Hours before Tulsi Gabbard appeared for a combative hearing on her nomination as director of national intelligence on Thursday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave some public advice to the woman who once pushed for his pardon.

“Tulsi Gabbard will be required to disown all prior support for whistleblowers as a condition of confirmation today. I encourage her to do so. Tell them I harmed national security and the sweet, soft feelings of staff. In D.C., that’s what passes for the pledge of allegiance,” Snowden said on X.

Even after facing more than a dozen questions about Snowden, however, Gabbard refused to back down.

Instead, Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Snowden broke the law and that she would no longer push for his pardon — but that he had revealed blatant violations of the Constitution.

    • Jamablaya@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      She’s got a lot of well thought out positions. None of them much agree with the American propaganda machine as it currently sits.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I find it hilarious that the 3 letter agencies are handing over big brother to the gustapo, without protest, while acting like they’re the goodies… as though they aren’t literally doing the exact thing Snowden warned everyone about — as a tool that will be turned against the people by domestic enemies.

        And the best part? It only took 12 years post-leak for the worst case scenario to occur — for them to hand the keys to the entire kingdom over to fascism.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          28 minutes ago

          The keys have always been in the hands of fascists.

          The Reagan/Bush Era was plenty reactionary. The Carter/Nixon era wasn’t anything to brag about, either. FFS, the Eisenhower government had a healthy assortment of literal ex-Nazis scattered through it. The ugly specters of J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles, Henry Ford, and Prescott Bush have haunted our country for longer than any of us have been alive.

          Trumpism is the dead fish rot finally reaching the noses of the white working class (and even then, just barely). Americans are looking on in horror at the prospect of the government treating everyone like we’ve been treated Black People and Native Americans for the last century.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      23 hours ago

      There’s a lot of common sense, popular opinions that you can’t have in Washington because there’s a bipartisan consensus to do the opposite.

    • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      It’s a bad look when the director of national intelligence supports someone who leaks intelligence secrets to enemy nations. It’s a good reason to pass on her aside from all of her personal issues.

        • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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          56 minutes ago

          Why would you think that’s their job? Do you have any idea how any of this works?

          Snowden compromised the security of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and regardless of the reason you can’t have a DNI that approves of this.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            22 minutes ago

            Why would you think that’s their job?

            https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title%3A5+section%3A3331+edition%3Aprelim)

            §3331. Oath of office

            An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: “I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

            I mean, you can dismiss it as pageantry and fluff. But every appointee has it in their job description as a matter of law per Title 5 Civil Service Functions and Responsibilities statute.

            • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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              18 minutes ago

              Go look what the DNI’s job is and tell me what she has to do with protecting constitutional rights.

              The oath of office is cute but try looking at the job description of the office we are talking about as that’s actually relevant.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                9 minutes ago

                Identifying and eliminating criminal misconduct within Intelligence Agencies would go a long way towards protecting the constitutional rights of US residents.

                The oath of office is cute

                The absolute state of modern liberalism.

      • Count042@lemmy.ml
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        8 hours ago

        He leaked information to the citizens of the country doing the spying.

        It’s interesting you describe them as enemies

        • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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          55 minutes ago

          Ge leaked them to many nations not just the USA. You know that other nations can access US press and the internet in general, right? That’s the enemies Im talking about eg DPRK, Russia, or Iran.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 hours ago

          I believe the letter agencies consider the public their enemy #1, there some old ex CIA dude quote about it I’m too lazy to open Firefox to find