• AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    AND he only did so after the “proper channel” for whistle blowing, his internal superiors, told him to shut the fuck up.

    I feel this always needs to be said. The United States has a lot of slogans and posters about integrity and ethics for a nation that has neither in practice.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France

        • FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world
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          dhs

          Well that makes more sense than the Obama admin coming up with it

          Bout to say, I could have sworn I was hearing that well before Obama was president. That’s a Bush admin slogan, isn’t it?

          • ArgentRaven@lemmy.world
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            I think they had that phrase on WWII propaganda posters as well. More to do with potential espionage of enemy countries, though.

            Edit: totally wrong, it was coined on Sept 12, 2001 by New York advertising executive Allen Kay.

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              Oh ok so I had the source wrong, that’s quite an effective ad exec.

              It definitely was a major background color to the early 2000s atmosphere.

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      Thanks for reiterating this and posting a source. Every time I see an article on Snowden year over year, someone brings up the tired old “argument” that because he is now trapped in Russia, that somehow makes everything he did “wrong”, and invalidates everything he exposed the government for doing. The media campaign against him was apparently quite effective, and these soundbites are ever ready to jump out of people’s mouths without any research or critical thinking.

    • MxM111@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And of course, the next logical step is to leak gigabytes of secret and sensitive information.

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        …Leaked to a reputable member of the fourth estate to decide what was safe to report. Do you disagree with the founders of the United States about the importance of the fourth estate’s role in keeping leadership honest?

        The only other steps short of that would have been to either quit and shut the fuck up or continue participating and shut the fuck up.

        Sounds like you just wanted him to shut the fuck up about your freedoms being eroded by the government that’s supposed to protect them.

        I don’t believe willful ignorance is a defensible position, ever.

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        It very much is, if the offense is egregious. And the NSA spying on everyone and their employees trading nudes the NSA collected very much is egregious. And to make it sound like he just dumped the raw leaks does not make your argument seem more credible.

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          1 year ago

          Or, you know, he could have talked to journalists without such security breach.

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            The security breach was the NSA letting anyone fiddle with the data. They should be thankful Snowden leaked them instead of a foreign intelligence service listening in for years unnoticed.

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              Yeah… It honestly just made clear how damn inept everyone involved is and has been for a very long time…

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              Except it’s exactly what David Grusch did, with no proof, and yet we have multiple oversight hearings and amendments to the defense authorization, and he made international news

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                Lol… He gave the egregious “secret data” that Americans fully deserved to know about to a fucking journalist (Glenn Greenwald)

                So, I disagree.

      • Grant_M@lemmy.ca
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        You’re getting downvoted for stating what Snowden out for what he is – a Kremlin operative traitor.

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          He had no other choice. Russia was not his first goal to find refuge in. But germany and other countries did not take him in.

          • Grant_M@lemmy.ca
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            No one wants to take in a criminal. No one, except war criminal Putin, of course.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            Because taking in a compromised Russian operative is a bad idea

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    Snowden is a textbook example of why organizations should not be allowed to police themselves or control the avenues of reporting misconduct.

    There should be a memorial to him in DC. Ruined his life to tell the people what their elected officials are doing with all of the power we grant them.

    But no, to save face, ego, etc we drove him into the willing arms of Putin to be able to use as a propaganda tool so he wouldn’t be killed for daring to speak truth to power.

    Support for prosecuting him did untold damage to my opinion of Obama.

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      Snowden deserved Obamas pardon a lot more than Manning. I get the sense that Manning leaked stuff for the sake of leaking stuff, while Snowden uncovered a vast domestic and unconstitutional espionage program to which the general public was unaware.

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        NSA being an angry little child with a napkin aside, I believe there was a legal hurdle to Snowden being pardoned: You need to be tried & sentenced before a presidential pardon can be applied, as far as I understood.

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      Of course he’s not a traitor. He exposed politicians who were actively violating the constitution. Those politicians are the traitors, traitors to American ideals and laws. At the very least, they’re criminals.

  • Refract@lemm.ee
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    Meme aside, I’m commenting to show appreciation for the correct use of quotation marks. Grammar nazi stamp of approval.

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      There’s no chance he’ll be allowed back in the US after, understandably, becoming a piece of the Russian propaganda pie. He’s basically trapped in Russia. On the bright side, it’s a gilded cage where he resides with his family.

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      Not even an impossible task. We just need a President that actually loves what America professes to aspire to. It’s what the Presidential pardon is for.

      Any decade now…

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    Not like that! Do it how we meant to say but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say publicly. The way that protects the military industrial complex and the corporations and the lobbyists and the government officials from any charge of mendacious greed.

    My favourite moment of that era was when Obama told us he was just about to drop dime on all the spying and Snowden beat him to it. Dang it Snowden, now I gotta eat shit on live TV. The American state simply cannot be trusted whatsoever.

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    Unrelated question, but ever since Snowden became a citizen of the Russian Federation, could be be drafted during a round of conscription? Or would they use him for cyberwarfare?

    I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to fight Ukrainians.

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      Wasnt a choice for Snowden. He wanted to go to South America, they trapped him in Russia. Now he has to wave and smile to whatever happens there politically.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        Snowden could have

        • been an official whistleblower and avoided prosecution

        • leaked only to US papers and avoided prosecution

        • leaked only non-classified information and avoided prosecution

        Snowden sold classified info to enemies of the US. He made his bed.

        • Fiona
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          You are so full of shit, it isn’t even funny:

          Snowden could have been an official whistleblower and avoided prosecution

          He literally tried to do that and was ignored.

          leaked only to US papers and avoided prosecution

          You mean like the American Branch of the Guardian and the Washington Post? Aka the Newspaper that he leaked to?

          leaked only non-classified information and avoided prosecution

          Leaking unclassified information about a classified program. How do you imagine that?

          Snowden sold classified info to enemies of the US. He made his bed.

          No, he literally did not.

          How about you stop getting your info from Fox News?

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            Lmao I don’t watch Fox News. I just understand reality.

            If Grusch can leak unclassified info about classified programs, so could Snowden

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              I just understand reality.

              This statement is actually more braindead than the takes on Fox.

                • 4lan@lemmy.world
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                  where is your retort for the other points of yours that were dismantled above?

                  It’s very clear that you will believe whatever is most convenient for you to believe.

                  Snowden is an American hero, and the war criminals he exposed faced no repurcussions

                  There are exactly 0 instances where the information he released got our service members killed, despite what the media tries to suggest. You better believe our Government would be jumping at the chance to show the people how ‘whistleblowing BAD’

                  If reality offends you, you may be living outside of it

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          He didn’t sell anything. After trying to raise internal concerns about his work, he leaked classified information to The Washington Post and The Guardian.

          Then the DoJ cancelled his passport due to “espionage” and he got stuck in Russia, where he still lives today.

        • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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          • penguins fly faster than eagles
          • mankind can survive in the vacuum of outer space
          • burritos were invented in a cave in Yugoslavia
          • just saying things doesn’t make them true
            • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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              So how do you propose an ethical person expose corruption to the people of this country when the people in power that he would normally report it to are part of the corruption? The constitutional violations were approved, in secret, all the way up to the President of the United States of America. Or are you of the belief that anything is patriotic & acceptable if you’re in charge and you give it a catchy name like The Patriot Act?

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                You literally have an example of this happening right now with David Grusch and possible embezzlement in the DoD

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              Penguins do fly faster than eagles. For fear of suppression of American news outlets, it makes sense to leak to everyone.

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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    You’re not supposed to speak up about real things. Just roleplay dumb shit like the alien WAP being talked about in court with zero evidence of course.

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    The things he leaked were already known in a general sense to anyone that wasn’t a teenager at the time.

    But the details helped foreign adversaries. Which is why he lives in Russia now.

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    I think you mean “ignored it for years while he helped build it and then turned coat as soon as the wrong guy got elected”

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      This is false information. He tried to push out his msg via the internal channels but got ignored hence he had to step up.

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        You are misinformed. He spent years building these systems under Bush without a peep.