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Edward Snowden is asking the US president to pardon him based on the morality of his action.
Well, here is a completely opposite view from the other side, so to speak:
http://observer.com/2016/09/were-losing-the-war-against-terrorism/
"Since 9/11, NSA has been the backbone of the Western intelligence alliance against terrorism. Its signals intelligence is responsible for the strong majority of successful counterterrorism operations in the West. More than three-quarters of the time, NSA or one of its close partner Anglosphere spy partners like Britain's GCHQ, develops a lead on a terror cell which is passed to the FBI and others for action which crushes that cell before it kills. If NSA loses the ability to do this, innocent people in many countries will die.
Unfortunately, there's mounting evidence that NSA's edge over the terrorists is waning. It's impossible not to notice that jihadist emphasis on communications security and encryption, which is now gaining ground, began in 2013. That, of course, is when Edward Snowden, an NSA IT contractor, stole something like 1.7 million classified documents from his employer, shared them with outsiders, then defected to Moscow."
"However, our precious edge in the SpyWar is waning fast. We are no longer winning. We're about to hear a great deal of unwarranted praise of Ed Snowden thanks to the hagiographic movie about him by Oliver Stone that's to be released this week. Don't be fooled. Snowden is no hero. In truth, he and his journalist helpers have aided terrorists in important ways. Snowden and his co-conspirators have blood on their hands—and perhaps much more blood soon thanks to their aid to the genocidal maniacs of ISIS."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:01AM
I know the illegality of some things seems obvious to many people around here, but plenty of people disagreed and it took a supreme court decision to determine this.
OK, so maybe we could forgive Snowden for exposing that. It makes no difference for him, since the illegal stuff was but a tiny portion of what he released. Nearly every tactic that got exposed was used for 100% legal purposes. Maybe a pardon for exposing the illegal stuff could knock 20 years off of some crazy multi-century prison sentence. Unless we do amazing things with life extension technology, it just doesn't matter. Snowden would still die in prison, or in Russia which is pretty much the same.
Car analogy:
Some accountant at Ford thinks the IRS tax rules have been violated. Most of his coworkers disagree, and the remainder don't want to rock the boat. In a fit of outrage, the accountant dumps the entirety of Ford's file storage out in public where it can be seen by competitors, suppliers, customers, and scammers. This includes info about future engine technology, patent applications, employee W2 and W4 data, employee disability accommodations, price negotiation with suppliers, legal arguments, union negotiations, factory plans, full CAD models of all vehicles, email containing lots of passwords, network layout, and more. Ford is well and truly fucked, worse than how North Korea got Sony. When confronted, the accountant points out that breaking the IRS tax rules is illegal. It's illegal!!! He's a whistleblower, so he did the right thing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:14AM
It's a good thing that the "legal" surveillance tactics were exposed. Surveillance and counter-terrorism hurts US citizens more than it helps, whether they realize it or not. Snowden also does not need to be convicted or charged with a crime to be pardoned by the President.
If "good" whistleblowers are scared off by the Snowden example, Russia or China will be the ones to drain the TLAs in the future, and they will only release certain parts to embarrass the US. They will keep the surveillance tricks and intellectual property for themselves.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:21AM
How does legal surveillance hurt me?
I want my country's intelligence service to read every other country's internal communications.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:24AM
You should want better security for yourself and others. What goes around comes around.
Your shitty country can always fly a satellite over the other countries.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:56AM
And I guess you also want your country's ingelligence service to cooperate with other countries intelligence services..
Now assume both countries agree to share information and are not allowed to spy on its own citizens - this leaves the obvious workaround to just help the other country to spy on your own citizens and share that data back (of course - the entire raw data dump could be encrypted with the spied-on's countrys own cryptos)
-
But to answer your question instead of your rhetoric: surviellence doesn't hurt anyone - its (mis)use does (just look at anyone monitored by the gestapo/stasi/kgb [_most_ was legal btw, being able to blackmail lawmakers does wonders for legality] - and compare that with anyone who had their information acted on)
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:55PM
surviellence doesn't hurt anyone
It violates people's privacy and mass surveillance is unconstitutional in the US, at least.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @04:56PM
Not all of them...
That's why law is not code. You don't get to say "no single step was illegal therefore the whole thing is legal", we're allowed to take combined effects into account.
Anyway, taking away the US's ability is irrelevant in that situation. My actual problem is with MI5.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:14AM
hat's why law is not code. You don't get to say "no single step was illegal therefore the whole thing is legal", we're allowed to take combined effects into account.
Well, I guess you then technically could set up a "counter espionage" where you simply enough download whatever dump your co-conspiritor will get helped in getting from you.
Anyway, taking away the US's ability is irrelevant in that situation. My actual problem is with MI5.
Do note that I never wrote US-centric - in my case I'm more worried about FRA, SÄPO and - tbh - MI5 (they are eerily good)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:09AM
1. Hoard zero-days.
2. Get hacked, all zero-days released.
3. Oops.
4. Request more funding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:58AM
5. Rinse and repeat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:10AM
Because, US security service is there for the ruling class, the average man in the street wouldn't feel any difference?
Or are you one of the shadow presidents of the military-industrial complex, huh? :D
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:44AM
In that case, as they are the same protocols and programs, etc. as you use in the US, your own private communications will be insecure too.
Why do you want that?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:50AM
Because he's Captain Oblivious.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 17 2016, @03:43PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @05:41PM
Huh? This is not about weakening protocols or backdoors. This is about the NSA finding and exploiting backdoors. The bad guys had the same chance to find them, and still will.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:55AM
because its a fallacy.
Do you want to read your wife's mail?
Do you want to be present during your daughter's first date?
Do you want to know exactly what your employees are thinking when they do their job?
Apart from the fact that "legal" often means no more than not explicitly forbidden by law, gather knowledge about peoples or groups of peoples doing is not per definition a good thing. It damages trust, and is a never ending race for who can know and control the most. It is a freakishly addictive behavior that seems to make you more powerful. But the more you know, the more it requires you to judge.
It puts you in a place where everybody dislikes you, and starts to plot against you, making it even more important to continue your spying. Your statement is what makes me dislike your country. You better start your (legal) surveillance of me before I do indeed plan to hurt you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:25PM
How does legal surveillance hurt me?
Which legal surveillance? The legal surveillance that should be legal or the legal surveillance that should be illegal?
And you'll be glad for that legal surveillance when the Stormtrumpers or the Clintonistas are roaming through your neighborhood rounding up evil dissidents and other pernicious threats, real and imagined, to our glorious society with lists easily generated from that copious legal surveillance.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:38PM
> How does legal surveillance hurt me?
The fallacy of your question is that because something may be legal it is therefore good.
How does the perfectly legal torture of non citizens, not on US soil, with the wrong color of skin hurt me?
Why was NSA spying on a foreign leader's phone? Or on Parliament?
But rather than continue with the fallacy of the question, here is a direct answer to that question.
It hurts you, sooner or later, when your own government is building a detailed personal profile on every single person in the US, or maybe even on the entire planet. It may not hurt you today. But sooner or later, different people come into power. And they will not hesitate to use this 'innocently' gathered database to do real harm. To you, or to your descendants.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Monday September 19 2016, @05:54PM
My claim wasn't "it was legal, therefore good" It was "the things that happen to be legal, are good"
Torture is morally horrible, makes the world worse, and is again and rightly, illegal.
That's their job. So that the President et al can make better decision.
See, that's where "legal" comes in. I agree about databases of US citizens. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't spy on anyone. Anything Angela Merkel (or Barrack Obama) says into an unencrypted cellphone (or landline) should be assumed to be known to every country's government (or at least, all major countries).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:43PM
> How does legal surveillance hurt me?
One more answer to this.
What makes you think what is going on is actually legal?
Consider the US Constitution. Now consider the following.
1. Secret surveillance (even of US citizens)
2. Secret databases and profiles of people
3. Secret warrants
4. . . . issued by Secret Courts
5. Under cover of Secret Laws
6. Or under Secret Interpretations of public laws
7. Secret Arrests
8. Secret Trials
9. Using Secret Evidence
10. (which is not made available to the defense)
11. Secret Convictions in the Secret Courts
12. Secret Prisons
13. Secret Torture
It sounds to me like we are becoming the very thing that we were fighting against in the previous century.
And this is legal?
I don't think so. No matter what they say. This is not what the writers of the constitution envisioned.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:46PM
Just to add one thing.
The beauty of how such an evil system works is that anyone, at any point in the above chain, can rationalize that they are just doing their job. Their part in it is not so bad. For example, the surveillance people. The real problem is that everything else on that list exists. But the one item in the list where I do my job is just my patriotic duty -- to protect us from bad guys.
Clue: if you participate in the overall list of what I mentioned, then YOU ARE THE BAD GUYS.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:58PM
exactly. you don't protect america by attacking americans. you attack americans when you attack american values, even if perpetrating your crimes against freedom on non americans (in america's name no less). you are the terrorists, you are the traitors, you are the enemy to be rooted out and destroyed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:13PM
Well for starters it violates the 4th amendment and the presumption of innocence. Mass surveillance is strictly prohibited by the constitution, and it has lead to massive miscarriages of justice like "parallel construction", which hurts everyone.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Thursday September 15 2016, @10:34AM
*whoop*whoop* Authoritarian Alert ! ! !
you dingleberry, in these debased times when 'illegal' MEANS NOTHING, UNLESS you are of the 99%; iT IS MORALITY we lack in our leaders (if not ourselves) not some blind obeisance to The Law (which, as mentioned, has become a perverted and corrupted tool of the 1% to fuck the 99%, END OF STORY)...
we are NOT a nation (or planet) of laws, we are a planet dependent upon the whims of approx .1% of the world's population...
but authoritarians do WHATEVER Big Daddy tells them to do, including following unjust laws...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:38PM
Ding ding ding ding!! We have a winner here!
I'm reminded that you can't legislate morality. We are in a sad situation, in which our populace seems to admire immorality. Trump doesn't seem to have especially high moral standards - and his opponent is the epitome of immorality.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:09PM
Snowden would still die in prison, or in Russia which is pretty much the same.
That's one huge-ass prison right there... But, please do yourself a favor, visit Russia some time in your lifetime and prove yourself wrong. May I suggest at least a tour along the Golden Ring [wikipedia.org], or even just Moscow and St. Petersburg, if you're more of a city-person? Please do plan at least a week for visiting the Hermitage [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:54PM
can I tour the prostitutes?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:35PM
I'm not sure, if you have enough money for them to want to go on a tour with you, but maybe you can find some exchange students from your village that would like to.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:38PM
Ford has a right to private, proprietary information by default.
The United States Government must demonstrate the need to make information secret on the basis of individual cases, or it operates outside of legitimate authority.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:43PM
You suck at car analogies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:52PM
OK, so maybe we could forgive Snowden for exposing that. It makes no difference for him, since the illegal stuff was but a tiny portion of what he released.
And there's your problem. You're mistaking "legal" with "ethical". If my government is violating the human rights of people in other countries, even if that is legal, I want to know about it so that we can perhaps take action to stop it. I don't hold the view that someone's fundamental rights are null and void simply because they happened to be born on a different piece of land than me, and you will never convince me with this 'rules are rules' act.