I’ll note again as well that many of his disclosures went far and beyond talking about collecting metadata from US citizens. He doesn’t even have the “protecting rights of Americans” angle to fall back on there. Unless someone has a really good argument for how I was benefited by disclosures about hacking Chinese systems or Brazilian surveillance, the scale is already far out of balance between “help” and “harm”.
There have been a lot of unstated assumptions in this thread, and I think we need to clear those up before deciding how heroic Snowden is.
First, let me say that the argument “if someone flees, he’s therefore not a hero” holds no sway with me, not even a little bit. I can’t even imagine how it’s possible to have an opinion like that. Someone can do something heroic, and then try to minimize the damage to himself personally, and be no less a hero. The comparison to civil disobedience doesn’t work, because with civil disobedience, the punishment itself is what is supposed to get people’s attention. In the case of Snowden, the release of the information is what got people’s attention.
I don’t claim to know much about this case however. Snowden released information about the wholesale collection of cell phone metadata, and on the wholesale collection of Internet data. Both of these seem clearly illegal to me. What else has he released? Some here have stated that he has given a bunch of secret data to other countries, and if so I’d like to know the details.
Other assumptions made are that he could have released the information in a legal way, such as to a congressman, or in a less illegal way, such as to the NY Times or the Washington Post. I don’t buy that either of those was a good option, in this post-9/11 world, because I would expect (as Snowden apparently expected) that if he did either of those, the information would never have gotten out at all, and Snowden would have been arrested. Finding a non-US paper and a trusted reporter to me seems still like the best option.
I don’t know anything about his personal life except what I’ve read in this thread, but he clearly sacrificed a lot to release this information. The government was doing something illegal, he decided to be a whistleblower, and did it in a way that would assure the data went public. Hero? I don’t know about that, but it seems clear to me that he did the honorable thing at a cost to himself.
Plus one.
Except that several people (including myself) are in complete disagreement with that. The overwhelming majority of heroes do their best to avoid capture. Pointing at the extremey rare examples of the contrary like MLK doesn’t change this fact. Yes, I wrote fact. Make a list of your heroes, and see how many stood up there to be captured by whoever they were fighting when they had the option of avoiding it.
And why are you assuming that “civil disobedience” is a requirement? I’ve no use for civil disobedience, and there are almost no situation where I would advise someone breaking the law for a goal I support to turn himself in.
Since you allow for taking up arms, would you have found it OK if after his whistleblowing, he had taken some guns and grenades and assaulted the White House single handedly??
Frankly, what are you all expecting from this guy? And why are you expecting it?? If we were discussing about a random protestor against a random thing in a random country, would you systematically insist that regardless of what he did previously, the only way to do things right would be to then get himself arrested???:dubious:
I can’t see the difference. Taking up arms is legitimate in plenty of circumstances where you don’t want to declare independence. Are revolutions by definition immoral because you’re demanding independence, for instance?
In any given situation you can do nothing, or do something and let yourself be arrested/tried, or do something and escape, or take up arms. Washington could perfectly have organized traisonous or illegal activities that didn’t include taking up arms, and then let himself be arrested to use the trial as a soapbox, or he could have commited illegal activities and kept doing them clandestinely.
And do you think that he would have said that if you only, say, fight oppression rather than ask for independence, you shouldn’t take up arm? Did he ever promote civil disobedience?
That’s a nonsentical difference you’re making. A hero is someone who takes great risks for a good cause. The concept never included the requirement of letting yourself be caught (except in application of sub-clause 32, which gives an allowance for independence wars, mostly because Washington must stay a hero).
I really feels like Frylock now. I feel like I’m arguing with crazy people who make up definitions of the fly, totally ignore self-contradiction, cherry pick, true scotmanize, etc… Basically it feels like I’m arguing with the like of the young earth creationists, or ET abductionists, except a bunch of them, and they somehow took up the names of regular dopers. 
I cannot imagine caring so much about a cause that I would drop a bombshell and then scurry away.
If I personally cared that deeply about something, and felt that I needed to make sure my fellow citizens were aware, then I would be standing on rooftops, buying prime time tv spots and proclaiming on the front page of the NYT and the wsj. I would not take my stuff and sneak off to a communist country.
So, I am guilty of holding snowden to my own personal standard of honor and integrity. Mand he fails. Miserably.
Well, you’re not alone if that makes you feel any better.
Can you imagine caring enough about a cause that you would rather live the rest of your life able to continue contributing to it than spend the rest of your life isolated behind bars?
Well, no matter. I can imagine caring in all kinds of gradations. Including “I care about making sure X happens, but also, as an orthogonal matter, I would prefer that Y not happen. And given that I can arrange for both X and the absence of Y simultaneously, I will do so.”
This is the central point in which I disagree. I feel Snowden could have and should have reported through proper government channels. I don’t think he would have been arrested for doing so. We’ve cited the law that would have given him legal protection. And I don’t believe he needed to worry about illegal sanctions. If the government as a whole had no concerns about the NSA breaking the law, then the NSA wouldn’t be breaking the law. Congress would simply have made it legal for the NSA to gather information on anyone.
I disagree in this specific case. Every person in a precarious situation tries to minimize damage to themselves. That is just self-preservation. The difference is HOW you chose to do that. Snowden wants to have it both ways. He claims he released evidence because to expose illegality (likely factually inaccurate) and because the people have a right to know. You can’t hold that the people must know that laws are being broken on their watch, then claim the people don’t have a right to judge your flouting of that same rule of law using the same standards and institutions used to judge the government. This is a fundamental test on whether you actually believe in, and are willing to abide by the social contract that EVERYONE must obey the laws and live up to a basic moral code.
How can you simultaneously hold that the government (eg. people in the government) should be judged for their “illegal” actions by the people, while denying the same people the ability to judge you for yours? At best, it’s blatant hypocrisy and cynicism towards the people you think are being victimized. At worse, his specific behavior is treasonous. I say the latter mostly because of his specific conduct beyond just absconding.
Snowden didn’t JUST leave to escape prosecution. He went to the two most powerful countries that not only openly do the things he seems to take a principled stance against, but also that have the most to gain in acquiring the information he claims to have. He could have gone anywhere in the world, yet he chose two those two places. That CANNOT be a coincidence. Furthermore, his choice to go to these two places almost certainly has allowed them access to all his leaks. There are already reports the China government copied all his hard drives, and I am sure Russia will do the same in due time. Regardless of how you feel about the wisdom of leaking the information he leaked, or the morality of leaking in general, the fact is that he went beyond helping the American people, to hurting the country, and our standing in the world. That, in and of itself, is far from heroic.
Wrong. Civil disobedience is not just about the punishment. You are missing the point. The act is about raising awareness about the unjust law/act/policy you are protesting against. Plus, many acts of civil disobedience are not against government, nor are they “punished” in any traditonal sense (eg. union protests, bank protests, etc.).
Very strange to admit this given the stridency of your post. Don’t you think it would be best to read up before commenting?
Most legal experts disagree with you. Either way, if you agree with Snowden’s perspective, this is an irrelevant point given that the people determining the legality, and the people conducting the collection are one and the same. That said, we can judge this issue by other external measures (eg. necessity, effectiveness, public opinion, morality). Let’s take them 1 by 1:
*Was his leak necessary, and is it necessary for the government to collect this info?
*
The answer to the first question is obviously no. We have had this public debate before. There were reports of metadata collection long before Snowden came around, and there were congressional and judicial discussions/debates long ago. In fact, this practice was temporarily stopped a while back. There were reports on this at the time. What he has released thus far is very little that is new in terms of practices. Most of what he did was reveal that the government was effective and tenacious than we previously assumed.
The answer to the second question is yes. Why? Because technology, data collection, behavior analysis, and pattern recognition have advanced in recent years to create an environment where the pros to large scale data collection outweigh the cons. Even given those advancements, you still need A LOT of data, and you need to collect it before you have a specific reason to use it. Mostly for two reasons. Let’s say you find a burner sat phone in a AQ hideout in Yemen. If you want to know if that person was calling people in the US, you can’t only look forward in time as that phone is not going to be used again. You need to already have saved the data/records to cross reference for investigative purposes. Second, the larger the data set you have, the more accurate and effective the predictive algorithms you use will be. It’s like how reading the NYT gives you a good idea of what’s going in in the world, but your perspective will be much better if you read every newspaper in the country. the paradox here that most seem to be missing is that collecting more (relatively anonymous) data allows for more exculpatory parsing. That is, that by using more data, they can more narrowly focus their investigative resources such that FEWER people will be subject to real-world privacy intrusions.
Now of course you can just accept more risk in exchange for more privacy, but given that this information is routinely given away by individuals, and is already knowingly being used by private parties for various (mainly selfish financial) reasons, I think we can agree that most have at least tacitly agreed that said information is not inherently private. Most think it’s less distasteful for the government to use such info to differentiate you from terrorists than for Verizon or Google to use it to sell you ads and products.
Is it effective?
By most public accounts, yes. If you believe FBI Director Robert Mueller, domestically, there were anywhere from 10 or 12 cases where evidence obtained prevented terrorism. If you include foreign plots that number is 50+ according to NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander.
How does the public feel?
A slight majority of people agree that the government should be doing this, that Snowden should be prosecuted, and that such leaks hurt the US. Here is one link substantiating that.
Is it moral?
Obviously this is subjective, but given that people seem to think what he did hurts the US, and that much of this info is essentially not-private anyway (nor will it ever be), I have to think most would disagree with the way Snowden has comported himself, and whether what he did was helpful or heroic.
We might never know. First, AFAIK, he didn’t GIVE info to other countries, they TOOK it because he was stupid enough to travel to their countries with it, and to give said info to various reporters and other people around the world. Even if China and Russia didn’t have direct access to this stuff via his stupidity, do you really think China would hesitate to hack every device these reporters have to attempt to access the information? they already routinely steal state and trade secrets, why would they have any issue stealing stuff from the reporters Snowden was known to have been in contact with? Regardless, we will likely never know the extent of what he/other countries stole as it is still classified info.
Um, he first contacted Laura Poitras, an American film maker and NYT contributor, then leaked it to the Washington Post. He only went to the a Poitras colleague at the Guardian when the Post wouldn’t promise to print all he alleged within 72 hours. Even so, the WP did print some of his stuff despite his absurd and unreasonable timeline. AFAIK, he didn’t even attempt to contact anyone in congress or use any of the official legal channels for whistle blowers. It’s pretty presumptuous to assume it wouldn’t work if he never tried it.
More importantly, it highlights the gulf between what HE thinks is relevant and important, and what the PUBLIC and the journalistic community thinks is. The gulf is a clear commendation of his judgement. Ammerican journalists have reported on Abu Ghraib, Watergate, The Lewinski Affair, etc. There are plenty of reporters at large papers that would love to make their career reporting on his leaks IF they thought the journalistic value and importance of the info outweighed the cons. Reporters willing to report on important things that happen to hurt the country or powerful people are a dime a dozen. What he might have found hard to find are people who will willingly print unsubstantiated claims that can cause serious damage to the country and its people.
Really? He traded a fairly cushy life for infamy, notoriety, and what he thought would be a cushy life living in asylum in a developed country. It didn’t work out that way due to his sheer stupidity, but that doesn’t mean he gave up a lot. That is unless you think the Julian Assange’s of the world are truly suffering.
Continue contributing to it? This was a one-off regardless of what he did. It’s not like Iceland or Ecuador is gonna give him access to classified info even if they give him asylum. He can’t continue to contributing to the discourse out of jail anymore than he could inside it. The issue is why he thinks the government should have to answer for their conduct in a way he doesn’t have to. This is what you are missing. If a principled man wants to make a stand against something illegal or immoral, the predicate is that there is a legal or moral construct which we should all adhere to regardless of circumstance, OR accept the consequences for one’s actions. He assuredly expects the public to demand the government justify their actions morally and legally, yet he won’t give that same public that same consideration when the penalty might negatively affect him. That’s cowardly bullshit.
And again, this is aside from the fact he dimed us out to China and Russia.
A) He can hope to continue contributing to the cause of advocating for his ideals regardless of whether he has further access to classified information, in the same way that any of us can advocate for our ideals with regard to such issues regardless of our lack of access to classified information. He may have wished to continue being an advocate in the way that, for example, Daniel Ellsberg has.
B) Regardless, someone who passionately wants to make a contribution would, given a choice between a one-off and a zero-off, reasonably choose the one-off.
C) He may feel the public is entitled to judge him, but not trust the government to treat him in a justified manner, in the same way he did not trust that the government represented the public’s interests in the first place.
D) Alternatively, he may feel the majority of the public is also misguided in its judgement of him. This happens as well; there have been clear occasions in history when the majority of the public in some region would elect to treat someone in a way which we would today generally consider unjustified. It is not categorically unreasonable to worry that one is in such a situation.
E) In what specific way did he dime us out to China and Russia?
Correct. Which he could do from jail, Iceland, or as a free man in the US. The only difference is he doesn’t want to stand trial because he might go to jail, which hurt him- not his ability to advocate or agitate.
He already made his contribution. The choice is whether to run like a coward or stay and try to convince the public he was right to do this.
Which is bullshit. The government is made up of people who very rarely all agree. Despite all the offices, titles, and institutions, the government is made up of, and operates with the permission of the people. If he doesn’t trust the government via the people, then it wasn’t worth leaking the information to them in the first place. Again, you can’t hold that the people deserve to know and judge the government, but they aren’t enlightened, organized, or fair enough to judge you.
If you hold they are so brainwashed or stupid, then you wouldn’t leak it to them in the first place, right? Why would they deserve it?
He traveled to both countries, allowing them to access specific intelligence on their countries that we accumulated (among other things). For example, he leaked a classified Obama memo directing the US intellegence community to draw up overseas target lists for offensive and defensive cyber-attacks. This is a perfectly understandable and legitimate tactic (especially given China’s conduct) that has now been compromised. This has real-world effects not because China didn’t know that (broadly) that such things were occurring, but that publicly linking the president to specific plans and actions not only allows the to beef up their systems, but it also compromises our negotiating power wrt to all sorts of issues.
He also made it harder for anyone wanting to work in the intelligence community today, and made it more difficult for any friendly nation to trust us with secrets.
[quote=“brickbacon, post:211, topic:662810”]
I disagree in this specific case. Every person in a precarious situation tries to minimize damage to themselves. That is just self-preservation. The difference is HOW you chose to do that. Snowden wants to have it both ways. He claims he released evidence because to expose illegality (likely factually inaccurate) and because the people have a right to know. You can’t hold that the people must know that laws are being broken on their watch, then claim the people don’t have a right to judge your flouting of that same rule of law using the same standards and institutions used to judge the government. This is a fundamental test on whether you actually believe in, and are willing to abide by the social contract that EVERYONE must obey the laws and live up to a basic moral code.
How can you simultaneously hold that the government (eg. people in the government) should be judged for their “illegal” actions by the people, while denying the same people the ability to judge you for yours? At best, it’s blatant hypocrisy and cynicism towards the people you think are being victimized. At worse, his specific behavior is treasonous. I say the latter mostly because of his specific conduct beyond just absconding.
Snowden didn’t JUST leave to escape prosecution. He went to the two most powerful countries that not only openly do the things he seems to take a principled stance against, but also that have the most to gain in acquiring the information he claims to have. He could have gone anywhere in the world, yet he chose two those two places. That CANNOT be a coincidence. Furthermore, his choice to go to these two places almost certainly has allowed them access to all his leaks. There are already reports the China government copied all his hard drives, and I am sure Russia will do the same in due time. Regardless of how you feel about the wisdom of leaking the information he leaked, or the morality of leaking in general, the fact is that he went beyond helping the American people, to hurting the country, and our standing in the world. That, in and of itself, is far from heroic.
Wrong. Civil disobedience is not just about the punishment. You are missing the point. The act is about raising awareness about the unjust law/act/policy you are protesting against. Plus, many acts of civil disobedience are not against government, nor are they “punished” in any traditonal sense (eg. union protests, bank protests, etc.).
Very strange to admit this given the stridency of your post. Don’t you think it would be best to read up before commenting?
Most legal experts disagree with you. Either way, if you agree with Snowden’s perspective, this is an irrelevant point given that the people determining the legality, and the people conducting the collection are one and the same. That said, we can judge this issue by other external measures (eg. necessity, effectiveness, public opinion, morality). Let’s take them 1 by 1:
*Was his leak necessary, and is it necessary for the government to collect this info?
*
The answer to the first question is obviously no. We have had this public debate before. There were reports of metadata collection long before Snowden came around, and there were congressional and judicial discussions/debates long ago. In fact, this practice was temporarily stopped a while back. There were reports on this at the time. What he has released thus far is very little that is new in terms of practices. Most of what he did was reveal that the government was effective and tenacious than we previously assumed.
The answer to the second question is yes. Why? Because technology, data collection, behavior analysis, and pattern recognition have advanced in recent years to create an environment where the pros to large scale data collection outweigh the cons. Even given those advancements, you still need A LOT of data, and you need to collect it before you have a specific reason to use it. Mostly for two reasons. Let’s say you find a burner sat phone in a AQ hideout in Yemen. If you want to know if that person was calling people in the US, you can’t only look forward in time as that phone is not going to be used again. You need to already have saved the data/records to cross reference for investigative purposes. Second, the larger the data set you have, the more accurate and effective the predictive algorithms you use will be. It’s like how reading the NYT gives you a good idea of what’s going in in the world, but your perspective will be much better if you read every newspaper in the country. the paradox here that most seem to be missing is that collecting more (relatively anonymous) data allows for more exculpatory parsing. That is, that by using more data, they can more narrowly focus their investigative resources such that FEWER people will be subject to real-world privacy intrusions.
Now of course you can just accept more risk in exchange for more privacy, but given that this information is routinely given away by individuals, and is already knowingly being used by private parties for various (mainly selfish financial) reasons, I think we can agree that most have at least tacitly agreed that said information is not inherently private. Most think it’s less distasteful for the government to use such info to differentiate you from terrorists than for Verizon or Google to use it to sell you ads and products.
Is it effective?
By most public accounts, yes. If you believe FBI Director Robert Mueller, domestically, there were anywhere from 10 or 12 cases where evidence obtained prevented terrorism. If you include foreign plots that number is 50+ according to NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander.
How does the public feel?
A slight majority of people agree that the government should be doing this, that Snowden should be prosecuted, and that such leaks hurt the US. Here is one link substantiating that.
Is it moral?
Obviously this is subjective, but given that people seem to think what he did hurts the US, and that much of this info is essentially not-private anyway (nor will it ever be), I have to think most would disagree with the way Snowden has comported himself, and whether what he did was helpful or heroic.
We might never know. First, AFAIK, he didn’t GIVE info to other countries, they TOOK it because he was stupid enough to travel to their countries with it, and to give said info to various reporters and other people around the world. Even if China and Russia didn’t have direct access to this stuff via his stupidity, do you really think China would hesitate to hack every device these reporters have to attempt to access the information? they already routinely steal state and trade secrets, why would they have any issue stealing stuff from the reporters Snowden was known to have been in contact with? Regardless, we will likely never know the extent of what he/other countries stole as it is still classified info.
Um, he first contacted Laura Poitras, an American film maker and NYT contributor, then leaked it to the Washington Post. He only went to the a Poitras colleague at the Guardian when the Post wouldn’t promise to print all he alleged within 72 hours. Even so, the WP did print some of his stuff despite his absurd and unreasonable timeline. AFAIK, he didn’t even attempt to contact anyone in congress or use any of the official legal channels for whistle blowers. It’s pretty presumptuous to assume it wouldn’t work if he never tried it.
More importantly, it highlights the gulf between what HE thinks is relevant and important, and what the PUBLIC and the journalistic community thinks is. The gulf is a clear commendation of his judgement. Ammerican journalists have reported on Abu Ghraib, Watergate, The Lewinski Affair, etc. There are plenty of reporters at large papers that would love to make their career reporting on his leaks IF they thought the journalistic value and importance of the info outweighed the cons. Reporters willing to report on important things that happen to hurt the country or powerful people are a dime a dozen. What he might have found hard to find are people who will willingly print unsubstantiated claims that can cause serious damage to the country and its people.
Really? He traded a fairly cushy life for infamy, notoriety, and what he thought would be a cushy life living in asylum in a developed country. It didn’t work out that way due to his sheer stupidity, but that doesn’t mean he gave up a lot. That is unless you think the Julian Assange’s of the world are truly suffering.[/
This. Exactly.
Had no idea you were such an icon of courage!
As I understand it, it violates all our legal principles to gather data on people without a specific reason to suspect them of doing anything … which is EXACTLY what the NSA has been doing. So no, Congress CAN’T just write a law saying the NSA can do these things, cause the courts would strike it down in a heartbeat. That’s why all the secrecy. (Though, granted, the current Supreme Court might go for it. However, they are very much outside the tradition of most Supreme Court and I expect many of their decisions will be reversed in the future.)
Also, you have a lot of faith in our government. They have not been all that worthy of faith of late.
Snowden hasn’t done anything to prevent the people of the nation from judging him. Avoiding government agents is not the same thing as avoiding the judgment of the American people. Nor is avoiding trial. The two overlap ideally, but in the actuality, they often do not. Would they in this case? I can’t blame someone who thinks the gov’t is up to no good if they suspect a trial will reflect the gov’t’s will more than the people’s.
You may not share that suspicion, but the thread’s about whether he’s a hero or not, and if we’re making that judgment, surely we have to take into account his own beliefs about what kind of situation he is in. That’s an integral part of heroism, isn’t it?
CurtC’s post was the very model of non-stridency. It was very carefully phrased and betrayed little to no emotion. How can I prove this, though? The burden, if you want to argue this point, most naturally lies on you to show where in the text you detect this “strident” tone.
Moreover, it was very clear in stating that he is not arguing that Snowden is not a hero, rather, he is arguing that you’re arguments against Snowden’s heroism don’t work.
How do you know this?
FISA court seems to disagree with you since they issued the warrants for collecting the metadata.
Clearly it does not. Have you never heard of the census? More importantly, similar cases regarding collection of metadata-like information have been ruled to be constitutional. On a practical level, the information they are collecting is not only know to various non-governmental entities, but is also limited in several ways and anonymized unless it is specifically needed in an investigation pursuant to a warrant.
The judicial branch has already weighted in on all of these things. AFAIK, most of the things people are complaining about have been overseen by a FISA court. The reason most of this stuff is secret is because telling the bad guys what you are doing to catch them is pretty ineffective.
Nonsense. I cannot believe you actual think this is true. The whole point is the judgment isn’t just people’s opinions, it’s the ability to deem someone financially or criminally liable for their conduct. That is the only repercussion that has teeth in a case like this. The ability for a pundit to hurt his feelings via op-ed is not judgment in any sense of the word, and is certainly more than he expected the government to be subject to.
The government is the people. Can some elements in the government railroad people? Sure, but it’s far less likely when the person has public support and the superlative representation.
Not if the person has repeatedly proven their judgment is exceedingly poor, and that their perspectives are wildly divorced from reality. Either way, people with lots of public support in a case like this would likely not even be tried, and if he was, would be found not-guilty. Besides, heroism is about risk to some extent. If his plan worked, he would have risked very little.
When you have what seem to be pretty solid opinions on things despite have several easily reconciled misconceptions, I think you should be called out on it.
Which I feel he failed to do. It’s logical and perfectly reasonable to expect a “hero” to stick around to be judged. This is why people like Ghandi, MLK, etc. wrote about it. The fact that you don’t get it doesn’t mean the argument is bad.
How do I know he wanted to seek asylum in a developed country? He said he wanted to stay and fight the US in the court because he had “faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law”. Clearly, he didn’t expect to be holed up in an airport.