nsa whistleblower e snowden

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

lol

president, precedent...what's the difference?

Five tall blondes, ie Miller Genuine Drafts

[jms62]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Five tall blondes, ie Miller Genuine Drafts

Drinkin on a Monday ? Not a good sign, just sayin.

[GenuineRisk]

From one of the Balloon-juice front-pagers, soonergrunt, who is a veteran (three guesses as to where he lives. ):

<Most of the recent revelations’ good AND bad regarding our government’s covert activities’ legal or not, good or bad, have come to us via “impure vessels.”

Bradley Manning isn’t anyone’s idea of a good Soldier. This other guy has some issues too, or so it seems. The conduits through which these men choose to act are themselves less than ideal. Julian Assange is a con man who strung his most lucrative source along for months and then left him high and dry, not even willing to make good on his half-assed pledge to donate money for PART of Manning’s defense fund. Greenwald is a prickly sanctimonious blow-hard frequently more dedicated to self-promotion than the accuracy of his work.

In other words, they are imperfect vessels. And while it is right to look at their specific claims with a healthy dose of skepticism, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these men have brought up subjects that we should be discussing. This **** is important, as my dad would say.

A lot of important things we take for granted came about because of imperfect vessels. I’m pretty sure no one would give up the right to be informed of the charges against them, and their rights at arrest, even though Miranda was a violent psychopath. I doubt Clarence Gideon would make many short lists for dinner invitations, but I’m damn glad for the protections that came from his case.

So let’s have those discussions, and not in Mitt Romney’s quiet rooms out in the open, loudly and honestly, the way Americans are supposed to do. Manning, by his own admission, should be in jail. So should this other guy, probably. But like Gideon and Miranda, the rest of us do owe them a debt of sorts, and we would do well to remember that.>>

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/06...lic-discourse/

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by jms62

Drinkin on a Monday ? Not a good sign, just sayin.

Monday is my Sunday, golf courses are far less crowded and I always have a few while playin. Thanks for your concern though.

[Danzig]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/i...164742798.html


i'd recommend watching the video first, before reading the article. always interesting to see someone lie, under oath, to congress. the article is just the esteemed mr. clapper trying to explain how he was just being as ably untruthful as possible....

ah, what a tangled web......

[dellinger63]

What's the delay in indicting Snowden?

Or did Washington not get the news or not believe his admission and we are still looking for the source of the leak? Perhaps Holder is busy investigating himself?

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Danzig

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/i...164742798.html

ah, what a tangled web......

Per MSNBC

President Obama made the official announcement on June 5, 2010 saying Clapper "possesses a quality that I value in all my advisers: a willingness to tell leaders what we need to know even if it's not what we want to hear."

Susan Rice seems to have that same quality the President looks for and come to think of it so does Jay Carney.

[Danzig]

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...s-records?lite

The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.

“Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this. We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”

In contrast to standard grand jury subpoenas, material obtained under both Section 215 orders and national security letters must be turned over under so-called “gag orders” that forbid the business or institution that receives the order from notifying its customers or publicly referring to the matter.

From the earliest days of the Patriot Act, Section 215 was among the most hotly disputed of its provisions. Critics charged the language – “tangible things” -- was so broad that it would even permit the FBI to obtain library and bookstore records to inspect what citizens were reading.



“There should be no room for secret law,” said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s deputy legal director, adding that disclosure of the FISC rulings is essential if the debate Obama called for is to take place. “The public has a right to know what limits apply to the government’s surveillance authority, and what safeguards are in place to protect individual privacy.”



i agree.


and obama says he 'welcomes the debate'. yeah, me too. only thing is, when will he be available to debate this??


now, not to make light of 9/11 by any means....but more people die in a month from car wrecks in this country than have died in the last 12 years, including 9/11, from terrorist attacks. do we really want to have secret courts, secret orders, no public info on subpoenas, changes to amendments in the constitution, sweeping new govt powers, all of which is supposedly to 'make us safer'?! safer from whom???
those who say 'well, if you have nothing to hide...'. define nothing. who decides what's nefarious? how far will this go? drones killing u.s. citizens??? oh, wait, that's already happened-to hell with due process, right?

[Danzig]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...sugc_container

Is Edward Snowden a hero or traitor?

The Post's Dana Milbank thinks the U.S. government has no one to blame but itself:

It is precisely their effort to hide such a vast and consequential program from the American public that caused this pressure valve to burst. Instead of allowing a democratic debate about the programs in broad terms that would not have compromised national security, their attempts to keep the public in the dark have created a backlash in which the risks to national security can’t be controlled.

Snowden, Milbank adds, "did the honorable thing in revealing his identity; it would be more honorable if he would turn himself in and face the consequences for his law-breaking. But there is little honor in the way administration officials and lawmakers have avoided responsibility."
..