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"Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity." Well, no. A soldier isn't supposed to say "I think that

by timr 13y ago

"Soldiers are supposed to disobey their military superiors if told to commit crimes against humanity." Well, no. A soldier isn't supposed to say "I think that command is illegal under international law, therefore I will choose not to follow it." They'll be court-martialed, and rightly so. Choosing to make that call is intentionally risky, because it's supposed to be rare. Likewise, Snowden will be prosecuted...and rightly so. He broke a bunch of laws. Maybe he did that out of a sense of righteousness, but the greater legality of his decision is not for him to decide. But even ignoring all of that, the premise of your metaphor is absurd: Snowden revealed information about legal surveillance programs that weren't acutely harming anyone, and he might have hurt national security in the process. That's a far cry from preventing "crimes against humanity". Perspective, please.

mpyne 13y ago
Actually, in the U.S. servicemembers are supposed to refuse to follow orders that are not lawful. You are right that such cases are (and are meant to be) exceptionally rare. The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal). But with that said I agree with your overall point that Snowden did break the law with at least some of his disclosures. If so much as one document he leaked was found to describe action that was legal (even if unethical) he would fall afoul of various U.S. laws protecting classified information. Likewise, even if he leaked information describing activities found to be illegal, he may still get in trouble for not following Congress's approved route for such leaks (I'm not sure if that would be technically criminal or administrative in nature though).
- glurgh 13y ago
  He's in Hong Kong talking about US intelligence operations in Hong Kong. Short of the government not charging him for that specific thing (say, to avoid talking about it altogether), there's doesn't seem to be any way to avoid getting in trouble for it.
  - btilly 13y ago
    Everyone seems to be mad about that one. However I've yet to see ANYONE in the mainstream press point out that the Obama administration was recently trying to pass legislation that reduced privacy protection for Americans as a response to the Chinese doing exactly what we are doing to the Chinese. There is a high level of hypocrisy here. Call me an idealist, but my belief is that the USA as a country should take the moral high ground, even if it costs us tactically in the short run.
    - lern_too_spel 13y ago
      Obama threatened to veto CISPA if it landed on his desk without the privacy issues fixed.
      - btilly 13y ago
        Yes, once it was clear in polling that the bill was a political nonstarter nation-wide, Obama took that position. At the same time, as http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ among others pointed out at that point, his administration was already violating privacy in all the ways that his rhetoric would say were bad. Of course that was before the NSA revelations revealed the true extent of the spying going on.
- timr 13y ago
  "The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal)." Yes, exactly. And of course, there have been many examples of soldiers who were court-martialed for disobeying orders. The risk of disobeying is on the soldier -- they're taking their life in their hands when they make the decision to cross a superior. It's not as if the military says: "oh, you thought that order was illegal? We won't court-martial you, then." The parent comment was totally specious, because Snowden is being treated exactly the way any soldier would be treated for a similar behavior. We don't just automatically pardon people for breaking laws because they broke laws with patriotic intent.
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    Snowden is not, nor ought he be treated like or held to the standard of being, a soldier.
    - XorNot 13y ago
      He signed the relevant NDAs and was granted Top Secret clearance. He's being held to the standard of anyone else who does that without enjoying some type of exceptional legal protection.
      - bobwaycott 13y ago
        That is not the same thing as the comment to which I responded. Moreover, this isn't a simple matter of violating NDAs and TS clearance by mentioning classified information to some random persons. The situation is more profound and nuanced. He violated the NDAs and TS clearance to call the People's attention to unconstitutional programs that violate our rights and laws as a whistleblower. There is "some type of exceptional legal protection" to be evaluated there.
        mpyne 13y ago
        Just for the flipside though, he did this to call attention to unconstitutional programs in his opinion. There is a reason we don't generally allow individuals to each individually determine what the Constitution does or does not mean. There is a famous example in the military of an Army major (doctor) who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he claimed it was unconstitutional. You might think he was referring to the war, but instead he was referring to his Commander-in-Chief himself (Pres. Obama), who this major personally felt was a Muslim Kenyan who somehow managed to finagle himself into the Presidency. It's hardly conclusive that what Snowden has revealed so far is even likely unconstitutional. It seems the most you can say is that the NSA is simply not being very nice at all to the rest of the world, but the Supreme Court decisions up to this point (including recent ones relating to Guantanamo's prison) have generally treated the rest of the world as not worthy of any but the most basic Constitutional protections.
glurgh 13y ago
Well, yes. Soldiers are very much supposed to disobey unlawful orders - following unlawful orders is what can get you courtmartialed and 'I was just following orders' isn't going to be an effective defense. Of course, this is all a bit moot because Snowden definitely did something illegal and it's not clear yet whether anything he reported was itself illegal.
bobwaycott 13y ago
> * They'll be court-martialed, and rightly so.* Rightly so? You are saying that a soldier who understands an order to be in violation of law (in this instance, to commit some unspecified crimes against humanity) would be justly court-martialed, and that it should happen? The entire point of refusing to obey orders that violate the law, or of refusing to abide by an unjust law, or refusing to be complicit in systemic abuses of secret interpretations of a given law that one believes to violate other laws and/or established principles (e.g., the Constitution) is to call attention to the wrongness of that which one is refusing to do. It is to call attention to wrongdoing, whether that be to actions or laws that violate the greater body of law and principles of a given civil society. The proper response would be an evaluation and public reflection upon the practices/acts to which the public's attention has been focused. In Snowden's case, as with other whistleblowers, it is extremely difficult to properly blow the whistle without breaking some law(s). There are so many laws out there, that if everyone who broke a law was prosecuted, we'd wind up with 100% of the adult citizenry with criminal records and jail time. The goal of justice is not to indiscriminately prosecute every person who attempts to protect and improve our society by refusing to follow unjust laws and their associated actions. Would that more citizens and public officials would refuse to act in a way that even remotely resembles violating anyone's constitutionally delineated rights, and all those not so delineated, which are reserved to the states and to the People. If indiscriminate prosecution was the goal of justice, we'd better update our positions accordingly on everything. That means we need to look back and say a good century's worth of prosecuting black people for drinking from the wrong fountain was just. We should start prosecuting those who violate laws that prohibit you from throwing away mail that isn't addressed to you. We should stand up and call for the prosecution of homosexuals and heterosexuals under state sodomy laws and, when they are so prosecuted, we should sit back in our armchairs, cross our legs, and declare, "Rightly so."
DennisP 13y ago
Fwiw, enlisted soldiers swear an oath to obey. Officers do not. And both swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which certainly applies in this case. Enlisted oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment Officers' oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Service... Not that Snowden is either, but you were talking about when soldiers may disobey their superiors so I thought this might be tangentially interesting.

by timr 13y ago

mpyne 13y ago

Actually, in the U.S. servicemembers are supposed to refuse to follow orders that are not lawful. You are right that such cases are (and are meant to be) exceptionally rare. The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal). But with that said I agree with your overall point that Snowden did break the law with at least some of his disclosures. If so much as one document he leaked was found to describe action that was legal (even if unethical) he would fall afoul of various U.S. laws protecting classified information. Likewise, even if he leaked information describing activities found to be illegal, he may still get in trouble for not following Congress's approved route for such leaks (I'm not sure if that would be technically criminal or administrative in nature though).

glurgh 13y ago
He's in Hong Kong talking about US intelligence operations in Hong Kong. Short of the government not charging him for that specific thing (say, to avoid talking about it altogether), there's doesn't seem to be any way to avoid getting in trouble for it.
- btilly 13y ago
  Everyone seems to be mad about that one. However I've yet to see ANYONE in the mainstream press point out that the Obama administration was recently trying to pass legislation that reduced privacy protection for Americans as a response to the Chinese doing exactly what we are doing to the Chinese. There is a high level of hypocrisy here. Call me an idealist, but my belief is that the USA as a country should take the moral high ground, even if it costs us tactically in the short run.
  - lern_too_spel 13y ago
    Obama threatened to veto CISPA if it landed on his desk without the privacy issues fixed.
    - btilly 13y ago
      Yes, once it was clear in polling that the bill was a political nonstarter nation-wide, Obama took that position. At the same time, as http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ http://rt.com/usa/epic-foia-internet-surveillance-350/ among others pointed out at that point, his administration was already violating privacy in all the ways that his rhetoric would say were bad. Of course that was before the NSA revelations revealed the true extent of the spying going on.
timr 13y ago
"The U.S. Supreme Court gives exceptionally wide latitude in what counts as a lawful order, and as far as I know no servicemember has ever been tried (much less convicted) for following a valid order (even if they thought it was illegal)." Yes, exactly. And of course, there have been many examples of soldiers who were court-martialed for disobeying orders. The risk of disobeying is on the soldier -- they're taking their life in their hands when they make the decision to cross a superior. It's not as if the military says: "oh, you thought that order was illegal? We won't court-martial you, then." The parent comment was totally specious, because Snowden is being treated exactly the way any soldier would be treated for a similar behavior. We don't just automatically pardon people for breaking laws because they broke laws with patriotic intent.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  Snowden is not, nor ought he be treated like or held to the standard of being, a soldier.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    He signed the relevant NDAs and was granted Top Secret clearance. He's being held to the standard of anyone else who does that without enjoying some type of exceptional legal protection.
    - bobwaycott 13y ago
      That is not the same thing as the comment to which I responded. Moreover, this isn't a simple matter of violating NDAs and TS clearance by mentioning classified information to some random persons. The situation is more profound and nuanced. He violated the NDAs and TS clearance to call the People's attention to unconstitutional programs that violate our rights and laws as a whistleblower. There is "some type of exceptional legal protection" to be evaluated there.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        Just for the flipside though, he did this to call attention to unconstitutional programs in his opinion. There is a reason we don't generally allow individuals to each individually determine what the Constitution does or does not mean. There is a famous example in the military of an Army major (doctor) who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he claimed it was unconstitutional. You might think he was referring to the war, but instead he was referring to his Commander-in-Chief himself (Pres. Obama), who this major personally felt was a Muslim Kenyan who somehow managed to finagle himself into the Presidency. It's hardly conclusive that what Snowden has revealed so far is even likely unconstitutional. It seems the most you can say is that the NSA is simply not being very nice at all to the rest of the world, but the Supreme Court decisions up to this point (including recent ones relating to Guantanamo's prison) have generally treated the rest of the world as not worthy of any but the most basic Constitutional protections.

glurgh 13y ago

Well, yes. Soldiers are very much supposed to disobey unlawful orders - following unlawful orders is what can get you courtmartialed and 'I was just following orders' isn't going to be an effective defense. Of course, this is all a bit moot because Snowden definitely did something illegal and it's not clear yet whether anything he reported was itself illegal.

bobwaycott 13y ago

> * They'll be court-martialed, and rightly so.* Rightly so? You are saying that a soldier who understands an order to be in violation of law (in this instance, to commit some unspecified crimes against humanity) would be justly court-martialed, and that it should happen? The entire point of refusing to obey orders that violate the law, or of refusing to abide by an unjust law, or refusing to be complicit in systemic abuses of secret interpretations of a given law that one believes to violate other laws and/or established principles (e.g., the Constitution) is to call attention to the wrongness of that which one is refusing to do. It is to call attention to wrongdoing, whether that be to actions or laws that violate the greater body of law and principles of a given civil society. The proper response would be an evaluation and public reflection upon the practices/acts to which the public's attention has been focused. In Snowden's case, as with other whistleblowers, it is extremely difficult to properly blow the whistle without breaking some law(s). There are so many laws out there, that if everyone who broke a law was prosecuted, we'd wind up with 100% of the adult citizenry with criminal records and jail time. The goal of justice is not to indiscriminately prosecute every person who attempts to protect and improve our society by refusing to follow unjust laws and their associated actions. Would that more citizens and public officials would refuse to act in a way that even remotely resembles violating anyone's constitutionally delineated rights, and all those not so delineated, which are reserved to the states and to the People. If indiscriminate prosecution was the goal of justice, we'd better update our positions accordingly on everything. That means we need to look back and say a good century's worth of prosecuting black people for drinking from the wrong fountain was just. We should start prosecuting those who violate laws that prohibit you from throwing away mail that isn't addressed to you. We should stand up and call for the prosecution of homosexuals and heterosexuals under state sodomy laws and, when they are so prosecuted, we should sit back in our armchairs, cross our legs, and declare, "Rightly so."

DennisP 13y ago

Fwiw, enlisted soldiers swear an oath to obey. Officers do not. And both swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which certainly applies in this case. Enlisted oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment Officers' oath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Service... Not that Snowden is either, but you were talking about when soldiers may disobey their superiors so I thought this might be tangentially interesting.