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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't matter that Ellsberg disagrees. That's not a rebuttal. The standard being proposed here is an objective one.

The preceding comment may be wrong, but it has to be rebutted on its merits.

I’m not rebutting Maciej, I’m noting that Ellsberg already did answer this exact point in detail in the Washington Post.

I can’t imagine how that isn’t relevant here.

He doesn't rebut the argument at all; he rebuts a subtly but significantly different argument that wasn't made here. The fact is that Ellsberg stayed and faced the consequences of his actions, and Snowden fled and later because a Russian citizen.

Again: you can believe that doesn't matter. I don't care, fine, people can disagree. But you can't say "Ellsberg thinks Snowden was justified" refutes the original argument. It is perfectly coherent, reasonable even, to assert that Ellsberg has some moral authority about the ethics of whistleblowing, and also that authority isn't transferrable to leakers Ellsberg favors.

I don't bring in Ellsberg for his moral authority or to rebut or refute anything, but because he is himself the subject of the comparison. He addressed this exact comparison in a Washington Post op-ed.

Surely Ellsberg's own comments on Snowden v. Ellsberg and consequences are worth seeing in a thread on that very subject.

Simplifying it for the sake of the thread, Ellsberg says that Snowden was justified in handling his situation differently from Ellsberg himself, because the circumstances were different. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Ellsberg is right, and Ellsberg is no more entitled to make that argument than anybody else is: Ellsberg isn't the judge of Ellsberg-ism (for lack of a better term), history is.

This doesn't simplify Ellsberg's argument but mischaracterizes it. He directly addresses the claim that his own and Snowden's actions were different, and offers specific, concrete examples of how they were in fact alike in important ways that go to the heart of the comparison.

Of course Ellsberg isn't the final word and I'm confident no one here thinks that. I assume it's okay by you if discussion continues rather than wait forever for "history" to tell us what to think.

Your view of Snowden is fairly well-known round these parts. If you're concerned about Ellsberg's name having outsized influence on the subject, it seems more in keeping with the spirit of HN for you to tell us why he's wrong in this op-ed rather than roll eyes at the idea of hearing Ellsberg's own response to Snowden v. Ellsberg.

A wonderful thing about history is that it's never really finished: No presumptuous authority can tie a ribbon on a topic and close it.

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