Daniel Ellsberg: If Gen. Petraeus won't serve a day in jail for his leaks, Edward Snowden shouldn't either

I think we all knew exactly what you were saying.

1 Like

Oh I agree the crimes and their impact are very differentā€¦But itā€™s also not unreasonable to hold a four star to a higher standard than an E-4. Iā€™m not saying that Petraeus should be serving a long termā€¦but he SHOULD have seen the inside of a cell for SOME time IMHO.

4 Likes

Yeah, one of them was clearly throwing away security and a well-paid job to blow the whistle on illegal government activities while the other was leaking classified information in trade for sexual favours. That is a big difference!

13 Likes

Sure, but a short check holds it up, so I feel pretty good about that.

My bad, I confused Snowden with Manningā€¦

ā€¦and you appear to not have paid attention to my post, either. ā€œSerious questionā€ means just that.

My participation in this board will be predicated on purely whether or not I find the topics interesting, nothing more.

I didnā€™t know one could troll without abusive languageā€¦

Imputing guilt by association? Astro turf? Payed Shill?

I think weā€™ve got ā€œshout down the discussionā€ going on here.

2 Likes

[quote=ā€œdanegeld, post:13, topic:53086ā€]
I would think the book should be thrown at Snowden for damaging the NSAs capabilities.
[/quote]Which capabilities? The fantastic capability to utilize the fascist tactic of applying warrantless, suspicionless spying against all Americans in secret?

danegold, Iā€™ve performed various security consulting for corporations, government and quasi-governmental agencies thatā€™s given me access to a lot of private info over the years. Iā€™ve also worked at the headquarters of a major bank that garnered me access to quite a lot of private info there as well.

Do you trust me to dig through your bank accounts, emails and phone calls as well as that of your familyā€™s and friendā€™s accounts without a warrant, nor proper judicial oversight beyond a secretive, rubber-stamp judiciary? [cough] That is, when there is any oversight at all when Iā€™m not slipping through some cracks, perhaps?

Is that OK with you? Never mind, I donā€™t need your permission anyway. I can simply do it because I donā€™t like your unsavory political opinions and I donā€™t happen to agree with you or your agendas. On top of that, I can thwart you in ways you canā€™t even imagine. When a series of events befalls you that hinders your life, would you want me pulling the strings and creating ā€œbad luckā€ during that vulnerable time period?

Hmmm?

Hey, Iā€™m just protecting the safety of my interests and the interests of some of my compatriots against people like you. So, thatā€™s OKā€¦ right?

Anywayā€¦

One entity you mentioned is a patriotic whistleblower helping to protect our beloved U.S. Constitution and whatā€™s left of our human rights as American citizens. The other is burning both to shit.

Iā€™d like to see the U.S. Constitution thrown at the NSA. And, trust me, you should too.

11 Likes

Have you read any of the commentary going about on the net? (serious
question).The richboy comment is quite popular and it is part and parcel
the Washington Insider/privilege complaint.

Part of what is likely rankling people is the insistence that we have to correlate as ā€œpart and parcelā€ comments made outside this discussion board about wealth with other comments made about privilege. Dragging in a statement that no one here is making but is easy to argue against, and then tying it to the discussion about privilege, Iā€™m hoping you can see why this may look like astroturfing.

2 Likes

[quote=ā€œRobert_Ferdinand, post:27, topic:53086ā€]
I didnā€™t know one could troll without abusive languageā€¦
[/quote]You cannot picture how thatā€™s possible? That escapes your imagination? Really?

FYI: Being overly pedantic, disingenuous and purposefully obtuse are rather annoying forms of trolling.

6 Likes

You rebutted a point no one had made and when somebody else pointed this out, you countered by asking if people have read the comments posted ā€œon the netā€.
My reply was exactly what I wanted to answer to that.

If its not clear what I meant or why I thought to answer as I did, then please, ask me to elaborate. :smile:

1 Like

I know!

1 Like

Petraus submitted to the justice system and negotiated his plea because the government offered him a really good deal and what heā€™d done was clearly wrong, and he wanted to stay a public figure.

Snowden canā€™t negotiate a plea deal because all heā€™s being offered is ā€œMaybe we wonā€™t burn you at the stake until after we hang you.ā€ And he did his actions for moral reasons that showed how illegal and evil his masters were, so neither he nor they are motivated to back down.

6 Likes

So sarcasm, and saying ā€œBeing overly pedantic, disingenuous and purposefully obtuseā€, is not trollingā€¦ Interesting- ā€œTrollā€ seems to be the new Nazi/Fascist argument.

Why do so many people think that ā€œpedanticā€ means ā€œcapable of stringing more than two sentences together without invoking God, guns or 'Muricaā€ ?
ā€œWrite a dissenting opinion that fails to conform to prejudices and everyone looses their mindā€, as the Joker says.

This is getting beyond shouting down the dissident and descended into deliberate Troll entrapment. I am not biting.

Joined BB yesterday just to post this, eh? Howā€™s the NSA working out?

Update: Seen your later protests of innocence. Well, son, when someone with no history on the site joins to post a contrarian and seemingly ill informed (dare I say ā€œastroturfedā€) viewpoint, we donā€™t generally assume they joined our BB community simply because of an interest in BB and being a participant here. Every time someone posts a story that is a red flag to right wing ā€œI hates the terrorists!ā€ types, such as about guns, or gays, etc. we get this strangely coincidental influx of new ā€œmembersā€ who post rabidly on a thread, protest their genuineness and then go away, never to post again. It makes people downright suspicious.

4 Likes
1 Like

Give him a week and we will see what he really is, a bit better.

Contrarian voices can be important. Talking into an echo chamber quickly becomes boring, and if a debate can lead to actual decisions, instead of just Internet-Discussing, groupthink that sets in in such environments can become outright dangerous.

3 Likes

ā€œNo Clueā€, definition: ā€œI have no serious rebuttal to your pointā€.

What kind of Washington insider was Bradley Manning to get an easy ple agreement? The system apparently takes some account of circumstances, despite your hasty allegations. Snowen is one of seven people charged by the Obama administration since 2010 with multiple results. All of the cases were leak cases,

Demanding a special case for Snowden while caricaturing the justice system is a tacit admission that heā€™s done something serious.

I sometimes wonder if the alleged astroturfers are mechanical turks or just algorythimicly driven web-spider chat bots. They seem pretty quickdraw on these propaganda worthy US national policy image threads.
I would love there to be a way for the community to flag or activate an astroturf warning not on individual posts(too much potential for abuse) but on the top of a thread so first-posting bots/turks donā€™t 100% own the narritive for later web search surf-bys who only read the top ten comments.

2 Likes

Oh, Okay. Put Petreus in jail for a day. Then send Snowden to prison for life without parole.