Ex-CIA chief: Amnesty for Snowden idiotic, he ‘should be hanged by his neck'

phinubian
Being loyal and agreeing by signing your name to a binding contract between yourself and the U.S. any other government or individual, creates a dilemma when you willfully choose to no longer honor that pledged loyalty on your own good name, he had many other ways to have gone about exposing what he perceived as wrong, so now he must face the punishments which when you do sign certain agreements the penalties are clearly there for you to read.

You either agree or disagree and do not sign your name and assign your loyalty to anyone, if you do breach it, be prepared to be subjected to the penalties and do not look for sympathy.

He also signed it before the fact.. If we cannot see it then it must not be happening right?

Out of interest what do you want to happen to the NSA?

reply to post by Horus12


To be honest, I have worked within that framework, I am all in the system, chipped you might say so it would be hard for me to speak in a negative way about them , if you are already in the spiderweb it is difficult to be free from the spiders mandibles for his future snack.

With that said, once you have that SSN, state issued id, had a background check, applied for or have a security clearance etc, your file is set, it's just a matter of the metadata that can be accumulated at that point, like it or not most people fall under that category and they probably know things already that you have willfully given.

With that said that 3 letter agency is going nowhere, regardless of the opinions one may have about it.

Horus12
Read my post again please "Spy agencies are an arm of the government who are voted in by the people, for the people" they are not representing themselves, they work for us.

Except they are not voted in by the people..Specific management positions will be voted on by elements or subcommittees of the Govt but from the janitor to a senior level field analyst public voting has nothing to do with it.

I did not say we have to know everything, I simply stated when they turn against the people who they work for then they should have no right to use the law to protect themselves.
"I am 100% sure you have no need to know anything my company does from an intellectual property standpoint just like I am sure I have 100% no need to know anything your place of employment does."
You are aware they have been caught up in corporate espionage also right? You also have no right to know what I do at home, on my phone or at my computer.

edit on 19-12-2013 by Horus12 because: (no reason given)

My stance has always been about Snowden the man and the fact that he broke the law.
If your issue is with Agencies or companies that you feel invade your privacy then great lets talk about that.
I have been clear all along, Snowden willingly broke the laws he knowingly and willing agreed to.

I have a problem with Snowden. If he was concerned about the state of the country and the dirty deeds he has evidence of.. why hasnt he released most of it and kept a small insurance policy? I have my own suspicions.. considering who he gave a lot of the data to.. and who that person is affiliated with.

I would consider that Snowden was "allowed" to take data. We have a huge pissing match between the CIA and the NSA as it is..

reply to post by SloAnPainful



There's only one reason the US will offer Snowden Amnesty, to bury the proof of a criminal activities in the US intelligence agencies.

opethPA

Horus12
Read my post again please "Spy agencies are an arm of the government who are voted in by the people, for the people" they are not representing themselves, they work for us.

Except they are not voted in by the people..Specific management positions will be voted on by elements or subcommittees of the Govt but from the janitor to a senior level field analyst public voting has nothing to do with it.

I did not say we have to know everything, I simply stated when they turn against the people who they work for then they should have no right to use the law to protect themselves.
"I am 100% sure you have no need to know anything my company does from an intellectual property standpoint just like I am sure I have 100% no need to know anything your place of employment does."
You are aware they have been caught up in corporate espionage also right? You also have no right to know what I do at home, on my phone or at my computer.

edit on 19-12-2013 by Horus12 because: (no reason given)

My stance has always been about Snowden the man and the fact that he broke the law.
If your issue is with Agencies or companies that you feel invade your privacy then great lets talk about that.
I have been clear all along, Snowden willingly broke the laws he knowingly and willing agreed to.

My apologies maybe I wasn't clear enough in my writing.

The government is voted in, the government works for the people, spy agencies are an arm of the government and therefore work for the people.


I will ask you the same thing I asked Austin Powers up there, what should happen to the NSA? They have broken many many laws.

If Snowdon leaked sensitive information for personal gain then I agree he would deserve to be punished. What he leaked was information of value to the people and if punished would only mean next time we would not get to hear about it.

framedragged
Everyone keeps going on and on about how 'reactionary' the government is being to Edward Snowden.

A: He committed treason; it's a defined word and his actions fit the definition. Instead of blowing the whistle on corruption and trying to actually do something about it he aired dirty laundry again and again for no other purpose to embarrass the united states.

B: Nothing he has provided has been revelatory, sorry to anyone who hasn't been paying attention for the last 30 years.

C: Any complaints about misuse of nsa systems by employees for personal reasons should be directed at this self centered culture we seem to be so good at cultivating and the nature of bureaucracy itself.

If anyone actually thinks that we shouldn't keep track of external enemies and anyone they have regular contact with stateside, well then I don't know what to tell you.

A: 3 people from the agency tried going up the proper channels and all ended up with legal troubles and no action really came of it.

B: Whether or not anything has happened in 30 years doesn't mean something shouldn't have happened. That is like saying, well heck, why did people even care about Richard Nixon? He should have been lauded! No different than Maggie Thatcher besides that he got caught…

Oh, and why do western countries talk down China or Russia when they are doing the same thing? "Do as I say but not as I've been doing for 30 years?"

C: Creating positions of power that have no checks and balances creates and/or lures the personalities that are drawn to it. Time and time again this is reflected throughout history.

Panic2k11
I think that a majority of people agrees with him in at least one point, traitors should be killed, what diverges in who is the traitor...

The real traitors are the trash politicians that accepted payola to destroy our financial regulatory system. But this was not enough for them. Not only did the government ignore Wall Street's massive fraud and theft, they actually paid these Wall Street criminal organizations even more money. It's beyond belief.

According to the multi-millionaire and billionaire financial movers-n-shakers, the common man is going to pay the price for all these crimes when the financial machine collapses.

Advantage
I would consider that Snowden was "allowed" to take data. We have a huge pissing match between the CIA and the NSA as it is..

I don't know if Snowden was a pawn in a pissing contest between CIA and NSA. What I do know is that both of these agencies should be flushed along with the rest of the solid-human-waste.

Good riddance.

opethPA
The problem is for those that have never had a clearance or worked in the defense/intelligence community, Snowden seems like nothing more than a hero.

To those that have done both of those things he has broken multiple rules, laws, regulations and the contract he agreed to when choosing that career in life.

I'm not here to argue if it's justified that he did those things because the Govt does them. That's not the point for me. When you get your clearance you know what you are signing up for.

That being said...if he can effect change that allows those agencies to keep us secure while reducing the big brother element then I think the following would be fair:

1. Found guilty of treason
2. Thrown out of the country forever.
3. Suspended/Minimal jail sentence that anyone would get if they violated the clearly defined terms of getting your clearance.

I know if I would have improperly transported specific info on the grounds of a secured installation when I had my clearance I would have faced jail time and or significant fines plus loss of job and that pales in comparison to the infosec breach he caused.

edit on 2013pAmerica/Chicago3110ppm by opethPA because: (no reason given)

Classification can't be used to cover up something illegal. If it's illegal, under our laws it's not eligible to be classified, at which point it becomes public information. Many do their jobs and keep that information hidden. Snowden didn't, he exposed what he had a legal and ethical obligation to expose.

Aazadan
Classification can't be used to cover up something illegal. If it's illegal, under our laws it's not eligible to be classified, at which point it becomes public information. Many do their jobs and keep that information hidden. Snowden didn't, he exposed what he had a legal and ethical obligation to expose.

Not the way it works in the real world and not really even applicable. No amount of reality is going to change the minds of some here so Im not going to try anymore.

I want to see the end game with Snowden and I hope the punishment matches whatever that end game is..Something noble or a fraud.

opethPA
Not the way it works in the real world and not really even applicable. No amount of reality is going to change the minds of some here so Im not going to try anymore.

I want to see the end game with Snowden and I hope the punishment matches whatever that end game is..Something noble or a fraud.

You're right, that's now how it works. That's how it's supposed to work but as a culture we've decided to vilify the act of whistleblowing. We even had a president campaign on revamping the system... he revamped it allright but not in the way any of us expected. Whistleblowing is a duty people have when they know of wrongdoing. If someone at a cereal plant knows of poison being added to food because it's cheaper they have a duty to come forward. If someone at a manufacturer knows of actual slave labor being utilized to make products, they have a duty to come forward. These are things that are supposed to happen in a society. They also happen to be things where we punish the person to speak up, and it's wrong.

What Snowden did is no different, except he has an actual legal imperative to speak up because he knew of crimes taking place, and to say nothing is to be complicit in them. Classification cannot be used to cover up illegal activity, the courts have ruled on this. It still happens, it happened here but this time we had someone speak up. We're not talking about some minor technicality here either, we're talking about massive violations of 8 out of 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights to millions upon millions of people. It's the most illegal action the country has ever taken.

Acting in the way he did was the only thing Snowden could do. Others have come before him and tried to change the system internally and keep it out of the public view. They were arrested, threatened, fired, and silenced. Snowden took the only path left open.

As for the end game with him, I would like to see him testify to congress in a public hearing. Then I want to see him get a jury trial (probably made public, for the sake of fairness) where the public can decide if what he did was ultimately right or wrong, and if it's deserving of punishment.

reply to post by opethPA



I have read all your comments opethPA and all that rings in my mind was the comments at Neuenburg trials ...."I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS".

Let me stay what will be your immediate comment (or at least thought) that "they are not NAZI's" but your continued defense of that snowden had "broken his security clearance/oath" (which by the very letter of the law he did do) is much the same theme.

Using Neuenburg as a glaring example, and reinforced by the my lai massacre, ALL MILITARY MEMBERS (from a raw recruit to veteran SF) are taught NEVER TO OBEY AN ILLEGAL/IMMORAL ORDER under penalty of they will be HELD RESPONCIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

Now no where does a security clearance in any way civilian or military justify illegal actions by any governmental agency and anyone who holds such a clearance would be held accountable with ANY ATTEMPT to say "I was following orders/clearance" would be punished fully.

It also is no different than a (ex) police officer being told by his superiors to "falsify a report". They would punish him/her for their actions.

Now in an ideal world he "SHOULD" have been able to go up to a level of command removed from the illegal activity and that would have been proper/legal.

But when the whole system top down is in on the illegal activity, protecting it and (a PROVEN FACT) punishing those who attempt that route left him with either go public (to which is the ultimate boss no matter that the alphabet intelligence community thinks or be a party to such activity.

In fact in the civilian world an example of this is a police officer named scorpio took down a corrupt NYPD system back in the 70's (I think).

Lets be clear on snowden.
He did not reveal foreign assets (specific people), classified codes, active military activities, or even trivial banter (aka wiki leaks on small talk about diplomats).

He not only revealed but CONFIRMED (so save the "everybody knew of these things reply) WITH HARD EVIDENCE programs where EVERYBODY WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE or even a SHRED OF EVIDENCE having all communication RECORDED.
This is in DIRECT VIOLATION of more than 3 amendments to the bill of rights.

Also point out that had he not pointed these programs out that secrecy would have PREVENTED THE COURTS from judging if it was consitutional.

As you know opethPA the way the "spook" community works the odds he would even make it to a trial (much less a PUBLIC ONE) is next to nill. Don't even try to say "accidents" don't happen to those who shine light on these inteligence organizations.

So while I don't agree with a threat of more files released, it is a prudent measure.
Not unlike a civilian whisleblower keeping a few facts back until a trial.

Now where I would agree he has lost his moral ground and credibility is if he starts releasing just trivial, unrealated, or any other data/info OUTSIDE of that the VIOLATIONS OF US LAW AND CONSITUTION.
Or for money to a foreign power aka ames.

So in conclusion I must ask you opethPA is any agency (military, inteligence, governmental, civilian) committing ILLEGAL ACTS and someone with a "security clearance/signed contract to secrecy" finds out they CANNOT tell anyone not involved with the illegal act?

If so did the nazi have a valid excuse?

The CIA talking about treason, that's hilarious.

Another MIC yes-man running his mouth again.

Xcathdra
[ If he strays outside that box, like Manning and Assange

Assange is not a US citzen so I dont see how he could break US laws unless he released his files on US soil.

opethPA


I don't get this justification of Party A breaks the law so Party B can do it also..that's called anarchy and watch society fall apart.

Its called standing up for what right.

Sometimes you have to break the law to do what right because following it would result in takeing part in a greater evil.

If someone had shot hitler should he had been tried and sent to prison?
Sample principle.

You guys can all save your posts...

My guess is that the people on this thread claiming how he handled/transported/stored the classified info, not that act of whistle blowing, was not a violation of various rules/regulations/laws have never had a security clearance because if they had then they would understand what I am talking about.

In a scenario like that their just isn't a point in continuing.

opethPA
You guys can all save your posts...

My guess is that the people on this thread claiming how he handled/transported/stored the classified info, not that act of whistle blowing, was not a violation of various rules/regulations/laws have never had a security clearance because if they had then they would understand what I am talking about.

In a scenario like that their just isn't a point in continuing.

I just dont see how haveing a security cleance give you a excuse to act illegaly and cover up up people illegal actions.

reply to post by scrounger


All people who work for the government have an oath to 'defend and uphold The Constitution'. That trumps any other contract. Based on the recent ruling by a Federal Judge it would seem Mr. Snowden was doing just that.

jtma508
reply to post by scrounger

 

All people who work for the government have an oath to 'defend and uphold The Constitution'. That trumps any other contract. Based on the recent ruling by a Federal Judge it would seem Mr. Snowden was doing just that.

Yup, I know enough out your constitution to know that it trumps all over laws, so if a laws or goverment action takes place that is against the constitution then it would be illegal to follow or keep quiet about.