Quote from: AndyJackson on June 09, 2013, 01:47:18 PM
The left will continue to canonize Manning, while screaming for this guy's head.

And never feel a twinge of cognitive dissonance, let alone consistent ethics.

This guy is just as bad or worse thanManning in my opinion.

WHAT THE FLOCK is he doing in Hong Kong? The cross roads of Drug smugglers, criminal organizations, Spies from every country you can think of and Red China's cash cow?

ANYONE of those entities could buy what this guys knowledge of smuggled secrets or kidnap him and torure it out of him.

His going to a FOREIGN COUNTRY to expose this is tantamount to a defection to the enemy as far as I'm concerned. The Chinese will pay this guy millions for what he knows, set him up with his own house and a supply of cute little dollys to keep him happy and the SOB Knows it.

If I were Prez, I'd have the State Dept revoke his passport, take him to the US Embassy for protective custody then have the US Marhalls drag his ass back to the USA in leg irons and body chains for TREASON/ESPIONAGE charges.

He ain't a hero...then again neither was Manning.


Billy

Quote from: kit saginaw on June 09, 2013, 03:20:41 PM
He's a hero.   -No getting around it.  Just about all the snooping was against innocent citizens, if not all at this point.  It's historic. 

The Guardian comes out of it smelling like a rose, but that's okay.  Their journalistic integrity has my respect for the moment.

Bullshit....he's a scumbag...in the old days the CIA would have this guy killed.

There are ways to uncover leaks...like going thru Congress...you don't go to another country (China of all Fkg places) and hold the American Govt at bay with a head full of secrets any one of a number of our enemies would pay for.

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 12:23:09 AM

Bullshit....he's a scumbag...in the old days the CIA would have this guy killed.

There are ways to uncover leaks...like going thru Congress...you don't go to another country (China of all Fkg places) and hold the American Govt at bay with a head full of secrets any one of a number of our enemies would pay for.

Gee, you have no problem with the NSA collecting all this data, and NOW you worry about it getting out!
Here's an idea, our government doesn't compile all this information in the first place then you don't have to worry about it falling into the wrong hands1

Quote from: mdgiles on June 10, 2013, 04:00:11 AM
Gee, you have no problem with the NSA collecting all this data, and NOW you worry about it getting out!
Here's an idea, our government doesn't compile all this information in the first place then you don't have to worry about it falling into the wrong hands1

Who says I don't have a 'problem' with NSA collecting the Data?

I've done Intelligence work and security before....I can tell you that it isn't necessary to Monitor EVERYONE to catch bad guys...You don't catch the bad guys by following everyone in the Country...you catch bad guys by focusing on them

The problem is we are depending TOO MUCH on technology and are loosing "street sense"....these people are mostly tech geeks....not cops

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 12:23:09 AM

Bullshit....he's a scumbag...in the old days the CIA would have this guy killed.

There are ways to uncover leaks...like going thru Congress...you don't go to another country (China of all Fkg places) and hold the American Govt at bay with a head full of secrets any one of a number of our enemies would pay for.

If this guy had gone thru our Guvmit or our so called MSM we would never of heard of him. He would have disappeared, dead, no more. I hate to say this but if you don't believe this you are naive.
I have no opinion yet if he ia a Hero or Goat. But I do know it's Wrong for OUR Guvmit to monitor Every Single Citizen in this OUR Country! Also OUR POTUS has just showed with the IRS scandal he will USE any piece of Info to bring down his Enemies. Why wouldn't he use this info also?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 04:47:16 AM
Who says I don't have a 'problem' with NSA collecting the Data?

I've done Intelligence work and security before....I can tell you that it isn't necessary to Monitor EVERYONE to catch bad guys...You don't catch the bad guys by following everyone in the Country...you catch bad guys by focusing on them

The problem is we are depending TOO MUCH on technology and are loosing "street sense"....these people are mostly tech geeks....not cops

No the problem isn't too much technology. The problem is that technology allows you to do things that, simple manpower doesn't. There is nothing wrong with geeks; I'm a retired accountant, I would gladly kiss the feet of the geek who made it possible for me to do spread sheets on a computer - as opposed to a bunch of pencils, a 27 column pad, and an adding machine. The closing at the end of the fiscal year, in the old adding machine days, belongs in one of Dante's circles in Hell. However - and this is the big however - you need absolute trust in the people running the geeks and the geeks have to have absolute trust in the people giving them orders. And that's the what's happening here; like many of us, this guy no longer trusts the guys giving the orders. How difficult do you think it would be to pull out a number, find all the numbers that specific number calls and then check to see whom those numbers belong to. Not very hard to do, after all that's what they're checking for - looking for patterns. And trying to see if terror networks are forming. But the same technology will show if a Congressman has a mistress hidden somewhere by checking the patterns of every number he owns, and all the emails he makes or receives. What we have here is a geek who thought about the actual ramifications of what he was doing, as opposed to what he was being told the ramifications were.

Quote from: The Stranger on June 10, 2013, 05:02:58 AM
If this guy had gone thru our Guvmit or our so called MSM we would never of heard of him. He would have disappeared, dead, no more. I hate to say this but if you don't believe this you are naive.
I have no opinion yet if he ia a Hero or Goat. But I do know it's Wrong for OUR Guvmit to monitor Every Single Citizen in this OUR Country! Also OUR POTUS has just showed with the IRS scandal he will USE any piece of Info to bring down his Enemies. Why wouldn't he use this info also?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Yes it IS wrong for Our Govt to do this...wrong and UNNECESSARY as well as ineffective. But two wrong don't make a right.

However there IS a right way to do this...he could have gone to Rand Paul or a few other people in Congress and told them in general terms about it, Congress in turn could have launched an inquiry, subpeonead him with guarenteed protection and I'm sure called in a few more people to corroborate for good measure.

The same effect the program would have been exposed LEGALLY UNDER CONGRESSION OVERSITE and everything would have been above board and he WOULD have been a hero.

Newsflash....'Hero's' don't go to Hostile countries and ask for asylum for exposing US Govt secrets. DEFECTORS do....and a defector who wants to trade his asylum for secrets is a TRAITOR.

How you think this guy is gonna live in China....? what is he gonna do when his money runs out and he's broke?
The Chinese aren't gonna give this guy asylum unless they get something for it...they don't operate like that. And when they get everything they can from him they'd have no problem with booting his ass out or killing him.

Did you listen to Snowden? Did you hear him say he knew about secret CIA operations and CIA assets (Informants) and Covert operations..?wouldn't the Chinese, or the N. Koreans or the Iranians LOVE to hear about that Snowden saying that is communicating a direct threat to the US GOVT and he knows it.

Quote from: mdgiles on June 10, 2013, 05:10:31 AM
No the problem isn't too much technology. The problem is that technology allows you to do things that, simple manpower doesn't. There is nothing wrong with geeks; I'm a retired accountant, I would gladly kiss the feet of the geek who made it possible for me to do spread sheets on a computer - as opposed to a bunch of pencils, a 27 column pad, and an adding machine. The closing at the end of the fiscal year, in the old adding machine days, belongs in one of Dante's circles in Hell. However - and this is the big however - you need absolute trust in the people running the geeks and the geeks have to have absolute trust in the people giving them orders. And that's the what's happening here; like many of us, this guy no longer trusts the guys giving the orders. How difficult do you think it would be to pull out a number, find all the numbers that specific number calls and then check to see whom those numbers belong to. Not very hard to do, after all that's what they're checking for - looking for patterns. And trying to see if terror networks are forming. But the same technology will show if a Congressman has a mistress hidden somewhere by checking the patterns of every number he owns, and all the emails he makes or receives. What we have here is a geek who thought about the actual ramifications of what he was doing, as opposed to what he was being told the ramifications were.

Well you are hitting on an interesting point...this Guy is a CONTRACTED geek...not even a Govt Geek...I'm not sure we should have these people
with access to such secrets to begin with and definitely not in the numbers they are talking about. There is a greater chance you are gonna get more bad apples with a larger barrel.

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 05:21:42 AM

Well you are hitting on an interesting point...this Guy is a CONTRACTED geek...not even a Govt Geek...I'm not sure we should have these people
with access to such secrets to begin with and definitely not in the numbers they are talking about. There is a greater chance you are gonna get more bad apples with a larger barrel.

In any case it's stupid to have this much information in storage, BECAUSE ANYONE MIGHT GET A HOLD OF IT. Right now we're bitching about Chinese hackers raiding US files, and then we are going to put all this information out there for them? We should be happy enough that this guy was up front enough to tell us who he was, and to take his information to the press - as opposed to the Chinese government, or the Russian government, or Iran, or Al Qaeda

Quote from: mdgiles on June 10, 2013, 05:35:52 AM
In any case it's stupid to have this much information in storage, BECAUSE ANYONE MIGHT GET A HOLD OF IT. Right now we're bitching about Chinese hackers raiding US files, and then we are going to put all this information out there for them? We should be happy enough that this guy was up front enough to tell us who he was, and to take his information to the press - as opposed to the Chinese government, or the Russian government, or Iran, or Al Qaeda

I'll give you three to one odds the guy made a deal with the Chinese BEFORE he went to the press and the Chinese President KNEW ABOUT IT when he met with Obamao on "cybersecurity"...watch and see me proved right...again...

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 05:43:25 AM
I'll give you three to one odds the guy made a deal with the Chinese BEFORE he went to the press and the Chinese President KNEW ABOUT IT when he met with Obamao on "cybersecurity"...watch and see me proved right...again...

I look at it this way, he is not a high level intel officer, he is a geek expert in his field of data collection, not out in the field of surveillance,.
The only secrets he probably has are procedural if anything, and the worst he can do is merely confirm things the Chinese already suspected, but the info he worked with was only important to our Govt, which is quickly becoming the enemy, but nothing the enemy cares about, like who I talked to on Sept 2nd of 2011.
From what I've read, he was only a data collector.

Personally I weigh the two and believe exposing the illegality of the issue far out weighs what, if anything he may have that the Chinese might find useful.

Quote from: Solar on June 10, 2013, 05:57:01 AM
I look at it this way, he is not a high level intel officer, he is a geek expert in his field of data collection, not out in the field of surveillance,.
The only secrets he probably has are procedural if anything, and the worst he can do is merely confirm things the Chinese already suspected, but the info he worked with was only important to our Govt, which is quickly becoming the enemy, but nothing the enemy cares about, like who I talked to on Sept 2nd of 2011.
From what I've read, he was only a data collector.

Personally I weigh the two and believe exposing the illegality of the issue far out weighs what, if anything he may have that the Chinese might find useful.

Well we just don't know....I suspect he is a tech geek but still...he could have proceedural knowledge that could potentially assist Chinese hackers and he could point to certain programs they didn't fully understand and clarify. Also we don't know what documents or classified material he might have taken to corroborate his claims or "sale"....I still smell that rat

What worries me is that he says he knows about some CIA covert ops and Assets (assets=informants) now your talking about people who could be killed because of what he reveals. That is what he is really using as a bargaining chip...he went to some lengths to mention that during one interview I saw...beleive me...that is the big hole card he is holding.

Last but not least the cavalier way this is being treated might encourage others of his ilk to come forward and "be a Hero" and that would be a Baaaaddddd thing.

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 06:04:20 AM

Well we just don't know....I suspect he is a tech geek but still...he could have proceedural knowledge that could potentially assist Chinese hackers and he could point to certain programs they didn't fully understand and clarify. Also we don't know what documents or classified material he might have taken to corroborate his claims or "sale"....I still smell that rat

What worries me is that he says he knows about some CIA covert ops and Assets (assets=informants) now your talking about people who could be killed because of what he reveals. That is what he is really using as a bargaining chip...he went to some lengths to mention that during one interview I saw...beleive me...that is the big hole card he is holding.

Last but not least the cavalier way this is being treated might encourage others of his ilk to come forward and "be a Hero" and that would be a Baaaaddddd thing.

The way I understand it, is his field in particular, is domestic, not international, which is why he was privy to what was happening on US soil.

Quote from: Solar on June 10, 2013, 06:12:16 AM
The way I understand it, is his field in particular, is domestic, not international, which is why he was privy to what was happening on US soil.

He previously worked for the CIA so perhhaps that is where he picks up knowledge of covert operations/assets.  He admits that he could could have tapped or listened in on anyone...even the President....so he must have had acess to some classified systems.

I may not trust NSA...but I damn sure wouldn;t trust this guy either

Quote from: BILLY Defiant on June 10, 2013, 06:04:20 AM

Well we just don't know....I suspect he is a tech geek but still...he could have proceedural knowledge that could potentially assist Chinese hackers and he could point to certain programs they didn't fully understand and clarify. Also we don't know what documents or classified material he might have taken to corroborate his claims or "sale"....I still smell that rat

What worries me is that he says he knows about some CIA covert ops and Assets (assets=informants) now your talking about people who could be killed because of what he reveals. That is what he is really using as a bargaining chip...he went to some lengths to mention that during one interview I saw...beleive me...that is the big hole card he is holding.

Last but not least the cavalier way this is being treated might encourage others of his ilk to come forward and "be a Hero" and that would be a Baaaaddddd thing.

Uh, this all goes back to Obozo and his minions creating, this situation in the first place. You're mad at this guy for spilling the beans, as opposed to focusing on those clowns piling up the beans initially. Given the choice of somebody coming out  and saying "the government is up to no good" or saying "my loyalty is to the organization, and it's more important that I keep this secret"; I prefer that he spill the beans - or at least have the top guys afraid that if they act up, someone will spill the beans.