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For me, Hillary being let off changed how I view the Snowden affair. Before Hillary was let off without penalty, I thought that exposing or acting carelessly wi
by abraca 10y ago
For me, Hillary being let off changed how I view the Snowden affair. Before Hillary was let off without penalty, I thought that exposing or acting carelessly with classified information was a really big deal, that it seriously put American lives at risk - AND that others were doing a good job keeping that information under wraps, so breaches would be meaningful. Now it seems more like a political game. Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden. Punishing snowden is more about keeping info out of eyes of American public (i.e., Hillary's emails still need to be redacted, even though her server was likely hacked and info is almost certainly out there and America's ememies have it.) I hope that Hillary skating will set a precedent that will allow more whistleblowers to come forward to the public with information when needed without being penalized. Perhaps whistleblowers might use the strategy of releasing information 'unintentionally' and then use the Hillary defense.
- jeffdavis 10y agoAn interesting perspective, but I think the "Hillary Defense" is only available to a select few.
- 2close4comfort 10y agoWhat about Petraeus. For Snowden's acts to be still considered criminal is just hypocritical.
- adrenalinelol 10y agoHe should be in jail for the rest of his life (look at Chelsea Manning's sentence, if we are going to be consistent), but he was given a slap on the wrist: CIA directory trading secrets to his mistress? It sounds like a movie script, but now it's the public record.
- ajmurmann 10y agoWhat makes the difference even more stunning is that Snowden and Manning released information because they thought it was the right thing to do. Patreus did it knowing it was the wrong thing.
- pdkl95 10y agoThis isn't about a defense. The problem is that those "select few" are supposed to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us. When we see clear evidence that "rule of law" no longer applies, why should anybody respect the law?
- themartorana 10y agoTrue. Petraeus and Clapper pretty much sealed that deal. I mean, we already knew those with money and power were treated differently, it just happened in the dark, usually. The financial collapse, Clapper lying to Congress, and the Petraeus scandal (and subsequent zero punishment for any of the three) made it clear public knowledge and brought it out of the shadows into the light of day.
- hiram112 10y agoPetraeus received a $100k fine. Not a huge deal for someone who made a lot more on his biography, which was the cause of the issue, but still not zero punishment.
- slg 10y agoSnowden and Clinton are apples and oranges. There is a reason why we don't have the same punishments for if someone is at fault in a car accident that kills someone versus if they purchase a gun and immediately use it to kill someone.
- 67726e 10y agoYeah, right, it was an accident. If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. That witch is guilty as they come, it's all politics.
- morganvachon 10y agoAre you seriously comparing his actions to first degree murder? I think you're a bit biased here.
- umanwizard 10y agoIt's an analogy, not a comparison. Do you seriously not understand the difference?
- morganvachon 10y agoI understand the difference, just as I understand that it's a sneaky way to perform an ad hominem attack. You could have chosen any two contrasting actions, but you specifically chose violent murder as an analogy to what he did. Perhaps you did it subconsciously, but, well...there it is.
- dredmorbius 10y agoWhile there's a point buried in there, it's poorly made and analogised. You've got two people taking deliberate actions which could expose or at least violate handling rules for classified information. One was seeking to retain it personally persuant to her job, the other was exposing it to the world, under the guidance of his conscience and loyalty to his Constitution. Both broke rules. How they did so, to what ends, and to what effect are hugely different. Drawing comparisons between Snowden and Clinton as GP did is far too muddled to really be useful, IMO. (Disclaimers: I think Snowden should be a national hero to Americans, and is a global hero. Clinton rather grudgingly gets my nod to occupy the Oval Office, though given current contenders, that's very much a lesser evil option, with an enormous gulf between her and the greater evil not tempering the fact that she's damaged goods and quite probably not the leadership the US needs at present. She seems to be what they'll get. I rather hope that she does, actually. Trump would be a disaster for the planet, and any plausible GOP alternate would be nearly as bad. Not that the GOP have been constrained by plausibility of late.)
- jonknee 10y ago> Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden How so? (I would wager neither put us in danger.)
- adamnemecek 10y agoIf nothing else she took bribes in exchange for weapons sold to Middle East. This destabilizes the region even more (if that's possible). Edit: you can down vote me all you want, you know it's true http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187 http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons...
- milesskorpen 10y agoI don't think there's much evidence that these fighter jets have destabilized the region further (there's plenty of instability as is) and the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis — well before HRC came along. I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal.
- adamnemecek 10y ago> the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis Well it was not always obvious that SA isn't exactly a US ally. On the contrary actually. > I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal. So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another?
- jonknee 10y ago> So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another? Because we don't have many friends in the Middle East and we desperately want some help combatting IS. It's not rocket science. We have sold arms to Saudi Arabia for generations. For example, Reagan approved a large deal in the early 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_Sale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_...
- hiou 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
- sctb 10y agoIf you believe you evidence of astroturfing, please hn@ycombinator.com rather than commenting like this.
- philwelch 10y agoHillary stored classified information on a privately owned email server. Snowden collected a cache of classified documents and gave them to foreign journalists. There's really no comparison between the two. One is an instance of careless information security by someone who found the official systems inconvenient to use and the other is deliberately disclosing classified information.
- nostromo 10y agoI find Hillary's actions to be worse, personally. Hillary's actions very likely gave secret information to America's enemies. Snowden's actions gave secret information to the public. Hillary's intentions were to circumvent FOIA rules and break the law. Snowden's intentions were to be end unconstitutional spying and uphold the law.
- ztratar 10y agoNice propaganda. Hillary's intentions were in no way to break the law. That was very clearly declared false by the FBI.
- stonogo 10y agoThis is what intent to break the law looks like: http://i.imgur.com/NneHu1w.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NneHu1w.jpg I don't know what the right answer is here, but I am certain that I don't find incompetence a better excuse than malfeasance.
- morganvachon 10y ago> I don't know what the right answer is here, but I am certain that I don't find incompetence a better excuse than malfeasance. In the United States there are laws regarding criminal negligence, and hypothetically speaking, if someone died as a result of her criminal negligence, it would be considered criminally negligent homicide in most states and could result in prosecution and a real prison sentence. Would she ever be tried or found guilty of it? Based on the outcome so far, I doubt it; the powerful and connected rarely fall. But the standard does exist.
- adrenalinelol 10y agoLeaking classified material was sacrilege in Washington... Until someone of privilege (HRC) did it... Now the the obvious hypocrisy has been exposed, we can stop pretending there were intractable operational risks created be Edward Snowden and pardon him. Before the leaks, anyone who claimed we were turning into a police state was branded a conspiracy theorist, now it's part of the public record. Had it remained in the shadows it'd be a far scarier monstrosity than we have today.
- jonknee 10y ago> Leaking classified material was sacrilege in Washington Umm, more like it was standard operating procedure. How else do you think all the anonymously sourced articles in the NYT/WaPo/WSJ happen?
- adrenalinelol 10y agoWhen related to the NSA/CIA collecting nearly every once of data a citizen dispense online? No, that wasn't standard procedure.
- jonknee 10y agoBush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts Dec 16, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-on-callers-without-courts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-... > Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
- adrenalinelol 10y ago# articles related to it prior vs. after Snowden, after Snowden would be an order of magnitude more per capita.
- pbreit 10y agoIf Hillary's emails got out I think we almost certainly would have found out by now. Also, if we're talking Snowden, you could make the argument Hillary's emails were more secure since they weren't accessible to...Snowden.
- massysett 10y agoThe Russians will wait until the right moment to leak them. Maybe a week or two before the election.
- pbreit 10y agoWhat would they get out of that? Not a Trump presidency.
- tenpies 10y agoTrump and Putin actually seem to have a very good relationship and have spoken positively about each other. Trump winning could legitimately foster a new era of better relationships with Russia. Hillary would probably be the opposite.
- dredmorbius 10y agoWhat Putin says, largely for domestic consumption, and what he truly feels, are, I quite strongly suspect, rather different things. Adam Curtis has touched on this, in "Bitter Lake" IIRC. Recommended. (BBC video documentary -- this bit comes early on.)
- paul9290 10y agoThe 2016 presidential candidates are a sad state of affairs! One side you have a queen who cares only for herself not America vs. a total buffoon. We are screwed!
- themartorana 10y agoI think it's a little absurd to say she only cares for herself. Despite the megalomania that I assume all presidents have to have, I doubt they are in it solely for themselves. Well, maybe Trump, but he's pretty open about it. I do, however, believe she thinks she's above the law, and so far it seems she's right.
- paul9290 10y agoAnd that's someone we want as our next president???? Also, Obama was presidential and personally I never saw him act or show any megalomania. I want someone like that running this country not any of these horrible people we have now running!
- barryfinch9 10y agoI've just used this guy's services and he's a legit black hat hacker, he can handle social network hacks, emails and school grade hacks, he's actually the real deal, I was initially skeptical as I already got scammed before but he did come through, his email is Blackhat.hacksolutions@gmail.com
- barryfinch9 10y agoI've just used this guy's services and he's a legit black hat hacker, he can handle social network hacks, emails and school grade hacks, he's actually the real deal, I was initially skeptical as I already got scammed before but he did come through, his email is Blackhat.hacksolutions@gmail.com
- barryfinch9 10y agoI've just used this guy's services and he's a legit black hat hacker, he can handle social network hacks, emails and school grade hacks, he's actually the real deal, I was initially skeptical as I already got scammed before but he did come through, his email is Blackhat.hacksolutions@gmail.com
- barryfinch9 10y agoI've just used this guy's services and he's a legit black hat hacker, he can handle social network hacks, emails and school grade hacks, he's actually the real deal, I was initially skeptical as I already got scammed before but he did come through, his email is Blackhat.hacksolutions@gmail.com
- comex 10y agoBelieving there to be a meaningful difference between being somewhat careless with information on one hand, and intentionally leaking it to the press on the other, is not playing a "political game". You can believe Snowden to be a hero or a traitor - I lean towards the former, personally - but his behavior was in a completely different category from Clinton's.
- rplst8 10y agoYes. One was courageous. The other was cowardly.
- rayiner 10y agoHilary may have gotten special treatment. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. There are serious Constitutional concerns about the sitting administration prosecuting the presumptive next President. It's not a precedent we want to set.
- adrenalinelol 10y agoSpecial treatment IS a bad thing. Running for president doesn't exonerate you from a felony.
- rayiner 10y agoProsecution by the executive of successors (or other branches of government) raises an existential threat to the republic. It's far more important to ensure succession cannot be questioned than it is to punish every felony.
- r00fus 10y agoSeriously, while I entertain the possibility of voting for Hillary, I still think the fact she's running for President shouldn't exempt her from the law. Of course, that brings up the question - was she really breaking the law? Were others before her doing the same?
- rayiner 10y agoThe problem is that the executive's power to prosecute can be abused to undermine democracy when it's targeted Presidential candidates. Politically motivated prosecution is not unheard of. That's not the risk in this specific case, but that's not a road I want to start walking down.
- tomjen3 10y agoIf she had been prosecuted, she would be taken out of the race, which would mean that the democrats would have lost their nominee, which means that Trump would win but not because he was really elected. Can you imagine the nightmare that would have been politically? Hrc should have been prosecuted a long time ago.
- tasty_freeze 10y agoThis is not to excuse Clinton's email policy. Let's agree that Clinton ran a private email server and it had a high risk of being compromised. Let's agree that Clinton turned over a subset of the emails when it was requested, under the grounds that those were personal emails which aren't related to her actions as secretary of state. Let's agree that there is no clear boundary where to draw that line, so people will argue in good faith that the line was drawn in the wrong spot. Now, let's imagine that instead of the above scenario, not just Clinton but most of the white house positions including the secretary of state used the DNC email server explicitly to avoid freedom of information act requests. Imagine that when this came to light, the Obama administration claimed to have lost over 5 million emails. When asked to produce the backup tapes, they said, shoot! The backup tapes are corrupted. Do you agree that that scenario would have been far worse? And how many investigations and calls for impeachment would have happened by now? How many special committees would have called? Well, the above isn't a hypothetical. The previous administration did exactly what I described, except that they used the RNC mail server of course. All the people who are outraged (outraged!) and think that Clinton committed what amounts to an act of treason didn't say a peep back then. And unlike the perpetual train of special investigations that are brandished for political ends, that whole affair didn't result garner even one tenth the amount of press Hillary has. Let me be clear: I'm not saying what Hillary did was OK. I'm saying that if the previous administration did something far worse and nobody got body slammed for it, why would you be surprised that Clinton got off the hook too? You should also read the juicy contents of the Secretary of State's emails. The vast majority were of the form "Can you contact so and so and see if we can put off the meeting until later." There are very few truly top secret things that crossed her desk.
- tanderson92 10y agoMany nonpartisans as well as leftist Democrats (ordinary liberals are too much of institutionalist authoritarians to be too outraged) criticized both of these instances of direct evasion of transparency. The Bush administration was a disaster on transparency. I find it shameful that that is where the bar is set. It's embarrassing not just politically but institutionally. Elected Republicans, of course, acted in bad faith, as you mention. Make no mistake, however, there are many who find the lapses of both administrations disturbing for a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people".
- xenadu02 10y agoBypassing idiotic and/or incompetent corporate IT departments is an everyday activity for half the people who post in HN. I haven't seen any proof that her email server was hacked and the two "classified" emails Comey spoke about were mis-categorized and not actually sensitive at all. Just like the Benghazi nonsense I have yet to see any actual proof, just a lot of political theater. This is and was a transparent attempt to squash Hillary's run for president. That's all. The tone of your post betrays your own naked political bias as well. Hillary's actual decisions while SoS have a far greater effect on the US as a country than everything related to her email put together. There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize her on, we don't need to make up nonsense. It's OT anyway.
- etjossem 10y agoAgreed. Read the reports from the investiation: Benghazi and the emails are the new Swiftboat [1], and it's particularly telling that they don't have anything better to talk about. Move along. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboat
- tptacek 10y agoSo far as we know, HRC didn't expose any information. During the time HRC was using her own email server, the official email server she was supposed to use was comprehensively owned up by Russian hackers. It is unlikely but plausible that her emails were safer on her servers. The reason Justice didn't prosecute HRC was that it was too difficult for them to pursue a narrative around "intent". Comey at FBI wasn't making that part up: the previous cases on the record for negligent, rather than deliberate, exposure were not helpful to the prosecution: for one thing, in every case on the record, the line between "negligence" and "deliberation" was pretty vague --- each prosecuted person had deliberately done things with specific, known pieces of classified information that put them at risk. For another, in each of those cases, classified documents actually leaked (usually to the person who reported them). And finally, in most of the cases, the accused were not civilians and not part of the Intelligence Community. Three things to know about classified information in the government: 1. Ordinary people who take jobs involving classified information are taught that the penalties for mishandling it are grave, and almost invariably involve prison time. 2. That training appears to be a lie, intended to scare people into being diligent about classified information. 3. There is a long history of leniency for people outside the intelligence community who mishandle classified information. The expectation seems to be that if you take 10 people from State and search their Hotmail accounts, you're going to find stuff. I don't believe HRC received special treatment. If she had been at State when this story broke, and had been an ordinary employee, she'd have been fired. Termination is not prosecution. At any rate: she can't be fired now: she's already gone.