Domestic spying ‘inconsistent with the values of this country’
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Anyone else seeing the contradiction here?
Rhetorical flourishes and occasional emotive rants aside, we are basically all friends, and friends tell each other when they are doing something bone-headed. Even if similar bone-headed stuff is normally kept quiet for very very good reasons indeed.
It's difficult to "appreciat[e] the opportunity for debate" without also acknowledging that there is a legitimate argument to be made that secret mass surveillance is wrong, in which case a legitimate argument can also be made that one's national duty to disclose a program of mass surveillance trumps any professional duty to respect its secrecy.
Indeed, any reasonable legal framework for state secrets will include the notion than an overwhelming public interest should overrule the expectation of privacy. See, for example, the Canadian Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), which includes an obligation to disclose private information to the public if there are reasonable grounds to believe that there is an overriding public interest in disclosing it.
Again, the problem with Edward Snowden's disclosures is not that he breached some ethic or etiquette, but rather that such programs as he disclosed should never have existed in secret in the first place.
Surveillance is power, and the powerful get to make the laws; and get to decide what is considered moral and what is not. If absolute loyalty to the state apparatus is to trump individual judgement and professionalism, then that is the way that it will be.
As they sow, so they shall reap, however, and we will get exactly the sort of society that was asked for: Craven and irresponsible.
Of course there will be tears in the end. There always are.
On the other hand, if he honestly felt that Snowden did the right thing but is saying the opposite in order to keep his job intact, you could say there's a different kind of "irresponsible" going on.
Hypothetical: Should prospective S/TS clearance recipients be asked if they would reveal classified information if they thought that NOT revealing it would undermine the Constitution? It would be similar to asking a prospective soldier whether he or she would obey an order from the Commander in Chief that clearly violated the Constitution (e.g. "assassinate the Speaker of the House").
Such questions just aren't asked; but that's the question Snowden asked and resoundingly answered.
It is the lie that conventionally accompanies hypocrisy that boils the blood.
When untruth is supplanted by humility; hypocrisy dissolves into displaced aspiration, wherein tremendous potential for good may be found.
I'm more inclined to the notion that progress is contingent on noticing and reducing hypocrisy. Ethical principles established in one domain tend to cross over to others over time, and long-unquestioned practices come under the scrutiny of the new ethical perspective.
People who are inside the system are so invested in the viewpoint that they and their people are always right no matter what, that they don't really stop to take the time and actually think about these issues from a more objective point of view.
The argument would be that everyone inside knows that the IG's are not doing their job properly, continuously prosecute those who bring information to them, and therefore have undermined the official mechanism to address these issues.
As a former military guy who finally, to use the cliched term, "woke up", I do think there is conversation to be had about the duty of contractors in their agreements. So while I feel that the largest swath of the American Military is criminally negligent and in dereliction of duty by not addresses these constitutional issues as required by oath, I wonder what process the civilian contractors go through and if they swear any sort of oath other than the legal one regarding classified information? Regardless, in the military, it is the defense of the constitution that is mission number one, and I personally feel Snowden has done more on that front than just about any general or politician has done in years.
Having left the beltway about 2 years ago, I feel like everyone is either too scared to rock the boat and get fired or otherwise prosecuted, or they think they can ride the wave to the top and are simply opportunistic. They are saving themselves and their families now not realizing they are creating more destruction for their children and grandchildren.
For example, if a Russian spy in the NSA revealed some documents, or if a US spy in Pakistan revealed documents, the author's value judgment against Snowden would not apply, because it is specific to a home-country actor breaking rules of the home country.
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The problem is when the spying extends beyond governments and starts covering civilian populations. When surveillance is conducted against the general population, when the government of one nation uses its surveillance systems to engage in industrial espionage on behalf of domestic businesses, when spying is used to subvert democratic processes, that is when we start to have problems.
I see no evidence that the US or South Korea spying on North Korea is a bad thing as one example. It's a dark regime when it comes to transparency and easily available intel, but at the same time it routinely threatens nuclear holocaust.
I also believe it was important for the US and the USSR to spy on each other during the cold war, as a means to prevent misunderstandings, panic, war, nuclear crisis, etc. Keeping tabs on the enemy when they're a nuclear-heavy global superpower (either side), is a good thing.