So long as we’re floating trial balloons for what should be done about Snowden, I hope somebody out there floats one that says the US should stop its spying and just accept that it cannot and should not see everything that goes on
You mean the effective route.
Sure, we get what you’re saying. You want to see a man suffer and be obstructed at every point, you want to see him sweat and bleed until he finally climbs over that mountain and plants the flag. You want to see him do a little penance for an illegal activity, no matter if its simply exposing other illegal activity, because in your mind, it makes you feel better that you’re not supporting someone who is not going to be kicked in the teeth just a little for betraying the laws he swore to uphold. You think that if you supported Snowden, it means that you support all lawbreakers, or that you support the ends justifying the means, and that terrifies you because you can’t conceive of a middle option. Of course, you probably also think that if you support this criminal, it means you can’t morally say you don’t support other criminals and your entire underlying morality falls apart.
There is no reason at all Snowden needed to suffer even a little bit for what he wanted to do. There are legal ways to do things like this but they don’t always work, and barring that, if the illegalities are severe and pervasive enough, the best way to bring them out into the light is to do it as effective as possible. It doesn’t matter what it makes one looks like, that they are shirking their responsibility or not suffering for their martyrdom, all that it matters is that the job is done.
You and I appear to have very different understandings of what a functioning rule of law is, or is it your belief that a North Korean citizen can make allegations of government malfeasance and get a fair hearing in an impartial court?
I don’t have any loyalty to or obligation to follow the laws of jurisdictions I am not a citizen of, resiident of or passing through, or doing business in.
The United States government has signed a treaty recognising the validity of German law. They should not then turn around and spend billions of dollars for the express purpose of violating German law.
Wow, I didn’t realize that simply speaking to your Congressional Representatives was such a perilous, painful endeavor. Ignorance fought!
Seriously, though… the straw is strong with this one! I only ask that he make the most modest of efforts to bring this to light within the system before deciding for himself that he must break the law and flee to Russia. As it is he made ZERO effort. There is enough room between ZERO and your description to fit, well, all the straw in China. To mx a metaphor.
I agree with the above statement but are the only options “huge amount of personal courage” and “coward”? Do you honestly believe that Snowden’s goal was to live in Moscow? Does he immediately become a hero if he returns to the US to face the charges?
I’m not willing to call Snowden a hero but current events lead me to believe that he did the right thing. He certainly is no coward. How many of us have changed the world for the better?
I doubt very much Snowden wants to be a hero either - he’s just a whistleblower on the crazy excesses of a branch of Government, and I’m sure he’d be happy to be so described.
The ‘hero’ traitor’ nonsense is just labels it suits other people to put on him.
Snowden is not a hero to us (the USA) Snowden is a hero to those who would see us fail. If you want to stop the Feds from being wrong … where do you start?
You sure don’t start at the same place that American interest are being protected.
Do you know that 911 is calculated to have cost over one trillion dollars in fear alone?
Make a list of all the people the NSA is hurting that are innocent … now put that list next to the ones they are protecting us from.
If my name is on their radar … I guarantee you one thing I have not called anyone else on their radar, because I am innocent and proud of it.
I agree in the case of slightly bad laws. But if the law is bad enough – think the Fugitive Slave Act – violating it is highly commendable.
Now, I don’t rank the evil of loss of privacy nearly as high as most on this thread.
And I have a suspicion that if the US government is allowed less resources for snooping, there will be more devoted to human intelligence. Perhaps I have read too many spy novels, but this seems far more likely to result in loss of freedom, and torture, than someone checking who I, or Angela Merkel, like to telephone.
If I really did think the NSA has put us in a 1984 world – and I don’t – sure, Snowden is justified. As it is, I think he is putting legitimate efforts to prevent militant attacks against civilians at risk. But if he was outing torture, his contempt for US law would be justified.
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I believe his goal was to become famous and never have to work again. Mission accomplished.
No, but he’d earn my respect for doing so.
He put my life in danger and the lives of millions of other Americans, and may have completely destroyed a useful tool in the war on terror to soothe his own ego. I hardly consider that doing the right thing or changing the world for the better.
What’s even more commendable is working within the system to repeal the law. It’s not the role of the individual to decide which laws should or shouldn’t be followed - down that road leads anarchy, and that attitude is a major contributor to the stress being put on our police and legal system.
I cited events that serve as a direct test of the proposition “this problem can be fixed by working within the system”. You’re “unconvinced” – OK, fine, plenty of people are “unconvinced” that the earth is more than 6000 years old or that men walked on the moon.
It is if you’re talking about national secrets! I know you’re being serious because more than one person has told you of prior examples of people who tried to do things the right way and was severely punished. Surely you wouldn’t be ignorant enough to sarcastically ignore proof that your plan has been tried and failed, you’re much too smart for that! And surely you are also too smart to suggest that Snowden himself must personally go through this penance rather than learn from the examples of his predecessors
He doesn’t need to. Others have tried it. Read the thread if you want examples. Therefore Snowden did the only thing he could do
Other potential whistleblowers did the work for him so he doesn’t have to. Snowden gave up a life of luxury and a hot girlfriend to live in a snowy wasteland at the whim of an abusive near-dictatorship. He has sacrificed enough. He did the right thing by escaping before he could be silenced and I hope he releases everything and is eventually pardoned and given a statue in front of the NSA