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Post 0

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 4:02pmSanction this postReply
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Watching this now. First impression: Snowden sure is familiar with Libertarian thought!

Second, I had no idea his experience was so extensive.



Post 1

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 7:39pmSanction this postReply
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Snowen said, "What I would like to see ... would be that we reform whistleblower laws in the United States to cover contractors -- we reform the Espionage Act to distinguish between people who sell secrets to foreign governments for their own gain and people who return information to public hands for the purpose of serving the public interest."

 

I agree with the idea of reforming the whistleblower laws but one reform would be that if there is no reasonable assumption of wrong doing on the part of the people or organization that is accused, then the whistleblower laws don't apply.  In Snowden's case, every document he leaked where a case could be made that illegal spying was being done, would stand as a great example of blowing a whistle that needed to be blown.

 

But his idea of distinguishing between traitors or spys and simply people who think they are doing good? That's nonsense. Most of the worst damage ever done to our country by traitors was done because of ideological beliefs rather than getting paid.  They believed they were doing good. They believed they were acting in the public interest.  What is needed is to relate their acts to violations of individual rights - to objective harm that warrants criminal treatment.

 

I agree with what he said about not getting a fair trial if accused of espionage - they have to change the rules to allow a defendent to make the argument that the act of breaking confidentiality could not be illegal if what was being kept confidential is unconstituional.



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Post 2

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 8:47pmSanction this postReply
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Snowen: "What I would like to see ... would be that we reform whistleblower laws in the United States to cover contractors -- we reform the Espionage Act to distinguish between people who sell secrets to foreign governments for their own gain and people who return information to public hands for the purpose of serving the public interest."

 

Steve: "But his idea of distinguishing between traitors or spys and simply people who think they are doing good? That's nonsense. Most of the worst damage ever done to our country by traitors was done because of ideological beliefs rather than getting paid.  They believed they were doing good. They believed they were acting in the public interest.  What is needed is to relate their acts to violations of individual rights - to objective harm that warrants criminal treatment."

 

You mean traitors like...voters? Those kinds of  "public hands?"  You can go a long way with that kind of reductive method.



Post 3

Sunday, June 1, 2014 - 2:48amSanction this postReply
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"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

I agree with you Steve that everybody should be held personally accountable for their actions, not for their intentions. However that should also be the case with each and every person in our governments. Even the voters who voted such powers to their government and it's representatives, if you follow that line of reasoning to Teresa's conclusion.

One guess which side is not held responsible for it's actions and clamors about it's intentions ;)

What I was mostly shocked at though, was a court that does not allow an accused to present evidence on his behalf, is held in secret, and cannot be overruled by any other court. I can't think of a single reason that would justify such a court or such laws. Their mere existence is reason enough to discredit any government.



Post 4

Sunday, June 1, 2014 - 9:26amSanction this postReply
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Teresa,

 

We aren't talking about voting.  I'm sure some people vote wrong for malicious reasons and others are well intended.  So what?  Voting isn't a criminal act.  We are talking about an act of espionage - revealing classified information.  The issue is whether or not there can be links between individual rights and espionage.  If not, then espionage shouldn't be a crime.  If there are instances where espionage is related to violation of individual rights then it should be prosecuted.

 

I don't think that you realize that you've just abandoned the concept of individual rights as the sole justification for criminal prosecution.

 

You appear to want to make judgments of a person's innocense or guilt on some crime to be based upon  their intentions.  What are you going to do, bring mind-readers to the witness box?  Hello Thought Police.  Someone commits an act that kills a dozen people, but says it was necessary to save the planet - good intentions?  When you make intentions the deciding factor than you've thrown individual rights out the window because they are about actions, not intentions. You've gone subjective when you make the law about intentions.  Snowden is saying that if two people both gave critical information to Al Queda, and one did it for money, and the other did it because he believed they are good Muslims being unjustly persecuted, that the first person should be convicted of treason and the second person should be set free because his intentions were good.  I say that is nonsense.

 

Decisions of criminal guilt are about facts.  It is why juries are call the "triers of fact."  Intentions might come into play after a verdict, in choosing the degree of punishment.  Intentions might even change the kind of charge (manslaughter instead of murder, for example), but not the facts - they are about the actions.



Post 5

Sunday, June 1, 2014 - 9:54amSanction this postReply
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Vera,

 

I agree that government officials should be held liable, criminally liable, for violations of the law, especially when it is the constitution they are violating. A government official should have fewer legal rights, not more - held to a higher standard, not allowed to make excuses.

 

But you can't prosecute voters for voting for a candiate that promises to give them goodies. We have to treat the vote the way we treat freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom to assemble - as an expression of a free mind. It has to be the constitution that stands as the dividing line between the freedom to advocate for socialism, versus not having the right to use government in anyway that isn't a constitutionally granted power.  That is the best system I can imagine, and it will work if we can get enough people educated to the needed degree. Anything else ends up being subjective and being fraught with practical problems to the degree it just wouldn't work.

 

If, in the end, society can't acquire sufficient good sense and understanding of what liberty is and what it requires, then we won't have liberty.  Sovereignty resides in the individual, not the system or the government.  If there are too many ignorant or misguided individuals, then there is no workable method of establishing lasting liberty.



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Post 6

Sunday, June 1, 2014 - 10:26amSanction this postReply
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Steve,

I'd mostly agree with your points as to our present society and government, however for a strictly theoretical discussion I'd have to disagree:

if my freedom of speech is used to incite others to plunder I will be held responsible in a criminal court. If a voter votes for someone who advocates plunder, sorry: taxation and what not the correct terms be, they should also be held responsible in a criminal court. And votes are a far more direct action towards granting others power and license to use or make laws towards that purpose, than me standing on a soapbox telling people to take back their taxes.

Sadly no constitution in the world stands firmly between such freedom of the individual and the dictates of the masses - it's always some middle ground between what's right and what's possible. Though it is the best we can hope for in our present society and government, it's a world built on compromises, not on idealism. So it's tricky to use the last few vestiges of freedom left to defend the parts that have gone down the drain with the latest election ... just have a look at the European elections ...

We'll see if "society can't acquire sufficient good sense and understanding" towards "establishing lasting liberty" ... in this context of Snowden against the state I'd say they failed miserably.

 

(Edited by Vera S. Doerr on 6/01, 10:30am)



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Post 7

Monday, June 2, 2014 - 12:21pmSanction this postReply
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Snowden is raising a clear distinction between defense of nation and defense of government and its agencies.

 

There is a growing disconnect these days.  The entrenched interests inside the beltway and/or those connected to the public trough in some way shape or form would like that to forever be interpreted as the same thing, to grant them a kind of perpetual carte blanche for the same old same old, flag waving or not.

 

Increasingly so ever since WWII.  It is only growing larger, and has nothing at all to do with political party.

 

This government forgot why this nation once went to war.   The American people have bifurcated; those fed from the government in some way shape or form and all of its chronic wars and emergencies, and those feeding it.

 

Its not a special breed of people that end up doing this.   It is what humans do when they unfetter their local state for the latest really, really good cause and/or existential national emergency.   Unfettering our own state to fight totalitarianism in WWII is something this nation has never recovered from, no matter how shiny the monuments are in DC.

 

Inevitably, it is the same E1s who bleed in the wars who end up paying for the gig when their service is over.   That pyramid in and around DC is not made up of the bleeders.

 

Our version of The Hunger Games is not what they thought they were bleeding for.

 

regards,

Fred



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