"Most significant" leak in history, and likely one of the dumbest.

[ProSense]

Edward Snowden is the story...by choice.

He leaked classified information (a crime) about a legal program.

Congress will weigh in. The ACLU will request opinions. A debate will ensue.

There will be statements from the WH and debate in the media...for a few weeks.

It will take months (maybe a couple of years) for Congress to act, likely by tightening the laws.

In the mean time, Edward Snowden broke the law and will be held accountable.

The following decision was issue in February.

CLAPPER, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, ET AL. v. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA ET AL.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1025_ihdj.pdf

[Bjorn Against]

1. So it went from being old news to the most significant leak in history?

The spin changes so fast it is hard not to feel dizzy.

It is about time the American people find out what the NSA has been up to, that is one agency that has operated in the shadows for far too long.

[ProSense]

2. Oops, forgot the quotation marks. It's

"So it went from being old news to the most significant leak in history?"

... being characterized that way.

The Guardian, in its promotion of this story is one of the “most significant leaks in US political history.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022978492

A media report labeled it the "biggest leak in US political history."

[monmouth3]

3. And Greenwald will distance himself within three months from the guy. Just wait..LOL..n/t

[ProSense]

4. Glenn Greenwald: I Know Where Snowden Is ‘Generally’

Glenn Greenwald: I Know Where Snowden Is ‘Generally’

The Guardian reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency leak said Monday that he knows where his source, Edward Snowden, is located "generally."

"I'm not going to talk about where he is either in general or specifically," Greenwald told CNN's Jake Tapper. "He's a source and I'm not going to disclose information about his whereabouts. He's capable of doing that himself if he wants to."

A Hong Kong hotel confirmed to the Washington Post earlier today that a guest named Edward Snowden had been staying there, but checked out Monday.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/greg-greenwald-i-know-where-snowden-is-generally

Give it time.

[FSogol]

5. He's on Planet Earth.

[ProSense]

6. Asia. n/t

[FSogol]

8. Well that cetainly narrows it down.

[ProSense]

14. Getting closer. n/t

[cascadiance]

7. With a government as corrupt as ours, acts that used to be "crimes" are now being made "legal"...

by those corrupt government officials and those who pay them to make it that way to escape prosecution from criminal actions. There's a reason why even Reagan prosecuted far more banksters with the S&L crisis than Obama has prosecuted banksters now. What banksters have done now that's "legal" and therefore "OK" by the corporatist's rationalizations, would have been prosecuted and had people put in prison even back in Reagan's time.

When you talk about crimes at the highest level, where it affect our lawmakers and how they put in place legislation, and how judges decide on cases, to claim someone is guilty of "treason" because what they are blowing the whistle on is claimed to be "legal" is no real excuse in my book. To me it just calls more attention to the added severity of the crime, when our normal judicial process may be kept from dealing with this sort of wrongdoing that to many of us IS unconstitutional, even if some CORRUPT laws and CORRUPT courts (that continually use "state secrets privilege" as an escape clause) claim them to be "legal".

When people like Russell Tice many years back as a REPUBLICAN came out as a whistleblower against a REPUBLICAN administration doing the wrong thing, he cited much of what Snowden has been saying this time around, and his feeling of being responsible to the oaths he swore to uphold the constitution, and report wrongdoing when he witnesses it. The problem is if the government doesn't provide them adequate channels to report that wrongdoing, they wind up having to go to the press to help the public become aware of what is going on, and satisfy what they consider their constitutional obligations to report those that break laws against the constitution.

Say what you want, but I'd take a ton of Bradley Manning's or Edward Snowden's style of "treason" over so much of the other treason I see being committed everyday by other politicians that they claim is just "doing their job".

[ProSense]

9. Leaking classified information has always been a crime, and

"With a government as corrupt as ours, acts that used to be "crimes" are now being made 'legal'..."

...going through the FiSA court was never a "crime."

[bananas]

10. Daniel Ellsberg committed treason! He should be executed!

[ProSense]

11. Oh please,

"Daniel Ellsberg committed treason! He should be executed!"

...some of us have functioning brains and can distinguish between situations.

[bananas]

12. Ellsberg: Snowden’s NSA leak more important than my Pentagon Papers

Yes, some of us, like Ellsberg, have functioning brains and can distinguish between situations.
Others, like you, do not have functioning brains and cannot distinguish between situations.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014505163

[ProSense]

13. Well,

"Ellsberg: Snowden’s NSA leak more important than my Pentagon Papers"

...that's part of the reason the "most important" is in qoutes in the title. That's the characterization being thrown around.

I have my own opinion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2984758

[cascadiance]

16. Seizing people's private information and violation of the 4th amendment has NOT always been legal!..

and THAT is the issue here at this point. Whether this "classified" information was appropriately gathered and made "classified" to start with.

We didn't have a FISA court until after Nixon's time. The only real differences it had with courts before it was that the warrants for searches could be submitted secretly and secondly they could be submitted (but still HAD TO BE SUBMITTED post facto after the search).

Of course the Bush administration and recent administration have been choosing to work around the FISA court, or change the rules so that no longer does cause have to be shown to look at an individual's private information, but now they can look at "groups" of people's info, and the threshold of "suspicious" to rationalize it is broad enough to include everyone. The FISA Court didn't exist earlier, and now isn't even like it was prior to the recent FISA laws that keep trying to throw away our fourth amendment and bury it in a pot with boiling frogs in it.

[ProSense]

18. First,

"Seizing people's private information and violation of the 4th amendment has NOT always been legal!.. and THAT is the issue here at this point. Whether this "classified" information was appropriately gathered and made "classified" to start with. "

...that's why laws continue to be passed and the courts continue to weigh if they violate the Constitution.

Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) - No warrant required for call metadata
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022966764
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022986025#post11


"Of course the Bush administration and recent administration have been choosing to work around the FISA court, or change the rules so that no longer does cause have to be shown to look at an individual's private information, but now they can look at "groups" of people's info, and the threshold of "suspicious" to rationalize it is broad enough to include everyone. The FISA Court didn't exist earlier, and now isn't even like it was prior to the recent FISA laws that keep trying to throw away our fourth amendment and bury it in a pot with boiling frogs in it."

No, the law wasn't changed to "work around the FISA court." The recent (Obama) administration did go through the FISA court.

[marions ghost]

15. +++++

Good Points.

Chris Hayes had Russell Tice on tonight. Good review for those who don't know or remember.

Rachel had Barton Gellman, the Wapo reporter on. Very credible sharp guy with Pulitzer awards.

O'Donnell had Greenwald on & Greenwald was good--but O'Donnell made the stupidest naive comments about how he didn't worry about his own information. O'Donnell jumped the shark for me tonite .

[Harmony Blue]

17. Snowden and Manning are heroes

How you like them apples?

[Tx4obama]

19. Snowden is a criminal. He committed a crime. n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. Anyone consider ALL of this to be part of the psyops?

Including this guy?

[ProSense]

21. ? n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. Sure, the whistleblower giving out selective stuff that doesn't really exose anything that striking?

Want to see a REAL disclosure?

Look at the bombshells we got during Reagan/Bush of the CIA dealing cocaine to fund black ops.

[ProSense]

23. I don't think so. n/t