Snowden (2016)

kudos said:

I am. Rightfully so. He fucked over a community I love to work for and a lot of the secrets on technology he released I do work with all the time. So fuck him. He didn't know anything about what he released. He was a moron who failed his NSA test.

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It's hard the have sympathy for the 'betrayal' of the massive, ever growing Orwellian surveillance machine / culture. that is shittimg all over everyone. How the people building and running it arent the ones labeled traitors is mind blowing. I can't think of anything more Un-American than the concept and execution of these programs.

Malakriss said:

The older generations were too focused on Big Brother while Big Business noticed everyone would hit "Yes", "I Agree", or "Accept" without giving it a second thought. The younger generations are too busy lapping up all the "inter-connectivity" (which is doubly ironic considering the ideologies spawning from them) that the cost versus the previous versions is never really measured. They'll happily let Microsoft into their home with an Xbox camera or Windows 10 monitoring your every shitpost but would still complain if the 3-letter agencies did half of what corporations are doing, even for their stated purpose.

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Those Corps let .gov have at all their user data anyhow, not to mention how many zero days they have running to siphon off whatever they won't willingly hand over or don't want to ask for publicly.

Zapatta said:

It's hard the have sympathy for the 'betrayal' of the massive, ever growing Orwellian surveillance machine / culture. that is shittimg all over everyone. How the people building and running it arent the ones labeled traitors is mind blowing. I can't think of anything more Un-American than the concept and execution of these programs.

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Here's the thing. The whistleblowing thing is all fine and dandy. However, due the size of the cache he stole he took tons of other shit that had nothing to do with it.

He stopped being a whistleblower and became a "traitor" the second he bargained that data to Russia for safehaven.

grumblethorn said:

I worked in that community as well until the private sector caught up pay wise and the TS/SCI pay gap didn't matter. I think the man's a god damn national hero, and you sir are no William Binney (U.S. intelligence official) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Clearly you didn't because you are somehow unable to compartmentalize the difference in actions.

1.) Whisteblowing on highly unethical government surveillance scheme. This is objectively good.

2.) Trading a large amount of classified SIGINT data to a foreign nation for safehaven. This is objectively treason. Like, the literal definition of espionage.

The man can be a national hero for one action and a traitorous fuck for the other. The defense of, "I only sold TS information to Russia because the Whistleblower program wouldn't protect me, William Binney is proof of that!" That argument holds no water because of the simple fact that Russia still obtained gigabytes of TS documents through an NSA employee. Binney took it like a man at least and didn't sell shit to the Russians for a house in the suburbs.

The why of it means jack and shit because nobody gives a fuck why a traitor is a traitor.

Snowden had no choice to buy a safe haven from Russia. the U.S.Gov's retribution would be turning him into a Tranny like Manning.

Yeah not sure what you expect. If your government will rub you out, at some point you are going to do what it takes to stay alive. Its easy to say "eat a bullet for the country" but if its you starring down the barrel and your country has proven itself untrustworthy, I can't say I fault the guy. Fact is, he did impact something he viewed as a problem in the country and lived to tell the tale. I think he did the best he could in a total shit situation.

Fucked up part is he dropped what should have been a game changing wake up call for US citizens, and pretty much no fucks were given by anyone. He totally miscalculated the level and stupid and apathy that is 'Murica.

Phazael said:

Yeah not sure what you expect. If your government will rub you out, at some point you are going to do what it takes to stay alive. Its easy to say "eat a bullet for the country" but if its you starring down the barrel and your country has proven itself untrustworthy, I can't say I fault the guy. Fact is, he did impact something he viewed as a problem in the country and lived to tell the tale. I think he did the best he could in a total shit situation.

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Did William Binney die? No, but he did get unjustly fucked with.

Only reason he is still alive is because he is important enough to not get the suicide by two rounds in the back of the head treatment. His livelihood and professional credibility got trashed, though.

Phazael said:

Only reason he is still alive is because he is important enough to not get the suicide by two rounds in the back of the head treatment. His livelihood and professional credibility got trashed, though.

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And you are implying that Snowden would have been suicided when Binney wasn't for... reasons?

Considering they did extremely similar things the precedent would say no. You're an idiot speaking with your feels.

.govs don't whack people often, they fabricate things to ruin your reputation, label you a traitor and/ or sex offender. I think they get more joy out of ruining peoples lives than snuffing them out.