Snowdon is a dummy

Frank Apisa wrote:

At least acknowledge it to be a possibility.

You mean, I should acknowledge that Merkel knew her phone was hacked, that our parliament was playing theater, the committees are faked and our constitution and laws are phantoms?

Okay, for peace sake!

He was traveling from Chicago to New Orleans by way of Mississippi River scenic hiways and bike paths by bicycle.

You mean, I should acknowledge that Merkel knew her phone was hacked, that our parliament was playing theater, the committees are faked and our constitution and laws are phantoms?

Equally troubling, Snowden has abdicated moral responsibility by handing off much of what he stole to Laura Poitras, a freelance journalist, and Glenn Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian, and allowing them to decide what should be published. Greenwald says encrypted copies also have been given to other parties and that, if something happens to Snowden, "all the information will be revealed and it could be [the government's] worst nightmare."

Under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, the NSA worked with the FBI and CIA to monitor the communications of civil rights leaders and anti-war protesters, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Jane Fonda, as well as members of Congress. The exposure of those programs by Idaho Sen. Frank Church led Congress to enact the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, which created a secret court to hear warrant requests from intelligence services.

Personally I can't hardly make head nor tails out of most of what you said, furthermore, I don't have the same admiration for Edward Snowden as you folks do. I am not sure he just wanted to make a name for himself or he wanted to expose the NSA for his own values, whatever the reason, I think he is just as wrong as anything he exposed. He should have stayed to face the music and shouldn't have taken it upon himself to decide what information is vital for security and/or safety reasons or worse leaving that decision up the journalist regardless of any good you all that he did. I think He is not qualified to make those decisions. Moreover, according to this article from a former whistleblower, Snowden has blackmailed the US, or Glen Greenwald is, by saying if anything happens to Snowden, they are going to unleash all the information.

Quote:

Equally troubling, Snowden has abdicated moral responsibility by handing off much of what he stole to Laura Poitras, a freelance journalist, and Glenn Greenwald, formerly of the Guardian, and allowing them to decide what should be published. Greenwald says encrypted copies also have been given to other parties and that, if something happens to Snowden, "all the information will be revealed and it could be [the government's] worst nightmare."

source

So, no, he is hardly a hero.

Concerning the secret courts, we have had them since the 70's.

Quote:

Under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, the NSA worked with the FBI and CIA to monitor the communications of civil rights leaders and anti-war protesters, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Jane Fonda, as well as members of Congress. The exposure of those programs by Idaho Sen. Frank Church led Congress to enact the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978, which created a secret court to hear warrant requests from intelligence services.

source

Before that NSA just spied without any courts overseeing it, secret or otherwise.

On Tuesday, two days after Edward Snowden came forward and claimed responsibility for the recent leak of top-secret National Security Agency documents, Booz Allen Hamilton, the private contractor where Snowden most recently worked, announced that it had fired him.


The announcement came in a short statement, which was actually simply an update of a statement the company had released on Monday. In it, Booz Allen Hamilton confirmed that Snowden "was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii."

"Snowden, who had a salary at the rate of $122,000, was terminated June 10, 2013 for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy," the statement said. "News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter."

Booz Allen Hamilton included the salary figure in apparent response to Snowden's claim, in an interview with The Guardian, that he made a salary of around $200,000. The company, of course, has plenty of motivation to want to discredit Snowden. It receives the vast majority of its revenue from the government, and Snowden engaged in one of the most significant leaks of secret documents in U.S. history while on the company payroll. (TPM called Booz Allen Hamilton on Tuesday, but the company declined to discuss anything beyond what it said in its statement.)

Ed Pilkington, a reporter for The Guardian U.S., was asked about the salary discrepancy during an appearance on MSNBC on Tuesday. He acknowledged the difference, but suggested it was a minor issue.

"One hundred and twenty-two thousand, two hundred thousand is a small difference. I can't explain that," Pilkington said. "But up to now, everything that he's said -- all the articles that we've published largely by Glenn [Greenwald] -- have been proven to be accurate. There have been no denials and they haven't come back with any misinformation or anything like that. So, the big stuff has been totally bang on."