He crossed the line when he told China we hack their systems, too. Of course we do, but for an American to tell a foreign power this info, straight up? Kinda killed the debate for me.
I don't do that, and I doubt you do either. You, me and the federal government =/= we. This whole fiasco, if nothing else, should show that. Otherwise, it's just a case of us illegally spying on ourselves... and even if that is coherent, what's so bad about that?
What. LOL. China has been doing the exact same thing to us. That blows your theory out of the water. China has always had the comparative advantage in sheer manpower. You are looking simply at technology and for some reason social media..?
I kinda disagree. I think the reason why he is being pursued is precisely because of the other stuff. If it is just the domestic surveillance issue, NSA will let him be. Google, FB, etc will do the denial job for them. And they will vigorously do that. Their business hinges on members' privacy. Unless I misread what your other stuff really is.
Would you be surprised if the US budget for engaging in cyber warfare was about the size of China's entire spending on defense?
No, not really. US spending most of its money on defense is something that has happened and will happen for a long time with the military-industrial complex firmly entrenched over here.
Ok, so it's not really a fair comparison then. In essence the same, but illogical to place the same level of concern on those things.
how so? because he exposed illegal activities by our government. his life is ruined for it...hero is such a subjective word, but i will say that what he did was incredibly brave. what baffles me is how supposed liberals who were against these type of shenanigans when bush was president are now defending it. maybe the u.s. government are the traitors???
At face value and not knowing all of the details, I understand his reasoning that he thought his duty to the Constitution outweighed his duty to his job and security clearance. However, once he starts detailing what we do towards other countries is where he crosses the line.
So the USA is bad because they are better at a particular form of espionage than other countries? It would be OK if they were just less good at it?
It seems fairly simple. The person I was replying to implied that our espionage tactics was evidence that the US is bad. That changes if every country ever has been involved in espionage. These aren't terribly difficult dots to connect.
So it turns out our American "hero" took his job at Booz Allen with the express purpose of collecting information on what countries around the world the NSA was hacking into. Now why would a patriot be so interested in collecting that information? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/edward-snowden-booz-allen-hamilton_n_3491203.html “My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he said. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.” ... Asked if he specifically went to Booz Allen Hamilton to gather evidence of surveillance, he replied: “Correct on Booz.” His intention was to collect information about the NSA hacking into “the whole world” and “not specifically Hong Kong and China”.
You weren't kidding. I'd instruct you son to attend as many games at Minute Maid Park as possible, or at least have him work there temporarily. He'll be well hidden from the NSA (I hear they have Direct TV).
No, it's evidence the US is significantly the worst, even if everyone is doing it to some extent. It's not really comparable.
So the gov't doesn't listen to our actual communications, but just looks for patterns across the meta data to find potential terrorist plots and using this stopped a NYC subway bombings thus saving lives. Does such a program need checks and balances. Sure. Does this make this guy a hero. Absolutely not.
