I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
The NSA spying on China is not breaking US law. Snowden revealing that spying was breaking US law. NSA spying on US citizen in the US is breaking US law, specifically the 5th amendment to the Constitution.
Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
edited January 2015
none of those seem especially secret, except the fact that the NSA was spying on Chinese citizens' correspondence as well, which it definitely shouldn't be doing anyway
like all of that otherwise is basically just "the US is spying on these governments" which you earlier admitted to not having a problem with so..........
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out at this point. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting, and at this point it is pretty clear the dump contains far more than just the stuff Snowden wanted to expose.
if they weren't especially secret, then why was it news when they were revealed?
Well anything that Snowden did or said at that point would have been news. Unfortunately, just because its news doesn't mean it's important, though that would be awesome if it were
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
Claiming that he delivered state secrets to China and Russia implies that he actually delivered those secrets directly to those governments, rather than delivering them to independent media sources, a minority of which were in China or Russia.
why is this even an argument that has to be had? a guy reveals that our government is spying on us, completely indiscriminately, and you want to talk about whether he's a hero or a criminal?
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
right, who hasn't published anything indiscriminately
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
the government reaction to Edward Snowden is about controlling the narrative. No more, no less.
I think the most interesting takeaway from all this is that good properly implemented encryption is real hard to break, even for the NSA. They've always been at least a decade ahead on their crypto analysis capabilities, so it wasn't clear until now.
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
right, who hasn't published anything indiscriminately
But there was obviously far more in there than what even Snowden was directly concerned with (the obviously illegal PRISM program), even going from just the articles that have come out to this point.
He should have been more careful about what he took, even if he does get a bit of credit for not just dumping it straight on Wikileaks.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
right, who hasn't published anything indiscriminately
But there was obviously far more in there than what even Snowden was directly concerned with (the obviously illegal PRISM program), even going from just the articles that have come out to this point.
He should have been more careful about what he took, even if he does get a bit of credit for not just dumping it straight on Wikileaks.
It seemed to me that Snowden took a bunch of the other stuff as a kind of insurance policy, like "If you make me disappear because of PRISM all this other stuff will come out." It hasn't really worked out, however.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
Also, he collected it using more than just his sysadmin authority, so he actively committed espionage as well.
I'd have a lot more sympathy for Snowden if he exercised some editorial discretion on what he took/leaked. He could have just taken the PRISM docs and that would have been plenty, but he vacuumed up everything he could get his hands on, whether it was relevant or not.
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting.
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
right, who hasn't published anything indiscriminately
But there was obviously far more in there than what even Snowden was directly concerned with (the obviously illegal PRISM program), even going from just the articles that have come out to this point.
He should have been more careful about what he took, even if he does get a bit of credit for not just dumping it straight on Wikileaks.
It seemed to me that Snowden took a bunch of the other stuff as a kind of insurance policy, like "If you make me disappear because of PRISM all this other stuff will come out." It hasn't really worked out, however.
He knew he would never be able to return to the US.
The reason they did things the way they did was to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government was spying on citizens massively and indiscriminately. Release a small amount of information, let the government deny greater wrongdoings. Release more information and show the government to be lying. Repeat.
There were leaks before. Their leaks did not take hold because there was always plausible deniability. Snowden and Greenwald destroyed that.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
Also, he collected it using more than just his sysadmin authority, so he actively committed espionage as well.
I agree he is a criminal and should be treated as such. The government has no other choice.
But if your personal ethical reaction to him is colored by the belief that he endangered america or american lives in some way, then that is a hard thing to justify.
Laws and morality/ethics are not necessarily the same thing. Being a criminal doesn't mean that the person did anything wrong or didn't do a right and good thing, it just means that they broke the law. And the law can be wrong or wrongly used.
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Skylarko7 Vile Rat o7o7 Photon Torpedo o7Registered Userregular
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
I believe he wrote (after the fact) that Hong Kong was his first choice because of the city's "rich tradition and history of free speech". Technically, extremely technically, that statement is not wrong; practically, it just cements my assumption that he is a hopelessly deluded Libertarian with an extremely distorted (or at best, selective) view of and limited grasp on reality.
I'm guessing that by the time he ended up in Moscow, the situation had probably spun completely out of his control. However, if his stated motivation was to protect civil liberties from the influences of an overbearing government, then his ending up lobbing softball talking points at the leader of a regime that straight up kills journalists, activists, and political opponents with impunity when they can, or jails them or harasses them into exile when they can't, is delightfully ironic.
For his sake, I hope he doesn't get the chance to find out how Russia deals with defectors who have outlived their usefulness but remain a potential liability. Should have gone to Venezuela, but I guess a "leftist nanny state" didn't jibe with his Libertarian outlook.
The reason they did things the way they did was to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government was spying on citizens massively and indiscriminately. Release a small amount of information, let the government deny greater wrongdoings. Release more information and show the government to be lying. Repeat.
There were leaks before. Their leaks did not take hold because there was always plausible deniability. Snowden and Greenwald destroyed that.
The infrastructure, logistics, personnel, as well as to some degree the legal framework to make sure everyone involved could dodge responsibility, and lastly and most importantly, the motive for this type of spying had already been built up early in the W. Bush years. All the means and motivations were there; while the only beneficial thing to come of this Snowden mess is indeed the exposure of this beyond the shadow of a doubt, that shadow basically amounted to Cheney and Rumsfeld's assurances that "We have all this awesome spy shit, but we are TOTALLY not going to use it to spy on you, trust us!".
I doubt that many people, Americans or otherwise, were shocked or surprised to learn that PRISM existed, unless they had been living in a bubble for the last 15 years. Snowden did achieve some good, but in literally the most ass-backwards, self-defeating way possible.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
did snowden have a complete list of everything the chinese government already knew about american espionage practices in order to ensure he wasn't revealing anything they weren't already aware of
and if so, why did he bother telling them anything at all
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
did snowden have a complete list of everything the chinese government already knew about american espionage practices in order to ensure he wasn't revealing anything they weren't already aware of
and if so, why did he bother telling them anything at all
I'm very confused what you're talking about here
of course Snowden didn't know what the Chinese government knew
what he did know was that he was giving them information considered classified/secret by the US government
the question is, why did he feel the need to do that if his concern was the US government spying on US citizens
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
The simplest explanation would seem to be: to ensure his personal safety. Any release would have put him on the most wanted list, and this way he doesn't have to stare at the inside of a cell for the rest of his life while the rest of society decides whether his actions were a public service or not.
It's not a morally impervious position, but it's practical.
I really don't think those are our only two choices. I'd rather have someone who both recognizes that the US intelligence community is in need of reform and that delivering state espionage secrets to China and Russia is a justly prosecutable crime.
what state secrets did he deliver to china and russia?
The kind nobody seems to be able to specify.
That's how secret they are.
he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
did snowden have a complete list of everything the chinese government already knew about american espionage practices in order to ensure he wasn't revealing anything they weren't already aware of
and if so, why did he bother telling them anything at all
I'm very confused what you're talking about here
of course Snowden didn't know what the Chinese government knew
what he did know was that he was giving them information considered classified/secret by the US government
the question is, why did he feel the need to do that if his concern was the US government spying on US citizens
sorry, i was trying to agree with you but the way i quoted your post made it look like i was disagreeing with you
it doesn't matter what the chinese and the russian already knew because snowden didn't know they knew that, was kind of my point. and also your point! i just did the quotes wrong and obscured what i was trying to say
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he leaked to china and russia:
-That the US was spying on them
- specific method in which they did it
- the internal assessment of the things that they heard and saw.
And he did it publicly. It's one thing to trot out the line that everyone knows that everyone is spying on each other, but what he did is way, way different .
like all of that otherwise is basically just "the US is spying on these governments" which you earlier admitted to not having a problem with so..........
And he's obviously an idiot, because his entire escape plan was "idk, China?".
oh yeah let met just go on the internet where I can read all the documents that he dumped to the public indiscriminately
oh wait I can't do that because that isn't what happened
He's not controlling what gets out at this point. As far as I know, he gave it all to Greenwald and they're just writing articles as they get to things that are interesting, and at this point it is pretty clear the dump contains far more than just the stuff Snowden wanted to expose.
Well anything that Snowden did or said at that point would have been news. Unfortunately, just because its news doesn't mean it's important, though that would be awesome if it were
how is that not "editorial discretion"?
Claiming that he delivered state secrets to China and Russia implies that he actually delivered those secrets directly to those governments, rather than delivering them to independent media sources, a minority of which were in China or Russia.
(technically he's both)
Because he just dumped a whole shared network drive onto a USB stick and gave it to a journalist?
right, who hasn't published anything indiscriminately
If you think China and Russia didn't already know that the USA was spying on them, and in greater detail than what Snowden released, you are very naive
the government reaction to Edward Snowden is about controlling the narrative. No more, no less.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Yeah, no. This article is atrociously hagiographic about Snowden.
But there was obviously far more in there than what even Snowden was directly concerned with (the obviously illegal PRISM program), even going from just the articles that have come out to this point.
He should have been more careful about what he took, even if he does get a bit of credit for not just dumping it straight on Wikileaks.
it doesn't matter how much of what he released they already knew, because it wasn't information he had any business releasing
It seemed to me that Snowden took a bunch of the other stuff as a kind of insurance policy, like "If you make me disappear because of PRISM all this other stuff will come out." It hasn't really worked out, however.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Also, he collected it using more than just his sysadmin authority, so he actively committed espionage as well.
He knew he would never be able to return to the US.
The reason they did things the way they did was to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government was spying on citizens massively and indiscriminately. Release a small amount of information, let the government deny greater wrongdoings. Release more information and show the government to be lying. Repeat.
There were leaks before. Their leaks did not take hold because there was always plausible deniability. Snowden and Greenwald destroyed that.
https://medium.com/@alascii
I agree he is a criminal and should be treated as such. The government has no other choice.
But if your personal ethical reaction to him is colored by the belief that he endangered america or american lives in some way, then that is a hard thing to justify.
https://medium.com/@alascii
I'm guessing that by the time he ended up in Moscow, the situation had probably spun completely out of his control. However, if his stated motivation was to protect civil liberties from the influences of an overbearing government, then his ending up lobbing softball talking points at the leader of a regime that straight up kills journalists, activists, and political opponents with impunity when they can, or jails them or harasses them into exile when they can't, is delightfully ironic.
For his sake, I hope he doesn't get the chance to find out how Russia deals with defectors who have outlived their usefulness but remain a potential liability. Should have gone to Venezuela, but I guess a "leftist nanny state" didn't jibe with his Libertarian outlook.
The infrastructure, logistics, personnel, as well as to some degree the legal framework to make sure everyone involved could dodge responsibility, and lastly and most importantly, the motive for this type of spying had already been built up early in the W. Bush years. All the means and motivations were there; while the only beneficial thing to come of this Snowden mess is indeed the exposure of this beyond the shadow of a doubt, that shadow basically amounted to Cheney and Rumsfeld's assurances that "We have all this awesome spy shit, but we are TOTALLY not going to use it to spy on you, trust us!".
I doubt that many people, Americans or otherwise, were shocked or surprised to learn that PRISM existed, unless they had been living in a bubble for the last 15 years. Snowden did achieve some good, but in literally the most ass-backwards, self-defeating way possible.
did snowden have a complete list of everything the chinese government already knew about american espionage practices in order to ensure he wasn't revealing anything they weren't already aware of
and if so, why did he bother telling them anything at all
it was fine to blow the whistle on the nsa's many violations of american law
it was not fine to leak information about how they conduct espionage against foreign powers
those are two separate things snowden did and two totally different conversations
I'm very confused what you're talking about here
of course Snowden didn't know what the Chinese government knew
what he did know was that he was giving them information considered classified/secret by the US government
the question is, why did he feel the need to do that if his concern was the US government spying on US citizens
It's not a morally impervious position, but it's practical.
sorry, i was trying to agree with you but the way i quoted your post made it look like i was disagreeing with you
it doesn't matter what the chinese and the russian already knew because snowden didn't know they knew that, was kind of my point. and also your point! i just did the quotes wrong and obscured what i was trying to say
You discover that your employer is literally Hitler.
Do you take evidence and run or sit around worrying about nitpicking what shade of literal Hitler that your employer is.
Just what any reasonable discussion needs to keep it on the right track.
part of a balanced debate
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