I think he did try the "appropriate channels" but nothing happened.
> 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)
Also, the article says
>The official said that Snowden had asked a question, but had not “raised concerns” about the NSA’s practices.
If it doesn't, then I am correct in calling it out, no?
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.
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.
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.