Anthonyn Cordesman on Edward Snowden

My apologies, in advance, for what may end up a double posting as it's being "moderator approved". How utterly contemporary.

Yes, a great read. Just now, on the news, polls show that 2/3 of Americans see Snowden as a whistleblower and only 1/4 as a traitor. They even spoke of the difficulties the government said it would have with a jury who would see him as innocent and doing his civic duty.

When you have NSA head Comey perjure himself (a felony) before congress about the extent of surveillance, that is a bell that cannot be unrung. Nothing will happen to him and the public can see that for what it is. Add to that the fact that Snowden had released everything he had when back in Hong Kong and that it's the Guardian newspaper that is releasing the stories. Snowden has nothing more to add to the mix.

Every story the Guardian releases is vetted by the U.S government. Granted, they say all info is of the "double secret probation" variety so the Guardian carefully vets the stories before releasing them. No one has been harmed but there is a lot of shame and embarrassment to go around for everyone.

I'd like to believe that we, Americans, are mature enough to be told, informed, and advised of what is going on and can make up our own minds. I can handle it, can you?

One more thing as long as I'm here. I did a little research and it turns out that the Supreme Court has never held telephone conversations to the same standard as written correspondence, as written in our constitution. As far back as the early teens of last century, the courts have always held that our phone conversations are up for grabs when it concerns the government.
Electronic surveillance has always been given broad latitude and when looked at it with a historical context, they're not living up to the spirit of the law but they are legally skirting the boundaries of it.

All the best,
Nonoise

Interesting story .

i watched a tv show last night hosted by john stossel--a libertarian.

he had several guests who provided an argument that the us is heading in the direction of the roman empire.

i agree with some of the other comments, that the US should avoid foreign entanglements.

i think Jefferson and others warned against such endeavors.

as to snowden, informing zus citizens about unconstitutional activities of the govt is a good thing. don't know if he leaked any "secret information".

as for spying, the US is not alone in such an activity--other countries spy on us, e.g., China, Russia, etc. .

Mrtennis,
Stossel provides a unique perspective that you won't often find in today's media. Being a Liberterian, my views are much aligned with Mr. Stossel although I keep an open mind about every issue and try not to let politics influence the outcomes of my thoughts on those issues.
Several stories have been written on comparisons of the US history and that of the Roman Empire. The playing field is too inadequate to make any reasonable comparison. The world is much too different. Things happen much faster.

Snowden is not and has never been a spy. He was employed as an
intelligence contractor and has become a human rights whistleblower, a concerned citizen. Only when his safety was compromised did he flee. If he didn't leave when he did, we never would have heard the name Snowden, he would have been locked up so deep in Guantanamo you would not have heard from him again.
I'll rep at an earlier post, Snowden is a hero. I hope he lives to tell the truth.

p.s. his odds for living increased greatly when he flew to Hong Kong.