http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers
[There] is another man whose story has never been told before, who is speaking out publicly for the first time here. His name is John Crane, and he was a senior official in the Department of Defense who fought to provide fair treatment for whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake – until Crane himself was forced out of his job and became a whistleblower as well. His testimony reveals a crucial new chapter in the Snowden story – and Crane's failed battle to protect earlier whistleblowers should now make it very clear that Snowden had good reasons to go public with his revelations.
During dozens of hours of interviews, Crane told me how senior Defense Department officials repeatedly broke the law to persecute Drake. First, he alleged, they revealed Drake's identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge. The supreme irony? In their zeal to punish Drake, these Pentagon officials unwittingly taught Snowden how to evade their clutches when the 29-year-old NSA contract employee blew the whistle himself.
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Former Attorney General Eric Holder has said that Edward Snowden "performed a public service":
The former US attorney general Eric Holder has said the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by starting a debate over government surveillance techniques.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod, a former campaign strategist for Barack Obama, Holder emphasized, however, that Snowden must still be punished.
"We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made," Holder said, in an hourlong discussion on The Axe Files. "Now, I would say that doing what he did – and the way he did it – was inappropriate and illegal."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @02:38AM
Probably all of us who are old enough have heard about them. But, hearing, and understanding are entirely different things. Good article, in that it pulls together a lot of vaguely known "facts", and creates a clear narrative of what would have happened to Snowden, if he "played by the rules". Just like a casino, the rules are written in favor of the house. Players are screwed, even if/when they win. (Remember, when you win, you only walk out with 2/3 of your winnings - the OTHER "house" takes it's cut before you get yours!)
And, once again, I declare Snowden to be a hero. The people who want his blood are the traitors.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @04:08AM
Holy shit, Runaway, am I gonna have to report you to JMorris and KHallow for insufficient jingoism^W patriotism? You sound like a dirty stinkin' Muslim atheist gay Jew terr'ist illegal Ay-rab job-stealin' welfare-moochin' lazy immigrant refugee rapist Mexican 'Murrica-hater whut don't own a gun an' wants the New World Order t' force our women to deny Christ, practice witchcraft, and become lesbians!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @04:16AM
Azuma - I begin to suspect that you live in a very circumscribed world. It is clear that you believe that I also live in such a small world. There are bigger issues than whether confused individuals should be permitted to pee in a potty reserved for girls. In fact, that isn't even an issue in the real world. Please, expand your horizons. Deviants and deviancy is only a small part of life.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @05:06AM
...what the fuck? Are you referring to my attempts to reason with Kurenai or something?
Seriously, what the hell was that little cranium-shart just now about? Sounds like some kind of overemotional deflecting tactic to me. Almost as if you don't like it when someone points out that you are, as a paleocon, neither flesh nor fowl in today's political world, yet STILL have some of the worst traits of the people you claim to be above...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @05:40AM
One or both of us is entirely out of touch with reality. Scroll up and read your own post.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday May 23 2016, @05:53AM
Both. [duck]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @09:20AM
hey fuck you i love ducks!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday May 23 2016, @11:12AM
Whole thread is derailed so why not. It would seem to me that the people who are truly confused are the ones who turn me away from the men's room.
I would suggest before engaging in bathroom policing, that one should at least become educated on the effects of HRT on the body. Cisgendered women could get hurt! At the very least, I relish the idea of forcing 9,999 “real” women to present their birth certificate at the bathroom door for the chance of catching the 1/10,000 "confused" one. At least in the time between beginning the “real life test” and getting said birth certificate updated.
Believe the feminist lies! Bathroom rapists around every corner! Gender is a social construct! Only you can rush in to the women's room to rough up the pervert you just saw going in! The matrix¹ has you….
¹ Possibly the moon matrix—never discount the possibility of lizard people!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @11:01AM
I'm having an increasingly difficult time following the guidelines in the moderation FAQ,
, after observing your repeated Ad Hominem attacks against Runaway1956. Your attacks add nothing to the topic's discussion and are an annoying distraction at best.
Please focus on attacking the flaws in the ideas presented rather than attacking the poster.
If you instead continue in your lack of restraint, I'm also going to cease restraining myself from moderating as many of your offtopic and flamebait comments I regretfully encounter as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @11:23AM
"If you ever get the chance to travel with a Mexican rodeo... pass."
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @03:51PM
So long as you do it with your actual name so I know who you are, rather than hiding behind anonymity.
And let me clue you in on something, Mr. AC: the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. I'm not doing this to hurt Runaway; for that to work he would have to have a conscience and a shred of basic human decency. I am doing this so that everyone who comes across his unmitigated septic brain-spew doesn't think we all agree with him. All it takes for evil to win is for good (wo)men to do nothing.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @07:02PM
You stalk another user and make off-topic, flaimbait comments in order to protect us?
I don't think we need your protection and derailing the comment section with your personal flamewar is not appreciated. Write journal entries, message each other, and use your foe list.
I do welcome any meaningful contributions (that are on-topic) and feel free to use the disagree mod whenever you have points.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @07:25PM
You're rather missing the point here: if someone walked into your biology classroom and started shouting about creationism at the top of his lungs, is it flamebait to point out how he's wrong, for the sake of the more or less captive audience exposed to it? The entire point of an open forum like this is to allow that kind of exchange.
And it seems you don't understand the definition of stalker. I had a stalker once, an insane security guard from Kenosha who had an obsession with GitS's Laughing Man character. He was constantly sending me harassing messages with burner email addresses, portscanning my router (wt actual f...) and trying to break into my social media accounts. I don't go looking for Runaway's posts specifically, but if one pops up and it's full of shit, I point it out. If you've seen our history you'll notice I've actually upmodded several of his posts in the past.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday May 23 2016, @07:53PM
I don't think anyone would have an issue if that's what you did. But it was mostly just name calling. Other people looking in who have no context to your relationship with Runway will view you as a crazy person (and mod you as such). You lost the high-ground.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @08:06PM
if someone walked into your biology classroom
I'll try to use your classroom analogy:
This comment section is a history classroom.
You apparently have a biology class with Runaway1956 and he/she says all kinds of shit that pisses you off.
Now, you walk into my history class and shout at one of my classmates after he/she made an on-topic comment:
You sound like a dirty stinkin' Muslim atheist gay Jew terr'ist illegal Ay-rab job-stealin' welfare-moochin' lazy immigrant refugee rapist Mexican 'Murrica-hater
You are interfering with my history class and tell me that it is for my own good. I say, "No, thanks. How about you just take things outside or wait until your biology class."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 23 2016, @08:27PM
That's bullshit. Maybe your reasoning would work on some thread where Runaway was actually espousing these ideas you oppose, but your first reply to Runaway's first comment was offtopic flamebait. It is plain to see when viewing the thread in Oldest First (Ignore Threads) mode [soylentnews.org]. Thanks for derailing my (hastily submitted) story.
If you were really being selective about how you deal with Runaway's posts, including agreeing with some or modding some of them up, then why did you derail the thread? You could have waited all of 4 minutes and blasted his Chelsea Manning related post.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @08:35PM
I didn't even see that one until having finished with the first one. His output is truly prolific, much like the result of overindulgence in "dried plums."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @03:37AM
Chelsea/Bradley Manning's treatment was fucked-up too.
I have had unsubstantiated doubts about whether Manning's gender transition was voluntary. Maybe that is because of 1984.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @04:12AM
Bradley Manning isn't fit to polish Snowden's boots. Stop confusing the actions and the motivations of these two - human beings. Sorry, I almost called Manning a man. It sure isn't a woman, but neither is it a man.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 23 2016, @05:12AM
Why the hell do you keep bringing Manning up? Or, for that matter, "deviants" and "deviancy" in general? You're beginning to make me suspect that you yourself are some class of "deviant," and what kind that might be I really don't want to know.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @05:39AM
Suspect? Why do you need to suspect that I might be a deviant? I AM A DEVIANT!! I deviate from the norm. First clue? In a land where more than 90% of people identify as either D or R, I identify as neither. How's that for a beginner? DEVIANT!!!
As for sexual deviancy, yeah. Navy, remember? We all prided ourselves on being deviants. Perverts, lechers, sick puppies. Alas - as I've matured, I've found that our "deviancy" is far more normal than we suspected. Just about all of us liked girls, after all, which is normal for a bunch of guys.
But, I don't want you to suspect any crazy shit. Just accept the fact that I am indeed abnormal. I do deviate from the norm. Given some time, some thought, and some luck, you might be able to identify my deviancies. Or not. But, it doesn't really matter to me what names you might assign my perversities. I'm me, and I'm perfectly happy being me. That makes me "normal", LMAO
Does that blow your mind?
(Score: 2) by timbim on Monday May 23 2016, @06:49AM
yeah mind blown
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @11:54AM
actions and the motivations
The topic was about the punishment of whistleblowers.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @12:18PM
Correct. Manning is not a whistleblower. Despite all the propaganda you have heard on the subject, Manning did NOT release any details of one single "illegal" action. He may or may not have educated any number of people about how fucking ugly war is - but that "collateral murder" video shows nothing of the sort. Go back, download the video again, dismiss all of your preconcieved notions, turn the volume up, and listen to the radio chatter. That cameraman and his driver were "embedded" in an insurgent unit, just like some of our own reporters have been "embedded" in some of our units. That is to say - all of the people who were seen WITH the cameraman were enemies, who had just been shooting at our ground troops. They were killed in a legitimate action of war. The cameraman took his chances, and he lost.
The people who arrived in the van were unfortunate losses. Apparent good Samaritans who showed up at the wrong place, at the wrong time. They APPEARED to be allied with the insurgents already lying on the ground. They died. Sucks - but that's one of the aspects of war that most civilians cannot comprehend.
Listen to that radio chatter. Every action taken by the men in that helicopter was JUSTIFIED under the rules of war.
Manning is a sleazeball, plain and simple, who broke the faith and trust of his fellow soldiers, for childish reasons. He was trying to "get even". He had nothing to blow a whistle about, so he decided to take the traitor's route. Manning should have faced a summary court martial in Iraq, and he should have been executed, then dropped into a latrine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @12:55PM
While it's irritating how you insist on misgendering Manning, you do have valid points about that video. The one time I watched it carefully, it looked like there was somebody with an RPG on the ground who aiming at the helicopter. I'd encourage others to also give the video a good watch and not just the parts from the media narrative.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @01:21PM
I'm not sure about any RPG. I can say for certain that at one point in the video, you see an individual who APPEARS TO BE aiming an RPG toward something on the ground. From the chatter, you can tell that it is aimed in the direction of US troops on the ground. And, I marked that particular screenshot in my mind, because that is the cameraman, with his shoulder mounted camera. That moment in time sealed the fate of him, and all the men with him. The flight crew believed that he was abour to fire an RPG at the troops whom they had come to help.
I never identified any rocket launcher of any type, for myself, but I did count at least three AK's. Others have claimed to count more, but three is all that I have been able to count for sure.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday May 23 2016, @08:02PM
I also agree with the video being mis-characterized. You really have to watch the unedited footage to really get that though. The edited footed presents a very anti-US view. The Apache was very aggressive with the van but the van was trying to rescue enemy combatants. If it had a red cross or other neutral symbol then it wouldn't (in theory) have been targeted. The US troops that got up to the damaged van and saw children inside quickly evacuated the kids from the fighting. War sucks.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @09:27PM
If it had a red cross or other neutral symbol then it wouldn't (in theory) have been targeted.
Remember that time they hit a doctors without borders hospital that was foolish enough to give the army their coordinates to avoid being accidentally hit? They might as well paint a target on the van.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday May 23 2016, @10:58PM
You didn't get much past a headline then. All the airmen involved were relieved of command (or removed from duty), reprimanded, counselled, and sent to retraining. The US President apologized and allocated money to rebuild the hospital, pay the wounded, and pay the family of the killed. The report said it was an avoidable mistake. The aircrew was given a target and they didn't check their list of coordinates to avoid. The target request was generated by afghans on the ground (though i am not pointing the finger at them, it was the gunships fault for not checking the coords). The gunship didn't look up the coords for the doctors without borders hospital and just decide to blow it up, as you accused. But i don't want to get trapped trying to defend the stupid shit my military does. Just wanted to say your remark is conspiracy theory stupidity.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 23 2016, @02:00PM
This story is so ripe for a Godwin moment, but one is already in the article. One of the whistleblowers had a grandfather who faced down Hitler at gunpoint on the Nazi's first attempt to take over.
Lot of these agencies and contractors have this mentality that rules interfere with their missions. Have to break some rules to accomplish anything. That's the sort of argument Oliver North so eloquently advanced during the Iran-Contra scandal. They're right in that there are plenty of stupid rules and restrictions that do hinder the bureaucracies. One example is the CYA penchant for classifying every scrap of information no matter how trivial and obvious as Secret. Further, if as a consequence of obeying all the rules you get next to nothing accomplished, soon you're being accused of laziness, waste, and incompetence. Government bureaucrats are very sensitive to accusations of waste. They know many among the public hate government, look for any excuse to bash them, and that waste is an especially ugly accusation that resonates with everyone, plays right into the longstanding perception and propaganda that government is all thumbs compared to private enterprise.
So, when any whistleblower makes trouble, the management at these bureaucracies feels betrayed and angry at the "stupidity" of the whistleblower for having failed to understand that there are too many rules and some have to be broken. They have already broken plenty of rules, and so in their zeal they will break a lot more to retaliate against, suppress, bury, and otherwise hush up the whistleblower. They feel under the gun as is, with so much public hostility directed their way.
But this is breaking rules they should not have broken. They're in so deep by then that they've lost their perspective, and a few more broken rules hardly matter, even when their rule breaking is now unfairly ruining careers and lives.
Others of course take advantage of this culture to break rules for personal gain. They know they'll have the benefit of the doubt about the rule breaking, know others will hope they're being patriots instead of slimy crooks. The troops may get wind of the situation and respond by slacking off themselves, by, for instance, watching porn all day long rather than doing any work at all. The person who blows the whistle on that kind of crap is a hero, but many in government are still going to try to squash the whistleblower, try to paint the guy as a moronic traitor who just leaked valuable information to enemies of the nation to announce the equivalent of "water flows downhilll!"
The one episode of JAG I saw had as the theme the rule breaking patriot. A military officer was trying to serve his country, but felt he had to break some rules to do so effectively. Someone who didn't have the whole picture of why the rule breaking was being done blew the whistle, and the officer was dragged into court where he protested that "you don't know what you're doing", in other words, that the wheels of justice were about to ruin an effort vital to national security. The end justifies the means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @09:59PM
The US federal government's primary funding source, to the tune of ~75% of its entire annual budget, comes from personal income tax returns. Most States are also dependant upon the US fedgov for funds.
The IRS, being a mostly incompetent government agency like any other, can barely move under the weight of all the additional work flung their way under the Romneycare-Obamacare fiasco. The IRS' primary weapons are garnishments, thieving from your bank accounts, and property leins. Keeping in mind that the theft from bank depositors in Cyprus [rt.com] has been cleared for use against US depositors [kitco.com]. US banks are dangerous places to keep valuables. That house you "own" is just rented - what do you think happens if you stop coughing up the dough for the annual so-called property tax?
The ongoing criminality by US governments continues because people choose to continue to work to produce far beyond what they need to live, passively allow much of the excess to be stolen by the US fedgov, and generally live hand-to-mouth without regard for the mathematically unavoidable economic collapse. Should that situation change markedly, it is one of the very few ways which the runaway criminal government of the USA can be stopped without needing a shot fired. (Voting is a scam and not a viable solution.)