Tues 9Jul2013 Well, it didn't take long for Edward Snowden to go from 'Hero to Nero'. In case you can't remember the salient points of the history of the Roman Empire, Emperor Nero was adopted by his great uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death. In 64, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, which many Romans believed Nero himself had started in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne. Facing assassination, he committed suicide on 9 June 68 (the first Roman emperor to do so).
By gradually leaking more US intelligence secrets and linking up with accused rapist, Ecudorian Embassy fugitive and WikiLeaks autocrat Julian Assange, Snowden has obviously decided to follow a similar 'scorched earth' policy with respect to US national security, his own reputation and future well being. In effect, Edward Snowden, is seeking to burn down the national security apparatus of the United States in order to clear the way for his WikiLeaks idealistic nirvana. It is obvious from reports that Snowden joined Booz Allen Hamilton with the specific aim of finding out details of how the US Government collects intelligence that Edward Snowden is, in fact, a premeditated WikiLeaker.
Instead of staying on the high ground (supported by majority free thinkers like me below) and fighting on the simple principle that the wholesale clandestine gathering of aggregated personal information on citizens without cause by Governments is, and should be illegal, in any 'liberal democracy', Snowden has been dragged into the power politics of the economic (China, EU, US) and military (Russia, US) superpowers. His leaking of petty details of US national security snooping is as stupid as it is expected. Of course, the US bugs EU institutions just as the Chinese have an industrial sized global cyber spying operation aimed at other countries. Only the nascent European Union is behind the curve and that is because the decision making process of this body are supra-national and disjointed. You can bet the national governments of the EU are spying on other governments (particularly other EU governments) like crazy. And so they should be, good intelligence operations prevents wars!
The WikiLeak crazies behind Edward Snowden have convinced him that President Obama is out to assassinate him and as a result of his 'Nero-like' behaviours Snowden is likely to end up in some Latin American autocratic shit hole (that proclaims itself to be a democracy while perpetuating a self serving, inequality inducing, oligarchy) forever looking over his shoulder. He is more likely to end up like Nero than living the life of a Hero. What a chump!
Check Out 'Soviet Balls': My (wee) Subversive Part in the Decline and Fall of the Soviet 'Evil Empire'
By gradually leaking more US intelligence secrets and linking up with accused rapist, Ecudorian Embassy fugitive and WikiLeaks autocrat Julian Assange, Snowden has obviously decided to follow a similar 'scorched earth' policy with respect to US national security, his own reputation and future well being. In effect, Edward Snowden, is seeking to burn down the national security apparatus of the United States in order to clear the way for his WikiLeaks idealistic nirvana. It is obvious from reports that Snowden joined Booz Allen Hamilton with the specific aim of finding out details of how the US Government collects intelligence that Edward Snowden is, in fact, a premeditated WikiLeaker.
Instead of staying on the high ground (supported by majority free thinkers like me below) and fighting on the simple principle that the wholesale clandestine gathering of aggregated personal information on citizens without cause by Governments is, and should be illegal, in any 'liberal democracy', Snowden has been dragged into the power politics of the economic (China, EU, US) and military (Russia, US) superpowers. His leaking of petty details of US national security snooping is as stupid as it is expected. Of course, the US bugs EU institutions just as the Chinese have an industrial sized global cyber spying operation aimed at other countries. Only the nascent European Union is behind the curve and that is because the decision making process of this body are supra-national and disjointed. You can bet the national governments of the EU are spying on other governments (particularly other EU governments) like crazy. And so they should be, good intelligence operations prevents wars!
The WikiLeak crazies behind Edward Snowden have convinced him that President Obama is out to assassinate him and as a result of his 'Nero-like' behaviours Snowden is likely to end up in some Latin American autocratic shit hole (that proclaims itself to be a democracy while perpetuating a self serving, inequality inducing, oligarchy) forever looking over his shoulder. He is more likely to end up like Nero than living the life of a Hero. What a chump!
Check Out 'Soviet Balls': My (wee) Subversive Part in the Decline and Fall of the Soviet 'Evil Empire'
Why Bradley Manning is a Criminal and Edward Snowden is a Hero (as of today)
Mon 10Jun2013 From what we know today about the leaking activities of the WikiLeaks protagonist, Bradley Manning, currently being Court Marshaled at Fort Meade, and Edward Snowden currently in self imposed imprisonment in a Hong Kong luxury hotel, the respective merits of their individual actions are quite clear. The cases may have some similarities but are in fact are quite different. Bradley Manning is a traitorous criminal and Edward Snowden is a brave whistle blower who has risked his livelihood and possibly his life. It is important to note this because media opinion-formers are already starting to draw wrong conclusions about the undoubted similarities between the two men: both are US citizens, in the pay of the US government, proclaiming the protection of a 'higher truth' to justify their actions.
Witness this tweet yesterday from BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason linking the two men in some sort of titanic liberal struggle against the state.
Witness this tweet yesterday from BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason linking the two men in some sort of titanic liberal struggle against the state.
What you are witnessing tonight with Guardisn/NSA is Round 2 of the info war between states and people. Bradley Manning was Round One.
— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) June 9, 2013
If you think about it however, the cases are different in two key respects to do with the principles underlying the actions of each man and the proportionality of what they did.
In terms of principles, Manning opposed wholesale the US government's international policies and strategy, whereas (as far as we know today) Snowdon had a particular axe to grind about a specific aspect of the US government's policy, namely its blanket hoovering of data from practically anyone consuming the communication services of the major Internet companies. In Bradley Manning's case, US voters had already had the chance to vote on the foreign policy of their government which was plain for all to see. This is not the case with the avarice shown by the NSA's Big Data project, code named 'Prism', that Edward Snowden brought to light. The US Government (and any other government involved with them - the UK?) started this illegal 'fishing expedition' of ALL citizens' private communications in complete secrecy.
In terms of principles, Manning opposed wholesale the US government's international policies and strategy, whereas (as far as we know today) Snowdon had a particular axe to grind about a specific aspect of the US government's policy, namely its blanket hoovering of data from practically anyone consuming the communication services of the major Internet companies. In Bradley Manning's case, US voters had already had the chance to vote on the foreign policy of their government which was plain for all to see. This is not the case with the avarice shown by the NSA's Big Data project, code named 'Prism', that Edward Snowden brought to light. The US Government (and any other government involved with them - the UK?) started this illegal 'fishing expedition' of ALL citizens' private communications in complete secrecy.
US Govt #Prism programme scary rollout timeline. Practically it covers the whole Net! We're heading for disaster twitter.com/garysballs/sta…
— Gary Ling (@garysballs) June 8, 2013
Another reason why the cases are not similar in reality is that the two instances are also disproportionate in terms of the amount of data released to serve the stated objectives of their respective Leakers. Manning's ill considered, bulk, indiscriminate leaking of 250,000 United States diplomatic cables and 500,000 army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs was a huge amount of data that put others' lives at risk with whom he was serving in the the US military and beyond. In fact, Manning's vast data package broke the very privacy rules that Snowdon's discriminate and considered release of presentation slides was trying to protect. Aren't emails between emissaries in foreign embassies and their home governments equally deserving of privacy?
See details of the type of data collected by the US Govt full on #Prism programme. What is 'special requests'? twitter.com/garysballs/sta…
— Gary Ling (@garysballs) June 8, 2013
By endeavouring to link the actions of these two men in some sort of anti-state campaign, the rights and wrongs of each man's actions become blurred; and, in the case of Snowdon belittle his heroic action (as far as can be assessed with the public information on hand today) in bringing to light a project that is not only illegal but ultimately self defeating. For even those of us who support the actions of the security services (and may have played a small historic part in protecting national security) recognise that such a blanket trawl of personal information is likely to eventually be abused. In short, we may end up with an outcome worse than the terrorist threats we are trying to protect ourselves against.
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