Edward Snowden, Hero Or Heritic

     Recently the little piss ant who thinks he is an aardvark, Edward Snowden, gave an interview full of the delusions that have bore their way deep into his psyche. The man who is still considered a hero by many libertarians, and confusingly, by many conservatives, spoke candidly about his role in the high security agencies within our government. Mr. Snowden can not seem to keep his big trap shut about anything, excepting his dishonorable behavior and subsequent defection to this nation's enemy.
     I do not want my intentions to be misunderstood, I am completely opposed to the National Security Administration using a dragnet approach to gathering every Americans' personal Internet and phone habits for possible use at some point in the future. Even if the Obama administration was completely trustworthy (I will give you some time to stop laughing hysterically) how do we know that the one that comes after will be, or the one after that, or the one after that, ad infinitum? Make no mistake, I am not now, was never, and will ever be in the future in favor of data being collected on innocent Americans by government in the off chance one of those innocent Americans squander their innocence by participating in a plot to harm the security of the United States.
     What I am opposed to is someone who has been given a trust, breaking that trust by exposing classified information to the media, then high tailing it to Russia for asylum. Mr. Snowden had many other options he could have exhausted before spilling his guts to the media. And if unburdening himself to the media was a last resort, and he took it, then he should have stayed in the country he claims to be protecting and face the consequences of his act. That is what men of honor do, they do not spray their own country with the bullets of their cowardice and then hide behind the coattails of Vladimir Putin.
     Additionally, if Mr. Snowden is so loosed-lipped with classified information, and so chummy with the Russians, who knows what other data he has given them. Data that may actually endanger American lives or make it harder to execute policy in the interest of the United States. We must also look at the result of Edward Snowden's actions, which was minimal at best. As much as President Obama talked of change in the policy, the private information of every American is still being gathered on a daily basis. So not only has Mr. Snowden failed at exhibiting behavior becoming a decent and honorable man, but he has also failed to advance the cause of liberty he high-jacked as a conveyance to his Russian asylum.

The NSA Defenders Forget American Revolution

     There use to be very few absolute defining issues comprising the public policy discourse of this nation. That is to say that most debates of the past between Republicants and Democrats were how to implement policy that was in the best interest of the people of this great country, while still maintaining constitutional integrity. Modern times have found this nation in the grips of one party (Democrats) that wishes to replace the constitution and the free choice and privacy it enshrines, with the tyranny of big government. And another party (Republicants) who seem ineffectual at stopping them, and at times even supporting their destruction of personal liberty.
     The National Security Administration spying scandal is an issue on which there can be no compromise, if one believes in the citizen's constitutional right to be secure in their papers and personal effects. This includes phone calls and emails. For me it has been a sickening sight to watch many on the Right agree with the egregious violation of basic rights inherent in the NSA's electronic dragnet in which they have snagged every American. These so-called conservatives have decided for everyone that security is more important than liberty and that information has become a government commodity to be traded for the country's constitutional soul.
     The defenders of such privacy invasions as the NSA collecting the phone records and Internet traffic of every American, say it is necessary in a post-911 world to keep us safe from terrorism. But safety without the freedom of personal privacy is just another word for tyranny. These who have the sacred duty to protect the God-given rights of free people enshrined in this nation's founding documents, have traded the holy grail of liberty for the profanity of big government progressivism.
     The defenders of the NSA spying on innocent Americans justify the program by stating that the data collected is "meta data," and will never be used unless there is reason to believe there is a connection to terrorism. But this "meta data" is the key which unlocks the vault of personal data on every American. In the hands of an out-of-control executive branch, this data can be used to target political opponents or anyone else the administration deems worthy of privacy invasion. This has already happened in a spectacular and frightening way with the Internal Revenue Service. There is no reason to believe that this administration would not use other agencies under its control to advance their political agenda and destroy any opposition to it.
     I do not oppose the NSA spying on Americans because Barack Obama is president, although he is the first president since Franklin Roosevelt to use the power of government to crush his opposition in such a blatant and public way. I oppose the NSA spying on Americans because it is antithetical to the very foundation of the American Revolution, which for those who still remember, was about severely limiting the power and authority of centralized government. Liberty can hardly survive under the rule of a government authority with virtually unlimited access to personal information ripped from the dwindling privacy of every American citizen.

The Right Dishonors Itself By Lionizing Edward Snowden

     Have you ever had the occasion to hear someone on the radio or watch someone on television, who claims to be a Conservative, say something so antithetical to the core beliefs of conservatism you just want to reach through the television or radio and slap some sense into them? Well, I had one of those moments this morning while driving to work and listening to Bill Bennett's Morning In America. Mr. Bennett's guest host, Ken Wahl, and some of his callers were defending NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, and in some instances calling him a hero.
     I have written on this subject before, but this hero-worship on the Right for a man who conducts himself in such a dishonorable fashion is breath-taking. Do not mistake what I am saying, I do not necessarily have a problem with the exposure of the National Security Administration's massive data collection of millions of Americans' phone records and Internet traffic. I am sympathetic to the cause of individual liberty which finds this behavior by our government abhorrent. I do, however, have a huge problem with the manner in which Mr. Snowden conducted himself in this affair, as should anyone who cares about the principles of conservatism and honor.
     The actions of Edward Snowden were in no way heroic, not because the information he exposed did not warrant heroism for its exposure, but because he engaged in the broadcast of classified information of his nation from a foreign land and then sought asylum from other foreign lands. This behavior would be analogous to the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration Of Independence in France and then high-tailing it to Jamaica to wait out the Revolutionary War. Honor demands doing what you feel in your heart, and that which is supported by your principles, and suffering any consequences for having done so. Mr. Snowden conducted himself in a dishonorable manner and should not be supported or made the object of hero worship by anyone, especially those on the Right who profess to subscribe to the principles of liberty, which is built upon the cornerstone of honor. 
     The signers of the Declaration Of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honors to the cause of Liberty. Some actually lost their lives, and many lost their fortunes, but not one lost their sacred honor. Mr. Snowden will not lose his life over his actions nor will he lose a fortune, although some say he sacrificed a pretty cushy life in Hawaii to expose the NSA program. He did, however, throw away his sacred honor, that is if he had it to begin with. And those who have stood Mr. Snowden up as a hero have exposed their ignorance of honor and their willingness to elevate disgrace and dishonor to its lofty perch.

The NSA Defenders' Case Ignores The Constitution

     Since National Security Administration data mining leaker and all around weasel, Edward Snowden, made his startling outing of just how wide spread and massive the government's collection of Americans' personal data has become, there has been defense of the program from both the Left and the Right. At times, the Obama administration's degree of rigorous support for the existence of the program has been over-shadowed by the case made for it by those on the Right. And while I am no fan of Mr. Snowden nor the program he exposed, I can not understand why anyone who values the Constitution of the United States can defend such an obvious aberration of it.
     The defense of the NSA's extreme snooping program consists of two prongs. One, that the program is the only way in the known universe to uncover the communications of terrorists who mean us harm. It is a miracle that those responsible for U.S. security during World War II were able to fight the Germans, Japanese and Italians without rummaging through the garbage cans of every American. The second prong of the NSA's data strip mining program defense is that no innocent American has had their rights violated by the program, and because of that, the program passes the Constitutional sniff test. The promoters of such nonsense distract the unsophisticated with a no-harm-no-foul argument as it relates to any one individual's civil liberties, but misses the larger issue of the whole Constitutional concept of civil liberties being placed on the chopping block.
     A corollary argument to the no-harm-no-foul one that some on the Right have made in defense of the data mining operation being performed by the peoples government, is that national security is one of the few tasks in which the founders believed the federal government should engage. So, they say, all good Conservatives and believers in the Constitution should therefore support the NSA's collection of every one's phone records and Internet transactions. This leap in logic proposed by the proponents of the program is at best woefully uniformed and at worst deliberately disingenuous. The founders would agree that the national security duty charged to the federal government by the Constitution must be restrained by the civil liberties of individuals. There is nothing more important to the free and proper functioning of the republic than the concept of individual liberty and freedom, without it, national security is a moot point.
     Finally, the defenders of such widespread confiscation of civil liberties via a dragnet approach to collecting data, have suggested that it must be constitutionally legitimate because federal judges have said it was okay. If judges were so infallible when it came to civil liberties, we would still have slavery in this country as a result of the Dred Scott decision arrived at by judges. The fact that, as James Madison pointed out, men are not governed by angels, is exactly the reason that he placed individual liberties as the cornerstone of the Constitution as a limiting principle on the powers and authority of the federal government. The massive data mining program conducted by the NSA chips away at that cornerstone and threatens to topple the very edifice of liberty and freedom in this nation.
      

Liberty Sacrificed At The Altar Of Security

     The closure of over 20 United States embassies this week were the result, we were told by the administration, of credible intelligence of an increased threat of terrorism culled from the National Security Administration's massively intrusive data mining operation. The same operation that puts the liberty of millions of Americans at risk, whether any law abiding citizen has of yet been snared in the extra-constitutional net or not. And, of course, the timing of such a public announcement of a threat large enough to close almost two dozen embassies, and the credit for saving possibly hundreds of lives of U.S. diplomats being given to the controversial NSA snooping program, is at best a fortuitous coincidence for an administration that has recently been  caught with its hand in liberty's cookies jar.
     The unlimited net cast by the NSA in the sea of Americans phone calls and Internet transactions is similar to the general warrants issued by the British, which was one of the reasons the American colonists were so upset and went to war to break their ties with the motherland. But the current incarnation of general warrants is condoned and supported by some on the right, which is the most disheartening thing to anyone who values the Constitution of the United States. The reason that liberty and freedom have been sacrificed at the altar of security is that the Obama administration has transformed the intelligence gathering apparatus of the U.S. government into a data analysis operation. The number of actual agents on the ground mining for intelligence has been cut in half by the Obama administration and replaced with computer geeks who pour over yours and mine phone and Internet records looking for bits of information that use to be gathered with real honest to goodness spying.
     The people doing the intelligence gathering now, for the most part, are people like Valerie Plame. Remember her? She was the so-called "spy" who the Bush administration was accused of outing, resulting in Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby going to prison for a process crime in an investigation that should have never taken place. Ms. Plame was not a spy as you or I might define that term, but was a desk jockey whose days were spent analyzing reams of raw data. And the fact that the Obama administration has increased the number of Valerie Plames in U.S. intelligence agencies, has made it necessary for the NSA to keep them all fed with data to analyze.
     Supporters of the NSA program claim that it makes it easier to foil terrorist plots, thus keeping Americans safe. Easier than what? Having agents infiltrating terrorist organizations, developing relationships with human assets and tracking the phone calls and Internet traffic of those individuals actually involved in terrorism. Or are we now to accept the disappearing of our liberty anytime it makes it more convenient for our government to "protect" us? Even the most ardent supporters of the NSA data mining program could not make a credible case that the founders of this great nation would condone its intrusion upon the personal liberty of millions of Americans. There is nothing to be gained from safety at the expense of liberty, and no more intolerable a sin than that of government intrusion upon the private communications of Americans without just cause. We can no longer allow the carrot of security to be used by supporters of the NSA program in order to pummel the cause of liberty with the stick of tyranny,   

The Lonsome Ballad Of Edward Snowden

     Edward Snowden, the man without a country or a conscience, who gained world wide recognition for revealing to what extent the National Security Administration under Barack Obama was gathering data on every American citizen, finds himself stuck at a Moscow airport looking for a ride to anywhere but his homeland of the United States of America. Edward Snowden was clearly in the wrong, not for revealing the liberty gobbling NSA program that minds data for, who knows what purpose, but for the process he used to expose it.
      There were many options open to Edward Snowden, a list that should not have included abandoning his country. Mr. Snowden should have first taken his concerns to the Inspector General assigned to oversee the National Security Administration. If his concerns were not addressed by the Inspector General, Mr. Snowden could have written a letter to every member of both the House and Senate Intelligence committees. After allowing sufficient time for the members to act on the information, and without them having done so, Edward Snowden could have approached members of Congress that he may have considered friendly to his cause, like Rand Paul.
     After all possibilities were exhausted within the chain of government command, Mr. Snowden, feeling that his cause was still just and the consequences were worthy of that cause, could have gone to what he considered a balanced news outlet in the U.S. and exposed the program. This option would have required the courage on Mr. Snowden's part to stand and face any and all legal consequences for his loose lips. But Mr. Snowden did not choose to be courageous, instead opting for starting a firestorm and then hiding in Russia, which is not exactly a friend to the United States, and seeking asylum in, among other countries, Venezuela, which is as close to an enemy of the U.S. as a nation can come without publicly declaring so.
     Edward Snowden's sin, then, was not in the exposing of a government snooping program that the administration, with the help of some misguided individuals on the right, has vigorously defended. A program that stretched, if not exceeded, the limits of even the liberty-challenged Patriot Act. The Snowden sin was not even that he did not implement a remedy of proper protocol. No, Edward Snowden's sin was a simple case of cowardice. His convictions, what little may have existed, were made to stand naked against the cold winds of consequences without even the thinnest cloak of courage to sustain them.
    

The Oppresive Nature Of The NSA Fishing Expedition

     Last week in a speech, President Obama said that if the people can not trust government, then we have a problem. As per usual, the President exhibited either his disdain for the founding of this great nation or his ignorance of it. It is trust placed in government by the governed that results in the very behavior exemplified by the many recent Obama administration scandals. And the Founding Fathers of this nation built its government in the way that they did precisely because of their inherent mistrust of government. They implored their progeny to always have a similar distrust in order to ensure the blessings of liberty. The framers of the Constitution knew that once the sewage of big government was allowed to pollute the pool of liberty, the pathogens of tyranny would grow and multiply, resulting in the cancer of oppression.
     One of the most venomous aspects of the growing Leftist ideology over the last 50 years has been the destruction of the moral certitude and basis upon which this nation was founded. This concept is no better illustrated than by the National Security Administration scandal, whereby the people's government continues to seize a billion phone records a day of average Americans from Verizon and other wireless carriers, all in the name of national security. It is shocking that those on the right, especially those who claim to be conservative, have stated that they see nothing wrong with the blatant invasion of privacy by the NSA. They squeamishly proffer the argument that this mitigation of our natural rights guaranteed by the Constitution, is necessary to protect us from the threat of terrorism. I have even heard some on the right say that since there are no victims as of yet, that have had their lives affected in any negative way, that this big government program is OK, no harm, no foul. Are we to accept that the government is only restricted by the enumerated powers in the Constitution when there occurs a victim from one of their policies? By then it is too late to reverse course, the founders knew this and that is why they severely limited the powers of the Federal government.
     We should never allow crisis to be the driver of government policies, which nibble at the fringes of the founding principles of this country, causing the winds of federal power to become so great that they overcome the very moorings of liberty. This is what has occurred in recent decades, and the most destructive outcome of this growing Leftism is not the lack of morality, but a total moral inversion. The moral inversion which teaches that freedom is a ticket to irresponsibility and that liberty can only be ensured by bigger and bigger government. The fact that so many on the right and in the middle have succumbed to the immorality that sees the mass confiscation of citizens' phone records as no big deal, is proof of our tittering on the cliff that jets out above the abyss of tyranny and oppression.