it but they steadfastly refuse to do so.
This is the key point; like amnesty they must oppose it... but they don't. This begs the question why?
, and the answers seem to indicate a plan to reduce the average American to a position where he would envy a serf (Fourth-class citizens). The First-class, would of course be the political overlords; the Second-class would be the Burearchy [rule by Bureaucrats], the Third would be our Mexican/Latin-American overlords.
Yeah, funny how he's got no comment about those topics.
You can always count on the Bush family and RINOS to step up and take the blame for Clinton and Obama.
Bush needs to turn-the-cheek on his own dime instead of continually making conservatives pay for it.
:-)
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