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Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed. Good people often living in terrible places and circumstances, many of them. Maybe most. It also makes good i
by handedness 3y ago
Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed. Good people often living in terrible places and circumstances, many of them. Maybe most. It also makes good information more difficult to come by for a long time.
Nations spying on nations (even allies) feels terrible but in practice is probably a net good for all. It reduces uncertainty, and uncertainty has historically been a major trigger for armed conflict as one side feared the other side was preparing to strike, so struck first to gain the initiative in case their fears were well-founded. History has shown that judgment to be inaccurate in some significant cases. Wars have also been avoided by good intel.
On the non-kinetic side, espionage better informs policymakers as international agreements are forged and followed. Uncertainty between nations is generally a bad thing for both nations.
We badly need to address nations spying on their own citizens, especially reciprocity arrangements to circumvent restrictions on such. But pending an unlikely utopia of humans all learning how to cooperate at scale for the first time in human history, nations spying on nations is probably a good thing for the planet.
- infamouscow 3y ago> Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed. Is there any evidence of this being true or speculation?
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoyes, tons throughout history here is 1 such example off the top of my head: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoThe only instance of Hanssen causing deaths seem to be when he exposed "Martynov and Motorin" to be working for the FBI. They were arrested, tried, convicted and executed by the Soviet government. Getting corrupt spies to be exposed doesn't really seem to be a great datum to back your argument. He might have actually saved more lives indirectly since he stopped them from leaking secret Soviet information to the US. Anything else?
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agothe rejection of examples of what was requested is weak labeling the victims as "corrupt" is also weak saying 'ok you're right but maybe it's a good thing' is weak none of the arguments really seem great against the evidence presented. anything else?
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoRight, as I supposed.
- infamouscow 3y agoWhat's the strongest evidence you have? The example provided isn't very compelling in my view.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoWhat's the strongest argument you have against the evidence presented? Your personal convincing isn't really pertinent to the fact that the example given fits the request: someone killed as a result of an intel leak.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago> the example given fits the request: someone killed as a result of an intel leak Two corrupt spies being regularly tried and executed is definitely not "tons troughout history". That was your claim, not "someone killed as a result of an intel leak", and if all you have is other spies dying then I don't have any problem with it. What I would have a problem with is civilian deaths resulting from leaks, but for what I see generally leaks reveal more often unauthorized civilian killings than they cause them.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agohere is a list of things you think matter here, but which do not actually matter here, because the example presented satisfied the condition of a person killed due to an intel leak: - whether you agree with the killing - whether it is 2 or 2 million - what their profession is - whether they are civilians - whether you personally think they're corrupt - what you personally have a problem with literally none of your above views matter to the question here, because the question was whether an intel leak has ever gotten people killed (meaning >1), not "what do you, a random person on the internet, think about the fact that intel leaks have gotten people killed" QED. anything else? Maybe the killings doesn't count because it's Tuesday, or some other new silly exclusionary criteria you made up?
- bhawks 3y agoSee the successes of spycraft in South America. It has been truly a blessing to all people living there.
- handedness 3y agoSure. One can debate the Truman Doctrine, the way the Cold War was fought, the ethics of adopting a balance of power strategy, but those are all different discussions. Whether superpowers should use their intelligence apparatuses to implement their foreign political and military policies is another discussion. Espionage, gathering secret intelligence, is arguably a net good for the planet.
- zirgs 3y agoI agree. If Putin had better intel on Ukraine and the west (and the true state of his own armed forces) then he, most likely, would not have started the war.
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoWeird how the West knew exactly what Russia was going to do beforehand, yet couldn't stop it. All that intel couldn't help preventing a war apparently.
- killjoywashere 3y agoRead up on jus ad bellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum
- fakedang 3y agoThis is extremely important in the context of India and Pakistan. The spy networks of each country in the other are part of the reason why the two have not been at it in a full blown war in recent years.