Posted on 06/10/2013 7:31:41 AM PDT by maggief
(CHICAGO)
(snip)
Former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft on WLS that he thinks admitted leaker Edward Snowden, is guilty of treason:
"Number one, this man is a liar. He took an oath to keep the secrets that were shared with him so he could do his job. He said said he would not disclose them, and he lied. Number two, he lied because he thinks he's smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us. This guy thinks he has a higher morality, that he can see clearer than other 299-million 999-thousand 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason".
(Excerpt) Read more at wlsam.com ...
Treason? This guy has courageously provided a lead into how much the government has gone amok in it’s power and control over people. Treason?....hardly.
You have a Congress conducting oversight which routinely usurps powers not enumerated to it by the Constitution during the course of its day to day business - and we are counting on them to determine if a line of Constitutionality has been crossed by the demands of the executive for petabytes of private-source data on American citizens?
You have a rubber-stamp FISA court which does not reject any government requests.
And you have an administration which is demanding information on Americans under the guise of fighting terrorism when they claim the war against Islamic terrorism is on the wane whilst there is a rising thread of Tea Party terrorism?
And the entire process is cloaked in secrecy, which means the public only finds out from whistleblowers that are made examples of to discourage others from coming forward.
There is the illusion of Constitutional oversight here. But in reality it means nothing. And that is the core problem here. And not only in this matter, but across the entire federal government.
IMHO he outed himself to extend his life expectancy..........
I do wonder how the Ellsberg precedent favors Snowden should he be brought to trial?
Interesting thought and I am sure they will argue it. Snowden will be charged and convicted. It is pretty clear that he violated the legal oath and contract he made. The person he should have disclosed this information to (by law) was Congress (I would have picked Rand Paul) - not the media. If that did not work he would have had a stronger argument (and probably from the grave) for disclosing it outside of the government.
This entire Administration is a Domestic enemy and a complete perversion of the Federal government outlined in our Constitution.
Well said and needs to be repeated often!
It is straightforward...and the Verizon meta-data thing doesn’t touch it.
>>“I see you used to eat your share of take-out pizzas back in the 2020’s, Mr. Norseman. That makes it a little tougher to give you the ok for your heart surgery when I have a list of many people who were eating much healthier during that time, I’m sure you understand.”<<
Exactly. And with the current example of the IRS abuses staring them right in the face, you’d think it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out.
Snowden released essentially metadata.
disagreeing with you is insane?
Because John is an Assistant VP of Sales for the Military-Industrial Complex, and Ubama is good for sales -- maybe, even better for sales than Dubya was.
We're all screwed.
central_va: “If any American can prove that their phone records and conversations were listened to without a court order then that person will become wealthy indeed.”
Well, that’s the problem. If they’re doing it, it’s likely classified. It’s also likely covered by a court order. That assumes I trust the courts to protect American’s 4th Amendment rights. I don’t.
A court order that permits the indiscriminate collection of vast sums of data on millions upon millions of Americans without probable cause is by its very nature unconstitutional. The SCOTUS might disagree, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand the founder’s clear intent for myself. It just means the corruption is far deeper than many Americans realize.
***
This is neither reasonable or Constitutional. In fact it is flatly unlawful and a direct violation of the rights of all citizens of the United States under color of law or authority -- and thus an act for which both civil and criminal liability attach under 18 USC 242 and 42 USC 1983.
Further, as an instrumentality of the Executive, and as these programs have featured prominently as admitted in The President's "Daily Briefing", culpability for this program reaches all the way to the President of the United States as Obama cannot claim that this program and it's breadth and depth were "conducted by staff members without his knowledge or consent."
This is an impeachable offense and, in my opinion, an indictable felony for each and every member of the government involved in it, including those members of Congress who have known about this program and not only refused to stop it but deliberately appropriated funds for its creation, expansion and continued funding.
***
The key here is that thousands of people in the federal government have committed indictable felonies. Now the big question is: what happens?
We all know of course that nothing is going to happen, which is why the revelation is nothing compared to the future. Not only will tyranny be known & understood by all, but the sheer hubris of shoving the People's noses in sh!t will further embolden ever greater acts of atrocity.
He is a solid conservative.
He is conserving the status quo.
People who genuinely want to conserve the radical spirit of liberty bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers are an extraordinarily rare commodity. Around here, they usually get dismissed as "Paulistinians" or "Loserdopertarians" without any serious effort at listening to their warnings.
Next time someone claims to be a conservative, be sure to ask them just what it is they think they are conserving. The answers might be surprising.
>>Yes I can actually<<
Well, Snowden is currently in Hong Kong (presumably), a part of Communist China, and is no doubt being pursued by our government.
Who’s to say that China doesn’t get him first, and squeeze him for every bit of knowledge he has regarding NSA operations, now that he’s outed himself?
So, no, you can’t, actually....
yep there is
And just how would they find out at the level of preponderance of the evidence in civil suits? Only way I can see is a whistleblower. You know, the guys facing prosecution if they come forward. You don't even perceive the catch-22 of your position here.
We live in very, very interesting times. I don't know what to make of it.
It's a phenomenon as old as humanity, best described in this quote:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." -- Robert A. Heinlein
I don’t disagree with what you wrote. However, we (America) are responsible because we elected our representatives who approved of this.
This has always been my biggest heartburn with the War on Terror. This was my biggest heartburn with Bush. “Homeland Security” and the Patriot Act upset me from the beginning and many of us (yourself included obviously) saw the potential for the inevitable pendulum to swing too far in violation of the constitution.
The legality issue has been covered by a complicit congress and FISA court that is willing to sacrifice our constitutional rights for the illusion of security.
It was a problem then. It is a problem now. It will continue to be a problem. However, you won’t see anyone outside of potentially the leaker who is prosecuted for it because they most likely followed the law.
Doom on our nation for not recognizing this in 2001/2002/2003 when this structure was put in place. Doom on our nation for not passing stronger privacy laws for electronic media.
Interestingly, the courts have been pretty solid on protecting our rights against unreasonable search and seizure outside of the FISA court and the WOT. This will be an interesting debate moving forward and I have to go to work. FRegards.
agreed!
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