... has singlehandedly put the creeping authoritarian/surveillance/police state on the ropes.


Oh hell yes.

managed to use it to elevate his status around the world ten times higher than it was before Cheney's remark.

Using Cheney as a PR man, a man whose approval ratings are in the single digits around the globe, someone most of the world views as a War Criminal, demonstrates even more how stupid these people are who want us to trust them with our rights and security. They MAKE the case for us.

At least use someone with some credibility. But then I guess anyone with credibility wouldn't be attacking Snowden to begin with.

to stand in front of the entire war machine and calmly blow the whistle.

It only takes one person and he did it. We won't see 1/100th of what he's done, for example, of all the communication signals that just dried up for the war machine like the Russian President's communications, which you know would have been useful for our little war in Syria.

Everything you said my friend, there are so many thought coursing through my mind that I can't express them.

The enormity of what he accomplished is staggering. So many people unmasked themselves at all levels, in different movements too.

Wait until the next Occupy, or protests now. Different people who helped technical issues for the Occupy movement are already working on new ways to communicate, new encryption, so they won't be able to track things as well.

One person stood up. He's not alone. And more are coming.

Yes. That is the source of their fear.

Were we talking about this prior to the Guardian piece? In some circles maybe, but on a world wide scale? No. Like him or not, Edward Snowden put this beast in the spot light.

and many things were dismissed as conspiracy theories. Now everyone knew lol.

Greenwald sent this out 4 hours ago

He's old enough to know history. Is this the sweat breaking out on his brow? The stuff of his nightmares....that WHAT IF...these revelations mean the DAMN Walled Silence is breaking and the ugly secrets (that he made his money off of and still has his job from) will be outed and a NEW REVOLUTION might be coming in his lifetime... He is expressing the fears of those who "run him." And run him they do. Look at how Dan Rather is gone and others...but, he's still there shilling every Sunday...at his age.. You don't do that unless someone is keeping you there. I haven't watched him in years...and can't imagine the "younger demographic" bothers with him. So WHY does he still have that cushy job?


As you say in your last paragraph:

"Martin Luther King and Rosa parks.....they changed the Status Quo in the United States.
Schieffer mentions them in the same breath with Edward Snowden.
Is this the source of their fear?"

Last edited Mon Jun 17, 2013, 09:13 PM - Edit history (1)

The information is what the people need, not just American people, but all liberty loving people affected by the consumption and secret digestion of all of OUR information.

What the whistleblowers information appears to tell us - is that the data being collected is nearly, if not all of the digital media transmitted across all the main networks.
Collected and also stored.

I submit that they are desperately trying to discredit and villainize whistleblowers because this part at least is almost certainly true - they have created the world's largest data storage facility ever dreamed of, and are feeding it with the most sophisticated Data gathering systems ever developed. I would have named it the "Panopticon Lens Data Storage Compound".

What is unknown yet is how much of our data is being accessed, how often, by how many and exactly who. Much like with the concept of the original "Panopticon" of fiction, as important as those questions are, they mean little as we now know that at any time for any mysterious (unknowable to us) reason, they (meaning government and corporate agents) may focus upon any of us and hear all our network transmitted phone calls, see all our video, read all our emails, know all our contacts, where and when we gather, what we buy, etc. and they can do it in real time as well as playback from any time in the past!

This will thus affect and guide our behaviour until the Panopticon DATA systems are dismantled and replaced with a system of reasonable collection - based on probable cause rather than the current system of universal collection and storage. They do not want this, they want it all and they are panicking because the cat is out of the bag and they must still fear that we can stop it!

On DU I have had the privilege of hearing the opinions of free citizens in Europe and other places that are directly affected by this data mining as well. They are not even offered the fig leaf promises of privacy being marketed as existing for US citizens and many are a bit "unhappy" about this to say the least. It is becoming a near GLOBAL Surveillance/Security State operated by, and profiting, a group of multinational corporations, yet paid for and built by a group of purchased governments that will use them to maintain authority over their respective countrymen.

A mating of fascism and authoritarianism joining in an orgy fueled by our liberty and our money to benefit those in authority and those that profit. They will be able to bleed us dry, and with little or no liberty, we will have no way of stopping any of it once it is fully realized.



We must not let that happen!

We have to try to work to stop this:

"A mating of fascism and authoritarianism joining in an orgy fueled by our liberty and our money to benefit those in authority and those that profit. They will be able to bleed us dry, and with little or no liberty, we will have no way of stopping any of it once it is fully realized."

Tell Bob Schieffer and those who re-posted this nonsense to DU in a desperate attempt to find something, ANYTHING to marginalize that computer geek, Ed Snowden.
It isn't us who has made him a mythological hero.
It is YOU and those like you
whose fury and desperation far exceeds anything worthy of Snowden.

YOU, and those like you, with your incessant condemnations and failed personal attacks in lieu of discussing the actual issue CREATED the hero myth of the computer geek.
Bob Schieffer, Spokesman for the Authoritarian Status Quo and an America segregated by Economic Caste, has put Snowden in the same box with MLK and Rosa Parks,
not us.

Sound like somebody took their parent's praise too seriously.



As for Schieffer, sounds like someone needs to take Grandpa's keys away from him.