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Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden and the Modern Whistleblower

• anit010 10y ago
  FAKE NEWS DIDN'T JUST START DURING THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/securitycrisis.html http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/securitycrisis.html
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• squozzer 10y ago
  Maybe Leaker 2.0 is inferior to 1.0. It perhaps parallels America 2.0 (indefinite detention without trial, torture, and maybe a few other crimes against humanity) being a bit inferior to America 1.0.
  • mattnewton 10y ago
    I was never a great history student but I am certain America 1.0 isn't as rosey as you paint it. I can think of genocide of indigenous people, slavery, increased use of capital punishment and mob justice tactics like tarring and feathering just off the top of my head depending on when you draw the line. I imagine the kinds of things you listed are only coming to light now. I can't see what's unique about the people in power now that makes it likely they are the first acting like this, with maybe the exception of surveillance. I think the earlier American government had less problems keeping these activities secret. However, despite that cynicism that doesn't mean Americans shouldn't fight for those improvements too!
    • eternalban 10y ago
      They are the first ones to institutionalize these actions. At what point, for example, did a President of this nation adopt torture as a legitimate tool of the state? Sure, people have been tortured in US for ages, but it was not official policy. That is the difference.
      • pvg 10y ago
        "Some people are property" was the law of the land and you could do whatever you wanted with your property. And that's just for starters. The notion that some fundamental break occurred at 'enhanced interrogation' is ahistorical.
        • mindslight 10y ago
          "Some people are property", as abhorrent as it is, is markedly different from "all people are property".
          • pvg 10y ago
            There is certainly a difference between actual chattel slavery and a glib bit of hyperbolic political sloganeering.
            • mindslight 10y ago
              While you downplay my mention as "political sloganeering", it's a core assumption of contemporary political philosophy. A specific designation ("chattel") is only required for distinguishing between different classes of people, when only one class is treated as property. Totalitarianism implicitly asserts all people are its to control, and thus needs no formal designation.
              • pvg 10y ago
                Strike as non-responsive?
                • mindslight 10y ago
                  That seems more applicable to your first response to me. My exact point was that there is a difference (your labeling my phrasing as "political sloganeering" notwithstanding). It only makes sense to compare current society with historic oppression if you also equate us all with that oppressed class (eg the unoppressed class is what has vanished). I'm not saying you can't find further examples of historic government overreach against the citizenry, it's just that slavery is not one of them. edit: Actually scratch that, I see that the comparison was actually being made with torture, which is generally about non-citizens (I hope?). I was addressing the larger topic of societal surveillance, and that to me seems like a definite new phenomenon rather than something comparable to past oppression. Although I'd say it's been created by technological change rather than political change.
    • squozzer 10y ago
      I'm only comparing the political / social situations of Snowden vs. Ellsberg. Not antebellum vs. today. And it's admittedly a distortion. The article itself goes to great lengths to justify Ellsberg and condemn Snowden, mostly in terms of social contract / status - e.g. comparing Ellsberg "high-born" CV to Snowden's, or Ellsberg's adherence to the unwritten rules of leaker protocol.
• etiam 10y ago
  A sizable share of this looks like namecalling and misinformation.
  • sigmar 10y ago
    Mind pointing out specifics of what is "namecalling and misinformation"?
    • Natsu 10y ago
      Not the OP, but I would presume they're referring to things a few other commenters have already complained about, e.g. as justcommenting wrote: "Both were imperfect people in unique situations, but Gladwell's distinction seems to boil down to "Harvard, game theory, & Nobel prize winning PhD advisor" in the case of Ellsberg vs. "community-college dropout" in the case of Snowden, followed by Gladwell falling over himself to redefine "insider" right after spelling it out in detail with the language of class, prestige, and societal privilege." Or there's the omission that tanderson92 pointed out: "Gladwell is intentionally deceptive when he refers to Snowden "washing out" of the Reserves. In fact he was discharged after breaking both legs in a training accident. You can debate whether that technically qualifies as washing out or not, but it's quite another to lump that in with the rest of the paragraph and let the reader fill in their own opinions of the events. But perhaps that's the entire point, and part of the reason Gladwell was chosen for this piece. Eliding certain facts can leave the reader with a distinctly non-factual impression of the man." http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-army-discharge-092486 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-army-di...
• cryoshon 10y ago
  a long and bloviating article, complaining essentially that hackers refuse to wear ties, and that they really should wear ties because the computer engineers of the old days wore ties. instead of "ties" we're talking about niceties regarding whistleblower behaviors regarding leaks. my response: the public is kept in the dark intentionally by malicious actors who run their country; leaking is an ethical path to disrupt those malicious actors.
  • BoringCode 10y ago
    Targeted leaking can be justified. Indiscriminately stealing information can not be. I think that's a better summary of the article. Now, there are a lot of subtleties to this, especially in regards to what Snowden actually did. But I don't think it's fair to boil down the article's premise to "hating on hackers." Your response actually agrees with the author. I don't think the author would deny that leaking can be and is a necessary part of a free society.
    • agd 10y ago
      You're using biased language. Rephrasing your point to: "Targeted stealing can be justified. Indiscriminate stealing can not be." or perhaps "Targeted leaking can be justified. Indiscriminate leaking can not be". I think you are missing a point though. Who is best placed to judge what to release? The leaker, or experienced journalists? What if you know there are more abuses but don't have time to individually search through the documents before leaking? Should you only take the ones you have already read, and lose out on revealing other abuses? It's a difficult choice. From my outside point of view, the government (and often media) errs too much on the side of secrecy so I'm glad to see a whistleblower who is more aggressive with the amount of information they leak.
      • BoringCode 10y ago
        I was summarizing the article, that's why I chose that language because it reflected my interpretation of what the author was saying. But I think a more balanced approach is necessary. The leaker should have at least some knowledge of what they are providing to journalists. This was somewhat addressed in the article because the author seemed to feel that Snowden was opening himself up to attack precisely because he was so indiscriminate. He put a target on his back from not just the US government but also foreign governments who want the information he has.
• rqebmm 10y ago
  Gladwell's biggest omission is the stories of Thomas Drake and William Binney. Two predecessors that Snowden was well aware of, who tried to be, as Gladwell puts it "leakers as insiders". They were systematically shut down, and Snowden learned that was no longer an option for him, so he became a "leaker as outsider". The nature and style of Snowden's whistleblowing is not because he loves the hacker-chic style. It's because the CIA and NSA proved they were perfectly capable of covering up the most damaging "insider" whistleblowers and he still thought this information was worth releasing to the public.
  • SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I've made this argument for a long time: any damage to the US from the Snowden leaks was because the government refused to clean house when they became aware of problems through internal channels. Snowden was merely a concerned employee revealing to shareholders that business executives were willfully defrauding investors and breaking fiduciary duty, to use an analogy. The reason he didn't use internal channels was executives up to the board level had previously targeted other leakers as part of their criminal conspiracy.
    • samstave 10y ago
      literally the best analogy i have heard on the subject. thanks
    • tptacek 10y ago
      This gets to motivations and intent but doesn't really answer the question posed by the article, which is: are insiders who leak carefully and strategically creating better public policy outcomes than the indiscriminate leaks that IT people have been generating?
      • rqebmm 10y ago
        Which raises an interesting corollary: is there such a thing as an "indiscriminate" leak? Recent events have shown that WikiLeaks' practice of leaking anything they have has instead created an opportunity for targeted leaks by selectively passing information to them.
• ranman 10y ago
  This story oozes elitism. It's also rife with misinformation and misleading tangents. The claim that various government organizations are solely responsible for AIDS elimination and cancer research is ridiculous. How many NGOs research these things? How many private industries? Then to follow that up with the idea that taxpayers foot the bill for the NIH so why not foot the bill for the NSA??? I just don't follow this reasoning.
  • cmiles74 10y ago
    Does Gladwell really not remember how hard it was to get the US executive branch to take AIDS seriously? http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Reagan-s-AIDS-Legacy-Silence-equals-death-2751030.php http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Reagan-s-AID...
• wfo 10y ago
  Why should we take Gladwell seriously on this? Why does anyone think he is qualified? He is a windbag famous for writing the most base and insulting form of literary clickbait: pop science novels that tell a series of 'just so' fables which add up to give the reader a satisfying sense of the world which is completely opposed to the world the way it is. He is a propaganda artist at best, insidious at least. And now he writes on Snowden, omits hugely important pieces of the story, warps the narrative in service of his hip contrarianism and unsurprisingly misses the point completely but distracts with cute anecdotes about Ellsberg. I guess the question we should be asking ourselves is why is he given a spot to write a long-form article like this in the New Yorker? Why does anyone still take him seriously at this point? Has intellectualism in this country truly failed this hard? Perhaps a good thing could come from this: people who have done their due diligence and read about Snowden will read this and recognize Gladwell for the hack he is.
  • cmiles74 10y ago
    In my opinion, he's given this spot to write his article because he is a good writer and his stories are compelling. You are right, he typically writes fluffy pop science that's almost as misleading as it is entertaining. On the other hand, that too is bought and consumed in large quantities, fueling his success. To my mind the shame is that there could be some interesting stuff in here but it gets glossed over. The contrast between Ellsberg and Snowden interest me greatly but I find little satisfaction in the piece. Gladwell implies Ellsberg cries over how far "the leaker" has fallen, perhaps he cries for the crime that is everyone above Snowden in the organization chart turning a blind eye to something so morally wrong. For me, it's easy to assume Gladwell is more interested in a appealing ending rather than something that educates or informs.
  • tptacek 10y ago
    Could you be more specific about how he's "warped the narrative" in this piece? I feel like I've done my due diligence on this topic and I felt like it was both well written and made a pretty compelling point. Further, the places where Gladwell departs from the message board orthodoxy on Snowden aren't at all out of step with what other reporters who covered him had to say. For instance: read Fred Kaplan's review of the Snowden movie, which recaps many of the points Gladwell made here, but is far more acidic.
• fatdog 10y ago
  Gladwell has written a predictable hatchet job of a perceived libertarian hero. Surprised that it was him, not surprised it was done in the NY-anything. More interesting question is: if one were going to orchestrate a pseudo-intellectual takedown of the forces of popular discontent, who would one go after next?
• makomk 10y ago
  For comparison, this is Daniel Ellsberg's view on Edward Snowden: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-...
  • ScottBurson 10y ago
    A quote from that piece: Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong. I agree wholeheartedly. More than 40 years after my unauthorized disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, such leaks remain the lifeblood of a free press and our republic. One lesson of the Pentagon Papers and Snowden’s leaks is simple: secrecy corrupts, just as power corrupts.
    • bediger4000 10y ago
      Ellsberg's view of Snowden is Gladwell's biggest omission. It's hard to believe that Gladwell researched Ellsberg without coming across this or other similar statements. I therefore assume Gladwell omitted this view on purpose, because it messes with the noble, Harvard grad leaking based on Game Theory, versus the CC dropout lamer hacker doxxing the NSA.
• DINKDINK 10y ago
  I was astounded at how classist and elitist Gladwell comes across in the article. His point is essentially, because Snowden didn't have a PhD and didn't talk to the right people, the civic value of his leaks are mute. The difference in Ellsberg's leak and Snowden is that Ellsberg had support within the government (the military) for the public knowing the truth. I'd argue that the difference with Snowden's leaks is that they were inherently against the state and in defense of the constitution. Because the leaks were solely in the interest of citizens, and not the political elite, is the reason he drew the ire of the state.