What is the argument against Snowden

Has this been debated to death yet? Probably, but doing a search would require a level of effort I normally only reserve for watching TV. So it keeps coming to light that the NSA broke the law and spent a lot of effort spying on people who had nothing to do with terrorism (world leaders, etc).

Granted, nations tend to spy on each other so there is the argument that world leaders somewhat expect that to happen. But overall, what has Snowden done that is so bad? He has exposed criminal behavior and a lack of oversight.

‘he helps terrorists’. How is Merkel a terrorist and how to telling the world we spied on her helping the terrorists?

One problem is that international diplomacy is heavily based on appearances and pretending that your farts don’t stink. Everyone knows that everyone does certain stuff but God forbid you actually find evidence that it is really true. It’s like sex - you know your daughter in college is probably getting boned by the football team but you pretend she isn’t and if she gets pregnant, you act all indignant.

Didn’t he violate the terms of his contract and do things with secure information that he shouldn’t have?

It probably has been talked to death but I’ve been looking for an opportunity to say this: in arguing about this stuff in past threads, I’ve spent too much time arguing minor points while letting the major stuff go. I think it’s obvious at this point that people’s rights and their privacy are being trampled and the basis for most of this surveillance is flimsy to nonexistent; the NSA has exceeded its mission and its legal authority by a huge amount; this is an embarrassment that can’t be worth the diplomatic cost on top of the concerns about everybody’s rights; and Snowden shouldn’t be prosecuted for bringing this behavior to light because the NSA’s behavior is much worse than his. This agency needs to be brought under control yesterday.

So the arguments against Snowden are “he broke the law” (true, but not that important); “everybody spies” (true, but misleading); “he should’ve done it some other way” (there was no other way; the administration, the NSA and Congress were doing absolutely nothing to make this public and they may not have been allowed to do so); “he could have harmed national security” (there’s still no evidence he has, and the harm is arguably less than what the government is doing); and “I don’t like him personally” (nobody should give a shit).

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So the arguments against Snowden are “he broke the law” (true, but not that important)
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Why is breaking the law unimportant? Do you feel it’s always unimportant or just in this case?

Why is it misleading? Everybody (well, all of the countries that are powers anyway) DO spy in exactly the same ways, depending on their abilities and resources.

Sorry, but I’m not buying it. He could have done several other things that wouldn’t have been breaking the law. He chose to do it the way he did it, which was, IMHO, fucking stupid and unnecessary. He put his own ass in a crack because, frankly, he’s a moron. On the other side of the coin, whoever granted him a security clearance was a moron as well.

Pretty obviously he did harm national security, but even if he didn’t it shouldn’t be a free pass. If I go into a mall and fire a gun but it doesn’t hit anyone that doesn’t mean there was no harm, no foul.

I’ve never heard this argument. It’s fairly ridiculous, to be sure. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s not important in light of what’s going on here. He did break the law, but it seems the NSA has also been breaking the law and its actions affect far more people in a more significant way. And there was no obvious legal way to make this issue public. At least two Senators were opposed to these programs and felt they couldn’t even discuss them publicly.

Not everybody spies to this extent and for these reasons. Basically everybody spies, but not everyone spies to this enormous degree on its own citizens and on friendly nations for reasons not related to national security. Nobody really gave a crap about the Wikileaks cables, for instance, because everybody understands diplomats share their opinions about their colleagues and politicians in private. The outrage you’re seeing from U.S. allies is enough to tell you that this is not in the same ballpark.

Such as?

It’s not that obvious. I think it’s possible that other countries learned details about how the U.S. conducts espionage, but the main thing he did was embarrass people who didn’t want the public to know what they were doing. That doesn’t harm national security.

Eh, it’s a constant in these discussions.

A contract requiring you to break the law is unenforceable.

If congress passed a law stating that it was illegal to give a congressman a speeding ticket, would you consider this a legitimate use of their lawmaking powers? Because that’s basically what the federal government is doing. John Kiriakou is in prison right now because the federal government was committing war crimes, but made it illegal to do anything that might stop them committing war crimes.

One argument that at least gives me pause (at least as far as trying to prosecute Snowden) is “do we really want to send the message to people with access to classified information that it’s okay to do whatever they want with it as long as they believe in their principles strongly enough?” I mean, maybe the answer is “yes,” but it does make me think, especially if said principles don’t align quite as neatly with the general public’s as this case.

No, of course not, we want Americans to know that whenever they release classified information, no matter how clearly that information is in the interests of the public to know, they will be persecuted with all the fervor we can muster. This lesson of imperial power crushing the conscience of individuals will make us all morally strong and safe, and it won’t lead to the US becoming a fascist state at all!

“Clearly” to whom? It’s up to the judgment of each person who has access to that information? Why have any secrets at all about anything then? (Which may be your point, but I’d like that to be clear.)

And yes, obviously I was advocating that Snowden be treated like Manning.

What is the argument against Snowdon? What part of “he broke the law” is so hard to understand? If you want to argue that he “did it for a good cause”, go ahead and make that case. But he still broke the law. It matters not that someone else might have broken the law, too.

Also, note that his first action was to break the law. He made no effort to go thru regular channels first to try and effect change legally. He’s no Daniel Elsberg.

Just to confirm: corporate whistleblowing isn’t illegal per se, right? The only penalties against it are civil?

This is not “corporate whistleblowing”. This is releasing government classified documents.

I know. I was going to attempt some kind of comparison of the two situations, but then I realized that one half of my comparison may not be illegal. :slight_smile:

By “regular channels”, I assume you’re referring to the chain of command headed by a man who committed a felony to keep the problem hidden?

Hell, how do you know he didn’t try to go through the “regular channels”? The same anti-espionage laws that made it illegal for Snowden to go public about what the NSA was doing would also make it illegal for anyone to tell you that he tried to fight it the “right” way.

This is an interesting point. Since he said that he took the NSA job specifically to get to the information he would later reveal, I’d assumed that he hadn’t, but now I realize this isn’t necessarily so.

“The argument against Snowden” is that he broke the law, plain and simple. If he thinks the circumstances justified doing so, then he’s free to state his case in a court of law and let the jury decide.

No Russian jury will convict him.

The notion that he needs to face the consequences in an American courtroom is silly. Sometimes the law is immoral and needs to be broken. This is certainly Snowden’s case.

There are Saudi women anonymously posting videos of them driving cars which is breaking the law. Would you say they need to step up and face the consequences? I don’t think so.

I am quite confident that twenty years from now American public opinion will consider Snowden a patriot and a hero. Like Rosa Parks and others who broke the law for the better good.

If the law is immoral and needed to be broken, then he’s sure to be acquitted, so what’s the problem with him facing the charges?

For many decades blacks were found guilty and punished under juries and laws which we now know were immoral and unjust. That did not make them right at the time. I have no doubt that in 20 years American opinion will not condemn Snowden but that is not the case today.