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#Post#: 146871--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: FDISK Date: August 30, 2013, 4:15 pm
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Snowden didn't sit in the front of the bus. He is a thief and a
profiteer who has put innocent people's lives at risk. He has
harmed his country. I'm not arguing what he did was illegal.
Everyone knows it was illegal. I'm arguing it was immoral.
Snowden feels it's wrong for a free nation to spy on their own
people. So...as a remedy...he hides out in Russia...a place
where they have never dreamed of spying on their own people.
#Post#: 146884--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: Jes Beard Date: August 30, 2013, 5:14 pm
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[quote author=FDISK link=topic=96.msg146871#msg146871
date=1377897317]
Snowden feels it's wrong for a free nation to spy on their own
people. So...as a remedy...he hides out in Russia...a place
where they have never dreamed of spying on their own people.
[/quote]
You really think Snowden went to Russia as a remedy for this
country spying on its own people?
Really?
#Post#: 146911--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: FDISK Date: August 30, 2013, 9:09 pm
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Sure, what choice did he have. It was there or Ecuador.
Patriot/Hero/Martyrs must suffer a little. I'm sure the Russians
can afford to pay a little better.
#Post#: 146919--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: Jes Beard Date: August 30, 2013, 10:19 pm
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So you are backing away from your earlier suggestion that he is
hiding in Russia as a "remedy" and are simply retreating to the
land of smart-as$ed remarks.
Not surprising.
#Post#: 146920--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: ticohans Date: August 30, 2013, 10:40 pm
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The only thing I'll add to this discussion is that we're
treading ground where a federal republic can begin to trip
itself up: when it decides to take action upon the population
without telling the population. When that happens we don't know
what we're voting for. We cannot trust lawmakers because we
don't know what they're doing behind closed doors. I understand
that certain things need to be classified. I'm not so naïve as
to suggest there should be no government secrets. But there is
a line that is crossed when certain basic liberties the general
population believes it enjoys are infringed upon without their
knowledge or consent. Many here are much more knowledgeable than
me on this topic, but from what I've come to understand, not
only has the NSA (along with other government agencies)
collected data that most people would assume is off limits, some
within the NSA have also taken it upon themselves to go above
and beyond what is permitted to them by the FISA courts, etc.
When secretive actions surpass their secretive systems of checks
and balances, I think that is cause for concern. I am not
justifying Snowden's actions, but in a topic so polarizing, it's
easy to miss the other side of the argument.
I think Snowden has crossed the line, especially with some of
his more recent leaks. If he had left it to simply showing the
American population that they're surveilled quite a bit in ways
that might surprise them, in ways that seem to bypass basic
protections afforded by the Constitution, I think I'd be closer
to jes' side of the argument. What continues to leak out though
is increasingly damaging, and it's incredibly unfortunate that
Snowden has decided to take it this far.
#Post#: 146924--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: Jes Beard Date: August 30, 2013, 11:11 pm
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tico, one of the problems of "simply showing the American
population that they're surveilled quite a bit in ways that
might surprise them," is that the government continued to lie
and deny, and no pressure would have developed to do anything at
all. The thing that is incredibly unfortunate is that so many
secrets exist in the first place and that the government was
doing so much $hit it was lying to us about, and would STILL be
lying to us about if not for Snowden.
In 1775, the terrorists were the Founding Fathers.
The real concern of the federal government is not so much
foreign invasion, or even another idiot underwear bomber.
The real concern is that enough people become sick of what the
federal government is doing that they internally, domestically,
organize another revolution and truly throw the bums out.... and
Big Brother is determined not to allow that possibility.
#Post#: 146940--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: davep Date: August 31, 2013, 10:41 am
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[quote author=Jes Beard link=topic=96.msg146816#msg146816
date=1377885635]
If we are at war, which we are not, and if the secrets involve
the time and manner and scope and targets of a military attack,
I have no problem with classifying that information or
criminally punishing someone who deliberately provided that
information to the enemy for the purpose of allowing the enemy
to use it against us in a pre-emptive or defensive manner.
None of that describes what Snowden did, though some of it does
describe what Obama and Kerry are doing.
In a democratic society very little information about government
actions, plans or expenditures, should be kept secret.
If you do not want a democratic society, then it is easy to
justify keeping secret anything those running the show want to
keep secret.
[/quote]
So if we are NOT at war, there should be no Security Secrets?
By the way, you didn't answer my questions. Since you agree
that there should be SOME security secrets, do by believe that
anyone with knowledge of them should have the legal right to
publish them if he doesn't agree with keeping them secret?
#Post#: 146942--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: davep Date: August 31, 2013, 10:48 am
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[quote author=Jes Beard link=topic=96.msg146816#msg146816
date=1377885635]
If we are at war, which we are not, and if the secrets involve
the time and manner and scope and targets of a military attack,
I have no problem with classifying that information or
criminally punishing someone who deliberately provided that
information to the enemy for the purpose of allowing the enemy
to use it against us in a pre-emptive or defensive manner.
None of that describes what Snowden did, though some of it does
describe what Obama and Kerry are doing.
In a democratic society very little information about government
actions, plans or expenditures, should be kept secret.
If you do not want a democratic society, then it is easy to
justify keeping secret anything those running the show want to
keep secret.
[/quote]
In the past, you have condescendingly reminding me that we do
NOT live in a democracy - we live in a representative republic.
In a representative republic, we elect representatives who
decide for us, among other things, what things are Governmental
Secrets and what things should be made public.
Do you think Julius Rosenberg was justified in passing our
atomic secrets to Russia, at a time when we were not at war with
Russia?
#Post#: 146947--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: Jes Beard Date: August 31, 2013, 12:20 pm
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[quote author=davep link=topic=96.msg146940#msg146940
date=1377963660]
So if we are NOT at war, there should be no Security Secrets?
[/quote]
I can't think of any, but the question is not really relevant to
the question at hand. The question in classifying any document
should not be determined based on whether there might be some
situation in which a democratic government should keep something
should be secret from the people who vote into and out of office
those running the government, but instead whether the specific
document at issue should be secret.
What we have seen time after time is that information is
classified far, far to aggressively than can possibly be
rationally defended.... and yet which you appear willing to
defend.
[quote author=davep link=topic=96.msg146940#msg146940
date=1377963660]
By the way, you didn't answer my questions.
[/quote]
If I didn't, perhaps you didn't ask them well, or they appeared
too foolish to bother with, or I missed them, but arguing over
whether you did or didn't ask them is counter-productive, so....
[quote author=davep link=topic=96.msg146940#msg146940
date=1377963660]
Since you agree that there should be SOME security secrets, do
by believe that anyone with knowledge of them should have the
legal right to publish them if he doesn't agree with keeping
them secret?
[/quote]
Just so we keep the conversation clear, could you read that
question aloud to yourself and then perhaps re-write it? I
think there may be a typo or some other error in it, and I don't
want to assume what you meant, but instead to respond to a clear
question.
#Post#: 146949--------------------------------------------------
Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
By: Jes Beard Date: August 31, 2013, 12:34 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=davep link=topic=96.msg146942#msg146942
date=1377964116]
In the past, you have condescendingly reminding me that we do
NOT live in a democracy - we live in a representative republic.
In a representative republic, we elect representatives who
decide for us, among other things, what things are Governmental
Secrets and what things should be made public.
[/quote]
There is a world of difference between accepting the concept of
a representative republic making laws on general matters and
deferring to those who are elected to determine what information
the public will or will not have available in determining
whether to leave them in office.
[quote author=davep link=topic=96.msg146942#msg146942
date=1377964116]
Do you think Julius Rosenberg was justified in passing our
atomic secrets to Russia, at a time when we were not at war with
Russia?
[/quote]
I never really thought about it before yesterday, but the
question, as you have posed it, is whether he "was justified."
Without knowing everything that he knew, I won't try to second
guess his justifications. Clearly it was illegal. It is not at
all so clear as to whether the world was better or worse off as
a result of his actions. (Which amounted to sharing scientific
information.... think about that for a moment. What the nation
had criminalized was the sharing of scientific information.)
The nation at the time had a number of folks with the mindset of
Patton, Nixon or Joe McCarthy, and if not for Rosenberg allowing
the Soviet Union to develop comparable weaponry, it is not at
all hard to see the United States in the 1950's to have openly
used nuclear weapons in "diplomacy" around the world, and to
have vaporized at least a few more cities the way it did
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to coerce nations into
compliance.
I think you may be intending to ask whether it SHOULD have been
illegal for Rosenberg to have given that information to the
Soviet Union. To that I would answer no. It should not have
been.
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