Snowden LIVE now on Facebook:

[Coyotl]

https://www.facebook.com/pardonsnowden/videos/1977137789179657/

[tonyt53]

1. Russian spy and nothing more.

[Coyotl]

2. OFCS!

[KittyWampus]

3. I don't care what Putin's usefool idiot has to say.

LOL at my typo. I mean useful but will keep the typo.

[randome]

4. That applies equally to Snowden, Trump and Assange, I'll bet.

Hey, someone ask him what PRISM does.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[MohRokTah]

5. Fuck that FUCKING RUSSIAN SPY!!!!

Let Putin take care of his traitor ass for the rest of his life.

Enjoy the winters, traitor boy!

[Coyotl]

7. Of course, you have zero evidence of your accusation.

[MohRokTah]

10. Bullshit.

He's a fucking Russian spy as proved by his giving of state secrets to the Russians.

[Coyotl]

11. For which you have zero evidence.

He gave docs to journalists and their institutions.

[MohRokTah]

12. By turning them out in the wild, he gave them to his benefactors.

Where the fuck did the traitor run to?

RUSSIA!!!

He's a fucking Russian spy who deserves to spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth in solitary confinement.

At least you've admitted he gave away state secrets, a vile crime that deserves life imprisonment by itself.

[randome]

13. And we all know how trustworthy big media conglomerates are.

Look, this is DU, not a court of law. Snowden can be labeled as anyone chooses.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Coyotl]

23. Exactly, people can say whatever comes to mind without any evidence whatsoever.

You summed up DU really well, no credibility whatsoever unless there is some evidence to back it up.

[randome]

24. But surely you can see why some believe Snowden was a spy.

He ran to China then to Russia. Why?

I personally believe he is more of an 'accidental' spy, in that information he released will find its way to Putin and the only place he could find sanctuary happened to be Putin's authoritarian stronghold.

I also don't think the book should be thrown at him. I said the same for Chelsea Manning. Both did harm to our intelligence services but their motives were not straightforwardly sinister.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Coyotl]

25. NO. I can see he didn't want to end up in a prison for life in solitary like Manning.

[ismnotwasm]

6. Ew

[Blue_Tires]

8. I'm old enough to remember when this story "wasn't about *him*"...

[Coyotl]

9. Now it seems some people on DU really loved being spied on by Bush's Junta.

And anyone who blows the whistle on illegal US spying on citizens and corporate access to the spying infrastructure is a Russian spy. Go figure???

[Tanuki]

17. Actually, Snowden didn't have a problem with it under Bush. Go figure. eom

[Blue_Tires]

18. So why did he leak so many legitimate operations?

Why didn't he JUST leak the stuff that dealt with domestic civil liberties?

Ponder that for awhile and get back to me

[Tarheel_Dem]

27. You're confused. He was just fine with secret surveillance until Obama came along. Hmmmm......

Four years ago, Ed Snowden thought leakers should be ‘shot’


"Those people should be shot in the balls," Snowden apparently said of leakers in a January 2009 chat. Snowden had logged into an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server associated with Ars Technica. While Ars itself didn't log the conversations, multiple participants in the discussions kept logs of the chats and provided them to the technology site.

At this point, Snowden's evolution into a fierce critic of the national security establishment was in its early stages. Snowden was incensed at the New York Times, which had described secret negotiations between the United States and Israel over how best to deal with Iran's suspected nuclear program.

"Are they TRYING to start a war? Jesus christ. They're like wikileaks." Snowden wrote. "You don't put that s--- in the NEWSPAPER."

"They have a HISTORY of this s---," he continued, making liberal use of capital letters and profanity. "These are the same people who blew the whole 'we could listen to osama's cell phone' thing. The same people who screwed us on wiretapping. Over and over and over again."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/26/four-years-ago-ed-snowden-thought-leakers-should-be-shot/

[randome]

33. He got better?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Tarheel_Dem]

43. The o.p. jumped in to the discussion when I mentioned Amy Goodman, but he won't defend...

Snowden's prior stance on "leakers". Gee, I wonder why?

[Loki]

14. Fucking coward.

You ran to safety in Russia of all places. Stay there.

[cpwm17]

30. He did the American public a huge favor, and sacrificed a lot.

What have you done?

That's so dishonest. The reason he is in Russia: he couldn't leave since the State Department canceled his passport:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

On June 23, 2013, Snowden landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. WikiLeaks stated that he was "bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum." Snowden had a seat reserved to continue to Cuba but did not board that onward flight, saying in a January 2014 interview that he was "stopped en route" despite an intention to be "only transiting through Russia." He stated, "I was ticketed for onward travel via Havana—a planeload of reporters documented the seat I was supposed to be in—but the State Department decided they wanted me in Moscow, and cancelled my passport." He said the U.S. wanted him there so "they could say, 'He's a Russian spy.'" Greenwald's account differs on the point of Snowden being already ticketed. According to Greenwald, Snowden's passport was valid when he departed Hong Kong but was revoked during the hours he was in transit to Moscow, meaning "he could no longer get a ticket and leave Russia." Snowden was thus, Greenwald says, forced to stay in Moscow and seek asylum.

According to one Russian report, Snowden planned to fly from Moscow through Havana to Latin America; however, Cuba told Moscow it would not allow the Aeroflot plane carrying Snowden to land. Anonymous Russian sources claimed that Cuba had a change of heart after receiving pressure from U.S. officials, leaving him stuck in the transit zone because at the last minute Havana told officials in Moscow not to allow him on the flight. Fidel Castro called claims that Cuba would have blocked Snowden's entry to his country a "lie" and a "libel." The Washington Post said "[t]hat version stands in contrast to widespread speculation that the Russians never intended to let the former CIA employee travel onward." Russian president Putin said that Snowden's arrival in Moscow was "a surprise" and "like an unwanted Christmas gift." Putin said that Snowden remained in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport, noted that he had not committed any crime in Russia, and declared that Snowden was free to leave and should do so. He denied that Russia's intelligence agencies had worked or were working with Snowden.

[Thinkingabout]

42. why was his passport canceled, I will help you, there was a warrant issued for his arrest,

passports are canceled when a warrant is issued, I guess Snowden's advisors did not advise him. The same will happen to other US citizens who has warrants issued for their arrest, Snowden was not any different.

BTW, why did he go to China?

[cpwm17]

45. The authoritarians don't want their illegal activities exposed, hence the warrant

Amendment IV:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Thanks to Snowden, we now know the specifics on how our constitutional rights have been violated. Government officials are treating the American people as their enemy. We have the right to know. It's our government. It's not owned by some authoritarians in high places.

https://action.aclu.org/secure/grant_snowden_immunity

ACLU:

When Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA, he single-handedly reignited a global debate about government surveillance and our most fundamental rights as individuals.

For more than 12 years, the ACLU has been fighting to end government surveillance that invades the rights and lives of millions of Americans with virtually no oversight. But several years ago, when our case against mass surveillance finally reached the Supreme Court, it was dismissed for lack of evidence of the secret programs. Snowden provided that evidence, at great personal risk.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/obama-should-pardon-edward-snowden-today-were-launching-campaign-make-it-happen

Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden. Today We’re Launching a Campaign to Make It Happen — and We’ve Got a Lot of Help. By Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director:

Thanks to Edward Snowden’s act of conscience, we’ve made historic strides in our fight for surveillance reform and improved cybersecurity. That’s why today, ahead of this week’s release of the Oliver Stone movie “Snowden,” we’re unveiling a major effort calling on President Obama to pardon the NSA whistleblower.

The ACLU is being joined in this campaign by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

[Thinkingabout]

48. Do you think every time a warrant for arrest is only issued because authoritarians do not want their

activities exposed? No, this is not the reason. If this was the only reason Snowden could return to the US and this would be cleared up, he does not return because he knows he is guilty and they have the evidence in which to convict him. He made a statement he took the files, he has admitted he took the files, this is evidence also. No, and why if he is innocent why does he need a pardon?

[Tarheel_Dem]

47. Right. And there's nothing in the constitution that says a defendant gets to dictate the criteria of

the charges against him. He should bring his ass home, and let the justice system sort it out.

[Tarheel_Dem]

44. If it was such a huge "favor", why do 2/3 of the American people feel he broke the law & should....

stand trial? You can't get 2/3 of the American people to agree that water is wet, but they sure as hell agree that this privileged little prick should face justice like any other jerk, who doesn't have Snowden's resources.

[mwrguy]

15. Fire up the drone

[YoungDemCA]

16. Read this:

Civil liberties and individual rights have different meanings for different groups of people. They also have different priorities depending on social contexts. A review of black history suggests that considerations of civil liberties are always embedded within concepts of equality and social justice. In other words by design or necessity, black people have focused on our collective rights over our individual liberties. This makes sense in a society where we don’t just assume individual black guilt and suspicion. We are all guilty and we are all suspicious (even if we may want to deny this reality). In that context, individual liberties and rights take a back seat to a collective struggle for emancipation and freedom.

Additionally, as a people, we have always known that it is impossible for us to exercise our individual rights within a context of more generalized social, economic, and political oppression. Individual rights are necessarily rooted within a larger social context. Civil liberty concerns take a back seat to putting food on the table and to survival more generally. To guarantee our individual rights as black people, we know that we must address broader social concerns. We don’t have the luxury to ignore this fact. For others not to understand this reality is to foreclose on any opportunities to recruit more black people to the cause of dismantling the surveillance state.

Black people are disproportionately incarcerated in the U.S. Prisoners have no presumption of ‘privacy’; that idea is an abstraction. Blacks are disproportionately subjected to bodily searches and seizures through practices like stop and frisk. Stop and frisk is a neon ‘no tresspassing sign’ for young black people in particular. Unfortunately too many of us have become acclimated to the daily assaults on our persons and the trampling of our individual rights. Can you blame us? If you are a black woman, then you may have the direct experience of the state policing your body in various ways. Many of us resist policies intended to do this but some of us don’t (for a number of good and bad reasons).

The examples that I have cited suggest that for most of us (black people) government surveillance and being perceived as threats are a daily fact of life; not an academic/analytical exercise. Many black people living in public housing, for example, can attest to the fact that they aren’t seen as having any privacy rights when law enforcement routinely kicks down their doors supposedly looking for narcotics.

Black people know that the state and its gatekeepers exert their control over all aspects of our lives. So when we mention that the NSA surveillance regime isn’t new to us, the appropriate response is not to mock, ridicule, belittle and berate. No. The response that conveys solidarity and a desire to partner is to say: “Yes that’s true and while I may have been personally concerned about these issues, I am sorry that more of my peers haven’t been outraged for years. How can we work together to dismantle the surveillance state that harms us all?”

Check your privilege, please.

http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2013/06/12/on-some-black-people-and-the-surveillance-state/

[Blue_Tires]

19. LOL totally legit:

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/776083149428260864

[randome]

20. Mr. Moss really has Snowden's #.

Snowden didn't have access to PRISM, which explains why he misinterpreted it. But that doesn't explain why he made the assumption that it was EVIL!

Bradley P. Moss, Esq ‏@BradMossEsq 2h
Lest we forget, former @Snowden boss confirms Ed didn't have prior access to PRISM data and wasn't aware of details.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Blue_Tires]

21. Fact check: 5 key parts of Oliver Stone's 'Snowden' biopic that don't match reality

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-5-parts-of-oliver-stones-snowden-biopic-that-dont-match-reality-100229227.html

[Coyotl]

22. Snowden Live = Live Q&A from Moscow = A special event in cinemas nationwide TODAY

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/snowden-live

[Thinkingabout]

26. There is evidence of Snowden committing espionage, he could have his day in court, why can't

he return to the US and face his charges, is it because he is guilty?

[Coyotl]

28. If you say so isn't good enough. Produce your evidence.

[Thinkingabout]

29. Guess you don't know enough about Snowden in this situation, perhaps you should not be encouraging

a pardon until you become familiar with the information.

[Coyotl]

32. If you know more than the ACLU, Amnesty & Human Rights Watch, pray tell us what you know.

No doubt your new evidence will alter what is going on.

[Thinkingabout]

35. So you are saying there is evidence, good to know.

[Coyotl]

38. No. You need to read it again.

[Thinkingabout]

41. Does he have a warrant for his arrest?

[Coyotl]

46. Not one that has been disclosed. Nixon was pardoned without one.

Warrants are not advertised when you want to apprehend someone, they tend to avoid the cops if they know.

[BobbyDrake]

51. Right, so all the counties that post a list of their active warrants are what, doing it wrong?

Warrants are absolutely advertised. It's how other cops in other areas know to look for alleged criminals that haven't been apprehended yet!

And really, your ethical point of reference to defend Snowden is Richard Nixon??? Pass that doobie, because I want what you're smoking.

[msanthrope]

34. I think the indictment speaks for me. Perhaps you can tell us why Snowden is so

special he is exempt from appearance before the bar of the court?

He cannot both flee Justice, yet claim it.

[Coyotl]

31. VIDEO "Pardon Snowden" Campaign Launches, Led by ACLU, Amnesty & Human Rights Watch

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/14/campaign_for_obama_to_pardon_snowden

[Tarheel_Dem]

36. Few people here give a shit what Amy Goodman of Russia Today is pushing these days. n/t

Last edited Wed Sep 14, 2016, 05:03 PM - Edit history (1)

[Coyotl]

37. You are ill informed. Amy Goodman is the host of Democracy Now, nothing to do with RT.

Given you don't even know who she is, I guess your opinion and deep knowledge of everyone's inner thoughts might be slightly flawed.
Just guessing, cuz unlike you I can't read everyone's mind at once.

[Tarheel_Dem]

40. Goodman was always a staple on Russian backed tv, which is where I lost respect for her, and...

anything she champions.

And you never bothered to respond to the post where Snowden thought "leakers should be shot in the balls". Funny that.

[BobbyDrake]

50. There's a movie to promote, you know.

Enjoy the publicity stunt.

[Blue_Tires]

39. It's a shame he never answered any of my questions...

I tweeted about 50 at him...

No big surprise, though

[BobbyDrake]

49. #marketing!

[catbyte]

52. I suspected his motives ever since he went off on a racist rant against Obama in an interview a few

years ago. Why the "sudden patriotism" after Obama took office? He's a bigoted, Libertarian little creep and can stay in Russia forever for all I care.