Legal, political maneuvering let Snowden flee | Hacker News Reader

Legal, political maneuvering let Snowden flee

washingtonpost.com

29 pointsLibertatea11 comments

It is deeply shameful that the article can't even spare a sentence to describe what the documents are and their relevance to the public interest, instead generically describing them as "documents about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs". Instead, we see a simplified fugitive-manhunt story, with a smattering of speculative fear-mongering about China and Russia.

The unsubtlety of the smear campaign against Snowden is exceeded only by its seeming effectiveness so far. Here's hoping a new document drops soon to force a shift in the conversation.

We're in week 3 of Snowden and the NSA. Even USA Today has it as the top front page story. After a certain point, it's ok to not expound the details every single time and focus the story on just what's new.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=USAT&...

As predicted, the topic is now the Snowden manhunt, rather than the spying. Snowden needs to release more details to keep the fires burning.

Was the same with Dorner and the LAPD.

(not to compare Dorner and Snowden, only about focusing on the man hunt and person instead of the broader issue)

"That which I tell you three times is true." Repetition causes ideas to stick around; this article re-iterates several well-known facts (using more than a few weasel words), and yet the nature of the leak, and Snowden's motives, are beneath mentioning.

a senior [Obama] administration official... warned in unusually direct language that “if Hong Kong doesn’t act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong’s commitment to the rule of law.”

Indeed.

The rule of law requires the government to exercise its power in accordance with well-established and clearly written rules, regulations, and legal principles. A distinction is sometimes drawn between power, will, and force, on the one hand, and law, on the other. When a government official acts pursuant to an express provision of a written law, he acts within the rule of law. But when a government official acts without the imprimatur of any law, he or she does so by the sheer force of personal will and power. [1]

It seems that the US government wants other nations on board, in its battle against the rule of law, and its authority to create secret laws, secret courts, and so on.

[1] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Rule+of+law

Maybe we need something better than the constitution. How can we defend a constitution from the president, both parties and the judges of the supreme court?

It's not enough if a few people own weapons. The army is orders of magnitude more powerful. We need some new sort of system. It's been more than 200 years. We should go back to the drawing board.

I'm a United States citizen that usually roots for my country. In this case our government is so obviously wrong that it is not surprising to me in the least that other countries are not bending to our will. The Whitehouse petition to pardon Snowden surpassed 100,000 signatures in no time. Why is our government not realizing that this is a big issue and they need to stop what they're doing?

There is a lot invested in these programs: time, money, careers, political capital, probably even some level of genuine belief in their efficacy/righteousness. I'd actually be more concerned if they started walking it back and dangling out some "bad apples" for the cameras. The fact that they're sticking to their guns means there's a fighting chance for the whole apparatus to be crushed by a finally-outraged-and-united public.

> it is not surprising to me in the least that other countries are not bending to our will

While the level of spying is still technically nebulous for U.S. citizens, the leaks describe extremely clearly that all non-Americans are fair game. That the home of some of the largest internet companies has been pro-actively snooping on every single world citizen is not going un-noticed.

For Snowden's sake I hope he's able to escape to asylum.

But for our sake, I also hope that he's caught.

If Snowden gets away, the public will forget about this whole issue pretty quickly (remember, we've known or strongly suspected this whole thing for quite some time). But if he's prosecuted, he becomes the martyr to spark dissidence and protest.

If the government lets the story end, they'll probably win. If the story is continued for additional chapters, then we have some chance to make the pendulum start to swing back the other way.

You can't kill an idea.

Assange showed how it can be done. Now we see other people whistle blowing. It will go on forever. They can't scare the totality of a population who believes it's righteous to make the disclosures.

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