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> Please consider alternative narratives. No. > He acted selfishly, not morally. No, he acted morally. > Deep thoughts and intellectual defenses are not so

> Please consider alternative narratives. No. > He acted selfishly, not morally. No, he acted morally. > Deep thoughts and intellectual defenses are not so hard to construct, should not be uncritically accepted with significant corroborating evidence, and should certainly not be taken in any way to imply morality, as shown by the growing list of deep thinkers who supported and participated in Jeffrey Epstein's schemes. No. It's simple. Snowden = Good. Stop trying to "muh Russians!" this. > With Snowden we have very little corroboration, so best reserve judgement. No. His documents appear sufficiently authentic to be acted upon. I, and people I know, are not reserving our judgements. > And if he does wind up dying as many other Russian actors have... We all will know exactly what sort of people run our government.

mda 7y ago
Huh? "No no he is good stop." There are still a lot of unknowns, It is good to leave some room for doubt. Always.
- philipov 7y ago
  It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
pdonis 7y ago
> No. It's simple. Snowden = Good. Sure, if you only read his side of the story. Anyone looks good if they get to make up their own narrative about themselves. The fact is that anyone with half a brain should have known decades ago that the US government, like all governments, does all kinds of surveillance and classifies all kinds of information, and not all of it is going to be pretty. When you tell the government you want it to protect your security and stop terrorist attacks, it's going to do whatever it takes to do that. For Snowden to talk as though he just found all this out when he got access to NSA's super sekrit systems doesn't show that he's good. It just shows that he was ignorant. Also, while it's perfectly reasonable for ordinary citizens to question what level of surveillance is justified and what kind of information the public should get to see in order to hold the government accountable, it's not reasonable for an individual to just decide on his own that it's OK to violate the law and the agreements he signed up to when he got his security clearance. That is exactly the kind of personal hubris and lack of accountability that we are trying to stop in people who have privileged access to government secrets. We have processes for holding our government accountable: we have FOIA requests, we have lawsuits, and ultimately we have elections. Those processes don't always work well, but that doesn't mean it's ok for one person to arrogate to himself the right to bypass them all.
- jonahbenton 7y ago
  Well said.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I'm with you, except for the last paragraph. There, I'm more ambivalent. Yes, I kind of agree with you on your general point. But if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? In general, you're right, but there does come a point at which a whistleblower is in fact necessary. Whether this one reached that point is a separate question.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? By voting out of office the elected officials that allowed us not to be told what was going on. The members of the intelligence committees in both houses of Congress are cleared for everything. If they are too incompetent to spot, for example, when an agency director is lying to them (as Snowden alleges that James Clapper did), then vote them out and get competent ones in there who can do their homework and spot the lies and call the director on them. But actually I don't think most of them are that incompetent. I think the idea that all this was happening and no elected representatives knew about it, they all just took the agencies' word that oh, no, perish the thought, of course we wouldn't bend the rules, is ridiculous. The elected representatives knew what was going on and let it happen. If you don't like that, vote them out. The same goes if years go by and no information ever seems to come out about what the agencies are doing, and nobody in Congress seems to have any curiosity about it. Oversight is their job. If they're not doing it, vote them out.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      It's not that simple. The members of Congress aren't telling you that they aren't doing proper oversight on Clapper. The NSA isn't telling you that they're exceeding their charter (and the Constitution). So how do you know who to start voting out, if you don't know that there's anything going on for which you should be voting people out?

mda 7y ago

Huh? "No no he is good stop." There are still a lot of unknowns, It is good to leave some room for doubt. Always.

philipov 7y ago
It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.

pdonis 7y ago

> No. It's simple. Snowden = Good. Sure, if you only read his side of the story. Anyone looks good if they get to make up their own narrative about themselves. The fact is that anyone with half a brain should have known decades ago that the US government, like all governments, does all kinds of surveillance and classifies all kinds of information, and not all of it is going to be pretty. When you tell the government you want it to protect your security and stop terrorist attacks, it's going to do whatever it takes to do that. For Snowden to talk as though he just found all this out when he got access to NSA's super sekrit systems doesn't show that he's good. It just shows that he was ignorant. Also, while it's perfectly reasonable for ordinary citizens to question what level of surveillance is justified and what kind of information the public should get to see in order to hold the government accountable, it's not reasonable for an individual to just decide on his own that it's OK to violate the law and the agreements he signed up to when he got his security clearance. That is exactly the kind of personal hubris and lack of accountability that we are trying to stop in people who have privileged access to government secrets. We have processes for holding our government accountable: we have FOIA requests, we have lawsuits, and ultimately we have elections. Those processes don't always work well, but that doesn't mean it's ok for one person to arrogate to himself the right to bypass them all.

jonahbenton 7y ago
Well said.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
I'm with you, except for the last paragraph. There, I'm more ambivalent. Yes, I kind of agree with you on your general point. But if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? In general, you're right, but there does come a point at which a whistleblower is in fact necessary. Whether this one reached that point is a separate question.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > if we don't know what the government is doing, and we aren't going to be told, how are we supposed to hold them accountable? By voting out of office the elected officials that allowed us not to be told what was going on. The members of the intelligence committees in both houses of Congress are cleared for everything. If they are too incompetent to spot, for example, when an agency director is lying to them (as Snowden alleges that James Clapper did), then vote them out and get competent ones in there who can do their homework and spot the lies and call the director on them. But actually I don't think most of them are that incompetent. I think the idea that all this was happening and no elected representatives knew about it, they all just took the agencies' word that oh, no, perish the thought, of course we wouldn't bend the rules, is ridiculous. The elected representatives knew what was going on and let it happen. If you don't like that, vote them out. The same goes if years go by and no information ever seems to come out about what the agencies are doing, and nobody in Congress seems to have any curiosity about it. Oversight is their job. If they're not doing it, vote them out.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    It's not that simple. The members of Congress aren't telling you that they aren't doing proper oversight on Clapper. The NSA isn't telling you that they're exceeding their charter (and the Constitution). So how do you know who to start voting out, if you don't know that there's anything going on for which you should be voting people out?