Because the law you support is a shit law. The government should not have the power to declare its own criminal activity taboo.
That’s one helluva cite! 
Well, I was really just kidding about the cite. You made a statement that’s impossible to prove, and that I, frank don’t believe. I think there are enough Congresscritters with integrity that claims of corruption (or whatever) are just a cop out
John, do you really think that had Snowden taken his data to his local Congresscritter, that we would know about it? The info would have been buried and Snowden sent to prison. End of story. Taking that route was not a viable option if his goal was to let the public know about the NSA’s malfeasance.
The real reason that the Rosa Parks analogy fails is that Parks got the issue the attention it deserved by doing what she did. With Snowden, had he stayed in the US, the public would still be in the dark about it. The only way for the public to be properly outraged was to release the info to a press that isn’t subject to the stifling pressure of the US government.
Or are you (Smapti) saying that now that the data is released, Snowden should come back home and take what’s coming to him? What the hell would be the point of that? There’s no benefit to anyone from that.
Who said anything about “first?” I’m asking you why i should ignore a crime against myself, simply because the person who told me about it committed a crime against someone else?
I get the sense that you won’t be convinced with words. Until we can trace it to a preventable terrorist attack that gravely harms you personally, it’s a futile exercise. But, just out of curiosity – how would you feel towards Snowden if there were an attack on you or your loved ones and it is demonstrated to have been entirely preventable had Snowden not leaked?
This is uncomfortably Bush-ian.
Out of curiosity, how would you feel about your mother if you found out she was a cannibal?
It’s only OK to leak information that supports the government’s goals and narratives, not the opposite. Besides, the Obama administration is always preaching transparency. They would’ve gotten around to informing us eventually.
He’s a criminal and a fugitive from justice. He has a moral obligation to present himself for judgment by a jury of his peers.
I never said that it should be ignored. If crimes were committed by the NSA (which I’m not convinced of), then they should be investigated appropriately.
Conversely - why should you ignore a crime against the state, just because the person who committed it told you about a crime against you?
If we’re insisting that all we want is an impartial court proceeding, shouldn’t the word “criminal” be replaced with the word “suspect?” He hasn’t been convicted of anything.
There are two concerns here: one is that the NSA was doing a lot of things the public was in the dark about but had a right to know, and in fact the entire system of oversight was not working. Congress still hasn’t done anything about it but the public seems to agree that this was inappropriate, and so do some very close U.S. allies. So there’s that. The second concern is that this behavior was illegal. That’s more complicated given the very broad laws that have been implemented since September 11th. My view as a non-legal scholar is that the agency did go past the boundaries of its supposed mission (economic spying is not a national security issue). Whether Congress cares about that remains to be seen.
Really? You didn’t say:
Because I’m pretty sure that was you.
Which would never have happened, if Snowden hadn’t broken the law himself.
I don’t think his crime should be ignored, mostly on the principle that our elected officials shouldn’t get to pick and choose when our laws apply and when they don’t - which is the root of my support for Snowden’s actions in the first place. But that’s purely a matter of how our system of justice functions. I have no personal investment in seeing Snowden punished. Why should I? His crime did not harm me in anyway (in fact, I’d argue that I’ve profited from it), and the people it did harm, were chiefly harmed in that they are less able to commit further crimes of their own.
I’d be fine with it, because I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with cannibalism, taken by itself. What does this have to do with anything?
Going back to my hypothetical, I feel it is a valid answer to “What is the argument against Snowden”. In my opinion, Snowden harmed US national security by leaking.
We could see a string of terrorist attacks and wouldn’t it be apt if the next internet meme is a picture of each attack with the label “Thanks, Snowden”.
Well, you certainly went in a different direction with that than I expected.
My original point was that I thought that was about as likely as your mom being a cannibal, but after how you opened this post, I’m not sure that example works for me as well as I thought it would.
Pull the other one. Many of these disclosures have nothing at all to do with counterterrorism.
Obviously, now that the facts are public, it would be naïve to ignore them. That doesn’t make the act of breaking the law to expose those acts to the public any less illegal.
And if there were no other way for those facts to be brought to light, except through breaking the law, how should that reflect on the law breaker?
Don’t fight the hypothetical. I’m still waiting to hear how you would feel towards Snowden if there were a gravely serious attack on you and all of your loved ones and it is demonstrated to have been entirely preventable had Snowden not decided to leak.
How would this even happen? He didn’t disclose the names of the software the NSA uses or the names of operatives or technical details of how the government taps phones. He disclosed the existence of bulk data collection and leaders of friendly nations!
Many? What exceptions are there?
Bulk data collection, spying on world leaders, and handing out drug tips to every backwater police force in the country has nothing to do with terrorism. If you suspect someone is a terrorist, you get a warrant and go hog-wild with the spy games. The problem here isn’t spying on terrorists. It’s spying on literally everyone else.
I figured it’d be easier to say “many” instead of arguing about each and every individual program. I can understand the usefulness of, say, the phone records stuff as one piece of the puzzle - that’s been Constitutional for decades - but most of this is just overreach, abuse, and elected officials giving agencies whatever they ask for because the agencies say it’ll turn a 99.9999% of no terrorist attacks into a 99.99999% chance of no terrorist attacks, and hey, you don’t want to be the guy who didn’t give them the tools they needed to stop a terrorist attack, do you?