Posted on 11/27/2013 10:24:35 AM PST by kobald
This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them...
Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on such acts. Finally, Snowden didn't exactly choose Vladimir Putin's Russia. His plan was to pass through en route to a different country, but while he was there, the Obama Administration yanked his passport. As a result of that brilliant strategy, they stranded a man with lots of secrets in Russia rather than, say, Ecuador...
Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, who are much, much better informed about NSA surveillance, insist that "we have yet to see any evidence that the bulk phone records collection program has provided any otherwise unobtainable intelligence," and believe much of what the NSA does is not necessary to protect our security.
One can agree or disagree with Snowden's actions. But it is mighty strange to label as a traitor someone who acted to inform his countrymen and protect their liberties.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
mitch mcconnell junior.
Well, it wouldn’t have been safe to defect to a country that is an ally of the US. The real traitors are those who know the Federal government is breaking the Constitution and keep their mouths shut.
“Marco the Rube” strikes again!
He endorsed Romney in the primary. That’s three for me...
Mariodemocrat needs to be removed from the stage.
Can’t have it both ways. If you think citizens deserve to have this info whistleblown, then you can’t threaten whistleblowers with death when they do it.
If he’s a traitor, then he deserves a pardon and an invitation back home. Exposing the tyranny of the government against its own citizens to the public deserves a medal, not a prison sentence. He didn’t defect to Russia. He moved there and would be willing to come back if he could be assured that the Washington D.C. tyrants like Obama and Rubio would not lock him up in a gulag.
Thank God someone was willing to put himself in a position to expose this stuff. Why should anyone watch him? News flash, we don’t need a government watching over our every move like the east German Stasi. The government should be afraid of its people, the people shouldn’t be afraid of their government.
Either Marco Rubio is just not paying attention or he is not very bright.
He proved that we’re all being spied on. What the government is doing is at the very least equivalent to them installing a camera in everyone’s TV set and recording you, then promising they won’t ever look at the video unless they have a “good reason.” Storing everything people say or do in private that happens to be in an electronic format is a gross violation of the 4th amendment. There’s no way we could find out about it without a whistleblower. And supposedly the only reason he’s not eligible for whistleblower protections is because he was a contractor, not a government employee, which is just a BS technicality in the law.
If he infiltrated the screening process with the deliberate motive (as he has already stated) digging around, how many other fifth columnist enemy agents have done so?
How do you believe him that he “only took bad documents, nothing else”?
He had faith in Obambi and that faith was dashed on the rocks.
You never heard of Carnivore? All of this was news to you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)
Do you do anything differently these days?
Has anyone been held accountable?
Has it stopped?
Feel better?
He engaged in criminal conspiracy. His providers knew of his actions, they aided in his escape. He didn’t knock on a door in Russia on his own.
“One more to go...”
Rubio is just another worthless RINO...he needs a big BOOT in the @$$.
I heard of it. If you’re going to claim Snowden didn’t tell us anything new, then he can’t be a traitor for revealing public information.
Obviously none of it’s going to stop under Obama. This will definitely be a question in the Republican primary debate and we’ll see if we can find a candidate who says he’ll stop it. We know we can strike out Rubio now.
Even the people who support unconstitutional NSA spying could thank him for showing how easy it is for an enemy agent to get classified info on surveillance programs.
A fool in paradise...and after reading your comment here I agree with the Stuck on Stupid, but not applying it to this country.
He should have quit when he was behind.
Now he's REALLY nada....this is the final nail in his coffin.
It's time to pick up the black Obamaphone and call Digger O'Dell to make the final arrangements.
Leni
Batman’s broken a few laws in pursuit of justice too. That’s what a hero has to do sometimes in order to seek justice in an unjust world.
Certain spokesmen for another cause do that in English and arabic. MSM only cares about the English.
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