👤 EDWARD SNOWDEN: Hero or Traitor?

[DaveTV1]

 

They aren't spying on the entire population of the United States. They are spying on people with suspected ties to terrorism. If you aren't involved with terrorists, you have nothing to worry about. The FISA courts have approved their actions ...

That's not what I read, but keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel comfortable.

[DaveTV1]

 

I doubt that's everything ...

 

If you don't think exposing NSA top secret programs including means and methods doesn't endanger American lives as well as people in allied countries you are truly naive ....

That's only what has been reported. It even said so in the article.

 

I doubt that's everything ...

 

If you don't think exposing NSA top secret programs including means and methods doesn't endanger American lives as well as people in allied countries you are truly naive ....

It's vague at best, and did not mention a single agent by name or location.

[SideTracker]

Reviewing events that led to the lunacy of increased domestic spying I doubt even Kirt can debunk the four points in the article below. This is not coming from Oliver Stone. :lol:

 

Surveillance Under the USA/PATRIOT Act

 

Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the "USA/Patriot Act," an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court.

 

Most of the changes to surveillance law made by the Patriot Act were part of a longstanding law enforcement wish list that had been previously rejected by Congress, in some cases repeatedly. Congress reversed course because it was bullied into it by the Bush Administration in the frightening weeks after the September 11 attack.

 

The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks - a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily.

 

The Patriot Act increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas:

1. (D) Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by a third parties. (Section 215)
2. (U) Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)
3. (P) Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).
4. (E) "Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).

What's that spell? DUPE Say it again. DUPE.

 

https://www.aclu.org/other/surveillance-under-usapatriot-act?redirect=surveillance-under-usapatriot-act

[SideTracker]

May 2015

 

Mike Lee on NSA, Christie Creme and McCain.

 

I would ask Mr. Christie how many acts of terrorism has been thwarted simply because the NSA is collecting telephone data on what your grandma calls or receives? How many acts of terrorism has this thwarted? I think it's difficult to make the case this is necessary, and it's very easy to make the case that this program of collecting everybody's calling data is incompatible at least with the spirit of the fourth amendment, if not the letter...

 

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/05/22/sen_mike_lee_chris_christies_patriot_act_defense_is_tantamount_to_political_pornography.html

[SideTracker]

Think the NSA is scary now? Wait till Donald Trump controls it.

 

http://theweek.com/articles/608110/think-nsa-scary-now-wait-till-donald-trump-controls

[CarthDawg77]

Reviewing events that led to the lunacy of increased domestic spying I doubt even Kirt can debunk the four points in the article below. This is not coming from Oliver Stone. :lol:

 

Surveillance Under the USA/PATRIOT Act

 

Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the "USA/Patriot Act," an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court.

 

Most of the changes to surveillance law made by the Patriot Act were part of a longstanding law enforcement wish list that had been previously rejected by Congress, in some cases repeatedly. Congress reversed course because it was bullied into it by the Bush Administration in the frightening weeks after the September 11 attack.

 

The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks - a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily.

 

The Patriot Act increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas:

• (D) Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by a third parties. (Section 215)
• (U) Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)
• (P) Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).
• (E) "Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).

What's that spell? DUPE Say it again. DUPE.

 

https://www.aclu.org/other/surveillance-under-usapatriot-act?redirect=surveillance-under-usapatriot-act

Anyone who believes that George W. Bush was ANYTHING other than a "Puppet" manipulated by GHWB (Former President AND Former Head of the CIA) is living in a fairytale world... The guy is a cucumber upstairs & should NEVER been President...

[RETIREDFAN1]

Anyone who believes that George W. Bush was ANYTHING other than a "Puppet" manipulated by GHWB (Former President AND Former Head of the CIA) is living in a fairytale world... The guy is a cucumber upstairs & should NEVER been President...

And the Royhschilds pull all THEIR strings.......

[SideTracker]

Buried deep in the threads, a "great" movie.

 

People that run this country past and present have made a shambles of the 4th Amendment. I see the country evolving into a totalitarian corporatocracy surveillance state. I think most people other than some of the immigrants that began to come to the country during Carter's administration do love the country in which they live. However it is ludicrous to take an oath for a country whose government is spying on its citizens without a court warrant thus reducing the US Constitution to rubble. How can one take an oath to uphold the 4th Amendment seeing as it has been totally altered while not in writing in actions? In the movie Corbin made a comment I suppose could be taken either way depending on how approving a person or disapproving one may be of the totalitarian corporatocracy surveillance state. Corbin told Snowden to the effect one does not have to agree with the politicians in order to be a patriot. IMO this does not only apply to the democrat side of the dupe. Interesting point made in Snowden unfortunately is many younger people have never known anything but constant surveillance perhaps unknowingly the violations taking place in gathering information about citizens. In other words think of the increased surveillance state since 911. A seven year old in 2001 with a seven year old mind has been conditioned to being constantly watched and knows no difference now at age 22, never had opportunity to know any difference like some of the old timers around and another form of indoctrination violating all principles of founding Liberty. 1984? Liberty out the window , the populous of this country has evolved into little more than controlled robots accustomed to the idea they are watched and probed for personal information constantly. Nothing personal is respected anymore.

Oliver Stone added drama to Snowden. Drama is what all movie makers add or no one would watch them. The perverted will be delighted that there was one sex scene in Snowden. Got to have that. Overall IMO Stone did not exaggerate the basics of what took place. It's up to the people in this country to make themselves aware or forever become mindless, as in human brain matter, robots.

[KirtFalcon]

That's only what has been reported. It even said so in the article.

It's vague at best, and did not mention a single agent by name or location.

 

Again, any official report would not give agent's names or other details.

[KirtFalcon]

Reviewing events that led to the lunacy of increased domestic spying I doubt even Kirt can debunk the four points in the article below. This is not coming from Oliver Stone. :lol:

 

Surveillance Under the USA/PATRIOT Act

 

Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the "USA/Patriot Act," an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court.

 

Most of the changes to surveillance law made by the Patriot Act were part of a longstanding law enforcement wish list that had been previously rejected by Congress, in some cases repeatedly. Congress reversed course because it was bullied into it by the Bush Administration in the frightening weeks after the September 11 attack.

 

The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks - a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily.

 

The Patriot Act increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas:

1. (D) Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by a third parties. (Section 215)
2. (U) Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)
3. (P) Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).
4. (E) "Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).

What's that spell? DUPE Say it again. DUPE.

 

https://www.aclu.org/other/surveillance-under-usapatriot-act?redirect=surveillance-under-usapatriot-act

 

I have no problem with any of these things if they are done to known people with terrorist ties/links. They aren't doing this to ordinary citizens without known ties to terrorists or terrorist nations.

[KirtFalcon]

May 2015

 

Mike Lee on NSA, Christie Creme and McCain.

 

I would ask Mr. Christie how many acts of terrorism has been thwarted simply because the NSA is collecting telephone data on what your grandma calls or receives? How many acts of terrorism has this thwarted? I think it's difficult to make the case this is necessary, and it's very easy to make the case that this program of collecting everybody's calling data is incompatible at least with the spirit of the fourth amendment, if not the letter...

 

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/05/22/sen_mike_lee_chris_christies_patriot_act_defense_is_tantamount_to_political_pornography.html

 

I don't think anybody has claimed they have thwarted any terrorist calls collecting data on grandma's phone ...

[KirtFalcon]

And the Royhschilds pull all THEIR strings.......

 

[SideTracker]

I'm wondering how safe Snowden will be in Russia if Putin's partner Trump gets in the wh. Trump might make a deal Putin ship the man back to the states not so alive.

 

Once again Snowden is in the top five for the week as most viewed new flicks. Good. People can come to their own conclusions just make it a point to take it in. Like I said, younger people have no clue they are so already indoctrinated to the surveillance state, the TCSS.

[SideTracker]

 

Oliver Stone’s New Movie ‘Snowden’ Tackles the Myth

 

[KirtFalcon]

I'm wondering how safe Snowden will be in Russia if Putin's partner Trump gets in the wh. Trump might make a deal Putin ship the man back to the states not so alive.

 

Once again Snowden is in the top five for the week as most viewed new flicks. Good. People can come to their own conclusions just make it a point to take it in. Like I said, younger people have no clue they are so already indoctrinated to the surveillance state, the TCSS.

 

Anybody gullible enough to watch a Hollyweird movie and decide they believe that version of facts/events is nuttier than a fruit cake ... can't wait til Michael Moore's version is released ... :lol:

I'm wondering how safe Snowden will be in Russia if Putin's partner Trump gets in the wh. Trump might make a deal Putin ship the man back to the states not so alive.

 

Once again Snowden is in the top five for the week as most viewed new flicks. Good. People can come to their own conclusions just make it a point to take it in. Like I said, younger people have no clue they are so already indoctrinated to the surveillance state, the TCSS.

 

Anybody gullible enough to watch a Hollyweird movie and decide they believe that version of facts/events is nuttier than a fruit cake ... can't wait til Michael Moore's version is released ... :lol:

[CarthDawg77]

 

Anybody gullible enough to watch a Hollyweird movie and decide they believe that version of facts/events is nuttier than a fruit cake ... can't wait til Michael Moore's version is released ... :lol:

 

 

Anybody gullible enough to watch a Hollyweird movie and decide they believe that version of facts/events is nuttier than a fruit cake ... can't wait til Michael Moore's version is released ... :lol:

I hear it's being made as we speak; I believe it will be called, "Edward & Me...."😜

[SideTracker]

OSLO (Reuters)

 

Norway appeals court rejects Snowden extradition lawsuit

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/norway-appeals-court-rejects-edward-snowden-extradition-lawsuit-093114798.html

[REX]

Funny how the stuff that was "conspiracy theory" level or paranoia just a few years ago is now taken for granted:
https://www.justsecurity.org/64464/the-snowden-effect-six-years-on/ 

Quote

Six years ago, the world was introduced to a previously unknown government contractor who revealed the National Security Agency (NSA) was conducting an unparalleled level of warrantless electronic surveillance. Edward Snowden’s explosive revelations about NSA’s telephone metadata collection program triggered an uproar at home and abroad, culminating in the 2015 passage of the USA Freedom Act—legislation that supporters claimed would “end” the kind of mass surveillance Snowden had exposed to the world.

During the debate over Snowden’s revelations, federal officials (including President Barack Obama) asserted the surveillance program had saved lives—going so far as to claim, without any evidence, that the program had foiled dozens of terrorist plots against the United States. And even after Obama’s own hand-picked review groupfound the telephone metadata program not worth it (as did the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) in their report), Congress renewed the program in 2015 via the USA Freedom Act.

Supporters claimed the new legislation would effectively end the NSA bulk telephone metadata program. Others, including myself, felt the bill was somewhere between terrible and disastrous, because its reforms didn’t go far enough. Last year, critics who predicted that USA Freedom Act would not end NSA’s telephone bulk collection were, ironically, vindicated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which admitted that in fact three times as much American telephone data was being collected than before the law’s enactment.

Amazingly, earlier this year NSA recommended to President Donald Trump that the telephone metadata program be terminated, claiming the program was too cumbersome to continue to execute and not worth the effort—a tacit admission that critics were right all along.

As it stands, the USA Freedom Act is set to expire on December 15 of this year. So, why not just let it die and move on? Because even if the USA Freedom Act expires, other vast—and in my view, unconstitutional—domestic surveillance powers and technologies will remain untouched and, in at least one case, completely unexamined publicly.

Executive Order 12333

Executive Order 12333, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and reissued by every administration since, is the governing federal regulation for overseas intelligence collection for the NSA and each of the other 16 agencies that comprise the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). Until the establishment of the PCLOB in 2004, no element of the federal government had ever conducted a comprehensive examination of IC activities carried out under EO 12333.

But now, the PCLOB has conducted an investigation of the IC activities carried out under EO 12333, which is good news. However, the bad news is that the PCLOB is refusing to release the results of their investigation.

In a May 21 response to my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the PCLOB said that it had “determined that it is appropriate to withhold in full the Board’s completed Executive Order 12333 deep dive report pursuant to Exemption 1 of the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1). Exemption 1 protects from disclosure information that has been deemed classified ‘under criteria established by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.’” (I am appealing the denial of my FOIA request.)

This lack of transparency is at odds with the PCLOB’s approach to its own NSA telephone metadata program report as well as its report on the controversial (and in my view, unconstitutional) Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act (FAA) Section 702 program.

Interestingly, the PCLOB has agreed in principle to provide me correspondence in any form to or from the Board regarding alleged or actual violations of laws, regulations, or executive orders by any federal department or agency under the purview of the Board. Whether such violations involve activities carried out under EO 12333 is just one reason why the PCLOB report should be released. One thing we do know: NSA employees have in the very recent past violated EO 12333 to spy on innocent people.

Thanks to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), we know that between 2003 and 2013, NSA employees violated EO 12333, as well as federal statutes, by using NSA collection systems to spy on their current or former romantic partners, as well as other individuals—foreign nationals and American citizens.

According to a September 2013 NSA Inspector General letter to Grassley, two military members who committed violations were fined, reduced in rank, or received other administrative punishments under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Most of the civilian employees implicated in other episodes were allowed to resign, including caseswhere criminal referrals were made to the Justice Department. To date, Grassley’s revelations about NSA employee abuses of power and technology granted them remain the only substantive, published insights available to the public on abuses committed under EO 12333.

EO 12333 covers overseas intelligence collection, but what’s often overlooked is that it’s not limited to non-Americans. In 2016, the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs estimated that some 9 million Americans live overseas. Those expatriate Americans communicate with family, friends, business associates, and government agencies on a daily basis. In light of what Grassley uncovered and what Snowden exposed, it’s absolutely fair to ask—and imperative to determine publicly—the scope of potential compromises of the communications of American citizens by NSA or any other federal department or agency under EO 12333.

Disturbingly, the PCLOB is also withholding in full “responsive documents regarding refusal by a federal department or agency to provide information requested by the PCLOB pursuant to its oversight mission…” (I am appealing this denial as well.)

The PCLOB’s credibility as an oversight body rests in large part on its ability to get documents from NSA, FBI, CIA and any other IC element regarding activities that might infringe on the constitutional rights of Americans. If it is encountering resistance to its oversight efforts, the public should know who the culprits are and Congress should bring the offenders to heel by any available means.

To date, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and his GOP counterpart Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) have shown far more interest in either attacking or defending Trump over the “Russiagate” affair than conducting serious oversight of the IC agencies. And while their Senate Intelligence Committee counterparts have feuded less publicly over Russian interference in the 2016 elections, they remain just as obsessed—and thus distracted—by the issue, at the expense of ongoing federal domestic surveillance excesses.

The USA Freedom Act expiration deadline is an opportunity to holistically address the wide range of these abuses, as well emerging technologies that further threaten the constitutional rights and privacy of all of us. Whether Congress has the will to do so is an open question.

[DaveTV1]

Today they are doing the same thing with our drivers licenses.  I don't think that is right either.  That is a violation of the 4th Amendment in my opinion, because our licenses and ID's are our papers and effects.  https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-use-driver-license-photos-without-owners-knowledge-consent/WmDbiCrNNWaWQrVrp7q3CL/story.html .  

[REX]

After multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his side of the story in a memoir, Permanent Record.

Out on 17 September, the book will be published in more than 20 countries and will detail how and why the former CIA agent and NSA contractor decided to reveal the US government’s plans for mass surveillance around the world and in the US – which included monitoring phone calls, text messages and emails.

UK publisher Macmillan said the book would see him “bringing the reader along as he helps to create this system of mass surveillance, and then experiences the crisis of conscience that led him to try to bring it down”.

Snowden’s story has been already been tackled on film and in books. He was portrayed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which was adapted from Guardian journalist Luke Harding’s book The Snowden Files. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, the source to whom he leaked his explosive story, recounted in his memoir No Place to Hide how he went to Hong Kong in 2013 to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have evidence of government spying. Snowden was also the subject of the 2014 documentary Citizenfour, directed by Laura Poitras, and the 2016 play Wild, a fictionalised take on his story.

“Edward Snowden decided at the age of 29 to give up his entire future for the good of his country,” said Macmillan chief executive John Sargent. “He displayed enormous courage in doing so, and like him or not, his is an incredible American story. There is no doubt that the world is a better and more private place for his actions.”

[REX]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/01/edward-snowden-memoir-to-reveal-whistleblowers-secrets-permanent-record 

[Mr. P]

Regardless of what you think of Snowden (or Rogan for that matter) the dude brings up a lot of interesting questions: