Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

SamAca10

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MOSCOW (AP) — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden left the transit zone of a Moscow airport and officially entered Russia after authorities granted him asylum for a year, his lawyer said Thursday, a move that suggests the Kremlin isn't shying away from further conflict with the United States.

Snowden's whereabouts will be kept a secret for security reasons, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said, making it even harder to keep track of the former NSA systems analyst, who has been largely hiding out at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.

The U.S. has demanded that Russia send Snowden home to face prosecution for espionage over his leaks that revealed wide U.S. Internet surveillance practices, but Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the request. In a statement released by the WikiLeaks secret-spilling site, Snowden thanked Russia and lashed out at the Obama administration.

"Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law, but in the end the law is winning," he said. "I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations."

The move could further strain U.S.-Russian relations already tense amid differences over Syria, U.S. criticism of Russia's human rights record and other disputes. Putin has said his asylum was contingent on him not hurting U.S. interests, but the Kremlin could have interpreted that to exclude documents he had already leaked to newspapers that continue to trickle out.

In his application for asylum, Snowden said he feared he could face torture or capital punishment if he is returned to the U.S., though the U.S. has promised Russia that is not the case. The U.S. has revoked his passport, and the logistics of him reaching other countries that have offered him asylum, including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, are complicated.

"He now is one of the most sought-after men in the world," Kucherena told reporters at the airport. "The issue of security is very important for him."

The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday published a new report on U.S. intelligence-gathering based on information from Snowden, but Kucherena said the material was provided before Snowden promised to stop leaking as a requirement of getting asylum.

The one-year asylum can be extended indefinitely, and Snowden also has the right to seek Russian citizenship. According to the rules set by the Russian government, a person who has temporary asylum would lose it if he travels abroad.

Kucherena said it would be up to Snowden to decide whether to travel to any foreign destination, but added that "he now has no such plans."

Snowden's father said in remarks broadcast Wednesday on Russian television that he would like to visit his son. Kucherena said he is arranging the trip.

WikiLeaks, which has adopted Snowden's cause, said in its statement that legal adviser Sarah Harrison has been with him in the transit zone for 39 days and remains with him. It said only that they left the airport in a taxi and that they are heading to a "secure, confidential place."

The group also praised Russia for providing him shelter.

"We would like to thank the Russian people and all those others who have helped to protect Mr. Snowden," WikiLeaks said on Twitter. "We have won the battle — now the war."

Kucherena said that Snowden spent little time packing. The lawyer said the fugitive had friends in Russia, including some Americans, who could help ensure his security, but wouldn't elaborate.

"He has got friends, including on Russian territory, American friends, who would be able to ensure his safety for the time being," Kucherena said.

He refused to say whether Snowden would stay in Moscow or move to stay elsewhere in Russia, saying the fugitive would discuss the issue with his family.

Kucherena argued that Russia did the right thing by offering shelter to Snowden despite U.S. pressure. "Russia has fulfilled a humanitarian mission with regard to the U.S. citizen who has found himself in a difficult situation," he said, voicing hope that the U.S. wouldn't try to slam Russia with sanctions.

Putin's foreign affairs aide, Yuri Ushakov, sought Thursday to downplay the impact on relations between the two countries.

"This issue isn't significant enough to have an impact on political relations," he said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

He said that the Kremlin hasn't heard any signal from Washington that Obama could cancel his visit to Moscow ahead of next month's G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

But Sen. Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that the Russian decision to grant asylum to Snowden would hurt ties.

"Edward Snowden is a fugitive who belongs in a United States courtroom, not a free man deserving of asylum in Russia," the Democratic lawmaker said. "Regardless of the fact that Russia is granting asylum for one year, this action is a setback to U.S.-Russia relations. Edward Snowden will potentially do great damage to U.S. national security interests and the information he is leaking could aid terrorists and others around the world who want to do real harm to our country."

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a veteran of Russia's human rights movement and head of the respected Moscow Helsinki Group, welcomed the news on asylum for Snowden, but added that his quest for freedom of information has landed him in a country that has little respect for that and other freedoms.

"Having fought for the freedom and rights, Snowden has ended up in a country that cracks down on them," Alexeyeva said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch sounded a similar note. "He cannot but be aware of the unprecedented crackdown on human rights that the government has unleashed in the past 15 months," Denber said in an e-mailed comment.

Putin has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent since his inauguration for a third presidential term in May 2012, with the Kremlin-controlled Parliament stamping a series of laws that introduced heavy fines for participants in unsanctioned protests and imposed tough restrictions on non-government organizations.

A law passed in June imposes hefty fines for providing information about the gay community to minors or holding gay pride rallies, a move that has prompted gays in the U.S. and elsewhere to call for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-leaves-airport-russia-grants-asylum-133202251.html
 
Traitor. Appreciate knowing but the NSA program, and I'm uncomfortable about it, but I'm sure our enemies appreciate it too.

Bringing the program to light, in my mind, was one thing, but telling other world powers what our intel programs were doing moved from "whistleblower"-like status to "traitor."
 
I pick niether.

If some of the information he revelaed was illegal obtained and viloated the constitution then he did a good thing but not HEROIC because he was not willing to stand up and fight, he simply dump and ran.

If it was not iillegal or un-consitutional information he revealed then I don't know if he can consider a traitor since this information was known for the most part by other governments and agencies. He may have been guilty of viloating his clearance agreement but not treason.

So calling him a hero or a traitor is too extreme for what whatever view you have.
 
To be honest, I'm less concerned about the NSA then I am about the fact that when I Google BBQ's to look at, the next time I come on this board the advertising banner at the top is trying to sell me BBQ's. Now that's creepy.

Since Mr. Snowden has not only released classified information to foriegn news medias but has claimed to have information regarding how the NSA internal information gathering system works, and has given this information to several people threatening to release it should he be prosecuted or caught. Well until they find another term in which to classify him, I'll go with Traitor, with a lot of Narcissistic Idiot thrown in as well.

I have a hard time believing that Mr. Snowden will be able to abide by Putin's requirement that he not leak any further information, at least to anyone but the Russians. Living in obscurity in Russia will be tough for him, I imagine he will do what he thinks he needs to just to keep his name at the top of the news cycle. It will be interesting to see how the Russian government handles that when the time comes.
 
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It depends on if you feel you are the victim or not.

According to the LAW; when our founding fathers signed the "Declaration of Independence", they were declared traitors to the British Crown. But because it's been approximately 237 years, and we love our standard of living and lifestyle, almost no one in the United States would consider Sam Adams and our found fathers to be "Traitors".

I feel the same way about Snowden. Our government has way overstepped it's bounds and authority. I do NOT RECOGNIZE the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) authority. Just because THEY give the NSA approval to spy on their own citizens, doesn't make it right or constitutional. Unfortunately, this is the first time with our modern congress, that so many democrats and republicans agree on something. They think Snowden is a traitor. This simply goes to prove that many in our government simply want more power and more control over the people. And as such, and their claim of "National Security", they can bully the law to suit their needs.

There is no way that Snowden is a traiter. If he had gone to the "Enemy" and explained how the NSA was keeping track of them, to allow them the information to avoid such tracking..... that would have been an act of treason. But that's not what he did. He reported to the Citizens.... The American People..... The individuals who the NSA and Government (WORK FOR); that "Their Employee" (The NSA), was secretly monitoring them. Remember; this is a "government of the people, by the people, for the people,". While Lincoln was definitely not one of my favorite presidents in history, that quote is very true. That is the whole concept and purpose of the constitution and the bill of rights. Not to say what rights "The Government ALLOWS" the citizens to have. It was a list of "LIMITATIONS ON THE GOVERNMENT".

Snowden is not a Traitor. I wouldn't call him a hero either. He simply did what anyone SHOULD have done if they became aware of this. If CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc... had discovered this on their own, and reported it, they wouldn't be considered traitors. The ONLY REASON Snowden is being accused as a traitor, is to "DEFLECT" the real crimes away from Congress and Obama.
 
Not exactly the "American people". He was in a foreign country and reported it to a foreigh press. The only "American" think about it, is the media eventually passed the story on to the American people. If you honestly think he's doing this for the American people, I would have trouble believing he isn't spilling his beans to the Chinese or Russians (neither of which I consider U.S. friends.).
 
The biggest secrets are those we keep from ourselves. The second biggest are those we keep from our friends. Our enemies already know our secrets.

When I was in Germany, the best kept secret was not where our AA was, or where we stocked our bombs...pretty much everyone knew those "secrets". No, the thing that USAEUR most wanted to keep close hold was where the new helicopters were going to be stationed - least the citizens there get upset while there's time to do something about it.
 
Not exactly the "American people". He was in a foreign country and reported it to a foreigh press. The only "American" think about it, is the media eventually passed the story on to the American people. If you honestly think he's doing this for the American people, I would have trouble believing he isn't spilling his beans to the Chinese or Russians (neither of which I consider U.S. friends.).

I think the Washington Post qualifies as "American."

So, here is a question with lots of serious implications, "What do you do if you see continuing, classified violations of the US Constitution, and your leadership favors these violations?" If one is to believe Snowden, that is what he faced.
 
IMHO, Snowden is an IDIOT. The only bigger idiot are the ones who didn't do a good job of monitoring him to see if he was appropriate material (you've gotta be comfortable with the nasty side of intelligence to work in the business) for the job and that he was using the resources available to him appropriately. Sounds like neither were done by his superiors.

Back to his idiocy... What kind of moron goes to work for an intelligence agency (don't tell me he didn't realize that NSA was involved in gathering intelligence - i.e.spying) and is shocked to find that they have gone beyond the 1970's era wire taps and bugging devices.

So maybe he isn't shocked, but wanted to be the hero because he thinks the government shouldn't be doing these kind of things... He goes and access things he knows that they can catch him doing without an exit strategy. C'mon, if he did, he'd still be in HK or someplace in China.

So Plan A (China doesn't work out). You'd think that he know that his next stop should be a place that will give him asylum on the spot. What makes him think the Russians are going to be any more accommodating than the Chinese? North Korea might be a better bet to grant Asylum and it is a shorter flight.

And not only did he choose a weak Plan B, from news reports, he didn't even pack a spare set of clothes in his carry-on luggage so when SURPRISE his US passport was revoked he's stuck in the customs zone of an airport without a way out if he doesn't have another government's travel papers. Making the assumption that presenting himself to Russian authorities with American secrets would be as good as a passport makes me think he's watched 1 too many bad spy movies from the Cold War era.

So, finally after a bunch of drama, he gets temporary asylum. Did he do any research about the long term prospects of the folks who have defected to Russia over the years? Let's just say it never ends well. Once you've divulged all the good stuff, they don't take care of their sources very well at all. And I seriously doubt Snowden is Scheherazade and will be able to prolong his status indefinitely.

Nothing about this guy says that he has a plan or even friends who will protect him. Why he put himself in this situation is beyond me.

To be honest, I'm less concerned about the NSA then I am about the fact that when I Google BBQ's to look at, the next time I come on this board the advertising banner at the top is trying to sell me BBQ's. Now that's creepy.

Since Mr. Snowden has not only released classified information to foriegn news medias but has claimed to have information regarding how the NSA internal information gathering system works, and has given this information to several people threatening to release it should he be prosecuted or caught. Well until they find another term in which to classify him, I'll go with Traitor, with a lot of Narcissistic Idiot thrown in as well.

I have a hard time believing that Mr. Snowden will be able to abide by Putin's requirement that he not leak any further information, at least to anyone but the Russians. Living in obscurity in Russia will be tough for him, I imagine he will do what he thinks he needs to just to keep his name at the top of the news cycle. It will be interesting to see how the Russian government handles that when the time comes.

Your comment about Google and its tracking of your movements of people around the internet is more telling about who we should be afraid of. The non-governmental organizations (site operators, ISPs, telecoms, etc.) are the source of NSA's treasure trove.

Right now, these folks have various data retention policies which is why NSA gathers and keeps this data. Would it make anyone here feel better if they required all these providers to keep records for 7 years and then be subject to numerous search warrants to run the same queries? And of course, now that data is in less secure hands (trust me corporate database security is far less stringent than NSA's). So now the Chinese and Russians and the North Koreans have lots of places to hack to track our telecommunications. The less time this data is in "private" hands, the safer it is from far bigger threats.

Everyone is upset that this data is available to the Government. The bigger problem is that Americans don't trust "secret" courts. The reality is that "secret" courts have existed for a long time for things such as organized crime. I don't hear too many people sticking up for the Mafia.

I think the whole thing would cease to be an issue if there were a disclosure of all details of these secret courts after a set amount of time once the investigation is completed, including contacting all individuals whose data was "touched" in the queries.

People may be upset that they are being looked at despite the fact that they accidentally came in contact with a suspected (or actual) criminal or foreign agent. People accidentally walk past surveillance cameras every day. Sometimes the cops seize the recordings of these tapes and watch them when a crime occurs. And your mug may show up on that tape. S#1T happens. Crawl in your shack in the Montana woods and live Amish if you don't want to be observed. PUBLIC communications networks are not PRIVATE. If you want your own PRIVATE phone/IP network to your friends, build it yourself.

Quite frankly, the concept that you should be able to live on your own land unfettered by unwanted outside contact (a notion of the 18th century) doesn't lend itself to merging with a 21st century lifestyle where you freely cross public boundaries (both physically and communication) Expecting that same unfettered contact in a public world is insane because it never existed in the past. Yes we had a very weak central government that didn't have the resources to track us in the 18th century (not that the British were much better at the time despite all the rhetoric - clearly they were no more competent then than we were stopping the Boston Marathon Bomber).

We've seen here that there truly are very few secrets out there. What amazes me is that people actually think anyone can keep large scale secrets with other people. The government is people just like you and I and they leak from time to time. The Snowdens of the world will always be out there to provide some of those leaks. If we actually talked more openly and frequently about not expecting absolute privacy when using public resources (telecommunications, public physical spaces, etc.), we'd be much healthier as a society by not being in this "secret" world that gets exposed from time to time. I could go into a psychological discussion about the harm secrecy (and the shame concept that drives it) does to people, but that is a long topic (not that this post isn't long).
 
I think its funnier that the two countries he went to seek asylum for are the two countries on Earth with even more heinous, probably some of the worst, human rights records than the US
 
I look at this whole thing with Snowden and the NSA as an interesting exercise in social science.

Since most of us don't mind losing their 4th amendment rights I guess now would be a good time to reduce our 2nd amendment right and require all purchases to be tracked, recorded, scanned and correlated against those lost 4th amendment rights.

Can you imagine the amount of outragousness that would come forth if Snowden revailed that the above is happening (not to say it isn't) instead of wire tapping. And how we would consider him.
 
There you go with those pesky "Constitutional Rights" again!


:wink:
 
There you go with those pesky "Constitutional Rights" again!


:wink:

Dang thing keep getting in the way....

Feel free to record any and all the conversation/e-mail/texts of those who are watching "them" remove my gun from my cold dead hand.
 
ISince most of us don't mind losing their 4th amendment rights I guess now would be a good time to reduce our 2nd amendment right and require all purchases to be tracked, recorded, scanned and correlated against those lost 4th amendment rights.

Wait...this is't already being done?

This type of thing has been happening for years, Buy to much Fertilizer and you are required to fill out paperwork, buy even more and you get a visit from the ATF. Buy to much Sudafed and you get a visit from the DEA.

A poor guy just trying to buy a Pressure Cooker online in Boston just got a visit from the police.

I agree with Goaliedad on this one, the scary part of all of this is the amount of information companies like Google, facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others have on everyone that uses the internet. Where do you think the NSA gets most of it's information. The security for these companies is dismal, just look at the amount of times these companies are hacked.

Our personal information is out there, and for the most part it is by our own doing that we use things like Google and facebook with a false sense of security, the sad part is that we can never get that information back. To think that our personal information is private with the technology we now have and use is naive at best.

I'm not saying I like what is happening, it's just that the cat has been out of that bag for a while now.
 
Ok, I had to laugh out loud at this story.

http://main.aol.com/2013/07/12/edward-snowden-updates-le_n_3585837.html?13754546539&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl5%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D352851

The Russians offer Mr. Snowden a position on the "All star security team" for their version of Facebook, I'm sure there is some Irony in there somewhere.

I wonder, if Mr. Snowden takes this job and finds out that "Gasp" the Russian government collects data on it's citizens, will he then make the same revelations to the press. I'm sure the Kremlin will be most accommodating.

I do feel for the guy though, if I was 30 and single, I'd probably miss my Pole Dancing Superhero Girlfriend too.

Mr. Snowden has agreed to abide by Putins demand that he not leak any further information that would damage the US. The only issue with that is he has already sent reams of information to media outlets prior to any agreement. These media outlets are free to release what they see fit to keep this story alive. The Guardian has already released information about XKeyscore on Wednesday, I doubt this will stop anytime soon.
 
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No telling how many countries are spying on Snowden now. The Russians, the USA, the Chinese, and anyone else with an intelligence system worth its salt.
 
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