"snowed-in"

I couldn't resist...

You don't need much coffee after this statement: "He [Edward Snowden] should be hanged by his neck until dead!" While that may sound more like a sentencing judge in a Clint Eastwood movie, those are in fact the words of former CIA director James Woolsey, on FOX News. Now before I get into this I just want to make two quick observations. First, Anytime Diane Feinstein and Republican leaders in both the Senate and House are on television agreeing, you can be sure we are getting screwed. Secondly, had Snowden blew the lid off of a "scandal" within Baine Capital or other private firm the president would be enjoying another beer summit with him right now. The man would have been royalty for time and all eternity within this same crowd and by the same CIC that now chastises him.

So... what do I think? Snowden is a complicated case to discuss with people, even with those informed on the subject, because they are often talking past each other about what he did. What did he do? Essentially he leaked three key elements of the our national security's signal intelligence operations. They are as follows:

1.) Domestic spying. The "meta-data" collection of every cell call and email on every man, woman and child within the United States. What they claim is they only record the phone numbers (both to and from), the duration of the call, and time/date. They have repeatedly claimed they do not store the content. Email is a little different. Their "code" allows them to store all the pedigree information as with the phone intercepts and the content, but only as unintelligible code. It doesn't get translated, let alone read, into the real words of the communication unless a technician proactively goes and retrieves it. This is blatantly unconstitutional. In fact it is reminiscent of the British "General Warrants." As the Rebel cause grew in sentiment the Red Coats would get a warrant issued for say, all of South Boston, and just go on a scavenger hunt for anything incriminating. I am diametrically opposed to this collection, and National Intelligence Director James Clapper committed perjury when he testified before congress that this was in fact not happening. Had this whole scenario played out under Bush, the Left would be apoplectic.

2.) Eavesdropping on foreign leaders. The Angela Merkel incident(s) are the most dramatic of these. This is the least controversial aspect of the Snowden leaks among the American public (at least so far as I can read my fellow Americans). I think we all kind of assume that everybody is snooping on everyone else (in terms of world leaders). I mean there's a reason that when PM Cameron comes to New York that MI6 sweeps his quarters and car, diligently. And that's one of our two closest allies (although Israel may not "count" to this president).

3.) Foreign Intelligence gathering. The documents he gave the Washington Post and UK's The Guardian (and they were his first and primary dump source) didn't just include domestic operations. They included information on email interception, mobile calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Northwest territories. Other documents revealed programs meant to test the loyalties of CIA operatives, in Pakistan; and a program meant to intercept emails in and out of Iran. And what's worse, he almost certainly had access to after action reports on Chinese, Russian, and Iranian attempts to nefariously collect signal intelligence on the US, in particular our foreign assets, yet he hasn't brought anything to light except those documents and programs that cast the US and her allies (most notably the British Intel collaboration) as villains. Then on top of that he seeks refuge first with China, then Russia. When Daniel Ellisberg (whom compared Snowden to himself in a favorable light) released the Pentagon papers, he didn't then flee to our "frenemies." In a Snowden address to presumably cyber security specialists in Moscow (the audience wasn't exactly wearing name tags) that made its' way on to the web just last week, Snowden said quote, "These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful." I wonder Titus, in light of this, are you still willing to award him the greatest hero since 1913 award? I'm not. I mean, is he more patriotic and heroic than Sgt York? Audie Murphy? Dick Winters? Chris Kyle? Marcus Latrell? No chance. However, Times Man of the Year (I'll never call it "Person" of the year) is certainly appropriate. But based solely on "impact" in 2013, not virtuous merit.

So what it comes down to is which Snowden are you exalting? Which one are you condemning? The guy who woke America up to clear Constitutional violations, or the guy who revealed sources and methods (or at least methods) to our enemies and praised such bastions of human rights as Venezuela? The NY Times editorial board issued a case for clemency in this week's paper. There have been a slew of dueling editorials for and against this. Very few include all three of what I have described above. They are all talking about their version of Snowden, based on what is most important to them

My solution is simple. For domestic surveillance abuses (and they are wide and vast) issue him official whistle blower status, and thank him. And after the ceremony the FBI can take him into custody for my number three above. I think he did us a great favor in alerting us to the gross overreach of our own government. He could have stopped there. And had he, I would defend him as a brave civil liberties warrior, worthy of praise. But he didn't. He went further. And at that moment he became guilty of treason, in my eyes.

By the way, this may all be a moot point soon anyway. The deputy director of the NSA, and the man charged with containing the Snowden leak, said on 60 Minutes that he is willing to offer clemency (after first qualifying it with the fact that this isn't up to him) in exchange for Snowden not leaking another word and handing over all of his documentation. I think that's Obama's easiest out. He can pacify the civil liberty advocates within his own party (and the Tea Party to a certain extent), and can still maintain National Security street cred with the GOP leadership. Whom, to quickly address your last post, I have one word for if they don't immediately shape up - Whigs. The original Republican Party went from six congressman to owning the White House (in Abe Lincoln) in a quick eight years... so just watch it Boehner, we've had about enough of this joke of a budget deal and not-so-grand compromise tact, both of which amount to little more than "socialism light."