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I also agree with this. He should get all that, in addition to a proper trial in court for some of his misconducts, because while I do believe he performed a gr

I also agree with this. He should get all that, in addition to a proper trial in court for some of his misconducts, because while I do believe he performed a great public service that sparked a hugely beneficial conversation regarding privacy and government secrecy, he also neglected one of his basic responsibilities as a whistleblower by offloading all the documents he could get his hands on to the press in their original forms without even reading all of them [1], instead of exercising his own discretion and leaking only those documents that he had personally confirmed was of public interest, and performing his own due diligence by redacting any irrelevant sensitive information in those documents to the best of his abilities. While I can sympathize with the fact that he was probably under a tremendous amount of stress at the time, that probably led to this unfortunate decision, a whistleblower like Snowden simply shouldn't have placed so much blind trust in the media. Letting this slide without any consequences would set a dangerous precedent, regardless of how well the ends justified the means in this case. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/06/edward-snowden-john-oliver-last-week-tonight-nsa-leaked-documents http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/06/edward-snowde...

gizmo686 10y ago
Snowden didn't release documents to "the media", he gave them to two particular journalists (Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras), who did perform due dilligence before releasing documents. This is a well established practice that helps protect against the bias of the leaker from interfering with an objective judgement of what should be redacted.
- lewisl9029 10y ago
  While I still disagree that Snowden's blind trust in those two particular journalists (whom I referred to as "the media", not to discredit these two journalists in particular, but because I was trying make a more general statement) was justified considering the massive scale of his leak and the fact that he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security, I admit that the trade-off between having more objectivity in what gets redacted vs the risk of leaking damaging confidential information of no public interest is an interesting one that I hadn't considered. Do you have any references for why this might be considered an established practice?
  - woodman 10y ago
    > he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a spy agency run amok? Justifying prosecution with such logic... it reminds me of the story about the burglar suing the home owner because he injured himself while illegally on the property.
    - lewisl9029 10y ago
      > Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a spy agency run amok? Most definitely not. And I'm not sure how you could have gotten that impression if you actually read my posts instead of taking that single statement out of context. For the record, I applaud Snowden for his revelation of the NSA's overreach. I just happen to also believe that he could have handled the leak in a much more responsible and defensible manner by carefully reviewing each document that he leaked to ensure they were relevant to the case he was making, and redact any non-relevant sensitive information that could be damaging to national security, instead of just dumping thousands of documents that he never read and delegating to the media what should have been his own responsibility as a whistleblower. He definitely deserves much praise for his bravery and for sparking the resulting conversation about privacy and government overreach, but we shouldn't let that blind us from the potential dangers of the approach he took.
      - woodman 10y ago
        I did read your entire post - several actually. So if you were not referring to the slide with Al-Qaeda related operational details (referenced in your John Oliver link), what did he neglect to redact? If that is not the thing you want to see him prosecuted for, can you state it more clearly? I assume you aren't wanting him prosecuted for "the potential dangers of the approach he took", such hypotheticals would be an even more dangerous precedent. We aren't going to agree though, as I believe that he should have dumped it all - unrestricted public access. Whatever potential good end a kindly king can apply state secrets is far outweighed by the potential abuses (a great imagination isn't required, lots of historical examples exist).

gizmo686 10y ago

Snowden didn't release documents to "the media", he gave them to two particular journalists (Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras), who did perform due dilligence before releasing documents. This is a well established practice that helps protect against the bias of the leaker from interfering with an objective judgement of what should be redacted.

lewisl9029 10y ago
While I still disagree that Snowden's blind trust in those two particular journalists (whom I referred to as "the media", not to discredit these two journalists in particular, but because I was trying make a more general statement) was justified considering the massive scale of his leak and the fact that he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security, I admit that the trade-off between having more objectivity in what gets redacted vs the risk of leaking damaging confidential information of no public interest is an interesting one that I hadn't considered. Do you have any references for why this might be considered an established practice?
- woodman 10y ago
  > he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a spy agency run amok? Justifying prosecution with such logic... it reminds me of the story about the burglar suing the home owner because he injured himself while illegally on the property.
  - lewisl9029 10y ago
    > Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a spy agency run amok? Most definitely not. And I'm not sure how you could have gotten that impression if you actually read my posts instead of taking that single statement out of context. For the record, I applaud Snowden for his revelation of the NSA's overreach. I just happen to also believe that he could have handled the leak in a much more responsible and defensible manner by carefully reviewing each document that he leaked to ensure they were relevant to the case he was making, and redact any non-relevant sensitive information that could be damaging to national security, instead of just dumping thousands of documents that he never read and delegating to the media what should have been his own responsibility as a whistleblower. He definitely deserves much praise for his bravery and for sparking the resulting conversation about privacy and government overreach, but we shouldn't let that blind us from the potential dangers of the approach he took.
    - woodman 10y ago
      I did read your entire post - several actually. So if you were not referring to the slide with Al-Qaeda related operational details (referenced in your John Oliver link), what did he neglect to redact? If that is not the thing you want to see him prosecuted for, can you state it more clearly? I assume you aren't wanting him prosecuted for "the potential dangers of the approach he took", such hypotheticals would be an even more dangerous precedent. We aren't going to agree though, as I believe that he should have dumped it all - unrestricted public access. Whatever potential good end a kindly king can apply state secrets is far outweighed by the potential abuses (a great imagination isn't required, lots of historical examples exist).