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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: 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)
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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)