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Thread: Rand: Snowden a Whistleblower. Not a traitor

  1. #1

    Rand: Snowden a Whistleblower. Not a traitor

    Rand Paul defends Edward Snowden before meeting Brett Kavanaugh

    Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., defended former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and appeared to obliquely rebuke a legal opinion written by Brett Kavanaugh hours before meeting the Supreme Court nominee.

    The Kentucky Republican, a swing vote whose opposition could block Kavanaugh, was not pressed for his views on the nomination during a Tuesday event hosted by the Fund for American Studies. But one student asked about Snowden, who exposed the NSA's bulk collection of domestic call records – a program at the heart of Paul's unease with Kavanaugh.

    "He didn't sell secrets to the Russians, he wasn't a traitor. He revealed something that revealed the highest ranking member of our intelligence community lied. I think he did it as a whistle-blower, he was reporting malfeasance," Paul said.

    Paul, who previously joked about Snowden sharing a prison cell with former intelligence director James Clapper, whose inaccurate testimony Snowden exposed, doubled down after polling students, finding a similar number viewed Snowden as a traitor and a whistleblower.

    "I don't see him as a traitor at all," Paul added about Snowden, saying later, "People have to decide on Snowden. My preference has become stronger and stronger that he was revealing the government was lying to us in a big way." Paul said he'd like to see a deal struck where Snowden can return from Russia without a long prison sentence.

    "Maybe we will comment after we meet," Paul told the Washington Examiner about Kavanaugh as he left the Tuesday event.

    Paul largely has refrained from commenting on Kavanaugh since his July 9 nomination by President Trump. In an interview published by Politico on Monday, however, Paul said he's undecided on how to vote.

    "I am honestly undecided," Paul said. "I am very concerned about his position on privacy and the Fourth Amendment. This is not a small deal for me. This is a big deal. Kavanaugh’s position is basically that national security trumps privacy. And he said it very strongly and explicitly. And that worries me."

    With Republicans holding such a slim majority in the Senate, Paul's vote alone could doom Kavanaugh.

    Paul spokesman Sergio Gor did not respond to a request for comment on the timing of a meeting between Paul and Kavanaugh. Paul campaign aide Doug Stafford told the Courier Journal that the men will meet "later" on Tuesday.

    Paul and Kavanaugh hold starkly different legal views on the government's dragnet collection of domestic records, specifically the once secret bulk collection of phone call metadata.

    Paul filed a lawsuit claiming the phone dragnet violated the Fourth Amendment, then forced Patriot Act provisions to lapse in protest. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, went out of his way to defend the program's legality, even after Congress ended the collection in 2015.

    Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrent opinion that the bulk call record collection wasn't a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, citing the third-party doctrine of the Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Smith v. Maryland. But he added if it was a “search," authorities still could take the records without a warrant because there was a “special need” in preventing terrorism.

    Paul, who argued Tuesday in favor of expanding privacy rights to digital records, appeared to indirectly rebuke Kavanaugh's legal analysis.

    "If the government is going to make an argument that national security trumps the Fourth Amendment, they could make it for everything," he said "There's a national security argument for having all of your information."
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  3. #2
    This is his strongest statement yet on Snowden! Fantastic to read. Now, I wonder if they'll call Rand a Russian asset??



    Just kidding - they already are.
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  4. #3
    Friendly reminder that Trump campaigned that Snowden was a traitor that should be executed. Jus sayin
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  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by jllundqu View Post
    Friendly reminder that Trump campaigned that Snowden was a traitor that should be executed. Jus sayin
    Trump has been known to change his mind.

  6. #5
    Trump better change his mind on Snowden or I'll be severely disappointed.
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  7. #6
    Good.
    Rand is apt.

    Manning got a pardon.

    Assange is a
    fool.

  8. #7
    https://www.wired.com/2015/11/rand-p...us-government/

    PEOPLE ALWAYS WANT to cast Edward Snowden as a hero or as a villain, but Rand Paul says he has "mixed feelings."

    "We wouldn't know what our government has done without Edward Snowden," he said on stage at the Yahoo Digital Democracy conference in Des Moines, Iowa, today.

    At the same time, he said, "There are secrets the government does have to have," and because Snowden divulged a whole lot of those secrets, the Kentucky senator and presidential hopeful said Snowden should have to face some sort of penalty if and when he returns to the United States
    .

    Paul was quick to add, though, that the punishment ought to be be proportionate to the penalties faced by sitting government leaders like James Clapper, the national director of intelligence who told a Senate hearing in 2013 that the US was not collecting Americans' data—when, in fact, the National Security Administration was doing just that. Clapper has since defended himself, saying that he misspoke. But he hasn't convinced Paul, an ardent anti-surveillance advocate, who suggested on stage, as he has in the past, that Clapper and Snowden "could share a cell together."

    But while Paul believes there should be consequences for people like Snowden, he also believes there should be protections. Specifically, he wants to expand whistleblower laws so that they protect contractors like Snowden, who has claimed that he had "no proper channels" to report the NSA's activity because he wasn't a full-time government employee.

    Paul is one of the few Republican candidates to take such an empathetic approach to Snowden. Both Marco Rubio and Chris Christie have called Snowden a "traitor." Jeb Bush said he'd offer Snowden "no leniency." Donald Trump went so far as to say that the US should do to Snowden "what we used to do to traitors"—which is to say, execute him.

    "All the people who want to chop his head off and shoot him and hang him," Senator Paul said on stage, "I think that’s a bit excessive."

  9. #8
    Rand was making a rhetorical point that if Snowden belongs in a jail cell then so does Clapper.
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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    Rand was making a rhetorical point that if Snowden belongs in a jail cell then so does Clapper.
    He wanted to support what Snowden did (revealing government abuse) without encouraging all government secrets be revealed. He has sought more protections for whistleblowers (especially among contractors like Snowden who have fewer protections). Yeah- he did say the jail thing was rhetorical.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by jllundqu View Post
    Friendly reminder that Trump campaigned that Snowden was a traitor that should be executed. Jus sayin
    I think that is what won over @TheTexan's vote.
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  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    I think that is what won over @TheTexan's vote.
    Out of rep.

  14. #12
    Were I POTUS, if BHO indeed pardoned Manning, I'd do a pardon to Snowden
    And I'd likewise tell my bold critics to shut the "F" up in a very polite manner...

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    I think that is what won over @TheTexan's vote.
    Now that Trump and Putin are BFF's maybe now he can make good on that campaign promise
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  16. #14
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
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  17. #15

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by enhanced_deficit View Post
    It appears Rand and GOPA leadership have been miles apart on treatment of whistleblowers.

    Trump's suggestion on what to do with Snowden: kill him.
    Of course, that was pre-his-presidency (2015). It's possible that Rand Paul, and government agencies spying on his campaign and setting him up, has changed his perspective.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Valli6 View Post
    Of course, that was pre-his-presidency (2015). It's possible that Rand Paul, and government agencies spying on his campaign and setting him up, has changed his perspective.
    You may have a point there, anything is possible. There has not been any tweet on this, so hard to know for sure.

    He also used to oppose US military presence in Afghanistan/mideast but that was before his election campaign got funded by Israeli globalist neoconservative Adelson. In 2019 GOPA leader sent 14,000 more troops to mideast to "surround Iran and ISIS" and before that had sent 5000 more troops to Afghanistan that are still there.


    Not clear if this was also a flip-flop or consistent policy on the issue:

    Trump admin prepares charges to seek arrest of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange


    But yea, he does adjust his stances dynamically often as additional factors are introduced including passage of time/self-political-interests etc, not a static politician.

  21. #18

  22. #19
    The UK has Snowden in custody, if they are really our allies they would hand him over to us.

    Alternately we can do things the hard way.
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
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