Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

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>The articles are written in accessible, non-technical language and offer a window into the NSA’s culture and operations. They originate from within the Signals Intelligence Directorate, or SID, the NSA’s core spying division, and were provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sorry, but since when is "offering a window into... culture and operations" whistleblowing? These articles are going to be crazy interesting, but I have a hard time believing they are things that deserve to be exposed. This is my problem with Snowden. If he stuck to the unconstitutional domestic spying stories, I would be his biggest fan. Instead he seems to have a problem with the idea of spying in general and is willing to release anything that puts it in a bad light.

EDIT: After clicking through a few pages I came to this [1] which admits that this release is a big departure from the previous Snowden releases. It still doesn't really explain why this is being done, how this is in the public interests, or why this should qualify as whistleblowing.

[1] - https://theintercept.com/2016/05/16/the-intercept-is-broaden...

If I was in Snowden's shoes and I realized the scope of NSA spying and that I had virtually unlimited access to internal documents I likely would have downloaded everything possible too.

How would you know what was significant and what was not? Think about how many man-hours it has taken to analyze the various documents released so far.

Is Snowden responsible for all the documents he gave to the press? Sure.

Should he have carefully filtered them all one-by-one before downloading them from the NSA? No way - it's far too much and too subjective work to be done by just one person.

Should The Intercept have published these? That's open for debate but I don't for a second question Snowden's gathering of them in the first place.

>How would you know what was significant and what was not?

Do you realize the irony in this statement? This is the exact problem with mass surveillance. Neither Snowden nor the NSA should be able to ignore the law, grab everything they have access to, and justify it by saying the good outweighs the bad. That isn't how the law is supposed to work. These restrictions apply to both good and bad guys.

The people who are defending Snowden's actions with this logic are using the exact same line of thinking that inspired these programs in the first place.

There is a clear difference between targeting all the files of an organization that you know is committing wrongs, and targeting everyone in the world.

When NSA grabbed everything they could, they did not conceive of any limits, literally everyone was a target. Snowden restricted himself to documents about NSA.

What should he have done instead?

A more circumspect whistleblower who worked within the system could have exposed wrongdoing without risking legitimate secrets, yes. But whistleblowers aren't allowed to work within the system. Snowden tried and was rebuffed. The tactic he eventually chose was less harmful than allowing the NSA to continue running wild with no effective oversight.

>What should he have done instead?

It could have been something as simple as telling the journalists "You only have the documents because I leaked them to you therefore everything you publish is my responsibility both legally and ethically. In turn, as long as I am alive I request editorial approval of everything you publish on the subject."

>The tactic he eventually chose was less harmful than allowing the NSA to continue running wild with no effective oversight.

Like mass surveillance is less harmful than potential allowing the next 9/11? Don't you see the flaw in this logic? You can't just ignore the law because you personally think the ends justify the means. This applies equally to both sides of the debate.

Snowden does not have access to anything he leaked any more. He physically turned everything over before he left Hong Kong and did not bring copies with him to Russia. Since he's undoubtedly under surveillance in Russia, there's not any safe way for him to review anything.

My understanding is that the quantity of documents that Snowden slurped up wasf too great for one person to filter, hence the need to provide them to the traditional media.

This is likely true, but Snowden took all these documents and gave them to the press. He is therefore responsible for every document that is released. It doesn't matter who ultimately pulled the trigger on publishing the document, he is the one who orchestrated the whole leak.

Also as far as I'm aware, there has not been a single instance in which Snowden has criticized Greenwald or anyone else for releasing a detail that he believes should have remained private. That seems like a tacit endorsement of everything that has been released.

I don't know if he's criticized any releases or not but, yes, he did provide them with the documents. He also said that the journalists would be the ones to decide what got released, released but redacted, etc.

Greenwald, et al, have complete discretion in this regard. I'm not sure that a lack of criticism counts as a tacit endorsement and I'm not sure what it would accomplish anyways. I would find it surprising if he even knows what is going to be released before the general public does -- that is, he probably finds out at the same time we do (when it's posted).

Hello, US Military PsyOP account.

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