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Snowden's a hero and deserves his place on that memorial. This whole deal with the people putting up a statue of a hero and the government tearing it down? Not

Snowden's a hero and deserves his place on that memorial. This whole deal with the people putting up a statue of a hero and the government tearing it down? Not what America's supposed to be about. Combine that with the fact that most of the senators who voted for the Patriot Act probably read 1984, and didn't object to the obvious propaganda in the name Patriot Act? Not what America's supposed to be about either.

dragontamer 12y ago
Snowden is a traitor who happened to bring up an important debate. Probably sold US secrets to China and Russia, while releasing public information so that he can have public support while doing so. He's one of the most successful double-agents in history, with excellent public relations. If a double-agent were to happen again in the future, they'll do what they can to study how Snowden handled his case. No, I don't think he's a "hero". At least Manning's ideology was pure, (although naiive). Snowden is almost certainly a double-agent based on the countries he fled to and who he is working with currently. Contrast Snowden with Manning: Manning didn't contact the Chinese Embassy while fleeing to Hong Kong before releasing only some of the data. Just think about it for a second. Manning released anything and everything he got his hands on. Snowden: he's visited multiple foreign countries and has direct contact with those governments. If you want to discuss the collections programs, lets start with how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) if they didn't have the ability to track the location of their phone calls. You know, practical concerns that our law enforcement are attempting to solve. If tracking telephone "metadata" is too much, then what tools are you willing to give police in their battle? EDIT: Here come the down votes. Come on people, lets see your stuff. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
- darkmighty 12y ago
  Good ole' fear, uncertainty and doubt.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    What? Swatting is a serious concern. How do you think we should solve the issue? Have the police sit around doing nothing because they don't have the legal tools to look at business metadata? I'm trying to bring up an actual issue here. For a hundred years, the "metadata" standard has applied to mail, telephone records, business records and so forth as "free game" for the Police. What makes the modern era so different that Police aren't allowed to look at metadata anymore?
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      1. It was not free game. They could not take copies preemptively. 2. There is vastly more metadata being stored now, and the police don't need access to most of it. We might even be better off with laws against storing it.
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        > 1. It was not free game. They could not take copies preemptively. Wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mai... It's been free-game for a hundred years. Keep up with the law dude. USPS "metadata" has been copied and tracked. Such information was used for the Anthrax cases of early 2000s... and other such crimes. It is illegal for police to read the contents of an envelope, but they can (and have been) scanning the outside of envelopes and storing that metadata for police use for decades. The difference between snail-mail and the business records provision is... terrorism was added to the words. But I'd bet what they were doing was legal before the Patriot Act was made. > 2. There is vastly more metadata being stored now, and the police don't need access to most of it. We might even be better off with laws against storing it. That doesn't answer the question. How do you expect to track down a Swatter without using metadata?
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        Okay, doing it for decades doesn't mean they need it. It wasn't there from the start. >How do you expect to track down a Swatter without using metadata? As I said in my other post, you don't actually need call records to find a swatter. They called the police, the police have the number, tada. I'm not arguing against deleting everything that could possibly classify as metadata, I'm saying we should cut down the types of metadata available. And we need to stop the government from making copies of private data 'just in case' and declaring it not to be a search/seizure until some later stage.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  >Here come the down votes. Come on people, lets see your stuff. Truth hurts, doesn't it? Anyone wanna take me on? Oh stop whining. You can't just accuse someone of being a spy and expect upvotes. Accusations without evidence (hint hint) are not 'truth'. >how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) Well for most crimes the police have traditionally gotten along fine without such vast metadata. For that crime specifically maybe they could use a warrant to the phone company? That seems easy to do without NSA interception. Or the police could keep track of calls to them and not have to do anything more than find the owner of a phone number.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    > Oh stop whining. You can't just accuse someone of being a spy and expect upvotes. Accusations without evidence (hint hint) are not 'truth'. Snowden is the first guy I'm aware of who fled to China (and later, to Russia) to protect his own free speech. Color me a little bit suspicious of him. > Well for most crimes the police have traditionally gotten along fine without such vast metadata. For that crime specifically maybe they could use a warrant to the phone company? That seems easy to do without NSA interception. Or the police could keep track of calls to them and not have to do anything more than find the owner of a phone number. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 > (A) a judge of the court established by section 1803 (a) of this title; or The law we're discussing requires a judge to sign off on it. Its not necessarily a "warrant" per se, but do you think elevating these powers to require a warrant would suffice? These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking ourselves if we actually want to progress.
    - adamnemecek 12y ago
      > Snowden is the first guy I'm aware of who fled to China (and later, to Russia) to protect his own free speech. Color me a little bit suspicious of him. There aren't that many countries who would not release Snowden to the US.
      - dragontamer 12y ago
- EthanHeilman 12y ago
  I think you are getting downvotes because you are making very controversial claims for which the evidence is very weak. For instance: 1. you say: "most successful double-agents in history" 2. you say: "probably sold US secrets to China and Russia" The NSA's leadership has repeatedly stated that they don't believe Snowden to be a foreign agent[0]. Unless you have more evidence than "based on the countries he fled to and who he is working with currently", your case is exceptionally weak. Additionally Snowden is not a "double agent". A double agent is a agent that is turned twice[1]. Even if Snowden were a foreign spy, he wouldn't be a double agent, unless he was recruited to work by a foreign government to spy on the US, but then was turned by the US to feed the foreign government misinformation. A theory that no one, outside of Alex Jones, is currently advancing. [0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-michael-rogers-edward-snowden-probably-not-spy http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-micha... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    Thank you for the link. Nonetheless, the Metadata debate remains important, so I'll continue to bring it up. I've read through the rest of these threads, and they're all "Snowden's a hero!!!" without even touching upon the debate that he's brought up. EDIT: Its as if this "metadata collection" is the most evil thing in the world ever done. Good gosh. Its still hugely ironic to me that Snowden fled to the state with the "Great Firewall of China" literally spying on every Chinese blogger with police powers that make those guys _literally_ disappear if they say the wrong things... While over here in the US, this forum gets their panties in a twist over metadata collection. I am happy that we all hold the US to a higher standard, but I still hold my point: to take down a Swatter, the Police will need access to metatdata.
    - dreamfactory2 12y ago
      Hong Kong was a stopover. It was the US gov made him stay there and blocked his travel to anywhere but Russia.
      - 12y ago
- teammatters 12y ago
  I agree and I witnessed the World Trade Center fall before my eyes. I upvoted you! Of course this account I created is going to probably die because I express the unpopular opinion too!
- benihana 12y ago
  >Probably sold US secrets to China and Russia >He's one of the most successful double-agents in history, with excellent public relations. >Snowden is almost certainly a double-agent based on the countries he fled to All that speculation, then this gem: >EDIT: Truth hurts, doesn't it? But no. It's not cause your post is full of accusations and dubious speculation based on nothing and provides no evidence. It's cause you struck a nerve and showed the sheep here the truth and they can't handle it. That's definitely what it is.
- _cipher_ 12y ago
  > Truth hurts, doesn't it? Except when it's not truth but a random rant. You say: > If you want to discuss the collections programs, lets start with how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) if they didn't have the ability to track the location of their phone calls. Notice "THEIR phone calls", not "EVERY phone calls". Truth is, views like yours are clueless and/or dangerous and fail to see the big picture. I'm sure you embrace the "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care" stance. So yeah, fk the rest of the people, don't give a sh*t. Educate yourself.
karmacondon 12y ago
If you think that Snowden is a hero, start a petition to put up a statue of him in Fort Greene Park. The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument wasn't just put there by some guy on a whim. It was a decision made by government at all levels as the result of a process that is public and open to all citizens. Is Snowden a hero? Maybe, I dunno. Ask your fellow citizens if they want to put a statue of him in the park. That's how democracy is supposed to work. It isn't perfect, in fact it's the worst form of a government. Except for all the others.
- dmix 12y ago
  > It was a decision made government at all levels as the result of a process that is public and open to all citizens. My family member went through this process to set up a memorial statue and it was a nightmare of bureaucracy. And this was in a tiny relatively unpopular park in a small town - not a big city. It took about 3 years to finally happen (by that I mean approved to happen, its still not completed yet) after jumping through countless hoops and making friends with the right politicians, who then had to back the idea in order to get support by the town council. The big reason it ended up happening was the person who she became friends with ended up becoming mayor of the town. Yay democracy.
- tajen 12y ago
  You're negelecting the power of status quo. If the People care enough to put up a statue, the mayor could try an experiment: He could say "the statue should be removed" and not do anything about it. Then we'll see whether other civilians care enough to organize its removal within one year. If yes, then the law was respected and the People want the statue removed. If no, then we could honestly say that there are not enough people who care enough about the Prison Ship Martyrs compared to the memory of Snowden.
tedunangst 12y ago
Shouldn't the American way involve a vote or some other involvement of the democratic process at some point? Is America now all about individuals just doing whatever they want, and if somebody doesn't like it, too bad?
- Semiapies 12y ago
  How do we have a democratic process about such matters when they're secret? We've tried the "trust our elected officials" approach. We got mass surveillance. Next idea?
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    Such matters? I thought we were talking about putting a statue in a park. Was this a secret statue? I guess it was, since nobody knew about it until it showed up.
- fatterday 12y ago
  Oh you mean like when we separated from Britain by asking them to come down and have a nice little vote on it? Or when MLK asked all of the south to politely, democratically fix the whole racism thing. Sometimes protest has to break the rules. Because protest.
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    As I recall from my history classes, they did ask before breaking the rules.
    - fatterday 12y ago
      MLK and company most certainly took steps that were not approved by some democratic process or approved by the state. Asking alone and letting "business as usual" answer the question "can we do this?" wouldn't have brought the change that humanity had deserved. You seemed, to me, to be implying that all conscientious objectors must at all times observe complete obedience to the rule of law. That approach will never keep things running sanely for long. You can clearly see throughout history that it never has. Power must always be kept in check and in support of that, some of the rules ordained by that power must always be broken.
mikeash 12y ago
I don't think "the people" put up this statue. Some people did, but it's hardly some popular movement.
seanp2k2 12y ago
I take it that the part about people erecting a statue of someone who they think is a hero and the government tearing it down is part of the art / political statement.

dragontamer 12y ago

Snowden is a traitor who happened to bring up an important debate. Probably sold US secrets to China and Russia, while releasing public information so that he can have public support while doing so. He's one of the most successful double-agents in history, with excellent public relations. If a double-agent were to happen again in the future, they'll do what they can to study how Snowden handled his case. No, I don't think he's a "hero". At least Manning's ideology was pure, (although naiive). Snowden is almost certainly a double-agent based on the countries he fled to and who he is working with currently. Contrast Snowden with Manning: Manning didn't contact the Chinese Embassy while fleeing to Hong Kong before releasing only some of the data. Just think about it for a second. Manning released anything and everything he got his hands on. Snowden: he's visited multiple foreign countries and has direct contact with those governments. If you want to discuss the collections programs, lets start with how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) if they didn't have the ability to track the location of their phone calls. You know, practical concerns that our law enforcement are attempting to solve. If tracking telephone "metadata" is too much, then what tools are you willing to give police in their battle? EDIT: Here come the down votes. Come on people, lets see your stuff. Truth hurts, doesn't it?

darkmighty 12y ago
Good ole' fear, uncertainty and doubt.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  What? Swatting is a serious concern. How do you think we should solve the issue? Have the police sit around doing nothing because they don't have the legal tools to look at business metadata? I'm trying to bring up an actual issue here. For a hundred years, the "metadata" standard has applied to mail, telephone records, business records and so forth as "free game" for the Police. What makes the modern era so different that Police aren't allowed to look at metadata anymore?
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    1. It was not free game. They could not take copies preemptively. 2. There is vastly more metadata being stored now, and the police don't need access to most of it. We might even be better off with laws against storing it.
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      > 1. It was not free game. They could not take copies preemptively. Wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mai... It's been free-game for a hundred years. Keep up with the law dude. USPS "metadata" has been copied and tracked. Such information was used for the Anthrax cases of early 2000s... and other such crimes. It is illegal for police to read the contents of an envelope, but they can (and have been) scanning the outside of envelopes and storing that metadata for police use for decades. The difference between snail-mail and the business records provision is... terrorism was added to the words. But I'd bet what they were doing was legal before the Patriot Act was made. > 2. There is vastly more metadata being stored now, and the police don't need access to most of it. We might even be better off with laws against storing it. That doesn't answer the question. How do you expect to track down a Swatter without using metadata?
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        Okay, doing it for decades doesn't mean they need it. It wasn't there from the start. >How do you expect to track down a Swatter without using metadata? As I said in my other post, you don't actually need call records to find a swatter. They called the police, the police have the number, tada. I'm not arguing against deleting everything that could possibly classify as metadata, I'm saying we should cut down the types of metadata available. And we need to stop the government from making copies of private data 'just in case' and declaring it not to be a search/seizure until some later stage.
Dylan16807 12y ago
>Here come the down votes. Come on people, lets see your stuff. Truth hurts, doesn't it? Anyone wanna take me on? Oh stop whining. You can't just accuse someone of being a spy and expect upvotes. Accusations without evidence (hint hint) are not 'truth'. >how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) Well for most crimes the police have traditionally gotten along fine without such vast metadata. For that crime specifically maybe they could use a warrant to the phone company? That seems easy to do without NSA interception. Or the police could keep track of calls to them and not have to do anything more than find the owner of a phone number.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  > Oh stop whining. You can't just accuse someone of being a spy and expect upvotes. Accusations without evidence (hint hint) are not 'truth'. Snowden is the first guy I'm aware of who fled to China (and later, to Russia) to protect his own free speech. Color me a little bit suspicious of him. > Well for most crimes the police have traditionally gotten along fine without such vast metadata. For that crime specifically maybe they could use a warrant to the phone company? That seems easy to do without NSA interception. Or the police could keep track of calls to them and not have to do anything more than find the owner of a phone number. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 > (A) a judge of the court established by section 1803 (a) of this title; or The law we're discussing requires a judge to sign off on it. Its not necessarily a "warrant" per se, but do you think elevating these powers to require a warrant would suffice? These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking ourselves if we actually want to progress.
  - adamnemecek 12y ago
    > Snowden is the first guy I'm aware of who fled to China (and later, to Russia) to protect his own free speech. Color me a little bit suspicious of him. There aren't that many countries who would not release Snowden to the US.
    - dragontamer 12y ago
EthanHeilman 12y ago
I think you are getting downvotes because you are making very controversial claims for which the evidence is very weak. For instance: 1. you say: "most successful double-agents in history" 2. you say: "probably sold US secrets to China and Russia" The NSA's leadership has repeatedly stated that they don't believe Snowden to be a foreign agent[0]. Unless you have more evidence than "based on the countries he fled to and who he is working with currently", your case is exceptionally weak. Additionally Snowden is not a "double agent". A double agent is a agent that is turned twice[1]. Even if Snowden were a foreign spy, he wouldn't be a double agent, unless he was recruited to work by a foreign government to spy on the US, but then was turned by the US to feed the foreign government misinformation. A theory that no one, outside of Alex Jones, is currently advancing. [0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-michael-rogers-edward-snowden-probably-not-spy http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/nsa-chief-micha... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_agent
- dragontamer 12y ago
  Thank you for the link. Nonetheless, the Metadata debate remains important, so I'll continue to bring it up. I've read through the rest of these threads, and they're all "Snowden's a hero!!!" without even touching upon the debate that he's brought up. EDIT: Its as if this "metadata collection" is the most evil thing in the world ever done. Good gosh. Its still hugely ironic to me that Snowden fled to the state with the "Great Firewall of China" literally spying on every Chinese blogger with police powers that make those guys _literally_ disappear if they say the wrong things... While over here in the US, this forum gets their panties in a twist over metadata collection. I am happy that we all hold the US to a higher standard, but I still hold my point: to take down a Swatter, the Police will need access to metatdata.
  - dreamfactory2 12y ago
    Hong Kong was a stopover. It was the US gov made him stay there and blocked his travel to anywhere but Russia.
    - 12y ago
teammatters 12y ago
I agree and I witnessed the World Trade Center fall before my eyes. I upvoted you! Of course this account I created is going to probably die because I express the unpopular opinion too!
benihana 12y ago
>Probably sold US secrets to China and Russia >He's one of the most successful double-agents in history, with excellent public relations. >Snowden is almost certainly a double-agent based on the countries he fled to All that speculation, then this gem: >EDIT: Truth hurts, doesn't it? But no. It's not cause your post is full of accusations and dubious speculation based on nothing and provides no evidence. It's cause you struck a nerve and showed the sheep here the truth and they can't handle it. That's definitely what it is.
_cipher_ 12y ago
> Truth hurts, doesn't it? Except when it's not truth but a random rant. You say: > If you want to discuss the collections programs, lets start with how you expect police to actually deal with modern criminals (ie: Swatters) if they didn't have the ability to track the location of their phone calls. Notice "THEIR phone calls", not "EVERY phone calls". Truth is, views like yours are clueless and/or dangerous and fail to see the big picture. I'm sure you embrace the "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care" stance. So yeah, fk the rest of the people, don't give a sh*t. Educate yourself.

karmacondon 12y ago

If you think that Snowden is a hero, start a petition to put up a statue of him in Fort Greene Park. The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument wasn't just put there by some guy on a whim. It was a decision made by government at all levels as the result of a process that is public and open to all citizens. Is Snowden a hero? Maybe, I dunno. Ask your fellow citizens if they want to put a statue of him in the park. That's how democracy is supposed to work. It isn't perfect, in fact it's the worst form of a government. Except for all the others.

dmix 12y ago
> It was a decision made government at all levels as the result of a process that is public and open to all citizens. My family member went through this process to set up a memorial statue and it was a nightmare of bureaucracy. And this was in a tiny relatively unpopular park in a small town - not a big city. It took about 3 years to finally happen (by that I mean approved to happen, its still not completed yet) after jumping through countless hoops and making friends with the right politicians, who then had to back the idea in order to get support by the town council. The big reason it ended up happening was the person who she became friends with ended up becoming mayor of the town. Yay democracy.
tajen 12y ago
You're negelecting the power of status quo. If the People care enough to put up a statue, the mayor could try an experiment: He could say "the statue should be removed" and not do anything about it. Then we'll see whether other civilians care enough to organize its removal within one year. If yes, then the law was respected and the People want the statue removed. If no, then we could honestly say that there are not enough people who care enough about the Prison Ship Martyrs compared to the memory of Snowden.

tedunangst 12y ago

Shouldn't the American way involve a vote or some other involvement of the democratic process at some point? Is America now all about individuals just doing whatever they want, and if somebody doesn't like it, too bad?

Semiapies 12y ago
How do we have a democratic process about such matters when they're secret? We've tried the "trust our elected officials" approach. We got mass surveillance. Next idea?
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Such matters? I thought we were talking about putting a statue in a park. Was this a secret statue? I guess it was, since nobody knew about it until it showed up.
fatterday 12y ago
Oh you mean like when we separated from Britain by asking them to come down and have a nice little vote on it? Or when MLK asked all of the south to politely, democratically fix the whole racism thing. Sometimes protest has to break the rules. Because protest.
- tedunangst 12y ago
  As I recall from my history classes, they did ask before breaking the rules.
  - fatterday 12y ago
    MLK and company most certainly took steps that were not approved by some democratic process or approved by the state. Asking alone and letting "business as usual" answer the question "can we do this?" wouldn't have brought the change that humanity had deserved. You seemed, to me, to be implying that all conscientious objectors must at all times observe complete obedience to the rule of law. That approach will never keep things running sanely for long. You can clearly see throughout history that it never has. Power must always be kept in check and in support of that, some of the rules ordained by that power must always be broken.

mikeash 12y ago

I don't think "the people" put up this statue. Some people did, but it's hardly some popular movement.

seanp2k2 12y ago

I take it that the part about people erecting a statue of someone who they think is a hero and the government tearing it down is part of the art / political statement.