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Comment by xenophilia | Hacker News Reader

A group of people trespass into a nuclear weapons facility, carrying written statements indicating they may be there to sabotage the weapons, already caused damage to the facility, and they didn't expect something like this to happen? I don't think their charges sound that terribly unreasonable. Maybe somewhat excessive but it's definitely not a bigger deal than the NSA issue.

What's the problem with nuclear weapons anyway? They're simply a fact of international relations that you have to deal with. Should all of NATO have just thrown all their nukes into the ocean during the cold war and let the USSR have our way with them? They've only been used in wartime twice in history, and that was to save far more lives than it took, and since then they've been an adequate deterrent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

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    carrying written statements indicating they may be there to sabotage the weapons

In what article was the contents of their written statements disclosed?

    I don't think their charges sound that terribly unreasonable.

10-30 years for trespassing and damaging three fences is reasonable? Are you deranged?

"""They carried bibles, written statements, peace banners, spray paint, flower, candles, small baby bottles of blood, bread, hammers with biblical verses on them and wire cutters. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”""" That's what I meant. Maybe it doesn't explicitly say that's what the written statements said, though. And trespassing and damaging fences just anywhere, sure, that'd be nuts, but this is a nuclear weapons facility! More time is to be expected for breaking into government property with questionable intentions like that. They must have known what they were possibly getting into when they did this. 10 years is a bit excessive but it's not surprising.

The sign on the fence said "trespassing is punishable up to 1 year in jail".

> it's definitely not a bigger deal than the NSA issue

It's the same thing, brah. The US government is overstepping its bounds in every way. Not only are they now monitoring every US citizen regardless of their (lack of) terrorist affiliations, we're now convicting peaceful protesters of violent terrorism. I'm surprised you don't see the correlation.

> I don't think their charges sound that terribly unreasonable

Yes, let's try murderers, rapists, and robbers as violent terrorists while we're at it. Let's try anybody who speaks out against trying non-terrorists as terrorists as terrorists. How far does it go? At what point does crime stop and terrorism begin? Apparently pretty early, if a few hippies singing songs is terrorism.

These people committed a crime and should see jail time. But they are not violent terrorists.

> and that was to save far more lives than it took

Japan was close the the end already, and we knew it. There was no real reason to nuke them other than trying out a new toy we made. Let's not pretend that nukes saved anybody.

What's the problem with nuclear weapons anyway?

As a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty the US is LEGALLY OBLIGED to get rid of its nuclear arsenal.

As far as I can tell from the wikipedia article, the US doesn't have to /get rid/ of the nuclear weapons, it just can't "proliferate" them.

The wikipedia article states:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, issued 8 July 1996, unanimously interprets the text of Article VI as implying that

"There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."

Incidentally, I don't know about the situation in the US, but in the UK this is one of the key rationales for this kind of action. Since it is a defence to argue that your actions were motivated by the need to prevent a greater crime, this kind of action potentially presents an opportunity to raise the legality of the state's nuclear weapons policy in court. As the article says:

> The U.S. Attorney’s office filed a document they called “Motion to Preclude Defendants from Introducing Evidence in Support of Certain Justification Defenses.” In this motion, the U.S. asked the court to bar the peace protestors from being allowed to put on any evidence regarding the illegality of nuclear weapons, the immorality of nuclear weapons, international law, or religious, moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuremberg principles developed after WWII, First Amendment protections, necessity or US policy regarding nuclear weapons.

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