Hacker News Reader

Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

The blame for what he was forced to do belongs with the officials that were violating the constitution. They should be exiled for failing to uphold their oaths. Instead, Snowden is in exile.

Snowden was just the first honorable American to come across the information and he did his best to expose it safely, by giving it to journalists to release, after consulting with the government.

We can't expect whistle blowers to do a perfect job. There will always be some mistakes. As long as they act in good faith and reasonably, they should be protected.

View on HN

HN loves Snowden so much it makes no sense to me. He could’ve gone to the Senate/House intelligence committees, and not been in trouble. Worst case nothing would’ve gotten done, but since they were lied to, I don’t think he would’ve been ignored.

You don’t remember the NSA director lying under oath in front of the Congress about the exact crimes Snowden revealed?

Yes that’s what I’m talking about when I said the committees were lied to. I’m sure they would’ve been interested to hear from someone working at the lower levels that the NSA director lied.

The absence of prosecution or any act of accountability in response to that allegation might lead one to believe that there was never any interest in hearing from the “lower levels.” (Or that the allegations were not true.) What makes you “sure” of the opposite?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper

They also leave out the fact that he had been reprimanded for his actions numerous times, to include being removed from roles and duties because of his negative actions. The fact that he moved from the CIA back to an NSA supported role without this being disclosed is ridiculous in of itself.

Edward had a childish reaction to release documents that had nothing to do with Xkeyscore (of which the media claim as the reason for his release), particularly those of Tailored Access Operations [TAO]. This was the action of a petulant individual lashing out at the system however he felt he could. Don't let it be ignored that he was specifically working in a capacity supporting operations in China.. then fled there before moving on to Russia. No one talks about or acknowledges that Edward was in a support role and not an "Operator" at the agency either. He was pissed because he applied twice and was denied, in part due to his horrible support on operation plans.

He wanted to act out and damage the NSA and their mission.

The hero worship of Snowden is deplorable. I only wish the american public had a real understanding and grasp of what goes on to keep their "bubble" safe and sound. Edwards actions have had an outsized impact and unfortunately it won't be mad public in a nonclassified space for many years to come, because of further operational impacts.

He was 100% a traitor.

> then fled there before moving on to Russia

That’s just a lie. He was in a plane on his way to Ecuador when the US cancelled his passport, resulting in him being blocked in the Russian airport for a while. At some point the situation created such a mess for the airport that Russia accepted to let him enter the country.

All of this has been documented at length, and anyone on this forum is likely old enough to remember the events from when they happened live.

At no point he wanted to be in Russia. The US forced the situation by canceling his passport mid-flight and putting pressure on any country that would offer their help (my home country did and was publicly pressured for this).

In any case, you can forget about the guy, the information he gave demonstrate that the NSA under Obama was committing plenty of illegal surveillance of the US population (and of course other countries, but US citizens don’t seem to care about non-US rights), created a system of hidden courts, and lied about all of it. That should be enough to consider him a whistleblower.

So you're saying he was never in China? He literally fled to Hong Kong first. So again, what did I state that was a lie?

I didn't say he wanted to be there, but he clearly wanted to be in Hong Kong, then move on... and ended up in Russia? Again, what part of this is false?

Did you know him? I did, he's a fucking tool. The information leaked was piecemeal. Take the bible, leak random pages and one will say live a joyous life, love each other.. where a different page might tell you to sacrifice your only child. Unless you've been privy to all of the information at the right scale, you've been sold a piece, a piece that paints a narrative.

The FISA courts weren't new. You have have to have a secure means to disclose data without risking release in a non classified environment. Obviously this concept is over your head.

Even if he was genuine in trying to blow a whistle on one program, that doesn't mean he has a right to do a smash and grab and release un-related materials. He took a spray and pray approach to retaliation and it just so happened he was able to form a "good guy" narrative around one piece of it.

> Did you know him? I did, he's a fucking tool.

This reads like you have an indiscrete level of personal animus. Aside from being lazily pejorative, it isn’t very descriptive. Still I’m so glad to know if I just had “all the information at the right scale” this wouldn’t go “over the head” of regular folk like me. Truly you are a federal bodhisattva.

> Take the bible, leak random pages and one will say live a joyous life, love each other.. where a different page might tell you to sacrifice your only child. Unless you've been privy to all of the information at the right scale, you've been sold a piece, a piece that paints a narrative.

This line of argument seems more in line with Scientologist’s protection of “Zenu” stories thru cooyright than “the Bible,” which has substantially available to read since Gutenberg. If only the security apparatus was more like Jesus than Mr. Hubbard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

Would you say the same of Mark Felt?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felt

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felt

No I wouldn't. A, I don't have first hand knowledge of the situation, and B, it's a drastically different scenario. I'm not anti-whistleblower. I'm anti retaliation because you were told no.

You are against retaliation on the part of whistleblowers or organizations? It sounds like you are saying that if a person blowing a whistle is “told no” by the organization whose actions bring the whistle forth, that person should just drop the whistle. This doesn’t seem to make sense outside an incredible credulity for the organization’s ability to evaluate their own behavior. Is that a fair summary of your assertion?

It's baffling to me how you could possibly trust the government to do the right thing and combat corruption.

> I don’t think he would’ve been ignored.

He told the intelligence committees the same time he told _the entire country_ and he was still ignored.

Your comment displays a bit of naivety on how power structures work in this country. There’s a reason thousands of people knew about these programs, including his superiors, and it took Snowden going to the press. You believe a no name, low level, intelligence contractor can just walk into the intelligence committee and tell them they’re spying on their own people? The same committee that despite knowing about it know hasn’t made serious efforts to curtail these operations? I might have a bridge to sell you.

> As long as they act in good faith and reasonably, they should be protected.

I agree 100%.

You realize Snowden didn’t just dump all of these documents on a torrent site right? Given that he’s not a professional journalist and was risking his freedom he grabbed what he could and took it to reputable journalists to do the work of ensuring the leak doesn’t endanger others without a good reason. What else do you expect him to do? If he’d gone to a superior he’d be rotting in jail and we would have no evidence of mass surveillance in this country.

>If he’d gone to a superior he’d be rotting in jail and we would have no evidence of mass surveillance in this country.

Everyone says this but it's pure conjecture. We don't know what would have happened and now we never will.

There are known cases of people trying to raise concerns through the correct channels and still facing retaliation. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Drake

Okay? And people raise concerns that are taken seriously and do not face retaliation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com