Plan B Forum

Well I certainly won't be signing that...

I see no "stunning abuse of our basic rights" in the Prism program...

Now, if you come across an on-line petition advocating the government seek the death penalty for the traitorous weasel Edward Snowden once he is apprehended let me know. I'll gladly sign that.

Uh Jim I can't sign on to that. What the did was leak information that he personally believed was wrong and against the law this isn't a mass data dump like Manning did but a direct leak of concerned information that he believed was wrong and against what this country stands for whether he was right or wrong remains to be seen. But this is an example of whistle blowing done right.

Here is the question, are we at war? If we are; then, we should act like it. If we are not we should go back to a peace time mode. In war, our goal is to keep our enemy as ignorant as possible. For a citizen to provide the enemy with information is treason. If a citizen aids the enemy without first renouncing his citizenship he is a traitor. What should be the punishment for treason?

There is no one on this a board more convinced than I of the dangers of an over reaching government, but if a government is to fight a war with effectiveness they must have an advantage. Loosing this advantage is equivalent to the loss of the Ultra Secret during World War Two.


He swore an oath, he violated that oath, he has no honor. Death before dishonor.

But this is an example of whistle blowing done right.

Oh come on, CP...

"whistle blowing done right" is about revealing corrupt or illegal conduct, (this was neither) not revealing national security secrets about sources and methods to the enemy, and then running off to China...

It isn't up to every under-achieving narcissist who manages to get a security clearance to become a law unto themselves and decide that what does and does not meet with their personal approval trumps any other consideration. (If there's something that really needs investigating here it's that; we really need to tighten up a system that is providing high security clearances to self-absorbed arrogant weasels like Manning and Snowden.)

So blanket surveillance is a always a good Idea?

To an authoritarian, of course!

The question is simple: WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS?

Lord Jim wrote:

But this is an example of whistle blowing done right.

Oh come on, CP...

"whistle blowing done right" is about revealing corrupt or illegal conduct, (this was neither) not revealing national security secrets about sources and methods to the enemy, and then running off to China...

It isn't up to every under-achieving narcissist who manages to get a security clearance to become a law unto themselves and decide that what does and does not meet with their personal approval trumps any other consideration. (If there's something that really needs investigating here it's that; we really need to tighten up a system that is providing high security clearances to self-absorbed arrogant weasels like Manning and Snowden.)

Well Jim they gave me a Top Secrete SCI security clearance. If I remember correctly they checkout my back ground very thoroughly, but there was no psychological evaluation or investigation of political opinions. Perhaps there should be. Should a person who believes Mannig and Fonda are heros receive a security clearance?

Or you?

Liberty--psychological evaluation aside, do you really think the government should investigate the political opinions of those who apply for security clearances. What should the rejection criteria be--anyone who disagrees with the policies of the then-prevalent party? How can we really have a free society if we allow the government to call any information the disclosure of which might be embarrassing or inconvenient to those in power "secret", and then keep it from anyone who does not pass a political loyalty test?

Jim--you have made your opinion clear on this matter, but do you think there is ever a time when a whistleblower would be justified in exposing government practices labeled "secret" to keep them away from the public?

Big RR wrote:Liberty--psychological evaluation aside, do you really think the government should investigate the political opinions of those who apply for security clearances. What should the rejection criteria be--anyone who disagrees with the policies of the then-prevalent party? How can we really have a free society if we allow the government to call any information the disclosure of which might be embarrassing or inconvenient to those in power "secret", and then keep it from anyone who does not pass a political loyalty test?

Jim--you have made your opinion clear on this matter, but do you think there is ever a time when a whistleblower would be justified in exposing government practices labeled "secret" to keep them away from the public?

I said perhaps because I am not sure myself, but obviously something needs to be done. And the top secret national security court should decide what is a violation of the classification system.

Are the FISA courts subject to review by appellate courts and/or the Supreme Court?

It does seem wrong that a court can issue orders in complete secrecy, and I can't see how "outing" just one of these court orders could have caused all that much harm.

My recollection is they have their own appellate court, subject to the same secrecy requirements, and, I think, the Supreme Court has ultimate review authority.

the problem there is hw can you appeal something you don't know is happening?

Yep; it is a little one sided; if the court denies a government request, the government can appeal. But if it approves the request, that's the end of it, more or less.

Theoretically with the release of the verison info it may now be able to be chaenged.

To some degree I think that events have overtaken us. Our prior understanding of 'privacy' and how government must not intrude into individuals personal affairs was shaped by the level of technology we had developed over the preceding decades. We would object to direct wiretapping, listening to personal conversations, and we would object to having letters opened without cause being shown and a warrant issued. But what the security agencies can do now with vast data collection, processing, and storage, is so different in type that I don't know how I should react to this revelation. And we have heard nothing of the specific details of their data-mining capability. I think it will take time to parse all of this. On the one hand we will still be concerned with intrusion into the lives of individuals as we were before. Yet we will have a new problem; will this kind of data mining be useful in shaping public attitudes so the government can manipulate public reactions (Imagine Bush having yet another way to lie about Iraq and persuade people it was alright)?


This adds a big complicated problem to a public whose bandwidth was already overloaded.

I'm glad this came to light. I have seen no real harm to our security in releasing this and a great deal of good in giving us the ability to see what was going on.


yrs,
rubato

An Orwellian or Huxleyan nightmare? We should be so lucky ....

Lord Jim wrote:

But this is an example of whistle blowing done right.

Oh come on, CP...

"whistle blowing done right" is about revealing corrupt or illegal conduct, (this was neither) not revealing national security secrets about sources and methods to the enemy, and then running off to China...

It isn't up to every under-achieving narcissist who manages to get a security clearance to become a law unto themselves and decide that what does and does not meet with their personal approval trumps any other consideration. (If there's something that really needs investigating here it's that; we really need to tighten up a system that is providing high security clearances to self-absorbed arrogant weasels like Manning and Snowden.)

Oh, come on, Jim. I can't believe that you can't see some clear differences between Manning and Snowden.

To start with, while it's true that the conduct Snowden exposed was not "corrupt or illegal" there is a real question as to whether it was unconstitutional (under the 4th Amendment)--and there appears to be no other way to get this question the public discussion it deserves.

Next, while Manning passed along classified videos and hundreds of thousands of classified State Dept. and DoD documents--way more than he would ever have had time to read, so he essentially has no idea exactly what he was revealing--Snowden appears to have revealed a consciously chosen limited amount of non-specific information, mostly information about programs that everybody already knew or suspected the existence of, so it was mostly just confirmation of existing knowledge, not shocking new revelations of names, identities or activities that no one knew or suspected.

Third, while Manning surreptitiously passed his information to lowlifes/hackers/anarchists like Julian Assange, Snowden went to a legitimate news source and was interviewed on camera using his own name and revealing his current location, thus assuring that he will most likely eventually have to face a U.S. court. (I know he's trying to avoid it, but he's got to have known from the get-go that his prospects are not good. And for this he did give up a well-paying job in a beautiful location, not a low-level rear echelon job in the Iraqi desert.)

Finally, as an active-duty soldier what Manning did was a violation of not only his oath of enlistment, but the oath he swore to protect classified information when he was granted a security clearance--not to mention a dangerous betrayal of his fellow soldiers. All of which is clearly subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Snowden appears to have violated a contract and probably also some criminal laws (for which he will face trial and jail time, not a court martial) but I don't think he had to take an oath to get that job at Booz Allen Hamilton, and as an outside contractor the situation he was in was clearly substantially different from Army Specialist Manning's.