5 ms·

Dang, tell that to Edward Snowden.

gentleman11 5y ago
Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material?
- throwaway19937 5y ago
  > Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. I'm in favor of prosecuting Snowden because he did substantial and potentially permanent damage to our intelligence gathering abroad. > There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. He could have gathered information, contacted appropriate members of the Senate, and launched an investigation such as the Church committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee). > Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material? That depends on what they publish and whether it's determined to be illegal. Hopefully the courts would allow publication as in the Pentagon Papers case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Court_allows_further_publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Co...).
whatever1 5y ago
Half America was publicly making fun of the previous president. Try that in China. Snowden while having noble intentions he broke the law and he should face the consequences of his actions. If I kill the guard to break into the CIA HQ and expose a massive scandal do I deserve jail time or a Medal of Honor? I would argue both.
- chrischen 5y ago
  100 years from now you think historians will care which society was slightly more dystopian than the other? Saying he broke the law is pointless, when the law is designed to be broken by dissidents.
  - whatever1 5y ago
    Democracy comes with rights but also responsibilities. The main responsibility is to follow the law. The other responsibility is to vote to select the correct laws to follow as a society. Nobody knows what the correct set of laws for a society is. That is why we have regular elections to iterate upon them. In very few cases you can see a clear cut and say definitely that a law is fair or unfair. Most of the laws lie on a spectrum, and I would argue that it is impossible to find a set of laws that are fair to all of the people, forever. That is why dictatorships even if they start with start with good intentions (some did) they end up being oppressive regimes.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Half America was publicly making fun of the previous president. Try that in China. If the whole establishment and the deep state was similarly with you, you could do that in China too.
  - whatever1 5y ago
    So now that Biden is the laughingstock of the Right, I guess they have the establishment and the deep state on their side and that is why they are not exiled?
    - adventured 5y ago
      No, the right doesn't have much media power (only Fox News is of consequence), and it's quite weak politically until the midterms. Biden can largely ignore the right in that sense, he doesn't have to care if the political right mocks him. Mostly Biden has to pay attention to being his own worst enemy. The media protects Biden as much as possible, and the deep state tries to utilize him to get what they want (war, larger budgets, various globalist policies, war on domestic terrorism to set up a more advanced surveillance state). Biden's biggest problem by a dramatic margin, is the political center, which he has almost entirely lost already. If the right mocking Biden had any power behind it, he would have never won the election in the first place. It was close enough at the Electoral College that if the US media landscape were 50/50 left/right, Biden would not have prevailed. Obviously most everyone here understands that despite the flaws of the US, it generally doesn't disappear or exile as China does. The super structures that the left controls, which the right does not, do have very substantial power however (social media, big tech, hollywood, old media & news, journalism, education, welfare state).
googlryas 5y ago
Snowden went on the run for stealing government documents, not for speaking out.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
False equivalence. Edward Snowden ran afoul of the boundaries for freedom of speech in a first world country. If he did the same thing as a Chinese in China, they would have sent a squad to repatriate him long ago (being in Russia is just a minor inconvenience). Just because the USA and China both have problems in this area doesn't make them anywhere near having the same scale and severity.
- mc32 5y ago
  Agreed. If Snowden had been Chinese and had exposed Chinese secrets like that and he escaped to Russia, Russia would have found reasons to return him and then there would have been a quick farcical trial and he'd've been executed and the family billed as well as ostracized. Had he escaped to Canada or Australia, etc., they have found a way for an accident to happen to him. Russia, China, N Korea, KSA, Iran deal with dissidents quite harshly.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    If he went to the USA and got governmental assistance he would be safe. In Russia he is definitely getting a lot of government protection otherwise he would have been "extraordinarily renditioned".
    - mc32 5y ago
      Assange even though isn't protected by the UK isn't getting extraordinarily renditioned. Yes, the UK has treated him badly and we know Hillary wished him dead via drone, but so far, that has not happened (either extraordinarily renditioned nor droned) though it may come to pass that he gets extradited someday.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Assange is currently in a maximum security prison. Beforethen he was in an embassy. It is physically impossible for him to be extraordinarily renditioned. Therefore it's not a signal any way or another.
lowkey_ 5y ago
I support Snowden, but "Every person deserves the freedom to criticize their leaders and to speak out against abuse" is not equal to "Every employee of secret government intelligence agencies deserves the freedom to steal thousands of government documents and release them to the press." Peng Shuai's situation is so far from Snowden — if you're trying to point to a parallel between the US and China, it doesn't work. The US equivalent would be if the women who accused Trump, Kavanaugh, Cuomo, etc., of sexual harassment were kidnapped by the government.
- hnfong 5y ago
  How did Epstein die?
throwaway19937 5y ago
There's a big difference between leaking intelligence information and criticizing your country's government.
simonh 5y ago
If Snowden had simply spoken out against abuse and criticised leaders he'd be fine. People do that in the US in social media and on TV every day.

Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material?

throwaway19937 5y ago
> Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. I'm in favor of prosecuting Snowden because he did substantial and potentially permanent damage to our intelligence gathering abroad. > There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. He could have gathered information, contacted appropriate members of the Senate, and launched an investigation such as the Church committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee). > Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material? That depends on what they publish and whether it's determined to be illegal. Hopefully the courts would allow publication as in the Pentagon Papers case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Court_allows_further_publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Co...).

whatever1 5y ago

Half America was publicly making fun of the previous president. Try that in China. Snowden while having noble intentions he broke the law and he should face the consequences of his actions. If I kill the guard to break into the CIA HQ and expose a massive scandal do I deserve jail time or a Medal of Honor? I would argue both.

chrischen 5y ago
100 years from now you think historians will care which society was slightly more dystopian than the other? Saying he broke the law is pointless, when the law is designed to be broken by dissidents.
- whatever1 5y ago
  Democracy comes with rights but also responsibilities. The main responsibility is to follow the law. The other responsibility is to vote to select the correct laws to follow as a society. Nobody knows what the correct set of laws for a society is. That is why we have regular elections to iterate upon them. In very few cases you can see a clear cut and say definitely that a law is fair or unfair. Most of the laws lie on a spectrum, and I would argue that it is impossible to find a set of laws that are fair to all of the people, forever. That is why dictatorships even if they start with start with good intentions (some did) they end up being oppressive regimes.
coldtea 5y ago
>Half America was publicly making fun of the previous president. Try that in China. If the whole establishment and the deep state was similarly with you, you could do that in China too.
- whatever1 5y ago
  So now that Biden is the laughingstock of the Right, I guess they have the establishment and the deep state on their side and that is why they are not exiled?
  - adventured 5y ago
    No, the right doesn't have much media power (only Fox News is of consequence), and it's quite weak politically until the midterms. Biden can largely ignore the right in that sense, he doesn't have to care if the political right mocks him. Mostly Biden has to pay attention to being his own worst enemy. The media protects Biden as much as possible, and the deep state tries to utilize him to get what they want (war, larger budgets, various globalist policies, war on domestic terrorism to set up a more advanced surveillance state). Biden's biggest problem by a dramatic margin, is the political center, which he has almost entirely lost already. If the right mocking Biden had any power behind it, he would have never won the election in the first place. It was close enough at the Electoral College that if the US media landscape were 50/50 left/right, Biden would not have prevailed. Obviously most everyone here understands that despite the flaws of the US, it generally doesn't disappear or exile as China does. The super structures that the left controls, which the right does not, do have very substantial power however (social media, big tech, hollywood, old media & news, journalism, education, welfare state).

googlryas 5y ago

Snowden went on the run for stealing government documents, not for speaking out.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

False equivalence. Edward Snowden ran afoul of the boundaries for freedom of speech in a first world country. If he did the same thing as a Chinese in China, they would have sent a squad to repatriate him long ago (being in Russia is just a minor inconvenience). Just because the USA and China both have problems in this area doesn't make them anywhere near having the same scale and severity.

mc32 5y ago
Agreed. If Snowden had been Chinese and had exposed Chinese secrets like that and he escaped to Russia, Russia would have found reasons to return him and then there would have been a quick farcical trial and he'd've been executed and the family billed as well as ostracized. Had he escaped to Canada or Australia, etc., they have found a way for an accident to happen to him. Russia, China, N Korea, KSA, Iran deal with dissidents quite harshly.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  If he went to the USA and got governmental assistance he would be safe. In Russia he is definitely getting a lot of government protection otherwise he would have been "extraordinarily renditioned".
  - mc32 5y ago
    Assange even though isn't protected by the UK isn't getting extraordinarily renditioned. Yes, the UK has treated him badly and we know Hillary wished him dead via drone, but so far, that has not happened (either extraordinarily renditioned nor droned) though it may come to pass that he gets extradited someday.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Assange is currently in a maximum security prison. Beforethen he was in an embassy. It is physically impossible for him to be extraordinarily renditioned. Therefore it's not a signal any way or another.

lowkey_ 5y ago

I support Snowden, but "Every person deserves the freedom to criticize their leaders and to speak out against abuse" is not equal to "Every employee of secret government intelligence agencies deserves the freedom to steal thousands of government documents and release them to the press." Peng Shuai's situation is so far from Snowden — if you're trying to point to a parallel between the US and China, it doesn't work. The US equivalent would be if the women who accused Trump, Kavanaugh, Cuomo, etc., of sexual harassment were kidnapped by the government.

hnfong 5y ago
How did Epstein die?

throwaway19937 5y ago

There's a big difference between leaking intelligence information and criticizing your country's government.

simonh 5y ago

If Snowden had simply spoken out against abuse and criticised leaders he'd be fine. People do that in the US in social media and on TV every day.