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"Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law," Obama said during a May 23 address after those sca

by swombat 13y ago

"Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law," Obama said during a May 23 address after those scandals first surfaced. I find it hard to reconcile that with the Obama administration's attitude to Snowden, Wikileaks, Assange, etc.

bobwaycott 13y ago
Now, with Snowden, Obama has charged 8 people under the Espionage Act, whereas it was used only 3 times before his administration. There is something systemically wrong happening behind closed, classified doors.
- jcromartie 13y ago
  > happening behind closed, classified doors My friend who works in the intelligence community assures me that if we only knew the kinds of bad guys they are secretly protecting us from (e.g. another Boston Marathon bombing every week) we'd be thankful. I don't believe him. The gov't loves to trot out every single foiled terrorist as a victory of their systems. The gov't isn't quietly foiling terrorist attacks left while it's just too humble to say so. Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret?
  - sigzero 13y ago
    You would be thankful but not in the way he thinks. There should still be an open conversation about tactics.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Of course he would say that. It makes his job important and justifies increased budgets. I don't believe such BS either.
  - hvs 13y ago
    Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
  - lukifer 13y ago
    > Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret? There absolutely would be: SIGINT 101 is that you don't reveal your information gathering abilities, lest your opponnent move to new communications channels. In WW2, the Allies often learned of attacks due to code-breaking, and chose not to reveal them, so as to preserve the long-term strategic value of future intel. (The wartime morality of letting 1,000 die today to ostensibly save 10,000 tomorrow is left as an exercise for the reader.) I do give our agencies the benefit of the doubt, that there are probably are real threats, and they are probably acting in good faith. But I still find the current scope of spying and databasing to be dangerous, un-American, and inhuman. Terrorism, as horrible as it is, will always be an improbable statistical outlier. But when state power slides into tyranny, it is pervasive, ongoing, and difficult to undo. Preventing the latter should be our highest priority, or we have failed to learn from history. Something tells me it's a lesson we'll be learning the hard way.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Here are the people besides Snowden who have been charged under the espionage act by Obama: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701813 In subsequent discussions it's become evident that even the Kiriakou case isn't as cut-and-dry as it seems.
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    Thanks for the list. Not implying anything is cut and dry. Pointing out that in nearly a century, 8 of 11 cases are sourced in this decade. That's the kind of thing that gets historians and political/critical theorists paying attention.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Something unusual is happening during the Obama administration vis a vis leaking. But we don't know what it is. Four broad, obvious possibilities: (1) More people are taking greater liberties with government secrets in 2013 than they did in, say, 2004. (2) The government is creating more "secrets", justifiably or not, and thus putting more people into contact with secrecy and creating a greater risk. (3) The Obama administration is working more diligently to monitor the handling of secret information, so that leaks that wouldn't even have been detected in 2004 now are. (4) The Obama administration has a more punitive attitude towards leakers, so that leaks that would have resulted in a slap on the wrist in 2004 now produce criminal prosecution. All four can be true. Also, I think it's important to bear in mind that our sympathies with specific cases (best example: Bradley Manning) aren't dispositive. It is simultaneously possible for someone to have done something for the greater good --- and even for that thing to have achieved the greater good --- and still have that act merit criminal prosecution. This gets to the issue of "rule of law, not of men", and requires you to consider that your definition of "the greater good" can differ sharply with definitions of other people; consider, for instance, my zealously pro-life Catholic aunts, or the militia movement. Relatedly: it's important to understand that supporting a prosecution doesn't demand support for conviction; it can simply mean that one believes something more formal and "accountable" than the discretion of officials combined with public sentiment should govern the acceptability of a breach of trust with the USG. Looking at the list of cases I presented: * Three of the cases (Liebowitz, Sterling, Kim) don't involve terrorist threats on the US, but rather foreign policy and counterproliferation. Leaks of actual active foreign intelligence might demand a stricter review standard. * Two of the cases (Snowden and Manning) were so monumentally huge that there may have been no possible outcome other than a court case of some sort. That leaves Drake and Kiriakou. I read the FAS archive of filings on Kiriakou and came away thinking that, regardless of my extremely negative feelings about CIA-run interrogations in the Middle East, his prosecution wasn't egregious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 Drake, I don't know. My personal guess as to ranked order of the 4 factors above: (3), (1), (4), (2).
mtgx 13y ago
I don't know if he's a sociopath or a pathological liar. But he seems to be doing the exact opposite of what he's saying in public. He seems pretty shameless about it, too. I mean he likes to talk a big talk about civil liberties, like he's some kind of Martin Luther King on TV - and then the next day he's acting like Nixon or McCarthy or worse. And even if he appears to be doing something right, what he's doing actually has an evil intent, like I hear those new DoJ policies that are meant to "protect" the press, actually have a pretty narrow definition of the press, so that not everyone falls under that category and only certain journalists. So he's basically limiting the 1st amendment through these policies, at the executive level.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Well, this is a super helpful comment. Let's have a discussion about whether President X is a sociopath or a liar!

by swombat 13y ago

bobwaycott 13y ago

Now, with Snowden, Obama has charged 8 people under the Espionage Act, whereas it was used only 3 times before his administration. There is something systemically wrong happening behind closed, classified doors.

jcromartie 13y ago
> happening behind closed, classified doors My friend who works in the intelligence community assures me that if we only knew the kinds of bad guys they are secretly protecting us from (e.g. another Boston Marathon bombing every week) we'd be thankful. I don't believe him. The gov't loves to trot out every single foiled terrorist as a victory of their systems. The gov't isn't quietly foiling terrorist attacks left while it's just too humble to say so. Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret?
- sigzero 13y ago
  You would be thankful but not in the way he thinks. There should still be an open conversation about tactics.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Of course he would say that. It makes his job important and justifies increased budgets. I don't believe such BS either.
- hvs 13y ago
  Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
- lukifer 13y ago
  > Or maybe there's some reason to keep a foiled attack a secret? There absolutely would be: SIGINT 101 is that you don't reveal your information gathering abilities, lest your opponnent move to new communications channels. In WW2, the Allies often learned of attacks due to code-breaking, and chose not to reveal them, so as to preserve the long-term strategic value of future intel. (The wartime morality of letting 1,000 die today to ostensibly save 10,000 tomorrow is left as an exercise for the reader.) I do give our agencies the benefit of the doubt, that there are probably are real threats, and they are probably acting in good faith. But I still find the current scope of spying and databasing to be dangerous, un-American, and inhuman. Terrorism, as horrible as it is, will always be an improbable statistical outlier. But when state power slides into tyranny, it is pervasive, ongoing, and difficult to undo. Preventing the latter should be our highest priority, or we have failed to learn from history. Something tells me it's a lesson we'll be learning the hard way.
tptacek 13y ago
Here are the people besides Snowden who have been charged under the espionage act by Obama: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5701813 In subsequent discussions it's become evident that even the Kiriakou case isn't as cut-and-dry as it seems.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  Thanks for the list. Not implying anything is cut and dry. Pointing out that in nearly a century, 8 of 11 cases are sourced in this decade. That's the kind of thing that gets historians and political/critical theorists paying attention.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Something unusual is happening during the Obama administration vis a vis leaking. But we don't know what it is. Four broad, obvious possibilities: (1) More people are taking greater liberties with government secrets in 2013 than they did in, say, 2004. (2) The government is creating more "secrets", justifiably or not, and thus putting more people into contact with secrecy and creating a greater risk. (3) The Obama administration is working more diligently to monitor the handling of secret information, so that leaks that wouldn't even have been detected in 2004 now are. (4) The Obama administration has a more punitive attitude towards leakers, so that leaks that would have resulted in a slap on the wrist in 2004 now produce criminal prosecution. All four can be true. Also, I think it's important to bear in mind that our sympathies with specific cases (best example: Bradley Manning) aren't dispositive. It is simultaneously possible for someone to have done something for the greater good --- and even for that thing to have achieved the greater good --- and still have that act merit criminal prosecution. This gets to the issue of "rule of law, not of men", and requires you to consider that your definition of "the greater good" can differ sharply with definitions of other people; consider, for instance, my zealously pro-life Catholic aunts, or the militia movement. Relatedly: it's important to understand that supporting a prosecution doesn't demand support for conviction; it can simply mean that one believes something more formal and "accountable" than the discretion of officials combined with public sentiment should govern the acceptability of a breach of trust with the USG. Looking at the list of cases I presented: * Three of the cases (Liebowitz, Sterling, Kim) don't involve terrorist threats on the US, but rather foreign policy and counterproliferation. Leaks of actual active foreign intelligence might demand a stricter review standard. * Two of the cases (Snowden and Manning) were so monumentally huge that there may have been no possible outcome other than a court case of some sort. That leaves Drake and Kiriakou. I read the FAS archive of filings on Kiriakou and came away thinking that, regardless of my extremely negative feelings about CIA-run interrogations in the Middle East, his prosecution wasn't egregious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 Drake, I don't know. My personal guess as to ranked order of the 4 factors above: (3), (1), (4), (2).

mtgx 13y ago

I don't know if he's a sociopath or a pathological liar. But he seems to be doing the exact opposite of what he's saying in public. He seems pretty shameless about it, too. I mean he likes to talk a big talk about civil liberties, like he's some kind of Martin Luther King on TV - and then the next day he's acting like Nixon or McCarthy or worse. And even if he appears to be doing something right, what he's doing actually has an evil intent, like I hear those new DoJ policies that are meant to "protect" the press, actually have a pretty narrow definition of the press, so that not everyone falls under that category and only certain journalists. So he's basically limiting the 1st amendment through these policies, at the executive level.

tptacek 13y ago
Well, this is a super helpful comment. Let's have a discussion about whether President X is a sociopath or a liar!