First they came for Manning and Snowden

[upi402]

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. Being pursued and locked up for breaking federal laws about releasing classified info

Is a lot different than being rounded up due to religion or ethnicity,

[upi402]

2. Are you so certain

[link:

|

[TheMadMonk]

12. And what of POLITICAL desirability/reliability? FIRST 3 on the LIST BTW.

Just how many persecuted enemies of the government, not even state FFS, will it take before people wake up to what is being done to them.

Just why the fuck should the people be stripped of every last privacy, whilst increasingly indistinguishable government and corporate players claim the right to ABSOLUTE SECRECY and the right to hold ordinary people accountable to laws that they are FORBIDDEN TO KNOW?

BTW great name if your enemy's the truth, or you're someone who has to wrassle their TV snacks into submission.

[ReRe]

24. Really?

And how's that?

[Katashi_itto]

43. "Never be Certain Of Anything...."

...It's a Sign Of Weakness."
_Dr Who

[kelliekat44]

52. Then no one came for me. I was puzzled??????????????????

[Pretzel_Warrior]

54. Lol

[JDPriestly]

53. Not if the laws create a political crime.

Is whistleblowing on the NSA a political crime?

I think a strong argument could be made for that theory. A very strong argument.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

55. Whistle blowing is different than stealing

[JDPriestly]

57. Depends on the point of view.

Is it wrong to steal evidence of a crime?

Let's say you learn that your employer is cooking the books to avoid taxes. Would it be wrong for you to take some evidence from your workplace and show it to a board member or the police?

Seems to me it would not be.

It would be whistleblowing on your boss.

[sabrina 1]

66. Our tax dollars are paying for all these Private Security Corporations, billlions in fact, to do all

this spying. I give my permission to any Whistle Blower to flag anything that looks suspicious and to make sure s/he has proof, documents would be just great to back up any claims made.

I think if we put it to a vote the tax payers would agree that we take peek every once in a while at what we are buying for our money.

Those are OUR documents, they don't belong to the NSA and especially not to the Private Security Corporations who stole them from us.

[Tx4obama]

3. Folks that admit they've committed federal crimes (felonies) should be arrested and stand trial.

Last edited Tue Jul 9, 2013, 03:25 AM - Edit history (2)

Snowden publicly admitted he committed federal crimes.

Now he should man-up and face the consequences.

[Cleita]

5. Actually, if I remember my history, Rev. Niemoller did man up

and ended up in a concentration camp. That's why that little poem up there, attributed to him, came about.

[Tx4obama]

6. Snowden will go to a U.S. jail then a U.S. prison - not a concentration camp. n/t

[Cleita]

7. LOL!

Wake up!

[Tx4obama]

8. I am awake. The sky is NOT falling. And I have no need to wear a tinfoil hat :) n/t

[Cleita]

9. Good for you, Texan.

Let me know when they come for you if you can. Most likely we won't see you posting anymore and then people will be asking where did Tx4obma go?

[Tx4obama]

10. LOL :)

No one will be coming after me.

I have not committed federal crimes.

If for some reason someday I do not show up on DU it will most likely be because I got old and died of natural causes

[Cleita]

13. You live in Texas, which is going into crazy places.

But y'all got ur guns to shoot it out. I hopes y'all win.

[Skittles]

14. "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about"

OMG it's like these people never read a history book

[newfie11]

23. +1

[ReRe]

27. +2

It's because they don't. Read, i.e.

[ReRe]

25. And then again, you might be the last on the list. Good luck. n/t

[treestar]

38. LOL

You are imagining things. Delusional and telling people who have a view of reality to wake up.

[Downwinder]

11. Thought he was applying for a safe harbor ... on Wall Street.

[Ken Burch]

26. Some of our prisons, it's pretty much the same thing.

We don't do humane incarceration in this country.

[Katashi_itto]

45. Then Spending Solitary

for the rest of his life.

That's not torture?

[struggle4progress]

64. Niemoller may actually have done something rather stupid. He had some popular support

in the early nazi era, and he and some others had a meeting scheduled with Hitler to discuss issues. Unfortunately, Niemoller seems to have joked on the phone about killing Hitler -- and the nazis, of course, had his phone bugged, so they were waiting for an opportunity to "reveal" this little tidbit. At the meeting, someone burst in with the "revelation," and Niemoller was immediately stripped of all official positions, and then (after some time elapsed) was sent to a concentration camp

Since the nazis were not exactly sticklers for the truth, this story might have been pure nazi propaganda, without basis in fact and intended merely to discredit Niemoller in the public eye -- but that's not entirely obvious to me, since in my experience a certain fraction of the politically-naive public predictably makes exactly this sort of dumbass joke

[Cleita]

67. Not quite right. Niemoller quite early was an eager Hitler and Nazi supporter.

He started becoming disillusioned and became critical of the Reich. I wouldn't doubt his phone was bugged. Nazis had low tech ways of spying on their citizens, like bugging phones, reading mail, getting your neighbors, co-workers and children to tattle on you. Hitler would have loved to be able to spy on us electronically like our NSA does us.

[struggle4progress]

70. Yes, Niemoller seems originally to have been a conservative supporter of the nazis,

and is known to have made anti-semitic remarks early in the reich. The story I told upthread, however, seems to be well-attested, in various versions: see e.g.

The German churches under Hitler: Background, struggle, and epilogue
Ernst Christian Helmreich
Wayne State University Press: 1979
pp 155-156

For the soul of the people: Protestant protest against Hitler
Victoria Barnett
Oxford University Press: 1992
pp 50-53

[cantbeserious]

15. How Often Do You Speed?

eom

[Tx4obama]

20. Oh, thanks. I forgot to add the word 'felonies' to my post. I've updated it.

[cantbeserious]

31. So You Admit Your Criteria Is Relative - A Crime Is A Crime - We Now Know You Are Not Serious

Thank You For The Clarification.

[JDPriestly]

56. Apparently some countries think that Snowden is accused of a political crime and entitled

to asylum in their country.

We give asylum to people who have committed violent crimes in their own countries and people who have committed other crimes too.

Why can't we respect the right of other countries to grant asylum to someone they view as a political prisoner?

I met a man whose job in Poland prior to Solidarity was censoring the foreign press.

He left Poland. He was given the right to immigrate to the West.

Did he commit a crime under the Polish law that applied at the time? I would guess so.

[Cleita]

71. Some people don't seem to get the distinction because of their myopic view of their

own country. The saying that one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, applies here. Except in this case you would say one person's whistle blower is another's traitor to his country.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

62. +1!

And the sooner we get him behind bars the better!
.
.
.
.
.IMO

[Cleita]

4. Rev. Niemoller. n/t

[grantcart]

16. First Snowden and Manning signed oaths.

Then they assumed that the laws didn't apply to them that somehow
they were above the promises they made.

Then they tried to evade law enforcement.

Now they are given attorneys.

By equating to those who have actually suffered for their beliefs you
have shown an amazingly callous disregard for the suffering that
those who were really persecuted experienced.

Nobody was hunting these people for their beliefs until they
asserted that they were special citizens who were above the laws.

[Summer Hathaway]

19. ...

[MADem]

28. I agree--it's mocking true persecution. nt

[Richardo]

33. +1000

[AZ Progressive]

41. Obama, congressional Republicans, and NSA members swore oaths to defend the constitution

and look at what they are doing, actively defying the constitution.

It's not only the little people that should have to follow the laws.

[marions ghost]

44. right

[JDPriestly]

58. Thank you.

Snowden wants to get his message out.

I suspect he still has lots to say.

The information about spying on Brazil and Colombia is now out. I wonder what else will come out.

Apparently the evidence suggests we were particularly interested in trade secrets. That is going to hurt us, but we are the country that complains about other violating our copyrights and patents. We should be particularly careful about respecting the trade secrets of companies in other countries.

Our hypocrisy is showing.

A lot of people, I am learning, do not have the ability to separate themselves from their identification with their particular nationality to be able to see their own country objectively.

That is interesting to me because I have lived in other countries and seen the world through the eyes of my neighbors. I always remained and American, and I was always proud of my country. But in this case, I think our country, the US is very much in the wrong.

[renie408]

74. God, I love the Constitution.

It is like the Bible, so flexible and genuinely something for everybody!

[CakeGrrl]

48. +1000

They made a choice.

Snowden is running from the consequences because he can't deal with them. The martyr complex gets sympathy and donations for Wikileaks.

[Th1onein]

59. Snowden and Manning had allegiance to a higher truth.

And they served that truth. I, for one, commend them for it.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

63. +1 n/t

[woo me with science]

17. Indeed. nt

[Behind the Aegis]

18. ....

I guess I should start packing my bags.

[intaglio]

22. False equivalence

you has it

Since when have Manning and Snowden, been a class of people?

And I rather object to you classifying the true whistleblower Manning with the publicity seeking Snowden.

[JI7]

29. TRUTH TO POWER

[micraphone]

30. I am astounded

I am not from the USA (New Zealand actually) recently some, supposedly progressive and respected, posters around here (I have been lurking for 6 or 7 years of my 64 in total) seem to think that whistleblowers get done like the proverbial dog's dinner for "breaking the law".

Some of the above posts seem to suggest that exposing government spying on citizens of THE WORLD (not just here or the US!), extra judicial murders and general war mongering on innocents is .. well... OK.

Sorry but when governments break the law THEY should be held accountable. I do not feel Manning or Snowden threaten me - the actions that Governments take (which includes my own) - DO.

Why are we blaming the messengers here??? I did not vote for my Government to spy on me. In times past whistleblowers were treated as heroes to revered.

Feel free to correct me.

[woo me with science]

32. Governments that build surveillance infrastructures

also build propaganda infrastructures.

DU is heavily propagandized, like most major political and news sites across the internet now.

[bobduca]

68. Full time posters here are obvious

but you don't dare point out that catapulting the propaganda is their full-time paid job, lest you suffer their wrath.

[woo me with science]

69. They don't have wrath. They don't have that level of feeling.

Every rising authoritarian government has made use of people like this to justify what they do. Some may wake up along the way and regret their participation in the unconscionable. Others will never grow a conscience.

It takes a particular brand of moral vacancy to do that type of work.

[Hydra]

40. The whistleblowers are no longer welcomed by the people who support the team

Rather than the law.

The truth can stand on its own, but telling it can at times be a revolutionary act, and come with the same sorts of consequences.

[marions ghost]

47. Some people literally do not see the dangers--

(speaking generally here, not targeting anyone)...why does anybody not get it?

--they don't understand how the technology works so they don't feel threatened by the NSA activity. They don't understand the implications of blanket data mining on this scale. They buy the argument that this kind of surveillance is necessary to thwart terrorists. Some are rigid thinkers who feel that "the rule of law" trumps individual acts of civil disobedience.

They just don't get it

[brooklynite]

34. They won't be coming for me...

...because I haven't stolen anything.

[BeyondGeography]

35. As Dan Quayle once said

It's a terrible thing to lose one's mind.

[Progressive dog]

36. Snowden and Manning are groups all by themselves.

It's going to take a long time to come for me if I'm statistically in the middle. 300 million people and they came for less than one a year.

[treestar]

37. OMG the exaggeration!

Those two do not rise to that level! They violated laws and are paying the price.

[COLGATE4]

39. Truly an insult to the situation that

produced this.

[Behind the Aegis]

51. +1 (but they'll never get why it is an insult)

[RudynJack]

42. Oh brother...

[arely staircase]

46. first they came for Aldrich Ames..... nt

[CakeGrrl]

49. You break laws, they do come for you.

We have plenty of people in jail to attest to that.

Why should Snowden be exempt from dealing with the consequences of his theft?

[Lady Freedom Returns]

61. +1 n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

50. OH fer fuck sake

[Lady Freedom Returns]

60. +1

[renie408]

72. +2 and I would like to add *gag*

[struggle4progress]

65. Let's do some arithmetic. Manning selected, downloaded and released (say) 750K documents

between his arrival in Iraq in October 2009 and his arrest on 27 May 2010, a period of at most 34 weeks

So on average, he selected, downloaded and released about 22K documents a week

Suppose he worked at it 7 days/week: then on average he selected, downloaded and released about 3150 documents a day

Suppose he worked at it 24 hours/day: then on average he selected, downloaded and released about 130 documents an hour or over 2 documents a minute

In other words, if Bradley Manning worked 24/7 on selecting, downloading and releasing documents, on average no document received 30 seconds of attention

If he did other things during that time, like eating and sleeping or doing his assigned, the time available to select, download and release documents decreases and so does the amount of time per document

If he was actually reviewing documents carefully, and only releasing the ones that seemed most noteworthy to him, then again the time available to select, download and release those 750K documents decreases and so does the amount of time per document

The numbers don't lie: the only conclusion is that Manning at some point began grabbing documents willy-nilly and downloading them for release with scarcely any attention to content

[William769]

73. Kick & recommended.

BTW people like this that get arrested for these types of Federal crimes are True Patriot's. The Governments pissed that they can't shut them up.

I stand with both.