Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

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Journalists can't publish information they don't have. Snowden was trusted with state secrets and he chose which documents he gave to journalists. You're right that he can't control what those journalists do with the documents. Just one of the many reasons that passing classified documents to the press (and especially foreign press) is illegal even if you think you're whistle-blowing on illegal activities. And to preempt your argument, going through the proper channels wouldn't have yielded the results that Snowden wanted. One man does not have the legitimacy to make policy.

I'm not paid to post political opinions. I hope you can open your mind and see that there are informed people in this world who don't agree with you.

> One man does not have the legitimacy to make policy.

He's not making policy. He's informing the public.

And why do you think he did that?

I agree that his goal was changing policy. Nevertheless he does not have the power to make policy on his own. The power to change policy rests ultimately in the democratic process. And giving the public the info required to make good policy seems pretty fair to me. The public could have chosen/can choose to ignore his leaks.

Snowden is very explicit that his goal was not to drive policy in any particular direction, only to allow informed, democratic debate about what the NSA is doing. He decided to come forward when he saw that the NSA lies to its congressional oversight committee, which is completely undemocratic.

The NSA is very explicit that their goal is to perform legal surveillance to safeguard the security of the US. Since the truth is secret, to believe either party's goals are as they say is purely a matter of trust.

The NSA has been proven to lie to its overseers repeatedly over the course of decades while Snowden has been proven to lie to the NSA in order to expose its lies. Personally, I regard Snowden's behavior to be more trustworthy in this respect.

Ah, the good old two-wrongs-make-a-right school of morality.

It's more of lesser of two evils school of morality.

As long as you recognize it's still evil.

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