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Comment by majke | Hacker News Reader

Sir. Edward does not expose anything. It's the journalists that choose the material. He made it very explicit from the start.

> You have to be naive to think the Russians are harboring him

Can you please provide a source?

The quality of this comment is something I'd expect from a 50 cent army.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades

[EDIT] Softened language.

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>Are you perhaps working for the US equivalent of 50 cent army?

Didn't we just hear about a new HN policy to limit trolling, snotty comments, and low information negativity like this? This snide aside here is a good test case to see if these new policies have any teeth. I would expect this comment deleted by the mods. Accusing other members of being paid-for shills merely because they disagree with you is trolling and only hurts discussion.

There are a number of users here who honestly believe that criticism of Snowden is the work of NSA agents and paid shills - so of course they feel their accusations are not at all gratuitously negative, but rather warning people not to be duped by the elaborate and subtle government psy-ops at work.

Then again, I can't help but wonder why people bother asking if someone else is a shill, as if they honestly expect an actual shill to admit to it. Probably the same people who think undercover cops actually have to admit who they are if you ask them.

I can see it serving to purposes. 1. It lets 3rd parties know you are suspicious. 2. You may get a revealing denial/non-denial.

That said though I really dislike the atmosphere created by frequent shill accusations. It seems to rapidly create an echo chamber, where minority opinions are dismissed.

I'm not entirely certain those are valuable goals, though.

'3rd parties' who spend any amount of time here are perfectly aware of that a pro government, anti-Snowden point of view won't be popular. I doubt they would turn tail if someone suspected their presence.

And arguably, false positives and arguments about whether or not someone is a shill work in favor of actual shills. Notice how nobody ever seems to accuse the people making those accusations of having ulterior motives, despite the fact that a false flag strategy of deflecting attention to innocent accounts and derailing threads would be a much smarter strategy on their part than sockpuppet accounts making obviously noticeable propagandic statements.

I agree that unfounded accusations are unhealthy for discussion, but the nature of the issue at hand involving a state-level power with nigh unlimited resources and the few citizens within the state body attempting to bring attention to this issue would suggest that suspicions of this sort aren't unfounded and aren't necessarily damaging to the discussion itself. Censoring discussion of this kind is probably the most hurtful of all and no comment pointing out the possibility of the level of control at hand should be removed on that account.

I disagree entirely. Accusing someone of shilling doesn't contribute meaningfully unless it can be proved, and proved with damning evidence. Anything else is rhetorical bluster meant to distract and has no place in a discussion.

I didn't say a baseless accusation is legitimate, I said that suggesting such a possibility is legitimate, especially in this case.

Yet, the parent comment is the one that gets flagged...what?

I fall on the 'Snowden is a hero' side of the fence, but I don't see what got that comment flagged.

Some of us truly believe that Snowden went too far. Calling all of us shills is counter-productive, dismissive, and extremely standoffish.

The NSA went too far by violating the constitutional rights of US citizens, both on US soil and abroad. I'm unaware of how you can go "too far" when directing sunlight on corruption and illegal activities perpetrated by an arm of your own government.

Say that a CIA field agent or team is found doing illegal and unethical things (it's happened before many times,) would it be "too far" to release the entire list of CIA field agents and their covers around the world to two journalists at a foreign newspaper because of that one group of agents? It absolutely would be and would potentially put shitloads of lives at risk. Snowden basically did the same thing with the NSA information.

Most of us think he was in the right to expose PRISM and some other programs, but he basically gave Greenwald & Co. unfettered access to a huge swath of the NSA's internal operations. That's too far for me. It's an issue of scope.

"the entire list of CIA field agents and their covers around the world"

Not released. Not even plausibly given to "Greenwald & Co."

It's telling that you jump to a ridiculous supposed analogy of endangered CIA field agents when we're talking "operations" safely carried out in secure server farms, cubicles, and offices.

Not all NSA operations occur within server farms, cubicles, and offices. They have agents, they have listening posts, they have people with assets in dangerous countries. I have no idea if that information was in Snowden's massive data dump, but that's the point; no one does. He dumped a shitload of data and it's doubtful if even he knows everything that's in there.

He claims to be familiar with the contents of every document, even if he hasn't read them all.

>> would it be "too far" to release the entire list of CIA field agents and their covers around the world to two journalists at a foreign newspaper because of that one group of agents? It absolutely would be and would potentially put shitloads of lives at risk. Snowden basically did the same thing with the NSA information.

>> he basically gave Greenwald & Co. unfettered access to a huge swath of the NSA's internal operations. That's too far for me. It's an issue of scope.

Since you admit that you don't know what exactly is in that data dump, perhaps you'd care to make a verifiable argument as to why what Snowden did was too far? Currently you are just using your own assumption that he went to far as your evidence.

//edit for typos

I sincerely doubt his claim that he's familiar with the content of all the documents, given the sheer volume, but even if we take his assertion at face value some of the releases have clearly exceeded the scope of constitutional abuses. For instance, data monitoring in Europe, South America, Asia, etc. have a firm basis in law and are basically the entire reason the NSA exists. You may view it as unethical or immoral, but they clearly aren't unconstitutional.

It's fine to disagree with this, but it's an arguable point and it's stuff like that most of us Snowden non-supporters take issue with, not PRISM or XKEYSCORE which are clearly unconstitutional.

I have no idea

Correct. You have no evidence or plausible argument for characterizing what's in the dump or for making your assertion that Snowden himself doesn't know what's in the dump. You only have ominous generalities to hint about.

Unlike other posters, I don't care whether you're a shill. There are many people around the world who will say what you say - and much worse things - without taking a dime. I submit that it's a mistake to think that the difference matters. You're still engaging in misinformation and siding with government agencies spying on the people instead of with the people. That's no better than shilling.

Pretending to be informed about that which we have little information is indeed the epitome of misinforming others. Added to which the public information we do have surrounding this issue, it is difficult to suggest seriously and truthfully that the dragnet benefits anyone other than those in the NSA itself (I mean as an entity unto itself), seeing that it has practically no sensible oversight for its actions.

I'm not the one turning this into an us vs. them thing, I think reforms need to be made. I think that many of the things released have already far exceeded the scope of constitutional abuses, and there's no reason to believe there aren't more of them in the pipeline.

If you want change, it might be best not to alienate the 45% of Americans who believe that Snowden went too far or the 56% who believe that he should be charged. The NSA and Snowden issues are two separate things that are linked by a common thread.

I believe the NSA is abusing its power and needs to be changed. I also believe Snowden released vast amounts of classified data, not all of it in a legitimate whistleblower role. If that makes me a bad person who is engaging in misinformation somehow, so be it. I'm willing to accept that other people believe differently, and I believe that people should extend that courtesy to others instead of insulting them.

"I think that many of the things released have already far exceeded the scope of constitutional abuses"

And yet, you're here going on about how the real problem is what Snowden did, not the NSA. I see nothing in what you're saying that's distinguishable from concern-trolling.

I think it was an act of desperation to some extent. People had already been convincingly reporting the broad outlines of NSA's surveillance activities for the better part of a decade and no one seemed to care. It probably took an extended, highly specific information dump to get people to take notice.

I'm not entirely sure it's merely a matter of getting people to take notice. After all, if you take notice, then the agency itself will take notice of that and that is liable to make you a target for information gathering purposes. Your best defense out of fear is to proclaim anyone fighting such a power is deserving of that power's treatment as it deems fit. In a way, I guess you could say it's a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

On the other hand, when you have state powers like China to contend with (who have a greater degree of explicit control over their citizens), it wouldn't be surprising to see state-level competitors wanting to keep a leg up on their competition by employing similar tactics. Unfortunately, the dragnet in place is unconstitutional for the NSA, which is why it is a part of the Five Eyes to work around that issue - by relying on collaboration with other institutions to provide the data that is ultimately being collected.

Nice strawman.

I wasn't attacking a position, it can't be a strawman. It was an analogy and an explanation of my position.

That's true, you incurred in a false equivalence fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

I never said they were exactly the same, which is what false equivalence deals with. I compared the two situations, both of which involve classified information, leaks, and loss of asset information.

I've never seen a plausible argument what Snowden did that went "too far" that boiled down to more than "he did anything at all". At most, you get a side order of "mumble mumble national security mumble mumble he should have done it 'differently' mumble mumble he went to RUSSIA for sanctuary! mumble mumble

I haven't seen many good arguments against Snowden either - but your comment here is a huge strawman. Just because you feel strongly about what Snowden did doesn't mean everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant/dumb.

I didn't say anyone was ignorant or dumb. I said they're not providing a worthwhile argument, but resorting to generalities and vague ominous implications.

I wouldn't call that a strawman. It's an explicit challenge to provide an actual argument, while showcasing a behavior that is not meant to be an argument.

strawman: "Their argument is this weak thing that's easily disproved."

this post: "I haven't heard a single actual argument from them."

Similarly: "I've never seen a plausible argument supporting what Snowden did that boiled down to more than [my morality is more important than your laws]. At most, you get a side order of [George Orwell] mumble mumble [he wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything if he tried to do it differently] mumble mumble [The government was so evil towards him that he fled to RUSSIA!]". These aren't arguments that people actually make. If they ARE making either claim, you're choosing some poor conversational partners.

Perhaps you could be one of those better conversational partners instead of implying that he's lying?

Also I think you have something to learn about human nature if you don't believe people will bluff on a political opinion without being able to give a coherent argument.

An interesting detail is that while I was complaining about a non-argument, he at least advanced an actual argument while trying to parody it.

And you know what? Where "my morality" is our Constitution and the principles of a constrained government that serves (and is accountable to) the people, then yes, that trumps the Hell out of laws designed to allow what's going on and keep it secret from us.

Given the context of the original memorial that the bust was added to, I wish I could say I was still surprised at people like cdbajorin.

Out of curiosity, what actual(valid?) argument did I actually produce?

The fact that you are somehow extracting an opinion from my statement is fascinating. No where have I stated my beliefs, no where have I implied my beliefs. Your statement is a simple display of black and white thinking: "If you criticize my comment, you disagree with everything I believe". The fact that "people like me" exist in the context of this commentary is probably a good thing.

Let me reiterate: My opinions were never stated anywhere in this entire thread. I criticized your train of thought and your straw man argument. Nothing more.

Seriously?

When you responded with "I've never seen a plausible argument supporting what Snowden did that boiled down to more than [my morality is more important than your laws]", you were trying to mock my complaint. However, while I was complaining about a lack of argument, you were complaining about an actual, very valid argument that I endorsed.

Or to put it another way, snarking about people who think morality is more important than law is kinda hilarious when we're talking about a monument to the Revolutionary War. Or much of American history, for that matter.

> you were complaining about an actual, very valid argument that I endorsed

Here's a list of people that were morally justified in breaking the law:

Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Eric Rudolph, Mohamed Atta

Some you may agree with, hopefully some you don't. But it's YOUR morality, so I'm sure it's OK.

Not just my morality, as stated above. But you're clearly not following the discussion, so I'll leave you be.

I don't really understand how you read that from my comment. I didn't imply he was lying. I was demonstrating how easy it is to straw man. It's clearly very easy to dismiss opinions you may disagree with by twisting them into something else. "You're stupid because I can mock you" doesn't give any validity to your arguments.

>These aren't arguments that people actually make.

That looks like an implication of lying to me.

I already explained how it's not a straw man, it's not meant to represent an actual argument.

Snowden had, perhaps, a duty to disclose that the NSA was spying on Americans. He went too far by also revealing the list of targetted embassies.

Agreed entirely.

People get insulted when there is information which implies the USA has done something wrong. On some level, they admit the truth, but they react against it strongly by suppressing that admission and focusing their anger on the person or people who brought it to their attention.

I think the real argument against what Snowden did was that he gave journalists way too much information on certain topics, relative to what one could argue are "legitimate" operations of the NSA. The fact that the NSA is spying on foreign leaders seems pretty straightforward, and basically in their job description.

I think this argument holds a lot less strongly than it did with what Manning released (notably the cables that listed "infrastructure weak points" that would basically be a list of high-value targets for anyone looking to do pain to the allies of the US. Things like schools and pipelines). But it's a question of where you think the line lies in "legitimate" surveillance.

But if you don't think it makes sense for the NSA to be spying on Chinese research institutions, for example (if only to keep tabs on Chinese military research), then I don't know if you have any task that the NSA could do given its mission statement. Obviously a balanced position, but I think most people in the US believe some spying infrastructure is necessary.

The way I see it: the NSA is a necessary evil in many ways, and not all of their activities are unethical. I have no problem with the leaking of documents regarding domestic surveillance or breaches into private companies in allied nations; I think these are clearly unethical activities on the NSA's part. But almost everything was released or is in the process of being released, including a lot of legitimate intelligence activity and research into actual criminals and enemy states (North Korea, Iran, etc.), as well as details about various technology of which there was no evidence of unethical use.

I don't think all of those documents had to be released for the point to be made. A lot of them, sure, but not all of them.

judging from the lack of media attention illegal spying gets these days, Snowden didn't go far enough.

Never forget, the holocaust was legal, slavery was legal, segregation was legal. If you use the state as a metric for ethics you'll end up disappointed.

> The quality of this comment is something I'd expect from a 50 cent army.

I have two objections to this comment:

1) It's inappropriate; the grandfather's comment can stand on its own merits

2) You think you can detect shills based on quality. It doesn't take much intelligence to figure out how to shill in a convincing manner. Maybe you can catch the morons, but anyone who puts much thought into their shilling operation won't be caught so easily. If you look around you can find articles describing the sophisticated methods and training that go into conning people in this way.

His recent history suggests he's a technically informed contributor. While my initial suspicion was a 50 cent army, it doesn't smell like a purpose-built troll.

Avoid gratuitous negativity.

Journalists can't publish information they don't have. Snowden was trusted with state secrets and he chose which documents he gave to journalists. You're right that he can't control what those journalists do with the documents. Just one of the many reasons that passing classified documents to the press (and especially foreign press) is illegal even if you think you're whistle-blowing on illegal activities. And to preempt your argument, going through the proper channels wouldn't have yielded the results that Snowden wanted. One man does not have the legitimacy to make policy.

I'm not paid to post political opinions. I hope you can open your mind and see that there are informed people in this world who don't agree with you.

> One man does not have the legitimacy to make policy.

He's not making policy. He's informing the public.

And why do you think he did that?

I agree that his goal was changing policy. Nevertheless he does not have the power to make policy on his own. The power to change policy rests ultimately in the democratic process. And giving the public the info required to make good policy seems pretty fair to me. The public could have chosen/can choose to ignore his leaks.

Snowden is very explicit that his goal was not to drive policy in any particular direction, only to allow informed, democratic debate about what the NSA is doing. He decided to come forward when he saw that the NSA lies to its congressional oversight committee, which is completely undemocratic.

The NSA is very explicit that their goal is to perform legal surveillance to safeguard the security of the US. Since the truth is secret, to believe either party's goals are as they say is purely a matter of trust.

The NSA has been proven to lie to its overseers repeatedly over the course of decades while Snowden has been proven to lie to the NSA in order to expose its lies. Personally, I regard Snowden's behavior to be more trustworthy in this respect.

Ah, the good old two-wrongs-make-a-right school of morality.

It's more of lesser of two evils school of morality.

As long as you recognize it's still evil.

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