I don't understand this article. Unless its author can predict the future, or knows a lot of things that nobody else in the public knows, they can't possibly draw conclusions about exactly what Snowden did.
Snowden himself has made it clear that he took documents from NSA en masse, far more documents than have ever been disclosed in the media.
How many of those documents have been released to the press? We don't know. But what we do know is, of the documents he gave to the press, only a subset have been released. In Greenwald's case, that's because it was decided that a titrating drip of stories would keep the narrative alive in the media and, not coincidentally, better serve the interests of the publications releasing the stories. In other cases it's because journalists have resisted full disclosure out of concern for its propriety.
What's been done with the zero to a billion documents that haven't been provided to the press? Who knows? Have they been encrypted and stuck on the Internet as an insurance policy? Have they been provided to Russian intelligence? Were they stolen from Snowden in an embassy in China? Are they vouchsafed with his acquaintances? Does Wikileaks have them? Nobody knows. Including the author of this blog post.
There are places those documents can go that will alter history's judgement on Snowden. For instance, if he offered wholesale access to US intelligence secrets to Russia, a country which painstakingly and overtly spies on its own citizens and routinely kills journalists (Barton Gellman is not in hiding in the US, for what it's worth), there aren't going to be any adoring spreads about him my grandkid's history book.
You can tell by the questions that jump to my mind what I generally think of Snowden. But nobody who (a) is skeptical of Snowden and (b) posts on Internet message boards could possibly be unaware of how out-on-a-limb that impression must be, because Snowden skepticism invariably whips up a frothy swell of criticism. Unfortunately, the author of this blog post doesn't seem to have the benefit of a critical readership; it's clear that he hasn't actually thought through what's happened.
> they can't possibly draw conclusions about exactly what Snowden did.
Anyone can draw a conclusion from an event they have observed. They can't draw conclusions about the future conclusions of others (ie: what side 'history' will be on.)
>Snowden himself has made it clear that he took documents from NSA en masse, far more documents than have ever been disclosed in the media.
So?
>In Greenwald's case, that's because it was decided that a titrating drip of stories would keep the narrative alive in the media...
Don't you imagine that it is a non-trivial task to vett these documents, so in addition to having the practical benefit of prolonging the time that the material spends at the "front of peoples' minds;" it is a necessary condition of the situation.
>There are places those documents can go that will alter history's judgement on Snowden.
Be careful, you can't possibly draw conclusions...
>(Barton Gellman is not in hiding in the US, for what it's worth)
Barrett Brown isn't exactly having a great time in the Homeland.
>Unfortunately, the author of this blog post ...
It's an opinion piece. I'm not even sure there is anything to argue here.
Barrett Brown was implicated in helping publish a dump of credit card numbers on behalf of the people who stole them. Barrett Brown is not Barton Gellman, and of the two, it's Gellman that poses a real problem for the USG, not the crazy heroin addict.
If by 'helping publish' you mean 'linking to and talking about what was already published,'[1] sure.
What's the difference between Brown (the "crazy heroin addict" journalist, your words) and Gellman, who helped publish a dump of secret documents on behalf of the person who stole them?
I see a pretty clear distinction between publishing documents that are clearly in the public interest and publishing credit card numbers in an effort to trouble and shame people whose politics don't comport with my own.
Snowden's motives are political, and they could also be construed as an effort to trouble and shame the people who didn't agree with his interpretations. And whether any of it is in the public interest is also debatable in some circles. Of course, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
In my view there's a pretty clear distinction between simply linking to an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers and publishing an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers.
Brown was interested in those e-mails because he actually had a journalistic endeavor in Project PM, an "actionable data set regarding the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry's interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/"cybersecurity" industry."
You can keep calling him a "crazy heroin addict" if it makes you feel better, there's bias on your part for obvious reasons, but it only makes you look silly.
I'm comfortable with what my reaction to Barrett Brown's case says about me and my beliefs, far more than I am comfortable with what my beliefs about the Snowden case might connote.
With all due respect, aren't the hypothetical abuses of Snowden files ultimately just FUD at this point? Snowden's public statements have given the impression that he cares deeply about the U.S., giving me the impression that he probably isn't going to intentionally release the documents to those that would seek to abuse them.
However, I would be very uncomfortable with him giving full access to the unencypted stash to a place like Wikileaks. But still, I think innocent until proven guilty of mishandling his stash should apply.
They are pretty much exactly that. Every accusation of "well obv he has given everything to russia and china" is completely without evidence and has been vehemently denied by people with actual knowledge of the situation (such as Glenn Greenwald). It's really nothing more than yet another angle in the attempt to discredit the messenger.
For all those speculations, skepticism and criticism, one would have to ask how much is rooted in reality. Without facts, all that is left is an emotional investment in defending the NSA.
Has there been any indication that documents has been stolen/given to Russia or China?
tptacek, you work in security so you know how to analyze probabilities. If we take the assumption that one of those countries managed to gain access to the documents, what the probability that it would still a half year later be kept secret? What is the probability that NSA would not use any concrete facts to denounce Snowden and other would be whistleblower in media? If U.S. informers, spies and facilities was attacked, whats the probability that it could happen without it becoming public?
The idea that Snowden could sell the information brings similar questions. Whats the probability that huge amount of money could be provided to Snowden without NSA being able to track it? If they could track it, whats the probability that they would keep this fact secret?
Anybody who is skeptical of scare theories looks for facts. As we all know, same is true for Software security. When people speculate that NSA can break RSA, we ask for some proof. Thus, when Snowden skeptics speculate, I ask for some proof, or at least what the probabilities are.
Whenever someone raises a point that Snowden might have revealed something that shouldn't be revealed, they forget that it's not only Snowden to blame for it, but the entire system from bottom to the top. If your personal security depends on arbitrary decisions of numerous officials, contractors and directors in several agencies and their arbitrary cooperation with similar agencies in foreign countries, then the problem is systemic; and Snowden is the last person to be blamed. Basically, your government is not doing the job you wish it was doing the right way. If you don't like and try not to support the system, then what do you care what Snowden released - you already accept the system as broken. However, if you rely and like the system, then you have to reconsider who you trust and with what.
Snowden here could only make you a service by pointing out a problem. And we all know that he really did not have any other way to do it. When he tried to discuss weaknesses privately within the system, he was dismissed. We know it not based on what he claimed (he could lie), but based on how NSA reacted and continues to react to the problem of trust. They made it clear that any employee who tries to discuss that topic would have a lot of trouble. It's manifested in how they sent out brainwashing instructions to their employees, how they dismissed the topic in the press and how aggressive they are to Snowden generally. How many people would like to risk just chatting to their boss after all that?
Anyone who likes the idea of all-powerful all-knowing god-like government agencies like NSA, army, FBI etc, should consider who little leverage and security they have in the result. When you have zero idea how your "national security" is being provided and all you know is there's a huge concentration of power somewhere at your expense, that simply means practically zero security for you.
No, your argument is illogical. Of course the entire system is to blame. Of course NSA shares some of the (hypothetical) blame if Russia gains access to US intelligence data, if only (in the highly unlikely event that it turns out Snowden was literally an agent) because of what NSA's own conduct does to the optics of what happened.
But that in no way immunizes Snowden from the consequences of his own actions.
It is perfectly possible for multiple parties to be implicated, and each for different reasons.
Talking about Snowden's faults is like debating how candies are bad for your teeth while your city is being bombed. Technically, you can talk about such issue in isolation, but if you really care about your health, you should first solve the bombing problem and then worry about your teeth.
My argument is about priorities. If the entire point of blaming Snowden at all is "because national security", then it's important to start solving the problem of "national security" with the most important issues first. The issue number one: the people who supposedly provide you with national security 1) require blind trust from you 2) were abusing that trust 3) always lie 4) have guns and you don't 5) immune to the consequences of their actions and you aren't. To understand that you should be thankful to Snowden in particular.
Where I have a hard time with the "Snowden as hero" storyline is my nagging suspicion that he make very clear and deliberate attempts to place himself in a position to have access to these materials for the express purpose of stealing them.
He was essentially fired from the employ of the CIA only to find another position at NSA. Apparently the CIA got wise to his attempts and shut him off. The NSA wasn't so lucky.
None of this detracts from the disclosures of NSA overreach. But we would be foolish to discount the possibility that all of this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations. The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.
>He was essentially fired from the employ of the CIA
No, he was not:
"The C.I.A did not file any report on Snowden indicating that it suspected he was trying to break into classified computer files to which he did not have authorized access while he was employed at the C.I.A., nor was he returned home from an overseas assignment because of such concerns," Todd Ebitz, an agency spokesman, said in the statement.
Did you read that article? I did when it was first published.
Are we really at the point where we take the word of an "agency spokesman" and not the sourcing of the journalists who quoted two unnamed sources to verify the story?
Yes, I did read the article. Here is Snowden's account:
>Mr. Snowden said that in 2008 and 2009, he was working in Geneva as a telecommunications information systems officer [...] He began pushing for a promotion, but got into what he termed a “petty e-mail spat” in which he questioned a senior manager’s judgment.
>Several months later, he was writing his annual self-evaluation when he discovered flaws in the software of the C.I.A.’s personnel Web applications. He warned his supervisor, but his boss advised him to drop the matter. After a technical team also brushed him off, his boss finally agreed to allow him to test the system to prove that it was flawed.
>He did so by adding some code and text “in a nonmalicious manner” to his evaluation document that showed that the vulnerability existed, he said. His immediate supervisor signed off on it and sent it through the system, but a more senior manager — the man Mr. Snowden had challenged earlier — was furious and filed a critical comment in Mr. Snowden’s personnel file.
So the local IT guy goes looking for vulnerabilities, finds them, SAYS he tried to alert people, then runs an EXPLOIT, and he's mad because he got a ding in his personnel file?
He did know that he was working for an intelligence agency, right? In what world is it acceptable to run an exploit on your company machines if it's not your job to find those exploits? A little Occams's Razor goes a long way.
And my point is that you can't take Snowden's assertions at face value. His behavior doesn't comport with someone who was a patriot and found himself facing a difficult decision to disclose.
I hope you understand that this is only your opinion. In my view (and others who support Snowden's efforts) his actions are exactly the kind I would take to save my country from itself.
Please make careful note of what I'm actually saying here:
The fact that the NSA was guilty of overreach doesn't mean that Snowden's actions to reveal that overreach WEREN'T assisted or prompted by a foreign power with everything to gain from seeing our security apparatus reined in.
His actions would have had FAR more impact and been FAR beyond reproach if he had made his disclosures and stayed right here in the USA to face the punishment the government sought to impose. IMHO (and my opinion is the one that matters to me), you cannot categorically deny with any assurance that this whole episode isn't connected in any way to a foreign intelligence operation.
Remember, we had Ames and we had Hanssen. Both of those guys stayed hidden for a LONG while. If Snowden hadn't been tipped off to the NSA investigation of his activities, would he still be working for Booz-Allen?
>And my point is that you can't take Snowden's assertions at face value.
Good thing we aren't taking them at face value, seeing as the CIA spokesman lightly corroborates his account rather than your assertion that he was fired for attempting to access and steal classified materials at the CIA.
And while we're on the subject of "moles," neither the internal NSA investigation nor the FBI investigation has found anything supporting your conspiracy theory to date.
What conspiracy theory? Do you really think that if there was real evidence that a foreign power was involved that the administration would be up-front with that information? What if the whole purpose of the action is to make them guess if the Russians and/or Chinese have copies of the documents?
Not knowing for sure what the exposure is fuels the nightmares of the whole NSA. What if the Russians and Chinese know EVERYTHING?
If you wish to accuse a spy agency of spying on its own citizens, you must have proof. To obtain proof you must make very clear and deliberate attempts to steal them so that you may present them as evidence.
I seem to recall not too long ago anyone claiming that the NSA had massive spying programs aimed at American citizens would be laughed off as tinfoil paranoid conspiracy theorists because our government would never do such a thing. Without his proof that you point out he stole, would anyone have taken him seriously?
There's several examples of people doing the very same thing that were later held up as heroes, except in their cases they stole documents from a corporation that were guilty of illegal abuses. Why should Snowden be any different? Because he stole government documents?
Yes. Since it probably needs to be said: several (not all) of the Snowden disclosures were important, valuable, and necessary: the Verizon metadata, BULLRUN.
It's all very important and necessary. Only the sheep-like are ok with a government that operates in secret against its own citizens. They have pitted themselves in an information war against their own citizenry. Like corporations amass patents, our only weapon to defend ourselves is as much information as we can gather about them.
No, that's not necessarily true. For instance, the "spymall catalog" contained no revelations about NSA abuses against Americans, only details of intelligence tradecraft.
>Apparently the CIA got wise to his attempts and shut him off.
Maybe the CIA sent him. It happened in the USSR (that intelligence services NKVD, KGB, GRU, etc, competed fiercely with each other).
>The NSA wasn't so lucky.
Good.
>But we would be foolish to discount the possibility that all of this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations.
I agree. You make a good case for having a clearly defined separation of intelligence services, and lots of checks.
>The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.
It can be overstated, and it has been. Also, what adversaries?
> this is a huge smokescreen for a concerted and consistent attempt to weaken or expose US intelligence operations. The fact that an impingement of our sources and methods helps our adversaries cannot be understated.
> that's because it was decided that a titrating drip of stories would keep the narrative alive in the media and, not coincidentally, better serve the interests of the publications releasing the stories.
It takes time to read the classified documents and decide which documents should be released and which shouldn't be because it might be damaging to national security. Or did you expect Glen Greenwald to make one gigantic article about all of the 50,000+ documents?
There are information security programs which compartmentalize data for multiple levels of security and access as well as controls for the distribution and timing of release. These are used to manage classified data handling among a variety of personnel and agencies with varying clearances.
It could be that Snowden remains in control of his material's release by way of programmed implants in the material for access and timing although the material is physically distant from him. This too is conventional security practice.
>What's been done with the zero to a billion documents that haven't been provided to the press? Who knows? Have they been encrypted and stuck on the Internet as an insurance policy? Have they been provided to Russian intelligence?
Glenn Greenwald has made it clear that if something happens to Snowden (i.e. he's killed), "all the information will be revealed"[1], implying that all the documents he stole will be released.
So, let's imagine a conversation between a Russian intelligence officer and Snowden, sometime around the tail-end of July last year.
In fair Sheremetyevo, where we lay our scene, Edward Snowden is sitting in a bare room, furnished with nothing but a table (bolted to the floor) and two uncomfortable chairs. Snowden's been looking at his reflection in a one-way mirror. A CCTV camera in a corner blinks a red LED at him and there is no door handle/knob on the inside.
Suddenly, a friendly-looking Russian bursts into the room and greets Snowden warmly, full of bonhomie.
Russian: "Good morning, Mr Snowden! You are keeping well, yes?"
He grabs Snowden's hand and shakes it warmly. Snowden half-rises.
Snowden: "Yes, thank you."
The Russian holds onto Snowden's hand for just a split second too long, looking him in the eye with a half-smile on his face, before letting go and settling himself into the other chair.
Russian: "Good, good! You just let us know if you need anything! So! I understand you seek asylum in Russia! No problem! We'd be delighted to offer you asylum! We'll just need you to hand over all the documents you stole."
Snowden: "What?! No! I can't do that!"
Russian: "Come now, Mr Snowden! Under Russian law, before we can officially consider your application for asylum, we need to... inspect these documents of yours for evidence of criminal activity in Russia."
Snowden: "No, I can't... That's outrageous! I'm not going to do give you those documents!"
Russian: "I'm sorry, Mr Snowden but I'm afraid I must insist! Otherwise..." [He glances down at his lapel and flicks away an imaginary speck of dust before looking back at Snowden and shrugging.]
Snowden: "Otherwise what? You'll send me back to America! How could you threaten to do that?! They'll torture me! They'll kill me! How could Russia, with its long and impeccable record of respecting human rights and the freedom of the press even consider doing such a thing?!"
Russian: "It's out of my hands, Mr Snowden. Besides... You know, there are some of my colleagues who have been reading what Mr Greenwald has been saying, about how the United States better hope nothing happens to you because, if anything does happen, all the documents will be released!"
Snowden: "Well, that's an obvious way to make sure that the CIA don't try to silence me by killing me!"
Russian: "Yes, of course but.. Well, some of my colleagues have beeen asking why we shouldn't simply kill you ourselves and manufacture evidence that it was a CIA hit squad. That way we can embarrass the United States and simply download all the documents from the Internet when they are released."
Snowden: "...!"
Russian: "I mean, these are crazy people! Relics of the KGB. They wouldn't think twice about shooting you in the head. Or torturing you to extract as much information as possible and then shooting you in the head. I tried to argue against them but my power here is limited, Mr Snowden. I begged them to reconsider and eventually, they agreed to give you a chance to cooperate."
Snowden: "..."
Russian: "So, Mr Snowden. You will share these documents with us?"
Why in the world would the the US kill Snowden? They have nothing to gain and everything to lose. You think the Russians are stupid enough to send a goon to threaten him? The second he gets out of that interview he's going to tell the media all about it.
Why would there be a very suspicious "lying about wearing a condom" charge leveled at Assange with multiple super-powers demanding justice for an unnamed swedish woman, coincidentally right when he's pissing off those super-powers? Sounds like silly spy movie stuff, like COINTELPRO or something, stuff that would never happen in the real world.
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. There really are people out there playing the game for those stakes, and most of us aren't idealistic or dumb enough to jump into their game.
It is (apparently) per US policy to use weapons (like drone missile strikes) with high likelihood for collateral damage without taking such damage into account.
Drone strikes are much more accurate than conventional weapons. Nothing is 100% accurate 100% of the time, so using them vs. carpet bombing an entire neighborhood is a good thing, not bad.
> Drone strikes are much more accurate than conventional weapons.
Drone strikes are conventional weapons. They are more accurate than many alternative conventional "stand-off" weapons that seek to minimize risk to the weapon user, and less accurate (though perhaps more reliable) than many other alternative conventional weapons (a knife is far more accurate than a drone-launched missile, but far less reliable in many of the circumstances where drone strikes are used.)
We aren't going to send Seal Team 6 in to knife everyone we want to kill around the world.
Drone strikes are more accurate than F14's bombing buildings, and also safer for American soldiers (since they can't get shot down), thus they are a gain vs. a loss in terms of US personnel killed and accidental collateral damage (but this is still not the ideal 0%).
Oooor maybe they knew that the US stranded him in Russia on purpose to try and pass them fake information. Their agents had already found out about the plot so they decided to play along, providing a tactical advantage, by letting their American counterparts think the mission had been successful.
Or it took much less effort to offer him asylum and score political points, knowing full well that the disclosures would also be damaging to 'enemies'.
Or they knew he had information on them and that it would come out as well.
Or maybe they already knew what he knew through other sources and didn't need his documents.
Or...
Or...
There are many possible scenarios (some much more ridiculous than others) but it is always lots of fun to just jump to the one that is most like a spy novel. It certainly is the most entertaining no doubt!
I find myself gradually coming around to the Snowden side, but it is entirely despite his fans on HN, not because of them.
The concept of a self-releasing trove-in-case-I-die is fascinating to the HN crowd from a technical perspective, but it puts Snowden in a really bad light. Without it he can make a convincing argument that he only took what was necessary to expose bad behavior.
He took who knows how many documents. So far only a select few have been released that support his allegations. I have no doubt there is information in his stack that could cause very bad things to happen to various people and/or organizations. Chances are those documents will never be released, if he has any level of conscience. Therefore, if the people who might do him harm understand that such documentation will not be released as long as he is not harmed, then it's a defense mechanism that fits exactly in line with what he claims he is doing all this for in the first place.
If he had done a massive document dump onto the Internet then I would have immediately questioned his motives.
So I'll put forward a controversial, but hopefully true point: If you believe in the Rule of Law, then Snowden should be tried, and probably will be found guilty, for a fairly clear breach of the law. The US President is bound by the constitution to use every means available to go after him.
Presidential pardons, although they are part of the US consitution and therefore strictly speaking part of the Rule of Law, are very capricious tools and not really in the spirit of it.
Of course this is why we shouldn't have secret laws or secret parts of government, and national parliaments weren't doing their job to get us into this situation in the first place. And we weren't doing our job either, by not holding politicians to account and being apathetic about voting.
I believe in the "Rule of Law" as a general concept necessary to a functioning society. I do not believe in it as a dogmatic application of The Law Über Alles, where the text of a law takes thoughtless precedence over the moral principle it was meant to establish.
You imply such a thing as prosecutorial discretion does not exist. It does and always has.
When one breaks a law to bring light to greater wrongdoings, the only just thing to do is pardon the original transgression.
So what you're saying is, you'd pardon someone who broke a law against torture and saved lives by so doing. After all, the torturer "[broke] a law to bring light to greater wrongdoings", and "the only just thing to do is pardon the original transgression."
(If you reply at all, you will of course weasel out of this with "torture never works and you're a horrible person besides", but I find it amusing enough, to point out that your argument easily justifies torture, that I'll do so despite the near certainty you'll dodge the point instead of considering it.)
Let's say we have a convicted murderer that committed the act when they were very young, he admitted to it with remorse, the victim's family has no vengeance in their hearts, and he spent 50 years in prison for the crime. Just because the governor issues a pardon to let the old man out to die in peace with family doesn't mean the governor is justifying the original crime.
I find it amusing enough, to point out that your argument easily justifies torture
The moral standard behind the various "torture is not allowed" laws and proclamations is twofold:
1) Destroying people is bad mmkay? I think we can all agree on that.
2) It recognizes that any intelligence needs can be met by forms of interrogation that don't use such tactics.
And a not-at-all-morally-related but still valid reason is:
3) Using it carries very bad consequences for the perpetrators, PR, public support, support from allies, giving people who don't like you a reason to attack you.
So no, my argument justifies no such thing.
If you reply at all, you will of course weasel out of this by willfully twisting my words again to fit whatever you think they meant instead of what I actually wrote.
You can't have it both ways. Either the president is bound by the letter of the constitution, or its spirit. If by the letter, he has the power to issue a pardon. If by the spirit, he need not use "every means available" to persecute Snowden.
Consider also, the opposite case. During the Iraq war, the US government tortured people. That is clearly against both US and international law. Yet the president and his justice department have done nothing to "go after" those responsible, much less "use available means." Does this conform with either the spirit or the letter of the constitution?
> If you believe in the Rule of Law, then Snowden should be tried, and probably will be found guilty, for a fairly clear breach of the law.
This is circular reasoning. The government has made it (for all practical purposes) illegal for anyone to reveal its own lawbreaking. Obsessing over the lesser breach of the law committed by Snowden while ignoring the government's greater (in degree and in quantity) breach of the law is hypocrisy, and contrary to justice.
> The US President is bound by the constitution to use every means available to go after him.
No, the US President is an executive, not an automaton.
> national parliaments weren't doing their job...
Every check that was in place to prevent this situation has evidently failed. The best solutions (or even the good ones) may not lie within the established body of law.
You do know how loaded that statement is, right? It can not work in isolation. For it to work, you must also believe in the court's ability to fairly apply this rule of law, and in the people who create the laws in the first place. No rational person can believe in the rule of law in isolation.
For example, dictators create laws to protect their own power, worse, to defeat any opposition. Would you ask someone who lives under the rule of a dictator is they believe in the rule of law?
The president is also bound by his oath to protect the constitution... Which arguably he is not doing. So either the constitution is out the window already for him or it isn't. Or you can have your cake and eat it too... Either or.
I think you're missing the point of the article. Having slaves used to be legal in the US, but slave-owners still happened to be on the wrong side of history. Many people knew it then already.
Come now, Citizen! "Rule of Law"? How old-fashioned of you!
Snark aside, what I don't understand is this: If it means so damned much to Snowden that he should expose all these supposedly horrible supposed abuses, then why isn't he willing to suffer the consequences of his treasonous actions?
The original article is so hot to compare Snowden with Dr. King, but what everyone seems to ignore is that Dr. King did not seek to escape the consequences of his actions. Indeed, he turned those consequences into a cornerstone of his arguments, and they were in large part what drove his movement to eventual victory.
Dr. King and his confederates in the Civil Rights movement, put simply, possessed the courage of their convictions. Edward Snowden, by comparison, has shown nothing but cowardice; having stolen the secret documents on which Glenn Greenwald is turning such a tidy reputational profit, Snowden fled like the thief he is and begged asylum from nations which, while not belligerent enemies of the United States, certainly have no reason to wish us well.
In short, the man is no lion, but a weasel; no hero, but an arrant coward. Have we, in a few short decades, become so debased, so degraded, that no one can any longer tell the difference?
Wow, how hateful of you. Do you not see the obviously glaring difference between the two?
I don't believe that Dr. King had the likelihood of being tortured and executed by his own government for pointing out the mistreatment, illegal or otherwise, of his people by that very government.
I do believe that Snowden is under a direct threat of possible execution and potentially being tortured, depending on the current definition of torture I suppose, by his own government for pointing out the illegal activities of said government aimed at its citizens.
You complain the post is hot to compare the two, maybe you should refrain from doing the same.
Snowden has shown the government to be corrupt in his eyes and now you expect him to directly face that very government on their grounds and on their terms? That seems to be a foolish thing to do. You may label the man however you like, I'll wait to see how history plays out a bit and see more of the evidence before making a judgement.
The consequences for Dr. King's actions were not three decades in solitary. The consequences for Snowden's actions - effective banishment from his home, separation from family and friends (and girlfriend) - are actually more severe than the (collectively) several months King spent in jail. This is not to detract from the greatness of Dr. King - he stood up also to violence and more - but to say that they faced very different systems.
However, given what we know about the current state of the things you list in your last paragraph, it would be incredibly naive to expect the Rule of Law to be upheld in the case of Snowden (and most likely also Assange).
Also, I'm no American, but doesn't your president have some leeway in deciding who his administration will go after and who walks free? For instance, I'm sure they would go after any intelligence agent that lies to congress under oath.
Historically presidential pardons have been constrained enough so that it is in the spirit of the rule of law. The law uses it as an out in the cases of laws needing correction, same as the constitutional amendment system.
> So I'll put forward a controversial, but hopefully true point: If you believe in the Rule of Law, then Snowden should be tried, and probably will be found guilty, for a fairly clear breach of the law.
There was a time when it was illegal to leave East Germany for West Germany. If the border patrouls catched you doing that they were allowed - by law - to shoot you. When you were catched and didn't get shot you were judged by the judges of East Germany because you broke the law ('Republikflucht', i.e. "desertion of the republic", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republikflucht).
The law was quite clear here, but most people don't accept that you should be shot or put on trial for trying to leave your country.
There are many others examples, from history (think about a certain time in german history for the most famous example) or current: North korea, China and so on.
So, the question I put forward against your point is: The USA can judge him as long as they want, but does he have to go back and accept their judgement? because of "rule of law"? I'd say no, but the debate is still open.
"No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them."
If you believe in the rule of law; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and even Powell would all be on death row - the heads of Bank of America, HSBC, Wells Fargo and Wachovia (former) and Goldman Sachs would all be rotting in prison.
I'm pretty sure CIA is protecting him very carefully, preventing him from having conversation with any non-US intelligence agencies, and preventing him from getting killed (which might trigger some "insurance" mechanism that would release the documents).
I wasn't referring to Snowden. I was saying that for every Snowden there is one or more greedy analysts that will just sell info quietly and we'll never know.
That's also why the idea that Snowden has caused a huge amount of damage because he alerted enemies to the US's methods is comical. The public releases have been heavily edited and the NSA knows exactly what data has been shared with the general public. If someone else has grabbed the same info as Snowden but just sold it quietly the adversaries got much more info and the NSA doesn't know it so they can't mitigate the impact.
I guess by being near him. If my theory is correct, Snowden want's them near him, protecting him against non-US spies, who would like to kill him (and thus cause the release of the remainder of the documents).
I don't think this is a valid argument. It seems to be "I'm right because I believe people in the future will agree with me". Maybe so but the author can't know that until the future comes.
That isn't the argument at all. The author is not saying "in the future Snowden will be a hero, therefore let's make him a hero in the present to align ourselves with history". That is not a good argument because history is not moral, and just because things happen it doesn't make them right.
What he is saying is that society is currently evolving in a direction of openness and transparency, and of holding those in power to account. This trend is visible right now; it's not a prediction.
What are the visible signs that "society is currently evolving in a direction of openness and transparency, and of holding those in power to account"? Sure seems like the public at large is ambivalent at best to my eyes, but love to hear otherwise.
It's a circular argument though. Of course if you think you're right you think history will side with you.
It's a silly argument I keep hearing more and more. Pro-life people are on the wrong side of history, pro-choice people are on the wrong side of history, anti-gay marriage are on the wrong side of history...
Traditionally we as a society have moved towards more inclusive policies. There's a clear pattern. Women got basic rights, slavery was abolished, women got the right to vote, blacks got basic rights including voting, homosexuality officially no longer a mental illness, slowly the rights of LGBTs are being recognized. (My history sucks, so I probably got some of those out of order, but anyways.)
Opposing equal rights does put you on the wrong side of history, meaning you oppose this socially progressive pattern. It takes time, but the pattern is still there.
But is that a clear pattern in history or just confirmation bias? For some Snowden is a traitor and history is full of traitors. Those terms are not neutral.
It's like saying terrorists are on the wrong side of history while the resistance are on the good side. Ok, now it's just about deciding which is which.
I'm not arguing against Snowden or whistleblowers here, I share the general sentiment here that what he did was for the greater good, but I find the argument of "the good side of history" particularly weak.
Since the consensus around these parts is that Snowden is a hero we better be careful not to devolve into mindless circlejerking à la reddit and try to keep interesting and insightful discussions.
At this rate tomorrow we'll read "snowden = good; NSA = bad" on the frontpage. That's just preaching to the choir.
It seems that you could argue that his disclosures have been more or less in the interest of the public at large. A traitor tends to steal/sell information for personal gain, providing them to an enemy directly. I can't think of any historical examples of traitors who exposed wrongdoings of the government they are betraying against its own public to said public. (but perhaps there are some?)
A traitor tends to be providing information of a primarily military use. You could try and argue that the mass dragnet of records is a military function... But that would be tantamount to saying that every citizen in America is a military target of their own government (oh wait... /s) and that opens a whole different can of worms.
I agree about not wanting to devolve into mindless high-fiving and preaching to the choir... But it seems difficult at this point to call the public disclosures so far a traitorous act. And public opinion seems to be tilting more and more towards that opinion as the weeks go by.
Regarding terrorists being on the 'wrong side of history' it really all depends who wins right? It also depends somewhat on who's history you are reading. For instance, had the Axis won in WWII, they would probably be referring to the bombing of Dresden as 'terrorism'.
Not quite same thing, but the Optimates who killed Caesar genuinely thought they were liberating Rome from a tyrant (they called themselves the Liberatores) and stuck around expecting to be hailed as saviours. They were not.
Pretty similar to what might have happened to Snowden had he stuck around? Agreed, not comparing the two seriously, because they arn't the same thing at all, but perhaps they should have left then returned after all had settled?
I am afraid it is not. You can objectively analyze the past and draw conclusions about the future, without presuming yourself right. (People usually call that "Science".)
When the guy hosting the weather report tells you it is going to rain, does it mean people hoping for a sunny day are on the "wrong side of history"?
Of course, some people make the "silly argument" you are referring to, but I think the original author is more subtle than that.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~Edmund Burke
As someone who wholeheartedly agrees with Snowden being one day vindicated as a hero, it's tempting to nod my head silently and move on to the next article.
The problem is the critics. They will be vocal. They will openly condemn Snowden. Many have never done anything courageous in their life or stood up on moral grounds. Morality is just an antiquated concept to them. Just another word to dilute and distort.
So I'll speak up and say that Snowden is a hero, and I'll take one hero over a pack of cowards any day.
Commenting on the comments, not the original post. Seems to me there's some confusing of issues going on. MLK vs Snowden is not a reasonable comparison -- one was a lifelong activist and the other is a first-time whistleblower. Their roles and goals dictate different actions, including whether to stay put or run, among other things. Secondly, the issue of the legality of NSA actions versus their constitutionality is quite different. Laws can be found unconstitutional. So while the NSA was ostensibly following the law, Snowden claims they were violating the constitution. One does not invalidate the other.
Regardless of my own beliefs about the matter, which I'll leave out of here, I couldn't get past the massive logical fallacy that this article seems to rest on: The goverment doesn't like Snowden. The government didn't like MLK and MLK was a good guy, therefore Snowden must be a good guy as well.
I am surprised if I see people trained in critical thinking not supporting the humanity hero Snowden.
Just think of the immediate economic impact of US tech and US tech services not able to export. He is trying to fix that.
And long term, if people don't have free will they won't work as hard.
And worst, the information will be used for political reasons, not state reasons. The political party in power stays in power. (that is why THEY like it, the 10% approval ratting corrupt congress)
In a world where your "foes" have shown a willingness to torture, kill, and use every sneaky, subversive tactic in the book (c.f. pvt. Manning) across all borders to annihilate those it's decided, wrongfully or not, are enemies, what good do you think would come of Snowden returning to the USA?
Does it take someone being tortured to sate your moral compass?!
Further, him "standing up" as you and so many others seem to want him to do would undermine the whole reason he leaked the NSA stuff and took off in the first place. He'll disappear into some military (or worse) prison somewhere and never be heard from again.
It is pretty offensive to the memory of MLK to suggest that the treatment that awaited Snowden at the hands of the DOJ was in any way comparable to what faced the Montgomery Improvement Association. MIA activists were beaten, raped, lynched, and tortured in public with clubs, dogs, and firehoses.
Who said they weren't?! If you put the unaccountable "enhanced interrogation" users at the NSA above threatening children if they think that will get them what they want, you've got a much higher view of these people than most. The point that you seem to be dancing around recognizing is that all torture is bad, regardless of degree.
NSA has no interrogation capability at all. I no longer understand what you're talking about. Regardless, I feel pretty confident that what MLK and his associates faced is far worse than anything Snowden faces, at least from the US. Who knows where things will go in Russia.
Dumbest thing I've heard yet today. It reminds me of the scene in Demolition Man where Simon Phoenix cannot kill Dr. Raymond Cocteau so Phoenix enlists one of his ne'er-do-well friends to dispatch him.
If you believe in the concept of "degrees" of torture, at least. It's all wrong on every conceivable level. You don't need to ever lay a finger on someone to break their mind and leave them permanently damaged.
What he has gone through is nothing compared to those who fought for Civil Rights. It is beyond lame to make the comparison on any equal terms.
MLK and those like him stood in the face of sanctioned brutality. They marched straight into the face of known violence. They lived everyday wondering when their time would come or their families would face harm.
Claiming Snowden would be tortured or disappeared is beyond stupid. Nutters, 9/11 conspirators, and UFO kidnappers, fall into this hyper paranoid mindset.
He is a public figure, it would be a black mark on the US government that anything violent would happen to him while in custody. There are most likely an uncountable number of rights groups who will sponsor his legal representation
>What he has gone through is nothing compared to those who fought for Civil Rights.
You're right. Thanks to the connected world we live in, Snowden was able to take his fight on the road and place himself out of reach before anything that extreme could happen. That's not to insinuate that being forced to leave your home, your family, your friends, and everything you've ever known, possibly permanently, isn't pretty terrible..
>Claiming Snowden would be tortured or disappeared is beyond stupid.
You mean like Manning wasn't? Sleep deprivation and extended solitary confinement is torture for a reason.
>He is a public figure, it would be a black mark on the US government that anything violent would happen to him while in custody.
He's only a "public figure" because he ran and was able to keep somewhat in the spotlight (partly by continually releasing information). When's the last time you heard anything about Chelsea Manning? She's effectively "disappeared". The leaks are out of the media, efforts all for naught because nobody remembers them anymore.
And as I've spent the last 5 or so posts trying to convey, you don't need to inflict "violence" on someone in order to ruin them. Locking someone in a box with no human contact for 23 hours a day does that nicely.
Think of all of the interviews and articles that he's written since the release of the first batch of materials. If he had been captured.. then been kept naked in solitary confinement for all this time (Manning), certainly not allowed within a mile of a pen or microphone, how much more of the story would the US government have been able to keep quiet?
Contrary to John Rawls philosophy of civil disobedience, in which disobedients have to accept the legal consequences of their actions, Snowden evaded authorities.
But willingness to accept punishment can be viewed as more of a strategy to bring attention to the cause, instead, and not a qualifier of the disobedient.
For Snowden to reenact the "classic account of civil disobedience" would mean silence of himself in the mean time of his trial.
Why must Snowden throw himself into the system where he is almost certainly going to be crushed, with the inevitable jury make up in the district where charges were filed?
Yes, that is the tradeoff. Submitting to federal justice would be the moral high-ground, and a tactic of classical civil-disobedience. Doing that, however, would effectively silence him; it would be up to others to make arguments on his behalf. Who can say whether that would be more effective than the course he's taken.
At the same time, it's pretty brazen for his critics say that he hasn't sacrificed enough, that if he was sincere about his motivation he would have sacrificed more.
I agree, I find it really odd that there are demands that one cannot be on the moral high ground unless you throw yourself upon the mercy of a system that you directly exposed as being corrupt.
It's as if all those people that escape North Korea to spread word about the abuses there must go back to face the ire of that government or we won't believe them.
As for the immature people out there with sad debating etiquette, I'm not comparing the US government with the North Korean government, it's just an example.
really stuck with me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but M.L. King didn't do anything illegal, whereas Snowden did. Snowden ran to avoid prison sentence which makes perfect sense, and his cause also wouldn't have been helped by his incarceration, whereas King would probably be considered a "martyr", since his stance more requires a physical presence.
The are different, agreed, not disputing. But expecting someone who knows what they did will be met with torture, or absolute solitary for the rest of their life, for exposing actual wrongs against the public is ridiculous in the extreme.
You have to be tortured to prove your intent was for the good of the people? Since when?
The Civil Rights Movement did indeed occasional do things that would be breaking the law. But that was typically aimed at laws that were unjust towards them personally. For those they participated in civil disobedience by breaking that law but not fighting it when they were arrested. Doesn't mean there wasn't violence aimed at them for doing it.
But in the end, this MLK and Snowden comparisons are just rather odd because they truly have very little in common.
No, there's nothing noble about the idea that a dissenter should voluntarily submit to be punished. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who benefits from spreading that idea, though.
How do you propose fighting a state apparatus that operates mostly in secret, with the cover of secret laws and a secret court?
Anyone that stands up to that in the open would be a fool because they would face a certainty worse than death: they'd be discredited and then ignored. Massacring wouldn't be necessary, because they'd probably do themselves in.
Agreed. King was murdered before he could accomplish most of his goals, and in retrospect was more of an inspiration than a force. Somehow the only thing that seems to be left of him in the public sphere completely ignores his work against the war and for the poor and working people of the world - is some sort of sainthood that defends the imprisoning of the disloyal and vaguely frowns at affirmative action.
Snowden started with a goal of making the public aware of the surveillance it was under, and accomplished it immediately. Whether he's imprisoned at this point is besides the point, because this isn't about him.
>King stood up to his foes
King lay on the ground bleeding to death before his foes. That's only good for people who think that being dead is a crucial quality for a leader; not as small a group as you might think. Dead people don't disagree.
The wrong side of a progressive history, maybe. If Martin Luther King is the benchmark for someone on the right side of history, I'd advise finding an online article about him, published on a major newspaper site, and reading the comments.
He is still universally despised by the children of John Birch.
It is really a question of which group is most naive. Is the threat from terrorism larger than the threat of un-patched vulnerabilities in vital software. At the moment the response to these "issues" is mutually exclusive. Only time will tell.
The NSA doesn't create vulnerabilities in software. (If you think they do, you can argue equally persuasively for the NSA's role in hiding aliens at Area 51).
The strongest argument you can make about NSA's malign role in software security is that, by buying vulnerabilities from people who would otherwise sell them to vendors, NSA is retarding third-party security research and slowing the mean time to discovery for new vulnerabilities.
I'm disquieted by that notion too (it's been a little while since I found the kind of vulnerability that sells for real money --- those are very particular kinds of flaws, contrary to popular opinion --- but I've had a "no selling vulnerabilities" rule for a long time). But I'm not naive. Most of the people who would sell vulnerabilities to NSA probably weren't in a hurry to share them with vendors anyways. And part of the reason for that is, vendors feel entitled to security research about their products, even though they refuse to pay for it. They were outbid even before NSA came along.
Not the kind of vulnerability I inferred the parent commenter to be referring to, or the kind considered by the reaction to the President's NSA committee and new NSA guidelines. I agree, BULLRUN is one of the very significant and important disclosures; probably the most important.
Ah the "terrorism" card. Remember that its been shown found a number of times (including by the president's own 'show' committee) that the operations in question were not important facets in discovering or preventing any terrorist plots.
It also stands to reason that most of the 'terrorists' (People the FBI setup not withstanding) were aware of the faceless wiretapping and ability of the govt to get data from google/yahoo/att/etc in the first place. Given that there were stories about such things (to a limited extent) since around 2006.
That's a doubly false dichotomy. Terrorism is a threat, yes, but the NSA spying isn't preventing terrorism and making us safer. On the other hand, most people (AFAIK) are not concerned by NSA or somebody else exploiting un-patched vulnerabilities, but by NSA and the US government monitoring and controlling free speech and the resulting chilling effect this has.
What I think needs to exist is a similar protection government has, national interest. I think there should be, in all democracies, a defence of national interest. The law should never be allowed to obstruct the truth.
Where's the national interest in revealing how the US and its allies' intelligence services target adversaries like China and Russia, international drug cartels and terrorist networks?
From what I've seen a great deal of the materials released so far show how the US spies on everyone but the examples you cite, including these allies you speak of.
Have there been examples in the Snowden materials of how the US spies on "adversaries" such as Russia and China? I didn't even realize that those were adversaries in the traditional sense that justifies such intrusions in everyone's lives.
I can't read the first article as it is behind a paywall. It starts with the NSA installing software in nearly 100,000 computers worldwide to conduct surveillance. I suppose it explains somewhere after the paywall of how they use that to spy on adversaries such as China and Russia?
The second one seems to be more about the British spying on the Middle East of which they share information with the NSA. I admit I skimmed it but does it accuse the NSA of spying on adversaries such as China and Russia?
Snowden himself has made it clear that he took documents from NSA en masse, far more documents than have ever been disclosed in the media.
How many of those documents have been released to the press? We don't know. But what we do know is, of the documents he gave to the press, only a subset have been released. In Greenwald's case, that's because it was decided that a titrating drip of stories would keep the narrative alive in the media and, not coincidentally, better serve the interests of the publications releasing the stories. In other cases it's because journalists have resisted full disclosure out of concern for its propriety.
What's been done with the zero to a billion documents that haven't been provided to the press? Who knows? Have they been encrypted and stuck on the Internet as an insurance policy? Have they been provided to Russian intelligence? Were they stolen from Snowden in an embassy in China? Are they vouchsafed with his acquaintances? Does Wikileaks have them? Nobody knows. Including the author of this blog post.
There are places those documents can go that will alter history's judgement on Snowden. For instance, if he offered wholesale access to US intelligence secrets to Russia, a country which painstakingly and overtly spies on its own citizens and routinely kills journalists (Barton Gellman is not in hiding in the US, for what it's worth), there aren't going to be any adoring spreads about him my grandkid's history book.
You can tell by the questions that jump to my mind what I generally think of Snowden. But nobody who (a) is skeptical of Snowden and (b) posts on Internet message boards could possibly be unaware of how out-on-a-limb that impression must be, because Snowden skepticism invariably whips up a frothy swell of criticism. Unfortunately, the author of this blog post doesn't seem to have the benefit of a critical readership; it's clear that he hasn't actually thought through what's happened.