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> I can't believe we label this guy a traitor. I never understood how someone who tells the American people/journalist's that their government is breaking the l

• pstuart 7y ago
  > acted against the USA's interests" acted against the USA Government's interests These are two very different things.
• peterburkimsher 7y ago
  Regarding objections 5 and 6, Snowden distributed documents to the Guardian, Washington Post, and Der Spiegel - not Wikileaks. He did insist that these newspapers only publish information that is in public interest, and warn the government according to correct whistleblower protocol [1]. The Wikileaks legal team helped Snowden once he was already in trouble. He also said that "Even the NSA admits that Russia wasn't my intended destination." [2] so objection 4 is also moot. [1] "the journalists would then in advance of publication, warn the government about the story they were about to break." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-snowden-nsa-cbs-this-morning-interview-today-2019-09-16/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-snowden-nsa-cbs-this-mor... [2] https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-edward-snowden-about-his-story-a-1286605.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-ed...
  • johnfactorial 7y ago
    > Snowden distributed documents to the Guardian, Washington Post, and Der Spiegel - not Wikileaks. That's an important distinction, thank you for making it. Late May, Snowden fled to China. Days later, documents he stole were first published. Less than a month later, he and the Wikileaks legal team were moving him to Russia where he requested political asylum. Many people reasonably find it hard to believe that Snowden's introduction to Wikileaks personnel happened in that less-than-one-month timeframe. Like any journalist will tell you, though, the story is a very complex one.
    • peterburkimsher 7y ago
      I wish I could send a message to Ed, to encourage him. If the worst allegations his enemies can accuse him of are related to other people, that means his own life choices are blameless. From Snowden's autobiography, Permanent Record, page 239: "Enter Sarah Harrison, a journalist and an editor for WikiLeaks. The moment the news broke that an American had unmasked a global system of mass surveillance, she had immediately flown to Hong Kong. Through her experience with the website and particularly with the fate of Assange, she was poised to offer me the world's best asylum advice. It didn't hurt that she also had family connections with the legal community in Hong Kong. ... after a sharp disagreement just a month after our first, text-based conversation, I never communicated with [Assange] again... Though I never was, and never would be, a source for Assange, my situation gave him a chance to right a wrong... he seemed, through Sarah, determined to do everything he could to save me... That said, I was initially wary of Sarah's involvement. But Laura told me that she was serious, competent, and, most important, independent: one of the few at WikiLeaks who dared to openly disagree with Assange." Details that are so personal, openly admitting his distrust and disagreements with Wikileaks, while still writing kind words speculating as to why they would help - this doesn't sound like a long-standing conspiracy and a clever cover story. It sounds incredibly believable.
  • ryacko 7y ago
    I never understood why criticisms of Snowden weren't more succinct. Snowden was in Hawaii. He could have gone to Ecuador or Cuba, or some other non-extradition country. He decided to take the longest trip possible and ended up stuck in the Moscow Airport. The funny part is that John Schindler claims that Snowden in Hong Kong, in private, had drinks at the local Russian consulate.
• kerkeslager 7y ago
  > 1. Ends can not justify means. If you're responding to this part of my response, please don't quote me out of context. This response contains a complete idea, and is particularly susceptible to looking at only parts of it, but that would be argumentatively lazy on your part, and I won't respond to anyone who does this. "The ends justify the means" is a perfectly legitimate argument, by itself: we should be choosing our actions based on the results we expect from those actions. The problem with "The ends justify the means" is that it is almost never correctly applied; people rarely look at the complete ends of the action they are trying to justify. An example of this is eugenics: if you kill people with genetic disorders, yes, the ends are that you have fewer genetic disorders. However, that's only part of the ends: the complete ends includes a huge amount of suffering, death, and grief. The ends can only justify the means if the ends are desirable, and in the case of eugenics the ends aren't desirable, they're horrific. In the case of Snowden, the complete ends are a public that's much more aware of our government spying on us, and so far I've come across no compelling evidence of any significant downside. So looking at the complete ends, I don't see much problem with saying that the ends did justify the means in this case. Note that this is a valid ethical argument, but it's not a legal argument at all. Of course, "the ends cannot justify the means" isn't a legal argument, either, so there's really not a legal discussion occurring here. > 2. He fabricated auth keys to gain access to confidential material he didn't have access to. Given the entire problem Snowden was trying to address was that access restrictions were being improperly used to hide information from the American people, this is exactly the point of why he did what he did. > 3. He shared the information so-gained as soon as he could. a) This isn't true, he took steps to make sure that it was released by reputable, trustworthy journalists. b) I'm unsure how this makes him a traitor. > 4. He shared it with geopolitical foes of the United States. a) This is a necessary side effect of sharing with the American public, and I'll point out that you're very much treating the American public as a geopolitical foe if you don't acknowledge that fact. b) Any serious threat to the US is sophisticated enough to get around surveillance with simple, freely-available tools. Pervasive surveillance mostly affects the innocent. > 5. Many reasonable people recognize Wikileaks' objectives are well-aligned with Russia's and feel strongly they are collaborators. ALL reasonable people recognize that Snowden did not leak to Wikileaks. This isn't even an honest point, and you should be ashamed that you repeated it. > 6. My knowledge is limited here, but does Snowden claim he used any of the actual, legal whistleblower processes before escaping to Julian Assange? My understanding is that he did not. What on earth are you talking about? Snowden did not "escap[e] to Julian Assange". This is just a lie. There were a number of people who tried to point out some of the same problems as Snowden through proper channels[1]. The results of this were that they were silenced, without producing any change. History shows us that the legal channels are a tool for surveillance organizations to identify whistleblowers and silence them before they can do any good, rather than a legitimate way to identify illegal activity by surveillance organizations. [1] https://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-whistleblowers-who-tried-to-lift-the-veil https://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-... EDIT: I accidentally a word.