Drain

Current New York Times reporting is that, before he flew to Moscow from Hong Kong, the Chinese government “drained” Edward Snowden’s four laptops of all their data (see: NY Times Article).  Four laptops!  That’s a very large parcel of National Security Agency (NSA) secrets that Snowden took with him while he was becoming a pop hero to America’s young’ins … by outing the NSA for their imagined or real misdeeds. 

Now Snowden is in Moscow and he has missed his first flight to Havana on his way to Ecuador (see: NY Times Article).  I can’t help but suppose that, during this delay,  the Ruskies are duplicating the Chi-Coms in their downloading of all the United States’s most secret data that Snowden could get his weaselly hands on.  And I also suspect that Cuba and Ecuador will be duplicating this tapping of our twitty traitor's cyber-tree.  United States’ intelligence operations have not been sabotaged … they have been devastated …  The worst part is that we probably don't know exactly what data has been compromised!

And where is President Obama on this intelligence catastrophe … hiding under his desk once again so as to not show his hand to the youth of America?  I don’t think he can blame this one on a YouTube video.

I have previously written a blog on this Snowden incident (see: Excluded Middle) in which I suggested that Eddy Baby should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, he be executed. 

I think I was too easy on him.

Excluded Middle

There seems to be a crisp dichotomy between the opinions regarding Edward Snowden’s leaking of National Security Agency (NSA) secrets.  Many, like Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times view him as a patriot and Dick Chaney (among many others) think him a callous traitor.  Snowden himself says, “I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American.”  The Diplomad blog, which I often read, views him as treasonous … but many of the comments therein disagree … see: The Diplomad Blog … and please read through the many thoughtful comments.

Now comes my opinion -- there is a law in logic that deals with such a situation, namely that most opiners are ignoring that both possibilities might be true … or the “excluded middle” (see: Princeton Comments ). And so, I believe that Snowden is both a patriot and a traitor.  He has opened up the debate about what exactly the intelligence operations in this country should be permitted to do without destroying our fundamental freedoms.  For this he is a hero.  But he has also a turncoat … and, through fuzzy thinking and media grandstanding, is revealing many national security secrets that are doing great damage to our counter-terrorism efforts and embarrassing us with our allies.  Unlike many Americans, I don’t think that one conclusion mitigates the other one.

For this latter gross malfeasance, I think he should be extradited and tried for treason.  If he is found guilty, I would have no problem with his being executed.  Such a punishment would clear the minds of other potential Benedict Arnold's before they are duped and try to grab international headlines with such dangerous revelations.

Jackboots

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

These were President Obama’s poorly-chosen words in his recent commencement address at Ohio State University (for more on this, see: American Thinker Comments) … during the time it was being revealed (and reviled) that his administration had an extensively wiretap dragnet out for the Associated Press and Fox News reporters, a clear violation of our Constitution’s First Amendment … and had also given, since 2010, extensive jackboot power to the IRS to suppress conservative activists … probably with the intent of affecting the outcome of the 2012 election (see: Bad Apple).  Frightenly, this actual tyranny may have succeeded.

And, in the last few days, we have also learned that our National Security Agency (NSA) has acquired years of phone and Internet “metadata” (phone numbers, URLs, times, and durations) of virtually every American (for an interview with the leaker of these revelations, Edward Snowden, see: Guardian Story).  I strongly suspect that we will someday discover that the extent of these government intrusions on Americans’ privacy actually went much further than has been reported.

Now, to use Obama’s own words, this “sinister entity,” our government, also does have the obligation  to protect its citizenry ... and so there is some rationale for them to monitor extremists on both sides of the political spectrum … those who might be trying to do us evil.  

But, it seems, to this commentator, that the Obama administration is seriously unbalanced in its approach to such threats.  When the Director of Homeland Security (and, possibly, our next Attorney General), Janet Napolitano, was a tyro in her current office, she specifically fretted that those on the right were the greatest threat to our national security … see: Washington Times Story.  Boy was she off the mark!  Despite all these NSA communication intrusions and Justice Department First Amendment tramplings, every actual or attempted serious assaults on Americans on our soil over the last 4 ½ years have come from Islamic extremists … see: Washington Times Story

I guess I now classify as one of those voices against whom Obama was railing to the Ohio State graduates?   Damn straight!

Afterthought: With all of NSA's uber-extensive monitoring of U.S. citizens' communications traffic, not only did it miss the Boston Marathon Bombers' intrigues ... but it also dropped the ball on Ed Snowden himself's mischief making.  Perhaps it only is interested in our e-mails that contain  phrases like "Don't tread on me"?