4 ms·

Notably missing from this piece: An argument that valid responses to perceived abuses include massive, indiscriminate data dumps, repeatedly bypassing MIT's net

Notably missing from this piece: An argument that valid responses to perceived abuses include massive, indiscriminate data dumps, repeatedly bypassing MIT's network access controls and/or taking laptops full of classified information to Moscow.

gizmo 13y ago
This is essentially trolling: you can't start a meaningful discussion with an opening comment like yours.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  This article is pure hn catnip and I doubt much meaningful discussion will emerge here at all. That being said: The author is setting up a straw man (with an opening analogy to the Nazis to boot!). Nobody thinks Chelsea Manning would have been wrong to continue to fight against or expose a variety of military abuses. Or for Snowden to write his Congressman about NSA abuses. Or for Swartz to campaign for changes to government funded research publication. People like David Brooks are not succumbing to the banality of evil when calling out Snowden or Manning for behaving recklessly. They're arguing that the flaws in our system are not so pernicious as to justify, say, Manning's indiscriminate data dump or Snowden's theft.
  - prof_hobart 13y ago
    >Nobody thinks Chelsea Manning would have been wrong to continue to fight against or expose a variety of military abuses. Or for Snowden to write his Congressman about NSA abuses. I'm pretty sure that there's plenty of people inside the system who think that they would have been wrong to do that. But more importantly, does anyone honestly believe that they would have actually achieved anything by doing this? They've both gone as public as they can with the revalations, but I don't see either the military or congress actively trying to address the issues that these leaks have highlighted. Do you have any reason to believe they would have taken them more seriously if the information had been raised to them secretly?
    - jackgavigan 13y ago
      Senators Wyden and Udall have been all over this shit for a long time but nobody paid any attention. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110922/03520616050/senators-wyden-udall-to-doj-stop-saying-patriot-act-isnt-secret-law-when-you-know-it-is.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110922/03520616050/senato... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/16214719280/wyden-udall-block-fisa-amendments-act-until-us-admits-how-many-americans-are-being-spied.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/16214719280/wyden-...
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Maybe, maybe not. But if you don't like how far they get, vote for the guys who will change the system. That's the way democracy works. You have to come to grips with the fact that most Americans do not feel the way hn does about national security and surveillance. Nobody can make a Snowden or a Manning do something they find morally repugnant, but neither does that give them carte blanche to do whatever they'd like with the secrets they were entrusted with.
      - jtheory 13y ago
        Democracy may be better than most other systems, but that doesn't mean it works well. How much money does it take to win a US presidential election? The people providing that money are getter far more leverage than the voters. Snowden/Manning also found themselves in a position to use more leverage, and in those cases it's a separate moral question about whether they chose wisely to take that opportunity or not. (FWIW, I've never seen anyone giving them carte blanche to do whatever they would like with the info they accessed -- that's a straw man). You can't just bypass that discussion by saying "they're allowed to vote, that should be enough for anyone".
        twoodfin 13y ago
        Snowden/Manning also found themselves in a position to use more leverage, and in those cases it's a separate moral question about whether they chose wisely to take that opportunity or not. No, it's not a separate moral question. It's the crux of the discussion. The entire spectrum of possible actions was open to them. "Do nothing" vs. "Do something" isn't a very interesting distinction: "Something" might have been to quit their respective jobs as soon as possible, or post snarky comments about the evils of the U.S. government under a pseudonym on reddit, or flee to Hong Kong, or blow up a building where they worked... Nobody elected Ed Snowden or Chelsea Manning. In fact, the people we did elect put trust in Snowden and Manning to preserve certain secrets. Both proceeded to release not just secrets that exposed malfeasance, but the sorts of things (NSA overseas operations, diplomatic cables) that, by and large, our (inevitably imperfect) democracy has decided are peachy keen. Criticizing that indiscretion isn't giving in to "the system", it's acknowledging that "the system" is one we have built together, and there are certain aspects of its operation that are not subject to the whims or passions of people who had previously sworn to uphold it.
Ygg2 13y ago
Oh no, the powerpoint presentation that tells which companies are in bed with NSA will doom us all. Moscow probably knows most of it, this isn't information/news for them. I'd like to see all the men that were killed hurt by WikiLeaks data dumps. I mean cables were fucking benign, nothing people already didn't know or heavily suspected.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
  Also notably missing from current discourse: A valid argument that valid responses to perceived abuses include using the traditional whistle-blower channels. People go to Moscow because there seems to be no other way to blow the whistle any more, not without ending up like Pfc Manning. Snowden said that right from the start; missing that part is either ignorance or disinformation.
andyjohnson0 13y ago
You're misunderstanding the purpose of the article. The author is examining the general tendency for hierarchical organisations to require require moral submission on the part of people who work within them. Snowden at al are given as recent, specific examples of people who claim that their "moral compass" requires them to take action. It is entirely possible to disagree with them (and you clearly do) but its much more difficult to argue that dissent based on moral conviction should never be permitted under any circumstances. Then again, maybe you're just trolling and I've wasted my time.
raverbashing 13y ago
"or taking laptops full of classified information to Moscow." Well, tough crap. If the gov had not threatened him, he would have returned to american soil or gone to a friendlier nation. Now thanks to this complete and utter SNAFU it's as good as the government handling all the information to Russia.
- shamshiel 13y ago
  When exactly did the government threaten Snowden? What did they threaten him with? Assuming that they threatened him with prison time (I believe he was already out of the country), is the government not allowed to try and convict people based on the established law of the land if those people are following their personal moral compass? Is "I felt it was the right thing to do" an absolute defense against prosecution? I am also curious as to how the government is responsible for Snowden fleeing to Moscow. Is Snowden responsible for his own actions or not?
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    "When exactly did the government threaten Snowden?" When it punished Bradley Manning the way it did. The government doesn't need to make a direct threat, the existing cases are enough to do that. "is the government not allowed to try and convict people based on the established law of the land" Of course it is. But there are several cases where the government chose not to. "I am also curious as to how the government is responsible for Snowden fleeing to Moscow" If the only place Snowden feels safe is Moscow (because the risk of extradition there is much lower than somewhere else), that's where he is going to go! And if he has something that may be interesting to the Russian government, well, isn't it just lucky...
    - shamshiel 13y ago
      Bradley Manning was subject to military law and treated accordingly. Do you have evidence he was treated unlawfully? And if not, why would he be exempt from the law? Snowden was subject to civilian law, so far as I am aware, so he would not be able to draw on Manning as an example. "Safe", in your world, appears to mean "free from the long arm of the law."

gizmo 13y ago

This is essentially trolling: you can't start a meaningful discussion with an opening comment like yours.

twoodfin 13y ago
This article is pure hn catnip and I doubt much meaningful discussion will emerge here at all. That being said: The author is setting up a straw man (with an opening analogy to the Nazis to boot!). Nobody thinks Chelsea Manning would have been wrong to continue to fight against or expose a variety of military abuses. Or for Snowden to write his Congressman about NSA abuses. Or for Swartz to campaign for changes to government funded research publication. People like David Brooks are not succumbing to the banality of evil when calling out Snowden or Manning for behaving recklessly. They're arguing that the flaws in our system are not so pernicious as to justify, say, Manning's indiscriminate data dump or Snowden's theft.
- prof_hobart 13y ago
  >Nobody thinks Chelsea Manning would have been wrong to continue to fight against or expose a variety of military abuses. Or for Snowden to write his Congressman about NSA abuses. I'm pretty sure that there's plenty of people inside the system who think that they would have been wrong to do that. But more importantly, does anyone honestly believe that they would have actually achieved anything by doing this? They've both gone as public as they can with the revalations, but I don't see either the military or congress actively trying to address the issues that these leaks have highlighted. Do you have any reason to believe they would have taken them more seriously if the information had been raised to them secretly?
  - jackgavigan 13y ago
    Senators Wyden and Udall have been all over this shit for a long time but nobody paid any attention. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110922/03520616050/senators-wyden-udall-to-doj-stop-saying-patriot-act-isnt-secret-law-when-you-know-it-is.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110922/03520616050/senato... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/16214719280/wyden-udall-block-fisa-amendments-act-until-us-admits-how-many-americans-are-being-spied.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/16214719280/wyden-...
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Maybe, maybe not. But if you don't like how far they get, vote for the guys who will change the system. That's the way democracy works. You have to come to grips with the fact that most Americans do not feel the way hn does about national security and surveillance. Nobody can make a Snowden or a Manning do something they find morally repugnant, but neither does that give them carte blanche to do whatever they'd like with the secrets they were entrusted with.
    - jtheory 13y ago
      Democracy may be better than most other systems, but that doesn't mean it works well. How much money does it take to win a US presidential election? The people providing that money are getter far more leverage than the voters. Snowden/Manning also found themselves in a position to use more leverage, and in those cases it's a separate moral question about whether they chose wisely to take that opportunity or not. (FWIW, I've never seen anyone giving them carte blanche to do whatever they would like with the info they accessed -- that's a straw man). You can't just bypass that discussion by saying "they're allowed to vote, that should be enough for anyone".
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        Snowden/Manning also found themselves in a position to use more leverage, and in those cases it's a separate moral question about whether they chose wisely to take that opportunity or not. No, it's not a separate moral question. It's the crux of the discussion. The entire spectrum of possible actions was open to them. "Do nothing" vs. "Do something" isn't a very interesting distinction: "Something" might have been to quit their respective jobs as soon as possible, or post snarky comments about the evils of the U.S. government under a pseudonym on reddit, or flee to Hong Kong, or blow up a building where they worked... Nobody elected Ed Snowden or Chelsea Manning. In fact, the people we did elect put trust in Snowden and Manning to preserve certain secrets. Both proceeded to release not just secrets that exposed malfeasance, but the sorts of things (NSA overseas operations, diplomatic cables) that, by and large, our (inevitably imperfect) democracy has decided are peachy keen. Criticizing that indiscretion isn't giving in to "the system", it's acknowledging that "the system" is one we have built together, and there are certain aspects of its operation that are not subject to the whims or passions of people who had previously sworn to uphold it.

Ygg2 13y ago

Oh no, the powerpoint presentation that tells which companies are in bed with NSA will doom us all. Moscow probably knows most of it, this isn't information/news for them. I'd like to see all the men that were killed hurt by WikiLeaks data dumps. I mean cables were fucking benign, nothing people already didn't know or heavily suspected.

SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
Also notably missing from current discourse: A valid argument that valid responses to perceived abuses include using the traditional whistle-blower channels. People go to Moscow because there seems to be no other way to blow the whistle any more, not without ending up like Pfc Manning. Snowden said that right from the start; missing that part is either ignorance or disinformation.

andyjohnson0 13y ago

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the article. The author is examining the general tendency for hierarchical organisations to require require moral submission on the part of people who work within them. Snowden at al are given as recent, specific examples of people who claim that their "moral compass" requires them to take action. It is entirely possible to disagree with them (and you clearly do) but its much more difficult to argue that dissent based on moral conviction should never be permitted under any circumstances. Then again, maybe you're just trolling and I've wasted my time.

raverbashing 13y ago

"or taking laptops full of classified information to Moscow." Well, tough crap. If the gov had not threatened him, he would have returned to american soil or gone to a friendlier nation. Now thanks to this complete and utter SNAFU it's as good as the government handling all the information to Russia.

shamshiel 13y ago
When exactly did the government threaten Snowden? What did they threaten him with? Assuming that they threatened him with prison time (I believe he was already out of the country), is the government not allowed to try and convict people based on the established law of the land if those people are following their personal moral compass? Is "I felt it was the right thing to do" an absolute defense against prosecution? I am also curious as to how the government is responsible for Snowden fleeing to Moscow. Is Snowden responsible for his own actions or not?
- raverbashing 13y ago
  "When exactly did the government threaten Snowden?" When it punished Bradley Manning the way it did. The government doesn't need to make a direct threat, the existing cases are enough to do that. "is the government not allowed to try and convict people based on the established law of the land" Of course it is. But there are several cases where the government chose not to. "I am also curious as to how the government is responsible for Snowden fleeing to Moscow" If the only place Snowden feels safe is Moscow (because the risk of extradition there is much lower than somewhere else), that's where he is going to go! And if he has something that may be interesting to the Russian government, well, isn't it just lucky...
  - shamshiel 13y ago
    Bradley Manning was subject to military law and treated accordingly. Do you have evidence he was treated unlawfully? And if not, why would he be exempt from the law? Snowden was subject to civilian law, so far as I am aware, so he would not be able to draw on Manning as an example. "Safe", in your world, appears to mean "free from the long arm of the law."