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Comment by notpc | Hacker News Reader

The whole thing seems very cowardly. If Snowden truly thought he was acting in the best interests of his country, he could have:

1. Leaked only information about the NSA spying on Americans within the US.

2. Stayed within the US and faced the music.

Instead, he damaged America's ability to collect intelligence on foreign countries by revealing our capabilities, and then fled into the arms of our adversaries who have used him as a propaganda piece.

Our country exists with the freedom, prosperity, and influence we enjoy today because millions of men were willing to march to their deaths for it. Meanwhile, Snowden can't even face a jury of his peers for an act of civil disobedience? He must not think much of his cause.

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This is a tired trope. Even if it's true that belief in a cause requires a willingness to die, that doesn't mean that it requires one to actually die. I don't see how Snowden staying around for a life or death sentence would have done anything useful for his cause. It's not "cowardly" to want to avoid life in a federal prison or death by lethal injection.

You're just spouting soundbytes. You restated the "fled into the arms of our adversaries" line nearly verbatim but ignore the fact that there's nowhere else to "flee" because any country not willing to extradite him to the US is de facto "anti-American". You say he damaged our ability to collect data but don't have any proof. Was it embarrassing to the nation? Sure. Is there proof that it actually harmed us? I'm not aware of any. You also call him a coward as if level of bravery is relevant to treason as opposed to a pure appeal to emotion over logic.

>You say he damaged our ability to collect data but don't have any proof.

The damage is very obvious. He revealed a bunch of mediums that the NSA had the capability to monitor. Any sophisticated actor that wants to avoid US intelligence is now avoiding those mediums.

My point is that he didn't have to flee. Instead he fled into the arms of those who stand to gain the most from his knowledge of our intelligence capabilities. Putin is not giving him asylum for free. I'm sure he's getting something out of it, if just the ability to use Snowden as as a propaganda piece and negotiating chip. It'd probably be hard to make a treason charge legally stick, but I believe it is what he is morally guilty of. There are plenty of things that he is plainly guilty of that carry equivalently harsh sentences.

You're right, he had nowhere else to flee but the enemies of the United States. But that doesn't change the fact that he fled, nor where he fled to. He did not have to flee. And yes, I think he's a coward for it.

The damage is so obvious that you can't cite a concrete example? Do you think other nations were actually unaware that we hack into computer systems and tap phone lines?

The idea that Snowden should have stayed in the US strikes me as petty and naive. If he's a coward for fleeing instead of spending life in prison then I suspect the vast, vast majority of the population are also cowards.

I doubt that Angela Merkel, or 35 other world leaders, knew we were listening to their phone calls. I doubt the EU knew that several of their offices were bugged by US intelligence. The same goes for the embassies of 38 countries that we had bugged. I doubt that Al Jazeera knew that we were monitoring their internal communications. Even though some people said it was possible that Dual_EC_DRBG was 'backdoored', RSA Security was still using it as its default for some products. Look at this list here: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2016-9

All of these people who were successfully spied on before, and others in similar positions, are now surely much more careful and focused on securing their communications. Even if they had reason to suspect that America would try to spy on them, they probably didn't know that their countermeasures (if any) had failed. If they haven't since switched to much more secure communications methods, then they are stupid and should be prosecuted for criminal negligence with their own country's secrets.

How can you possibly expect concrete examples of information that we don't get? I'm sure there's some specific things that we know we don't know, but why would the United States advertise to the world which of their new countermeasures are and aren't working?

Merkel most certainly knew that we were trying to spy on her calls. After all, "Spying on foreigners is the raison d'etre of the NSA, CIA, et al." She might not have known we were successful, but she must have assumed we were trying and had a high probability of success. The alternative is that she's incompetent and so is her security staff. China and Russia are undoubtedly also doing their best to tap Merkel's phone. If it's "criminal negligence" for Merkel to use an unencrypted phone now, it was before as well.

Dual_EC_DRGB was known to be shady and risky and any nation's security agency relying on it before Snowden's leaks is beyond incompetent. The only people legitimately compromised by this would have been private citizens, largely American citizens, the same people you say Snowden's leaks should have been restricted to.

You've got to be kidding me. This is quite straight forward.

1. America has figured out how to listen to Merkel's phone calls.

2. Merkel finds out we listen to her phone calls.

3. Merkel stop using her phone for communications.

4. US is no longer able to listen to Merkel's phone calls.

Or:

1. US listens in on embassy.

2. Embassy finds out US is listening.

3. Embassy searches for and finds the bug.

4. US is no longer listening to the embassy.

Now apply this, at large, at the same time, to everyone that Snowden revealed we were spying on.

1. America has figured out how to listen to Merkel's phone calls.

2. Merkel finds out we listen to her phone calls.

3. Merkel stop using her phone for communications.

4. America bugs Merkel's house.

1. US listens in on embassy.

2. Embassy finds out US is listening.

3. Embassy searches for and finds the bug.

4. US plants a new bug.

No one was shocked about the US spying except the most willfully naive. Any party capable of consistently detecting and thwarting US attempts at spying was doing so already and any party not capable of doing so is still not. It's not as if after the Snowden leaks the rest of the world suddenly realized the US engages in espionage. I'm sure that the US lost the ability to use a few bugs/taps/whatever. I'm also sure they had more and have planted more.

The core thrust of your argument is that awareness of the US successfully spying is sufficient to allow those being spied on to block future spying. I don't buy it because if they had the capability, those being spied on would have already blocked the previous spying.

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