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Comment by ngoel36 | Hacker News Reader

This is such bullshit. Snowden still committed a crime, he leaked confidential information belonging to the United States government. An action he knew was illegal. And this is the _sole_ reason why we revere him and the sacrifice he made.

The action still holds consequences. When a piece of information is kept confidential, the US Government makes that initial decision to do so. Just because it pisses the public off, that is no excuse for anyone to leak information at will, let alone be pardoned for it.

Don't get me wrong. Snowden is a hero, a far braver man than I might have been. But he is still a criminal.

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Just because it pisses the public off, that is no excuse for anyone to leak information at will, let alone be pardoned for it.

I call bullshit. The government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. What is "legal" or "illegal" is bigger than just what Congress, the President or the Supreme Court think. As they say, "An unjust law is no law at all".[1]

Certainly an arguable point, but it's one I adhere to, and I think a lot of other HN'ers do as well. As well as a lot of Americans, and, for that matter, a lot of people period.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_iniusta_non_est_lex

They also say, "we are a government of laws, not of men." The government should enforce, and follow, the laws as they are written, not go by what one man or another considers to be "just" or "unjust."

And as a practical matter, the majority of Americans think Snowden should be prosecuted.

That's not what this Gallup poll found:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163043/americans-disapprove-gover...

44% say Snowden did the right thing, 42% say it was wrong.

53% disapprove Government surveillance.

59% say it was right for the newspapers to publish the info.

Also: 31% say he's a patriot, 23% say he's a traitor:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-po...

A Pew Research poll found that Americans believe Snowden should be prosecuted, by a substantial margin (54-38): http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/17/ameri....

I would like to know the exact question they were asked. It's easy to induce people into answering what you want if you use the right wording.

It can both be a good thing as well as something he should have to answer about in court.

The same point applies to the poll whose results you like.

The government should enforce, and follow, the laws as they are written, not go by what one man or another considers to be "just" or "unjust."

What "the law" is at any point in time is just a reflection of what men (well, "people") think is just. Except in this country, our political system has become so corrupt that a significant body of what passes for "law" here is total bullshit. People should feel empowered to violate unjust laws. Personally, I encourage everybody to break a few laws each and every day, simply as a matter of principle.

> Except in this country, our political system has become so corrupt that a significant body of what passes for "law" here is total bullshit.

What you mean is that you and your friends think they are bullshit. As far as I can see, they are for the most part quite reflective of what American voters want (or is at least consistent with a compromise position of the wants of the various voting demographics).[1] Most Americans are afraid of terrorism and are okay with some level of government surveillance, though they might quibble about the details. They want the government to be very harsh on crime (and are scared of computer hackers), and want the drug war to continue.[2] They wanted their elected leaders to be Christians, etc. I don't see corruption, I see a reflection of the wants and fears of the people.

Now, I don't always agree with the voter consensus, but, frankly, I'd rather have the laws I disagree with than a system where we ask mindcrime and his friends what transcendent principles should govern the country.

I think somewhere along the way, some people got confused about the precise nature of our society. It is a republic with a strong democratic streak as a result of amendments in the 1800's. The purpose of the Constitution is to enshrine this system of majoritarian rule. "Rights" (i.e. principles by which the courts tell the democratically-elected branches what they can't do) are a part of the foundational principles, but we are not a libertarian society where the fundamental purpose of government is to protect rights.[3] Rights must be respected, but when it comes time to interpret the scope of a right, whether broadly or narrowly, in the face of a conflict with the laws promulgated by the elected branches, I think it's critical to keep in mind that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" made it to the main body of the Constitution--search and seizure and the other rights were added after the fact.

[1] I think it's a crucially important fact to understanding this country that while Americans hate Congress as a whole, they historically love their particular representatives: http://www.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-ow.... Americans don't hate what their representative is doing (at least historically). They hate what other peoples' representatives are doing.

[2] I think it might be the case now that a slim majority of people might now want to see at least some decriminalization. However, I think the majority of voters still want to wage the drug war. The suburban soccer mom/dad demographic that shrilly preached "Just Say No!" at every school function every American student attended in the 1980's and 1990's is more politically active than ever, and has a good 15+ years of voting left in it.

[3] I think a good example of this distinction is Hong Kong (or at least, the idealized depiction of Hong Kong that is common on HN). Hong Kong doesn't have any democracy to speak of, but it does have a strong history of protecting rights. Many people might find Hong Kong preferable to the U.S. because they care more about rights than democracy.

What you mean is that you and your friends think they are bullshit.

And?

As far as I can see, they are for the most part quite reflective of what American voters want (or is at least consistent with a compromise position of the wants of the various voting demographics).

Yeah, well, majority rule is bullshit too, so what's your point? The "system" we have in place tries to avoid the "tyranny of the majority" but no political system can ever really avoid some element of that. There's no point pretending that the system we have in place doesn't have flaws, and that individuals are not sometimes justified in stepping outside of that system.

Then I suppose you should hope that I'm never on a jury. :-)

I don't see corruption

You must not be looking very hard. But, being part of "the system", I guess that should be expected. What we all see is influenced by our fundamental worldview, and you clearly have a fundamentally different worldview than I do. So we'll probably always disagree on this.

I'm not criticizing your world view, I'm explaining mine and my take on what I think is the most appropriate description of the nature of our society. Our system does try to avoid "tyranny of the majority" but to a point. It is not a system that puts "rights" first and relegates democracy to whatever is left after various broad and expansive rights instituted. Rather, "rights" are the exceptions to the general rule of democracy.

If there is an animating principle to the Constitution, I think it's the phrase "consent of the governed." When you tell a starving man he can't kill his neighbor and take his livestock, a freedom of action he was born with and retains in the state of nature, or else some government which has no stake in either his neighbor's property or his huger will punish him, I don't think it suffices to appeal to some supernatural "right to life" or "right to property." I think it is wrong to impose that system on people on any other basis than democratic consensus. And I think there is a reason the founders spent so much ink describing how the U.S. was based on "consent of the governed," a key distinction between the U.S. and Britain, while they were by and large happy to inherit the system of "rights" from common law English principles.

Fair enough. Also, FWIW, I'm not one of the people who downvoted your post above. We may not agree, but I generally don't do the "downvote to express disagreement" thing.

True, but I'm not sure I'd say the laws against leaking government secrets are unjust. I'd say the various monitoring systems are potentially dangerous and unconstitutional, but those issues are separate from Snowden's charge.

Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that the nature of the leak will factor into his trial, which is where it should be evaluated (right?).

Because secret treason courts are where justice is best served? In the very country being accused of civil rights violations by the defendant?

And besides troop movements, names and locations of undercover operatives, and other specific information that could get people hurt or killed, why should the government keep secrets from its citizens for any reason? Or what does "consent of the governed" mean?

> Because secret treason courts are where justice is best served?

What secret treason courts? Snowden is not charged with treason, and even if he were, he'd be tried in U.S. District Court.

> and other specific information that could get people hurt or killed,

You've described the loop hole for a slippery slope. And I promise you, the first suggestions would seem so reasonable. After all, you didn't mention the descriptions of the operatives. Or the supplies needed to support the troop movements. Both of which are not specifically described by you, but could easily be used against the troops and agents. Both of which are reasonable to keep secret...

But it's still a slope. We think we are here overnight, but we are not. PRISM didn't just happens. It's been in the making for decades before you were born.

That's the part we need to realize. Obama didn't do this. Bush didn't do this. Hell, your parents didn't do this. We've all done this, one way or the other. We've all been apart of this.

True, but I'm not sure I'd say the laws against leaking government secrets are unjust.

I think you have to consider context. To flip it around, the law may or may not be inherently unjust, but breaking it may well be justified in some circumstances. Nominally, this is part of the reason we have juries, and why juries are able to make their determination on any basis they see fit... so they can allow for this kind of "fuzziness" to the law.

There's also a reason that prosecutors have discretion in choosing what charges to pursue, what sentence to seek, etc.

Now, you can argue that, given our system and all its checks and balances and protections, that Snowden should come home and face a trail in front of a jury of his peers. But you can also argue that, given all the publicity around the case, he's correct in saying that he won't get a fair trail. You could also argue that even a "fair trail" is unfair from the perspective of the individual being judged, if they don't consider themselves guilty of a crime.

At the end of the day, this whole idea of "justice" is not black and white, sadly.

You don't get to end-run the justice system by being popular in the eyes of the people.

While popularity may be irrelevant, being "right" in the eyes of the people is what justice is all about. After all, the civil rights movement was fairly unpopular for a large part of the U.S. population. Regardless, the legal precedents set during that time were "right" and just.

You contradicted yourself from one sentence to the next.

The population overwhelmingly supported oppressing the black minority. But the legal system disregarded what the large majority thought and did the right thing anyways.

In "eyes of the people is what justice is all about" please replace "people" with "court".

Sorry, not enough coffee.

Ah, ok

It's not "leaking confidential information" if the information is evidence of ongoing criminal activity. Imagine that the government was kidnapping children and grinding them into a paste for use as a new MRE flavor. Would you put the person who told the media about this up for trial on espionage charges? Of course not. You'd use the evidence to convict the people that were grinding up the children.

This is the same thing except on a more abstract level of illegality.

A lot of hyperbole in that statement making it really off-base. You may think it's criminal/illegal activity, but the problem is it's completely within the law we have created. Whether or not it should be legal is a different topic.

The actions from what we've seen so far are completely legal; what Snowden did is not. It's incredibly simple.

> You may think it's criminal/illegal activity, but the problem is it's completely within the law we have created.

That's a completely unsupported assertion. Clearly what the NSA has been up to is compatible with a small secretive framework of laws and courts, but a large part of the outcry is due to the fact that this framework hasn't been publicly subjected to Supreme Court challenges, so the compatibility with the larger body of law and the constitution is fairly uncertain compared to things like normal law-enforcement procedures. (If PRISM et al had been thoroughly tested at the Supreme Court level, there would have to have been a decision as notorious as Dred Scott or Roe v Wade, and a corresponding movement to amend the constitution in order to overturn the Supreme Court. Neither has happened yet.)

> The actions from what we've seen so far are completely legal; what Snowden did is not. It's incredibly simple.

Ah, innocent until proven guilty and all that!

I am not entirely convinced everything we have seen the US do in this case in legal in international terms. By pressuring countries to ignore the asylum process in order to carry out an illegal extradition is already crossing a line. If he was to be extradited it would be breaking international law.

And the US was one of the primary authors of these international laws, treaties and standards of human rights.

Pressure is fine.

> If he was to be extradited it would be breaking international law.

What international law prevents a country from willingly deporting a foreigner?

There are non-refoulement[1] clauses in international refugee law that 181 countries around the world are bound to, I believe.

In previous cases[2] where people are deported whilst seeking asylum the UNHCR has said:

> UNHCR denounced the move as a violation of the "non-refoulement" policy that prohibits the forced return of asylum seekers to areas where they could face danger – a cornerstone of international refugee protection.

> "We cannot accept that these asylum seekers were deported without a chance to explain their case,"

In my opinion, for the rule of law to stand, the asylum process must conclude before he gets deported.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-refoulement [2] http://www.unhcr.org/3fe98ef84.html

It isn't that simple. The government's programs are kept secret, even from most of Congress and most of the courts, and certainly from the public. It is very hard to square the sweeping NSA programs with the plain language of the 4th Amendment, which is the highest law of the land.

In his hyperbolic example, what makes you think that the government has not made grinding up children for MREs legal?

Reporting Constitutional violations should never be allowed to be considered as a crime in the first place. On the contrary, you will find that in many cases the person who reports the violation is protected and not hunted down by the authorities. But when the government is the violator... it goes the other way around.

We recognize what he did was a crime, but we agree it was the right thing to do, why is there any reason to punish someone for what we agree is right? Preventing harm to the public is a great reason to leak information, and the people thinking it was the right thing to do seems like an excellent reason to pardon him for it.

Not pursuing him sets a bad precedent; we can't allow any "slippery slope" effects in security. The impact on active operations is unclear, but it seems significant. I respect the principle of free information, but I recognize that we're at war and security is a very serious matter.

> "Not pursuing him sets a bad precedent..."

A bad precedent to what, exactly? Other people revealing more potentially unconstitutional actions by the Government of the day?

a bad precedent for leaking classified information at a time when serious military operations may be compromised. What right does this one guy have in making that decision and what are the odds that he has enough information to evaluate the consequences of that action? He may be a hero for revealing unconstitutional actions, but that doesn't mean he didn't commit a crime (possibly getting people killed in the process) nor does it mean he should be spared the consequences. I think we live in an international arena where traditional clearcut boundaries have mostly faded and a reality of exponentially increased personal destructive power is that we do indeed need to sacrifice some liberties for security.

There are two things wrong with your statement.

Firstly, you're implying that Snowden revealed info about current military operations. If you read his comments (eg Guardian Q&A), he makes it clear that his issue is with the suspicionless surveillance and that he took steps to avoid revealing more. If he's shared info of the kind you're describing, please point to it. Otherwise there is no precedent set here.

Secondly, your approach basically boils down to "Don't get in the way of the Military or Governement. Ever." There are plenty of other countries in the world with similar doctrines, which I find ironic. Also, What d'you think about previous whistle-blower actions in US history, like the Pentagon Papers [1]?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

He took unilateral action in determining what he thought was safe. Neither of us really knows the impact of the leak or its actual scope (as far as other lesser security breaches likely concomitant with the major leak).

The approach doesn't boil down to that hyperbole at all. There's a place for opposition, but I don't see it as among those people who choose to work on classified projects for the NSA and CIA. Compartmentalized security relies on trusted individuals not choosing to make unilateral security decisions. If he wants to resign and then generally oppose governmental surveillance, then he is welcome to do that.

I see the pentagon papers as along the same lines as this. The remnants of my teenage agents sympathize with the whistle blower spirit, but I see this as effectively the same as vigilante justice and blatant disregard of the importance of trust in security and while it may have had positive societal benefits, that doesn't mean there should be no consequences.

you could argue that the other slippery slope if that by pursuing a whistleblower, it sets a chilling effect on whistle blowing, and the govt then had less oversight.

I might consider your opinion if I thought he would be treated fairly in trial. If the last few years are any indication, there is no chance of that happening. The POTUS has already said that he is guilty of treason before any trial has begun. Do you realize the outrageousness of that simple fact?

Being that he has already confessed on video and presumably there's a good amount of other evidence the government would have nothing to gain from an unfair trial.

As opposed to all that they gained from their treatment of Bradley Manning.

He never confessed to treason.

He confessed to infiltrating the NSA via B-A-H for the purpose of grabbing material to later leak to the public. He may not have realized it at the time but that's very damning, especially since he went out of his way to get information relating to Chinese hacking activities.

[edit: added more]

Are we fighting a war with China?

From Wikipedia:

Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aiding or involved by such an endeavor.

The point is, if we can argue about it, then there should be a fair trial to determine whether or not it was treason. The president and other leaders saying it's treason doesn't lend itself to a fair trial in the future. The appropriate response is "He committed crimes, we will have a trial to determine the extent of those crimes and whether or not it is treason".

You're focusing way too much on treason. There's probably 5 other felonies besides that Snowden would be guilty of without even having to think about treason charges.

Also, isn't it true that the POTUS considers himself to have a remote killswitch for every American that exists?

What? What does this even mean? You're saying you think the President thinks he can assassinate any American he pleases without repercussion?

And who do you think will carry out these killings?

(Hopefully you have a credible source to back up your claims...)

No. The Commander-in-Chief might, for non-state military members that happen to be Americans and a few other "Law of War" provisos. But that's why you don't oppose the U.S. militarily, it's been shown to be hazardous to one's health.

^ Not actually a fact.

>Just because it pisses the public off, that is no excuse for anyone to leak information at will, let alone be pardoned for it

He alerted the public to the fact that an arm of the state is flagrantly, knowingly violating the Constitution of the United States. That's not crime, that's patriotism. Why isn't James Clapper being charged for lying under oath to Congress about state surveillance?

Just because it pisses the public off, that is no excuse for anyone to leak information at will, let alone be pardoned for it.

By that logic, anyone who freed slaves in the South during the Civil War shouldn't have been pardoned by the states whose laws they broke and prosecuted to the fullest extent.

>Just because it pisses the public off, that is no excuse for anyone to leak information at will, let alone be pardoned for it.

Just because the actions documented in the documents are unconstitutional and hence illegal is an excuse to leak documents that were trying to be hidden.

FTFY

> "And this is the _sole_ reason why we revere him and the sacrifice he made."

What? No, not at all. I appreciate his actions regardless of the legality, would appreciate them whether or not he chose to reveal his identity, and will appreciate them whether or not he is eventually punished by the US government for what he did.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...

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