People believe what they are told. People are tribal and abdicate their beliefs to external sources of "higher powers" of their approved tribes, including what they perceive to be powerful people.
Happens in politics, happens on HN. Be more manipulative to change the world.
If I may contribute to the HN self-righteous tone, so sad that the educated tech savvy elite in these forums get so lost in their smug rush to polarized judgements.
Easy to see that Snowden did U.S. citizens a service of exposing where normal checks and balances had failed in the collection of data on Americans. Sure he broke the law to do so, but the benefit is so obvious that a pardon doesn't seem like it should be that politically toxic at all.
Also easy to see that giving huge quantities of unvetted secret information to foreign journalists does with near 100% probability put that information in the hands of the Chinese, Russians, or other bad actors (relative to the U.S.). A journalist is a trivial target, as Snowden would absolutely understand. If it can be shown that there is information that impacts national security negatively, then for that subset of the stolen data he should face prison or even death penalty.
The OPM breach revealed the identities of every CIA agent and undercover FBI/ATF/DEA agent, but nobody from the Office of Personnel Management is being held accountable for allowing that to happen. Name one bit of information that Snowden exposed that is as harmful.
53% agree that he should stand trial. That's not the same as being convicted. He did break the law, so it stands to reason that he should stand trial. Snowden himself said something similar if I recall, that if he was sure he would stand a _fair_ trial he would return to the US.
Exactly. A guy working in the US intelligence service who fled with stolen information to China then Russia is not someone that should automatically be granted clemency. He should be investigated and tried. He might be the hero everyone here and on reddit imagines he is, or he might just be another shady character in geopolitics. It's frustrating to see people so blindly picking sides or misinterpreting opinions.
I'm glad to know about the stuff he revealed. Interestingly enough, nobody has any doubt that China and Russia already knew about the extent of public surveillance that Snowden revealed. His most heinous crime was informing the public.
> He might be the hero everyone here and on reddit imagines he is, or he might just be another shady character in geopolitics.
This already has been answered by his conduct. Everyone by now has an opinion and no trial is gonna change that.
ps. The people here and on reddit are the ones who actually understand what he is talking about. If this crowd stands beside him, that alone says a great deal about him IMO.
>"fled with stolen information to China then Russia"
Typical misconception, sad to see it on HN.
He did not flee to Russia, he got stuck on his way, because the US revoked his passport.
Russia was the only country who could stand up to the US. Few other countries dared to offer him asylum.
Unfortunate it had to be Russia, given their civil liberties record, but he HAD NO INTENTION of going there.
He should stand trial, but he had no whistle-blower protection as Hillary claimed he might have. So he had no choice but to flee to avoid getting caught. Sure he broke the law, but without him breaking the law we would not have known about the NSA domestic spying.
Reddit sees Snowden as a hero, the Federal government sees him as a traitor. I think he is more of a hacktvist. He did what he did to bring out the truth, even if he did break the law and flee to another nation for protection.
Polls are largely unreliable and easily manufactured.
First most are done by phone, which limits the pool ( you get mostly old people with land lines) second the wording can dramatically change the results. Essentially polls are just another state manufactured tool of propaganda.
As a politician, she just reflects popular public opinion. "Right" or "wrong" is what the majority feels, unfortunately. If the public is strongly concerned about privacy, they shouldn't vote for her or likes. The headline should actually read "A majority of Americans are wrong about Edward Snowden"
Here in Canada last year the majority of the public was (according to polls, 80ish %) on side with the government's very repressive Bill C-51. The only major political party to come out against it was the NDP and all the pundits predicted disaster for them. But they made the case and campaigned it and although the bill passed parliament, the NDP in fact had a major rise in the polls and public opinion swung the other direction and the bill became very unpopular.
IHMO the reason we have political parties is to represent polarities of interests and opinions and principles and in a functional democracy the leaders within them should be making the arguments and trying to lead the public so we can hash the debate out in the public sphere.
When everybody follows the polls we sink into a quagmire of mediocrity.
And the NDP has since fallen from those heights in the polling. We (privacy concerned techies) might care about single issues, but the public doesn't (at least not our kind of issues).
Yes, that issue has vanished from the public eye for now. It was always hard to make it a focus. But is an example of good effective leadership to do so.
I guess this is one of those issues where Hillary won't find herself "evolving". I fully expect her to continue and expand all of Obama's surveillance policies. Remember Obama at least seemed to be against all of Bush's spying in his campaign. Clinton is not even pretending to do any of that. That's bad.
> "I think Snowden played a very important role in educating the American public ... he did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that," Sanders said. He went on to say that the role Snowden played in educating the public about violations of their civil liberties should be considered before he is sentenced, and that as president he would "absolutely" end the NSA spying programs in question.
and I would have disagreed with the analysis
> To read between the lines: Bernie thinks Edward Snowden did the right thing, but hey, laws are laws. If elected, though, it sounds like he'll make sure Snowden gets a really nice jail cell.
and said something along the lines of "the political system pardoned President Nixon without even going through the trouble of actually charging him with a crime. If a man like Nixon deserves pardon, I'd say Snowden does as well." But I am not Bernie Sanders and I can't put words in his mouth. He urged Snowden to come home and face trial. This may be a comforting thing for the people at home who watch the 8 PM news but this is not the right thing to do. Not in a nation that pardons people before they are convicted of a crime. No, I don't mean we should dig up Nixon's grave and hang, quarter, and draw his body (I wouldn't oppose doing so to Margaret Thatcher as the UK a historical precedence of such actions but that is off-topic). I don't even want to charge Nixon. All I am saying is there is a way to grant Edward Snowden the same amnesty and immunity that we gave President Nixon. Not because what the the two did were similar but I bring it up just as a demonstration of the things we have forgiven and forgotten as a nation.
Edward Snowden did is a huge public service and he deserves our thanks for it. I am not the person above but this is why I am a little disappointed. I am a little concerned about Bernie Sanders saying as president he would "absolutely" end the NSA spying programs in question. Does the POTUS have access to everything that goes on in the NSA? Can't the programs continue/reboot under a different pretense? Worst case, if a president can put the program to sleep, what is to stop the next president to reanimate it?
I'm the person above and I endorse your comments generally.
That said I am Canadian, so American laws concern me less. Snowden did the world a favour, not just the US public, by exposing what many of us already suspected was happening.
Sanders has exposed himself in this as far less radical than he likes to market himself as.
As a person running in an election to be a _lawmaker_ he has every right, actually responsibility, to criticize the laws that would imprison Snowden, and to agitate to recognize the problems Snowden pointed out.
Snowden is already living with the consequences of having broken the law. I don't see how putting him in jail improves anything, and Sanders' answer is one of appealing to moderation in a reflexive and thoughtless "everything is a compromise" stance.
The whistler-blower angle has been discussed to death and she knows it is complete BS because whistler-blowers in government have an extremely tragic history.
She only takes that position so she seems "tough on crime" like so make democrats are afraid to appear otherwise to the "undecided voters" (whomever those idiots are).
Just like why she had an email server in her home (which everyone should have) because her husband knows damn well about the six month limit where any government agency can read your email without a warrant, which is why he set it up in the first place.
It's a shame she is the only realistic presidential candidate and the only one out of all on both sides who I'd want picking the next few supreme court judges.
Everything else coming out of her is basically going to be whatever she thinks is going to get her elected, just like every other candidate.
Oh and she'll be the fourth president residing over our war in Afganistan - certainly we'll "win" any one of these years, or decades and when we finally do leave, certainly it won't revert back to what it was before like Iraq, right?
>Did Snowden break the law? In passing classified information to reporters, he did. The Espionage Act explicitly prohibits such actions. But this violation surely needs to be balanced against the public service that Snowden carried out in informing the American public about the extent to which their government had been spying on them.
I don't think you can say that someone broke real laws and then excuse it because public opinion or a subjective idea of public "service" somehow trumped the laws. The U.S. is a nation of laws. If something doesn't work as expected, laws are changed. The laws are either good or bad, but the nation runs because of these laws. You can debate the merits or lack thereof in what Snowden did, because that is a subjective opinion. You cannot debate the laws he broke. You cannot say "yeah, he broke the law, but...." because then, what is the value of law? It is possible to agree with Snowden's actions while still accepting that he broke laws. As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
I see I am downvoted for this, but ironically it is not because I disagree with Snowden. I support what he revealed. But this article is not proper logic, in my opinion.
I think it is interesting that Snowden himself prefers to be punished for breaking these laws, and spend his life in prison, rather than live out a life in another country. He accepts that he broke laws, why doesn't everyone else? Hillary's attitude on this is not "wrong" as the article claims. If you are running for president and think that you can excuse the Espionage Act, of all laws, that to me seems like the wrong attitude.
> I don't think you can say that someone broke real laws and then excuse it because public opinion or a subjective idea of public "service" somehow trumped the laws. The U.S. is a nation of laws. If something doesn't work as expected, laws are changed.
The usual process is the adversarial legal system in the US, which does allow a fair amount of leeway for changing laws. I think there are a class of bad laws that people think are very difficult to change by this head-on method, however.
That's exactly how it works. The law does not exist in isolation as an axiomatic rule. The intent and circumstances of an action are all taken into account. Legalism is tyranny, plain and simple.
Also, you are allowed to say "Yeah, he broke the law, but we don't give a fuck." It's called jury nullification.
As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
The United States hasn't been walking to the path of anarchy, but quite the opposite. We actually need more anarchy.
The point is the GP's highly simplistic conception of law and the judicial system does not pan out in practice. Also the "shaky path to anarchy" is such a pathetic jab that one is strongly tempted to yell astroturfer.
Maybe it seems simplistic, but frankly that is how the world goes round. A person breaks a law and is held accountable. The article suggests Governor Chafee's reaction that, despite the breaking of a major law, Snowden should just come home free, unconditionally, is somehow the correct approach. That, to me, seems both overly simplistic and unrealistic. Clinton properly acknowledges that a law was broken and you can't just casually dismiss that. That seems much more responsible to me. Now, if a president were to later pardon Snowden, that is also allowable by law.
It seems you revolve around the idea of law being a divine ordinance. That's fine, but also a fringe view. Laws have relevance insofar as the ones subject to it have a consensus, and if there is sufficient interest in the law being enforced. In addition, laws often are dismissed or punitive actions significantly diminished depending on intent, circumstances (political, social or on a case-by-case basis) and perceived justice, the ultimate expression of the latter being nullification which in the U.S. has a notable history. As such, the trite legalism that suggests "the law is the law" as if commanded by a deity and that it must unequivocally be applied to its maximal extent, is the irresponsible and simplistic view.
It is simplistic. People break laws all the time and aren't held accountable. Cases in point, the many people involved in illegal spying, torture, banking fraud, etc. Your post simply does not reconcile with reality.
Convince Snowden that he will get a fair trial and see if he'll return and face it.
I think you'll have quite a task convincing anyone though that Snowden would get a fair trial. If you can't guarantee a fair trial, then you can't expect people to submit to one.
Of course you can argue that other relevant factors should balance out and partially or fully reduce the consequences of breaking a law. This negotiation happens every day in courtrooms throughout the country. If what you said was true, we wouldn't need judges, lawyers, or juries. The judicial system would only consist of fact finders and a robotic judge that looked up penalties in a big dictionary.
>I don't think you can say that someone broke real laws and then excuse it because public opinion or a subjective idea of public "service" somehow trumped the laws.
What, so hiding Anne Frank couldn't be excused?
The espionage act is bullshit and needs to be changed. It's pretty clear that he wasn't spying and what he did shouldn't have been covered by the act.
Let us all remind ourselves that Clinton is under investigation by the FBI for her email server handling and they recovered classified documents from it
The highest law of the land grants the President (for which these people are candidates) the power to pardon people for the breaking of other laws and face reduced or no punishment. That's evidence even enshrined in our own law that there are times that simply applying the consequences of laws can be unjust.
> You cannot say "yeah, he broke the law, but...." because then, what is the value of law? It is possible to agree with Snowden's actions while still accepting that he broke laws.
What if the laws are wrong to begin with? Slavery and segregation were both at one point in time laws but I would never say the people who enforced them were right simply because it was a law.
> You cannot say "yeah, he broke the law, but...." because then, what is the value of law?
I can and will say that, and then I will say that the value of the laws in question is low (negative, really). You seem to be painting this as a contradiction, as if disliking one particular law implies disliking the fundamental concept of laws. There is no such contradiction.
Your entire comment is founded upon the assumption that the law is the arbiter of right and wrong, and that because it exists, it should be followed - it is not, and we shouldn't. Here's what Jefferson had to say about the law: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
For over 100 years there were laws in the South that made it illegal to racially integrate businesses and public places. It was the government that kept this horrible practice alive; a free market would never have tolerated such inorganic demand suppression (as evidenced by the state of the North).
Most people are so trusting of statism and its hamster wheel that they never take the time to actually contemplate what most "laws" really are: subjective shit a group of people decided to write on dead trees and direct squads of soldiers to force on you under the threat of violence.
In response to the commenters, we're talking about the Espionage Act, not jaywalking. What message does it send to excuse someone from breaking this law? It's a very important law, do we want anyone exposing national secrets? Giving him a pass on this particular law sets a dangerous precedent. I support what Snowden revealed, but why didn't he go about it legally? Can anyone provide a good reason why he didn't follow whistleblower laws?
The Espionage Act, an absurd broadly worded thing that's been used how many times? Contrast that with how many people have recently "leaked" classified info but in contrast with Snowden, those leaks served the interests of some faction in the government. Why haven't there been dozens of others charged under this law?
"What message does it send to excuse someone from breaking this law?"
It sends a message that if, in good conscience, you believe that what we're secretly doing is wrong enough that you need to reveal it to the American people, you can do so without facing inordinate punishment.
This is the best possible message we can send! If we are going to have secret programs doing this kind of stuff, this is an important check that we're not being horrendously evil in the world.
Remember that we're not polling a random collection of people, but people who have chosen to work on this kind of thing, whose paycheck relies on accepting it, who are regularly thinking about how to make it do more good and less bad and want to believe they're being somewhat competent at that, and people who have already been extensively vetted for security access. If one of those people are sufficiently concerned to raise this kind of alarm, it needs to be raised.
But somebody in good conscience could use our existing whistleblower laws to expose it right. Deliberately breaking a major law on national security isn't a risk we should recommend anyone to take.
> Clinton said that Edward Snowden could have gotten all the protections of being a whistleblower." A key 1998 law focused on intelligence community workers does lay out a pathway Snowden could have followed. However, there is at least a significant legal debate over whether the issues Snowden wanted to raise would fall under that law.
> Additionally, legal experts including an Army inspector general have said that the 1998 law does not protect whistleblowers from reprisals.
> The protections that Clinton referenced do not seem to be as strong as she suggested, and most of the expert opinion suggests they would not apply to Snowden.
If you read the article, you would know that he wasn't protected under existing whistlyblower laws, and in fact makes reference to three others who specifically were unduly reprised, punished and proscecuted...
If you are running for president and think that you can excuse the Espionage Act then you are exactly right because Article II of the Constitution grants you explicit legal authority to do so.
No remotely electable candidate will have a view that differs much from Hillary. And no, L Lessig is not a remotely electable candidate, outside of our little circles of like minded activists and writers.
Snowden took classified and sensitive information and went to 2 countries that are the major geopolitical rivals of the United States (and that probably care less about their citizens' privacy).
He claims (with no way to verify) that he did not give them any classified information. So Russia and China provided sanctuary to a member of the intelligence community without getting any classified information? Has, even the US done something like that for members ofRussia's or China's intelligence services? I find that very hard to believe.
If he had stayed in the United States, he would have had a trial. Even if convicted, I think he would have portrayed as an unequivocal patriot and with the intense pressure would have been pardoned by now. Now, he is seen as a traitor and not without cause.
Well, the political climate of the Russia at the time meant they were full defectors and not merely asylum seekers as in Snowden's case. Snowden hasn't actually renounced his citizenship, from what I know.
Chelsea Manning's case may be a very different one for many numerous reasons, but it should at least give some hint as to the general direction proceedings would've taken had Snowden remained in the US.
"if convicted" is even a fantastical phrase in this context, without even going on to consider the outrageous idea that there would ever be any vague hope of a pardon.
There was only one candidate in the first Democratic debate that had the courage to say that Snowden should be brought home a hero, because the government was breaking the law, and that was Lincoln Chafee. He didn't equivocate.
And he gave one very stupid, but very honest answer to a question on Glass-Steagall. And he is being mocked for it.
Wolf Blitzer took the opportunity to kick him when he was down [1] . If you look at Lincon's Twitter feed he was so excited to be on Wolf Blitzer's show, because he thought he was going to be able to talk about his ideas.
He was naive, and that makes him a bad politician. But he had interesting ideas he wanted to talk about even if he knew he couldn't win, namely pardoning Snowden, ending drone strikes and the benefits of switching to the metric system.
The only legitimate criticism I can level against him is that he didn't assemble the proper campaign staff that would have prepared him for the debate properly.
His answer to the Glass-Steagall question was unfortunate, because we did have one candidate that could have brought attention to Snowden, and the cruelty and futility of drone strike warfare.
He hasn't tweeted since the Wolf Blitzer bullying episode. An article has been written that he has disgraced the legacy of his father. [2]
I think he deserves thanks for bringing some attention [3] to the response a democratic nation should have to heroes like Snowden.
I was not familiar with Chafee prior to the debate and I liked some of the things he said, but he really did blow the Glass-Steagall question very badly. You don't get to be President by making excuses. He should simply have said "It was a mistake. I did not educate myself properly on the issue before voting, and I regret it." I think everyone would have been fine with that.
He needs to watch more West Wing -- "If you don't like what they're asking you don't accept the premise of the question." In regards to his interview with Wolf.
A better politician could have withstood Blitzer better (or never have been in that position to begin with), but I thought that was a deplorable, overly-sharp public attack thinly-veiled as journalism. As the YouTube commentors point out, it fails most of the purposes of journalism. It's almost like Blitzer personally despises Chafee, or wants his "journalism" to take part in ousting Chafee. It was very unprofessional and abusive of his position. There were other ways he could have phrased it to actually produce something journalistically useful and appropriate.
>The exchange began with host Anderson Cooper asking Lincoln Chafee, a former governor of Rhode Island, “Governor Chafee: Edward Snowden, is he a traitor or a hero?”
The answer really should be "both." Snowden supporters readily tout his commendable whistle-blowing of unlawful domestic intelligence gathering while at the same time ignoring, denying, or outright excusing stuff like this:
Snowden fled first to China and then afterwards to Russia with as much as a terabyte of classified information, at least some of which--specifically information concerning intelligence operations the NSA conducted against Huawei--we know for a fact he shared with them.
Even William Binney, another NSA whistle-blower (who, by contrast, did not seek asylum in two separate major geopolitical adversaries of the US), criticized Snowden's subsequent leaks:
>But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don't think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that's not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.
>So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor.
>The agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei’s sealed headquarters in Shenzhen, China’s industrial heart, according to N.S.A. documents provided by the former contractor Edward J. Snowden
The article didn't make it clear whether these were part of the wholesale leaks, or directly traded by Snowden. The implications would differ depending on how they were transmitted. What's more is that the operation involves a clear cut act of economic warfare that ensnares U.S. allies as collateral, so it's not like this is an open and shut case in favor of the NSA. It's quite ethically ambiguous.
I also don't see how "but Binney said" is remotely persuasive. Binney himself was the advocate of a bulk collection and analysis system named ThinThread, this aside from the generally dubious nature of arguments from authority.
>the operation involves a clear cut act of economic warfare
What act of "economic warfare" are you referring to? Huawei's much-publicized theft of source code from CISCO? Unless you have actual evidence of the NSA passing on the intelligence it gathered to domestic firms, you have little basis for characterizing their efforts to ascertain the extent of Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government and PLA as "economic warfare."
If anyone but Snowden leaked this sort of information to the Chinese or Russians, there would be little debate about whether or not they deserved some sort of punishment for it.
Snowden's American supporters come across as shrill or even perfidious for excusing this conduct.
Again, your presenting the case as being some mere reconnaissance operation to "ascertain the extent of Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government" is quite overloaded itself, since the linked article did mention exploiting products en masse with one of the aims being to roam in foreign countries' telecom networks by the proxy of Huawei products, and this including U.S. allies. This goes beyond information gathering and recon, and yes, could be construed as economic warfare (this does not at all imply a value judgment, but you seem to be taking the term as if it's a pejorative). Hell, the fact you brought up source code theft only strengthens such a description.
If anyone but Snowden leaked this sort of information to the Chinese or Russians, there would be little debate about whether or not they deserved some sort of punishment for it.
Again, you didn't state whether these were part of the leaks, or whether Snowden had specifically handed over information to a nation state. The connotations would be quite different depending on how it was revealed. This strengthened by the case not necessarily being in favor of the NSA, your emotional pleas notwithstanding.
Well, then it's little wonder that the prospect of him sharing classified information with the Chinese or Russians doesn't bother you all that much. However, I never would have guessed you to be non-American from your posts in this thread, particularly the one quoted below where you forcefully instruct us as to how and if (at all) we should punish those who violate our laws, and where the last sentence begins with the pronoun "we," which I foolishly took to refer to the citizens of the United States but apparently instead referred to some larger collective (perhaps the citizens of the world?):
>That's exactly how it works. The law does not exist in isolation as an axiomatic rule. The intent and circumstances of an action are all taken into account. Legalism is tyranny, plain and simple.
>Also, you are allowed to say "Yeah, he broke the law, but we don't give a fuck." It's called jury nullification.
>As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
>The United States hasn't been walking to the path of anarchy, but quite the opposite. We actually need more anarchy.
It's flattering that you have no recourse but to retroactively reject/ignore all my statements based on identity politics. You have not yet clarified regarding "sharing classified information with Chinese or Russians", either.
I'm also uncertain of how exactly I have forcefully instructed anyone, unless you consider speech to be aggression.
That said, though I am not of U.S. nationality neither by jus soli nor jus sanguinis, I do reside in the United States at present. Stay classy with your throwaway account.
>You have not yet clarified regarding "sharing classified information with Chinese or Russians", either.
You keep drawing some distinction without a difference between "the leaks" and Snowden "directly handing over" the documents; either way, he is the author of their release and ultimately responsible for the consequences, and Americans are right to be angry with him for it.
> That said, though I am not of U.S. nationality neither by jus soli nor jus sanguinis, I do reside in the United States at present. Stay classy with your throwaway account.
You're a guest in this country; perhaps you could try acting like one?
The difference is one is a private transaction that directly insinuates an act of treason and further a clear allegiance (or at least sympathy) to the state one is dealing with. A leak is public, and by definition accessible to everyone. It is thus a misnomer to frame it in terms of benefiting any particular nation states, as it's now public information. It's spoilt, a sunk cost. Moreover, the intent of the aggregate leak (which is important in making a final decision) is that of raising awareness of government misconduct, and not of directly enriching an adversary's intelligence. The consequences then differ, as we could make a case of the positives outweighing the drawbacks and collateral. Moreover, I personally disagree that any party in the Huawei incident is a "good guy" (where you seem to consider the NSA to be unequivocally in the right).
Of course you have a right to be angry with Snowden if you deem the consequences of the actions to have had sufficient negative blowback.
You're a guest in this country; perhaps you could try acting like one?
Free speech until it hurts my feelings. What an American sentiment to advocate, throwaway. I salute you.
As a citizen of the USA, I ask you kindly to put a sock in it. This kind of hateful, authoritarian, unamerican attitude that values law over freedom goes against the very ideals this country - ruled by we the people - was founded upon.
Snowden easily the most honorable person in this whole situation, for one reason alone: he kept is oath to defend the constitution.
All those laws you want to see Snowden sacrificed upon are inferior to the oath everybody in the intelligence community had to take. That oath was to the constitution, and not a particular law, government, or politician.
You claim to want to see people face the consequences of the law, but you're deliberately ignoring the content of Snowden's message, which confirmed unconstitutional actions of many people in government. It is a shame that it took one person risking their life and possibly living forever in exile to reveal the corruption of our govenment. It is a terrible cost that the espionage act has been abused so badly with Binney and Drake, making it necessary for Snowden to bring evidence with him. In case you're forgetting, people tried going through "proper channels", and it lead nowhere.
If you had any intention of having a useful discussion about Snowden, you would know that he wouldn't get a fair trial, as the espionage act doesn't allow a a "public good" defense. You are calling for a start chamber style show trial, not justice.
You seriously believe that? You're willing to buy that explanation but not the far more reasonably alternatives?
I mean ffs, he was claiming to be going from China to South America. Via a connection that just happened to go through Moscow of all places. Even Russia initially claimed that they had no evidence of his final destination. I cannot believe how so many people are so gullible as to imagine that ending up in Russia wasn't intentional.
Yes, if I remember correctly his passport was revoked during the flight. There are not so many flights from Asia to South America, and many that do transit in Los Angeles, or other countries with extradition treaties.
His passport was revoked the day before he left Hong Kong.[1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in).
Right. This man who has risked his freedom and even his life to inform us of the illegal actions of our government wants to live in a repressive autocracy.
Did you miss the part where US officials forced a flight out of Moscow to land prematurely because they thought he might be on it? [0] He applied for asylum to 21 countries [1].
No, you're quite mistaken. He's in Russia for one reason only: the US Government won't let him go anywhere else.
"the part where US officials forced a flight out of Moscow to land prematurely because they thought he might be on it"
Heh, "a flight". It probably deserves calling out that (as noted in the Wikipedia article title) it was the plane of the leader of another country. Could you imagine a country forcing down Air Force 1 and demanding to search it? We would lose our shit. Absolutely all of our shit.
Not all countries have the firepower that the US has. America can make demands that others can't. I am not well versed on this aspect of the issue and can't say what did or did not happen, but your argument does not reflect the reality of our unique ability to influence others. For this reason, your argument that just because Air Force 1 would not submit to requests / demands by independent nations has little basis here.
It sounds to me like you're saying I overlooked that might does, in fact, make right. I wasn't even saying our forcing down the plane was wrong.
I was pointing out that we were manifestly willing to go to substantial lengths to make sure Snowden did not get from Russia to Ecuador - lengths that were not well represented by leaving it at "a plane".
> at least some of which--specifically information concerning intelligence operations the NSA conducted against Huawei--we know for a fact he shared with them.
I'd like to know too, I've heard this trotted out several times, and never seen anything to corroborate it. The story has remained consistent - when he left, he no longer had anything left to give, it was in the hands of journalists. (Why would he walk into an 'enemy' country loaded up with sensitive data anyways? Blatantly stupid) This just stinks of astroturf or poorly-thought out demonizing.
Why does the United States constitution grant the president the power to grant pardons and reprieves? I'd argue that it's for cases exactly like this one. Where someone indeed broke the law, but did the right thing in doing so. We want people to do what is right, not shake our heads tragically and say that the law is the law, and must be followed blindly even if it means punishing a hero for his heroic deeds.
I'd further say that it's the responsibility of the president to use his or her constitutionally granted powers for this purpose, and say that a president that refuses to use the powers of the presidency for the purpose they were intended for is a simply bad at the job of being president.
Snowden didn't break the law. He uncovered other people breaking the law. If it is illegal to do something (like the NSA surveillance techniques) and that something is done then the rest of the laws surrounding state secrets automatically become devoid. That is the only way a sane working democratic society can function. If it is illegal to uncovered illegality then it sets a precedent that every witness to a crime will have to be tried as a defendant. The Snowden situation is absurd and anyone who says he broke the law is revealing themselves as the enemy of the people and of the country.
I think what's being alleged, by the most sane portions of the other side, is that while some of the things he revealed may have been illegal, some of the things were not and so he should be punished (or at least stand trial) for revealing those things.
Despite an appeals court decision on illegality, because of the way that Congress revamped what was previously Section 215's language, and ended some of the previous programs, it has not been officially taken that what they did was illegal - that is, named as culpable certain groups or individuals that broke stated laws.
As a result, under common law and procedures of the courts/congress, technically the only one who has broken a law was Snowden.
I'm not arguing right or wrong, I am just say that you are technically wrong under legal statute.
My comment was more a reflection on how messed up a system is if this is how it works. Morally the law is unjust therefore it can't be right and I'm with MLK on this one:
"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
If Obama had the opportunity to do the opposite of pardoning him, I'm sure he would. In fact, a drone strike might be what he is thinking about if he wasn't in Russia.
A drone strike or other ways of covertly assasinating Snowden always felt like the trope USGOV should follow if this was an action movie, but it doesn't make much sense in the real world. Mysterious death would only piss off the public even more, and right now the situation is perfectly OK - Snowden is marginalized and harmless. He lives in a far-away land, whatever damage he could do he has already done, no government will ever let him near any data again - he's just a John Doe with no relevance to anything. Not pardoning him keeps it that way.
Who cares if Snowden broke the law if our own country is no longer ruled by law?
I hear a lot of talk of whether Snowden should be punished or whether he should get a trial, but no talk about the punishment for the NSA. Until I see someone from the NSA going to jail for life, these kinds of questions are moot.
115 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadIt's also surprising that ~81% of Americans polled had an opinion at all.
It is very disappointing that Bernie Sanders at least did not try to reach that 81%.
Happens in politics, happens on HN. Be more manipulative to change the world.
Easy to see that Snowden did U.S. citizens a service of exposing where normal checks and balances had failed in the collection of data on Americans. Sure he broke the law to do so, but the benefit is so obvious that a pardon doesn't seem like it should be that politically toxic at all.
Also easy to see that giving huge quantities of unvetted secret information to foreign journalists does with near 100% probability put that information in the hands of the Chinese, Russians, or other bad actors (relative to the U.S.). A journalist is a trivial target, as Snowden would absolutely understand. If it can be shown that there is information that impacts national security negatively, then for that subset of the stolen data he should face prison or even death penalty.
This already has been answered by his conduct. Everyone by now has an opinion and no trial is gonna change that.
ps. The people here and on reddit are the ones who actually understand what he is talking about. If this crowd stands beside him, that alone says a great deal about him IMO.
Typical misconception, sad to see it on HN.
He did not flee to Russia, he got stuck on his way, because the US revoked his passport. Russia was the only country who could stand up to the US. Few other countries dared to offer him asylum.
Unfortunate it had to be Russia, given their civil liberties record, but he HAD NO INTENTION of going there.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...
Reddit sees Snowden as a hero, the Federal government sees him as a traitor. I think he is more of a hacktvist. He did what he did to bring out the truth, even if he did break the law and flee to another nation for protection.
First most are done by phone, which limits the pool ( you get mostly old people with land lines) second the wording can dramatically change the results. Essentially polls are just another state manufactured tool of propaganda.
Then again, most politicians are like that, so the headline could also read "US politics suck" and still be correct.
Here in Canada last year the majority of the public was (according to polls, 80ish %) on side with the government's very repressive Bill C-51. The only major political party to come out against it was the NDP and all the pundits predicted disaster for them. But they made the case and campaigned it and although the bill passed parliament, the NDP in fact had a major rise in the polls and public opinion swung the other direction and the bill became very unpopular.
IHMO the reason we have political parties is to represent polarities of interests and opinions and principles and in a functional democracy the leaders within them should be making the arguments and trying to lead the public so we can hash the debate out in the public sphere.
When everybody follows the polls we sink into a quagmire of mediocrity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-greer/bernie-sanders-woul...
> "I think Snowden played a very important role in educating the American public ... he did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that," Sanders said. He went on to say that the role Snowden played in educating the public about violations of their civil liberties should be considered before he is sentenced, and that as president he would "absolutely" end the NSA spying programs in question.
and I would have disagreed with the analysis
> To read between the lines: Bernie thinks Edward Snowden did the right thing, but hey, laws are laws. If elected, though, it sounds like he'll make sure Snowden gets a really nice jail cell.
and said something along the lines of "the political system pardoned President Nixon without even going through the trouble of actually charging him with a crime. If a man like Nixon deserves pardon, I'd say Snowden does as well." But I am not Bernie Sanders and I can't put words in his mouth. He urged Snowden to come home and face trial. This may be a comforting thing for the people at home who watch the 8 PM news but this is not the right thing to do. Not in a nation that pardons people before they are convicted of a crime. No, I don't mean we should dig up Nixon's grave and hang, quarter, and draw his body (I wouldn't oppose doing so to Margaret Thatcher as the UK a historical precedence of such actions but that is off-topic). I don't even want to charge Nixon. All I am saying is there is a way to grant Edward Snowden the same amnesty and immunity that we gave President Nixon. Not because what the the two did were similar but I bring it up just as a demonstration of the things we have forgiven and forgotten as a nation.
Edward Snowden did is a huge public service and he deserves our thanks for it. I am not the person above but this is why I am a little disappointed. I am a little concerned about Bernie Sanders saying as president he would "absolutely" end the NSA spying programs in question. Does the POTUS have access to everything that goes on in the NSA? Can't the programs continue/reboot under a different pretense? Worst case, if a president can put the program to sleep, what is to stop the next president to reanimate it?
That said I am Canadian, so American laws concern me less. Snowden did the world a favour, not just the US public, by exposing what many of us already suspected was happening.
Sanders has exposed himself in this as far less radical than he likes to market himself as.
As a person running in an election to be a _lawmaker_ he has every right, actually responsibility, to criticize the laws that would imprison Snowden, and to agitate to recognize the problems Snowden pointed out.
Of course, this just makes his position worse.
She only takes that position so she seems "tough on crime" like so make democrats are afraid to appear otherwise to the "undecided voters" (whomever those idiots are).
Just like why she had an email server in her home (which everyone should have) because her husband knows damn well about the six month limit where any government agency can read your email without a warrant, which is why he set it up in the first place.
It's a shame she is the only realistic presidential candidate and the only one out of all on both sides who I'd want picking the next few supreme court judges.
Everything else coming out of her is basically going to be whatever she thinks is going to get her elected, just like every other candidate.
Oh and she'll be the fourth president residing over our war in Afganistan - certainly we'll "win" any one of these years, or decades and when we finally do leave, certainly it won't revert back to what it was before like Iraq, right?
>Did Snowden break the law? In passing classified information to reporters, he did. The Espionage Act explicitly prohibits such actions. But this violation surely needs to be balanced against the public service that Snowden carried out in informing the American public about the extent to which their government had been spying on them.
I don't think you can say that someone broke real laws and then excuse it because public opinion or a subjective idea of public "service" somehow trumped the laws. The U.S. is a nation of laws. If something doesn't work as expected, laws are changed. The laws are either good or bad, but the nation runs because of these laws. You can debate the merits or lack thereof in what Snowden did, because that is a subjective opinion. You cannot debate the laws he broke. You cannot say "yeah, he broke the law, but...." because then, what is the value of law? It is possible to agree with Snowden's actions while still accepting that he broke laws. As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
I see I am downvoted for this, but ironically it is not because I disagree with Snowden. I support what he revealed. But this article is not proper logic, in my opinion.
I think it is interesting that Snowden himself prefers to be punished for breaking these laws, and spend his life in prison, rather than live out a life in another country. He accepts that he broke laws, why doesn't everyone else? Hillary's attitude on this is not "wrong" as the article claims. If you are running for president and think that you can excuse the Espionage Act, of all laws, that to me seems like the wrong attitude.
The usual process is the adversarial legal system in the US, which does allow a fair amount of leeway for changing laws. I think there are a class of bad laws that people think are very difficult to change by this head-on method, however.
Also, you are allowed to say "Yeah, he broke the law, but we don't give a fuck." It's called jury nullification.
As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
The United States hasn't been walking to the path of anarchy, but quite the opposite. We actually need more anarchy.
If the President were today to pardon Snowden, that is also allowable by law.
I think you'll have quite a task convincing anyone though that Snowden would get a fair trial. If you can't guarantee a fair trial, then you can't expect people to submit to one.
More importantly here in particular, it's called a presidential pardon.
The law isn't simply a if() statement.
What, so hiding Anne Frank couldn't be excused?
The espionage act is bullshit and needs to be changed. It's pretty clear that he wasn't spying and what he did shouldn't have been covered by the act.
What if the laws are wrong to begin with? Slavery and segregation were both at one point in time laws but I would never say the people who enforced them were right simply because it was a law.
I can and will say that, and then I will say that the value of the laws in question is low (negative, really). You seem to be painting this as a contradiction, as if disliking one particular law implies disliking the fundamental concept of laws. There is no such contradiction.
For over 100 years there were laws in the South that made it illegal to racially integrate businesses and public places. It was the government that kept this horrible practice alive; a free market would never have tolerated such inorganic demand suppression (as evidenced by the state of the North).
Most people are so trusting of statism and its hamster wheel that they never take the time to actually contemplate what most "laws" really are: subjective shit a group of people decided to write on dead trees and direct squads of soldiers to force on you under the threat of violence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
It sends a message that if, in good conscience, you believe that what we're secretly doing is wrong enough that you need to reveal it to the American people, you can do so without facing inordinate punishment.
This is the best possible message we can send! If we are going to have secret programs doing this kind of stuff, this is an important check that we're not being horrendously evil in the world.
Remember that we're not polling a random collection of people, but people who have chosen to work on this kind of thing, whose paycheck relies on accepting it, who are regularly thinking about how to make it do more good and less bad and want to believe they're being somewhat competent at that, and people who have already been extensively vetted for security access. If one of those people are sufficiently concerned to raise this kind of alarm, it needs to be raised.
> Additionally, legal experts including an Army inspector general have said that the 1998 law does not protect whistleblowers from reprisals.
> The protections that Clinton referenced do not seem to be as strong as she suggested, and most of the expert opinion suggests they would not apply to Snowden.
> We rate this claim Mostly False.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...
And if she happens to be right, it's because polling said that was the right answer and she's lying to you to get elected.
And there seems to be more opinions saying BS won the debate "hands down" than saying HC did.
Its not possible for this to have caused Arab Spring unless you're including time travel in your conspiracy theory.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
He claims (with no way to verify) that he did not give them any classified information. So Russia and China provided sanctuary to a member of the intelligence community without getting any classified information? Has, even the US done something like that for members ofRussia's or China's intelligence services? I find that very hard to believe.
If he had stayed in the United States, he would have had a trial. Even if convicted, I think he would have portrayed as an unequivocal patriot and with the intense pressure would have been pardoned by now. Now, he is seen as a traitor and not without cause.
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Soviet_intelligence_p...
"if convicted" is even a fantastical phrase in this context, without even going on to consider the outrageous idea that there would ever be any vague hope of a pardon.
People like that's called political refugees. Every civilized country accepts them to some extent.
Innocent until proven guilty.
> If he had stayed in the United States, he would have had a trial.
Very debatable.
And he gave one very stupid, but very honest answer to a question on Glass-Steagall. And he is being mocked for it.
Wolf Blitzer took the opportunity to kick him when he was down [1] . If you look at Lincon's Twitter feed he was so excited to be on Wolf Blitzer's show, because he thought he was going to be able to talk about his ideas.
He was naive, and that makes him a bad politician. But he had interesting ideas he wanted to talk about even if he knew he couldn't win, namely pardoning Snowden, ending drone strikes and the benefits of switching to the metric system.
The only legitimate criticism I can level against him is that he didn't assemble the proper campaign staff that would have prepared him for the debate properly.
His answer to the Glass-Steagall question was unfortunate, because we did have one candidate that could have brought attention to Snowden, and the cruelty and futility of drone strike warfare.
He hasn't tweeted since the Wolf Blitzer bullying episode. An article has been written that he has disgraced the legacy of his father. [2]
I think he deserves thanks for bringing some attention [3] to the response a democratic nation should have to heroes like Snowden.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SExMtNDS5hk
[2] http://wpri.com/2015/10/15/john-chafee-loyalists-anguished-o...
[3] https://www.thenation.com/article/lincoln-chafee-adds-a-prop...
The answer really should be "both." Snowden supporters readily tout his commendable whistle-blowing of unlawful domestic intelligence gathering while at the same time ignoring, denying, or outright excusing stuff like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-ch...
Snowden fled first to China and then afterwards to Russia with as much as a terabyte of classified information, at least some of which--specifically information concerning intelligence operations the NSA conducted against Huawei--we know for a fact he shared with them.
Even William Binney, another NSA whistle-blower (who, by contrast, did not seek asylum in two separate major geopolitical adversaries of the US), criticized Snowden's subsequent leaks:
>But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don't think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that's not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.
>So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
While Binney has since referred to Snowden as a "patriot," he has yet to publicly disavow his past criticisms of Snowden:
http://www.businessinsider.com/william-binney-and-edward-sno...
I also don't see how "but Binney said" is remotely persuasive. Binney himself was the advocate of a bulk collection and analysis system named ThinThread, this aside from the generally dubious nature of arguments from authority.
What act of "economic warfare" are you referring to? Huawei's much-publicized theft of source code from CISCO? Unless you have actual evidence of the NSA passing on the intelligence it gathered to domestic firms, you have little basis for characterizing their efforts to ascertain the extent of Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government and PLA as "economic warfare."
If anyone but Snowden leaked this sort of information to the Chinese or Russians, there would be little debate about whether or not they deserved some sort of punishment for it.
Snowden's American supporters come across as shrill or even perfidious for excusing this conduct.
Again, your presenting the case as being some mere reconnaissance operation to "ascertain the extent of Huawei's relationship with the Chinese government" is quite overloaded itself, since the linked article did mention exploiting products en masse with one of the aims being to roam in foreign countries' telecom networks by the proxy of Huawei products, and this including U.S. allies. This goes beyond information gathering and recon, and yes, could be construed as economic warfare (this does not at all imply a value judgment, but you seem to be taking the term as if it's a pejorative). Hell, the fact you brought up source code theft only strengthens such a description.
If anyone but Snowden leaked this sort of information to the Chinese or Russians, there would be little debate about whether or not they deserved some sort of punishment for it.
Again, you didn't state whether these were part of the leaks, or whether Snowden had specifically handed over information to a nation state. The connotations would be quite different depending on how it was revealed. This strengthened by the case not necessarily being in favor of the NSA, your emotional pleas notwithstanding.
Well, then it's little wonder that the prospect of him sharing classified information with the Chinese or Russians doesn't bother you all that much. However, I never would have guessed you to be non-American from your posts in this thread, particularly the one quoted below where you forcefully instruct us as to how and if (at all) we should punish those who violate our laws, and where the last sentence begins with the pronoun "we," which I foolishly took to refer to the citizens of the United States but apparently instead referred to some larger collective (perhaps the citizens of the world?):
>That's exactly how it works. The law does not exist in isolation as an axiomatic rule. The intent and circumstances of an action are all taken into account. Legalism is tyranny, plain and simple.
>Also, you are allowed to say "Yeah, he broke the law, but we don't give a fuck." It's called jury nullification.
>As soon as you excuse the law because it doesn't "feel" right, you walk a shaky path to anarchy.
>The United States hasn't been walking to the path of anarchy, but quite the opposite. We actually need more anarchy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404739
I'm also uncertain of how exactly I have forcefully instructed anyone, unless you consider speech to be aggression.
That said, though I am not of U.S. nationality neither by jus soli nor jus sanguinis, I do reside in the United States at present. Stay classy with your throwaway account.
You keep drawing some distinction without a difference between "the leaks" and Snowden "directly handing over" the documents; either way, he is the author of their release and ultimately responsible for the consequences, and Americans are right to be angry with him for it.
> That said, though I am not of U.S. nationality neither by jus soli nor jus sanguinis, I do reside in the United States at present. Stay classy with your throwaway account.
You're a guest in this country; perhaps you could try acting like one?
Of course you have a right to be angry with Snowden if you deem the consequences of the actions to have had sufficient negative blowback.
You're a guest in this country; perhaps you could try acting like one?
Free speech until it hurts my feelings. What an American sentiment to advocate, throwaway. I salute you.
Snowden easily the most honorable person in this whole situation, for one reason alone: he kept is oath to defend the constitution.
All those laws you want to see Snowden sacrificed upon are inferior to the oath everybody in the intelligence community had to take. That oath was to the constitution, and not a particular law, government, or politician.
You claim to want to see people face the consequences of the law, but you're deliberately ignoring the content of Snowden's message, which confirmed unconstitutional actions of many people in government. It is a shame that it took one person risking their life and possibly living forever in exile to reveal the corruption of our govenment. It is a terrible cost that the espionage act has been abused so badly with Binney and Drake, making it necessary for Snowden to bring evidence with him. In case you're forgetting, people tried going through "proper channels", and it lead nowhere.
If you had any intention of having a useful discussion about Snowden, you would know that he wouldn't get a fair trial, as the espionage act doesn't allow a a "public good" defense. You are calling for a start chamber style show trial, not justice.
I mean ffs, he was claiming to be going from China to South America. Via a connection that just happened to go through Moscow of all places. Even Russia initially claimed that they had no evidence of his final destination. I cannot believe how so many people are so gullible as to imagine that ending up in Russia wasn't intentional.
Do you have any concrete info?
[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens...
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...
Did you miss the part where US officials forced a flight out of Moscow to land prematurely because they thought he might be on it? [0] He applied for asylum to 21 countries [1].
No, you're quite mistaken. He's in Russia for one reason only: the US Government won't let him go anywhere else.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Asylum_applicat...
Heh, "a flight". It probably deserves calling out that (as noted in the Wikipedia article title) it was the plane of the leader of another country. Could you imagine a country forcing down Air Force 1 and demanding to search it? We would lose our shit. Absolutely all of our shit.
I was pointing out that we were manifestly willing to go to substantial lengths to make sure Snowden did not get from Russia to Ecuador - lengths that were not well represented by leaving it at "a plane".
Where is the evidence of this alleged fact?
I'd further say that it's the responsibility of the president to use his or her constitutionally granted powers for this purpose, and say that a president that refuses to use the powers of the presidency for the purpose they were intended for is a simply bad at the job of being president.
There are a few advocating this, and more will be vocal as it gets closer to the end of his term.
jdoe@who.eop.gov for "John Doe"
(WHO.EOP = White House, Executive Office of President)
Despite an appeals court decision on illegality, because of the way that Congress revamped what was previously Section 215's language, and ended some of the previous programs, it has not been officially taken that what they did was illegal - that is, named as culpable certain groups or individuals that broke stated laws.
As a result, under common law and procedures of the courts/congress, technically the only one who has broken a law was Snowden.
I'm not arguing right or wrong, I am just say that you are technically wrong under legal statute.
"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
I hear a lot of talk of whether Snowden should be punished or whether he should get a trial, but no talk about the punishment for the NSA. Until I see someone from the NSA going to jail for life, these kinds of questions are moot.