16 ms·

So is Snowden still a whistleblower? Honest question, not trying to be snide. If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 docum

So is Snowden still a whistleblower? Honest question, not trying to be snide. If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 document you leak that pertains to something you think an agency shouldn't be doing, are you still blowing the whistle? At what point are you no longer able to use that title as a defense? 10,000 documents for every 1? 100,000? Can he be both a whistleblower and a criminal or are the two mutually exclusive? I don't have answers to these questions so I hope someone else does. Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question, as though it were even possible to disagree with a question.

wwwwwwwwww 11y ago
Snowden stopped being a whistleblower to me when the docs about the CIA's sigint spying gear was published. There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries. If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  This is an unrelated issue, but I think you're working from the premise that the CIA's spying and SIGINT capabilities actually make the US safer or more strategically secure in the world. That the CIA actually improves the US's position isn't remotely proven even on the 50 year timescale, and there's a cornucopia of evidence that supports the opposite hypothesis which states the CIA's endless philandering has engendered a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world, not to mention seeding anarchic instability.
  - caskance 11y ago
    And the idea that engendering a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world or seeding anarchic instability does not improve the US's position is likewise not remotely proven. The whole point of representative democracy is that decisions, especially ones like these that require privileged information to really be sure about, are delegated to elected representatives.
- pvnick 11y ago
  > There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries. That's a false dichotomy. Snowden didn't risk his life just to help people improve their privacy - he did it to expose wrongdoing and start a process to reform our government.
- psykovsky 11y ago
  The US spying capability does nothing but damage to the rest of the world. Just because I live in a different country you must respect my rights, nonetheless. No, secret court orders won't fly around here.
- rurban 11y ago
  He didn't publish any material. The german magazine Spiegel published this part you are complaining about. They explained their reasoning why they published it.
clarkmoody 11y ago
Isn't every whistleblower within the intelligence community a criminal by definition due to the laws surrounding the material? (Assuming they are blowing the whistle about non human-resources issues)
- ju-st 11y ago
  Yes. Compare with the rebellion of the 13 Colonies.. or was it a revolution?
pvnick 11y ago
Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately. I for one believe that the releases have been done with impeccable professionalism, and in fact if it were up to me I would have been even more liberal with the releases (Greenwald, Poitras, et al. have actually worked with the government during this process).
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  >gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately Journalists will be tempted to publish regardless of the original intent, let's hope they are not desperate for a story.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  This. It is amazing how many people don't know this (that he did not just leak everything indiscriminately).
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    There's been a lot of obfuscation to the contrary, including endless bad-faith comparisons with Chelsea Manning.
    - jazzyk 11y ago
      Yup. Also comparisons with Assange.
  - irishcoffee 11y ago
    Yes he did, to journalists. Before the downvote button is spammed: He simply did not have time go go over every single one of the 100,000+ documents he claimed to leak, and give them to journalists in an intelligent manner. There simply was not enough time between him leaving the country and the documents being revealed for him to have done that. So yes, he did very much indiscriminately leak them.
nabla9 11y ago
As a citizen of EU country I'm grateful. If Snowden is committing crime, it's political crime. There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
mtgx 11y ago
Of course he is. His documents have already provided huge benefit to the public. Are we really going to nitpick over every single document from the hundreds of thousands and go "Aha! this document probably shouldn't have been leaked - he's totally a traitor now"? I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?
- caskance 11y ago
  That's what it means to be a traitor, isn't it? If someone lives an otherwise law-abiding life, and commits ONE crime, would you not call him a criminal as long as his total contribution was net positive?
ewindisch 11y ago
As a thought experiment, are we certain these documents came from Snowden? He has not digitally signed these releases. He himself may not know entirely what was in the archive, so he may not be certain if all the released documents originated from his dump. Even if he was aware of documents being incorrectly attributed to him, it may do his cause more harm than good to highlight this fact. It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle. I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true. EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-speaks-out http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/the-character-assassination-of-edward-snowden http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...
- NullCharacter 11y ago
  Using your same logic here, you could claim that those documents are forgeries to begin with, leaked to "assassinate" the "character" of the NSA. You can't have it both ways. Either you're skeptical of the documents origin/source or you aren't.
  - ewindisch 11y ago
    Absolutely. Also remember this was a thought experiment, not a conspiracy theory. FYI, not sure why you're using quotes around Character assassination. It is a fixed expression in English, it's not something I made up: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assassination http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assass...
tptacek 11y ago
That's not a question with a binary answer. Some of what he's published clearly is "whistleblowing", and a lot of it clearly isn't. The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  used to distract people from his actual actions How do we determine his actual intentions? I mean, Snowden is alive and well and giving quotes: "People who think I made a mistake in picking [Hong Kong] as a location misunderstand my intentions,” Snowden clarified. “I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”" Sounds like Snowden considers himself to be something of a whistle blower, in the common sense, if not the technical. So, that's settled, I guess.
rasz_pl 11y ago
>Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).
pdkl95 11y ago
If you are concerned about the release of some of these documents, why aren't you focusing your attention on the crimes in government and the failure of oversight that made public disclosure necessary. Would you prefer Snowden had stayed silent and the crimes he revealed remained unknown? Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.

wwwwwwwwww 11y ago

Snowden stopped being a whistleblower to me when the docs about the CIA's sigint spying gear was published. There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries. If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.

cryoshon 11y ago
This is an unrelated issue, but I think you're working from the premise that the CIA's spying and SIGINT capabilities actually make the US safer or more strategically secure in the world. That the CIA actually improves the US's position isn't remotely proven even on the 50 year timescale, and there's a cornucopia of evidence that supports the opposite hypothesis which states the CIA's endless philandering has engendered a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world, not to mention seeding anarchic instability.
- caskance 11y ago
  And the idea that engendering a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world or seeding anarchic instability does not improve the US's position is likewise not remotely proven. The whole point of representative democracy is that decisions, especially ones like these that require privileged information to really be sure about, are delegated to elected representatives.
pvnick 11y ago
> There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries. That's a false dichotomy. Snowden didn't risk his life just to help people improve their privacy - he did it to expose wrongdoing and start a process to reform our government.
psykovsky 11y ago
The US spying capability does nothing but damage to the rest of the world. Just because I live in a different country you must respect my rights, nonetheless. No, secret court orders won't fly around here.
rurban 11y ago
He didn't publish any material. The german magazine Spiegel published this part you are complaining about. They explained their reasoning why they published it.

clarkmoody 11y ago

Isn't every whistleblower within the intelligence community a criminal by definition due to the laws surrounding the material? (Assuming they are blowing the whistle about non human-resources issues)

ju-st 11y ago
Yes. Compare with the rebellion of the 13 Colonies.. or was it a revolution?

pvnick 11y ago

Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately. I for one believe that the releases have been done with impeccable professionalism, and in fact if it were up to me I would have been even more liberal with the releases (Greenwald, Poitras, et al. have actually worked with the government during this process).

happyscrappy 11y ago
>gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately Journalists will be tempted to publish regardless of the original intent, let's hope they are not desperate for a story.
jazzyk 11y ago
This. It is amazing how many people don't know this (that he did not just leak everything indiscriminately).
- cryoshon 11y ago
  There's been a lot of obfuscation to the contrary, including endless bad-faith comparisons with Chelsea Manning.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    Yup. Also comparisons with Assange.
- irishcoffee 11y ago
  Yes he did, to journalists. Before the downvote button is spammed: He simply did not have time go go over every single one of the 100,000+ documents he claimed to leak, and give them to journalists in an intelligent manner. There simply was not enough time between him leaving the country and the documents being revealed for him to have done that. So yes, he did very much indiscriminately leak them.

nabla9 11y ago

As a citizen of EU country I'm grateful. If Snowden is committing crime, it's political crime. There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

mtgx 11y ago

Of course he is. His documents have already provided huge benefit to the public. Are we really going to nitpick over every single document from the hundreds of thousands and go "Aha! this document probably shouldn't have been leaked - he's totally a traitor now"? I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?

caskance 11y ago
That's what it means to be a traitor, isn't it? If someone lives an otherwise law-abiding life, and commits ONE crime, would you not call him a criminal as long as his total contribution was net positive?

ewindisch 11y ago

As a thought experiment, are we certain these documents came from Snowden? He has not digitally signed these releases. He himself may not know entirely what was in the archive, so he may not be certain if all the released documents originated from his dump. Even if he was aware of documents being incorrectly attributed to him, it may do his cause more harm than good to highlight this fact. It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle. I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true. EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-speaks-out http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/the-character-assassination-of-edward-snowden http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...

NullCharacter 11y ago
Using your same logic here, you could claim that those documents are forgeries to begin with, leaked to "assassinate" the "character" of the NSA. You can't have it both ways. Either you're skeptical of the documents origin/source or you aren't.
- ewindisch 11y ago
  Absolutely. Also remember this was a thought experiment, not a conspiracy theory. FYI, not sure why you're using quotes around Character assassination. It is a fixed expression in English, it's not something I made up: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assassination http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assass...

tptacek 11y ago

That's not a question with a binary answer. Some of what he's published clearly is "whistleblowing", and a lot of it clearly isn't. The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.

bediger4000 11y ago
used to distract people from his actual actions How do we determine his actual intentions? I mean, Snowden is alive and well and giving quotes: "People who think I made a mistake in picking [Hong Kong] as a location misunderstand my intentions,” Snowden clarified. “I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”" Sounds like Snowden considers himself to be something of a whistle blower, in the common sense, if not the technical. So, that's settled, I guess.

rasz_pl 11y ago

>Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).

pdkl95 11y ago

If you are concerned about the release of some of these documents, why aren't you focusing your attention on the crimes in government and the failure of oversight that made public disclosure necessary. Would you prefer Snowden had stayed silent and the crimes he revealed remained unknown? Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.