Opinion of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden

[opebo]

lol, neither of them have done anything heroic, you silly paranoid fanboys. Both deserve to be in jail and both give real whistle blowers who actually care about government accountability a bad name.

This makes no sense, Lief.  How have you divined their 'intent'?  How do you know who are 'real' whistle blowers who 'actually care'?  And why should we care about this imagined intent?

The net result of anyone who reveals what the fascists are doing is - well, just that: we know (or anyway confirm) what they are doing.  It doesn't really matter if the person who revealed it to us was some admirable superman or some sad, confused victim - except perhaps that the latter resembles us more.

[opebo]

Reckless, treasonous idiots.

This whole thing makes me cringe.

But why?  Why do you support the fascists just because these poor fellows are not supermen?

Bradly manning had all kinds of personal and social problems.  That kid was not mentally okay.  Plus all the so called Pentagon Paper analogists need to remember the Pentagon papers were handed over to the NY Times.  They were not handed over to some crazy white haired guy who commits rape in Sweden.

Why on earth should we care whether he had social problems, or whether Assange is accused of some unrelated 'crimes'?  Again, this is completely irrelevant.  (perhaps more relevant is the fact that the NYT is an agent of the self-same fascism).

[opebo]

Treasonous is harsh

it is, but what I don't get is why people oppose treason.

[opebo]

Assange's douchebaggery wasn't obvious at the time

I've still not noticed any 'douchebaggery' from the man.  Just because there are a lot of groupies for this type of individual doesn't mean we should assume anything in particular about him.

[opebo]

...the government needs to constantly balance privacy and security, and finally that the government knowing you called your friend is not really a big deal and doesn't really infringe on anyone's liberty/privacy.

But what's the problem with people knowing about it?  These whistle blowers merely reveal that the State is spying on citizens and slaughtering civilians in Afghanistan/Iraq.  Just because you support spying on civilians and slaughtering civilians doesn't mean you should object to knowing about it.  Heck, it is probably half the fun of supporting things like that to know about it.

[opebo]

I am leaning towards the view that PRISM is less of a counter terrorist program and more of an anti-political dissident program. The United States government's priority these days is the protection of corporate power, not the protection of ordinary people, which should be obvious to anyone with a brain (how many Wall Streeters have been prosecuted again??) so I'm not sure I understand the reactionary attitudes of so many here.

Give me a break.  The NSA as no legal authority to spy on people for political reasons.  And where is the evidence that it happened?  And where is the motive? 

It's fine to question the government.  But, there's a line between questioning and making up conspiracy theories.  The people who work in government are not evil people, nor are they owned by the banks.  You're just making ridiculous assumptions. 

This. I'm so sick of the conspiracy crowd. The government is not out to get us.

That's fine, but how does assuming 'positive motives' on the part of the State change the fact that these men performed a 'freedom fighting' service in revealing what said State was doing?

I really don't see the relevance of whether the State was 'good' or 'bad' here - the State wishes to keep secrets, and the people wish to know.  So, the people should thank these men who have sacrificed their lives to expose said secrets.