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While I do think Snowden should be pardoned and I am completely on his side, I am sympathetic to the argument that what he did represents a very dangerous slipp

by darawk 10y ago

While I do think Snowden should be pardoned and I am completely on his side, I am sympathetic to the argument that what he did represents a very dangerous slippery slope - especially when the activities in question were not necessarily illegal. Whistleblowing on say, corruption at the EPA is clearly in the public interest. That is illegal and everyone can agree it is illegal and bad. But what the NSA was doing was, at least nominally, authorized by congress and the executive branch. You and I may think it is wrong for them to be doing it, but it wasn't necessarily against the law. What this means is that he was leaking classified information on the basis of his own personal moral judgments. If we accept that people should be able to whistleblow under such circumstances, how do we argue against people who take such actions who's morality does not comport with our own? To craft a somewhat awkward hypothetical, let's say the Obama administration negotiated better human rights for women in Iran as a side deal in lifting the trade sanctions against them, but this was kept secret until the deal was finalized because it wouldn't make it through if it was known by the more fundamentalist elements of the government. And then let's suppose someone in the administration 'whistleblew' on this and leaked it because they morally objected to women having such rights. How do you differentiate that from what Snowden did? Both individuals believe that what they did was in the public interest, we just happen to agree with Snowden and not the other guy. It seems to me that the only objective criteria for whistleblowing might have to be criminal behavior. If you can't prosecute someone for it, you can't whistleblow on it. Because if you don't make that the standard, then what is?

ScottBurson 10y ago
I don't know that there can be an objective criterion. Whistleblowers who succeed in getting public opinion on their side -- as I guess Daniel Ellsberg did, on balance, though there were certainly many who disagreed -- will get away with it. Those who don't, won't. I'm not sure it can be any other way. The government has to protect itself, and for the most part, that's a good thing. The only authority that can set limits on that self-protection, to keep it from going against the public interest, is the public itself. I too support pardoning Snowden. He risked his life and his future to bring us critically important information about the activities of our government, and he did so in as responsible a manner as I think he could have under the circumstances. This Guardian article certainly speaks to that point.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> You and I may think it is wrong for them to be doing it, but it wasn't necessarily against the law. It is quite plausibly unconstitutional but without anyone knowing about it there is no one to mount the constitutional challenge. And the same applies to the legality in general -- anything is legal if the only people who know about it claim it is and it consequently never gets before a judge in an adversarial proceeding. > How do you differentiate that from what Snowden did? You don't. Neither of those are the sort of secrets the government should be keeping. If you want politicians who support enacting some particular policy then you have to elect them, not have the executive branch keep secret from them what is actually going on.
- darawk 10y ago
  Ya, sorry the Iran deal thing wasn't a great example. I was having a hard time coming up with an example of something that was non-illegal but counter to HN denizen's ethos, but could theoretically be whistle-blown on. A slightly better example might be the development of nuclear weapons. Leaking not just their existence, but detailed plans of how to construct them and refine the uranium on the basis that 'it is immoral for one country to control such powerful weapons'. That is a plausible moral position that would have catastrophic consequences and would not be revealing illegal activity per se. Do we prosecute someone like that?
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    It seems like the dividing line should be whether the American public can do something productive with the information, i.e. if the public knowing it is in the public interest. So knowing that the government has nuclear weapons and what their effects are would clearly be in the public interest, but what is Joe Voter or Jane Civil Engineer going to do with knowledge of how to enrich uranium? The following might be a good dichotomy. Suppose you learn the allies have broken the Enigma machine during WWII. Disclosing this is not in the public interest, because the public knows the allies would have a program to break Nazi cryptography and the fact that it succeeded doesn't allow the public to do anything differently, but would allow the Nazis to switch to some other cryptography. But now suppose that the NSA breaks AES or RSA today. That would be completely different because we use it. The American people would need to stop using the broken cryptography and come up with something better (or use longer keys), and the government keeping it a secret that it's broken is the thing putting the American economy and American lives at risk. The obvious problem with all of this is that the edges are fuzzy. There are cases in the middle where there is a certain amount of public interest and a certain amount of harm and balancing them is a subjective exercise. But if there was ever a case for a jury to be useful for something, this is it. Making factual determinations like that. Because then you would have to be sure enough in your correctness to be willing to throw yourself on the mercy of 12 ordinary Americans. The problem is the law doesn't allow that. There is no public interest defense. You're not allowed to make that argument to the jury. So what are you supposed to do, seek asylum in Russia?

by darawk 10y ago

ScottBurson 10y ago

I don't know that there can be an objective criterion. Whistleblowers who succeed in getting public opinion on their side -- as I guess Daniel Ellsberg did, on balance, though there were certainly many who disagreed -- will get away with it. Those who don't, won't. I'm not sure it can be any other way. The government has to protect itself, and for the most part, that's a good thing. The only authority that can set limits on that self-protection, to keep it from going against the public interest, is the public itself. I too support pardoning Snowden. He risked his life and his future to bring us critically important information about the activities of our government, and he did so in as responsible a manner as I think he could have under the circumstances. This Guardian article certainly speaks to that point.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> You and I may think it is wrong for them to be doing it, but it wasn't necessarily against the law. It is quite plausibly unconstitutional but without anyone knowing about it there is no one to mount the constitutional challenge. And the same applies to the legality in general -- anything is legal if the only people who know about it claim it is and it consequently never gets before a judge in an adversarial proceeding. > How do you differentiate that from what Snowden did? You don't. Neither of those are the sort of secrets the government should be keeping. If you want politicians who support enacting some particular policy then you have to elect them, not have the executive branch keep secret from them what is actually going on.

darawk 10y ago
Ya, sorry the Iran deal thing wasn't a great example. I was having a hard time coming up with an example of something that was non-illegal but counter to HN denizen's ethos, but could theoretically be whistle-blown on. A slightly better example might be the development of nuclear weapons. Leaking not just their existence, but detailed plans of how to construct them and refine the uranium on the basis that 'it is immoral for one country to control such powerful weapons'. That is a plausible moral position that would have catastrophic consequences and would not be revealing illegal activity per se. Do we prosecute someone like that?
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  It seems like the dividing line should be whether the American public can do something productive with the information, i.e. if the public knowing it is in the public interest. So knowing that the government has nuclear weapons and what their effects are would clearly be in the public interest, but what is Joe Voter or Jane Civil Engineer going to do with knowledge of how to enrich uranium? The following might be a good dichotomy. Suppose you learn the allies have broken the Enigma machine during WWII. Disclosing this is not in the public interest, because the public knows the allies would have a program to break Nazi cryptography and the fact that it succeeded doesn't allow the public to do anything differently, but would allow the Nazis to switch to some other cryptography. But now suppose that the NSA breaks AES or RSA today. That would be completely different because we use it. The American people would need to stop using the broken cryptography and come up with something better (or use longer keys), and the government keeping it a secret that it's broken is the thing putting the American economy and American lives at risk. The obvious problem with all of this is that the edges are fuzzy. There are cases in the middle where there is a certain amount of public interest and a certain amount of harm and balancing them is a subjective exercise. But if there was ever a case for a jury to be useful for something, this is it. Making factual determinations like that. Because then you would have to be sure enough in your correctness to be willing to throw yourself on the mercy of 12 ordinary Americans. The problem is the law doesn't allow that. There is no public interest defense. You're not allowed to make that argument to the jury. So what are you supposed to do, seek asylum in Russia?