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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

There was an interesting comment on Reddit pointing out some things often overlooked in these discussions [1]. People seem to forget that he leaked information on both illegal and legal foreign spying (which is what the NSA is supposed to be doing).

The former is arguably whistleblowing, but the latter is not. Even Greenwald and Binney admit this.

See the reddit comment for details and links to sources. Particularly interesting are Snowden's admitted reasons for working at the NSA in the first place, before he knew of the domestic spying.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38cej4/elected_o...

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> The former is arguably whistleblowing, but the latter is not.

It's not because something is technically legal that it's moral. For instance, killing civilians with drones, torturing people, or recording the whole world's communications may be legal according to some twisted laws, but it doesn't make it right. At least voters should have a clear view of such issues, and it's not coming from the US government.

> For instance, killing civilians with drones, torturing people, or recording the whole world's communications may be legal according to some twisted laws, but it doesn't make it right.

Without context then sure it seems not right. In the real world, terrorism is real. Although I don't agree with anything you mentioned as a whole, if it is a consequence of the world I live in, I'm ok with that. So are plenty of others.

Maybe you're right and those decisions are the best compromise given the circumstances. And I'm sure plenty agree, but they are also plenty that don't agree and nobody cared to explain the situation and ask for their opinion.

It reminds me one of the presidential debates. Question of national defense was briefly discussed. Both candidates agreed that it was important to "catch the bad guys". Then they disagreed on whether more ships were needed in the navy or something like that. Obama came up with a good joke, and that was it!!

In that context, I find it salutary that guys like Snowden provide some additional information on what is actually going on.

Why do you believe that giving the state these powers helps reduce the risk of terrorism? Can you point to an attack that has been prevented by information gained through torture?

Obviously since the number of deaths caused by terrorism thus far is tiny, for terrorism to justify these actions that you agree would otherwise be unconscionable, the only conclusion you could make is that the security apparatus must be supremely effective, and have thwarted thousands of otherwise successful attacks against the US alone.

Am I correct in following that train of thought? Do you believe that a significant number of deaths have been prevented, say a number close to those killed by ATV's* in the US each year?

What is the evidence for these thwarted attacks?

* www.atvsafety.gov/stats.html

> Do you believe that a significant number of deaths have been prevented, say a number close to those killed by ATV's* in the US each year?

I never understood these kind of questions. Don't you think there's a difference between premeditated murder and accidental death? You can't prevent people from accidentally doing stupid things and mishaps, you can only minimize it. Whereas premeditated murder can be prevented.

"Whereas premeditated murder can be prevented."

If you can prevent it at an acceptable cost, by all means prevent it. I'm skeptical that you'll hit you'll hit 100% regardless of what you do, and the cost can easily come too high for marginal reductions.

> You can't prevent people from accidentally doing stupid things and mishaps, you can only minimize it. Whereas premeditated murder can be prevented.

Can you please clarify the meaning of these statements.

1) ATV deaths are preventable some of the time, but premeditated murder is preventable all of the time.

2) ATV deaths are never preventable, but premeditated murder is preventable some of the time.

3) ATV deaths are preventable some of the time. Premeditated murder is preventable some of the time.

The only one that seems reasonable to me is option 3), which is not much of a distinction at all.

Voters pretty much do have a clear view that the nsa's job is to spy on foreign countries.

Voters should take a look into http://m.nsa.gov/about/mission/

And what if voters say OK to these issues (which they basically have)?

Because they have limited choice. In an oligarchy the marketing money tends to go to candidates who support the status quo or even better - give the oligarchs even more power.

Could you unpack how you mean that voters have basically okayed torture, rendition, indiscriminate drone targeting (or use in general), and mass surveillance?

If that's the case: no harm, no foul ?

He probably broke the law. (I'm no legal expert)

But when I take a look at the general conduct of the US government both internal and external, and the insane chaos it is creating around the globe, it doesn't feel morally wrong to sabotage the US government in every conceivable way.

The US government tortures and executes people without trial. (even its own citizens in some cases) The president signs a kill list every week. And then there's various terrorist organizations that are seemingly run out of Washington. This is beyond anything I could have imagined 20 years ago. Not even in my wildest dreams. (or nightmares)

This is a reasonable point, but not in of itself conclusive of anything. The Espionage Act of 1917 has a history of being applied quite liberally and is not without contest, notably in the case of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, who did very much leak information on misconduct pertaining to foreign as opposed to domestic policy, but was acquitted because of parallel construction and other criminal acts done in response to his leaks. He is now generally held in a positive light.

As such, simply looking at this in a legalistic vacuum isn't helpful at all.

There's a distinction between legally wrong and morally wrong, Snowden makes that distinction I think, whereas you seem to think that the NSA's actions being defined as legal makes them ok. It doesn't.

> There's a distinction between legally wrong and morally wrong.

A distinction? Hell, there's practically no overlap.

It's wrong to break into foreign computers and spy on people. If China did it to you would not think, "oh china, you rascally superpower". You would be scared shitless and would contact the FBI. It's state sponsored terrorism.

It's also, technically, an act of war.

I'm in doubt about any real negative diplomatic or economic repercussions that prolific Chinese computer espionage has yielded for China. The strongest American responses to Chinese espionage have been from the Google and Github corporations. The U.S. government issues tepid responses [1] [2] [3] to incidents that would be considered some of the most impressive and extreme acts of espionage. (The U.S. government issued indictments for the operators behind [2], but this is essentially a no-op since they need to be on U.S. soil to be arrested.)

The fact is that the major powers of the world conduct espionage and that disclosures are not handled as acts of war. Discovered spies are typically placed in a persona non grata diplomatic status and granted safe passage back to their home countries. See U.S. spy Ryan Fogle. [4]

I don't mean to pick on China; I addressed it because it was the example you gave. Every major power has had at least one widespread computer espionage campaign discovered by Kaspersky, Symantec, Mandiant/FireEye, etc.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29817644 (White House computer intrusion by China)

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21502088 (U.S. Defense contractors' networks intrusion by China)

[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21271849 (New York Times network intrusion by China)

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_declared_persona...

No, it's just bog-standard espionage, something that everyone knows everybody does and everyone tries to prevent others from doing it on them (AKA. counterintelligence). If you go and start breaking things, then it can be considered an act of war.

> If China did it to you would not think, "oh china, you rascally superpower"

What do you mean if China did it? They do do it. So does Russia. So does North Korea. So does the US.

There is essentially the cyber equivalent of the Cold War going on right now, and attempting to get into each other's systems, especially infrastructure systems like power plant control systems, is the equivalent of flying fighters provocatively close to someone else's border.

I think that expecting the information a whistle-blower leaks to correspond 100% to illegal activity is a ridiculous standard to hold them to. Certainly police are not held to that standard when gathering evidence.

Let the possibility of other information being leaked act as a further risk entailed in breaking the law.

And that seems to be based on

a) you agree that attacking foreign nations (in this case: electronically?) is fine, because .. they're not us

b) 'traitor' is really a concept that we should still consider. I mean.. What? You might visit this site and learn about cool things to order from China, order them online and yay! New toy. But the US government can try to infiltrate that country to 'be safe'??

(Note that the same thing is just as crazy from an enlightened point of view, if we're talking about the route back, China -> US. Or .. really, any bullshit like that)

The media focused almost exclusively on the domestic case and the PRISM program, leaving both the legal and the illegal surveillance programs focused externally to "new media", bloggers and forum commentators. So it's not really hard to understand that most people overlook the full nature of the Snowden documents.

The US themselves operate morally with the term collateral damage. This is just that.

>legal foreign spying

I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't sound right.

US law does not prohibit US intelligence services from spying on foreign countries.

Quite the opposite.

So, from a US perspective, NSA foreign intelligence gathering (specifically SIGINT gathering, its whole mandate) is, generally speaking, legal.

So what does the US law say about spying on your own citizens? Wasn't the NSA acting within its powers too?

> So what does the US law say about spying on your own citizens?

Given the hierarchy of law (e.g., the preeminence of the Constitution over other laws) and matters of interpretation, that's somewhat in dispute (see, for interpretation issues, e.g., the 2nd Circuit ruling finding that the mass metadata collection program was, contrary to the government's claims, authorized by Section 215.)

> Wasn't the NSA acting within its powers too?

Again, that matter is, at best, considerably in dispute.

Thanks. Then I really don't see the distinction that tzs is making between legal and illegal spying. It seems like nothing has changed yet, so when he refers to "illegal spying" what is he talking about.

It's legal in the US not in the country its done to.

So if you get caught in the target country spying on them, you'll get prosecuted and then go to jail or get executed. If you don't, or if you spy remotely (SIGINT), you won't. Simple as that. Espionage is older than nation states and is legalized in countries doing the spying - that's why you have official intelligence agencies.

Why do you feel that way?

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