Snowden: Raised NSA concerns 10 times before going 'rogue'

b-b-b-but proper channels

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Snowden: Raised NSA concerns 10 times before going 'rogue'

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Snowden tried.
Clapper lied.

Decatur cried.

truth prevails

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but where else could he go?

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There are over 70 countries with which we do not have extradition treaties with. He could have picked any one of them. Instead...he flies to China and then sojourns up to Russia.

And so what if he raised concerns with the NSA? The program in question was classified Top Secret.

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RollTide1987

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What's it like to live on the wrong side of history?

If the program is illegal and unconstitutional, who gives a flying frick what the classification is?? That's the entire reason it was classified as high as it was... Because it is illegal. That shite needed to be known to the public, and if he tried to address it in the proper manner (in which case it is completely plausible that people ignored his tries because they didn't want their name associated with the situation), he was absolutely right to do as he did and expose it by whatever means necessary. I fail to see any reason to put yourself through this kind of struggle aside from having a conscience and doing the right thing.

A few thoughts about this whole situation.

For the moron who said he could have gone anywhere, but he went to china first and then russia, where else would you go? You said there are over 70 countries without formal extradition treaties with the US. How many of those 70 would have turned snowden over in a heartbeat if the US dangled a bunch of foreign aid or whatnot in front of them? He went to china and russia because the US can not bribe them and the US can not bully them. Smart choices.

I also want to ask people this. Very little information has come out on snowden since he fled the country. Now many of you won't give that much thought, but think about that. If the US had anything on snowden, and remember he was being watched as much as everyone else was, they would have released it to make him look bad.

Surf weird porn sites? It would've come out. Said really odd stuff on the internet? Would've come out. Slept with a bunch of sluts and be a dog? would've come out. Hell search for naked pics of anyone and it probably would've come out. But for the most part there was only silence regarding snowden. Is it wrong to think this guy may just be the absolute boyscout? I mean heck, if the US had anything to discredit him, you think they would have. They released a couple of pics of him which they called glamour shots, but bfd. Nothing really bad has come out on the guy. Interesting.

Now we find out the guy had voiced concerns multiple times. How many times should he have voiced concerns? Have you guys seen what has happened to others who tried a bit too hard to get the government to realize what they were doing was illegal.

It is absolutely hilarious. We find out more and more stuff that the government is doing and find out more and more that they lied to the citizens they are supposed to protect. They lie. They get caught in the lie. They then lie again. Get caught in another lie. It is ridiculous. Now they don't talk much about what they do because they realize they will be caught in a lie.

Many who dislike Snowden say he had paths he could have gone to raise concerns. So what do those people have to say now?

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Yes. I had reported these clearly problematic programs to more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them. As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the US government, I was not protected by US whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about lawbreaking in accordance with the recommended process.

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Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. "The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to 'rock the boat,' for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake." All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution.

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And oh yeah, the government lied...

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President Obama said there were "other avenues" available to someone like Snowden "whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions." Obama pointed to Presidential Policy Directive 19 -- which set up a system for questioning classified government actions under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. However, as a contractor rather than an government employee or officer, Snowden was outside the protection of this system.

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From Clapper, up and down the chain people have lied. The president has lied. The NSA has lied. Congress has lied.

Snowden did the only thing he could do. And I don't think I would've had the balls to do it. Hell, I most certainly wouldn't have had the balls to do it. The guy is a hero. He will most likely be remembered as a hero. I say most likely because the government will do whatever it can do to change peoples perspective. And by government I also mean a duplicitous media who by and large eats up whatever the government says.

From the TIA program back in the early days that congress cancelled because it was too intrusive the program just morphed. Not out in the open, it wasn't cancelled, it was just made top secret. Without any real oversight except itself, it far surpassed what it was supposed to do and grew in power and reach. But hey, during that whole time, there were people watching it to protect us. And some people actually believe it.

Yeah, the program that grew to unbelievable power and reach under the watchful eye of our protectors should just be returned to the watchful oversight of people who will protect us. We can certainly trust the government which has lied every step of the way regarding this cancer.

Information is power. Power corrupts. Total information gives absolute power. And what does absolute power do?

I always feel weird when I start talking about this. I would've laughed and called people paranoid had they said anything like this five years ago. Ironic I was so wrong.

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From Clapper, up and down the chain people have lied. The president has lied. The NSA has lied. Congress has lied.

Snowden did the only thing he could do. And I don't think I would've had the balls to do it. Hell, I most certainly wouldn't have had the balls to do it. The guy is a hero. He will most likely be remembered as a hero. I say most likely because the government will do whatever it can do to change peoples perspective. And by government I also mean a duplicitous media who by and large eats up whatever the government says.

From the TIA program back in the early days that congress cancelled because it was too intrusive the program just morphed. Not out in the open, it wasn't cancelled, it was just made top secret. Without any real oversight except itself, it far surpassed what it was supposed to do and grew in power and reach. But hey, during that whole time, there were people watching it to protect us. And some people actually believe it.

Yeah, the program that grew to unbelievable power and reach under the watchful eye of our protectors should just be returned to the watchful oversight of people who will protect us. We can certainly trust the government which has lied every step of the way regarding this cancer.

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“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”

? Mark Twain

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He's part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take him away!

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I said it from the beginning, he is a hero.

The officials that vilify him as a traitor are only worried about how all this got out, not how something this illegal was going on.

Luckily education has come a long way in the past 100 years, and new voters were required in school to read dystopian novels like 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World, etc. I think this is one reason why the libertarian movement has come so far in the last 16 years. These kids might not know much real world principles yet and listen to to much theorist politicians, but they can all pretty much spot dystopic policies. The privacy issue is the most partisan issue on the hill today. Not partisan between blues and reds, but partisan between the oppressors and the oppressed.

To quote Bill Walton from the LSU v USF game (he was actually quoting Ron Paul)

"In the empire of lies, truth is treason"