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We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think quietly "being nice" to him is fine but a public pardon, a welcome hope

We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think quietly "being nice" to him is fine but a public pardon, a welcome hope party, adoring media coverage may inspire some idiot to be the next Snowden and we probably do not want that.

chippy 11y ago
>do we want to encourage this type of thing? Whistleblowing?
- msandford 11y ago
  As far as I can tell he did it exactly right. Tried to escalate but not the point of causing trouble and getting fired. Took a bunch of documents and released them not straight out, but to journalists who had an opportunity to redact things that might directly endanger lives (like names of agents, etc). > do we want to encourage this type of thing? So long as the government tries to do things in secret that are illegal, yes, we do want to encourage this type of thing. The alternative is that eventually you have "turn key tyranny" where the apparatus is also used to suppress dissent and the government REALLY takes over.
primroot 11y ago
"We" is too many people.
scott_karana 11y ago
Unlike the arguable Manning, Snowden had a deliberate, slow, controlled release of information. No informants were exposed; et cetera. What is wrong with responsible whistleblowing of unlawful activity? I think it should be encouraged!
- plorg 11y ago
  While it has certainly turned out that way, considering the process of dissemination, both Snowden and Manning dumped a pile of documents on a third party. It's that third party that, in the case of Manning's files (WikiLeaks), was hasty and cavalier in its release of information, whereas Greenwald/Poitras/Etc. have been more careful and deliberate in their releases. To the extent that the individual leakers could have some sort of culpability, it would be for the people with whom they chose to share their information, though I grant that the who is not independent of the how.
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    You're right. Greenwald and Poitras deserve a lot of credit for the responsible dissemination. To his credit, Snowden did attempt to vet reporters as I recall. ;)
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    I seem to remember that Wikileaks asked some part of the US government for help redacting the Manning leaks to prevent jeopardizing lives and missions, but they refused.
- rl3 11y ago
  Snowden's document leaks, and by extension the journalists with whom he entrusted them to, were not restricted in scope to only disclosing illegal domestic collection activities. In fact, the majority of disclosures were foreign in nature, and of those, quite a few ran counter not only to American foreign policy and security interests, but Western interests in general. The articles exposing intelligence activities in Indonesia were but one example.[1] Indonesia is such a nice, non-repressive country[2], and it's not like they aren't making significant progress on the human rights front[3]. How dare western intelligence spy on them. /s Other examples include severe damage to foreign relations with China[4], coverage of offensive capabilities such as network infiltration and hardware implantation[5], the CIA using co-traveler inference to shake tails in the field [6], and more. Today's news is certainly a positive thing, but I think it's fair to say Snowden's whistleblowing is far from responsible, even if it isn't wantonly reckless (i.e. Manning). - [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/australia-tried-to-monitor-indonesian-presidents-phone http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/australia-tried... [2] http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/08/letter-president-yudhoyono-indonesias-human-rights-commitments http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/08/letter-president-yudhoyon... [3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/04/indonesia-begins-roll-back-degrading-virginity-tests https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/04/indonesia-begins-roll-ba... [4] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/snowden-revelations-nsa-china-relations http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/snowden-revelat... [5] http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-power... [6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tr... (very last paragraph)
  - ta0967 11y ago
    oh, i didn't know your uncle Bob's spying on me (a "westerner") was in my interest. thank you so much for the enlightment! in other news, Indonesia's oppressive regime has been propped up by the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto
    - 11y ago
feld 11y ago
You don't want your government's crimes to be exposed?
hackuser 11y ago
> We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think this raises an issue we can't easily dismiss, how to handle whistle-blowers. On one hand they are essential to democracy, so we don't want to jail all of them; on the other they can cause great harm, so we don't want to enable all of them. How do we enable good whistle-blowers and stop the bad ones? Let's hear serious proposals. Would a law that puts the consequences on the leaker's shoulders be sufficient? Prosecuting someone after-the-fact when, due to the leaker's misjudgment, their leak lost a war and killed hundreds of thousands wouldn't be enough. Require them to exhaust internal institutional solutions? Again, that wouldn't protect us from a leaker with bad judgment; the worse their judgment, the more likley the institution would rightly reject all the leaker's claims, leading to a leak. Rely on executive clemency?
- minot 11y ago
  If the government thinks individuals have nothing to hide then as an individual I think the government has nothing to hide.
- wehadfun 11y ago
  The courts need to make it easier to handle these type of things. One of the issues mentioned here was standing which made it hard for the ACLU to bring cases against the Government.
wehadfun 11y ago
1. I did not criticize what Snowden did. He was very careful and responsible. 2. All I was trying to say is that turning Snowden into a public mainstream hero could inspire some idiot that "wants to be a hero too" to do something dumb.
- fragmede 11y ago
  https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140128/08542126021/new-york-times-suffers-redaction-failure-exposes-name-nsa-agent-targeted-network-uploaded-pdf.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140128/08542126021/new-y... Blame the New York Times instead of Snowden for that failure if you want, but I wouldn't call sending that information to the New York Times in the first place 'very careful'.
drjesusphd 11y ago
"This type of thing" can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If, emboldened by a Snowden partdon, future whistleblowers take it too far, the president can decide whether or not they are eligible for pardon when the time comes. The pendulum has swung too far away for this to be a credible objection. Yes, I do want to encourage what Snowden did.
- geophile 11y ago
  This president, and the last one, have decided that any whistleblowing deserves vicious prosecution. They even think that some journalists deserve that treatment too.
beedogs 11y ago
Wrong. I want as many Snowdens as we can muster. (I was once shadowbanned on HN for typing that sentence.)
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
George Washington (among many others) kinda set the standard by leading a group of men who murdered those rightfully in charge. I never hear any condemn him for what he did, yet far less extreme actions taken today result in condemnation for going too far. Odd, no?

chippy 11y ago

>do we want to encourage this type of thing? Whistleblowing?

msandford 11y ago
As far as I can tell he did it exactly right. Tried to escalate but not the point of causing trouble and getting fired. Took a bunch of documents and released them not straight out, but to journalists who had an opportunity to redact things that might directly endanger lives (like names of agents, etc). > do we want to encourage this type of thing? So long as the government tries to do things in secret that are illegal, yes, we do want to encourage this type of thing. The alternative is that eventually you have "turn key tyranny" where the apparatus is also used to suppress dissent and the government REALLY takes over.

primroot 11y ago

"We" is too many people.

scott_karana 11y ago

Unlike the arguable Manning, Snowden had a deliberate, slow, controlled release of information. No informants were exposed; et cetera. What is wrong with responsible whistleblowing of unlawful activity? I think it should be encouraged!

plorg 11y ago
While it has certainly turned out that way, considering the process of dissemination, both Snowden and Manning dumped a pile of documents on a third party. It's that third party that, in the case of Manning's files (WikiLeaks), was hasty and cavalier in its release of information, whereas Greenwald/Poitras/Etc. have been more careful and deliberate in their releases. To the extent that the individual leakers could have some sort of culpability, it would be for the people with whom they chose to share their information, though I grant that the who is not independent of the how.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  You're right. Greenwald and Poitras deserve a lot of credit for the responsible dissemination. To his credit, Snowden did attempt to vet reporters as I recall. ;)
- nitrogen 11y ago
  I seem to remember that Wikileaks asked some part of the US government for help redacting the Manning leaks to prevent jeopardizing lives and missions, but they refused.
rl3 11y ago
Snowden's document leaks, and by extension the journalists with whom he entrusted them to, were not restricted in scope to only disclosing illegal domestic collection activities. In fact, the majority of disclosures were foreign in nature, and of those, quite a few ran counter not only to American foreign policy and security interests, but Western interests in general. The articles exposing intelligence activities in Indonesia were but one example.[1] Indonesia is such a nice, non-repressive country[2], and it's not like they aren't making significant progress on the human rights front[3]. How dare western intelligence spy on them. /s Other examples include severe damage to foreign relations with China[4], coverage of offensive capabilities such as network infiltration and hardware implantation[5], the CIA using co-traveler inference to shake tails in the field [6], and more. Today's news is certainly a positive thing, but I think it's fair to say Snowden's whistleblowing is far from responsible, even if it isn't wantonly reckless (i.e. Manning). - [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/australia-tried-to-monitor-indonesian-presidents-phone http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/australia-tried... [2] http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/08/letter-president-yudhoyono-indonesias-human-rights-commitments http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/08/letter-president-yudhoyon... [3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/04/indonesia-begins-roll-back-degrading-virginity-tests https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/04/indonesia-begins-roll-ba... [4] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/snowden-revelations-nsa-china-relations http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/13/snowden-revelat... [5] http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-power... [6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tr... (very last paragraph)
- ta0967 11y ago
  oh, i didn't know your uncle Bob's spying on me (a "westerner") was in my interest. thank you so much for the enlightment! in other news, Indonesia's oppressive regime has been propped up by the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto
  - 11y ago

feld 11y ago

You don't want your government's crimes to be exposed?

hackuser 11y ago

> We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think this raises an issue we can't easily dismiss, how to handle whistle-blowers. On one hand they are essential to democracy, so we don't want to jail all of them; on the other they can cause great harm, so we don't want to enable all of them. How do we enable good whistle-blowers and stop the bad ones? Let's hear serious proposals. Would a law that puts the consequences on the leaker's shoulders be sufficient? Prosecuting someone after-the-fact when, due to the leaker's misjudgment, their leak lost a war and killed hundreds of thousands wouldn't be enough. Require them to exhaust internal institutional solutions? Again, that wouldn't protect us from a leaker with bad judgment; the worse their judgment, the more likley the institution would rightly reject all the leaker's claims, leading to a leak. Rely on executive clemency?

minot 11y ago
If the government thinks individuals have nothing to hide then as an individual I think the government has nothing to hide.
wehadfun 11y ago
The courts need to make it easier to handle these type of things. One of the issues mentioned here was standing which made it hard for the ACLU to bring cases against the Government.

wehadfun 11y ago

1. I did not criticize what Snowden did. He was very careful and responsible. 2. All I was trying to say is that turning Snowden into a public mainstream hero could inspire some idiot that "wants to be a hero too" to do something dumb.

fragmede 11y ago
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140128/08542126021/new-york-times-suffers-redaction-failure-exposes-name-nsa-agent-targeted-network-uploaded-pdf.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140128/08542126021/new-y... Blame the New York Times instead of Snowden for that failure if you want, but I wouldn't call sending that information to the New York Times in the first place 'very careful'.

drjesusphd 11y ago

"This type of thing" can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If, emboldened by a Snowden partdon, future whistleblowers take it too far, the president can decide whether or not they are eligible for pardon when the time comes. The pendulum has swung too far away for this to be a credible objection. Yes, I do want to encourage what Snowden did.

geophile 11y ago
This president, and the last one, have decided that any whistleblowing deserves vicious prosecution. They even think that some journalists deserve that treatment too.

beedogs 11y ago

Wrong. I want as many Snowdens as we can muster. (I was once shadowbanned on HN for typing that sentence.)

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

George Washington (among many others) kinda set the standard by leading a group of men who murdered those rightfully in charge. I never hear any condemn him for what he did, yet far less extreme actions taken today result in condemnation for going too far. Odd, no?