And they keep on Asking: Why didn't Snowdon Go Through "Proper Channels?"

[KoKo]

The Government Accountability Project notes: http://www.whistleblower.org/

By communicating with the press, Snowden used the safest channel available to him to inform the public of wrongdoing. Nonetheless, government officials have been critical of him for not using internal agency channels – the same channels that have repeatedly failed to protect whistleblowers from reprisal in the past. In many cases, the critics are the exact officials who acted to exclude national security employees and contractors from the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012.


---------------------

Specifically: http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/06/gap-releases-statement-on-snowden-and-the-nsa.html

"At the behest of the House Intelligence Committee, strengthened whistleblower protections for national security workers were stripped from major pieces of legislation such as the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (for federal employees) and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (for federal contractors). If those protections existed today, Snowden’s disclosures would have stood a greater chance of being addressed effectively from within the organization."

In other words, Congress has stripped whistleblower protections for those working in intelligence or defense.

But whistleblowers in other areas have received the same treatment. For example, after high-level CIA officer John Kiriakou blew the whistle on illegal CIA torture, the government prosecuted him for espionage.

And former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds – who has been deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups, whose allegations have been confirmed by numerous Pentagon, MI6 and FBI officials, including 18-year FBI counter-intelligence expert John Cole - has been so gagged by the government that the ACLU described her as:

The most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.

Famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that Edmonds possesses information “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”, and that the government has ordered the media not to cover her statements.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/why-didnt-snowden-go-through-proper-channels-to-blow-the-whistle.html

[cascadiance]

1. If people want to see a movie on why this doesn't work... Check out "Kill the Messenger"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017125002

[uponit7771]

2. No, I keep asking if he had all this access why didn't he have access to affirmative PROOF

[ProSense]

3. Because

"And they keep on Asking: Why didn't Snowdon Go Through 'Proper Channels?'"

...he also stole information and his goal was to expose U.S. state secrets to other countries.

That was clear from the beginning. If he simply wanted to focus on NSA domestic programs, he likely wouldn't have fled the country.

Carl Bernstein: Greenwald 'out of line' (updated)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023261520

[Scuba]

4. Balderdash.

[ProSense]

5. Reality. n/t

[think]

26. Should The Carlyle Group investors go to jail for bribery or just pay a fine as they did?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/14/ny-pension-scandal-carlyl_n_203671.html

It's relevant considering these investors own Booz Allen and we are talking about criminal behavior.

Snowden hasn't been tried yet. The Carlyle group let a peon take the fall for $13 million in bribes to NY public officials.

And for their role in paying the peon all this money for access to over $700 million in pension funds the Calyle Group was only ordered to pay a $20 million dollar fine. No jail time. No big time scandal in the news. Meanwhile they get to continue owning Booz Allen, a private contractor who has access to top secret surveillance information.

Does this not bother you since you are obviously concerned about law breaking?

[christx30]

7. This is a country that tortures enemies

for information and launches drone attacks against American citizens without trial. I wouldn't trust any of the so-called protections at all. I would run to a country that will not extradite me back to the US, and a country/location they wouldn't have the guts to drone/bomb. That rules out large chunks of the Earth's surface. But Russia and china would be safe.
I don't blame Snowden for running. The Feds have proven themselves untrustworthy. They have no one to blame for themselves.

[JDPriestly]

12. Nonsenes.

If he simply wanted to focus on NSA domestic programs, he would have been silenced very quickly.

There is no protection for whistleblowers in the security industry or in the security departments of the government. A number of whistleblowers in the security sector have warned of that fact.

Listen to some of the programs on Democracy Now. That is one of the few news sources that goes straight to the source and reports rather unemotionally.

Carl Bernstein is a reference????

I don't think so.

The information belongs to the people of the United States. It is our information. He gave it back to us. He did not steal it from its rightful owners.

[chimpymustgo]

13. Why are you lying about Snowden's goals? They were to expose widespread surveillance on Americans.

He has made that clear many times. You are just making shit up. Doesn't help your weak argument to protect the authoritarian state.

[ProSense]

16. Do not

"Why are you lying about Snowden's goals? They were to expose widespread surveillance on Americans. He has made that clear many times. You are just making shit up. Doesn't help your weak argument to protect the authoritarian state."

...fucking accuse my of "lying." How fucking dare you? It's my opinion, and it's based on his own words.

Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Answer:

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with.

More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower

WTF?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023231312

[rhett o rick]

6. Those that want to kill the messenger are afraid of any reality outside their

carefully crafted realities that relies on their blind FAITH in someone. For some of them, all you have to do is put a (D) behind your name and you are suddenly golden. They will even put their blind FAITH in Republicans like Clapper, Mueller, Comey and Bernanke, if a Democrat nominates them. The same people they didnt trust before 2008 all of a sudden become golden. DU is a sight for "politically liberal" people, but just ask them and they wont acknowledge that they are such.

[A Simple Game]

11. DU hasn't been a site for "politically liberal" people since President Obama got elected.

And yes I mean the first time. I actually had one person brag to me about how far right they were and they were proud of it.

[midnight]

8. Sibel Edmonds tried to warn us that the whole system was broken, and it appears that

is why Snowden has had to side step it....

[marions ghost]

9. Thanks for pointing out --yet again--

that NSA whistle blowers have 0 protections. Zero.

Why can't people railing against Snowden see this? They just don't want to. The only avenue that made any sense for Snowden was the route he took. Now people can disagree with what he did, but trying to insist that there are "proper channels" is ludicrous.

[JDPriestly]

10. Thank you. I kept trying to find a link to that fact, and I somehow couldn't.

I remember that discussion distinctly. I think Feinstein was again a part of it, but I'm not sure which point of view she advocated.

[KoKo]

22. There was something about Feinstein in what I read...

I think she recanted her first statement. It's in one of the links I think. She's a weird bird. Always sounds good until she does her second and third statements on issues.

[JDPriestly]

25. I will be glad when she finally retires. She does California a dishonor.

There is no defeating her. I think she gets some Republican votes in addition to the Democratic ones.

[Cleita]

14. Thanks KoKo.

I was one who thought he should have contacted a sympathetic senator about this. But your post has shown me that today this is impossible. Welcome to the Fourth Reich.

[KoKo]

18. Thank You for bothering to read!

[KoKo]

24. The fact that they changed the rules about NSA and Security never got any

play in all the stuff that was going back and forth about Snowden here. But, they did change it and we needed to know it as to how difficult it was for him to find anyone but the media who would listen and do something about it.

The Sibol Edmunds information is in restrospect another instance where she went to Senator Grassley and he promised to help her...and it went downhill after that. But, the info about her case is true for those who remember when DU supported her in the old days when we were into activism here. You might remember some of it from those days, too.

[BornLooser]

15. With respect to all...WHAT "proper" channels?, FKOL! Really?!

Anyone who buys THAT lop of dog do is hopelessly stuck in a "Way Back Machine" feedback loop holding a bill of goods, IMO. Newsflash Jack and Jill, this canard of a message insults. Good folks are stating this with the utmost sincerity? In 2013?, where all is flipped upside down, inside out w/ NO ring around the rosey? Now half the population are not only believing the Big Lie Machine, they've bought all-in on this, that, and the other. This is NOT meant as an attack on any one individual. Pound out and post all the opinion you wish, believe what you choose, I'll always respect the choice, won't judge, won't go personal on anyone. I will say that maybe, just maybe good folks should look at the 3 letters that sit smack dab in the middle of "believe". Now where is my copy of "Fight the Power" b/w "Who's that Lady" by the Isley's, 'cause I needs to get my funk on, to get the funk out the way of this damned endless meme. Good on ya, Ed. Phook the power, right on.

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. K&R Calculated, selective ignorance is their primary tool here.

[KoKo]

19. Nice sig line...

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! ~Samuel Adams"

FOR OUR TIMES...CAN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THAT...from a "Founding Father."

They tell us they are DEAD...Times Have Changed...but, the WISDOM doesn't change and the times they lived through are with us once again.

We think with our TECH TOYS we are BETTER and MORE EVOLVED....we are the same people prone to disinformation and Power that Corrupts as ALL CIVILIZATIONS before us dealt with.

Our "Tech Toys" make us seem Superior........but, we are revealed as the same Puppets that the 1% (Kings and Totalitarian Dictators) managed to USE FOR EVIL ENDS...and it always ends the same way...."PUSH BACK"...and then "WAR AND REVOLUTION."

I never thought we'd get to this point...but HISTORY tells the TALE of WOE AND WAR AND FIGHTS FOR FREEDOM from those who would OPPRESS US.

SO SAD...we have come to this once again with all our SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE...to be reduced once again to Fight for Our Freedoms.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. That's what makes all of this so much worse to me. Those guys, while far from perfect,

They tried so damned hard and did such a wonderful job creating the alpha code for the first true people powered government in recorded history. But it was an alpha, and they made it very clear that they knew there were errors and some things wouldn't work as they hoped and that other things wouldn't work at all, but that it was up to us to keep developing it.

We failed. We enshrined it divine mythology and accepted the same old, time honored lies that the parasites have used for millennia to subjugate and divide the people.

They did such great things and sacrificed so much to give us a solid start and the means to create an enlightened society, and we just pissed it away.

Now, it looks like we get to go through the same shit that people have gone through too many times before and we're so far away from the understanding that was commonplace at that time that I fear, in the end, we will simply make the same mistakes that others have made in similar circumstances.

[KoKo]

21. Yes...we relearn what we unlearned...it seems to be History...

We should have been better than that with all our tools that we have...and knowledge of History with books that others didn't have access to in such widespread ways in times past.

Now we throw out our Books and use the E-Readers and pay for what we through out all over again...but..nevermind...it's all in the CLOUD for EVERYONE...for a FEE.

Used Bookstores closing all over America and you sell it to Amazon if you want the trouble of setting price and packing and shipping ...or it goes to the local dump when you move...because NO ONE wants "Hard Copies" they want to PAY Amazon, Microsoft, Google or who the hell ever because it's ALL THE DIGITAL GOD!

Nevermind...sorry to rant about this. There's few who would understand what we Have Given Away and what we WILL GIVE AWAY to the DIGITAL GODS...who will suck us dry as much as they give us Opportunity...it doesn't come without a huge PRICE...and much Upheaval and to "pay again for what you once owned." A New Generation will not know when so much is gone..because they never saw it running after the Digital God...that will suck us dry.

Shit...I sound like Chris Hedges..on a rant. But then, I'm a Chris Hedges fan... I'm not up to his eloquence.......but, it seems we are losing so much and the replacement is not quite up to what we lost that we will see the gain. I used to think so...but, not so much anymore.

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. Not at all, that is an excellent point. Another thing we tend to overlook is that

being digital means that nothing is permanent. Digital books, something that Orwell didn't conceive of, would make Winston's job so much easier. The whole cloud is a memory hole and any savvy person with access and the will could literally re-write anything stored there.

Imagine 1984 being edited into a pro-Big Brother story extolling the virtues of the death of individuality, and with no hard copies to contradict it.

Like snail mail, ink on paper has distinct virtues.

[snappyturtle]

27. I love hand written letters. I think it's an art. I agree that ink on paper

has distinct values but not just to us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?pagewanted=all