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NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor
- msandford 13y agoIs it just me, or does it seem like this guy probably isn't holed up in Hong Kong but elsewhere? I really hope this guy is smart enough to not actually advertise where in the world he actually is to a bunch of people that would likely have no problems disappearing him. I really hope he's already in Iceland.
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- EthanHeilman 13y agoOr you know the Icelandic embassy in Hong Kong.
- jlgreco 13y agoI hope he doesn't end up as another guy trapped in an embassy. With any luck he'll actually make it to the country.
- EthanHeilman 13y agoHong Kong is not controlled by the USAUK intelligence corpus so they would probably respect diplomatic privilege and allow him to leave for Iceland as long as he does so under diplomatic protection. It is probably also the case the UK wouldn't arrest Assange if he left under diplomatic protection, despite their claims that they would, since it would be a gross violation of diplomatic protocol. Remember that a Libyan opened fire on a crowd of Londoners from balcony of the Libyan embassy with a sub-machine gun, killing a young police woman and the UK still allowed the shooter to leave the country without charges. Diplomatic protocol is one of the strongest traditions of nations, breaching it is a serious blow to international perception of a nations trustworthiness (think red wedding). The UK is likely bluffing but Assange doesn't want to take the chance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Yvonne_Fletcher Hong Kong is unlikely to threaten gross violation of diplomatic protocol over a mere extradition request.
- briholt 13y agoIt seemed suspicious that in his video interview he said "there's a CIA station right up the street," thus alluding to his location relative to the US embassy. That seems like a way too carelessly revealing statement for an NSA hacker who is so cautious he reportedly covers his keyboard under a sweater while he types his password. So careless it seemed contrived.
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- dllthomas 13y ago'[T]he word "pardon" is trouncing "extradition"' To be fair, I think more people know the word "pardon" than the word "extradition"...
- mpyne 13y agoAnd likewise there's a big difference between being inflamed about the issue and actually wanting to see the guy get punished.
- jmduke 13y ago46 points in fifteen minutes and not a single comment? This NSA issue is seeming less and less like a discussion topic and more like a echo chamber, despite the rampant lack of information on all sides of the event.
- godgod 13y agoI am not afraid. I am awake.
- tokenizer 13y agoThere are three crowds on hn/reddit: Those who vote, those who comment, and those who actually read the article!
- jpdoctor 13y agoMake that four crowds: Those who are waiting for the comment pages to come back to life.
- kyzyl 13y ago... and those who use the comments to proxy article quality before reading. Five. There are five crowds of people on reddit/HN. The commenters, the voters, the readers, the waiters, and the lazy. And also the submitters. Six. There six crowds of people on reddit/HN! And... ;-)
- michaelwww 13y agoMake that seven. You're forgetting the NSA ;-)
- Taylorious 13y agoThis whole story has had a baffling effect on HN. For the last few days 4/5ths of everything on the frontpage has been related to the NSA. I'm not saying that its not an important issue, but Christ do we need to have every bloggers opinion upvoted to the top? Even Apple was only able to make the top of front page for a short time. This is HN and Apple's latest news is not the top story. It's like I'm on a completely different site.
- godgod 13y agoEdward Snowden is a hero. This is a criminal government. Innocent citizens of the world are now enemies of the US police state.
- freerobby 13y ago"Is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Stay tuned if you can only hold one simplistic juvenile idea in your head at a time." https://twitter.com/pourmecoffee/status/344202042019045377 https://twitter.com/pourmecoffee/status/344202042019045377
- d23 13y agoI don't know in what twisted stretch of the imagination someone can consider Snowden a traitor, unless he is blatantly lying. He didn't reveal anything that would be bad enough to actually harm anyone's life. And if he's telling us the truth, he did nothing less than a public service service, putting his own life at risk.
- Steko 13y ago"I don't know in what twisted stretch of the imagination someone can consider Snowden a traitor, unless he is blatantly lying." So you couldn't imagine X would be true about Y unless Y did something that many people do all the time?
- d23 13y agoOh sure, people make up national secrets that will put their life at risk all the time.
- nrivadeneira 13y agoIf he was a true patriot, he'd have stood his ground and gone to trial. It doesn't seem very American to me to flee the country to avoid the repercussions of breaking the law. Mind you, I support him releasing this information.
- molloy 13y agoI fail to see how that would have made him a "true patriot". Actually, fleeing the unjust wrath of a tyrannical government is about the most American quality there is. In any case, due to the Whistleblower Protection Act he broke no law.
- suyash 13y agoIn my opinion, he is a Traitor just like Bradley Manning for jeopardizing National Security.
- rooshdi 13y agoMeh. Better to be a traitor than a drone.
- EliRivers 13y agoIt's possible to also be a hero for jeopardising national security. Bad nations should be jeopardised. It's how they become good nations. They stay bad nations when their citizens repeat the mantras they've been taught rather than thinking. Bullshit like "My country, right or wrong" and worshipping flags and all that sort of junk. It appears that the United States is still, incredible as it seems, a country producing citizens willing to put themselves at risk when the United States is threatened (and let's be serious for a moment here - terrorism was never a threat to the United States, but this is part of an ongoing existential threat to the United States, from its own government; the very people who should be saying "Calm down, folks; times may be scary but let's not throw away our country out of fear," are instead simply competing with each other, spurring hysteria for votes and metaphorically burning the flag they bizarrely teach children to worship). Long may these citizens last.
- godgod 13y agoThis applies today more than ever. Up vote if you agree. First they came for the conservatives, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a conservative. Then they came for the tea party member, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a tea party member. Then they came for the Libertarians, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a libertarian. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for the Christians, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Christian. Then they came for the Gun Owner, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Gun Owner. Then they came for the activists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a activist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
- josh2600 13y agoThis is everything I hate about Reddit/Chain Letters/Mom and Dads Internet. You can make lists and ask for upvotes, but instead why don't you go and do some activism. Get off your ass and organize meetings, raise hell until you get people to care about the things you care about. Sending chain letters on HackerNews is the most Masturbatory thing you can do on the internet besides the deed itself.
- godgod 13y agohttps://www.eff.org/action https://www.eff.org/action Offline action taken. I protest and don't just sit on my ass. I spread the word. Comments on hn is just one mechanism. I fully agree with you though, get off your ass and do something.
- josh2600 13y agoI wasn't implying you weren't an activist, but I do think posting a link to the EFF will result in a better response than a chain mail. I'm not one to compare the holocaust with mass surveillance anyways. Cheers for coming back and trying to add a little sensibility to the discussion :).
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- skwirl 13y agoCould the media please make an effort not to write articles primarily responding to tweets? This is barely one step above writing articles responding to Youtube comments (please don't get any ideas). You'll find whatever crap you want to find on Twitter. There should be plenty of actual thought out and (intentionally) publicly published opinions longer than 140 characters out there to reply to. It brings your article down in my eyes when you respond to tweets of random private individuals. I know these people are making public tweets, but ultimately they are not public figures and scouring twitter for their tweets and then exposing them to legions of your like minded followers for public evisceration seems... unprofessional.
- RexRollman 13y agoI agree with the sentiment but those responsible won't. They can't, because to do so would be an admission that what they were doing was wrong.
- bomatson 13y agoHe is a patriot, we are all responsible if he is wrongly prosecuted. How long until they start committing citizens Judge Dredd style?
- brown9-2 13y agoI wish everyone would wait more than 24 hours before drawing such concrete conclusions. We barely know that much of the story here yet, and I imagine a lot more of it is going to come out in the next few days (such as his true location, more about his career in the IC, etc.). In the past there have been dissidents like this where it turned out years later that a foreign intelligence service was behind them the whole time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection). I'm not saying that is the case here, but this news cycle is making everyone crazy - just think that we've known this guy's name for only approximately 24 hours.
- dredmorbius 13y agoOne aspect of stories such as this is that the need to spin them is an essential component. Universal surveillance / Assured liberty, to span both sides of this coin, are concepts which can only be sold if people believe in them. There are deep interests on either side of this debate, and one thing they're going to try to do is grab hold of the debate and steer it using language and concepts which are as charged as possible. Plus there are plenty of idiots whole glom onto such concepts and repeat unverified information and sheer speculation. I'm exercising my user-tagging features heavily at the moment (no on HN, clearly, but elsewhere).
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- godgod 13y agoWill you believe ANYTHING the news puts about him? I won't. With a very few exceptions (Guardian) the MSM are suspect. It's all state driven misinformation. The US gov's "trash his reputation machine" is in overdrive.
- praxulus 13y agoThat's irrelevant. Given the scale of the issue, there is almost no way we could confidently come to any conclusion about him in such a short amount of time. You're free to ignore input from the MSM, but you still need to allow time for more facts to surface.
- bomatson 13y agoHe is a patriot, and we are all responsible if he is wrongly persecuted
- michaelwww 13y agoDoes anyone else find it ironic that they couldn't detect Snowdon communicating with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras?
- EthanHeilman 13y agoThat is because the NSA's spying program only works against those that believe they "have nothing to hide". Terrorists or whistle blowers that take even moderate precautions are immune.
- michaelwww 13y agoThat's another bunch of billions down the drain, unless it's designed for another purpose entirely. A certain segment of the elite have always dreamed about tracking every citizen. Larry Ellison of Oracle famously proposed a National Identity Card. So it goes...
- EthanHeilman 13y agoWell not all terrorists take precautions, many are quite stupid and it only takes one to bring a whole network the attention of the NSA. The bigger problem is that even if their false positive rate is really low, they are hoovering so much data that the true positives (dumb terrorists) get drowned out by the noise. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8153539.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8153539.stm It's why this sort of large scale surveillance is really only effective as tool for coercing public dissent ("We know all about you Mr. Michaelwww").
- michaelwww 13y agoI've lived my life like everything I do online is or could be public for several years now. It forces me to be mindful of the issue.
- nano111 13y agothey can't even catch internal leaks
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- godgod 13y agoTell me he's not a criminal liar after watching this. Barack Obama: 10 Questions: Warrantless Wiretaps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4
- javert 13y agoI can tell you he's a criminal liar without watching that.
- godgod 13y agoI'M MAD AS HELL...AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!! “This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining the Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing but protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. It is not who we are. It is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA Court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers and that justice is not arbitrary. This administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our security. It is not. There are no short cuts to protecting America.” - Obama
- D_Alex 13y ago>I'M MAD AS HELL...AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!! I understand your anger.... and i am curious: what actions are you planning to take?
- alan_cx 13y agoNeither word apply. "Patriot", to me, suggests a unquestioning loyalty, lack of thought or perspective. "Traitor" suggests selling out both government and people to a foreign enemy. Both are too broad, blunt, and loaded to describe anything useful. What this man did was expose the government for the sake of the very people the government are supposed to answer to. The problem his the the huge disconnect between government and the population.
- thret 13y agoA patriot is loyal to his country, not his government. It doesn't imply to me any negative impressions along the line you've described.
- freepipi 13y agoI cannot imagine that NSA hired one guy like him.
- chongli 13y agopa·tri·ot [pey-tree-uht, -ot or, esp. British, pa-tree-uht] noun 1. a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion. 2. a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, especially of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government. #2 seems bang-on to me. A perfect description of Snowden.
- cheald 13y agoDon't confuse patriotism with jingoism.
- u2328 13y agoI love the government's response here. "Sure, we can have a debate about state surveillance, but the guy that forced this debate IS A NO GOOD DIRTY TRAITOR!"
- nano111 13y agoand we could not catch this traitor with those 80 billions
- mpyne 13y agoHence the reason I tell you all that neither the NSA nor the U.S. government is actually omnipotent or all-powerful. :P
- u2328 13y agoI do agree with that statement, but it doesn't mean they can do a whole lot of damage. From Iraq to Aaron Schwartz, when the US government turns it's big sloppy attention at you, watch out.
- mpyne 13y agoAh but see, I take a near-fatalist attitude to that. Iraq will go down in the history books as a travesty, no doubt about that. But Swartz was treated in accordance with the law, even though the law has been modified over centuries to slowly add more protections. So the way I see it, if your only goal when considering the law is how you will prevent this new ability from ever seriously affecting anyone innocent you've already locked yourself into a NULL set. Even in our justice system, with warrants and probable cause and the right to remain silent and the works we still lock up innocent people, do we not? But imagine instead that we take that big huge nasty government and at least point it in a useful direction; perhaps that would be a more effective way to prevent a slide into tyranny in the future.
- MrQuincle 13y agoI know one thing and that is that I would not play the role of whistleblower and it is exactly because I do not care how much the US is spying as being someone from another country. So, I can only conclude that this makes him a patriot from my point of view, because why would he risk his job, etc.!?
- bbit 13y agoSo now breaking laws and committing treason is the new "patriotism" - I'll make note of this. Bradely Manning and this guy belong in the same jail cell or executed prefer the latter.
- radley 13y agoTo call him a whistleblower would presume wrongdoing. The govt can't admit to wrongdoing, so they have to use the word traitor.
- cheald 13y agoThat's a very observant point. The language they're taking is as defensive of their own actions as it is offensive against his.
- lmg643 13y agoI'm surprised we haven't seen more discussion of NSA leaker as a potential foreign intelligence coup. Think of the timing, right before a summit with China. And he defects to Hong Kong. Not to get too nutty here, but its worth considering. Arguably our government did all this to try and protect us and here we are going ballistic - what if the leak was a setup to shatter our negotiating leverage? Lesser of two evils kind of thing.
- ihsw 13y agoIt may in fact be the reverse -- he could be a double agent and this could be a publicity stunt. The USG may have determined that this leak was inevitable and they decided to take control of the situation. What is the end-goal? Legitimizing and expediting the surveillance industrial complex. The recent news about Indian authorities wanting to establish their own surveillance infrastructure certainly has many USG government contractors licking their lips waiting for the purchase orders to roll in.
- myle 13y agoGiven few enough data points, you can fit any theory you want.
- cheald 13y agoI said this in another thread* but I think that the choice of Hong Kong was shrewd. It puts him in a civilized country under the umbrella of a nation that won't be in a hurry to do the USG any favors, and would push back hard against any attempt to disappear him, since that would require action of an arguably military nature on their turf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5855146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5855146
- tn13 13y agoThe whole idea of having democracy is that people should be able to throw out the people in power in case they make decisions that don't go well with the majority. I don't have much problem in Government keeping phone records (I don't use a cellphone any way) but I do have a problem they doing this without telling me. NSA leaker has done the right thing. He must be hailed as a hero.
- robotjosh 13y agoWhy does everyone assume China is doing industrial espionage, but nobody imagines PRISM is being used for that. If a low level employee has such access, the only question is how many people are using this to cheat the stock market? Are there trading algorithms that have access to PRISM?
- cmiles74 13y agoI took it for granted that PRISM is also used for industrial espionage. It seems like this is the "low hanging fruit" for such a system. I'm not surprised that this isn't something the media is talking about since we're giving China such a hard time about it.
- asperous 13y agoI dislike how the focus is on Snowden now, and not on fixing the problem.
- neltnerb 13y agoI find this kind of thing particularly interesting because I am the same age as Snowden. For reference, 9/11 is one of the defining events of my adult life. It happened during freshman physics lecture on my second week of classes at MIT. I considered joining the military, I protested in the streets against the war in Iraq. I remember the Patriot act being passed very well, and remember wishing people could see how shortsighted it was at the time. There is a particularly clarity (cough naivete) that comes with being 18 years old. I feel like people who are much older than me remember previous major government corruption issues like Iran-Contra which I was only three years old for. I feel like people who are much younger than me don't have any frame of reference for a time when surveillance wasn't the assumed state of affairs. So, this fellow is particularly interesting to me because it seems like he, like me, has had his perspective on what the USA is defined by 9/11, the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan and Iraq not-wars, and a financial collapse. I don't know that I really have a point; these issues are so multifaceted that I can't really consider them without being overwhelmed. I do hope that this combined with the IRS scandal and the phone taps on reporters will push the electorate in a more libertarian direction. But I'm not counting on it, people are incredibly selfish in practice and vote for their perceived short-term interests even when their interests violate the liberties of others. That seems to in this culture just be standard practice, and if that's part of the culture I don't think things are going to go anywhere good.
- dllthomas 13y ago"push the electorate in a more libertarian direction" Everyone agrees things should be more libertarian along certain axes, but most object to things being more libertarian along other axes, and there's not as much overlap as one would hope. This is not mostly meant as a criticism of anything you've said, just a tangent...
- m52go 13y agoHave you seen the spin the mainstream media is putting on this issue? It's sickening. If the issue is covered (earlier, CNN felt it necessary to talk about oversized rubber-duckies and some phenomenon called 'crazy ants' instead), coverage NEVER questions the existence of the surveillance itself. Instead, the WAY the government handles the surveillance is questioned (contracting it out, etc). So, yes, in a perfect world, people would see this news and question it, where 'it' is the existence of such egregious surveillance measures. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans aren't that thorough in their thinking, and instead will ponder the questions the mainstream media feeds them. And these questions just so happen to be pure bullshit.
- guelo 13y agoWe don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to conduct wars or espionage, well too bad. If you remember from the game Civilization, democracy is not a good system for a warmongering state. And that's a good thing.
- rustydoorknobs 13y agoWhat? What about the location of strategic military operations? Well "too bad" if a categorically transparent gov't inhibits the NSA's ability to process intelligence without alerting extremist groups. "Too bad" if a few thousand people die because you believe there should be no government secrets. Wait, I forgot that running a country is like playing Civilization...
- likeclockwork 13y agoYou've come a long way from 'Give me liberty, or give me death!'.
- jfisher 13y agoDear U.S. Navy, Where are your nuclear subs and what are their missions? Sincerely, Definitely a U.S. citizen
- hawleyal 13y agoI don't want to keep secrets of public works from any of you. The people in the govt are there to do things we chose to do for everyone. If it's a problem to know where all the subs are and what they are doing in my name, then I have a problem. I don't personally want the launch codes for the missiles, but I want to know who has them, what the policy is for using them, when they are used (each and every time), what was targeted, who was hurt, what the damage was, how much it cost to build them, keep them, use them, and dispose them. The military serves at everyone's behest, not of their own accord.
- guscost 13y agoTell that to Dianne Feinstein.
- _nato_ 13y agologged into HN for the first time in a _long_ while just to up this.
- gummydude 13y agoNSA just a cover up for S.H.I.E.L.D. the international espionage agency watching all of us around the world. :(
- sigzero 13y agoI have not heard "traitor" ascribed to him. What he did was certainly illegal, whether you agree with what he did or not. If he gets extradited, he will go to jail.
- nano111 13y agosigzero--
- nano111 13y agoAlthough I don't think this petition should be hosted by the government, here it is: Pardon Edward Snowden -> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...
- dnautics 13y agoworth reading a counterpoint article (which I happen to disagree with): http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html?mbid=social_retweet http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward...
- jhprks 13y agoFrom now on I'll just be keeping my information secure, and as far as whatever really happened behind PRISM I'm just gonna wait until some director makes a movie about it.
- m52go 13y agoIt's very simple, really. I'm sure most of you have heard this before and know who said it: Truth is treason in the empire of lies. It just so happens that the people are hidden in bunkers of truth while their government is in denial inside the empire of lies. It's time to set the record straight.
- insuffi 13y agoYou americans and your "everyone is out to get us" mentality is laughable. The fact of the matter is this - what the government has done is intrinsically unconstitutional. People calling the leaker a traitor try to back it up with the fact that he signed a non-disclosue agreement and that the law approved by a secret court says PRISM is constitutional. Well isn't this a nice, little euthyphro dillemma? If congress rules that PRISM is unconstitutional, Snowden is suddenly NOT a traiter anymore? Another thing - constantly mentioning "security" as a reason for surveilling an entire state just proves how much americans think with their fear, instead of their brain. Not a lot of other countries have this problem. Lastly, by definition, U.s. is now a fascist state. 1.Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia Check. 2.Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need. Check 3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists. Check. 4.Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. Check. 5.Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution. Check. 6. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. Check 7. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite Check. 8. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations. Check The reason Snowden is hunted down is because he embarrassed the u.s. government. Not because he is a traitor, not because he aided Enemy(whoever that may be). Stop watching the tv and absorbing the propaganda you're fed, and you'll realize much more.
- trotsky 13y agoIt's true, but at least an older generation sees any kind of out of band disclosure as a fundamental attack on their views ob punishment. My father, for exmaple, recently retired but still works in the intelligence community. He bloody _hates_ all of the bulk surveillance, and is very careful about what he publishes on the internet. He routinely complains that current executive orders vis-aa-vis afgan tactics go too far, and never believed iraq made sense excpet to jr. but once somoone has dropped TS/NOFORN docs all over, he'll never give the guy even one bit of respect. Instead (and just like manning) he's quite riled up about how such a breech (even though he ws shocked and upset to read the lengths of data being hoovered) benefitted none of us. And yet having an official reference for things I'd be prone to rail on after a handful of drinks does us all good. Before the unfortunate listened would have to nod pollitely and meekly suggest, well I'm sur they're jusy looking out for us. I doubt many will end up seeing iy that way.
- geldedus 13y agogiven the huge brainwashing, I'm not surprised
- quizotic 13y ago1. A few weeks ago, President Obama said he would discuss the issue of cyber-espionage during his meeting with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. 2. At about the time of their meeting, two separate stories of massive US Govt surveillance of its own citizens hits the press. 3. The individual who leaked the PRISM story is now allegedly in Hong Kong, his whereabouts unknown. Encrypt that.
- dean 13y agoJust that I would point out that Peter King (R-New York) has supported terrorist organizations himself, namely the Irish Republican Army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._King#Support_for_the_IRA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._King#Support_for_the_I... http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-10-2011/radical-muslim-hearings http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-10-2011/radical-...
- alphagen 13y agoI bet Congress would be completely up in arms if the government was secretly keeping track of gun purchases. It's interesting how much representatives care about some rights over others.
- wallacrw 13y agoHodor
- a3n 13y agoTraitor or patriot is not defined by the current crowd in office, or by whether you support the current questionable policies. A patriot is someone who consistently defends the constitution, which every one of those clowns took an oath to do. L'État n'est pas eux.
- electric_u 13y agoPhysical security (as it relates to freedom) does not have to be provided. If I have a gun and an armored car then I have a significant amount of physical security regardless of any rules. If I have a bunch of rules but I am stuck in a dark alley with a thug then I have neither security nor freedom.
- photorized 13y agoLast I checked, 'hero' mentions were outnumbering 'traitor' mentions on Twitter 2 to 1.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]