Over 2:1 Oppose Secret Record Gathering

I'm not confident he didn't simply commit suicide. He showed many of the signs of a person contemplating suicide.

 

My hope is that he made it to mainland China and is hiding out.

 

There are a lot of places for him to go and a lot of ways for him to get there. There are also a near infinite number of people willing to help him. Whether he killed himself in reality or simply ended his old life to start a new one, he may never be found.

The focus of U.S. citizens should not be on Snowden, but on the information he gave us. If we let ourselves be distracted by endless speculation about him and his whereabouts, we're wasting his sacrifice.

Consider this, libertarians: do you read the same books Mr. Snowden does?

Do you order them from Amazon or even download them to your kindle? What do you check out from the library? Are you getting books from Abe Books or some other source sent to you via the U.S. Mail?

I'm asking because the U.S. Insecurity apparatus has just been burned badly by a guy who probably never showed them any overt signs that he was about to betray them. I'm betting he didn't make any suspicious phone calls or have any links to anyone the SPLC claimed was a member of a right wing anti-goobermint hate group. The only possible clue Snowden might have given them, had they been looking, would have been in his intellectual activities. What did he read? How much did he read? How did he access reading material? Where did he read it?

The NSA has an insane amount of unchecked power, and the only real threat to them seems to be "thought criminals." You know full well the NSA is not going to be able to resist analyzing our reading habits for dangerous signs of moral reasoning skills, patriotic leanings and/or interest in deep political though, vs mere partisan twaddle.

If the sociopaths running our federal government's agencies never admitted it to themselves before, then they must confront reality now: their biggest threat comes from smart, ethical people who have had "too much to think."

There's another pattern emerging, and the very employees the agencies prefer, those whose family attachments are weakest, are most likely to betray them. A deeply engaged family man might have the same moral qualms as Mr. Snowden, but he'd put his parents, spouse and children first. This means that the NSA is going to be more interested than ever before in the degree to which individuals with security clearances are engaged in meaningful interpersonal connections. How many times does he call his mother? It's great that he's willing to take that unaccompanied assignment to Farfromhome Lonely, but can we still trust him?

These two new patterns, the new risk that Manning and Snowden have illustrated, will not go un-noticed by the surveillance state. Introverted, ethical and smart? A security risk to unethical government agencies.

 

If he is smart, he is holed up on an island somewhere, bald with botox treatments and bone enhancers under his cheeks, running a fishing boat and learning a new language. With the press on him right now, he would be pretty nuclear to touch by our government. I would think he would be in much graver danger of a foriegn government taking him for his knowledge of the structure and system (internal US spying mechanisms and such), than he would be of a shadowy assassination attempt by us.

 

Cast your vote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...12ada1e-d1fd-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_page.html

 

http://www.trollthensa.com/

If you're interested.

 

If he went fishing (as bait) and no one says anything the media will forget about the guy in a few days.

 

At most a month or so, the information disclosed will be the thing that keeps his name in the news, unless he surfaces somewhere. I see the Russians are considering offering him asylum, China most certainly would offer him asylum (all news of thawing relations aside, the intel coup would be worth another 10 years of frosty relationships), any number of countries would make a big show of giving him asylum for the US. The press alone would be worth any fallout incurred from the US. I will stick with my initial thought process, in that I think someone (most likely other than the US) did the broad daylight black bag snatch and we will never hear from him again. Either that, or he planned his disappearance as well as he planned his disclosure event and leaving, and we will only hear from him again on his own terms.

 

I would say this, if we never hear from the guy again then someone took him out. Otherwise I think he will pop up fairly soon.

 

New Facebook privacy options:

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http://business.time.com/2013/06/11...ing-you-swipe-the-nsas-credit-card-data-grab/

 

First lawsuits but not sure if the right parties are targeted.

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram...e-smacked-with-class-action-lawsuit-wednesday

 

Firefox (the browser) has a letter up that people can sign. Comes up when opening browser,

 

I only open mine when it crashes.

 

Just trying to make folks aware of opportunities to have their voice heard. Of course NSA has already listened in.

 

Looks like Snowden put a snorkle up to see what is going on.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259335/exclusive-whistleblower-edward-snowden-talks-south-china-morning-post

Looks like we may be hearing more a bit later.

I was also thinking about what his situation might be. I know that we have a United Secret Service office in Hong Kong so I would be surprised if Snowden is not under surveillance, probably by not only our people but other countries as well. I doubt he can make a move without help from some other country.

 

And attention instead on charges related to gross overreach, misrepresentations to Congress, etc.

85% say No to internet intrusion, per the non-scientific vote.
I'm sure Pew/WaPo were solicited inside-the-Beltway for poll numbers to counter the enormous public discontent, hence coming up with headlines and statements plainly counter to what their poll data even showed. All the nicer for the WaPo vote Doober linked, as a direct public retort.

 

Nice comment at CNN relating to this, by deeniman:

 

Revealed today that Obama has blocked surveillence of Mosques but is ok if NSA tracks your every move, telephone call, e-mail, or text.


http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...ive-obama-terror-dragnet-excludes-mosques.htm

 

Sustained.