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> We can't keep pretending this is still a Democracy when we have a completely unaccountable NSA/CIA/FBI that seems to repeatedly hide their mistakes and the du

> We can't keep pretending this is still a Democracy when we have a completely unaccountable NSA/CIA/FBI that seems to repeatedly hide their mistakes and the dubious legality of their sources & methods behind the classification and national security walls. And people still call Snowden a traitor for revealing this kind of practice in 2013.

whatshisface 7y ago
The claim that Snowden is a traitor is inseparable from the idea that the government and the people are separate entities, so that it's possible to betray one in service of the other. In that world Snowden would be a traitor to the US and everybody else at the NSA would be a traitor to the people. Obviously such a thing is only possible if democracy breaks down to the point where the government no longer expresses the will of the people, and if that is happening anywhere, it's happening in the high clearance world where voters never get to see whether or not they're happy with what's going on.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  >In that world Snowden would be a traitor to the US and everybody else at the NSA would be a traitor to the people. I think the dissonance in your argument is that the US is the people. Snowden betrayed the intelligence community who is betraying the US.
- kazagistar 7y ago
  While I think Snowden is a hero and whatnot, I think a black and white reasoning about being a traitor isn't particularly helpful. If anything, the concept of a traitor is a weak one, and shouldn't matter in discourse... it's not a harm or benefit in and of itself, and any celebration or punishment should rest on the extent of those harms and benefits themselves rather then some abstract and largely tribal concept like "traitor". Maybe the NSA needs to be taken apart or heavily restructured, but this can be done without using their words or us vs them worldview.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    Kennedy wanted "to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." Some suspect this was the true cause of his assassination. It's plausible, but any government evidence to disprove it would be suspect so it's kind of stuck as permanently-epistemologically-ambiguous.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    There's one very key reason that traitors, spies, 'turncoats', and others have been been so harshly punished throughout history (and present). It entails a violation of good faith and trust. That has nothing to do with 'tribalism'. Compare your reaction to the notion of a person killing a stranger to steal their watch, and another person killing their coworker to steal their watch. Exact same crime which is absurdly vile in itself, yet one is somehow vastly more repulsive. And so I do fully support Snowden but only because the tremendous magnitude of bad behavior he revealed compensates for his treachery in doing so. By contrast I think individuals like "Reality Winner" simply lack ethics. She violated trust on what seemed to have been a very poorly conceived whim to reveal something of relatively minimal benefit to the public good. Indeed checking out the Wiki to see what came of her case I'm rather unsurprised to find that she apparently wrote in her diary of support for Bin Laden and the Taliban. [1] In military and such organizations this is even more true as individuals take numerous oaths. And one who would break an oath without very substantial reason, is a person the world would be much better off without. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner
    - ajmurmann 7y ago
      Obviously, you are right. I also think it’s a matter of what scope you are looking at. Looking at the larger system, to me Snowden reported traitors. Yes he is a traitor to the NSA, but the oaths aren’t to the NSA, but the American people. Similarly, as a police officer you should not be loyal to other police officers, but to the American people at large.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    That's kind of my point, the concept of "traitor" for Snowden only exists in the us-vs-them view, which is even more radically anti-government than the moderate view. So this makes it very ironic when government officials advocate for the radical anti-government view unknowingly.
ethagnawl 7y ago
... and fault him for not using the "appropriate channels" to air his grievances. It's too soon to know what will come of the current whistleblower kerfuffle, but it's making the "appropriate channel" take look more foolish by the hour.

whatshisface 7y ago

The claim that Snowden is a traitor is inseparable from the idea that the government and the people are separate entities, so that it's possible to betray one in service of the other. In that world Snowden would be a traitor to the US and everybody else at the NSA would be a traitor to the people. Obviously such a thing is only possible if democracy breaks down to the point where the government no longer expresses the will of the people, and if that is happening anywhere, it's happening in the high clearance world where voters never get to see whether or not they're happy with what's going on.

cwkoss 7y ago
>In that world Snowden would be a traitor to the US and everybody else at the NSA would be a traitor to the people. I think the dissonance in your argument is that the US is the people. Snowden betrayed the intelligence community who is betraying the US.
kazagistar 7y ago
While I think Snowden is a hero and whatnot, I think a black and white reasoning about being a traitor isn't particularly helpful. If anything, the concept of a traitor is a weak one, and shouldn't matter in discourse... it's not a harm or benefit in and of itself, and any celebration or punishment should rest on the extent of those harms and benefits themselves rather then some abstract and largely tribal concept like "traitor". Maybe the NSA needs to be taken apart or heavily restructured, but this can be done without using their words or us vs them worldview.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Kennedy wanted "to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." Some suspect this was the true cause of his assassination. It's plausible, but any government evidence to disprove it would be suspect so it's kind of stuck as permanently-epistemologically-ambiguous.
- rjf72 7y ago
  There's one very key reason that traitors, spies, 'turncoats', and others have been been so harshly punished throughout history (and present). It entails a violation of good faith and trust. That has nothing to do with 'tribalism'. Compare your reaction to the notion of a person killing a stranger to steal their watch, and another person killing their coworker to steal their watch. Exact same crime which is absurdly vile in itself, yet one is somehow vastly more repulsive. And so I do fully support Snowden but only because the tremendous magnitude of bad behavior he revealed compensates for his treachery in doing so. By contrast I think individuals like "Reality Winner" simply lack ethics. She violated trust on what seemed to have been a very poorly conceived whim to reveal something of relatively minimal benefit to the public good. Indeed checking out the Wiki to see what came of her case I'm rather unsurprised to find that she apparently wrote in her diary of support for Bin Laden and the Taliban. [1] In military and such organizations this is even more true as individuals take numerous oaths. And one who would break an oath without very substantial reason, is a person the world would be much better off without. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner
  - ajmurmann 7y ago
    Obviously, you are right. I also think it’s a matter of what scope you are looking at. Looking at the larger system, to me Snowden reported traitors. Yes he is a traitor to the NSA, but the oaths aren’t to the NSA, but the American people. Similarly, as a police officer you should not be loyal to other police officers, but to the American people at large.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  That's kind of my point, the concept of "traitor" for Snowden only exists in the us-vs-them view, which is even more radically anti-government than the moderate view. So this makes it very ironic when government officials advocate for the radical anti-government view unknowingly.

ethagnawl 7y ago

... and fault him for not using the "appropriate channels" to air his grievances. It's too soon to know what will come of the current whistleblower kerfuffle, but it's making the "appropriate channel" take look more foolish by the hour.