Edward Snowden

[Jake]

What do you all think of Edward Snowden?

1. Did he do the right or wrong thing by leaking information about the NSA surveillance program?

2. Did he do the right or wrong thing by fleeing the country?

3. Is the establishment justified in condemning him as a traitor and a coward?

I know exactly where I stand on this issue, but I want your unbiased opinions before I share my thoughts.

[WinePusher]

I'm a skeptic. I want evidence before I'll accept a claim. I don't have faith in my government. If the government can't provide evidence that it's keeping us safe, but all the evidence we have suggests that the government is abusing its power by taking away our civil liberties, I can only conclude that our government is not doing its job properly. Why would I trust the government when it can't offer any evidence that it's using the NSA program to keep us safe?

Unless you actually have or still work within the national security apparatus of the government, you really have no right to criticize what they're doing. You and I are both ignorant to the threats posed against us by terrorists. You are merely acting like an indignant bystander, demanding 'evidence' without actually understanding the real problem.

I'm not dismissing those threats, but I am asserting that we create many of those threats by ruining the lives of people overseas and then wondering why they hate us so much. If we'd stop policing the world, we wouldn't have to throw out the Bill of Rights in order to protect ourselves from the enemies we make.

Right, in your fantasy if we were to completely withdraw our presence from the Middle East the terrorist attacks would disappear. Islamic jihadism would be completely relinquished if we stopped intervening in the Middle East. Seriously, do you even believe the stuff you say?

]The people we kill are islamists. Every one of these people are not people you would trust marrying your daughter off to, unless you don't mind her being carved into pieces, stoned, or acid thrown in her face, for the most minor transgression's.

Your bigotry disgusts me.

As if the bigotry is unwarrented? Islamic terrorists, Muslim terrorists are bad people. Just like serial killers and rapists are bad people. We're not talking about moderate Muslims, who are good people, we're talking about the 'bad Muslims' who oppress women and blow stuff up. This right here is why liberalism is such a ridiculous philosophy. You don't even have the courage to call islamic extremism for what it is.

[100%atheist]

]The people we kill are islamists. Every one of these people are not people you would trust marrying your daughter off to, unless you don't mind her being carved into pieces, stoned, or acid thrown in her face, for the most minor transgression's.

Your bigotry disgusts me.

I didn't write that. ... your apology will be accepted ...

[marketandchurch]

[Replying to post 21 by Jake]



I agree in full. I am very afraid of rise of the State.


Some Issues to Ponder
But we have to balance that fear of the state, with the very real dangers that are presented by the world, that only the state can stand against. But the sentiments of most Americans who have your view of things are fueling the demands to end NSA domestic spying, entirely. Never once are people turning their distrust of Government, and their feelings of the NSA program, into a demand for our keeping it, but only with major assurances of transparency and accountability… and I don't know why.

The Secrecy is necessary. Imagine if all of Congress were briefed on the daily activities of the NSA. All it takes is one screw up from the organization, that accidentally hurts one American, for one idiot politician to milk for their political advantage, not only to help their career, but to destroy a crucial program that America needs for its defense.

I am a skeptic too, but life is multi-faceted, and requires me not only to make many compromises, but requires me to weigh alternatives that are not very appetizing, and deal with the consequences of favoring one over the other. I am, after all, sickened that absolutely nothing that the President has done has been challenged by the media. He is invincible. But that does not mean that I then weaken America, in its ability to face the challenges of espionage, cyber security, and terrorism. What it does mean is that we demand for better oversight and transparency. Your calls for Government to "prove" to you that it has kept you safe seems to be a smoke screen. What if the citing of the terrorist attacks prevented lets our enemies know how to avoid those mistakes in the future? What if it allows organizers of a plot to retrace their steps and find the weak chink in their armor?

What if the inflexibilities of reality demands us that we collect emails and phone calls? And more importantly, I want to understand the ideological underpinnings behind your position, that makes you firm in your belief, that we can never have a program that collects emails and phone calls, no matter what the circumstance suggests.


Problems Abroad
I understand that you are asserting that we created many of those threats, and I disagree with you fully. There is no such thing as a moral plateau. We are always in a directional transit, between moral, and immoral, and this true for individuals, and its true nations. And much of the world has been in moral decay for a great long time, for much of human history, long before American military was on the scene. The unstable middle east has undergone experimentation with secular socialism, pan-arabist nationalism, communism, amongst many other identities, and its most recent face, Islamism, is the most dangerous reconfiguration of the Arab Muslim identity. You can't cite that they are a reaction to American intervention. They have long been broiling beneath the surface, underneath secular dictators such as Assad, Saddam, Mubarak, and the Saudi Royal Family. Just because they never had political power, doesn't mean that they weren't there.

We can't stop policing the world, unless you want China and Russia to police the world for us. Right now, there is one super power that not only built the world we live in, but controls the world we live in. We have lived through relative calm over the last 30 years, since the Soviet Union fell, until about the last 6 years. A multi-polar world is a dangerous world, unless the multi-polar actors who run it not only see eye to eye, but share the same set of values, and have the same goals. China will be free to harass Japan and South Korea will fall into it's military umbrella. Taiwan would cease to be an independent nation, and Vietnam has to live in perpetual fear, of not expanding at China's expense. The whole south china sea will be governed by the Chinese, and put India in a very uncomfortable position of being swallowed into the Chinese sphere of influence. Russia will have all of its former satellites at its mercy and disposal. The entire European continent will be put on notice, as the Russian military is the only military in the region that rivals American power. It's an ugly picture.

And in any event, how do you deal with these very real scenario's? Obama entered the White House expecting to be an isolationist like Ron Paul, only to have his post as commander in chief, and the realities of the world, mature him very quickly, on the need for American military involvement. They have implications here at home, to our infrastructure, our economy, our ability to provide the poor with upward mobility with cheap fuel prices and the protecting of trade routes. How do you respond to these challenges?





There are casualties of war
We don't go into this with the intent of blowing up innocent civilians. Most of the people we kill with drone strikes are Islamists. An Islamist is not radical or a fundamentalist in the eyes of most Muslims on planet earth. Other wise they would protest this clear bastardizing of the Islamic faith, for political and military purposes. But they don't. The majority of people in the world of Islam do not object to the killing of a daughter who was found out to have had premarital relations.

• That comment I made about women: I retract it in full.

I didn't respond to it in the context with which it came about, so I can see how that will be read as a condoning the murder of innocent women, via guilty-by-association. I didn't mean for it to come out that way, and rereading how I wrote it, it is very crass. It was a context-blind reply to the fact that every man, woman, and child, under the governance of Islamism, is an Islamist. In other words, Islamism is the political religion of the majority of both men and women, from the shores of Morocco, to the mountains of Afghanistan, down to the beaches of Indonesia.

But I make the exceptions for children under 12(even though they are already Jihad ready), and for women of any age.

[Jake]

[Replying to post 30 by WinePusher]

Unless you actually have or still work within the national security apparatus of the government, you really have no right to criticize what they're doing. You and I are both ignorant to the threats posed against us by terrorists. You are merely acting like an indignant bystander, demanding 'evidence' without actually understanding the real problem.

You may be correct that I am not qualified, based on the information I have access to, to criticize our government's national security programs. However, I have every right to criticize them. I think if you'd read the Constitution (I find myself recommending that to more and more conservatives these days) you'd find something called the First Amendment which guarantees all of us the right to criticize our government, which is paid for by, and therefor serves, the people.

Right, in your fantasy if we were to completely withdraw our presence from the Middle East the terrorist attacks would disappear. Islamic jihadism would be completely relinquished if we stopped intervening in the Middle East. Seriously, do you even believe the stuff you say?

So do you believe the terrorists hate us simply because we're free and American and they're not? How do you think we come by these dangerous enemies? We must have done something to offend them. I don't have any more sympathy for terrorists than you do. The difference is that I try to understand their motives so that we can eventually solve the problem, whereas you seem content to see the world in terms of black and white and make no attempt to understand your enemies.

As if the bigotry is unwarrented? Islamic terrorists, Muslim terrorists are bad people. Just like serial killers and rapists are bad people. We're not talking about moderate Muslims, who are good people, we're talking about the 'bad Muslims' who oppress women and blow stuff up. This right here is why liberalism is such a ridiculous philosophy. You don't even have the courage to call islamic extremism for what it is.

You're a completely dishonest debater and need to be called out for what you are. You took the first line of that paragraph, quoted it alone, and then ignored everything I said after it. We are killing the moderate Muslims along with the "bad Muslims". That was the point of my entire statement, which you didn't have the decency to respond to in full.

[Jake]

[Replying to post 32 by marketandchurch]

I agree in full. I am very afraid of rise of the State.

Drones should be the least of our worries. The NSA's surveillance programs are far more effective at keeping tabs on us. We'll notice if a drone is whirring overhead, but it's nearly impossible to hide your electronic presence from the government.

But we have to balance that fear of the state, with the very real dangers that are presented by the world, that only the state can stand against. But the sentiments of most Americans who have your view of things are fueling the demands to end NSA domestic spying, entirely. Never once are people turning their distrust of Government, and their feelings of the NSA program, into a demand for our keeping it, but only with major assurances of transparency and accountability… and I don't know why.

Because people who hold your views say that transparency and accountability would undermine the programs and lead to American deaths. Neither side is willing to find common ground in this issue, as usual. I'm glad we seem to have found some.

What it does mean is that we demand for better oversight and transparency. Your calls for Government to "prove" to you that it has kept you safe seems to be a smoke screen. What if the citing of the terrorist attacks prevented lets our enemies know how to avoid those mistakes in the future? What if it allows organizers of a plot to retrace their steps and find the weak chink in their armor?

I agree there is no easy solution here. My point is simply that we shouldn't trust our government based on faith. If they were doing this in preparation to turn us into a police state, it would look exactly as it does now. We shouldn't take that risk just because we're also afraid of terrorism. We have to find some ways, like you said, of increasing transparency and accountability instead of just blindly trusting our government.

What if the inflexibilities of reality demands us that we collect emails and phone calls? And more importantly, I want to understand the ideological underpinnings behind your position, that makes you firm in your belief, that we can never have a program that collects emails and phone calls, no matter what the circumstance suggests.

As I said before, the secrecy of the programs bothers me almost as much as the programs themselves. Such a blatant refusal to recognize the fourth amendment is something the American public must have a right to know. My ideology is similar to the ideology of the men who wrote the Bill of Rights. Every citizen should be guaranteed certain freedoms under the law, and if those freedoms need to be sacrificed for national security, we have a right to know about it so that these issues can be decided in open debate, democratically. These are the principles our country was founded on.

I understand that you are asserting that we created many of those threats, and I disagree with you fully. There is no such thing as a moral plateau. We are always in a directional transit, between moral, and immoral, and this true for individuals, and its true nations. And much of the world has been in moral decay for a great long time, for much of human history, long before American military was on the scene. The unstable middle east has undergone experimentation with secular socialism, pan-arabist nationalism, communism, amongst many other identities, and its most recent face, Islamism, is the most dangerous reconfiguration of the Arab Muslim identity. You can't cite that they are a reaction to American intervention. They have long been broiling beneath the surface, underneath secular dictators such as Assad, Saddam, Mubarak, and the Saudi Royal Family. Just because they never had political power, doesn't mean that they weren't there.

I'm not saying we created the threats themselves. I'm saying we gave them reasons to turn their hatred on us. The terrorists would be violent and radical either way, but by provoking them we paint the target on ourselves. Don't you even want to make an attempt to understand why our enemies hate us? Or are you content to simply see them as "the enemy" without trying to discover their motives so that we can fix the problem?

And in any event, how do you deal with these very real scenario's? Obama entered the White House expecting to be an isolationist like Ron Paul, only to have his post as commander in chief, and the realities of the world, mature him very quickly, on the need for American military involvement. They have implications here at home, to our infrastructure, our economy, our ability to provide the poor with upward mobility with cheap fuel prices and the protecting of trade routes. How do you respond to these challenges?

I have no idea. As you've probably noticed I'm better at pointing out problems than proposing solutions. I realize I'm not at all being helpful, but currently no one is proposing long-term solutions to the problem of terrorism. Most people are content to accept that terrorists will always exist and that we should kill innocents to get to our enemies.

We don't go into this with the intent of blowing up innocent civilians. Most of the people we kill with drone strikes are Islamists. An Islamist is not radical or a fundamentalist in the eyes of most Muslims on planet earth. Other wise they would protest this clear bastardizing of the Islamic faith, for political and military purposes. But they don't. The majority of people in the world of Islam do not object to the killing of a daughter who was found out to have had premarital relations.

Let me tell you a bit about the drone program. One type of strike we do is called a signature strike. We basically analyze the movements and behaviors of unknown people in certain countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, etc.) and if they match patterns commonly associated with militants, we kill them. This has lead to the deaths of over 1000 civilians, including over 200 children. Another type of strike we do is called a personality strike. This is a strike on a high-profile target. In other words, we actually know who we're killing. About 2% of the people we've killed have been high-profile targets. The rest of them are people we assume are terrorists but have no concrete method of identifying before we slaughter them.

I'm also interested to understand why you seem to think everyone in these countries is a despicable human being. Have you lived in Sharia-ruled countries? Do you have some studies that identify the percentage of people that abuse women? How can you group millions of people together like that? I'd hesitantly call it a form of racism, except I don't think you intend to assert that all Arabic people are evil. But it is a very repulsive form of bigotry. I think you should question your belief that all of these people deserve death just because some of them are really backwards, sexist, and violent. Would you want them to judge all Americans based on what the Westboro Baptist Church says on T.V.?

• That comment I made about women: I retract it in full.

I didn't respond to it in the context with which it came about, so I can see how that will be read as a condoning the murder of innocent women, via guilty-by-association. I didn't mean for it to come out that way, and rereading how I wrote it, it is very crass. It was a context-blind reply to the fact that every man, woman, and child, under the governance of Islamism, is an Islamist. In other words, Islamism is the political religion of the majority of both men and women, from the shores of Morocco, to the mountains of Afghanistan, down to the beaches of Indonesia.

I'm glad you retract the comment. The way it came across really made my blood boil. So then do you admit that the 200 children and hundreds of women that we've killed have all been needlessly slaughtered? That their deaths have only enraged those who knew them and given our enemies new recruits?

But I make the exceptions for children under 12(even though they are already Jihad ready), and for women of any age.

How noble of you. I'm sure the mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts and uncles of those children zero through 11 years old will be thrilled to hear that the drones did not intentionally bomb the hell out of their kids. As for those children 12 and over, well, they were just bloodthirsty little terrorists, weren't they? They deserved to die and we shouldn't bother being more careful with our drones in the future, right?

I wonder where you see the war on terror ending up. Do you foresee (or even hope for) a future in which we've slaughtered every last man, woman, and child living in Sharia-ruled countries? Or do you anticipate that once we've destroyed enough homes and torn apart enough families, the Islamists will finally realize how great America is and how they've been on the wrong side all along? How are we supposed to end the war on terror if we don't try to fix the deeper, cultural problems that afflict these countries? Do you have ANY interest in understanding those people so that we can come to some diplomatic solution, or are you content to sit back and rack up the kill count?

Your bloodthirst makes me sick.

[100%atheist]

[Replying to post 32 by marketandchurch]

I agree in full. I am very afraid of rise of the State.

Drones should be the least of our worries. The NSA's surveillance programs are far more effective at keeping tabs on us. We'll notice if a drone is whirring overhead, but it's nearly impossible to hide your electronic presence from the government.

I'd say, Jake got life. First, unless you spend a significant time with a binocular and be lucky, I doubt you'll be able to recognize a drone above you, especially when some surveillance drones become the size of an insect. Second, in the US, there is nothing easier than to disappear from the presumed government radar if your paranoia gets worse. In the US, you can buy a phone and a phone number without documents at all. Then, buy a computer through craigslist and use free Wi-Fi to connect to the world.

It looks like you are wrong on both here.

My point is simply that we shouldn't trust our government based on faith. If they were doing this in preparation to turn us into a police state, it would look exactly as it does now.

Huh? You've been to many police states? You fantasy may be good for another book, but please don't try to fit reality on your imagination.

[Jake]

[Replying to post 35 by 100%atheist]

I'd say, Jake got life.

Sorry, what?

First, unless you spend a significant time with a binocular and be lucky, I doubt you'll be able to recognize a drone above you, especially when some surveillance drones become the size of an insect.

OK, fair enough. But I maintain that it's still more efficient and convenient to track people with the NSA's programs than it is to track people with drones. Therefor anyone who fears the rise of the state because of surveillance drones should be much more worried about the NSA's programs. That was my original point.

Second, in the US, there is nothing easier than to disappear from the presumed government radar if your paranoia gets worse. In the US, you can buy a phone and a phone number without documents at all. Then, buy a computer through craigslist and use free Wi-Fi to connect to the world.

So you think Americans should be forced to jump through all sorts of hoops to get their rights back? No. Our rights should be protected by the Bill of Rights. We shouldn't have to be paranoid and hide ourselves from surveillance like this.

Huh? You've been to many police states? You fantasy may be good for another book, but please don't try to fit reality on your imagination.

The government has slowly taken away liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Then when someone informs the public about these gross violations of the Fourth Amendment, they try to charge him with aiding the enemy and they proceed to hunt him down. We've tortured dozens of innocent men in Guantanamo and now refuse to release them even though they've been proven innocent. When Bradley Manning released information about the Iraq war (including a video in which a U.S. helicopter crew guns down innocent reporters and civilians) the military confined him for months in solitary confinement, stripped him down, beat him, and he's finally getting a trial after years of imprisonment. The government has the power, via the National Defense Authorization Act, to indefinitely detain people -- in other words, kidnap them and refuse them a trial. All of these actions are consistent with those taken by tyrannical governments and police states.

[WinePusher]

Unless you actually have or still work within the national security apparatus of the government, you really have no right to criticize what they're doing. You and I are both ignorant to the threats posed against us by terrorists. You are merely acting like an indignant bystander, demanding 'evidence' without actually understanding the real problem.

You may be correct that I am not qualified, based on the information I have access to, to criticize our government's national security programs. However, I have every right to criticize them.

For what reason do you criticize the government's national security programs? Are they causing un-repairable grief and hardship to you? Has this NSA scandal hurt you personally in some way? It certainly hasn't hurt me in any way whatsoever.

I think if you'd read the Constitution (I find myself recommending that to more and more conservatives these days) you'd find something called the First Amendment which guarantees all of us the right to criticize our government, which is paid for by, and therefor serves, the people.

I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't criticize the government. I criticize the government day in and day out. The difference between you and me is that we probably criticize the government for different reasons. People like you are critical of the government when it fails to give Miranda rights or due process to terrorists, or when it does it's constitutionally mandated duty to protect us and provide for the common defense. I'm critical of the government when it tries to steal more and more of the people's money through taxation, and other things of that nature.

Right, in your fantasy if we were to completely withdraw our presence from the Middle East the terrorist attacks would disappear. Islamic jihadism would be completely relinquished if we stopped intervening in the Middle East. Seriously, do you even believe the stuff you say?

So do you believe the terrorists hate us simply because we're free and American and they're not?

Yes, and so does everybody else who is not deluded by liberal lies. They are called Islamic extremists for a reason. They interpret the Qur'an in a fundamentalist manner and use it to justify their terrorist activities. Islamic terrorists have a fundamental hatred for western culture and that hatred is what drives their terrorism.

How do you think we come by these dangerous enemies?

Islam has been a militant religion since it came into existence. The origin of its militant extremism is by in large unknown. However, what is known for sure is that we, the United States, didn't create the problem. This is a liberal lie.

We must have done something to offend them.

Again, look at history. Islam has been expansive and militant since it came into existence. We did nothing.

The difference is that I try to understand their motives so that we can eventually solve the problem, whereas you seem content to see the world in terms of black and white and make no attempt to understand your enemies.

I really doubt you try to genuinely understand their motives because you are merely repeating the liberal falsehood which has been discredited numerous times. Like I said, if we withdraw our presence from the Middle East completely do you really think the problem of Islamic terrorist would disappear?

As if the bigotry is unwarrented? Islamic terrorists, Muslim terrorists are bad people. Just like serial killers and rapists are bad people. We're not talking about moderate Muslims, who are good people, we're talking about the 'bad Muslims' who oppress women and blow stuff up. This right here is why liberalism is such a ridiculous philosophy. You don't even have the courage to call islamic extremism for what it is.

You're a completely dishonest debater and need to be called out for what you are. You took the first line of that paragraph, quoted it alone, and then ignored everything I said after it. We are killing the moderate Muslims along with the "bad Muslims". That was the point of my entire statement, which you didn't have the decency to respond to in full.

Yes, apologies for not reading closely enough.

Unfortunately for you, your point is still wrong. Even if we weren't there, women and children would still be killed, beaten and oppressed. You only care about the civilian casualties when the United States causes them, what about all the civilian deaths caused by these crazy Islamic governments? According to you, we should just ignore them.

[Jake]

I wonder where you see the war on terror ending up. Do you foresee (or even hope for) a future in which we've slaughtered every last man, woman, and child living in Sharia-ruled countries? Or do you anticipate that once we've destroyed enough homes and torn apart enough families, the Islamists will finally realize how great America is and how they've been on the wrong side all along? How are we supposed to end the war on terror if we don't try to fix the deeper, cultural problems that afflict these countries? Do you have ANY interest in understanding those people so that we can come to some diplomatic solution, or are you content to sit back and rack up the kill count?

Please respond to this before we go any further, as it is really the entire point of this argument.

P.S. I couldn't help but laugh when I read the description of the libertarian usergroup after noticing you were a member: "For those who support liberty and the Constitution instead of empire, endless military campaigns, and 'big brother' government."

[100%atheist]

I wonder where you see the war on terror ending up. Do you foresee (or even hope for) a future in which we've slaughtered every last man, woman, and child living in Sharia-ruled countries? Or do you anticipate that once we've destroyed enough homes and torn apart enough families, the Islamists will finally realize how great America is and how they've been on the wrong side all along? How are we supposed to end the war on terror if we don't try to fix the deeper, cultural problems that afflict these countries? Do you have ANY interest in understanding those people so that we can come to some diplomatic solution, or are you content to sit back and rack up the kill count?

Please respond to this before we go any further, as it is really the entire point of this argument.

Good questions, although there is probably no man on this planet who knows The answers.

There are multiple reasons why people become terrorists including: lack of opportunities (as seen in Palestine, i.e.); personal drama (someone's family was killed by a [maybe US-originated] bomb); religious and other organized beliefs aka brainwashing (including organizations such as white and black supremacists, anti-abortion groups, and some "green" organizations); maybe something else...

Not all people who became terrorists did so due to actions of the US, Israel, Russian, and other governments. Yes, it is possible to negotiate a peace process with Palestinians, but there is no way many lone terrorists whose reasons may have nothing to do with military actions of governments can be found and negotiated with.

Summarizing, yes there are some government actions that may multiply terrorists and it makes sense to discuss them. BUT, there are terrorist threats which are not necessarily provoked by unwillingness of the government to negotiate. Therefore, the possibility to reduce some terrorists threats through better policies and negotiation actions should never stop the government from watching people's activities through available technologies in order to identify potential threats. Such programs were always here and will always be here.

I am MUCH MORE concerned about private internet companies mining my private data in order to load my web pages with their junk to sell. Who knows what they are going to do to me next.