Snowden Declares, "Mission Accomplished" - Society Deserves Chance to Govern and Change Itself

“If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public.”

That's just one of the striking things NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden told the Washington Post's Barton Gellman during two-days of "near constant conversation" in a hotel room in Russia—a rare person-to-person interview with the man who has rocked the world by revealing vast details about how the most powerful spy agencies in the world use clandestine technologies to gaze on an increasingly digitized and interconnected population.

"I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.” –Edward Snowden

In perhaps the most telling exchange, Snowden explained to Gellman that as far as he is concerned, the global conversation that the revelations have made possible has made all the risks to his personal welfare worth it.

“For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” Snowden said. “I already won.”

“All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed,” he said. “That is a milestone we left a long time ago."

Common Dreams

reply to post by signalfire


Lots of wonderful quotes from a true hero here - gotta admit, this is the first time so far this season I've really felt there was hope for humanity;

“The oath of allegiance is not an oath of secrecy,” he said. “That is an oath to the Constitution. That is the oath that I kept that Keith Alexander and James Clapper did not.”

People who accuse him of disloyalty, he said, mistake his purpose.

“I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA,” he said. “I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don’t realize it.”

What entitled Snowden, now 30, to take on that responsibility?

“That whole question — who elected you? — inverts the model,” he said. “They elected me. The overseers.”

He named the chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees.

“Dianne Feinstein elected me when she asked softball questions” in committee hearings, he said. “Mike Rogers elected me when he kept these programs hidden. . . . The FISA court elected me when they decided to legislate from the bench on things that were far beyond the mandate of what that court was ever intended to do. The system failed comprehensively, and each level of oversight, each level of responsibility that should have addressed this, abdicated their responsibility.”

Link to further info

Good stuff and he's absolutely right. Snowden is a true American hero. It's interesting to here the people that brand him a traitor. They are establishment goons, like Feinstein and King in our congress two list just two who happen to be on opposite sides of the aisle or they're brainwashed talk radio sheep who listen to Limbaugh, Hannity etc and so on. Think for yourselves people. Nothing is more important than our freedom. Period.

He is a traitor. So are the people he exposed. Just because one group are traitors does not make the other a hero.

no point.

reply to post by winofiend


Now we know which side cat nips is on.
You have revealed yourself.

OccamsRazor04
He is a traitor. So are the people he exposed. Just because one group are traitors does not make the other a hero.

Yeah, because pointing out that Congress isn't doing its overseer job, and the 'intelligence organizations' are so far over-reaching that they now feel entitled to lie to Congress, and the Constitution might as well be a quaint historical document, and the President lied about planting a bug in our allies' offices, is treason..

Right.

One wonders what a patriot is to you.

As the articles point out, he's been VERY careful what information got out; everything has been carefully vetted so as not to affect operatives in the field.

What you're actually saying is that the United States of America, a democratic republic ruled by law, doesn't exist anymore, and I would agree.

triple post (damn!)

double post

Unfortunately, the Eloi will ignore all revelations so long as they have TV, iPhones, beer, and dinner.

He's only 30!!!?? I thought he was in his 50's or 60's.

It's clear to me they want him on US soil so they can jail him.

I don't know whether he's a hero or a traitor.

I think the national intelligence apparatus can become a danger if it hides behind secrecy too much to avoid scrutiny. To some amount it needs secrecy to protect the nation, but that same secrecy can become a catalyst to harmful processes.

Individuals must act responsibly as well. The nation's defense and law enforcement agencies cannot protect us at every interval - it must be ourselves too.

I guess with freedom comes responsibility.

The world around us is not made for soft souls. Sometimes I want a ticket out of here, but maybe there's something worse on the other side. And of course if there's nothing then maybe it's better to live. Whether it's a bug flying into a web and being bitten by a spider and slowly dying from the spider venom which liquifies the internal organs or it's a (still strong) pig on a friendly homestead being butchered for thanksgiving or it's a natural disaster killing thousands or whatever. Fear and misfortune are not just words, they're events and places. This world offers us good and bad in our journey. There're no guarantees of safety or fairness.

This is why it's so popular to believe in a God who will at least punish the wrongdoers and reward those who do right. God offers us a shoulder to lean on. It's tempting to believe such things, but it's not better than sucking your thumb and dragging blankie with you in the midst of disaster - as a coping mechanism.

If when I die I wake up to a better world I will conclude this was a nightmare, yet if I wake up to something worse it will have been a good dream. And if I wake up to nothing, I guess I'll be in eternal dreamless slumber.

OccamsRazor04
He is a traitor. So are the people he exposed. Just because one group are traitors does not make the other a hero.

He's a HERO. He pledged to the constitution and did not follow bad orders. Which is not only a legal obligation, nuremburg trials come to mind and their prosecution, a subject I studied and wrote an essay on in school, but also, but an ethical obligation as well.

All need to follow suit. Do not follow bad orders! Do not keep pertinent info that is harming the public from the public as it is massively illegal to do so.

When they write their pseudo laws up, and violate the constitution and freedoms of the people, those are not laws, they're crimes. Nazi's did the same, and the documents were declared crimes against humanity, their signatures were determined to be admissions of guilt, in cold reasonable blood, sane admissions and they're defense of Following Orders which was determined to be common sense, violations of humanity, didn't fly.

reply to post by signalfire


What Snowden did took guts.

He exposed massive corruption within our own government. Of course our government wants to see him hang, he basically showed that the emperor had no clothes.

My humble opinion.

It took him long enough to come up with this seemingly heroic, patriotic excuse, which this traitor IMO is neither a hero or a patriot, he does not need any more of a platform to place others at risk by spewing his mouth off, I really feel that even though nothing drastic such as an attack or aggressive action has not happened against the U.S. there are some people that feel that what he did was ok and it was harmless (I bet they never held a clearance in many of these instances and do not understand loyalty) , but supposed another country decided to start droning and bombing the citizens or interests of our country because of him broadcasting secrets the U.S. was gathering on enemies as well as allies, would you feel great about what he did then ? if it put you as an individual at risk ?

I bet our enemies have used this information to improve their own methods of information gathering and probably enable them to put more focus on how they might spy on the U.S. and their own citizens as all countries have always done, I think his purpose was misguided and wreckless , he deserves prison time for sure if what he did was to injure the country and garner support for the world to be against America and create more enemies, many already suspected was being done against citizens for years, but he had no right to go telling enemies a single thing about what the U.S. intelligence agencies might be up, or even our allies for that matter, none of Snowden's business, period.

reply to post by signalfire

One wonders what a patriot is to you.

Snowden is no patriot. He admitted that he took the job for the sole purpose of getting info to release to the world. He is no different than a foreign spy. Besides he didn't expose anything that people who have paying attention didn't already know.

reply to post by buster2010


How does one expose the truth of corruption otherwise?

How does someone provide truth for the world, that an over-reach exists in America?

How would you have gone about it?

He "defected from the government to the people". Well, "the people" are going to have to insure his security and freedom, otherwise, some day down the road he is going to be part of a scene like this.



Are "the people" up to the task of keeping Snowden free? Don't make me laugh.