Who can be considered a traitor

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As you can find out from my profile, I'm Polish and I live in Poland.

When Poland was still a communist country, Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, who was a staff officer, decided to give the CIA information about the dislocation of the Polish Army and the Red Army, some consider him a hero that thanks to him, World War III not started.
This does not change the fact that an officer promised loyalty to his country and that will keep the military secrets.

I want to know what Americans think about Edward Snowden, after all, as the intelligence officer, promised he would keep secrets, it can be argued that he did it for the good of the citizens of his country, in this case the United States, but he vowed he would keep secrets. What kind of officer that breaks the oath?

The definition of treason in the Constitution is giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. With that definition in hand, you be the judge of whether Snowden is a traitor or not.

ruveyn

He broke the oath, but with good reason. I think he had to inform the public about what's going on, that's more important than his oath. Eventually the government is there for us, not the other way around. If nobody broke oaths, always kept loyal and to their promises, there would've been way more abuses and corruption.

Snowden took an oath to support and defend constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign AND domestic. That trumps all else. When our government breaks the law, it loses all legitimacy and expectations of secrecy. Snowden did not give away any information to that can construed as aid or comfort to enemies of the United States, he exposed the wrongdoings of our own government to our own people. He exposed the dictators in charge and now they must crush him before he awakens a sleeping giant when the general public realizes that the REAL TRAITORS are the US government.

That seems kind of arbitrary. By enemies of the United States are they referring to enemies of the U.S. government, enemies of American society, enemies of American corporations, enemies of the American legal system, or enemies of the American people. These five things are often enemies with each other. The United States itself is just an idea that doesn't objectively exist, just like all other nations. Who its enemies are, is subjective. However, who most of the enemies of humanity are, can be agreed on by the vast majority of people in the world. These are often the only enemies of the United States that can be agreed on by just about everyone there. If I had to choose between being an enemy of the U.S. government or being an enemy of humanity, I'd have to choose being an enemy of the U.S. government because it seems to be the idealistic thing to do, and because I also don't really like the U.S. government. The PRISM program itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but government agencies like the NSA and the CIA have done many questionable things in the past, so I can't conscientiously offer them my blind trust and support.

By the constitutional definition of treason, Aspies could even be considered enemies of the United States, simply by existing. Not because we've done anything wrong, but because probably more than half of the people in the United States and in the U.S. government just don't like us for no reason in particular. Yet many of the Aspie haters still think that they have a right to our loyalty. Many of the people that want to reinstate the draft must be Aspie haters too. Any Aspie hater who thinks that it should be my duty to fight to protect their rights can go f*** themself. If it was up to me, they'd have no rights. F*** the Aspie haters, and their rights. I don't owe those f***ers s***.

This. He took an oath, to be sure, but those oaths are taken before they have all of the information. Doesn't matter, though, in an age where countries and loyalties are fluid and chosen by the individual. There's no such thing as a traitor, as far as I'm concerned, just a man who made a choice. It's a choice who to be loyal to, not an accident of birth.

It really depends on his motives. Was he believing he needed to warn America - and the world - about the U.S. government's possible threat to liberty and privacy? Or was it as some of his critics maintain - that he was originally intending to sell what he knew to the Chinese?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Anyone that does not agree with the blatant corruption of the government that serves the richest 1% is a "terrorist" and those who try to act on changing the status quo are "traitors".

The Polish were inside the iron curtain and not a free people. I know Poles who still hate the Russians. Anyway, that's a more complex situation.

Snowden is being charged with espionage, not treason. He may or may not meet the legal standard of treason but he embodies the spirit of the word as far as I'm concerned. Heading to China and giving them details of our operations against them was about the dumbest thing he could do. He also referred several times to helping "the people of the world". That will come up at trial against the context of his oath. He's painted quite a picture of himself for a jury and I think he's f'd himself.

In my opinion, Snowden has made himself a security risk to the United States by moving to Hong Kong.

He (evidently) possesses highly classified knowledge about the inner workings of US intelligence gathering. After all, he had access to detailed information about PRISM, which was Top Secret Special Intelligence Originator Controlled Not Releasable to Foreign National... phew.

So If I worked for The Ministry of State Security in China, I would be *very* interested in having a friendly - or perhaps even unfriendly - conversation with Snowden. Carrot or stick, whatever gets the job done...

And I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA - or even the wider US intelligence community - would now have to revise several intelligence gathering approaches under the assumption that anything Snowden knows has been compromised. I'm sure that won't burden the taxpayers, though.

In other words: Snowden may not qualify as a traitor, but he *might* just qualify as a useful idiot.

Apparently, Snowden has now admitted that he sought his position at Booz Allen Hamilton for the sole purpose of gaining access to classified information.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/arti ... rveillance

Good, he's actually doing something to bring about real change unlike so many of the posers. Not showering and banging on drums in some park is MEANINGLESS, we need people that believe in liberty to infiltrate this leviathan in order to expose it for what it is and bring it down from the inside.

Just for sake of accuracy, government contractors do sign a confidentiality agreement, but not take an oath to defend the United States against its enemies or to uphold the constitution. The full oath is required for government employment.

I would just like to make the point that to give this info on the NSA Snowden gave up a six-figure salary job that had him working in Hawaii. So either he's crazy or he's right and I'm really leaning towards the second one.