# Snowden Is A Hero: NSA Phone Capture And PRISM Are Blatantly Illegal **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810 "2013-07-06T19:30:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/181 "2013-07-08T02:20:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He has done interviews with at least three publications. Lately he has chosen to be silent. The Guardian (interview with Greenwald, and interview with the public online), the South China Morning Post, and what else? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Better Dim Sum in Hong Kong. Hardy har har. But honestly, how does one reconcile the statement that it’s easy to get to Iceland with the evidence that Snowden would have preferred to go Iceland yet did not end up in Iceland? Is he just utterly incompetent? [That remains a possibility, sure. I suspect he looked into the matter quite a bit, though…] > [@](#): > > I agree, this whole line of discussion is besides the point. Heroes don’t flee, Heroes stand up and face the music. It doesn’t matter where he fled to. As I entered this thread saying: If heroes don’t flee, and heroes stand up and face the music, is George Washington definitionally not a hero because he didn’t turn himself in to the British? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/182 "2013-07-08T02:25:50Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Hardy har har. But honestly, how does one reconcile the statement that it’s easy to get to Iceland with the evidence that Snowden would have preferred to go Iceland yet did not end up in Iceland? Is he just utterly incompetent? [That remains a possibility, sure. I suspect he looked into the matter quite a bit, though…] Who cares? He’s not a hero if he flees to Hong Kong and he’s not a hero if he flees to Iceland. No one is asking him to turn himself in. Washington took up arms and fought. If this guy thought he should do that, then he shouldn’t have fled. Part of the whole civil disobedience thing is “I dare you to arrest me”. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/183 "2013-07-08T02:27:19Z")
I care because I’m trying to understand what other people in this thread believe and why. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/184 "2013-07-08T02:32:47Z")
For those who say Snowden should have gone through “the proper channels” to share his information, three former NSA whistleblowers who did just that feel their experience indicates he made the better decision ([link](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/)). It doesn’t really matter as far as what I’m concerned with in this thread goes, because I’m more concerned with the arguments people are offering of the form “Snowden would be good if he stayed and took his punishment, but instead he’s bad because …”. It’s certainly possible you could disagree with these three’s views on whistleblowing just as much as you disagree with Snowden’s leak in the first place. But it’s interesting, nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/185 "2013-07-08T02:40:29Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I want to take it a step back. The OP’s conclusion is that Snowden is a hero. Before we can have a clear answer to that question, we need to know more clearly, what’s a hero? OP, what do you think a hero is, such that Snowden is that? **Marley** et all, what do you guys think a hero is, such that Snowden is _not_ that? A hero is a person who takes big risks in order to make things better for others. Like that Charles Something guy in Cincinnati who helped the kidnapped women escape from the Castro brothers. He didn’t know if a guy was lurking in there with a revolver ready to shoot him. But he helped them get out when the one captive cried out for help. He used to beat his wife. But he was a hero that day, no doubt about it. In a similar way, Snowden took even greater risks to let Americans know about the NSA spying program. Now he’s holed up in a Moscow airport and god knows what his future will be, but it sure doesn’t look good right now. Snowden is a hero. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/186 "2013-07-08T02:42:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No one is asking him to turn himself in. What exactly does “He shouldn’t flee” amount to, then? It very much sounds like a number of people are asking him to turn himself in, his actions not being legitimized otherwise. > [@](#): > > Washington took up arms and fought. If this guy thought he should do that, then he shouldn’t have fled. Part of the whole civil disobedience thing is “I dare you to arrest me”. So you’d be happier if Snowden violently resisted the American police when they came to arrest him? A la Washington… If you think Snowden’s a bad guy and shouldn’t have leaked things, that’s fine. I just don’t understand the argument “His disobedience is fine; it is proper to disobey an unjust law. But one must then obey on the second level the law that says you will be punished for failing to obey the unjust law. Unless you go to a third level of resisting that law violently; then it can be alright…” There’s no rule that the only proper way to protest an unjust law is to go the Thoreau route of sitting in a jail cell, just because some people have used it effectively. You can postulate such a rule if you like, but I don’t see why I should accord that rule any respect. Though Thoreau sat in that jail cell, he still refused to pay the taxes they wanted from him. Well, fine, but why is it ok to dodge the taxman, and not ok to dodge the jailman? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/187 "2013-07-08T02:46:06Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > What exactly does “He shouldn’t flee” amount to, then? It very much sounds like a number of people are asking him to turn himself in, his actions not being legitimized otherwise. Let’s wait until someone actually says that. > [@](#): > > So you’d be happier if Snowden violently resisted the American police when they came to arrest him? A la Washington… There’s a real easy way to answer that question: Did I say I would be happier? > [@](#): > > If you think Snowden’s a bad guy and shouldn’t have leaked things, that’s fine. I just don’t understand the argument “His disobedience is fine; it is proper to disobey an unjust law. But one must then obey the law that says you will be punished for failing to obey the unjust law. Unless you resist that law violently, then it can be alright…” Because we’re talking about whether he is a hero or not. ---
**Author:** ![Psychopants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Psychopants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Psychopants)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/188 "2013-07-08T02:46:21Z")
This thread is giving me a headache. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/189 "2013-07-08T02:52:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let’s wait until someone actually says that. What else is this, then?: > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Heroes don’t flee. MLK didn’t break the law and then run across the border to Mexico. Going to jail was part of the whole civil disobedience thing and what makes people like him actual heroes. It sounds an awful lot like you think disobedience followed by dutifully submitting to imprisonment is more legitimate than disobedience not followed by dutifully submitting to imprisonment. Perhaps you think “hero” status and legitimacy are completely orthogonal issues, such that you are only saying “His hero status would be affected by whether he stuck around to go to jail, but the legitimacy of his disobedience would not”? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > There’s a real easy way to answer that question: Did I say I would be happier? You suggested a key difference between Washington and Snowden was that Washington took up arms. You are right that I drew from this an inference that was too strong. I apologize. I actually suspect the reason you condone Washington’s actions and now Snowden is simply because you believe in Washington’s cause and not in Snowden’s cause. That’s fine. But I wish everyone would admit that’s what it boils down to, instead of claiming it’s about the rules of how to carry out legitimate protest, with a nonsensical account of how this must be done. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/190 "2013-07-08T02:58:00Z")
Er, “now Snowden” should be “not Snowden’s”, of course. > [@Psychopants](#): > > This thread is giving me a headache. Me too. Sorry. In fact, I’m worried that the quality of my contributions has been rather lessening, so I’m going to take a break… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/191 "2013-07-08T03:04:40Z")
The comparison with Washington doesn’t make sense because Washington’s goal was to form an independent country. Unless Britain agreed, that necessitated taking up arms. Snowdon isn’t trying to declare independence. He just wants to expose, and change, certain aspects of the law. The more obvious comparison is Ellsberg. So, where did Ellsberg flee to? He didn’t. In fact, if you follow the event (from wikipedia)s: > [@](#): > > Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators—among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war—to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on the record before the Senate. Ellsberg told U.S. Senators that they should be prepared to go to jail in order to end the Vietnam War.[11] > > Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Ellsberg also shared the documents with New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan under a pledge of confidentiality. Sheehan broke his promise to Ellsberg, and built a scoop around what he’d received both directly from Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.[12] I’m just not seeing the parallel here. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/192 "2013-07-08T03:06:24Z")
[“Snowden made the right call when he fled the U.S.” - Daniel Ellsberg](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html) Not everyone has to do things the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Psychopants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Psychopants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Psychopants)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/193 "2013-07-08T03:07:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The comparison with Washington doesn’t make sense because Washington’s goal was to form an independent country. Unless Britain agreed, that necessitated taking up arms. Snowdon isn’t trying to declare independence. He just wants to expose, and change, certain aspects of the law. > > The more obvious comparison is Ellsberg. So, where did Ellsberg flee to? He didn’t. In fact, if you follow the event (from wikipedia)s: > > I’m just not seeing the parallel here. Perhaps you might consider the Polanski saga for comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/194 "2013-07-08T03:11:07Z")
> [@Psychopants](#): > > Perhaps you might consider the Polanski saga for comparison. Polanski drugged and raped a girl who was 13 or 14, I forget which. That you compare his actions to Snowdens totally invalidates your credibility. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/195 "2013-07-08T03:40:52Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Calling out Russia or China or Venezuela in the same way is not _possible_. For starters, he could refuse to hide behind their skirts because he’s too much of a coward to face the US. “Oh, let me hide behind this criminal and I don’t have to say anything because you know he’s a criminal but I’m going to hide here anyway! I’m a hero!” > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > A hero is a person who takes big risks in order to make things better for others. Better for who? According to who? I won’t claim my life has changed significantly either way from day-to-day but I’d say that, on balance, Snowden made my life worse by compromising the US’s ability to collect intelligence than any benefit I got from worrying about “metadata” about my phone calls. So Snowden completely failed to make my life better, actually made it _worse_ and is hiding out from any punishment. Oh yeah… what a hero. ---
**Author:** ![Consensus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@Consensus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Consensus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/196 "2013-07-08T05:13:35Z")
So would the situation of Snowden change if the worlds governments would come out and say ‘Yeah we keep tabs on everybody, deal with it.’ ? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/197 "2013-07-08T13:06:00Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > For starters, he could refuse to hide behind their skirts because he’s too much of a coward to face the US. “Oh, let me hide behind this criminal and I don’t have to say anything because you know he’s a criminal but I’m going to hide here anyway! I’m a hero!” > Better for who? According to who? I won’t claim my life has changed significantly either way from day-to-day but I’d say that, on balance, Snowden made my life worse by compromising the US’s ability to collect intelligence than any benefit I got from worrying about “metadata” about my phone calls. > > So Snowden completely failed to make my life better, actually made it _worse_ and is hiding out from any punishment. > > Oh yeah… what a hero. I personally would call somebody a hero (or at least credit them for heroic character) if they sincerely (we can throw in “and reasonably”) _believed_ their action was for the benefit of others. Do you think Snowden fits that bill? As for whether his action _actually_ benefited others, I am wondering how you measure the effect on your life of the gov’ts ability to collect intelligence and of your knowledge of the collection of metadata. I am also wondering how you are measuring the effect of Snowden’s action on the government’s ability to collect intelligence. Do we all agree with **Evil Captor’s** definition? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/198 "2013-07-08T13:13:47Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I personally would call somebody a hero (or at least credit them for heroic character) if they sincerely (we can throw in “and reasonably”) _believed_ their action was for the benefit of others. Do you think Snowden fits that bill? I have no idea. I really don’t even care. If someone hurts me “for my own good”, I’m not exceptionally inclined to give him the “hero” mantle. Especially if he can’t make an acceptable (to me, since I was hurt) case for why hurting me was for my own good. > [@](#): > > As for whether his action _actually_ benefited others, I am wondering how you measure the effect on your life of the gov’ts ability to collect intelligence and of your knowledge of the collection of metadata. Simple: I don’t give a shit about my phone call metadata. I do give a shit about US national security. So any move that damages the US’s ability to engage in national security affects me more than any move affecting my phone call metadata. His actions gave me zero benefit and harmed the intelligence programs of the nation where I live. There’s no reason for me to argue “how much” he hurt them, he still hurt them more than he benefited me and thus he is not deserving of a “hero” title. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/199 "2013-07-08T13:22:10Z")
That’s a good point. While I’m not too crazy about the government collecting metadata, what level of harm does that rise to? Again, going to the Pentagon Papers analogy, this is no Vietnam War, where ~50,000 Americans and untold number of Vietnamese were killed. Now, that is not to say that nothing short of a Vietnam War situation can be considered for “hero” status, but this is far, far below that. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810/200 "2013-07-08T13:22:37Z")
Okay, thanks for that **Jophiel**. It looks like between you and **Evil** , the debate isn’t so much over Snowden’s heroism or lack of it, but rather over whether Snowden benefited you or not. This is not to say that if **Evil** proved there was a benefit, then he’d thereby prove Snowden a hero. Instead I’m just saying it looks like before you guys can sensibly discuss together the heroism question, you have to hash out whether he benefited you or not. If you can’t agree about that, there’s no point trying to argue about Snowden’s heroism. ETA: Looks like this is true for the pair { **John Mace** , **Evil Captor** } as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snowden-is-a-hero-nsa-phone-capture-and-prism-are-blatantly-illegal/662810.md?page=11)