That might be how it’s supposed to work, but it’s awfully hard to argue that’s what was really happening.
Yeah, it pretty much is. When we say “someone got off on a technicality” we’re saying the letter of the law acquitted them despite them being morally guilty.
In this case, we’re saying the opposite. Snowden was morally right, despite having “technically” broken the law.
If this were the case, then everyone in Congress would have top secret clearances and access to every bit of classified information Snowden had. They would be able to review FISA court cases and speak out against abuses themselves.
But the reality is a tiny handful of senators sit on the Intelligence committee, and they have no oversight over national security policy except the privilege of getting lied to by the NSA. Any single Congressman would likely be in the same boat as Snowden now if they tried to “police” the executive branch. It takes a majority of Congress acting together, and that takes public awareness and widespread outrage. Which Snowden is a hero for providing.
Oh, please? Congress like the cops? You mean the infinitely bribable, corrupt cops don’t you? Going to your Congressman with anything other than a bagful of money is a sign of naivety at this point.
I believe that is called the Special Pleading Fallacy.
Got anything else?
If Snowden believed (setting aside, for now, the accuracy of his belief) that Congress was complicit in setting up the NSA surveillance program, would his actions have been justified?
No, that’s not what the poster was saying. He compared breaking the law with breaking a company’s privacy policy. The latter is not an illegal act, unless the company’s policy is itself based on the law. Then, the key aspect is that the person has broken the law, not some “company policy” which needn’t have the force of law.
Eh. That’s just an excuse for not trying. Your Congresscritter or Senator has access to someone who sits on the relevant oversight committee. If you don’t make the slightest effort to work this thru regular channels, then you get no sympathy from me. YMMV, as it obviously does.
Are you saying that Congress is not corrupt?
Moreover, Rosa Parks didn’t respond to legal threats against her by fleeing to the Soviet Union. Thoreau didn’t hightail it to Canada to avoid paying his taxes. Gandhi didn’t call for Indian self-determination from the comfort of a villa in France. And so on.
@Evil Captor; Part of “challenging an immoral law” means being prepared to accept the legal consequences thereof. Simply saying you don’t believe in the law does not render you immune to prosecution - if it did, the entire concept of rule of law would fail to function. We have, in our nation, assigned judges and juries the task of deciding law and fact, and unless you’re suggesting that the entire American judicial system itself is also corrupt and hopeless, then I see not why we should discard it based on one man’s say-so that the rules the rest of the country follows don’t apply to him.
If the law is indeed found to be wrong in the long term, then Snowden will be acquitted or pardoned someday - but as long as he’s living the life of a fugitive under the protection of a hostile state whose government does all the things he accuses our own of doing and worse, he’s not a patriot or a hero - he’s a self-serving hypocrite and a criminal, and I will never see him as anything else unless he mans up, turns himself in, and presents to a judge and a jury his argument for why he isn’t guilty of espionage.
John, the regular channels are corrupt. Your posture invites infinite abuse by the NSA. It’s not a sound approach at all.
Any single Congressman who tried to police the executive branch would be charged with espionage and forced to flee the country for asylum?
[QUOTE=US Constitution, Article I, Section 6]
They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
[/QUOTE]
Cite?
This is one of the more bizarre and ill-conceived criticism of Snowden out there, second only to “if he cares so much about freedom, why’d he go to [del]CHINA?[/del] RUSSIA?” Which, I see, you also touch on later in this post.
I mean, let’s think about this for a little while. The only legitimate way to challenge an immoral law is to subject yourself to it? Is that really the position you want to take? Because, you know… Hitler. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to take the position that Albert Einstein had no business criticizing German anti-Jewish laws because he fled to America first.
Too Godwin? Okay, let’s stick with the subjects you brought up. The Civil Rights movement, for example. Except, instead of Rosa Parks, how about we talk about James Baldwin? James Baldwin, if you’re not familiar with him, was an African-American writer and poet. Also, totally gay. He wrote a lot about the injustices of institutionalized racism and homophobia in the US. While he was living in Paris. Were his complaints about unfair American laws invalid because he had placed himself beyond their reach? In fact, Europe of the era was full of black American writers, thinkers, and entertainers who bailed on the racist culture of the US, but were still outspoken about its injustices. Just a big pack of cowards, in your book?
Or, hell, let’s talk Rosa Parks herself. By your logic, if Parks had said, “Screw this bus shit, I’m moving to Cali,” that fact alone would invalidate her complaints about the injustice of segregation, simply because she didn’t allow herself to be persecuted by them.
Suffering for your beliefs is a good way to demonstrate that you are operating out of principle, and not self-interest. If you wanted to protest the Vietnam war, you made a much more effective statement by going to jail, then you would by going to Canada to live off of daddy’s trust fund.
In Snowden’s case, it’s not necessary that he be put in prison to demonstrate that he’s acting out of principle, because his actions by themselves impose their own hardship. He had a high-paying job living in Hawaii. Now he’s in Russia, relying on handouts to survive. He’s clearly paid a high price for his revelations, and it’s apparent to me he was aware of this price before he undertook this endeavor. I do not think it’s necessary that his suffering come specifically at the hands of the US government to demonstrate his commitment to his ideals, particularly given that, if he had been arrested, he would not have been in a position to make the revelations he felt were necessary.
I don’t believe he (or anyone else) has ever claimed he wasn’t guilty of espionage. The law he is opposed to is not the one that says, “You’re not allowed tell government secrets,” its the law that says, “The government can collect as much data about you as it wants, and doesn’t have to tell anyone about it.” Allowing himself to be prosecuted for breaking the first law does nothing to oppose the effects of the second law, and in his specific circumstances, would actively prevent him from working to change or repeal the second law.
Um, the last 15 years of politics in America? Have you been following the news at all?
The issue here isn’t really corruption, it’s that nobody was being forthcoming about this and that was not going to change. Of course it should also be noted that the national security apparatus wasn’t being forthcoming with Congress either.
Heil!
Corruption may have been a bad choice of words, more a matter of the watchdogs in Congress being all too cozy with the agencies and institutions they are charged with watching over. Plus, as has b een pointed out, if they were being lied to by the NSA, then heads ought to roll at that agency. If the NSA told the truth to them and they ignored it, they’re just as culpable as the NSA. In neither case does moving a complaint upstairs look like a winning move. Snowden did the right thing, the patriotic thing, it’s a shame the Obama Administration, and so many Americans who would have us believe they are patriots, want him persecuted for it. He should get a parade and a sinecure as ombudsman at the NSA.
But the first law is the one he violated, and his concerns about the second are irrelevant to the fact thereof.
The first one isn’t relevant to national discourse and privacy rights; the second one is.
Why? Or perhaps more pertinently, why should I care? Why should I prioritize Snowden’s breach of trust with the government over my government’s breach of trust with me?
Why does “But they did it first!” justify someone else doing it, if the ideal is that no one should be doing it at all?