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The government lost any hope of moral high-ground by performing illegal surveillance amongst many other things. It is not reasonable to expect Snowden to select

The government lost any hope of moral high-ground by performing illegal surveillance amongst many other things. It is not reasonable to expect Snowden to selectively only release information that was strictly illegal (due to sheer number of files to sort through) and it is reasonable for someone to whistle-blow through unofficial channels when official ones are not available (and they weren't despite many people trying to advocate that they were - save your breath). Here's an idea - don't do horrifically illegal, amoral things alongside other legal but probably still amoral things, quash all possibilities of accountability, and expect that no one will call you out on it. Snowden did the right thing, and the only thing that could have been done.

Aloha 10y ago
Snowden did the right thing - of this I have no doubt. But he also committed a crime - and depending on who you listen to it was either a grave one, or a slight justified one. Do I think his crime justifies 30 years in prison? no. I think the public good he did well offsets most of the harm - but I think he needs to go to jail for some amount of time, even if its only a day.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  Saying something is illegal is not justification for it being amoral/wrong. There are countless obvious examples of this throughout history. This is exact reason pardons exist. People do things that are illegal but not amoral when the system either doesn't account for it, the laws are not up to date to accurately reflect the consensus of a society, or the system is broken and acting outside the broken system was the best option. Snowden doesn't deserve jail time due to the inefficiencies of our democracy. Inefficiencies that are largely due to our completely broken election system, as is obvious with the current presidential election.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
That may be "right" or true, but the people in charge will never see it that way. Insert the quote about salary depending on misunderstanding it. p.s. Always loved that song.
zepto 10y ago
No. Whistleblowing on illegal government actions is totally different from treason. The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related. Snowden clearly did not do the only thing that could have been done. He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information. All governments do bad things. That justifies whistleblowing. It never justifies an attack on the country's international security by its own citizens. In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  >The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related. If a government does something illegal and actively works to prevent itself from being held accountable, it is justified in my opinion to make them accountable even at the cost of intangible inconvenience. You're operating under the assumption that a government should operate in secrecy, which in my opinion is bullshit - even for military and CIA activities, we should be transparent on non-granular scales. Obviously not releasing "hey we're going to mortar this coordinate at this time" but you probably get the idea. >He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information. He released 200,000 documents. Millions of pages of information. I don't see how it can be argued he alone could have thoroughly vetted these documents to prevent unintentional leaks. And in his situation, I am sure he had to weigh the advantages of revealing illegal activities to the intangible and temporary inconvenience of only slightly less morally reprehensible spying programs. >In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare. We shouldn't make our standards by comparing us to other countries. There are some pretty fucked up laws out there.
  - zepto 10y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. Where we disagree is on your opinion that military and CIA activities should not be secret. Secrecy has been critical to maintaining strategic advantage in war and national security throughout history. Nothing has changed about that now. To suggest that we should blindly ignore this seems disconnected from the real world. > We shouldn't make out standards by comparing us to other countries. I can see how it might have looked as if that's what I was doing. I am not. To clarify - I don't think the illegal programs are justified at all, and Snowden was right to leak them. I do think the international intelligence programs are jusified. Not because we should do what others are doing, but because there are large and powerful countries who don't share ours interests and intend to undermine us.

Aloha 10y ago

Snowden did the right thing - of this I have no doubt. But he also committed a crime - and depending on who you listen to it was either a grave one, or a slight justified one. Do I think his crime justifies 30 years in prison? no. I think the public good he did well offsets most of the harm - but I think he needs to go to jail for some amount of time, even if its only a day.

whamlastxmas 10y ago
Saying something is illegal is not justification for it being amoral/wrong. There are countless obvious examples of this throughout history. This is exact reason pardons exist. People do things that are illegal but not amoral when the system either doesn't account for it, the laws are not up to date to accurately reflect the consensus of a society, or the system is broken and acting outside the broken system was the best option. Snowden doesn't deserve jail time due to the inefficiencies of our democracy. Inefficiencies that are largely due to our completely broken election system, as is obvious with the current presidential election.

mixmastamyk 10y ago

That may be "right" or true, but the people in charge will never see it that way. Insert the quote about salary depending on misunderstanding it. p.s. Always loved that song.

zepto 10y ago

No. Whistleblowing on illegal government actions is totally different from treason. The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related. Snowden clearly did not do the only thing that could have been done. He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information. All governments do bad things. That justifies whistleblowing. It never justifies an attack on the country's international security by its own citizens. In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare.

whamlastxmas 10y ago
>The fact that part of the government did something illegal in no way justifies undermining national security goals if those two are not related. If a government does something illegal and actively works to prevent itself from being held accountable, it is justified in my opinion to make them accountable even at the cost of intangible inconvenience. You're operating under the assumption that a government should operate in secrecy, which in my opinion is bullshit - even for military and CIA activities, we should be transparent on non-granular scales. Obviously not releasing "hey we're going to mortar this coordinate at this time" but you probably get the idea. >He did release documents selectively, therefore he could have chosen to not release the foreign surveillance information. He released 200,000 documents. Millions of pages of information. I don't see how it can be argued he alone could have thoroughly vetted these documents to prevent unintentional leaks. And in his situation, I am sure he had to weigh the advantages of revealing illegal activities to the intangible and temporary inconvenience of only slightly less morally reprehensible spying programs. >In case you handn't noticed, other powerful states have no qualms about cyberwarefare. We shouldn't make our standards by comparing us to other countries. There are some pretty fucked up laws out there.
- zepto 10y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. Where we disagree is on your opinion that military and CIA activities should not be secret. Secrecy has been critical to maintaining strategic advantage in war and national security throughout history. Nothing has changed about that now. To suggest that we should blindly ignore this seems disconnected from the real world. > We shouldn't make out standards by comparing us to other countries. I can see how it might have looked as if that's what I was doing. I am not. To clarify - I don't think the illegal programs are justified at all, and Snowden was right to leak them. I do think the international intelligence programs are jusified. Not because we should do what others are doing, but because there are large and powerful countries who don't share ours interests and intend to undermine us.