And Obama told David Remnick, in an interview for The New Yorker, that the leaks âput people at riskâ and that, in his view, the benefit of the debate Snowden generated âwas not worth the damage done, because there was another way of doing it.âYes, the other way of doing it was akin to pissing in the wind.
The story most of the corporate mass media would like us to ignore is that Snowden was already vindicated a long time ago shortly after his disclosures:
3 Former NSA Employees Praise Edward Snowden, Corroborate Key Claims
Key points:
- His disclosures did not cause grave damage to national security.
- What Snowden discovered is âmaterial evidence of an institutional crime.â
- As a system administrator, Snowden âcould go on the network or go into any file or any system and change it or add to it or whatever, just to make sure â because he would be responsible to get it back up and running if, in fact, it failed. So that meant he had access to go in and put anything. Thatâs why he said, I think, âI can even target the president or a judge.â If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide. And then it would be collected, yeah, thatâs right. As a super-user, he could do that.â
- The idea that we have robust checks and balances on this is a myth.
- Congressional overseers âhave no real way of seeing into what these agencies are doing. They are totally dependent on the agencies briefing them on programs, telling them what they are doing.â
- Lawmakers âdonât really donât understand what the NSA does and how it operates. Even when they get briefings, they still donât understand.â
- Asked what Edward Snowden should expect to happen to him, one of the men, William Binney, answered, âfirst tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed.â Interesting that this is what a whistleblower thinks the U.S. government will do to a citizen. The abuse of Bradley Manning worked.
- There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. Itâs a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered.
Some say that information isnât âprivateâ anymore and none of this matters.
The only reason itâs not private anymore is because our own government is using unconstitutional, suspiciousness spying on its own citizens. Itâs illegal for corporations to spy on userâs private emails, etc. as well. Federal wiretap law exempts interception of communication only if itâs necessary in a service providerâs âordinary course of businessâ.
Some say that mass, suspicionless surveillance is for the purposes of security.
Thereâs no evidence that the only purpose of collecting Americansâ private information en masse is for security. As a matter of fact, evidence shows that collecting all of our private communications has done little or nothing to protects us. Even our own government is now admitting this while also admitting itâs overreach to boot:
NSA review panel casts doubt on bulk data collection claims
" ⊠The members of president Barack Obamaâs surveillance review panel on Tuesday rejected some of the central contentions offered by the National Security Agency for its bulk collection of phone records, including the programâs potential usefulness in preventing the 9/11 attacks."
For all we know they collect all of our data to thwart free speech (which is already happening with journalists)
Observe:
Advocacy groups say NSA threatens free speech
Donât think our government is capable of using wiretapping against us?
Look at the Watergate fiasco with Nixon. Much more recently, imagine what the corrupt people in the Chris Christie administration would do with mass surveillance.
One only has to look at human nature over the course of thousands of years to know that absolute power corrupts.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton, 1887
NSA Spying on Congress to Manipulate, Intimidate, Blackmail Top Government and Military Officials
On the Prospect of Blackmail by the NSA
These Whistleblowers Think the NSA is Blackmailing Obama and Congress
Source of 2005 New York Times Spying Expose Says Spy Agency Targeting Highest-Level American Leaders
Army deployed âpsy-opsâ on US Senators, for more war funding and troops
Is the NSA Blackmailing Its Overseers In Washington?
Never give any small group of people absolute power or theyâll send us towards despotism.
Itâs already on the way here in America. I challenge those who donât believe it to go outside with some peaceful demonstrators that bring up issues like wealth and income disparity and watch how fast the tear gas hits their faces and batons crack their skulls.
Or try to organize a peaceful activist group in the United States that says anything corporations donât like and watch how quick it gets infiltrated and spied upon with the very same spying tools Snowden has exposed.
Donât believe that can happen here? It already does:
DC cops caught infiltrating peaceful, lawful protest groups:
Why Is the Military Infiltrating Peace Activist Groups?
Peace Group Infiltrated By Government Agent:
Angry activists condemn FBI infiltration of peace movement:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_7574.shtml
Maryland troopers spied on activist groups:
Police infiltrate activist community:
FBI Infiltrates Iowa City Protest Group:
http://www.progressive.org/mc052609.html
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin
Thereâs this guy on Reddit, and he has a catchphraseâŠ
Would you like to know more?
http://www.reddit.com/r/moosearchive/comments/1hhjnb/archive/
Haha⊠edit: Iâm actually finding a lot of gold nuggets in that wall. Thanks! This was interesting. I donât know how I missed that one!
One thing I will say for myself⊠itâs not profitable to ignore my posts⊠[evil grin]
Bitcoin price per coin: $115
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/04/dan-kaminski-on-bitcoin.html#comment-1718100?
Bitcoin price per coin: $126
Bitcoin peak price per coin since then:
~$1100
âŠand today is at ~$800 and rising⊠so much for the naysayersâŠ
Depends who theyâre trying to protect, doesnât it? The whole story makes more sense if you look at the 99% as the enemy.
Mass surveillance will not stop the next 9/11; but it will make rounding up the surviving perpetrators easier. Whether this is worth the expense and destruction of society is open to question.
Yet they keep telling us our real enemy is Snowden.
The extremely profitable, corrupt military-industrial complex keeps drilling into Americansâ skulls that ânarcissisticâ Snowden is some sort of evil spy for Russia and China.
Never mind the fact if that was Snowdenâs intentions, he wouldâve simply leaked the data in secret, been paid ridiculous amounts of money for it and be set for life.
Yet buffoons still keep falling for this ridiculous, spy narrative without thinking for themselves or using basic logic and common sense. It must give the corrupt people in power an enormous hard-on to be able to say such ridiculous lies without idiots in America even using some basic critical thinking skills to see through it.
Thinking for ones self is hard, and likely to get one tossed out of the troop.
Good monkeys help the silverbacks hoard their bananas.
Bad Monkey, Cow. Bad Monkey. 
I see where this is going. You have people like Maher calling him crazy and then you have the government calling him a spy. Snowden takes the bait. Sooner or later, his words and reputation will be torn to shreds like Assange. I understand wanting to counter all the bad press, but Sowden would best be served to remain quiet. The government is purposefully using Snowdenâs character to distract from the information he released that puts them in an unfavorable light. If they are successful in framing a narrative that makes Snowden a criminal and an enemy of the US, they are tarnishing the information released as weaponry. I hope Snowden doesnât let this happen to him. What was brought to light has surpassed whatever Snowdenâs motives were, in terms of benefits to the citizenry, and he canât allow the egging on to distract/detract from what is at stake now.
It makes ârounding upâ the usual suspects, for many different reasons, easier.
This had already happened in social media, where some pointed at Snowdenâs Libertarian affiliation as somehow cancelling out whatever good he might have done. âHe hates the government anywayâ etc.
Confirmation bias strikes again.
VitoĂ° Ă©r enn, eĂ°a hvat?
Been used.
Unfortunately, corrupt politicians are using a very old, tried and trusted technique: asking Snowden to prove a negative. Of course he canât prove that he never got help from the Russians, the Chinese, the Martians or the Pastafarian ⊠So the likes of Feinstein can go on repeating âHeâs not telling everything! We must find out!â forever and ever. Evil bastards.
its not their fault we fall for it.
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