The Guardian newspaper names Edward Snowden, 29, as the source who...

[Rockntractor]

A more important point is: How the hell did we allow things to get this way?

We let communist labor unions and the Dept of Education take over our schools and the raising of our children, game over.

[Generation Why?]

That is a very dangerous position for someone in our line of work to take. We don't get to decide what is and isn't Constitutional, and when we decide that we are better arbiters of that than the congress, the courts and the executive branch, then we are putting ourselves above the Constitution, which we are sworn to support and defend. Don't succumb to that temptation.

Before you decide that this is unconstitutional, ask yourself if the US interception and code-breaking of Japanese diplomatic and military codes prior to our entry into WWII was Constitutional, or if the interception of SIGINT from the Soviets to their agents in the US (the Venona Intercepts) was Constitutional. Would it have been acceptable for someone to leak the existence of the Manhattan Project during WWII? Remember that those intercepts, like the NSA program, were not being used to prosecute American citizens, but to gain wartime intelligence against declared enemies and identify clandestine enemy combatant (i.e., terrorist) networks operating in the US. The legal standards are radically different for those two endeavors, and the blurring of the lines between criminal justice issues and national security issues creates real problems for effectively dealing with either.

Snowden held a position of trust, and he violated that trust. If he genuinely believed that the program was illegal, he had other options. He could have raised the issue internally to his superiors, or taken his information to the congressional committees charged with oversight of the executive, and which have a Constitutional mandate to investigate, but which also have the means to deal with classified without compromising them. By going outside of the chain, he acted irresponsibly and dangerously.

In 2013, the secret collection of personal information by the government without a warrant is a direct violation of the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. I have read the Constitution and regardless of what my job is I still know right from wrong. I am allowed to have an opinion on the matter. If me saying I like that at least someone within the government is doing their best to make this administration transparent is an issue, I believe that says more about the administration than me.



EDIT: Aware Barry's name is spelled incorrectly. I didn't make it. Pretty sure none of you care.

[Molon Labe]

Sadly, we have reached a point where, in many respects, China actually is more free than the US. Especially if you want to go into business for yourself. A more important point is: How the hell did we allow things to get this way?

To give this some context. Hong Kong may be part of China now, but it still retains some autonomy from when it was independent. Historically Hong Kong has been a haven for people fleeing authoritarian governments and dictators. Sadly, Snowden did his homework and their is a reason he picked this place to make his stand. I think he knows it will be a long difficult process for them to extradite him to the US.

[txradioguy]

We let communist labor unions and the Dept of Education take over our schools and the raising of our children, game over.

That and people stayed home and didn't vote because "their guy" didn't get the nomination. It's at least a semi self inflicted wound on the part of the Republicans.

[Molon Labe]

MSM is in pure attack and smear mode. Apparently Snowden dropped his pants for a picture about a decade ago.

I never did anything like this when I was a kid.

[Odysseus]

In 2013, the secret collection of personal information by the government without a warrant is a direct violation of the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. I have read the Constitution and regardless of what my job is I still know right from wrong. I am allowed to have an opinion on the matter. If me saying I like that at least someone within the government is doing their best to make this administration transparent is an issue, I believe that says more about the administration than me.

The courts have repeatedly ruled otherwise. Whether or not this should be Unconstitutional is a matter of opinion, but the metadata, which is simply the numbers and durations of phone calls, is not protected. Again, I cite the equivalent of a police officer asking a postmaster if anybody sent mail to addresses in a nation which was at war with the US, or threatened to be, and the postmaster providing a list. The content of the mail is protected, but the information on the envelope is not. The metadata is the information on the envelope.

As for your knowing right from wrong, I would hope that your knowledge includes not leaking things that could get people killed, and keep in mind that no matter where you are, you don't see the whole picture. Leakers like Snowden put the nation at risk because they assume that they have the right to decide what the people know, and that they know more than the people who are appointed and elected to protect us. Ever heard the acronym, MICE? Intel assets turn for four major reasons: Money, Ideology, Compromise or Ego (Sex comes under compromise). Snowden's a classic egotist. His Youtube videos and his various public pronouncements demonstrate this. He genuinely seems to believe that he's the only one, among all of his co-workers, subordinates and superiors who looked at this massive undertaking and saw a problem.

I'm not saying that he was wrong to blow the whistle if he saw wrongdoing, or even that the NSA is absolutely in the right here (the potential abuses of what they are doing are huge, and this does need to be addressed), but he had other options, like going to congress. One of the great things about an adversarial political system is that someone on the other side would have been interested enough to hold a closed hearing and the political process would have addressed it. Of course, that wouldn't have satisfied his "Look at me!" impulse, but that's the whole point. He wasn't in this to protect your right to privacy, he was in this to ensure that he was the center of attention. He's no hero.

Finally, I direct you to the case of Terminiello v. Chicago. Terminiello was a Catholic priest who incited a riot with a speech in Chicago. He was fined for it, and the Supreme Court overturned the conviction. In his dissent, Justice Jackson wrote the following:

But if we maintain a general policy of free speaking, we must recognize that its inevitable consequence will be sporadic local outbreaks of violence, for it is the nature of men to be intolerant of attacks upon institutions, personalities and ideas for which they really care. In the long run, maintenance of free speech will be more endangered if the population can have no protection from the abuses which lead to violence. No liberty is made more secure by holding that its abuses are inseparable from its enjoyment. We must not forget that it is the free democratic communities that ask us to trust them to maintain peace with liberty and that the factions engaged in this battle are not interested permanently in either. What would it matter to Terminiello if the police batter up some communists or, on the other hand, if the communists batter up some policemen? Either result makes grist for his mill; either would help promote hysteria and the demand for strong-arm methods in dealing with his adversaries. And what, on the other hand, have the communist agitators to lose from a battle with the police?

This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

Self-styled libertarians tend to miss that important distinction, that the maintenance of order is not an impairment of liberty, but a necessary precondition for liberty. Snowden is offering anarchy as the remedy for tyranny, but anarchy and tyranny go hand in hand. The tyrant loves anarchy, because it creates the public clamor for "action" in the face of a crisis. The anarchists who seek to undermine the war against the terrorists have no interest in protecting our liberties, they seek to undermine them so that we will become the kind of fascist state that they secretly love.

In 2013, the secret collection of personal information by the government without a warrant is a direct

EDIT: Aware Barry's name is spelled incorrectly. I didn't make it. Pretty sure none of you care.

Barry's a raging hypocrite. Got it. That isn't a Constitutional issue.

[JB]

I have to wonder how people would feel if you had a knock on the door and the FBI entered without a search warrant and said they were going to search, photograph and catalog everything you owned, but not to worry this was for statistical use only and would not be used personally against you unless you broke the law at a later date.

As long as they were only doing it to muzzies, no problem.

[Rockntractor]

As long as they were only doing it to muzzies, no problem.

Obama's Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers


Posted 06/12/2013 06:34 PM ET


Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.

That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.

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[JB]

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Why didn't the Mafia think of that? And why even bother with the Mafia...they don't go around killing innocent civilians in the name of their God.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

Duh. Muzzies kill for sport...but let's not keep an eye them, it may hurt their feelings.

This is particularly disturbing in light of recent independent surveys of American mosques, which reveal some 80% of them preach violent jihad or distribute violent literature to worshippers.

But they're all about Peace. It's peaceful, this voodoo cult of theirs, yes peace, peace be upon you. Oh wait, The Religion of Pieces. Now I get it.

Please tell me that FBI policy is bullshit. If not, we really have lost. 9/11, two wars, all for naught. Love live President Barry Hussein.