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I am appalled and disgusted by this thoughtless post.
http://whistlebloweraid.org offers free representation to those navigating the process, founded by a (legal) NSA whistleblower.
Snowden defected to China, then Russia. He is neither a hero nor a patriot in my book. While the programs he identified may have been bad for democracy and America, it was not his place to blow the whistle, and he went about it in such a shady, criminal way that I can never forgive him.
For us this means taking what Snowden has to say about the Russian government with a bucket of salt.
Snowden defected to China, then Russia. He is neither a hero nor a patriot in my book. While the programs he identified may have been bad for democracy and America, it was not his place to blow the whistle, and he went about it in such a shady, criminal way that I can never forgive him.
And it was absolutely his place to do that, just as it's everyone's place to protect democracy and do what is right. Can you suggest how the system itself would have otherwise disclosed those abuses?
He doesn't need your forgiveness, but he deserves your appreciation.
Even at the very extremes such as Abu Grahib the population attacked George W. not the military.
Snowden overestimated the potency of the material that he leaked, if the public didn't turn against the military for Abu Grahib then his material wouldn't have cut it either.
In order for whistleblowing to work and for the whistleblower to be safe and continue living a normal social life, it has to be political in nature, it has to be a hit to the reputation of a political or social leader who is already dancing around 50% or less approval rating and always in danger of falling off the cliff (like Nixon, Trump, Bill Clinton or given the current partisanship any future POTUS).
If you blew the whistle on Nixon then you had the whole left embrace you and protect you, if you blew the whistle on Bill Clinton affair, all of the sudden the right would love you.
Snowden managed to piss off both the left and the right so he had to escape to Russia, of course he won't repeat the same mistake again
I mean, come on, how do you think it works? As long as he lives there, he's not free to criticize Russia. And what's the benefit? Many other people are doing that already.
Snowden defected to China, then Russia. He is neither a hero nor a patriot in my book. While the programs he identified may have been bad for democracy and America, it was not his place to blow the whistle, and he went about it in such a shady, criminal way that I can never forgive him.
The fact that you even use such qualified language to describe mass surveillance of the entire civilian population shows just how far your Stockholm Syndrome has led you to identify with our predatory government and ruling institutions.
You know who else was shady and criminal? All the planners, bureaucrats, functionaries, and even code monkeys who built the NSA's dragnet in the first place. But I'm sure we'll never hear a peep about them from you.
For potential whistleblowers: there are legal avenues to expose wrongdoing. http://whistlebloweraid.org offers free representation to those navigating the process, founded by a (legal) NSA whistleblower.
> During his time in Russia, we have seen the whistleblower system work effectively here at home. The details of Trump’s Ukraine call, and the subsequent freezing of security aid seems rather relevant today. More impressively so, this same whistleblower system Snowden criticized worked against a sitting president having no capacity for restraint. It's just laughable to believe that "the system works" because certain…
Social media was a tool to usher in a new era of freedom during the Arab Spring, which produced Egyptian students eager for a communist government. Right about the time Donald Trump's candidacy became serious, social media became a dangerous weapon of radicalization that needed to be strictly regulated by the government.