Slashdot Mirror
Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras Win Truth-Telling Award
An anonymous reader writes with news that Snowden has received the Ridenhour Truth-Telling award. From the announcement: "We have selected Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras for their work in exposing the NSA's illegal and unconstitutional bulk collection of the communications of millions of people living in the United States. Their act of courage was undertaken at great personal risk and has sparked a critical and transformative debate about mass surveillance in a country where privacy is considered a constitutional right."
The award will be presented at the National Press Club. It is hoped that Snowden and Poitras will be able to appear remotely (Poitras is in effective exile in Berlin). In related news, the ACLU has indexed all publicly released documented leaked by Snowden. You can even full-text search them.
To tell the truth
My beard, forsooth
Craveth proper soap
E'er since me youth
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
*sigh* Yes, yes, we know Obama got a Nobel Peace Price and nobody knows why, can we finally drop it? Everyone knows those things are mostly for show by now anyway.
What's it got to do with the topic, anyway?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It would go a long way towards making up for that embarrassment of giving Obama that award before he had even done anything.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
We are in sad shape when we give awards to traitors.
Are you talking about Snowden or the many criminals in the NSA and CIA who have won awards over the years?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Since the Supreme Court refused to rule on the latest challenge http://jurist.org/paperchase/2... we don't know if it is or isn't. In my opinion the original judge who said "that the program is likely unconstitutional" was correct, so the program continues to operate and probably faces years more worth of legal challenges.
Ok, sorry for the knee-jerk reaction. Let's try to be more level headed.
You know what's most astonishing about an award to a "traitor", given by the very same country he "betrayed", really is? That it is given. Think back through history. Can you imagine an award for Julius Rosenberg, given by any kind of US institution? Or let's be less "dramatic", any idea how a criminal of any kind would be given an award by his own country?
Can you imagine what kind of support for a "crime" it takes that the "criminal" gets an award for it? And we're not talking about a spy having backing in the country he spies from. That the Rosenbergs were seen as heroes in the USSR is a given. But we're talking about support for what he has done, without a doubt against the interests of the US government, and the support that he gets for it within the US.
That alone tells me more about the US government and how well the US people feel represented by said government than about the "criminal".
A government should represent its people, and the will of the people. That's the only reason, the only right, a government has to exist if it is supposed to be just and justified. If a government does not do that and instead prosecutes someone who does actually execute what is identified as the will of the people, then I have to admit it is kinda hard to tell for me who is the criminal here, the whistleblower or the government.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
that lying is the norm.
I told you before Yoda, leave poor Norm alone
I don't know who Snowden betrayed, but as an American, he certainly didn't betray me. However, those supporting the NSA's disgusting activities certainly are betraying the American people.
It's not that hard to punch that into Wikipedia, is it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Exiles my arse. Poitras and Applebaum engage in self promotion by giving themselves the artificial "street cred" of self-declared exiles. Oh how hard it must be to blog from Berlin coffee shops while on the lam from the evil US government.
We are in a sad shape when the whole population of the own country is considered "the enemy". And only then "helping and abedding the enemy" is a valid accusation. If you think otherwise, then any published news would be treason, because each news also helps the enemy.
The NSA spying on the rest of the world IS DOING THIER FUCKING JOB.
Snowden did not betray me by telling the world of the NSA's immoral spying. If those activities are part of their job, then their job is immoral, and I'm happy he gave us the specifics.
We should not be doing this to innocent people or allies.
If you're too naive to understand how politics work and think that our 'allies' aren't trying to do the same then you're just ignorant and small-minded
Why do you complete morons always assume that people like me think that no one else is doing this sort of thing? Rather, it's not that I think no one else is doing it, *I don't care*. That justifies *nothing*.
No doubt, they did break the law (constitution), but that doesn't justify releasing all the other crap that was ENTIRELY LEGAL AND WHAT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING.
What is legal is not always right. What is illegal is not always wrong.
In this case, I'd say their supposedly legal activities were wrong.
That made him a traitor.
Not in my eyes.
Thanks, Snowden.
The same? Maybe not. But at this point, anyone staying at the NSA is immoral. Ignorance is no longer an excuse, because the ignorance that these things are happening does not exist.
[End Of Line]
The NSA spying on the rest of the world IS DOING THIER FUCKING JOB.
Stop repeating things that aren't true. Unless that country is actively at war with the US, then no. The NSA's espionage and computer fraud (writing malware, sabotaging systems, leaving other vulnerabilities that can be abused by anyone) are an illegal act of aggression and breaks our treaties. Might I remind you that not too long ago, the very same president that is supporting the NSA right now had also called out China for illegal hacking and himself called it an "act of war."
This kind of bullshit being posted here just goes to show that shilling wins. I can't believe this kind of mindset has actually taken foot here.
Its amazing how you can't distinguish between an organization and the people in it.
Organisations are like soylent green: made of people. If "the NSA" is doing bad stuff that means people in the NSA were doing bad stuff.
not everyone at the NSA is the same.
Quite so. They have recently had at least one good, honourable person in they employ: Edward Snowden. That proves that not everyone at the NSA is necessarily bad.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Constitution. If it were there, we would not be having the problems we are currently having.
It's funny how shrill some people get when exclaiming Snowden as a traitor, but how *very quiet* these same people are when mentioning that the US gubmint has not only violated the public trust, but also the constitution of the United States, that legal bedrock on which rests all the laws of the land - like it ain't no thing.
Yeah, but Snowden: let's focus on him.
You're a moron.
You've just told us that you think the janitors at the NSA are as responsible as people like Snowden himself ... who you know ... HELPED TO ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT THIS SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Jesus christ, you want so hard to hate the NSA that logical and thought go right out the window.
GO HOME NSA YOU ARE DRUNK.
You've just told us that you think the janitors at the NSA are as responsible as people like Snowden himself
No I didn't. I merely pointed out that the presence of Snowden proves beyond doubt that good people are or have worked at the NSA.
Jesus christ, you want so hard to hate the NSA that logical and thought go right out the window.
No, honestly I just like winding you up because you're a nutter.
It is funny though that Snowden (who you hate so much) proves the point (that you love so much) about having good people at the NSA.
trolololololol
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm a US Citizen. I can assure you that Snowden did the exact opposite of acting as a traitor. I'm assuming you are also a US Citizen. You, however, have shown yourself incapable of determining the difference between treason and patriotism.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You mean like when we gave the White House to Dick Cheney after exposing our secret agent and her informants, thus rendering America blind in Iran's WMD programs?
VERY selective outrage there!