You feel that because of some twisted nationalistic pride and unquestioning faith that the overlords are benevolent, know what they're doing, and are above the vast swaths of historical abuse by similar authority figures. We feel he's been unfairly treated because of a lot of things.
1) He exposed a whole hell of a lot of people doing "forbidden" things. Most of whom are never going to face prison time, courts, fines or even a slap on the wrist.
2) The people he's exposing have previously concealed their wrongdoing. Gaming the system of justice is serious infraction. It's often worse than what they're hiding.
3) The people he's exposing have a vast amount of political power and very much have control over his punishment. I don't think it's a stretch to say that they're abusing their power and being vindictive.
4) He's been tortured. Not the sort of torture with massive blood loss, hideous scars, and severed limbs, but the sort of torture you get in a lab setting. And it looks like it was enough to break him.

Yes, he should face consequences for violating orders and exposing secrets. And he should face praise and leniency for making the USA a better place and upholding his oath. You know, to protect the nation from threats from within.

. . . Wut? Dude, SELinux was merged into the Linux kernel. A decade ago. Development continues. merges continue. And as a "security researcher" like yourself you should know that Linux has a lot of MAC implementations: TOMOYO, SELinux, AppArmor and SMACK.

As apposed to Window's "rudimentary MAC implementation"? And I don't know what's wrong with SUSE's AppArmor, but Ubuntu is the most common Linux distribution. And as for "lightweight".

Uh...... bullshit? Cite that. Seriously. Because it's not really an optional thing. That's the "M" in MAC. "Mandatory". Anything you get from the solution center, apt-get, or download and compile are going to be running with the mother-may-I from AppArmor. Were you getting ahead of yourself and thinking about ASLR?

AH! Now you say DEP and ASLR aren't common. Just like MAC isn't common in Linux. Because Ubuntu just isn't common enough for you (until later in your post). And hey, you're probably right about the uptake of DEP and ASLR by Linux applications. But Windows applications fail just as hard. Also, wow that was a way's back there, but the discussion originally focused on security. You know, people using TOR? So, for this aspect, it doesn't matter so much how common a feature is, as long as it's available to the people who want security. So, you know, stop making arguments that don't make sense. Like suggesting a child instal Win7 on a 486. I'm not going to let you forget that fuckup.

Yeah, I'd agree, but you're the one quoted the marketing fluff: "Windows is more secure than most Linux distributions. Due to the mitigating technologies done right and increased focus on security resulting in few vulnerabilities." So I figured I'd throw some statistics at you.

Also a fun statistic, from your very source
Linux: Unpatched 0% (0 of 259 Secunia advisories)
Windows 7: Unpatched 4% (6 of 148 Secunia advisories)

But yeah, on this point you're right. Linux has had more vulnerabilities. Generally less severe then what's been seen in Win7 though.

Wait... what? Sorry, could you expound on that one a little bit more? My only exposure to swede culture is from Minnesota. It involves fishing, casseroles, and jokes about being south Canada.

You really have a hard time letting things go don't you? Let's go over the whole thing again.
Here's your original statement:

You are claiming that Windows is better than Linux, in terms of security, because it has a laundry list of "preventative technologies that most other OS's don't have". You've claimed that Linux doesn't have complete implementations.

I have shown that Linux, including it's most popular distributions, has ASLR, DEP, MAC, and a division between root and users (which is better than having a UAC, but that's my opinion).

You tried to claim that MAC, ASLR, and DEP was not commonly implemented. I countered that they are all in Ubuntu. You countered that... what... Fedora, SELinux, and UBUNTU isn't widespread enough for you... Seriously? Are you trying to argue that Ubuntu isn't "common"?

You showed that I was wrong about applications need to be recompiled for ASLR and DEP and hence are a "Distro thing" and not inherently in the kernel, and you claim the uptake of these security features lagged. As if everyone instantly updated to the latest version of windows. So bravo. You showed me. Congratulations for spreading some knowledge. Now accept my offering of knowledge and accept that you have no reason to believe that MS is more secure than Linux.

You then retreat to a blanket marketing slogan:

And I showed you that Windows has has more vulnerabilities than Linux. (...in 2012. Feel free to do the research, cite it, and show me I'm wrong for other years)

After that you gave up and have, so far, stated that you don't want to reply to me three times. LET'S GO FOR A FOURTH! (Are you paid per post or something?)

Moral: Even when you do the professional thing and give two weeks notice, management will still call you a douchebag.

Straight man answer: You have, or form, a constitution which lays down the basic rights that apply to everyone. You reason out to the majority that they might be on the receiving end of the stick some day and these rules will protect them as much as it limits them. And it's good for society and all that shit. Then you establish a rule of law where the powerful will still be punished for breaking the law. *cough*NSA's Clapper lying to congress*cough*.

That's how, you know, it's supposed to go. In theory. ...It's beautiful to dream, isn't it?

Children dressed as zealots screaming "For Aiur!" into reverb boxes. Now that would be adorable. But no, while you can't argue with zealots, you can most certainly debate them. You know, in a public forum. You can show to the masses that they're full of shit and that their zealotry is misplaced. And since I've soundly refuted your entire original post and you've provided zero additional justification, and yet you STILL seem to think that Microsoft's Windows OS is somehow a better choice when it comes to security, I'd have to say you're the zealot here. You refuse to believe anything other than what you originally believed despite all the evidence showing otherwise.

You're simply wrong. What you believed to be true is not. Not only are you wrong about the technical aspects of Linux Vs Windows, you apparently also have a pretty shitty grasp of socioeconomic issues around the world.

OH OH! I know, about about you make a THIRD POST about about it's pointless to replay to me. That'll show 'em!

Yeah, I can't believe anyone even tangentially involved in software even thought of making that statement. That it's an IP lawyer... from REDHAT... that's just plain embarrassing.

This, exactly.

Imagine you're looking to go on a cruise. You shop around for a cruise ship to go on. It'll cost a pretty penny and there are ships of various sizes and quality. And then there's this crazy captain that, while his ship is new and shiny, openly states that all passengers will be shackled, chained to an oar, and sold to the highest bidder once they reach port. Upon hearing the lament of the crowd, and hardly anyone signing up, he has a change of heart: No shackles, no chains. So come on, we're all looking for a good time here. I've turned over a new leaf. Trust me. I don't REALLY want to brutally dominate your every waking moment. It was just a silly idea I was floating out there. Hey! If you don't like chains, I don't like chains. Not that I'm saying the chains were a bad idea. I still think you'd really like them. But for now there will be no chains on my ship.

I had some distant family that got screwed over by a lawyer. He botched the will. The father died, the kids were assholes, and the mother was left with nothing. So she sued. The lawyer did whatever shenanigans lawyers can do to delay things while he consolidated his money and bought a fancy house and car. By the time the case went forward and locked down his assets he hardly had anything of worth other than the house and car. He loses the case and they come for his money, but they're not allowed to touch his home or his means of transport. So she ended up getting nothing.

But this is the sort of game that rich people who can afford lawyers play. The laws apply to Raynaldo because he can't afford the legal footwork to dance around those laws.

No, we've got about 3 software guys. But individual engineers still sign for their portion of the work. When we release a version of software the engineer who wrote the thing signs for it. We try to get someone else to write the tests and someone else to run the tests when we can. For the last major OBOGS project we worked on I signed for module that actually held the sensors while the team lead signed for the controller. Him, a couple contractors, and myself all had portions of that code in there, but he was steering the boat so he signed for it. And I imagine that the system engineer signed for the unit on the whole.

I'm not responsible for keeping the slide valve from sticking, or the keeping the beds from filling with water. And no one on the team is responsible for supplying the OBOGS unit with bleed air that isn't on fire. That's an upstream requirement. Can't feed the pilot an inferno. Which is why the OBOGS shut down on that F-22 back in 2011. (It was a competitor's product.) But I am most certainly responsible for alerting the pilot that his OBOGS has shut down and that he has to switch over the bottled gas. ...ok, in that last project specifically, I was responsible for telling the controller board that the temperature was out of range... but it's an important step in the chain. If that step is missing, no alert comes on, the pilot doesn't know to switch over, he dies, plane crashes, and it all goes to hell.

Correct. Quite specifically I'm a professional and if I screw up I personally can be thrown in jail for gross negligence. The sort that kills people. The bosses responsibility is to ensure that the professional says he did the professional thing and tested it all. Hell, there are a lot of layers of over-arcing responsibility as far as subsystems go, and none of those guys are management. Now, if we actually kill someone the hammer would come down on everyone, the department, and the company on the whole. But I'd be on the legal hook for my end of the product. If the manager decides to, say, skip the testing step and gives a cost-benefit-analysis song and dance, he's responsible for that. If he tells us to make another version of software, and WE skip or screw up the tests, then we're responsible for that.

Well it's good that you at least understand that you're being a jerk. But let's make this clear: It's illegal like it was illegal to be black during the era of Jim Crow laws.

So, you know, the equivalent comeback would go along the lines of :

What are you, an idiot? That law you reference is itself illegal, get it through your head.
A hundred years ago they could lynch you for being black and no one would bat an eye. Do you think that would fly today? Time change. "Sinner" my ass -- that's a word used by fascists, now get back in line with modern moral standards before we sue you, your commander, and the whole army instead of just cutting your pay for a month.

All in all I think it's just another sign of how old and cumbersome our military is. Don't get me wrong, it's not something I want to be volatile and fickle. I just have little faith that they'll be able to adapt to a real modern threat. Case in point, nukes make the option of first-world full-scale combat kinda moot. So why are we pissing away our money on a navy? Does it cost that much to shoot some Somali pirates? Projecting force onto third world nations? Do we need the F-22 (or even the F-35) for that? Why are we doing it in the first place? Old and busted is the term. It applies to the whole military, not just their bullshit laws about adultery.

Oh yeah, prototyping is important. If you can't make a prototype you probably can't make a full fledged product. And depending on just what the hell the product is, there might not even be a need for any engineering. Sometimes you really just want a one-shot fire and forget product. But usually it's something that gets developed further, tweaked, customized, used as the starting point for the next project, or maintained for 15 years.

Or you could, you know, not hire bad employees? Or better still, how about you not let your top talent be sniped by someone willing to open their purse-strings? But yeah, the dead sea effect is common in the IT industry. Usually it's more of an issue where everyone is constantly jumping ship to another company and that's the only way you can get a pay raise. Which... I think is more prevalent on the west coast than here in the midwest.

Well yeah they said that. They didn't want to get fired!

Read it again.

At a guess:

The marketing manager got a pat on the back for tackling a tough problem and got to go back to marketing. The 4 members moved on to a better paying job when they learned the bonuses weren't continuous and they were underpaid. Now the remaining 7 developers are desperately trying to make heads or tails of an undocumented project in a language they don't know and coded like something a fresh grad would output.

But hey, they got the project out the door. Which is a REALLY GOOD first step. Without that step, there is no step #2. But if it's something they want to maintain, a tiny little dash of actual software engineering helps a lot.