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But that "harm" was caused by the City failing to secure the data - not this one person who said "the city failed to secure the data - anyone can get it".

sillysaurusx 2y ago
Intent matters. The city was incompetent, but distributing data about active criminal investigations is malicious, or at least dangerous. And unlike Snowden, he wasn’t trying to expose abuses by sending the documents to reporters. Here’s an example from my own life: I created books3, an AI training dataset of almost 200k books. This was thanks to The Eye, who hosted a copy of Bibliotik, a popular shadow library. But everyone is suing the AI companies themselves for using the training data, even though the original harm was caused by The Eye and Bibliotik. > not this one person who said "the city failed to secure the data - anyone can get it". If he simply said that, there wouldn’t have been a problem. He sent actual data related to ongoing criminal investigations, and was on the record saying he might set up a website to more widely disseminate information about that data — which could include names of witnesses in those investigations.
- throw10920 2y ago
  > And unlike Snowden, he wasn’t trying to expose abuses by sending the documents to reporters. Snowden was, according to all available evidence, not trying to expose abuses. He was trying to commit espionage against the US, and it's extremely clear to anyone who has passing experience with the leaks and a shred of intellectual honesty, because the vast majority of the files were completely unrelated to domestic surveillance programs, and instead concerned foreign surveillance programs. Stop bringing up Snowden; all of the evidence indicates that he was lying about his motive.
  - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
    It's a bit surprising that he would choose to disseminate his espionage via uncovering mass secret state surveillence and sending documents to a third party so they could publish them. I am not in espionage, but I expect there are considerably easier and more reliable ways to exfiltrate data. I don't think it is as surprising that he took more files than he should have.
    - throw10920 2y ago
      He has also shown narcissistic tendencies, which is consistent with the US government's statements that he did this for publicity and personal recognition/profit. Sorry, when I say "espionage", I mean in the more general sense of dealing damage to the government, not specifically sending the documents to Russia or whatever. There's not a lot of evidence for him being a Russian spy. > I don't think it is as surprising that he took more files than he should have. It's extremely surprising if he claims to have been acting in the public's interest by uncovering domestic spying programs and then over 90 percent of the files he took were completely unrelated to that stated goal. That's a very strong indicator of dishonesty.
      - NavinF 2y ago
        Does anyone else use the word "espionage" like that or is it just you?
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        He has also shown narcissistic tendencies, which is consistent with the US government's statements that he did this for publicity and personal recognition/profit. "Narcisstic tendencies" is a very common smear / throwaway labelling we hear a lot -- about bosses, exes, manipulative relatives and what not. In some cases it's valid, but in most it's simply not. Unless you can point to specifics, we'll have to include this labelling of Snowden in that category as well. But even if it did apply -- it would also be perfectly consistent with the possibly that he simply considers himself a fearless do-gooder. I don't rule out your alternatives, but Occam's Razor (combined with the fact that there's no visible evidence of him having profited in any way; and his general bearing and demeanor do not correspond to those of the publicity whore type) does favor the former. (Not to say that he is or is not a fearless do-gooder; just that it's not at all unlikely that that's what he considers himself to be).
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    He was trying to commit espionage against the US, and it's extremely clear to anyone who has passing experience with the leaks and a shred of intellectual honesty, Just the pugnacious way you choose to phrase this ("It's sooo obvious, and if you don't simply full-on agree you must be clueless and/or a lying scumbag yourself") makes me doubt this version of events. That, plus the fact that (even after all this time) no one has come forward with any actual dispositive evidence for such a narrative. It's all just speculation.
    - throw10920 2y ago
      There's the intellectual dishonesty - I literally described the evidence in the exact same sentence, that you cut off in your citation because it was inconvenient for you: > because the vast majority of the files were completely unrelated to domestic surveillance programs, and instead concerned foreign surveillance programs. It is exactly because the common response to the evidence is this kind of deceptiveness that I have to point it out.
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        Bollocks -- the context is right there for anyone to scroll up and see, so there's nothing deceptive about the segment I chose to highlight. And that's all it was -- highlighting, not deceptive quoting.
        throw10920 2y ago
        That part of my comment that you left out directly disproves what you wrote after: > That, plus the fact that (even after all this time) no one has come forward with any actual dispositive evidence for such a narrative. > It's all just speculation. I described the evidence, provided by Snowden himself and publicly available for anyone to check, which directly disproves your claim that "it's all just speculative". The actual evidence significantly favors the theory that it was espionage over the theory that it was whistleblowing.
        2y ago
- ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  If it is okay for him to tell reporters that the data is publically accessible, knowing that they would verify that by downloading it, how is it dangerous or malicious for him to send examples to them directly? The outcomes are the same at worst and at best the reporters have considerably less of the data. There's a legal distinction there, not a moral one.
- mlyle 2y ago
  > but distributing data about active criminal investigations is malicious, or at least dangerous. Is showing some reporters some sample data to show that the data exists malicious? Because I believe that's all he's been accused of doing. > was on the record saying he might set up a website to more widely disseminate information about that data As to whether the website he would make one day would contain the information on investigations: this is disputed. To me, it seems the city misconstrues his quotes about letting people determine if names were contained in the entire dataset.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sigseg1v 2y ago
Try telling the police that it's ok that you distributed drugs because it's actually them that failed to secure them against criminals and let me know how that goes.

sillysaurusx 2y ago

Intent matters. The city was incompetent, but distributing data about active criminal investigations is malicious, or at least dangerous. And unlike Snowden, he wasn’t trying to expose abuses by sending the documents to reporters. Here’s an example from my own life: I created books3, an AI training dataset of almost 200k books. This was thanks to The Eye, who hosted a copy of Bibliotik, a popular shadow library. But everyone is suing the AI companies themselves for using the training data, even though the original harm was caused by The Eye and Bibliotik. > not this one person who said "the city failed to secure the data - anyone can get it". If he simply said that, there wouldn’t have been a problem. He sent actual data related to ongoing criminal investigations, and was on the record saying he might set up a website to more widely disseminate information about that data — which could include names of witnesses in those investigations.

throw10920 2y ago
> And unlike Snowden, he wasn’t trying to expose abuses by sending the documents to reporters. Snowden was, according to all available evidence, not trying to expose abuses. He was trying to commit espionage against the US, and it's extremely clear to anyone who has passing experience with the leaks and a shred of intellectual honesty, because the vast majority of the files were completely unrelated to domestic surveillance programs, and instead concerned foreign surveillance programs. Stop bringing up Snowden; all of the evidence indicates that he was lying about his motive.
- ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  It's a bit surprising that he would choose to disseminate his espionage via uncovering mass secret state surveillence and sending documents to a third party so they could publish them. I am not in espionage, but I expect there are considerably easier and more reliable ways to exfiltrate data. I don't think it is as surprising that he took more files than he should have.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    He has also shown narcissistic tendencies, which is consistent with the US government's statements that he did this for publicity and personal recognition/profit. Sorry, when I say "espionage", I mean in the more general sense of dealing damage to the government, not specifically sending the documents to Russia or whatever. There's not a lot of evidence for him being a Russian spy. > I don't think it is as surprising that he took more files than he should have. It's extremely surprising if he claims to have been acting in the public's interest by uncovering domestic spying programs and then over 90 percent of the files he took were completely unrelated to that stated goal. That's a very strong indicator of dishonesty.
    - NavinF 2y ago
      Does anyone else use the word "espionage" like that or is it just you?
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      He has also shown narcissistic tendencies, which is consistent with the US government's statements that he did this for publicity and personal recognition/profit. "Narcisstic tendencies" is a very common smear / throwaway labelling we hear a lot -- about bosses, exes, manipulative relatives and what not. In some cases it's valid, but in most it's simply not. Unless you can point to specifics, we'll have to include this labelling of Snowden in that category as well. But even if it did apply -- it would also be perfectly consistent with the possibly that he simply considers himself a fearless do-gooder. I don't rule out your alternatives, but Occam's Razor (combined with the fact that there's no visible evidence of him having profited in any way; and his general bearing and demeanor do not correspond to those of the publicity whore type) does favor the former. (Not to say that he is or is not a fearless do-gooder; just that it's not at all unlikely that that's what he considers himself to be).
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- aguaviva 2y ago
  He was trying to commit espionage against the US, and it's extremely clear to anyone who has passing experience with the leaks and a shred of intellectual honesty, Just the pugnacious way you choose to phrase this ("It's sooo obvious, and if you don't simply full-on agree you must be clueless and/or a lying scumbag yourself") makes me doubt this version of events. That, plus the fact that (even after all this time) no one has come forward with any actual dispositive evidence for such a narrative. It's all just speculation.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    There's the intellectual dishonesty - I literally described the evidence in the exact same sentence, that you cut off in your citation because it was inconvenient for you: > because the vast majority of the files were completely unrelated to domestic surveillance programs, and instead concerned foreign surveillance programs. It is exactly because the common response to the evidence is this kind of deceptiveness that I have to point it out.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Bollocks -- the context is right there for anyone to scroll up and see, so there's nothing deceptive about the segment I chose to highlight. And that's all it was -- highlighting, not deceptive quoting.
      - throw10920 2y ago
        That part of my comment that you left out directly disproves what you wrote after: > That, plus the fact that (even after all this time) no one has come forward with any actual dispositive evidence for such a narrative. > It's all just speculation. I described the evidence, provided by Snowden himself and publicly available for anyone to check, which directly disproves your claim that "it's all just speculative". The actual evidence significantly favors the theory that it was espionage over the theory that it was whistleblowing.
        2y ago
ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
If it is okay for him to tell reporters that the data is publically accessible, knowing that they would verify that by downloading it, how is it dangerous or malicious for him to send examples to them directly? The outcomes are the same at worst and at best the reporters have considerably less of the data. There's a legal distinction there, not a moral one.
mlyle 2y ago
> but distributing data about active criminal investigations is malicious, or at least dangerous. Is showing some reporters some sample data to show that the data exists malicious? Because I believe that's all he's been accused of doing. > was on the record saying he might set up a website to more widely disseminate information about that data As to whether the website he would make one day would contain the information on investigations: this is disputed. To me, it seems the city misconstrues his quotes about letting people determine if names were contained in the entire dataset.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

sigseg1v 2y ago

Try telling the police that it's ok that you distributed drugs because it's actually them that failed to secure them against criminals and let me know how that goes.