Posted on 04/21/2014 9:21:52 AM PDT by Randall_S
Imagine you were in the position of Snowden. As a contractor to the National Security Agency, you knew that your government was monitoring what seemed to be an indefensible amount of electronic communication, from emails, to phone calls, between ordinary Americans. What would you do? Perhaps you would:
Resign in protest? Go to the Press with declassified information? Point the Press in the right direction, to ask the right questions? Go public? Other whistleblowers in modern American history, such as Daniel Ellsberg, are today hailed as heroes. Help to start a national conversation about fundamental privacy rights, and the Constitutional provisions of the Fourth Amendment?
Maybe you’d do some or all of the above, among others thing. But would you ever consider fleeing to Russia via Hong Kong after leaking a tremendous amount of sensitive classified information to newspapers around the world? Most people consider such a course of action to be plainly treasonous.
(Excerpt) Read more at nyyrc.com ...
Welcome to FreeRepublic :)
Must ask, what answers are you expecting? Snowden goes both ways, there are some secrets that should remain secret from the public (and enemies)... but there are a lot of things he said that needed to be brought forth to the American public... it gets really iffy (grey) there..
Manning is a traitor, Snowden is a hero.
The suggested alternative actions are ludicrous.
#1 and #5 would accomplish nothing.
The others would have caused Snowden to disappear into a dark hole, and also accomplished nothing.
Once he decided to blow the whistle, he had no choice but to leave the U.S. sphere of influence.
I sure as heck wouldn’t make it my life’s mission to steal every classified document I could get my hands on... never mind releasing the whole pile to the international media.
I’d get one of those big fur hats.
I expect I would have only leaked the un-American and unconstitutional information concerning the government spying on it’s citizens. I would have left the “other” national security stuff “secret”.
I have a hard time trying to decide how I would have handled this if I were in his shoes.
I do know that I wouldn’t put my country and her peoples information in the hands of Russia or other foreign countries.
That is the only thing I know that I wouldn’t have done.
I hope I’m wrong but I can’t imagine that he hasn’t turned this information over to Russia and who knows how many others.
Resign in protest? = go to jail
Go to the Press with declassified information? = go to jail
Point the Press in the right direction = go to jail
Go public? = go to jail
Remember, the press is in Obama’s back pocket. Each option above would have embarrassed the King. So the media would have let Snowden hang.
I’d reveal everything that Obama and his handlers have concealed about his past for starters. Then I’d look for other punch bowls to ...
He took the job specifically to dig for dirt. It wasn't a matter of "stumbling upon something scandalous".
I’d release everything he found on the background of Obama….for the good of the country. He would be a hero for the ages.
I saw a sitdown interview with Snowden and a German journalist. Snowden said the tipping point for him came when the NSA Director lied in an open Congressional hearing that none of this spying was going on.
Btw, I thought Snowden was a very articulate, thoughtful, soft-spoken young man. Far better than the current White Hut squatter.
This obsession with Snowden ignores the obvious questions -
Why wasn’t anyone fired for administering a database of vital, sensitive information that was so wide open even a low level contractor could steal it?
How many other Snowdens have there been, albeit without such big mouths.
he hasnt become Edna yet??
What made one a traitor and the other a hero?
Have no idea what result Snowden was expecting, but either way, he is a prisoner - Prisoner in Russia, with secrets going to them, or prisoner of the US Government.
Snowden is alive. He’s a hero who has the US gov’t by the shorthairs.
Hell no. There are other ways. May he have many sleepless nights in his new homeland.
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