9 ms·

Daniel Ellsberg: The 90-year-old whistleblower tempting prosecution

187 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

chroem- 5y ago
I don't understand what the positive outcome of this is. If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  ASML will be happy to ship your steppers to wherever you order them. Chip fabrication is so critical that a facility should be created on each continent.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I am not up to speed on semiconductor manufacturing national security efforts, but it seems like the US is behind in subsidizing renewed semiconductor manufacturing and supply chains on US soil, and time is running out.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  The article concerns the year 1958, I'm pretty sure we were still using vacuum tubes at that time.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    Pneumatic tube systems still are in operation, and popular especially in hospitals. Turns out it is far quicker than having to carry around medicine from the central apothecary.
    - Maursault 5y ago
      GP is likely referring to the use of electron tubes [1] perhaps juxtaposing (hypothetical Taiwanese) tubes in 1958 with TSMC today(?). A decade earlier, however, the transistor was invented and would replace the use of tubes, at least for computers. Tubes, aka valves, are still popular in professional and consumer audio equipment, vintage and contemporary microphones, amplifiers and compressors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
- DennisP 5y ago
  Ellsberg's worried about nuclear war. That would be worse than China getting TSMC. However, as far as TSMC is concerned, the likely outcome of an invasion would be that TSMC in Taiwan permanently shuts down: https://doxa.substack.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan https://doxa.substack.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
  - doggodaddo78 5y ago
    MAD. I don't think anyone in the US or China is going to nuke anyone else because of survival instincts. There must be chain-of-command and multi-party custody controls in the militaries of all nuclear powers to prevent unauthorized release. In such stable cases, they become worse than White Elephants: can't get rid of them because of the liabilities of inviting nuclear and conventional wars, and can't keep them because they're expensive, inherently dangerous, and tempting for crazy people to use. Economic interdependence also creates another layer of protection from either side going too far because of the economic warfare potential before nuclear or conventional wars would be considered.
    - opnitro 5y ago
      I'd suggest reading Ellsberg's book (The Doomsday Machine) detailing the risks imposed by MAD.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    10-30M body-count on US side vs communist global domination. Decide what is worse.
    - _vlamacko 5y ago
      There are real people on the other side as well. Don't forget them.
      - baybal2 5y ago
        I'll give you some food for thought. During WW2 Allies bombed 3rd reich's weapon factories, and occupied French cities. A lot of civilians died, really a lot. Do you think semi-enslaved German citizens working in 3rd reich's weapon factories wanted any much less to have these factories bombed? Do you think French under German occupation wanted any much less to have British bomb the occupied cities? No, survivors recall it seeing occupation government buildings bombed the most joyful moments, which led a lot of people to regain their spirits, and join the resistance.
- lmm 5y ago
  China is reaching the point where they could invade Taiwan and be confident of getting away with it, but they're not quite there yet. We're currently in a narrow window where the US could and should unilaterally recognise Taiwanese statehood and commit to a firm security guarantee.
  - splitstud 5y ago
    China is constrained by its reliance on western markets. Full stop. It would hurt to pull the plug, but if they cross a line it will happen and they know it.
    - doggodaddo78 5y ago
      The US is completely dependent on China for manufacturing. China is completely dependent on the US for funding development. It would be bad news for either frenemy to start anything major.
      - stephen_g 5y ago
        Their posture is potentially lessening that dependency somewhat though - a company I work with, for example, now tries to find suppliers in Malaysia, Thailand, etc. for metalwork, PCB manufacture, assembly and things like that, which all would have just gone straight to China five years ago. This is a pretty small manufacturer with a fairly niche product, but I imagine others are thinking the same way.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Now it is. But their population alone is larger than all the western markets combined, so it probably won’t remain so indefinitely.
    - lkramer 5y ago
      Before Hong Kong I would probably have agreed with you, but You're assuming a purely rational reasoning. For China, and Xi in particular, there is a big element of national and personal pride at stake. It's for the same reason they have risked strangling Hong Kong in order to bring it more in line with the rest of China. Xi (more so than his predecessors) is quite happy to take a short term loss for (what he sees) as a long term gain. In addition, he would love to be remembered in history as the man he reunified China.
- chrischen 5y ago
  > If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation. No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC. Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Not to mention if China had that much leverage in the game they could easily sanction Taiwan and cut off probably a majority of its business dealings before resorting to invasion by force. Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba.
  - whakim 5y ago
    >> Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba. This is because China had been attempting a policy of economic (and cultural) engagement with Taiwan for the best part of 20 years, up until the election of Tsai Ing-Wen in 2016. China had pursued this policy while the KMT were in power in Taiwan; the KMT are generally considered to favor closer ties between China and Taiwan. Things have changed a bit since the DPP (the more "anti-China" of Taiwan's two major political parties) won the 2016 and 2020 elections. I certainly don't know what the future holds, but I think China has now concluded that reunification through cultural/economic links is unlikely to succeed, not least because the idea of "one country, two systems" looks even less attractive after the events in Hong Kong.
  - rndgermandude 5y ago
    >No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC.Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Maybe this is still true for now, but that too is changing. China was already wary of that dependency and put efforts underway to rid itself of this dependency. The Huawei and ZTE sanctions only had the effect of putting these efforts into hyperdrive. [1] gives an overview of historic and current efforts. tl;dr China is not yet close to self-sufficient but they are spending like crazy and making major progress. Give it another 10, 15 years and the picture might look quite different, if it even takes them that long. And China is playing the long game anyway. [1] https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/ https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-de...
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  The positive outcome is avoiding a nuclear war and hundreds of millions dead. If we don't want to be held hostage because of TSMC the answer is to build up our own industry domestically, not destroy human civilization.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
So he's tempting prosecution because a NYT story last month referenced a disclosure he made four years ago from a fifty year old study he copied forty years ago. While I like to see the press remind the public that whistleblowers are often not given the pretense of a fair trial, I don't see anything supporting the headline's claim that he's tempting prosecution.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  > Now Ellsberg, who recently turned 90, is calling on the U.S. government to prosecute him under the 1917 Espionage Act. > The government, Ellsberg plausibly believes, “is not anxious” to prosecute him. But he hopes to force the issue, in an attempt to bring the case to the Supreme Court and have the Espionage Act declared unconstitutional — a long-held goal of First Amendment advocates. https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/daniel-ellsberg-china-atomic-nuclear-weapons/ https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/daniel-ellsberg-china-at...
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    "Wants prosecution" seems like a much more accurate headline. "Tempts" makes it seem like the US is considering it, and that they haven't for the four years since the release shows they're unlikely to.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      Tempt doesn't have the connotation that you believe it to have. When you tempt you entice, regardless of whether the person you are tempting considers acting on your enticement.
      - dhimes 5y ago
        No, I think he's right. A chocolate cake may be tempting to you but not to me.
        5y ago
DennisP 5y ago
Ellsberg's job, at the time he copied the Pentagon Papers, was nuclear strategy. His recent book The Doomsday Machine is a sobering account of early US strategy, which he can write about now because a lot has been declassified. It turns out the Pentagon Papers were supposed to be just a sideline. He also copied documents on US nuclear strategy, which was horrific. He released the Vietnam documents first because he figured if he started with the nuclear docs, nobody would care about the Vietnam stuff. He gave the nuclear papers to his brother to hide. His brother hid them first in his compost pile, then got worried and moved them to a garbage bag on the edge of the town dump. The next day, men in suits were seen poking metal rods in his compost pile. Unfortunately, a freak storm washed away that section of the dump. Ellsberg and his brother spent a year opening garbage bags in the area where it all ended up, to no avail. Ellsberg said his wife considered the storm a gift from God, because if the nuclear papers had hit the light of day, he surely would have spent the rest of his life in prison.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  If you want to learn more, just watch the movie Dr. Strangelove. It was marketed as a comedy, but people in the know consider it to be non-fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove General MacArthur was dismissed during the Korean War because the White House weren't sure if he was going to use nukes or not (like the movie.) The policy was that the US was ready (bombers with nukes were positioned in Japan), but President Truman wanted to give final advance approval to commanders, yet MacArthur was issuing his own policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur (It turns out that MacArthur was right about basically everything he ever said, and continued to advise Presidents.)
  - smhost 5y ago
    makes me wonder what Rhee knew. for those of you who don't know, he was trained by americans and later smuggled out of the u.s. by someone high up in the army. he then received dictatorship of southern korea from the u.s. army, then went on to kill several hundred thousand political prisoners.
hackburg 5y ago
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mannerheim 5y ago
> At his trial, Mr Ellsberg was not able to argue that he leaked the Pentagon Papers in the public interest. This argument was irrelevant, the judge ruled, because the act provides no such defence, which is often invoked by journalists. Interestingly, Snowden has said he would return to the US for a fair trial, i.e., one in which he could make a public interest defence.[0] Among his supporters is Ellsberg: > Ellsberg said, “Ed would be crazy to come back for a trial.” > “Without amending the Espionage Act or rescinding it you cannot get a fair trial for a whistleblower in this case,” he said.[1] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/21/edward-snowden-willing-to-return-to-us-fair-trial https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/21/edward-snowd... [1]: https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/ellsberg-snowden-discuss-whistleblowing-at-conference/article_4f3ad3f6-6e95-56cd-aad3-6f34a6fbfebe.html https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/ellsberg-snowden-d...
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  Nothing screams "justice" like a judge instructing a defendant on what defense they are allowed to present.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense? We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense? I guess? The jury's going to be thinking it anyway, so it might as well be addressed by defense and prosecution. > We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law. A guilty verdict needs to be based on the law. For not guilty it's probably best if it's almost always based on the law.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
jacksonkmarley 5y ago
If Assange ends up back in the US facing trial, does he have the same option as Ellsberg mentioned of triggering a Supreme Court action? Or is that only for US citizens? I guess that would be good plea bargain leverage if it were possible.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- azernik 5y ago
  The case would still go to the Supreme Court eventually; SCOTUS is relevant here as the court of final appeal for all federal cases. The facts of the case, as well as Assange's personal obnoxiousness, would probably not be the best choice of a test case if you're looking to protect whistleblowers. Ellsberg is a much more sympathetic defendant.
  - jacksonkmarley 5y ago
    I was thinking more of Assange's options for not being confined for the rest of his life. Honestly I think the odds are low of the UK government releasing him/declining the extradition, and less than even of the US government dropping the charges. He has already been practically imprisoned for years, plus actual imprisonment recently. Leveraging the threat of a Supreme Court fight against a face-saving US govt. approved light sentence might be a valid strategy at this point.
dash2 5y ago
Interesting fact about Ellsberg: he's also the author of a famous paradox in economics, which has motivated a lot of work on the theory of choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
There's a graph, 2/3 down the article. It shows how the Obama admin went after whistleblowers, charging more with espionage than every previous PotUS. Having that acknowledged (if not really addressed) in the article, feels like a tiny bit of press-progress. It's some improvement over 2009-2016, where Obama's War On Whistleblowers was covered as minimally as possible (eg: almost entirely ignored). The principle in play here: If voters and news orgs fail to hold a reasonable PotUS accountable, it's a gift of power to the unreasonable ones that follow. disclaimer: this isn't an 'Obama sucks' post. It's an 'Obama was awful about accountability' and the press sucked for giving that a pass - post.
deepnet 5y ago
. such
eruditely 5y ago
Ellsberg apparently made contributions to decision theory, I forgot where I read this but this guy has notable qualities other than being a whistleblower.

187 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

I don't understand what the positive outcome of this is. If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation.

jacquesm 5y ago
ASML will be happy to ship your steppers to wherever you order them. Chip fabrication is so critical that a facility should be created on each continent.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I am not up to speed on semiconductor manufacturing national security efforts, but it seems like the US is behind in subsidizing renewed semiconductor manufacturing and supply chains on US soil, and time is running out.
refenestrator 5y ago
The article concerns the year 1958, I'm pretty sure we were still using vacuum tubes at that time.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Pneumatic tube systems still are in operation, and popular especially in hospitals. Turns out it is far quicker than having to carry around medicine from the central apothecary.
  - Maursault 5y ago
    GP is likely referring to the use of electron tubes [1] perhaps juxtaposing (hypothetical Taiwanese) tubes in 1958 with TSMC today(?). A decade earlier, however, the transistor was invented and would replace the use of tubes, at least for computers. Tubes, aka valves, are still popular in professional and consumer audio equipment, vintage and contemporary microphones, amplifiers and compressors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
DennisP 5y ago
Ellsberg's worried about nuclear war. That would be worse than China getting TSMC. However, as far as TSMC is concerned, the likely outcome of an invasion would be that TSMC in Taiwan permanently shuts down: https://doxa.substack.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan https://doxa.substack.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
- doggodaddo78 5y ago
  MAD. I don't think anyone in the US or China is going to nuke anyone else because of survival instincts. There must be chain-of-command and multi-party custody controls in the militaries of all nuclear powers to prevent unauthorized release. In such stable cases, they become worse than White Elephants: can't get rid of them because of the liabilities of inviting nuclear and conventional wars, and can't keep them because they're expensive, inherently dangerous, and tempting for crazy people to use. Economic interdependence also creates another layer of protection from either side going too far because of the economic warfare potential before nuclear or conventional wars would be considered.
  - opnitro 5y ago
    I'd suggest reading Ellsberg's book (The Doomsday Machine) detailing the risks imposed by MAD.
- baybal2 5y ago
  10-30M body-count on US side vs communist global domination. Decide what is worse.
  - _vlamacko 5y ago
    There are real people on the other side as well. Don't forget them.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      I'll give you some food for thought. During WW2 Allies bombed 3rd reich's weapon factories, and occupied French cities. A lot of civilians died, really a lot. Do you think semi-enslaved German citizens working in 3rd reich's weapon factories wanted any much less to have these factories bombed? Do you think French under German occupation wanted any much less to have British bomb the occupied cities? No, survivors recall it seeing occupation government buildings bombed the most joyful moments, which led a lot of people to regain their spirits, and join the resistance.
lmm 5y ago
China is reaching the point where they could invade Taiwan and be confident of getting away with it, but they're not quite there yet. We're currently in a narrow window where the US could and should unilaterally recognise Taiwanese statehood and commit to a firm security guarantee.
- splitstud 5y ago
  China is constrained by its reliance on western markets. Full stop. It would hurt to pull the plug, but if they cross a line it will happen and they know it.
  - doggodaddo78 5y ago
    The US is completely dependent on China for manufacturing. China is completely dependent on the US for funding development. It would be bad news for either frenemy to start anything major.
    - stephen_g 5y ago
      Their posture is potentially lessening that dependency somewhat though - a company I work with, for example, now tries to find suppliers in Malaysia, Thailand, etc. for metalwork, PCB manufacture, assembly and things like that, which all would have just gone straight to China five years ago. This is a pretty small manufacturer with a fairly niche product, but I imagine others are thinking the same way.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Now it is. But their population alone is larger than all the western markets combined, so it probably won’t remain so indefinitely.
  - lkramer 5y ago
    Before Hong Kong I would probably have agreed with you, but You're assuming a purely rational reasoning. For China, and Xi in particular, there is a big element of national and personal pride at stake. It's for the same reason they have risked strangling Hong Kong in order to bring it more in line with the rest of China. Xi (more so than his predecessors) is quite happy to take a short term loss for (what he sees) as a long term gain. In addition, he would love to be remembered in history as the man he reunified China.
chrischen 5y ago
> If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation. No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC. Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Not to mention if China had that much leverage in the game they could easily sanction Taiwan and cut off probably a majority of its business dealings before resorting to invasion by force. Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba.
- whakim 5y ago
  >> Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba. This is because China had been attempting a policy of economic (and cultural) engagement with Taiwan for the best part of 20 years, up until the election of Tsai Ing-Wen in 2016. China had pursued this policy while the KMT were in power in Taiwan; the KMT are generally considered to favor closer ties between China and Taiwan. Things have changed a bit since the DPP (the more "anti-China" of Taiwan's two major political parties) won the 2016 and 2020 elections. I certainly don't know what the future holds, but I think China has now concluded that reunification through cultural/economic links is unlikely to succeed, not least because the idea of "one country, two systems" looks even less attractive after the events in Hong Kong.
- rndgermandude 5y ago
  >No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC.Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Maybe this is still true for now, but that too is changing. China was already wary of that dependency and put efforts underway to rid itself of this dependency. The Huawei and ZTE sanctions only had the effect of putting these efforts into hyperdrive. [1] gives an overview of historic and current efforts. tl;dr China is not yet close to self-sufficient but they are spending like crazy and making major progress. Give it another 10, 15 years and the picture might look quite different, if it even takes them that long. And China is playing the long game anyway. [1] https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/ https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-de...
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
The positive outcome is avoiding a nuclear war and hundreds of millions dead. If we don't want to be held hostage because of TSMC the answer is to build up our own industry domestically, not destroy human civilization.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

So he's tempting prosecution because a NYT story last month referenced a disclosure he made four years ago from a fifty year old study he copied forty years ago. While I like to see the press remind the public that whistleblowers are often not given the pretense of a fair trial, I don't see anything supporting the headline's claim that he's tempting prosecution.

thewakalix 5y ago
> Now Ellsberg, who recently turned 90, is calling on the U.S. government to prosecute him under the 1917 Espionage Act. > The government, Ellsberg plausibly believes, “is not anxious” to prosecute him. But he hopes to force the issue, in an attempt to bring the case to the Supreme Court and have the Espionage Act declared unconstitutional — a long-held goal of First Amendment advocates. https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/daniel-ellsberg-china-atomic-nuclear-weapons/ https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/daniel-ellsberg-china-at...
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  "Wants prosecution" seems like a much more accurate headline. "Tempts" makes it seem like the US is considering it, and that they haven't for the four years since the release shows they're unlikely to.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Tempt doesn't have the connotation that you believe it to have. When you tempt you entice, regardless of whether the person you are tempting considers acting on your enticement.
    - dhimes 5y ago
      No, I think he's right. A chocolate cake may be tempting to you but not to me.
      - 5y ago

DennisP 5y ago

Ellsberg's job, at the time he copied the Pentagon Papers, was nuclear strategy. His recent book The Doomsday Machine is a sobering account of early US strategy, which he can write about now because a lot has been declassified. It turns out the Pentagon Papers were supposed to be just a sideline. He also copied documents on US nuclear strategy, which was horrific. He released the Vietnam documents first because he figured if he started with the nuclear docs, nobody would care about the Vietnam stuff. He gave the nuclear papers to his brother to hide. His brother hid them first in his compost pile, then got worried and moved them to a garbage bag on the edge of the town dump. The next day, men in suits were seen poking metal rods in his compost pile. Unfortunately, a freak storm washed away that section of the dump. Ellsberg and his brother spent a year opening garbage bags in the area where it all ended up, to no avail. Ellsberg said his wife considered the storm a gift from God, because if the nuclear papers had hit the light of day, he surely would have spent the rest of his life in prison.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
redis_mlc 5y ago
If you want to learn more, just watch the movie Dr. Strangelove. It was marketed as a comedy, but people in the know consider it to be non-fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove General MacArthur was dismissed during the Korean War because the White House weren't sure if he was going to use nukes or not (like the movie.) The policy was that the US was ready (bombers with nukes were positioned in Japan), but President Truman wanted to give final advance approval to commanders, yet MacArthur was issuing his own policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur (It turns out that MacArthur was right about basically everything he ever said, and continued to advise Presidents.)
- smhost 5y ago
  makes me wonder what Rhee knew. for those of you who don't know, he was trained by americans and later smuggled out of the u.s. by someone high up in the army. he then received dictatorship of southern korea from the u.s. army, then went on to kill several hundred thousand political prisoners.

hackburg 5y ago

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mannerheim 5y ago

> At his trial, Mr Ellsberg was not able to argue that he leaked the Pentagon Papers in the public interest. This argument was irrelevant, the judge ruled, because the act provides no such defence, which is often invoked by journalists. Interestingly, Snowden has said he would return to the US for a fair trial, i.e., one in which he could make a public interest defence.[0] Among his supporters is Ellsberg: > Ellsberg said, “Ed would be crazy to come back for a trial.” > “Without amending the Espionage Act or rescinding it you cannot get a fair trial for a whistleblower in this case,” he said.[1] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/21/edward-snowden-willing-to-return-to-us-fair-trial https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/21/edward-snowd... [1]: https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/ellsberg-snowden-discuss-whistleblowing-at-conference/article_4f3ad3f6-6e95-56cd-aad3-6f34a6fbfebe.html https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/ellsberg-snowden-d...

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
Nothing screams "justice" like a judge instructing a defendant on what defense they are allowed to present.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense? We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > The jury acquitted anyway, but do you think Emmett Till's killers should have been able to present a "he was black so it wasn't murder for me to lynch him" defense? I guess? The jury's going to be thinking it anyway, so it might as well be addressed by defense and prosecution. > We ask juries to render a verdict based on the law. A guilty verdict needs to be based on the law. For not guilty it's probably best if it's almost always based on the law.
  - mannerheim 5y ago

jacksonkmarley 5y ago

If Assange ends up back in the US facing trial, does he have the same option as Ellsberg mentioned of triggering a Supreme Court action? Or is that only for US citizens? I guess that would be good plea bargain leverage if it were possible.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
azernik 5y ago
The case would still go to the Supreme Court eventually; SCOTUS is relevant here as the court of final appeal for all federal cases. The facts of the case, as well as Assange's personal obnoxiousness, would probably not be the best choice of a test case if you're looking to protect whistleblowers. Ellsberg is a much more sympathetic defendant.
- jacksonkmarley 5y ago
  I was thinking more of Assange's options for not being confined for the rest of his life. Honestly I think the odds are low of the UK government releasing him/declining the extradition, and less than even of the US government dropping the charges. He has already been practically imprisoned for years, plus actual imprisonment recently. Leveraging the threat of a Supreme Court fight against a face-saving US govt. approved light sentence might be a valid strategy at this point.

dash2 5y ago

Interesting fact about Ellsberg: he's also the author of a famous paradox in economics, which has motivated a lot of work on the theory of choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsberg_paradox

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

There's a graph, 2/3 down the article. It shows how the Obama admin went after whistleblowers, charging more with espionage than every previous PotUS. Having that acknowledged (if not really addressed) in the article, feels like a tiny bit of press-progress. It's some improvement over 2009-2016, where Obama's War On Whistleblowers was covered as minimally as possible (eg: almost entirely ignored). The principle in play here: If voters and news orgs fail to hold a reasonable PotUS accountable, it's a gift of power to the unreasonable ones that follow. disclaimer: this isn't an 'Obama sucks' post. It's an 'Obama was awful about accountability' and the press sucked for giving that a pass - post.

deepnet 5y ago

. such

eruditely 5y ago

Ellsberg apparently made contributions to decision theory, I forgot where I read this but this guy has notable qualities other than being a whistleblower.