Posted on 05/30/2014 7:48:21 PM PDT by Dave346
Fugitive Edward Snowden on Friday challenged the NSA’s insistence that it has no evidence he tried to raise concerns about the agency’s surveillance activity before he began leaking government documents to reporters, calling the response a “clearly tailored and incomplete leak ... for a political advantage.”
“The NSA's new discovery of written contact between me and its lawyers -- after more than a year of denying any such contact existed - raises serious concerns,” Snowden said in an email Friday to NBC News. “It reveals as false the NSA's claim to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post in December of last year, that ‘after extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention.’”
Snowden’s email followed Thursday’s release by the U.S. Office of the Director of Intelligence of an email exchange between Snowden and the NSA’s Office of the General Counsel. The Washington Post received and published a similar response from Snowden on Thursday.
That email, dated April 5 , 2013, and bearing the subject line “Question for OGC re. OVSC1800 Course Content,” was a request for clarification about a legal point in training materials for a mandatory course regarding policies and procedures restricting domestic surveillance by the NSA. Its primary focus was on the question of whether an executive order issued by the president could trump a federal statute.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
I think he should come home and have a private, legitimate hearing with Congress.
He did something that we have pipe dreams about - he actually risked it all to oppose the government's constant erosion of our freedoms. It looks like we still don't have the whole story and this new data that you so readily ignore indicates he tried to address concerns through proper channels but discovered that it wouldn't go anywhere.
I don’t think you know what “Conservative” means.
Conservative: Constitutionally bound Federal government limited to enumerated powers. Powerful individuals, Sovereign States, decentralized power.
That’s conservative. That includes a Bill of Rights and the 4th Amendment. In case you have not heard, the Fed ignores that nasty 4th Amendment. Ignores and finds plausible work arounds.
Not an analogy, but historic fact. When the truth hurts, so be it. Erase history and its lessons and you erase your future.
“And when government oversteps the bounds of their charter/authority, then what?”
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.” — Thomas Jefferson
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Prudence ... will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” — Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
“But in order for it to work the people entrusted with the secrets of the government must have integrity, honor and self discipline “
You continually and rigorously refuse to acknowledge essentially the argument of others who point their fingers the opposite way of yours. It is a fact that our founders declared that our Constitution is only salient or will survive if the men entrusted with it are moral and Godly men. Will you also argue with these men? Yours is a wholly naive and myopic attempt to justify your assertions backed up by just cementing your feet to the dock.
John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams is a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and our second President.
Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence said. “[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be aid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.”
Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary said, “[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.”
Gouverneur Morris, Penman and Signer of the Constitution. “[F]or avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy . . . the only ground of hope must be on the morals of the people. I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. [T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”
Fisher Ames author of the final wording for the First Amendment wrote, “[Why] should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.”
John Jay, Original Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court , “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”
James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”
Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary stated, “The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. . . All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House, “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”
George Washington, General of the Revolutionary Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, First President of the United States of America, Father of our nation, “ Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.”
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence “[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
“Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness . . . it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof.” Continental Congress, 1778
When all else fails, I default to the Founders. WWTFD?
Or how about a little bit of Thomas Jefferson who wrote extensively on this issue of blindly trusting those in government. Maybe a little remedial reading on your part is well advised;
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Most bad government has grown out of too much government.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
You should take a course in debating. It's about convincingly making your argument the most logical and salient, not brutalizing opposing opinions and exposing your weakness for logical discourse .
Your opinion is like an anus, everyone has one and thinks theirs smells best.
Snowden did to the NSA exactly what McCarthy did to the commies in film town. In both cases there were meager denials. In both cases the furor was not about the truth but the exposure of the truth. Conserving our 4th amendment rights is paramount to preserving all the others, in this day of electronic surveillance.That would be be by any means. When someone from the government speaks, the opposite of what is said is often true. This is true from the president down to the dog catcher.
Frontline had interviews with several individuals that were involved with the development of early tools for gathering intelligence, and with admin. of the programs. When they went to higher ups, including Congressmen, they were told to “Quit asking questions!” They were destroyed professionally and one was almost sent to jail.
Research isn't really hard.
Maybe what we need is the Jeffersonian political party.
“When Snowden signed up, he gave his word not to divulge the secrets he had access to. “
How about a pedophile making his 7 year old victim promise not to tell “their little secret”? That’s the category I put the government promise in.
From your own home page:
“I am an American first and a conservative second. I have no use for either political party, or those who hate this great country whether they be on the left or right.”
Looks like Snowden and I go for American first, you might want to change your statement. Appears you have your order reversed.
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Is it treason to expose treason?
If NSA were stuffing people in concentration camps, and Snowden stole and published documents proving it, he would have betrayed the Regime but NOT committed Treason b/c it’s NOT LAWFUL to stuff people in concentration camps.
Snowden if he ever comes back to the US should only go to NH. NH is the only state left out of 17 or so that left the right to revolution in the State Constitution.
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
What motivates a person to become a traitor? It's almost always either money or ideology. I don't see any money involved here. And I don't see any evidence that Snowden was a communist, an anarchist, a disgruntled employee looking for revenge, or anything like that.
So yep, you're right. Snowden is not a traitor. He might have been a bit overzealous (time will tell), but his motives were one of a patriot.
Was the exposure of Carnivore unAmerican and was that person a traitor?
Exactly. I remember in the 90s that our most secret designs of advanced nuclear weapons were stolen from Los Alamos.
If that is not high-treason, nothing is.
I always thought those involved should have all been put in front of a firing squad.
I was shocked that nothing was done -- I knew then our Republic was in serious trouble.
Exactly... nothing was done due to the fact we have not had a Republic since the 17th Amendment was imposed on our Republic. The Unity Party in Washington DC along with a string of monetary interests, from large business, banks, wealthy individuals all conspire to the New World Order... Davos Switzerland... Does it not strike anyone in the US interesting every Party Leading in Communist China is extremely wealthy? Our ideals for a Republic are in conflict with the NWO types. Why do you think the Electoral College is being dismantled? Both Parties at the state level fight any legislation to reign in voter fraud... esp in NH? Unity Party!
What is screwing up the Plan? Snowden and the internet.. Communication Age is upon us.. They can’t control the story like they did in the past. Look at Benghazi...or any other event in the past 12-15 years... Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky was the first event they could not control... =Impeachment!
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