Be like Edward Snowden

AND he only did so after the "proper channel" for whistle blowing, his internal superiors, told him to shut the fuck up.

I feel this always needs to be said. The United States has a lot of slogans and posters about integrity and ethics for a nation that has neither in practice.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/

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Do as I say, not as I do

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- “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
  
  80
- To be fair, it is a bit out of context: https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something
  
  10
Thanks for reiterating this and posting a source. Every time I see an article on Snowden year over year, someone brings up the tired old "argument" that because he is now trapped in Russia, that somehow makes everything he did "wrong", and invalidates everything he exposed the government for doing. The media campaign against him was apparently quite effective, and these soundbites are ever ready to jump out of people's mouths without any research or critical thinking.

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And of course, the next logical step is to leak gigabytes of secret and sensitive information.

-81
- ...Leaked to a reputable member of the fourth estate to decide what was safe to report. Do you disagree with the founders of the United States about the importance of the fourth estate's role in keeping leadership honest?
  
  The only other steps short of that would have been to either quit and shut the fuck up or continue participating and shut the fuck up.
  
  Sounds like you just wanted him to shut the fuck up about your freedoms being eroded by the government that's supposed to protect them.
  
  I don't believe willful ignorance is a defensible position, ever.
  
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- It very much is, if the offense is egregious. And the NSA spying on everyone and their employees trading nudes the NSA collected very much is egregious. And to make it sound like he just dumped the raw leaks does not make your argument seem more credible.
  
  52
- Become Russian with this one simple trick!
  
  13
- You're getting downvoted for stating what Snowden out for what he is -- a Kremlin operative traitor.
  
  -27

Snowden is a textbook example of why organizations should not be allowed to police themselves or control the avenues of reporting misconduct.

There should be a memorial to him in DC. Ruined his life to tell the people what their elected officials are doing with all of the power we grant them.

But no, to save face, ego, etc we drove him into the willing arms of Putin to be able to use as a propaganda tool so he wouldn’t be killed for daring to speak truth to power.

Support for prosecuting him did untold damage to my opinion of Obama.

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And the hundreds of drone strikes.

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Same. Honestly, fuck Obama. He's not as bad as Trump, but he's still a corporate Democrat shill.

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Snowden deserved Obamas pardon a lot more than Manning. I get the sense that Manning leaked stuff for the sake of leaking stuff, while Snowden uncovered a vast domestic and unconstitutional espionage program to which the general public was unaware.

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- NSA being an angry little child with a napkin aside, I believe there was a legal hurdle to Snowden being pardoned: You need to be tried & sentenced before a presidential pardon can be applied, as far as I understood.
  
  5
Of course he's not a traitor. He exposed politicians who were actively violating the constitution. Those politicians are the traitors, traitors to American ideals and laws. At the very least, they're criminals.

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Meme aside, I'm commenting to show appreciation for the correct use of quotation marks. Grammar nazi stamp of approval.

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"Grammar nazi stamp of approval."

This is a sentence fragment.

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- Touché.
  
  5
“If you see something suspicious “speak up” is correct usage?

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- https://www.grammar-monster.com/punctuation/quotation_marks_multiple_or_new_paragraphs.html
  
  I think they mean this.
  
  17
"Correct use of "quotation marks"

I don't think OP's meme used quotation marks correctly... 👀

2
- Normally if a quote spans multiple paragraphs, you don't close the quote at the end of the paragraph, but you do start the next paragraph with quote marks.
  
  This is just one sentence with three sets of double quotes.
  
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Assange made a fatal mistake

Technically not fatal

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- Yet
  
  11

Ah, the old HR trap.

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I hope one day he will be able to come home a hero and not a criminal.

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There’s no chance he’ll be allowed back in the US after, understandably, becoming a piece of the Russian propaganda pie. He’s basically trapped in Russia. On the bright side, it’s a gilded cage where he resides with his family.

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- Not where I'd want to be right now.
  
  18
Not even an impossible task. We just need a President that actually loves what America professes to aspire to. It's what the Presidential pardon is for.

Any decade now...

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Not like that! Do it how we meant to say but couldn't quite bring ourselves to say publicly. The way that protects the military industrial complex and the corporations and the lobbyists and the government officials from any charge of mendacious greed.

My favourite moment of that era was when Obama told us he was just about to drop dime on all the spying and Snowden beat him to it. Dang it Snowden, now I gotta eat shit on live TV. The American state simply cannot be trusted whatsoever.

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He wasn't even the first one. Look up Thomas Drake

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He used to call me on my cellphone

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Was he the secret AT&T room guy?

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Unrelated question, but ever since Snowden became a citizen of the Russian Federation, could be be drafted during a round of conscription? Or would they use him for cyberwarfare?

I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to fight Ukrainians.

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his value is anti-west propaganda so I doubt he will fight in any way

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And now they're on Russia's payroll

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Wasnt a choice for Snowden. He wanted to go to South America, they trapped him in Russia. Now he has to wave and smile to whatever happens there politically.

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- Snowden could have
  
  been an official whistleblower and avoided prosecution
  
  leaked only to US papers and avoided prosecution
  
  leaked only non-classified information and avoided prosecution
  
  Snowden sold classified info to enemies of the US. He made his bed.
  
  -71

You're not supposed to speak up about real things. Just roleplay dumb shit like the alien WAP being talked about in court with zero evidence of course.

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But he heard from a friend?!

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"Wait, no, not like that."

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The things he leaked were already known in a general sense to anyone that wasn't a teenager at the time.

But the details helped foreign adversaries. Which is why he lives in Russia now.

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I think you mean "ignored it for years while he helped build it and then turned coat as soon as the wrong guy got elected"

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This is false information. He tried to push out his msg via the internal channels but got ignored hence he had to step up.

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- You are misinformed. He spent years building these systems under Bush without a peep.
  
  -5

Commits espionage, then runs into the arms of his master, Putin.

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