10 ms·

The fight is long from over, but everyone should be calling for Snowden's unconditional pardon and then a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

by staunch 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago
It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. In fact: we don't even know how culpable he is --- we haven't seen the last Snowden disclosure yet --- so it's pretty difficult to come to the conclusion that he should be unconditionally pardoned.
- staunch 11y ago
  I credit him with good outcomes and government leaders who forced his hand for the bad outcomes, so I was ready to pardon him on nearly the first day. I also don't believe any leak, short of one that causes nuclear war, could damage America more than a definite march towards a police state.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    This idea that the US is becoming a police state is a joke. The biggest scam ever pulled on the American people is convincing them that the US government is in control of the country. The country is barely managed, hell there are tens of millions of undocumented aliens.
    - TheCoelacanth 11y ago
      It has the most incarcerated people per capita of any country in the world. That's enough to qualify it as a police state in my mind.
      - happyscrappy 11y ago
        It is kind of humorous that you change the definition of police state because you want so badly to call the US a police state. "A nation in which the police, especially a secret police, summarily suppresses any social, economic, or political act that conflicts with governmental policy." Not exactly a great fit.
- yanks 11y ago
  And an unconditional pardon doesn't solve things long term anyway. We need to stop things like the Espionage Act which makes leaking a defenceless crime.
  - meowface 11y ago
    But where do you draw the line? If you accept that Top Secret information should exist, how do you determine what sort of information leaks are ethical, and which are just pointless and reckless, even if the leaker's intent is not espionage or treason? You can't really say "the law", since a large portion of what the NSA is doing is legal under the PATRIOT Act and various intelligence bills and processes. And you can't really say "the Constitution" either, since only the Supreme Court truly possesses that power. I do think Snowden should be pardoned, and I think his intentions were pure and he mostly acted properly (though I do have a few issues with some aspects of how he handled it), but the Espionage Act exists for a reason.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > You can't really say "the law", since a large portion of what the NSA is doing is legal under the PATRIOT Act and various intelligence bills and processes. And you can't really say "the Constitution" either, since only the Supreme Court truly possesses that power. The Supreme Court may be the final arbiter (within the system of government, at least) when there is a controversy over what is constitutional, but it does not mean that they are the only entity that has the power or obligation to interpret and act on the Constitution even when other laws purport to mandate something contrary to it. > but the Espionage Act exists for a reason. The Espionage Act may exist for a legitimate reason, but the manner in which it purports to serve that reason has been the subject of serious and sustained criticism from pretty shortly after it was adopted nearly a century ago. It might be a good idea to rethink it from first principles, rather than accepting a framework laid out in the early-20th Century Red Scare and then tightened under McCarthyism.
    - LLWM 11y ago
      Why can't you say the law? Seems like you're assuming that everyone disagrees with what the NSA has been doing, which is totally off base.
- supercanuck 11y ago
  Snowden did the right thing. He should be pardoned for that.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Why are you so sure of this? Aren't you essentially saying "no matter what else comes of the Snowden leaks, enough good has been done that Snowden can't possibly be culpable"?
    - anonbanker 11y ago
      Aren't you essentially saying "no amount of good done by an action can outweigh a wrong caused?"
      - tptacek 11y ago
        No, that's not an equivalent statement. Mine hinges on the fact that we don't know everything that's been disclosed yet. Mine incorporates the current unlimited downside of the leaks.
        hobs 11y ago
        If you want to be so precise, then lets go ahead and admit that the information to be disclosed cannot have an unlimited downside (what does that even mean, if we blow up the entire world have we reached unlimited downside?)
        ellyagg 11y ago
        Considering that Snowden massively raised awareness of how much closer to 1984 we are than many people thought, and considering that 1984 is considered to exemplify a horrific dystopia, it's hard to imagine a realistic downside to a Snowden disclosure that would evict him from my head as a hero. Wanna scoff at a 1984 reference? Fine, Snowden demonstrated that the government's power and reach is much greater--much much greater--than most people imagined. Of course, if the downside risk is unlimited, if it's actually infinite, then literally no good Snowden has done could overcome it. Seems like a bit of a gotcha to me.
- davepage 11y ago
  Essentially the American state religion to which your refer is largely predicated on the concept that any law may be ignored by those in power so long as the intent is to produce "good outcomes" for some state perception of good. (i.e. 'the constitution is not a suicide pact' or read "Enemies: A History of the FBI") Law (so far) is merely stains on paper until interpreted by the mind of an individual in some context (time, place, society). Societal context is some collective consensus over right and wrong -- some popular mush of common sense, the influence of which can be seen in the evolution of, for example, supreme court decisions over socially controversial issues. Where large numbers of individuals subscribe to a particular set of beliefs about what the law is, and proceed to act accordingly, a very convincing illusion of government emerges. And one may refer to this as a state religion in the sense it is entirely an emergent property of belief rather than reality. Thus, absolute law is a myth. Pardons are an outlet for the elected leadership to short-circuit the legal process when, in a given instance, punishment is perceived to exceed the crime. It is thus arguably irrational to assert that a pardon is premature in the Snowden case, considering the outcome thus far. Of course, those capable of issuing such pardons are themselves true believers. Snowden has committed blasphemy against the state religion. Thus a pardon can only occur should some popular unrest threaten those in power.
- rgbrenner 11y ago
  Exactly right tptacek... people forget that Snowden isn't just disclosing NSA spying. For example, he disclosed intelligence about a failed al-queda plot that: revealed that the United States intercepted messages between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaida, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, discussing an imminent terrorist attack [0] And as a result, they may have changed communication methods. He's had other questionable discloses as well. 0. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-undermined-us-intelligence.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-und...
  - jodah 11y ago
    You mean the journalists, who vetted and chose to publish the material, disclosed this. As has been discussed exhaustively, Snowden didn't disclose anything himself, opting to rely on the expertise and judgement of partner journalists to select which items to write about. Keep in mind, many times more items were withheld than not.
    - irishcoffee 11y ago
      I'm not sure how this is seen as a positive thing. Journalists, with, on average, limited knowledge of infosec, holding in their possession classified documents. Lots and lots of classified documents. I'd wager a guess that at least a handful of these journalists were holding said documents on a system that had its share of known vulnerabilities. I'd be absurdly happy to be proven wrong, but there is a very high chance that every single document snowden distributed is on sale to the highest bidder, and has been for a while.
      - robotkilla 11y ago
        There is zero evidence that the data was stolen from these journalists and sold to the highest bidder. Since there is zero evidence, you have to cinsider yourself wrong for now.
        11y ago
- rapind 11y ago
  That sounds a bit like Guilty until proven innocent. Who knows what any of us will do tomorrow or the fallout from it?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    No, it is not at all "guilty until proven innocent".
    - sounds 11y ago
      Can you please explain?
      - ncallaway 11y ago
        If I had to summarize tptacek's argument it would be something along the lines of: 1) Assumption: A pardon of Snowden is only appropriate if the upsides of the leak outweigh the downsides of the leak. 2) We don't know the full downside of the leaks (since that requires knowledge of the future) [1] 3) Therefore, the potential exists for the downside of the leaks to outweigh the upside. 4) Therefore, we shouldn't offer to pardon him yet as we don't know it's appropriate. The conclusion of the argument relates only to the decision on whether to extend a pardon to Snowden. We don't need to make a presumption of innocence or guilt when deciding to offer a pardon to someone. There is no right to a pardon, and no right to be considered for a pardon. These decisions are the prerogative of the President (for federal crimes). Calling his argument "guilty until proven innocent" would only be a fair assessment of his argument if tptacek was advocating for punishing Snowden before a trial court and jury determine his guilt. [1] As an aside, I don't see how this statement could ever become false — at least for time scales that would be relevant to offering relief to Snowden.
        tptacek 11y ago
        Yup. Thanks!
        11y ago
- baddox 11y ago
  Wouldn't a pardon only apply to current charges?
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Wouldn't a pardon only apply to current charges? A pardon, at maximum (as usually understood, though I don't think the commonly-accepted belief that prospective pardons are invalid has actually been tested), could apply to all federal offenses committed prior to the pardon being issued, whether or not they were now known, or whether "current charges" even existed.
  - officemonkey 11y ago
    Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon and Nixon wasn't even charged with a crime.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Richard Nixon should not have been pardoned!
      - Aloha 11y ago
        Both sides have a good argument. Nixon shouldn't have been pardoned, he should have had to answer for the crimes he committed, but in a way, he did.. he was permanently removed from circles of power, and left in disgrace. I wont really make the argument that what history meted out to him what sufficient just merely that the prosecution would have taken another 5+ years, while in the mean time the nation and government would have been by in large paralyzed, I believe it was healthier in the long run to close the chapter on that phase of history, and move on. Something else I'd note, the laws passed in the wake of watergate were reduced in scope, and allowed to be skirted by a compliant and fearful of terrorism congress, the wiretapping is not the fault of the executive, its a failure of congress to provide anywhere near enough oversight.
- hansjorg 11y ago
  tptacek always makes sure that his comments are legalistically true. He's not a fascist endorsing authoritarian tendencies.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Awww, I bet you say that to all the fellas.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. That claim requires certain assumptions of moral first principles, so whether its "true" or not is not something people are liable to agree on even if they agree on the material facts.
- pera 11y ago
  > It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. Well, the government and the military uses very often this "good outcomes" concept when they pardon individuals who committed "collateral damage" (aka civilian casualties). I would like to know how one could be a whistleblower without being "culpable" of "aiding the enemy" (not quoting you here). If some very powerful agency is doing something that doesn't respect the constitution, after reporting that internally and being completely ignored, I believe it would be a crime to not disclose these actions. It seems to me that there is no escape in this culpability game...
  - mpyne 11y ago
    > Well, the government and the military uses very often this "good outcomes" concept when they pardon individuals who committed "collateral damage" (aka civilian casualties). CIVCAS is simply not a crime by itself, "good outcome" or not. The legality of use of force has nothing to do with the outcome of that use in international law, except insofar as a nation that can guard its borders can prevent the rest of the world from bringing war criminals to justice. E.g. if you deliberately target civilians in an attack that would be a crime, even if you accidentally managed to kill a bunch of important enemy military in a way that would have made the attack legal if you would have known the enemy military were there and targeted them. Conversely if you target what you have every plausible reason to believe is a concentration of enemy military and it turns out to be, say, a wedding with no military present, that still wouldn't be illegal in international law. The outcome is almost completely immaterial, it's the process that leads up to the decision to attack that determines the legality of a use of armed force.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Some time ago tptacek argued against a suggestion that HN members include disclosure of their company/org affiliation in threads with possible conflicts of interest. This was a suggestion that at least merited a rational, constructive debate.[0] However, his comments in that discussion were dismissive, obnoxious and negative. Now tptacek publicly argues against Snowden's pardon without disclosing his NSA affiliation. The original comment calling for disclosures was heavily downvoted by HN community. I am interested in the opinion of the HN members present in this thread. Should there be an effort to expose possible conflict of interest on HN? Context is important: HN is one of/the most influential tech and startup media/community. tptacek is a respected, well-known and authoritative HN member with lots of clout. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8667657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8667657
  - tptacek 11y ago
    "My NSA affiliation". You people are funny.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
swombat 11y ago
The fight isn't even started, this is just another punch in the face. According to https://www.usafreedom.fail/ https://www.usafreedom.fail/ this act actually extends spying rather than restricting it. Of course, it's being presented as the opposite of what it is. That's par for the course in US politics these days though.
- irishcoffee 11y ago
  I do appreciate you providing backup to your claim. I do find it hard to give the link much credence. It would be like me commenting about how horrible meat is for people while linking to a fantastically pro-vegan website.
  - swombat 11y ago
    This very first link about the bill extending section 215 (the section under which spying has been justified) until 2019 is pretty self-explanatorily demonstrated by this link, from the page, via a third party legislation tracking site, govtrack.us: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#link=VII_705_a_~T1&nearest=H3970213DCD8B4A7C9D2AC368B1ADFDCA https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#li... I'm on my phone so I can't check out the other ones, but perhaps you can point to specific claims that are not supported? At the very least this one seems clearly correct. Edit: also, I disagree with your implicit assertion that a site can't be credible if it has an opinion that it asserts and backs up with facts. It's not always true (frequently not, in the case of U.S. politics) that both sides are viable. Often, one side is just plain wrong or lying, as seems to be the case in this present situation.
sigzero 11y ago
No. Exposing what he did was good. The way he did it was bad and he should paid the penalty for that.
- deciplex 11y ago
  How do you reckon? He tried going through the official channels for many months, and when it was clear that the system he was working in would not allow those programs to receive even the slightest airing in public, he went to the press. What would you have had him do?
  - carboncopy 11y ago
    Do you have any evidence that he tried going through the official channels for any amount of time? The only evidence shown was an email where he asked about executive orders vs legislation to the office of legal counsel for the NSA during his last 30 days of employment. I know you can't prove a negative, but ordinarily we shouldn't accept unsubstantiated claims.
    - NotOscarWilde 11y ago
      Hypothetically, if no more evidence for or against this claim surfaces, we probably should give him the presumption of innocence on this point -- and since "avoiding the proper channels" is likely illegal, we have to assume that he tried.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

The fight is long from over, but everyone should be calling for Snowden's unconditional pardon and then a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

by staunch 11y ago

The fight is long from over, but everyone should be calling for Snowden's unconditional pardon and then a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

tptacek 11y ago

It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. In fact: we don't even know how culpable he is --- we haven't seen the last Snowden disclosure yet --- so it's pretty difficult to come to the conclusion that he should be unconditionally pardoned.

staunch 11y ago
I credit him with good outcomes and government leaders who forced his hand for the bad outcomes, so I was ready to pardon him on nearly the first day. I also don't believe any leak, short of one that causes nuclear war, could damage America more than a definite march towards a police state.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  This idea that the US is becoming a police state is a joke. The biggest scam ever pulled on the American people is convincing them that the US government is in control of the country. The country is barely managed, hell there are tens of millions of undocumented aliens.
  - TheCoelacanth 11y ago
    It has the most incarcerated people per capita of any country in the world. That's enough to qualify it as a police state in my mind.
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      It is kind of humorous that you change the definition of police state because you want so badly to call the US a police state. "A nation in which the police, especially a secret police, summarily suppresses any social, economic, or political act that conflicts with governmental policy." Not exactly a great fit.
yanks 11y ago
And an unconditional pardon doesn't solve things long term anyway. We need to stop things like the Espionage Act which makes leaking a defenceless crime.
- meowface 11y ago
  But where do you draw the line? If you accept that Top Secret information should exist, how do you determine what sort of information leaks are ethical, and which are just pointless and reckless, even if the leaker's intent is not espionage or treason? You can't really say "the law", since a large portion of what the NSA is doing is legal under the PATRIOT Act and various intelligence bills and processes. And you can't really say "the Constitution" either, since only the Supreme Court truly possesses that power. I do think Snowden should be pardoned, and I think his intentions were pure and he mostly acted properly (though I do have a few issues with some aspects of how he handled it), but the Espionage Act exists for a reason.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > You can't really say "the law", since a large portion of what the NSA is doing is legal under the PATRIOT Act and various intelligence bills and processes. And you can't really say "the Constitution" either, since only the Supreme Court truly possesses that power. The Supreme Court may be the final arbiter (within the system of government, at least) when there is a controversy over what is constitutional, but it does not mean that they are the only entity that has the power or obligation to interpret and act on the Constitution even when other laws purport to mandate something contrary to it. > but the Espionage Act exists for a reason. The Espionage Act may exist for a legitimate reason, but the manner in which it purports to serve that reason has been the subject of serious and sustained criticism from pretty shortly after it was adopted nearly a century ago. It might be a good idea to rethink it from first principles, rather than accepting a framework laid out in the early-20th Century Red Scare and then tightened under McCarthyism.
  - LLWM 11y ago
    Why can't you say the law? Seems like you're assuming that everyone disagrees with what the NSA has been doing, which is totally off base.
supercanuck 11y ago
Snowden did the right thing. He should be pardoned for that.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Why are you so sure of this? Aren't you essentially saying "no matter what else comes of the Snowden leaks, enough good has been done that Snowden can't possibly be culpable"?
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    Aren't you essentially saying "no amount of good done by an action can outweigh a wrong caused?"
    - tptacek 11y ago
      No, that's not an equivalent statement. Mine hinges on the fact that we don't know everything that's been disclosed yet. Mine incorporates the current unlimited downside of the leaks.
      - hobs 11y ago
        If you want to be so precise, then lets go ahead and admit that the information to be disclosed cannot have an unlimited downside (what does that even mean, if we blow up the entire world have we reached unlimited downside?)
      - ellyagg 11y ago
        Considering that Snowden massively raised awareness of how much closer to 1984 we are than many people thought, and considering that 1984 is considered to exemplify a horrific dystopia, it's hard to imagine a realistic downside to a Snowden disclosure that would evict him from my head as a hero. Wanna scoff at a 1984 reference? Fine, Snowden demonstrated that the government's power and reach is much greater--much much greater--than most people imagined. Of course, if the downside risk is unlimited, if it's actually infinite, then literally no good Snowden has done could overcome it. Seems like a bit of a gotcha to me.
davepage 11y ago
Essentially the American state religion to which your refer is largely predicated on the concept that any law may be ignored by those in power so long as the intent is to produce "good outcomes" for some state perception of good. (i.e. 'the constitution is not a suicide pact' or read "Enemies: A History of the FBI") Law (so far) is merely stains on paper until interpreted by the mind of an individual in some context (time, place, society). Societal context is some collective consensus over right and wrong -- some popular mush of common sense, the influence of which can be seen in the evolution of, for example, supreme court decisions over socially controversial issues. Where large numbers of individuals subscribe to a particular set of beliefs about what the law is, and proceed to act accordingly, a very convincing illusion of government emerges. And one may refer to this as a state religion in the sense it is entirely an emergent property of belief rather than reality. Thus, absolute law is a myth. Pardons are an outlet for the elected leadership to short-circuit the legal process when, in a given instance, punishment is perceived to exceed the crime. It is thus arguably irrational to assert that a pardon is premature in the Snowden case, considering the outcome thus far. Of course, those capable of issuing such pardons are themselves true believers. Snowden has committed blasphemy against the state religion. Thus a pardon can only occur should some popular unrest threaten those in power.
rgbrenner 11y ago
Exactly right tptacek... people forget that Snowden isn't just disclosing NSA spying. For example, he disclosed intelligence about a failed al-queda plot that: revealed that the United States intercepted messages between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of Al Qaida, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, discussing an imminent terrorist attack [0] And as a result, they may have changed communication methods. He's had other questionable discloses as well. 0. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-undermined-us-intelligence.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-und...
- jodah 11y ago
  You mean the journalists, who vetted and chose to publish the material, disclosed this. As has been discussed exhaustively, Snowden didn't disclose anything himself, opting to rely on the expertise and judgement of partner journalists to select which items to write about. Keep in mind, many times more items were withheld than not.
  - irishcoffee 11y ago
    I'm not sure how this is seen as a positive thing. Journalists, with, on average, limited knowledge of infosec, holding in their possession classified documents. Lots and lots of classified documents. I'd wager a guess that at least a handful of these journalists were holding said documents on a system that had its share of known vulnerabilities. I'd be absurdly happy to be proven wrong, but there is a very high chance that every single document snowden distributed is on sale to the highest bidder, and has been for a while.
    - robotkilla 11y ago
      There is zero evidence that the data was stolen from these journalists and sold to the highest bidder. Since there is zero evidence, you have to cinsider yourself wrong for now.
      - 11y ago
rapind 11y ago
That sounds a bit like Guilty until proven innocent. Who knows what any of us will do tomorrow or the fallout from it?
- tptacek 11y ago
  No, it is not at all "guilty until proven innocent".
  - sounds 11y ago
    Can you please explain?
    - ncallaway 11y ago
      If I had to summarize tptacek's argument it would be something along the lines of: 1) Assumption: A pardon of Snowden is only appropriate if the upsides of the leak outweigh the downsides of the leak. 2) We don't know the full downside of the leaks (since that requires knowledge of the future) [1] 3) Therefore, the potential exists for the downside of the leaks to outweigh the upside. 4) Therefore, we shouldn't offer to pardon him yet as we don't know it's appropriate. The conclusion of the argument relates only to the decision on whether to extend a pardon to Snowden. We don't need to make a presumption of innocence or guilt when deciding to offer a pardon to someone. There is no right to a pardon, and no right to be considered for a pardon. These decisions are the prerogative of the President (for federal crimes). Calling his argument "guilty until proven innocent" would only be a fair assessment of his argument if tptacek was advocating for punishing Snowden before a trial court and jury determine his guilt. [1] As an aside, I don't see how this statement could ever become false — at least for time scales that would be relevant to offering relief to Snowden.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        Yup. Thanks!
        11y ago
baddox 11y ago
Wouldn't a pardon only apply to current charges?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Wouldn't a pardon only apply to current charges? A pardon, at maximum (as usually understood, though I don't think the commonly-accepted belief that prospective pardons are invalid has actually been tested), could apply to all federal offenses committed prior to the pardon being issued, whether or not they were now known, or whether "current charges" even existed.
- officemonkey 11y ago
  Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon and Nixon wasn't even charged with a crime.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Richard Nixon should not have been pardoned!
    - Aloha 11y ago
      Both sides have a good argument. Nixon shouldn't have been pardoned, he should have had to answer for the crimes he committed, but in a way, he did.. he was permanently removed from circles of power, and left in disgrace. I wont really make the argument that what history meted out to him what sufficient just merely that the prosecution would have taken another 5+ years, while in the mean time the nation and government would have been by in large paralyzed, I believe it was healthier in the long run to close the chapter on that phase of history, and move on. Something else I'd note, the laws passed in the wake of watergate were reduced in scope, and allowed to be skirted by a compliant and fearful of terrorism congress, the wiretapping is not the fault of the executive, its a failure of congress to provide anywhere near enough oversight.
hansjorg 11y ago
tptacek always makes sure that his comments are legalistically true. He's not a fascist endorsing authoritarian tendencies.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Awww, I bet you say that to all the fellas.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. That claim requires certain assumptions of moral first principles, so whether its "true" or not is not something people are liable to agree on even if they agree on the material facts.
pera 11y ago
> It is not actually true that good outcomes from Snowden's actions eliminates all his culpability. Well, the government and the military uses very often this "good outcomes" concept when they pardon individuals who committed "collateral damage" (aka civilian casualties). I would like to know how one could be a whistleblower without being "culpable" of "aiding the enemy" (not quoting you here). If some very powerful agency is doing something that doesn't respect the constitution, after reporting that internally and being completely ignored, I believe it would be a crime to not disclose these actions. It seems to me that there is no escape in this culpability game...
- mpyne 11y ago
  > Well, the government and the military uses very often this "good outcomes" concept when they pardon individuals who committed "collateral damage" (aka civilian casualties). CIVCAS is simply not a crime by itself, "good outcome" or not. The legality of use of force has nothing to do with the outcome of that use in international law, except insofar as a nation that can guard its borders can prevent the rest of the world from bringing war criminals to justice. E.g. if you deliberately target civilians in an attack that would be a crime, even if you accidentally managed to kill a bunch of important enemy military in a way that would have made the attack legal if you would have known the enemy military were there and targeted them. Conversely if you target what you have every plausible reason to believe is a concentration of enemy military and it turns out to be, say, a wedding with no military present, that still wouldn't be illegal in international law. The outcome is almost completely immaterial, it's the process that leads up to the decision to attack that determines the legality of a use of armed force.
vdaniuk 11y ago
Some time ago tptacek argued against a suggestion that HN members include disclosure of their company/org affiliation in threads with possible conflicts of interest. This was a suggestion that at least merited a rational, constructive debate.[0] However, his comments in that discussion were dismissive, obnoxious and negative. Now tptacek publicly argues against Snowden's pardon without disclosing his NSA affiliation. The original comment calling for disclosures was heavily downvoted by HN community. I am interested in the opinion of the HN members present in this thread. Should there be an effort to expose possible conflict of interest on HN? Context is important: HN is one of/the most influential tech and startup media/community. tptacek is a respected, well-known and authoritative HN member with lots of clout. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8667657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8667657
- tptacek 11y ago
  "My NSA affiliation". You people are funny.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

swombat 11y ago

The fight isn't even started, this is just another punch in the face. According to https://www.usafreedom.fail/ https://www.usafreedom.fail/ this act actually extends spying rather than restricting it. Of course, it's being presented as the opposite of what it is. That's par for the course in US politics these days though.

irishcoffee 11y ago
I do appreciate you providing backup to your claim. I do find it hard to give the link much credence. It would be like me commenting about how horrible meat is for people while linking to a fantastically pro-vegan website.
- swombat 11y ago
  This very first link about the bill extending section 215 (the section under which spying has been justified) until 2019 is pretty self-explanatorily demonstrated by this link, from the page, via a third party legislation tracking site, govtrack.us: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#link=VII_705_a_~T1&nearest=H3970213DCD8B4A7C9D2AC368B1ADFDCA https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2048/text/ih#li... I'm on my phone so I can't check out the other ones, but perhaps you can point to specific claims that are not supported? At the very least this one seems clearly correct. Edit: also, I disagree with your implicit assertion that a site can't be credible if it has an opinion that it asserts and backs up with facts. It's not always true (frequently not, in the case of U.S. politics) that both sides are viable. Often, one side is just plain wrong or lying, as seems to be the case in this present situation.

sigzero 11y ago

No. Exposing what he did was good. The way he did it was bad and he should paid the penalty for that.

deciplex 11y ago
How do you reckon? He tried going through the official channels for many months, and when it was clear that the system he was working in would not allow those programs to receive even the slightest airing in public, he went to the press. What would you have had him do?
- carboncopy 11y ago
  Do you have any evidence that he tried going through the official channels for any amount of time? The only evidence shown was an email where he asked about executive orders vs legislation to the office of legal counsel for the NSA during his last 30 days of employment. I know you can't prove a negative, but ordinarily we shouldn't accept unsubstantiated claims.
  - NotOscarWilde 11y ago
    Hypothetically, if no more evidence for or against this claim surfaces, we probably should give him the presumption of innocence on this point -- and since "avoiding the proper channels" is likely illegal, we have to assume that he tried.
deleted 11y ago
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