Not enthused about this leak.
If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 document you leak that pertains to something you think an agency shouldn't be doing, are you still blowing the whistle? At what point are you no longer able to use that title as a defense? 10,000 documents for every 1? 100,000? Can he be both a whistleblower and a criminal or are the two mutually exclusive?
I don't have answers to these questions so I hope someone else does.
Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question, as though it were even possible to disagree with a question.
There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries.
If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.
That's a false dichotomy. Snowden didn't risk his life just to help people improve their privacy - he did it to expose wrongdoing and start a process to reform our government.
That the CIA actually improves the US's position isn't remotely proven even on the 50 year timescale, and there's a cornucopia of evidence that supports the opposite hypothesis which states the CIA's endless philandering has engendered a deep hatred of the US in many corners of the world, not to mention seeding anarchic instability.
They explained their reasoning why they published it.
Journalists will be tempted to publish regardless of the original intent, let's hope they are not desperate for a story.
It is amazing how many people don't know this (that he did not just leak everything indiscriminately).
Before the downvote button is spammed: He simply did not have time go go over every single one of the 100,000+ documents he claimed to leak, and give them to journalists in an intelligent manner. There simply was not enough time between him leaving the country and the documents being revealed for him to have done that.
So yes, he did very much indiscriminately leak them.
You are either lacking context comprehension skills or intentionally splitting hairs to make Snowden look bad...
Giving classified documents to _anyone_ who isn't cleared to see them is the "general public." Journalists are no exception. Not sure why you think that.
Snowden sent the docs not to any/all journalists, but to a carefully selected group of the most reputable ones: NYT, WP, Guardian. He had followed Poitras/Greenwald for a long time before to make sure the docs end up in responsible hands.
Also, the journalists asked the US government to cooperate/redact out some national-security sensitive details, they refused. So they had to use their own judgement.
What qualifies you, or journalists, to know umpty-squat about national security?
99% of what snowden leaked had _nothing_ to do with the privacy of U.S. citizens. Nothing.
Greenwald worked for The Guardian for the initial release, and works for The Intercept now. The Guardian, although somewhat ad-supported, doesn't appear to be quite as dependent as most US papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership_and_fin.... The Intercept is definitely weirder than that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept
With respect to The Intercept, I submit that you're technically correct (their motivations and Snowden's aren't identical), but that Snowden's motivations are probably closer to The Intercept's staff than they would be to any other news outlet, even NPR.
But I've never received a straight answer to that question and I guess this is no exception.
Going through all the files by himself would be a daunting task that would take years. There are literally 1,000's of documents. Raising the alarm now rather than 8 years from now is important.
Given the circumstances, grabbing everything and handing it over to a team of respectable journalists (who have a team of lawyers) to find out what is against the Constitution/not in favor of the people (seeing as journalists represent the people to an extent) to allow them to only leak the relevant ones that were crossing boundaries seems like a best decision act.
The journalists can leak documents over the course of years and slowly investigate each one to determine if it crosses boundaries and the alarms should be rung for the public.
Snowden would have had a single release of a handful of documents and gone on a very long vacation in a place nobody has ever heard of had he released a few documents himself. It's expensive to pay for a vacation for an entire group of journalists and lawyers.
Grabbing everything because you don't have time to sift through the data and passing them to so-called "respectable journalists" doesn't make it right. In the same way that people claim dragnet surveillance is wrong to catch terrorists if it's violating the privacy of everyone else.
Would he be able to find lawyers to consult while remaining in a country that wouldn't put his life at risk? Should the lawyers relocate to Snowden's location of asylum? Or should they be consult over the constantly monitored internet? Is releasing the information 10 years from now more beneficial than releasing it now?
It opens a big can of worms when you question the logistics of doing it differently. Not that I disagree with your statement - it's a lot like dragnet (catch it all to watch a few) but the logistics in this scenario, unlike a dragnet, the resources simply aren't there to do it any other way. Snowden is not a multi-billion dollar government with near unlimited resources.
I also don't think that comparing this to privacy violation is a valid comparison. The government is not a person, you're not violating any civil rights by getting these documents.
As far as I'm concerned - he could not have handled his scenario in a more responsible manner given his resources and scenario.
What makes Snowden more trustworthy than Greenwald, et al? Some no-name contractor nobody had ever heard of is not more trustworthy than a team of internationally respected journalists with a team of lawyers capable of citing the laws where the government is overstepping their bounds.
I wouldn't trust Snowden to determine what should and shouldn't be leaked to the general public. I don't think many people would. I do, however, trust Greenwald, et al. They have a reputation that they've spent years building up trust with the public. Snowden lacks that trust.
Thinking that people wouldn't believe the data he provided because there wasn't enough of it makes no sense.
I can agree with you to a majority extent on this. The only reason I disagree is only because of circumchance. How things happened to play out - which is more and more incriminating documents being read/discovered within the files.
>Sure, maybe less gets fixed in the one go-round, but if the NSA doesn't take that as a hint to clean up their act, more whistleblowers would follow, especially if Snowden had actually earned trust for the idea by acting responsibly.
I disagree entirely that more whistleblowers would follow - especially with how government shills and a good chunk (although seemingly a minority chunk) of people condemn Snowden as a traitor full-through rather than a whistleblower. They don't even partially agree that anything should have been leaked. Full-stop they have no understanding of what a whistleblower is or how it benefits them, nor do they care. He did something the government thinks is bad, therefore he is bad.
Those sorts of people actively discourage future whistleblowers. Receiving death threats from "hardcore patriots" chugging from the jingoism juice is the last thing potential whistleblowers would willingly opt into.
A small group of people (can I safely include you in this group?) might consider him in a better light had he only leaked the programs/files that personally bothered him. That's a really, really, really small group, from what I've read/seen online. And yes, without the circumchance I mentioned above (how things "happened to turn out") I would agree that would have been a more responsible take on it. I also personally think it would have had less of an impact, received 2 weeks of media coverage and then completely died out. More responsible? Yes. Change anything? No.
Eventually he would have to sift through more documents to renew public interest (why the articles were published every-so-often rather than all-at-once). Eventually, he would need to find help to sift through more documents. Relying on the small possibility of more whistleblowers coming forward is naïve at best or unrealistically optimistic at worst. I do not agree with the reality you imagine had he only taken what he had problems with that other whistleblowers would have stepped forward. Nothing is stopping from additional whistleblowers from stepping forward now with programs they are uncomfortable with in a "more responsible manner" than Snowden. I do not agree that had he done anything differently that more people would be more willing to step forward.
Remember that this has been going on for at least a decade. Nobody, until Snowden, had stepped forward and gotten public discourse about it through constant media exposure. There may have been whistleblowers about the NSA in the times before him. I've never heard of them. And I'm pretty sure there have been others that have now stepped forward after him, not withstanding his irresponsibility.
>Thinking that people wouldn't believe the data he provided because there wasn't enough of it makes no sense.
It happens with media on a near daily basis. Why would this be any different?
We've pretty much been through this before with Binney. He did things the right way. Nobody cared. Nothing changed. Snowden probably saw that and didn't want to end up the same way. He wanted to start a fire because he thought he knew better than everyone else. Fuck General Alexander, fuck the DHS, fuck the public - privacy matters because I say so. And so he did something (a lot of things) dumb. So fuck him. That's my group. That intersect "no such thing as privacy in our digital-everything future".
I think that people being complacent or uncaring about what is going on without them is usually (but not always, its also possible I can be wrong too :) ) due to either being ignorant, misinformed, or not understanding the implications of an act.
If you do a highly dangerous activity in a town that hasn't killed anyone yet but didn't warn or tell the town that if something goes wrong - the entire town would be blown to smithereens. Of course, nobody would care. They either don't know about the dangers (ignorance) - and the people doing the dangerous activity are actively giving misinformation about the actual dangers (misinformed), so anyone telling others about the dangers is just a "paranoid tinfoil hat" (not understanding the implications of the act).
Even if the town hasn't blown up in 5 years - should they keep testing their luck until they blow up? Ignoring that it might be a calculated risk, people will only ever care when it all comes tumbling down and blows up in their faces. History has shown this time and time again. That's an unfortunate aspect about society-at-large, but a lot of educated decisions and fail-safes can be put in place ahead of time. It merely relies on the public being educated. An ignorant public is an easily manipulated public.
As is oft-mentioned/quoted. Few people care about their online privacy... until you tell them their nudes can be seen by people other than their intended recipient. Then they suddenly care a lot [0]. Of course, that's a little bit of a stretch in most cases. But as they educate themselves more and more about how important their privacy is (and how much they actually value it, by using examples) the more agreeable they become. It's not an overnight process - it's one that has to be won through many battles. Few wars have ever ended in a single battle.
There's been larger and larger amounts of the public looking for and asking for more secure forms of communication. Or how to keep their communications private. That tells me that as more people are becoming educated, more people are giving a damn. That's a sign to keep trying - not to give up because people don't care.
People didn't care that black people were slaves or that women couldn't vote. There were even women who argued against women's suffrage. It took many years - but eventually the general public was informed enough to change their minds about the importance of these things. Should they have given up when people told them they were wrong or weren't making any public influence? I personally think it's a good thing they argued for years on end instead of stopping 5 years in because of little to no progress. If it takes 10 more years to convince people their privacy matters, so be it.
I'm sorry for the length of my replies. I like to tread carefully with my viewpoints and make sure I mention exceptions as well as my willingness to entertain other viewpoints or at least show I understanding where they are arguing from, even if it comes down to "I disagree with your reasoning".
TL;DR
I don't think that the public-at-large not caring for their privacy now means they don't care for their privacy. It means they're ignorant or don't understand the importance of their privacy. Education has shown that the public is changing and becoming more aware of the importance of their privacy. Adoption is slow, but even if it takes 10 more years to convince people privacy matters - that isn't a reason to give up now.
I care about whether the food I eat contains beef, but I don't think that you or anyone else is ignorant for not caring. As if I only had to educate you about the proper Hindu way and then you'd recognize that it mattered after all. I accept that different people have different beliefs. Why can't you and all the other religious whackos have the decency to do the same? Obvious answer: you don't even see it as a religion. To you it's just truth. Well, you're not the first.
Please don't skim read. I see we're done here.
>(but not always, its also possible I can be wrong too :) ) \
>I care about whether the food I eat contains beef, but I don't think that you or anyone else is ignorant for not caring. As if I only had to educate you about the proper Hindu way and then you'd recognize that it mattered after all.
I disagree. I'd be ignorant as to why I should care. What if I tried to feed you beef and didn't understand why you became angry with me? Obviously this is a problem of my ignorance - fixed by education. Ignorance is not a bad thing. People cannot be expected to know everything.
The point of a summary is to get rid of formalities for the sake of brevity. I feel I summarized my points well and accurately, and the purpose was to save time for those who do not wish to read 8 paragraphs. The trade off is that any formality and nuance is lost in the summary - and you took that lack of formality and ran with it by putting words that weren't there in the summary.
> Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately.
Had he pre-selected which documents to hand over to the journalists, how would this be any different than if he just published them by his own? Snowden knew that he was not supposed to handle this task alone by passing his judgement on these documents by himself, and that he needed someone to help him judge what to disclose and what not to disclose, so he delegated this responsibility to journalists with a reputation he could trust. IMO he was as responsible as one could be: he didn't handle this trouble all by himself, he didn't let any biases he might've had affect the decisions, and he delegated the task at hand properly to american citizens (this is important, he was dealing with national security after all) he judged to be trustworthy. It just boils down to teamwork.
Selecting only the documents he thought described wrongdoings would put too much of his perspective and his biases on the end result. Too much for a single man to decide.
There was enough the NSA did that was OBVIOUSLY wrong that he could have stayed well clear of the things too close to the line.
Yes, he could have disclosed the obvious things, but how would that work out on the long term? Would he be able to address by himself all the questions that would follow up? How much information would he be able to disclose? Too much information and he'd risk disclosing legitimate operations, too little information and he'd soon get discredited.
I would only add that in the end, the specifics of what should be released are usually going to a subjective judgment call. Everybody is going to draw a slightly different cutoff line. In US tradition we have used journalists as a representative of the people to make that decision, and Greenwald et al have been incredibly careful in how they released pieces of the Snowden archive. Too careful, perhaps, but I can certainly understand the desire to take it slowly and carefully.
Also, as more documents are released, it's important to remember that Snowden is not the only source. ( https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/04/counting_the_... )
There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.
I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?
If someone lives an otherwise law-abiding life, and commits ONE crime, would you not call him a criminal as long as his total contribution was net positive?
It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle.
I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true.
EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...
FYI, not sure why you're using quotes around Character assassination. It is a fixed expression in English, it's not something I made up: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_assassination 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character%20assass...
The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.
How do we determine his actual intentions? I mean, Snowden is alive and well and giving quotes: "People who think I made a mistake in picking [Hong Kong] as a location misunderstand my intentions,” Snowden clarified. “I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality.”"
Sounds like Snowden considers himself to be something of a whistle blower, in the common sense, if not the technical. So, that's settled, I guess.
You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).
Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.
Instead of coordinating with the people that they share so much other more sensitive info with they stole it. That is where I see a problem.
probably not
How would the NSA know the Germans didn't lie? I don't think this is a big issue. If you're a spy, expect to be spied upon.