Poll: Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero?

144 points3rd354 comments

Please choose only one option.

What are we trying to accomplish, here? It's obvious that different people will see him in different lights. On a technically oriented site like this, I expect the "hero" option to tally higher, substantially so, but is there any point to this other than a bit of good ol' circular fun?

I think this is a response to the recent TED talk where the same question was asked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY

The host provides the theory that the vote is not biased based on left or right wing beliefs.

The fact that this "poll" is at the top spot after only 15 minutes is quite a disappointment, and a testament to the deteriorating quality of the HN's voter base.

I see this complaint a lot. It seems highly correlated to the broadening of HN's voter base.

If new users are not taught by existing users what the existing users like and think should be upvoted, then what is upvoted will naturally shift over time.

Long-time members may consider that a deterioration in "quality". Quality is of course subjective, but I suspect in this case it actually means more like "not as close in alignment to the way things used to be, which I liked".

I'm fairly new here, and as a newbie, I haven't ever been taught what the existing community thinks I should upvote, whether in submissions or comments. Beyond the guidelines, which state:

> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.[1]

[1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

20 times more votes for "hero" than for "traitor". Wow, I wasn't expecting that at all on HN...what a useful poll, thank you.

Posting a poll about Edward Snowden on Hacker News is like posting a poll about Sarah Palin on Fox News.

"Traitor" and "Hero" aren't mutually exclusive.

Like most people on HN, I fall into the "hero" camp. However, I have a really hard time justifying to the "traitor" crowd his decision to leak information about the US spying on friendly countries. Of course the US spies on other countries; leaking that information isn't in line with his goals (and is pure treason). That's the biggest sticking point I can't get over when defending him to others.

4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

     "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
    papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 
    shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable 
    cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly 
     describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to 
    be seized.[1]"

NSA Oath:

     "NSA/CSS employees are Americans first, last, and always. 
     We treasure the U.S. Constitution and the rights it secures for all 
     the people. Each employee takes a solemn oath to support and 
     defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, 
     foreign and domestic."

I took this same oath during my 8 year stint in the US ARMY. The man is a hero.

     "I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and 
     defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
      foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance 
      to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President 
      of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed 
      over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military 
     Justice. So help me God."

A Traitor is defined as such in the US Constitution:

     "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in war, or 
     in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No 
      Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of 
     two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in closed court.
     The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason,  but 
     no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture 
     except during the Life of the Person attainted."

Shockingly, a scientific poll says HN readers overwhelmingly support Snowden. This wildly conflicts with everything everyone thought they knew until now.

I don't know where to ask this question. So I'll post this here. It's likely an unpopular theory.

Where did Der Spiegel get their information about the NSA (specifically TAO's and ANT) project names and projects? Is it likely that it came from the Snowden leaks? If so, isn't that treason? Let's not cherry-pick whistleblowing on PRISM or X-Keyscore but also look at all the other NSA projects that have been leaked. If he is the source, I have a major problem with that information being leaked by him.

Specifically, I'm talking about these articles: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-ns...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-secret-toolbox...

And the most damning piece of treason is this:

http://leaksource.info/2013/12/30/nsas-ant-division-catalog-...

I don't know for sure, but I remember seeing a list of supposed NSA (CIA too?) projects with names that matched programs that were confirmed later, way before the Snowden leaks.

Can't someone be both a hero and a traitor?

Definition of traitor: "a person who betrays someone or something, such as a friend, cause, or principle."

He betrayed the trust placed in him by the NSA, because he believed (rightly) we deserved to know the excesses that were being conducted. He's a hero because he knew the risk would be a long term prison sentence, or as it stands effect exile from his home and his family. It's not a binary, the world isn't black and white.

Would like to hear opinions of people who voted neutral or traitor (not so I can jump on them, just am curious as to the reasoning).

I voted "hero," along with what seems like everyone else on this site. But I would have voted somewhere below that tier if the option existed. To me, "Hero" is too strong a choice to characterize my feelings, but "Neutral" is too weak.

I am not sure what a word like "Neutral" means in this context. Does it mean I don't have an opinion? Does it mean I don't really care about the topic? Does it mean I'm still making up my mind? Does it mean I'd put my opinion of him at somewhere between 4 and 6 on a 10-point value scale? My point is, "Neutral" is a single value attempting to capture a wide range of possibilities, many of which are orthogonal or even contradictory to each other. Each of those possibilities is a valid choice, but because few people will look at "Neutral" from the same perspective, fewer people will select it. (That's just my guess, at any rate.) Its range of semantic meaning is so broad as to become almost meaningless.

I would describe my opinion as "The ends were valid, but they don't seem to justify leaping to the means that Snowden used. On the balance, however, he did what needed to be done." Our system offers whistleblowers a range of options incrementally less extreme than the course of action he took. Maybe he'd already tried to go down that road? Maybe he feared he'd be taken down before he could air things through legitimate channels? Not sure. I don't feel that I have enough background information to make that call.

Tl;dr - If "1" is "He's the devil incarnate," and 10 is "He's the best thing for our country since Abe Lincoln," I guess I'd rate him a 6-7. History may revise my opinion upward, however, as more information about his circumstances comes to light. It seems unlikely I'll revise my opinion downward, especially as I learn more about what vile shit the NSA, et al., were up to.

I would have probably voted Neutral if I hadn't seen this http://reason.com/reasontv/2014/01/10/this-is-a-secret-gover... about the original whistleblowers and how ineffective internal channels were.

Agreed. I have mixed feelings on this issue, but the argument that he should have reported internally is laughable.

Right or wrong, the only way he could have feasibly remedied the situation he perceived was to go the public route.

The only question is whether or not he accurately evaluated the situation and its solution.

One might also be inclined to vote "neutral" if he/she finds the words "traitor" and "hero" to be gross exaggerations, unhelpful, and a bit melodramatic.

For example, a less overwrought question might ask something along the lines of, "Did Snowden's actions result in a net positive or a net negative?"

Obviously that question could use work, too, but at least then I (as just one example) could make a vote that says, in essence, "Yes, I think Snowden performed a valuable service which, on the whole, was positive, even though I don't buy into the notion of 'hero' very much and am not at all sure that even if I did that Snowden would qualify."

I voted neutral because he released information that while classified was also IMO fairly common knowledge making his action closer to a political statement vs treason. I recall reading about a similar database the FBI had which was leaked and used to out several undercover drug agents which where then killed.

As to mass surveillance my objection is it's mostly an ineffective and massive waste of resources when applied to terrorism. The FBI's use case is actually far more reasonable because drug's are a much more common issue. However, there is simply not enough terrorists to get a good signal to noise ratio. Sure, you will 'find' terrorists that way but like 9/11 and the Boston marathon bombings demonstrate if all an agent see is false positives 99.9% of the time he is going to treat that 0.1% signal as just more noise.

Deleted comment

Technically, in the USA, treason and traitor have a very specific meaning. Article 3 section 3 of the US Constitution defines treason as:

  Treason against the United States, shall consist only in war,
  or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
  No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony 
  of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession
  in closed court.

  The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, 
  but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or 
  Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Bitcoin sucks?

^ YES!!!

^ NO!!

^ sometimes, depends on who you ask

What have we learned here? As usual, nothing.

Actually, even on HN, I'd expect a Bitcoin question to be split more evenly.

I think a poll on his lawful/neutral/chaotic good/neutral/evil alignment would be a bit more interesting. My guess would be lawful neutral.

I'm surprised that we haven't seen more of a coordinated public relations effort to destroy Snowden's character. Sure, we've seen some fluff stories about his girlfriend and his teenage years, but it's nothing like the well-orchestrated campaigns that changed public perceptions about Afghanistan and discredited the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This is a loaded question. There are two problems at hand: 1) Is Snowden a traitor/hero? 2) Is Snowden a criminal?

People often equate these two, but they are, in fact, different, and I worry your poll doesn't account for the second question.

mu. (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/mu.html)

This is the type of question news organizations like to use when they run out of things to talk about, or to distract the people from what is really going on. Whatever Snowden is considered is immaterial with respect to what the NSA has been, and is currently doing to the American people. A more relevant question would be asking why James Clapper is still Director of National Intelligence after lying to Congress under oath, and why Obama is protecting him.

"Traitor" is mainly something that would be relevant to Americans. People in other countries can still think that what he did was in poor judgment, but this is not captured by the word "traitor."

Voted "Neutral".

I believe there is great deal of difference between Snowden and the likes of Aldrich Ames. Snowden's actions have cast a much-needed spotlight on the NSA, which has clearly moved beyond protecting the United States from foreign threats and deep into Orwellian territory. Ames sold out his country to make a buck; Snowden (who may or may not have other motives) at least provided a valuable service to his fellow Americans.

His disclosures about non-domestic NSA activities, however, keep me from voting "Hero".

Probably a more relevant poll would be a random sample of the US public. Here it's not at all surprising that the verdict will be overwhelmingly "hero".

An American hero does not end up fleeing to a country like Russia under a leader like Putin. If Snowden had spilled the beans and then turned himself in, I'd respect him much more.

Respecting a person more, for signing his own death warrant?

This is real life, not a crime movie; there is essentially no value in making himself a martyr more than he already did - you're forgetting that he had to leave his family and certain future, for starters.

"American" hero is a very fuzzy concept, especially after his revelations. If the american administration has influence/power over most of the countries in the world, and now also intrusion in their communications, there's little to no place where to hide aside the enemy.

The belief you have to turn yourself in in order to be considered a hero, ignoring all your deeds, is incomprehensible to me. When did "hero" become synonymous with "martyr"? Turning himself in or not, what does it change in what he revealed?

Maybe, but regardless I would prefer he finish "spilling the beans" before he turns himself in. Information is still being released (a slow release is really the only way to keep the issue front and center) and I would hate for that information to stop getting out.

Serious question: does that put you in the traitor or neutral camp?

I clicked on traitor.

It depends on what type you are; someone who thinks a single country could rule all or someone who thinks everyone are equal

Troll: Is Edward Snowden a traitor or a hero?

It's great that so many people are able to boil down a complex topic to one of 3 convenient 1-word labels.

Why not both?

What if none of these choices accurately depicts what you think of him?

As citizen for me he is a traitor.

But as free person for me is an hero.

Does it make a difference either way?

Both.

If you need to ask...

Thanks Obama!

Remember when you vote you also need to upvote the post.

I voted in the poll, because it was there, but I will not upvote the post because I don't think it's a good poll. I don't see what there is to be accomplished by this poll.

Why do I /need/ to upvote the post?

Seconded.

I don't think you are correct about that. There may be some total-fuzzing going on, but the current vote total is greater than the current upvote total.

  4 points by 3rd3 7 minutes ago | flag | 1 comment

  Please choose only one option.
  Traitor  0 points
  Neutral  1 point
  Hero     6 points

You misunderstand: he was saying that if you're voting, you /should/ upvote, to help the poll be meaningful. You should do this because upvoting is not automatic - as you can see, some people have voted in the poll but not upvoted the post itself.

The "meaningful" part is somewhat irrelevant due to the bias invoked by asking solely the HN demographic.

"Need" in the sense of "a poll vote is not an upvote, so if you want this to get lots of answers, vote it up as well as participating so it stays on the front page."

You really don't need to be telling people what they should upvote :|

Maybe one answers the poll, but doesn't see it as useful so they don't upvote the post.

And you are on a NSA watch list in 3, 2, 1

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