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Snowden: Hero or Villain?
The reverberating headline, it seems, is “Without Snowden, there would be no Freedom Act.” Snowden leaked all of the stuff about the phone records that created the public outrage. This ultimately applied the appropriate level of political pressure to put a stop to much of the things we all seem to find objectionable about the NSAs domestic spying activities. Thus, Snowden is a hero, and a deal should be struck to allow him to come home.
That seems to be a fine line of reasoning. But I can’t get past one simple thing: what Snowden did was illegal, and as near as I am aware, remains illegal. I’m not convinced he should be stood up before a firing squad, but shouldn’t he face some consequences? Maybe his two-year exile to Russia is enough? What do you say?
Published in Domestic Policy, Law
I haven’t followed this closely, so correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that most politicians were not aware of this either, which is why I said a few politicians. As far as I know, only a few politicians were aware of it.
Those we entrust with oversight of intelligence programs did.
You had me up till here. NOBODY should be summarily executed. Ever.
How about immediately after his trial?
Those we entrust with oversight of intelligence programs betrayed our trust. They had absolutely no right to make this kind of decision without our knowledge, or even the knowledge of most of our elected representatives.
Much of the problem we face is that there really isn’t much agreement that
1) the government program was illegal
2) regardless, that the government program was wrong
We had some long and heated threads on these points at the time.
However, even if the program were clearly illegal and clearly wrong, then it’s still difficult to put Snowden into the hero column because of the way he went about this. Chain of command; discrimination concerning who he divulged secrets to; respecting our laws enough to seek his day in court rather than fleeing and abandoning our laws and system. These might have nudged him closer to hero (again, assuming that the government program was indeed both illegal and wrong), but he didn’t.
Narcissistic coward is my vote.
Those we entrust with oversight of intelligence programs betrayed our trust. They had absolutely no right to make this kind of decision without our knowledge, or even the knowledge of most of our elected representatives.
Of course they had the right. That is what we expect of those entrusted to oversee intelligence operations.
Even if one accepts your point here, that still doesn’t justify Snowden or his methods.
After the appeals process is exhausted like every other capital criminal, sure. Villain or not, Edward Snowden is still a US citizen and entitled to the same Constitutional protections as everybody else.
No, it doesn’t. I am not trying to justify Snowden; I am glad that he did what he did, but am totally willing to accept that he went about it the wrong way-and who knows? Maybe he did lots of bad stuff too. I am not trying to defend Snowden. Cont.
That’s what Snowden released to the public. We don’t know what he gave to the Chinese or the Russians, but, as has been said before in this thread, the assumption that he gave them nothing defies all logic.
We need a certain amount of narcissistic cowards, or else we’d have no whistleblowers.
I am not trying to defend Snowden. I am just trying- badly, probably- to argue that what the NSA did was an abuse of power. It is very surprising to me that some conservatives support what the NSA did; it just doesn’t seem consistent with what I thought was the conservative belief in unobtrusive government. I guess I am just trying to understand :)
Klatuu, you say that those in charge of our intelligence programs had every right to gather information on us without our permission. Ultimately, though, the American people and our elected representatives are the ones who decide what those in power have the right to do. I think you trust those in power far, far too much.
And we are the ones who decide who is in power.
Of course trust has to come in somewhere unless you argue that there should be no secrets. Where and how to trust is debatable for sure.
Yes. And I would argue that the NSA abused it’s power, but obviously some disagree. I have to go now :)
Two wrongs, etc. NSA goes too far and Snowden should face a reckoning for the damage he’s done. A legal reckoning.
Oh, and somebody tell him about Harry’s Shave.
I’m probably among those who don’t consider it an abuse. I’m definitely in the anti-Snowden camp, though. I have to go too.
I hope people realize that the NSA is not an independent agency. There are no independent agencies in the Obama administration.
Klatuu, you say that those in charge of our intelligence programs had every right to gather information on us without our permission. Ultimately, though, the American people and our elected representatives are the ones who decide what those in power have the right to do. I think you trust those in power far, far too much.
And I think you trust the professional men and women of our armed forces entirely too little.
The vast majority of our armed forces had absolutely no knowledge of what the NSA was doing. As for the handful of people in the top echelons of power within the armed forces who may have known what was going on, I refuse to blindly trust anyone in a position of power. In a free society, those in power must be viewed with a degree of suspicion: those who don’t like being viewed with suspicion should not seek positions of power.
My father fought in WWII. Most of my friends growing up had fathers who fought in Korea or Vietnam. I have a cousin who did three tours in Afghanistan. I have lived in military towns all my life. Are you suggesting that people who don’t support the past behavior of the NSA are anti- military?
The vast majority of our armed forces had absolutely no knowledge of what the NSA was doing. As for the handful of people in the top echelons of power within the armed forces who may have known what was going on, I refuse to blindly trust anyone in a position of power. In a free society, those in power must be viewed with a degree of suspicion: those who don’t like being viewed with suspicion should not seek positions of power.
My father fought in WWII. Most of my friends growing up had fathers who fought in Korea or Vietnam. I have a cousin who did three tours in Afghanistan. I have lived in military towns all my life. Are you suggesting that people who don’t support the past behavior of the NSA are anti- military?
The NSA is an agency of the Department of Defense. It is largely made up of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.
Argumentative thread.
Did Snowden give information to the Chinese or the Russians?
He could have given the information willingly. We would have no way to tell if he did.
It doesn’t appear that he gave it unwillingly (that is, they interrogated his computer password out of him.) He appears to be in good health, and he doesn’t seem like the kind who would take that and not squawk about it to the press.
Could they have taken it from his computer? Perhaps. Snowden, by all accounts, knows how to secure data on his computer. Current data encryption is strong enough to withstand the Russians, or indeed our attempts to get at it. He could have secured the data.
Or there could be a previously undiscovered vulnerability in his security algorithm, or the Russians could have figured out a way to break the encryption. They wouldn’t tell us if they had.
It’s not unreasonable to assume Snowden gave the Ruskies nothing, but on the balance I think it’s unlikely.
They work in Obama’s organization.
Not to white guys anyway.
Klaatu: #163 “Please explain to me how you can claim a privacy interest in information you do not own, did not collect, do not store, and only an infinitesimal fraction of which even pertains to you? My copy of the 4th Amendment reads, (t)he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…, not the right of the people to be secure in any paper or effect remotely pertaining to them.”
When I was responding, I was responding to Snowden. I believe the man to be a traitor to this country.
9/11 happened 14 years ago. Since then, through intelligence and a bit of luck, we’ve managed not to have thousands more people perish at the hands of those who would destroy us.
We want privacy, and we want our government to defend us. Sometimes those issues come into conflict. At some point people, through their elected representatives, have to decide if a nip in their rights on one side allows them to enjoy the benefits offered them on the other side.
So far as I can tell, the majority wants a bit of safety for themselves and their loved ones, and are willing to put up with phone numbers being recorded as a means to ensure that they are living in safety.
I don’t know how this would play out in the Snowden case, but in any case where someone is charged with revealing classified information about the government, I would support a law that would make it a defense to the charge if the government activities are shown to be illegal or unconstitutional.
Oh, I guess that makes everything ok then. As long as the people collecting our information without our permission are members of the military then it’s all good, and if anyone objects, you can criticize them for not trusting the military.
Do you have another line of reasoning? Because the one you are using seems pretty weak.
Again, no one was collecting your information. You do not own it, you did not collect it, you did not store it, and only a tiny fraction of it even pertained to you. Your permission was in no way required.
As for this information being misused, yes I believe our servicemen and women deserve the benefit of the doubt to a far greater extent than other government employees. If our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines begin to misuse the tools we give them against the American people, a list of phone numbers would be the least of our worries.
Klaatu, you and I fundamentally disagree: you think that the information gathered about the American people does not belong to the American people. I think it does. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree about that.
As for giving members of the military the benefit of the doubt. I think I do give them the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to the NSA, there is no doubt and no one is denying it: vast amounts of information about the American people was collected and stored without our permission or even our knowledge. Those who did that collecting comprise a very tiny percentage of the military: the vast majority of those in the military knew nothing about it, and many or most of them probably don’t agree with it.
When it comes to the NSA, in most cases, I doubt that the motives were sinister; it is probably more a case of those who want to protect America being overzealous in that pursuit. Be that as it may, they made a decision that IMO, they had no right to make. But it all comes down to who owned the information, and you and I fundamentally disagree on that point.