Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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"Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews.

But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana? Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect surveillance and enforcement, had -- entirely within the law -- rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?

Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determining our futures."

...

"In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends."

-- Edward Snowden

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_...

I could spend my whole life correcting people who draw an equivalence between legality and morality, and that would be a life well spent.

Yes, unjust laws should be ignored. Is it unjust for a culture to attempt to regulate the rate at which it admits outsiders? I don't think so. As outsiders enter an organisation, they both alter it and are altered by it; if too many enter it before they are altered by it (i.e., assimilated), then the organisation fundamentally changes.

We all know that this is true of startups; if a startup grows too quickly, it risks losing the culture which enabled it to succeed in the first place. Risk-takers are slowly drowned out by risk-avoiders, and eventually the startup loses its drive. Is it so crazy that the same would be true of states?

I posit that there's nothing unjust about regulating the rate of influx into a society, and plenty unjust about flouting those regulations and cutting one's place in line.

Incidentally, Edward Snowden should be hanged by the neck until dead; quoting him is hardly compelling.

> Incidentally, Edward Snowden should be hanged by the neck until dead; quoting him is hardly compelling.

Hopefully we can continue to marginalize people with such an opinion. Exposing government corruption should never be a capital offense.

> Exposing government corruption should never be a capital offense.

Betraying one's country should always be a capital offense. Snowden violated his NDA; he betrayed his colleagues and his fellow citizens; he fled into the hands of China and Russia; he revealed legitimate and legal operations which he had no business revealing. He's a traitor.

Any plans for calling for the dismantling of the NSA for blatantly violating the constitutional rights of millions of Americans?

If I want someone hung or burned at the stake, its those who trample the civil rights of myself and my fellow citizen for the illusion of safety when none can be guaranteed.

> Any plans for calling for the dismantling of the NSA for blatantly violating the constitutional rights of millions of Americans?

It has not done that. It may or may not have violated what you (and possibly I) might like those rights to be. But wanting doesn't make something so. I would love to restrict subpoena power solely to defendants compelling testimony in their defense, but until it has been so restricted, anyone can be forced to provide evidence to the state. I would love for the Fourth Amendment to apply at border crossings, but the courts—to include the Supreme Court—have repeatedly held that it does not.

The law is not what we want, but what it is. So far as I am aware, NSA has consistently acted within the limits of the law, as interpreted by the courts for decades and centuries. Acting within the limits of the law, incidentally, is precisely what neither Mr. Snowden nor Miss Arce did.

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