As someone who held a top level clearance almost my entire adult life, I do not hate Snowden, I just think he is stupid. There are many ways to funnel information to the right people, and he seemed to skip a lot of that and go the whole "fuck it" route. I don't seem him as a hero, I see him as someone that was sitting on top of explosive stuff and had no idea how to handle it and chose probably the worst possible route.
But he's not a traitor. And he had shit-all to do with Rogers and the NSA. That makes no sense to even say that, considering Rogers was blowing the whistle on the same shit Snowden did.
Snowden should serve about 5 years in prison and then never be allowed a clearance again. And he should get "time served" for his self-exile.
Assange is a different matter. Pardon, if there is a way to do it. I have no idea if there is really, because I am not sure his charges were even formally brought.
Why should he have held back any information he had from the public?
That is exactly what Snowden did. He worked for the CIA, and yet he has refused to provide any evidence to expose the traitors in the CIA. Snowden's only goal has been to damage the NSA, and protect the CIA. All those who protect traitors in the CIA, like Snowden has done, must be held accountable.
You feel very strongly about this. I respect that. And I understand how he could be seen as a traitor. I think it is a complicated issue. But I think we both agree that he should not be pardoned at least.
I blame him for running with a hard drive of our foreign intelligence that he is trading on for a lifestyle while claiming to be a hero for exposing an nsa program that had a 30 page magazine article detailing it out the previous month.
Yeah I remember Trump introducing that NoKo defector at the SOTU as a traitor. Oh wait, he didn't - probably because treason implies your government hasn't betrayed you first!
As someone who held a top level clearance almost my entire adult life, I do not hate Snowden, I just think he is stupid. There are many ways to funnel information to the right people, and he seemed to skip a lot of that and go the whole "fuck it" route. I don't seem him as a hero, I see him as someone that was sitting on top of explosive stuff and had no idea how to handle it and chose probably the worst possible route.
But he's not a traitor. And he had shit-all to do with Rogers and the NSA. That makes no sense to even say that, considering Rogers was blowing the whistle on the same shit Snowden did.
Snowden should serve about 5 years in prison and then never be allowed a clearance again. And he should get "time served" for his self-exile.
Assange is a different matter. Pardon, if there is a way to do it. I have no idea if there is really, because I am not sure his charges were even formally brought.
Snowden is 100% a HERO.
Why should he have held back any information he had from the public?
Do we the people not have a 4th amendment or rights to know our gov is tracking us?
Why should he have done anything different? NSA needs to be abolished along with FBI, CIA, IRS, Fed Reserve, 16A, etc.
Sick of the deep state shadow BS. They classify anything they don't want us to see and have a license to loot, kill & spy. NSA can shove it
That is exactly what Snowden did. He worked for the CIA, and yet he has refused to provide any evidence to expose the traitors in the CIA. Snowden's only goal has been to damage the NSA, and protect the CIA. All those who protect traitors in the CIA, like Snowden has done, must be held accountable.
Maybe you need to read up on what an actual traitor is. We have hundreds of them here.
You feel very strongly about this. I respect that. And I understand how he could be seen as a traitor. I think it is a complicated issue. But I think we both agree that he should not be pardoned at least.
Maybe you do.
he was not planning to go to Russia deep state make sure the only place he could go was there so they can smear him with their favorite weapon.
Except he was when he first decided to flee to China for his crimes and he was held up unable to go to basically any other country.
He didn’t defect.
He was forced there.
That’s a well documented, openly reported and publicly seen aspect of the original story.
Russia was not his first choice.
Like you’re entitled to maintain a different opinion but anyone who followed the story at the time would understand you to be ignorant of the facts.
YOU DON'T KNOW THAT.
I’m kind of done fighting about poor quality arguments for the day but access to his communications alone seems like a good enough deal for Russia.
This is a goalpost move for sure though.
I don’t think Snowden has even been happy about that relationship.
Regardless he was going to be forced to go somewhere. So you would be able to make this unsourced assumption about any nation he was living in.
I blame him for running with a hard drive of our foreign intelligence that he is trading on for a lifestyle while claiming to be a hero for exposing an nsa program that had a 30 page magazine article detailing it out the previous month.
Yeah I remember Trump introducing that NoKo defector at the SOTU as a traitor. Oh wait, he didn't - probably because treason implies your government hasn't betrayed you first!