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Bush on Snowden: ‘He damaged the security of the country’
Yahoo News ^ | Dylan Stableford

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 ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0bama; bds; bdsaliveandwell; bush; bushes; frisbdscentral; globalist; groundzero4bds; mypredecessor; nwo; snowden
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To: TexGrill; wideawake
Now that the Bush family is criticizing Snowden, I feel obligated to support Snowden even more

Me too.

121 posted on 07/01/2013 10:13:50 AM PDT by atc23 (The Confederacy was the single greatest conservative resistance to federal authority ever.)
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To: USS Johnston
I still don't understand which part of what Snowden said damages our security.
What I get from it is that he brought to light the illegal searching and storage of
information from American citizens without a warrant, 4th Amendment violation.

Yes some argue that it's the Law. Well, they can pass a law to shove us in Ovens TOO
but that doesn't make baking us Legal and Constitutional.

122 posted on 07/01/2013 10:14:24 AM PDT by MaxMax (If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention)
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To: Strategerist

“And people are basically studiously ignoring that it’s now apparent that most of what Snowden took deals with NSA spying on foreigners. To acknowledge that would destroy their hero-worship.”

Snowden is a totally separate issue from the disclosure that the NSA is colonoscopically collecting what EVERY American does.

To turn your argument around on you - to make it more appropriate - People are using Snowden to divert attention from the real issue that NSA is building files on every American as if they were criminals and only pretending that there are safeguards in place to make sure - To quote GWB: “one of the certainties is civil liberties were guaranteed”

I think this has already been proven a lie. The DNI already is a proven liar.

So who do you believe? A government bureaucracy that has been caught pathologically and voyeuristic-ally staring into every Americans private life and is in fear of it’s continued funding, or do we believe what they’ve been forced to admit under duress.

If the NSA had stopped at collecting intel on foreigners and Americans for whom they have a warrant to spy on, they wouldn’t be in this mess, would they?

Snowden will eventually face justice. Fine with me. But that doesn’t mean the NSA should not be forced to open their files so every American can examine the dossier gathered on them. I’m thinking that would be a cathartic experience for freedom loving Americans, from which the NSA would not survive intact.

I don’t believe GWB or the NSA on this matter.


123 posted on 07/01/2013 10:15:43 AM PDT by RFEngineer
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To: USS Johnston

Bush destroyed the republican party and gave us Obama. Now Bush is criticizing a whistleblower but nary a peep about IRS, AP, Bengazi, F&F, Waco, Ruby Ridge,


124 posted on 07/01/2013 10:17:46 AM PDT by atc23 (The Confederacy was the single greatest conservative resistance to federal authority ever.)
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To: atc23

His silence is revealing.

He’s a globalist just like his daddy and his brother.


125 posted on 07/01/2013 10:19:00 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Strategerist
Nobody is actually reading any articles about Snowden, they just read headlines (and maybe the odd clueless ranting blogger) and go on rants.

Like what articles, the hit and run smear jobs at establishment hack sites like townhall? I swear this is turning into Stockholm syndrome writ large. With everything since the boston bombing to AP bugging and now Snowden the amount of big government worship is a bit disappointing.

126 posted on 07/01/2013 10:21:14 AM PDT by Orangedog (An optimist is someone who tells you to 'cheer up' when things are going his way)
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To: driftdiver
Just because I mail a package to a customer does not give the govt the right to copy the contents of that package without a warrant.

Again, we are talking about metadata - i.e. not the contents.

The issue is that the NSA is using metadata (name of sender, address of package, date package is sent) to establish cause for obtaining a warrant in order to look at the contents.

Their act of providing this information without a warrant violates those contracts and agreements.

Read the fine print.

127 posted on 07/01/2013 10:21:33 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: RedWhiteBlue

That guys a doofus extraordinaire.
Not a white hat hacker..a dunce hat hacker.


128 posted on 07/01/2013 10:22:27 AM PDT by Bobalu (It is not obama we are fighting, it is the media.)
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To: wideawake

metadata my ass

They have the contents of everything if they want it. They have the balance of your bank account and where you’re spending your money.

And they are sharing it.

I did read the fine print. I have never given the US Govt or any of their lackies permission to access my computer systems.

Now we see how tyranny is accomplished. People like you welcome it in with open arms.


129 posted on 07/01/2013 10:26:39 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: sand88

I can say this with certainty: The real damage done to our Republic by Obama is orders of magnitude greater than any damage Snowden could do — even if Snowden released ALL the data.


BINGO!!!


130 posted on 07/01/2013 10:27:14 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals don't get it. Their minds have been stolen.)
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To: Bryanw92
The “War on Terror” is a fraud because the government won’t even name the enemy!

If anyone has been paying attention and listened intently, one would know they definitely have. It is us.

131 posted on 07/01/2013 10:30:29 AM PDT by Jagdgewehr (It will take blood.)
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To: atc23

Bush destroyed the republican party and gave us Obama.


Bush and Cheney had all the goods on Obama and did nothing about it. They knew he’s an avowed enemy of the United States and his intentions. They could have quietly stopped him from behind the scenes.

They’re all New World Order traitors.


132 posted on 07/01/2013 10:30:49 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals don't get it. Their minds have been stolen.)
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To: USS Johnston

Sorry, W. The program to monitor all Americans should never have been put in place. Under your leadership, I do nt believe it was abused. But the fact is, that it was there and could be abused.

There is NO conceivable probable cause...IOW, there is no eveidence that individual Americans are about to committ a crime, therefore gathering any of their personal effects or communications is unconstitutional. Period. Without that probable cause, the Constitution says you cannot do it.

Snowden did hurt that program. The program to collect data on all Americans as some kind of huge fishing net to help in anti-terror. The sad fact is, such a program can and will be used also to intimidate, coerse, and balckmail people for political purposes, and for curruption, as we have seen under Obama.

Snowden did his patriotic duty...and he will pay heavily for it. ut what he did did not hurt the country. it kept it from being hurt more by this program.

None of this stops our various agencies from gathering that same type of information form individuals or groups that we do have probable cause on. Go do that. Defend the country with it.

But never let it be used to make criminals of us all. That’s just a “bridge,” and a “switch,” and a “router,” too far that crosses a constitutional boundary and does harm to the whole system.

SNOWDEN, PRISM, AND THE NSA
http://www.jeffhead.com/prism.htm

Interview with three high level Whistle Blowers on PRISM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5QV2hXY4xo


133 posted on 07/01/2013 10:31:07 AM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: sand88
This stuff is essentially in reality fluff. Do you not think the Chinese likely knew these efforts were ongoing?

Again, for the millionth time, it is not what you know - it it what you can prove. And Snowden handed them the proof they could not otherwise obtain convincingly or legitimately.

You truly have absolutely no love of Liberty. You have clearly shown yourself to worship at the Alter of State Power. You are too blind and arrogant to even entertain the thought that your wonderful Federal Leviathan.

Making grandioise personal attacks is so much easier than actually having to do the heavy labor of thinking and making an argument, isn't it?

134 posted on 07/01/2013 10:33:07 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: atc23; TexGrill
Now that the Bush family is criticizing Snowden, I feel obligated to support Snowden even more

In other words, personal animosities and tastes, rather than analysis, are driving your view of the case.

135 posted on 07/01/2013 10:35:09 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: USS Johnston
Yes, odd that it's been up to Vichy Pubbies to criticize Snowden's revelation that the 4th Amendment is rourinely trashed. No one knows who is working for whom -- except NONE of them seem to be working for We The People.

Ignore which party they are with. Take a look at the positions held by the people doing the attacking. Note that they are almost all holding leadership positions in both parties. The only reason that I can see for that level of toadying is that the NSA has embraced their inner j edgar hoover and used this surveillance to blackmail those people. Why else wouldn't their little sock puppet of theirs who admitted he LIED to congress get away with it so easily?

I've said it before many times before anyone ever heard os Snowden...no one in DC is allowed to reach any position of power unless they have been thoroughly compromised and blackmailed.

136 posted on 07/01/2013 10:38:17 AM PDT by Orangedog (An optimist is someone who tells you to 'cheer up' when things are going his way)
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To: SoFloFreeper
I guaran-DAMN-tee you that if Snowden were exposing Bush-era behavior, (that is, if BUSH were in office), the FOCUS would not be on Snowden’s misdeeds, but on Bush’s alleged misdeeds.
And he's too dense to know that.
137 posted on 07/01/2013 10:38:28 AM PDT by lewislynn (What does the global warming movement and the Fairtax movement have in common? Disinformation)
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To: driftdiver
They have the contents of everything if they want it. They have the balance of your bank account and where you’re spending your money.

That's something that Snowden's stolen documents do not corroborate - whether or not the NSA uses the tools at its disposal to violate "the contents."

I did read the fine print. I have never given the US Govt or any of their lackies permission to access my computer systems.

But you have given your information to these service providers. Once you give it to them, it is their information as well.

Now we see how tyranny is accomplished. People like you welcome it in with open arms.

When the personal attacks start coming thick and fast, I know that my interlocutors are running out of arguments.

138 posted on 07/01/2013 10:43:04 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake

Not arguing with someone who celebrates tyranny.


139 posted on 07/01/2013 10:44:57 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: wideawake
If you do not want your data available, then you're going to have to do the work to conceal it.

Yeah, just don't use the internet.

Why is privacy not the default condition? Why do Americans have to specify that they DON'T want third party's using their information instead of having to specify that they DO?

The idea that companies are allowed to put something on your property without your permission is insane.
140 posted on 07/01/2013 10:49:37 AM PDT by Hilda
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