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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: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:12AM
I think that no one outside of the NSA really has enough evidence to check this claim:
"signals intelligence is responsible for the strong majority of successful counterterrorism operations in the West"
An objective evaluation of the NSA's activities answer three questions:
- What benefits have been gained? How many? Not "majority", not "three-quarters": are we talking about 2 thwarted attacks or 2000?
- What cost? In dollars? Little though anyone likes it, human lives do have a price. It is not worth spending $1 trillion to save a life. It is worth spending $100 to save a life. What is the cost/benefit ratio of the NSA?
- Finally, legality? Even if we say that the NSA is only required to consider the rights of American citizens (as a non-American, I disagree, but that's another discussion): what impact does their spying have on the rights of the populace? Are they violating rights guaranteed under the American Constitution? If their actions are legally forbidden, the best cost/benefit ratio cannot justify their actions.
Of course, TFA contains no useful numbers and no objective analysis.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday September 15 2016, @07:58AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:46AM
A 2014 article, "You'll Never Guess How Many Terrorist Plots the NSA's Domestic Spy Program Has Foiled [vice.com]," cites an NGO's report saying that of
[...] the 227 Al Qaeda-affiliated people or groups that have been charged for committing an act of terrorism in the US since 9/11 [...] just 17 of the cases were credited to NSA surveillance, and just one conviction came out of the government's extra-controversial practice of spying on its own citizens. And that charge, against San Diego cab driver Basaaly Moalin, was for sending money to a terrorist group in Somalia. There was no threat of an actual attack.