2016 Postmortem

DonViejo

(60,536 posts) Fri Jan 3, 2014, 06:43 PM Jan 2014

Why Snowden Won’t (and Shouldn’t) Get Clemency

He went too far to be considered just a whistleblower.

By Fred Kaplan

I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot. I was one of the first columnists to write that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be fired for lying to Congress. On June 7, two days after the first news stories based on Edward Snowden’s leaks, I wrote a column airing (and endorsing) the concerns of Brian Jenkins, a leading counterterrorism expert, that the government’s massive surveillance program had created “the foundation of a very oppressive state.”

And yet I firmly disagree with the New York Times’ Jan. 1 editorial (“Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower”), calling on President Obama to grant Snowden “some form of clemency” for the “great service” he has done for his country.

It is true that Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of American citizens—far vaster than any outsider had suspected, in some cases vaster than the agency’s overseers on the secret FISA court had permitted—have triggered a valuable debate, leading possibly to much-needed reforms.

If that were all that Snowden had done, if his stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the NSA’s domestic surveillance, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing.

full article
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/01/edward_snowden_doesn_t_deserve_clemency_the_nsa_leaker_hasn_t_proved_he.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content&mc_cid=cf4e04bfc7&mc_eid=7a8b58c8c3

3 replies

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Highlight:

Why Snowden Won’t (and Shouldn’t) Get Clemency (Original Post) DonViejo Jan 2014 OP

There appears to be a deeper river Snowden is on and perhaps it will never come out completely Thinkingabout Jan 2014 #1

Just another #10 PSPS Jan 2014 #2

What a ridiculous bunch of pap frazzled Jan 2014 #3

Thinkingabout

(30,058 posts)

1. There appears to be a deeper river Snowden is on and perhaps it will never come out completely

Reply to DonViejo (Original post)

Fri Jan 3, 2014, 06:54 PM

Jan 2014

There has been too many directions indicated, too much incorrect information revealed so I don't know if the truth is in his gang.

PSPS

(13,599 posts)

2. Just another #10

Reply to DonViejo (Original post)

Fri Jan 3, 2014, 07:15 PM

Jan 2014

This opinion piece might, at first, be perceived as only revealing the writer's naivety. But Fred Kaplan's membership in the Council of Foreign Relations tells us all we need to know about where this "opinion" comes from. Essentially, he is speaking for the very surveillance community that occupies a large part of the organization's membership roster.

Apparently, because the leaked documents also reveal that the NSA monitors foreign entities (their intended function when the NSA was formed, and already widely known for 70 years,) then Snowden must be hanged or something. That the NSA is now a rogue agency freely engaging in illegal spying on Americans is somehow nothing to worry about since the NSA also spies on foreign bogeymen.

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Worshiper/Apologist Hit Parade:

1. This is nothing new
2. I have nothing to hide
3. What are you, a freeper?
4. But Obama is better than Christie/Romney/Bush/Hitler
5. Greenwald/Flaherty/Gillum/Apuzzo/Braun is a hack
6. We have red light cameras, so this is no big deal
7. Corporations have my data anyway
8. At least Obama is trying
9. This is just the media trying to take Obama down
10. It's a misunderstanding/you are confused
11. You're a racist
12. Nobody cares about this anyway / "unfounded fears"
13. I don't like Snowden, therefore we must disregard all of this
14. Other countries do it

frazzled

(18,402 posts)

3. What a ridiculous bunch of pap

Reply to PSPS (Reply #2)

Fri Jan 3, 2014, 08:13 PM

Jan 2014

"All we need to know," indeed. All you want to know. I've been reading Fred Kaplan for more than a decade. You apparently did not even read this article (because none of your 14 points addresses a single thing relevant to Kaplan's positions).

But no point in having a conversation about issues or facts or anything of that nature. There is no conversation to be had with iconoclasts who devise conspiratorial categories instead of considering analysis.

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