Information leaks

[Foil]

Just interested in the relative community perspective on these guys:

Bradley Manning
Edward Snowden

[Foil]

For anyone selecting one of the first two, I'm particularly interested in what you see as the difference. Is it:

• Intent?
• Content?
• Organization(s) information was leaked to?
• Something else?

[Note: I haven't voted yet. Still undecided...]

[flip]

In my opinion, Bradley Manning violated his oath and although those were unfortunate circumstances, it's effect and intention was to cast dispersion on American military personnel and America itself. Un-American.

Edward Snowden, on the other hand, reveals governmental abuse and total disregard for the Rule of Law against it's own citizens. Un-American.

[Will Robinson]

I can't choose because there is no "disapprove" choice.
I know I disapprove of Manning for content and what I perceive his intent to be.

I'm not sure I approve of Snowdens actions even though he seems to have considered the content and it's potential for doing harm with it. By virtue of his good judgement regarding the content I am inclined to believe his intent is more honorable but I don't know the legality of the things he exposed nor the harm he may have caused.
Then there is the difficult weighing of 'evils' in what results he may have caused or set in motion versus the good that was being done by letting these things continue behind closed doors. And, of course, the old puzzle of do the ends justify the means? No matter which side of that question you fall on should your position be an absolute?

If Obama's 'helpers' hadn't shown just how reckless and dangerous zealots can be then it would be easier to dismiss both Snowden and Manning in the same manner but clearly ideologues are not to be trusted with secrets so maybe Snowdens efforts are a blessing in the long run if he causes a change.

[Nightshade]

I think Foil should make up his mind and become an atheist.

[callmeslick]

I voted for both 1 and 2(approve of both), but would be interested in how folks view whether the leaks were justified, treasonous or heroic. Also, and I know I fall in this camp, do you feel differently about each person and what they did?

[woodchip]

The questions as posted are trying to equate a similarity between the two individuals in question. There is a difference so I didn't vote. In Mannings case he released particular information about particular incidents within the nations security network. Information that may have led to the deaths of people related to the released information.
Snowden OTOH, released information about a program in general and not any particular information that could be used against someone. Hopefully you all see the difference. As a aside what ever happened to the people who told us about Carnivore, using bank data to track terrorist or how we were using cell phone call initiated out of country by suspected terrorists to people inside our country? I don't recall a big hue and cry over the release of those programs.

[Foil]

I can't choose because there is no "disapprove" choice.

Three of the four choices indicate disapproval of one or both.

The questions as posted are trying to equate a similarity between the two individuals in question. There is a difference so I didn't vote.

The first two of the four choices indicate a difference.

---------------------------------------------

[I have updated the poll question and answers for clarification. Re-voting is enabled if you need to change your vote.]

[Will Robinson]

I can't choose because there is no "disapprove" choice.

Three of the four choices indicate disapproval of one or both.

But I can't vote against Manning without approving or disapproving of Snowden and I'm unsure about him at the moment so I just gave you what data i could that applies to your questions.

[Foil]

Ah, understood. Thank you.

[Tunnelcat]

I approve of both. Manning leaked some pretty damning stuff about the Iraq War that needed airing out, like the indiscriminate killing of American citizens by our own military.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100406-lea ... ters-staff

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

Snowden's a no brainer. Our government is spying on us wholesale, all under the guise of keeping us "safe". That's how governments gain too much power, through fear-mongering. We should have known that what Bush started after 9/11 was still being used on us today.

[Will Robinson]

I approve of both. Manning leaked some pretty damning stuff about the Iraq War that needed airing out, like the indiscriminate killing of American citizens by our own military.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100406-lea ... ters-staff

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

Snowden's a no brainer. Our government is spying on us wholesale, all under the guise of keeping us "safe". That's how governments gain too much power, through fear-mongering. We should have known that what Bush started after 9/11 was still being used on us today.

TC if you think this is something that W Bush created you are crazy!
Every form of communication man invents those men in authority devise ways to secretly learn of the contents of the communication. They believe the ends justify the means. (And they may be right in this case)

Erik Holders excuse that, because he never intended to actually charge the Fox reporter with a crime, his securing the warrant and wire tapping him and his family didn't constitute a lie to congress when he said he never has or would take part in, or even conceive of, wire tapping a reporter!
That is the way these people 'think their way around' the intent of the law!

And, by the way, the best way to ensure your government acquires "too much power" is to raise up a majority of citizens who are dependent on the government for their daily needs.

When your mother and father were your only hope for food and shelter they were able to dismiss your complaints with nothing more than a simple 'Because I said so!' and you accepted it as the way things work. If not for their loving you that would have been the foundation for a rather contemptuous relationship at best!

When the IRS is able to tell citizens to keep quiet about their faith if they want to qualify for a non-profit status you can bet the people in charge are ruling with contempt minus any love....

[Tunnelcat]

It goes to show you that Democrats started some of this mess back in 1978 with FISA. Thank you Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. However, Bush is the one who greatly expanded it's scope and power and ABUSE, all so he could go to war. Now you may think that it's OK to snoop into what we do in our everyday lives all in the name of national security, but I don't. How far is too far? How much is too much? Power like this was abused by the House Committee on Un-American Activities way back in the 40's and 50's and done against American citizens all in the name of stopping Communism. But most of the time, innocent Americans were swept up and had their lives destroyed because of this commie witch-hunt gone wrong. No, I don't trust the government, or business, when they get too big or too powerful.

And you're wrong on the power of government. War is the time that most governments are more likely to lie to their citizens and abridge their freedom, not social dependency.

...A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.

...Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes.

...Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

...The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it.

And their is another way that a government can be used to abridge the freedoms of others, the unholy marriage of business and government, especially the business of war. We are now slaves to the Military Industrial Complex and the Intelligence Industrial Complex.

...The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages.

...Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents

[Spidey]

I like this little tidbit…

“and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

And this…

“…not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents”

Those dead white guys sure were wise. But of course we all know how “outdated” this wisdom is…right…

Sorry....back to the topic

[Will Robinson]

I like this little tidbit…

“and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

And this…

“…not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents”

Those dead white guys sure were wise. But of course we all know how “outdated” this wisdom is…right…

Sorry....back to the topic

Ditto.


It's funny, TC posted that to refute my point when, in fact, it supports it perfectly.

[flip]

In other words, communities and local governments should govern themselves with little or any interference from a centralized, far removed Federal Government. Now, how to get that back in the box is beyond me. Through certain key events in our nations history, (federal reserve, federal funding....etc) that ship has sailed. This country is doomed to be governed from a central location and a small group of dominant men.

[Tunnelcat]

Will and Spidey may fear a country run by a single government and it's taxes, and yes, there is some small truth to that, but that's nothing compared to what is happening now. We are now servants to Emperor Keith Alexander, who wields more power than even Obama. He controls 3 domains that are massive bureaucracies which are secretive and unanswerable to anyone but him. Doesn't that scare anybody that one man has that much control over what we do and say to each other and thus can put anyone, anywhere, away in some hole who so much as blinks?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/0 ... erwar/all/

And thanks to Bush, who pretty much neutered the FISA Court, and a Congress and a new president who thinks that's OK because we need to be kept safe from terrorists, that power is now absolute and un-revokable. So now we shall be forever taxed to support one man's empire that will oversee the erasure of our own freedoms.

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end."

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”