Posted on 06/10/2013 3:14:09 PM PDT by Fred
The UK Guardian revealed the source for its stories on the NSA phone-monitoring story (and, evidently, the Washington Post story about the PRISM Internet snooping program) is a 29-year-old IT specialist for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton named Edward Snowden.
He says he enlisted in the Army with an eye towards fighting in Iraq because “I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression,” ended up spending three years as a CIA security technician, and voted for Barack Obama. He now claims to be deeply disillusioned about Iraq, the CIA, and Obama. He might be one of the most disillusioned people in the whole world.
He’s also dishonest, having lied to his supervisors and claimed he needed time off for epilepsy treatment, when in reality he was copying classified documents and preparing for a flight to Hong Kong, abandoning his family and girlfriend in Hawaii without telling them what he was up to. He’s holed up in a posh Hong Kong hotel now, supposedly because he knows the U.S. government can’t get him there, and because Hong Kong has “a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”
Yes, when I ponder the spirit of free speech and dissent, China is the first world government that pops into my mind. Snowden is evidently thinking about defecting to China, insisting that Americans have that wonderful nation all wrong, and it’s not really our enemy. He also talks about seeking refuge in Iceland, and while he makes that sound like a wistful daydream, NBC News says activists in Iceland are pressuring their government to grant him asylum, while Snowden may have underestimated the willingness of authorities in Hong Kong to hand him over to American law enforcement. There has been some speculation that he might have been working as a Chinese espionage agent all along.
Get rid of NSA!!
If polls mean anything, it looks like Snowden threw his life away for nothing. Folks now have been conditioned to accept such violations as necessary.
‘Those who would give up essential liberty 2 purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety’ Ben Franklin ... only took 200 years for the end of the Republic... WE MUST #repeal #FISA #PatriotAct never never support such laws ever...
I got the impression that he voted for Obama in 2008 from The Guardian interview. He attributed Obama's election as the reason why he didn't go public at the time.
I'm admittedly projecting from his remarks, so it isn't necessarily accurate. I don't recall him stating that he voted for a third party candidate, however.
From an earlier Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why
“A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party.
I've no idea how Snowden voted in the 2012 general election -- if at all. But his $500 contribution to Ron Paul is consistent with his actions and current state-of-mind (as expressed).
Agreed. The information needed to see daylight. I do not want any kind of "safety" that costs my freedom; after all, the safest place in the world is a solitary confinement cell.
A terrorist attack will not destroy America, but government tyranny will. This "War on Terror" is nothing more than a clever excuse the take away our freedom under the guise of protection. No person can be trusted with the level of information that our government has collected on its citizens - not a Democrat or Republican, Revolutionary or Patriot - not even you or me. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It was a surprise to me too. Could be speculation that turned into "news". For now I would take it with a grain of salt.
>> He now claims to be deeply disillusioned about Iraq, the CIA, and Obama. He might be one of the most disillusioned people in the whole world.
That’s a hilarious line Leno could use!
>> Hes also dishonest, having lied to his supervisors and claimed
Give him a break. He thought he was doing God’s work.
I think it’s way too early too judge this guy one way or the other. But CIA training must be pretty darn good to equal $200K for a GED.
I heard an NPR piece on Snowden this morning. It was sort of a Q&A between the host and a reporter and it was pretty obvious that neither approved of Snowden and that the proper position for an enlightened listener was to disapprove of him too. They made this obvious in that slighting way that liberals make things obvious without saying it flat out.
I’m a little conflicted because my read on Snowden is not a positive one. I think he’s a V for Vendetta loving drama queen. He’s come along at the right moment to embarrass Obama but I suspect he’s a self-important weenie nevertheless.
Good to know.
In the vast configuration of this massive wrong done to the American people buy our "government", your soap opra degree in psychology and lame diagnosis is not only ridiculous..it is desperate and pitiful.
Get real...
NSA has been recording ALL traffic since forever - or at least before the early 60s.
The only thing different today is instead of analog tape, it is recorded on digital media.
In the good ol days they had to tap physically into a line, then they moved on to catching loops between repeaters. Now they can catch signals off most anything via cell towers and taps into server backdoors - curtsy of M$.
Sat dump catching was new in the 60s. Now it is just routine.
This guy is a wacko and should never have been granted confidential clearances let alone Top Secret Whatever it is that he held. But then the days of million dollar security clearances are long gone.
Fleeing to China probably indicates he was turned by the PLA intel guys at some point. Will he return to the US? Maybe in a body bag, if the PLA ever lets him go, which if he was turned, they won't. All worried about US intel guys catching him he was ... wait til the PLA intel guys show him the real world.
As for any putative US prosecution, he will have signed a binding agreement for any disclosures making him eligible for $10K fine and 10 years hard time (no parole) (or that was what it was in the 60s).
Either way, he is going down.
Trouble is all the hard copy he took will do us all enormous damage and give the PLA still another leg up on the US especially hacking US servers.
my 2 copper pennies.
Yeah, well, there you have it — FWIW and all that.
What the f**k? While you sat in your den railing at liberals, this guy was contemplating ruining his life by exposing what our government is doing. Your comment is incredible.
The possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison? Or maybe the possibility of being assassinated?
Wow, Human Events as the Volkischer Beobachter. Who would have known? The statists march.
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