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On July 17 2013 20:11 TheRealArtemis wrote:
The espionage done on Allies is something undoubtably every major country, that has the resources, have done. In a perfect world No country would spy on its allies, but it isn't a perfect country. We all have to look at our own best interest.
But you're not part of the "we" in your sentence. You're part of the "them", as in people being targeted by espionage. This isn't only about spying on allied countries, remember?
You have no information to support the assumption that you're one benefiting from intelligence collected, and that it is done in your best interest, especially when it's being performed ON you. If you were actually looking at your own best interest, you would be demanding accountability from your government instead of identifying with them.
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LOL @ anyone that thinks he's a criminal or a tratior
the government is the only criminal/traitor, if you don't believe that than im sorry but you're either an obama freak or you don't live in america and understand what a truly corrupt government it is
LOL @ therealartemis
you really think the guy would even be alive right now? Jesus man what fairyland of unicorns and castles in the sky do you live in honestly?
yah i'm sure if he "wrote his congressmen" and told the media that everything would be A OK. You haven't read 1984 have you? The government would make him vanish and the news media would have been the ones turning the guy in, and no they wouldn't have said a single word about it to the american people.
some of you really need to get a grip on just how corrupt and absolutely beyond control things are in this country right now
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If the nobel committee is set for controversy they would choose Rouhani (the iranian president). Since Obama got the prize for talking about peace love and harmony while not delivering much on the international promises afterwards, Rouhani would be a safe bet for at least a candidacy. The Republic of the Union of Myanmars military dictatorship represented by Thein Sein would be an even more controversial pick. There are several african organisations, far more deserving and with some actual results to back up their candidacy.
The effect of what Snowden did is not even close to being felt yet and he hasn't made promises he cannot keep about peace, love and harmony. I think he is completely ineligible for the peace price, but I do not think that is a bad thing either, given the historical choices.
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On July 17 2013 20:11 TheRealArtemis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 19:43 -Archangel- wrote:On July 17 2013 19:32 althaz wrote:
Of COURSE he shouldn't and that's frankly a ridiculous thing to say. I know the peace prize has been devalued in recent times, but seriously!
Snowden is a criminal. Don't get me wrong, bringing the illegal activities of the NSA to light should absolutely have been done - but the US actually has an excellent way of doing things like that legally - your bring the issues up to your congressman. Snowden did the wrong thing, straight-up and shouldn't be lauded just because the US government did a lot worse. He is a criminal only in USA. Rest of the world thinks he is a hero. I don't think he is a hero. A hero shows valour and courage. He only showed how to betray his own country by showing how the intelligence agencies find people that may or may not commit acts of terror within the US. The espionage done on Allies is something undoubtably every major country, that has the resources, have done. In a perfect world No country would spy on its allies, but it isn't a perfect country. We all have to look at our own best interest.
well if everyone just looks at their own interests we don't really need allies at all do we?
and if you think about it it was quite courageous by him don't you think? I mean look how bloodthirsty everyone in the USA got...
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In all honesty though, the nobel prize lost all credibility when it was awarded to Obama
in fact it's just a flipping joke to many people now
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On July 17 2013 21:03 shivver wrote:
In all honesty though, the nobel prize lost all credibility when it was awarded to Obama
in fact it's just a flipping joke to many people now
The nobel peace prize has for the most part always been a joke. It awards people in public acclaim, and awards people for feel-good actions despite others who have made serious contributions.
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My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal.
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On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal.
While I don't know if that's true, there is a very big difference between morality and legality.
On a side note I find it pretty incredible how the U.S government has slowly become a separate entity to the people of America.
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On July 17 2013 21:27 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal. While I don't know if that's true, there is a very big difference between morality and legality. On a side note I find it pretty incredible how the U.S government has slowly become a separate entity to the people of America.
I don't think that's a side note, I think that is the issue at hand.
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On July 17 2013 21:27 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal. While I don't know if that's true, there is a very big difference between morality and legality. On a side note I find it pretty incredible how the U.S government has slowly become a separate entity to the people of America.
Oh don't get me wrong, I think the government is way overstepping their bounds here.
I don't find it incredible at all, I find it to be perfectly natural. Regrettable and disheartening, but still a natural evolution of things.
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France9034 Posts
On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal.
Remind me who writes the law that defines the words "Legal" and "Illegal" ?
It's not about something illegal (well...), it's about something truly unethical.
Could you also define what it means for something to be legal when it comes down to the US spying on non-US citizen who have nothing to do with US laws ? I didn't vote for Obama/Bush/etc, so if there are laws that grants the US gov the right to legally invade its citizen privacy and strip them of all their rights, I don't really see what grants them the right to do so with MY privacy.
And yet they can spy on my internet data and streams without my permission, and as we already saw, they don't really embarrass themselves with considerations when it comes down to arresting someone who's no US citizen for the sake of some big companies (Kim Dotcom). That's kind of scary when you think about what they could do.
OT: I don't know if the Nobel peace prize is appropriate, but he still deserves some prize.
Btw, calling him a traitor is right. He's a traitor to the US government, and rightfully so. He's loyal to the US (and non-US) citizen that are affected.
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Maybe not illegal by spying on other countries, but when it comes to domestic surveillance, the 4th Amendment has to be considered. We can't be sure it's not illegal (Which in my opinion it fully is. Not even a question) until it goes to court. Guess how likely that is.
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I feel like sc2 is asking the key question here...did he actually expose anything illegal? How much did congress know about this program already (supposedly they were briefed about the nature of the program on a regular basis)? Obviously congress can't know everything because the nature of espionage is that you're going to have classified material; but we can ask whether they had a general understanding of what the NSA does.
If everything is legal, and congress broadly understood what the NSA was up to, then I don't think Snowden is a hero at all because he released classified secrets that helped protect national security.
More generally I feel like people in this thread are guilty of making extremist statements and the worst possible assumptions for seemingly no good reason other than some broad preconceptions that America is an evil, imperialist nation based on actions of past presidents. Lots of posters here reference 1984, say that the government is trampling all over their rights and freedoms, that its becoming a police state? All of these are extremist comments.
The only thing these programs do is attempt to sift through the massive amount of data online in order to find dangerous people...and in the process, unfortunately, you're not going to be able to maintain a society where everyone has 100% privacy - i.e. you're going to end up reading e-mails of people who may not have anything to do with terrorism. Is this really the same as a police state? I would think such an equivocation would be ridiculous to any objective mind.
All you can really say is that this program creates certain "slippery slope" dangers that could be abused if the American government somehow becomes tyrannical in the future, due to the fact that the FISA court is really the only protection, and its operations are secretive. But to me that's similar to "gun rights" advocates refusing to create a gun registry for fears that it would make it easier for the government to take away their guns. One does not necessarily lead to the other; plenty of countries have these registries but continue to allow their citizens to bear arms.
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Poland3751 Posts
On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal.
Also only because US twisted their law that made a lot of loopholes for Big Brother-like organizations like NSA and for actions against anyone branded as terrorists (which every now and then is thrown completely ridiculously around).
Also it shows that USA - at least government - does not deserve the trust of international community.
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On July 17 2013 19:02 sVnteen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 13:45 cLAN.Anax wrote:He deserves a prison cell. Snowden signed up knowing he'd have to keep silent about the sensitive secrets he would be entrusted with. How is this not treasonous sabotage? He deserves punishment, not recognition. Svallfors also believes this will help the Peace Prize regain some of respect it lost after prematurely awarding Barack Obama the award in 2009. Bahahaha. The Nobel Prize reputation would only plummet farther. soo if someone in noth korea joins the military forces, makes it to the very top and gets confronted with plans to nuke the US (don't complain about logic pls it just an example) and he decides: "no I got to stop this" and somehow manages to get the information about the plans out into the world he should, following your logic, be sent to prison in any country he tries to escape to? I mean it was an act of treason and surely he shouldn't be rewarded for it ,right? You got to put yourself in a neutral perspective here. I mean the US spied on their ALLIES how is that justifiable at all? and then their biggest worry is to go after the man who has revealed this fact instead of apologizing or something.... how would you feel in that situation?
There are two faults here: the first of which is the government "spying" on its people and that of its allies; the second is Snowden knowingly breaking his promise to keep quiet on the secrets he was entrusted with. Regardless of what the government is doing wrong (won't deny that), Snowden sinned too. It appears too much like he planned on sabotage from the get-go. Surely there's a better way to do this than leaking the information, going public for recognition, then hiding behind other countries attempting to barter with the U.S. by releasing others' information, fight sin with sin so to speak.
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On July 17 2013 21:56 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 21:22 sc2superfan101 wrote:
My big problem is: he didn't expose the government doing anything illegal. Also only because US twisted their law that made a lot of loopholes for Big Brother-like organizations like NSA and for actions against anyone branded as terrorists (which every now and then is thrown completely ridiculously around). Also it shows that USA - at least government - does not deserve the trust of international community.
If USA doesn't deserve the trust of the international community, then neither does France, Russia, China, or Great Britain...all of whom have been caught in recent years spying on other countries. How many more players would you be prepared to exclude from the international community? I think you have to be realistic, and understand that there will be espionage. Many citizens in these countries don't even trust their own governments; can you really expect their representatives or leaders to trust other governments so completely? It just seems a bit naive to think that the international community has a lot of "trust" to begin with.
But that said the USA still plays an important role, whether its climate change, trade deals, or intervention against dictators who massacre their own people (Libya, Syria). So on broad issues of public policy there can be trust; but a reasonable level of trust. Not one where there is the implicit assumption that no one will ever have doubts about the true intentions of other leaders, or follow up on those doubts with espionage.
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On July 17 2013 21:51 FluffyBinLaden wrote:Maybe not illegal by spying on other countries, but when it comes to domestic surveillance, the 4th Amendment has to be considered. We can't be sure it's not illegal (Which in my opinion it fully is. Not even a question) until it goes to court. Guess how likely that is.
I suppose you can say that there are two different issues: the NSA monitoring of US citizens (here american domestic law is relevant) and monitoring non-US citizens (here international law is relevant).
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How does he even remotely deserve a Peace Prize? All he's done is create turmoil over the more tech savvy about whether or not what he did is justified.
In the end, he's about as worth of the Peace Prize as I am. One time I told my mom my sister was spying on me during lunch in elementary school.
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On July 17 2013 21:56 radscorpion9 wrote:
All you can really say is that this program creates certain "slippery slope" dangers that could be abused if the American government somehow becomes tyrannical in the future, due to the fact that the FISA court is really the only protection, and its operations are secretive. But to me that's similar to "gun rights" advocates refusing to create a gun registry for fears that it would make it easier for the government to take away their guns. One does not necessarily lead to the other; plenty of countries have these registries but continue to allow their citizens to bear arms.
Well, if you're going to use the gun argument, then here's the response: What is the point of keeping dangerous weapons behind security walls? It's to keep it out of the hands of those who wouldn't use these weapons for legal or just purposes, correct? Make sure the crazies don't shoot people up? You create a system that makes sure to a certain extent that those who use the weapons will not abuse them.
Why doesn't the government have the same checks for a system like this? Because while you say that tyranny is only a vague possibility, people probably thought the same about something like a civilian shooting spree. Columbine was a shock for people, but it happened. Couldn't this?
If you're going to put in preventative measures for one thing, you should look at it for another, more dangerous, thing.
On July 17 2013 22:15 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2013 21:51 FluffyBinLaden wrote:Maybe not illegal by spying on other countries, but when it comes to domestic surveillance, the 4th Amendment has to be considered. We can't be sure it's not illegal (Which in my opinion it fully is. Not even a question) until it goes to court. Guess how likely that is. I suppose you can say that there are two different issues: the NSA monitoring of US citizens (here american domestic law is relevant) and monitoring non-US citizens (here international law is relevant).
That's what I'm getting at, yes. Each situation has its own barrier.
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EPT
