US agency (NSA) “collecting phone records“

[Donovan]

I'll give you the health care issue, the fact that we can't find a way to take care of our own weakest is deplorable and shameful. It's one more way our country has begun to consume itself. Spying on its own citizens and treating them as criminals before the fact is another. I'm not defending one guy, I'm lamenting a whole country full of people. You're just too thick to understand that because you're unrelentingly stupid.

[Cynical Ninja]

I'm not defending one guy.

So why do you keep using phrases like “he” and “him” in every post you make on the subject. You are trying to excuse the fact that he is blabbing to the chinks and the ruskies because he has to stay in the public eye otherwise unknown completely unspecified covert elements of the government will make him “disappear”?
If he didn't want to “disappear” why did he go public with his personal information in the first place if believes he is in danger? Because he's a stoopid motherfucker that's why who craved and got his 15 minutes.

[username]

I don't think the Chinese and Russians are helping him because they're concerned about civil liberties and free speech. Jesus. He's obviously making it worth their while.

Fucker.

[Jimbone]

I don't think the Chinese and Russians are helping him because they're concerned about civil liberties and free speech. Jesus. He's obviously making it worth their while.

Fucker.

You think they're making it worth his while?

I think it's more likely they gave him an offer he couldn't refuse...

[Duchess]

Someone needs to answer for the kind of high level clearance this guy had. I want to see someone respond to that, it's all about this guy flying around the world, the shit needs to hit the fan in regards to his clearance. Every reporter appears to be so busy tracking this guy, I guess that's their priority and not how he was able to get his hands on this shit.

[username]

I don't think the Chinese and Russians are helping him because they're concerned about civil liberties and free speech. Jesus. He's obviously making it worth their while.

Fucker.

You think they're making it worth his while?

I think it's more likely they gave him an offer he couldn't refuse...

Huh? No, I think he's making it worth their while. There's no advantage to their helping him except pissing off the U.S. unless he's handing them information they want.

If you're saying he probably doesn't have a choice at this point, well duh, he put himself in this situation.

Fucker.

[Cynical Ninja]

Yeah he wasn't kidnapped and forcibly taken to Hong Kong, apparently he is acting on the advice of the lawyer of Julian Assange who is supposed to have been with Snowden advising him since he got to Hong Kong.

[Duchess]

I'm getting more than a little caught up in this story. I went looking for new information the moment I signed on this morning. I found a comment made by NSA chief General Keith Alexander who expresses dismay that the system to keep classified information from leaking out did not work as it should and he doesn't understand why. That strikes me as very odd. He doesn't know why it didn't work but I do. How can that be. I'd fire his junky ass just for being so goddamn stupid. These people (NSA) don't even know if those still employed by the contractors used for vetting potential employees can be trusted because the vetting was so lackadaisical...and still, it's all about Snowden and nothing about those who let the fox into the hen house.

[Cynical Ninja]

The ruskies are now saying Snowden is not in Russia as far as they know. They are saying he has not crossed their borders. I think they are lying and he is being debriefed by the ruskies as we speak.

[Cynical Ninja]

I'm getting more than a little caught up in this story. I went looking for new information the moment I signed on this morning. I found a comment made by NSA chief General Keith Alexander who expresses dismay that the system to keep classified information from leaking out did not work as it should and he doesn't understand why. That strikes me as very odd. He doesn't know why it didn't work but I do. How can that be. I'd fire his junky ass just for being so goddamn stupid. These people (NSA) don't even know if those still employed by the contractors used for vetting potential employees can be trusted because the vetting was so lackadaisical...and still, it's all about Snowden and nothing about those who let the fox into the hen house.

Something needs to be done to the system for sure. Let's face it they hired someone who is not qualified for the job he was given and someone who went and blabbed to the world just 4 weeks after signing an agreement that he promised to keep his mouth shut.

[Duchess]

Not only that but it was premeditated. He took that job specifically to get that information, he admitted that in an interview he gave.

[Cynical Ninja]

Not only that but it was premeditated. He took that job specifically to get that information, he admitted that in an interview he gave.

If his actions were premeditated and he fully intended to be a whistleblower from the start there is no doubt whatsoever that he is a goddamn traitor I don't care what George Washington had to say about liberty over 300 years ago.

[Duchess]

Something needs to be done to the system for sure.

Government officials should have been doing the vetting, not for profit equity firms. This is no laughing matter but it doesn't keep me from laughing myself silly every single time I read the word "outsourced". Bwahahaha.

[ZEROSPHERES]

I don't like what my govt has done in the name of National Security. First the Patriot Act and now spying on its own citizens. The Constitution opposes these behaviors by a governing body and it is hard to see how an open democracy can justify these actions. It makes it clear to me the American people are ill informed or don't care. We have always believed our country was exceptional and would not suffer the oppression we saw in other countries around the world. Looks like we were wrong or misled.

[Duchess]

We have always believed our country was exceptional and would not suffer the oppression we saw in other countries around the world. Looks like we were wrong or misled.

That's how I see it too. I don't see it as either/or though, I see it as both. We were wrong & we were lied to, I like lied rather than mislead.

[Cynical Ninja]

I don't like what my govt has done in the name of National Security. First the Patriot Act and now spying on its own citizens. The Constitution opposes these behaviors by a governing body and it is hard to see how an open democracy can justify these actions. It makes it clear to me the American people are ill informed or don't care. We have always believed our country was exceptional and would not suffer the oppression we saw in other countries around the world. Looks like we were wrong or misled.

You do know the US government was spying on its citizens before the Patriot Act right? Remember McCarthyism and the “reds under the bed”? Having left leaning political views in that era must have been a real barrel of fucking laughs.

[ZEROSPHERES]

You do know the US government was spying on its citizens before the Patriot Act right? Remember McCarthyism and the “reds under the bed”? Having left leaning political views in that era must have been a real barrel of fucking laughs.

Oh yes. But that was met by stand up representatives within the government who stopped it while waving the flag and supporting the constitution as a moral contract between the US Govt and its people. There is a paradigm shift today where there is a pervasive force behind what is seen and it has a control that no one is standing against. Both Democrats and Republicans, once in office, appear in lockstep with this hidden dynamic and no one is speaking up against it in any formidable way. I see this force having its roots before the Eisenhower administration and met opposition in the Kennedy years. Kennedy thought he was the President and an example may have been made of him to show that from now on elected officials including the President come and go and this entrenched power behind the scenes is here to stay.

[ZEROSPHERES]

Americans have the best government money can buy.

[Duchess]

[Cynical Ninja]

Oh yes. But that was met by stand up representatives within the government who stopped it while waving the flag and supporting the constitution as a moral contract between the US Govt and its people. There is a paradigm shift today where there is a pervasive force behind what is seen and it has a control that no one is standing against. Both Democrats and Republicans, once in office, appear in lockstep with this hidden dynamic and no one is speaking up against it in any formidable way. I see this force having its roots before the Eisenhower administration and met opposition in the Kennedy years. Kennedy thought he was the President and an example may have been made of him to show that from now on elected officials including the President come and go and this entrenched power behind the scenes is here to stay.

Who is this “pervasive force” of which you speak? Does it have a name? The military industrial complex? The new world order? The illuminati? Reptilian humanoids from the lower fourth dimension? Does that font of reasoned thought Alex Jones have a point about those FEMA camps?

I feel like we are entering tinfoil hat territory again here.