4 ms·

A little disingenuous considering in that linked article Binney states that it was more the publishing of certain content he disagreed with and not Snowden's ac

A little disingenuous considering in that linked article Binney states that it was more the publishing of certain content he disagreed with and not Snowden's actions. It looks like he still strongly supports what Snowden did. I also think Binney's case is a bit different - when you don't leak the actual documents the intelligence agencies can (and do) just lie. If not an outright lie it'll be a carefully stated misleading truth ('not in this program'). Snowden's leak is a bigger deal to the intelligence agencies because he has the actual documents and they don't know what he took which makes it hard to influence the story (since it's easier to be definitively caught). Putting Binney in prison would have likely attracted more attention than not. John Kerry and other people requesting Snowden to come to the US to stand trial are ignoring that what he did isn't a question of whether it was legal (it wasn't), but if it was right. You won't win a trial on principle when it's the law that's the problem.

ikeboy 11y ago
>A little disingenuous considering in that linked article Binney states that it was more the publishing of certain content he disagreed with and not Snowden's actions. That was a direct result of Snowden's actions. I don't see the argument that his exposing the US spying on other countries is "right", and deserves a pardon. If he had only leaked local surveillance, I'd have a weaker case. >You won't win a trial on principle when it's the law that's the problem. If the problem was that he disagreed with the law, in the US, the way to change laws you disagree with is through the political process. Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon.
- fossuser 11y ago
  I can understand there's an argument that the scope of the documents leaked is too broad and how someone could think trusting the selective publishing to journalists isn't good enough. I think Binney was arguing that it was the journalists responsibility not to publish materials out of scope. That said, I suspect it's broad because it's hard to be selective internally without arousing suspicion and part of the leak was the scale of the operation itself - but that's not a great defense. >If the problem was that he disagreed with the law, in the US, the way to change laws you disagree with is through the political process. Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon. I think the core problem is actually deeper than this. When you have secret courts and secret interpretations of secret laws you don't have a process to change them. Part of leak was to bring this into the public view - given the incentives, politics and the existing laws surrounding the sharing of classified information I don't see another way this could have been done. Mass surveillance should minimally be a public decision - the secrecy surrounding it is dangerous.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    >When you have secret courts and secret interpretations of secret laws you don't have a process to change them. Technically there's internal whistleblowing. Besides, the fact that there are secret courts wasn't secret, so you could campaign against having those courts be secret. If there's anything being done that actually violates the law, you'd have full whistleblower protection (if you go through official channels). If it's just your disagreement with the law, you can act against that (as the EFF had been doing for years before Snowden) without breaking it.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  "Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon." You can't change the laws through the political process when disclosure of the laws is illegal. Further, Snowden is not demanding a pardon - we are demanding Snowden be pardoned.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    I addressed that elsewhere in the thread. The laws aren't secret, it's the court rulings that are secret. The fact that there's a secret court is known, though. So you could campaign against that court without leaking classified information. Imagine a world in which Snowden resigned, then publically pushed for unclassifying all FISA court rulings, with the obvious implication (or he could even say explicitly) that he saw things there that shouldn't be secret. He could even tell members of Congress with clearances and get them to announce it publicly in Congress, which effectively legally brings it into the public record (something like that happened with the Pentagon papers).
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      "I addressed that elsewhere in the thread. The laws aren't secret, it's the court rulings that are secret. The fact that there's a secret court is known, though. So you could campaign against that court without leaking classified information." The text of the laws was public. But the NSA decided that those laws meant something radically different than what was written down. Per my understanding, mostly that did not have involvement from the FISA court.
      - ikeboy 11y ago
        I think most of it did; could you give a specific program that you're thinking of? In any event, certainly much of what he published was unambiguously legal.

ikeboy 11y ago

>A little disingenuous considering in that linked article Binney states that it was more the publishing of certain content he disagreed with and not Snowden's actions. That was a direct result of Snowden's actions. I don't see the argument that his exposing the US spying on other countries is "right", and deserves a pardon. If he had only leaked local surveillance, I'd have a weaker case. >You won't win a trial on principle when it's the law that's the problem. If the problem was that he disagreed with the law, in the US, the way to change laws you disagree with is through the political process. Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon.

fossuser 11y ago
I can understand there's an argument that the scope of the documents leaked is too broad and how someone could think trusting the selective publishing to journalists isn't good enough. I think Binney was arguing that it was the journalists responsibility not to publish materials out of scope. That said, I suspect it's broad because it's hard to be selective internally without arousing suspicion and part of the leak was the scale of the operation itself - but that's not a great defense. >If the problem was that he disagreed with the law, in the US, the way to change laws you disagree with is through the political process. Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon. I think the core problem is actually deeper than this. When you have secret courts and secret interpretations of secret laws you don't have a process to change them. Part of leak was to bring this into the public view - given the incentives, politics and the existing laws surrounding the sharing of classified information I don't see another way this could have been done. Mass surveillance should minimally be a public decision - the secrecy surrounding it is dangerous.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  >When you have secret courts and secret interpretations of secret laws you don't have a process to change them. Technically there's internal whistleblowing. Besides, the fact that there are secret courts wasn't secret, so you could campaign against having those courts be secret. If there's anything being done that actually violates the law, you'd have full whistleblower protection (if you go through official channels). If it's just your disagreement with the law, you can act against that (as the EFF had been doing for years before Snowden) without breaking it.
dllthomas 11y ago
"Not by breaking them then demanding a pardon." You can't change the laws through the political process when disclosure of the laws is illegal. Further, Snowden is not demanding a pardon - we are demanding Snowden be pardoned.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  I addressed that elsewhere in the thread. The laws aren't secret, it's the court rulings that are secret. The fact that there's a secret court is known, though. So you could campaign against that court without leaking classified information. Imagine a world in which Snowden resigned, then publically pushed for unclassifying all FISA court rulings, with the obvious implication (or he could even say explicitly) that he saw things there that shouldn't be secret. He could even tell members of Congress with clearances and get them to announce it publicly in Congress, which effectively legally brings it into the public record (something like that happened with the Pentagon papers).
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    "I addressed that elsewhere in the thread. The laws aren't secret, it's the court rulings that are secret. The fact that there's a secret court is known, though. So you could campaign against that court without leaking classified information." The text of the laws was public. But the NSA decided that those laws meant something radically different than what was written down. Per my understanding, mostly that did not have involvement from the FISA court.
    - ikeboy 11y ago
      I think most of it did; could you give a specific program that you're thinking of? In any event, certainly much of what he published was unambiguously legal.