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Comment by bronzeage | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Look at you. You think your government is bad? Look at russia. Look at china. You have the privilege of being in one of the least corrupt, most democratic country out there, yet you hate the country and its government more than the people in worse countries. A russian civilian has 10 times more reasons than you to hate the government. It's a fact. But he's also much more loyal to his country than you. Corruption or not, he won't hurt his country as much as your leaks are doing right now. The only reasonable conclusion is that it has nothing at all to do with the quality of the government, and everything to do with the loyalty of its people.

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>You have the privilege of being in one of the least corrupt, most democratic country out there

Why do think that is? Governments that have the blind trust and loyalty of their populations are more vulnerable to corruption.

Criticism our government practices is expressing love for our government.

I am not sure how you reach the conclusion that being critical of USG actions is somehow praising or supporting worse international actors such as Russia.

And the bad behavior of other countries does not excuse the bad behavior our of own. I am a US citizen so I will criticize the USG because that is what affects my life most. It is also my right and the only country that I have any sort of voice in the matter (however small).

There's always room to improve. Leaks exposing corruption and to a lesser extent critical software vulnerabilities are a good thing. I don't think anyone would argue that exposing the identity of, for example, undercover agents is a good thing. As another commenter said, you seem to lack color vision and only see black and white.

Also, patriotism as a justification for not exposing a corrupt government is a load of shit.

Did any leakers care to leak only the information relevant to the corruption? No. I do have color vision. I see the most blackish grey. And so should you. Yet you all cling to that little white spot in the middle of all the blackness, and using it to justify everything. You're sending a very clear message to all would-be traitors: as long you throw us a little bone of government wrongdoing, you're wellcome to burn the whole house down. You think this makes any sense at all?

You know that there can be more than one "patriot" in any given scenario, right?

The guy who actually exfiltrates a DB dump on a USB stick is one guy, and he might be a sociopath. But he (usually) doesn't just post it to the Internet; instead, he gives it to a journalist.

Now, is the journalist also a sociopath? Probably not. Probably he cares about lives that would be lost if actual "actively sensitive" classified information was leaked. So he doesn't publish that information. He just looks for the stuff that works as "news": basically, things that hurt the government (as a bureaucratic entity) without hurting the state (as a body representing the people.) He takes the body-destroying toxin he was sent, and purifies it down until it's a chemotherapy treatment. And then he hands it to his editor, who also cares what happens to the country, and they talk about it with the publisher, who in turn advocates for the positions held by the boards of the companies behind the ads that run in the paper, who might also be patriots...

In short, to the degree that "leaks" are mostly something that happen through the media, not through lone vigilantes, there is a sieve of probabilistic patriotism reducing the "splash damage" of any leak. The media is not a "fifth column."

I believe the point is, no corruption has been shown in the Vault 7 leaks. They are getting cheered on by some folks simply due to the fact that they are leaks, whereas all that has been shown so far is methods used by CIA to do their job.

the United States is a country founded on the principal that the mechanism of government is fundamentally evil and needs to be constantly scrutinized, distrusted, and criticized. That's why we have a free and open press, elections all the way from country to federal government, and branches of government that can overrule each other. Loyalty is to compatriots, not to the mechanisms of government. Those aspects of our country, to the extent that the citizens of the United States (or any other country) successfully maintain them, are worthy of respect.

It's incorrect to equate distrust of government for hatred of a country. The reason this country is loveable is because it was forged by distrust of power.

I actually find your equation of love of government with love of country to be mind-blowing strange. What on earth?

An average Russian civilian gets his news from government-controlled media, the average Fox News viewer is loyal to this government but is supremely misinformed, and were, and still are, being manipulated. Is that what you want, dumb subservience?

And the myth of the US being better. Pah. China's elite are corrupt as fuck, but I don't think the US can be proud by saying "well we're very fucking corrupt, but China's worse at that!". Military-industrial complex, Halliburton, Citizens United, Wisconsin, Donald Trump and his GOP Congress still plowing through a bill that will strip health protection from millions... But oh no, look at the Chinese.

To quote Brandeis, "Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution."

Hello? You are aware that leaking, a.k.a. treason, is actually illegal :O? Shocking I know. Guessing by the example of all the politicians in the US, who leak everything that politically fits their goal, you were led to believe there's any correlation between what you leak and the legality of it. Hint: there isn't.

You are the one inviting everyone to be a law unto himself. If any would-be-leaker feels the government is doing any wrong doing, he's free to take the law unto himself and release that information to the public along with whatever else fits into his usb key. There are proper channels to handle this, which don't involve betraying your country and breaking one of the most fundamental laws in the country, and the fact the government was acting illegaly doesn't justify breaking the law.

Leaking is not inherently treasonous in the United States. I understand that you don't live here and probably don't understand how we do things; I suggest that you research something we call "whistleblower protection laws."

> There are proper channels to handle this, which don't involve betraying your country

https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-...

As Doge would say, "Much faith, wow.". I see it more of a mafia organization. You try to speak out within the org? You'll sleep with the fishes, metaphorically speaking.

> If any would-be-leaker feels the government is doing any wrong doing, he's free to [...] release that information

So Snowden is justified in doing what he did?

I never did address the leak of the hacking tools, IMO that is less in the public's interest and the leaker's motive is probably to damage the agency, but to re-use the Mafia comparison, someone who can see clearly what that organization does (rather than just gulp propaganda from Fox News or Russia Today) probably doesn't feel that bad if his actions damage the org/that is what motivates him.

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