The article tries to frame him like a noble hacker who turned to the good side but in fact he remains a backstabbing snitch. Does anyone here have respect for what he did?
Becoming an informant against Anonymous might be admirable if the informant did so because their conscience required it, and the informant undertook risks in doing so; the act of conscience and cost of that action would outweigh the betrayal of friends and peers. So, for instance, someone who had participated in a group who planned to bomb abortion clinics might be admirable if they had a change of heart about killing innocent people and risked their life to break up the plot.
It does not seem like either of those two factors are at play in Monsegur's case.
There is, of course, a difference between finding Monsegur admirable and determining for oneself that the prosecution was or wasn't in the public interest.
That's the point. The idea is that one should 'fall on the grenade' to protect his criminal comrades. When he instead throws them to the wolves to save himself, people get up-in-arms about it.
Though it's not all that surprising. It's sort of like whole 'honor among thieves' ideal. When you throw in with a bunch of people that are willing to 'colour outside the lines,' sometimes the lines that they cross will not just be the lines drawn in the sand by the law, but the lines that you yourself draw in the sand.
Well, there's a reason why it's called "defection" in the Prisoner's Dilemma.
I guess I'm missing some context. Whose idea was the first sentence?
@codesuela called him a "snitch," which has a negative connotation (e.g. phrases like "snitches get stitches"[1][2]).
[1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snitches+get+...!
The culture comes from the consequences. People would be substantially more willing to inform the police of criminal activity if the penalty for e.g. drug possession was mandatory rehab and probation, or the penalty for modest computer crimes was community service, rather than felony charges and prison time. Nobody wants to send their friends to prison. So instead of the slap on the wrist they deserve, they either get no punishment at all and carry on committing crimes or they get caught by the police and forfeit their lives to the prison system.
2) In this scenario, the American People would be the FBI, and the criminal conspirators would be the NSA and Snowden is Sabu. I can think of very few more noble activities than exposing the fraud of a working government to the very people who have a chance at changing it via the power of a democratic society.
It's ridiculous to even compare the scenarios, as the motives between the two are so different, and I hope anyone can see that. Look at the audiences at least. Sabu has gained personally from every single decision he has made; whether it was for his own agenda or for the FBI's after he was caught. What has Snowden achieved for himself?
Sabu was caught and played ball, Snowden acted on moral grounds. Russia is simply the only nation willing to anger the US and deter "payback", hence his only choice.
Failing that, there's the people in a certain country whom Greenwald himself claimed would be put directly at risk if that country name were to be revealed. But WikiLeaks leaked it anyways.... which is directly attributable to Snowden.
But that's the beautiful things about things like what he does. It's like coal polluting the air... we know it kills people in the abstract, but you can't point to a slouched-over body directly attributable to any given lump of coal.
Is there no duty from a promise of secrecy? Is morality tied to certain organizations?
What if the motivation isn't atonement but self-interest?
I think authoritarian-types consider snitching "adolescent" because they have lost all sense of idealism and justice that they once might have had as a youth. The only way to change society with that type of mindset is for millions of dollars to be spent on lobbying by corporations or benevolent millionaires.
Re: the FBI. Their job is to maintain law and order. The burden of this is that even though 99% of the time you'll be fighting malevolent destabilization, you're likely to be in the wrong side of history that 1% of the time, and history will pillory you for it. That's OK and it's inevitable. It's intrinsic to the social function of such organizations. Because for every MLK there are a hundred David Koresh's.
everyone knows he's an actor for the state anyway, but a quick temperance change online would be a pretty big red flag for many.