Which vital secret did Edward Snowdon reveal?

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●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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According to Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Edward Snowdon is a traitor. He committed treason. He should be found and extradited.

House Speaker John Boehner said, “He’s a traitor. The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”

The full weight of the United States of America’s monster security system is being employed to find and punish Snowdon. So I am curious about one small detail: Exactly which vital secret did this “traitor” reveal?

Surely, it must be a very big, very damaging secret, to crank up the outrage expressed on both sides of the aisle.

Here is what the National Memo had to say.

Fourth Amendment Purists Are Living In A Dream World
June 12th, 2013, Gene Lyons

Where has everybody been since 2006, when USA Today first revealed the existence of large scale NSA telephone data mining? That was objectionable in two big ways: the Bush White House acted unilaterally, without the court supervision required by law, and it was also indulging in warrantless wiretaps.

Congress fixed that in 2008, permitting statistical analysis of telephone traffic, but requiring both ongoing FISA Court oversight and search warrants for actual eavesdropping.

After his customary tap-dancing, Sen. Barack Obama supported the bill. Hearing no announcement that the Obama White House had canceled the program, a person would have to be awfully naïve to imagine NSA had gone out of business.

Huh?

Way back in 2006, USA Today revealed the existence of large scale NSA telephone data mining? And in 2008, Congress, permitted statistical analysis of telephone traffic?

And now Snowdon has “revealed” exactly the same thing?

Three questions:
1. Was USA Today traitorous in 2006, and if so, how was it prosecuted?
2. How was Bush’s lawbreaking punished?
2. What damaging information — information our enemies didn’t know back in 2006 — have our enemies now have learned from Snowdon?

Perhaps, there will be other shoes dropping. Perhaps, the real fear is that Snowdon may in the future, reveal something of note.

But, could the problem be something else, not concerns about what our enemies might learn, but concerns about what we Americans might learn?

At least, that was the concern with Daniel Ellsberg of the famous “Pentagon Papers” story:

Ellsberg: No leaks more significant than Snowden’s

In 1971, Ellsberg passed the secret Defense Department study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other newspapers. The 7,000 pages showed that the U.S. government repeatedly misled the public about the war.

And compare Snowdon with Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier whom the U.S. government has illegally been torturing before for weeks in advance of his kangaroo court trial.

Washington Post
Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and the risk of the low-level, tech-savvy leaker

The records released by Snow­den are fewer in number but more sensitive and of higher levels of classification than the U.S. diplomatic cables and military reports Manning sent to WikiLeaks after he downloaded them while serving in Iraq.

Snowden has indicated that he sought to be more responsible, withholding records that might put U.S. intelligence operatives in jeopardy, unlike Manning, who is accused of turning over thousands of pages, some of which contained the names of informants.

We’re early in the investigation, but several questions come to mind:

1. Exactly what secrets have been revealed and exactly what damage has been done?

2. Given that somewhere between 30,000 and 200,000 people work in the U.S. intelligence community, how many are morally repulsed by government actions, i.e., how secure are our secrets?

3. Who is the greater traitor, someone who has divulged spying secrets, or someone complicit in destroying millions of Americans’ lives, by withholding the funds necessary to cure the recession, reduce unemployment, provide health care, provide retirement, end student debt, conduct medical research, improve the infrastructure, improve education and on and on and on?

(This last was a question for Barack Obama and John Boehner)

Maybe Snowdon has revealed information that will give our enemies (whomever they are) an ability to hurt America they didn’t have before. It would be interesting to know.

Or maybe Snowdon turned over a rock, and out crawled a whole bunch of dirty secrets, the government wanted to withhold from the American public.

Two things are highly probable: Snowdon will pay heavily for his idealism. And, we never will learn the truth.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY