19 ms·

It’s a travesty that Edward Snowden is still a fugitive in the United States. James Clapper went in front of congress and lied about the scope of surveillance o

It’s a travesty that Edward Snowden is still a fugitive in the United States. James Clapper went in front of congress and lied about the scope of surveillance on US citizens. Snowden saw it as his moral obligation to expose those lies, and he did it in the least destructive way possible by leaking the evidence to qualified journalists.

runnerup 3y ago
He probably could have attempted to only leak the domestic surveillance, or at least screen out as much of the foreign intelligence methods as much as possible. Half of it was whistleblowing (domestic surveillance) but half of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance).
- morkalork 3y ago
  It gets a bit complicated with the whole 5-eyes mutual back scratching thing though.
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    Exactly. The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is treason against the people of the United States. There is no such thing as an “allied intelligence agency”, by their very nature all non-US intelligence agencies are hostile to American citizens. Thus, our domestic agencies conspiring with hostile foreign entities to defraud and undermine the citizens of the United States is treason.
    - George83728 3y ago
      You're wrong, it's not treason. This is meant to be a legalistic society where crimes are defined by laws, not by how the word for the crime is popularly perceived by laypeople. The US Constitution defines treason. In America, treason is when an American levies war against the United States, or adhering to the Enemies of the US, giving them aid and comfort. To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives classified information to the UK they could be convicted of espionage, but treason specifically would not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a complete farce. Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War, when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. John Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions to ever happen in America were for acts committed during WW2.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        In that case, would you agree if we modified the GP's statement to say: "The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States." If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? Assuming we can agree that "treason against the people of the United States" and "espionage against the people of the United States" are at least in the same ballpark of badness?
        George83728 3y ago
        > "The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States." If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? No, because again, these crimes have meanings defined by law which you can't simply replace with a meaning derived from the layperson understanding of the word. To argue that Five Eyes is the illegal kind of espionage, you'd have to argue that it actually violates the Espionage Act. Merely fitting it to the colloquial meaning of 'espionage' isn't sufficient.
    - torstenvl 3y ago
      FVEY is an intelligence cooperation agreement that is invaluable to the security of the world. I don't see how any reasonable person could view it as anything negative. What exactly is the objection to classifying some information as SECRET//US,UK,CAN,AUS,NZ instead of SECRET//NOFORN ?
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    What mutual backscratching? No such program was in the Snowden leaks. If you're claiming that the US gets other countries to spy on its citizens, that would be utterly illegal.
    - newZWhoDis 3y ago
      You’re correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY) Essentially what they’ve done is commit treason by colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on each others citizens, bypassing the pesky constitutional/charter limitations in the process. In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5 levels deep into the organizations responsible, I’m hopeful for that outcome. Reminder: “I was just following orders/policy” wasn’t a defense then and it won’t be this time either.
      - lern_too_spel 3y ago
        > You’re correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY) If they are doing it, where's your evidence? You don't have it because otherwise, Klayman would have filed a lawsuit.
        imwillofficial 3y ago
        [flagged]
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
        I did. I read the actual documents Snowden leaked instead of relying on wild conspiracy theories people conjured up out of thin air at the time the documents leaked. If you have evidence, you can file a lawsuit. You don't. You're just repeating conspiracy theories that anybody who understands the law easily spots as nonsense.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
  - bombolo 3y ago
    > I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no good /s
    - kelnos 3y ago
      You're being sarcastic, but in a generalized sense that's exactly what it is: of course spying is ok/good when it's your country doing it to someone else! Obviously that spying will enrich your country, and might even make you safer. But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe. It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".
      - bombolo 3y ago
        But I'm not in USA, I'm in sweden. For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        > so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled the answer here is the difference between "me" and "people"
        bombolo 3y ago
        "people in the same country as me, who are in the same set of risks as me". Don't pretend you didn't understand just to comment pointless nitpicking.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        what makes you think they view things that way, rather than just you viewing things that way? after all, humans have a tendency to think other people think the same way they do
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throw101010 3y ago
  You know the saying beggars can't be choosers? We are currently begging for transparency. The filtering process by independent journalists is the only actual recourse I can think of to solve this. Exfiltrating confidential documents is usually not a process that gives you a lot of time to sort out what is worth it or not, furthermore the volume of data might very well also be a problem to handle on your own. Consider the time it took a lot of journalists to find the pertinent documents in this specific case among about 200,000 leaked documents (of various lengths), when Snowden is thought to have exfiltrated 1.7 millions documents.
  - pif 3y ago
    > We are currently begging for transparency. Beware, transparency is a double-edged sword! Modern nations are not small villages, where secrets can be shared within a community AND kept out of reach from foreign ears.
    - throw101010 3y ago
      I am not advocating for total transparency, but exactions committed by the state cannot be classified as secrets. So if a leak leads to revealing such crimes, the whistle-blower should not be prosecuted, unless you can prove they deliberately leaked information to harm innocent civilians. I specifically say civilians because I consider that the military and officials who are part of the state know the responsibilities involved in their position... and if they do not generate any content worthy of leaking (crimes), they will not be exposed to this risk.
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? It becomes even more problematic within the Five Eyes cooperation context, because if the NSA is spying on British private citizen communications, and GCHQ is spying on American private citizen communications, and the NSA and GCHQ are exchanging data without any limits, well??? Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they? As far as targeted spying on government authorities and military operations, well, that's justified. Indeed it's a good thing that different countries are paying attention to each other in this manner, it has a stabilizing influence and can help to avoid conflicts if everyone knows what everyone else is up to.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? I don't think it's a matter of what's "ok" or not, it's a matter of winning. If spying in general is ok, it's of course ok no matter who engages in it. But it's not about whether it's ok or not, it's about what citizens of a particular country want for their own interests. If spying on another nation's citizens makes you safer, you may feel good about that. But being spied on by other nations probably isn't great for you, so it's to be fought against. I think spying in general is not ok, in the same vein that war is not ok. Unfortunately, neither of these things are avoidable in the world we live in, so obviously I will be more in favor of actions that protect me and mine, and against actions that might make me less safe. (This is all without addressing the question of whether or not spying on another nation's non-government, non-military population makes anyone safer. I genuinely have no idea.) > Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they? That's a wonderfully idealistic view, and I absolutely agree with it. But that's not the world we live in. Some people are by default adversaries because of the accident of the location of their birth. It's dumb, but that's how it is.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > half of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance) When Snowden was telling everyone we spy on our allies, that is absolutely not treason. From the Constitution, Article III, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
- harry8 3y ago
  >He probably could have attempted to only leak the domestic surveillance, This was the whole point of giving the docs to the guardian and wapo. Wapo then decided to publish the non-domestic stuff that he asked them not to, entirely their decision and it would not have been published otherwise. Then wapo decided to lobby against Snowden's pardon because non-domestic stuff was published. By them. Just wow. Likewise the Nyt who Snowden did not trust and deliberately excluded, managed to get the archive from the guardian and then went nuts, also blaming snowden for what they themselves published that he asked them not to. So yeah if you were following along at home it was really hard not to have the reputations of the wapo and nyt take a really massive hit. I genuinely didn't think there were so craven but they are and everything is worse for them being so. It makes me entertain conspiracy theories about how many cia agents are on staff there and in senior editorial positions. Everyone will call that a conspiracy theory and treat it with contempt today and I guess that's fair, no evidence, only stench. Then if & when it comes out in the future, those same people will claim everyone always knew...
b33j0r 3y ago
Do we think accepting Russian citizenship changes his story? I can’t decide.
- colejohnson66 3y ago
  What’s he supposed to do? Deny it and be ejected, potentially to a country that will extradite him? He already released the documents; it’s up to the American people to do something about it, and we (well, the government) haven’t. Whether he’s in Russia or federal prison changes nothing about the fact that he already did his “part”.
- ohdannyboy 3y ago
  Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. It's a US enemy or a US prison.
- tacocataco 3y ago
  I was under the impression Snowden happened to be in Russia on route to another country when he was stuck for some reason. IIRC his passport was revoked, but if I'm wrong I'd enjoy some readings that say otherwise. Its been a while since I followed the story.
  - b33j0r 3y ago
    He first went to Hong Kong, then like Korea (we’re not sure), then Russia. It’s a little suspicious eh? I thought the american people deserved to know the things he released… But it might have been less innocent than one guy being a whistleblower. Other peer powers accommodated him in their interests.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      >He first went to Hong Kong, then like Korea (we’re not sure), then Russia. What? He went to Hong Kong, then got a flight to Ecuador via Russia. He chose Russia as layover location because Hong Kong has a limited amount of flights and he ruled that the one least likely to arrest him en route. There was no "we're not sure."
andrewmutz 3y ago
I disagree that he did it in the least destructive way possible. He revealed far more secrets than were necessary to blow the whistle. Just take a look at the list of secrets he revealed. Most of them are not about domestic spying at all: https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations If he wanted to blow the whistle on domestic spying, he could have shared documents with journalists about domestic spying.
- esrauch 3y ago
  The point of sharing it only with trusted established journalists was that their qualified to know what needs redacting. Surely even the documents that primarily concern specifically unconstitutional domestic spying would still have stuff in them that is material to national security and not unconstitutional.
  - dingusdew 3y ago
    [dead]
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    > he point of sharing it only with trusted established journalists was that their qualified to know what needs redacting Really? I assumed it had more to do with Constitutional protections for journalists, so whatever they did publish would stay published. IIRC, the US had already called Assange's journo creds into question by then, so Snowden sought out established outlets.
    - notjulianjaynes 3y ago
      There is no special credential that makes one a journalist in the eyes of the United States Constitution, nor does the first amendment grant any special protections to journalists that do not otherwise apply to the general population.
- colordrops 3y ago
  He had to take a quick dump of whatever he could and filter through it later. It's not like he could leisurely spend weeks vetting the docs.
realjohng 3y ago
Agreed. He worked with journalists to try the make the leak safe. Let’s focus on impact- Now everyone is at least aware that digital activities are under surveillance including phone call metadata. We have made that trade off for some security. Thank you Snowden.
- anonym29 3y ago
  Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the whole Snowden ordeal was not discovering hard proof we've been living in a borderline-Orwellian surveillance state, but the utter indifference of the American people at this revelation.
  - pif 3y ago
    While foreign allies showed a lot of interest in his revelations. Notwithstanding his morally high intentions, it's debatable whether the USA as a whole got a positive outcome from his actions.
    - SQueeeeeL 3y ago
      What do you mean it's debatable? The govt was literally spying on the whole country without any disclosure. The actual people who live and were being spied on have at least an idea of their true circumstances now.
      - pif 3y ago
        At the same time, foreign allies had a formal proof they were being spied as well. Domestically, it was a win; internationally, it was a catastrophe.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Yeah, a “catastrophe” for innocent people everywhere.
      - anonym29 3y ago
jbluepolarbear 3y ago
[flagged]
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  The traitors are the ones who engaged in this unconstitutional spying in the first place. Anyone exposed by his leaks quite frankly deserved worse.
jruohonen 3y ago
Snowden is perhaps not the best of examples because of all the controversy. If we change the subject a little, what is your stance on, say, the Panama Papers?
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  1) Criminals infiltrate government. 2) Government makes it legal to avoid taxation by placing funds in offshore accounts. 3) Large sums of money are hidden in Panamanian accounts via Mossack Fonseca. 4) Someone leaks documentation of these accounts to journalists. 5) Criminals say it's not whistleblowing because no laws were broken, it's just snooping into private affairs. Of course, ordinary citizens don't get such privileges. If they could, everyone could get out of student loan debt by setting up a Delaware shell corporation controlled by another family member or group of friends, transferring their loan debt to it, and then let the shell corporation go bankrupt. The only downside would be that nobody would be that likely to loan you more money, but you'd have no more debt to pay off.
misssocrates 3y ago
Why hasn't he been pardoned by either party?
wnevets 3y ago
[flagged]
- noman-land 3y ago
  Sometimes you live in Russia if you have no other options.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    Vindman didn't flee to Russia, he also didn't get tricked by a foreign nation. He's a real whistleblower.
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      Vindman lied to advance the interests of the security state, which attempted for more than four years to get rid of an elected official. The only difference is unlike all the endless parade of false “anonymous official says this”, Vindman was exposed, and his report was not just false but widely reported to be so, unlike many of the others. That’s not whistleblowing. It’s a (high ranking) government agent attempting to use his power to manipulate the public for the security state (literally one of the elite as a member of the National Security Council) and in opposition to democratic processes. Once again: a government agent “whistleblew” a lie in an attempt to bring down an elected official. NB: this comment is not an endorsement of the elected official. Edit: I just learned today that Vindman was born in Ukraine, which also rather changes the color of his “whistleblowing.”
      - wnevets 3y ago
        Was this before or after working with pizzagate?
- saurik 3y ago
  I might be missing something, but it seems the only reason that Russia has much of any leverage on him now is specifically because we are persecuting him in the first place? https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-tricked-snowden-2014-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-tric... Like, to the extent to which an early plan to target him was a success, it involved a critical later step where the United States goes on a hunt for Snowden, allowing Russia the ability to later get him stuck there and under their control... delete that part and I am unsure what the plan would have been. I'd claim the reality of the morality here is that we should not have to rely on the awkward motives of some enemy intelligence agency to target people and maneuver them into doing something good because, in our zeal to prevent something good, we do bad things that allow them to get an indirect benefit that results in something bad.
UIUC_06 3y ago
James Clapper needs to be cuffed and perp-walked in front of the TV cameras, for so many things besides this.
jutrewag 3y ago
[flagged]
- yarg 3y ago
  He didn't defect, he got stuck there. > Observing that his U.S. passport had been cancelled, Russian authorities restricted him to the airport terminal. On August 1, after 39 days in the transit section, Snowden left the airport. He was granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year. What would you do? Live in transit?
shrubble 3y ago
It's even worse than it appears... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-10000-fbi-agents-can-access-data-secretive-surveillance-program-inspectors-general https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-10000-fbi-agents-ca... Over 25 per cent (at the least) of FBI employees can access secret databases on people. 'In his investigation, Horowitz found that none of the 29 randomly chosen queries had been carried out properly or legally. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said from an earlier conversation with Horowitz that in 25 of the cases, “there was unsupported, uncorroborated, or inconsistent information.” The FBI couldn’t even produce the relevant investigative files in the other four.'
- cde-v 3y ago
  Any better sources than Zerohedge/Epoch Times?
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    The video of the hearing is available, https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1651588376196182016 https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1651588376196182016
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Any query made by the FBI of this sort of data would at minimum be CJI exempt from most disclosure. For FISA stuff, even more controls would be in place
- Phileosopher 3y ago
  Who, exactly, is responsible for the FBI, CIA, NSA, et al. if they over-reach? We tend to believe there's an implicit checks-and-balances system in place, but the most dramatic historical time time a government official wanted to defund a secret-holder of the government was JFK. In other words, how is this not a quiet dictatorship by another name?
vinyl7 3y ago
I'm not sure I believe much about what Snowden released. I see him as more of a psyop agent than a whistleblower. The govt could have orchestrated that whole ordeal to instill a chilling effect on the population, none of it had to be true for the population to react and self censor
ngngngng 3y ago
Your usage of the word travesty is a tragedy (and ironically, also a travesty)
- freetime2 3y ago
  travesty: something that is shocking, upsetting, or ridiculous because it is not what it is supposed to be “It is a travesty and a tragedy that so many people would be denied the right to vote.” “The investigation into the causes of the accident was a complete travesty. [=sham]” “The trial was a travesty of justice.” https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/travesty https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/travesty On to the differences between tragedy and travesty: > A “tragedy” is of course a dreadful event or disaster that results in sadness, injury or destruction. While a “travesty” is more of a distorted or cheap imitation of something – often applied to the debasement of something held high, such as justice, rules, ideals and so on. https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-tragedy-vs-travesty/ https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-tragedy-vs-travesty...
Spooky23 3y ago
[flagged]
- kelnos 3y ago
  > Whistleblowers don’t run to Moscow. They do when most other countries will extradite them back to the US, where they'll be tossed into a dark cell for the rest of their life. Snowden did his part. He released the information he had. Assuming we believe the information he released is genuine, it's utterly irrelevant what we think of him now, or what he has to do to survive and remain at least somewhat free. > Snowden is a traitor. Pedant hat on: Snowden can never legally be tried as a traitor, as he has not committed treason. The US Constitution very precisely describes treason, and he did not do that. If Snowden were ever arrested and returned to US custody, I imagine the main charges would revolve around espionage and conspiracy.

runnerup 3y ago

He probably could have attempted to only leak the domestic surveillance, or at least screen out as much of the foreign intelligence methods as much as possible. Half of it was whistleblowing (domestic surveillance) but half of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance).

morkalork 3y ago
It gets a bit complicated with the whole 5-eyes mutual back scratching thing though.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  Exactly. The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is treason against the people of the United States. There is no such thing as an “allied intelligence agency”, by their very nature all non-US intelligence agencies are hostile to American citizens. Thus, our domestic agencies conspiring with hostile foreign entities to defraud and undermine the citizens of the United States is treason.
  - George83728 3y ago
    You're wrong, it's not treason. This is meant to be a legalistic society where crimes are defined by laws, not by how the word for the crime is popularly perceived by laypeople. The US Constitution defines treason. In America, treason is when an American levies war against the United States, or adhering to the Enemies of the US, giving them aid and comfort. To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives classified information to the UK they could be convicted of espionage, but treason specifically would not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a complete farce. Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War, when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. John Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions to ever happen in America were for acts committed during WW2.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      In that case, would you agree if we modified the GP's statement to say: "The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States." If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? Assuming we can agree that "treason against the people of the United States" and "espionage against the people of the United States" are at least in the same ballpark of badness?
      - George83728 3y ago
        > "The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States." If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? No, because again, these crimes have meanings defined by law which you can't simply replace with a meaning derived from the layperson understanding of the word. To argue that Five Eyes is the illegal kind of espionage, you'd have to argue that it actually violates the Espionage Act. Merely fitting it to the colloquial meaning of 'espionage' isn't sufficient.
  - torstenvl 3y ago
    FVEY is an intelligence cooperation agreement that is invaluable to the security of the world. I don't see how any reasonable person could view it as anything negative. What exactly is the objection to classifying some information as SECRET//US,UK,CAN,AUS,NZ instead of SECRET//NOFORN ?
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  What mutual backscratching? No such program was in the Snowden leaks. If you're claiming that the US gets other countries to spy on its citizens, that would be utterly illegal.
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    You’re correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY) Essentially what they’ve done is commit treason by colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on each others citizens, bypassing the pesky constitutional/charter limitations in the process. In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5 levels deep into the organizations responsible, I’m hopeful for that outcome. Reminder: “I was just following orders/policy” wasn’t a defense then and it won’t be this time either.
    - lern_too_spel 3y ago
      > You’re correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY) If they are doing it, where's your evidence? You don't have it because otherwise, Klayman would have filed a lawsuit.
      - imwillofficial 3y ago
        [flagged]
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
        I did. I read the actual documents Snowden leaked instead of relying on wild conspiracy theories people conjured up out of thin air at the time the documents leaked. If you have evidence, you can file a lawsuit. You don't. You're just repeating conspiracy theories that anybody who understands the law easily spots as nonsense.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
- bombolo 3y ago
  > I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no good /s
  - kelnos 3y ago
    You're being sarcastic, but in a generalized sense that's exactly what it is: of course spying is ok/good when it's your country doing it to someone else! Obviously that spying will enrich your country, and might even make you safer. But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe. It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".
    - bombolo 3y ago
      But I'm not in USA, I'm in sweden. For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        > so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled the answer here is the difference between "me" and "people"
        bombolo 3y ago
        "people in the same country as me, who are in the same set of risks as me". Don't pretend you didn't understand just to comment pointless nitpicking.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        what makes you think they view things that way, rather than just you viewing things that way? after all, humans have a tendency to think other people think the same way they do
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throw101010 3y ago
You know the saying beggars can't be choosers? We are currently begging for transparency. The filtering process by independent journalists is the only actual recourse I can think of to solve this. Exfiltrating confidential documents is usually not a process that gives you a lot of time to sort out what is worth it or not, furthermore the volume of data might very well also be a problem to handle on your own. Consider the time it took a lot of journalists to find the pertinent documents in this specific case among about 200,000 leaked documents (of various lengths), when Snowden is thought to have exfiltrated 1.7 millions documents.
- pif 3y ago
  > We are currently begging for transparency. Beware, transparency is a double-edged sword! Modern nations are not small villages, where secrets can be shared within a community AND kept out of reach from foreign ears.
  - throw101010 3y ago
    I am not advocating for total transparency, but exactions committed by the state cannot be classified as secrets. So if a leak leads to revealing such crimes, the whistle-blower should not be prosecuted, unless you can prove they deliberately leaked information to harm innocent civilians. I specifically say civilians because I consider that the military and officials who are part of the state know the responsibilities involved in their position... and if they do not generate any content worthy of leaking (crimes), they will not be exposed to this risk.
photochemsyn 3y ago
I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? It becomes even more problematic within the Five Eyes cooperation context, because if the NSA is spying on British private citizen communications, and GCHQ is spying on American private citizen communications, and the NSA and GCHQ are exchanging data without any limits, well??? Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they? As far as targeted spying on government authorities and military operations, well, that's justified. Indeed it's a good thing that different countries are paying attention to each other in this manner, it has a stabilizing influence and can help to avoid conflicts if everyone knows what everyone else is up to.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then? I don't think it's a matter of what's "ok" or not, it's a matter of winning. If spying in general is ok, it's of course ok no matter who engages in it. But it's not about whether it's ok or not, it's about what citizens of a particular country want for their own interests. If spying on another nation's citizens makes you safer, you may feel good about that. But being spied on by other nations probably isn't great for you, so it's to be fought against. I think spying in general is not ok, in the same vein that war is not ok. Unfortunately, neither of these things are avoidable in the world we live in, so obviously I will be more in favor of actions that protect me and mine, and against actions that might make me less safe. (This is all without addressing the question of whether or not spying on another nation's non-government, non-military population makes anyone safer. I genuinely have no idea.) > Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they? That's a wonderfully idealistic view, and I absolutely agree with it. But that's not the world we live in. Some people are by default adversaries because of the accident of the location of their birth. It's dumb, but that's how it is.
drewcoo 3y ago
> half of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance) When Snowden was telling everyone we spy on our allies, that is absolutely not treason. From the Constitution, Article III, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
harry8 3y ago
>He probably could have attempted to only leak the domestic surveillance, This was the whole point of giving the docs to the guardian and wapo. Wapo then decided to publish the non-domestic stuff that he asked them not to, entirely their decision and it would not have been published otherwise. Then wapo decided to lobby against Snowden's pardon because non-domestic stuff was published. By them. Just wow. Likewise the Nyt who Snowden did not trust and deliberately excluded, managed to get the archive from the guardian and then went nuts, also blaming snowden for what they themselves published that he asked them not to. So yeah if you were following along at home it was really hard not to have the reputations of the wapo and nyt take a really massive hit. I genuinely didn't think there were so craven but they are and everything is worse for them being so. It makes me entertain conspiracy theories about how many cia agents are on staff there and in senior editorial positions. Everyone will call that a conspiracy theory and treat it with contempt today and I guess that's fair, no evidence, only stench. Then if & when it comes out in the future, those same people will claim everyone always knew...

b33j0r 3y ago

Do we think accepting Russian citizenship changes his story? I can’t decide.

colejohnson66 3y ago
What’s he supposed to do? Deny it and be ejected, potentially to a country that will extradite him? He already released the documents; it’s up to the American people to do something about it, and we (well, the government) haven’t. Whether he’s in Russia or federal prison changes nothing about the fact that he already did his “part”.
ohdannyboy 3y ago
Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. It's a US enemy or a US prison.
tacocataco 3y ago
I was under the impression Snowden happened to be in Russia on route to another country when he was stuck for some reason. IIRC his passport was revoked, but if I'm wrong I'd enjoy some readings that say otherwise. Its been a while since I followed the story.
- b33j0r 3y ago
  He first went to Hong Kong, then like Korea (we’re not sure), then Russia. It’s a little suspicious eh? I thought the american people deserved to know the things he released… But it might have been less innocent than one guy being a whistleblower. Other peer powers accommodated him in their interests.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    >He first went to Hong Kong, then like Korea (we’re not sure), then Russia. What? He went to Hong Kong, then got a flight to Ecuador via Russia. He chose Russia as layover location because Hong Kong has a limited amount of flights and he ruled that the one least likely to arrest him en route. There was no "we're not sure."

andrewmutz 3y ago

I disagree that he did it in the least destructive way possible. He revealed far more secrets than were necessary to blow the whistle. Just take a look at the list of secrets he revealed. Most of them are not about domestic spying at all: https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations If he wanted to blow the whistle on domestic spying, he could have shared documents with journalists about domestic spying.

esrauch 3y ago
The point of sharing it only with trusted established journalists was that their qualified to know what needs redacting. Surely even the documents that primarily concern specifically unconstitutional domestic spying would still have stuff in them that is material to national security and not unconstitutional.
- dingusdew 3y ago
  [dead]
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > he point of sharing it only with trusted established journalists was that their qualified to know what needs redacting Really? I assumed it had more to do with Constitutional protections for journalists, so whatever they did publish would stay published. IIRC, the US had already called Assange's journo creds into question by then, so Snowden sought out established outlets.
  - notjulianjaynes 3y ago
    There is no special credential that makes one a journalist in the eyes of the United States Constitution, nor does the first amendment grant any special protections to journalists that do not otherwise apply to the general population.
colordrops 3y ago
He had to take a quick dump of whatever he could and filter through it later. It's not like he could leisurely spend weeks vetting the docs.

realjohng 3y ago

Agreed. He worked with journalists to try the make the leak safe. Let’s focus on impact- Now everyone is at least aware that digital activities are under surveillance including phone call metadata. We have made that trade off for some security. Thank you Snowden.

anonym29 3y ago
Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the whole Snowden ordeal was not discovering hard proof we've been living in a borderline-Orwellian surveillance state, but the utter indifference of the American people at this revelation.
- pif 3y ago
  While foreign allies showed a lot of interest in his revelations. Notwithstanding his morally high intentions, it's debatable whether the USA as a whole got a positive outcome from his actions.
  - SQueeeeeL 3y ago
    What do you mean it's debatable? The govt was literally spying on the whole country without any disclosure. The actual people who live and were being spied on have at least an idea of their true circumstances now.
    - pif 3y ago
      At the same time, foreign allies had a formal proof they were being spied as well. Domestically, it was a win; internationally, it was a catastrophe.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Yeah, a “catastrophe” for innocent people everywhere.
    - anonym29 3y ago

jbluepolarbear 3y ago

[flagged]

newZWhoDis 3y ago
The traitors are the ones who engaged in this unconstitutional spying in the first place. Anyone exposed by his leaks quite frankly deserved worse.

jruohonen 3y ago

Snowden is perhaps not the best of examples because of all the controversy. If we change the subject a little, what is your stance on, say, the Panama Papers?

photochemsyn 3y ago
1) Criminals infiltrate government. 2) Government makes it legal to avoid taxation by placing funds in offshore accounts. 3) Large sums of money are hidden in Panamanian accounts via Mossack Fonseca. 4) Someone leaks documentation of these accounts to journalists. 5) Criminals say it's not whistleblowing because no laws were broken, it's just snooping into private affairs. Of course, ordinary citizens don't get such privileges. If they could, everyone could get out of student loan debt by setting up a Delaware shell corporation controlled by another family member or group of friends, transferring their loan debt to it, and then let the shell corporation go bankrupt. The only downside would be that nobody would be that likely to loan you more money, but you'd have no more debt to pay off.

misssocrates 3y ago

Why hasn't he been pardoned by either party?

wnevets 3y ago

[flagged]

noman-land 3y ago
Sometimes you live in Russia if you have no other options.
- wnevets 3y ago
  Vindman didn't flee to Russia, he also didn't get tricked by a foreign nation. He's a real whistleblower.
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    Vindman lied to advance the interests of the security state, which attempted for more than four years to get rid of an elected official. The only difference is unlike all the endless parade of false “anonymous official says this”, Vindman was exposed, and his report was not just false but widely reported to be so, unlike many of the others. That’s not whistleblowing. It’s a (high ranking) government agent attempting to use his power to manipulate the public for the security state (literally one of the elite as a member of the National Security Council) and in opposition to democratic processes. Once again: a government agent “whistleblew” a lie in an attempt to bring down an elected official. NB: this comment is not an endorsement of the elected official. Edit: I just learned today that Vindman was born in Ukraine, which also rather changes the color of his “whistleblowing.”
    - wnevets 3y ago
      Was this before or after working with pizzagate?
saurik 3y ago
I might be missing something, but it seems the only reason that Russia has much of any leverage on him now is specifically because we are persecuting him in the first place? https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-tricked-snowden-2014-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-tric... Like, to the extent to which an early plan to target him was a success, it involved a critical later step where the United States goes on a hunt for Snowden, allowing Russia the ability to later get him stuck there and under their control... delete that part and I am unsure what the plan would have been. I'd claim the reality of the morality here is that we should not have to rely on the awkward motives of some enemy intelligence agency to target people and maneuver them into doing something good because, in our zeal to prevent something good, we do bad things that allow them to get an indirect benefit that results in something bad.

UIUC_06 3y ago

James Clapper needs to be cuffed and perp-walked in front of the TV cameras, for so many things besides this.

jutrewag 3y ago

[flagged]

yarg 3y ago
He didn't defect, he got stuck there. > Observing that his U.S. passport had been cancelled, Russian authorities restricted him to the airport terminal. On August 1, after 39 days in the transit section, Snowden left the airport. He was granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year. What would you do? Live in transit?

shrubble 3y ago

It's even worse than it appears... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-10000-fbi-agents-can-access-data-secretive-surveillance-program-inspectors-general https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-10000-fbi-agents-ca... Over 25 per cent (at the least) of FBI employees can access secret databases on people. 'In his investigation, Horowitz found that none of the 29 randomly chosen queries had been carried out properly or legally. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said from an earlier conversation with Horowitz that in 25 of the cases, “there was unsupported, uncorroborated, or inconsistent information.” The FBI couldn’t even produce the relevant investigative files in the other four.'

cde-v 3y ago
Any better sources than Zerohedge/Epoch Times?
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  The video of the hearing is available, https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1651588376196182016 https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1651588376196182016
Spooky23 3y ago
Any query made by the FBI of this sort of data would at minimum be CJI exempt from most disclosure. For FISA stuff, even more controls would be in place
Phileosopher 3y ago
Who, exactly, is responsible for the FBI, CIA, NSA, et al. if they over-reach? We tend to believe there's an implicit checks-and-balances system in place, but the most dramatic historical time time a government official wanted to defund a secret-holder of the government was JFK. In other words, how is this not a quiet dictatorship by another name?

vinyl7 3y ago

I'm not sure I believe much about what Snowden released. I see him as more of a psyop agent than a whistleblower. The govt could have orchestrated that whole ordeal to instill a chilling effect on the population, none of it had to be true for the population to react and self censor

ngngngng 3y ago

Your usage of the word travesty is a tragedy (and ironically, also a travesty)

freetime2 3y ago
travesty: something that is shocking, upsetting, or ridiculous because it is not what it is supposed to be “It is a travesty and a tragedy that so many people would be denied the right to vote.” “The investigation into the causes of the accident was a complete travesty. [=sham]” “The trial was a travesty of justice.” https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/travesty https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/travesty On to the differences between tragedy and travesty: > A “tragedy” is of course a dreadful event or disaster that results in sadness, injury or destruction. While a “travesty” is more of a distorted or cheap imitation of something – often applied to the debasement of something held high, such as justice, rules, ideals and so on. https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-tragedy-vs-travesty/ https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-tragedy-vs-travesty...

Spooky23 3y ago

[flagged]

kelnos 3y ago
> Whistleblowers don’t run to Moscow. They do when most other countries will extradite them back to the US, where they'll be tossed into a dark cell for the rest of their life. Snowden did his part. He released the information he had. Assuming we believe the information he released is genuine, it's utterly irrelevant what we think of him now, or what he has to do to survive and remain at least somewhat free. > Snowden is a traitor. Pedant hat on: Snowden can never legally be tried as a traitor, as he has not committed treason. The US Constitution very precisely describes treason, and he did not do that. If Snowden were ever arrested and returned to US custody, I imagine the main charges would revolve around espionage and conspiracy.