Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden

As a nation, we seem to have lost our way.
If you haven't read 1984, it's available on the internet.

Bernie Sanders

Must Read: Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden - Ron Fournier, National Journal:

Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor? I don't care. You read right: I don't give a whit about the man who exposed two sweeping U.S. online surveillance programs, nor do I worry much about his verdict in the court of public opinion.

Why? Because it is the wrong question. The Snowden narrative matters mostly to White House officials trying to deflect attention from government overreach and deception, and to media executives in search of an easy storyline to serve a celebrity-obsessed audience.
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For the rest of us, the questions seem to be:

Are the two programs revealed by Snowden legal and constitutional?

What else is the government doing to invade our privacy? Until a few days ago, paranoids were people who claimed Washington had cast a vast electronic net over our communications. Who isn't a bit paranoid now?

Why did the U.S. government for years debunk what they called a myth about the National Security Agency seizing electronic data from millions of Americans?

Why did the leader of the U.S. intelligence community mislead Congress in March by answering a question about the program in the "least untruthful manner" -- a phrase that would make George Orwell cringe.

Why do Democratic lawmakers who criticized President Bush for exploiting the post-9/11 Patriot Act now defend President Obama for curbing civil liberties?

Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?

Rather than fierce oversight, why did the White House and congressional leaders restrict full knowledge of the programs to a few elites, and stage, for the rest of Congress, Potemkin briefings?
Why does a secret federal court almost always side with the government's requests to seize information?

Why didn't the president find a way before the leaks to tell the public in general terms what he was doing and why? Obama ran on a pledge of government transparency, opposed Bush-era surveillance tactics, and denounced the "false choice" between security and liberty.

Continue reading here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=ce874a42-a367-452f-afd0-fe76282426faSee More

Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden

www.sanders.senate.gov

Protesters Worldwide Rally to Support Whistleblower Edward Snowden

Allison Kilkenny on June 12, 2013

Edward Snowden. (Courtesy: Guardiannews.com)
Immediately following the announcement that the source behind The Guardian’s NSA spying revelations is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old NSA contractor, protesters around the world rallied to show support for the whistleblower.
In New York, a group of activists gathered in Union Square amid downpours. Organizer Andy Stepanian called Snowden’s cause “a marginalized story:”

It’s saturating the media right now, but history has shown that when these whistleblowers come forward—whether it be Daniel Ellsberg or it be Bradley Manning—within a short period of time, there are attempts to malign the individual or co-opt the narrative or try to demonize that individual for what they did. We should at least be asking questions right now that Edward Snowden put aside a $200,000/year career, a house in Hawaii and left his loved to go on the lam to show people the truth, which was that our government was spying on us without warrants under the auspices of the war on terror. And in doing so they violated our Fourth Amendment rights.

In Hong Kong, up to 1,000 Snowden supporters are expected to stage a protest to call on the government to protect him.
The AFP reports that the group, including lawmakers, will march first to the US consulate and then government headquarters to urge the administration of the semiautonomous territory to not extradite Snowden.
“We should protect him. We are calling on the HK government to defend freedom of speech,” Tom Grundy, a rally spokesman, said Wednesday.
“We don’t know what law he may or may not have broken but if Beijing has a final say, they don’t have to extradite him if he is a political dissident,” he told AFP

 

For the rest of the article:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174763/protesters-worldwide-rally-support-whistleblower-edward-snowden