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Snowden never claimed to be an idealistic saint. He's only human. He's facing the same, or worse, inhumane treatment as Bradley Manning [1]. I doubt he really c

• jmduke 13y ago
  Snowden never claimed to be an idealistic saint. He's only human. I agree, but I think a lot of people (a lot of HN's contributers included) are nonetheless beatifying him, and also taking the logical leap from "this country is willing to provide refuge for Edward Snowden" to "this country has a better stance on privacy issues than the United States." Besides, if this whole ordeal can even partially force the US to return to being the shining beacon of human rights it pretends to be, it'll be harder for countries like Venezuela to point to them and say "see? Look they're doing it too." I agree that I hope this entire thing puts pressure on the US, but I think comparing the situation in the US and the situation in Venezuela is difficult. The level of overt corruption in Venezuela (and Mexico, and many other countries, both those allied with the US and not) is still impossible to comprehend in the US.
• mpyne 13y ago
  He's not facing the same treatment as Bradley Manning initially received, unless he has some military background none of us are aware of.
  • autodidakto 13y ago
    An earlier article submitted here was by the the pentagon paper's guy (who decided not to go into exile), in which he said Snowden did the right thing and would have ended up like BM had he stayed.
    • mpyne 13y ago
      While I understand that the authority that you're appealing to is considered canonical, it's still an appeal to authority. Ellsberg has no more actual insight into the treatment one should expect to receive in the civilian justice system than any other 2013 hacktivist. After all we have the existing example of the NSA whistleblowers who did stay, and while they were not treated kindly by the judicial system, they were not treated anywhere close to as badly as Pfc. Manning. Besides which, if it's true what Ellsberg and Snowden claim about how there is apparently a class of civilian crime that is liable to having you receive Quantico-brig suicide-watch treatment without due process then that would already be a much larger problem than the NSA. Instead it looks awfully convenient that Snowden was the world's biggest fan of U.S. judicial oversight right up until it became possible he might himself have to answer to that same judicial system, whereupon it suddenly turned into banana republic justice...
      • autodidakto 13y ago
        Since we're both fans of logic, I'll make small nitpicks: I wasn't appealing to authority because I wasn't making an argument -- just making sure you knew of the articles existence. Also, in reference to "it's still an appeal...": You shouldn't imply that an appeal to authority is always wrong (It's only wrong if the authority is not appropriate; and it's never implied that authorities are infallible). However, you rightly went on to attack the authorities arguments -- but like I said, nitpick for fun. One thing that's not clear to me is your last paragraph. Why was Snowden approving of judicial oversight? My understanding was that he had faith that a broken system might repair itself, then upon realize it was only getting worse, leaked the info to the public. Escaping this system afterwards wouldn't be hypocrisy.