Edward Snowden: whistle-blower or traitor?

bearb · July 2013

beatnic · July 2013

It seems like he may have more than anyone could have imagined. And spying on American citizens just may be the small stuff. The jury is still out from my point of view.

macs-smokes · July 2013

He is a traitor. If he had gone to his chain of command... he would have been a whistle-blower. By fleeing the country to enemies of the state... he branded himself a traitor.

webmost · July 2013

Amos Umwhat · July 2013

I've been conflicted about this for a while. Webmost has described my conflict as well or better than I could. This is one of those things where only time will tell, maybe.

raisindot · July 2013

Vulchor · July 2013

Whistle-blower.....hell, maybe even true Patriot but Im not sure just yet about that one. Its kinda like the old joke about Republicans, but here I think it holds true for all our officials who love their power. its says "Republicans want less government for the same reason criminals was less police". To me it seems here both signs want to brand him a traitor because they certainly done want us to see who our real enemies are alot of the time. That would afterall make people wiser and deeper thinking, and no one in a position of power has ever wanted that from their underlings.

perkinke · July 2013

I don't know whether he's a traitor, I don't agree with him running from what he did, but I am not quite prepared to label him as such. But I am relatively sure he cannot be considered a whistle-blower because what the NSA was doing was not illegal. The patriot act, I think, explicitly authorizes such actions to be conducted without true oversight; for it to be a whistle-blower situation he would have had to be reporting illegal conduct. Or I might be talking out my ass.

raisindot · July 2013

No, Perkinke, I think you're right. Everything the NSA is doing, while ethically reprehensible and a danger to our civil rights, is perfectly legal since it was authorized by the Patriotic Act. Snowden is guilty of breaking the national security laws he agreed to abide by when he joined the NSA, a fact that can't be mitigated by the nature of the despicable but perfectly legal policies he disclosed.

Roberto99 · July 2013

raisindot:
No, Perkinke, I think you're right. Everything the NSA is doing, while ethically reprehensible and a danger to our civil rights, is perfectly legal since it was authorized by the Patriotic Act. Snowden is guilty of breaking the national security laws he agreed to abide by when he joined the NSA, a fact that can't be mitigated by the nature of the despicable but perfectly legal policies he disclosed.

That is sort of it in a nutshell.

webmost · July 2013

Vulchor · July 2013

A sliipery (and $hit filled) slope indeed. Lol, remember the name to....the PATRIOT act. Ironic.

jthanatos · July 2013

phobicsquirrel · July 2013

The Kid · July 2013

RBeckom · July 2013

webmost · July 2013

pilgrimtex · July 2013

I believe history has told us that every government over time has fallen into corruption and decay. It is a simple fact of thermal dynamics. The difference with our government is that our founding fathers foresaw this event happening and built into the constitution the right of the people to overthrow the government once it became corrupt and start anew. It is up to us the people to do this. or suffer the consequences of our own inaction. Unfortunately do we the people still have the fortitude to declare our government unconstitutional and form a new one or will another new government rise up in the world to replace us and take on the mantle we once had.