Promise discarded

[draco664]

Whistleblowers are great! They need protection!

Unless, you know, they expose *my* shit. Then its time to threaten trade sanctions against any country that offers aid to them...

Obama Promise To 'Protect Whistleblowers' Just Disappeared From Change.gov

[Pixilated]

That sums it up perfectly.

The news article showed up on my FB page. So ... is this Obama taking a new direction, or is this the real Obama, and nobody noticed until ... now ...?

[Gravekeeper]

Right, lets stop the conspiracy train.

Check the dates. The archived materials we're taken down on June 8th. The first article released by the journalists Snowden was talking too was June 6th. Snowden did not go public and reveal himself till June 9th.

I find it immensely difficult to believe that the administration not only foresaw what was going to happen 24 hours prior but that their first priority was updating a website that had been defunct since 2008. Especially over a single paragraph that would be difficult to apply the Snowden situation on a good day and is frankly, pretty harmless even as a political inconvenience.

The suggestion that the president himself has anything to do with it is likewise pretty laughable. Me thinks the president of the United States has much bigger things to worry about than an old press release on a web site from 2008. Never mind the fact that anyone vaguely aware of how the internet works knows you can't "scrub" a website with things like Web Archive around.

[Greenday]

Not sure what Eric Snowden has to do with anything tbh. He committed treason and espionage. He's not a whistleblower.

[Nekojin]

Not sure what Eric Snowden has to do with anything tbh. He committed treason and espionage. He's not a whistleblower.

I don't think the answer in Snowden's case is as clear-cut as that. It's not as though he was selling state secrets to the Chinese government. I think the line between "whistleblower" and "spy" comes somewhere in the realm of who the data is given to, and for what purpose. Snowden's stated purpose for giving the leaks to The Washington Post and The Guardian was to expose US spying on US citizens. That sounds very whistleblower-ish to me. But because he's exposing government secrets, and not "just" a corporation's misdeeds, it comes across as espionage.

On the whole, I think that it seems that Snowden was trying to do the right thing, not get a healthy paycheck - he was trying to do something good for the people of the US. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

Edit to add:

A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll conducted June 28 – July 8 found that 55 percent of Americans regarded Snowden as a whistleblower while 34 percent saw him as a traitor.[164] The Quinnipiac poll also found that in the wake of Snowden's disclosures, more Americans said that government goes too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terrorism (45 percent) than said that government does not go far enough to adequately protect the country (40 percent).

[Greenday]

I don't think the answer in Snowden's case is as clear-cut as that. It's not as though he was selling state secrets to the Chinese government. I think the line between "whistleblower" and "spy" comes somewhere in the realm of who the data is given to, and for what purpose. Snowden's stated purpose for giving the leaks to The Washington Post and The Guardian was to expose US spying on US citizens. That sounds very whistleblower-ish to me. But because he's exposing government secrets, and not "just" a corporation's misdeeds, it comes across as espionage.

On the whole, I think that it seems that Snowden was trying to do the right thing, not get a healthy paycheck - he was trying to do something good for the people of the US. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

Edit to add:

Well, when you join the organization with the specific purpose of spying on them and releasing their secrets, that'd be pretty clear espionage.

[Nekojin]

Well, when you join the organization with the specific purpose of spying on them and releasing their secrets, that'd be pretty clear espionage.

Do you have evidence that he joined the CIA with intent to learn and release secrets? You're the first time I've heard that particular claim, and it doesn't seem to hold water compared to what we do know about his life - he was a strident supporter of the US government prior to joining the CIA, and aggressively argued against people who leaked back in 2009. That doesn't sound like someone who went in with an intent to spill state secrets.

So... do you have a cite for the claim that he went in with that purpose?

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

The difference between selling state secrets and just releasing them is negligible. Espionage doesn't stop being espionage because there's no profit motive. That doesn't even get into the breach of fiduciary responsibility to Snowden's employer. Honestly, I find him a naive idealist which is something that only seems to keep you alive in places like the US. Many other countries they'd just shoot you dead because frankly that's already how the rest of the world views them anyway.

As for Obama... there's a difference between talking about wanting to run a government and actually following through with things once you realize what you've inherited. My favorite pop-culture example is Carcetti from The Wire. Sure you can talk about doing anything. But that may mean causing problems far worse than the ones you set out to correct. The Prez hears security briefings pretty much every day. Sure, they could all be lies but it seems odd that every individual who ends up in those meetings tends to be OK with surveillance and OK interventionist policies. It may, just may, be that they hear things that the American public doesn't because frankly the news sucks and domestic paranoia sells. We don't buy the idea of external enemies anymore. Hell, I'm trying to remember the last film where the bad guy was an actual foreign government that was set post 2005.

Diplomacy and CI work on the principles of every country engaging in roughly the same behavior up to their capacity. They all do it; they all say one thing and do another. We may have a problem with that, but unless there's a Snowden in every country (there generally isn't) exposing everyone's secrets at once, you just have one country politically compromised. That's it.

Oddly, the only thing Snowden has achieved helping to lessen US political clout in the world. What they're doing? That won't change until every other country does the same. So... pretty much never.

[Greenday]

Do you have evidence that he joined the CIA with intent to learn and release secrets? You're the first time I've heard that particular claim, and it doesn't seem to hold water compared to what we do know about his life - he was a strident supporter of the US government prior to joining the CIA, and aggressively argued against people who leaked back in 2009. That doesn't sound like someone who went in with an intent to spill state secrets.

So... do you have a cite for the claim that he went in with that purpose?

It was already known in 2005 the practice of wire tapping. He objected to the government spying on its people. So why then did he join the CIA after all that and work on those programs? As another website said, it'd be like being opposed to the death penalty, but applying to be an executioner. What possible purpose could he have had in joining spy agencies of which he opposed what they did?

[Nekojin]

Your response doesn't answer the question, it's merely a deflection making broad assumptions.

[Duelist925]

It was already known in 2005 the practice of wire tapping. He objected to the government spying on its people. So why then did he join the CIA after all that and work on those programs? As another website said, it'd be like being opposed to the death penalty, but applying to be an executioner. What possible purpose could he have had in joining spy agencies of which he opposed what they did?

Did not like one aspect of what they did.

Shockingly enough, its possible for someone to not like one aspect of something, but support another.

And there is a marked difference between what the public thought of as wire tapping at the time, and what he reported. A difference of magnitude.

[draco664]

Not sure what Eric Snowden has to do with anything tbh. He committed treason and espionage. He's not a whistleblower.

Treason is one of the laws explicitly defined in the constitution, and cannot be redefined via law without a constitutional amendment. He did not take up arms against the US nor did he provide material support to the US's enemies. Thus, not a traitor.

[Greenday]

Your response doesn't answer the question, it's merely a deflection making broad assumptions.

If I could go back and DVR everything the major news networks were saying, then post it online I would.

[Andara Bledin]

It it was something the "major news networks" were saying, then it's available online. Nobody airs anything but fluff without publishing it on the Internet.

[Hyena Dandy]

If I could go back and DVR everything the major news networks were saying, then post it online I would.

Anecdotal evidence. "I saw it on the news" is not evidence. You need actually show what was said, and who said it, and, ideally they should give their sources as well, because even a news agency is only proof a news agency said it.