Author: Time to Welcome Snowden Home With Ticker Tape Parade

This author of this article, Joseph Farah, is from World Net Daily. I know, it's not exactly the best site to post from, but what he says is interesting and I thought people here might appreciate his thoughts on the subject. Joseph Farah says that he feels Snowden is a whistleblower hero and deserves the red carpet/ticker tape parade treatment. But what is more interesting to me is that Mr. Farah says he didn't always feel this way. Just like me, Joseph Farah had questions about Snowdens motivation. And just like me, Joseph Farah had questions about what Mr. Snowden did. Mr. Farah has worked through his 'Snowden issues' and has come to the conclusion that Snowden is a hero and should be treated as such. Obviously this conclusion came after a great deal of thought over the situation.

Author: Time to Welcome Snowden Home With Ticker Tape Parade

The man who blew the whistle on National Security Agency spying on Americans says he’s considering returning home to the U.S. is an amicable agreement with U.S. authorities can be found. I say we should throw the guy a ticker-tape parade. ... Snowden performed an amazing public service.

He opened the eyes of all Americans who just didn’t understand what their government has been doing to them with surveillance by satellite, computer eavesdropping, what we used to call “wiretapping,” which is now done without wires, collecting or sorting through your most private correspondence by email, watching your every move by cameras in the sky and at every street corner.

Personally, I’ve known about all this for decades. Sure it has gotten worse. But I just assumed Americans had eyes and could see what I saw. But until Snowden came along, they were blind to it. They were like sheep being led to a Big Brother slaughter, believing they still had constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures.

As it turns out, Snowden, whatever his motivations may have been, is a truly heroic whistleblower. I know many people will disagree with me. That’s OK. But if we are ever going to have a chance to reverse America’s direction toward a police state, the kind of awareness he has raised will be essential.

What Snoden says about himself ... he calls himself a spy for America.

Voice of America - Leaker Says He Was Trained As A Spy

Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who revealed details of the government's domestic surveillance efforts, says he was "trained as a spy" and worked undercover overseas for the U.S. intelligence community.

In an interview with NBC-TV news anchor Brian Williams in Moscow, Snowden rebutted critics who described him as nothing more than a low-level analyst, saying he pretended "to work in a job that I'm not and even being assigned a name that was not mine." Excerpts of the interview were released Tuesday.

"I am a technical expert. I don't work with people. I don't recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I've done that at all levels from -- from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top. Now, the government might deny these things, they might frame it in certain ways and say, ‘Oh well, you know, he's -- he's a low level analyst.’ But what they're trying to do is they're trying to use one position that I've had in a career here or there to distract from the totality of my experience which is that I've worked for the Central Intelligence Agency undercover overseas.

CNN Reporting Snowden Claim "I was Trained As A Spy'

Huffington Post Reporting Snowden Claim "I was Trained As A Spy


SO ATS ....

1 - Should Snowden be welcomed home with a ticker tape parade?
2 - Do you believe Snowdens claims that he was really a spy?

Where I am on this ...

1 - I"m still undecided. I'm 50/50. I'm glad he outed the spying on US citizens. But the rest ... not so much.

2 - I do NOT believe him when he says he was a spy. I think he's puffing up his creds. (Sorry Snowden fans)

a reply to: FlyersFan

I've always held the stance that he should be applauded for what he has done.

He exposed gross violations of our privacy brought about by our own government.

Current threads have us all rehashing the gun debate, many proponents for gun control stating that the government would never do anything that we'd need to be armed against.

And yet Snowden clearly shows WHY we need to stay armed, vigilant, aware and cautious of our controlling current (and future) regimes.

So yes, give him a parade, but be wary of snipers government agents sent to protect the public.

He's come out to the world with huge revelations which have all turned out to be true - so i have no reason to doubt him. He knows that his image as a whistle blower would all be thrown under suspicion if he was to lie at this stage.

So yes i believe him. If he says he was trained as a spy, i have no reason to doubt him at all.

a reply to: FlyersFan

If it would make your president and congress red with rage and anger them surely thats a good thing ?


Yeah he may be abit of a traitor and a dabbler in treason, but seeing as your entire goverment seems to be made of traitors ? Then hell I say stick it too them.

originally posted by: crazyewok
If it would make your president and congress red with rage and anger them surely thats a good thing ?

Well .. I can't argue with that! There is something to be said for the fact that him ticking off the corrupt establishment is a good thing.

I don't get why he's going on about being a spy suddenly. It's not like it adds anything to the value of the documents or to the discussion of rights v. security. Whether true or not it doesnt seem relevant and if it isnt true he's risking an awful lot. We live in a world where if Galileo were discovered to be a pedophile we'd all still be geocentrists.

Character trumps reality these days and I can easily see if Snowden is caught in a lie all the documentation, proof and even government admissions being dismissed with a simple "well, Snowden lied about being a spy so.."

The worst part about this whole thing to me is how little people seem to care. Even with all these politicians being caught lying about it repeatedly very few people seem to care.

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
I don't get why he's going on about being a spy suddenly.

That felt strange to me as well. It's 'new' ... just out last night. He's been on the scene for a long while now, so why suddenly is he saying he was a trained spy and went overseas undercover, etc etc? Sounds like he's trying to puff up his street cred or something. It just doesn't ring true to me. (again ... sorry Snowden fans). It MAY be true .. but the way this is unfolding makes me question it.

a reply to: FlyersFan
I am sorry, Snowden only deserves prison, if it were anyone else they would get the same, what makes him different? to all of my fellow veterans, soldiers, civil servants and contractors who have ever held any clearance or had to face the scrutiny of any high level investigations this man is a mockery of the entire system that you do everything to secure and maintain clearance, providing travel information, personal information such as financials and everything else, avoiding being late even 30 days on debts, even reporting associations.

Snowden's entire motivation was not to do anything good for the United States, but only cause damage and erode any little trust they may have with friends or partners in the world, and also it's citizens presenting information that may have not been totally correct in the usage and context, but only based on his narrow lane of view of what that data was for.

Snowden obtained the position with premeditated goals to obfuscate and steal things from government systems and computers, to present his biased view and slant of what he interpreted from his narrow lane, what that information was being used for, it won't matter what he did whether it was to just take some of that home with him for his own use or to use it to literally attempt to somehow blackmail the American Government, foolishly present this information and negligently put foreign service assets at risk, whether it be military or non military.

No he deserves no parades, he deserves punishment my friends, he runs straight to the Russians, if he were a patriot or even had any sort of backbone he would have surrendered and agreed to be taken into custody to face the charges that await him, then let the law decide on how his crimes should be dealt with, just the way he should have attempted to go through all efforts including having secured proper legal counsel and prepared himself to wait on the legal system to present his grievance using that method, just like anyone else might do if they truly believed in doing the right thing.

He chose his method, by selfishly playing this out on the world stage and making a mockery of the United Stated Intelligence systems, by taking advantage of the trust he was granted merely to do the work as a civilian contractor, as thousands of others do every single day and are able to maintain integrity of the trust they are granted.

The USA govs/feds are pretty mad about their secrets being spilled out - but they cant seem to understand that they were secrets that should exist.

And what do you know, everyone's happy to know about it and put a stop to A. secrets of this magnitude and B. doing things that are kept secret for the exact reason that they KNOW everyone will hate it!!!

Now i think a secret needs to be kept secret when its about things that would other wise get people killed, like names of informants and such. A secret kept from your own people because you know they wont stand for the actions being taken, is a total misuse of clandestine agency.

originally posted by: phinubian
I am sorry, Snowden only deserves prison,

That's fine. Don't apologize. I only posted the article for discussion. I didn't say I agreed with it. I am really on the fence with this guy. Some of what he did was good. But some was very damaging. But the one thing I'm very solid on ... I'm not buying the sudden "I was a spy undercover' story.

a reply to: FlyersFan
Who has been jailed and/or executed over these "leaks" for treason?
Surely if there was some "groundbreaking" news, someone would be in big trouble...
And of all of this information, just exactly what was released to the public?
Why dump all of the info with someone else in order to write a book about it later....that I'm sure nobody will see for at least 50 years.
I see no heroes, only distractions.

a reply to: FlyersFan
Right, I understand, you are merely the messenger

I hope the guy one day can return to his homeland.
One of the bravest people on the planet and yes he deserves a heroes welcome home.

A question for those who consider him a traitor.

Is it wrong to go against a corrupt government whom spies on its own and everyone else? Surely what he did was good for freedom and individuals rights...I think your founding fathers would have been proud of him.

There is no argument that Snowden brought to light something terrible in the way government "keeps us safe". But to what end? Has the NSA been taken down notch at all? I don't think so! Is the world really so self-destructive that countries (and I'm sure it's not just the US) have to go to the extremes of electronic eavesdropping to protect its citizens? Yes, which means we haven't advanced as a civilization in my lifetime. That's not saying much for the human condition.

To answer the OP's questions:

1 - Should Snowden be welcomed home with a ticker tape parade? - No but let him come home with some guarantee of immunity

2 - Do you believe Snowdens claims that he was really a spy? No reason not to believe him but if we find out otherwise, there goes his credibility

a reply to: phinubian

He saw what was wrong and he spoke up.
Maybe If more Germans did this during WW2 we wouldn't have had the holocaust.

a reply to: boymonkey74

"Traitor" is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

a reply to: Biigs
You have no idea of how to categorize what information truly could cause harm to a person if it is confidential and somehow is publicly exposed in the manner Snowden chose, also, anything that is secret that people found out about, they would probably find cause to protest it, so your point seems malformed in the context of trying to defend his actions simply because people want to put a stop to it since they found out about it or it was publicly exposed, if this really were a valid argument, you could then say, we would have no secrets but in the world of intelligence and espionage, that is simply fantasy.

He is a hero in my opinion.

It is truly a shame that he would be incarcerated and probably tortured if our goverment could get his hands on him right now.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti
Never going to happen, that sets precedent for any leaker or spy to do exactly the same, therefore destroying any trust.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Apples and oranges, new day, different time and circumstances.