wbt5845 said:

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lb3 said:

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wbt5845 said:

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This is the right answer.

Classified programs have ombudsmen you can take concerns to. When you go through your annual refresher training, you are given details on how to raise the flag on any ethical concerns.

Going to the New York Times is never one of the options.

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In what reality would your ombudsmen have had the authority to shut down a spying program, let alone, do so.

Give me a single verifiable example in the past 20 years.

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Then why didn't Trump parson him?

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I apologize if Trump was an ombudsman during the Obama administration and I missed it. Please explain the ombudsman's pardon powers like I'm 5 because I don't get your non-sequitur.

Quote:

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"After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for themand for us all," Snowden tweeted on Monday in his first public comments since Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree granting him citizenship.

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Privacy in Russia.

/Snicker

Anyone who thinks Snowden should not have exposed the program or could have done so via legal means is a verifiable moron and federal drone.

DallasAg 94 said:

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Let me check Twitter to see if I'm supposed to be Glad or Mad.

Thanks for the heads-up.

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Or Vlad, because he's the one who did it!

Your just goaltending here.

PRISM was and is highly illegal, but it persists. Collecting all that metadata for pretty much every communication between two U.S. citizens can not be defined any different than spying.

Snowden let us know that the U.S. government was spying on us, and to what extent.

One piece of fallout from Snowden is that the NSA was forced to delete intercepted content after 5 years unless they opened a case file on one of the participants. That means they were keeping the content of communications indiscriminately for more than 5 years from before Snowden.

If some email server IT guy were to come out with a bunch of emails from FBI agents joking with eachother about how to do the scariest next raid, it might do this country some good.

With the FBI raiding the home of a Catholic Priest this week for shoving a guy cursing at his kid, even after the priest agreed to turn himself in more than a month earlier, the less these brownshirts know about me, the better.

flashplayer said:

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Anyone who thinks Snowden should not have exposed the program or could have done so via legal means is a verifiable moron and federal drone.

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So Trump is a moron and/or federal drone?

Snowden was a hero for exposing the program and I don't blame him for running. I only wish he didn't cause it would have put Obama in a hell of a position.


But taking the NSA laptops with him to China and then Russia was treasonous.

wbt5845 said:

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flashplayer said:

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Anyone who thinks Snowden should not have exposed the program or could have done so via legal means is a verifiable moron and federal drone.

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So Trump is a moron and/or federal drone?

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This is the part where we play dumb in order to "prove" your point, huh? Guess what...Trump had a LOT of failures.

And by going off your posts...I would absolutely categorize you as a federal drone.

BusterAg said:

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Your just goaltending here.

PRISM was and is highly illegal, but it persists. Collecting all that metadata for pretty much every communication between two U.S. citizens can not be defined any different than spying.

Snowden let us know that the U.S. government was spying on us, and to what extent.

One piece of fallout from Snowden is that the NSA was forced to delete intercepted content after 5 years unless they opened a case file on one of the participants. That means they were keeping the content of communications indiscriminately for more than 5 years from before Snowden.

If some email server IT guy were to come out with a bunch of emails from FBI agents joking with eachother about how to do the scariest next raid, it might do this country some good.

With the FBI raiding the home of a Catholic Priest this week for shoving a guy cursing at his kid, even after the priest agreed to turn himself in more than a month earlier, the less these brownshirts know about me, the better.

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While I understand your point and agree with it in principle it's important to point out this was not a Priest. Priest's tend not to be married with 7 children. He was a Catholic leader and major Pro Life Advocate but he was not a Priest.

lb3 said:

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wbt5845 said:

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I listen to a podcast that had a series on him last week. I didn't realize there was a large segment of people who thought of him as a hero.

He is a traitor and criminal.

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He is a hero and I would love to see DeSantis name him as a running mate.

The 3 letter agencies have lost their way and now place their own interests ahead of those of the American people. It was Snowden who opened America's eyes to the depth of the surveillance state ordinary citizens live in.

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Maybe so. But he was not one of the first to raise alarms and publicize the actions and illegality of domestic spying. Not by a long shot.

https://www.aclu.org/other/top-ten-myths-about-illegal-nsa-spying-americans
TOP TEN MYTHS ABOUT THE ILLEGAL NSA SPYING ON AMERICANS
(Download a printable version of the full ACLU report. Download a printable version of this summary.)

FEATURES
NSA Spying on Americans Is Illegal

Audio: ACLU v. NSA Clients Respond to White House Claims About Illegal Spying

Learn More About Illegal Government Spying

ACLU Calls for a Special Counsel: Add Your Voice

MYTH: This is merely a "terrorist surveillance program."
REALITY: When there is evidence a person may be a terrorist, both the criminal code and intelligence laws already authorize eavesdropping. This illegal program, however, allows electronic monitoring without any showing to a court that the person being spied upon in this country is a suspected terrorist.

MYTH: The program is legal.
REALITY: The program violates the Fourth Amendment and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and will chill free speech.

MYTH: The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) allows this.
REALITY: The resolution about using force in Afghanistan doesn't mention wiretaps and doesn't apply domestically, but FISA does--it requires a court order.

MYTH: The president has authority as commander in chief of the military to spy on Americans without any court oversight.
REALITY: The Supreme Court recently found the administration's claim of unlimited commander in chief powers during war to be an unacceptable effort to "condense power into a single branch of government," contrary to the Constitution's checks and balances.

MYTH: The president has the power to say what the law is.
REALITY: The courts have this power under our system of government, and no person is above the law, not even the president, or the rule of law means nothing.

MYTH: These warrantless wiretaps could never happen to you.
REALITY: Without court oversight, there is no way to ensure innocent people's everyday communications are not monitored or catalogued by the NSA or other agencies.

MYTH: This illegal program could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
REALITY: This is utter manipulation. Before 9/11, the federal government had gathered intelligence, without illegal NSA spying, about the looming attacks and at least two of the terrorists who perpetrated them, but failed to act.

MYTH: This illegal program has saved thousands of lives.
REALITY: Because the program is secret the administration can assert anything it wants and then claim the need for secrecy excuses its failure to document these claims, let alone reveal all the times the program distracted intelligence agents with dead ends that wasted resources and trampled individual rights.

MYTH: FISA takes too long.
REALITY: FISA allows wiretaps to begin immediately in emergencies, with three days afterward to go to court. Even without an emergency, FISA orders can be approved very quickly and FISA judges are available at all hours.

MYTH: Only liberals disagree with the president about the program.
REALITY: The serious concerns that have been raised transcend party labels and reflect genuine and widespread worries about the lack of checks on the president's claim of unlimited power to illegally spy on Americans without any independent oversight.

(Download a printable version of the full ACLU report. Download a printable version of this summary.)

Related IssuesPrivacy and SurveillanceNational Security
RELATED STORIES
NSA Spying on Americans Is Illegal
DECEMBER 29, 2005

Thanks for the clarification.

Doesn't subtract from my point at all, though.

Ags4DaWin said:

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wbt5845 said:

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I listen to a podcast that had a series on him last week. I didn't realize there was a large segment of people who thought of him as a hero.

He is a traitor and criminal.

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For exposing the fact that the NSA and CIA WERE BREAKING THE LAW BY COLLECTING INFORMATION ON US CITIZENS WITHOUT A WARRANT?!?

Ummmmmm I thought the conservativeson this bord were supposed to be against the government doing things like that without a warrant.

Regardless of what I think of Snowden and I am ambivalent because of what he has done after he exposed that ****, the public needed to know.

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WBT is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He pretends like he is a conservative but then he supports things like government spying on citizens and vaccine mandates. I wouldn't put too much stock in what he has to say.

So I'm an independent thinker who doesn't fall lock step into a hive mentality of what conservatives ought to believe?

Thank you for the compliment.

Don't always agree with him, but he's a good poster, and I enjoy getting different perspectives that you don't routinely see here. What's the problem?

BusterAg said:

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I don't want this nations brownshirts to have access to who I call on my phone every time I dial someone.

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I would be shocked if they weren't still doing this. Through your phone and text messages and amazon alexa.

I'd bet that this board is monitored.

Our alphabet agencies are drunk with power. They aren't backing down from a slap on the wrist by congress. I bet they are bluffing compliance and doubling down with a slightly different form of spying. Or have changed the definition of something and magically it's legal again.