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Comment by tosser002 | Hacker News Reader

I can understand the support of Snowden for blowing the whistle on domestic spying, but how is this defensible?

I am glad for any document that has been leaked. Although we might not be able to see the whole picture yet it made one thing clear: the US government is at the same moral level as countries like Russia, North Korea or the Iran to me. They do neither respect the privacy of their citizens nor the privacy of any other person in the world. They might have some moral concepts that are a little bit more close to mine as a European (aside from the gun laws, death penalty). The problem is that they have much more power and influence than any of these countries.

What kind of idiot would ever want to stand on the wrong side in this world? We see that communication is not private, maybe every technical device could be used to spy on you and in a war against the USA you would not even see the enemy's soldiers. THIS is a reign of terror.

Good to know you see reading your mail as equivalent to executing people for their sexuality, interning hundreds of thousands in labor camps, and jailing all who dare oppose you. That definitely doesn't devalue the lives of all those people or reveal you as hysterically self-important.

I don't think he wanted to equalize both. Yet, snooping on your private conversations is wrong, executing people for their sexuality is also wrong. It's worse but both are wrong according to my value set ... this is a bit off topic, yet how would you rate the killing of innocents with drone strike?

What if some people believe developing offensive "cyber war" capabilities in secret is immoral?

Consider, for example, whether you would be opposed to someone leaking information as to whether one of the nuclear powers had nuclear capability in excess of what was publicly known?

Oh, sure you can dance around the fact that the latter may be more of a violation of treaties, etc., but just because their are no treaties covering "cyber war" (correct me if I'm wrong), does not make it morally acceptable.

Snowden did not write this article or blow this whistle. He handed materials directly over to journalists, which is protected by US law. This reporting has been done by journalists who have access to the Snowden documents, which is protected by US law.

that's why I never understood why he agreed to turn over all the docs to greenwald. he should've been in control of what's revealed and used the rest as insurance.

no one benefitted by revealing that the U.S. spied on merkle. that's what nations do, even Israel spies on the U.S. all the time. then this, how does this knowledge benefit anyone but the bad guys?

It does not. This stuff gives argument that Snowden went over to FSB long time ago and that the whole thing is a Russian op a lot more weight.

No, it doesn't. Snowden isn't the one who's been releasing these documents; the journalists are. For your claim to make any sense, you'd have to believe Der Spiegel is secretly working for the Russians.

They can disclose it because they were given it. Do you think he did not know this will get published sooner or later?

Also depth of Russian penetration of security services and media in Europe.. in many places it is quite complete. It would not actually be surprising at all if Spiegel had someone working for FSB/GRU.

Having said that it is not 100% certainty. If he was not turned before the disclosures then US whistleblower witchhunt that drove him into arms of FSB is even worse because he really had no choice once US started hunting him.

Did Snowden go to his superiors about the program? Did anyone care? If the Russians wanted to steal our information why not just steal the information? They have many of the secrets Snowden talked about already (via their own intelligence agencies, Russia is no slouch) and could publicize them if they wanted to, or release them anonymously and pretend it was some hackers on steroids.

It just doesnt hang together that Snowden is a spy for me, whether or not you approve of what he did.

Mostly because Snowden and his image and how it was done make the whole thing much more believable and has more impact in US and Europe then random anon disclosures.

Who knows what his motivations are, they very well maybe noble. Enemy of my enemy is my friend kinda thing.. and when you face US gov power you need powerful friends. He saw what happened to other whistleblowers.

In the end whatever the story is I think he did a great thing for the republic in the long term.

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