[liberationtech] USA Today panel with 3 American Whistleblowers
Tom Ritter
tom at ritter.vg
Tue Jun 18 06:29:54 PDT 2013
On 18 June 2013 07:01, Bernard Tyers - ei8fdb <ei8fdb at ei8fdb.org> wrote:
> I also thought Willliam Binney's view that Edward Snowden was potentially crossing a line from whistleblower to traitor with the release of information about the USA's alleged hacking of foreign computer systems is interesting. Is he right? Does it matter?
I think it makes a big practical difference in public opinion. If the
NSA and CIA was *not* trying to spy on countries like Iran and China -
what would their purpose really be? Clearly intelligence agencies
should be looking for intelligence on threats to the country*. I
don't think one of their methods to do so should include dragnet
surveillance of all Americans, but getting a WARRANT to go over the
telephone records of suspected terrorists is the legal instrument
we're pushing for, no?
* Among other things, like looking for incidents of 'bad stuff' other
countries do, to bring to the UN or other bodies: things like
genocide, political imprisonment, censorship, and so on
But if you ask the average citizen "Hey, is giving a list of targets
the NSA/CIA gathers evidence from overseas an acceptable thing for a
[spy]** to give another country in the name of stopping the
human-rights-violating surveillance machine?" I think the answer is
going to be 'No'. I mean heck, use Binney as an example of the
average citizen.
** The subtleties of "defense contractor" and "spy" are probably lost a bit
-tom
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