Senator Rand Paul says Edward J. Snowden does not deserve the death penalty or life in prison for exposing NSA abuses, but that James Clapper should face trial and prison time for lying to Congress. Meanwhile, scumbag Democrat Chuck Schumer urges Snowden to turn himself in, and lies (his claim that NSA info would come out at trial is patently ridiculous as it would be deemed “classified.”)
Rand Paul defends Snowden, slams Clapper
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
Comments are closed.
10 Comments.
Amidst all this, why wasn’t Cheney charged with “outing” Valerie Plame ?
SoB!
Even a broken clock is correct twice a day, Rand Paul isn’t qualified to flip burgers, let alone be in the US Senate….it’s not like that was an original idea, he’s just repeating a popular “anti establishment” meme. Just because I agree with it doesn’t mean I’m going to credit Rand Paul with some kind of brave position, people like him shouldn’t even be allowed to vote
Oh, totally. The point is how easy it is to show the Dems up, and how appalling that is.
Exactly, Miep!
derlehrer . . . Dick Cheney represents real power…he shot a man in the face and that person apologized to him. He did not report this to the police, and there were no consequences. True power.
Despite all that, the Fother-Mucker broke the law by revealing the identity of an agent. Why is he still allowed to hop-skip-n-jump on his merry way without being prosecuted? What the hell’s wrong with our so-called “justice” system?????
Don’t forget that he gets Cheney level healthcare.
I seem to recall several paranoid predictions that Snowden wouldn’t last the year. Bare to step up and admit you were wrong, fellas?
Well, I don’t recall whether I thought Snowden would come down with a sudden case of shot-himself-twice-in-the-back-of-the-head-itis or whether I was of the mindset that Snowden knew enough to have left some sort of poison-the-well letter that would have left him safe — I mean safer. But I am surprised he is still alive. Quite possibly, the Masters are simply waiting for the buzz to drop a little lower. Those “new information from Snowden files” headlines are still coming out every few weeks.
Either way, Snowden’s life is, more or less, over. He can craft a new one, I suspect, in Russia. But he’ll spend the rest of his life wondering when someone’s going to Markov him. Assange and Manning are in the same boat, as are all the others who’ve been sanctioned by the government for speaking the truth.
It is possible the CIA and the NSA have moved toward a 21st century mindset. They want the leaks to stop. They want a lesson to be made to any future leakers: if you step out of the pew, we will chase you to Russia, and two years later, or three years later, or whatever, you will die in a “mugging” or a traffic “accident” or whatever.
Coincidentally, I was wondering this morning how many closed circuit television cameras the government would need to cover to allow for continuous surveillance of all the public streets in the country: so that you, literally, could not go anywhere within the city limits of any city of more than 5,000 people without being continuously tracked.
And I also wonder how much it would cost to put a camera and pick-up microphone into a cable box, facing outward. It would need to be battery-powered so that it would run even when the box was turned off. What would that cost as a monthly increase in our cable bills, I wonder.
Well, time to go pull out all my fillings (the government puts tracking chips in there, you know.)
It is a pretty small point to score, Whimsical. I don’t think anyone made such a short-term prediction, but nonetheless, Snowden has beaten the odds. He actually said before Christmas, Alex, that having a ‘deadman’s switch’ would be suicidal, as anyone could kill him to learn more information. Snowden worked for the NSA and CIA, remember, guys? He knows their tricks. He is careful. And he rarely goes out he says.
The dollar printing presses can pay for anything, Alex.