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Comment by mercurialshark | Hacker News Reader

Well part of it is pretty simple. He stole, as in removed classified information without permission from a secure facility and disseminated millions of pages of classified information to non-approved parties (everyone in the world). If it were legal to remove classified information without permission, because you felt entitled to, then that could be a legal defense. But it's clearly not, so he sought political asylum in Russia. If however, there was a directive from the President or office of legal counsel to shut down the program and if NSA had kept it running, him exposing an illegal program could be a legal defense - had he gone through the appropriate channels. But there was nothing illegal about it at the time. So he committed the crime, not NSA...

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To add to your comment, he took an enormous amount of data. It was sweeping and pretty indiscriminate. And he gave it to the media.

Some of what he took and shared could be legitimately argued as whistle blowing but there's lots of other classified data about legitimate programs that was taken as well.

Isn't the more important point whether or not he exposed serious corruption and illegal activity? We forgive the police breaking the law, in order to enforce it, all the time.. the classic example of speeding to catch a speeder.

It seems disingenuous to focus on the collateral damage of his action and ignore the main target. We forgive our military their collateral damage all the time as an unfortunate side effect of pursuing a noble mission. Shouldn't he be afforded the same?

> Isn't the more important point whether or not he exposed serious corruption and illegal activity? We forgive the police breaking the law, in order to enforce it, all the time.. the classic example of speeding to catch a speeder.

But...that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

In contrast, when a police officer speeds while not carrying out their duty, that is indeed breaking the law. The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2013 was awarded to an investigation that uncovered illegally speeding cops: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/7180

> that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

By definition, whistleblowing is disclosing information that shouldn't be disclosed.This is why there needs to be whistleblower protection: so that the "illegal" action is no longer considered illegal but a civic duty.

> The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2013 was awarded to an investigation that...

Funny you should mention that, in 2014, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to journalists who worked with material illegally provided by Edward Snowden: http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/7200

>But...that's not breaking the law. When speeding is done as part of the police officer's job, it is not breaking the law.

What about the FBI running a honey pot where they continue to allow children to be abused? Technically legal, but is it really something we should tolerate?

I think this is the key issue that really muddies the Snowden issue.

I completely agree with Snowden's leaking of the domestic spying program information, but he also leaked a lot of information not related to that. Foreign spying is basically what the NSA is supposed to do.

Did he also leak information about spying on enemies? Or only about spying on allies?

Both, and that's the key issue. Here's an example:

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266875/exclusive...

And he gave it to the media.

That makes it sound like he dumped it indiscriminately.

Which is very misleading.

Can you give an example?

Listening in on Merkel's phone calls. Yes, an ally of the US but allies spy on each other all the time and have and will for all time. Was it illegal? That's a hard no. Was it immoral? That's an interesting debate.

Edit: Though I did appreciate her Captain Renault impression about being so terribly shocked that as head of state she was a target for espionage.

> Was it illegal? That's a hard no.

It was illegal under German law. Should we ignore the laws of our close allies?

Being a foreign spy is always illegal. That's the point of it, and why spies are separate from soldiers and police.

Whether or not we should, it later came out that they were doing the same to us.

If I were a German taxpayer and the BND weren't spying on the US I would want a refund.

He doesn't have to. Both Snowden and Glenn Greenwald have acknowledged both that there are documents in the Snowden tranche that are not in the public interest to disclose, and that all the documents had not been reviewed before being turned over to reporters.

So you're saying you have no examples, and that the only people privy to any supposed non-public-interest disclosure were the journalists at a few major newspapers.

No, that is not what I said.

He cannot, because any sensitive data that is not in the public's interest, to be made public, has not been.

>The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL and the New York Times

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-spied-on-chine...

>Research by SPIEGEL reporters in Berlin and Washington, talks with intelligence officials and the evaluation of internal documents of the US' National Security Agency and other information, most of which comes from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, lead to the conclusion that the US diplomatic mission in the German capital has not merely been promoting German-American friendship. On the contrary, it is a nest of espionage. From the roof of the embassy, a special unit of the CIA and NSA can apparently monitor a large part of cellphone communication in the government quarter. And there is evidence that agents based at Pariser Platz recently targeted the cellphone that Merkel uses the most.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-...

Well, I suppose it's in China's and Germany's interests, but doing things like that that benefit another country at the expense of your own is generally called treason.

It may generally be called treason by some people, but in the US the definition of the crime of treason is specifically constrained to avoid abuses.

>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Revealing national security secrets to Enemies doesn't count as Aid?

Is China an enemy of the US? They're certainly not at war, and are the worlds biggest trading partners. I don't know the answer, just pointing out that it's not obvious.

From http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/3/essays/11...

In Cramer v. United States (1945), the Supreme Court held that a specific intent—adherence to the enemy, and therefore to harm the United States—is necessary, rather than the simple rendition of aid.

If you want to apply that test naively then you need to hold David Petraeus, Scooter Libby, Robert Novak, and a whole host of others to the same standard. Snowden didn't "reveal national security secrets to enemies" he revealed them to the press. He may have made it possible for so-called enemies to learn things they didn't already know, but even that is debatable. Define "Aid" and "Enemies" however you like, but apply the definitions consistently if you want to be taken seriously.

It's sort of amazing that treason is a still a charge that can be levelled. Seeing the word outside the context of a 18th century history (or earlier) still catches me, and with Snowden it's hardly recent news.

That's a bit of an oversimplification of the comparison. The right to bear arms is in part a check against tyranny (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...), in that if the citizens are armed a corrupt government may have to be stopped by force. So from a historical perspective there is a clear acknowledgment that a corrupt government's laws may need to be broken to fix a corrupt government.

The initial comment is wise to point out digression in thought from the founding fathers and our current attitude toward government.

Some of what you say is true, but highly misleading (and the 'appropriate channels' issue is still an open question in my opinion). Although Snowden accepted political asylum in Russia, he had little choice at the time.

The US government revoked his passport while he was in an international "no man's land" (i.e. the international side of Russian customs), effectively making him stateless. He had originally planned to transit through Russia on to Cuba, and thereafter Ecuador or Venezuela. By cancelling his passport, the US government effectively trapped him in Moscow.

Heck, he couldn't have even have gotten himself illegally smuggled out. The US government forced the Bolivian president's plane, on its way back from Moscow to Bolivia, to land in Austria, where it was searched. Just on the mere suspicion that Snowden was on board. Forcing down the plane of the head of a sovereign nation and subjecting them to a search in a foreign jurisdiction sounds pretty damn illegal to me. Actually, it sounds like an act of war. But I suppose that doesn't matter when your country spends more on its military than the next 19 countries combined.

Also worth noting that the crimes Snowden has been charged with are two counts of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed just after the US entered WWI. Its original intent is clearly to punish people who endangered military operations during a time of total war. Given this intended purpose, it's a near certainty Snowden would be found guilty if he ever came back to the US to 'face the music':

Professor at American University Washington College of Law and national security law expert Stephen Vladeck has said that the law “lacks the hallmarks of a carefully and precisely defined statutory restriction on speech.” Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said, “basically any information the whistleblower or source would want to bring up at trial to show that they are not guilty of violating the Espionage Act the jury would never hear. It’s almost a certainty that because the law is so broadly written that they would be convicted no matter what.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917#Criticis...

> The US government revoked his passport while he was in an international "no man's land" (i.e. the international side of Russian customs), effectively making him stateless.

This is a myth that keeps getting repeated. The US government didn't revoke his passport leaving him stranded in Russia, they revoked his passport 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).

He was allowed by the Chinese to flee from a place that had an extradition treaty with the US and wound up in a place that doesn't. He put himself there. Honestly, the "It's the American government's fault I'm in Russia" argument that Snowden and his close supporters have been peddling isn't really much of an argument when it effectively translates to "If it weren't for the US government I'd be in Cuba or Ecuador right now."

> Also worth noting that the crimes Snowden has been charged with are two counts of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed just after the US entered WWI.

I keep seeing this argument being brought up, too. The age of a particular law has no impact on whether or not someone should be accountable for breaking it. If that were the case, I could quite literally get away with murder.

[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...

Wish I could up vote this twice. Forcing down the plane of a foreign head of state is all but kidnapping - how this got so little press is insane.

I think he did try the "appropriate channels" but nothing happened.

That's the first time I've ever heard that. You got a source for that claim? (I'm not suggesting I've researched it, I just have heard a fair amount about the whole thing, and I've just never heard that he tried "appropriate channels").

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07...

> Edward Snowden said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears

> In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing

("appropriate channels" was a quote from the previous comment I was replying to)

NSA eventually confirmed it as well http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/edward-snowden-interview/pape...

The screenshot there is not about surveillance. Is there a fuller version somewhere?

Also, the article says

>The official said that Snowden had asked a question, but had not “raised concerns” about the NSA’s practices.

This is some mental gymnastics right here. Also this is coming from the very NSA that got outted. They're not going to give any admission to having given Snowden no other alternative, or they've no leg to stand on.

Can you explain how the link above contains evidence that "NSA eventually confirmed it", as it was purported to?

If it doesn't, then I am correct in calling it out, no?

To me, the NSA confirming Snowden voiced concerns is confirmation that he didn't decide to just leak documents haphazardly - now, we can conjecture about what NSA response he would have considered to be enough, but he at least voiced concern before taking matters into his own hands.

The NSA will never acknowledge that they left him no avenue other than leaking - that would place him squarely as a noble whistleblower, who only went rogue when left no other choice (and, not at all a traitor).

Edit: since I can't reply to ikeboy below, I'll do it here - as others have pointed out, it doesn't matter that he leaked more than you think was appropriate, since everyone has a different measure for that. He also gave it to people far more qualified than himself to parse through - their choice to publish is not within his control. I'm sure you would have done differently, but this is what it is - we're better off for his actions, full stop. The rest is background noise.

You make three points in your reply. All seem to be flawed.

1. "Different people think differently, therefore your thoughts are wrong" is invalid. People thinking something is morally permissible does not make it so.

2. Delegating responsibilities to others makes you responsible if they mess up. When you're doing something as sensitive as Snowden did, you better own your mistakes, and don't trust people who have agendas.

This wasn't an isolated incident.

3. I'm not sure if his actions are better overall. There's little tangible utility in having less surveillance. It's mostly in things like "you're slightly less likely to turn into a suppressive regime". It's not clear that outweighs the negative aspects.

But even if it was overall better, that doesn't make him good under standard ethics.

Or would you support a firefighter that saved ten lives, then went out and murdered five people? If not, you must not be using a total good metric.

Even if he had no choice, he certainly didn't have to leak everything without the time to go over it. As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, he's leaked stuff that were completely legal, i.e. the US spying on other countries.

Quit moving the goalposts

I don't think I did? Above I pointed out that the article used to claim the NSA admitted that Snowden tried to go through official channels doesn't really support that. I don't see any response to that point.

Instead, themartorana assumes that the NSA did admit that, and then based an argument on that assumption. My reply was based on that further argument, and in particular the notion that Snowden had no choice, but the assumption was never justified.

Why are you acting as if there is a difference between asking a question and raising concerns? Going to you boss and saying "I saw X doing Y, is that what should be happening?" is clearly doing both.

If he said something along the lines of "I was told X, I'm not sure what it means", that's different from "I was told X, but I believe X to be wrong", or "I was told X, but X is wrong".

Not only did Snowden attempt to raise alarm, but so have others to little effect. Thomas Drake, and William Binney, for starters who were both much higher up in the NSA than Snowden. Neither had any effect on NSA lawbreaking and Drake in particular suffered quite a bit for his efforts. I think it was fair for Snowden to assume and plan for the worst when tattling on the NSA.

It's worth noting that there were no appropriate channels, though. People who tried those in order to address illegal NSA programs either got ignored or had their life ruined (see Thomas Drake). Snowden took the only possible course of action to address this. That the only remaining channel was illegal, is part of the problem.

I think your argument was best summarized by doki_pen below:

> Many Americans believe in following the law no matter what.

But it's clearly not, so he sought political asylum in Russia.

No, that's not what happened.

Go back and read the basic chronology of what happened to him after leaving HK, please.

There's a Catch-22 situation if I ever heard one

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