Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

So Snowden here claims there has been no evidence whatsoever he caused any harm. Is this true? I realize I personally haven't heard any cases where the info Snowden leaked was linked to the death or bodily injury of persons of interest or their friends/family. Which is like, hm, ok, is there something I missed here?

If no one's been hurt, and the US has long upheld the need for law breaking when the law is unjust (the unlawful action of a black woman sitting in the white section of the bus) then I don't understand why his asking for a fair trial where established cases of just law breaking are brought up is contentious.

EDIT: I should clarify since I think there might be some confusion- I'm not saying that Snowden broke no laws. I'm saying I don't understand why his law breaking is contentious, given we have cases in the past of people breaking laws for just purposes that are generally accepted as just behavior. If Snowden wishes to make that argument, why are people scandalized about him wanting to go on a fair trial about it?

Rosa Parks was arrested and convicted.

https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/was-rosa-parks-convicted/

> Parks’ conviction seems to have stood despite the unconstitutionality of the ordinance she was convicted of violating.

While she did do a lot to effect change, your statement that "the US has long upheld the need for law breaking when the law is unjust" is untrue.

Sorry, I should clarify-

The US has upheld, culturally, that what Rosa Parks did was just. Snowden isn't asking not to go to jail, he is asking if he goes to jail that he be given a fair trial where the cultural impact is also implicated in his law breaking. Thus, I'm confused why his position is so contentious.

what in this context is a "fair" trial? the quote is a "public interest defence", which I think would require the NSA to come clean and the gov to acknowledge more than they're willing to. so if he's indirectly asking for that, good luck.

it's the same with asylum. implicitly, another country giving him asylum sends an interesting political/diplomatic message to the US.

If Snowden's leaks had caused significant harm of the deaths or blown covers sort, we'd have heard all about it in the news. It would've been instantly leaked or openly disclosed to discredit him.

I'm sure there's monetary harm from security audits, investigations. The argument Snowden wants to make is that those harms were necessary to inform the public of something they had a right to know about.

Im not entirely certain we would have. That doesn’t go with the M.O. of protecting classified information and sources. I imagine right or wrong, he created an operational impact and or void with his disclosures that required adequate efforts to mediate. I’m not sure we’ll ever get a true estimate of loss because it’s almost impossible to calculate and state without disclosure and risking operations.

The CIA's entire network in China was rolled up and liquidated due to an IT security failure and that certainly made its way to the press.

I think we can infer that Snowden's disclosures didn't have anything like such an impact.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communicati...

Before every disclosure, Snowden asked the white house for comment, or to propose a reason why the information should not be released.

According to Snowden, the white house never provided a convincing case for why the information would harm US interests.

"The argument Snowden wants to make is that those harms were necessary to inform the public of something they had a right to know about."

Right... my question is... why is this contentious?

There was a mild fuss at the time that some undercover agents had to be pulled out of the field, and were outed. I don’t recall anyone being named before returning home.

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