Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower

[Joe Allonby]

Didn't we already have this scandal?


On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Rich Clavey <antizoyd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> What he said.
> Keep 'em coming, Joe.
>
>
>
> --- On Tue, 6/11/13, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>> Subject: Re: Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower
>> To: "P-list List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2013, 11:43 AM
>> It's called denial, and particularly
>> since the build -up to the Iraq war and the many betrayals
>> of the Obama presidency it has become the  full time
>> religion of huge swaths of the mainstream media. They are a
>> bit confused at the moment because well, they didn't think
>> they were terrorists just because they try to report what
>> their own government does in a theoretically democratic
>> system where even the military industrial complex has some
>> accountability to the pesky people.
>> I suppose that after killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
>> whose nation never threatened or attacked us, a certain
>> amount of denial helps you imagine that this was somehow
>> heroic and that your killing and arrests of whistleblowers
>> and torture are not really criminal at all but heroic acts
>> of self defense and the promotion of democratic liberty.
>> Denial is also useful in regard to the International
>> mortgage scam from which the world is still reeling.
>>
>> "What, one wonders, did Snowden think the N.S.A. did?" Asks
>> Tobit. The NSA are not and have not been - surprise,
>> surprise Mr Tobit - actually tasked with spying on
>> non-suspect citizens without a warrant, but gathering
>> oversees intelligence. When Cheney proposed this program
>> under the title Total Information Awareness, the reaction
>> across the country was, and I quote," no fucking way" and
>> the idea was canned. The NSA is supposed to be the
>> Electronic version of the CIA( an organization that has no
>> constitutional basis and a long history of crime with very
>> little that looks particularly admirable) In that regard
>> they are supposed to stay away from domestic
>> surveillance  and respect 4th amendment rights.
>> The idea that everyone is being spied on may not be a
>> surprise to Mr Tobit but somehow, even with a nation in
>> denial, people across the nation are still shocked,
>> especially on the heels of the seizure of reporters private
>> communications. Obama would never have beat even the
>> obnoxious asshole John McCain if he had run on implementing
>> TIA, continuing to hold court released prisoners in
>> Guantanamo, never prosecuting financial fraud, and murdering
>> teenagers because they have the wrong father.
>>
>> The progress of fascism requires massive denial, loyalty to
>> power, and fear.  Having fun yet?
>>
>> The truth is that the NSA started and has grown shrouded in
>> secrecy and it is time for a democratic review. Aren't you
>> really saying Mr. Tobit and Musikar that this totalitarian
>> police surveillance is OK and a sound interpretation of
>> constitutional law?? ?
>> On Jun 11, 2013, at 10:29 AM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>
>> > There will, of course, be a strong campaign to malign
>> anyone who speaks publicly and strongly against government
>> abuse of power.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html
>> > Just sayin'.
>> >
>> > Yours truly,
>> > ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> > Henry Musikar, CISSP
>> > http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:17 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>> wrote:
>> > Obama clearly promised to stop and to prevent this
>> warrantless spying and clearly had the power either to stop
>> it or to expose and oppose it.  Instead he has excused
>> it, endorsed it, funded it and expanded it. He has gone
>> after reporters and employees who expose  the truth
>> about drones and spying or  who oppose abuses of
>> power.
>> > "Fix it, " you say
>> > But how will such abuse of the public trust  be
>> fixed if it  is never exposed to the light of public
>> scrutiny? That is what Snowden had the courage to do at
>> great personal risk. He and Bradley Manning are far more
>> loyal to the constitution and to the idea of democratic
>> accountability than Obama, who has proven time after time to
>> be a coward and a liar. He has never offered anything but an
>> image, brand loyalty to a product that does not exist, his
>> true loyalties the same as Bush: bankers, military
>> contractors, HMOs, the CIA, offshore bank accounts, drone
>> warfare, secrecy. surveillance, fracking, big oil,
>> Guantanamo, corporate money destroying popular democracy,
>> secret courts, even racial profiling has continued
>> unchecked.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Jun 10, 2013, at 7:46 PM, Henry M wrote:
>> >
>> > > Obama didn't put it in place, and has suggested
>> that legislators restrict the unlimited freedom to do
>> anything as long as it relates to terrorism.  I'm not
>> okay with the spying, but I'm not naïve.  It's the
>> natural extension of a process that has been going on for
>> thousands of years.  Fix it, but don't pretend to be
>> shocked to find gambling going on here.
>> > >
>> > > Yours truly,
>> > > ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> > > Henry Musikar, CISSP
>> > > http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Joseph Tracy
>> <brook7 at sover.net>
>> wrote:
>> > > Snowden did go to his superiors and they told him
>> to drop it. Thomas Drake went to his "superiors" and stayed
>> entirely within legal processes and his superiors accused
>> him as a lawbreaker( he won in court, but was personally
>> devastated). Colleen Rowley went to her FBI superiors with
>> information that would very likely have prevented 9-11 and
>> she was told to shut up .  Did you side with Bush when
>> William Binney exposed the then clearly illegal NSA spying
>> or Obama who promised it wouldn't happen if he was
>> president?  The 4th amendment cannot be repealed by
>> executive fiat or a law of congress.  When criminals
>> are running the show and breaking laws, compliance is little
>> more than just following orders. Totalitarian states always
>> give themselves the power of law and this system of
>> universal spying is exactly what Orwell, Kafka and history
>> shows as the core methodology of totalitarian police
>> states.
>> > >
>> > > You hated Bush but when Obama does the exact same
>> things you approve. Why?
>> > >
>> > > On Jun 10, 2013, at 12:24 PM, Henry M wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> Whether or not you like the results of
>> Snowden's revelation, he's certainly is closer to being a
>> whistle-blower than Manning.  Many people who have
>> never handled sensitive information miss an important
>> element of what employees, government or otherwise, are told
>> vis-a-vis whistle-blowing, which is the requirement to bring
>> the problem to one's superiors or to some office specially
>> designated for receiving such information.
>> > >>
>> > >> If Snowden had done so, he probably would have
>> been informed that while he, and many other people, may have
>> philosophical (and perhaps moral) concerns about the NSA
>> surveilance progam, it wasn't illegal and it wasn't against
>> government or program policy, direction, or charter, things
>> that Manning is too apparently too young and mixed-up to
>> understand, but which someone in Snowden's former positon
>> should.
>> > >>
>> > >> However much you may like them and the results
>> of what they've done, Snowden and Manning broke the law and
>> were aware of the consequence of doing so. That there are
>> bankers who broke the law (many just did very wrong things)
>> and who should be prosecuted in what would be very
>> complicated cases does not, in a nation of laws, give other
>> people such as Snowden and Manning, a free pass.
>> > >>
>> > >> Yours truly,
>> > >> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> > >> Henry Musikar, CISSP
>> > >> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:39 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >> i can accept the release of what the NSA has
>> been up to with wiretapping and the like  but if this
>> guy also gave out secrets about US plans regarding
>> cyberattack strategies/defense I think that's something he
>> should be prosecuted for
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
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